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obxjj · 3 years

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the way we heal | jj maybank

- pairings: jj maybank x reader

- summary: people deal with trauma in different ways but it seems that jj thinks you don't care about the loss of your friends and deep down himself but he just needs to understand that people heal in their own time and through their own meanings, he just needed to be reassured of it. kinda pre season 2 ep 1 give ot take

- warning(s): really motherfucking angsty and swearing. mention of substance abuse

- wc: 2.2k :))))

a/n: all my fics the pogues and reader are the age 17/18 only because that's more comfortable for me to write. its been a long long time since i have wrote something so sorry for and spelling errors

People tend to deal with trauma differently. It could be resulting to crying you eyes out until you can’t breath and you can’t see through your tears clouding your eyes. Drinking until your liver wants to shut down and you whole body is so numb that yourself and everyone around you is so tuned out that you can’t function. Resulting to drugs to either feel something or not to feel anything at all. Or to have something to blame your actions on from yourself acting out simply because you don’t know how to handle the situation of a friend dying.

See you on the other hand dealt with it internally or the whim and feeling of not accepting death. Maybe it was your subconscious talking wanting you not to accept or maybe it was the gut feeling that you always got telling you that they were actually alive and have survived that storm that ‘supposedly’ had swept them away because “no body was found”.

This ‘gut feeling’ had always been right in many life or death situations. Or even just you picking out an outfit that you were unsure of whether it was going to get the boys attention that you had a crush on. It did indeed get his attention that night because that’s how you ended up loosing your virginity that night but that’s besides the point.

The best way you could describe it was like when people would do personality tests and it would ask “are you controlled by your heart or what you feel” probably not those exact words but you get the point. I felt with my feelings if my gut said yes then it was a yes.

Since the night that John B and Sarah had ‘died’ your gut had been telling you the opposite. That they were in fact not dead. As Big John use to say when you were a kid, you can never kill a Routledge. At the time it seemed like bullshit but now it was starting to grow on you.

However now your two friends were presumed dead and not everyone dealt with trauma like you did. Some would even go as far to say that you didn’t actually give a fuck that your friends were dead because you hadn’t cried or you hadn’t drunk yourself into a state of no return or resulted to smoking weed every single day and spray painted ‘murder’ on Ward Cameron’s estate. But at least Kiara wasn’t lying.

But the thing was you hadn’t cried because you couldn’t, you quite literally hated crying because it made you feel weak. Even if you tried and you tried your hardest but nothing came. At this point you could go as far as denial. This gut feeling was like getting hit by a semi truck every time a thought came into your head questioning maybe they were dead. Maybe they did get swept away at sea and never to return.

Your gut feeling was simply not letting you mourn the loss of John B and Sarah and now everyone thought you were an emotionless bitch. I mean they were right to a point but not the whole point.

So that brought you to current day driving around the Cut and night playing fucking real life Where’s Wally but its Where’s JJ Maybank because he’s blacked out drunk somewhere and now you’re on a rescue mission. Not like you had done enough of those in the last few weeks.

About an hour ago your phone rang and it was JJ asking you to come pick him up since somehow he had now idea where he had ended up and was too far gone to put together his surroundings. Well that’s what you had assumed he said since you had to decipher his slurred words.

At this point you had driven around the whole island and gone to every hid out spot that he would go smoke at or to just get away from everyday life. You had gone to all but one place. Where you avoiding that particular house because it held so many memories, plus the fact you hadn’t been near the place since shit hit rock bottom. Yes? But it was the highest chance that JJ was sitting on that dock with his legs swinging over it with a beer in hand.

Well you were right. As you walked down the old dock to where JJ was sitting it was if you could feel all the emotions, thoughts and disbelief crawling their way up your skin from the ground you were walking on. But that gut feeling was like a wave of fire, burning it all the way back to the ground.

“I don’t know why I just didn’t look here first. I should have known aye” you half heartedly said trying to keep the conversation light since you didn’t know what state JJ was going to be in. From the huff you got in response told you he wasn’t in the mood to talk.

“How much have you had J?” You asked with concern but still trying to keep you voice light and less reprimanding because you knew he was in a too fragile state for you to be angry.

“Does it even matter how much Iv had. I don’t feel shit anymore” he replied back with his words straight forward and sobered.

“Well have you even given yourself a break for your body to sober up for you to even feel the effects of it? Or have you still been going since yesterday when I saw you? J its not going to do shit if you don’t give it a rest for at least a day or so” you said back trying you best to keep you and your voice as calm as possible. You fucking hated seeing JJ like this, you would never say it to his face but fuck it just reminded you of his dad when he got into states like this. Until the last week you had never seen JJ this bad. But could you blame him.

“You just don’t get it do you” JJ was now facing you and by the tone of his voice you had unintentionally struck a nerve that you were actively avoiding. “Why did you even fucking come if you’re just going to tell me how I should cope. Do you even care that JB has gone? He was our best fucking friend. He was my fucking brother my only family! And he’s fucking gone just like his old man. You haven’t even shed a tear y/n. You’re just acting like nothing had happened. Do you even care!” JJ was now on his feet breathing heavily and his jaw so clenched you’re surprised his teeth haven’t broken

“J, please do not yell at me right now” you asked with your voice shaking trying to hold back something that was bubbling at the surface. Was it anger or was it the water works that desperately needed to be let out.

JJ started to walk back up the dock, showing that he was done with this conversation that he could have avoided if he didn’t ask you in the first place to come pick him up. Deep down he knew that you would be the only one to come and get him, he just wasn’t as good at showing his gratefulness due to the alcohol that was numbing him.

“JJ just wait please, please don’t walk away” You stood back up and starting walking after him quick on the backs of his feet. He halted his tracks and turned around to look at you with a pained look in his face, as you got up close you could see his eyes stained red. Either from crying or the linger of weed still in his system.

“What could you possibly want to say y/n. I really thought you would be the last person not to care about this” JJ was now right up in your face and his voice was holding back trying his best not to yell. But that last sentence had taken you back.

“You think I don’t care JJ!” now you starting yelling “of course I give a shit JJ our friends are gone, they are not fucking here. I know it might not seem that I don’t care. But just because I’m not crying my eyes out every hour or drinking myself into a state where I don’t now where the fuck I am or getting high that I spray paint on any wall I see” your breath was now battling to come to the surface because you were talking so fast.

“Just because Im not doing any of those things doesn’t mean I don’t care JJ! People deal with this shit differently and you need to understand that” you breathed out trying to grasp for air again “the thing is JJ I have this annoying gut feeling thats telling me that John B and Sarah are not dead, and its literally preventing me to mourn them. I have convinced myself that they are alive and I can’t fucking mourn non dead people J. I don’t know how to fucking explain it”

“Well why didn’t you just tell us that” he replied after bit letting your whole rant sink into his brain, weaving its way through the alcohol that was clouding it.

“Because JJ! Even saying that out loud I sound fucking crazy, like I’m in a deep pit of denial. The thing is I’m far from denial. Yes I know there is a massive fucking fat chance that they are dead and have been food for the sharks” you exclaimed

“Don’t make it worse y/n” JJ shook his head not very happy with your choice of words

“Okay yeah sorry bad wording. Im sorry” you lowered your head in sorrow wanting to slap yourself in the face for trying to make jokes out of trauma.

“So its not that I don’t care J, trust me I do care. But John B and Sarah are not physically here with us and I cant physically care for them right now. But when we see them can do that”

“Y/n -“ JJ tried to get a word in but you hadn’t finished

“Don’t JJ. We will see them again” you put an emphasis on ‘will’ “I trust my gut and even you know that when I get a gut feeling that it’s always been right. Correct?”

“Yes but -“ he tried to get another word in but you needed him to listen.

“JJ I care about you. I care about Kiara and Pope. You guys are physically here for me to care for. The thing is I haven’t spoken to Kie since she’s with Pope half the time and I have spoken to Pope since he’s with Kid half the time and you? I can’t speak to you because your too far gone in beers to for me to even get a coherent conversation in” This was such an over due conversation to be had, you were now on the verge of hyperventilating. You needed JJ to hear this. Fully sober would have been better but half sober is the best you’re gonna get.

“JJ I understand if that’s how you’re going to deal with all of this but you can’t throw yourself completely away. We need you. I need you JJ. I can’t have you going off the deep end and then we loose you too. You need to be here for when we get John B back. He will need you for when he’s back”. The water works that you had been holding back had finally been released and trust it to be in front of JJ. He was your fucking rock, you couldn’t loose him. No way that would be your last day on earth if that were to happen.

“I-. Im sorry. I’m just so fucking lost y/n. I don’t know what the fuck to do. You’re always at work and Kie and Pope are god knows where. I just want this to go away so fucking bad. All this pain, I feel like I have no one” JJ was now crying to and gripping your waist as is you could float away into the air

“I know JJ, but you have us you have always had us. But you have to be so stubborn sometimes that you won’t let us in and help, you won’t let me in a help you” you had JJ’s face in your hands making him look at you so he knew you meant every single word. “I’m so sorry if you didn’t think I cared and I wasn’t there to help you, I just deal with this shit in a different way. Just like every single other person. We all heal differently and that’s okay. It dosent mean we care less. It doesn’t mean I care less”

Now there you and JJ stand on the dock leading off the chateau both in each others embrace purging the pain that’s both been locked up inside you for so long. The past you and JJ had people really didn’t tend to understand but neither did you. But you would always find your way back to each other at the end of the day. Despite the fights you had in the past and the days you would be at each others throats screaming at each other to the days you would be secretly stealing a glance at him because you just couldn’t help yourself.

You would always be there to help him take the pain away and he was always be there to do the same for you.

#jj maybank x reader #jj maybank x y/n #jj maybank fanfiction #jj maybank #outerbanks #outerbanks fanfic #obx #outerbanks season 2 #jj maybank imagine

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nightswithkookmin · 3 years

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Hey Goldy,

feel free to disagree but i was thinking about the whole jimin wanting to bulid muscles thing and i remembered blood sweat and tears era....the whole thing back then was that he was pushing himself to look like what an idol is 'supposed' to look like. so right now him trying to bulid muscles might be bcuz he wants to look more like a perfect idol and just have the kind of body that is expected of him as an idol. this is similar to many female idols trying to be really skinny to fit in with the toxic standards of being an idol. so more so than toxic masculinity i guess we should be worried about him conforming to toxic idol body standards.

If you don't mind, I agree with you.

Your point is equally part of the discourse: unrealistic male body standards, strict and toxic beauty standards for idols, toxic masculinity- I think they are all intersectional cousins living on the same continent. It don't mean they are mutually exclusive or that the presence of one excludes the other.

Jimin could very well be grappling with all of these at once we will never know- much like headache. You think it's just your head, next you know you feeling cold too, then you're dizzy, puking, passing out and explaining to your doctor why you're gay but think your period is late. Then you find out you're not pregnant but you wish you were because what you've been diagnosed with is far worse than being pregnant by a phantom Male who probably might have raped you when you were passed out even though you hate men and it's like WHAT ARE WE EVEN HERE ON EARTH FOR?!

Not that any of that happened to me.

As I said in the last post, I think skinny and androgymasculine is the body standard for men in Kpop. Most male idols who get cosmetic surgery or makeup do not do it to enhance their traditional masculine features. They try to look soft and feminine- especially around the jaw so it looks more oval and feminine.

When any of the members gain body weight they are immediately placed on a diet- whether or not that is healthy is another issue to debate on. You know what I think.

Fans and antis alike blatantly call the members fat and complain about their appearance, that they look chubby or fat even though sometimes it's just the bulkiness that comes from building muscles.

Much like Jimin defending Jungkook when a fan called him fat. He explained it was muscle not fat. What's wrong with being fat?

The fatphobia and fat shaming in Kpop is one conversation I sincerely don't think y'all are ready for, given recent events. Didn't Suga, the lady from Twice and one guy from Enhypen come under such vicious attacks for being fat in recent times?

People were making fun of her for being 'fat' and some assumed initially she was pregnant or something of the sorts- allegedly. Can't verify the source or identify how recent this was.

That this piece was written by someone called I love BTS is not ironic, the main irony is that the lady being fat shamed for showing her biceps and belly had just returned from a hiatus during which she had sought psychological treatment for her mental health.

The things these Idols do to maintain the looks we see on screen is outrageous and really worrying- to some of us at least. Jungkook recently saying he didn't eat anything for about 5 days when they filmed the butter MV gave me palpitations. I hope they stop glorifying these things as if it's something to be proud of. It's disconcerting at best. But what do I know, I have to leave people to make their own choices I'm told.

If I choose to harm myself because I feel pressured by my work environment it's not a choice it's oppression. Just saying.

And yes, people can CHOOSE to do bad things to themselves. it don't make those bad choices right and that's the nuance of the conversation we are having.

And I hope people who fat shame the boys know and understand the risks they take and how hard they work to meet these beauty and body standards- IT'S RIDICULOUS.

Jimin calling himself fat is not a choice. It's him cracking under the pressure of Idolhood. Like I said, he is prone to these things. And saying he is mature now and so he cannot be affected by these pressures is obtuse and toxically positive.

If you've been paying attention to Jimin for sometime now since On Era last year, he's not been talking positively about his body especially whenever they talk about his early days and when they've reacted to their debut.

He's talked about how his body looked so great then as compared to now- even though it was ON ERA and he looked pretty buffed- relatively speaking.

RM felt his biceps and told him his body now was ok. Seems to me whatever is going on with him and his view of his body now didn't just begin. Something is just acting as catalyst and bringing it all up to the surface.

He's comparing himself to his debut days and thinking that masculine aesthetics- which he himself said was a trap for him and was glad he had overcome that, "hurry up and be me now" - he's backpedaling to say that looks better than his present look.

Towards the end of 2020 we saw him proudly sporting Illucebra Arcanus- male and female adjectives, the bigender symbol, and proudly comparing his body to a flower because he says it was delicate.

But it seems to me he is struggling internally with identifying himself or trying to fit into these labels external to him. Not to be psychoanalytic or anything. I think I talked about this in one of my blogs. A florist described him as delicate during Run and he's since been using that word to describe his features. I think he wears his internal struggles on his identity on his sleeves which is very typical of people with dual like gender identities or identities that exist on a spectrum ranging from one form to the other rather than being gender A or B- sometimes those identities conflict.

He's on a journey to self discovery I'd say and that includes deciding for himself what he is rather than bending to the labels of what people think he is or should be.

Androgyny can be attained by make up, or clothes- it can be fashion or trend but it is also a valid form of identity.

All these songs they write about persona, ego, map of the soul... these are very Carl Jung in nature and it's not far fetched to assume they dabble in these things and learn from it to shape their own understanding of who they are- Jimin pays attention to these things and if you are a huge fan of his you'd know which moments I'm referring to.

Non of these however exempts him or preclude him from having toxic notions of masculinity I'm afraid.

It's like assuming gay people can't be homophobic or black people can't be racist.

I don't know why people are struggling to wrap around that Jimin struggles with toxic masculinity tendencies when he has addressed that very issue himself on several occasions- I'm simply putting a name to it. Toxic masculinity don't mean he is a toxic person or man. A toxic man can have toxic masculinity on top of his toxicity.

A woman can be a perpetrator of toxic masculinity if they are prone to expecting men to behave in a certain way that is harmful to men and other women.

These are the people who call skinny, effeminate men weak and gay and expect or encourage men to be heroes, and violent and aggressive and even nurture those traits in their men.

I do agree with Jimin pushing himself to look like the perfect idol in the past- I did, have and will continue to condemn that choice he makes from time to time just as I condemn the toxic masculinity now.

It's interesting how you see him bending to the pressures to look as an idol in kpop as a problem and articulate it well but fail to see that an ad which is pro manly men would have a similar effect on him to push him to look a certain way which is opposite of how he looks naturally- especially when he's been questioning himself for quite some time now.

If fat shaming causes idols to loose weight, there's a shaming that causes effeminate men to want to bulk up. And if the former is fatphobia and can be internalized, the later is toxic masculinity and can be internalized too.

If an idol loosing weight to meet a strict standard is not about their choice and personal body preference, skinny men gyming to bulk up isn't so much about choice either. It's nuanced in that way and those two can be happening together at the same time.

I'm ok if he is not feeling pressured to look a certain way- whether skinny or buff. If it's his choice and his alone it is not toxic masculinity or internalized fatphobia.

I loved reading your POV. Thank you.

Signed,

GOLDY

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coffintownkids · 3 years

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I had the rare occurrence of having the house to myself for the entire day yesterday, which hasn’t happened since...last September maybe?

Which means I got to bang out translating all of Ch.34 while I was distraction-free!

This chapter had lots of fun moments with the junior disciples. To set the scene, WWX and LWJ come across the juniors in Coffin Town and the kids are freaked out by the sound of a bamboo pole drumming against the ground.

Long Post Ahead!

“That was It again…It really has been following us this whole time!”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “It’s been following you?”

Lán Sīzhuī said, “After we entered the town, the fog was so heavy that we were worried about being separated. We gathered closer when suddenly, we could hear that noise. At the time, it wasn’t so fast. One sound after another rang our very slowly. Ahead in the white mist, we saw a hazy, short silhouette slowly walking by. We chased after it, but it disappeared. After that, the sound kept following us.”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “How short was it?”

Lán Sīzhuī gestured around his own chest, “It was rather short and very petite.”

I guess that very technically counts as the first time Ā-Qìng gets described! She’s so little!!!

Jīn Líng said, “I knew I should have brought Fairy with me. This is all your damn donkey’s fault.”

Just hearing the dog’s name had chills running up Wèi Wúxiàn’s back while he listened to Lán Jǐngyí say, “We haven’t even blamed your dog! It bit first so Little Apple just kicked out at it. Whose fault is that? Anyway, now neither of them can move.”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “What?! My Little Apple got bit by a dog?!”

Jīn Líng, “How can you compare that donkey to my Spirit Dog? Fairy was given to me by my xiǎo-shūshu. If something were to happen to it, 10,000 donkeys still wouldn’t be enough compensation!”

Wèi Wúxiàn started spouting nonsense, “Don’t rub Liǎnfang-Zūn in people’s faces. My Little Apple was also a mount given to me by Hánguāng-Jūn. How could you bring Little Apple down the mountain for a Night Hunt? You also let it get hurt?!”

All the junior House of Lán disciples spoke in unison, “Liar!” They would absolutely never believe that with Hánguāng-Jūn having such good taste, that he would give such a mount to someone. Even though Lán Wàngjī didn’t refute it, they firmly refused to believe it.

Ha! Ain’t nobody buying what WWX is selling. Also, JL refers to JGY as xiǎo-shūshu. It means that JGY is his father’s youngest brother (aka JL does not consider MXY to be his uncle, despite him also being his father’s half-brother and younger than JGY!) LSZ, however, is a good boy and explains the situation-the elders evicted Little Apple for being too noisy in Cloud Recesses :P

Jīn Líng also didn’t believe that he had been given the donkey by Lán Wàngjī, “I hate looking at that donkey. Why is it even called Little Apple? It’s so goddamn stupid!”

Lán Jǐngyí was still thinking about it. If it really had been given by Hánguāng-Jūn, then this wasn’t good and he promptly spoke up for it, “What’s wrong with Little Apple. It loves to eat apples, so it’s called Little Apple. It’s that simple. The name is miles better than you naming your fat dog Fairy.”

Jīn Líng, “How is Fairy fat?! Go ahead and try to find a Spirit Dog that’s in better shape…”

All of a sudden, there was absolute silence.

After some time, Wèi Wúxiàn said, “Is anybody here?”

From nearby came “uhhhhh” and “wahhhh” to indicate where they were. Lán Wàngjī coolly said, “They were causing a commotion.”

…He actually cast the Mute Spell on all of them at once. Wèi Wúxiàn couldn’t help touching his own lips and felt extremely lucky.

LWJ ain’t got time for your shit lol. I also continue to waffle with whether I’m calling it the “Mute Spell” or “Silence Spell” or “Gag Spell” etc etc etc. It’s another case of me being an overly nitpicky overthinker! I’ve mentioned it before, but I figured it’s worth sharing again that it’s written as 禁言. Very technically, it means “speech is banned/prohibited.” which ties into all of the Lán rules that also use 禁 when saying something is prohibited. I’ve been wanting to convey that, plus I’ve seen it used in a more modern sense to “mute” sound. Also 禁言令 is used as “gag order.” So, like, I know it’s one of those things that doesn’t need to be changed, yet here we are.

Naturally, here’s where some zombies show up. LWJ gets rid of a bunch, but...

Another House’s disciple said, “It looks like there’s more zombies!”

“Where is it? I didn’t hear any footsteps?”

“It sounded like strange breathing to me…” The young man realized how ridiculous that was once he finished saying it and shut up out of embarrassment. Another boy said, “I’m done with you. You heard them breathing. Zombies are dead. How could you possibly hear them breathing?”

Breathing, huh?

LWJ decapitates one and...its body spews out a bunch of powder! And then the gravedigger that tried to steal the torso earlier in the book shows up!!! So while he and LWJ start fighting, WWX starts freaking out.

The current situation did not allow for optimism. The gravedigger’s sword was shrouded in black mist, its sword aura couldn’t shine through it, and the white fog was keeping him quite well-hidden. The sword aura from Lán Wàngjī’s Bìchén, however, could not be blocked. He was the light and the enemy was the dark. His opponent’s cultivation was not lacking and the Lán Sect of Gūsū’s swordsmanship was well-known to him. On top of that, they were both fighting equally blind in the fog. He could do so without having any concern, while Lán Wàngjī had to be careful that he didn’t accidentally injury his own allies. It honestly put him at a major disadvantage. Wèi Wúxiàn heard the sounds of their blades a few times and his heart clenched. He blurted out, “Lán Zhàn? Are you injured?!”

There was a slightly muffled sound in the distance, as if someone had received a critical injury. However, it clearly wasn’t Lán Wàngjī’s voice.

Lán Wàngjī said, “Of course not.”

Wèi Wúxiàn smiled, “Of course!”

I love LWJ being pissy over the implication that some scrub could have the potential to injure him. Sorry, Sū Shè. You’re not qualified to injure him, either.

Since WWX isn’t needed there, he starts checking on the kids that inhaled the powder.

Wèi Wúxiàn went to Lán Jǐngyí and touched his forehead. He had a slight fever. He did the same for the others that had inhaled the powder that had gushed out of the zombies. They were in the same state. He lifted Lán Jǐngyí’s eyelids and said, “Stick out your tongue and let me take a look. Ahh.”

Lán Jǐngyí, “Ahh.”

Wèi Wúxiàn, “Okay. Congratulations, you’ve been hit with corpse poisoning.”

Jīn Líng, “How is that something worth being congratulated for?!”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “Because it’s the sort of life experience that you’ll tell stories about when you’re older.”

Life advice according to WWX: get poisoned for the lulz.

Meanwhile, poor LSZ’s little heart can’t take this.

Lán Sīzhuī was worried sick, “Mò-gōngzǐ, will anything happen to them?”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “They’ll be fine for now. However, if we wait for their blood to circulate through their bodies and reach their hearts, we won’t be able to help them.”

Lán Sīzhuī said, “What…what will that do?”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “Whatever happens to corpses is what will happen to all of you. If you’re lucky, you’ll just rot badly. If you’re not, you’ll turn into a long-haired jiāngshī and from then on, you’ll only be able to get around by hopping.”

All of the poisoned disciples gasped at the same time.

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “Want to cure it?”

They all nodded at once. Wèi Wúxiàn said, “If you want it cured, listen well. From now on, you’re going to have to obediently listen to everything I tell you. Every one of you has to listen to me.”

WWX is so goddamn dramatic. I love it! Also, I think it’s the first mention of jiāngshī in the novel. Jiāngshī (僵尸) literally means “stiff corpse” and are a folktale creature in China. They’re something of a cross between a zombie and a vampire. The legend goes that because they’re dead and rigor mortis has set in, their bodies are stiff and rigid. Thus, they can’t bend their legs and can only move by hopping instead of walking. Since it’s a pretty Chinese-specific myth, I’m opting to leave the term untranslated.

WWX’s first order is for the healthy disciples to carry the poisoned ones. And, of course, despite them all agreeing to do what they’re told, LJY has something to say about it.

Lán Jǐngyí said, “I can walk. Why do I have to be carried?”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “Gēgē, if you’re frolicking around, your blood will flow that much faster and that much harder, which means it will reach your heart that much faster. Therefore, you need to limit your movements. It would be best if you didn’t move at all.”

WWX sarcastically calling him gēgē sent me.

And then:

One of them being carried by someone from his sect muttered, “The zombie that just sprayed the poisoned powder really had been breathing.”

The boy carrying him was gasping for breath as he complained, “I already told you the one that was breathing had to be a live person.”

I’m sure that’s not foreshadowing anything terrible.

Meanwhile, LSZ does not complain and just asks what WWX would like them to do next.

The one that was the most well-behaved, most obedient, and made him worry the least was Lán Sīzhuī.

LSZ is the bestest boy!

Next, WWX does order them to go door-knocking. Keep in mind that they have yet to come across anyone in the town except zombies and the gravedigger.

Jīn Líng put in quite the effort and banged on the door for a long time, but no response came from inside, “It doesn’t seem like there’s anybody in there. We’re going in, right?”

Wèi Wúxiàn’s voice floated over from far away, “Who said you could go in when there’s nobody there? Keep knocking. We’ll go in a building that has someone occupying it.”

Jīn Líng said, “Are you still trying to find people?”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “Yes. Knock properly. You were knocking too hard just now. Don’t be so rude.”

Jīn Líng was so angry that he nearly kicked the wooden door in. In the end, he nevertheless…relentlessly stomped his feet against the ground.

Each building on the main road all kept their doors firmly shut. No matter how much they knocked, they remained looming and unmoving. The more Jīn Líng knocked, the more jittery he became. But he was at least being a little more gentle about it.

JL really is his father’s rude-ass son!

They do eventually find a shop with a creepy old woman, though.

“Shopkeep, when we first arrived in your land, the fog was too thick and we lost our way. We’ve walked for quite a long time and have grown somewhat weary. Would it be possible for us to make use of your shop and rest for a while?”

The strange voice said, “My shop isn’t meant for people to use as a rest stop.”

Wèi Wúxiàn didn’t seem to find this all that out of the ordinary and his expression was the same as usual, “But there is no other shop around in this fine place that still has someone occupying it. Shopkeep, are you truly unwilling to make things easier for us? We’ll reward you handsomely.”

Jīn Líng couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Where did you get the money to reward them handsomely with? Let me be the first to tell you I won’t be lending you any.”

Wèi Wúxiàn shook the dainty little money pouch in front of his face, “Look. What is this?” Lán Jǐngyí was terribly alarmed, “You really have some nerve! That’s Hánguāng-Jūn’s!”

Ahhh...LJY continues to be scandalized on LWJ’s behalf.

Although the old lady was hunchbacked and seemed quite elderly at first glance, she actually didn’t really have any wrinkles or age spots. One could say that she could pass for middle-aged. She opened the door and stepped aside. It looked like she was willing to let them go inside.

It came as a major surprise to Jīn Líng and he softly said, “She’s actually really willing to let people inside?”

Wèi Wúxiàn also spoke softly, “Of course. I also stuck my foot in the doorway, so she can’t close the door even if she wanted to. If she wouldn’t let us in, I would have just kicked the door in.”

Jīn Líng, “……”

WWX: *also rude*

JL: *shocked Pikachu face*

#mdzs #ctk reads mdzs #mdzs translation #my translation #junior disciples #the juniors are just so hilarious to me

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goneseriesanalysis · 3 years

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Drake Merwin

I am soo sorry, this is super late but I got incredibly distracted with reading and forgot that literally anything else existed. Drake was a really hard character for me to analyse because his characterisation was just so disappointing to me - but luckily my intrinsic desire to have everyone hear my opinions prevailed, and so here it is. I hope you enjoy!!

Spoiler Warning: Major spoilers for Gone, Minor spoilers for the rest of the series and the monster trilogy

Old Opinion: I had a sort of morbid obsession with Drake and thought he was a top-tier villain

New Opinion: So far Drake is tied with Astrid for most-changed opinion. His character has almost no-depth and could be placed in almost any story without changing a single thing about him - and it would make sense. I found myself desperately trying to make him more interesting than he is in an attempt to justify younger me’s obsession - but alas I was unsuccessful. He had a lot of potential, but instead he ended up as a copy-paste villain with no realistic motivations and no real intrigue.

1.) DRAKE’S APPEARANCE:

Drake is, I think, the character who is best (as in most thoroughly) described in the first book. Not only do we get an idea of his actual appearance beyond the vaguest possible descriptions (sorry to Sam, Caine, Diana and every minor character) but we also get some idea as to the effect his appearance has on other people.

In Chapter 14, when we are first introduced to the Coates kids, Drake is described as, “a smiling, playful, mean-eyed kid with shaggy, sandy-coloured hair.” I actually really like this description. Contrasting “smiling” and “playful” with “mean” really brilliantly sets Drake up to be a complex villain – the kind of villain we all love to hate, who cracks a joke while slitting your throat. It has the implication of a layered personality but sadly, this is not the villain we get. In fact his character in the first chapter compared to the character we get as the book continues is so drastically different that it almost seems like mg did a complete 180 on his character. An original description is supposed to give us some indication as to what a character is like – their personality and role in the story, and we know that mg can do this really well. (Sam’s non-descript description setting him up to be the underdog, Quinn’s mismatched attire hinting at his inability to fit in, Astrid’s colour scheme reflecting her innocence and religiosity), and so it seems particularly odd, not to mention disappointing, that Drake’s description gives us…nothing. No real indication as to who he is or his purpose other than to hint to him being an antagonist (which we already guessed from his affiliation with Caine.) I could go on and on about what a waste Drake’s character was, but I’ll save it for a later paragraph.

We will then skip ahead to Chapter 37 where both Howard and Lana describe a similarity between Drake and Pack Leader:

“The one time she had seen Drake Merwin. He had made her think of Pack Leader: strong, hyper alert, dangerous. Now, the lean physique looked gaunt, the shark’s grin was a tight grimace, his eyes were red-rimmed. His stare, once languidly menacing, was now intense, burning hot. He looked like someone who had been tortured beyond endurance.”

“The two of them, two of a kind, it seemed to Howard, stared holes into each other.”

This is a much better example of mg using descriptions to establish the purpose of a character. By drawing a comparison between these two, mg sets up Drake’s later role in the books, where he replaces Pack Leader as the gaiphage’s right-hand man. This almost leads me to believe that mg had decided very early on that Drake was going to desert Caine and this is possibly why he seems so out of place and underdeveloped as Caine’s underling in the first two books. Mg had already moved on from this side of his character…and it shows. Lana’s description of Drake also works as a basis for showing the reader how he has changed since losing his arm (before gaining his whip) and acts as an insight into his current mental state – which is important as we don’t get much introspection during Drake’s POV’s. But, I still have a few issues with this. First of all, his “lean physique”. Now this isn’t really a problem all by itself, but unless I have forgotten what 14 year olds looks like (which is a possibility though I doubt it) I don’t think that they should be muscly with minimal body fat. And Drake is not the only character he does this with. Quinn gets extremely muscly later on in the books (I’ll admit that there is a plausible reason behind this so this example isn’t terrible but it’s mentioned like every 5 sentences) and in Fear Caine is described as having wash-board abs. Why are we sexualising children?? Children should be pudgy and awkward and still growing into their bodies, not lean and muscly!! The attractive, damaged man who hates women for no reason at all is also a really really really common trope and tbh I’m just so bored of it. It’s not relatable (at least it shouldn’t be) and it’s just really unimaginative – although it does help us to understand Drake’s character as we’ve seen him before so many times in all types of media. My second issue with this description is the way it really really highlights how much of a waste of character Drake was. The potential of a high-school bully with a skewed world-view due to the death of his father and the later abuse of his mother at the hands of his replacement father figure trying hard to impress the charming “leader” with unimaginable power (that he so desperately wants) only to be undermined at every turn by a girl who teases him by pointing out his flaws and insecurities taking his anger out on everyone around him (especially women) as a way to cope with his childhood traumas then turning into a heartless monster who not only enjoys others pain but lives for it after being “tortured beyond endurance”, was astronomical. But we don’t get that. Instead we get a cheesy, one-dimensional cartoon villain. The change that his body and mind go through after his maiming should have been pivotal to his character, but that just doesn’t come across in the writing. :/ But more on this later.

And last but not least, the whip-hand, which is very important to Drake’s character. It turns his actual body into a weapon and his excitement over this is indicative of his sadistic nature. Again, I think this is an example of a wasted opportunity. I would have liked mg to have gone in to depth about how Drake’s body undergoing this change affected his psyche (and I’m not counting his one-off line in the monster trilogy). I think it could be argued that Drake’s “change” is a metaphor for him going through puberty. Him gaining the whip that ultimately turned him into his very own weapon shows his transition from a child [a little messed up but still just a kid] into a monster, someone who is capable of committing atrocities without a second thought. It would have been particularly interesting for Drake and Orc’s final battle to put some focus on the fact that they both suffer through monstrous physical changes that can be used to represent their shift from children to young adults but whereas one relishes in this, one is completely disgusted. The whip-hand is described as being an “impossible blood-red snake” and then that “It was stretched. Like it had been turned into dark, blood-red taffy. It wrapped twice around his body.” – Both of these occurring in Chapter 39. I don’t have much to comment about this – other than that I think red is great colour choice for Drake, thematically at least.

I know this point was mostly about what Drake could have been as opposed to an actual analysis of his appearance, but I’m just so tired of the attractive misogynistic villain that seems to appear in every single piece of media. His characterisation really bummed me out and put me into a slump so instead of analysing his appearance I decided to roast him instead. But, onto actual analysis now (I am going to further expand on some of the points I made here I promise).

2.) DRAKE’S PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER

I mentioned in the previous point that a lot of Drake’s characterisation seems like an afterthought at best and one of the things that made me think this, is the inconsistencies with his character and the most obvious example of this is the discrepancies with his birthday. In chapter 20, Diana says that his birthday is “April twelfth, just one minute after midnight.” But, in Chapter 33 we get the line “Sooner would be better,’ Drake drawled, ‘what with me having a month.” This is a really small nit-pick, I know, but it just really bugs me that mg overlooked something as simple as a birthday – especially when birthdays are such an important plot point in this book. But anyway, moving on. I promise this whole review isn’t going to be negative.

Backtracking now to Chapter 14. Drake’s character here seems to differ quite drastically from his later characterisation. He seems here to be an example of the laughably evil trope, he has a kind of dry sarcastic humour that is quite fun and seems to lighten the tone of the story a little bit. Rather than showing us the boringly disgusting misogynistic villain that Drake turns out to be, we instead see a funny, charismatic character who seems to prefer picking on those who already have power – as is seen here:

“Drake paused halfway, turned back, and spoke for the first time. In an amused voice he said, ‘Oh, um, Captain Orc? Have your people – the ones who aren’t injured- line up outside. We’ll work out your… um, duties.’ With a grin that was almost a snarl, Drake added a cheerful, ‘Later’.” – Chapter 33

Now I understand that the reason we don’t see the real Drake here is because Sam is obviously not yet aware of his true personality – my issue lies in the fact that based on just this small excerpt here, I expected so much more from his character. We get hints of his sadistic nature here, with him joking about Cookie’s horrific injury and clearly taking joy in exerting power over Orc, but it is evenly balanced by the fact that he’s kind of amusing and we don’t really like Orc at this point anyway. Can we see that something isn’t quite right with him?? Yes. But do we kind of like him anyway?? Well I did. At this point. I would have really loved it if mg had carried on this idea of Drake abusing those who already have power – him enjoying to take down bully after bully so he can be King bully, instead of him picking on people who he perceives as weak and vulnerable. Mg relying on misogyny as a motivator is just really disappointing to me because there is no depth to it, and it’s pretty lazy. He hates Diana because she is a woman and he sees women as beneath him?? Weak. Over-used. Dull. He hates Diana because she has power over Caine in a way that he never can, which makes him feel insecure in himself and the fragile sense of stability and power that he has struggled to cultivate within his damaged psyche?? Yes pls. Not only would this have made Drake a much more engaging character, but it would also have made his desertion of Caine in hunger much more impactful. And while I think there are aspects of this within his character, which I will go into later, I wish there had been more of it. Again, I’m sorry that this has become more of a “what could have been” rather than an analysis but there really is just so little to analyse without just pointing out obvious facts and statements. There’s no spice here :/

Moving on now to Chapter 16, where we as an audience, as well as the characters within the book, begin to realise what Drake truly is – an unhinged madman. We are told by Sam that Drake has been abusing his power as Sheriff – which particularly stands out as, so far at least, Drake is the only member of Coates who has shown this kind of behaviour (Caine is actually a pretty sound leader until he loses his shit and attacks Sam). And this is the first major distinction that we get between Caine and Drake and their capacity as villains in the story. Caine is a bad person who will do bad things to achieve his goals, he is power-hungry and ambitious but he is not needlessly violent. Everything he does he (in his own mind) is able to justify as it helps him to achieve his vision. Drake, on the other hand, doesn’t really seem to have an end goal. He is violent for the sake of being violent – he is a sadist who enjoys the suffering of other people as we see here, “Drake was more than a little scary. Kids who defied Drake or any of his so-called sheriff’s had been slapped, punched, pushed, knocked down or, in one case, dragged into a bathroom and given a swirlie. Fear of Drake was replacing fear of the unknown.” Now, we still don’t get to see the full extent of Drake’s madness here. Most of the crimes listed are pretty mundane bully things – they’re still wrong, but they aren’t life-threatening. He hasn’t bashed anyone’s head in with a baseball bat. While Caine is playing with politics, Drake seems unable to move past his role of high school bully. If he had played it right, the role of Sheriff would have been perfect for him. I mean, how many actual police officers get away with literal murder in the name of “upholding the law”?? But he is unable of seeing the bigger picture, unable to grow and fit the new world order as Caine does so naturally, and so, instead of properly taking on the role of Sheriff and building up his own authority in this way, he turns back to his tried and tested method – hurt them and they’ll fall in line.

I particularly enjoy this as I think it explains, a little bit more, why he hates Diana and Astrid so much. Now I know the bottom line is simply that he is a violent misogynist – but that doesn’t explain why he hates Diana and Astrid specifically. Is it because they’re both attractive women and he is unable to distinguish sex and violence in his head?? Partly yes, but then Taylor is also described as attractive (and most people find her annoying) and yet he doesn’t seem to hate her to this extent. I think the real reason he hates these two specifically, more than anyone else, is because he simply cannot understand them – and that scares him (although he is unwilling to admit it). Drake only knows how to gain power through violence – he sees this work at home, he used it on Holden, he used it to gain his reputation at Coates and, although he has the ability to gain authority in other ways, he continues to use this method even now in the FAYZ. Diana and Astrid cannot do this, they are not fit to fight, they are not able to use violence to assert their status – and yet they both have more power in the FAYZ than he does. They make him question his whole world view and, as he cannot or will not adapt to the new hierarchy of the FAYZ, he resorts to trying to destroy them, in order to return the world to what it was before. His hatred of others gaining power through (what he sees as) unconventional means is then further established with his dislike of actual powers and the people who have them:

“I’m sick of all this powers crap. You saw what we did to freaks at Coates?? Who do you think it was that took care of that?? All these kids with their stupid so-called powers. Starting fires and moving stuff around and reading your mind and all?? Who do you think it was grabbed them one by one in their sleep and beat them down and when they woke up their hands were setting in a block of cement??

[…]

That’s right. And I didn’t even have a gun then. It’s not about who’s got powers, morons. It’s about who’s not afraid. And who’s going to do what has to be done.”

We get told by Diana that it was Drake’s idea to cement the kids in the first place (and a bad one at that) and I really think that is all the evidence you need to see that Drake’s hatred and fear all stem from his complete inability to adapt. He is trapped in a cycle of abuse that started with his father, a police officer who teaches him how to shoot people (however unwillingly) and is then continued by his step-father (an actual abuser) rendering him incapable of recognising any kind of authority if it is not gained from violent means. And so of course he hates the powers – none of the kids gained their powers through suffering or through causing suffering. They didn’t earn their authority in any valid way, according to him. (This is also another reason why I think Drake was so ecstatic at gaining his whip-hand. He suffered for it and therefore, in his twisted mind, he earned it. It is physical proof of his supposed power over these kids.) It’s tragic really – but mg then goes on to make him so disgustingly unsympathetic that his story loses its meaning. I love mg’s writing but Drake’s character truly was butchered for shock value and plot convenience and it makes me so sad.

Ok back to Chapter 16. Here, not only do we hear about some of the things that Drake is capable of, but we see them as well. His beat-down of Orc is the first indicator we get that Drake is someone we should really be afraid of. Heads up, this is a long quote:

“Nobody move,’ Drake said. Orc pushed Edilio off and jumped to his feet. He started kicking Edilio, landing size-eleven Nike blows into Edilio’s defensive arms. Sam jumped in to help his friend, but Drake was quicker. He stepped behind Orc, grabbed him by the hair, yanked his head back, and smashed his elbow into Orc’s face. Blood poured from Orc’s nose, and he howled in rage. Drake hit him again and released Orc to fall to the concrete. ‘Which part of “nobody move” did you not understand, Orc?’ Drake demanded. Orc rose to his knees and went for Drake like a linebacker, Drake stepped aside, nimble as a matador. He stuck his hand out and said to Chaz, ‘Give me that.’ Chaz handed him the bat. Drake hit Orc in the ribs with a short, sharp forwards thrust of the bat. Then again in the kidneys and again in the side of the head. Each blow was measured, accurate, effective. Orc rolled over on to his back, helpless, exposed. Drake pushed the thick end of the bat against Orc’s throat. ‘Dude. You really need to learn to listen when I talk.’ Then Drake laughed, stepped back, twirled the bat in the air, caught it and rested it on his shoulder. He grinned at Sam.”

“Sam had gone up against bullies before. But he’d never seen anything like Drake Merwin. Orc outweighed Drake by at least fifty pounds, but Drake had handled him like a little toy action figure.”

Orc has already been established as the top bully in Perdido beach – we’ve already seen that our main character is afraid of him – and for good reason. And so for Orc to be defeated so casually and so easily is shocking. It lets us know that the old world order has collapsed and old fears are fading away with it, with new, much more threatening adversaries taking their place. I actually think that this scene was exceptionally clever of mg. Drake is attacking someone who has already been set up as an antagonist, at the same time rescuing Edilio, who the reader has been conditioned to like. But, through context clues, we know that this is not a good thing. It sets up the villainous nature of the Coates kids, Orc’s redemption, Drake and Orc’s rivalry and Sam’s fear of Drake. And it feels natural, even after re-reading the book multiple times. It’s scenes like these that really remind me how great of a writer mg is.

Another thing I really wanted to talk about here IS Drake and Orc’s rivalry because, yet again, I think mg missed a huge opportunity with this. Drake and Orc are very similar before, and in the early days of the FAYZ. Both have abusive fathers (a step-father in Drake’s case but still), both enjoy asserting their power over people through violent means and both are put in positions of power that they are unable to fully take advantage of – Sheriff and Sheriff Deputy. And even as the books continue, similarities can still be found. They both suffer mutations that turn their bodies into grotesque weapons, dehumanising them and alienating them from their peers and That Scene in Plague tells us that Orc and Drake sometimes have similar “desires”. Their stories are constantly intertwined, with them being played off of each other from the start and Orc becoming Drake’s jailor later on (and in turn Drake sort of becoming his). Their differences come from their reactions to the horrific acts of violence they have committed – and of course why they do them. I’m going to make a whole separate post on this because it’s long enough to be a standalone, but my I just wish mg had played up both their similarities and differences more. It would have made Drake so much more interesting.

We also get more hints at his sadism in this scene. He is later unbothered that Betty has been hurt and it seems that the only reason he attacked Orc was because it gave him an opportunity to assert his dominance over him. All in all, this is one of my personal favourite scenes in the book as it establishes characters, themes and relationships very well. I just wish some of these had been developed further – but mg dropping certain aspects of the story does seem to be a common problem.

The final thing I wanted to talk about in regards to Drake’s personality and character is this line we get in Chapter 23, “It was small, just two bedrooms, very neat, very organised, the way Drake liked things.” This was another thing that irked me slightly. It’s such a small aspect of his characterisation but it reinforced the idea that drake is just another cookie-cutter villain with no real personality, nothing that makes him stand out in the sea of white male psychopaths with a hatred for women. His whole character could be replaced with any other misogynistic psychopath at no detriment to the story. My immediate though when reading this was that even the smallest aspects of his character can be seen in other, more developed villains – this line in particular is hugely reminiscent of Patrick Bateman. Nothing seems to be his own. No aspect of his character is even remotely unique. (I think this may also be why some young fans develop an obsession with him. His character is comfortable because we’ve seen it so many times before.) He is so entirely replaceable and replicable - only reason he isn’t completely forgettable is because you are constantly plagued by the horrific things he has done. Mg sacrificed depth and development for shock value and it’s so disappointing

3.) DRAKE’S PAST

Onto Drake’s life before the FAYZ. Not only does Drake receive some of the longest and most POV time in this book, he is also the character whose life before the FAYZ we learn the most about (with the possible exception of Sam). This is especially shocking to think about seen as Drake is arguably one of the most underdeveloped characters in the whole book, but anyway. There are two scenes I’m going to talk about here, both occurring in Chapter 23, with the first being his dad teaching him how to shoot. I apologise in advance for the long quote:

“His father had taught him how to shoot, using his service pistol. Drake still remembered the first time.

[…]

He remembered the way his father had taught him to grip the butt firmly but not too tight. To rest his right hand in the palm of his left and sight carefully, to turn his body sideways to present a smaller target if someone was shooting back. His father had had to yell because they were both wearing ear protection. ‘If you’re target shooting, you centre the front sight in the notch of the rear sights. Raise it till your sights are sitting right under your target. Let your breath out slowly and squeeze.’ That first bang, the recoil, the way the gun jumped six inches, the smell of the powder – it was all as clear in Drake’s mind as any memory he had. […]

‘What if I’m not shooting if I’m not shooting at a target?’ He’d asked his father. ‘What if I’m shooting at a person?’ ‘Don’t shoot a person,’ his father had said. But then he relented, relieved no doubt to find something he could share with his disturbing son. ‘Different people will tell you different techniques. But if it’s me, say I’m doing a traffic stop and I think I see he citizen reaching for a weapon, and I’m thinking I may have to take a quick shot? I just point. Point like the barrel is a sixth finger. You point and if you have to fire, you shoot half the clip, bang, bang, bang, bang.’ ‘Why do you shoot so many times?’ ‘Because if you have to shoot, you shoot to kill. Situation like that, you’re not aiming carefully for his head or his heart, you’re pointing at the centre of mass and you’re hoping you get a lucky shot., but if you don’t, if all you’re hitting is shoulder or belly, the sheer velocity of the rounds will knock him down.”

Ok so the first thing I want to analyse here, is how important this memory clearly is to Drake. He remembers it fondly, in immense detail and seems to call back on it when he needs to clear his head (notice how this memory is placed while Drake is trying to figure out what to do, not while he is doing it.) It seems that rather than just using this memory as a source of useful information, it is also a source of comfort to him. Now there are some things that I really wish mg had told us that would help to analyse this scene better, like: How old was Drake when this memory took place?? How old was Drake when his father died?? How did his father die?? But alas, we don’t know these things (at least not that I’m aware of, and not within this book) so I’m going to try and do the best I can with the information that we have. Now, in Light, Drake makes it seem like his step-fathers behaviour has been significant in forming his worldview – which makes sense, trauma does that. But he spends half of his time away at Coates, which says to me that for this behaviour to have had such a profound effect on him, his step-father must have been around for a while. Right?? I’m gonna take a guess at 3-4 years at the least. Give Drake’s mother about a year to meet and start dating this man after the passing of her husband – this means that Drake would have been around 9/10 at the latest when this scene took place. That’s pretty young. Like, this is a formative memory and from the way it’s written, it seems like this may be some of the only bonding that Drake and his father ever did together. No wonder Drake has such an unhealthy obsession with guns as is seen with these quotes:

“He started from Astrid’s house, which was already beginning to smoke. He worked his way methodically, a hunter, looking for any movement. Each time he spotted someone walking or running or biking, he would take a look at them through the rifle scope, line them up in the crosshairs. He felt like God. All he had to do was squeeze the trigger.” – Chapter 23

“Drake kept all three guns loaded all the time. They were set out on the dining room table, a display, something to be gazed at lovingly.” – Chapter 23

“Drake could not leave the gun alone. He kept thumbing the safety on and off. He rolled down the window and aimed it at stop signs as they passed, but did not fire.” – Chapter 31

Drake shooting Sam and his gleeful reaction – Chapter 34

For him, guns are the ultimate symbol of power and authority. He was introduced to these weapons of incredible power at such a young age – of course he loves them. That being said, it seems that Drake has always been “disturbed” so I suppose we can’t fully blame his father and step-father for his mind-set – and I have to say I don’t really like this. Drake’s issue as a character is that he is completely de-humanised by all the horrific things he does. By having it seem like Drake was irredeemable from the off-set, it just adds to this idea and again removes any possible depth or character development. Imo it would have been much better to present Drake as becoming the way he is AFTER his father’s death. It would bring a sense of tragedy to his character – the way he uses his father’s advice to hunt down Astrid would seem less like a by-product of his sadism and more like a misguided attempt to feel connected to his deceased father.

However, flawed though it is, this scene does give us some insight as to why Drake is the way he is – through the characterisation of his father. Admittedly we don’t get much, but one line really stood out to me, “Because if you have to shoot, you shoot to kill.” Ummm..sir?? I don’t think that’s how police officers work. Isn’t your goal to incapacitate – not to just kill on sight?? The fact that he not only stands by this rule himself, but also gives this advice to his CHILD is disconcerting. Drake is not only receiving this harmful rhetoric from his father figure but also a police officer. Someone who is meant to uphold the law. I think this links back to my earlier point on how Drake only recognises authority if it is gained by violent means. While we get no indication that his real father was ever violent to Drake or his mother, he openly tells Drake that when he is upholding the law (in this hypothetical situation) he does it by using force. That is a dangerous thing to tell a child, especially a child who you already think is disturbed. This twisted-take on a father-son relationship nicely sets the precedent for Drake’s warped perceptions, I just wish it had been developed further. And this leads us nicely into the next scene – the shooting of Holden:

“He remembered with vivid, slow-motion detail the time he had shot Holden, the neighbour’s kid who liked to come over and annoy him. That had been a bullet to the thigh, with a low-level calibre gun, and still the kid had nearly died. That ‘accident’ had landed Drake at Coates.”

Again, first and foremost I just wish we had a little bit more information. It is not clear whether this situation occurred before or after his father’s death – which seems like a pretty important detail to me. Although, we don’t actually find out that Drake’s father is dead within this book, and this omission again makes me feel like mg adding that detail was little more than an after-thought. It feels like in Light he wanted to quickly try and make Drake more of a sympathetic character and so he added in an abusive step-dad to try and tone down or at least explain Drake’s violence and misogyny. It seems like Drake is a plot-point first and a character second and the lack of detail here really highlights that for me. What purpose did these scenes really have in the story?? They did very little to flesh out his character, they introduced no new themes or relationships. It seems like mg just wanted to let us know – “Hey! Drake knows how to use a gun. That’s gonna be important later.” That being said, there are a couple of other things I would like to quickly mention. Firstly, I think the fact that Drake did not aim to kill Holden, even though he could have, is meant to be indicative of his change between then and now. It’s done to tell us that Drake wasn’t always this bad – there was at one point some hope. For this to have the desired effect though, I really think mg should have waited until after Drake lost his arm to straight up try and murder Astrid and Little Pete. Like, you can’t tell us that Drake was a little messed up but still redeemable before his maiming and then go and have him try to kill a random girl and her five year old brother. Because that’s more than a little messed up (and that’s not even mentioning the cementing). And it also contrasts the idea that Drake has always been disturbed. An idea that was introduced to us not even a page ago!! The other thing I wanted to pick up on, which I actually quite liked, is the ambiguous “who liked to come over and annoy him.” Because this is Drake’s point of view – so “annoy” could mean anything. Was Holden actually just an annoying kid?? Was he just trying to be Drake’s friend?? Or was he actually a bully and Drake doesn’t want to admit it?? I guess we’ll never know.

4.) DRAK’ES MOTIVATIONS

For this point, I wanted to focus on three particular motivators: Caine, Diana and Astrid. These are the three people, I believe, who provide, either consciously or unconsciously, the motivation for his actions within the FAYZ. I’ll start first with Astrid and Diana, the two people who Drake hates the most. Throughout this book it is clear that Drake has no real goals – he has no desire to be in control like Caine, no desire to re-invent the world like Albert. All he wants is to cause pain, with his preferred targets being these two. And, as I’ve said before, I think this is partly because he hates the authority that they have within the FAYZ – which stems from manipulation and intelligence rather than violence.

In Chapter 20, Drake explains his hatred for Diana, “Drake had made the time to check out Diana’s psych file the day after the FAYZ came. But her file had been missing by then. In its place she had left Drake’s file lying open on the doc’s desk and drawn a little smiley face beside the word ‘sadist’. Drake had already hated her. But after that, hating Diana had become a full-time occupation.” What I take from this scene, is that Drake’s loathing stems from Diana’s ability to get under his skin, to make him feel inferior – to annoy him. (Perhaps Holden had a similar talent). I’m going to assume that his prior hatred of her can be boiled down to his misogyny and his disgust at Caine’s weakness for her, both of which have been explicitly stated in the text. His hatred after this though, comes from a pretty mundane incident. I mean all she did was get there quicker, and do exactly what he was going to do to her. And so I think this loathing is less about what she did and more about his own personal reaction to it. Diana was able to weaponise Drake’s own anger against him – to make him feel inferior and powerless. She challenges Drake’s fragile perception of authority and takes a diagnosis that he seems to not only be ok with, but is actually proud of, and makes him feel embarrassed. His whole perception of power is rooted in the idea that his ability to inflict pain on others with no guilt or remorse is what makes him better, it is what gives him his power. But she takes this idea and belittles him for it and so his initial reaction is to attack. This is an idea that is again seen with Astrid. Astrid intentionally tries to make Drake feel inferior by bringing up his biggest insecurity, Diana’s treatment of him “Doesn’t it bother you that Diana treats you like some wild animal she keeps on a leash?” And she does escape him – twice. Her and her autistic brother (and we already know how Drake feels about autistic people). She also proves herself to be more intelligent than him, in their little argument over the r-slur. Drake only gets violent after he realises that, in an intellectual sense, she has more power than him. It seems to be his defence mechanism just as much as his pleasure – and therefore Astrid and Diana’s power over him motivates him to use it.

Now onto Caine. Caine and Drake’s relationship is, for me, one of the most interesting aspects of Drake’s character and while I’ll only be mentioning it in its capacity as a motivator here, I have a whole post planed out for it. Drake seems to simultaneously hate Caine and admire him. He is constantly looking to impress him and the only time we ever see Drake think about betraying him in this book is when Caine gives his attention to Diana rather than Drake. And, because of this, I can kind of understand why people ship them (although I personally dislike the idea of Drake being gay). A lot of the time this motivation is completely unprompted by Caine himself, like in these quotes:

“Drake cursed and, again, for just a moment, felt the almost desperate fear of failing Caine. He wasn’t worried about what Caine would do to him – after all, Caine needed him – but he knew if he failed to carry out Caine’s orders, Diana would laugh.” – Chapter 23

“I got him’ Drake announced. ‘I got them all.’ ‘Yes, you did,’ Caine said. ‘Good work, Drake.” – Chapter 34

In Chapter 23, it seems that both Drake’s need to impress Caine and his need to prove to himself that he is better than Diana are his main motivators for his extreme attack on Astrid. I think it’s important to note that he only planned on trying to catch her, until Caine told him to kill her. His sadistic nature is brought out in full because he needs to prove himself to Caine. But why does he?? If he is planning on taking over from Caine in the end, why does he have a “desperate fear of failing Caine”?? Sure, part of it is his desire to prove himself to be better than Diana. But even this has roots in his absolute need for Caine to take notice of him. Drake is drawn to Caine because of his power and authority over people. Caine seems to be the closest thing that Drake can get to an equal, someone who shares the same motivations, ambitions and worldview (of course Caine and Drake do not share these things, but Drake doesn’t realise this…yet.) He seeks validation from Caine because he wants to have these things in common with someone – yet another motivation for his hatred of Diana as she constantly gets in the way of this.

We also know that Caine is, at least, partly aware of his effect on Drake. He is paranoid that Drake will turn on him (because Caine sees being equal to someone as relinquishing power) and he is able to manipulate Drake’s misguided feelings when he wants to – most notably in Chapter 36:

“It’s not Diana or Chunk or even me,’ Caine said. ‘It’s none of us, Drake. It’s Sam. It’s Sam who did this to you, Drake. You want him to get away with it? Or do you want to live long enough to make him suffer?”

This is such a clever moments as it sets up Drake’s whole character in Hunger, and it’s false. Because yes, Sam is the one who burned Drake’s arm and Drake has every right and reason to hate him. But it was Caine who abandoned him to save himself. And it was Caine who refused to let Drake die, even though he was begging for it (and let’s face it, he didn’t refuse to kill him out of any affection – it was a selfish decision.) But Drake is so desperate for that equal, for that validation that his worldview is correct and is shared by another person, that he just idk forgets?? He never brings up this conversation again and just accepts Caine’s word as gospel. I have so much more to say about their relationship but, as I said, I’ll save it for a later post.

5.) DRAKE’S MENTAL STATE

And finally, we have Drake’s mental state. Now I’m not going to try and give him an official diagnosis or anything, but I wanted to make a small point specifically about his mental state after his maiming. I think we can all agree that what Drake went through was pretty horrific, and while I personally struggle to feel any amount of sympathy for him due his own list of horrific crimes, the change he goes through after this is extremely significant, or at least it’s supposed to be. I think mg wants us to believe that Drake’s descent into madness was directly cause by the loss of his arm, and that before that he did have the chance to be redeemed. I think whether you buy into this depends on how forgiving you are, but I want to focus more on the actual proof of change that we see.

I’ve already talked about the physical changes he goes through, and the implications of this so I’m going to focus solely on his mental state during and partly after the whole ordeal. I think the first and most important thing to talk about is the fact that Drake didn’t actually want to survive:

“Don’t cut off my arm,’ Drake cried. ‘Let me die. Just let me die. Shoot me.” – Chapter 36

He would rather die than lose his arm (his gun arm to be specific). Now, while I don’t doubt that the burning was indescribably painful, I’m still not sure that the majority of people would beg for death. Especially when an alternative (in this case losing his arm) is presented. Not to mention, he doesn’t actually talk about the pain when begging for his death – what he talks about is the loss of his arm. Of course it could be argued that the reason he didn’t want his arm to be cut off is because he knew it would mean more pain, but I don’t think that this is the case. Rather, I think that Drake is so scared of losing the power that he has, that he would genuinely rather die. This 14 year old boy is so messed up that his own death is preferable to the idea of no longer being able to hurt people. And so when he gets his power back, he doubles down. He has realised by this point what he truly wants, that he would rather die than be rendered powerless, so he begins committing more heinous acts (like attacking the prees). Pair this with the amount of pain that he went through, which most definitely will have had an effect on his already damaged brain, and you can see how a high-school bully became what he did. The groundwork for an interesting and though-provoking character was right here. I think yet again the problem with his character is the execution. Interesting aspects of his personality are dropped in favour of plot convenience and shock value and it cheapens his character as a whole until all the intended nuances are lost and over-shadowed.

I’m really sorry if this is a bit all over the place and not quite as polished as my other posts. I found Drake so difficult to write about and so my thoughts kept going haywire. Thank you so much for reading (and being patient with my brain). I hope you enjoy!!

#the gone series #Drake Merwin #character analysis #gone

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bradie-valentine · 3 years

Text

To Live in a House That is Haunted

By Bradie Valentine

The afternoon sun bakes me through the windshield as I drive towards Leah’s house. She hasn’t answered my texts in a couple of days. Not that unusual for her, even before this silence. And yet I’m still on my way to check on her. We’ve been basically inseparable since we bonded over our family troubles in grade three and this is the longest we haven’t seen each other since then. The quiet from her side of our friendship has gestated long enough.

When I pull up to her house, a wave of unease washes over me. The house looks almost the same as it usually does, but just slightly off. The grass is way too long and I can see a pile of mush near the mailbox, the storms of summer turning her mail into pulp. As I head towards the house, parting the long grass that tickles my legs, I notice the stack of oak she bought a few months ago. The wood is bloated and full of wet rot, another victim of the January showers.

Don’t get me wrong, Leah has always been quiet, reserved. But this is different. Besides the occasional ‘I’m still alive’ text, I’ve barely interacted with her in the past two months. I can’t exactly blame her though. I can understand why she hasn’t been feeling very social. Her husband, Brian, died two months ago; the death of Leah’s voice immediately following.

I was with her that day, the day cops turned up to deliver the news. We were in the lounge room, chatting about Leah’s upcoming carpentry projects when there was a knock at the door. Leah answered it, there was some muffled chatter and then a sorrowful screech, like an animal caught in a trap. I leapt up from the couch just in time to see Leah collapse in on herself. The strong statue of the woman I knew, reduced to a pile of discarded tissues; delicate and tear soaked.

It was a freak accident that killed her Brian. A bump on the head at work. Rushed to the hospital, and he was dead on arrival. We found out later that the knock had popped a massive aneurysm that was nesting between the folds of his brain.

I take a deep breath and rap on the door a couple times but Leah doesn’t answer. I pause for a few seconds, knock, pause again, and knock again. I pull out my phone and text her, a drop of sweat trickles down the back of my neck. The heat and worry working together to slick my skin. I try calling too, but the phone rings out. Usually I wouldn’t bother worrying over Leah, but since Brian, grief has metamorphosed her, leeching both her light and strength. I think I should go, maybe come back later, but then I notice the sound of music. Leonard Cohen’s deep voice emanates from within the house. I try the handle and it’s unlocked, as soon as I open the door I get hit with the foulest stench of my life, even worse than when I used to get paid to wash down animal cages at the local vet. The stench clogs my nostrils and makes my mouth water with pre-vomit saliva.

I call out to Leah and get no response in return. Covering my nose, I start down the hallway, passing picture frames filled with photos of the happy couple. I call out again and I still don’t get a reply. Oh god, I should have come sooner. As I approach the bedroom, I hear a buzzing. I can’t place it for a second, and then I realise, it’s flies, a swarm of flies.

It’s all making sense, her favourite album playing, their wedding anniversary is coming up. The stench of sickly sweet death crowding the hallway. Leah has killed herself and now a horde insects are busy getting comfortable in the rancid warmth of her lifeless corpse.

I brace myself, a few steps and I’ll be able to see the bedroom, the carnage Leah has made of herself. And then I hear a laugh, Leah's laugh. The fear mixes with confusion and I’m so disorientated, I stumble the last couple steps forward and then I see them.

Leah is lying on the bed, holding Brian’s hand. It takes me a second to realise that the swollen form on the bed is indeed Brian. The flies have made their home here a while ago. There is a split in Brian’s belly where the gasses of rot have burst him open. Maggots spill off Brian and wiggle across Leah, like they can’t even tell anymore where the death ends and the living begins.

I turn away and run for the kitchen. My stomach is roiling and lurching. I only make it halfway and end up vomiting on the floor. Bile and this morning's toast exploding from my mouth.

“Hi”

I look at Leah. She’s knobbly and bony where she used to be muscular. There’s a stain down the left side of her night gown. It’s yellowy thickness let’s me know it’s broken down fat that has leached out of Brian and onto her. As if he was trying to offer back some of the bulk that weeks in bed have taken from her.

I’m still gagging when she starts talking.

“I dug him up, after the funeral. I brought a shovel with me.”

“Why?”

“I was getting ready for the funeral and all I could think about is how he would be so lonely in the ground. You know how much he hated being without me.”

“Leah, this is fucking crazy, you know that right? I love you but holy shit. You need help Leah… you need serious help.”

She just turns away and walks back to the bedroom.

“Leah, stop! I’m serious.”

She doesn’t listen to me. I follow her down the hallway and watch her climb into bed next to the mass of degrading flesh in a burial suit.

The liquid of his body has seeped into the mattress and the carpet beneath their bed. No one is ever going to be able to scrub him from the carpet or the floor below. An oily stain has spread up the wall above him, a halo made from his desecration. Brian now has a permanence he never had before. I wonder for a second what will happen to this house after they’re gone. Who would even want it now?

“Go away,” She says.

“Leah please”

She stays silent, just staring at Brian’s empty face.

“This is beyond fucked up, I’m getting you out of here. If… if you don’t come with me, I’ll call the police. They’ll be able to drag you out”

There is another long pause, and I almost think she has forgotten I’m here. She’s so clearly out of it.

“Please… please just let me say goodbye” She finally replies, “I need to say goodbye. I didn’t get to say it last time, please“

She leans in close to the bloat and starts whispering. I feel like I’m watching something I shouldn’t. I head for the front door, for fresh air. As I’m walking through the house, I realise all of the pictures on the wall that used to be of parents and cousins and nieces have been replaced.

They’re all of Leah with Brian’s body. All taken in the house. In one, Brian is propped up on the couch. Leah is sitting straight, like she’s posing for a portrait. The self timer on her phone capturing a record of her depravity. The photos all vary in poses and states of decomposition. The latest one I find is of them in bed. Brian already shiny and slick, his body bloated and gnarled. Leah has an arm around him and her head on his chest.

The front door is calling to me, fresh air and a reprieve from the incessant vibration of insect life. I reach for the handle when I notice the frame right by the door. The photo is of Leah, Brian and I at their wedding. It was Leah's favourite of the night, the three of us caught in laughter together. I sigh and head for the lounge room instead, climb the couch and slide open the window, pressing my face to the fly screen, breathing deeply the outside air.

The light tap, tap, tap of Leah’s steps announce her presence in the hallway.

“It’s okay now,” she says, “I got to say goodbye. We can put him back and no one has to know. You don’t have to call the police or anything.”

“Leah, you dug up his body, I can’t just pretend like that didn't happen.”

“Please! If anyone finds out, they’ll put me away. I don’t want to be alone. I lost Brian, I can’t lose everyone else as well.”

She’s just standing there in her yellowed nightgown, hands wringing each other. Leah looks so young, so helpless, like she’s in third grade again. Actually, she reminds me more of myself when I was in third grade. Unsure, broken, needing someone to look after me. Leah was the one who took care of me then, she was my person. Now I have to be that for her.

“Alright,” I say, getting up from the couch, “you get the gloves and aprons, I’ll get the rope.”

Standing in the bedroom, decked out in aprons, gloves, and face masks, we stare at the pile of flesh on top of the mattress. Assessing the best course of action, I really stare at Brian. Once a man, a great man at that, he is now somewhere between human and object. Tender and fragile, a bag of rot. Meat, past its use by date. A spoiled egg, one sharp prod and he’ll pop like a runny yolk. We have to be gentle.

Next to the bed, we lay the blue tarp I grabbed from the shed across the floor. Leah climbs up beside Brian, the movement jostles him, shaking the fluid filling his skin, wobbling like an oversized hot water bottle. Bracing myself over the tarp we grab his arms and pull him towards the ground, our fingers sink into his raw sausage meat arms. He slips from our hands a couple inches from the floor, with a wet slap he hits the ground. We rear back, and Leah spews a startled cry. The gash in Brian’s stomach yawns wider and a rush of melted organs spill from his open body; a thick grotesque puff of odour erupting with it. Following closely behind, a swarm of flies and maggots escape his bodily cavity, startled from their reverie.

Shocked still for a moment, we spring to life and scramble out of the room and slam the door shut. Leah slides to the floor, moaning and crying.

“What do we do now?” She asks me.

Dropping to the floor, I gather her gently into my lap. Trying not to think about bits of Brian swill getting all over me, I pat her matted hair.

“We take care of you now, the way you took care of Brian, the way you’ve taken care of me. Whatever that means.”

“Okay,” she says, “okay.”

Once Leah is soundly asleep, I dial triple zero. The operator seems a bit surprised by the situation I describe.

“My friend dug up her husband’s dead body and had been living with it for two months, can you send an ambulance over?”

“Uh, yeah. Right away.”

Once again, Leah and I are startled by a knock at her front door. I’m the one who answers it this time. Leah stands at the end of the hallway, she must look frightening to these strangers. Gaunt and covered in sludge, sticky with the putrid stench of the death that was stewing in that once pristine bedroom. They’re gentle with her, she goes with them willingly. We finally get outside, the freshness of the crisp air disorientating. Leah stops and turns to me.

“I’m sorry for bringing you into this,” she says.

“Anytime,” I say.

We both laugh a little bit.

“Leah?”

“Yes?”

“You’ll be okay. Eventually, things will be better.”

“I know,” She says, “will you be okay, without me around?”

I think it’s a joke. Her, also trying to lighten the mood. I answer her seriously anyway.

“Yes, Leah. I think I will.”

#shortstories #shortstory #bradievalentine #originalwork #originalstory #writer #author

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 5 years

Text

Humans are Weird “Aliens Explaining Emotions”

From a discussion I had with my friend from some days ago. it was a fun and challenging exercise, and I hope you all like it :)

A lot of my academic counterparts had been asking me about the scope of human emotional range. This may seem like a confusing question to humans seeing as that emotion is an every second part of their lives, but there are many species in the galaxy who are only limited to a restrictive subset of emotions including fear, contentment, anger, happiness and interest. I, and other scientists have taken the liberty of studying human emotion, as well as human studies on the matter, and come up with 29 emotions on the human emotion spectrum. I took the liberty of asking a human to describe just what these things feel like, and when they occur and will try to explain it as well as I can.

Admiration = The human categorized this as a subset of awe but ONLY for people. This involves being impressed, and the desire to BE more like another person, or the desire to be closer to that other person. I’d consider this some function of social integration for humans an instinctive way of modeling proper behavior. Admiration is usually towards a figure in authority or position of power a parent, friend, icon, or celebrity.

Adoration = Not to be confused with admiration, adoration does not necessarily involved the desire to become like that other person, but it does involve the desire to be around them, to make them happy. Anything the target person does, no matter what, is seen as exciting, cute or admirable in whatever combination. Humans will generally do anything for someone they adore. Adoration can be for animals, small children, a mate, or someone famous.

Amusement = I have learned to personally experience this one myself. It is an extreme requirement if you are to spend any time with humans as it is the single most important emotion for social bonding. I would say it is similar to happiness, but much more physical. It is almost a cognitive joy taken from a specific phrase or situation that manifests as a bubbling in the stomach and chest. It is a pleasant feeling.

Anxiety = Just imagine feeling like a boulder will drop out of the sky to crush you at any moment, or the impending feeling of knowing the world is going to end, but you don’t know when. I would consider this a subset of fear, but less intense, more chronic and physically catastrophic.

Awe = awe is an extreme emotion which manifests with the widening of the eyes, and the mouth. This is a response to unbelievable or amazing situation. Humans describe it as a feeling of the chest expanding, may include tingling or the piloerection of hair on the skin. This emotion can be completely overwhelming and may manifest when the human understanding is stretched to capacity, and the brain is having trouble comprehending what it saw.

Awkwardness = is a motion manifested when something socially inappropriate happens. Awkwardness is a way of letting others know that something socially unacceptable just happened. This may include saying something insensitive at the wrong time, like asking a fat woman if she’s pregnant only to realise she isn’t. The modern use of the word Cringe is a subset of awkwardness that is more intense and usually involves a person or situation being EXTREMELY awkward so much so that it causes a person to cringe. Includes a tightening in the stomach and chest manifesting in a human making their body smaller and curling towards the center like someone is about to hit them. The awkwardness is so bad it is physically painful.

Boredom = when a human is lacking in cognitive stimulation. The brain will try to find something to interest itself and may lead to frustration or anxiety as the brain gets frustrated over the lack of stimuli. May also manifest as a flat affect or staring off into space.

Calmness / Contentment = a limbo emotion suspended between all other emotions. It is not happy, it is not sad, it is the closest emotion to the state of just existing in which my species spend most of their time. Humans do not often spend time here.

Confusion = An emotion that is common in many species, when cognition cannot figure out what is happening. It often manifests in humans with head tilting, frowning and looking around to gather more information.

Craving = This is a want, but to an extreme. A craving turns a want into a need to the point where the human finds it hard to pay attention to anything else. It is very common when it comes to food, but can also involve a craving for attention, company or other emotions.

Disgust = An emotion you do not want to be on the side of. Disgust is being repulsed by something, can be a smell, sight, or even a person. Disgust is a strange expression that involves turning the head away and the upturn of one corner of the mouth. It can be directed towards a specific behavior, but it is mostly used to determine that a human does not like something. I would argue that having a human disgusted with you is worse than having a human angry at you. Anger and respect can go hand in hand, but disgust and respect are mutually exclusive.

Empathetic pain = an emotion that seems almost entirely human. This involves a human’s ability to watch another person and feel their pain. For instance human males describe watching another man be kicked in sensitive areas and experiencing the contraction of muscles or even a tingling sensation in the area in which the other human was hurt, females can also experience the same sensation despite never having actually felt that sort of pain.

Entrancement = Sort of like adoration but involves less cognitive processing. A human isn’t likely to be thinking very clearly if they are entranced with something. I would describe it almost as a hypnotic state.

Envy = When a human wants something that another person has. It can include an object a situation or an attribute they wish they had. In short it is the desire to have what someone else has an a resentment towards the person who has it instead of them.

Excitement = The most adorable human emotion. Excitement is joy but more aggressive, generally used situationally for an event, or for seeing someone they have not seen in a long time. Excitement can be in the moment or anticipatory. Humans like making lots of noise when they are excited weather it be screaming or talking, they may jump up and down or cavort around in other ways. Humans are very active when they are excited.

Fear = Self explanatory, we all know fear. The imminent worry that you are going to die, be bodily injury or experience something else unpleasant. Humans have the ability to fear on behalf of others.

Frustration = This is a stepping stone to anger that involves the desire to do something but the inability to do it. Frustration happens when things are not going your way, and you cannot change it.

Hatred = the scariest of human emotions. I would argue it is an amalgamation of anger and disgust and may manifest in the desire to avoid, destroy or terminate whatever is the target of this emotion. Hatred, and maybe envy, are the wo greatest emotions that lead to murder. Once a human hates you, there is no coming back. Humans may use the word lightly to describe a mild dislike, but rarely do humans hate pickles they may dislike them but not hate them. Hatred is the desire to destroy, or obliterate whatever it is. If a human hates something, they wish them dead, desire to make them dead themselves, or desire for them something worse than death. Humans will use the word lightly, so make sure you examine body language when discussing this word with a human.

Horror = horror is a mixture of disgust and fear. This is a human’s response to seeing something so terrible that the brain can hardly comprehend what it is. It is almost like an equal but negative version of awe. It can be in response to horrible accidents, terrible situations or incomprehensible actions or atrocities committed by other humans.

Happiness = Contentment turned up. It is almost described as a warmth through the body, and an inability to stop smiling. Happiness is the emotional manifestation of feeling the sun on one’s skin after a dark night.

Interest / curiosity = a common emotion we understand as the desire to want to know more about a specific subject..

Joy = happiness turned to 11. This is happiness so intense the body cannot hold the emotion. Humans may scream, cry, laugh or many other physical actions in order to allow the release of this emotion. Joy is not a quite or unnoticeable emotion.

Love = This is the best emotion to be the target of. Humans have many versions of it, but in essence if a human loves someone, their only desire or goal for that person is to see them happy. A human would do anything for someone they love, and that includes die for them , not just die for them but walk over fields of glass, through fire, thousands of miles. Humans have been known to survive past all odds and hold onto life in order to see someone they love one last time. If you are lucky enough to have a human who has any sort of love towards you, you can rest assured that they will do whatever it is possible to keep you safe and happy.

Nostalgia = a strange human emotion that involves the desire for the past, or a fondness for the past. Playing a human a song that they may have heard often in their childhood may have them experiencing nostalgia.

Romance = This is a love specifically between two partnered humans. Think love as mentioned earlier but with a physical or sexual component.

Sadness = This is the opposite of happiness, and is often described as a heavy feeling. Increase that feeling and you get something called sorrow which is the opposite of joy. This generally happens during unfortunate events like the death of a family member. This is generally associated with the loss of something, another human, a pet, innocence, a situation, or a better period of time. Sadness should be curbed quickly, for it is not good for humans over a long period of time. It is theorized that the feeling of sadness is evolutionary designed to get other human’s attention looking for comfort.

Satisfaction = this is an internal feeling of pride usually experienced when a human does something and it works out. I would call this the opposite of frustration. Humans experience this when they believe they have done a good job with something.

Sympathy = this is like empathetic pain accept can include emotion or situational. A human does not have to have experienced the pain or situation someone else is going through to feel sympathy for them. It is almost the feeling of proxy sadness and the desire that another person’s situation get better. This is why humans are so good at understanding other species. A human who sympathizes with you might take your situation, imagine something similar and determine how they would feel if they were you, then they can experience a shadow of what you are feeling and thus sympathize. Is extremely important in a social society.

Triumph = A mixture of satisfaction and joy. This happens when a human has gone through a very difficult project, or experience and come out victorious. Triumph is experienced in war, beating a terrible illness, receiving what one has worked really hard for after years and years of dedication.

Some humans may tell you that they have not felt some of these emotions. and , unless they have a mental illness, or some other rare reason) that makes them physically incapable, than they are absolute lairs. They may not KNOW they experienced that emotion, or may not have the understanding to explain it, but deep down they know exactly what it means. If a human claims they don’t experience emotion that way, tell them to stop being an edge-lord and that the inability to experience emotions is neither a good thing, something to be proud of, or even a possibility if you are a human.

Im looking at you there human, the one who read this and was totally like, yeah but i've never felt that before. Stop trying to be special, you're human you know what all these feel like. You cannot be human without them.

Just a reminder that this was designed as being written by an alien, so if it doesn't seem entirely accurate, than that is okay :) This list was written with the idea of vast humanity ( and not acceptations ) if you find yourself an acceptation that is okay, but the list will remain unchanged. I myself am technically an acceptation in one aspect, but I didn’t want to confuse the issue.

#humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are spaceoddities #earth is a deathworld #Earth is space Ausralia #humans are weird

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moons-and-stars-and-shit · 3 years

Note

Hii! May i ask for a slice of cake? (If you can ofc)

So im a INFP-T virgo im also 4"11 i have dark brown hair it because wayy lighter near the sun. Also dark brown eyes my hair is cut kinda like a shag like the front is cut but the back isn't (bc of my parents) my style is grunge ig? Im very inlove with fairy style Smm but because im broke i cant really fulfil my love for that style (also probably because of my parents). My body is???? Okay my boobies are medium size and no unfortunately I don't have a fat ass 😕 im not chubby but at the same time im not skinny. Like the most fat goes to my tummy I get rolls when I sit down bath blah you get my point (im pretty insecure about it lolol). One of my two main dreams is to study abroad and become an interior decorator.

I dont know how to describe my personality but I will try. My best friend always tells me that my sense of humour is downhill BAD. I would laugh at the dumbest shit ever for example i laughed one of those pixilated bugs pics with random names on the bottom 💀 also I laugh at my own trauma and stuff that shouldn't be laughed at. I kinda have anger issues 😕 I get unmotivated pretty easily. I rant to my best friend alot and she says that im ✨depressed✨ and have ✨anxiety✨ and that i need therapy. Im scared to rant to my parents because im "too young and its just my hormones". Something that I found out about myself this year is i have chill tics 😦 (from anxiety). Outside im nice and sweet but on the inside my mind is just saying other things. Im SOMETIMES cold and say what's on my mind but thats to my close ones like my mom dad or friends. I dont lie going Outside alot I think school is kinda useless. I like to draw and listen to music my fav artist are mother mother and mitski.

I hope i didn't say TOO much anyway thank youu I hope you have/had a great day :)

🍰 for @shotosimp2

Romantic Matchup

Oikawa Tooru

How yall met

Ok im ngl

Y'all had know clue who each other were

Well that's a lie

Of course you knew who Oikawa was

But you just didn't care

Now Oikawa always saw you around school

You know...in the school uniform

But one day

He saw you outside of school in all of your grunge glory

And apart of him was like bitch wtf

And the other was like ok queen i see you 😗

So he approached you and complimented your outfit

And you said thanks and then ran off to wherever you were heading

Wait

You just said thanks???

No fan girling????

Not even a blush??????

Nothing????????????

OIKAWA.EXE HAS STOPPED WORKING

Ok he would understand that reaction if you were just a stranger on the street

But you went to school with him?

So you had to know who he was right?

Yeah my mans had a whole ass crisis because you didn't have a bigger reaction

The next day he went to Iwa and told him about his interaction with you

And he was just like not everyone was to like you ya know

Oikawa: >:o

Then Iwa had a brilliant idea

Get this

Maybe

Oikawa should BEFRIEND you before expecting you to want to talk to him

Wild theory I know

So now Oikawa had a new goal

Befriending you

It actually wasn't that hard since you both had a lot of classes together

Soon enough you guys became close friends

And oikawa was happy with just being your friend

At least...he thought he was

But everything changed when you told him you were going to study abroad for 3 months

And even though you had each others numbers

Everything without you just seemed so dull

Omg

Did he really have feelings for you?

The more time that passed by the more he was sure that he liked you

Like LIKED liked you

So the day you came back to Japan is when he confessed to you

And well you'd be lying if you said you hadn't caught feelings for him too

So you said yes

What they love about you

He loves how normal you treat him

Now hell admit when he first met you he kinda wanted you to treat him like a celebrity

Expected it even

But the more time he spent around you

The more he realized how much he liked being treated normally

Ok screw what your friend says

He loves your humor!

Yall will laugh at the dumbest shit

If we were to look at you and Oikawa's messages

85% of it would be dumb ass memes

And honestly

This boy makes jokes about his trauma too

“Hey Y/N you wanna hear a joke?”

“Sure”

“My existence”

“...”

“Ayyyyy”

He loves how easy it is to talk to you

Like he's told you things he hasn't even told Iwa before

And Iwa is his CHILDHOOD BESTIE

So yeah

Trust between you two

ASTRONOMICAL

What you love about them

You love how supportive he is

If you say you wanna do something

He is right behind you cheering you on

You could tell him you want to commit arson

And he'd just be like

Period queen ill bring the gasoline 💅

You can always count on this man to be in your corner

Speaking of

You can always count on oikawa period

Which is another thing that you love about him

If oikawa is anything

He is a man of his word

If he says hes gonna do something

You know he's gonna do it

He's just overall a really reliable person

You love how he just seems to motivate you to do better

Fr after you guys started dating your grades went

Partly because you felt like you needed to compete with him

But mostly because he just motivates and pushes you to do better

And if you do improve on something

He is HYPING you up

“That's my baby! I knew you could do it!”

Favorite things to do together

Yall love to just go to the store and window shop

Im sorry but yall are some broke hoes

So most of the time it's just you guys trying on clothes in the dressing room

Taking pictures of your outfits

Then leaving

Yeah the store employees kinda hate you…

But who cares what they think

And if you two do have some pocket cash you'll buy one or two things

Then blow the rest of your money on that good mall food

Cause why not

Random Hc

He makes fun of your guys height difference ALL THE TIME

But like, can you blame him????

You're not even 5 feet tall!!!

“Imagine being the size of a 10 year old, couldn't be me”

Imagine being taller than the national average height 😐, couldn't be me”

“Touche”

He let you dress him up as an E-Boy ONCE

Ngl tho he dug the eyeliner look 😗

He called you every day while you were studying abroad

He even sent you a oikawa plushie

You may or may not have sent him a video of you drowning it

When you came back to Japan he legit TACKLED you in the middle of the airport

Astrology

Virgo + Cancer

Compatibility 80%

Cancer and Virgo can have a wonderful connection and are usually brought together by sexual understanding.

The main problem of their relationship is in the possible conflict between emotional Cancer and reasonable Virgo.

If they manage to overcome this, accepting each other’s shortcomings and learning to incorporate some rationality or some emotion into their lives, they could end up in an inspiring relationship that will last for a very long time.

In a way, they complement each other as much as the heart complements the mind.

If they share a spark of love, it would be a shame to miss the opportunity for happiness just because of someone’s irrational expectations or someone’s closed heart.

If someone can help Virgo build their trust, it is their Cancer partner.

Although Cancer is a cardinal sign, they are stable by nature, especially when it comes to emotional decisions they have made.

If they have chosen Virgo to be their loving partner, they will have no reason to lie or cheat.

This behavior would only endanger their vision of a shared life and a loving family they want with the partner they chose.

This is also a reason why Cancer won’t have an initial problem with trusting Virgo.

Their convictions are stronger than their doubt.

Overall Aesthetic

Grunge Glamour ✨

Songs -

Tia tamera (Doja Cat)

Verbratem (mother mother

Literal Legend (Ayesha Erotica)

Hayloft (mother mother)

Stupid (ashnikko)

#haikyuu!!#haikyu x reader #haikyuu fandom #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu hcs #haikyuu matchups #oikawa hcs #oikawa toru x reader #oikawa x y/n #oikawa headcanons #oikawa tooru

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d0ntw0rrybehappy · 3 years

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i’m going insane lol

so i feel like the next step in working hard is to not even perceive the work i’m doing as tiring. (rereading this it’s making me lol.) it seems weird that i find a part time job at a restaurant this exhausting? and like i can’t pretend that i’m not tired, but i have to somehow take better care of myself and set the conditions to not be tired from it.

i’ve been thinking about baudrillard/barthes a lot still -- pleasantly surprised that their theories are interesting to apply to any- and everything. for example, they both go into how every statement can also be read as its opposite or negation. so, to quote baudrillard, saying “i am not afraid of communism” also implies that communism is something you should be afraid of.

i’ve been using this as a kind of paranoid way to gain insight into why people tell me that i am “strong” because i don’t really know what that means. (other things i am told i am often: sweet, intense). it’s like what they’re saying is, there’s some kind of context, a milieu of weak people i’m being compared to. or like they want to reassure me that i am strong, because i actually come across as how i feel: like a particularly lost, unstable, emotional, sensitive, and lonely person.

i can’t with restaurant work anymore. it. SUCKS. i want to fucking get out, i am like a rat scrabbling at the walls of a glass aquarium. all novelty has worn off, all misguided overtures of honest work or “people skills.” and i’m still stuck here, still holding my breath in the deep end until i can find the eject button. i am tired, my body aches. my body aches!!

i want to just grind my way out (here we are with barthes again -- well if you truly wanted to do that you’d just shut the fuck up and do it instead of writing about it), but here i am, eating another round of chocolate (i don’t smoke, i don’t have sex, i truly just eat), constantly fucking hungry. then like a bull mowing into a red flag i realize i have been grinding...in a completely useless direction. it is like my passion for learning about things gets scattered every which way and i just can’t start, every path is equally exciting and awful and the injunction to “choose” is not “clicking” in my “head.” it’s like my mind cracked open at some point in my teenage years (when i started smoking weed, when my child universe was decisively fractured by a friend) and now the crack is snowing fireworks and glitter and i shift in and out of unreality.

reality is almost too painful to bear. nobody’s happy: you can find contentment by accepting your current lot, but “happiness" is really just contrast or relief from pain. it comes in and out. most people are too lazy or small-minded or too busy complaining to feel content, or their lives are just too twiggy, got too long in the wrong direction or are just too fucking hard. i guess i still am happy, and still love life, in a sort of ferocious and bloody and hungry way.

love is bleak, though. i barely even know how to define it anymore. (culture defines a love which we yearn for; we experience “love” insofar as our real love fleetingly resembles this model, only to come up short -- baudrillard). re: love, to use my mom’s favorite school-of-hard-knocks memory device for the laws of thermodynamics -- a subject she took? -- you can’t win, you can’t break even, you can’t get outta the game (and death and taxes). you are going to get royally FUCKED by love just like everybody else, and you are STILL gonna play, you beautiful mortal fool. like the tarot cards lauren dealt me, putting away the three cards she’d used to describe my near future and then flipping through the entire deck, picture side up, without realizing that i was quietly watching it describe my whole entire life -- clinging at the edge of my seat to see some eventual combination that spelled good, strong, lasting love and seeing only struggle, happiness, struggle, pain, struggle, and finally ending, at my death, in a small statue made of gold.

see also, other realities i hate to swallow: nearly all interpersonal problems are insurmountable and better left undealt with, and work basically sucks unless you are very lucky and very smart.

work. let’s go back to that. i used to think my work would be respected off its merit; now i see the merit in literally fucking my way up. i wonder if i should even be an artist at all. artists are kinda like showponies or whores; they’re not actually important. the more honest and wonderful they are, the less important they probably are, like schoolteachers. they have an impact on an individual level. but on a societal level, you have no control as an artist. you just get played by bigger fish. better to find a way to have your hands on the gears; that way you have a shot at making a higher-order change to society. but alas, the (capitalist) system is totally out of everyone’s hands and will keep running as usual no matter what you do, still savage in equal amounts, i think. doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. but at this point i’d give a toe or finger to work for someplace like youtube. at least it’s reached critical mass where i could do something cool and make a difference with emerging media.

that or i pander to whatever blathering brain-melting slop, drivel, they’re putting on tv for kids and adults. or manage to convince a smaller nonprofit that i am “good at talking to people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds,” whatever the hell that fucking means. or maybe, ugh god, i’ll work for an ad agency? or do digital strategy? and um, i could say some shit about how capitalism is darwinism and money is a form of social control that works so well because it’s out of the hands of any individual person, and i should probably just stick with art and believe in it, and maybe like, apply for grants. but i want a job, a full-time job. i want stability and enough money that i don't feel guilty buying new underwear and i don't want to hustle to keep the tap running month-to-month and i want to spend the majority of my time doing something i find fulfilling. and soon enough i'll get that, and all my dreams will come true: i’m going to get married and become a fat mom taking my kids to piano practice and saying “the meeting went on forever today,” and i’ll have a husband who never cleans the house enough, and then we’ll get divorced and he’ll find someone 20 years younger and i’ll live out the rest of my years semi-happily alone and i don’t know how i will ever have time to make art again. or if i do i just hope it’s not hobby-like, second-rate.

i wish i could have (feel) the bare-faced honesty and love of sha’carri richardson hugging her grandmother after she worked her ass off for a race. instead everything is this weird simulation where i never feel like i love anybody enough or like i’m working hard enough. i can’t speak honestly except when i am writing about myself (strong, sweet, intense, narcissistic) or things i have noticed, as directed to my own imaginary friend. when i try to communicate irl (or, worst of all, “be real”) it’s all so overthought, overwrought, self-conscious. the only person who knows my real private self is the girl winking at me on my black lives matter poster. i hope she doesn’t mind being here in my room. ducky, the stuffed animal brandon gave me, was also supportive but i put him away because it seemed bad to tell future guys that my stuffed animal is “the child of divorce.” and now /you guys/ know me a little bit, because i took the time to pretend you were all my imaginary friend, my dearest pen pal who laughs at all my jokes and gets all my references, and stopped pretending i was anything besides what’s written here.

and i think, like, a lot of people now live in this weird simulation? and are so confused about romantic and familial love to the point where everyone is getting off on family members fucking each other and can’t decide if it’s normal to think kids are hot? but i guess that was always some weird fucked-up demon side of human existence? another thing i’m supposed to accept. (also sorry trigger warning.) and another thing i took for granted as a child, that most people, if not everyone, is weird/gross/evil, but now that my mind is cracked this shocks me all over again and i seek some sort of explanation. it’s like i can’t find a real hunk of closeness anywhere. i’m close to my own family, but in my other relationships we’re either too distant or too close and i’m desperately searching for just some normal friends. and to be able to give a speech where i tell someone i really love them and for it to ring true. but i try to be grateful that i live in driving distance to the beach and there’s air conditioning and once i stop being a stupid baby there’s probably more friends and work and stuff out there for me. and then i’ll have some new problem.

#i would put this as read more but it doesnt work on my blog SORRYYY

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americanopouroverplease · 3 years

Text

Sweat It Out: Chapter One

Seokjin X Reader

Word Count; 5,604

Potential Warnings: Blatantly poor use of French terminology, genuinely bad choice in nicknames, Seokjin making terrible dad jokes at the gym, scene stealing jungkook wearing muscle shirts & generally being an adorable muscle bun.

Thank you to @ksmuttherapy & @shadowsremedy for beta reading for me!

Please Note! -- Reader in this story is plus sized! As such, certain descriptors will be used and if this detracts from the story for you then I hope you are able to find something else that rocks your frock!

If pain had a soundtrack you were certain it would be the incessantly upbeat elevator music blaring through the speakers as you grunted and suffered your way through yet another sweat soaked set of heaving sumo squats. Your thighs were spread wide for all the wrong reasons as the lycra blend of your leggings were being stretched to their absolute limit. The grimace pulling at your lips was inherently reminiscent of the principal from Matilda and you were absolutely sure that in this very moment she was prettier than you.

“Dig deep! 10 more!” The trainer was already getting on your nerves with his ridiculous abs and insanely thick biceps. He was getting paid to stand off in the corner of the room while you wheezed and wailed like a dying animal. There wasn’t a single drop of sweat on his perfect skin while you groaned, dropping your weight low only to huff with the effort of lifting your substantial bulk upward once more. “Don’t let yourself down! You’re almost done!”

“How is this legal?” The screech escaped you before you could even think to stop yourself. Of course the only response your trainer gave was a low chuckle as he crossed his arms over that absurdly large chest of his.

“It’s legal because you pay him.” One of your fellow suffering souls offered as he too continued your joint endeavor in self inflicted torture. “Look at him, he feeds off this.”

“If you have time to complain you have time to do single leg lunges!” If you weren’t so preoccupied with the burning pain consuming your hamstrings and the complete lack of stamina you’ve built up over your years of working a desk job and eating cinnamon rolls you would fire off your best shots at the trainer. Instead, you settled for fantasizing about using your thighs to crush his big gym rat skull.

“Don’t listen to him.” Your agonized counterpart called out. “It’ll only make this worse in the long run.” In between each lunge you chanced a glance away from the trainer and over to your new partner in complaint. His cheeks were full, but his lips were even more generous as he pursed and let out huge puffs of agonized breath. He didn’t seem to be out of shape at all, which made you hesitate in appreciating his finer attributes. The muscles filling out his sweat-soaked t-shirt were clearly defined, but what really took your breath away (besides all these squats and lunges) was the fact that his shoulders would obviously enter any room before the rest of him did. Was he even real? Or were you just swept up in an endorphin and exercise fueled haze of fantasy?

“3...2...1!” The trainer’s voice pulled you out of your thoughts only to force you to realize that this entire time you’d been staring at the broad shouldered giant flexing his thighs almost directly in front of you. If your face wasn’t already beet red from exercise the mortification and sheer embarrassment would do it for you. “That’s time!”

You ran your own business, you were strong and independent. You sank down to the floor, sprawled out, and shut your eyes as you pretended to catch your breath in an attempt to avoid making any potential eye contact with the currently sweaty, also currently gorgeous and far too athletic man for your own good. You were a smart woman who knew how to pick and choose her own battles.

“I regret everything.” The wheezing prattle sounded just beside you, surprising enough to be the perfect catalyst in opening your eyes. “I blame myself. I can’t stop eating, food is an addiction and there is no cure.” Shoulders was flopped on the floor right next to you in all your sticky, sweaty, stinky glory. He didn’t seem phased by your appearance in the least.

“You should regret everything, hyung. How did you eat seven lobsters anyway?” The trainer, at some point, moved to join the two of you on the floor. “I thought you were going to make yourself sick.”

“You know each other?” You were sitting up now, curiosity flaring as you shifted around and began to stretch. Truth be told, you hated every aspect of stretching, but if you didn’t the muscle ache would be that much worse tomorrow.

“We’re related.” Your trainer smiled, big bunny teeth on display as he watched you push yourself forward and reach toward your toes. “That’s a great stretch, you can also lay flat, then draw one leg up toward your chest and rock. It’s really good for your back and spine.”

“Cousins, and how do you even have the energy to move right now?” The breathtaking man was still pressed to the floor, cheeks puffed out as his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. “Jungkook if I weren’t already dead I would kill you for this.”

“You’ll thank me when you’re old and don’t have type 2 diabetes.” Jungkook grinned, “Y/N, the lump on the floor is my cousin, Jin. I’m currently trying to save him from himself.”

“This face will still be handsome even if it has diabetes.” Jin retorted, then dragged himself up from the floor just enough to face you with a smile. “I’m worldwide handsome, but I do answer to Seokjin.” He lifted his hand, only to blow you a kiss and wink. What were you supposed to say to that?

“I see.” Was he used to people staring at him? He didn’t seem surprised or offended when you openly admired his body. He couldn’t be a model if he routinely ate as much as Jungkook implied. The only thought that sprang up from this conclusion was a lurid amount of jealousy over his apparent metabolism. “I’m Y/N. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hyung! She didn’t even blush!” Jungkook wasn’t rolling on the floor with laughter but he was obviously amused by your lack of reaction to Jin’s flirting. He had one hand clasped on his cousin’s shoulder as he leaned exceptionally close to the man’s sweaty face.

“I only have two options now.” Jin responded with an air of solemnity. His eyes were hooded, expression far too serious for a gym floor as he shifted his weight closer to your form. “I’m going to give you my greatest joke, and if that doesn’t work I’m going to beg you to let me take you out on a date.”

“Excuse me?” You felt stunned, not only because the subject matter seemed so scattered but had this man actually just casually asked you out after seeing you at your worst? It was 7 pm on a Wednesday night just after you spent the past forty-five minutes heaving your weight back and forth in an attempt to convince your metabolism to decide it was finally okay for you to go from a generous 2X to a reasonable medium or large size pant.

“What do runners eat before a sprint?” You blinked once, twice, and then realized he actually expected you to give him an answer. When your glance shifted toward Jungkook the overgrown muscle simply shrugged his shoulders and grinned.

“If I say that I don’t know, can we move on?” You pressed gently, not wanting to be rude, but also feeling a little out of your depth. You were well aware that your body type was not considered conventionally attractive. It felt suspicious to have the seemingly undivided attention of someone who could snag any woman or man he wanted with his looks alone. No one flirted with you unless they had a fat fetish, and you always steered clear of those types.

“Nothing, they fast!” The joke was terrible, but the laughter that followed was even worse. You could only describe the sound escaping Jin’s throat as something eerily similar to windshield wipers scraping along the glass. It took a full minute of you staring at him with wide eyes for the laughter to subside.

“She didn’t laugh hyung.” Jungkook was still grinning wide, leaving the rest of Jin’s previous declaration unspoken.

“Do I need to beg, Y/N?” Instantly all signs of humor were gone; replaced by soulful eyes fixed directly upon your face. Jin shifted and knelt in front of you, his palms pressed together as he appeared to be carefully hopeful. “I will.”

“For what?” You hedged, feeling confused at best, and uncomfortable at worst. You had signed up for this exercise class in order to try and lose weight, to build up your confidence. Nowhere in the gym agreement was there a clause including fit men who seemed out of your league flirting with you and asking you out on dates you weren’t ready for. Was he serious?

“Please, Y/N, will you let me take you out for a nice dinner and delightful conversation?”

“Where and when?” As entertaining as it felt to watch a man kneel and beg for your time and attention there was no helping the wariness you felt. Prior experience was a masterful teacher and you weren’t interested in being the butt of anyone’s joke.

“I wouldn’t dream of making your decisions for you.” Jin readily replied, his cheeks full and round as he smiled widely. “I’ll let you choose, anything you want.”

“Anything?” You sounded skeptical, and didn’t bother trying to hide it as you crossed your arms beneath your breasts and stared at the man before you. He nodded, almost eagerly.

“Any restaurant you want, I promise I’ll find something I like to eat. Food is a passion of mine.” You heard Jungkook snort beside you, but chose to ignore him in favor of coming up with the most expensive restaurant you could think of.

“Fine. Take me to Le lapin blanc.” You didn’t feel nearly as calm and collected as you sounded, but he didn’t need to know that. All he needed to know was that he had to shell out serious money to prove his interest.

“Perfect, does tomorrow work for you?” Shock registered, and then disbelief. Le lapin blanc was the most expensive and exclusive restaurant in town. There was no getting into the building without a reservation, and you couldn’t just get one overnight.

“If you can get us in, sure.” You agreed, immediately convinced this was all a joke and you would be canceling your gym membership by the end of the week.

“Perfect, would you like me to pick you up at seven?” He had to play the part until the end, you supposed. With a quick nod, you assumed the conversation would be over and moved to push yourself up from the floor. “Y/N, do you happen to have your phone with you?” That question caught you off guard.

“Yes, why?”

“I’d like to give you my phone number so that I can contact you.” Jin responded affably. “How else will I find out where to pick you up?” Ah. Right. With a little bit of reluctance you fished your cell phone from your pocket and handed the device to him. He smiled once more, patiently waiting for you to unlock it before pulling up your contact list and adding himself to it.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.” You took your phone back once he was done, then gave him a grin of your own. “I don’t split the bill, you’re paying.” Jungkook’s snort was no more elegant than the first upon hearing this and the chortle that followed actually came from Jin.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, beautiful.”

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

You finished work at four the next day, which left you with entirely too much time on your hands when it came to getting ready for this date. What should you wear to an expensive restaurant that had napkins that could cost more than your net worth? You decided to go with one of your favorite thrift store finds that fit tightly beneath your breasts and flared out further down your stomach. A girl’s best friend was always a nice empire waistline...Unless it made her look pregnant.

The cap sleeves looked almost demure, which you appreciated since it was the middle of summer and you were not about to suffocate stuffed into a dress with full length sleeves or a high neckline. Makeup wasn’t minimal, but you also didn’t waste any time lining your eyes when all that would do for you was make you look like an actual trash panda once ten pm rolled around. Instead, you focused on your hair and took the time to style it and smooth out any stray ends or hairs.

The chime of your text tone echoed from your living room, drawing you away from fiddling any further with the upswept style of your hair.

Did he really send you a picture of himself with a cut out heart? What sort of man was this? When Jin asked you out the night before all you felt was suspicion. Now you were convinced he was simply missing at least sixteen of the screws required for his mental clarity to function. You neglected to respond to his text, and elected to grab your purse before locking the door to your apartment behind you.

Were you waiting for him outside? Yes. If you were fair to yourself, which you always strove to be; being early was on time and being on time was considering yourself late. You weren’t looking forward to this dinner, sitting across a table of refined food from a man who was so good looking you felt just a little bit stupid. No, you were just being punctual. Right?

Then again, Jin might not show up at all, even if he did send you that ridiculous text message assuring you that he was already on his way. Assuming that he wouldn’t, you could give it another ten minutes before you went back inside, changed into your favorite pajamas, and settled in for a nice long night of playing Stardew Valley.

Unfortunately all your bucolic hopes and 8-bit dreams were dashed as soon as you saw the cherry red convertible pulling up to your lot. Of course, by this point in your evening you shouldn’t have been surprised that the exceedingly symmetrical Disney prince look-alike also had an expensive car. If he wasn’t even phased by the idea of shelling out for ‘the aesthetic’ it made sense that he would also like to drive fast and live rich.

“Y/N!” The vehicle rolled to a stop, idling as its driver made a quick leap from the front seat just to sweep you up in long arms. You felt the ground disappear from beneath your feet and questioned reality as you gripped broad shoulders so tightly your knuckles turned white. The world spun around you slowly, not fast enough to make you dizzy but noticeable to the point that you didn’t know how you felt about being picked up in the first place.

“Jin, it’s nice to see you again.” You smiled, surprised to realize just how happy you were he did take the time to show up. If nothing else he hadn’t stood you up, and he was so very fun to look at that all you wanted to do was indulge yourself for one night. Especially if that singular night meant ritzy food that you couldn’t actually pronounce on your own.

“You mean it’s wonderful, stunning, amazing, and spectacular to see me again? That’s how I feel about seeing you.” His hands were still settled against your waist, but they were oh so gentle as he set your feet back on the ground. “I was thinking about you all day.”

“That sounds exhausting.” You teased, drawn in by the easy humor he still displayed even after your repeated attempts at dissuading him from showing any interest.

“Not at all, I find every thought of you to be invigorating.” Jin replied sweetly, his soft lips pressed flush to your rounded cheek before he led you straight toward the convertible. “It isn’t every day that I get a chance to see a woman’s thighs in action without being called a pervert.” The joke should have fallen flat, but it didn’t. You were caught off guard as you settled back into the seat and reached for the seatbelt.

“You must have a great poker face if you’re a pervert.” That earned you nothing more than a good natured snort as he pulled away from your apartment complex. The drive itself was short, barely taking more than ten minutes. Altogether, he tried to hold your hand no less than six times. Once the convertible finally pulled into the parking garage you managed to successfully evade his grasping fingers for no reason other than the exasperated and melodramatic wails that filtered past his full lips.

“You’re a heartless woman, Y/N! How can you say no to this face?” The door was already shut behind Jin, and before you could even begin to unbuckle your seatbelt the door to the passenger side was open while your suitor took the time to free you from his vehicle. You found yourself a mere breath away from his face and suddenly realized why every single romance novel was exactly as cheesy as it was.

“Impress me enough and I won’t say no.” You whispered, eyes wide and fixed upon the chocolate and nutmeg brown irises that threatened to overwhelm you. Temptation washed over you, begging you to let your eyes drift downward toward the plump lips curving upward into a knowing smile. Instead, you pulled away and began that short walk toward the seating area.

“Is that a challenge, butterbean?”

“What sort of nickname is that?” You asked, absolutely appalled by the concept of being a butter bean, much less any one specific person’s butter bean.

“My pet name. For you, so long as you’ll let me have it.” Jin purred, his large palm pressing gently and warmly against your lower back as he maneuvered you through the slowly gathering crowd of the early evening diners. If he noticed the shiver his touch sent down your spine he chose not to mention it.

You chose to say nothing as the waitress led you toward a table at the far end of the highest floor. The further you followed the more you questioned just how Jin was able to get this type of reservation on such short notice. The entire restaurant was usually booked out months in advance, and the most exclusive of tables were on the top two floors. By the time you realized you were going -above- the top floor and out onto the roof you felt speechless.

“Right this way, if you please.” The waitress spoke with a heavy accent, one arm out swept toward an enclosed pavilion that reminded you more of a greenhouse than anything else. Fairy lights were strung across the ceiling in a rambling sort of pattern that draped gracefully around the countless flowers filling the room. There was a walkway, but it was surrounded by flowing water with only one bridge that could lead you over the threshold.

“Jin. How?” You were too busy admiring the lush atmosphere, the live quartet playing soft music in the far corner, the sound of the fountain as it burbled and pushed the water through the avenues threaded through the walkway and flowers. The lights, the scents, everything was just this side of too much decadence and opulence. It was perfect.

“Would you believe me if I said I have a few connections?” Jin asked with raised eyebrows. Eventually a table was revealed toward the center of what appeared to be a man made island in a glittering lagoon.

“Well, tell me how to make these connections because this is the manner in which I wish to become accustomed.” You joked, eyes focused on the riot of Peruvian Lilies heaped upon one plate. It came as no surprise when Jin led you directly to the side of the table with the flowers, then proceeded to assist you in sitting down.

“It was all sheer dumb luck, my sweet and precious butter bean.” Your eyelid twitched at the terrible name, but you refused to let it ruin what was otherwise a magnificent night. This restaurant was gorgeous, and you felt like a princess transported into a new and far away realm. The only thing that could make this better would be unlimited dessert. Did Jin have enough money to get you unlimited dessert?

“Would you like to start with a Château Margaux this evening?” The waitress was, apparently, not a waitress for she had all but disappeared and in her place was a seemingly young, also seemingly condescending man who held a bottle of wine over his arm as if it were the most dazzling thing to ever display.

“I suppose that would be fine, Marcus. What else would you suggest?” Jin didn’t sound haughty, necessarily, but he did appear to be a little less concerned with the menu and more interested in staring into your eyes. A point that you promptly avoided by burying your own face in the menu full of letters and words you didn’t quite understand.

“I wouldn’t dare dream of making recommendations to you, Sir.” The bottle of Margaux bobbled, ever so slightly. Jin let out a small, almost imperceptible sigh.

“We’ll have the Pauillac, Château Mouton Rothschild.” Jin replied, his gaze still fixed upon your face as the original bottle vanished, only to be replaced nearly as quickly by the desired red.

“Is the 2005 alright, Sir?” This was met with a nod while Jin’s long fingers slowly but surely wrapped around your own. His smile was for you, though he didn’t completely ignore the man.

“Yes, that will be fine. Pre-fix menu, tonight?” A subtle negative shake of the head, and then a notepad was produced. “Butterbean, my darling, what would you like to have for dinner?”

“If you insist on calling me butterbean it might just be your balls.” You simpered sweetly, smile entirely saccharine as you squeezed his hand as hard as you could. The resulting wince was delicate, though the wink he sent your way was playful.

“It’s an absolute relief to know you aren’t a vegetarian.” His fingers flexed slightly once you released them before he picked up the menu once more.

“Well, I could always eschew meat to spite you.” This suggestion was met with the exact amount of warmth and eagerness you expected. None. The menus were flung to one side of the table as you found your hands clasped in Jin’s fingers once again.

“Butterbean, darling! My wonderful, beautiful, incandescent paragon of virtue!” Your eyes widened slowly but surely with every additional adjective piled onto his sentence. “Don’t break my heart! You’re too great a woman to do such a thing!” By the end of his plea your fingers were intertwined with his and his grasp was so firm that there was no escape.

“We’ll have my usual.” Jin didn’t bother tearing his eyes away from your face, which was almost intimidating even as the waiter cleared the menus from the table. Your erstwhile suitor took this chance to drag his chair closer to yours. Now, instead of sitting across from this broad shouldered adonis, there was barely any space between the two of you. “This is much better, don’t you agree my bean?”

“I will pay you real, actually money to stop calling me that.” You let out between grit teeth. Contrary to your own expectations this man was getting under your skin in the best possible way. He was charming, goofy in a gregarious sort of way that put you at an amused disadvantage.

“You couldn’t pay me enough. Ever.” He hadn’t let go of your hands yet, and merely leaned closer so he could press his face close to yours before performing an exaggerated imitation of a wink. You could feel the echo in your chest as your heart fluttered. Soft was beginning to become an understatement when it came to how you felt about this man. Was that even possible?

“You would force me to resort to blackmail?” Your lips turned downward, plumped into a pout as you failed to extract yourself from his warm grasp.

“I wouldn’t dare to force you into anything.” Seokjin began proudly, his voice carrying as he straightened in his seat. “I am not above letting you ask me to force you though.” Your fingers flexed then, breath catching in your throat at the implication.

“You couldn’t ask me what my favorite color is first?” You did your best to cover your response, though it was hard to tell if Jin was observant enough to catch your behavior.

“I could ask you while you’re breathless and panting beneath me.” The offer came at the exact same time as your appetizers, which caused a distinct flush to warm your cheeks as the waiter set down two plates and multiple dishes. Wine was poured while your eyes drifted firmly to the table in front of you. None of this stopped you from feeling how direct and heated your date’s gaze was as he kept one hand cradled around yours.

“That was blunt.” In all your years of living there wasn’t a single memory of any man wining, dining, and propositioning you so openly and with so much confidence. Then again, there wasn’t any point in which someone as handsome as Seokjin showed any interest in you either. History and experience was enough to tell you this wasn’t adding up.

“You’ve seen me at my worst, bean. I can hardly look any worse so I feel my odds are pretty high for success.” Your hand suddenly felt cold as he plucked his knife up from the table and began buttering some bread. “I know exactly what I want from you. The question is, do you want anything from me?”

You took your time considering this query. The table was filled with various food, most of which looked as if it wouldn’t fit into your calorie count for the day so you reached for the wine glass in front of your plate instead.

“I hardly know you, I doubt I really know what you have to offer in the first-” You paused, eyes widened as you watched your date place little bits of each appetizer on your plate before he ever put a single piece of food on his.

“Yes, my darling butter bean?” Jin’s eyes were wide, nearly sparkling as he smiled at you with all the charm and charisma of a seasoned politician. If he noticed your confusion he didn’t mention it.

“Why did you put food on my plate?” Mortification set in quickly, your hands clasped in your lap beneath the table as you internally questioned every life choice you ever made. Was it just Jin that caused you to ask stupid questions? Or was it the atmosphere?

“It gives me pleasure to do so.” His response was entirely effortless, his attention focused on piling his plate just as high as yours before commencing with a truly astounding performance. His mouth didn’t seem all that big, but somehow he managed to take bites of food that were so large you worried he was intentionally choking himself. The noises that escaped him were an uneven mixture of pornographic and cute. Perhaps you didn’t need to feel embarrassed after all.

“Okay then.” You began to let yourself relax, hoping that tonight’s meal wouldn’t set your goals back too far. Besides, cheat meals were acceptable every now and then, weren’t they?

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

“I know it’s cliche but I had a wonderful evening.” Jin’s car was parked in the lot next to your apartment building, his shoulder pressed into the driver’s seat as he leaned further toward your space. “I’m hoping desperately that you’ll allow me to bask in your presence again.” His voice was quiet, gentle and burnished velvet as he nearly whispered.

“This might be a personal question.” You began your response, gaze directed toward your hands as your fingers grasped the seatbelt holding you in place.

“Anything, butter bean, I’ll tell you anything and everything.” His answer was immediate, decisive, and firm.

“Do you have to unhinge your jaw when you fit half a steak in your mouth all at once?” You asked your question, whispering this time so as not to break the hushed atmosphere yourself. He was being entirely too romantic for anyone’s good.

“How is that even personal?” Jin exclaimed, shattering what was once a peaceful and nearly intimate moment. The expression on his face was comical, mouth dropped open and eyes widened in shock as he sputtered. “This is worse than telling me you’re a vegetarian!”

“Oh hardly!” You soothed, grinning as you released the latch on your seatbelt before gathering your purse. “It’s a genuine question as to the mechanics of your jaw. This question is purely for scientific purposes.” You barely touched the door handle before Jin was out of the vehicle and making his way to your side of the car.

“Science, you say?” That soft tone was back, though it clearly carried an undertone of heat to it. “You know the best way to find out is through experience.” He held the door open, his free hand waiting for you to take with his palm held up.

“I’m not even wearing pants, how are you trying to get into them?” With your hand clasped in his, the two of you ambled slowly toward the entrance to your apartment building. You were surprised at how comfortable you felt in Jin’s presence, even if he did insist on calling you butter bean.

“Never underestimate the power of your beauty, Y/N.” Oh. This was unexpected. What were you supposed to say to that? Was this man even real? Obviously he was, but could you really believe what you were hearing and seeing?

Thankfully you were saved from responding by the front door of your apartment. The two of you lingered in front of the steps, the beginnings of an awkward silence beginning to build. One breath, two, and then you opened your mouth to speak.

“I had a great time too.” You mumbled, uncertain now that you were in entirely uncharted territory. You had been on dates before, but never really interested in going on another with the same person.

“Does that mean I can cook for you next time? Or should I resign myself to only being allowed to see you as we suffer the agonies of my cousin’s training programs?” Something akin to mortification settled in your chest at the idea of Seokjin seeing you sprawled out huffing and puffing with a shining, sweating face once more. You would have to switch your sessions if you wanted to maintain any sense of romance.

“Ah, I think I might actually switch my gym schedule.” You hesitated, frowning at the thought before you continued. “When’s a good time for you? For dinner, I mean.” Somehow you felt an absolute sense of shyness take over you. Coupled with the butterflies filling your chest the only explanation was an oncoming heart attack, right?

“And deny me the satisfaction of suffering with you?” Jin’s hand immediately clapped to his chest, fingers spread as he took on a truly legendary pout. This man should have been an actor. He was making it nearly impossible to deny him at this rate.

“Give me one good reason not to.” Your last ditch attempt at maintaining your distance was a good one, or so you thought while the two of you stood in the cool evening breeze. Your door was just a few steps away, your humble yet cozy apartment just beyond a few locks and stairs.

“Will this be good enough?” Jin’s face hovered barely more than a breath away from yours, chocolate eyes centered on your face as his hands traced up over your arms toward your shoulders. You’d barely opened your mouth to ask him what he meant by the time his plush lips made contact with yours.

At first, you didn’t know how to respond. The kiss itself was unexpected, then the soft sound building and releasing in his throat was even more surprising until you felt his fingers threading through the strands of your hair. After that you discovered this was not a one-sided activity. Your arms wound around his shoulders while your head slanted to one side so you could deepen the connection. It wasn’t until he pulled away that you realized both of you were out of breath.

“So, my precious butter bean, did I give you what you wanted?”

#Fanfic #Kim Seokjin #BTS #Reader X Seokjin #Jin

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poc-movie-supremacy · 4 years

Text

Watcher AU: Cryptids

How Steven Lim, guardian angel, befriended Ryan Bergara, Adam Bianchi, and finally Andrew Ilnyckyj (Shane and Jake Bergara to an extent as well)

look @mousemadej I finally did it!

*Steven is an angel, but not the typical type of Angel. Some traits were taken from the bible and some from what general pop culture describes as angel to make one Steven Angel. I should add though, I mention that Steven has a flaming sword. In the bible the angel guarding the garden of eden was gifted a flaming sword by God to guard it. I decided to take that element and just say fuck it all guardian angels have it now.

-----

He remembers being a young angel and hearing whispers of a new, special angel. About his age, this angel had jet black hair, soft almost sad brown eyes, and jet black wings. He had no halo, no glow, no blinding white wings. Instead he had red eyes, sharp claws, and big open heart. As someone with a big heart too, it was friendship at first sight.

Ryan looked up at him and whispered, “Why do they keep staring at me?” In truth it was because of a genetic disorder, but little Steven didn’t understand that.

Instead he took little Ryan’s hand and said, “I don’t know, they’re weird. Wanna go play?” Ryan smiled at him and they flew off the go play in the playground together.

Throughout their lives they were near inseparable. Nothing could prevent that, not even Ryan taking on sole responsibility of Jake. Steven just made a joke about being an old married couple and went with it. Adam fit with them too, like another puzzle piece. Steven befriended him while training to become a guardian angel. He was practicing swimming in the ocean when a large man with a big brown beard and similarly brown eyes and the most gorgeous tail Steven’s ever seen approached him. At first they just stared at each other, Steven because his brain overloaded on Adam Bianchi cuteness, Adam because he just didn’t like talking.

It took a few minutes for Steven’s brain to start up again. Immediately he spewed out words faster than he could say them. Adam was shocked silent. For a while he let Steven ramble about... how pretty his tail was? with a neutral expression on until he took pity and gave him a small smile.

That smile almost broke Steven’s brain all over again, but luckily he saved himself just before repeating this process all over again. “Hi, my name’s Steven, sorry about the ramble. I’m here with my friends.” He pointed to where the Bergara boys were sunbathing on the beach. They looked unaware of the situation. They were not. “What’s your name?”

Adam continued smiling, “Adam, It’s nice to meet you Steven.” Adam shook his hand. Soft hands, Steven noted.

“Preparing for the guardian angel entrance exam?” Adam asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I am. The- my friends were lucky enough to already know swimming, I am not so lucky.”

Adam chuckled. “I can tell. Want me to give you lessons?”

“Would you?”

Adam spent the rest of the afternoon preparing Steven for his test. He wasn’t awful, by angel standards, but Adam knew he could improve. When the sun finally set Adam was satisfied. The Bergaras invited him to join them for dinner. He agreed and they all hit up a local burger joint.

Unsurprisingly, Steven would earn his place in the guardian angel league. They were all so proud of him. Jake loved to hear stories Steven would tell of his charges. His favourite was Keith Habersberger, a soldier in Vietnam. Keith would end up being Steven’s second to last charge, unbeknownst to him. The guy was funny and friends with three other soldiers in his platoon. Steven hoped to get him home alive to his wife Becky.

On his off days, Steven would try and help Jake be a guardian angel. When Heaven told him no Ryan raged. With some help, Ryan managed to get Jake into heaven’s guardian angel program. Steven wasn’t happy with the cost of such an action, but they were already in too deep to do anything about it. Besides, by supporting Ryan, Steven was put on Heaven’s shit list. One wrong move and he’d be kicked out. Helping people was Steven’s passion, he couldn’t give it up.

His newest charge was Andrew Ilnyckyj. He was about a 5′ 10′’ white guy that happened to work at Buzzfeed. That bit of information piqued Steven’s interest. He remembered that Ryan had gotten a job hunting demons at that same company and visited the place himself.

Steven ended up getting a job there (don’t tell heaven he lied on his resume).

Andrew Ilnyckyj was nothing like he expected. He was quiet and serious and handsome and oh god. Anytime Steven tried to talk to him he’d start stuttering and blushing up a storm. He couldn’t focus with Andrew which is unfortunate since he’s his charge.

Steven bemoans all this to Ryan one day as they fly up up up into the sky. It makes him laugh. “Dude! that’s not helpful.”

“I know I know it’s just been a while since I’ve seen Steven Lim with a crush.”

Steven could feel his cheeks heat up with a wicked blush. “I-I don’t. I have a crush don’t I?”

Ryan nodded. He patted Steven on the back in a comforting gesture. “It’s not the end of the world buddy, although it might be if you don’t eat enough. You’re getting too skinny.”

Steven squaked insultedly. “I am not skinny!” Ryan quickly poked him in the side and he could feel rib.

“Oh sure, golden boy. Not skinny at all. You’re burning too much stored fat flying with me and trying to warm your body to regular human body temperatures. Either you eat more or we’re stopping our flight dates.” Steven rolled his eyes at Ryan’s snipe but gave observation some thought.

~~~~

Steven took the advice to heart (well after Adam agreed with Ryan that Steven was getting skinnier) and came up with an idea.

Andrew likes food. Steven likes spending time with Andrew and needs to eat more. Adam likes food.

Thus worth it was born.

~~~~

Andrew knew that all Buzzfeed employees were going to end up being somewhere on the weird scale but then he met Ryan Bergara and Steven Lim. Adam seemed pretty normal though. The both of them just oozed eccentricity. They walked like they got an awful weight on their back and rock on their soles of their feet like they’re trying to fly. Ryan keeps looking around like he’s hiding something while Steven wears sweaters in eighty degree weather.

Andrew makes up his mind to avoid them. He befriended Adam is that not enough? Apparently it was not.

One day Steven corners him. He’s wearing a thin blue button up and a jacket is hanging off his arm. Andrew feels Steven drape himself onto his back and the first thing Andrew’s struck with is that Steven’s ice cold. The second is thing Andrew realizes is that Steven is draped over his back and he doesn’t know if he loves it or hates it.

The air is tense. To Andrew, nothing else can be heard. Adam stares at them out of the corner of his eye, silent. “Hey, hey, both of you. I have a great idea. Food at different price points.”

“What?”

Adam snorts and says, “Explain it more in detailed Ste, and put on a jacket, you’re going to catch a cold.” The underlying meaning was that Andrew would get suspicious of Steven’s abnormal body temperature. Steven undrapped himself from Andrew and put on his jacket. He also warms himself up but not enough that his angel glow can be shown.

Angels don’t have blood and hearts, only demons do. Demons are more like humans to convince them to sin using the sympathetic I-understand-what-you’re-going-through method. Angels are supposed to be ethereal, otherworldly as a symbol of what humans should inspire to be. Because of this, angel’s consciously generate heat which can appear as a glow if there’s enough heat. When Steven masquerades as a human he has to always be careful to not overheat. Usually he just ends up under-heating which causes a whole nother set of problems. Adam and Ryan have to continuously remind him to wear sweaters and such to mask this fact.

Steven can already feel himself warming slightly with the inclusion of the thick jacket all zipped up. Andrew can already feel himself missing Steven’s touch. Wait. The thought makes him blink a few times in surprise. He’s talked to Steven a few times,but liking his touch? Andrew’s going to get an aneurysm at this rate.

He is so caught up in his own whirlwind of a mind that he almost misses Steven’s slightly more detailed explanation of a new video series. “Ok so we take one specific food like pizza and then we go to three different restaurants at three drastically different prices and say which one is the best.”

Andrew looked at Steven slightly confused. “How did you come up with this? How are we going to pay for it?”

“Buzzfeed agreed to pay for it-” Steven started.

“And Steven’s too skinny.” Adam poked Steven a certain way to make him giggle. The sound was music to Andrew’s ears. The thought of Steven being too skinny wasn’t though. He looked Steven up and down to see for himself. His gaze made Steven blush up to his ears. Andrew fought back a smile, even a self-satisfied one.

“You want me to go with you?” Andrew asked Steven. He watched as Steven nodded enthusiastically then scratch the back of his neck.

“Yeah that’s the hope. It’d be you and me in front of the camera and Adam behind it. What do you say?”

Andrew thought about it for a minute, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to say no. “Sure when’s the first day of shooting?”

Steven’s smile was the most brilliant thing he’d ever seen. What have I gotten myself into? he wondered to himself. “First day is burgers on Monday! I’ll see you there partner.” Steven gave him a smile before walking off.

Andrew sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He played with one of Adam’s many bottles on his desk. “You’re going to have fun,” Adam told him, half-comfortingly half-commanding.

~~~~

Worth it, Andrew came up with the name, was better than Steven could’ve ever expected. Originally it was a chance to keep a better eye on Andrew and maintain a healthy weight. Steven put in the work, but he didn’t think it would flourish like it did. Then he was going to New York, Taiwan, and Japan! It’s been a while since Steven’s been here. He marvels at the difference a hundred years can make on architecture. Adam listens patiently while he rambles.

Steven and Andrew grow closer after working together long hours. His puns seem more endearing and his giggle is the cutest thing Steven’s heard. He likes to make up many silly dances just to get Andrew to smile. Being called fancy boy only becomes endearing when Andrew or Adam says it. Steven wonders about the consequences about gutting Ryan every time he says it.

They spend time together. Ryan loves to tease the ever loving shiz out of Steven when they go flying or visit Jake. Steven’s proud of Jake so he tells himself that for Jake and to be able to keep his job he won’t kill Ryan. That promise is harder to keep when Ryan teases Steven in front of Andrew though. Adam has to steer Steven away before he does something he’ll regret.

Andrew always gives a weird look to Ryan before getting back to his work. Internally, he wonders what Steven’s look means. Does he like him back? Does just not like to be teased? Andrew really hopes that Steven likes him back. He thinks Steven’s nose scrunch is cute and his enthusiasm is refreshing. Despite how he acts, Andrew craves Steven’s touch. He likes it when Steven drapes an arm over his shoulder or carries him like Steven did in their Sushi episode.

Adam says that maybe he should say something. (He tells both of them that actually) The fear that Steven doesn’t reciprocate his feelings is too strong. What they have is nice, if it took on a new direction Andrew would love that, but he can’t risk it. He has too much to lose.

~~~~

They happened to work late that day. Andrew wanted to finish this one edit before going home. Steven had a bad feeling so he decided to stay with Andrew. “Come on Drew, let’s go home,” Steven whined slightly and his eyes kept darting around the room.

Andrew scoffed and payed him no mind. “You’re as anxious as Ryan right now. It’s Buzzfeed we’re going to be fine.”

“Just hurry up will you.” Steven’s hackles were up and every sound made him want to unsheath his flaming sword. Too slow, Andrew finished his work and they said they could go. Steven grabbed his upper arm and brisked them out of the office to Steven’s car.

“I have my own car Steven.” Andrew jokingly protested. He’s not used to this paranoid, over-protective version of Steven. It’s endearing but also concerning.

Steven gaze, usually not this heavy, was dead on him. “I can drive you home? Please, just stay with me a little bit more? Something doesn’t feel right, and I-”

Andrew could tell that Steven was starting to get agitated so in an effort to calm him down Andrew squeezed his hand, and shushed him a bit. “Ok, ok, it’s okay Stevie. I’ll go with you, just breathe.”

Steven nodded shakily and let go of Andrew. “Sorry if I gripped you too hard.”

“No you’re grip was just right. I’m going...” Andrew trailed off and pointed to the passenger seat. Steven nodded as Andrew walked to sit in the passenger seat. Once catching his breath, Steven slid into the drivers seat. “Hey Stevie, are you sure you can drive now?”

“Yeah I’m fine I got this.” Steven pulled out the parking lot and headed over to Andrew’s house. They sat in tense silence. Steven was too paranoid to make conversation and Andrew was too worried about Steven to initiate any either.

As they drove along they saw well heard this person cry on the side of the road. Andrew looked at Steven to see if he’d slow down to stop. He didn’t. “Hey Stevie aren’t you going to pull over?” Steven pursed his lip but made no movement to pull over. Andrew was shocked. “Steven!”

At first Andrew didn’t think Steven would pull over. He was worried he would have to get involved but Steven sighed and pulled over. Andrew hoped out of the car and ran over to the person. Steven followed him at a much slower pace. The overwhelming need to draw out his sword was starting to get debilitating. He tried to focus on Andrew’s voice but it sounded like he was talking through water.

Then he screamed.

Steven never heard anything clearer.

A giant vampire had torn of a giant chunk in Andrew’s side and was now feasting in his blood. Steven’s vision matched the color Andrew was lying in. His whimpers and cries of pain filled his head and fueled his rage. The Flaming Sword light up the scene as Steven spread his wings and fought. The vampire tried to put up a fight, but he was no match for Steven Lim. All it took was one stab to the heart to take this guy out. Then Steven burned the vampire alive. He figured God wouldn’t be too upset since vampire’s weren’t His favorite creature.

“Steven?” The voice was tired, groggy and too breathy for Steven’s comfort. Everything was red and Andrew’s pale and Steven might be having a panic attack.

“Sh. Sh SH. Ok Andy, darling, baby. Just breathe.” Maybe if he wasn’t in panic mode he’d remember Adam teasing him about how pet names slip out of him when he’s really nervous, but the thought completely eludes him now. He strips off his jacket covering the dead body Andrew’s lying next to and then takes off his shirt to try and stop the bleeding. The shirt was pure white with vertical grey stripes running up it. Now it’s soaked blood red but Steven doesn’t throw it away.

He vaguely feels a hand on his stomach and almost almost jumps at the touch. So this was the bad thing. You idiot, you should’ve prepared for this. You could’ve prevented this. Now he’s dying and it’s your fault. Steven tries to think that it isn’t true but Andrew’s breathing is labored and unfocused and isn’t it true?

“Wow- wow, usually you-you don’t lose the shirt until the second date. No shirt first date is big, this must’ve been en a big first date.” Andrew’s so out of it he stutters and slurs his words. They make Steven pause though, well mentally, he’s not losing Andrew without a fight.

“Shhshsh Wait what? No Andrew shush this isn’t a date. Just focus on breathing alright. I’m going to try something.” There was a trick he learned when he was a kid. A certain trick that allows you to almost call people when you need help. Him and Ryan used to use that trick all the time they were exploring as kids. Now it’s become even more useful as adults.

He’s so concentrated on pulling off the trick that he almost misses Andrew’s next words. Almost. “Wh-what? This is a date. This is a date cause I love you and you love me because you have to like me right Steven?” Andrew can barely look at him and Steven wants to cry. He puts more pressure on the wound with his right hand and uses his left hand to cup Andrew’s face. Tears freely falled down his face as he guided Andrew to look at him.

“Whatever you want.”

Andrew smiled.

~~~~~

Ryan carrying Adam arrived shortly after Andrew passed out. Together the three of them confirmed that the poor stranger did die, but Andrew didn’t. Steven sobbed in relief when hearing that. They performed an old ritual that Steven and Ryan learned in their childhood (Ryan got a nasty cut and Mrs. Bergara inadvertently showed them a method on how to quickly stabilize critically wounded people). Steven then gathered up Andrew into his arms and flew him to his house. Ryan and Adam followed closely behind.

They set him down in Steven’s bed and quickly got to work saving him. Since Andrew was human, none of them could donate blood on his own so Ryan quickly got a few blood bags to use. Steven would usually ask if he got them legally, but he was too focused on Andrew to care.

Adam got some deep-sea medicines while Ryan helped Steven with the initial medicine. It was hours before Steven felt even semi-comfortable leaving Andrew’s side. All three boys were almost fainting with exhaustion. Ryan suggested they all pass out on Steven’s couch after telling Buzzfeed they won’t be at work tomorrow. Steven protested at first. Adam and Ryan each took a hand and dragged him over to the couch though. With tangled limbs, the trio finally fell asleep.

~~~

Andrew felt groggy when he woke up. Then he felt extremely cold. Confusion hit him like a truck when he realized that he couldn’t feel a heartbeat. Panic filled his senses as he tried to do something to fix this. The room around him looked familiar enough. Steven’s bedroom his hand supplied. That did not ease his confused state in any way shape or form. One look around though did confirm that this was in fact Steven’s bedroom. He could see photos of Steven throughout the ages on the nightstand on the bed. A note written in Adam’s handwriting told him to take the adjacent medication. Andrew did as he was told. As his digestive system processed the medication his ears picked up on the sound of commotion outside the door.

Andrew felt too weak to walk so he tried to strain his ears to hear what the voices were saying. He sadly couldn’t understand anything other than the fact that it was Steven and Ryan doing a lot of the arguing. Pain in his jaw started to become more apparent. He rubbed it and felt something sharp prick him. He tried to suck on the wound, but he felt another, more painful, prick. Andrew tried to scream but it just ended up being one loud garbled up sound. Steven burst through the door glowing mad. Ryan and Adam followed him a few paces behind.

Steven knelt in front of Andrew and tried to help him. Andrew jerked away from him in fear. “Andrew, Andy,” Steven took a step back from him with his hands raised. “It’s- Let me help.”

“I’ll go get the first aid kit Stevie.” Ryan ducked out of the room leaving the Worth it trio alone. A tinge of jealousy filled him when he heard Ryan call Steven a nickname.

“Take your hand out of your mouth Andrew.” Adam softly commanded. Though painful, Andrew pulled his hand off his teeth. Steven murmured a curse under his breath. His glow brightened a second before ceasing with a look from Adam. Ryan opened the door but paused when he saw Andrew.

“Fuck… at least he’s not dead.” Ryan handed the first aid kit to Adam then went to stand by Steven. He rubbed a hand up and down Steven’s back in an attempt to comfort him. “He is dead Ryan. I failed and -”

“Shush. I’ve been looking for a new reason to pick a fight with God.” Despite his anger at himself and at the vampire that hurt Andrew, Steven chuckled.

“You always knew the right thing to say.”

“I try.”

~~~~

It wasn’t easy, accumulating Andrew to the supernatural. Helping him adjust to no heartbeat and sharp bloodsuckers wasn’t easy, but there were some good moments too. Steven was particularly fond of the moment he got to take Andrew flying. With a lot of convincing from Steven and Adam, Andrew let Steven lift him up into the sky.

Andrew tightened his grip on Steven as they soared higher and higher. “Don’t like heights, Andy?”

Andrew grumbled into his neck. “Planes are fine, hiking is fine, this is none of those.”

“You’ll love it, Andy.” For once, Andrew agreed.

One day, before Shane turned into a demon and a new batch of chaos erupted on their lives, Andrew stood with Adam and Steven on Steven’s front porch.

“The whole beach thing, and obsession with water? Makes sense now,” Andrew told Adam. The ever stoic man did nothing but nod once.

“As much of a mess my life is now, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I would still agree to do Worth it with you and I would still force you to pull over to help the person. No regrets.” A breath Steven didn’t know he was holding flew out of his mouth. He grabbed Andrew’s hand, kissed the knuckles and brought it to his heart. Andrew kissed him on the cheek before leaning into Adam’s side.

“Life has been more fun with you too,” Adam mused.

“Yeah.” The boys watched the sunset on another very, very odd day.

#standrew #stamandrew #ish #like you can definitely read it that way #so yeah cool #I'm sorry this took so long I hope it wasn't anti-climatic #ella's worth it fics #we're all fic writers here #you know #If I ever write a fic and the fandom is more watcher based #I'm going to get such a headache

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gvbejvmes · 3 years

Text

Drabble: The Present

Title: Fridays with CeCe Rating: PG-13 Characters: Gabriel James-Michaels, Bella James-Michaels, Constance James, Miss Alison, Andrew James, Maxxie Turner, Jonathan James-Michaels (mentioned), Velvet Starr (mentioned), Tommy “Kid” Kidderro (mentioned) Relationship: Implied Gabriel James-Michaels/Jonathan James-Michaels, Andrew James/Maxxie Turner, past Andrew James/Velvet Starr Warnings: Implied drug use and child endangerment, mentions of canon murder and incorrect medical diagnoses Summary: Twice a month Bella had a playdate at social services.

Twice a month Bella had a playdate at social services. She called it her ‘CeCe Day.’ He or Jay would take her down there, and she would bounce excitedly in their arms as she told them about all the things she wanted to do while she was there. It was always on a Friday, and it was always four hours in the morning. When they picked her up, she would either chatter on and on at 100mph about what she and her CeCe had done or she would be mopey because her CeCe showed up late or forgot about their playdate. Mostly she loved Playdate Days. Gabe, on the other hand, despised them.

While he and Johnny called them ‘Playdate Days,’ they’d never actually explained to Bella what they were. They would when she was older, but for now, she was too young to understand. All she knew was that her Mommy’s name was CeCe (well, Constance, but she chose to call her CeCe), and she had a standing playdate with her every other Friday. She never asked why it was always in the same room. And she never asked why Miss Alison, their caseworker, was always there. She only knew that she only got to see CeCe in a certain place at a certain time - the specifics didn’t bother her yet. Bella was three months old when Gabe got the call from social services asking if he could take custody of his granddaughter; she didn’t know any other life than this one.

Like most ‘Playdate Days,’ Gabe arrived a half hour early to pick Bella up. He didn’t know why he did it. Sometimes it was because he was already in the area and didn’t want to stray too far away. Other times it was because he had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Today it was a combination of the two. He still needed to go to the art store to pick up a couple of brushes he had custom ordered, but something in his gut had told him to stop by the social services building first.

Instead of going in right away and sitting in the waiting room, he went around to the back of the building to the designated smoking area first - and that was when he saw her.��

Constance James was skinny in a way that didn’t look natural. She had definition around her collarbone and chest that reminded Gabe of bird bones. It was like her body didn’t know how to retain fat or muscle tissue on that part of her body. She almost looked concave, but Gabe wouldn’t go quite that far. Her skin didn’t sit quite right on her bones - like she’d lost weight too quickly and her skin tried to conform to her body, but failed. It didn’t hang, but it didn’t look entirely normal either.

Her long blonde hair was streaked with black dye and was pulled back into a severe ponytail at the crown of her head. A cigarette was dangling from her lips as she texted rapidly on her phone. Her nails were short, and the cuticles looked picked at. Chipped nail polish caught the sunlight as her fingers moved across the screen.

She must have seen him approach because she suddenly groaned and put her phone away. “Did they call you?” She asked as she pulled the cigarette out of her mouth. Her foot was pressed against the side of the building, which made Gabe think of a flamingo for some reason.

“Should they have called me, Connie?” He asked his daughter as he pulled out his own cigarette and lit up. He leaned against the wall near her, knowing better by now than to try to have direct eye contact with his estranged daughter.

She shrugged and took a long drag of her cigarette. She looked better than the last time he had seen her. A lot of the time she ducked out before Gabe could get a good look at her. Today she was wearing jeans that actually fit without falling off her hips, and a thick gray sweater that fell off her shoulder, but that looked like it was the style and not the size. She looked healthier than the last time he’d seen her. Of all the things to have inherited, she inherited her mother’s terrible parenting and her grandfather’s temper and addiction.

“I dunno. They always seem to call you when I fuck up.” She admitted. “Ari kicked me out of the room.”

That was going to be a fun conversation with the case worker. He nodded and took a drag, using the time to think about what to say to that. “She prefers being called Bella.” He finally settled on.

Connie finished her cigarette and dropped the butt onto the ground before pushing off the wall. “No, you prefer Bella. She’s three. She’ll answer to any name I call her.” And with that his daughter started walking back towards the street. “I’ll see you when I see you.”

He watched his daughter walk away before finishing his cigarette and sanitizing his hands. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, but they both knew she wouldn’t listen. Pushing all thoughts of his daughter away, he went inside to pick up Bella. And sure enough, as soon as he walked into the waiting room, the receptionist led him into a conference room to wait for the caseworker.

“Mr. James-Michaels.” Miss Alison greeted him. And it was Miss Alison. He’d tried just calling her Alison once and she nearly bit his head off. His husband said it was a Child Services/Social Worker thing and to just roll with it.

“Miss Alison.” He greeted in return, watching as she sat down at the table across from him. “I ran into Connie outside.”

The younger woman’s face paled. “Did she tell you what happened?” She pulled out her tablet and Gabe knew from experience that she was pulling up their file.

“Just that Bella threw her out of the room. And that she’s trying to make ‘Ari’ happen.”

Miss Alison sighed. “I put in a call to the judge. We may have to terminate her visitation for a couple of weeks.” It looked like she was looking for the best way to explain to Gabe what happened. Technically there was video footage, but Gabe hated watching it and Miss Alison knew that.

“Miss James has once again refused to follow the rules of visitation. She was thirty minutes late, she insisted on referring to Bella as Ari, even after both myself and Bella asked her to refrain, and she once again told Bella she was going to buy a house and take her away from you. It was at that point that Bella screamed and asked her to go away. We escorted Miss James out immediately. It’s become very clear that the current arrangement is not conducive to Bella’s wellbeing. You and your husband will likely get a summons within the next week or so with a court date to meet with Judge Murphy again.”

Before Gabe could respond, there was a knock on the door, and one of the assistants popped their head into the room. “Sorry, Bella kept asking me to call you. When I let her know you were already here, she demanded to see you because and I quote ‘the connatution says so.’” And he looked like he was trying so hard not to laugh.

Gabe rolled his eyes. “That she definitely got from my husband.” He dug around in his satchel and pulled out a package of freeze dried apple slices and tossed them at the assistant before pulling off his beanie and tossing that to him as well. “Those should tide her over until I’m done in here.” He promised. “I have to go over my and my husband’s availability for the next couple of weeks with Miss Alison.”

By the time Gabe finished his conversation and went to the other room to collect Bella, she was standing by the door, coat on and his beanie shoved down over her wild hair. “Took you long enough, GG.” She complained as he signed her out and carried her out of the building. “You dunno what I had to deal with today.”

His granddaughter was definitely three going on forty-seven.

After going to pick up his custom brushes, they headed over to the Collective so they could drop them off in his studio and because there were some orders he apparently needed to authorize. As soon as they walked inside, Bella told him she wanted to watch ‘the spinning’. He had no idea what she was talking about, until they walked to the classroom and he saw Maxxie running his beginning pottery class. Bella scampered off to sit near Maxxie and watch him move his clay around. Somehow he had a feeling she was going to wind up covered in clay - again. Shaking his head, he walked out of the classroom to find Andrew James sitting at the reception desk.

His son was twenty-six years old and all dark hair and tan skin. There was something about his hair that reminded Gabe of how his hair had been when he was his age. It was long and hung in his eyes - all the damn time. He was broad-shouldered, but was constantly hunching in on himself. It was like he was trying to make himself smaller everywhere he went. If he had to describe his son in one word, it would be skittish.

He spent years on medication he didn’t need after he claimed that he saw aliens take his aunt away. It wasn’t until he was older that he finally saw a therapist who saw his story for what it was: a way for his brain to comprehend a horrible thing he’d witnessed. Unfortunately by that time, he’d already spent years on medication he never needed and the side effects were irreversible. Thankfully the worst of it was memory loss and shaky hands.

“What are you doing working today?” He asked curiously as he gestured for his son to let him onto the computer. His son had been working at the Collective since he moved to New York. He’d made it clear he didn’t want any handouts, but he’d connected so well with the others at the Collective that it was strange to think about him working anywhere else. “I thought you refused to work on days Maxxie and Velvet were working.”

He’d dated both Velvet and Maxxie and now tried to avoid both of them whenever he could. His relationship with Velvet hadn’t been all that serious. As soon as he found out Velvet slept in a coffin, he was out. Maxxie, on the other hand, had been very serious. They’d dated for six months, which was the longest he’d ever seen his friend in a relationship. It had ended badly, to say the very least. He wasn’t entirely sure what happened between them, but fire had been involved somehow.

Drew made a face as he perched on the desk, shoulders hunched over and ankles crossed. “That’s not true.” He lied. “I traded shifts with Kid. He had his first GED prep class today.”

Gabe smiled at that. It had taken Tommy long enough. He pulled up the order he needed to review. There were still things he needed to do up in his office, but knowing that his son was working made him want to stay downstairs with him for as long as he could get away with it.

“CJ texted me.” Drew said after a long moment. “She wanted me to talk some ‘sense’ into you.”

He rolled his eyes. “And how’s that going for you?” While Connie didn’t talk to him, she still talked to her brother, but mostly only when she needed something. Drew, for his part, didn’t take sides. He loved his sister despite her faults, but he also knew how she was and what was best for his niece.

Before Drew could respond, Maxxie’s voice came from the classroom. “Pookie! Can you come get your little sister?! She’s throwing clay on the ground.” And nothing about that surprised him except for…

“Pookie?” He mouthed at his son, eyebrow raised. Maybe there was more to Drew working today than just taking Tommy’s shift.

His son blushed as he hopped off the desk. “That’s the part you’re focusing on? Not the fact that he keeps calling my niece my sister?” He grumbled out. “I’ll watch Bella; just go work.” He waved a hand in his dad’s direction.

As his son disappeared into the classroom and he could hear Bella squealing in delight, he couldn’t help but to mouth out again: “Pookie?”

#drabble #pairing: Gabe/Johnny #pairing: Drew/Maxxie

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