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wonwoonlight · 2 years

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shiny star / yoon jeonghan

➝ Jeonghan x Reader

➝ shiny star!au // university!au // non idol!au // strangers to lovers // fluff // slice of life

➝ word count: 6.1k~

➝ inspired by: Shiny Star (2020) - KyoungSeo

➝ Shiny Star masterlist (can be read as standalone)

Seungcheol // Jeonghan // Joshua // Junhui // Soonyoung // Wonwoo // Jihoon // Seokmin // Mingyu // Minghao // Seungkwan // Hansol // Chan

➝warning: curses, food, this one is pretty much peaceful but reader is a little insecure towards the end, NOT PROOFREAD IM SORRY, also it's been so long since i write i feel like my ability is deteriorating sdjfhbjsdhf

➝A/N: happy birthday, han, i forgot ur bday is so close by so i literally finished this like 5 hrs before ur bday 😭😭 i hope you guys enjoy this and pls do tell me what you think about it <3

널 좋아하는 내 마음이 표현이 안 돼

My feelings for you are hard to explain

꿈이 아니면 좋겠어 자꾸 웃음 나와

I hope it’s not a dream, I keep on smiling

When you first meet Jeonghan, you fall asleep on his shoulder on your way home.

You didn't sleep well the night before, having stayed up for a quiz that thankfully wasn't for nothing because you felt quite confident the moment you stepped out of the classroom.

That said, you still believe now that's the reason why you managed to somehow fall asleep on a stranger's shoulder on the subway. Like that's not embarrassing enough, you didn't even get to apologize properly because you woke up right after you missed your stop and you panicked, hurriedly stepping down the next one without missing the sound of airy chuckle from the man beside you.

He didn't even seem bothered, just very amused.

It’s definitely not the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you because the guy is totally not the most beautiful person you've ever encountered in your life (after Jisoo, that is).

Yep, not the case at all.

At least you can rest assured you would never see him again. He does look familiar for some reason, but you mix people up all the time and you're sure it's going to bite you back one of these days.

Unfortunately for you, when you’re finally about to forget the absolutely-not-embarassing-incident, the universe decides it wants to to play a joke and you somehow do meet him again when you’re waiting for your subway home almost a month later.

You contemplate on thanking him, but, at the same time, you hope the ground would swallow you whole because the man is even more gorgeous now that you have the time to actually look at him. Like that’s even possible because you already think he was beautiful before and you didn’t even get to see him properly.

Fortunately for you (or not, you’re not sure), he looks your way and he raises an eyebrow at the sight of you; like he’s amused and like it’s some kinda game for him. To put it short, you’re annoyed. So you copy his action and the guy shamelessly grin at your acknowledgement.

Much to your horror, he comes closer and you have nowhere to go unless you want to make a scene, which really isn’t worth it. (Also, you may or may not enjoy the gist of attention he’s throwing your way.) He moves from his line to stand behind you, and the two of you unknowingly play the game of wits in silence.

Who’s going to make the first move?

The voice inside your head tells you to thank him, because it’s the decent thing to do and… you actually did have a good nap thanks to that episode; it was probably the most well rested 30 minutes nap you have ever taken in a subway. But, then again, you can just pretend you don’t recognize him and leave it that way.

You jump at the arrival announcement, having been too deep in your thought that you didn’t realize you’ve been spacing out for almost 5 minutes already. You could’ve sworn you heard a chuckle quickly followed by a cough from the man behind you and you’re this close to asking him what it is he finds funny; but you have no proof he’s laughing at you and you do realize you’re probably way too conscious for your own good.

Seriously, all this can simply be a coincidence and you’re putting meaning into nothing.

…or so you thought.

Because now that you’re inside the train, you’re sure this guy is definitely messing with you. There are plenty of empty seats in the subway but he decides to sit right beside you for some reason and, at this point, you feel like he’s taunting you and it’s annoying you inside out.

You considered telling him off, but he addresses you first and you’re annoyed for exactly two reasons: 1. His tone is annoying 2. Your heart actually skips a bit because he’s addressing you.

God, are you that desperate for attention? You’re fully aware you’ve been whining to Jisoo about wanting a boyfriend way too much these days, but you need to get it together because this isn’t it.

“Gonna take a nap again today?” He grins, and you actually have to hold yourself back from rolling your eyes because this is your chance to finally thank him and you’re not gonna miss it now that the chance has presented itself.

“For the record, I slept late that night for a quiz, and I want to apologize and thank you for that day.” You managed to say it as calmly as possible despite your (mock) annoyance. The heat seeping up your neck is betraying you though, and you will your heart to calm down because it’s embarrassing to have a crush on him just because he’s bothering you (and because he looks like an angel).

Or perhaps you’re just in denial (not that anyone needs to know).

Unexpectedly, he shrugs and tells you it’s nothing, that you really did look tired and, as a university student, he knows exactly how it feels to be exhausted to the point of falling asleep on a subway.

“Plus, you’re Seungcheol’s friend, aren’t you?”

You blink in confusion, asking him how he knows your close friend or the fact that you’re his friend.

“I’ve seen you on his instagram. Plus, he talks about you and your friends a lot.” He shrugs nonchalantly, though he tells you he’s not actually sure until he gets a good look at you just now. “I’m Jeonghan, by the way.”

“Yoon Jeonghan? I think Cheol mentioned you and… uhh… Joshua? as a package usually.”

“Ah, I see my reputation has preceded me.” He grins in amusement, and you return the esture. How can you not realize he’s Seungcheol’s friend? That friend of yours has mentioned Jeonghan so many times even though usually it’s just him complaining that he’s being bullied by his two friends who're studying in another university.

Huh. Has Seungcheol never posted them on Instagram or are you just that ignorant?

You really would've known if Choi Seungcheol has a friend as beautiful as Jeonghan, but, then again, you suck at remembering people’s faces and you’ve never been really interested in what people post on social media so that might be why.

“Seungcheol complains about you and your other friend all the time,” you say before you know it and Jeonghan is more than happy to continue the conversation from there.

If he’s being honest, Jeonghan isn’t sure either why he’s entertaining a conversation with a stranger–someone that accidentally fell asleep on his shoulder almost two weeks ago, someone that turns out to be his own best friend’s close friend.

He recalls Seungcheol talking about you, another girl called Jisoo, and a guy called Jinhwan; the small circle he has in university consisting of people he genuinely considers friends and would often hang out with even outside university. He has never really paid much attention when Seungcheol talks about his university friends, but now that you’re in front of him, he sees why Seungcheol seems to like you; he can tell you’re embarrassed as hell just a few moments ago, yet you still swallow it in to thank him and apologize for nothing at all.

It was pure spontaneity that drove him to mess with you, he was bored and you were there. He wasn’t sure you were going to recognize him, but he got his answer the moment he locked eyes with you and you challenged him into a stare down. That’s when he decided he’s going to annoy you; he’s in one of his weird moods, anyway. Else, he wouldn’t be finding fun talking with strangers.

“Oh!” You jump at the announcement, thankful that you catch it just in time. Has it really been thirty minutes already? “This is my stop.”

Jeonghan turns to the tiny screen announcing your stop and looks just as surprised. His stop was three stops ago. Did he really have that much fun talking to you that he forgot about it? Him? The one person always eager to go home?

It’s then that the train stops, the announcement once again broadcasting your stop and you pat his shoulder and wave your hand, telling him you’ll see him around before getting out of the train to wherever you need to be.

On the train back home, Jeonghan wonders if he’ll get to see you again.

A month later, Jeonghan still hasn’t had it in him to ask Seungcheol about you nor tell him about his encounter. He doesn’t even know why he hasn’t told him about it, but, then again, he’s never the type to talk about stuff like that and he knows Seungcheol would be suspicious which is just plain annoying.

But by the look of it, you probably haven’t told Seungcheol either because the guy definitely would’ve said something if you have. Wait. Why is he even thinking about this? Christ, he’s probably more bored that he thinks he is if his train of thoughts ends up there. Where on earth is Choi Seungcheol, anyway? The guy really told him to wait by the park of his university but has the audacity to not take his call when they’re supposed to meet fifteen minutes ago.

He’s about to get up and leave when he hears a familiar voice calling his name, your confused smile greeting him when he looks up, like you’re hesitant about talking to him.

“What are you doing here?”

“Seungcheol told me to meet him here,” he sighs, telling you he’s been there for fifteen minutes. Is it weird that he’s pleased you’ve made your way to sit beside him instead of standing around like you’re ready to bolt after making small talk? “Have you seen him? He��s not picking up my call.”

He can see something clicking in your head, and you offer him a small smile as you scrunch your nose like you’re about to deliver bad news.

“Well… Jisoo said he’s going to the library with his girlfriend?”

Frankly, Jeonghan would be annoyed as hell had he found out from someone else. But it’s you in front of him so he’s more intrigued about your presence despite everything.

“That ass,” he murmurs to himself. “He probably forgot he asked me to come here.”

“I can take you to the library if you want?”

“Mmm. What if you accompany me somewhere instead?” He asks, surprising himself. When has he ever just invited someone he barely knew out? “I actually went here to try this new cafe. I think Cheol wanted to see if he could bring his girlfriend there, so I’m going to piss him off by going there first because he bailed on me without saying anything.”

You laugh at his suggestion, and then agree because you only have to finish an assignment that could probably be done in the cafe Jeonghan has just mentioned. You recognize the name, and as you both walk there, you tell him you’ve been meaning to try it also but never has the chance to because it’s either your party is too large that there’s no table, or something comes up when your friends ask if you want to come with.

Thankfully, there are still a few tables left when you arrive; all of them only fit for two people. This cafe is full of couples, you notice as you skim the cafe. No wonder it was hard to find a table when there were five of you.

“Welcome, how may I help you?” The cashier happily greets you both. Jeonghan asks for her recommendation as you flip through the menu, faintly, you hear him telling her he’s not too keen on something overly sweet. Her next question brings you to a stop though, and you almost choke on nothing if not for your pride. “Are you two a couple?”

“Why does that matter?” Jeonghan asks back, his voice far from hostile, just plain curious and full of questions.

“Ah, we actually have a seasonal couple set which includes tiramisu and a slice of lemon pound cake and two drinks of your choice. Those two are our best sellers and may fit your taste if you prefer something less sweet.”

Jeonghan asks if you want any of the two, and you shyly nod, having actually been eyeing the lemon pound cake since earlier. He bites a smile at the obvious shyness painted on your face and tells you to find a table as he finishes paying; you’re about to protest, but quickly swallows back your words when he suddenly gets close and whispers in your ear.

“We’re a couple, remember?” His soft voice tickles your hair, and you can feel heat creeping upon your whole face so you quickly nod and turn around to find a seat.

“Your girlfriend is very cute.” You hear the cashier say faintly when you turn around. Heart almost bursting into pieces at the soft chuckle Jeonghan offers her, and what he says after makes your face hot like it’s set on fire. I know, right? Don’t tell her I said that though. She hates it when I call her cute.

You’re still trying to calm yourself down when Jeonghan sits in front of you, and perhaps you look more flustered than you think because he immediately asks if something’s wrong. You shake your head though, because you definitely can’t tell him why and says that you were just spacing out.

“Did they say it’s going to take long?” Jeonghan shakes his head, then tells you probably ten minutes at most. “Do you mind if I finish my assignment? I’m about 90% done so I promise it won’t take me long.”

“Sure. Don’t mind me.” He shrugs. “I’ll just be with my phone.”

You send him a thankful smile, feeling a bit sorry that you’ve said yes to accompanying this guy you’ve met twice only for you to finish your assignment, But you’re feeling a little productive and you really only need to finish up and reread your assignment; you know yourself and you’ll probably be slacking off if you wait to go home to finish it. Plus, the cafe has a really nice vibe that helps you focus so there’s that.

True to his words, Jeonghan really doesn’t bother you at all as you busy yourself with your laptop, the small table barely even fitting, and he doesn’t look annoyed even the smallest bit when you check up on him from time to time; way too conscious about his presence until he tells you to just finish it quickly if you’re feeling that sorry for ignoring him.

It’s twenty minutes later that you finally finish, making Jeonghan look up from his phone when you exhale a deep breath, close your laptop, and take the first sip of your peach tea.

“Finished?” He raises an eyebrow, about to make a joke about you ignoring him but decides against it when he sees how relieved you look when you say yes. “Is it a big assignment?”

“Yeah. Honestly, the first time I regretted taking a Master's is when the professor announced we have to do this assignment.”

“Are you in the same course as Cheol? I don’t think he’s ever mentioned.”

“Oh, no. We met during undergrads,” you tell him the short version of the story, about how you, Jisoo, Jinhwan, and Seungcheol ended up getting close with each other. That you’re grouped together for a group assignment during an elective subject and decided to hang out together ever since. “What about you?”

“Oh, I’m still not finished with my bachelor's degree.” His grin tells you it’s not something he’s ashamed of (why should it be?), and before you even ask, Jeonghan decides it’s cool to come clear with you because you don’t seem judgemental and he trusts Seungcheol in making good friends.

“I started university late because I wasn’t sure I wanted to pursue a degree. I was convinced I really didn’t want to when I saw Seungcheol and Shua’s studyloads, and I didn’t think a formal academic setting was for me, you know? I considered taking a course for licenses, but there’s nothing I was really interested in so, in the end, I decided to study business administration because I wanted to see how they’d teach such a subject.”

You’re not sure how to answer him, but the first thing that comes to your mind after listening to him is how much you respect someone like Jeonghan who learns just for the sake of learning. You study because it’s what’s expected of you. You’re taking masters because you’re not sure what to do after university, the real world scares you and your parents are more than willing to support you when you say you want to take masters.

“So you took like two years off before going to university, yeah?” He nods, taking a bite of the cake in front of him. “What did you do during then?”

“This and that,” he purses his lips as he tries to remember if there’s anything interesting happening during that time. It hasn’t even been that long, but it feels so long ago for someone like him who rarely looks back on things unless it’s important. “I come from a place of privilege to be able to think this way, I admit, but I’ve always thought formal education isn’t important after high school. Even during school, I feel like we’re there to be proper people, you know? Learn how to place yourself in a mock society and do your responsibilities as students. There’s definitely more than formal education, but people are so fixated on it and it kind of saddens me that we live in such society.”

You continue to have a discourse about education for some reason, but it’s fun and you don’t regret bringing it up because Jeonghan seems to be just as immersed if not more. From all the topics you could’ve been talking about with the man in front of you, you never thought this would be the one you’re on when you agree to come with him.

He’s right though, and you feel admiration growing in you the more you listen to him talk. You’ve been talking to him for about an hour now, the topic moving into something else though it still doesn’t hide the fact that this guy is easily one of the smartest people you’ve ever met in your life. You see it in the way he proposes his argument, in the way he attentively listens to you and counters yours.

Hell, he’s probably even more perceptive and critical than half your class who are promptious kids taking a master degree and always belittling people who decide their bachelor is enough.

Currently, your topic has shifted way too far than the first one; the two of you busy arguing about whether it’s better to be really short or really tall. You’re trying to keep it cool, but you’ve found that Jeonghan has the ability to rile you up rather quickly and you’re this close to knocking his head because it seems like you two have reached that stage already.

It’s Jeonghan’s phone that cuts through your argument, and you both glare at the device, even more when you see Choi Seungcheol flashing through the screen.

So now he finally remembers he’s supposed to meet him?

Jeonghan rejects the call, and only then realizes that Seungcheol has sent me a few texts asking where he is and if he forgets that they’re supposed to meet up (the audacity). Jeonghan scoffs incredulously at the message, truly at a loss of words and shows you the text that you burst out laughing.

“I’m going to video call him. Move here beside me so he can see you,” Jeonghan mumbles and you happily follow through, always giddy at the prospect of annoying Seungcheol.

Not to anyone’s surprise, Seungcheol picks up immediately, already ranting about Jeonghan not showing up and all that while Jeonghan simply nods. He wanted to wait for his friend to finish before showing you and where the two of you are currently at, but Seungcheol doesn’t seem like he’s going to stop any time soon so he zooms out the phone and shows you beside him, which shuts up the older guy real quick.

“Hi!” You make a ‘V’ at the camera, only then realizing how close you are sitting to each other because your cheek bumps into Jeonghan’s shoulder when you’re trying to move closer so the camera can capture you, none of you answering him when he asks why the two of you are together or how you even know each other.

“We’re here, by the way,” Jeonghan talks over Seungcheol’s question, flipping the camera to show him the cafe which only makes the guy whine harder for obvious reasons. “Bye, Cheol. Sucks to be you.”

And he hangs up just like that, already waiting for Seungcheol to send him a bunch of messages because if there’s anything he knows about that best friend of his, he never lets things go just like that. True to his thoughts, his phone keeps on pinging with notifications, all from Seungcheol while you both laugh at the situation.

Your phone pings with notifications too, and you show Jeonghan the notifications because of course Seungcheol would text you too. You shake your head as you move back to your original seat in front of him, almost choking on air as you’re sure the texts Seungcheol sends Jeonghan and you are different.

[15:12] Cheol🎮: why are you with jeonghan????

[15:12] Cheol🎮: youre interested in him arent you

[15:13] Cheol🎮: theres no way you agreed to go with someone ALONE else

[15:13] Cheol🎮: you better tell me everything tmrw

“Did he send you anything weird?” Jeonghan asks, concerned at the way your eyes double in size.

“Oh, no. Sorry.” You pretend to cough, avoiding his eyes as you take another sip of your tea. “There was another text from my friend and… I just remembered I promised to meet him at 4.”

This seems to convince Jeonghan, or he’s just too nice to say anything about your shitty reason though it is true that you’ve just remembered you’re meeting Jinhwan in less than an hour.

“Oh, should we get going, then?”

“Yeah, I gotta go back home to put my books first.” You scrunch your nose in distaste, a habit that Jeonghan notices you often do when you’re conflicted at just about anything. “Right, how much did I owe you? We can just split the bill.”

Jeonghan shakes his head, telling you there’s no need because he’s the one that asked you out of nowhere anyway.

“What? No! Come on, just let me pay you,” you try to convince him but he doesn’t budge.

“Just buy me something else next time we see each other.” Jeonghan offers nonchalantly, making your thoughts spiral into whirlwind of scenarios. Is he really implying a next time? Why are you so giddy at the prospect of it? You don’t even have his number, for God's sake! “Which reminds me, can I have your number? Who knows if Seungcheol will bail again next time I come to your campus.”

Your head is already taking you everywhere as you type your number into his phone, wondering if he’ll text you first or he’ll really just call you around under the circumstances he’s already said earlier. But Jeonghan immediately texts you after he’s saved your contact, “so you have my number too,” he has said, way too casually for you to figure out if he wouldn’t mind you texting him just about anytime or what.

You don’t have it in you to ask too, too afraid to be perceived for some reason, so you say your bye because Jeonghan says he needs to drop by the convenience store while you go the other way around to the bus stop. He’s offered to walk you, but you tell him there’s no need and you don’t miss the way he softly tells you to be careful even if it’s still very bright outside.

The thought still lingers in your mind until later that night, your tendency to overthink stuff has brought you to ponder if you’re attracted to Jeonghan that way or, like you used to tell yourself, you’re just more lonely than you thought you were.

It’s the way your phone lights up that halts your thought, a giddy smile immediately breaks into your face as you see the text from the one person that you may or may not have been waiting for.

[21:22] Yoon Jeonghan: Thanks again for today! Had been quite some time since I found someone that could debate with me lol I’ll see you when I see you?

You inhale and exhale in exaggeration, scolding yourself right after for thinking about it too much. What’s so wrong about replying immediately? He’s just thanking you.

[21:25] Thank you also for paying!!! I’ll pay u back i promise

[21:25] Yoon Jeonghan has sent an image

[21:26] Yoon Jeonghan: reminds me of someone who said being really short is better than being really tall lmaooooooooooooo

[21:26] FUCK OFF WE DO NOT DISRESPECT THE SHORT IN THIS HOUSE

“Seriously, why is everyone suddenly in a relationship?” Jisoo whines at the table, making her three friends all look up from their phones to see her. “See? All of you are too busy texting to realize poor Kim Jisoo is being ignored.”

“In my defense,” Jinhwan starts and puts his phone down. “I was texting my mom, not my boyfriend.”

“In my defense, my girlfriend was asking if you’re busy,” Seungcheol looks at her then shows her his phone that says exactly what he’s just said.

“And in my defense, I don’t have a boyfriend,” you offer your argument, ears getting hot because you were texting Jeonghan just a few seconds ago.

You glare when Seungcheol snorts at this, and Jisoo is quick to get into it because there’s no way Seungcheol would react that way if he doesn’t know anything. When she squints her eyes in suspicion, you insist that he’s just messing around and you really don’t have a boyfriend.

Jisoo rolls her eyes at this, not buying it but doesn’t want to push. She’s noticed that you’re sprouting the same look Seungcheol and his girlfriend did when they’d only started seeing each other, and she figures perhaps you are still in denial like they were even though it’s clear that you’ve been looking extra happy everytime you’re on your phone.

“Whatever. You’re still seeing someone,” she concludes anyway, not caring about your continuous denial. “Don’t you all have someone to introduce me to? I want to be in a relationship too if you’re all in one.”

“Soo, I told you I’m not in one!”

Seungcheol smiles annoyingly at you as something brews in his mind then he hums at Jisoo, all three of you already looking at him like you’re waiting for him to say nonsense.

“I might know someone,” he nods to himself, his eyes glinting with mischief finding yours. “There’s this friend I've known since I was a kid.”

Your heart drops at what he’s implying, though you’re really getting ahead of yourself because Seungcheol has a ton of friends. The guy is great at maintaining a relationship you’re not surprised if he’s still friends with his classmates from elementary school. But still, your mind wanders to Jeonghan as Seungcheol says this and you suddenly start picturing Jeonghan and Jisoo together.

They’d make a perfect picture, wouldn’t they?

A beautiful person with another beautiful person. Jisoo is easily the smartest person you know, which makes her a great pair for Jeonghan who’s also one of the smartest people in your life.

Huh.

They’d probably be together by now had it been Jisoo in your place that day.

You jump at the sound of your name, all of your friends looking at you in concern.

“You okay?” Jinhwan asks in concern. “You just… zoned out.”

“Oh… yeah, sorry.” You smile awkwardly, feeling bad for spacing out out of nowhere. “Didn’t sleep well last night. You guys were saying?”

“Do you have anything to do after class? I want to watch this movie if you’re down,” Jisoo repeats her question, her arms hugging yours. It’s a gesture she always does when she feels someone’s uncomfortable, something that she hopes would ease whatever’s bothering the other person.

“Ah…” You exclaim, Jeonghan’s text from earlier today floating in your mind. “I already have plans, sorry. You three can watch without me, though? I don’t mind. We can go somewhere else next time.”

They probably would’ve teased you and asked you about your plan if not for the awkward smile you’re sprouting, Seungcheol’s eyes full of concerns following you even after you excuse yourself first because your class is in another building.

You don’t even realize your stance doesn’t differ that much when you see Jeonghan, the guy immediately asks if you’re okay because you seem tense and your smile doesn’t reach your eyes.

“We can reschedule if you don’t feel like going anymore,” he reassures you, his fingers softly grasping your arm to let you know he’s really okay. “Or we can talk about it if you want to?”

You consider his words carefully, thankful that Jeonghan lets you think instead of making assumptions by himself. It’s been about three months since that afternoon you went to the cafe with Jeonghan, you’ve gone out together four more times since then and this would make the fifth one.

You don’t text everyday; sometimes you’d talk til late at night or sometimes you don’t talk to each other at all. But it’s so easy to talk with him that you both just randomly text each other when you feel like doing so.

It scares you.

It’s never been this easy to talk to someone, has never been this easy to get comfortable and now that Seungcheol has put the image of Jisoo and Jeonghan together in your head, you suddenly wonder if Jeonghan would still want to do this with you if he knew someone as capable as Jisoo is very much single and available.

You don’t even have it in you to be annoyed with Seungcheol.

“Can we… sit somewhere?” You say instead, if you’re going to talk about it, might as well do it somewhere comfortable.

Jeonghan looks at you in concern, but doesn’t ask until you’ve found a pretty quiet park nearby and decided it’s better to talk in an open space than a cafe with other people who might be able to listen to you.

“It’s okay too if you don’t want to talk about it,” Jeonghan starts for you, something in his heart hurts at the way you carry yourself small. “I’ll still be here with you. I know sometimes we just need someone next to us.”

“You know Jisoo, right?” You throw it out there and rip the bandaid at once, pretty much aware that your question sounds absurd. But Jeonghan nods a yes and you ask if he’s ever seen her.

“Umm. Only from Seungcheol’s instagram and yours. I’ve never met her in person though, why?”

“She’s very pretty, right?” You say instead, not even looking at him. “She’s single, you know?”

Jeonghan’s not sure where this is going, and you would’ve known what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense to Jeonghan if you had looked at him. But you’re too deep in your monologue and you’re too afraid to look at him, so you simply look at the ground as you continue to tell him about Jisoo and all of her good points.

“Hey, I’m not sure I’m following you here,” he finally says after you’ve finished talking. “Why are we talking about her?”

You seem to hesitate before you answer him, and Jeonghan frowns at the way you’re biting your lip. It’ll definitely bleed if you put on just a little more pressure.

“We… were together earlier before class. Me and the guys,” you exhale a deep breath. Why do you even feel nervous telling him about all this? “And Jisoo was whining about not being in a relationship because…”

Uh oh. You forgot you’d need to tell Jeonghan about that part.

“Because we were all busy with our phones and she just assumes we’re all in a relationship because of that.”

“Are you?” Jeonghan cuts, his voice so curt that you finally meet his eyes for the first time that day. He’s never sounded so sharp when talking to you before.

“I was texting you, Han.” You shake your head, reassuring him you’re very much single as heat once again creeps upon your neck because of the way he’s staring at you. “Anyway, she asked if there’s anyone we can introduce her to, which is stupid because she’s Kim Jisoo and guys literally ask for her number on a daily basis. But…”

“But?”

“Seungcheol says there’s… someone he knew that might be a good match for her and…”

Before you can finish, Jeonghan interrupts you and grasps your arm so you’d look at him. “And you thought it was me?”

You don’t answer immediately, and Jeonghan’s somewhere between annoyed at your assumption, at Seungcheol saying stupid shit, while both concerned and a little giddy because apparently knowing he might be a potential candidate for someone else makes you feel that way.

You play with your fingers as you think what you can say to Jeonghan at this point. Yes, you thought it was him. And then… what? What are you supposed to say so you wouldn’t say stupid and ruin whatever it is between the two of you?

“Hey, look at me,” his small voice ushers you softly, his hand finds the top of your head as if to make sure you’d actually stay looking at him. “Do you want me to be introduced to her?”

Your eyes widen in fear before you even realize, and Jeonghan definitely would’ve teased you if not for the fact that he knows he might blow everything if he decided to do so. But it’s his next words that make your heart jump out of your chest, your fingers grasping the side of his green top without you even knowing because that’s how much you need something to hold on to.

“I thought we have something going on between us here?” He chuckles lightheartedly, though his eyes don’t leave yours so you’d know he’s not kidding. “Or was it one sided all this time and I’m the only one trying?”

“I– Uhh…” You stare at him dumbly, suddenly forgetting how to form comprehensive words because of the sudden confession. It is… confession, right?

“Wow, it really was one sided, huh?”

“No!” You say louder than you intended, making Jeonghan laugh at your panicked face. Did you think he’d leave just because you’re not saying anything? “No… I mean… Uh–it’s not one sided.”

“Then why did you think that much about the Jisoo situation?” He asks with a playful smile, his hand messing with your hair. “Anyone would think you’re trying to set me up by the way you’re talking about her earlier.”

You scrunch your nose at this, and Jeonghan reaches out to pinch the tip of your nose because he thinks he’s resisted long enough at this point. He's always wanted to do that.

“There’s a reason why I’m texting you and not her, alright?” He reassures you instead, because he knows it’s what you need right now. Teasing you can wait, and while he’s happy this means you already have deep enough feelings for him to be jealous, he doesn’t want you to be insecure because of such a thing. “I choose to be with you and not her."

“Okay,” you nod with a shy smile, suddenly very abashed now that you’re in this position. Weren’t you annoyed at him, like, four months ago? Ready to fight him because he’s starting something in the subway station?

“Now, let’s not tell Seungcheol we’re dating, okay? Let’s mess with him a little bit and tell him later.” He decides just like that, takes your hand in his and declares that you both should celebrate without actually asking you the question.

The smile on your face is so wide that it hurts a little. You like it that way though, and as you look down at your hands joined together, you realize you wouldn’t have it any other way.

A/N 2: this.. isn't my best work and i'm sorry but i really wanted to write but i've been busy adapting in my new place and i honestly do feel like my writing is getting worse but i hope you enjoyed this somehow ;-; once again, happy birthday, han! i love u with all my heart and i wish you all the happiness the world has to offer.

permanent tag list: @kyeomjjigae @stantrash171819 @sebongmochi @luveveryonewoo @thinkinboutwonu @kpopjackie @ursweetener @lavenderautumnx @itsveronicaxxx @shuahoshiscoups @sunshinein17 @leechanniee @twogyuu @hoe4wonwoo @h3h3tm0n @noraehey @seokshook @02psh @rubyhoons @just-here-to-read-01 @listxn @janandbeyond

a/n 3: if any of you wants to be removed from the permanent taglist pls kindly fill the form again and just say your url and that you want to be removed, thank you!

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1nvad3rz1m · 7 months

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On recapkidd/ang

So news is getting around about ang's unfortunate fate as they're allegedly on EOL (end of life) care after being unable to access health insurance from being deprived industry jobs. It's true that zadr (p*rn) is what kick started these events but it was not just invader zim fans that did this. This was, based on the timeline and evidence, a calculated attack from a few of ang's previous friends and acquaintances

So here's a run down, you can make your own judgements but here is the best I can offer as a timeline of events. PLEASE BE AWARE i am linking some twitter accounts that may have nsfw content! I am only linking to specific tweets with nothing explicit in them but I cannot promise the accounts themselves are clean.

This document is directly from ang themself, and gives a pretty detailed timeline of when this started (~2020) and features the most prominent ringleaders (jeraspat, holly, kyle, tai). i'll abbreviate it regardless but i highly recommend you read it

Ang's response

Basically, BEFORE their account as reapkid they joined jera's friendgroup. This group, for reasons unrelated to ang but they joined in the moment of, fell apart. If you've ever been unlucky enough to experience this you know where this goes, Ang's addition was blamed as the reason it fell apart.

Eventually Ang separated from this group but due to the scapegoat status and Jera's idolization of them (which you can read about in the doc) it wasn't over. This point is when Ang started drawing zadr and we knew them as recapkid here on tumblr. Jera is the primary reason Ang was targeted for this because as we all know after florpus release there was uptick in anti-zadr sentiment. What happens next is a long process of callouts by multiple different users and eventual doxxing of ang.

There's some max v jera drama (jera's callout for max, any orange block out is ang's name) that drags ang in but that wasn't the killing blow. tai (toydrill on twit)'s call out is what dealt the most damage. This almost definitively drove everyone away from ang. if you want to read the tweets and replies here it is. it isn't full of receipts like a typical callout but it does lead into the subsequent events.

Something important to note is the people turning against ang have their own taboo aspects and i want to point those out. tai has an obsession with a character from venture bros that is a "redeemed pedophile", vince (former friend of ang who was lamenting in the comments of tais tweet) was allegedly into monster furry porn so egregious that it made others call him a zoophile. my point here is that these people who crucified ang had their own questionable fictional tastes but justified it for their own benefit, their own moral stance doesn't hold up. That is not me passing judgement, just an aspect of the behaviors exhibited to consider that most people learning about the issue don't know about.

what happens next is a domino effect of people responding again i urge you to read the doc, this is the point i think that people turned on ang BECAUSE of invader zim. More of jera's friends get dragged in to antagonize ang, something important to remember is this was deliberate attacking they did not leave ang alone.

It starts to cross over into reality with holly (creator of lemonhead and lollipup, if youre familiar) who makes a callout post tagging all of ang's real friends and employers. Holly exhibited some strange behaviors in their relationship with Ang which is all documented but again, I am just focusing on the callouts.

Something I want to stress as Ang does in the document is that while Holly did go after their irl support system they did not get them fired from any job at this point for any online behavior. This is however setting up the eventual blacklisting that Ang suffered from, preventing them from work because of the public spectacle. Holly's narrative that Ang claimed they were fired for this did however impact some of their relations specifically from spindlehorse who believed ang was using them as a scapegoat and eventually viv cut off communication with them.

Ang worked on the mighty magiswords show and the show creator, kyle carrozza, allegedly spread their private nsfw content with coworkers and DID fire them for that reason after the callouts. This is the first documented case that I'm aware of of Ang being fired for this specifically. Here is Ang's account of it.

I want to highlight holly's response and call to action here, as it proves that this was not done out of a genuine need to keep others safe (or that ang was ever dangerous to begin with) but because of petty reasons. especially considering the behavior documented.

What happens after is an inability to get and keep jobs and being cut off from their health insurance. No, invader zim fans didn't get ang killed (they were a rather big part of it but alone that is not the issue). According to their friend puppy on twitter it wasn't just social backlash, it was also the flaws of the US healthcare system. It was unfortunately interconnected, especially when it's an industry that hinges on connections.

You can have your opinions on ang's content. You can have your opinions on how they responded. You can believe ang is leaving out a lot of information (based on all the info provided in the document im hard pressed to believe that is the case, but i digress) and you can believe that the industry can choose what content they think is permissible to work with (though the industry has and still does protect active predators, and people pick and choose which individuals they want to blacklist. rebecca sugar, anyone?)

The bottom line is this didnt start out as a moral issue, it started as a personal issue between friends. morality and fiction were simply an easy selling point, buzzwords to get people to rally on their side. the fact remains it was a years long orchestrated attack on someone that ultimately impacted their health and later their life.

#this is a little disorganized but i tried my best #i cant find all the links unfortunately a lot of this is quite old and twitter is like. borderline unusable #if you have questions you can ask there is a lot more that i didnt wanna overload this post with

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pspkisser · 7 months

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⚙️ This laptop was saved from obsolescence! [10 mins of read]

Hello!! i am making this post here to raise awareness for PC and laptop upgrades, and how it should motivate you to do that same thing to preserve yours for longer or to give it the power you need! this will feature my history with mine, as well as the steps i took to be able to make him breathe life better! this is the story of his journey, and how it went to this current day.

his name is samuel, he is an asus fx570u and i bought him back in september of 2018 after i turned 13! he was brand new during that time and priced at 800 euros, offering only 6 gb of memory and an HDD as his specs. however he does have an 8th gen core i5 as his cpu and a geforce 1050 ti for his gpu. for something marketed as a gaming pc, it's pretty low and it wouldn't allow him to run fast enough, especially for highly demanding software and causing some compatibility issues. it wasn't severe, but as i was stuck with an hdd, that meant operating systems would run pretty slow on it, also leading to long software loading times. this is made worse by the fact that its bundled system, windows 10, isn't designed to work efficiently on hdd in the first place, but at least that means i have my hands on a windows key to be able to use some windows exclusive programs..

i mainly used him to be able to use advanced video editing software and customize the games i have on it for my own taste, because back then i loved making youtube videos and it was a passion i've had for years until i've partially retired from it. i rarely bought games on it and instead opted for free-to-plays, and overall had a good time with him.

unfortunately within only 3 months, his HDD broke down and i sent him to technicians for them to replace it with another one. it was a minor accident i've had but it formatted all my data, even though it didn't matter much since i uploaded most of it to the internet. i just had to be gentle with him by trying to not moving him around too much to stop that issue from persisting... but it was still low-end in terms of system performance. i finally used him for 1 year straight before moving on to a tower pc, feeling tired about his slowness and believing i couldn't do much about it.

i used that other (unnamed) pc for almost a year, starting from 2020! they seemed to work better since it had windows 7, but embarrassingly enough that version itself stopped receiving official security updates months before i started using it, even though i was careful while accessing the internet with it. its performances were also low, but didn't really matter much since i didn't take so much advantage from the power of samuel. suddenly, i had the foolish idea of installing windows 8.1 on the latter to try to deal with the performance issues on 10, but it led to even more compatibility issues since the drivers i used were meant to be for 10 only. only by early 2021, i got win10 back on him and started using him again to get more power again.

so the low-end performance persisted for very long. back then i never knew how to upgrade pcs, so i was only used to replacing devices with others which wasn't cost-efficient. after realizing i used windows for well over 10 years, i had the idea of switching to a mac and as a result, for xmas 2021 i got myself a cute yellow silicon imac, who goes by the name of sarah! but switching to macos posed new serious challenges, such as getting used to the lack of windows compatibility and the missing features that i was used to for a long time. most of the creativity i did with her was drawings with firealpaca and krita, and cgi with blender, which wasn't really much. still, she is pretty glossy and also powerful for many of the tasks i'm performing with her. originally i also intended to sell samuel, but that never happened (i low regret that decision so much i swear).

in late 2022, samuel's performance apparently had had a big hit... he now takes approximately 20 seconds to open any program and it seemed to me like something was wrong with him. at that time i also gained interest in linux since it's a libre OS capable of much more flexibility, essentially allowing it to revive old PCs. i finally decided to get linux mint to work on him via a dual boot with win11 (what was i thinking when i "upgraded" him from 10?). the performance seemed a little better from then, but programs still took very long to open. for that reason, he had often been collecting dust as he finally became unusable.

finally we've reached 2023. this is the year i decided to take on tearing down devices to learn how to examine problems inside of them. after checking samuel's performance again, i noticed that his HDD was having extremely low writing and reading speeds compared to my tower, which made me feel disappointed. but that's when i finally decided i could be able to replace his hard disk with an ssd, a new generation which is more durable, faster, quieter and energy-efficient...

but i still had a good wait until it was possible. suddenly with my money, i found an ssd which only costed €30, and it made me happy that this would be a quick way of healing up samuel! so i rushed to get it, and finally opened him to prepare everything... unfortunately, his keyboard has to be lifted up in the process, and there are flex cables connected between it and the motherboard. but taking out the hard disk thankfully only requires a few steps; removing some screws, then inserting the SSD inside of it. after that i quickly put linux mint back into him. SO SPLENDID...

for only the price of a high budget indie game, now he can open programs very fast, close to how fast sarah can do, and just about any task works perfectly well on him with way less bugs! thanks to that fast upgrade he's become viable for daily drives again, even though i don't have other desks suitable for pcs which makes me less motivated to use him. really wish id be able to since the architecture he has (x64) means he has a lot more software he's able to handle natively...

but then, i hadn't upgraded his ram. i said before that he only had 6 gb of it, and that meant he could only work with a few programs before becoming bloated. and as i like doing power tasks on him, that obviously causes problems. so one day, i went to a pc part store out of curiosity, and became shocked when i found small ram carts that could be compatible with my laptop. after some talk with the seller, i bought 2 ddr4 carts each containing 8 gb and clocked at 2666 mhz, more than double of what i used to have. after that it was time to take on a challenge to be able to insert them myself.

when the seller asked me if i needed assistance to have the carts inserted into my laptop, i giggled internally because of my past stories with learning how to open devices and trying to troubleshoot or modify them internally. i obviously declined it which saved me money, but also meant i had to do it all myself. after an hour of painful manipulations which required me to take out the entire motherboard from samuel, while that next step was also difficult i was finally able to insert the carts into it, before placing all his components back into place. and after such a long time of waiting...

i've finally done it!

Samuel is feeling very well right now!! despite his cpu and gpu dating from over 5 years, now he can do even more tasks at a time, while also being able to read them faster, a massive improvement compared to when it was stuck with an hdd and only 6 gb of ram. i'm guessing those low specs were for the purpose of saving manufacturing costs, but until you'd find use for the components that you'd remove, they'd end up becoming waste. and with a free os like linux mint, it adds up to an even more optimized experience than windows 10, which comes with so many unwanted stuff and can't be customized very well.

have you had a similar story to mine? did that pose you challenges? i took over 40 minutes to write this entire piece of text, but it should at least be very well detailed! on the best case scenario i hope it would inspire others to do some research on upgrading PCs to preserve their lives and especially save costs. Thank you for reading the entirety of it, don't hesitate reblogging it if you think it would interest your own audience! peace for all of you 💙

#pc #laptop #computer #computers #pc upgrade #objectum #gaming pc #linux #linux mint

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medtech-mara · 8 months

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Welcome to my new series of posts about Cyberpunk RED source material! This time we will be putting the CYBER into the PUNK by discussing everything Cyberware.

Today, though we must start with the basics, I wanted to just show the catalog and let you go on our own way, but I felt it was best to open the discussion. I am willing to answer your questions should you have some in the event you want to roleplaying/write accordingly when Phantom Liberty releases.

Welcome to Blue Remedies Health Clinic, My name is Mara Sterling, and I will be your Ripperdoc today? Have you ever used a Ripperdoc before? I notice you don't have any cyberware at all? Nervous? Don't be! We'll go walk through this together.

What is Cyberware?

Cybertechnology can be purchased almost anywhere. Some of the medical procedures are simple: walk-in types of surgery with minor installations taking place in whatever shopping mall clinics(Bodyshoppe, Fashion/Fusion, and Parts N' Programs are three popular chain stores) still exist, or drop-in medical centers (Docs R Us™... or my clinic Blue Remedies Health Clinic in the Wellsprings) These installations are much like getting your ears pierced. You can even have upgrades and improvements plugged into the old hardware for the cost of the new parts, allowing you to start small (called "stripped" or "economy") and add as you go. It is IMPORTANT to note that you CANNOT install cyberware to a critical injury, it has to heal first.

Where can I get my Cyberware installed?

Any Ripper doc if you are brave enough... Joking aside.. Depending on what cyberware you are wanting to install, depends on where you'd likely go. Don't worry I can guide you through this process with telling you where you'd likely get this cybernetic installed. Mall: means you can literally get the installation done in any mall or street corner bio-mod shop; the equivalent of ear-piercing in the 1900s. There are not as many of these as there were in the 2020s. Clinic: means an actual Medtech in a medical surgery clinic. Most of the installation is automated, but it takes a skilled practitioner to use that gear. Most ripperdocs are at this level. Hospital: means the work requires major surgery and a Medtech capable of doing this kind of work. This also requires a full hospital or the nearest equivalent, which is relatively rare. *Benefits from multiple installations of the same cyberware do not stack unless otherwise noted

"I was thinking about getting a a Sigma frame like Panthera, OH or have a dart eye like Optic from Night Raid! That's so cool!"

Unfortunately, there are prerequisites for some cyberware. Rome wasn't built in a night nor was David Martinez, so you will need to build yourself up to such an upgrade as an exo-skeleton like the Sigma frame, but I can't recommend one enough.

How is there such a thing as too much Cyberware?

Besides the obvious answer if you want to see God under the boot of some Maxtac lapdog? then yes. There are limits on how many cyberware slots your body can have. There will be a display how many slots can be used per cyberware type.

Cyberware types? You mean there are more than 2? I thought it was just cyberlimbs or Kiroshis?

There are 8 types of cybernetics available to the open market. However, your Ripperdoc MAY or MAY NOT have special types of cyberware they've crafted themselves, it never hurts to ask. Currently Avaliable: Fashionware, Neuralware, Cyberoptics, Cyberaudio, Internal Body Cyberware, External Body Cyberware, Cyberlimbs, & Borgware (my personal favorite, but watch out!)

Cool, I've picked out what I wanted, lets get started?

Whoa, hold on, choombatta, you picked some heavy hitters there, do you think you can handle it? If you've recently suffered from major traumas, I like to suggest meeting with a therapist first, your humanity is something to treasure and you won't get very far without it... Well unless you are Adam Smasher, were you born with 0 empathy?

Humanity? Therapy? What's all this GONKED shit?

Each cybernetic you install will cost a bit of your humanity, you are giving up some of your human self in place of machine, that doesn't come free. Fortunate for you, therapy does wonders, it can often help you discern what is the psychosis speaking or you, but without it, I'm sure you won't last 6 months on the street before C-Swat comes for you. It's always recommended that if you install heavy cyberware to see your therapist after. It's also a good idea to see your therapist after any traumatic event that has happened to or if front of you. It's not just the cyberware that eat at your humanity.

Annnnnd that's all for this post! Next post we will start going over some actual cyberware, starting with a personal favorite, Fashionware! I really hope to see some of the work you guys make with the new DLC coming out, and armed with this new knowledge about cyberware and cyberpsychosis (soon™)

#Cyberpunk Red #Cyberpunk RED source material #Cyberpunk 2077 #CPR #CP2077 #Cybernectics #Cyberware #Cyberpunk #cyberpunk lore #worldbuilding

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moumouton4 · 2 years

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When The New Greenie Helps || Newt x fem!reader

A/n : As you can see this was requested by a lovely person. Writing for people is an actual dream and I hope my work will please you all, and make other people want to send more request 💙💚

Masterlist ⚜

Warnings : So this is slightly it’s fluff, slighlty ansgty and a little bit smut not that much though as always nothing too graphic because I’m not good at writting this but with practice it’ll become easier. English isn’t my first language and this is my fourth fic

I don’t give permission to repost my work, if you want to share it just reblogue it

Words count : 2020

An elevator, a big metallic noise, a blinding light and boys screaming, we know the music. You were the first one to arrive in the glade, along with Gally, Alby, Minho and Newt. It must have been at least 3 years that you lived in this green jail surrounded by all the boys that arrived every month.

Being a girl ( if you're not a girl / woman I'm really sorry but I didn't have more details of course if I knew I'd adapt it ) in the glade wasn't supposed to be that easy, but you were Y/n, you were independent and most of all super badass. You were one of the runners before, you ran fast and unfortunately one day you were not fast enough. After your injury Minho knowing you were a great asset and one of his best friend, decided to redirect you to the gardeners. But the badass that you are is very independent so if a slicer or anyone needed help you'll gladly go and help him.

A week later, you had become quite comfortable with the gardens. You had the opportunity to get to know better the shy, but mostly second-in-command, Newt. He, like the other boys, had no memory of ever having known girls and his very reserved behavior in your presence reinforced your intuition. He knew how to be authoritative when he had to be. Sometimes you could hear his British accent ringing out from the other end of the glade and it thrilled you, you kind of wanted him to be like that with you too. Just to know what it would feel like for once to take orders instead of giving them.

You and Newt became very close over the months, he spent a lot of time in the garden saying it helped him relax and all but little did you know that it was you who brought a smile to his face every time you talked. You were the keeper of the gardeners so you spent most of your time in the gardens tending the crops. Except once a month when a new boy arrived. This was an initiative of Gally's, who was tired of having to deal with scary, whiny boys - as he put it - who ran around until they were breathless. Of course you had gladly accepted, since you were no longer a runner you had to prove your worth in other areas and welcoming new greenies was one of them. Newt's eyes would crinkle every time he heard one of the boys call you when a newcomer arrived. He thought it was because he wanted to protect you but little did he know that it was his jealousy that was speaking. The man was in love with you and you were oblivious maybe as much as him about your feelings towards him and even when you're badass you don't go spilling your feelings to your crush.

You and Newt were in the gardens that day when the sky was a clear blue when you heard Billy yell "Y/n a new greenie is coming ! Y/n !". You barely had time to look at each other sheepishly before cutting your conversation short and heading for the cage. Once in front of it, you had time to watch the boys open it and Gally jump in. You waited for him to ask you to come over as usual but a boy came running out. It wasn't Gally, the boys started laughing but to your surprise you looked at him from head to toe and "Oh boy he is fast" you though. You looked at Minho who had just returned from his rounds and he seemed to be thinking the same thing.

The moment you heard Gally swear you knew it was time for you to catch up with that human rocket and reassure him a little. You looked at Newt and told him you'd be back soon. His heart swelled with love for you and he just told you to go chuckling at the freightened boy.

You ran towards the boy, he was fast but you were experienced. Of course you couldn't risk running through the maze anymore, but you were still able to run fast, very fast indeed. You were lucky when the boy ran into one of the walls and turned around to find you right behind him. He was out of breath because of all his emotions while you were barely warmed up. "Please can you stop with already I've got work to do" you said trying to sound as much friendly as you could though living in the glade since this long wasn't helping with it.

"Where the hell am I ?!? And who are you ?!?" he was almost yelling at this point. "Oie boy calm down you're in the glade here and I'm Y/n ( almost wrote my name ) no one want you any harm here" you said slowly extending your hand towards him, which he took with a little hesitation "Thomas" he said you smiled and you took the opportunity to step forward a little more and take him in your arms gently patting his back, he was taller than you but you couldn’t care less "Everything is going to be okay Thomas"

"We are really lucky to have her she is a real magician with these boys" Gally said to Minho and Newt. The latter was clenching his knuckles turning white, yep he was definitely jealous. Gally grabbed Chuck's arm as he jumped around, excited that he was no longer the new greenie in the glade. "Let's get back to work everyone because... tonight it's bonfire night" he said smirking and all the boys cheered running back to their works... all of them except Newt who was watching from afar. He shouldn't be worrying right ?

He shouldn't be but that was without counting on Thomas' tactile side. Of course you were okay with this and you were kind of happy that for once someone here was as touchy as you. Everything was platonic of course, a pat on the back, a hug to say hello, holding each other by the shoulders, ruffling his hair if he was worried... and it was only one day ! Newt seriously wondered what he was witnessing and little did you know that he was burning inside, burning for your love but also burning from jealousy at the sight of this burgeoning friendship.

The evening fell quickly for you when for Newt the day was bloody endless. But for all the other boys it was time to celebrate. Indeed, with each new arrival an evening around the bonfire was organized, Frypan making the fanciest food - within the means of the glade - that he could and Gally preparing his home-made alcohol the famous mead. Thomas' arrival would be no exception so bonfire night it'll be. Everyone was sitting with their circle of friends so you found yourself sitting on logs with Gally, Minho, Newt and of course the newcomer - to Newt's displeasure - Thomas. Don't get him wrong, he thought Thomas was a really nice guy and all but when he was near you, his mind was clouded by jealousy and he was afraid he would lose you to Thomas who was much more courageous than he was when it comes to you.

Gally made us taste a new version of his mead recipe and I took the glass he offered me drinking it in one go "Gally... this is really strong really good but really strong do you think they'll be able to handle it ?" I asked him as he passed a glass to Thomas which he drank just as quickly "Fucking hell this is burnin' the hell outa me !" the new greenie screamed before Gally even got a chance to answer me. We all laughed even Minho who was on the floor totally drunk. Newt, as for him looked at me, he had tasted Gally's mead but not enough to be drunk, he wanted to talk to you but he was waiting for the right moment.

But of course fucking Thomas had to lazily wrap his arm around your shoulder before leaning over and whispering something in your ear, you looked briefly at Newt and chuckled nervously at his stare. Thomas was right he was looking at you with a deep gaze. Thomas told you to talk to him to which you shook your head and faced him. He frowned everyone described you as the badass, the tough girl of the group and you couldn't go talk to Newt... unless... "Wait you love him ?" you blushed furiously ( My stupid white skin can't blush so it's weird for me to write this lmao ) "Oh no I can't believe it so this is why he was staring at me like he wanted to kill me" he barks out a laugh before getting up and lifting you by the shoulders. And just when Newt thought he couldn't see any redder, he saw him push you towards him "I think you both need to talk" Thomas said. Newt got up and blame it on the alcohol if you want, he felt brave enough to ask you to follow him. It was now or never.

So you walked away from the group behind the forest in a kind of plain that is hollow in one place. Convenient to lie down in if needed. "So what were we supposed to talk about-" you began before being cut off by Newt who sounded a bit on the edge "Do you like Thomas ?" it sounded almost accusatory.

"I beg your pardon I only know him from today and-" you tried to answer but he cut you off again and it was getting on your nerves "It's not what you were letting on-"

"Am I not allowed to have friends here ?!?" you started to sound pissed.

"Not the one you bloody touch all day !"

You took a step towards him you were smaller but you didn't care "And why's that ?" you dared to ask.

"Because you don't touch me that way" his voice died when he realized what he had just said.

Your eyes widened at this leaving you speechless, you saw him wave his hands and take a few steps back as he pulled away. Your ability to speak returned and your legs brought you back to his side "Maybe because I'd like to touch you in another way Newt" you sternly said. The badass was back hell yeah.

He gulped at that holding back a groan, he turned red in the stillness of the night and you took the initiative by getting on your tiptoes to kiss him.

He responded after realizing what was happening, his hands grabbing your hips and pulling you closer to him. At the same time you both bent your heads to deepen the kiss leading to your noses to colide. You both chuckled and he took the opportunity to slide his tongue in your mouth slowly backing you up towards the nearest tree. Once leaning against it, he put his hands under your thighs carrying you between him and the tree. You wrapped your legs around his waist, you could feel him against you and it was driving you mad. He grunted at the friction and pulled his head back slightly so he could look you in the eye. "Are you sure this is what you want Love ? We can stop here I won't love you less-"

You freed yourself from his grip and pushed him against the tree, rubbing against him as you said this "Do you think I'm here because I don't want too greenie" you smirked.

...

"After all, Thomas' arrival was not such a bad thing" thought Newt as he watched your form lying in the grass looking at the hickeys he made on your neck. Little did he know you were thinking the exact same about the ones you made on him.

A/n : I hope you liked it and thank you for following me into my madness 😂 Feel free to request me things 💜💛

Taglist : @malfoyscamander , @cl0vr , @ilovemanypeople , @glossy1pearl ( guys sorry for tagging you here as well if you only wanted to be tagged for the Fantastic Beast ones - let me know if it’s the case )

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13thdoctorposts · 3 months

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I just ordered all of Jodie's era on DVD (I'm a physical media lover) and can I say how wonderful and ironic it is to see the thousands of top star reviews for her merchandise and how stuff like certain figurines and her TARDIS figurine are either totally sold out or priced up hundreds of pounds when the haters say she's unpopular and doesn't sell. I mean she even has her officially licensed scarf and everything lol. People love her Doctor.

People seem to take the downward trend of spending during the pandemic as some sort of indictment that 13/Jodie doesn't sell, when in fact in 2018/9 there was a ton of merch that sold just like all Doctor Who merch does, we got the 10inch doll, a barbie, action figures, her sonic, her series 11 funko pop set, 3 novels with matching audio books, 5 YA/Kids books, Comics, games, eaglemoss figures... and thats just off the top of my head and doesn't even include all the generic DW merch... then 2020 came... 13 era merch seemed to vanish... gee I wonder what happened that year that heavily effected the economy, the workforce and businesses, not to mention peoples LIVES? People were losing their jobs, hoping not to get sick, dealing with having sick loved ones and trying to make sure they had enough toilet paper somehow I don't think any shows merch was top of peoples minds, and businesses that were essential to making merch were losing money, making it harder to make things!

I don't believe there has ever been a problem with 13/Jodie selling, unfortunately during her tenure one of the most disruptive events in our generation happened and merch wasn't a priority and even made for fans to buy during that time due to the conditions, restrictions, and economy to know if it wouldn't sell, so its a ridiculous argument.

But as you said theres also a number of items of her merch that are not only expensive if you want one now but you'll be lucky if they even come up for sale because clearly people want to keep them.

For example... 13 Build a Bear, 13 Blush bear from Children in Need, the 2018 SDCC 13 Pop, the 1/5 signature edition Big Chief Studios figure.

You want any of these not only will you have to wait who knows how long for one to come up to buy but expect to be paying a small fortune... However you want a 10th Doctor Build a Bear? They are on Ebay now, more pricey then buying originally from Build a Bear but no where near as much as a 13 Bear when it comes up I've seen 2 come up in 12 months. You want one of the other Doctor Chidlen in Need bears that were release? Yeah you can get them pretty regularly on Ebay too and a pretty good price, head over there now and you'll find them, never seen a 13 one for sale, Big Chief Studios figure? You can find most all the other Doctors, 13 I've seen it come up twice in the last 12 months on Ebay, and only 1 was in its original condition so good luck, and hopefully you have a weeks salary you don't need to buy it if you wanted it they are so expensive, you can still find listings for the 2018 SDCC 13 Pop but you got a spare 250+ pounds to pick it up? Haven't seen any other Doctor pops cost that much if you want to get one.

If Jodie was soooooo unpopular why is she one of the most expensive and elusive Doctors to be able to get merch for when she is technically the most recent Doctor with merch you should just be easily able to pick up.

Jodie also recently had prints of an image she painted sold for charity they were not cheap! There was only 50, they were gone in under 1 day.

Haters are just gonna make things up because the truth doesn't fit their narrative.

#13th doctor #thirteen #thirteenth doctor #13 #13 era

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prismatic-bell · 1 year

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Anti-Racism In Glass Onion: It's A Whole Thing, Part One

So I wasn't going to write this, because I'm white and it felt like veering very far out of my lane. But I also haven't seen anyone else talking about it, and finally I decided I'd rather make an ass of myself by doing something well-meaning than I would to uphold a status quo that zips right by one of the most important things in this film (that doesn't get explored enough in media or fandom), so here we are. Please keep in mind this is going to be FULL of spoilers so if you're not about that life, you'll want to give this a pass for now. (I also expected it to be much shorter than it is. It’s, uh, nine pages long. So it will be multiple posts long. Sorry.)

I don't think I've yet seen anyone really touch in-depth on the fact that this is a movie with a pretty strong theme calling out antiblack racism and the overturning thereof. Indeed, I’ve only seen one post mentioning it at all.

So let’s analyze, yes?

First, let's look at "the disrupters." They include:

--an alt-right streamer who's openly mentioned as being just about every -ism in the book

--his blonde-haired, blue-eyed girlfriend who's with him for status

--a white politician who objects to Klear not on the basis that it could cost lives, but that it will lose her the progressive vote

--an absolute idiot of a white supermodel who's had two serious antiblack race-based scandals, and is about to have another that's just generally racist

--a Black scientist who repeatedly tries to speak up and gets shot down

--a Black woman, the actual brains of this entire outfit, who created the original business plan and a multibillion-dollar company and got first fired, then financially ousted, then murdered

Now let's look at some other Black characters and Black imagery in the story. These include:

--a mural of Kanye West depicted as a messiah

--Serena Williams, as Miles' personal trainer

--the phrase "sucking on his titties," spoken by a Black woman

--a cameo by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as one of Benoit Blanc's friends

—a Beatles song (yes, really)

--the lower-middle-class sister of the Black woman who was the actual brains, etc.

Before we move on, I want to address the Kanye thing, because Glass Onion was filmed in 2021, probably written in 2020, and the point where Kanye went absolutely batshit deep-end off-the-fucking-rails was in 2022. I do not believe Rian Johnson was making any kind of "go Kanye" statement here--I think it was an unfortunate confluence of timing. As I discuss Kanye further, I want it to be clear we're discussing already-gross-but-not-yet-gone-full-Nazi Kanye.

So let's go ahead and get him out of the way first, because he's an incredibly important figure in Black music but as a Jew I just. Really do not want to be discussing Kanye West longer than I have to, I'm sorry. West is the kind of figure Miles Bron would absolutely want to have in his life as a status symbol. First, if we look at Bron's definition of being "a disrupter" (first you break a small thing, then very quickly you break the system itself), Kanye absolutely qualifies. He started out as a small artist mostly producing beats for other musicians, then did some work for Jay-Z that led to an album Rolling Stone considered one of the best hip-hop albums of all time, and then he dropped The College Dropout. I knew his work was considered influential before I started looking into this imagery deeper, but I had no idea how influential--this was his debut album and it hit #2 on the charts, produced a single that debuted at #1, included a song called "Jesus Walks" that hit the top 20 even though it was predicted a Christian song would never land in hip-hop, and the album is still considered one of "the greats" by other artists--twenty years later. I'd say that pretty neatly fits Miles' definition of "disruption." He did, indeed, first break something small and then turn the hip-hop world on its head.

Where there's a second layer to this that I think would also speak to Miles is that in 2018, Kanye declared the chattel slavery of West African people in the Americas was "a choice"--as in, they chose to be enslaved. He later claimed he was referring to "mental enslavement," but no matter how you cut it, regardless of his own race, that's a pretty fucking racist antiblack statement (in addition to being wildly historically revisionist). While I doubt Miles would be like “hell yeah, racism!,” he’d absolutely buy 100% into the idea of choosing to be in hellish circumstances, because He Got Out All On His Own (even though he didn’t), So You Can Too.

Moving on, we have Serena Williams. She's another person who'd fit Miles' description of "a disrupter," but where Kanye would probably revel in that idea, I honestly don't think she'd like it very much, and her attitude in the movie really underlines that. Yes, she's taking his money to be his "personal trainer," but really, he's frittering her life away. She's sitting there reading a book waiting for him to decide he wants to get off his ass and work out today. She's not a slave, but she has been explicitly put in a role as a paid servant. I don't think it's out of the question to say Miles specifically picked her over, say, Jillian Michaels, because she is Black. Do I think he sat down and went "who's a Black athlete I can subjugate?" No. I think if you asked Miles he'd be the kind of person who'd unironically say "I'm not racist! The head scientist at Alpha is Black!" What I think happened--or to be more accurate, what I think the kind of train of thought Rian Johnson would attribute to him would have caused to happen--is that he picked someone he'd be comfortable ignoring. Did he consciously decide he'd be more comfortable ignoring a Black woman and telling her to put up or shut up if she complained he was wasting her time? No. But do I think we should attribute unconscious biases and prejudices to him that aided him in the decision that he'd be comfortable ignoring her? Yes.

Incidentally, while we’re here, let’s discuss how the two of them stack up to Miles’ other “status symbol” name-drops. First, let’s discard Banksy. He’s a special case here and we’ll discuss him later. But now let’s look at the others. We’ve got Jeremy Renner, whose personal I-make-this-for-my-inner-circle food Miles proudly eats and hands out; Jared Leto, whose personal I-make-this-for-my-inner-circle drink Miles proudly offers to friends (although if memory serves me, he himself is drinking beer); Gillian Flynn, who he’s hired to write a mystery game for his own inner circle; Philip Glass, who he hired to write the music for the Glass Onion’s clock, which is there to impress guests; and Anderson Cooper, whose party he supposedly attended. Notice something about all the celebrities whose products he actively engages with? Yeah. They’re all white. Serena is relegated to a private room and not interacted with, while Kanye doesn’t even get a mention—and as I noted above, this movie would have gone through post far too late for Rian Johnson to have been able to say “let’s…remove praising the dude who’s declared himself a Nazi, please,” which means if Kanye was ever mentioned at all, it was cut long before real!Kanye’s final downward spiral. The Black “status symbols” have literally been relegated to being Miles’ props and “the help.”

Now let's talk about Helen's turn of phrase when she's reading "the disrupters" for absolute filth. She tells all of them what they want is Miles' (and, by extension, Andi's) money, and that they're "sucking on his titties." Putting the line in the mouth of a Black woman puts me instantly in mind of the "mammy" stereotype, where the Black woman is expected to nurture and nourish and care for all of the (implied or outright stated to be white) children and have no personality outside this. Technically it's Miles' money, but it's Miles' money specifically because of the shit he pulled with Andi--he sucked her dry and now is being fed upon in turn. The thing is, the way Black women are further treated throughout the narrative doesn't make this a faux-cutesy little image like those godawful racist vintage ads; it's horrifying. It is horrifying and it should be horrifying; it’s disgusting and the narrative wants you to be disgusted at this.

To continue, we have that cameo by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It's really only noteworthy because he's the one who's giving Blanc shit for failing at Among Us and refusing to get out of the bathtub. This is important for reasons I'll come back to (put a pin in this), but for now suffice it to say it's important because Blanc is white and Southern and we'll get back to that.

Next up, it’s “Blackbird,” the song Miles was playing on guitar when the ship lands. Other posts have noted that for all Blackbird sounds very pretty and impressive, it’s actually very simple to play, and that this reflects Miles’ relationship with the world in general—pretending he’s bigger, better, smarter, more, than he actually is. This is probably true. I’ve also seen it mentioned that it, like Glass Onion, is a Beatles song from the White Album, and this is also true. What you may not know if you’re not a Beatles nerd is that “Blackbird” isn’t about a bird at all. Paul McCartney has stated several times over the years that the song had a dual inspiration—the sound of blackbirds, but also news reports about the American Black civil rights movement, and that when he says “blackbird” you should be thinking “black girl.” Birdie is excited and immediately declares it’s “her song,” which in her mind probably has to do with her name, but I strongly suspect that for Rian Johnson, this was another way to tie in how absolutely wildly Birdie is willing to appropriate Black experiences and culture. This is particularly true because of the exact part of Black history the song references—Birdie tells us she’s done blackface to dress as Beyoncé (a modern Black feminist who strongly pushes for empowerment) and has compared herself to Harriet Tubman (an escaped slave who proceeded, during Reconstruction, to become part of the women’s suffrage movement). Blackbird links these two together, with our nameless 1960s Black civil rights protestor falling squarely between the two named women. Also worth noting here is that “Blackbird” was released in 1968; while the Black Power movement was getting underway and “Black” or “African-American” would become the accepted terms over the next decade, “Negro” and “colored” were still the polite ways to refer to a Black person in the US. McCartney has since gone on the record apologizing for some pretty serious racism during his time with the Beatles, and I’m choosing for simplicity’s sake here to assume he was sincere, but this makes the song itself another example of appropropriation—“Black” wasn’t really a word McCartney, as a white man, had the right to use when the song came out. That makes “Blackbird” an even more apt double-metaphor—Birdie the appropriator of Black culture calling it “her” song, and Miles “I steal everything not nailed down and say I did it” Bron using it to look like he’s more than he is.

The second half of this (admittedly extremely messy) essay is here.

#glass onion #racism #media analysis

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skz-bibi · 9 months

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( 🩷 ) ... BIBI'S DATING HISTORY !

— 𖦹 ( bibi is bi-sexual if you have a problem with that please leave and never come back ) !

warnings? mentions of homophobia and harassment , toxic relationships , bibi's ex is horrible

♡. KIM CHANGMI !

— 𖦹 ( duration ). february or march of 2019 — december 2020

relationship. school mates to lovers

reason for breakup. extremely toxic , leaked to the public

current status. strangers

— changmi was one of bibi's school mates , but they didn't know each other at first. changmi was a year older than bibi , and they happened to run into each other in the hallway. changmi was always so nice to bibi , changmi was the one who helped bibi come to terms with her sexuality — besides jeongin , changmi was all bibi had , that was until she wasn't.

changmi began to become super toxic , getting mad and yelling at bibi whenever she couldn't pick up the phone due to be busy as an idol , whenever bibi would finally answer , the girl would excuse her of cheating , but she was manipulative so when bibi would try and break up , she would love bomb her.

one day bibi finally had enough when changmi called her house in busan and harrased her mother , bibi drew the line and broke it off with her , unfortunately this did not go well. changmi made a twitter account and exposed their entire relationship , pictures, text messages everything , it was bad.

bibi , being and idol was subjected to a many homophobic words , and threats , it got so bad she had to go on hiatus , missing all of the gods menu and back door promotions. fans were scared she'd been kicked out because it was like she didn't exist , no one said anything. she finally returned during kingdom , and jype did eventually put out a statement about the situation but it was just a mess and bibi was severely effected by it.

♡. YANG JEONGIN !

— 𖦹 ( duration ). july of 2021 — present

relationship. bestfriends to lovers

current status. still together

— bibi and jeongin were destined to be together , everyone knew it. the longest friendship in skz , but everyone could forsure see the love connection between them.

jeongin definitely fell first , but bibi fell harder , she's not afraid to admit that she's basically obsessed with the boy , like she did that before they started dating.

jeongin was the one who confessed , he helped her through her breakup , and once she was better , he couldn't hold it back anymore , not wanting her to suffer like that anymore.

they didn't release their relationship to the public , and they till this day , they still haven't , but the people just know , they were always quite close , but they're much much closer if possible , like you can't just call them friends , if you think they are , you're delusional.

©️SKZ-BIBI

#kpop female addition #stray kids 9th member #stray kids female addition #stray kids female member #kpop addition #kpop female oc #kpop extra member #stray kids extra member #stray kids ninth member #9th member of stray kids #9th member of skz #skz 9th member #skz female member #skz female addition #stray kids added member #stray kids female oc

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septembersghost · 5 months

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my queue was supposed to run out tonight (11/19) - i'm nothing if not someone who clings to dates and anniversaries, and exactly a month ago, i realized i had enough posts stowed in it to last until today. of all the days. kismet. you know when it's time to go. but i ended up adding some posts from my (still copious) drafts, and no matter how i finagled it, it was impossible to make them all fit by the time today ended. so it gets a little bit of extra time. maybe, in honor of this blog's existence, that's fitting.

you all know this, i've said it, typically in gratitude, many times already. this blog was never meant to last. i came back in november 2020 expecting a couple of months, maybe to be here until the new year. i told very few people, anticipating the goodbye, not wanting to cause anyone undue anguish when i had to vanish again. something i didn't expect was the sheer (admittedly devasting) emotion that would tie itself to those two weeks when i started interacting again, nor that it would have any outreach or impact, but somehow it did. then time kept spinning on, extending itself, gossamer threads unfurling each day. my following kept growing, far beyond what i could have anticipated, greater than i'd ever established on any of my previous blogs. moving around is unfortunately a pattern at this point, every time for reasons that felt quietly catastrophic. not being able to pay bills for a while. angel's death and the ensuing difficult circumstances. so here, i kept anxiously imagining why i'd eventually have to leave, how to plan for it. poverty issues. the homelessness we were facing through the entirety of a couple of years until last august (and my dad having to be the saving grace). worsening health issues. i never knew, i couldn't predict it, i just worried about it. often tried to brace for it. maybe i got too comfortable this year, because this was when i started to think it wouldn't happen, that i really could stay. little did i know. and the reasons...are not reasons i ever fathomed, why would i have? how could i have? i wish it weren't so. (i wish a lot of things.)

i thought sometimes about the words i would leave you with, none of which are suitable now. i almost wrote nothing, yet found that feeling wrong, couldn't leave without something about parting.

thus it turns out i'm leaving before it's strictly necessary, before it's the fear of personal catastrophe coming to fruition, not knowing what i'll do or where i'll metaphorically go, as that is the downside of chronic illness and isolation narrowing this to my sole outlet. (lyrics keep running through my mind, there are always lyrics stuck in my head. no matter where i go, there'll be memories that tug at my sleeve, but there will also be more to question, yet more to believe...teach me to be more adaptive...help me say goodbye). my body is in such a fragile state right now (my mind not far behind) that maybe what i need to do is rest. just rest for a while.

this blog was never meant to grow the way it did, to take asks and have conversations like i did, that was a somewhat new (sometimes scary! often fun) experience for me. it's one that will never be replicated. to my loyal and lovely anons, i'm so sorry that i had to cut you off unexpectedly and couldn't reinstate communication - i know that you weren't able to reach out to me as soon as i did that, and that certainly wasn't your fault, it was a response to the tenor of this website. i apologize for the hundreds of messages i never had the chance to answer. i'm appreciative of the things you shared with me and all the times we got to talk.

i sincerely hope some of you learn to be kinder and wiser and less reactionary and more willing to learn and to listen rather than to attack those who have never wronged you and who do not deserve that. i'm being too nice, but i hope you learn that misusing your supposed social justice to do harm and foment hatred and stew in ignorant cruelty makes any principles you purport to have utterly void. my hope for that is low at the moment, but it's still got to be there. waiting to be found.

to those of you who have never been anything but kind, you are true treasures, the lights in the darkness, the loving and compassionate embodiment of human spirit. some of you have (quite literally) helped keep my mom and me alive, and i can never repay that or do enough in this life to quantify it. some of you have been here for me every single day, to listen and laugh and cry and understand. i don't think i would've bothered to fight through these past three years had i not had your presences in my life. i wouldn't have had as much of a reason. there are times when i still haven't felt like i had a reason, i struggle through so many varied griefs, but then i continued to wake up, and would come on here and find something joyful or beautiful or affirming that someone had sent or posted, and it gave me an anchor. there are passions and interests i shared or discovered here that were so uplifting and enlightening, and i will carry them in my heart always. being here to find those was such a blessing. being here with you to indulge in them was such a blessing. thank you. i pray your continued paths have more of that ahead. look at all the things you've done for me. there are certain things that once you have no time can wear away.

you know that line from the wizard of oz?: hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable. maybe that isn't true, maybe our hearts being broken is proof of something. there are people who hurt me on such a profound level who i know weren't affected by it at all, but i refuse to define my sensitivity as a negative. my softness (too soft for all of it, indeed) does not quite provide me with a weapon, but it doesn't crumple. hearts can be broken repeatedly and still beat, which i've thought about a lot lately. shattered souls just make a new mosaic. it's a different picture than it was before, but the color and light persists. and in the remains of that, a handful of people have shown me depths of caring and resilience that i wouldn't have gotten to hold onto otherwise, which is an extraordinary thing. the precious rarities have to mean something more, don't they? i would think so. i believe it. or i'm trying. i keep trying with all my might.

maybe i stayed too long at the fair. maybe this is a consequence of overplaying my hand, gambling a little too much with time to where it had to teach me something. maybe i needed the reminder that sometimes we have to fight to retain our spirits, and other times we have to retreat. maybe i needed a reminder that all that extra time was a miracle. i don't take it for granted.

whether we've spoken directly, be that consistently or in scattered flurries, whether we've interacted in very personal ways or simply in liked hearts on the dash, i hope there was goodness and light in it. i hope there's a memory i leave here that's sweet. (as long as i'm borrowing phrases, i hope you'll think of me fondly sometimes.) i hope there was something warm and enriching here. i hope you know what you've been and meant to me. i said so many times that this blog was my cozy haunted house - the ghosts will linger here forever, and i know they'll never mind if you want to step in and visit.

with all my heart, i love so many of you so dearly. i am so lucky to have your friendships. please move gently through life. please hold onto the things that illuminate it for you, and provide that where you can. please do your best to repair even the smallest of tears in the world. you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

there must be lights burning brighter somewhere.

something yet remains. i remain. and i do my best to be brave.

#bubble wrap around my heart #jess.mess #namarie #gam zu l'tovah #edit: december 2. this was as it turns out too nice #because today this website decided to desecrate something central and sacred #i wish i could verbalize to you despicable people the profound soul deep hurt you're causing #and the constant fear and trauma you're instilling by making every space so blatantly hateful and hostile and unsafe #but you don't get to take a PRAYER away from its people. you don't get that power ever. that light will NEVER be diminished #i have no respect for any of you doing this. you're evil #i have infinite respect for myself now though. i know who i am. and i'm done #you don't deserve me and you never deserved my friendship or my trust or my heart #proverbs 4:23 #goodbye.

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vodid · 4 months

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I really hope this doesn't come across wrong because I don't mean any shade or criticism, just genuinely curious. Why have you progressively muted color in your artwork over the years? Again, I don't mean anything negative. Your artwork is truly gorgeous, and the softer colors suit your style and make it stand out. I'm just genuinely curious since you've mentioned it yourself several times, and I'm someone who struggles with color theory to begin with. Is it a conscious choice, brighter palettes being overstimulating, some combination, etc.? Thank you for sharing your art, and I apologize profusely if this was a bad question to ask.

you're all good! i love sharing my journey. i get this question a lot and all i can really say is uh my brain took color theory a little too seriously and now it can't stop its subconscious descent

basically, once i learned color theory in 2019/2020, my brain hooked onto that concept and could match a lot of colors to a specific hue in the canvas

unfortunately for me, this extended to clip studio paint's UI (and the gray canvas i'd start out with) and it started to influence my palettes. gradually, as i got better with color, the desaturation/low contrast took over because of it. and it just progressively gets worse lol

my old laptop (used 2015–early 2020) had the WORST display for art with insanely inaccurate colors, so i wasn't able to delve too much into less intense palettes until i had gotten my gaming laptop in june 2020. along with that, the UI of my old laptop's clip studio was much lighter and higher contrast than that of its current one

here is a great example of how my art's progressed over time

i think a major pivotal point into my current style (which if you asked me at the time, i would've said nah my style was already desaturated oh boy was it not looking at my art now) was doing huevember, where i had created my own prompts with muted colors. the extreme palette of that event just absolutely set my brain on its path and you can tell by the end of that month (done bottom right first, top left last)

i do find it a lot easier on the eyes, which absolutely is a reason why i still follow it so strongly. i don't do well with bright screens, which is why i ditched the white canvas SO quickly in 2017 when i first started out. funny enough, nowadays i have to turn my brightness up so far just to be able to better see my art ...which absolutely kills my eyes if i switch to my light mode browser or something lol

my art's definitely softened up too since a) switching from pencil to gouache to rectangle brush, and b) colored lineart and then painting over lineart. it's a combination of things, yes but mostly just my brain like to play "match the colors" n all ahaha

that's my ramble 😌 thank you! <3

#i will say my colors absolutely dipped in late 2020 early 2021 i believe it was #because i just was not used to a) color theory and b) my new laptop #so i got a LOT of complaints that my art was just too dark LMAO #so now it's a little lighter and the desaturation/low contrast feels more prominent somehow #guess because it's so evenly toned with that 50 value gray there lol

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yooniesim · 2 years

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I'm not sure what simblr's general opinion on this is, but peeking back in after my long hiatus, I have a lot of thoughts...

In my opinion, Patreon killed all of the momentum that ts4 simblr had pre-2020. I think we all know a lot of the bigger issues- permanent paywalls, creators doxxing and bullying, cliqueing up and sharing info- but I mean even besides that. I mean specifically early access, two to three week delays for releasing cc, the version of paywalling that most people (including myself) accepted.

It's good that creators were able to get paid for their work, especially during the pandemic. But I think, unfortunately, it had other effects too. I remember back then, being disappointed at how much was eacc, and that was only like 25% of the cc coming out, and it (almost) always was popular creators with high quality work. But slowly but surely, nearly everyone moved to patreon (which I've noticed has caused a lot of cc to be forever lost once patreons were closed/deleted) and 99% of the time it was early access or even exclusive. Many people started blogs with early access cc from the get-go, without having a presence beforehand, and those blogs seemed to be some of the most focused on blocking anyone that shared their cc. The cc varied in quality- it could be simple mesh edits that were still mostly ea, or recolors, or even just patterns sourced from other sites. It didn't matter what it was, it was just content for money, anything to pad out the month and keep patrons. Creators would do early access and then link the cc through adfly or to TSR or simsdom/simsfinds, one by one, even if it was supposed to be a pack. It wasn't bad enough to call out, but it was purposeful.

CC on tumblr became a business in a way it hadn't before, even with other paysites in sims history. And while some people are happy to donate to creators they like now and again... most people either can't or won't. Many simmers are children, and many simmers are adults with strict budgets, especially during the pandemic. And truth be told... they probably got bored. Because it's all terribly boring. CC shopping isn't fun anymore. It's the briefest serotonin seeing something interesting on your dash and then instantly flying away when you see you'll have to wait almost a month for it. And if it wasn't a creator I really liked, I forgot about it instantly after that... sometimes even if I really liked them. Motivation dropped. People stopped being excited, and stopped playing.

Nowadays, it seems even worse. Because the amount and variety of cc and creators has dropped drastically. I'm shocked to see 2-3 cc posts per day, if that, most of them paywalled. It isn't just cc posts either- used to you couldn't look in the s4cc tag for cc, it would be so crowded with non-cc sims posts, but now it's depressingly easy... and empty. Lookbooks, edits, gameplay, cc, it all seems more sparing. And you don't see the same creativity, the same fun random little items, stuff that was interesting even if it wasn't necessarily perfect. Or wild ideas or cc that would appeal to certain small niches. Because that isn't profitable, is it? When you need to create a certain amount of items per month at a certain quality to keep patrons and therefore income, you have to strategize, for good or for bad. Some people are able to do that, and while good for their business model, it limits what they can create and how much energy they can spend on each item. Some people aren't able to do it, and burn out and leave. Either way, creativity suffers. Enjoyment suffers. Creators leave from the passion being sucked out of their hobby; non-creators leave from frustration and boredom. And you're left with a handful of creators still going by their cc business playbook, month by month. But how long can those few sustain themselves?

It's natural for communities to ebb and flow, or even completely die out, but ts4 simblr had been going strong for years before this overall, even if it was in waves. In the pandemic, it should've flourished the way other many other communities did, especially gaming focused ones. But, it didn't. Instead it slowed down, more people left than the amount coming in, the engagement died down, and it seems like as a whole custom content hasn't advanced at all. Maybe it would've happened anyway, but I honestly think patreon contributed a lot. Also, ts2 and ts3 communities weren't affected in the same way, afaik, which makes me think it was paywalls even more.

Can it be fixed? Maybe. If paywalls weren't as much of a thing anymore- and I don't mean completely gone, but just a fairer ratio- I think it could. But now that it's become a standard, I doubt that will happen. I think most people have moved to other places where they don't have to deal with it, like discord servers, and simblr will continue to lose momentum.

It's good for creators to have the option of getting some income for their work, but I guess I'm just saying... at what cost? Beyond the monetary? If you're not super popular, are you even making enough for the added stress to be worth it? If you are, is this going to be satisfying and maintainable long-term, without burn-out/effects on your mental health? Who will pay for it when the number of players keeps dropping? And will this continue on to the Sims 5 community in the future? I honestly hope not.

#text #ceci speaks #delete later #ts4 #sims 4 #the patreon issue #this may be unpopular #especially with other creators #and i could be wrong since i havent been around for a bit #but this is what it feels like to me #long post #im just disappointed #and a little nostalgic #no one asked ceci #sorry creators that are actually great #and need the income #its all just sad

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marukrawler · 1 year

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The essay about Baron's age that nobody asked for <3

Introduction

Baron’s age has confused viewers for many years, probably ever since New Vestroia aired in 2009. When it comes to the English dub, Baron’s physique and prepubescent voice leave many baffled and scrambling for some kind of in-universe explanation as to why he looks like a young adult but sounds like a preteen. Because of this strange phenomenon, many people speculate that Vestals may develop at a faster rate than humans and being 12 is the Vestal equivalent to being in your late teens.

But what if I told you that the more likely explanation is that the English dub simply made Baron younger than originally intended, and wrote him to be more childish than how he was originally portrayed? I will go into further detail below the reasons why I believe that to be the case.

Age altering in BB.

My claim that Baron’s age has been altered can be supported by the ages given by the official Japanese website for the first season[1].

While the ages haven’t been dramatically changed, it still shows that the English version altered their ages. And considering how the English dub is known for making countless changes in the original script (Baron also had his last name changed from Rich to Leltoy), it stands to reason that Baron’s age was also among one of them.

Physical appearance and voice.

At first glance, Baron is thought to be around 16-18 years old based off his character design alone, and understandably so. Baron is the tallest and most muscular member of the Resistance, and his voice in the Japanese dub is deeper than his English counterpart. If Baron was intentionally being written as more immature and childish because he’s 12 in the English dub, naturally his voice would reflect that.

Designated driver.

Baron is the only person shown to drive the Resistance base (with the exception of Ace who drove it one time while Baron was absent. Ace' driving skills are alright but there was an instance were he wasn't driving properly lol) If we take Japanese laws into consideration, it would mean that Baron is at least 18 years of age for him to be able to drive[2]. Mira being 16 and driving a motorcycle would also be in accordance with Japanese legislation [2], as well as Fabia being 16 and engaged to be married (the legal age of marriage for girls in Japan used to be 16 before 2022 [3].)

Baron’s plans to move out.

In S2EP28 it’s revealed that Baron intends to move out of his parents’ house. Unfortunately, you’ll get different versions of this storyline depending on which dub you're watching. In the Japanese dub, Baron doesn’t hide from his family members the fact that he’s going to move out soon, and it’s entirely his own decision (not influenced by Ace in the slightest.) His reasons are that his household is too cramped with people but also that he wishes to be independent. According to his father, Baron had announced his plans to move out before his youngest sibling had been born which means that Baron has wanted to move out for quite some time.

Baron: 気持ちはうれしいですけど、シャーマンも進化したことだし、俺も早く一人前になりたいし -> “I appreciate their concern, but you’ve [Shaman] evolved and I want to become an adult as soon as possible.”[4]

Where 一人前 means “full-fledged-person, an adult, etc.”

Baron: 俺もそろそろ自立する年頃っすよ! -> “I’m old enough to be independent!”[4]

Where 年頃 means “appropriate age, age of maturity, adulthood, etc.”

If Baron's words are to be taken at face value, he's essentially stating that he's either around or at the age where one is considered an adult in Vestal society. Now, since we have no reason to believe that Vestals have different ages of maturity compared to humans (because it's not stated anywhere in canon) I’ll once again look to Japanese society for when it's common for young adults to move out. There is a 2020 online survey that asked Japanese men and women from the age of 15-59 when they moved out of their parents’ house, and it seems the most popular answer was 18-19 years old [5].

Which again suggests that Baron could, at the very least, be 18 years old.

Change in dialogue between the JPN/ENG dub.

I’ve mentioned before that Baron appears more childish in the English dub compared to the original. While Baron is undoubtedly intended to be comedic relief – especially when it comes to his admiration of the Battle Brawlers – I still believe he acts even sillier in the English dub than warranted, and so I want to compare some scenes to showcase how it affects the overall reading of his character.

Baron is seen as a dependable figure by Shaman in the original dub, whereas the English dub makes it seem as if he needs a caretaker[6]. Baron is shown to have made his own decision regarding moving out where in the English dub, he is heavily influenced by Ace and Percival who tell him to grow up. Baron also seems to have an interest in girls, but that observation can no longer be made in the English dub, as the context has been replaced with a barf joke[7].

Honorifics.

In the Japanese version, Baron refers to the Brawlers as his senpais (seniors) but does not use the same honorific for Mira and Ace. That is because he looks up to the original Battle Brawlers as his heroes since they're the six new Legendary Warriors and prevented the destruction of Vestroia. Regardless of their ages, the Brawlers still outrank Baron in terms of experience because of their past feats. The fact that Baron doesn't address Mira and Ace in a similar manner implies that all three of them are on the same level in terms of their brawling skills. If his usage of that honorific was to reflect the fact that he is the youngest and most inexperienced member of the group (as Baron's English wikia description says,) he would also be calling Mira and Ace his senpais or something similar, but he doesn’t.

These screenshots are from MP100 where an older coworker calls Mob his senpai because Mob has worked at their agency for longer and has more work experience. Similarly, Baron can still be considered older despite seeking guidance from those younger than him.

Manner of speech.

This senpai-kouhai dynamic is also reflected in Baron’s speech pattern known as “kōhai kuchō” or junior tone. It’s a way of speaking that is casual but still polite enough to use one with one’s senpai. It’s generally discouraged to use in formal settings but has grown popular among young men, especially in sports clubs. This may explain Baron’s physique considering his way of speaking is typically associated with athleticism in real life[8].

Final words.

Baron Rich is a character whose age has been a mystery to many viewers of the show, prompting the fandom to give their own headcanons for why he looks so much older than his age.

My hypothesis is that because the English dub team saw Baron as the "Battle Brawlers fanboy," his age and dialogue needed to fit that image better. Sadly, they seemed to not have taken into account that Baron is a young adult who had plans to move out later on in the story. This wouldn't be the first time the English dub lacked foresight when it came to their writing decisions — as they also made a blunder when it came to Shiori's death and Shun’s relationship with his grandfather — and it also would not be the last (Plitheon turning against Jesse in S3 only for them to magically became friends again.)

I believe that Baron was intentionally made younger by the English dub, and the plethora of changes to the story between the JPN and ENG dub clearly speaks in favor of this assumption. Thanks for coming to my TED talk!!

Sources

[1] (BB ages) https://web.archive.org/web/20160323210158/http://ani.tv/bakugan/

[2] (Legal ages in Japan) https://blog.japanwondertravel.com/legal-ages-in-japan-33502#toc1

[3] (Legal marrying age in Japan) https://www.moj.go.jp/EN/MINJI/minji07_00218.html

[4] Bakugan New Vestroia episode 28

[5] (2020 Online survey about moving out in Japan) https://lineresearch-platform.blog.jp/archives/36123670.html

[6] Bakugan New Vestroia episode 19

[7] Bakugan New Vestroia episode 12

[8] (Junior tone) https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/2e7i3g/when_is_it_appropriate_to_use_the_%E3%81%A3%E3%81%99_form/

https://cotoacademy.com/how-to-say-use-japanese-slang-wakamonokotoba-%E8%8B%A5%E8%80%85%E8%A8%80%E8%91%89/

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%80%8C%E3%81%A3%E3%81%99%E3%80%8D%E4%BD%93

#bakugan #baron leltoy #baron rich #its been a long time coming #meta

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aseriesofunfortunatejan · 8 months

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In the past, I've talked about Kodaka's current (to be extra clear, at the time) body of work and its lack of representation of characters outside the gender binary, or characters who fucked with it.

Kodaka's relationship with writing gnc characters has been a hot topic for a while due to the inclusion of Chihiro Fujisaki in Danganronpa 1, a character who, according to any straightforward analysis, was simply written without consideration for the sheer existence of gender non-conformity. Not only is this lack of acknowledgement of queer experiences disappointing coming from an adult - yes, even in 2010, though yes, it being 2010 plays a role in the narrative - but many players felt a connection to elements of Chihiro's experience and felt that their own queer identity/experience had been actively disrespected. Beyond that, there's the Ultimate Imposter in Danganronpa 2 (and later 3), a character whose identity "and gender" are unknown, but it's made pretty clear with every part of his representation and writing that he's really just a guy, who only ever presents himself as a guy, and the inclusion of gender in this description was just to hammer down the fact that he was a complete mystery. (Unlike Genocider Shou from Danganronpa 1, for example, for whom the police had fairly accurate theories concerning her potential profile.)

Later on, after Kodaka left Spike Chunsoft to found Too Kyo Games and started working on multiple new projects, due to having Wiki brain and being a fan from the release of Episode 1, I was in the midst of a small controversy concerning Cutthroat's gender in Akudama Drive. As Funimation's subtitles had a character who had never seen Cutthroat's real face use the neutral pronoun "them" to refer to him, some viewers assumed Cutthroat may have been non-binary. Something else that played a role was the lack of an official translation for the characters' Japanese profiles, and the fact that a few viewers decided to use Google Translate, which mistakenly prompted up the word "gender". This was a mistake due to the machine translator not understanding a line break, and this word was in fact not mentioned in his profile at all. The final nail in the coffin: none of the characters' profiles mentioned their genders. I absolutely do not blame anyone for believing in this theory (and as a headcanon, I definitely respect it,) seeing as there were enough vague elements to make one consider it. Unfortunately, as it turned out, this was another case of not even taking the possibility of gender non-conformity into consideration. This time, the year was 2020. It's very likely that the characters' genders weren't mentioned because you were supposed to look at the characters and think "well obviously, that's a man" "well obviously, that's a woman". (Because Doctor's whole shtick is more of a mess, I won't delve into it for the purpose of this post, but as of very recently the manga artist indulged in a little bit of transphobia in how he referred to her and allegedly thought up her backstory himself - in a way that's honestly just confusing.) As for that aforementioned subtitle, just like the Ultimate Imposter's gender was unknown, this had to do with Cutthroat's anonymity.

It was only on February 25, 2023, that an official profile featuring Cutthroat's gender was released in the manga. No surprise here: he is listed as being male.

So from October 8, 2020, when Episode 1 released, to February 25, 2023, I was left to die on the hill that… no… he's not non-binary, guys… I'm sorry, it's a misunderstanding. Because not only did I receive some insults and was subject to rude reactions, but also because believe it or not, I would actually also have been overjoyed had he been non-binary, as time went, I explained why I believed he wasn't meant to be. This included the explanations above, that factually the idea that he was non-binary stemmed from a misunderstanding, but I also mentioned Kodaka's current known body of work - at the time.

Kodaka had never created a character who was actually gnc. His creations included characters who had clearly been written without gender non-conformity in mind. It's not like his only other work since he founded Too Kyo Games at the time (Death Come True) had non-binary characters either. It just wasn't a thing in his works. Best we had was… Kiibo, the robot from Danganronpa V3…? He has a throwaway line in which he mentions not being for a fact gendered. Because he is a robot. Nothing happens with that, and he is not human, but it did feel a little bit like real life was sort of in the room with us for once.

As such, and because none of us know Kodaka personally, there was no reason to infer that this Japanese man in his forties who had never even tried to imply he cared about trans and gnc identities… cared about trans and gnc identities. I was told it was a bit harsh to claim he didn't care, but I thought it important to present to young queer people who were at risk of being lied to the possibility that this stranger in his forties isn't in fact their friend. I thought it a concept important to take into consideration, when you know, queerbaiting exists. When parasocial relationships exist. And when there are also angrier consumers who assume the worst - that he is in fact actively transphobic - I wanted to clarify my stance that we just. Don't know. And that the information we had pointed towards him probably being an ignorant man who doesn't care about it.

Then comes RAIN CODE. At some point, maybe a few months before the game's release, official character profiles were written in English for the main cast. Although every other character's profile included their pronouns, Halara's, specifically, didn't, and instead very clearly repeated their name where there would have been a gendered pronoun. Despite my general stance, which I made clear in this post, I did have the belief that this meant Halara would use neutral pronouns.

There was no certainty, and I was extremely ready to be disappointed. That being said, there were multiple elements which made it a reasonable assumption; not only did this profile clearly stand out in this way, but I had other reasons to believe it a possibility - notably, Spike Chunsoft's involvement, and the promotional content that made it clear RAIN CODE was being made by the team behind Danganronpa. At this point in time (being 2023), with knowledge of Danganronpa's fanbase and a specific intent to cater to it, it was extremely reasonable to believe that Spike Chunsoft was going to want - or possibly accept, if the idea was Kodaka's in the first place, which I don't know - a token non-binary character. It's yet again a pretty crude way to put it, but by being so deeply involved in the Danganronpa fandom and by having dealt with Spike Chunsoft directly for a while, the time felt right. On top of that, Kodaka's work partner and fellow game creator, Uchikoshi, has demonstrated himself as a proper trans ally. With Uchikoshi having defended gnc identities, and his close relationship to Kodaka, there is a fair assumption to be made that Kodaka may have been influenced somewhat.

And not too long later, Halara's official profile was published on the official site, where one line was added - and this line used the neutral pronoun "they". At this point, it was clear that regardless of what their identity would turn out to be, Halara was going to be presented as a gnc character.

This post is already very long and I'm only now getting to what I wanted to say: I'm glad. I'm not sure I've said it before, but I'm glad.

I haven't played RAIN CODE, so I can't speak to how Halara's identity was presented, if it was good or not, but it's been confirmed to me that they are in fact neither a man or a woman. When I was in Wiki brain mode and taking note of the promotional content for the game, it was genuinely exciting, as someone who has had to look at a lot of Komatsuzaki's designs, to look at Halara as his first non-binary design. To consider the thought that was put into designing and presenting them the way they are. Finally!

This doesn't change the way Kodaka's previous works were written, but it is extremely reassuring to see that things are moving in the right direction. That gnc identities are being taken into account by someone who famously didn't before. That there is good will being extended to people with those identities, who want to see themselves on-screen. Now, here's to hoping that Halara won't be an outlier. That in Kodaka's future works, more gnc/non-binary/trans representation will be found, be it in main or surrounding casts, as a normal option for how a character can be.

That's all I wanted to say.

#long post #jan essay #too kyo games #tookyo games #kazutaka kodaka #spike chunsoft #rain code #master detective archives: rain code

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