#it’s how she’s going to react as a result that’ll be interesting

[majosullivan]

So I am both very intrigued and concerned about Morella in this upcoming arc. We know that she’s planning on following Lenore and Pluto, and as a result, is going to find out what happened to Duke. This could become a big turning point for her, deciding to place her full loyalty in the misfits, however, there’s also the chance that, similar to Ada and Will, Montresor could take the opportunity to manipulate and further drag Morella into the clusterfuck, like when he threatened hurting her, Ada and Lenore if he saw her and Ada talking to Lenore

<(28/??)>

[read more]

#there’s no doubt Morella will be horrified by what the clusterfuck did #it’s how she’s going to react as a result that’ll be interesting #nevermore #webtoon nevermore #nevermore webtoon #nevermore morella #morella nevermore #text post meme #nevermore text post memes

[impishjesters]

hii can you please do jax x shapeshifter reader hcs/short story (your choice)... like they dont have a "normal" form nn can turn into anything they wanted to i think thatd be cool /nf

warning(s): Jax, mentioned using someone's fear as a prank note(s): I wasn't sure how to list the prank, it's probably considered particularly cruel given it's using Ragatha's fear of centipedes as entertainment A/N: I think having the ability to shape-shift and be friends with Jax is such a violently chaotic blend, and honestly I'm here for it. Gotta get your fun somehow.

To be honest, Jax questions whether you’re actually a human or not at first

It wouldn’t be the first time Caine decided to throw something new at them, though usually it’s a game or activity and not another…person?

Like obviously you don’t look like the wooden doll NPCs, but you can just uh, change what you wanna look like?

He’s entirely convinced you’re just some fancier NPC for a hot minute before you start to react in a very non-NPC way

Those wooden dolls don’t particularly do much, and they sure as hell can’t speak

The first thing Jax tries to do is rope you into his messing around with the others—just think of it, you can turn into whatever you want which means even more hilarious possibilities for pranking the others!

Now if you aren’t like Jax and deny helping him, he’ll still find ways to use your shape-shifting abilities to his enjoyment.

Even if it doesn’t result in a prank, it’d still be hilarious to see you shift into something that ends up scaring someone else or just overall causing chaos to whatever awful domino effect might happen (I mean look at the Kaufmo situation, shit went downhill real fast unintentionally)

He’s not going to be aggressive or forceful but he’ll still throw out that the two of you would make a great team in entertainment

And if you like causing hell then this baby is just like a kid on Christmas, as mentioned above he’ll use your ability to shape-shift into things that’ll entertain him—and well by proxy you

Like the time you guys fucked with Kinger

He had you shape-shift to look like himself and engage in a convo with Kinger, and when the convo ended he came over and started up a conversation, acting as if he hadn’t seen the old coot in a hot minute. Kinger was very very lost—Ragatha didn’t find it that funny

Nor did she find it funny the time you turned into a large centipede-like creature and scared the ever-loving shit out of her

Okay maybe you felt a tad bad, and sure it definitely had her loathing you for a bit—but she’s definitely grown more on guard with you around

Overall Jax finds it kind of interesting that unlike them, you are able to sort of pick and choose what you wanna look like. The two of you no doubt spent hours just watching you cycle through and test just what kind of stuff you could change into.

Caine still isn’t sure how that happened to be completely honest, you’re an enigma to him and he doesn’t like that

Jax won’t say it but he’s only a little weirded out when you’ve made yourself look like him, he knows what he looks like—there are reflective surfaces, but it’s just…weird

#jax #jax x reader #tadc #tadc jax #the amazing digital circus #the amazing digital circus x reader

[damonalbarn]

Hey I was wondering if you knew the article that Justine spoke about suzi in?!

It was in The Guardian in 2000. Here you go:

Sweet revenge

In the mid 90s, Justine Frischmann and Damon Albarn were the First Couple of Britpop. Then he used a Blur album to rake over their break-up, while she languished in obscurity amid rumours of heroin addiction. Now she's back with a new album, and it's her turn to exorcise her demons.

Caroline Sullivan

Friday March 24, 2000

As Alison Moyet once said, it's hard to write a decent song when you're happy. Rock bands thrive on romantic turmoil in their private lives, without which they would be reduced to padding out lyrics with football scores and the weather.

Thus it was for Blur's Damon Albarn in mid-1998 when he sat down to write what would become the 13 album. His eight-year relationship with Justine Frischmann of the chart-topping Elastica, whom he once described as **"the only person who's ever been completely necessary to me" **had just ended, at her instigation. Pained and humiliated, he decided to exact revenge by exposing their most intimate details to public scrutiny.

The outcome? Embarrassment for Frischmann, a number one album for Blur and a bit of a result for Albarn.

Break-up albums are by definition both embittered and yearning - in the case of Marvin Gaye's vindictive Here, My Dear, they're just plain nasty - but 13 got more up-close and personal than could be considered gentlemanly. Albarn portrayed his former partner as neurotic, even slipping apparent drug references into the single Tender: "Tender is the ghost, the ghost I love the most/Hiding from the sun, waiting for the night to come". Frischmann was the ghost, supposedly, who was on the verge of being consumed by what one music paper euphemistically called "the darkness at the heart of Elastica".

Frischmann's response can be found on a song called The Way I Like It, which appears on Elastica's first album in five years, The Menace (out next month): "Well, I'm living all right and I'm doing okay/Had a lover who was made of sand, and the wind blew him away".

This is unlikely to be her last word on the subject. As she ambivalently begins her first round of interviews since 1996, she's finding that everyone has the same three questions. Why did Elastica nearly sabotage a promising career by taking so long to follow up their million-selling debut? Had Frischmann taken leave of her senses when she walked out on Mr Britpop? And what about the drug rumours?

"One journalist said to me, 'Dahling, I heard you were on heroin - Mahvelous!' " she says with some amusement. "Drugs are around, but I'm not that interested and never have been, although there have been elements of party animal in my band. The rumours are a lot to do with rock'n'roll mythology, where people want to believe you're having a more exciting time than you are."

The only drugs on her person today, as she perches on the edge of an armchair in her publicist's north London living room, are Marlboro Lights. Her other indulgences are two cups of herbal tea and a Cadbury's Flake cupcake, which she nibbles with well-bred pleasure. Her dark eyes are clear, and her long, tanned body is a testament to the virtues of a daily swim in a pool near her Notting Hill home. Only Elastica know whether they really succumbed to heroin and hedonism after their self-titled debut made them more famous than they'd ever expected to be, but if they did, Frischmann, 30, seems little the worse for it.

Given the current predominance of damnable boy bands, the Britpop mid-90s are beginning to seem like a halcyon period for English music. It was a time when the underground went overground, and a self-described "little punk band" like Elastica could sell 80,000 albums in a week.

More than a few loser guitar groups saw Britpop as a licence to print money, but Elastica, led with cool elan by the androgynous Frischmann, were one of its gems. The Blur connection was a marketing godsend (Frischmann and Albarn met on the London indie circuit, she as guitarist in an early line-up of Suede and girlfriend of frontman Brett Anderson, he as a cherubic baggy hopeful), yet the spiky-haired Elastica LP embodied that euphoric time like nothing else.

Frischmann, guitarist Donna Matthews, drummer Justin Welch and bassist Annie Holland were unprepared for the album soaring to number one in its first week. When they signed their record deal, Frischmann, whose great-grandfather was a conductor of the Tsar's orchestra at the Summer Palace in Byelorussia, was five years into an architecture degree at London University. A liberal north London Jewish upbringing - her engineer father built the Oxford Street landmark Centrepoint - had instilled expectations of success, but the reality of being photographed in the supermarket and having her rubbish stolen was a shock. Fiercely independent, she also resented her unsought role as half of Britpop's First Couple.

There was more. Two of Frischmann's musical heroes, The Stranglers and Wire, decided that two Elastica songs were suspiciously similar to two of their own tracks, and won royalties. Meanwhile, there were malicious rumours that Albarn had done much of the work on the record. He hadn't, but he did find Justine's success in America, where she was substantially out-selling Blur, hard to endure.

"It was very hard for him to deal with and he's very confrontational," she says, with the flattering openness of someone who prefers interviews to be more like conversations. She admits she often says too much, but in an era of image control and spin, her honesty makes her a one-off. Not that she's likely to land herself in it too badly - she possesses the intellectual ammunition to look after herself, which must have been instrumental in attracting two of rock's more articulate stars, Albarn and Anderson.

She's been accused of being a professional rock girlfriend, though it was probably they who were lucky to get her. She spent the cab ride over reading the Sylvia Plath letters in Monday's Guardian, and muses on the irony of the poet's subjugating herself to Ted Hughes when she was the more gifted. (Her new boyfriend, by the way, is an unknown photographer, "though that'll probably change, because men seem to get famous when I go out with them".)

"I reacted the way a lot of women do, by being passive," she continues. "He put a lot of pressure on me to give up Elastica. He said, 'You don't want to be in a band, you want to settle down and have kids.' " In so many words? "In so many words. He kept putting on pressure till I started to believe him." She adds bemusedly: "I've met his new girlfriend, and one of the first things she said was that he wanted her to give up travelling with her work to stay home with the baby [Missy, born last autumn]. I'm surprised he's got away with being thought of as a nice person for so long."

After 18 months, during which they did seven American and three Japanese tours, Elastica came off the road to record company demands for an immediate second album. Annie Holland's response was to quit the group, while Donna Matthews became renowned for hard partying on the nocturnal west London scene. They lethargically recorded some demos, but their heart wasn't in it. By 1997, when a second album should have been ready to go, Frischmann and Matthews were barely speaking, and there was nothing useable down on tape.

Holland's replacement, Sheila Chipperfield (of the circus Chipperfields), was deemed not good enough and left by mutual consent. By 1998, their continued lack of productivity was being likened to the Stone Roses' lengthy and ultimately self-destructive holiday between their first and second LPs.

"I didn't think Elastica were going to continue at that point, and we did kinda split up," she says, absently stroking her publicist's cat. Frischmann is a cat person; she's owned a tabby called Benjamin since she was 10. "Unconditional love," she coos. The pet's place in her life is so assured that prospective boyfriends are subjected to his feline scrutiny before she'll go out with them.

On top of everything else, in early 1998 her relationship with Albarn was in trouble. Frischmann retains enough of the indie ethic to detest the phenomenon of celebrity couples, and was dismayed when they became one. "I really hated the tabloid interest, and I went out of my way not to be photographed with him. Only about three pictures of us together exist, I think. In many ways, I think the media interest broke us up, because it made me feel the relationship was quite ugly, and I had to get away from it. There were other factors, too, obviously, because we were together for eight years, and I finally felt it was better the devil you didn't know, really."

Albarn's ego seems to have been severely undermined by having a girlfriend who was nearly as successful as he was, and something of a sex symbol to boot. Despite adopting a resolutely boyish T-shirt-and-jeans uniform, she's thoroughly feminine, a mix that got her voted fifth most fanciable woman in a lesbian magazine.

"I'm completely heterosexual, so I didn't know how to take that. It scares the shit out of me, the idea of being with a girl. I'm glad I've narrowed it down to half the people in the world."

She seems to view Albarn with indulgent exasperation these days, simultaneously praising his intelligence ("The Gallaghers just couldn't compete") and ticking off his flaws. "Damon adores being in the press, and sees all press as good press. He orchestrated that rivalry thing with Oasis. He really wanted kids, and I didn't feel our relationship was stable enough. He was a naughty boy, and he wasn't the right person to have kids with. I had this cathartic moment..."

At which point they split up. Albarn wrote 13 and then met Suzi Winstanley, an artist. "She was pregnant within three months," Justine observes wickedly.

Of the acclaimed 13, she's tactful, describing several songs as "really lovely". She studies her cigarette for a while before adding, "but I'm cynical about selling a record on the back of our relationship". But you're doing the same now. "It's true, but at the time I had no right of reply."

Elastica finally pulled themselves together last year, just as the music industry was about to write them off (their American label had already "very kindly let us go", as she puts it). Holland rejoined, Matthews went to Wales to sort out her life and the band banged out an EP and played the Reading Festival. Things came together quickly after that. They spent the last £10,000 of the recording budget on re-recording a dozen tracks, finishing the album, after years of procrastinating, in six weeks. They've called it The Menace "because that's what it was like to make".

It's dark and resolutely uncommercial - all wrong for 2000's pop-oriented climate. It's unlikely to match the success of the first one, which is fine with them. Call it (though Justine doesn't) their White Album. Its 70s punk aesthetic brings to mind angry girls such as the Slits and the Au Pairs, although the defining mood isn't anger so much as catharsis. None of the songs is specifically about Albarn, she claims. "The dark feeling is due to the sense of isolation, tasting success and getting frightened by it. I was questioning whether I wanted to be in a band any more, and there was no one I could ask for advice. Getting success and everything you ever dreamed about is hard to handle, and makes you question everything."

She's better prepared for success, if it comes again, this time. Already the privacy-preserving barriers are in place. The next interview of the day is with Time Out magazine, which wants a list of her favourite restaurants. "I'm not telling them where I eat," she says reflexively. "I'm gonna lie."

#questions #damon albarn #justine frischmann #blur #elastica

[voidcat]

— to yearn, and apricate

characters: albedo, you

wc & genre: 1.4k ops & modern au of sorts

a/n: hi hey hii so i've been pestering aqua (@pen-observing) with a genshin mafia au since forever n its like a plan of ours going on?? so it was gonna b one big thing with routes for various characters in the sense of romance, and maybe some 'extras' to follow... this was supposedly be an extra for albedo,, i got ahead of myself

Albedo is watching from afar, as he always does.

A man of logic and science, he watches with a keen eye at all times.

He observes, examines and when the time comes, he builds a hypothesis, only to test it out and follow a course of actions according to the results he receives.

Respected by many in Ordo Favonius, though more rumors and assumptions arise at any place he sets foot, Albedo is nothing if not careful and deducting.

Eyes fixated, he watches once again, turquoise eyes now trained on you.

To talk of or define your relationship with Albedo would be a rather tricky one.

Long past the “hello – hello” basis and few conversations here and there, be on foot or not, occur when needed. But that’s all there is to it: when needed.

Not that either of you seem to mind it; to some, it’s even a story of success that the blond doesn’t ignore or scoff at your presence before him.

And right now, Albedo is watching as you and Sucrose talk by the corner of the main hall. At one thing you say, she lets out a loud and cheery laugh, one not everyone gets to hear personally, (he would know, as he is one of the few lucky ones) and sees the way she looks at you.

Albedo wonders quite often what’s it like to feel.

He sees the way Kaeya and Sucrose look at you and wonders how they feel as they do so, how you must feel. Surely, you must’ve noticed the looks, as you return them in your own way too. Maybe, except for the times Sucrose longingly stares at you from the laboratory, as you converse with someone else on the other side of the room, unaware of the world going around you.

Albedo cannot help but wonder if there was ever a way he could possibly harbor those feelings his friends did, even just for a moment. Not necessarily on the same intensity, and definitely not necessarily toward you.

He thinks back to the night when Sucrose had too much to drink and talked about her university days; filled with joy, a hidden love somewhere and a grief that follows afterwards –as well as a hint of anger directed toward a third party, which piqued Albedo’s interest a little bit.

And though Albedo is bothered at how you appeared out of nowhere only to set your roots in deeper, your existence fits into the empty slots of the puzzle that was Sucrose’s, presented before him that night. The hicks, shaking hands, fists and the sudden change in her voice, hazy eyes staring at nowhere as if reliving a memory long gone. More spirited than ever; with such strong emotions carried in her chest and on her shoulders.

When it comes to Sucrose and you, the pieces fit into place. But for the rest, it only falls deeper in the light of day.

And it’s quite intriguing; how you first entered with a whim, only to display a sense of familiarity you shouldn’t be carrying, no, not when you’re new to all of these, to the people of Mond as of today, to Kaeya’s little side project Albedo prefers not to think about.

Your explanations to these only make way for more questions, even if you don’t mean so.

When Albedo observes Kaeya and you, he can see how his advances stand out more. Flirty banter back and forth, he never holds back his gaze. In his star kissed eye, Albedo can see hints and tints of some emotions, for you and only you.

It’s the way they look at you that makes Albedo grow more and more curious.

To Albedo, the phrase “love makes you blind” has never meant anything. He has seen and heard of people claiming to fall victim of it, that’s as far as his knowledge goes. Albedo has never experienced it himself, no. Yet in their eyes, he sees the truth to the saying.

Some days, when he thinks on it, he fears he will never have the bare necessities to experience it.

However Albedo knows better, as he doesn’t need to experience such emotions to see how blinding you can be.

And for this very exact reasoning, he doesn’t allow himself to be, for he’d be damned if his blindness, even for a blink of time, caused despair upon those dear to him.

And so Albedo keeps watching, not with a devotion like Sucrose’s or something more carnal like Kaeya’s.

He is on the watch, noting and analyzing even the tiniest speck of dust that shall land on your body. As a man of science and logic, it’s only expected of Albedo to be skeptical of things, and wary of you, the newest entry to the equation that surrounds him.

The state of research carries until all of his gathering shatters with a single presence that makes his way into the precinct.

It doesn’t take him long to connect the dots; though the way you’ve frozen up as Sucrose is running around in a frenzy, split on what to do, is more than telling that the balance has been meddled with.

Reaching out a hand on your shoulder, he meets your gaze with a nod and tilts his head toward the direction of his laboratory. Sucrose follows right after, trying to tidy up a bit and making place for you to sit. Turning the lock with a click, Albedo shuts the whole world outside. Yet he manages to catch a glimpse of the man entering.

Baizhu’s name has spread far and wide, known for all kinds of things, though Albedo knows about the shadier side of his business, –all thanks to Kaeya’s little secret project going.

Still, it begs the question how or why you’d be associated with a man such as him, and to end up badly on your end, clear from the way your brain and body reacted.

Just as Albedo assumed he has started finding the answers to his questions regarding you, you bring him a handful more, a new challenge.

He shrugs off the thought for the time being and makes way to you; who is still standing up, eyes fixated on the blurry green.

Placing a hand on your arm this time, he guides you to the spot Sucrose cleaned out already. Slow steps, one at a time, it’s hard to beat the rigidity of the body so quickly.

Sucrose’s concerned gaze heavy on you, yet your eyes seem blank, your expression says you’re out of it, out of this reality.

Helping you sit and leaving Sucrose to settle right beside you, Albedo walks back, closer to the door and leans against one of the counters, arms crossed. For the time being, for your sake, he’ll put aside the theories and the questions that are filling his brain.

By the time Baizhu has left, you’ve come back to your senses; although still acting rather cautious, you’re not disassociating.

Yet what captures Albedo’s attention the most is the look you give him.

Not like the ones you’ve offered Sucrose or Kaeya, or the irritating ginger who won’t stop sticking his nose into everything he sees.

This one you are offering outshines others in more ways than one. Even if it carries a hint of love, Albedo doubts he could recognize it, but he spots emotions of equal value, and gratitude.

For offering the laboratory as a sanctuary or for refraining from asking the questions about a time you’re trying your best to avoid and move one, he is not sure. Maybe it’s this mutual understanding and shared silence the two of you have held since the beginning.

Yet he can’t help but feel content all the same. And before he can notice, a smile creeps up to his face. Though it’s often loving gazes shared between others that catch his eye, only to make him yearn for such experiences and a chance to feel complete; the one you are carrying, for him, feels heavy on him, a feeling in his chest spreading.

Not sure what, exactly.

Even so, he doesn’t need a name to appreciate this rare opportunity, one not even Sucrose or Kaeya had seemed to live.

Albedo has never understood the phrase “Love makes you blind.”

Yet in that moment, he decides he wouldn’t mind going blind if it is your light that’ll caress his eyes.

#genshin impact #albedo #gender neutral reader #slice of life #kreideprinz #albedo kreideprinz #genshin impact x reader #gi x reader #genshin impact x you #gi x you #albedo x reader #albedo x you #albedo fluff #reader insert #albedo scenarios #albedo comfort #genshin impact scenarios #gi scenarios #genshin impact comfort #genshin impact fluff #modern au #mafia au #genshin modern au #albedo gi #albedo genshin impact #albedo fanfic #genshin imagines #albedo imagines #genshin impact fanfiction #haikyuu x reader

[ryusxnka]

I haven’t prattled in a while so i’m going to do just that about this panel and how it’s important to note the professional yet not so professional manner he handles it. In other words, he shows black and white patterns. White being his duties and black being his evident relationship with one involved. - In the first panel, we see him straightforwardly advising Hinamori to be cautious around squad three. -- He had literally taken the time out of his schedule to show concern, behind a effortlessly understandable warning, to his childhood friend. -- But alas, it was all for naught for the next day, all went disorderly. Which comes to the second panel. Hinamori sees Aizen’s fake body hung on a pillar, loses sight of everything as well as her composure - She does remember his warning, but reacts so irrationally she promptly attacks a captain sans restraint, or care for witnesses, with killing intent. But Izuru Lieutenant of said captain, takes matters into his own hands as it it under his obligation to protect his superior, tries to reason with the upset woman. They spat at each other and soon called forth their Shikai’s - dangerous forms that’ll cause casualties if utilized recklessly and thus appears Toshiro who, sans difficulty, ceases both blades. Izuru’s with his slightly unsheathed Hyorinmaru and Hinamori’s with his foot.  - And seeing all the dust around them, he did not tap on it. He power stomped against Tobiume with such fervor it cracked the wood-boards under them. In other words, he wasn’t going to have any of it. He then proceeds in arresting them both then and there. 

The interesting thing is the way he looks at Hinamori before giving those orders. There’s anger, raw disappointment, in those eyes. He doesn’t even look at Izuru. No interest in him at all. The fact that Hinamori acted so immaturely despite everything peeved him. Instead of acting like a professional lieutenant and bringing Aizen down from the pillar, putting her division and duties above all else, she immediately resorts to violence against a captain, which can result in being executed for it is against the law. I’ve seen people say that all of it was Toshiro’s fault that everything occurred, but in all honesty, he was just trying to protect a friend. God forbid. But anyway, as i was saying - He was irritated. Toshiro takes professionalism seriously - no matter the person which stems from his negative traits that were molded into him by the adults. But then once the other are apprehended and taken away, he turns to Ichimaru and threatens to kill him if a certain’s blood is spilled. Displaying immaturity and unprofessionalism, himself, in that moment. Hypocrisy at its finest. Hence why Hinamori is an entire side of a coin - for her, he’ll risk anything, erase all statuses, everything he stands for. Gin and Aizen, knowing this, purposely targeted him and Hinamori’s relationship throughout this arc. -- And i think it’s because Aizen saw himself in Toshiro. He despised it and tried to break him into a submission that’ll turn him ‘gaisnt the soul society as he had. - This is one of Toshiro’s most badass scenes and i’m glad to see people respecting it for it. It also shows that Toshiro is not remotely afraid to stomp or stand on withdrawn swords; 

                                                                                         He’s either an idiot or an idiot.

#;Ooc #;prattling about Hitsugaya Toshiro #aini reminded me of thiiiis #ye

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

1998 Film Mistoffelees Watch Part Three: Mostly Just His Song

So, between the Jellicle Ball and Misto’s own number, he doesn’t do much, from what I can tell. The only picture from that portion that I have is:

So, Gus said the word Victoria and Victoria had a minor breakdown, with Misto no entirely sure how to handle the situation. Munkustrap also referenced Queen Victoria back in Old Deuteronomy, but he acknowledged Cat Victoria as he was saying it. I guess if someone doesn’t do that, she reacts like this. Maybe she’s having an existential crisis. A female cat is a queen, so she’s a queen named Victoria, but not the Queen Victoria everyone keeps talking about and it’s all very confusing.

Anyway, here are some of the Way Too Many Pictures I took of Misto’s big musical number. It got really long, so I’ll add one of those Read Mores:

Presto! I’ve noticed that in every stage recording I’ve seen, Misto shouts PRESTO!!! dramatically, but Jacob Brent says it kind of quietly. I don’t know why that is, but it’s cute, for some reason.

Take notes, Hooper. You can have jokes about Misto’s powers not quite working, but you can’t completely stop the song when you do it. Misto’s been zapping things but now he’s failing to get another zap. But...

Have you ever tried to open a new tab, and your computer stalled, so you pressed the button three more times and four new tabs opened. Imagine that but with explosions.

Misto didn’t mean to almost set Pouncival on fire, but he almost set Pouncival on fire.

Well, the show must go on. This is the part where I took a screenshot of a pose for no reason other than that I wanted to:

This was like a fraction of a second before what I actually wanted, but I’m taking these off of YouTube and Dailymotion and I can’t exactly go frame by frame, so some of this screenshots just suck. I tried.

Then he tries to blow something else up, but it doesn’t work. Luckily, it doesn’t lead to several random explosions this time.

Instead he just turns to Tugger for a bit of reassurance.

And then he blows up the thing.

And I take another screenshot of a pose. This worked out a bit better than the last one.

Tugger then brings up those seven kittens. Before he can even get the words out, Misto can tell what he’s about to say and doesn’t want him to say it. Accidentally created life is not something to brag about.

Misto tries to shut Tugger up, but he fails. Accidentally creating life is still cool and Tugger is drawn to the resulting chaos.

Tugger just had to talk about the kittens. Also, the audience might start to get bored of lightning bolts, so Misto has to try something else.

Yep. That’ll do it.

And Jemima gets to hold the rainbow while Etcetera seems to be getting a bit tangled up in it.

I didn’t take any screenshots of the dance break because why would anyone want still frames of something that is basically all about motion?

So, it’s time to get Old Deuteronomy back. Why did we have to have this big show first. It was a warm-up. You should always warm-up before performing miracles. Also, I think Misto’s powers are actually connected to dance, somehow. He might’ve just been charging up his power before doing something complicated.

Misto needs a volunteer from the audience and all the kittens start jumping up and down. But, this might be kind of dangerous, so Misto picks an adult. Namely, the one adult who didn’t seem that interested.

Tugger actually approves of this decision. Picking the one person who wasn’t trying to attract his attention is exactly what he would do.

A lot of people who watch this see Tugger as disappointed that he wasn’t picked, but he was actually super into the fact that he and Misto think so much alike.

Before attempting to bring back Old Deuteronomy, Misto glances back at Tugger one last time, but he’s not uncertain anymore. 

Still, Tugger gives him some reassurance anyway. It might actually strengthen the magic.

But what really strengthens the magic is more glitter.

And we all know what happens next, so here’s a screenshot of a man licking the air to imitate awkward cat affection. It’s both cute and still kind of strange to see a human doing it:

And a more normal-looking hug, because it’s cute:

And some nuzzles, for good measure:

Now all that’s left to do is to explode into glitter:

But he survived.

So, this set of pictures was very long and I’ll try not to do this again.

#cats 1998 #mr mistoffelees #cats victoria #rum tum tugger #old deuteronomy #tuggoffelees #also glitter

[simpsiren]

trailer of you

park jisung x reader

main masterlist

description. “Will a 30 second trailer really tell you everything you need to know about a person and know what you’re getting yourself into?” The only question that resonates in my head after my smooth relationship with the guy next door started to get rocky. Judging from his trailer, he seemed normal at first glance. Should I even open my heart to him? I trusted him too quickly with his baby face and sweet words, only to find him hurt my heart with his expertly hidden agenda.

genre. college!au, trailer!au, strangers to lovers!au, betrayal but soon get back together typa au cudndjdn 

warnings. nonee

a/n. as you can probably tell the idea came from the 30 seconds trailer trend on tiktok and i liked the concept so i wanted to try it out! this is my first time writing jisung HAHA other than that this is going to be a long ass ff so buckle up! :D 

“Did you know?”

I groaned as I heard Jaemin speak. “Dont tell me you have another mind blowing discovery fact that I just had to know.” I waved my hands around in the air jokingly as i kept my back towards Jaemin and continue writing my essay on my laptop.

I’ve been friends with Na Jaemin for a long time. Probably too long. Ever since I got to meet him in high school due to being in the same mathematics class and sitting next to each other almost everyday, it didn’t take the two us long to become close and soon, best friends.

Of course the two best friends decided to attend the same college together. At the very least, not all our classes were the same. The only class Jaemin and I signed up together was psychology, since we both shared an interest in that field. Apart from that, we went about pursuing our other interests. For me, it was modern dance while Jaemin decided to take some class about Geography, a subject I just seem to never come to like.

To top it off, we got a room in college together as well. Might seem weird to others since almost everyone shares a room with the same gender but then again, it felt completely normal for us.

On days like these where the two of us ended our classes around the same time, we would usually stay in for the day and just hang out.

“So you know how the room beside us is empty?” Jaemin sat up from his bed while I spun my chair around to face him. I rolled your eyes clearly at him, making him snicker.

“It’s not another ghost story i swear!” Jaemin lifted his arms up in the air in defence. I chuckled and raises my eyebrows, motioning him to continue and elaborate.

“I found out that a new student apparently enrolled.” Jaemin sayed nonchalantly, moving to the edge of the wall and letting his back lean on it.

I shrugged. “So?”

Jaemin folded his arms and gave me an unimpressed look.

“High chance he or she will move in next door.” Jaemin clicked his tongue. I turned my chair back to face my desk and resumed typing on my keyboard.

“Not to be rude, Jaemin, but that fact is practically irrelevant to me.” I mumbled, loud enough for him to hear. “Who knows?! He or she might get possessed by the spirit lingering in that room!” Jaemin retorted. I heard the bed creaking as he stood up and took two wide steps to reach my desk, his hand placed on the headrest of my chair and having him bent down beside me.

“You said this wasn't another ghost story.” I bore my eyes at Jaemin. I shook my head and pressed my finger down on the period key, signalling the end of my paragraph for today. I let out a sigh of satisfaction as I used my mouse to scroll through my essay, scanning over my sentences and paragraphs briefly before proceeding to shut down my laptop.

“I get that you hear banging on the walls but that happens in basically every apartment.” I added on, standing up from my chair and walking to the kitchen to find something to eat in the fridge. Jaemin followed closely behind me.

“Okay yes well apart from that...” Jaemin pauses for a moment while I went to the fridge and pulled out a packet of KitKat. As i peel the wrapper off, I jerk my head up with raised brows. “That...” I repeated his last word to signal him to finish his sentence. “We should make friends with him or her.”

I kept silent as I started to think about Jaemin’s idea. Making friends? It’s not my thing, never has either. The only person I would consider to be my friend is Jaemin. Other people whom i’ve met were just merely people I consider acquaintances. College was no different. Jaemin is clearly the more outgoing among the two of us. Having plenty of friends and quite high of a social status within the college. It was he who had to force me to socialise by bringing me to parties or outings with his friends, though the only group of friends he have that i seem to get along with decently are his hockey friends.

“I guess that’ll be okay?” I reply, the tone of doubt that i tried to hide away somehow shined through. Jaemin pat my head as I break the KitKat into two, unconsciously giving Jaemin the other half and taking a bite of mine. “It will be. Remember, I’m always there to guide you if you feel the awkwardness” Jaemin reassures me, lifting his half of the KitKat in the air before taking a bite. He grins happily, a feature of his I will never get tired of. His ray of sunshine and liveliness has always been a vital part of our friendship. I truly appreciate the fact that he always has a happy aura around him to get me through college.

“Do you know when the student’s moving in?” I ask, leaning my hip against the kitchen counter. Jaemin copied my posture and nodded his head. “I heard from Jeno that they’ll be moving in tomorrow.” Jaemin quickly finished his KitKat and washed his hand. I wasn’t even half done through my stick.

Shaking off the excess water on his hands, Jaemin walks back to the kitchen counter. “I’ll text you when I end for the day and we can meet him together.” I only shrug my shoulders in response, finally finishing the stick and throwing the plastic wrapper into the trashcan and washing my hands. I heard Jaemin’s footsteps going away from me as I assumed he went to the living room, hearing the television switching on.

I took my seat beside Jaemin as he opened up Netflix, browsing through different movies we could watch on our free day. “We can see his trailer as well. I really hope it’s not boring like many others.”

In my opinion, all the trailers of the people I came into contact with were really boring. It didn’t seemed to peak an interest in me and I overall felt that I wouldn’t be able to fit myself into their life as my life just didn’t seem to fit well with theirs. Jaemin was the only one who had a trailer whom I found interesting and I immediately thought that I could be close to him. Hence, becoming best friends.

“You’re just way too unique. Honestly when I saw your trailer it made me think Looks like I'm the only one who can fit into her lifestyle. And now look. I’m your only best friend.” I smacked Jaemin in the chest, making him let out a wince in pain. Lucky for him, he was used to my beatings and recovered right away.

I shook my head as a waved a finger in front of him. “Nuh-uh yours was as weird as mine. You don't know know how skeptical I was watching your trailer.” I retorted with a scoff.

I tried making myself comfortable while Jaemin was still browsing the movie section. With impatience taking over my body, I snatched the controller away from him and decided to choose a horror movie that had an interesting cover with an intriguing synopsis.

“Both our trailers were weird, and that’s why we’re a match made in heaven.”

“No shit, dork.” I lay my head on Jaemin’s shoulder as the two of us grew silent and paying our attention onto the tv screen.

Classes today went by as usual. Not surprised by the fact that I received my results for my History of Architecture test and earning an A+. It always felt so good when my hard work of staying up and having daily night long sessions of completing workload paid off. Well, it was mainly my determination but also Jaemin’s ability to get me my milk tea from Liho that pushed me through those sleepless nights.

I finally ended my last class. I was packing up my stuff when someone bumped into me, i assumed accidentally as he walked away without even reacting to the fact that he bumped into me and caused me to drop my pencil case and having my stationery falling out.

I scoffed in amusement. “Rude, much?” I mumbled to myself as I brought my gaze upwards from the floor to see the back of the person who caused me this mess.

He was wearing a black backpack and a black jean jacket which had green accents on it, along with black jeans and a pair of Classic Old Skool Vans. I creased my forehead as I quickly shrugged it off, not wanting to make a big deal out of it and went back to packing my bag.

“You sound annoyed. Sorry i guess.” My eyes blinked rapidly as I heard a voice. I knew from the guy who bumped into me as i heard his footsteps coming back to my direction.

It irritated me how he sounded arrogant and had a somewhat husky voice. Though I thought it was the kind of voice where the owner of it would be bright and lively like Jaemin, but dangerous once you anger them. I wanted to take a look at his face but he was soon out of my sight as he exited the classroom.

While i was walking out of class and making my way down the halls, I took out my phone and texted Jaemin to ask where he’s at. After not receiving a reply, which was odd since he has always been able to reply my texts in the matter of seconds, I only assumed he had an important matter to attend to or his class was being extended. So, I decided to head back to our room.

I unlocked the door and headed inside, tossing my bag onto the chair near my desk and throwing myself onto my bed, letting out a long sigh as i felt the comfort of my bed, grabbing my stuffed toy fox to indulge myself with even more comfort.

Bringing out my phone that I had in my hand, I got comfortable in my bed and started to play on my phone till Jaemin finally sent me a reply. I opened the chat instantly.

nAnA 😤🙄✌️: Hey sorry for not replying. Class got extended. I’m heading back to our room. You’re there right?

y/n: yeah i am. see you soon dork <3

I put my phone under my pillow as I look down to my fluffy stuffed toy fox. I got lost in its beaded eyes as i start wondering about how the person next door is like. More importantly, how his or her trailer would look like. What kind of moments would the trailer show that could describe their life story in 30 seconds?

My thoughts got cut off when i heard the door open, knowing it was Jaemin. He closes the door behind him and throws his bag off to the side of his bed and walking towards me to take a seat at the edge of my bed. I knew he was about to tell me about how we should be going to meet our new neighbour but before he opened his mouth, I lifted my hand up to put his words on hold.

“Do you even know what time he or she ends today?” I asked, sitting up straight and hugging my stuffed toy close to my chest.

“Firstly, it’s a male. Secondly, I found out that he’s in the same elective as Mark, he told me that it’s their last class for the day so they should be finished by now.” Jaemin rambled on as he glanced at the time on his phone’s home screen.

“You seriously have way too many connections with way too many people.”

Jaemim chuckled. “It’s not wrong to have connections that would never fail to benefit you.”

I shrugged and pushed Jaemin off my bed so i could get up, planting a quick kiss on my stuff toy before placing it neatly in front of my pillow. I looked towards the body length mirror in between the two beds to adjust my clothes. I then tilt my head up to Jaemin. “Shall we go then?”

Jaemin nodded. I grabbed my usual essentials as Jaemin opened the door for me and we headed out.

It only took us about 6 steps to reach the room where our unknown neighbour lies behind the door. However, I also started wondering if he’s even in his room or not. Who knows? He could be busy and hasn’t arrived yet.

Regardless, Jaemin took the initiative to knock on his door. The two of us could only wait silently as we didn’t seem to get an immediate answer. Jaemin bobbed his shoulders and knocked on the door one more time. We waited, again, longer than previously.

I was about to open your mouth to tell Jaemin that he’s probably not in his room until he puts a finger in front of me as he leaned towards the door. I paused my actions as I could hear footsteps from the other side of the door coming close.

Finally the door opens, revealing a blonde haired guy who looked like he had just woken up from his slumber. His eyes were half opened as he rubbed one of them with his hand while the other hand ran through his hair. He shakes his head as he widened his eyes to focus on the two strangers in front of him.

I scanned him up and down. Taking notes on his posture, actions and appearance. As my eyes went down, I took a look at his outfit. It matched to the guy who bumped into me at the end of class.

“Quinn?” He asked while he yawned. I tilted my head in confusion.

“Oh you know Quinn?” Jaemin asked back, surprised as he pointed his finger at you.

He looked taken aback for awhile trying to process the situation. I started wondering how he knew my name.

“Uh yeah. I’m in her Architecture class.”

“But how do you know-“

“I saw your name on your notebook when i bumped into you.”

Jaemin cocked an eyebrow as he noticed an unknown tension.

“So what’s your name? Im Na Jaemin, and as you know, she’s Quinn.” Jaemin introduced, his hand gesturing to me. I barely bowed my head to greet him. “Park Jisung.” Jisung introduced himself, shoving his hands into his pockets. It made a clear voiceless statement that he didn’t want to shake our hands or have any form of contact.

“We live next door to you so i guess we’ll be seeing each other often. Especially Quinn.”

Jisung doesn’t reply, constantly switching gazes between me and Jaemin, probably having the same idea as us. Jaemin however was the first one to speak up. “Could we... perhaps watch your trailer?”

“I’d like to see yours as well.” Jisung jerks in head towards us. Jaemin and I nodded, proceeding to do the same actions as Jisung to reveal our trailers.

Putting his index and middle finger in the air, he places them beside his head and swiftly bends it forward slightly. That resulted in a see through screen popping up from his head.

Jisung watched Jaemin’s trailer first, reaching his hand out towards his screen and pressing the play button.

Jaemin and I exchanged glances before clicking on the play button for Jisung’s 30 second trailer to begin.

While Jisung was looking at Jaemin’s trailer, I noticed a few things.

Honestly speaking, what i was seeing in the trailer didnt exactly match the person whose standing in front of me. The trailer showed a lot of moments where he smiled, eyes forming into a thin line and a scrunched up nose whenever he does. It showed him doing what I assumed to be hobbies like dancing and playing video games.

I thought about how Jisung and I have a common love for dance, something I hold dearly and thought it would be a great way to get close to him. I just have that common connection with dancers, since they know things about dance that's unique which others don't.

I only saw one group of friends around him. They seemed like the group of friends who are always chaotic and would have play fights with each other almost every second, but that was what showed me that Jisung had a close relationship with them. It was heartwarming to watch.

I also saw him trying to cook in the kitchen. I see a few of the same friends in the kitchen with him. Only one of them seemed decent in cooking while Jisung was practically clueless. It made me laugh softly. I found it cute how he’s dorky and clueless.

As i finished watching the trailer, taking into account all the moments that showed who Jisung really is, he seemed like someone i could vibe with. Someone I could possibly be my quirky crazy self like how I am around Jaemin. The person in front of me may not seem like the one in the trailer, but it made me think that he’s like me, someone who can't open up to others at first glance.

When Jaemin knews that Jisung has completed his trailer, Jaemin gave a questioning look towards him. “So how’s my trailer?”

“You’re weird, looked drunk most of the time but i assume its due to the coffee that you consume an unhealthy amount of everyday.”

Jaemin laughs nervously. “But I like you, don't worry.”

I saw Jisung’s smiling. The warm smile I saw in the trailer.

The next trailer he had to watch was mine. For some reason, I felt nervous thinking about all his possible reactions. Would he be fine with it? Would he be disgusted or irritated by the moments in my trailer. Will he not think that I would be able to make good friends with him like how I thought about him?

I guess my nervousness showed through my actions when i felt Jaemin patting the lower part of my back. I turn towards Jaemin who nodded his head to show a sign to reassurance as Jisung extended his hand to play my trailer.

Jisung’s reaction was skeptical. Some parts had him make a soft smile, which was great while other times he had a serious and judgy expression. It looked like reactions that you made while watching other people’s trailers.

30 seconds went by fast and the see through screens above our heads all dissolved into thin air at the same time. “What do you think? Wanna hang out with us more?” I brushed a few strands of hair behind my ear.

Jisung hummed softly. “Sure, looks like i'll have fun with you guys.”

Jaemin and I grin in unison. At least I finally had someone whom I might be able to consider my friend. It was too quick to assume that, but I just have a feeling and Jisung and I would get along pretty well.

As time flew by, Jisung started to get closer and closer to me and Jaemin. More so to me. After a day out where the three of us went to check out a new restaurant that just opened a few blocks away, Jisung started to invite me to go out with him alone. I felt a little bad on our days out since it meant for Jaemin to be excluded, but he was always cool with him, opting to stay in the room or hanging out with his other groups of friends.

Today on a Saturday night was no different.

“You heading out with Jisung again?” I hummed in reply as Jaemin appeared behind me. Only his chest down could be seen in the mirror in front of me as i wore my earrings while sitting down at my dressing table.

“Where to this time? You seem to be dressing up classier than usual.” Jaemin commented, brushing my hair through his hands gently as he took a good look at my outfit and makeup.

I looked at him in the mirror, letting out a soft, “I don't know.” Jaemin’s eyebrow twitches as he looked as me with suspicion. 

Jaemin leaned forward, his face alighting with mine side by side. “He better not do shit to you, or else I’m killing him.” Jaemin’s eyes grew dark and his voice became low and husky. I shivered, not seeing this side of Jaemin often since I was never in a situation where he had to be protective. 

I turned my head to the side and push his face away, earning a frown from Jaemin. “I’m going to fine. He said he wanted to surprise me so...” I shrugged, standing up from the dressing table and packing my essentials up in a small sling bag.

“Got any plans tonight?” I asked Jaemin as I slid my phone into my back pocket.

Jaemin bobbed his shoulders with a slight smile on his face. “I might be going out with someone.” Jaemin whispers softly, looking down and fidgeting with his feet. 

I smirked widely. It was no doubt the suspicion in my mind was right. “Keep me updated on her, alright? Have fun!” I said to Jaemin as I checked the things in my sling bag one last time and winking at Jaemin playfully to which he responded with a chuckle before exiting the room. 

Jisung and I have been walking down a street for awhile now. I was met with unknown shops left and right. Clearly this place was quite secluded and out of public view. Despite me exploring the town near college, it was only now that i found out this place existed thanks to Jisung.

“Just where are you taking me?” I asked with a soft laugh. 

Jisung suddenly stopped in his tracks and swung his body to face me. I tilted my head at his sudden behaviour. Jisung motioned to a shop on the left. I looked towards Jisung’s direction. It didn't have a sign above it nor a window where i could see what was inside. “Come on. I’ll show you.” Jisung interlocked his fingers with mine, something we have grown to do as friends. Our friendship eventually grew to be more physical as time went on. 

Jisung opened the door ahead for me, gesturing me to walk in. As i stepped inside, my mouth gaped open. The shop was filled with books. Book on shelves, on tables for display. It was like I entered paradise made for me. I flashed a wide smile over to Jisung, who tightened his grip on my hand. 

“I knew how much you liked reading. So I did some research and found this place. I heard all the books have been hand picked by the owner.” 

I didnt reply, only laughing in excitement as I looked around the tiny shop, immediately going to a random shelve and picking out a book that had an interesting cover. 

While reading the synopsis behind a book, I whispered softly, “Why bring me here when it’s not your place of interest?” 

Jisung breathed sharply as he let out a quick sigh. “I wanted to do something for you. That’s all.” Jisung replied simply, shrugging as if what he did was just a small gesture. I, however, thought it was a huge gesture. It showed me that he cared. The fact that he went to research for a place I have never heard of and would like.

“Ever heard of The Wrath and the Dawn?,” I asked, pulling it out from the shelve immediately when I recognised its spine. Jisung shook his head. I chuckle, passing the book to Jisung. He took it into his hands, not sure what to do with it. 

“Read it. I know you don't like reading, but this book really changed things for me.” Jisung hummed, holding the book up in the air with a subtle smile. 

I browsed through the store, quickly picking out two books that seemed interesting to me as I didn't want to bore Jisung any longer by having to put up with me checking every book in the store. 

Just as I was about to take out cash from my wallet, Jisung placed a hand on mine that was in my wallet. I looked up to meet Jisung’s eyes.

“I’ll pay.” 

“But you pay for everything on every single outing we went together-”

“You know you cant fight me on this. Put the wallet away.” 

I pouted, making him let out a laugh as I slid my wallet back into my sling bag. He payed for the three books, two of mine and the book I recommended him to read. I took a good look at him while he had a small chat with the cashier and owner. 

The way he smiled and laugh. I started to think about the times I’ve spent with Jisung. The fact that I was able to open up to him quickly and have conversations I never thought i would have after meeting someone after less than a year. The deep conversations we would have, in person or on the phone late at night while Jaemin was asleep. He saw me in states where i felt all the more cautious about. My intense breakdowns due to stress which could only be treated with Jaemin’s comfort as well as kind words that had immense impact from Jisung over the phone. We shared dark secrets as well. Looking back at these moments made me felt something I never did. It was similar to how i felt towards Jaemin, but very different. 

“Quinn?” My thoughts were cut off with Jisung’s voice. I shook my head off the thoughts and proceeded to head out of the shop, offering to carry the books but of course Jisung insisted on holding them. 

We decided to head back to college grounds and hang out in Jisung’s room. The place was secluded and dimly lit, only the library was opened for students who wanted to study there overnight. 

“Can i ask something?” Jisung paused the video about the funny moments of Seventeen on his laptop, turning his is body to face me. “Hm?” I let out, frowning at the fact that he paused the video at my favourite part. 

“Have you ever been in love?” 

A question I have never had a proper encounter of it. I hugged my knees near my chest as I took a sip of iced peach tea in a can that we got from a vending machine near the cafeteria. “I don't think so? I did date Jaemin once, but we were kids and barely knew what love was.”

I let out a soft sigh, “I’m still unsure of it... even now.”

Jisung flashed me a subtle smile. I felt soothed by just that. “Never did I, either.” He pauses for a moment before continuing. 

“But if I had to guess... I’d say that love is a feeling where you feel yourself wanting to be better around that particular person. You start to act so dumb around them to make them laugh and you start finding out what they like and dislike, to make sure all that person could feel were butterflies and rainbows.”

I started to think about his words. Butterflies and rainbows. Something I’ve always felt whenever I’m with Jisung. No matter what state of emotion I was in, it felt as if he knew me well and knew what to do to make me feel better. I started to find myself wanting to look better around him, dressing up to make myself more presentable as usual. I even have his Liho order etched into my mind every time we went to Liho to get milk teas. 

“And you know what’s funny?” 

“What?”

Jisung took in a deep breath before letting out a loud sigh, chuckling to himself as he shook his head, his blonde fringe falling down his forehead to frame his face perfectly. 

“The fact that I feel all those things whenever I’m with you.”

I froze in my spot with my muscles suddenly becoming stiff. My mind went blank as his words were repeated. How do i even react? What do I say? Do i tell him I feel the same? But that would mean he thinks I like him and I should be in a relationship with him but I’m clearly not prepared for that yet.

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

My frown deepened. I wanted to say something. I couldn’t just leave his words hanging with no proper conclusion to the conversation. It was sort of my habit to have everything laid on the table so I could get a clear look at the situation.

“I feel the same... but I’m scared of getting involved in a relationship.”

I watched as Jisung forced a smile. I knew it was forced. This smile was different from the one he would have every time he take a bite of his favourite chocolate ice cream. He nodded his head, telling me that he understood my feelings.

“I get it. We’ve only been friends for less than a year. When i watched your trailer, I had a feeling you weren’t one for relationships.”

I was about to open my mouth to speak, but my words were stuck in my throat. A second passed before I could form my sentence properly. “I mean I’m open to it but you’re kind of right. I want to give us more time.”

I heard him sigh. I could tell he was disheartened yet he’s trying his best to stay together. I felt a sharp pain in my heart as he chuckled to himself.

“It’s fine. I can wait. Just as long as I’m not waiting for nothing.”

I could purse my lips into a thin line. Slowly but surely, I brough my hand up to brush away strands of hair that covered his eyes. He lifts his eyes up, but they were unable to meet mine.

“I promise. I see myself with you in the future.”

“Quinn~” Jaemin called out to me while i was playing with my phone while laying down on my bed.

“What?” I asked, my back still facing him.

I heard Jaemin’s bed creak as he stood up to take a seat at the edge of my bed. He gently places a hand on my head and caress my hair. I turned my body and looked up to face him, obviously weirded out by how nice he was being.

“Are you seriously babying me so that I would go to the frat party?” I rolled my eyes. Jaemin’s intentions were always too obvious whenever he gets all soft and sweet with me.

As Jaemin is my best friend, I knew his habits. One of them being that if I didn't agree with him on something, he would pamper me as much as possible as a way to convince me with anything that was on his mind. And with his puppy dog eyes and cuteness, you could imagine how hard it was for me not to fall for his trap.

“Yes, yes I am.” I gave Jaemin a look of disinterest. He knows I dislike going to parties. And he knows how hard it is to persuade me to go. Yet he never gave up. The next thing he said however, intrigued me immediately and started to take his idea into consideration.

“Jisung’s gonna be there.” Jaemin shrugged, trying to act nonchalant but I knew he was thinking about how he’s winning me over. I blinked my eyes once as i gave a blank expression. I then pouted my lips and sat up straight. Jaemin’s eyes literally sparkled the moment I did so. 

“When is it?” I heaved a sigh in defeat, rubbing my face with my right hand. “This Sunday.” Jaemin answered immediately out of excitement. 

Though I had my focus on the conversation with Jaemin, my mind also wondered off to thinking about food. I was seriously craving take out right now. “It’ll be fun! Come on, we’ve just finished out exams. You’ve been stressed enough. You should go out more.” Jaemin added on. 

While listening to Jaemin talk, I opened the app Grab Food on my phone. As i scrolled through the different places near the college and browsing through different menus, Jaemin let out a quick, “Plus, it was Jisung’s idea to invite you.”

“Did he now?” 

Jaemin hummed as he leaned near me to have a peek of my phone. “Take out?” He asked, with his tone was bright and happy. I nodded my head. 

“We seriously think so alike.” I gave Jaemin a subtle smile before Jaemin and I ended up looking through the menus together. While Jaemin decided on what to order, I couldn't help but feel somewhat nervous about the party on Sunday. Would I really be fine? I’ll have Jaemin, though I assume he can't be around me 24/7 due to his social nature. The only hope I had that would best help me get through the night was Jisung. 

Jaemin and I entered the frat party. And I already hate it here. I wasn't even five steps in when a stranger hands me a red plastic cup filled with beer. The huge crowd and very limited space, the loud banging music, though I only appreciate listening to them on my earphones and the amount of talking and screaming that filled the room. Of course it had to be topped off with the reeking smell of alcohol. 

“I’ll find Jisung for you, alright? I’m going to meet my hockey friends after.” Jaemin said, keeping his arm around you shoulder to make sure you were close and protected near him. 

I only nodded nervously. I honestly wished I could just magically vanish myself out of here and in the room with a book. But I never want to disappoint Jaemin by leaving the party that he tried so desperately for me to come, so I made a clear decision in my head to put up with it and prayed that nothing would happen to me.

Jaemin kept me very close as we walked through the crowd, people bumping into at every direction. “Jisung-ah!” Jaemin shouted. Jisung didn’t seem to hear his call. He was about to shout again when out of nowhere, one of Jaemin’s friends pulled him away from me. I opened my mouth, wanting to call out to him but he soon disappeared into the crowd. I did however see his hand waving up high above the crowd and giving me a hand sign of a phone to signal me to call him if anything happened. 

I groaned and rolled my eyes, looking down at the cup of beer in my hands. Shrugging, I took a small sip. I wasn't much of a drinker, but tonight - tonight was the only exception, using alcohol as a way to release the pent up stress that have been bottling up inside me during the exams. 

“Hi!” I suddenly heard. I turned my back to see who it was. Oh no, was all i thought as I stared at the girl whom I dislike. The girl who broke Jaemin’s heart. 

“Hey, Ji A” I mumbled back. I tried to give her a half-smile. I felt myself tensing up at the thought of starting a conversation with someone I held a slight grudge against. 

“What do you think of the party?” I blinked at her. I kept quiet for a moment before answering with a soft. “It’s fine.” 

I was about to burst if she ever think she can hold a conversation with me right now. She knew very well what she did to Jaemin, as well as the fact that I’m his best friend. I couldn't get how she could act as if nothing happened in the past and putting it all behind her like it meant nothing and did not result in a single impact on her. 

“I was thinking about asking you if you wanna-”

“Hey, baby.” I heard the familiar voice that made me let out a quiet sigh of relief.

Baby? That’s definitely a first. 

I felt Jisung’s arm slide around my waist swiftly as he pulled me close. I would be lying if I said that my heart didn’t quickened as butterflies started fluttering in the bottom of my stomach. I only prayed that my cheeks were not blushing a bright pink. To make matters worse, Jisung leaned down to plant a quick kiss on the side of my eye as he fakely smiled towards Ji A.

“You need another drink, don’t you?” I looked up at Jisung, slightly confused. As he raised his eyebrows and jerked his head slightly, I immediately received his signal that told me to play along as he sent some telepathy message that he was trying to save me from my uncomfortable situation with Ji A.  “Uh... y-yeah of course.” 

“Sorry but please excuse us. We’re going to be a little busy upstairs soon.” 

I wasn't sure if this was the real Jisung, or the alcohol that I assumed he has consumed to be talking. I was definitely shocked by how bold he was since he has always seemed to be the shy type to me. 

Ji A looked at us with a smug face, clicking her tongue and huffing in amusement. “Sure, go ahead, Have fun.” She said with annoyance before walking away with her arms folded. Jisung kept his hand on my waist, not to tightly nor loosely either as he led me to a space in the house that was away fro the large crowd that was gathering for who knows what reason. 

“You seem to not like that girl.” Jisung bent down to whispered near my ear in an attempt to overpower the loud music in the background. I pursed my lips into a thin line and hummed. “If there’s anyone I would throw under a bus, it would be her.” 

Jisung replied with a smile and a chuckle. “I know you have plenty of other people you would like to do that to.” And it was true. Due to my judgy nature, I would judge anyone that came into my sight. And if i sensed that I didn’t like their attitude, I would never fail to whisper to Jisung or Jaemin that i dislike them at first glance. 

“Did you drink?” I asked Jisung, noticing how his breath reeked of beer yet he was his usual self. “Yeah. Had a few but I have a high tolerance.” My mouth formed an ‘ah’ as i nodded. 

Out of the blue, Jisung spun my around, this time placing both his hands on my waist as my body was now facing his. Not to mention there wasn't a single inch of space between our chests’. 

“You look cute whenever you’re pissed.”

I rolled my eyes, faking my exasperation. “Ho ho wanna see some real annoyance?” I raised both my eyebrows as I gave Jisung an intimidating smile. Jisung shook his head, looking down before matching my gaze with his again. “Please save that for tomorrow.” 

I laughed softly. Jisung then looked around the house, as if trying to find someone. He lets out a soft “Ah. Found them.” I hummed as I looked around as well, wondering who he found. 

Jisung released on hand from my waist and walked me over to a group of guys. My vision only became clear when the crowd that was blocking my view went away, revealing Jaemin as well as his group of hockey friends. I smiled at the familiar faces before me as they all shouted my name and urged Jisung and I to seat with them.

“You know them?”

Jisung only shrugged, taking a seat beside Mark and gesturing me to sit down next to him. “I met them through Jaemin.” I looked over to Jaemin, who was laughing hysterically and punching Winwin’s arm, who immediately turned to him to fight back. Clearly they were drunk. I wasn’t surprised at all.

I laughed when I turned my attention over to Jaehyun, the guy in my Psychology class. The way he only sat there, unbothered by the chaos surrounding him radiated couldn’t care less energy.

“You guys seem pretty drunk.” I commented.

Jaehyun chuckled lowly and tilted his head to Jaemin and Winwin who were fighting, eventually having Lucas joining in as well, along with Taeyong trying his best to keep the situation at bay but has soon given up. “You think?”

I let out a long sigh as the little sips of alcohol I have been taking from the moment I stepped in until now started to kick in. My head started to get dizzy as my vision became slightly blurred.

I lay my head down on Jisung’s shoulder. I felt Jisung’s eyes on me. “You need to go to a room or something?” Jisung whispered. I frowned.

“You think i should?” I mumbled softly with my head turning in multiple directions to find a comfortable position on the crook of Jisung’s neck. I breathed in his scent. You would think his body smelt like alcohol but his perfume was still standing strong, putting me at ease.

Jisung tightened his grip around ms, pulling me closer so that my body layed comfortably on his.

I could tell that the others, especially Jaemin were worried about me when he shouted a, “Bro she good?” to Jisung.

“She can use my room if you wan-“

“I’ll take her back to her room.” Jisung cut Jaehyun off. My eyes were now half opened as I saw Jaemin tossing the room key to Jisung, who caught it swiftly.

“Take care of her.” Was the last thing I heard before fully closing my eyes and passing out.

I woke up, taking awhile to process my surroundings due to the banging in my head from all the alcohol. As I took into consideration the items and furniture of the room, I quickly concluded that I was in Jisung’s room. Jisung, however, was nowhere to be seen.

I patted my hands at the space around me, desperately trying to find my phone. I eventually found it within the covers, pulling it out and looking at the time on my lockscreen. 4:16 AM. I stared at the time. Where was Jisung at this timing? Could he still be at the party?

I tried recalling what happened before I passed out and remembered that Jisung was about to bring me to his room. So what i remembered was practically useless and didn’t benefit me in knowing Jisung’s current location. Great.

I groaned as I pressed a hand on my head, praying to God that my headache would come to an end soon. Though I highly doubt that as I knew from my past experiences of getting drunk that it takes me a very long time to sober up, meaning that I predicted that I would be in a hangover for quite some time.

I heard the door open. My eyes remained on the bedsheets as I assumed it was Jisung who entered the room. My assumption was soon proven wrong when I heard the sound of high heels clacking against the wooden floor, the sound coming closer and closer to me.

I looked up and tried my best to adjust my vision as I squinted my eyes. The figure, poster and clothes. Without a doubt, it was Ji A.

“So he left you here with the door unlocked and no one protecting you? Not surprised.”

“What?” I whispered, raising an eyebrow at Ji A. Just what was she doing here? How did she know where Jisung’s room was? What does she want from me?

“Hey. Lemme tell you one thing while I can tell you’re still hungover.” Ji A placed her weight on one leg as she puts a hand on her waist. I started feeling irritated again, but I was way too weak to even bother putting up a fight.

Ji A bent down to meet my eye level. The signature smirk that lit a fire in me appeared on her lips as her eyes looking down on me unsympathetically.

“You ever wonder why Jisung has been way too nice to you? How he was been nothing but perfect in the way he treated you and how you two just never seem to have gotten into a fight once in your single year of friendship?”

I used one hand to rub my face. What is Ji A going on about?

I took in a deep breath. “I’m sorry?”

“Buckle up, honey. All the butterflies and rainbows you have been experiencing with him will all be ruined by a storm he’ll be sending in not too long from now.” I heard Ji A chuckle in a devil-like manner.

As I started to process her words, my thoughts became clear and my suspicion started to peak. “The fuck are you talking about, Ji A?” I asked as I cleared my throat. I didn’t get a reply as I watch her laugh and leaving the room.

I scratched my head furiously as I tried digging further into her words to find the true meaning behind it. Was she trying to threaten me? What “storm” was Jisung about to bring upon me? As more questions filled my mind, I found it too much for my hungover state to take in. I ended up falling asleep after looking at my phone meaninglessly.

I felt a finger or two gliding over my jawline. My eyes were closed but I immediately sensed that Jisung was sitting at the edge of the bed. I fluttered my eyes open as Jisung came into my view.

“Sweetheart, how you feeling?” Jisung asked in his gentle, calming voice that always helped to soothe me. Oddly this time, it didn’t. And I knew it was because of the weird encounter I had with Ji A before I went back to sleep.

I sat up from bed weakly, falling back slightly but having Jisung hold me up and I shook my head, placing my hand on the back of my neck.

“Hey, you need to rest.” Jisung said, trying to put my body back down on the bed but I fought back. Ji A’s words about Jisung started to repeat itself in my head. Out of pure distrust that I suddenly developed towards Jisung, I pushed him away and forced myself to stand up.

I saw Jisung standing up and holding his hands out, getting ready to catch me in case I fall while I staggered to the door. “Get back in bed. I bought hangover soup for you-“

“Just...” I placed my hand on the doorknob, turning my head around to face Jisung who had an extremely worried look on his face. “Just get away from me.” I whispered, twisting the doorknob and pushing the door.

I headed out of Jisung’s room and made my way over to mine. Before I could open my door, I heard Jisung’s footsteps coming towards me as he stopped me with a hand on my wrist. “What’s wrong? D-did something happen?” Jisung stuttered, surprised by my sudden attitude towards him.

I yanked his hand off me and opened the door, seeing Jaemin on his bed with widened eyes as he saw my weak body at the door. He rushed over to me. “Quinn? Jisung...”

“Get the hell out of my sight, Jisung.” I raised my voice ever so slightly. Jaemin heard my words and furrowed his eyebrows towards Jisung.

“The fuck did you do to her?” Jaemin asked, his tone growing dark and intimidating.

“I-I dont know she just woke up and told me to back off-“

“I’m finding out what you did to her. And once I do, it’s game over for you.” Jaemin threatened Jisung as he brought me in by supporting my body with his hand around my waist and closing the door quietly in consideration of the state I was in.

Jaemin carried me to my bed and placed me down gently. I rubbed my eyes with my hands as I looked up to Jaemin, who had his arms folded and standing still.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Jaemin asked, his voice becoming soft and gentle as he took a seat on my bed. I sat up from the bed and placed my head on his lap, my head digging into his chest.

“Not now... please.” My voice got muffle as tears started to flow out of my eyes. As much as I want to hide it, my body didn’t let me. Jaemin felt his shirt getting wet and immediately started to caress my head slowly, letting out a soft, “Sh sh..” to calm me down. I continued to sob and cry as I got vulnerable in Jaemin’s embrace, eventually crying myself to sleep, wanting to forget everything that happened before and needing to rest my mind for at least a few hours.

I woke up once again. This time, the sunlight that shined through the thin curtains of the room made me wince as I looked at my surroundings which has now became fully clear.

I realised I was still laying my head on Jaemin’s lap. I noticed how he was in an uncomfortable position with his back against the wall and his head hanging downwards. I sat up and poked his shoulder in an attempt to wake him up. Luckily it worked and Jaemin rubbed his eyes before fully opening them and looking at the side to face me.

“Your eyes are all puffy, love.” Jaemin said with a subtle smile, reaching his hand out and gently brushing his thumb over the bottom of my eyes. I chuckled softly. “Did I cry that much last night?” Jaemin nodded. I let out a long sigh.

“Care to tell me what happened last night with Jisung?” Jaemin motioned me to get close to him. I got near and wrapped my arms around him as I was indulged in his cuddles. “I was at Jisung’s room. I don't know why he wasn’t there, but suddenly Ji A came into the room.”

I could tell Jaemin was taken aback since he didn’t give an immediate reply. “Ji A?” He finally spoke. I hummed in reply. Jaemin clicked his tongue and kept silent. He was thinking about his past relationship with Ji A but still signaled me to continue the story.

“For some reason, she threatened me. She said that my relationship with Jisung is going to get wrecked soon. I don't know what she meant by that.” Jaemin eyes started to fill with anger as I felt him balling his first against my shirt. Though he tried to stay calm and wanting to make me feel better is his top priority , I could tell he was furious. “The bitch really did that?” Jaemin muttered, running a hand through his hair.

“Wait how did she even know where Jisung’s room was?” I suddenly question as I started to get deep in my thoughts. That fact was odd, but the answer was obvious. “Those two probably knew each other.” Jaemin quickly replied. 

Does a 30 second trailer really tell me everything I need to know about a person? That question started to resonate in my head now that I thought of what Jisung could be doing. I started to think whether is actions were pure and sincere. Could there be a hidden agenda as to why he’s been oh so nice to me just like Ji A said? She could have told me that just to make me feel insecure. But at the same time, what if it was true?

“Tell me what to do, Nana. I seriously don't know what to think right now.” I whined to Jaemin, whose face was as still stern and scary after I mentioned Ji A.

“Maybe act normal around him first, like nothing happened. While I go spying on him and Ji A.” Jaemin said with a wide smirk. I immediately laughed, giving him a light smack on his chest. “You can’t be serious.” I said back, shaking my head.

Jaemin furrowed his eyebrows and pouted. “Hello! We can’t ask Jisung straight up. We need to be discreet.” Jaemin jokes. I swear Jaemin could make me laugh at his dorkiness in any situation. 

“I might just ignore him, to be honest. I’ve been hanging out with him too much. I want to spend more time with you.” I said, reaching my hand out to ruffle Jaemin’s perfectly soft hair. 

Jaemin gave me a few pats on my back. “Good that you’ve realised it now. I’ve been lonely without you.” I gave a subtle yet sincere smile. 

-

I cocked an eyebrow at Jaehyun’s words. What is he even thinking?

Jaehyun leaned in close, looking around to check if anyone’s watching. “Jisung keeps pressuring me to tell you to talk to him and I know you’re avoiding him but I can’t take it no more.” He grumbled. I placed a hand on my forehead and let out a long sigh. “Tell him to give up.” was all I said as I heard the professor slamming the door shut and getting everyone’s attention in a matter of seconds. 

A week has passed now without Jisung. And although I have Jaemin with me, it felt like I was missing something. It just didn’t feel right with him around. Being away from him made me look at the big picture. I’m deeply in love with him. I could deny that fact all I want but I’ll never be able to get away from it. I missed every part of him. His scent, laughter, smiles, the way I felt so right with him. But I also thought of my trust towards Jisung that was slowly deteriorating. I’ve been receiving constant texts and calls from Jisung, but I didn't reply, only using my anger as a way to keep myself from replying to his texts or picking up his calls. 

“Yo your guy here is starving and craving Subway.” Jaemin shouted out while laying on his bed. I was in deep concentration while in a PUBG Mobile match. “Order us something, will you? I’m kinda busy.” I muttered. 

“I was thinking of buying it downstairs. I need to walk around a little.” Jaemin stood up from his bed and stretched out his arms, groaning in the process. “Yeah sure, have fun.” 

Jaemin went over to my bed and take a peek of my phone. “Okay firstly, why didn’t you invite me? Secondly, you know I’m not going without you. Come on.” He suddenly said, grabbing onto my arm and dragging me out while I was still concentrated in the match.

As Jaemin and I walked down the halls to get to food area where there were different fast food shops, including Subway, my eyes were kept on the screen as I feel Jaemin’s eyes on me and my phone, watching the match intensively. 

“Oi! Kill him!” Jaemin shouted and constantly tapped my shoulder.

“I’m trying, idiot!” I shouted back. I realised we were already at Subway as Jaemin pushed the door open for me, his eyes still glued on my screen.

I quickly took a random seat that faced the door while Jaemin sat next to me. “Ah fuck!” I screamed, not too loud as I didn’t want the other customers to look at me as I died in the match.

Jaemin and I groaned at the same time as I slammed my phone on the table while Jaemin shaked his head. 

“You can never win without me now can you?” Jaemin said with a cunning smirk. I punched his shoulder. “Shut up.” 

“Alright, hurry up. Invite me.” Jaemin said. I looked down at his phone to see that he was already in the app. “Damn, you’re quick.” Jaemin shrugged nonchalantly. 

While Jaemin and I started the match and were playing together, I heard the door open. I didn’t really thought anything about it until I saw a figure at that was unrecognisable from my point of view. I took a quick look at the person, not thinking who it was and assumed it was a stranger. “Sorry this table’s taken.” I said simply. 

“How long are you going to keep ignoring me, Quinn?”

Jaemin and I shot our heads up at the same time, knowing that familiar voice belonged to Jisung. He had a really concerned look in his eyes with a small frown. Jaemin scoffed, putting his phone down and leaning in with his elbows against the table. “She doesn’t want to see you. I’m sure she’s made that pretty clear.” 

I placed my phone screen faced down on the table, unable to meet Jisung’s eyes. “No. I have to talk to her. Quinn please.” Jisung pleaded with soft eyes. I glanced over to Jaemin who bobbed his shoulders as a way to tell me it was my decision to talk to him or not. I let out a long sigh and nodded reluctantly. 

Jisung placed his hand on my wrist and dragged me out. I took on one last look at Jaemin who mouthed out, “Be careful, love.” i could only take a deep breath as Jisung dragged me to a secluded seating area. 

Jisung sat me down and sat on the opposite side. He had his arms interlocked on the table while i tapped my hands on my thighs. “Please tell me why you’re doing this to me..” Jisung whispered. 

I glanced at another direction before gathering up courage to look at Jisung. Fuck those eyes. The sweet eyes of Jisung that could mesmerise anyone if he wanted to. “What are you and Ji A?” I asked sternly. 

“We’re just friends, mere acquaintances.” Jisung immediately replied with no hesitation.

“Then how did she know where was your room?”

Jisung opened his mouth to reply but not a single sound came out for a moment.

“I’m sorry?”

“I woke up in your room. You were nowhere to be seen. The door was unlocked and Ji A came in. She fucking threatened me saying that my relationship with you would go bad.” 

“I- wait how did she-”

“Please don’t act. Stop all this bullshit you’re trying to pull.” I cut Jisung off. 

I exhaled sharply. “Your 30 second trailer. Was it even real? What are you hiding from me?”

Jisung puffed his chest a little before running a hand down his face. “I...” I waited impatiently for him to gather the words he needed to explain what was about to be said next that completely shocked me. 

“I made a bet with Ji A during a party. She said I have to make you fall for me to prove that I’m capable of being in a relationship.” 

My mouth practically could fit a whole burger at how large it gaped open as I scoffed in astonishment. I slammed both my hands down on the table that was placed on my thighs before. 

“So what? I was just some bet to you? I didn’t mean two fucks to you, huh? I should have known. You were too nice from the start. Fuck you. Gosh I didn’t know it was possible to lie in your trailer.” I said, adding a hint of sarcasm at the end. 

“Wait Quinn please calm down I can explain-”

“You already did. I’ve known enough.” I stood up from my seat and took a full ninety degree turn to find Jaemin right in front of me, looking towards Jisung with angered eyes. 

Jaemin rushed over to Jisung and grabbed him by his collar, lifting him up slightly from his seat. I tried pulling Jaemin away, only wanting to get away from Jisung but Jaemin pushed me back. “A bet? You played my best friend friend just for a bet to keep your pride? God you’re low.” Jaemin pushed Jisung back down on his seat violently. 

Jaemin leaned in, his hands firm on the table as Jisung backed himself away ever so slightly. 

“Stay the fuck away from Quinn here on out. You fucked up, big time. Don’t show up in front of us ever again. You don’t deserve her at all.” Jaemin gave Jisung a clear and taunted warning before grabbing me by the wrist and walking us away. 

Jaemin doesn’t say a word when Jaemin walked us back to our room, immediately closing the door in front of us. “He’s a dickhead for doing that to you.” He muttered and he quickly sat down on his bed. I walked over and sat on mine, heaving out a long sigh. “Are you gonna cry again?” I heard Jaemin ask. I shook my head.

“I’m done crying. I feel pissed. Can I somehow constantly slam his tongue on a car door?” Jaemin couldn’t help but laugh. “It’ll be more fun to slam his head against the wall.” He added. The two of us laughed but the room grew quiet quickly. 

“Wait isn’t our trailer suppose to show our true intentions we have with the person watching it? How did I miss such a huge thing?” I asked Jaemin. 

“I’ve heard a rumour of people altering their trailers. I never thought people actually do it.” Jaemin inhaled and exhaled sharply. 

“Fuck it. I just don’t want to see him anymore. End of year exams are coming. I can’t let shit like this get in the way.” I said with determination. Jaemin nodded. 

-

The end of the year soon came. Our results were handed out this week and we could finally have some break time for Christmas. Students were allowed to leave college and celebrate with their families. However, for me and Jaemin, we decided to stay together this Christmas, opting to video call our loved ones to keep in touch. 

“This place is so creepy with not many people here.” Jaemin spoke as we decided to walk around the college campus for the fun of it. 

I shoved my hands into my padded jacket, letting out a sigh as smoke came out of my mouth. It was very cold this winter, but it seemed that snow has yet to fall. “I’m so glad we’re done for this year.” I whispered.

“Two more years till we graduate.” I added, looking at the shops that were closed and noticed that only the vending machine was working. 

“Please don’t tell me-”

“Let’s go ghost hunting!” I laughed out loudly as I walked over to the vending machine. “Very funny, Jaemin.” I took out a one dollar coin from my wallet and placed in in the slot of the vending machine. Pressing on the drink I wanted, I waited for it to be dispensed. 

I soon heard the canned drink and pick it up from the bottom slot. I looked at Jaemin who was staring at my drink. I shoved it towards his chest. “Open it.” Jaemin smiled and cracked open the top, drinking down a few gulps before handing the drink back to me. 

“When do you think the snow is coming?” I asked Jaemin. I’ve always been fond of snow ever since I was little, playing in the snow by myself was what I did everyday. 

Jaemin only shrugged and looked up into the sky. I did the same as well. “I’ll pray that it’ll come soon for you.” 

I reached my hand out and ruffled his hair. “A thoughtful prince indeed.” I said with a subtle smile. 

“Oh wait! What happened with the girl you were talking to back then?” I asked as the thought suddenly popped up in my mind. In the midst of whatever was happening between Jisung and I as well as the exams, I completely forgot about it.

“Eh I don’t like her. She’s not like you.” Jaemin shrugged nonchalantly. 

“Your girlfriend isn’t suppose to be like me.” I commented. 

“They say your significant other should have the same qualities as your best friend so that you two can click immediately.” 

I shook my head. “Yeah, yeah.” I waved my hand in the air lazily. 

“Hey guys..” I suddenly heard. Jaemin and I turned around, taking in a deep breathe in unison. 

“Jisung.” Jaemin greeted with an uninterested look. Jisung bowed his head slightly at Jaemin before turning to me. “I thought you went out of college.” 

“Oh no my family’s busy this Christmas so I can’t visit them.” I simply nodded my head. “Besides the point so anyways, can I talk to you, alone?” I looked to Jaemin, somewhat wanting to ask for his approval. Jaemin glared at Jisung before letting out a quiet sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Go ahead.” Jaemin said with a tone of defeat. 

Jisung pulled me by my the edge of my padded jacket as Jaemin soon left my view. “What is it that you want, Jisung?” I finally asked. 

Jisung didn’t answer and only stared into my eyes. I raised an eyebrow. “If you aren’t going to say something-”

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Quinn. I have been wanting to talk to you but with exams and all I didn’t want to bother you.” I watched as he pursed his lips into a thin line. “So now that exams are over you came to bother me?” I asked with a hint of sarcasm. Jisung shook his head furiously. 

“Have you heard of the rumour about the first snowfall?” I sighed, shaking my head as I start to think about what he’s going on about. 

“They say...” Jisung started as he took out my hands from my pockets and holding them dearly in his hands. I looked up to look at Jisung but found that he was admiring my hands, gently brushing his thumb over the back of my hand. 

“They say that if you’re with the person you like in the first snowfall, it signified love and fate, symbolising that true love will blossom.”

 I bit my bottom lip as my mind slowly went back to the times I’ve spent with Jisung. It would be a understatement to say that I’ve been reminiscing my past when Jisung was a big part of my life. Although my mind back then was concentrated on the exams, Jisung has always been somehow hidden away and never forgotten in the fold of my thoughts. 

“I’ve heard of it.” I whispered, unable to meet Jisung’s eyes when he lifted his head up. 

Jisung took in a deep breath. “I’m sorry for what happened. At first, I only got into your life because of the bet. But I truly did fell in love with you the more I got to know you and spent time with you. And I still am. I’m still in love with you. It pained me everyday when you avoided me and hated my guts. I’m just sorry for everything.” Jisung confessed. I felt a lump in my throat as I couldn’t make up an answer to give right away. “S-so what are you going to do about it?” I asked.

Jisung slowly took a step closer, closing the gap between us as he leaned in towards my face, our noses barely touching and our lips so close. And then, it happened naturally, Jisung connected his lips with mine, pulling me into the softest kiss ever that was filled with passion and care. It took me awhile to process what was happening before moving my lips in sync with his and closing my eyes. 

As if this scene came out of a fairy tale, I felt something falling onto my head. I opened my eyes slightly as I continued to kiss Jisung, realising that snow has fallen onto us. The first snowfall.

Jisung pulled his lips away from mine as we both stared up into the sky, watching as the snow continued to fell. Jisung smiled softly as we both looked down to meet each other’s gaze. 

“I love you, Quinn. Please be mine.” Jisung whispered softly as he got close to lean his forehead against mine. I bite the side of my cheek as I looked into his eyes, taking in the moment of silence to admire the person I dearly missed. “Don’t make me regret it.” I whispered back, taking the initiative to place my lips on Jisung’s to once again feel his sincere love.

#nct #nct 2020 #nct dream #nct jisung #park jisung #nct park jisung #jisung x reader #nct jisung x reader #nct x reader #nct scenarios #nct imagine #nct imagines #nct fluff #nct angst #park jisung x reader #jisung fluff #jisung angst #nct jisung x y/n #nct jisung x you

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #128: Tamamo no Mae (Lancer)

If you live in the northern hemisphere: With daylight saving’s finally behind us and the world once more starting to warm up, we turn our thoughts to summer, with plenty of beach-themed servants to tide us over until summer 4 starts proper. 

If you live in the southern hemisphere: As Summer winds its way to a close and fall shuffles in once more, let’s take a moment to remember all the good times we had this... er, last summer. With the help of some classic summer servants, this’ll be easy!

Today we’re building Tamamo Shark, a.k.a. Tamamo no Mae (Lancer)! This foxy gal has traded in all her magical prowess for a bikini and an elegant parasol, but she’s still a force to be reckoned with!

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: Summer Lovin’, had me a blast!

Race and Background

We’ve done this one already, so I’ll speed through it. As a Tabaxi Courtier, you get +2 Dexterity; +1 Charisma; Darkvision; the ability to double your movement for a turn with Feline Agility; Cat’s Claws for some slashing damage with unarmed attacks; and proficiency with Perception, Stealth, Insight, and Persuasion. 

Ability Scores

Here’s where things get interesting. Your highest scores are Wisdom followed by Dexterity. When you hit the beach, you’re all about grace That means socially and physically. After that is Charisma- you have a lot of people who’d like to touch fluffy tail. After that is Constitution, followed by Strength. You’re still kind of a caster, but this origin’s all about letting loose a bit. Finally, dump Intelligence. You’re not dumb, you’re just not here to think. Save it for Fall.

Class Levels

1. Monk 1: Don’t expect all the summer servants to have Unarmored Defense, giving you an AC of 10 plus your dexterity and wisdom modifiers while you’re wearing a bikini. There’s only so many ways you can fit that into a build, some of them are gonna have to put on some clothes eventually. That being said, monk works for you, for reasons that’ll be apparent in a bit.

You also get Martial Arts, allowing you to make an unarmed attack as a bonus action after attacking with a monk weapon as your action. You can also use dexterity instead of strength when making attacks, and your monk attacks deal a minimum of 1d4 damage, scaling based on your monk level.

You also get proficiency in Strength and Dexterity saves, as well as two monk skills; Acrobatics for parasol skills, and Religion for Being a God.

2. Fighter 1: We’ll go back to monk in a bit for your signature move, but first we should head over to fighter to mod up your umbrella. For the sake of attacks, I’m calling your parasol a spear, but you can also use the Interception fighting style to pop that bad boy open and block some damage, using your reaction to block 1d10+ your proficiency bonus on an attack against you or someone else within 5′. You also get a Second Wind to heal as a bonus action. A bit underpowered compared to your usual kit, but we’re not aiming for heals here.

3. Monk 2: Second level monks get a number of Ki points per short rest equal to their monk level, which they can currently spend to Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or make two unarmed attacks as a bonus action. You also get Unarmored Movement, giving you an extra 10 feet of movement to work with each turn, which also increases as you level up. Turns out a bikini’s easier to move in than those kimonos you like to wear.

4. Monk 3: By channeling your mana from spells into your body, you unlock the Way of the Open Hand, allowing you to align your strikes with your foes’... ki... to produce one of several effects. Your Open Hand Technique allows you to add these effects to your flurry of blows attacks. Either: force a dexterity save or be knocked prone, force a strength save or push them 15′ away, or make them unable to make reactions for a round. It’s okay I wouldn’t be able to react for six seconds either.

You can also Deflect Missiles, allowing you to block incoming ranged damage, and with a perfect block you can even bounce it back to sender!

5. Monk 4: We’re keeping it simple with your Ability Score improvements this time. Bump up your Wisdom for a stronger AC, more mystique, and stronger fancy fighting techniques. You can also use Slow Fall, which doesn’t feel like it’d be very useful on a beach, but you never know. There’s trenches in them thar seas. Finally, you get Quickened Healing to heal as an action by spending some ki points. Again, less healing than normal, but you’re on vacation! You’re not going to work that hard.

6. Monk 5: Fifth level monks get an Extra Attack each attack action, and they can turn those attacks into Stunning Strikes by using ki points. The target then has to pass a Constitution save, or be stunned for a round. Stunned creatures automatically fail strength and dexterity saves, opening them up for your open hand technique, and all attacks made against them are at advantage. Also, they probably won’t be having children afterwards. That’s not in the player’s handbook, but it’s true.

7. Fighter 2: We’ve got your noble phantasm down, so now we can go back to multiclassing for style points. Second level fighters get an Action Surge once per short rest, giving them an extra action in a single turn. You’d be surprised how much you can squeeze into a summer day.

8. Fighter 3: You’re all about grace, and there’s no martial archetype that’s more graceful than the Samurai! You can activate your Fighting Spirit as a bonus action, giving you advantage on all of your attacks for that turn three times per long rest. You also get some temporary HP to help out with the not dying thing. On top of that, you also get History proficiency. You literally lived through plenty of historical events, I’m sure you remember them.

9. Fighter 4: For some more blessings of the fox god, use this ASI to grab the Lucky feat. This gives you three luck points per long rest that can be cashed in for an additional d20 roll for an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check involving you. You can choose either the normal result of the roll, or your lucky roll.

10. Fighter 5: To make up for how powerful that last level was, this one gives you literally nothing. Extra attacks don’t stack.

11. Fighter 6: Another ASI already? Bump up your Wisdom for a better AC and stronger stunning strikes.

12. Fighter 7: At seventh level, you’re an Elegant Courtier, letting you add your wisdom modifier to persuasion rolls, and you become proficient in wisdom saves. We aren’t spending any ASIs to improve your fluffy tails, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t the center of attention.

13. Fighter 8: Your last fighter level gives you yet another ASI. Max out your Wisdom and start on your Dexterity. Turns out monks are pretty predictable.

14. Monk 6: Oh yeah that’s right, you’re a monk! This level gives you Ki-Empowered Strikes, making your unarmed attacks magical against resistances. You also gain a Wholeness of Body, spending an action to heal yourself for three times your monk level once per long rest.

15. Monk 7: Seventh level monks know Evasion, meaning you take half damage from failed dexterity saves and no damage from successes. You also gain a Stillness of Mind that lets you end a charming or frightening effect as an action. Freaking out ain’t gucci.

16. Monk 8: Eighth level monks get another ASI, bringing your Dexterity one step closer to perfection.

17. Monk 9: At ninth level, you get an Unarmored Movement Improvement, allowing you to run up walls and over water. You still go into the water if you end your turn there though, so swimming’s still an option.

18. Monk 10: Your Purity of (beach) Body makes you immune to disease and poison. It’s a shame you couldn’t extend this to master, it might’ve helped.

19. Monk 11: Your Tranquility makes you much harder to hit, giving you the effect of a Sanctuary spell after each long rest that lasts until your next long rest, or until you attack or cast a spell on an enemy. Creatures attacking you must make a wisdom save against your monk DC (8 + wisdom modifier + proficiency) or redirect the attack.

20. Monk 12: You get one last ASI for you capstone, so grab the Piercer feat. This rounds out your Dexterity, and once per turn you can re-roll a die of piercing damage. Also, when you score a critical hit, you can add an extra die to the damage. It’s not particularly useful, but it’s better than leaving one completely useless skill point lying around.

Pros:

If your enemies want to hit you, they’ll have to get past 20 AC, your parasol, probably a dodge, your evasion, your luck, and your tranquility. That is to say, you’re pretty hard to hit.

With maxed out wisdom and the ability to shove advantage on your attacks, your stunning strikes can be a serious issue for your enemies. Who needs a boss fight when you can just slap an immobile target for a bit?

You come pre-packaged with plenty of self-healing. Hitting you in the first place is annoying, but hitting you enough to make up for your heals is demoralizing.

Cons:

You don’t have a lot of HP, meaning someone who can reliably break through your defenses might make short work of you.

Playing to character means you only have your fists, your feet, and your umbrella. You might have noticed none of those are ranged attacks. Javelins and bows are always an option, of course, but playing strictly to character will be a problem.

Most of you levels are monk, which means you don’t get many attacks to use with your Fighting Spirit. It’s almost like we took the subclass purely to make you super elegant, and everything else was a side effect or something.

#Fate Grand Order #FGO #D&D 5e #Tamamo no Mae #Fate and Phantasms #Monk #Fighter

[rpbetter]

what's the nicest possible way to tell a close friend their roleplay blogs suck and if they want followers and interaction like they keep complaining about they have to actually put effort into it instead of just making blog after blog and slapping a character on it like that's they need to do. I've tried to suggest this to her before by comparing other blogs that play her muse but she just feels inadequate instead of inspired to emulate them which I understand but it's very frustrating when I suggest a million ways to make her blog better and she brushes them all off for one reason or another and I don't want to say anything because she's like a sister to me. sigh.

Unfortunately, the short answer to this is that there really isn't any way you can make her see this unless she's ready to see it.

But, I don't like giving those sorts of answers, they feel hopeless and shitty, so, let's try this...

Understanding what the problem with your friend and her connecting with this information is, is important. It might help in talking to her about the issue.

What I find in these instances, and a lot of similar ones, is that the mun is unhappy about the results but quite happy with the process. She's enjoying some part of this, it's just not the lack of interaction, obviously. It's the very things she's doing to turn people off of her muses.

I think a lot of people get kind of addicted to new muses. I mean, the entire process of having a new muse:

interest to outright fixation, no matter how short-lived, in a new, inspiring muse

who is almost certainly in a new fandom, and probably, one that is very busy and popular at the moment

"someone stop me" phase, even though they've already decided

picking the perfect URL, creating the new blog, making the graphics and batches of icons

reblogging All The Content about the new muse, at least, the visual content and maybe, a couple of "oof, right in the feels" style short meta posts

plugging the new muse on the old blogs, through friends, etc.

mass follows

new mutuals! Shiny new meme asks in the inbox! New threads!

It's about the newness, the excitement, and the irrationally promising feeling that damn it, this time, the blog and muse is going to be successful, popular even, beloved, the actual favorite iteration of the character in the RPC. Like anything exciting, it's addicting for people. And like anything addicting, it can take hitting rock bottom and going several more feet down, a few times, before they're over it and want to change.

Which is, of course, where you come in with your as-yet failed RP interventions.

What makes what you're trying to do here very difficult is that there isn't a total bottoming out she's going to reach. There will always be something new and exciting coming out with a new and exciting muse that'll fix the problem, in her mind. There will always be the option and availability to create another blog, slap another muse on it, rinse and repeat. With shampoo and conditioner that never runs out.

You definitely had the right idea by trying to get her to contrast between why what she is doing isn't working the way she wants and why what someone else is doing is working out that way. It's just, as you found out, often not the best idea, no matter how well-intentioned it is. With her blogs constantly failing for reasons she refuses to believe, it's incredibly likely she's already done some comparison in all the wrong ways, ultimately going back and forth between blaming the other iterations, finding nothing but errors in the way they write the character and set up their blogs, and feeling depressed that she's not good enough, but they are.

So, you might have unintentionally inflamed all of this! She could be in a place where she's even more likely to believe that what she's doing is great as a defense mechanism for being hard on herself.

I'd also like to say that I'm aware the "right" advice here is, "there's nothing you can do, you'll just make her feel bad, people have a right to RP however they want." But, you're also her friend, and you have to be around the complaining and upset when this just keeps happening.

Furthermore, when we have very close friends like this, we automatically keep trying to fill in the gaps for them at cost to ourselves - every time they make another blog/muse, we get roped into writing things we know are just going to be dropped, making them things we know are going to left on a deserted blog, and so on. Eventually, it makes you feel bad about yourself because your efforts aren't good enough, either. It can really ruin the hobby for you, sucking away enjoyment and creativity you could be spending elsewhere.

I don't think you're wrong in trying to help both her and yourself.

Keep being honest with her. When she complains, be honest about why this is happening. And you can, indeed, be kind and honest!

Let's say that she says something about how she wrote all these opens and no one is going for them.

You could say something like, "that sucks. I liked this one, it's the one that feels and sounds like the character to me. What were you doing when you wrote that? You should rewrite the others to be a little more like that, I think people are looking for more of the character like we saw them in the series."

You're acknowledging that she's right, it does suck, it's a shitty feeling no matter how at fault for it she is. While pointing out something she did good (and, okay, maybe she didn't, maybe they all categorically sucked lol but find one that was even a tiny bit better/that has elements you can use to both boost her confidence and show her what is right, not just wrong). Then, giving her an idea - whatever she was thinking, watching, listening to at that time, she tapped into something more like the actual character, and she could do it again. And telling her what the problem is, at least with this, that people don't want a cardboard cutout muse, they want the one they like from the fandom book/show/movie.

No need to actually compare with another active mun and muse, or tell her that it's because what she's doing is terribly and driving you nuts. Even if both are true.

If she's the one that compares herself to another blog this time, seize the opportunity!

"Well, people like that the muse is developed and like the character they know. When you interact with another canon, don't you want them to be like the character you liked? You liked -current muse- for a reason. When I've felt like that, I reminded myself of why I was drawn to the character and worked harder on writing them accurately and getting their voice down. I think this other blog has done that and you haven't yet."

It's a little harsher, but she may very well only be looking for validation from you that this other blog actually sucks and she's doing great. A lot of complaints on tumblr are that - seeking validation, not help. The entire culture of that shit is not at all helpful. You don't want to try to sort of shock her out of it by being too harsh, but you do want to make it clear that you're not going to just give ass pats and tell her what she wants to hear.

You're telling her why this other blog is more successful, that the muse comes off as the character and is enjoyable to write with. Because the mun put in the effort to make them both accurate to the character and a muse that's fun/interesting/engaging to write with in RP.*

*Not all characters transfer over well to RP, either, and this might also be some of her problem. For whatever reason, some people are deeply drawn to the worst possible choices for them. They will find the least applicable character in a whole series, one with a billion characters that spans decades of material, plenty of viable options all around, but no, it's got to be this one. The one that's impossible for them to pull off, boring or disliked by the fandom, is incredibly difficult to interact with (think manic pixie bullshit, villains that are extreme loners, incredibly quiet and reserved characters, or those who are only ever seen in their canon to be bantering with friends and enemies - people they have established relationships with, unlike someone else's muse, even if that muse is a canonical friend or enemy), or is an active turn off in RP, like an outrageously overpowered character whose entire existence is based on being OP as fuck. That's going to be what they go for. Every. Damn. Time.

If you notice she's doing this, she could be compensating without even realizing it by turning the string of muses into identical and empty clichés she thinks people want to interact with, but that she can still handle writing. And unfortunately, your job is even harder, OP, because everyone has a character type...and your bestie's is Fucking Impossible to RP for 90% of the RPC Population Type lmao I'm...I'm so sorry.

Maybe if this is the case, you can get her to try out a different character that has some of the traits you've noticed she seems to always be drawn to, but without the complications. Work smarter, not harder, though! Propose this as you desperately wanting your muse to interact with x. Some people react very badly to being told "you'd write a great -muse name," others are flattered by it. If you don't know for certain that she'd be flattered, or at least not offended, that she doesn't hate this character or anything, do not say this. Just tell her that you love this character, you think she could handle them as a NPC in a thread, could she please try?

And make that the single most interesting thread in the history of threads. Specifically, for her. Give her tons of engagement with this NPC of the sort she tends to want the most. It might stick and reset some of her perspective on the types of characters she keeps choosing.

You're reminding her that she's a RPer, too, which sounds like a crazy thing to have to remind a RPer, but we do weirdly lose track of this. We get very invested in what we're putting out more than what we've successfully been given, especially when we're not being given much of what we want. So, you're prodding her to recall that there are two parts of this equation, she's been on the side of it - she's wanted to interact specifically with a canon muse because she loved the character/ship with hers/whatever, and has, as we all have, experienced both the disappointment of running through a ton of them who just are not that character and also finding the version that very much is.

This helps to put other people back into perspective in a way that isn't just "interactions." (Read as "desired attention." Which isn't a slam, it's true. It's also not a problem, we all are here to interact, we all enjoy having devoted mutuals and such. It's only a problem when we stop seeing them as anything other than a means to an end for ourselves.) She might be able to relate to them, thus, why they don't like her muses, if she can put herself back into their shoes.

You stick with that and transition it into why she picked the current muse. It's the same deal, there was something about the muse that sparked interest, creativity, etc. What was it? Something that isn't there, or there enough, in her writing. In all the excitement of muse-creation, she's probably let whatever it was slide right out the door. If you can get her to recall that feeling of interest and identify for herself what all triggered it, she might be able to stick with it.

And you've encouraged her again to give people what they want if she wants interactions by developing her muses. You've also done so, if it all applicable and true, by using yourself here, making it feel like not just a common problem, but one experienced and overcome by someone she cares about and trusts.

She might have an issue with needing a lot of high-interest, high-reward scenarios, too.

This is a high-effort, minimum reward situation for her. A lot of us in the RPC have shit like ADHD that can really make this difficult once we're experiencing it in this way, but even those who don't absolutely fall into it as well. So, you'll need ways to make it fun, but...I think if you can sort of kindly trick her into experiencing the effort as its own reward, it'd go a long, long way.

I can't really say what I do, having this problem with high-effort, minimal reward because I don't tend to experience that in RP. The writing is the reward for me, as much as I lose it utterly with happiness every time a writing partner is loving what I've given them. My reward system is set up around the writing and exploring characters. Hers seems to be set up around the reaction to it and amount of engagement with it. You need to try to use the latter to give her some of the former.

If she likes Halloween or Christmas, Fall or Winter, this could be your way into doing it!

Get her hyped about a seasonal prompt list you're doing. This does, yeah, mean you will have to do it, too lol but in the end, any time you aren't able to produce something daily like these lists usually are set up for, you're showing her that it isn't a job she's got to fulfill - the rules are only as strict as she wants to make them for herself. And if you keep yours short and fun, she'll feel like it's perfectly fine and good to do it this way as well. That it doesn't need to be a damn masterpiece or anything, just fun, something different to show off her muse.

While what she's actually doing, in addition to that, is getting in touch with and developing her muse. Importantly, when we write in a way that is just for ourselves like this, we tend to kind of...bond, for lack of a less weird sounding way of putting it, with a muse. It makes them stick with us longer, raising their importance and easier availability to us.

Let her know you're doing this, pick one out you genuinely like, and don't expect her to be down with it immediately. It's work with no foreseeable reward. Except, it's very hard to listen to our friends be excited, proud of themselves, enjoying themselves without wanting to join in. It'll be especially helpful, though, if you think people you interact with will like the posts and comment on them, or even try to turn them into threads if you include their muses (with their consent, of course, and no pressure). If she sees that, it might make it even more interesting to her. You might also have to pose this as her helping you out, that you don't think you'll get more than two done if she isn't doing it as well, as a sort of a challenge she can hold you to.

Whatever you think might work best for engaging her, you know her well, you can do it!

Be there to help her out with ideas if she goes for it. Throw out some easy, fun suggestions you think she might like, that even give her some opportunity to write something with her muse that she doesn't get a chance to. Pull from the muse's canon, is there something in their canon that goes with the prompt word "snow," for instance? Is it something she enjoyed about the canon story? Suggest it. Thinking about both the muse and your friend, is there something else that came to mind about that prompt you could suggest? Do it!

Again, whatever she's most into, it's an angle. Humor? Her serious muse is forced into a ridiculous, funny situation that involves the snow. Angst? A sad memory associated with the snow. Shipping? A romantic, fluffy scene (or steamy one). And so on.

Be there to express interest and encouragement while she's doing it. Don't do things that are going to come off as pressuring or helicopter moming her, of course! Like, asking how much she's gotten done, did she start working on it yet? That's a bad idea, unless she enjoys that sort of thing. Instead, tell her how much you can't wait to see this, ask about how it's going, tell her about yours to encourage her to talk about it.

And be there to be her audience when she posts it. This really seems to be her highest reward, so give it to her. Like the post, comment on the post, tell her in messages. Not individually, all of those things. If you can find a way to that doesn't mess up what you've got going on with your blog, mutuals, other friends, etc., mention it on your blog.

At this point, people might be both aware of her RP habits and wary of engaging with her, but someone might bite if you're enthused and go like the post. If it's applicable, make some jokes about it on the dash, turn it into a moment of inside joke-like crack for people to see. Mention that she wrote this and you loved it, link it or outright reblog her post. Hell, mention that you and her are doing such and such prompts for whatever holiday or season before the fact, that way, it doesn't come out of nowhere to your mutuals, either. Again, if applicable, you can ask to turn it into a thread.

The point, at this juncture, isn't to attract people to her blog and posts, it's to demonstrate to her that this is fun and rewarding. If you can get people to go like the posts, great, but you can only count on yourself to do it at first.

Most people enjoy those sorts of prompts on their dash from mutuals, though. You're always going to have some who feel like it's annoying because it wasn't strictly a RP reply, but whatever, they're not the majority in most fandoms anymore, thankfully. Point is, it's literally showing her mutuals that she's capable of thinking as her muse and working on her muse. It's showing off good things and making her muse more interesting and uniquely hers in a good way. And it's totally possible that she's going to organically generate likes, people wanting to use this as a plot with her for RP, and mutuals who are increasingly following along with every post made.

The hope is that she experiences the beginnings of more interest in the muse than she does making muses, gain some confidence in doing this with the enjoyment of it, and stick with a muse longer than five seconds so that she can actually end up with the interactions she wants.

There are definitely other ways of doing this, the prompt thing just came to mind because it's major prompt season. You've got a prompt list floating around for literally every popular point of interest right now, from whump to extreme fluff to horror to humor. And it's going to keep going until January. It's also something that can be as short as a paragraph or as long as several thousand words, and that a hell of a lot of people don't do all of. So, it's easy, so long as she's got a reason to find it interesting and stay on course with it even a little bit.

You could also try getting her into doing something like moodboards for her muse but with little additions of writing that go along with them. Nothing major, just things like a quote from her muse or a sentence from a starter, thread, whatever.

So long as you can get her to start refocusing on RP being enjoyable from the inside and not just the outside, it's valid as hell to try it! She seems to be experiencing RP as instant gratification and basing that gratification on things she can't control, like popularity.

Right now, even giving her the sober truth that one can write the best version of a canon muse there is to be found, be someone enjoyable and interesting in OOC interactions, and be an amazing writer without that being enough to garner popularity, or even the plots that are wanted. That being a very popular RPer and having more interactions than you know what to do with (honestly sucks ass) isn't a set of absolute values, but rather, variables that are always in flux and often, totally mysterious. It's usually a mixture of total luck, visual appeal, and both mun being on point with what people want to see right this second and muse being the mixture of fanon that is desirable, also, right at this exact second. It is seriously not within anyone's control, no matter how much effort, quality, or even outright bullshit they have to put out there.

If she's ever going to stick to a muse and not find herself envious, upset, and bored it's absolutely got to come from herself. She's got to be popular with herself, enjoying herself regardless of what others are seemingly achieving or want to give her. It's not going to be recognized no matter how harsh or sweet you are about the problem, unless she's capable of really looking at those problems as problems, and I don't think she's going to get to that point through negatively bottoming out. She might get there through the opposite, though!

It's...just going to take a lot of effort and patience from you, with no expectation of reward yourself.

Because it's still likely as hell it's just not going to happen. And while it seems like you are the kind of friend who would find the effort worth it because you care and are invested in her, please know that there's no shame in merely contemplating this and noping right out.

You've got a life and are trying to enjoy the hobby as well! And if it seems like something that could sour your friendship? It's not worth it. You're better off just accepting that she'll inevitably tire of doing this and move on to another hobby, maybe decide to do fandom blogs or something instead that you can support her in.

It's definitely an unenviable and frustrating position you're in. All you can really do is try not to let this negatively impact the friendship, to keep refraining from just outright telling her things she'd find hurtful, and try your best to show her that it's rewarding to develop the muse and stick with it, not a task. That there are improvements she can make to her blog, and that it isn't a negative reflection on her that they can be made. You can try all the compassionate trickery in the world to lead her there, but it's ultimately up to her whether she brushes this off as well, don't let it hurt your feelings or exasperate you too much!

Also, it's totally possible that even if you met through RP and/or it has been a big part of the friendship, you might have grown in different directions in the hobby.

Growing within the hobby is inherent to any hobby you stick to for long enough, especially if you started out in it young. Some people seamlessly just keep growing to things that make them happy, others experience a lot of growing pains along the way as they're maybe ready for change, but only in select areas they have to discover for themselves. Still others grow in a way that doesn't make them very happy, but they're both not ready (or willing) to approach why and what they can do, and also still too attached to the good times they had to reassess whether it's still something they want to do, or if it's something better moved away from into something else.

That's always very difficult as a friend. Difficult in watching your friends not go the same directions as you anymore, even in something as comparatively silly as a hobby, in seeing them not enjoying themselves, and in the possibility that it could signal the end of enjoying the hobby with them. It's sad and frustrating, and can feel lonely, but if you're close enough friends, you've got so many other things to still be good friends over, so keep that in mind!

She might need to keep doing this with her blog and muse situation until she comes not to the realization that she needs to change how she's RPing to get what she wants, but rather, that she wants to stop RPing. That could be the burnout that happens here eventually, but again, not only can you still be great friends, if it makes her happier, it's good.

#answered #anonymous #rp problems #rp advice

[adenei]

Yay yay yay platonic Rarry! I want more. A lot more! I love friendship fics between Ron and Harry ❤️

Hi anon! Here’s some more platonic Rarry for you (with side Romione and Hinny because I couldn’t resist.) Hope you enjoy!

*************************

Taking the next step

“Want to take the afternoon off if we get through all this paperwork?” Ron asked Harry. They were both sitting at their desks in the Auror office, having gotten a brief reprieve from being in the field.

Harry looked up from what he was doing. “What’d you have in mind?” he asked.

“I could use your help with something,” Ron said noncommittally.

Harry stared at him before saying, “Okay…”

“You’re not opposed to using glamour charms and disguising ourselves, are you?” Ron asked. 

“No. Mate, do you have some secret Auror mission you’re trying to investigate or something?” Harry asked.

“What? No, ‘course not! I just think it’d be best if we weren’t seen by anyone who would recognize us. I’ll explain when we’re out of the Ministry.”

“Alright,” Harry said as he went back to his work. He trusted Ron, and was sure he had a good reason for whatever he had planned. The afternoon came faster than he’d expected, and the pile on both of their desks had become significantly less.

“Ready?” Ron asked. 

“Sure. Are you going to send a note to Hermione letting her know that you’re leaving?” Harry asked.

“Er, no, she doesn’t need to know. I’ll send a patronus if we end up being later than expected.” Ron said. “Lunch in muggle London first?”

Harry was surprised that Ron wasn’t telling Hermione, but tried to hide it. “Alright.”

They stopped at a quiet cafe a few blocks into Muggle London that had a good selection of sandwiches. After they placed their order, Harry looked at Ron.

“Alright, what’s really going on that you’re being all secretive about?”

“I want to look for a ring,” Ron told him.

Harry stared at him, processing his words. He wasn’t surprised in the least. The girls had just finished at Hogwarts a few months prior. 

“Wow, really? That’s great, mate! How’d you know?” Harry was genuinely interested, since he’d been thinking about how long he should wait before he started shopping for one for Ginny.

“Honestly? I’ve known it for so long, and things are finally starting to settle into some normalcy in our lives, and it just feels right.”

Harry nodded. “That makes sense. But why not just shop in Muggle London? There are plenty of jewelers, and then you can avoid the prying eyes of people in Diagon Alley.”

“Magical jewelry is different, mate.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes, “Honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised when you ask questions like that anymore, and yet here we are.” Ron laughed at himself.

“How?” Harry asked interestedly, pretending he didn’t hear Ron’s jab about Harry’s continued lack of magical knowledge.

“Well, it’s kind of like shopping for a wand, isn’t it? It’s not that the ring chooses the person like a wand does, but there’s magic embedded in the ring that’s drawn to certain dynamics of couples, and the right choice will help strengthen the bond between them. So like, the ring I’d choose for Hermione would be different from the one you’d choose for Ginny...if that’s something you decide to do, too, of course. There’s really more to it than just style and diamond cut and band, and all that other rubbish I’ve been trying to read up on in secret,” Ron explained.

Harry nodded, “So, have you guys talked at all about it or is this going to be a complete surprise?”

“What do you mean? We’ve talked about our future together, but Hermione’s not really the type to gush over a princess cut, or side stones, or the difference between white gold and silver…” Ron droned on.

Harry snorted, “ I think you need to lay off the research. Are you hearing yourself right now?”

“Oi! How much thought have you given it?”

“Enough to figure that I’d just know what would suit Ginny when I see it? She’s not exactly the ‘froo froo’ type either,” 

Ron nodded in agreement. “See? That’s exactly my point!”

Harry looked at him as if he’d grown two heads. “So has Hermione ever actually talked about what kind of ring she wants?”

Ron stared blankly back at him. “Er, no. That’s why I asked you to come along. We’ve only ever talked about the future in relation to being married and how many kids and where we’re going to live...we’ve never really discussed the engagement part of it..”

They were interrupted by the arrival of their food. “Ah, so you proposing is nowhere near on her radar,” Harry said. 

“Hopefully not, but I’d like her to be bloody surprised for once in her life. She’s got everything too planned out.”

“That she does. So what are you thinking?”

“Well, you know how we were talking a while back about taking a holiday together? I thought it might be perfect to set that up and plan for it, then. It can still be a private proposal, but we’d also have you and Ginny to celebrate with, and we could enjoy it before having Mum go crazy at the announcement.”

“Oh, excellent idea! When are you thinking?” Harry asked. “I could use a break.”

“Ginny’s got a gap in her season coming up next month, yeah? We could go then?”

“Sounds brilliant, but how are you going to pry Hermione away from work? She’s barely getting started, so you know how she’s going to react to taking a vacation so soon.”

“Well, luckily she’s got to use some of her paid time off before the end of the year. Only half of it will carry over.”

“Brilliant, really brilliant mate. Maybe we should go book the trip this afternoon, too so they can’t talk us out of it,” Harry suggested.

Ron looked up from his sandwich excitedly. “See, I knew I could count on bringing you along! I might have to send that patronus to Hermione after all.”

*********************

After they finished their lunch, they paid and left the cafe, heading for a dark alleyway just down the street. They altered their appearances using glamour charms so no one would recognize them when they returned to Diagon Alley. As they made their way to the jeweler, they brainstormed different locations for the trip, and ultimately decided on southern Italy. They both agreed that that would be the most memorable and romantic for Hermione when it came to the proposal.

They walked into the jewelry shop and began looking as the shopkeeper was helping another customer. Ron was browsing along the glass cases when he saw one that caught his eye. It was a yellow gold vintage band with a round brilliant diamond cut in a cathedral setting. There were four single cut accent diamonds on either side of the center stone. The ring was unlike anything he’d ever seen.

“Ah, yes, the brilliant cathedral in traditional gold. This one is rather rare when it comes to browsing patrons,” the jeweler said to Ron. “It signifies the test of time, and is best suited for a couple that is deeply devoted to each other. I haven’t seen a pairing for one of these in quite some time.”

“Oh? Should I, er look at something else?” Ron asked awkwardly.

“No, no, I meant that as a compliment. The ring is sensing the love and devotion you have for your other half. It absolutely suits you.” Harry walked over to see what Ron had found. “I should warn you though, if you choose this one, it’s best not to wait too long. You may lose the strength in the bond it feels.”

Harry tried to stifle a laugh. “Hear that, mate? Don’t wait another seven years to pop the question.”

“Bugger off, Barry.” Ron said (they’d agreed that code names would be best as well, just in case). “I’ll take it,” he said without hesitation.

“Excellent! And might I show your friend a particular piece that I can sense pulling towards him?”

Harry shrugged as Ron eyed him curiously. The shopkeeper let them over to another class case and pulled out a silver band that held a solitaire diamond. “A simple white gold band with a radiant cut diamond. Fit for an easygoing couple that understands balance in an ever busy life.” 

Despite Harry’s high profile life, this did fit them well. He and Ginny had always had a mutual understanding of the hardships they’d been through since the war had ended, and they’d worked hard to be more open and candid with each other as a result. The ring certainly suited Ginny’s personality well.

Harry gave Ron a tentative look. “If it feels right, go for it, mate.”

“But this is about you and Helena,” Harry made up a fake name on the spot for Hermione.

“Yeah, but if that’s really what you want with Minnie then go for it. Just, don’t hijack my plans.”

Harry thought for a moment, and knew deep down that ultimately this was the direction he wanted to go in with Ginny. He hadn’t been happier since they were able to pick their relationship back up, and he couldn’t see himself with anyone else. “Yeah, alright, I’ll take it,” Harry said as he broke out into a huge grin.

“Look at us, growing up and thinking about next steps,” Ron said.

“Yeah, who knew we’d even be here to see the day,” he said quietly.

They took turns checking out, setting up transfers to be made from their Gringotts accounts, and once their true identities were revealed, Ron pulled out nondisclosure agreements to ensure their anonymity from the press. This wasn’t something he was going to chance being ruined because of one person.

“That was brilliant thinking, mate,” Harry said as they walked out of the store, still in disguise. “Ready to head over to Globus Mundi?” 

“Let’s go. I think we can ditch the disguises there, but let’s transfigure the bags just in case.”

“Good thinking.”

“So when are you thinking of popping the question?” Ron asked him eagerly.

“Well, I’m not going to do it too close to you guys. Was thinking maybe around the holidays. That’ll give Hermione enough time in the spotlight.”

Ron nodded. “Thanks, mate. You’ll be my best man, yeah?”

Harry laughed and said, “Isn’t it a little early to ask? She might not say yes.”

“Very funny, Harry.” Though a look of worry creased Ron’s brows.

“I’m just kidding! Of course, I will, as long as you’ll do the same for me.”

“I don’t know...for a specky git like you? I wouldn’t want to overshadow you with my handsome looks, after all,” Ron said with a smirk.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Yeah, alright, I deserved that.” They both laughed some more. 

“Come on, we’ve got a vacation to plan!” as Ron picked up the pace.

[ifuckinglovestvincent]

LATIMES: For St. Vincent, life under COVID has meant recording a soul-baring podcast and binging on Stalin

Annie Clark, who performs as St. Vincent, in her home studio: “I divide my life into albums.” [Leah Lehrer]

By RANDALL ROBERTS

STAFF WRITER

AUG. 26, 2020 2:15 PM

During a recent conversation, Annie Clark, the Grammy-winning musician who performs as St. Vincent, confessed that she had, quite literally, nothing else scheduled for the day. She had awakened, she explained, knowing that her only obligation would occur at precisely 2 p.m.

“The crazy thing is, because there’s nothing to divide a day, having anything on the calendar to do feels almost overwhelming,” she said. “Like, what am I going to do now that I have this one 20-minute thing that must happen at this specific time? It’s very strange. It’ll be interesting to go back, in some way, to all the spinning plates.”

On Monday, Clark’s new audio project, “St. Vincent: Words + Music,” premieres on Audible, the online audiobook and podcast platform. A 90-minute first-person deep dive into her life and music, the program is interspersed with revelatory new versions of some of St. Vincent’s most popular songs. She offers a fresh rendition of 2007’s “Marry Me,” for example, that highlights dizzying string arrangements absent from the original version.

For St. Vincent obsessives, these versions are essential listens, as are her recollections on her early years as part of the Texas music collective the Polyphonic Spree and her decision to embark on a solo career under a pseudonym. For passing fans, Clark’s conversational way of speaking about the evolution of her work across six studio albums (including “Love This Giant,” her 2012 collaboration with David Byrne) provides a glimpse into her creative methods. An artist whose work has evolved from guitar-driven indie rock to increasingly experimental work filled with electronics and vocal effects, St. Vincent’s music has at this point transcended genre.

The project is part of Audible’s “Words + Music” series, which includes “Patti Smith at the Minetta Lane,” James Taylor’s “Break Shot,” Common’s “Bluebird Memories: A Journey Through Lyrics & Life” and Rufus Wainwright’s “Road Trip Elegies: Montreal to New York.”

Clark, 37, recently spoke to The Times from her home in Los Angeles.

“I have this theory,” says St. Vincent, “that people who are creative for a living were really dumbstruck, creatively, by the pandemic.” [Leah Lehrer]

How much podcast and audiobook listening do you typically do?

I’m obsessed with podcasts and audiobooks. I probably listen to more audiobooks than I do music. I mean, I certainly listen to music — for enjoyment, for research, for just making sure I know what is happening. Luckily, maybe because I’m a musician, I can retain a lot of information that comes through on the auditory side. I mean, I’ve really been brushing up on my Stalin.

You’ve brushed up on your Stalin?

It makes me feel much better about where we are today. Because they had it bad.

It’s pretty bad now.

It’s really bad now. But it was worse. I’ll go ahead and say it was worse in Stalin’s Russia. So there we are. That makes me feel bright and sunny. I’ve been on a real saucy Gulag Stalin kick for the past many months. Cold war, espionage — all of it.

You want to recommend any specific podcasts or books?

Oh God, we shouldn’t be talking about Stalin. This is already a disaster. I haven’t done this in a minute, you know what I mean? I don’t have my talking points all figured out.

I hope this isn’t a disaster.

No, but if we lead with Stalin, it’s not going to go well for me. Let’s talk about this Audible thing, because it was a lovely experience. It was fun to take old songs and reinvent them. There’s a version of “Digital Witness” on this that’s really funky and I love it. I’m glad they gave me a reason to look at my back catalog and reinvent some old songs.

Did you enjoy the process of recalling where you were in your life during various points?

I did. I divide my life into albums, instead of the other markers of time that most people have. I can go, “Oh, I was in the middle of this tour, and this is what was going on in my life and this is what I was writing about as a result.” That part of it was kind of an archaeological dig.

You reveal a few experiences in the program about your family and private life. I didn’t know, for example, about your father’s white-collar crimes, which landed him in prison in the early ’00s. Did you have any hesitation about engaging with parts of your life that aren’t related to your music?

I would have a long time ago, and I certainly did while it was all going on. I’ve always wanted people to enjoy and take in my music for what the music was. I don’t want it to be like a piece of art on the wall that needs an explanation in order to enjoy it. I want it to be enjoyed and interpreted on its own merit. I don’t think that it makes art more valid because it came from really horrible circumstances. I don’t necessarily want to mythologize something that’s actually quite normal. Things happen. And the crazy thing is to expect otherwise.

I think that in the past I felt way more protective of my family and my privacy because he was still in there. But since then, he’s been released, and we have a great relationship. It’s been a wonderful story of reconciliation, change, forgiveness, all those things. That’s why I feel fine about throwing it out there, because frankly, it had the happiest possible ending.

Another story you share is about being groped during a performance while you were stage-diving, and reacting by hitting the fan with your microphone. Have you stopped stage-diving since that happened?

Yes, stage-diving in that particular way. During the “Strange Mercy” tour, I was straight up hurling myself into the crowd and getting some pretty sick dives in. But then during the “St. Vincent” tour, I was definitely going into the crowd but more like jumping on the backs of security guards and running through that way. I still love the fan interaction. It’s not necessarily the end of my stage-diving days.

A lot of creative people I know are having a hard time with their muse right now. How are you doing with that?

I’m doing OK. It’s been a really productive time, but in a different way. I have this theory that people who are creative for a living were dumbstruck, creatively, by the pandemic, because we all need an element of chaos in our day to be able to grab inspiration. I know that’s a cheesy word, but we need to be able to be walking down the street, see that strange thing that somebody did and think about it, metabolize it and write about it.

People who are creative for a living have had a very hard time being creative during the pandemic. But a lot of people who aren’t necessarily creative for a living are like, “It’s a great time. I’ve finally learned how to knit and I finally wrote that short story that I‘d been meaning to do.” My informal poll of my fellow writers is that they’re banging their heads against the wall. But other people learned how to crochet or how to play “Sweet Home Alabama,” and that’s awesome.

Have you considered how you might present yourself as a performer going forward if, because of the coronavirus, the concert experience evolves into something unrecognizable?

I think about it every day. I wouldn’t imagine that things will ever be exactly back to normal, in terms of live touring. There’s a whole lot of other ways to get creative about how to reach people. And not just how to reach people but have the actual intimacy and energetic exchange of a show. The need for that kind of communion isn’t going to go away. I don’t think that’ll ever go away. It’s going to change, and it’s changed many times over the course of history. But yes, I think about it every day.

I think things that people love, they’re going to love even more, and they aren’t going to fall for things that they don’t love. Everything’s been put into sharp focus. Everybody’s figured out, more and more, what they actually need and what they don’t in these crazy times. I certainly don’t mean to minimize the actual human condition on the ground. But I think it’s going to be an exciting time for art. And that’s a silver lining.

#st vincent #annie clark #audible #interviews #A DEEP DIVE #INTO HER LIFE #AND MUSIC #YALL #also ‘passing fans’ like #have they met a st vincent fan #ALSO I DID NOT KNOW HER DAD WAS RELEASED #!!!! #!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[3starsquinn]

Study Mary || Connor & Orion

Timing: Weekend of 10/17, right before Rio’s birthday

Setting: The Scribrary

Parties: Rio and @connorspiracy

Summary: Rio gets the chance to show off the Scribrary to Connor so they can try to research Bloody Mary. Their search yields minimal results.

Orion has grown accustomed to this. Apparently, the friends that he had been making around town were all just involved in the supernatural as he was. Rio had lists of things he needed to look into at the Scribrary, why not had a ghost of legend come to life to his queue. He pulled into a parking lot on the campus where he was supposed to meet Connor and sat in his car until Connor got there. “Hey!” He waved, “So the building is in the woods behind the campus. Cars can’t get there anymore, so it’s a bit of a walk. The place isn’t exactly… modern. I’ve been trying to clean the place out but it’s really outdated. You ready?”

Connor had several Go Pros on him, along with his regular camera and phone. He didn’t know exactly how much Rio wanted him to film, if anything, but he was curious about this place, and was interested to get it on camera. People made documentaries about crappy things all the time. Why should this be any different? “What, no state of the art streaming set ups in every room?” Connor shook his head. “You should be ashamed,” he teased, giving Rio a wink. “Alright. Lead the way then. Blanche and Adam mentioned you’re kind of the book bloke, so I figured if anyone can find something on Bloody Mary, it’d be you.” He followed wherever Rio led, interested to see the place where Rio housed his books. “Isn’t it a pain in the arse coming here all the time? You ever thought about digitalising it?” 

Orion led the way through the woods. The terrain wasn’t perfect, but it had been worn down from the myriad of trips that Rio and some others had taken to the place. Although he had been more open and willing to show the place to people he still kept access pretty limited. As it was, he had only actually shown a few people how to get into the building. Everyone else needed an escort. “Ha ha. Very funny. I haven’t really gotten the chance to set up internet yet. It’d be a bit difficult to explain that to Spectrum.” Regardless, he appreciated the compliments from Blanche and Adam. He wasn’t sure he believed the kind words, but it was still flattering nonetheless. “I’m pretty used to the hike now, actually. Before I moved in with Winston I sort of lived here for a bit. Unofficially.” Rio’s favorite part about showing the building off to people was getting to the empty clearing where it sat shrouded by magic. “Actually Winston and I are working on digitizing it! They’re building a website and everything and I’m working on moving things over but… well you’ll see for yourself. It’s a lot of stuff to switch over.” Rio moved towards the rotting tree, using the same method his uncle had shown him so many years ago to make the building visible. Once he was done it was as if an invisible fog began to lift as the building slowly became visible. “So uh- The building looks old but I promise it’s safe. The library is a little cleaner than the rest of the space.”

Connor followed, grateful he hadn’t worn any of his nicer clothes for this trip. “This town and its bloody forests,” he joked, grunting as a branch snagged on his jeans. “How’d you even find this place?” It didn’t seem like the sort of place you’d stumble on by accident. Which was probably a good thing, because having all this information out in the woods stuck him as pretty risky. “Winston’s your room mate, yeah? I think Blanche or someone mentioned they’re into computers and gaming and stuff.” He watched as Rio found the way in, raising an impressed eyebrow. “Damn, should’ve filmed this part so I can come back later without you,” he teased. “I’m not scared of rotting old buildings, mate. Look who you’re talking to.” He turned on the GoPro to take some shots, and pulled out his phone too for good measure. He’d probably set up a steady-cam when they were settled in. “Are there ghosts here? It seems haunted as fuck,” he snickered, but followed Rio inside, wide-eyed and impressed. “Damn, I could spend hours exploring this place.” 

“Well this building used to belong to a group of people called the Scribes,” Orion began explaining, though he didn’t want to focus too much on them and bore Connor to sleep, “They used to keep records of the supernatural. My uncle wanted to be one of them. He showed me this place when I was a kid.” Rio was actually surprised that Connor hadn’t met Winston yet given the way the town usually worked, “Yeah! I moved in with them and our roommate Ricky a few months ago. Winston’s a genius with all the computer stuff, way better than me.” Probably not the best resume seller when Connor had just officially hired him to help film and edit, but Rio tended to be painfully honest. Especially when it came to complimenting Winston. “Ha! Okay, yeah fair point. You are alarmingly unafraid of sketchy architecture.” Rio opened the front doors and made his way down the hallways, winding back through the building and towards the library. “Your guess is as good as mine, honestly. I’ve never seen but, but I guess I wouldn’t. You might like to hear that this place has a ton of rooms that are locked and I still can’t get open.”

Rio wiggled his eyebrows and grinned, clearly something that might pique Connor’s curiosity. At the end of the hallway, Rio pushed the big door open into the massive library, book shelves going two more levels and sprawling from floor to ceiling. “Yeah it’s uh- pretty crazy right? This is why I’m still working on digitizing” Rio shrugged but found one of the old work desks and jumped up on it, pulling his laptop free from his bag and opening it up. “But I do have the place mostly organized. My guess is we should start in the section about ghosts and spirits?”

"Oh yeah. I think I've heard of 'em. Used to safeguard supernatural knowledge, have big old archives and stuff. I guess that makes sense." Connor knew about ghosts, demons and the varying types of supernatural to the extent that was expected for someone who made his living filming videos about it, but when they made their way to the massive library, he was struck with the realisation that no matter how much he tried to learn, there'd always be more to know. The fact both excited and intimidated him. "This is sick, mate," he said, rubbing his hands together with enthusiasm as he scoured the shelves. "Right, where’s that section then? We should start with Bloody Mary, yeah? And then maybe possessions and polters, see if we can find something that'll help Nadia and my mate." 

Orion liked seeing people’s reactions to the place. It reminded him of his own reaction when his uncle had brought him here so many years ago. Rio had always been fascinated with books and learning, so his excitement wasn’t surprising. But he liked seeing how his friends reacted to the space. “Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.” Rio laughed, pointing over one of the tables, “I keep a hoard of snacks under the table over there. I got soda and junk food if you want to grab anything.” Rio would swoop by and grab something once he figured out exactly where they would start looking. Though he was far from ever completing his goal of completely digitizing the place, Rio had gotten the place fairly organized and had mostly made sure that things had stayed organized. To the point that Rio asked when people borrowed things they just returned them on the tables so Rio could be in charge of putting them back.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and there will be an entire journal labelled Bloody Mary. But until then I think we will just have to scour the section on spirits and hope for the best.” Orion wished he had something more concrete, but for now he could only hop up from the table and lead Connor towards the ghost section, taking a small detour to grab a drink before doing so. The ghost section stayed on the first floor, mostly because it was one of the more common ones he had pulled information for. Side effects of his friendship with Blanche no doubt. “Pull anything that looks like it might be useful and we can start going through them, okay? Some of the old Scribes kept journals and I’ll grab them just in case something like this has appended before.” 

"I love places like this," Connor enthused, hands running along the spines of the dusty books on the shelves. He could see why Rio and Winston were having a tough job digitalizing everything. "It's like a supernatural treasure trove. Do they have anything else cool? Old artefacts or anything?" His inner supernatural geek bubbled to the surface for a few moments before he remembered why they were here, and he gave a shrug. "Something cool to look into after we sent Bloody Mary Bloody Packing," he said with a goofy smile. "It can't all be doom and gloom." Connor had a knack for finding the silver lining in dark situations. He liked to think it was part of what made him fun to watch. 

"Ghosts and spirits and ghoulies... but first, snacks." He went to where Rio had pointed, a bag of gummy bears and Lays potato chips. He'd just have to wipe his hands before touching the books. He munched on Rio's offerings as he perused the shelves, doing his best to contain his curiosity and only dig out what they actually needed. "Here's one on Malevolent Spirits. Maybe she's in there." He placed it on the pile, along with whatever Rio had pulled. "Ghosts of Scottish Legend? Sure, why not." Within a few minutes, they had quite the pile to get started on. 

“Me too, obviously. I still have a whole makeshift bedroom set up just in case I stay here too late.” Orion laughed, happy to have another person to share the knowledge with. “This place has a ton of stuff that I still don’t know about, honestly. I’ve always just been too afraid to explore the place by myself. Plus some of the doors are magically sealed. I can’t get them open.” Rio hadn’t put much thought into trying to get them open, honestly. He was curious by nature, but that curiosity wasn’t nearly as strong as Rio’s fear of danger. Way too many things could be behind that door.

Rio didn’t waste any time once they had built their stack of books. Rio wasn’t much fun once he dove into research. He had an ability to completely block out the world while he was skimming the pages. Rio flipped through pages quickly, scanning for keywords that might give any inclination that Bloody Mary had shown up before. Bonus points if there’s a way to get rid of her. Or them. Did evil spirits identify with a certain gender? Rio wasn’t willing to interrupt his reading to entertain the question. He finally perked up from his spot once he had find something interesting, mindlessly waving his hand and smacking against the table top to grab Connor’s attention. “Hey. Look at this. This chapter talks about a female spirit that anyone can see. Not just mediums or undead. The description sounds eerily like how I would describe Bloody Mary.” He handed the book of to Connor to take a look at and see for himself.

"A bedroom?" Connor teased, giving him a playfully flirtatious snicker. "My book collection brings all the boys to the yard?" Luckily, Connor wasn't actually trying to get laid, so he didn't really care if his jokes were shit. "Damn. I'd make it a challenge to open those doors." A task for another time, definitely, but one Connor certainly wouldn't forget. "How'd you come to know about this place and be the designated book-lord, anyway?" he asked, still snacking as they worked through pages, and pages, and more pages. 

Interest piqued, hopes perhaps just a little bit higher than they'd been before coming in, Connor leaned in to get a closer look at the passage Rio was talking about. "Did they give her a name? I've looked up 'Bloody Mary' in a bunch of these indexes and most of them so far take me to passages that say she's just fictional." 

“Ha ha. Hilarious.” Orion rolled his eyes at Connor but laughed. He handled the shameless flirting surprisingly well, considering how he used to be whenever someone pretty so much as spoke to him, let alone flirt. But Rio supposed a lot of that anxiety was taken away once he had started dating Winston. “It’s more like a community room anyways. It let my Scribes have a place to crash if they were deep into research. The place has a bunch of bunk beds.” Something from Connor’s tone of voice told him that the room research would be coming up at another, less chaotic time. “My uncle knew about the Scribes. He was training to be one right before the Scribes bit the dust. He brought me here when I was a kid. I think I might have been the only one in town that even knew the place was here until I started to show it to people.”

“Um, give me a minute” Orion pulled the book back towards him to scan through further, flipping pages until he finally found the word, “A theory. Right here, he says that it has a lot of similarities to modern day myths about Bloody Mary. I don’t think this guy ever confirmed anything though.” Rio flipped a few more pages, “Looks like he did some sort of study. Tried to gather a bunch of people to see who could see bloody mary.” Rio passed the book off to Connor again.

Connor edged closer to Rio to get a good look at the book. “Lemme see that…” He replaced whatever book he’d been nose-deep in with the one Rio had been reading. “You know, I think this might be her.” He read through the rest of the page, his eyes zeroing in on something down near the bottom. “Oh, mate…” He pointed to the passage, reading it out loud. “The spirit targeted only those who had taken human life; those who were innocent were spared.” He flipped through to the next page, which was so heavily water damage that it was barely more than a blur. “Great. The part about how they got rid of her is gone.” 

Though it hardly helped many others in this town, Orion breathed a sigh of relief that Bloody Mary only targeted murderers. It was a bit of a relief to know that he didn’t have to worry about the ghost trying to kill him. Whatever confidence he had dropped when he realized that the same couldn’t be side for the majority of his friend group. He knew for sure that Winston, Blanche and Nell had been involved in the resurrection of Nell’s sister. He also knew exactly what they had done in order to bring her back. And Rio wasn’t naive enough to believe that Adam had never taken a life. The anxiety spiked again and Rio forced it down by focusing instead on Connor’s words. “Great. Water damage. Of course.” Rio sighed and slid off of the table to grab his laptop. “I’m going to see if there’s anything else in here by the same Scribe that wrote that. If we can’t find anything then maybe… try to find some sort of spellcaster? If this thing was summoned, maybe someone knows ways to reverse it.”

Connor’s throat was dry, his cheeks warm as the feeling of concern overcame him. “Does that mean those high school kids who’d summoned her killed someone?” he asked, mostly to himself. “Or maybe the rule doesn’t apply if you summon her. Like, you sort of take that risk upon yourself by bringing her into the world.” He pulled out his phone to take a photo of the pages, sending them along to Nell, Adam, Jasmine and Blanche. “That’s a good idea.” Unlike Rio, he knew nothing of any potential murderers among his friends, but his interaction with Adam down at the river stuck out like a sore thumb in his mind. Adam didn’t know if he’d killed that girl or not. He’d been too drunk to remember. It had been an accident, but maybe Mary wouldn’t see it that way. “We really need to find a way to get rid of her.”

“Good question. I’ve heard summoning stuff is dangerous anyways. Maybe they did something wrong and that’s how they ended up dead. Either way it’s sad.” Orion couldn’t imagine willingly being part of something like that back when he was in high school. But he didn’t know the context of their situation. Regardless, now Rio and Connor and whoever else was around were stuck with cleaning up the mess. “Well, I can tell it’s going to be a long night. Maybe I can talk Blanche into picking up a pizza and meeting us here. Turn this into a study party? I have lots of energy drinks. Plus beds if you want to crash part way through the night!” Maybe they’d get lucky and come across something useful.

#wickedswriting #c: connor #chatzy: connor #study mary #chatzy

[eponymous-rose]

I’ve also further progressed in my Vorkosigan re-read! Memory was as wonderful as I remembered (Illyan and Miles going fishing via improvised hand grenade out of boredom is always a highlight). 

I love the way Bujold structures her books---I talked about that a bunch with Mirror Dance---but Memory is just brilliantly laid out. Miles is spiraling, Miles fucks up, Miles gets fired (the closest pop-culture parallel I can think of is a superhero having to permanently revert to their mundane secret identity), Miles’s friends manage to yank him out of the mire, and then... surprise bizarre out-of-sequence murder mystery! The victim’s not dead! Miles keeps finding clues out of sequence and realizing he was meant to be framed! And god, you’re so sure it’s Haroche right at the start and then you have that moment of “oh well shit of course he thinks Miles might have it in for the boss that just eviscerated his identity” and so you’re still surprised when that first instinct was right! And then he offers Miles his life as Naismith back. Even Cordelia placed a bet on Miles giving up his life as Vorkosigan. And... he doesn’t. Mirror Dance was about Mark fracturing himself to survive. Memory is about Miles dragging himself back together to live.

I love how Illyan takes the loss of his memory chip---it’s fundamentally a piece of him gone, but it’s also freedom from thirty years of being a tool of his emperor (and then of Aral), and his embracing this destruction of his identity and learning to move forward is such a great foil/foreshadowing for Miles’s revelation. Everything in this story is about moving forward, not without regrets, but moving forward. It’s so fitting that the romance story going on in the background is Alys and Illyan, two 60-somethings, falling in love (and god, I love the scene where Miles wanders in on them in the morning and thinks something like “huh that dress is more of an evening style isn’t it?” and then like ten hours later the penny drops).

And god, Miles and Elli. I love how this was done, how it’s made apparent that you can love someone, and they can love you, and you can be very good for each other in a lot of ways, but your circumstances can still be such that marriage will annihilate one or both of you. It’s nobody’s fault, but the inevitability and recognition of it means it’s not always a devastation: “He could feel the letting-go in them, with the easing of the tension and the terror, with the slowing of every pulse of their blood. Not pain, or not so much pain, but only a just sadness, a due measure of melancholy, quiet and right.” Even when they’re quite bizarre relationships, the relationships in these books are very mature and well-thought-out from a narrative point of view, and this is a wonderful example.

Just a really, really lovely book:

No wonder he was laughing. He wasn’t mourning a death. He was celebrating an escape.

“I’m not dead. I’m here.” He touched his scarred chest in wonder.

[...]

Harra Csurik had been almost right. It wasn’t your life again you found, going on. It was your life anew.

Aaaand on to Komarr! God! I love this book! The most Miles possible meet-cute for his future wife: board at the home of her family on an investigation, have combat flashbacks on a shopping trip with her, and wind up watching her husband die horrifically while chained to a rail on a planet with a toxic atmosphere, knowing if he reacts too strongly he’s likely to have a seizure that’ll dislodge his own breathing mask, killing him in the same terrible way. You know. Rom-com stuff.

Speaking of relationships portrayed well, Ekaterin and Tien’s disaster of a marriage is extremely chilling in its realism. Even as you absolutely detest Tien, you can see how Ekaterin got yanked into that orbit, and it’s all all all so tied in with the very same aspects of Barrayaran culture that we’ve seen Miles face: Tien destroys everything because of his perception of what the response would be to his illness (where Miles, for better or worse, never had the option of hiding it), and because of his shitty insecurities about Ekaterin’s fidelity (echoes of a young Aral come to mind). We’re given explanations (his brother’s literally impossible-to-live-up-to example) but are never expected to see them as excuses, which is a very fine line to walk. The end result is a believably fucked-up relationship that draws on parallels with every single time you’ve ever thought to yourself about a friend, “Oh god sweetie you can do so much better than him”.

And Ekaterin’s thoughts about being bound to this marriage are right along the lines of the most stick-in-the-mud traditional Barrayaran loyalties we’ve seen Miles exhibit, all tangled up in language about honor. And even though it very shortly (and mortally) becomes a moot point, I love that she gets the chance to decide to leave Tien in spite of that. 

I also love the scene between Tien and Miles, talking about Nikki’s jumpship obsession, partly because of the obvious contrast between the two of them, but mostly because it illustrates how much of Tien’s awfulness is because he’s just... fundamentally a bitter coward with no imagination.

"Well, every boy goes through that phase, I suppose. We all outgrow it. Pick up all that mess, Nikki.”

Nikki’s eyes were downcast, but narrowed in brief resentment at this, Miles could see from his angle of view. The boy bent to scoop up the last of his miniature fleet.

“Some people grow into their dreams, instead of out of them,” Miles murmured.

“That depends on whether your dreams are reasonable,” said Vorsoisson, his lips twitching in rather bleak amusement. Ah, yes. Vorsoisson must be fully aware of the secret medical bar between Nikki and his ambition.

“No, it doesn’t.” Miles smiled slightly. “It depends on how hard you grow.”

The alternating POVs between Miles and Ekaterin are charming because we get to see Miles from an external (non-hostile) point of view and get all excited about each small revelation, and then we get to see Ekaterin both from Miles’s point of view and from the point of view of her own very active inner monologue, giving us insights we would otherwise have missed since she, as Miles says in the understatement of the century, has a tendency to underreact.

Their relationship is built up very carefully: there’s an obvious mutual interest practically from the first, but they both have reason to be cautious. There are those moments of genuine rapport early on, and then the shopping trip! It’s such a clever revelation, and so layered!

Miles was traumatized at Dagoola IV by watching Beatrice fall from the shuttle in front of him: he reached out to try to catch her, and just missed, and she died. And then we have this perfectly safe little parallel, with himself and Ekaterin falling off a water feature in a shopping district, and he manages to catch her, this time... and they both go over. It’s cute and oddly triumphant...

...and then he realizes exactly what it means. If he’d caught Beatrice, he’d have gone over with her. They’d both be dead, and that revelation hits right after he’s had a whole book to figure out just how badly he wants to live. And to Ekaterin, it’s a very quick summary of what and who Miles is: he’s the man who would not let go. BUT Ekaterin ALSO frames her leaving Tien in that context: she’s not just watching him fall, but purposefully releasing her hands. It’s so twisted and so complicated and such a weird little microcosm of their respective states of mind. And while part of it is Ekaterin giving Miles the little push he needed to properly process that trauma, fundamentally and on a larger timescale it places Miles as the “I’ve been in this hole before and I know the way out” path to Ekaterin’s healing. It’s so well done.

There’s also a hell of a parallel in the physical aspect of Miles’s seizures coming on unexpectedly in moments of great stress versus the psychological aspect of Ekaterin’s whole coping mechanism being built on trying desperately not to flinch or show strong emotion.

(And I don’t know where else to put this but special shout-out to the running gag of Vorkosigan House getting gradually overrun with cats, to the point where Miles starts, apropos of nothing and on a totally different planet, asking strangers if they’d like a kitten.)

These kids! Will they make it work? I may be only halfway through the book, but I have a funny feeling things might work out...

Also, here’s the “rescue” scene in full, because it delights me so:

The root-compacted soil of the edge sagged under her weight, and she began to slide precipitously forward. She yelped; pushing backward fragmented her support totally. One wildly back-grappling arm was caught suddenly in a viselike grip, but the rest of her body turned as the soil gave way beneath her, and she found herself dangling absurdly feet-down over the pond. Her other arm, swinging around, was caught, too, and she looked up into Vorkosigan’s face above her. He was lying prone on the slope, one hand locked around each of her wrists. His teeth were clenched and grinning, his gray eyes alight.

“Let go, you idiot!” she cried.

The look on his face was weirdly, wildly exultant. “Never,” he gasped, “again--”

His half-boots were locked around... nothing, she realized, as he began to slide inexorably over the edge after her. But his death-grip never slackened. The exalted look on his face melted to sudden horrified realization. The laws of physics took precedence over heroic intent for the next couple of seconds; dirt, pebbles, vegetation, and two Barrayaran bodies all hit the chilly water more or less simultaneously.

The water, it turned out, was a bit over a meter deep. The bottom was soft with muck. She wallowed upright onto her feet, one shoe gone who knew where, sputtering and dragging her hair from her eyes and looking around frantically for Vorkosigan. Lord Vorkosigan. The water came to her waist, it ought not to be over his head---no half-booted feet were sticking up like waving stumps anywhere---could he swim?

He popped up beside her, and blew muddy water out of his mouth, and dashed it from his eyes to clear his vision. His beautiful suit was sodden, and a water-plant dangled over one ear. He clawed it away, and located her, his hand going toward her and then stopping.

“Oh,” said Ekaterin faintly. “Drat.”

There was a meditative pause before Lord Vorkosigan spoke. “Madame Vorsoisson,” he said mildly at last, “has it ever occurred to you that you may be just a touch oversocialized?”

#vorkosigan saga #vorkosigan saga spoilers #long text post

[magnhild]

let’s talk about nora valkyrie

warning: this post is not a solid, coherent discussion. it is simply a mess of my thoughts and ideas and is rather messy. also, it contains spoilers for volume 7 of rwby, but if you can see this post then you’re probably all caught up and don’t have spoilers tagged.

so anyway let’s get into it.

I’ve always loved Nora, there’s never been any doubt about that. but at the same time, she’s always off to the side, hasn’t done too much to contribute to the plot and arguably hasn’t had any character development either. This volume though is where I think that changes. Volume 7 is truly taking steps to make sure we know she’s part of the main cast alongside her teammates and RWBY, to the point where she’s now joined Yang and Blake as one of my top favourite characters. And I think she’s going to be far more important in this volume and possibly the next ones than any of us anticipated.

Some of us had already picked up that there was more to Nora than one would first think. We’ve picked up on her brutal honesty and her surprising perceptiveness, both when it comes to people’s feelings and how to potentially solve issues. She’s certainly smarter than most people give her credit for. But volume 7 is bringing all this to the surface so that everyone can see, and I don’t think they’re just doing so for no reason. They could easily have Blake taking her role in the story, or maybe even Ruby or Weiss. But of all people, it’s Nora who’s standing up more than any of the main cast for Mantle’s wellbeing and calling Ironwood out for what he’s doing to harm it. For her, it almost seems personal, with episode 7 seeing her get angrier than we’ve ever seen her before. In fact, aside from direct confrontation with villains, we’ve rarely seen any character get this angry so far in the show. I’ve seen people say that it’s because she was an orphan and she doesn’t want to see the people of Mantle go through what she did, but I don’t think it’s that simple. After all, Ren was an orphan too, but he seems to be taking the opposite stance to her (and that’s a whole other can of worms). No, I think- and disclaimer, I’m not claiming to have come up with this- that Mantle is Nora’s original hometown and where she spent her life before somehow winding up in Anima. After all, we have absolutely no knowledge of where she came from or went through before meeting Ren aside from the fact that she was not from Kuroyuri. As for further details on her backstory, there are several possibilities. Maybe her family were extremely poor and suffered greatly from the city’s circumstances. Maybe she’s the child of a human-faunus couple and faced discrimination from both humans and faunus as a result, especially given the racism of Atlas. Maybe her parents died early on in her life and she was an orphan long before meeting Ren. Or maybe her parents died early, but she was taken in by other family. Perhaps a grandmother who might just be on her deathbed deep within Atlas who’s constantly thinking of her lost granddaughter.

Yes, the Winter Maiden Nora theory sure is a good one and if my personal theory (the human/faunus child one) falls through, I’d be very happy with it. It certainly makes sense. Not only did we never get a mention of the current Winter Maiden’s last name, but her first has some interesting origins. Fria is one of the modern spellings of Freyja, a Norse goddess, who, according to some scholars, was one of the Valkyries of Norse myth. Interesting, huh? There’s also the fact that it seems a little too easy and obvious for Winter to get the powers. Not to mention, it would certainly be a very interesting choice for the story if the powers go to someone who is beginning to oppose Ironwood rather than his most trusted lieutenant. And if Nora does indeed become the Winter Maiden, the whole game changes. Atlas’ fate is suddenly going to pretty much be in the hands of this 19-year-old woman who isn’t looking to be a very big fan of Atlas right now and is already getting stressed enough as it is. I don’t actually know much about proper Norse mythology, but I know that, in the Marvel movie at least, it’s Thor himself who causes Ragnarök. Whether or not it’s the same in the actual folklore, I don’t know, but it’s definitely something to think about.

So yeah, there are a lot of possibilities surrounding Nora being from Mantle but now let’s talk about where she could be headed with these possibilities in mind. I think it’s clear at this point that she is regretting allying with Ironwood with each passing day. In the very first episode of Volume 7, she expressed her dry disappointment with the state Mantle’s in and she’s continued to do so as time’s gone on. We also know that she supports Robyn Hill and it’s been implied that she thinks she’s doing a much better job at helping people than Ironwood is. And then there’s Ren. Despite their kiss in episode 6, it’s clear that they’re still having problems, especially now that Ren’s showed a worrying amount of support towards Ironwood- it even seems to have surprised Ruby. With all this coming to a head, I don’t think Nora’s going to be staying with the team for long. Something’s going to happen, something like a huge argument or a break of her trust and it’s going to push her right to someone who she knows is doing the right thing- Robyn. After all, Nora expressed frustration with all the lies she and the others are having to keep in the very same episode Robyn’s Semblance was revealed to be the ability to know the truth. There’s also my personal headcanon of her, May and Joanna all being trans girls and bonding over it, but I’m not getting my hopes too high for that.

Honestly though, if Nora joins the Huntresses, I think it’ll be great, both inside the show and out. I personally don’t think that what Ironwood’s doing is a good idea at all, nor do I agree with his methods and I think Nora rebelling could be the push the others to do the same (especially since Yang and Blake have already done it a little bit). It could be the cause of some really interesting conflict and we could get a lot of character building. Would she leave in secret or make it very clear where she’s going? Would her friends be able go after her or will Ironwood insist that the Amity project is more important? Will Ren feeling deeply betrayed and angered or will it be the wake-up call he needs? The choice opens so many doors and if it’s the direction they take and I’m very much here for it

Then there’s Ren. I’ve already mentioned him several times in this post, so all I’m gonna say is that I don’t think their conflict will doom them, not at all. Ren and Nora have been best friends since they were young kids and were all each other had for the longest time. They’re not going to let this ruin their friendship after all they’ve been through together. And despite what I keep seeing people saying, I think episode 6 made it clear that Ren does return Nora’s romantic feelings and it’s all in the kiss. There’s no way he’d have reacted the way he did- wrapping his arms around her and staying in the kiss for several seconds- if he didn’t feel the same way. He’d have pulled away or at the very least looked uncomfortable with it. I honestly think that, once Ren realizes that how he’s acting is risking him losing her for good, he’ll come to his senses. Every friendship and every couple have their arguments but that doesn’t mean it has to end. I have faith that they’ll get through this, even if it takes a while.

So yeah, there’s all of my jumbled-together thoughts about Nora and where I think she could be headed. I actually didn’t get down quite all of what I wanted to say, but there’ll be time for that when I eventually make Nora’s episode of my ‘Why I Love’ series on YouTube, though that’ll definitely be after volume 7 in case anything more important happens with her. For now, I hope this satisfies you guys and gives you something to think about in the seven weeks (yes, seven- they’re taking a break after episode 8) that we have to go of Volume 7.

bye nerds

#rwby #rwby theory #rwby analysis #rwby spoilers #nora valkyrie #becky rambles

[houkagokappa]

I’ve had a really shitty day.

I’m sorry to vent on tumblr again, but part of it is that I realised how I don’t have anyone to comfortably turn to.

First my plans for the day got cancelled, which sucked because I was really looking forward to them and they were an escape for me, but you know, it happens. I figured I could try to be productive instead, but nope, as soon as I began typing out an email I got a panic attack. It’s something I’ve only dealt with once before and I do not know how to deal with them or make them stop. Last time I got one at 2am and had to call my mom to calm me down. She thought something was wrong with my sister, so that’s kind of a sour memory of mine for multiple reasons, even though she did manage to comfort me.

This time around it was the middle of the day. I couldn’t call my mom because she was working, I didn’t wanna bother my dad either, since he was also at work and this would be a lot for him to deal with. Same with most of my friends, not that I’d think to call any of them regardless. I was crying hysterically and hyperventilating, unable to do much anything and that’s not something you can suddenly throw at someone. I’m also at an awkward spot with any psychologist and doctors, I don’t currently have the right to be in contact with those who helped me this spring and I don’t have a doctor-patient bond with anyone else yet. There’s probably some number I could’ve called for help, but in the moment nothing came to my mind. It didn’t feel like an emergency and for everything else the health center puts you on a waiting list?? (I’m honestly ashamed how bad I am at adulting and taking care of myself...).

Eventually I managed to google instructions and try to do some breathing exercises. It took me a while to calm down, but eventually I managed to focus on my breathing and stop hyperventilating.

After this I was scared to do anything. I was too much of a mess to go outside, I didn’t dare start any of my fun projects, because I was scared of having to think about anything too much and through associations get back to stressful thoughts. I listened to some emotional music and that kinda helped. I managed to send that goddamn email, but since the recipient hasn’t replied to my two previous emails I was prepared for him to not reply to this either. The plan was to call him instead, but I figured I could give emailing one last try and then call him a few hours later. No chances of that happening anymore...

I cried some more. Decided to check my email if by some miracle I would’ve gotten a reply - which I had, and which resulted in some more tears. I got my shit done, but at this point I wasn’t even happy about it. I was just feeling awful about how terribly alone I am and how I don’t believe I’ll get through this, making my whole application pointless and something that’ll only cause me more stress and tears in the future. (At the same time it’s the only thing I have going on, so it’s not something I feel like abandoning either).

After another hour of more crying I was able to sober up enough to call my dad. I had multiple things to discuss with him. I began by telling him about how I managed to send in that goddamn application, but he didn’t really get it and then I switched over to talk about all the issues I’m still having so I didn’t get any praise or approval from him, I only made myself feel worse. Then he told me he was about to head home, which made me feel guilty for bothering him. He was also not interested in talking to me later, since he wanted to “enjoy the last days of summer by going for a swim”, which he absolutely should, and it’s not like I told him about how I’m really feeling to which he could’ve reacted more accordingly.

I feel really hurt by my parents. They don’t seem to understand what I’m going through, even though I feel like they should because my sister went through something similar when she was a minor, making them responsible and involved in getting her help. Not that I know anything about that, since they never discussed it with me... It’s also on me not to have them more involved in what’s going through my mind, but with that too I feel like they don’t really listen or understand where I’m coming from the few times I’ve tried to talk to them about it.

I guess I do have depression and/or anxiety and I guess it’s something you have to have experienced yourself to understand it. I know I didn’t understand my sister’s situation when she was at her worst. Last week I told some of my friends how I don’t see a future for myself and how I really struggle with some basic tasks, and while they’re loving and supportive, they’re super unhelpful, asking me about what I want from my future or suggesting I pick up a new hobby and telling me how they also hate writing emails...

Now I have a headache from crying 4-5 hours straight, I’m super dehydrated and hungry, but I also feel nauseous so it’s tough getting anything to eat or drink. I know a walk could help, but I tried that an hour ago and began crying again while I was out so now I’m scared of trying that again. I tried listening to something that previously made me laugh so much it hurt, but I couldn’t due to my headache. I’ve considered contacting friends, but I don’t feel like I’m up for it right now. I have no idea what to do. I’m super tired so maybe I should try to rest for a bit.

Writing all this has helped calm me down.

If you read all this, thank you for caring enough to do so. My mind feels a bit better now that I got to process all this, but my body is still feeling awful. I know I’ll have a shitty rest of the day and a shitty night, which will result in me feeling awful tomorrow too, but I’ll try to come up with something fun.

I was just about to press post when my dad called me back and now I got to go through my other business with him so that’s good.

#my nonsense #negative

[scumerage]

The Idea of Evil and Heroism - Humanity wants to be destroyed:

First tumblr post (sorry it’s just a repost from my reddit account), just thought maybe some people would find it interesting.

Disclaimer: I am not well versed in the lore, story, or manga of Berserk by Kentaro Muira, this theory is inspired by what little I know of the Idea of Evil from Berserk and applying it to the world of One Punch Man, this is not meant to represent the actual lore of that series.

#I. The Idea of Evil and Justice:

Ever since the introduction of monsters, the prophecy, and later God, there has been the lingering question of WHY? Why do people (and anything at all) become monsters? Why are so many cataclysmic events happening pushing humanity to the brink of destruction? What is the ultimate source of evil in the world? Is it Earth reacting against human pollution? Is some supernatural enemy of humanity, this “God” person?

No… the source of evil is humanity…. Because humanity wants to be destroyed.

How can that be true? The vast, vast majority of humanity never become monsters, never live extrordinary lives, and never desire anything so horrible. If humanity truly desired that, wouldn’t it have been wiped out long ago? And how does their subconcious will change the very fabric of their human existence?

The very basis for power in the world of One Punch Man, the strong desire for change literally changing reality, is why heroes become strong, why chaos creates monsters… and why the Earth is doomed. If God is involved, he is no mere evil villain, or even much of a person, he simply a force of nature or the universe, like Truth from Fullmetal Alchemist. Perhaps like the Idea of Evil from Berserk, he is literally a manifestation of  humanity itself. God gives humanity what they want:

If humans seek heroism, God grants them power and courage.

If humans seek strength, God grants them just mere power, without any moral change.

If humans seek destruction, God grants them power and bloodlust as monsters.

But then what is the root cause of humanity’s overall desire for self destruction? Because Blast wanted to be a hero.

#II. The History of Heroes and Monsters:

Take a step back decades ago before monster arose… there are only peaceful Nature Kings, some robots/ninjas/samurai/martial artists running around… but the world remains relatively peaceful, no world ending threat had arisen…. Yet Blast was a hero, no, not “a hero”, but THE HERO!

Blast wanted to be a hero… so he takes down random human caused villains whenever they arose.

Humanity is inspired by him and wants to see him save the world and/or Blast wants to continue to save the world (Edit 1).

More and stronger threats arose, random monsters began to appear.

That is why Blast went into hiding, why he “doesn’t stand idly on the world stage”: he alone realized that the very power and conviction he used to save the world was endangering it.  And after he disappeared? A few monsters still arise here or there, robots/ninjas/Dr. Genus sceme in secret, but no existential threat to the world.

…. Then 3 years ago, Saitama strives to become a hero as well, one that can defeat any monster in one punch.

An explosion in growth of monster numbers and power ensues.

The Hero Association is inevitably created to defend humanity.

Demon level monsters arise

S-Class are founded to defeat Demons

Dragon level monsters arise

The destructive cycle continues

#III. The Prophecy and Blast:

And it just keeps getting worse and worse. At this point Blast probably realizes that the Earth is likely doomed to be destroyed due to heroism, and at best he is trying to delay the inevitable. Madam Shibabawa saw the future, and she too was horrified by what she saw. Psykos too caught a glimpse of the prophecy, and she realized how worthless humanity was. Even monsters themselves are being driven, not to simple violence, but to epic battles with heroes, as shown by Kabuto, Boros, Rhino Wrestler, Phoenix Man, Orochi, and so many others. As was said by Garou, himself ignorant of the deeper truth behind his words (or perhaps God himself was even influencing him?!): “The source of the madness? That’ll be humans”.

And here’s where the previous theory about Blast’s philosophy and fighting Saitama evolves into infinitely more significance: Blast isn’t simply too lazy to save the world himself, or some radical individualist teaching others, ”Don’t go expecting someone to come and save you.”  Blast knows that his own power isn’t enough to save the world… and neither is Saitama’s (Edit 2). He must stop Saitama, not because Saitama isn’t strong/hardworking/smart enough to save the world, but Saitama’s heroism and inspiring humanity will guarantee it’s destruction. Blast has to stop Saitama… as a last ditch effort to save the world.

#IV. Final Notes:

Edit 1:

It’s unclear whether or not the cause of monsters is inspired civilian humanity wanted to be saved by heroes or prideful heroes wanting to continue saving humanity. However, the end result is the same, Blast is completely justified and Saitama is not: the only way to save humanity is for heroes to stop saving it. Crazily enough, perhaps Garou’s twisted plan might have saved humanity all on its own! Or not, if some crazy people starting worshiping monsters. Sucks, doesn’t it? People loving heroes causes monsters, and people loving monsters causes monsters. Earth just can’t win, can it?

Edit 2:

God is likely either part of existence like Truth from Fullmetal Alchemist, or part of humanity like the Idea of Evil from Berserk. Saitama, even if he somehow could kill him, either wouldn’t erase God from existence, he would simply come back, OR killing him would destroy the natural order of the universe/humanity. Therefore… Saitama cannot defeat God AND save humanity, he will need to find another way…. Such as giving up his dream of being a hero.

#saitama #blast #god #opm #monster #one punch man #berserk #fullmetal alchemist