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#but I don’t care. artistic liberty lmao

seeminglyseph · 6 months

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Every time I listen to Six I want to do like a split animatic of like. The concert universe, an interpretation of what they’re singing about, and also like… a slumber party where they’re coming up with the idea of the concert and reading their diaries to each other or something

This is largely based on the line “he was 23, and I was 13– going on 30!!” And I just kind of imagine in my head like this big bed with the Queens all sitting together hearing it the first at the ages like “hold the fuck on” spurning the “going on 30!” Attempt at excuse, which I know is not in line with the musical which intentionally does not have Catherine Howard sing with backup to represent her lack of support in life, but I feel like also the end of the musical pulls that switch up like “just kidding we were aware this competition setup was stupid this ending song is a fun fanfic alternate history fun thing where our band is just us having fun and taking back our lives and shit who cares go read some history books and watch some documentaries about more people than they ones that you already know.”

Artist liberty and shit. I don’t even want to be historical with the historical shit. I probably just wanna like… get full anachronistic fantasy that’s the right balance of easy to draw.

But also I literally haven’t been able to draw in months I should probably not pick an *animatic* as a comeback tour lmao

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friendlyneighborhoodcapricorn · 2 years

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Gwaine x reader

Wedding Bells

A/N: I didn’t intend to fall back into this fandom but you can blame Mary (@sehnsuchts-trunken) for this lol. No synopsis bc do you really need one with a title like that 😂

I don’t know how weddings go, let alone how they were conducted roughly 1500 years ago, so artistic liberties for the win.

(Also, I had to search so long for a picture of him in the snow where he didn’t look like he was about to either be killed or kill someone himself lmao)

Warnings: it’s long but it’s all pure fluff! Oh, and I play fast and loose with canon lol

Usually, the soon-to-be wed were the ones most nervous for their upcoming wedding.

Not in your case, though. You and Gwaine were both incredibly amused to see your friend and king, Arthur, trying to hold it together while arranging the wedding.

He wasn’t doing the greatest job, but Gwen was picking up the slack and you and Gwaine had both agreed not to tell Arthur, not wanting him to doubt himself when he looked so happy to be able to do this for you both.

“He’s gonna lose his head if he keeps running around like that,” you mentioned to Merlin.

Both of you were looking out the window, watching as Arthur was… well, you weren’t actually sure what he was doing, but you were very much certain that he wasn’t succeeding.

At your comment, Merlin grinned. “That would be too nice.”

You elbowed him in the ribs, though you were smiling as well -as if anything would be able to wipe the smile from your face today. “You are absolutely horrible.”

“Yeah, but you love me anyway.”

You laughed because it was true. Today, you’d be surrounded by the people you loved, and those who loved you.

A knock on the door pulled you out of daydreaming about the hours ahead, and when you turned, you saw Gwen poking her head around the corner. She was smiling as well. “It’s almost time.”

For the first time, there was a flutter of nerves in your stomach. “I’ll be right there.”

She nodded and disappeared again, leaving you alone with Merlin. He was still glancing out the window, amusement evident in his eyes, but he asked: “Nervous?”

That boy. He was far more perceptive than he let on. “A little. I don’t know why. Gwaine and I, we’ve practically been married for years. But…”

“You’re not getting cold feet, are you?” Merlin teased.

“No! It’s just, I’m not used to-“ you gestured around with your hands, not entirely sure what you were trying to convey.

Merlin raised his eyebrows. “You’re going to have to be a bit clearer.”

You sighed, thinking over your words and picking them with care so it would make sense. “Our relationship has always been something that was just for the two of us. We never had many onlookers while we were travelling, it was always just us. And now…”

“Now you’re about to get married in front of about a dozen people,” Merlin guessed, “and it’s making you nervous. But why? You’ve been at Camelot for a while now. Surely you’ve gotten used to having less privacy?”

“Yes, it’s not that. But proclaiming your undying love for someone isn’t something you just do in front of everyone.”

“(Y/N).” Merlin turned to face you, putting his hands on your shoulders. “Everyone who’s here today, knows how much you and Gwaine love each other. You said it yourself, you’ve practically been married for years. And we’ve noticed that. We already know, the only difference is that we’ll hear you both say it out loud today.”

You studied him for a moment, the boy who had become a brother to you since you’d first met him.

“Gaius is rubbing off on you,” you said lightly, and you knew he heard the unspoken gratitude in the tone of your voice.

Merlin shivered and let go of you. “I hope not. Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Merlin stared at you for a moment and then burst into laughter.

“What?” you demanded when he didn’t stop. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s a wedding, (Y/N),” he pointed out. “Not a public execution.”

Even as you rolled your eyes, he wrapped his arm around your shoulders and gently pulled you along.

It was freezing cold outside, and for a second you wondered why you hadn’t agreed with Gwaine on postponing the wedding to a warmer month.

Then you saw the man you’d be marrying, and you remembered why. The weather didn’t matter one bit, this was too ur wedding. You were finally, after years, able to get married to the man you had loved for so long and would continue to love for the rest of your life.

You didn’t mind the cold, were even delighted by the sudden onset of light snow starting to flutter down.

Merlin grinned as he let go of your arm, and you knew in your heart that the snow wasn’t a coincidence.

You hoped your smile conveyed all the gratitude you couldn’t speak out loud at the moment. Merlin returned it before slipping into place besides Gaius.

The only others there were Gwen, the knights, and Arthur. That was everyone you needed to be here, everyone you wanted. There would be some pretentious unofficial ceremony later on, what with Gwaine’s status as a Knight of The Round Table, but both of you had insisted on a small gathering for the actual wedding.

All the nerves you’d had before, disappeared at once. This was your family: as Merlin had said, they already knew.

You hardly paid them any mind, however, as you made your way to the middle of the courtyard -to Gwaine. His eyes were fixed on you, shining more than usual, and you almost laughed.

Leon leaned forward and whispered something to him, Lancelot immediately smacking his arm lightly. Gwaine rolled his eyes and muttered something that looked like a “thank you” to Lancelot.

“Were you crying?” you asked when you came within earshot of Gwaine.

“What, no oh my, Gwaine, you look absolutely stunning?”

“I’m not exactly hearing you say anything like it either,” you pointed out.

“You don’t need me to say it, you already know it.”

“As if you don’t.”

“They aren’t even married yet, and they’re already bickering like an old married couple,” Elyan joked.

“I heard that,” you said without taking your eyes off Gwaine. “I’d be very careful when you get in bed tonight because might just decide to put a snake in there.”

“You know she means it,” Gwaine added as the other attendants laughed.

Arthur scraped his throat. “Can we begin?”

“Afraid you’re going to forget what you’re supposed to say, my Lord?” you teased, and the glare Arthur gave you was more playful than anything.

“No, but it is literally freezing right now, and I’d like to make it back inside before losing any appendages to the cold.”

More laughter rose up, and you already knew nothing could ruin this day. You were happy, Gwaine was happy, everyone was happy. That was all that mattered.

“Go ahead, Arthur,” Gwaine said, nodding at him.

“Thank you.” He scraped his throat again, and you exchanged an amused glance with your soon-to-be husband. It was Arthur’s tell, that one little thing that gave away his nervousness. “We are gathered here today to witness and celebrate the union of two of our most beloved friends.”

Behind Gwaine, you saw Lancelot wiping at his eyes. He didn’t even pretend he wasn’t when he caught your eye, just smiled sheepishly.

“They already act like and old, married couple,” Arthur continued with a smug smile, “but this is the day where they take the first step to becoming one.”

That was a cue, because Gwen stepped forward, a braided rope of weeping willow vines in her hands. Arthur’s eyes were immediately drawn to her, and you could t blame him. She looked stunning in a dark blue gown and with her hair loose around her shoulders.

Handfasting. That was what the willow branches were for. It was traditionally an engagement ritual, but since you and Gwaine had never really been engaged, you had both decided to incorporate it into the wedding.

You took Gwaine’s hand, and Gwen deftly looped the branches around both your wrist before tying the ends together.

Willow was a symbol of love, but it meant more to you and Gwaine than just that. Because you hadn’t been able to get married whilst travelling, Gwaine had presented you with two wooden rings, woven from willow branches. You had to replace them every so often, but it was something you could do to show your love for one another, so you gladly had.

“Let this rope be a symbol of the unbreakable love that I know the two of you have,” Arthur said, and you were starting to tear up now.

He was doing this for you both, simply because he could and he wanted to. And he’d made sure to make it personal. Maybe he wasn’t as disastrous at this as everyone had thought him to be.

Or maybe Gwen had written this.

“I believe both of you have some things you’d like to say?” Arthur asked you and Gwaine, and you both nodded.

“Ladies first,” Gwaine joked.

“It’s nothing special,” you warned him, hoping he wouldn’t be disappointed.

“As far as I’m concerned, you didn’t even have to come up with something,” he said softly.

“I’ve thought about this many times,” you started, and you looked at Gwaine. At the snow in his hair and his slightly too-bright eyes, “and I was never able to pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with you. I wanted to, but I was never able to. Until- well, until last night.”

Your friends laughed and even though your cheeks grew warm, you smiled as well. It was the warm laughter of those who knew you best, were used to your antics.

“And last night I realised I started falling in love with you when, two days after we met, you smiled at me and said you weren’t alone anymore. I knew right then and there that you were never going to leave.”

“And you were right,” Gwaine said, halfway between a joke and a promise.

“And I was right,” you repeated. “And I’ve never been happier to be right in my life.”

Gwaine looked at you, at Arthur, and then back at you. “Can I kiss you already?”

Your friends laughed again, or were still laughing, and Arthur let out an exasperated: “Gwaine!”

“Alright, alright,” Gwaine soothed, raising the hand that wasn’t tied to yours in surrender. “My turn. You were finished, right?”

This time it was you exasperatedly saying his name, but you didn’t mean it one bit when you saw how bright his smile was.

“(Y/N), I honestly don’t know why you decided to put up with me, but I’ve always been told that one shouldn’t question miracles, so I won’t.”

It was a simple statement, and yet it was overwhelmingly loving. If you hadn’t been able to tell from your own stinging eyes, you could by the way it seemed to move all the attendees to tears. Even Arthur was crying, and you would’ve laughed if you hadn’t been reduced to tears as well.

“Damn it, Gwaine,” you muttered, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand. “I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to cry today.”

“It’s our wedding, darling,” he said, crying as well. “If anyone gets to cry, it’s us.” Then he looked up at all your friends. “By the way, I’m forever going to be using this against you guys.”

You laughed, cheeks hurting from how much you’d been doing that throughout the ceremony. It was a good kind of ache, a much needed one after the dark times that had followed Uther’s death.

“Alright,” Arthur said, and everyone fell silent again. “Guinevere?”

Gwen’s cheeks turned darker, like they always did when Arthur said her full name, but she stepped forward with the rings. She had made them herself, had insisted on doing so. They were silver, with subtle etchings along the band.

They couldn’t have been more perfect.

“Thank you, Gwen,” you said, but you knew there were no words to really convey your gratitude, and Gwaine echoed it quietly.

Gwen winked and went to stand back with Merlin and Gaius.

“Gwaine, (Y/N),” Arthur began. “By exchanging these rings, you are giving each other your life. If this is not what you want, this is your last chance to turn back.”

He paused, and you and Gwaine answered to the silence by exchanging the rings.

“Very well,” Arthur said, finally smiling with the relief that he had somehow managed to conduct a wedding without any major disasters happening. “With the power invested in me as king, I now pronounce you married. Congratulations.”

You barely heard the end of his sentence as you pulled Gwaine in to kiss him. There was only the deafening roar of your friends cheering and applauding and laughing to celebrate your happiness.

Gwaine pulled back slightly, just enough so he could look into your eyes. “We’re married.”

“We are.”

He laughed, and it had already been a day full of it, but his was the most joyous you had ever heard. “We’re actually married!”

“Only took us five years,” you grinned, and then you kissed him again.

“I think Merlin is actually drunk,” Leon said from his spot beside Gwaine.

You glanced over at the boy in question, who seemed very interested in the workings of a fork.

“Not yet, but he’s close,” Gwaine, expert on the workings of alcohol, commented. “How much do you want to bet he’s going to end up snogging Arthur?”

“None, I hope,” the king himself said, having heard the comment. “Gwaine, I know you’re oblivious, but surely you have noticed that Merlin only has eyes for Lancelot.”

Lancelot, sitting next to you, turned bright red. “I have no idea what you’re all talking about.”

You bumped your shoulder against his. “Of course you don’t. I’d be careful, though. Merlin is determined enough when he’s sober.”

Lancelot merely groaned and dropped his forehead on the table, much to everyone’s amusement, and you patted his shoulder sympathetically.

For once, you didn’t mind it being a long night. It was good, everyone was happier than you had seen them in a long time.

You watched as Percival, Leon, and Arthur made a bet to see who could down their ale the fastest. Arthur won, and then made a beeline for the nearest window to throw up. Gwen moved to stand beside him, and you wondered how long it would take before they got married. There was nothing stopping them anymore.

At some point, you caught Merlin heading over to Lancelot and you gave him a quick heads-up, at which point Lancelot fled the scene. He spent the rest of the night trying to avoid a very drunk Merlin, and it might have just been one of the funniest things you’d ever get to see.

Gaius called it an early night. “If Merlin passes out, I’d appreciate it if one of you would be so kind to put him somewhere he isn’t at risk of dying.”

“Well, he’s not picky,” Gwaine whispered to you, and you snorted.

“Of course he isn’t, it’s the best he can hope for.”

Eventually, you felt yourself growing tired as well. Arthur was still puking in a bucket Gwen had found for him, muttering about how he would never drink again. Elyan was yawning, but still making conversation with his sister. Percival and Leon had passed out with their heads on the table, and you’d seen Lancelot carry Merlin who-knows-where earlier. You thought it was telling that he hadn’t returned after.

“What do you say we call it night?” Gwaine asked softly.

“Best idea you’ve had all year,” you mumbled, sentence cut in half by a yawn.

Gwaine chuckled and got up, pulling your chair back for you and holding out a hand to help you up.

You blamed the exhaustion for losing your balance as you tripped forward, but Gwaine easily caught you and held you against him.

“Someone had a bit too much to drink,” he teased, his voice hardly more than a low rumble in his chest.

You could hear his heartbeat when you shook your head. “I’m just tired.”

“Sure, love,” he said, and before you could protest, he had hooked his arm around your knees and lifted you into his arms.

“What the- Gwaine!”

“If you’re so tired you can barely stand, you shouldn’t have to walk back to our chambers.”

“I can walk,” you protested, but you had to admit this was nice.

“Yes, but why should you?”

You decided you’d protested enough and buried your face in the crook of his neck, his soft hair tickling your cheek.

The peace didn’t last very long, however, as Gwaine slammed into the wall.

“And you thought I was drunk,” you muttered, not opening your eyes but smiling when he shivered at the feeling of your breath against his neck.

“I’m not drunk,” he indignantly said. “Merely a little… a little…”

You hummed and he shivered again, and it took all you had not to giggle.

“(Y/N), I love you, but if you keep doing that I’m going to drop you.”

He bumped into a doorframe.

“Seems like you might drop me either way,” you whispered, wrapping your arm around his neck to make sure he didn’t actually drop you.

“(Y/N)-“

“Doorframe,” you warned dryly, and this time Gwaine managed to avoid it.

“We’re almost there.”

“Good, otherwise we might’ve ended up breaking something.”

Gwaine huffed and you tilted your head to kiss his jaw, which was the wrong thing to do because he pivoted into another wall.

“We’re here,” he said, kicking open the door to your chambers and stumbling inside.

He all but dropped you on your bed and collapsed beside you. For a few minutes, you both just lied there, staring up at the ceiling. Then you fel Gwaine turn towards you.

“Did you have a good day?”

You turned to face him as well. “Yeah. You?”

“Best day of my life,” he whispered, so close that his breath brushed against your cheek.

“Me too.” You reached over to take his hand, intertwining your fingers. “Best day of my life.”

#oneshot #merlin #merlin bbc #merlin oneshot #merlin bbc oneshot #reader insert #gwaine x reader #gwaine #wedding #fluff

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1ddiscourseoftheday · 3 years

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Mon 7 June ‘21

Liam’s podcast with Steve Bartlett is out and while I still don’t care about that guy I’ll give him this-- he does great at getting out of the way and letting Liam talk. And boy does Liam talk! Liam says A LOT and let’s all just pause to send him some big hugs before we get into right? And then look to the future- Liam’s routine is to say ‘things have been terrible but it’s fine, it’s fine NOW’, always, even when that is absolutely obviously not true, and today is no different but for once I actually believe some of his hopeful bits too which is so great! I hope things really are shifting for him and I can’t wait to hear this new song of his. But there’s a lot that’s hard to hear too, oh Liam. He said that he and Maya have broken up (so yes, presumably why he just moved again such a short time after they moved into their haunted house), talked about his struggles with his alcoholism (and said he’s been sober for a month right now, go babe!), shared the usual distressing stories about his time in the band and what that was like for him (and how it still impacts him), and he talked about his new song and how it feels different for him than his past solo music. Truly though there is SO MUCH more than I can get into here or then you can get from the UA highlights- I HIGHLY recommend actually watching at least parts of the video, also because the attempt to summarize so much erases all the charm and humor, of which there is much. If you don’t think you want to watch Liam’s interviews, it has to be because you aren’t watching Liam’s interviews, they’re delightful! Plus really if you care about 1D and want information about what it was like for any of them, listen to Liam, he’s the one who’s out there talking about it.

About Maya he said, that yes, he is now single, and “I’ve just been not been very good at relationships,” and “I’m a proper perfectionist… at the start of the relationship you put out this complete false character like I might as well go in in costume, I’m like putting out something that is not there... kind of like encompassing someone else’s life with your crap rather than just doing your thing and laying out your store from day one. That’s my biggest problem is that I feel like I don’t lay out my store... and then I’m annoyed when they don’t like what I like,” and “I think my problem is I struggle to be on my own sometimes... I dive in and out of relationships too quickly. I’ve not spent enough time on my own to relearn about myself.”

He laughs about his tendency to ask his manager things during interviews; “My fans think that Steve is doing something to me, they’re like liberty for Liam because he always looks to Steve, but that’s because I like him. It’s not because he’s harming me as a person. There’s like a hashtag Liberty for Liam because they think I’m some like prison child,” and he also said “my manager’s my best friend,” (and he’s said in the past he is a big support for him) and mentioned stuff they’d talked about recently around his therapeutic awakenings.

He talked about therapy being something you have to want to do and be ready to do rather than being pushed into, like getting sober, and says that this time around with his own therapy work he’s really felt that and thrown himself into it and he talked a lot about his relationship to therapy in connection with band days. “I mean one of our old managers went to therapy from being a manager of One Direction. So if you can imagine how that feels like the rest of us definitely need some.”

“We were young,” he said, “What I found was I didn’t know I was the boss until like a few months ago, I still don’t even feel like I am now, like I’m such a child. And everyone I work with now is older than me and wiser than me and I’m like what the hell am I doing here with these people. When we were 17 I thought the security guard was like in charge of me so I was like Can we leave the room? No? Oh ok then,” and “when we were in the band, the best way to secure us was just lock us in our rooms. And of course what’s in the room? Minibar. So at a certain point, I thought Well I’m gonna have a party for one and that just seemed to carry on throughout many years of my life... You know I spoke to somebody about this in child development as a teen, the one thing you need is freedom to make choices. That we could do anything we wanted it seemed from the outside but we were always locked in a room at night and then it would be car, hotel room, stage, sing, locked. So it’s like they pulled the dust cloth off, let us out for a minute, but then it’s back underneath again,” and “the day the band ended I was like thank the lord for that. And I know a lot of people are going to be mad with me for saying that, but I needed it to stop. It would kill me.” Anyway, he said, because it wouldn’t be Liam without an upbeat coda, “I don’t want any of this to get lost in translation. I’m not 100% moaning about my life... it’s had its ups and its downs, but I would rather talk about it and it’s therapeutic for me.”

And what about that exciting new song? Liam said, “We have a really cool song in the pipeline... one of the first ones I’ve actually written myself- with some other people, I didn’t write it by myself, but it’s the first one I’ve really liked. And I think I got so used used carting around other peoples songs and not embedding myself creatively in what I do because I was so scared to find out who I was,” and “I don’t really know how I would tour again. I really want to” [on discord today he said he would be touring next year] “I always said throughout my solo career I’d let my song book speak to me. And I don’t think my song book spoke to me to get off my ass. I only became a solo artist because I had Strip That Down. I wasn’t gonna do it, I was gonna leave it alone. I was like, I survived it once thank you very much- but I’m back in now. Because the song, I knew it was right. It felt right with that song, I hadn’t had that. This year, the song we have I feel really really great about. So I’d rather let the music do the talking than me come out and force it. We don’t need any more useless music in the world, it needs to mean something,” and he mentioned the new song on the discord a lot too, most notably picking out a long comment that thanked him for making the fan feel supported and safe and for “putting your heart in everything you do” and for his support of the LGBTQ community to respond to with, “I think you will really like the new song.”

A few other random bits, he said that he thinks there should be a system to make therapy available to musicians in the industry, “I think I’m definitely gonna get a dog because I need routine,” and “I recently started jujitsu,” yeah you and everyone else huh, so do him and Louis and Oli go to the same gym or ???, and he acknowledged that as an addict he may have just transferred that to working out “but there’s a lot worse things to be addicted to then looking after yourself” hmm but he does seem to say that he’s doing better around body image stuff; he talks about having put on weight during lockdown and seeing himself in the BAFTAS performance- “I saw myself... and I was like ‘oh my god I’ve completely let myself go in this’. And it was fine...I feel so much more secure in myself now.” Oh and that he’s written a comedic movie script “based around AA” and his experiences there, such as how “I had a really weird AA experience the first time that I went. My first experience was with Russell Brand.” LMAO yes! Cannot wait, bring on auteur Liam please! Anyway as if ALL THAT wasn’t enough he’s also dove into the lead up to his NFT release; he said “I'm almost ready to share my NFTs with you guys... Who wants to see them?” and posted a tiny preview that tells us its (their?) title for the first time- Lonely Bug.

Niall and Anne Marie perform on Jimmy Fallon tonight, and the hype is already a go! I guess it’s prerecorded, as we’re already seeing pictures from it; they’re singing to each other with the cute car from the video in the background. Niall signed on to a letter to Boris Johnson asking for changes to music streaming revenue rules and signed by 232 artists (including all the artists Johnson recently named as his favorites, haha). Zayn signed on to a Billboard petition to the US senate calling for gun safety laws. The bar Zayn got into the fight in front of posted “Zayn's a regular at Amsterdam Billiards and he is a true gentleman. On Thursday night he was confronted by an inebriated passer-by outside on the street and was called a homophobic slur. We support Zayn & condemn homophobia in the strongest terms!” And also PS omg again because it just isn’t going away: Harry’s beauty company is called Pleased As, his name is Harry Edward Styles so yes when listed last name first, as legal documents do, it spells SHE but it is not a “feminist abbreviation” (WHAT? even??) nor the name of the business.

#liam payne #long post #so long #the longest #ugh #yeah I think he’s mentioned the movie before but it’s amazing every time #Liam also talked about the concept of toxic productivity and feeling like you have to be doing things always to be valid #OMG YES PLEASE I want all of them to be talking about that #I notice no one’s circulating that bit where he calls out the fans’ idea that he’s a victim of his manager #I... won’t say it I guess but like… do consider listening to what they actually tell us about themselves occasionally though #rather than just fans online #the industry is fucked but also they're not children #anymore #and have all at this point managed to find people they trust as their closest associates #anyway did I or did I not just say that Liam and Maya had broken up I DID so why was she on insta saying they were still together hmmm? Lies #but the real point is that I was right lol #if you messaged me to ask about the SHE thing it’s not that I’m targeting you it’s that you were one of MANY #it’s really true debunk info just doesn’t get the traction that nonsense posts do #pleased as #should have made that a tag already oops #7 jun 21 #I hope you guys are grateful I have so much time on my hands this took forever #tw alcohol #tw substance abuse #tw alcoholism #maya henry #laya

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thoughtfulturtleprincess · 3 years

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A non-OP fan’s (slashy/romantic)take on Buggy and Shanks’ relationship

Disclaimer: I’m not a One Piece fan by any stretch so I don’t follow the manga or anime but I’ve seen clips of it here and there on the internet, and got intrigued by the one and only Buggy and his relationship with Shanks. I’ve been thinking a lot about them recently and reading a lot of fics/reddit theories so here’s my take. I’ll most definitely miss stuff so actual fans please jump in and correct me/add things!

Warning: My interpretation is that there is some romantic undertones to their relationship. If you don’t agree with this please don’t read! Thanks :D

1. Shanks and Buggy grew up together on the same ship. Some have suggested that they were only 1 when they were picked up by Roger’s crew, although the youngest we’ve seen them tgt was when they were 9 years old. Regardless, they probably didn’t have much of a chance to form long lasting friendships with other children outside the ship, so their peer group consisted only of each other, and that’s crazy.

2. I feel like these circumstances would’ve led to a form of closeness that supersedes modern friendship. Some have described their bond as a brotherhood, and many have stated that they love each other.

3. However, I feel like brotherly love doesn’t fully explain their dynamic(in the anime version of their Marineford reunion). While it explains why Shanks took care of Buggy when on the Oro Jackson despite their squabbles, why he invited Buggy to go with him after Roger’s execution, and why he seemed quite happy to see Buggy at Marineford aged 39, it doesn’t quite explain why his first instinct there was to make a fool of Buggy, only to brush it off as a whim afterwards. And it most certainly doesn’t explain the most SUS thing about that interaction, which was Shanks’ facial expression and tone of voice. There’s just something very sus about that in particular because it doesn’t feel brotherly, but more like flirtatious teasing??? which Buggy is totally confused by btw.

4. I watched the Japanese version of their reunion. During most of it one of Shanks’ eyebrows was slightly raised in a sort of mischievous way, and just before he walks off he says ‘I know, so don’t be angry.’ in a tone that’s borderline flirtatious???? Does Shanks know that he can placate Buggy with flirtatious teasing?? In that case I wouldn’t call this brotherly love anymore. Does that mean he’s done that in the past and it’s worked???????

5. Perhaps these are artistic liberties that the animators and voice actors have taken, but I assume this is also approved by Oda? Maybe this is a trap for yaoi fangirls and I’ve fallen into it lmao I am not sure how this works - someone more well versed in the mechanics of this please chip in :D In any case, we’ll see where this takes us:

6. There’s 2 things to address here: the trickery, and the borderline playful flirting that happened towards the end. Firstly, the trickery: there’s a power dynamic here and Shanks is the one on top. He’s thinking about how to stop the war, Luffy, and probably other bigger things. When he sees Buggy he probably felt a lot of things then but because of the circumstance, he decides to use him as a way to get something done.

7. It was a funny interaction, and I’m going to over-analyse it. When Buggy refused to help Shanks with the strawhat, it’s interesting that the latter decided to trick him with the false promise of a treasure map, rather than to just say sth along the lines of ‘why not help for old times’ sake’ etc. Perhaps he thinks that Buggy would be too prideful to be swayed by those types of arguments. But perhaps this is where Shanks miscalculated, and why Buggy was so offended lol just a while ago Buggy had helped Luffy because he had been touched by his innocence and resemblance to young Shanks, and here Shanks is basically saying that even after all these years he still thinks Buggy is below matters of the heart.

8. Shanks probably also thinks he can trick Buggy into doing things for him without incurring any real consequence. It’s almost like the ‘I’m just going to say this first and then deal with his reaction later’ type mentality. Let’s face it, what can Buggy do? Fighting is out of the question: the disparity in their power levels seems too large for this to be a concern for Shanks, and Buggy is highly averse to fighting battles that he knows he can’t win. Cutting ties? Well, that’s been done: Buggy rejected Shanks’ offer to join his crew years ago, and they haven’t really met since, so the worst has already happened. Shanks has had years to get over that.

9. Perhaps over time Shanks has become more focused than his easy smiles let on. Ironically, Buggy was the one to criticise Shanks for being soft hearted when they were younger, but ultimately it is Buggy who tears up at the sight of Luffy’s innocence and decides to fight alongside him in Impel Down, and it is him that calls out Shanks’ name in the middle of the battlefield, seemingly without a care for their surroundings or consequences, just to be taken advantage of by the other.

10. Some may say I’m making Shanks sound a bit evil, and that perhaps all of this happened subconsciously. Maybe the sentiment behind tricking Buggy is half a funny way to greet his old comrade, and half a sign that he still remembers a lot about him and on top of that trusts him with his hat.

11. While I agree with the fact that Shanks basically does not have any true malice towards Buggy, I can’t ignore the power dynamic between them. The trickery was funny only to Shanks, not to Buggy, but I think this dynamic fits perfectly with Shanks’ role as the Emperor and Buggy’s as the Clown.

12. Alas, Emperors maintain an indestructible reputation, and Clowns make themselves look bad for laughs. So mb Buggy is just fulfilling that role for Shanks in the story. After all, Shanks is portrayed as a flawless man: he is selfless, ambitious, righteous, protects the weak, stops wars and has never lost a battle in his life. On the other hand, Buggy is portrayed in the complete opposite manner: he is self-serving, duplicitous, scummy, money-loving and lazy.

13. It’s kind of sad that Buggy was basically born into(afaik his nose is natural) this role though and is forced to make the most out of it.

14. Secondly, the playful flirtatiousness(I keep using this word because I feel like that’s the vibe he gave off at the end of one of the clips I saw lmao): Shanks is not really treating Buggy as an adult in his own right, but acts as if Buggy is a child(or capricious lover??) that has to be coaxed into doing the right thing. That’s also borderline disrespectful, but it could just be a matter of them having been apart for such a long time that Shanks automatically defaulted to their old, childish ways because he hadn’t really had the chance to get to know Buggy as an adult.

15. But then this begs the question of what exactly is the nature of their relationship? Brotherly love doesn’t fit with the flirting, so perhaps it’s a different kind of love? Some possible reasons for why Shanks would ever be flirtatious could be 1. there’s some romantic elements to their relationship in the past that he’s taking advantage of now e.g. maybe Buggy was attracted to him and he is taking advantage of it? or 2. it’s a new thing he’s trying because he thinks it’s funny and Buggy would be too confused to keep retorting so it’s a fun way to end the conversation and at the same time to plant a seed in the clown that might make him follow Shanks later? (Buggy did immediately think about doing that lololol) Is this Shanks’ way of getting Buggy to come back to him lmao without explicitly asking loooool

16. Judging by Buggy’s reaction it seems like number 2 is more likely but this is all anime-only afaik

17. All in all, I feel like Buggy is a special person to Shanks and vice versa, and even though Buggy is just one element of a much bigger picture for Shanks (whereas for Buggy, Shanks seems to have a much bigger presence in his mind), the fact that they spent their childhood only having each other as peers enabled them to form a deep mutual trust and closeness that didn’t seem to have dampened after twenty odd years of separation.

#buggy x shanks #one piece #shuggy #buggy/shanks #shanks/buggy #shanks x buggy #my take on their relationship lol #one piece buggy #buggy the clown #captain buggy #red haired shanks #red-haired shanks #one piece shanks #shanks #buggy d clown #buggy senpai

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antidotenurse · 3 years

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How did you mimic the yugioh zexal style? I want to start practicing and I have no idea where to start. How did you study?

First off, thank you!! :,) 💕💕💕💕 plz dont mind that im gonna be using hyperbolic objective language to explain this so i 😭😭

Well. How did I study?? You’re gonna hate it, but there’s literally no other way around it.

Copying it.

HEAR ME OUT: That’s just how learning works. That’s how learning any style ever works. If you’re trying to draw in a particular art style, you have to learn how it’s drawn. And the only way really understand to do that, is by trying to recreate it almost exactly. WHICH YEAH, this is an internet space, once you say the work “copy” next to art suddenly you have no skill or are doing something inherently immoral just on principle. Which is just a really bad faith read. It’s a lot like “master studies” in art classes, where students have to recreate the same drawing/work from some previous artist and try to get it as close as possible to the original. Which seems dumb at first, but it’s not without a point- y’know?

As a wack teenager, I used to practice trying to “master” the look of the zexal style by drawing on paper a loooot. At the time I didn’t know how to draw digitally (i didn’t have access to a lot of things). Zexal model sheets were rare if almost nonexistent, so I could only use the anime. I must’ve did a decent enough job since to this day my old art floats around with no one realizing that some idiot teenager drew them in her room. I just really wanted to learn it for some reason. Honestly, I blocked out most of my life from that era, so I can barely remember my own reasoning.

So I think I’d suggest, at least since the resources are much more readily available now, to refer to the model sheets and probably try redrawing what you see in those. I don’t have the old sketches anymore, but back then on my own time, I’d try recreating stuff like this as I saw it:

Or, HECK!!! If there’s an art style from particular episodes you like a lot, try referring to those and use that. There’s a ton of elements in the model sheets I don’t much care for, or elements applied by certain animation directors I like more than others that I’ll incorporate into my own work. So in the end you kind of do learn more about your own style and tastes. BUT, I personally wouldn’t jump straight into this right away. Maybe just keep it in mind until u get comfier.

THIS post that illustrates what I mean visually in regards to different directors and their styles a little better lmao. They’re all “on model” but u can tell them apart despite using the same “style.”

SCREENSHOT REDRAWS are a more fun kind of practice!! When I was in the more active learning stage I’d often try redrawing my favorite shots on paper and try to get as close as feasibly possible. I only did that because I wanted to learn it.

Nowadays, I just target weirder looking shots because. Lmao. You know 😩 after years of learning what I like in the style … … it’s a fun self challenge

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

[drops exhibit C below]

Screenshot redraws are also just good practice for me even when I’m just goofing. Because when I’m not actively practicing, my muscle memory starts to fail me.

Or, if you aren’t directly recreating an existing image and still want to practice, I’d suggest keeping the model sheets (or whatever influence u refer to) with you and try drawing within the realms set up. References are your friends and wanna help u. Even the best homies out there will use them, plz don’t undersell them. You aren’t any better or worse for using them 😭

AFTER A GOOD WHILE OF DOING THAT SORT OF THING you’ll probably get a feel for it a lot more. Then, as per how art works, the style will shift more into your own take on it, and then you can just do whatever you want and take your personal liberties as u see fit

Or just clown. Who knows! I use my time to clown! 🤡🤡 thanks for coming to my weird TED talk

OH RIGHT, DIGITAL OR TRADITIONAL??? …Idk. When i was learning i always drew on paper (mostly due to circumstance). It varies from person to person on which is more “effective,” but I don’t think it ultimately matters lol

#antidote ask #IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I THOUGHT ABOUT MY PROCESS #but it just does boil down to wanting to recreate a look #then as i get comfier it becomes easier to take my own liberties #a part of me still feels uneasy when trying to explain this sort of thing cuz then i remember how mean ppl were about it #just residual effects rly.#THAT FANDOM WAS NOT FUN LMAO i mean it had it’s moments but my final moments were particularly awful

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theoutcastedartist · 3 years

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What was the most lucid dream that gave you an idea for a drawing you did?

Its not very often I feel inspired to draw from dreams (most of the time is cause I end up just barely sleeping until I crash from complete exhaustion lmao), but I have stories of where dreams were an inspiration

........

So for one of my art classes ( 10th grade at the time) we had to do a surrealist piece, but my teacher gave us liberties on what we could do the actual surrealist piece on

So I did mine with the idea of cartoons (my obsession with rubber hose style cartoons from the 30's and 40's was just beginning, and I was finally getting a better grasp on how to animate stuff)

One of my dreams was of me walking through some kind of god awful cartoon hell. One of the "trees" was a melting Mickey Mouse glove thing which did actually make in the piece

(I don't have the art anymore unfortunately, I don't know what happened to it)

But uuuh basically I was inspired by my weird dream of a looney tunes and mickey mouse hell. Like literally everything was melting and looked disgusting (kids in my class though my art looked hella trippy lmaoo)

.......

In 9th grade we had to take inspiration from a famous artist's piece and give it a twist. I chose to do a piece based on one of Frida Khalo's called "The Dream (the Bed)" (1940)

and uuuh I gave it a twist by making the bottom half of the drawing look like another one of my "dreams from hell"

this was inspired by some weird ass dream I had where I fought God and kicked Satan's ass with the power of anime, memes, and karate (I took classes for like a few months while I was in foster care, I was in 6th grade at the time) lmao

And like there were eyes and teeth just everywhere in that dream just fucking eeeew lmao I swear this one had to be the grossest looking dream I remember with such clarity

Granted I only drew two giant eyes in the drawing. I wanted to draw more graphic stuff but yknow... its school and I would just be kicked to the counselor's office so fast lmao

(MY GOD I HAVENT USED COLOR PENCILS IN A WHOLE ASS TWO YEARS SINCE CHRIST-)

Also granted, the drawing isn't really that scary (probably) but one of my friends couldn't bear to look at it cause the bottom half genuinely scared him, the rest of my classmates just thought it was really weird.

....

Actually I'm currently drawing something that was also inspired by a dream and this time it's not related to Hell in some way lmao

its a little mini comic of Raine Whispers and Hunter. Won't spoil much epse on what the comic is about since I'm planning on posting it sometimes this week, but after that dream I woke up cackling and effectively scaring the ever loving shit out of my mother when she came to wake me up lmao

youtube

(Honestly, I'm pretty much Anne in this scene at almost any given moment. Hop Pop is pretty much anyone who knows me irl lmaoo)

Anywho this was a really fun ask! Ty anon!

#asks #ask #artist on twitter #artist on tumblr #TheOutcastedArtist's art #my dreams #anon ask #anon asks #answered asks #ask response

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randomestfandoms-ocs · 3 years

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A bit off topic, but I'd love to know more about Ivy and her fiancé.

It’s not off topic at all, James is a big part of Ivy’s life!!!

So her fiancé is named James Bishop bc I’m dedicated to the chess theme 😂they met at Oxford, where they were in a communications class together (they were in different programs but some classes overlapped)

Side note — I’m taking some artistic liberties with the school stuff but both of their programs are programs that do exist at Oxford! I don’t think their courses would really overlap but shhhhh that’s fine haha!

So they were in a communications class together and sort of knew who the other was, but they first started talking because James missed a week of school due to a family crisis and asked to borrow Ivy’s notes, and she ended up tutoring him!

They started dating later in the year, their first date was on Valentine’s day, and they stayed together for the entire time that they were in Oxford, with James proposing at their graduation. He was moving to the US as he had a job lined up as a political consultant, and Ivy was planning to return to Starling City to petition to inherit her father’s company, since he’s been in jail since she was in high school.

The thing about Ivy and James is that they could have been happy. Ivy was never going to love him as much as she loved Oliver, but she was deeply hurt when Oliver suggested that they split up while she was overseas, and she didn’t know where things would stand when she returned, and she knew about he and Laurel (she and Oliver didn’t talk that often when she was away but she still talked to Laurel and Tommy all the time), so she said yes.

But then Oliver dies, and Ivy blames herself, and... that ruins things. Ivy has just lost someone who she’s always described as a part of her soul, someone who has shaped so much of who she is, and how can she talk about all of that with someone who never even knew him, who never knew her when she was with him? But they still care about each other and they stay together, and James knows (and accepts) that part of why they’re still together is because Ivy feels like Oliver’s death is her fault so now if she and James don’t get married then it means he died for nothing.

James does try to be there for her but really like... there’s so much between Oliver and Ivy that she just can’t put into words and it’s so hard to talk about it in general that she really just leans on Tommy and Laurel (especially Tommy, just because Laurel has her own issues relating to the whole Oliver & Sara thing) and is never really able to let James in fully, you know?

And like... James is really understanding, he is. He cares deeply about Ivy, and she cares deeply about him too, but they both know that they aren’t going to fall in love. As Ivy puts it, when Tommy asks, she’s not happy but she’s content. They might spend their evenings in the living room together, but they’re more inclined to be doing their separate work stuff than to be cuddling or watching a movie together. Though, since James travels a lot for his job (he does political consultations across America and Europe), they don’t do very much of that either.

That being said, Ivy has never really wanted to plan the wedding. She... she wants to be married more than she wants to marry James, if that makes sense. She wants companionship and someone to come home to, but she also wants a level of love that just isn’t there with James. She always says that she just doesn’t have time to plan the wedding, but Tommy (correctly) suggests that she’s never going to want to plan it because she’s still in love with Oliver and that’s still the wedding that she wants to plan.

James isn’t a bad guy, he really isn’t. He makes mistakes and he keeps secrets that definitely hurt Ivy when they come out, but his intentions are good and he cares about her, even if he’s no more in love with her than she is with him!

They ultimately split up around the end of season 1 or the beginning of season 2 (the events that lead to the separation take place in season 1 but I don’t know exactly when it becomes official yet), but aside from Ivy being hurt about the secrets, they part on civil terms. It’s not a big blowout fight or media scandal, it’s just a quiet conversation where they both know that it’s over and Ivy gives him back her ring.

(his fc is likely going to be Ed Westwick just because then I don’t have to make manips for them lmao)

#ask #answered #darknightfrombeyond #ivy knight #about ivy #ivy x james #ship: he wants what's only yours

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ddaenggtan · 5 years

Text

forever rain | knj | m

Being dead isn't anything exciting. Just a lot of walking the same halls of the same apartment day after day after day. Things change when the new tennant arrives, though. Kim Namjoon isn't anything you could have expected; not the way he's so careful and gentle with his plants because he breaks so many other things, not the way his friends joke that he's psychic because you refuse to let him get in the face one time, and certainly not the way he comes home after literal months spent moving things away from table edges for him and announces that he knows he's being haunted and he has some questions for you. You didn't know ghosts could fall in love, but he makes you feel alive again, like you're standing in the rain while thunder crashes around you. You should've known nothing good would come of falling in love with someone living, though. You should've known that heartbreak was the only way this could end...that the rain doesn't last forever.

part of the Love Yourself Collab, please please please go check out the other fics. Everyone involved is so freaking talented and I have been vibrating out of my skin with how excited I’ve been to read all of these.

pairing | kim namjoon x reader (unspecified gender, even!)

word count | 18.8k | cross posted to ao3

genre/warnings | ghost!reader, slight fluff, hard angst, literally the most angst ever it gets fluffy for a bit but litERALLY this is an angst fic, major character death, unprotected sex (idk what the etiquette for ghost sex is but you should still wrap it before you tap it fam), depictions of terminal illness (v mild), mentions of blood (several, but not graphic), major character death, allusions to violence, namjoon is a klutz whats new, depictions of terminal illness, major character death, i added that tag three times pls dont read this if you aren’t comf with mcd bc i literally tagged it three times so y’all would definitely see it, also probably have some tissues ready bc i cried while writing it so

a/n | this is, to date, the saddest thing i have ever written in my entire fucking life. formal apologies to this joon bc oh my god you poor soul. i’m not kidding when i say you might cry, because i’m a big baby wuss and cried while writing the fucking outline when i first decided to write this for the collab so like......rip my own heart. i was really honored when i was approached about the LYA collab, bc like,,,,,mE? WHAT? and i was really nervous because i’ve never been part of any collabs in any fandom ever, and to have to do something like forever rain and mono as a whole justice, like,,,,,,, *screaming* y’know?? so i went on mono lockdown and just had the whole thing on repeat and was like “alright. what emotions does this make me feel.” and i eventually settled on the loneliness and isolation that he expresses, and feeling like no one understands what you’re going through, but that ultimately the album as a whole and forever rain give off this feeling of like. things get better, you’re not as alone as you feel, and you just gotta get through the bad stuff to find the good stuff. basically i just got really in my feels about it and was like ‘lets make myself cry ahahaha’ and,,,i dID i cried several times while planning and writing and editing bc im a Soft Bitch and don’t read much angst for that exact reason lmao. so buckle tf up y’all, this a helluva ride!!

Of all the things you'd heard about death, all the different possibilities that existed in the world, the one thing you hadn't been prepared for was the boredom. You hadn't been prepared for any of it, really, too surprised by your own demise to plan at all, but even if you'd been able to, you don't think that this is what you would've counted on. An eternity - or however long ghosts existed - of being stuck in the same studio apartment you'd lived in when you died. The same walls, the same floor, the same view out the only window of the alley beside the building. It's boring and lonely and boring.

You've found more creative ways to entertain yourself as time passes. First, you started by figuring out just what being a ghost meant. You can't really communicate with anyone, haven't figured out how to make sure everything you say is heard, but you can manipulate objects pretty easily these days. The most difficult thing is becoming fully corporeal - completely visible and able to interact with things at the same time. It's hard enough to be visible, and you aren't really sure what the point of it would be when it would just scare whoever's living in your apartment; that's the last thing you want to do, run them off when they're the best source of amusement you've found.

You won't lie, you were a little offended when the first tenants moved in after you. It was difficult to watch your things get packed up and moved out by your friends, hard to lose all of the little things you loved in your apartment, like the shitty bead curtain you'd gotten as a gag gift or the photo collage of all of your loved ones. It's frustrating to not know how they're all doing these days; the one time you got brave enough to fuck with a laptop to check on them, you nearly broke the thing, and you haven't tried since. Still, it seemed cathartic for them to clear out your apartment, and it was a bittersweet sight, but you tried to focus on the positive side of it.

And then the couple moved in.

Not only did they fuck like rabbits - which is something you're going to stay pissed about, because there's no satisfaction to be had by you anymore, and it's the one thing you can think of that would be endlessly entertaining - but the couple was also grossly obnoxious. They had zero respect for your apartment , or you, and while one could argue that they didn't actually know you were there, it still made the sting of losing your entire life that much worse. You spent you don't know how many nights hovering awkwardly in the bathroom while they fucked, would constantly wander in to see them going at it on the kitchen counter at ass o'clock in the morning, and once you came in to see them tossing actual literal eggs at the ceiling like the absolute fucking weirdos they were.

So, naturally, you got a little mad. How dare they treat your apartment like that? They had no respect, but they were going to learn it real quick if they were going to live there with you, whether they wanted to or not.

They didn't last long after the first night of slamming cabinets and squealing hinges, but the thrown picture frame of their family was the conclusive end to their stay.

There have been others, since then. They haven't all been terrible, not like that first couple, but most of them have been sub-par roommates, and if you decided early on that if the rest of your immortal life is going to be locked in one shitty apartment with the absolute worst view in the city - because no one wants to see the drunken hookups and potential body dumps that take place in that alley - then you're at least going to share said apartment with someone nice to exist with.

You release a heavy sigh, staring at where your hand disappears through the shower wall. You've taken to testing the boundaries of the apartment again; you already know what the result will be, learned in the first few hours that you're stuck here, but you can't help trying when you get really bored. You just got distracted fucking around with the pipes in the meantime, because you're literally too bored to even focus. It's part of why you miss the last tenants so much, because you weren't ever really bored with them around.

A single mother and her two kids, crammed into a much-too-small apartment because it was all they could afford, and they were the light of your un-life. One a budding teenager that wrote angsty poetry who loved your trick of making things float around, and one an adorable toddler who adored playing peekaboo with you and coloring, and a mom that was too busy to notice anything out of the ordinary. It was like having a family again, made you feel useful when you could pull the meat out of the freezer for her to make dinner with or scratch a quick 'do your homework' on a steamy bathroom mirror. It was fun and it made being dead that much more bearable.

You really should've known that letting the toddler draw the two of you would be a bad idea, especially since there were several artistic liberties taken. It's not your fault the kid thought you'd look cool with fangs and bloody holes instead of eyes and claws that reached the floor. It was art, it was supposed to be a little different from reality. Still, you can't blame her for seeing the picture of her kid and 'my new best friend' and immediately calling the landlord. And a priest.

So, perhaps you gave the apartment a bit of a reputation. Maybe it's been a couple of months since the mom moved out and took your two buds with her. There might be the possibility that you've been the slightest bit salty about losing your friends and you've been extra-ghost-y whenever someone comes by to view the place in an attempt to make yourself feel a little better. Can you really be blamed for that? You just want a decent damn roommate for your life after death, and if that means putting the potentials through a little bit of a test, then so be it. You only feel a little bit bad for the landlord.

The creak of the front door pulls you from your thoughts, and the echo of a voice makes you narrow your eyes. Your first instinct is to slam some windows to scare off whoever's in your apartment, but you repress the urge. You'd die of boredom if you could die again, and whoever this is could provide a few hours' entertainment at the least.

You pop your head through the bathroom wall to see what's going on, and wow , who let an actual giant into your apartment? Fucking with the pipes could definitely wait for this guy.

"I know it's last minute, yeah," He says into the phone that's held carefully between his cheek and shoulder. His arms are loaded down with boxes and he's angled away from you just enough that you can't see his face, but he's tall and broad and wearing what looks like the world's comfiest sweater, and you want to badly to wrap yourself up in him. "But you know Joon needs the help. Don't pretend you aren't constantly willing to put off your thesis, I know for a fact that you went out to look at stationery with Tae last week, and everyone knows that's the most boring thing on the planet."

He's quiet, listening to the soft crackle of a voice from the other end. You slide through the wall completely, hovering as close as you dare to try and hear what the other person is saying. Tall, Broad, and Comfy scoffs.

"He can stare at one sheet of paper for at least ten minutes, Yoongi. Do I need to remind you of the time he spent an entire fucking hour debating which set of holiday scrapbook to buy because, and I quote, 'this one has the really nice rose pattern on it that would look great with the invitations, but, oh, look at the pinstripes in this one!'" His voice morphs into what you guess is an approximation of whoever Tae is, and you laugh at the high-pitched, nasally tone.

Tall and Broad spins, eyes narrowing as he looks around the room, and fuck , he's literally gorgeous. You've never seen someone more attractive in your life or your death and it would probably knock the wind out of you if you actually had breath. Comfy McGorgeous turns back around and sets the stack of boxes in the corner, continuing his tirade about Tae and stationery while simultaneously trying to talk Yoongi into coming, you assume, to help Joon move. You don't know who any of these people are, but they're already proving to be the most entertaining bunch that's ever graced these walls.

The door to your apartment flies open, making both you and Boyfriend Material whip your head around.

"Christ, Jin, you couldn't hold the fucking door open for us?" Someone grunts. Beauty Von Softness - or, Jin, as you should probably refer to him - winces and strides over to do just that as two more guys stagger in with a couch suspended between them. The second they're in the door they drop it to the ground and flop onto it, panting and sweaty.

"Listen, I was busy trying to get our resident hermit out of his cave to help us carry some of this shit," Jin spits back. "And you all know what it's like getting him out and about."

"Did you tell him that there's pizza after we're done? Because I've found that food is the best motivator for him," the guy closest to the door says. His hair is soft-looking and long and you wish you could pet it.

The other guy, the one who cursed Jin out and has the softest pink hair you've ever seen, laughs. "Jeongguk, you always think the best motivator is food."

"Well, yeah, because it is."

"For you, maybe. Other people require actual rewards."

"But food is a reward," Jeongguk mutters into the fabric of the couch. Jin tsks and smacks As Yet Unnamed on the back of the head.

"You're lucky I hung up on him when you bombarded your way into this place, or he'd definitely not come help us," Jin says as he leans against the back of the couch.

Unnamed starts to say something else but is cut off by someone running straight into the end of the couch. They all shoot to their feet, spouting apologies as the three of them maneuver the couch into the apartment properly.

"Sorry, sorry, Jimin distracted us from properly finishing our job," Jeongguk says quickly. He looks to the stranger with a small apologetic smile, and you're pretty sure if it were humanly possible, there would be actual literal stars in his eyes.

"Oh, it's okay, Jeonggukkie. I should've been looking where I was going." New Challenger walks straight towards where you stand, and you realize seconds before it's too late that he is not aware there is a massive stack of boxes in his path. Instinctively, you shove them to the side with your foot. Tall And Oblivious sets his boxes down without any trouble, none the wiser about any of it, and the three near the couch are too busy bickering in hushed whispers to have noticed you doing anything.

The newcomer straightens and turns to look at them all with a bright smile, and you think you might actually see The Light in the way his cheeks dimple. If you thought the other three were beautiful - which they are, no doubt about that, you're seriously wondering why the hell a bunch of supermodels are moving stuff into your apartment - then this guy is easily an Actual Fucking God or something. His brown hair is soft and shiny, his smile is warmer than the sun, and you're fairly positive that for the first time since you died, you feel goosebumps along your arms.

"Seriously, Namjoon, we should've realized you'd be up soon. You stay, start unpacking while we go get the rest of the furniture." Jimin shoves Jeongguk out the door while he's speaking, ignoring the taller's complaints, and Jin just shakes his head at the sight.

"Yoongi'll be here soon, he's finishing up another draft of his thesis. Hobi and Tae are stopping to get the pizzas and then they'll be here, too." Jin's voice is calmer than it was Jimin and Jeongguk, more soothing, and it makes you curious. Not only because of the tone change, but because you know Hobi, he owns the building and is the one who rented you the apartment when you first moved in. One of your favorite things to do is scare him when he comes by to make sure everything’s ready for a viewing.

"What? No, I said I was gonna pay for pizzas!" Namjoon looks distinctly more upset about this than someone should over not having to pay for pizza, at least in your mind, and it only makes you more curious.

"Yeah, but you also just moved out of your old apartment because it was too expensive, and had like an hour to load everything into a truck, so you're gonna let their trust fund asses pay for pizzas. We're seven adult men, and Guk could eat an entire horse and still be hungry. I'm not letting you pay for that."

Silence hangs in the apartment for a while before Namjoon gives a soft thanks to Jin. They share a smile before Jin makes his way back out. You follow each step, shadowing him all the way to the door before you're stopped. You lean your entire body forward, struggling against the invisible barrier keeping you inside, and the force of it nearly slams you back into the wall when you sag in defeat.

You aren't sure why you try anymore, but you know yourself well enough to admit that you're not going to stop until you can at least make it to the hallway.

Whatever you expected Namjoon to be like as a roommate, however unknowing he is about the situation, you don't think you could've guessed what he's actually like.

Out of the seven boys you saw the day he moved in, he's the only one living there. Not a complete surprise, considering it's a studio apartment, but you remember when there were nine people living there at one point, and there was barely room for anyone to breathe even if it had been pretty consistently amusing. Still, for one person, he's got a ton of stuff, and it's a shock it all fits. His bed is massive and comfortable and the best place to lay during the day because it's shoved between the brick half-wall and the large windows that take up one wall. The area's supposed to be for a dining table, you think, but you'd had your bed there, too, and the familiarity is nice.

His couch is small and old but manages to fit five of them, and it's a pleasantly jarring difference from the coffee table that looks like - and might actually be - an old steamer trunk. The exposed brick wall you love holds his mounted TV, a feat that took Jeongguk and Yoongi a solid hour and a half because they kept stripping the screws, and it's got one of those 8-cubicle bookshelf things under it that stores a frankly obnoxious amount of books.

He's got mugs for days, an adorable if odd collection of figurines and mini-statues scattered around the apartment, a strange obsession with some reclaimed wood shelf he's got hanging above his bed, but the absolute highlight of it all is The Wall.

It took them three hours to get it installed and set up the way he wanted, between the placements and the thick wooden shelf they’re perched on with supports and a small safety bar along the edge to keep them from falling off, but along the entire windowed wall and partway after it turns the corner runs a long shelf absolutely covered in plants. There are some elsewhere, like the one he keeps hanging from the bathroom ceiling and the couple in the kitchen, but most are on The Wall. Each one is in its own special pot, each a unique color with a name painted carefully along it, and most of them look half-dead. They're all distinct and unique from each other and they all surely have different needs and ideal conditions, but you'd never guess because Namjoon is so wholly committed to them all. He takes time every day to water them and prune them if he needs to, he checks on them constantly. He even reinforced the safety bar for the ones that sit beside his bed, so there was less chance he'd accidentally knock them around while sleeping.

It's fascinating, watching him tend to them. He's so careful and gentle, with absolute precision in every moment. He cares for his plants the way some people would care for a pet or a child. He doesn’t believe any of them are past caring for, slowly nurses all of them back to health and frequently turns up with more he’s saved from some department store. The most endearing thing, though, you decide as you sit curled among the haphazard blankets of his bed and watch, is the talking. It's every day, for as long as it takes him to care for the plants, and it's the cutest thing in the world. He's talking to some succulent as you just stare at him, filling the comfortable silence of the apartment with his soft, soothing voice, and you wish he could hear you when you talk back to him.

"I know they mean well, but at some point, I've just gotta live my own life, y'know? I can't study something just because everyone expects me to, and I can't pursue some dream just because people think I'd be good at it. I've gotta do what's right for me, don't I?" His tone is positive and bright, a contrast to the gloomy sky that casts shadows across the apartment.

You float over, hovering beside him to look at the plant he's lovingly stroking with his thumb. It's in a pretty periwinkle pot, with the name 'Mang' painted in careful but shaky black handwriting. It's not your favorite - that's the one in the bathroom that hangs over its light blue bowl, a quickly scrawled 'Koya' on the bottom - but it seems to be one of Namjoon's personal favorites based on how often he talks to it specifically.

"I think it's nice you do things for yourself," You tell him. He doesn't react, unable to hear you, but it's nice to hear your own voice after so long. You slide one of the plants - Chim, in a small yellow bowl - to the side and away from his elbow, and he doesn't notice. "You know yourself better than they do. You should trust yourself."

He keeps mumbling to Mang, something about everyone following their own dreams and doing what they need over what people want or expect, when you lay your hand over his.

Thunder cracks through the sky and the first raindrops hits the window as your non-existent skin hits his, and it's the most real thing you've felt in a long time. It's as if the scent of ozone and electricity is in the apartment itself, crackling in your hair and filling your nose with the overpowering scent of the sweet summer rain. You can almost feel the water hit your skin, the way the wind whips at your hair, and it's so intoxicating that you almost miss the sharp inhale from the man beside you.

He's not looking at his plant when you look up, but instead at the window in front of the two of you. You glance at it, and for a fraction of a second, you can see yourself in the reflection. The glimpse has you jerking towards it before you can stop yourself, desperate to know if something has changed. You haven't seen your reflection since you died, not in the mirror or the window or the toaster, and maybe, just maybe, it means something's changed.

Your hand stops against the glass of the window as you reach forward. You can't feel the cool of it under your palm, but it's no less a barrier for you as it would be for Namjoon. Something in you breaks as you watch the raindrops race each other to the ground.

"Ah, I forgot the forecast called for rain today," he mutters, eyes focused on the lightning that streaks by. He doesn't react when your fist slams against the glass, nor when you let out the scream that's been building in you for however long it's been since you died. You're so close, not even a hair's breadth from feeling something new yet familiar for the first time in so long, and you can't. You're still stuck in these four walls, unable to even reach the air outside.

You just want to feel the rain again.

You move dejectedly away from the window, ignoring the way Namjoon shivers as you pass. The temperature in the apartment has dropped considerably, you think, between the storm and your own mood. You can't tell, really. You haven't felt warm or cold or hungry or anything since you died that isn't the oppressive loneliness of life after death.

A dry sob tears itself from your throat and you hurry to hide in the bathroom as Namjoon turns to look around him. He mumbles something you can't hear and after a few minutes, he returns to tending to his plants, leaving you to your tear-less cries in peace.

It becomes quickly apparent to you that Namjoon should really have a roommate, if only to save him from himself. It takes a few weeks for you to realize this, but luckily he seems to narrate his life as he goes through it - which is overwhelmingly adorable to you, and you refuse to acknowledge that - and that means that you hear it every time he goes, "Ah, Namjoon, be more careful next time," or "Oh, shoot, that's not, fuck, I gotta buy more eggs now." It's painful to watch, even for you, and at some point, you just couldn't take it anymore. No one else is around to help, but someone needs to you, and clearly the universe means for you to be that someone.

It's a full-time job, protecting him from himself. You've saved countless mugs, pushing them farther away from the edges of counters and tables, and been just in time to shove bowls or vases an inch over so that his elbows glide harmlessly past them. It's almost exhausting, if you could get tired you would, but it's worth it, you think, as you catch the bookshelf under the TV as it tilts. You slide it gently to the floor, glad that Namjoon is distracted by how close he came to losing a toe to notice.

Because that's the other thing about this tree of a man: he's the most oblivious person you've ever fucking seen. It doesn't matter what it is you do, whether it's bouncing his spray bottle of water so it doesn't break on the hard floor or shake the counters so that the knife he's about to drop on his fucking hand falls the other way, he doesn't see a single fucking thing. You'd think he was blind if he wasn't so attentive to the way his plants grow. He notices nothing and you're glad for it because you really aren't sure what he would do if he knew you were going around haunting him just to keep him alive. You just want to help, want to keep the soft smile he wears more often around for as long as possible.

You don't dare to look into why you want that, too afraid of what you might find there.

It's also just fun to watch him and his friends, relaxed and unreserved. You never had many friends when you were alive, just a small handful that you really truly loved and whom you miss every day. Watching these seven boys fills you with nostalgia and a strange sense of joy because they really are some of the funniest people you've ever been around.

Like now, with four of them sprawled on the couch while Jeongguk and Hoseok make themselves comfortable leaning against the bookshelf under the TV - which has been bolted to the wall since it almost broke Namjoon's foot - and Namjoon watches them all from his bed since it's the only other place to sit. There are beer bottles scattered around and decorating the half-wall that separates the bed from the room proper, everyone is varying levels of drunk, and you're curled up close to Namjoon, leaning against the wall so you can stop him from knocking over any of the bottles nearby because you know him too well at this point.

"I'm just saying, I don't understand why they made him so over-powered in the new movies, because he's supposed to be some kid from Brooklyn! Giving him the high-tech suit essentially strips him of the friendly neighborhood persona that he's always relied on!" Jeongguk has been ranting for a while about the newest release in the Spiderman franchise - apparently, he's part of the actual Avengers now, which is a shock to you since the last thing you heard before you died was that the franchise was canceled until further notice or something.

"And I'm saying that if they didn't give him the suit then it would've made no sense how he was able to do those things," Yoongi responds. You're pretty sure he's just arguing to be contrary at this point, because you remember him telling Namjoon the other day that he prefers DC over Marvel.

"Garfield's Spiderman could do those things," you mutter, "And he didn't have a fancy suit."

"Okay, then how do you explain Andrew Garfield's version being able to do that stuff? He doesn't need the suit, he never has!" You preen at the way Jeongguk echoes your thoughts. "I'm telling you, I don't care how good the relationship with Holland's Spidey and Iron Man is, by giving him the tech and the advancements they did, they've undermined everything that Spiderman is supposed to be about."

"Jeongguk come off it, everyone knows Garfield's Spidey was just all bad writing. I mean, what kind of person can do all that stuff, realistically? He's the one that really needed the Stark suit." Taehyung's voice is slurred and quiet, definitely as drunk as the rest of them.

"What-! No! I could do half of that without being bitten by a weird science spider!" Jin scoffs at Jeongguk's words.

"Yeah, sure, Guk. The same way you can do that bottlecap challenge."

"Bottle cap challenge, and yeah, I could!" The youngest stands and you don't bother to hide your grimace.

"This isn't going to end well, is it?" You ask. No one acknowledges you, too busy finding something Jeongguk can kick the cap off of as the boy readies himself. He's steady on his feet but his face is red and he can't seem to stop giggling.

"If I do this, you gotta call me SpiderGuk from now on, okay?" He says. No one agrees, but it doesn't stop him from laughing again and doing a couple of roundhouse kicks to warm up.

"Okay, okay, Joonie doesn't have any regular water bottles, but we found a screw-top beer in the fridge so ya gotta use that," Jimin says as he stumbles over with said bottle. Jeongguk just nods, an adorable focused expression on his face. Jimin holds the bottle in the air, and you can already tell his grip isn't tight enough to keep the bottle still when Jeongguk kicks it.

The next ten seconds happen in slow-motion. Jeongguk's leg flies out to kick but his drunken body isn't able to handle the sudden shift in balance, and he slips. His foot hits the bottle slightly too low, and it goes flying out of Jimin's weak grip into the air. Everyone in the room watches as it hurtles straight towards Namjoon's face, and you react out of habit and instinct, catching it in one hand before you even realize you've moved.

Everyone freezes, staring at where the bottle hovers in front of Namjoon's face. You're the only one able to see your fingers wrapped around it. A shock jolts through you at the realization of what you've done and you drop the bottle as if it burned you. Fuck, they were all going to freak, then Namjoon would move out and you'd be stuck alone once more. You should've just shoved him out of the way, what were you thinking, you're so fucking stupid-

"Dude," Hoseok mutters from where he's perched on the arm of the couch. "Holy shit, Joon, you're fucking telepathic."

Yoongi rolls his eyes and smacks his chest. "Telekinetic, you fucking-"

"Holy shit, you've got fucking superpowers!" Jeongguk squeaks. "Do it again!"

Namjoon isn't even able to get a word out before there's a book flying at his face, and you panic. You can't catch it, too rushed, but you manage to deflect it so it hits the bed with a soft thump instead of braining Namjoon straight in the nose.

"Woah, you really do have superpowers," Jimin whispers. He lobs a bottlecap at Namjoon, and you catch it in your palm before letting it drop onto the half-wall.

"I don't have...what the fuck you guys," Namjoon insists. His eyes are as wide as saucers behind the thick glasses he has on. He looks freaked out and you want nothing more than to hug him. Your hand reaches out of its own accord, halfway closing the distance to stroke his hair before you catch yourself.

"Hey, levitate your plants," Jin demands. Namjoon looks panicked as he glances at the wall of plants, and you heave a sigh. With any luck, they're so drunk that they'll remember this as a strange fever dream, but you can't just let them keep throwing things at him. You crawl over to the wall, avoiding Namjoon as you do, and grasp one of the plants tight. It's a white pot with red polka dots, a simple RJ on the side, and it's fucking heavy. You only get it a few inches off the shelf before you're forced to put it down.

"Oh my god, catch this!" Taehyung throws a coffee mug straight at Namjoon's head and you panic again. You catch it, and you've decided you're fucking sick of them throwing things at him, so you lob it back and dart across the room to bounce it safely to the counter before it can break.

Everyone in the room stares at the mug and then looks back at Namjoon, who hasn't moved from his spot on the bed.

"Oh my god, you're a superhero," Jeongguk whispers, awe in his eyes.

"That's fucked up," Yoongi mutters, wincing when Hoseok elbows him.

"Maybe we should get some sleep," Namjoon says quietly. The others look like they want to disagree with him, and you have no doubt they want to explore the newfound 'abilities' of their friend, but they still start gathering trash together before they head out.

Namjoon lays awake for a long time that night, glasses folded and sitting atop the half-wall beside you. He's oblivious to the way you watch him, too lost in thought to feel the weight of your stare or the chill in the air.

"I don't understand," He says after a while. "I really don't, but there's got to be a reason for it." He doesn't elaborate, merely turns over and evens his breathing out until he starts snoring, but you watch him for most of the night. He's fascinating, this human, and you wonder what makes him so different from the others you've met.

He apparently decides to experiment. You've known Namjoon is intelligent since he first moved in and you saw his collectible encyclopedias, but you hadn't realized just what it would be like in actuality.

It starts simple. He'll toss something in the air and let it clatter to the ground. Nothing big, just little things like pencils or bottlecaps, and not far, just enough that his eyes narrow as he apparently tries to use his telekinetic abilities to manipulate them.

It slowly graduates from there. Next comes the way he stares at something across the room, hyper-focused on whatever it is until you notice and move it around for him. It's a guessing game, sometimes, trying to figure out just what he wants to move or how he wants to move it, but each time you're successful, he smiles so brightly, dimples on full display. Who wouldn't want to make him smile like that?

It's hit or miss, sometimes. You're only so strong, and while you've had a lot of practice, you still get tired. You lifted his bookshelf almost a full inch before blacking out. Next thing you knew, a couple of days had passed and Namjoon was staring at a coffee mug. That was a significantly less fun day; between losing time and having to catch coffee mug after coffee mug, you were exhausted and a little shaken.

So when he stops staring at things for extended periods of time, when he starts to go back to reading and scrolling the internet and bingeing all the completed shows that Netflix and Amazon had to offer, you're grateful for it. He still occasionally tests it out; he's always subtle about it, choosing to stare quietly until you notice and make whatever it is float around for a minute. Once you wandered around looking for him - a feat in a studio apartment - and found him just sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at a shampoo bottle.

You'd like to say that you don't move things entirely because he wants you to. It's a good test of your abilities and how far you can push yourself until it becomes too much, and it's always nice to have actual evidence that you still exist - in some form, at least - in the world. The validation that comes from seeing him smile every time you lift a pencil or slide a coffee mug to the side, it's not for any reason but the satisfaction of knowing that you have some kind of existence. Some kind of impact on the world, even if you can't be seen and can't leave the apartment.

It's part of why you start moving things around yourself more often; you're hoping he just blames it on his overactive 'abilities' if he notices because you really aren't sure what he would think otherwise. But you also know for a fact that just seeing that you have some kind of sway over the world still - over the things inside this tiny apartment - makes you feel just that bit better about being dead.

Which is why it's such a fucking shock when the door to the apartment slams open one evening just for Namjoon to slam it closed again and announce into the air, "So I know you're haunting me, please don't try to deny it, I only want to talk to you."

You freeze where you are, halfway through the closet door from where you were reorganizing his clothes because they made no sense and you were bored. He's looking around the apartment, almost desperate in the way he's searching, and you can't bring yourself to move. It's obvious he can't see you, and you aren't even sure if he's being serious, but the way he huffs and clenches his jaw before moving into the kitchen tells you that he probably is.

You follow him, curious, and watch as he pulls a small package out of his bag and starts ripping it open. You float the remains of what looks like gift wrap over to the trashcan, because you know Namjoon will forget, before going back to watching him. He's only a little careful as he cracks something in his hands and then slaps it onto the fridge, and you peek around him to see that it's some kind of words or something. There’s a wide variety, with no clear theme to them, as well as at least one of each letter of the alphabet. It's then you remember the throwaway comment Yoongi made during that night - "You need, like, poetry stuff, like those magnets that go on the fridge that people write that deep shit with, y'know? I'm gonna buy you one," - and realize that he'd followed through on his vow.

"Alright," Namjoon says, leaning against his kitchen counter and staring at the magnets. "First and foremost, am I really being haunted or is this some kind of hallucination?" His gaze never falters, doesn’t ever drift from the magnetic words now spread across his fridge doors. It takes several minutes to build up the energy and the courage to move closer to the fridge.

You don't look at him as you move the words around, but you can hear the sharp intake of breath. That's likely all the confirmation that he needs, but still you clear a spot and let the words ' I am here ' sit where he can see them clearly. You wrinkle your nose, disliking how formal it sounds, but you have to make do, you suppose.

"Okay," Namjoon breathes. "Okay, prove it. My brain could work this into a hallucination. How do I know you're really a ghost?"

"Seriously?" You huff. "What the fuck am I supposed to do that wouldn't work into a hallucination, dude?"

He gets fidgety in the few minutes that you spend wondering how the fuck you're going to prove that you're a real actual ghost to someone who clearly doesn't believe in them. His foot taps at the floor and he scratches at his hand, which only makes you want to wrap your own hands around his until he stops, much like your best friend used to lay her legs across your lap to get you to stop shaking your knee.

The realization comes in a flash, and you're moving letters around before you can stop yourself.

Face book, Park Jihyo, best friend.

Namjoon stares at it for a long while before he brings his phone out of his pocket and begins to tap at the screen. You don't get too close; you've got a history with shorting out electronics, and you aren't sure you want to know what your best friend is up to without you there with her.

"Okay," Namjoon says. "Okay, I've never seen her before, so I don't think my brain could work her into a hallucination. Okay. Alright. I'm being haunted. This is fine."

"Calm down, I'm haunting the apartment, not you." He doesn't react to your words, as usual, but it still makes you feel the slightest bit better. He stares at his phone for a little longer, and the curiosity burns under your skin, but you resist. You know from experience that if you try to get too close, his phone will stop working. Just like TV, the stereo, the laptops, everything. You've had enough experience with that kind of thing to know what will happen.

"Okay, Casper," Namjoon huffs out after several minutes of waiting. He looks up and his eyes dart around the apartment, and you wonder if he's just nervous or if he's trying to spot you. "Where are you right now? Can you make yourself visible? I mean, I know you're a ghost, but it feels rude not talking to you to your face."

You huff a laugh but reach for a coffee cup. You know you can't just make yourself visible at will; you've only done it a couple of times, to your knowledge, and none of them have been on purpose. It's even more difficult to make yourself corporeal and physical, harder than just manipulating objects, but you did it once. Back when the single mom still lived here, when her toddler was falling and you had no way to cushion the fall except with your own body; you still aren't sure how it happened, but you remember being able to feel the floor against your back and the warmth of the baby on top of you for a split second before you were gone again. You won't forget that any time soon.

You float the mug towards where you stand, holding it in front of your face long enough that when you pull it away, Namjoon's eyes don't follow it. It's a strange feeling; you know he can't see you, can tell by the way his brow furrows and his eyes slide around the space, but it feels like he's looking straight at you. It feels like you're being seen for the first time since you died.

"So, where are you from, Casper?" His tone is forcibly conversational, as if he's trying his best to keep himself calm. You roll your eyes and move the magnets to show ' here ' and he nods. "You're not gonna try to possess me, or kill me, or run me off, are you? No offense or anything. I figure you would've already at this point, but...cover my bases."

No. Am nice. I think.

"You think? You don't know if you're a nice ghost?"

Does anyone truly know if they are nice? You frown, trying to figure out how to say what you want to say with the limited words available. I can only try. It's still not perfect; there's more that you want to say, more that you want to be heard, but this has to do for now.

"I can accept that. Alright. Just talking to a ghost in my kitchen. Okay. This is totally normal." He rubs a hand over his face, and you're a little impressed. Everyone else that's lived here has freaked when presented with the knowledge that you're a ghost. Namjoon looks very much like his world is exploding, but he doesn't have the same fear and apprehension in his eyes. He's certainly coping better than the single mom.

"Are you the only ghost? Here, I mean, are you the only ghost here?" He breathes a sigh of relief at your 'yes.’ "Can you see other ghosts? Do you know any other ghosts?" The 'don't know, no' that you move around on your fridge seems to unsettle him a little, but there's a curiosity burning behind it that makes your skin tingle.

Can't leave, is what you say next, cutting off whatever question he was about to ask.

"You can't leave at all? The building, or the apartment?"

The second.

"Wow. You're really stuck here?" He looks around the apartment as if seeing it for the first time and sucks in a breath. "What do you do all day?"

Watch. He cocks a brow. You are... You hesitate. The word you need isn't there, everything that comes to you is too poetic or corny for you to actually say, but the weight of his eyes is heavy on your hands. Fun is what you settle on, but it's not right either. 'Interesting' isn't there, nor is 'fascinating' or 'lovely,' and you don't want to scare him off by telling him that part of the reason you watch him so much is that he's so full of life that you feel less dead when he's around.

He laughs at your words though and shakes his head ever so slightly. "Alright, well, I'm gonna shower, so just, don't...watch that?" You squawk at the insinuation that you would, quickly rearranging the letters to spell ' privacy' and making a large angry face out of the rest of the words. He's already turned away, though, and it makes you angrier.

You don't want him thinking that you would peep at him. You already make sure that you're facing the windows when he finishes showering, you've been determined to not be creepy since the day he moved in, and to have him think otherwise is like a slap in the face. You slam the mug against the counter and he startles, turning to gape at it. You carry it to where your words and make-do emoji sit waiting for him to notice them.

"Okay," He says quickly. "Okay, privacy, yeah, got it. You respect my privacy. Appreciated."

"How fucking rude," You mutter as you set the mug back down. You don't adjust the magnets as he disappears into the bathroom. You want him to see them, want him to be reminded of the fact that being dead doesn't mean you don't have basic decency.

You can't get him to shut up now that he knows you're there. He still forgets sometimes, mostly when he's talking to his plants or narrating the way he carefully constructs some origami creation, but more often than not, he's talking to thin air. He spends a lot of time perched on his counter, watching you move magnets around his fridge through the thick lenses of his glasses before he spouts off some other question for you to answer.

He covers the basics first: how old you were when you died, when your birthday is, your favorite color, what you were studying in school, and of course your name, though he insists on calling you Casper. You aren't sure why but you also don't get a chance to question it, because he hits you with more and more questions every day. Sometimes you don't answer because you can't, too limited by the poetry magnets to be able to really converse; sometimes you just don't have the energy to move the magnets around, but those are days are rare. The only times you use the tired magnet are when you find your limbs too heavy to move, weighed down with the memories of what it meant to be alive.

Those are the bad days, but his questions make them just a little easier.

"How do you move around? Do you just float everywhere?" Walking, but different. No weight. Soft.

"How are you able to manipulate things in my world? Are they different from things in your world?" Focus. Takes time. Same.

"Do you sleep at all? Do ghosts dream?" No sleep. Just existing.

"You don't eat, do you? Should I be stocking up on snacks for you?" No. Save your sustenance. "What was the last thing you ate?" Don't remember. "Huh. I hope it was something good." Same.

"Were you ever in a relationship?" Once. A long time before. "Do you miss them?" Not anymore.

"What did you do while you were alive?" School. "Oh, really? Do you remember what you studied?" Boring. Important then, but it made me forget to live. Not important now. Namjoon goes quiet for a long moment after this one, staring out the window at something you can't see. He nods but doesn't ask any more questions, and he reads for the rest of the night.

It only takes a couple of weeks for both you and Namjoon to get tired of standing in his kitchen fucking around on the fridge. His legs get tired and he gets distracted by his thoughts, and you can barely keep up with the rapid-fire questions you get.

So Namjoon buys one of those cheap cookie sheets with the slightest lip at the edge and dumps the magnets on that. He leaves it on the coffee table, usually, there for you to pick up if he asks something but out of the way for when he stretches out to nap lazily in the afternoon sun.

You like the cookie sheet more than the fridge. He watches you as you work out your responses, can see the way you start to move one word before moving another instead; it makes it feel more like a conversation.

It becomes a favorite pass-time of Namjoon's, curling on the couch and putting some sort of music on in the background and just talking to you. A lot of nights his questions stop with a lingering silence from one or both of you; yours because you don't have the ability to share the words running rampant through your mind, and his for reasons still unknown to you. Still, you've missed it. You've missed talking to someone, being heard when you speak, having someone ask how you are at the end of the day.

It's the little things.

"You said you can't leave, right, Casper?" Namjoon's curled up on his couch, tucked into the arm with a blanket thrown over his lap, a mug of something warm in his hands to combat the chill of the season, and some R&B track playing lightly from his phone. You knock your fist against the cookie once - a sign for yes that you'd both agreed on. "So, are you just always here then? You don't go anywhere else?"

"Fuck, how do I explain this?" You mutter. You stare at the magnets in front of you for a long time before rearranging them. Not always. Tired sometimes, disappear.

"Disappear?" He reads. "What do you mean? You just, what, stop existing?"

Don't know, you respond. Only happens when tired. When used too much of me. He hums an acknowledgment, eyes focused on where the cookie sheet sits on the couch between you. You? What entertains you?

"Everything," he answers without hesitation. "I'm trying to work through my stack of books I want to read and finish all the shows I'm interested in, but the guys would have my head if I didn't get out and do things like a normal person."

That's where you leave to?

"Yeah." He sets his mug - now empty - on the coffee table and settles into the blankets. He looks cozy and soft and you would wrap yourself up with him if you could. "I take a lot of walks, and bike rides. I like to see the river, the trees, all the animals that live there. The beach is always fun, I get to see all the crabs and whatnot that wander in and out of the ocean."

"I wish I could go with you," you whisper.

Fun is what you spell on your sheet.

"I guess," he mutters. "It's enjoyable, at least. I'll bring you some souvenirs, or pictures next time."

You let the sheet settle on the couch as he turns the TV on, setting up a drama that he's on recently. He doesn't say anything else for a few hours, waits until the sound of rain hits the windows and stifles the apartment in an otherworldly haze.

"How long have you been dead?" His voice lingers in the air. You've been expecting these questions, and you're honestly impressed he's held them back for as long as he has. That angsty teen hadn't hesitated a single second to start asking you questions.

A while. Years. I think .

"Do you ever get tired of being a ghost?" There's something in his voice that you can't place, something that tells you this is more than just his usual morbid curiosity. Every part of your soul - whatever's left of it, anyway - is screaming at you to lie to him, to tell him that no, being a ghost is great. You've never wished he could hear you more than this moment, when all you want to is wrap your arms around him and ask him why he looks so much older than he is.

Sometimes, you tell him. It is lonely here, and boring. Fun to be unseen, but unable to do much more.

He nods like that makes all the sense in the world to him, and he brings the blanket up around his shoulders. "Do you ever miss your friends, or your family?"

Would you not? He huffs out an unamused chuckle, nodding again.

"Yeah," He says softly. "Yeah, I would. Do you want me to help you check on them? See what they're up to?" The single knock that echoes in the room is deafening to you, filled with a hope that you haven't felt in years. You've never let yourself think about them for long; if you did, you don't think you'd be able to come back from whatever that place is that you disappear to when things become Too Much.

Namjoon pulls his phone closer and starts fiddling with it. He doesn't hesitate when he types in your name, and you feel an emotional blush fill you when you see that he doesn't even have to finish typing for your profile to pop up. You glance at him, the way his brows are furrowed behind his glasses and his tongue pokes into his cheek just a little while he concentrates, and you wonder how many times he's looked at the pictures of you when you were alive. How many times has he scrolled through, reading the words people shared after you were gone, scrolling through the grief and loss to get to the words you posted yourself, the little snippets of your daily life that you would give anything to be able to relive?

"Do I still look like that?" You wonder aloud. As expected, he doesn't react, just continues tapping at his phone.

You two spend the rest of the night like that, each curled at opposite ends of the couch while Namjoon slowly looks up your friends and family and updates you on each of them. Jihyo got married, to someone she'd gone on a date with a few weeks before you passed, and she's apparently trying to start having kids; Your mother and father aren't very active, but they never were. They both share pictures of you when you were a baby each year on your birthday, and more recent photos of you on the anniversary. They have a dog now. It's cute. You wonder if it helps them cope with the loss.

Your other friends are doing well, too; most of them are still figuring out their lives, but it seems like all of them are settling in their skin and finding comfort in who they are. They're out there, navigating the world and doing things they enjoy, meeting new friends and making new memories.

You stand by the window for a long time, cookie sheet of magnetized words pressed against your chest as if you can feel the cool of the metal against your skin, and watch rain drip down the panes as you imagine what your life could have been.

You can always hear Namjoon before you see him. He whistles as he walks down the sidewalk, his small way of letting you know he's on his way back from wherever he's gone that day, and today isn't an exception. Relief sags through you and you move away from the windows, let your fingers trail against the ceramic of the newest succulent he'd bought, and head towards the kitchen. The kettle is turned on and heating a few moments later while you pull a mug down from your cabinet and set it carefully on the counter where Namjoon will see it.

It's a regular routine, for the two of you. He heads out, usually in the early morning after turning on some music or a show for you, and when he comes back, you make sure there's hot water for his tea or cocoa or whatever he feels like drinking that day. The sound of his whistling gets louder the closer he gets, a simple way to let you know he's safe and he's home. You glance through the cabinets and quickly make a note on the fridge that he needs to buy more of his special tea blend soon.

The lock turns and you smile, waiting patiently as Namjoon saunters into the apartment. He sets something down on the kitchen counter just as the kettle starts to scream, and you wait while he pours the water and gets it ready.

"The cherry blossoms bloomed," He says. You grin. "They look great. I got some really nice pictures while I was there, I'll show you tonight. I was thinking we could try to finish Voltron tonight if you want. We'll have to go back an episode though, I think I fell asleep during the last one." You knock once against the counter beside you, and he turns with a wide grin to glance at the spot where you stand.

It's ridiculous for your heart to speed up in your chest, for the hair on the back of your neck to rise, for breath to catch in your throat; you don't have a heartbeat, you don't have breath, you're a shadow of the person you used to be, and yet...

And yet, seeing his dimpled smile focused so naturally on where you are, as if it's just second-nature, is like a breath of fresh air after years underwater. It smells like flowers, like dirt and earth and a new beginning. It feels like you're alive again, and you don't want it to end, but too soon he's turning away to finish steeping the tea. Something lingers in the air for a moment after but it's gone too soon for you to place it.

You both settle on the couch, Namjoon tucking whatever he brought home with him under his arm, between his body and the arm of his ratty old couch. Your cookie sheet is in its place on the coffee table, unneeded at the moment. You can't help the glare that you give it; the things you would give to be able to just speak and be heard are endless.

It rattles a little and you look away.

Namjoon is quiet as the show plays. He doesn't react when you move to turn the oven on, but he does laugh quietly and thank you for it when he goes to put his dinner in. He eats and you don't bother him, though the way he keeps his little package hidden away makes curiosity burn through you. Eventually, once he's eaten and washed his dishes and laughed at the way you rubbed them dry before setting them carefully in their places, he settles back into his blankets and turns on the music he loves so much.

He's got a book balanced in his hands and your cookie sheet rests on the coffee table, and you both just sit like that for a long while, enjoying existing.

"You remember your life, right Casper?" You thump lazily against the wall in response, eyes drawn from where you watch the gloomy sky slowly get lighter with the dawn. He isn't looking at his book anymore; he probably hasn't been for a while, based on the way the pages have migrated around his thumb, too busy staring at the wall across from him. "Do you remember your death?"

You hesitate. You've tiptoed around the subject before. He's always been too afraid to ask directly, and it's too painful for you to offer it freely. You thump against the wall once more, and he nods like he already knew the answer.

"Are they very different?" His glasses are falling down his nose and your fingers itch to push them up. Instead, you reach for your cookie sheet. He makes a sound in the back of his throat when he sees it moving, reaching under him for his package. "I forgot, I got you this. Thought it might be easier."

He sets it down and you slide the contents out of the wrapping easily. Inside is a small dry-erase board, complete with markers and eraser, small things that should be easy for you to manipulate. You beam at him; he can't see it, but you think he might be able to feel it because he perks up and smiles a little.

"You don't have to answer," He adds. "I was just curious to know if being dead is really as different as everyone makes it out to be." You nod and thump once against the board before you uncap a marker and start writing.

It's a bizarre feeling, after so long. The muscles in your hand don't ache, no matter how much you write, and you can't feel the smooth surface of the board under your fingers or the weight of the marker in your palm, but it glides against it cleanly and leaves a thick black streak behind.

It takes you a minute to write everything out, get it worded how you want. Namjoon doesn't interrupt you, just watches the marker move against the board and smiles every time you go to erase something that isn't right. Eventually you show it to him.

There are similarities. I'm still me, I still enjoy TV and music and books. Things are duller now, like there's a filter over them, and it's harder to do things. Like when you're in water, or mud, like that. Resistance.

"Oh," Namjoon replies, "That's not what I expected. It makes sense though I guess." His hand moves against his chest, rubbing lightly as he looks over your words again. "Is there anything you actually like about being a ghost?"

"Well, being invisible is pretty cool," You say, writing the words as you do. "And it's actually really fun being able to walk through walls and stuff, even if I can't go anywhere outside of the apartment."

"I'm sorry you're stuck here," Namjoon says. You startle a little, looking up at him. You think he actually heard you for a split second, but his eyes are locked on where you're writing your words out on the dry erase board.

"Yeah, me too," You tell him. He stares at the board for a long moment, chewing nervously on his bottom lip as he does. "Ask what you want to ask, Joon," You write as you say it.

"How did you die?" He blurts. You sigh and he jumps a little, looking fully at where you sit. You're shocked; you know that sometimes little noises cross over, like when Jin heard you laughing, but it's still rare. You can't figure out how it works, but you want to.

You write for a long time, letters small so they fit on the board. The whole thing is crowded together, looks like one long string of letters instead of the story it is.

There's a lot of violence in this neighborhood. You probably know that by now. People are always getting robbed or mugged or something around here. Someone tried to break into my apartment by banging the door down. It didn't work, luckily, but I got really paranoid afterwards. One night I was cooking, and someone's door slammed really hard. I spilled the water I was boiling, slipped. Blacked out after a while, and when I came to, there were police everywhere. I guess I hit my head harder than I thought, because they carted me away, and I couldn’t follow.

"I'm sorry," Namjoon says softly. "You deserved more time."

Yeah. The universe had a different plan, I guess. He smiles at that, and it settles the anxiety thrumming under your skin. Wouldn't have met you, so I guess that's a bonus. He rolls his eyes at you but he laughs softly, so you consider it a win. You doodle on the board then, simple little designs that don't mean anything beyond being able to see your effect on the world.

Namjoon sucks in a breath beside you and you look up at him. He's always been good about looking towards where you are, doing his best to make eye contact with someone he can't see, but he still always tends to look through you.

Not this time.

This time, electricity sings through the air as your eyes meet his. You don't know how, but you know he can see you. His eyes roam over you, taking in the crumpled sweater you were wearing with the stain you like to think is pasta sauce on the arm, the hair you can't ever really tame, the way you sit cross-legged on his old thread-bare couch with a dry erase board in your hands.

Neither of you moves. He looks torn between fear and amazement, every emotion in between flitting quickly over his features, and you're terrified that if you move, whatever spell that's been cast will fade. It had been so long since you talked to anyone when Namjoon slammed those magnets on the fridge, and the conversation has been a reprieve, but to be seen for the first time in years...

It's invigorating.

Watching Namjoon just look at you is something you won't ever forget, not for as long as you exist in the world. He looks at you like he's memorizing every detail, every hair and wrinkle and pore, and just knowing that he can see you fills you with something new.

"Namjoon...?" You call hesitantly. His eyes fall on your lips.

"Again," He says. Your brows must furrow, maybe you frown, you don't know because it's been so long since you've needed to pay attention to your facial expressions, but he notices your confusion. "Will you say something again?"

Breath you don't have catches in your throat, wraps itself around a heart that doesn't beat, but you smile a little. "I'm glad I met you."

Namjoon smiles. It's big and blinding and knocks everything out of you except for that emotion that's been sitting in your chest since the first time you watched him talk to his plants. You lean forward, and you can tell the exact moment you disappear, because his smile falls and his eyes unfocus. A whimper leaves your throat, but he doesn't react, and that may be the most painful thing that's ever happened to you.

"Can I feel you?" His voice is hushed but the words reverberate in your head. His eyes dart around, looking for any glimpse of you, and your hand trembles as you reach out.

Goosebumps raise on his cheek where your hand touches him and his breath stops for a moment, but he smiles again and leans into the chill. You bring your other hand up to cup his other cheek, your dry erase board lying forgotten on the ground, and Namjoon's eyes flutter closed.

"I think I might love you," You say quietly just before you press your lips to his. He doesn't react to your words, but he lets out a soft sigh at your kiss. Thunder cracks through the apartment, a torrent of rain unleashed on the windows, but you don't move.

The two of you sit like that for hours, until he starts shivering and his nose turns red, like it does when he forgets his scarf on the cold days, and his breath puffs in the air. When you finally pull away from him, he smiles, and the blush on his cheeks has nothing to do with the cold air that makes up your form.

"Yeah," He says softly, voice nearly drowned out by the storm raging outside. "Yeah, I can feel you."

If you expected things to change much after that, you were wrong. At least a little. Namjoon still disappears to go on his walks, you still start the kettle the second his whistles drift up to the apartment. He still asks you a million questions, but they're more normal now. Your favorite music, color, what you wished you'd done with your life, if you've been able to corporealize again recently, what you wanted to watch that night.

"Come on, Casper," Namjoon groans. "I promise you can do it." You huff and he smiles, clearly having heard it. You're tempted to just disappear somewhere, rattle some pipes in the bathroom or the kitchen so he thinks you're in there and leaves you alone, but he smiles at you again and you're weak for that dimple.

You grip the watering can again, doing your best to lift it and manipulate it the way you need to. It's heavy, and something about the metal makes your skin itch, but the more you struggle the more you're able to pour the slightest bit of water where RJ - a giant plant that you don't even know the name of - sits in the corner of the room across from Namjoon's bed. It's the twentieth-something time you've tried this today, and you're ten seconds from just giving up completely, but you can tell this is important to Namjoon.

He's been talking all week, between the late nights where you lay over his blanket-wrapped form and the mornings where he ducks out with a soft goodbye. He's told you everything about his plants that you think he possibly could, teaching you about them and showing you how to care for them. It's interesting, you won't lie, and it's always fun to see him light up when you recall something he's told you, but you're exhausted and every part of you is shaky, and you're more than a little worried of what might happen if you push too far again.

Still, Joon hasn't looked great lately, like he might be getting the flu, and you want to be able to help him with all the things he does in the house. You've already started doing the dishes and folding laundry, since those were the two things he was the absolute worst at, but you feel like you should be doing more.

"Good job, baby, I'm proud of you!" You grunt and let the watering can fall back to the ground with a loud thump that almost definitely has the downstairs neighbors cursing Namjoon's name. "See, and now we're done for the day! C'mon, we can put on Sens8 and cuddle."

He's on the couch before you can stop him, wrapping himself in blankets except for one lone hand that sticks out, expectant. You roll your eyes and sit beside him, close enough that if you had a body you would be cuddling instead of just sitting awkwardly beside him.

You know that this is just going to make your hand all pink and gross, right?

He just smiles when the board flips around to reveal itself and wiggles his fingers. "It's worth it," He says. "I'd rather be pink and gross than never get to hold your hand at all."

You can't even feel my hand, Joon, there's literally no point to this. He huffs and wraps his hand around the marker in your hand, shivering at the chill that runs through him when he does. He grins and gestures down to where the tips of his fingers are already turning red.

"Clearly I can feel it, Casper."

You're glad he can't see you, that you don't have a heart that beats or blood that runs, because if you did, your face would no doubt be red. You have no doubts that Namjoon would tease you about it.

He's quiet as you both watch the show; he makes the odd comment here or there, but his mood seems to have calmed some. When he first got back from whatever place he visited that day, he'd been anxious and jumpy and entirely too on edge.

"Hey, Casper?" He asks quietly. You slide a hand against his cheek to let him know you're there, and he leans into the chill again. "What do you think about me?"

You don't move for several seconds, hand still poised around his cheek.

"Like, your feelings. What are they? Will you tell me?" You knock once on the wall behind the couch. Your hand stays poised over your board for long enough that Namjoon starts to get a little restless. Words refuse to come to you. Every time you start to think you have a way to describe to him what he means to you, they disappear as quick as fog on a summer's afternoon. Frustrated, you let the board fall to the couch and scrawl a quick 'hold on' so he knows you aren't just ignoring him.

It's been weeks since you've seen what you're looking for, your cookie sheet with the word magnets having been basically forgotten in lieu of the more personal and convenient dry-erase board, but right now you know that if words won't come to you, you'll have to go to them.

You finally find it, shoved under several encyclopedias and magazines, and the noise you make is so triumphant that even Namjoon hears it. You curl back up beside him, careful to make sure the blanket is wrapped tight around him, and make sure he can see the words as you move them. It still takes a long time, constantly changing and rearranging and stacking to make sure it conveys the things you need it to convey.

You are like music. A symphony of summer days and peach skies with soft rain. You are a storm in the moonlight. I'm not lonely when I have you pouring around me. You make me feel alive again.

Namjoon is silent for a long time, and you wonder if you've gone too far. It's more poetic than you'd like, too frilly and fancy and emotional than you usually are, but they're the only words you have.

After too long, he exhales. It's heavy and deep and it feels like he's trying to expel more than just air from his body.

"You make me feel alive, too," is all he says, whispered into the softness of his blanket in a voice too small for his long limbs. He shivers, and you hear him choke down a cough, and then he disappears into the bathroom for a long time. When he comes back out, he doesn't say anything, just slides into the mass of blankets on his bed and lays his arm out across the mattress. You spread out across from him, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he looks through you and out the window where the rain is letting up.

"Looks like the rainy season is gonna last longer than everyone thought." You slide your hands around one of his large ones and just hold them like that. His eyes sink closed and something like relief stands on his face for a moment before it's gone, swept away by the peace of sleep.

You wonder what it is that he sees when he looks out the window. If it's the plain brick wall and windows of the building next door, or something more.

You aren't sure you want to know.

Namjoon's flu only seems to get worse. He leaves early in the mornings, as if he thinks you might not notice the way he coughs into his scarf just because the sun hasn't risen fully yet. He stays gone most of the days, and even when he apologizes quietly during the twilight when he slinks back in to the sound of the kettle screeching on the stove and his tea already waiting to be steeped, he still doesn't stop.

You've taken to playing blues while he's gone, mostly the old school stuff, digging out the vintage record player he has buried in the closet and setting it up on the coffee table. It’s the only technology you can use without shorting it out. You don’t know why, but it makes you grateful the record collection Namjoon keeps tucked away inside the coffee table that you’ve learned is in fact an actual steamer trunk that he salvaged and restored himself.

The music fills the apartment, distracts you from the oppressive weight of his absence. He knows you wait at the window for him, you told him that back when the two of you were first getting to know each other.

You're so fragile, you had told him. He had laughed at you, quiet and fond, and waited for you to explain further. You're so full of life and breath and possibility, and the world is so big and so dangerous. I'm scared you won't come back.

"Of course I'm going to come back," he told you. You didn't even need to tell him that you're afraid of what being alone might do to you, now that you're so used to his presence. You're being heard again, sometimes even seen, and you don't know if you can go back to the stagnant depression of solitude. "I'll always come back to you."

That was the first time you thought you might love Namjoon. The feeling has only gotten stronger, and now that you wait at the window with your eyes focused on that tiny section of sidewalk you can see at the end of the alley, it threatens to consume you whole.

You wait at the window for hours. You know because you glance at the clock every minute and a half, mocking you with every tick as it hangs limply on the bathroom door. The sun sinks below the horizon, the moon rises to take its place, and they switch again while you wait. The dawn paints the sky in beautiful shades of pink and red and orange and the faintest purple, but you can't appreciate any of it, because you're too anxious.

He could be hurt. He could be gone, and you wouldn't ever know until his friends came to pack his things. He could have left, too; maybe he finally decided that living with a ghost was just too much for him and just ran. Maybe he figured out that you love him, that you would move heaven and earth if it meant he was safe forever if only you could leave this apartment, and it was too much for him.

What if he knows about how you lay beside him every night? How you tuck the blankets tighter around him, cover him in warmth and comfort before settling on top of them and closing your eyes and pretending that you can feel his arm draped over your waist and his breath on the back of your neck. What if he felt you, that night you wandered into the bathroom while he was showering to write on the steam-covered mirror that he needs to buy more eggs soon and got distracted by the way he looked stepping out of the shower? What if he knows your stomach flipped at the long limbs and the hidden muscles and the sheer size of him? What if he knows the real reason you were quiet that night, the way you kept replaying the moment in your mind and wishing you had a body so you could have just touched him, at least.

It's closer to noon than midnight when his whistle echoes up through the window.

"Hey, I'm home," He calls as he enters the empty apartment. You're upset, but you're more filled with relief than anything because at least he's safe and he's here now. He makes a beeline for where the kettle is just starting to whistle, already reaching for the honey and the tea you set out on the counter for him, and you do your best to calm the storm of emotions inside you.

Did you have fun, wherever you were? You ask him, floating the whiteboard in front of his face so he has to acknowledge it.

"Yeah, I did," he responds as he stirs his tea. "Jin invited everyone over for some end of summer thing. I didn't feel too great at the end of it, so I just spent the night there."

Don't party too hard, you might remember how to have fun, you joke. It falls a little flat based on the grim smile Namjoon gives you. Are they gonna come over here again anytime soon? I've missed scaring Hoseok.

He lets out a real laugh at that. "I don't know, maybe. My birthday's coming up, after Jeongguk's, so they could definitely be planning something. I'm heading over to Yoongi's later to help plan for Guk's party. I might stay there tonight, so try not to worry, Casper."

I'll try, you tell him. You both know you'll stand at the window every second he's gone, but you don't want to tell him why. You don't want to tell him that you love him through a dry erase board, or some fancy poetry magnets. It doesn't matter that you may as well have already said so by telling him that he makes you feel alive again; you haven't said the words to him, he hasn't seen 'I love you' in the messy scrawl that is your handwriting on some stupid board, and therefore he doesn't know.

You don't know if you want him to.

He stays gone that night, as he said he might, and reappears the next day to shower and change before he vanishes again. The next time he shows up, he takes a bag with him when he leaves, which only worsens your fears. He stays gone for three days this time, doesn't apologize when he turns up again and just mumbles a soft hello into the air before he makes tea and sags into his couch. He's asleep in seconds, and as much as you want to scream at him, you can't bring yourself to disrupt how peaceful he looks.

When he wakes, he takes a shower and ignores the ' can we talk ' you scrawled in the steam. He packs a bag of fresh clothes and doesn't say goodbye when he leaves, just disappears and leaves you standing at the window with the pail in your hand, caring for the plants he isn't. The slam of the door sounds like nails in a coffin and breaks what little was left of your soul.

He shows back up nearly a week later, and the relief at seeing him again is overridden by the sheer anger at being left in the first place. You don't start the kettle when you hear his whistle, the quiet and hoarse tune of a familiar song barely reaching the window, but there's plenty of noise when he enters.

The cabinet doors are quaking with your fury, the lights flicker and threaten to burst, and Namjoon just leans back against the door. He’s soaked from the storm thundering outside, even his jacket plastered to his skin, and he’s shivering slightly, but you can’t see anything past the rage.

"Where the fuck were you?" You demand; there's no point, it's not like he can hear you, but the way he sighs makes you feel like he can, so you continue anyway. "It's been almost a week, you didn't even think to stop by for ten seconds so I know you're okay? I thought you were dead somewhere, you could've been, like, shot, or something, I don't know, just bleeding out in some ditch, and I wouldn't know! And what about all the plants? I know how to take care of them, sure, but do you know how hard it is for me to do it?"

Namjoon sighs again, the breath catching in his throat and coming out in a cough, but you don't pay much attention to it.

"Why would you act like this, Namjoon? What did I do, is it because of the things I said? Do you not want me to feel like this about you? Because this a damn good way of making sure I don't, I assure you, so by all means, just keep disappearing and leave me alone with the plants you decided to rescue and save!"

His cough gets worse and he just shakes his head, covering his mouth and making his way towards the bathroom.

"If you want me to hate you, it's too fucking late, Joon!" The slam of the bathroom door punctuates your sentence, and you quiet at the sound of continued coughing. You knew his flu was getting worse, but it's never sounded like that. Even when you were alive, you knew that the wet sound that's muffled by the bathroom door isn't what a cough should sound like. The lock of the door clicks, and it shocks you into movement because he's never - never - locked you out of anywhere. He knows it wouldn't stop you, knows it as well as you know that you'd respect that boundary if he set it, and yet here he is, locking you out even as he coughs up what sounds like a lung in the other room.

You hesitate at the door, torn between respecting his boundaries and knowing what’s happening. You want him to trust you, always, and yet you find your hand disappearing through the door before you can stop it. You stand like that for a long moment, just listening to the sounds of his wracking coughs; the sound of a crash echoes through the apartment, though, and you’re through the door completely in the span of a heartbeat.

Nearly everything that had been on the counter is scattered on the ground, Namjoon himself gripping the sides of the toilet as if he would fall apart otherwise. A single glance tells you that the crash happened as he turned from the sink to the toilet, and if his jolting shoulders didn’t tell you why, the sounds of his retching would. That isn’t what fills you with dread though; the disorientation, the vomiting, all of it comes with being sick sometimes, but the red staining the bathroom sink?

That’s not normal, and you know with every part of you that it’s the reason he’s been gone so much.

The temperature in the apartment drops with the sun, but your arms surround Namjoon as best they can. Goosebumps break out on his arms, shivers run down his back, but you don’t move away from him; he doesn’t say anything, just sits there with his forehead pressed against the cool of the porcelain. He stands eventually, ignores the way he passes completely through your body to rinse the sink and brush his teeth.

You let him stay quiet until you’re both on his bed; you’re pressed up against his side and running your hands along his forearms, idly wondering if you would be able to feel his heartbeat if you were alive.

“It’s not...it’s not gonna get better,” He says eventually. “There’s not a cure, just some things to draw it out and give me a little bit longer even if they come with more pain. I go once a week to see if it’s gotten worse, check how much longer I have. It’s why Hobi let me move in here rent-free. He pays the bills, says it’s the least he can do. I wanted to be closer to him anyway, so that’s a bonus, I guess.”

“I’m so sorry, Joon,” you whisper. Your board lies forgotten, somewhere on the couch maybe, you aren’t sure and can’t be bothered to pull yourself away from him long enough to find it. You don’t need it right now, though; he knows what you mean by the way the cold presses against his bicep with your palm.

“I didn’t want you to know.” You’re not exactly surprised at that; you’d figured as much. You just don’t understand his reasoning. “I didn’t want you worrying about me, or anything like that, like the guys do. They always look at me and it’s all they can see. Like they’re already mourning me, even though I’m still here. I didn’t want to feel like that with you.”

“I know,” you say. You don’t, not really. Your own death was sudden, a shock to everyone you knew; you didn’t get the luxury of saying goodbye, didn’t have the burden of knowing you would be gone soon.

The two of you sit in silence for a while, until you can feel Namjoon’s chest quivering under your palm. When you look up, he looks at you, really and truly at you , and he has tears in his eyes.

“I don’t want to die, Casper,” He whispers. You suck in a breath because he can see you, and you don’t even know why, but you don’t want to lose this moment. “I don’t want to leave all of this behind. I don’t want to leave you.”

“It’ll be okay,” you say softly. His brow furrows and a tear slides down his cheek. “I promise you it will be okay, Namjoon. It gets easier, and people remember but they aren’t stuck forever. And I…” You falter, and it takes his eyes meeting yours to make you realize he can hear you. And there’s only one thing you’ve ever needed him to hear.

“I love you,” You tell him. “I love you, and I will never forget you.”

He surges forward, lips meeting yours in a rush of air. You moan at the feeling of him against you, realizing that for the first time since you died, you can feel something under your fingers. His skin is warm against your fingers, his lips soft against your own, and when he reaches up to cup your jaw with his hand, he doesn’t pass through your form. Instead his hand settles heavy against you, and he moves your head to lick into your mouth.

Tears that won’t fall prickle at the back of your eyes and you climb into his lap before he can stop you. He’s still crying so you wipe away the tears before they can fall, pressing soft kisses to his cheeks, his dimples, his nose, every bit you can reach. A question sits at the back of your mind, and you can see it lingering in his eyes, but neither of you asks it.

“You’re so cold.” His whisper is nearly lost amidst the thunder that shakes the apartment, but it makes you smile a little.

“Warm me up?”

His chest is still quivering with unspoken sobs, but he nods. “Always,” he tells you. “I’m always going to be here.” It doesn’t take long to pry him out of his clothes, takes even less time for him to sink into you. It feels just like it did when you were alive, only magnified; you can feel him hot and warm inside you, can feel the beat of his heart in the firm muscle under your hands. His moans are quiet and hoarse but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

He keeps one hand on your waist and the other on your neck, holding you close enough that he can kiss whenever he wants. “You’re beautiful,” He whispers. “The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.” You just press another kiss to his chapped lips and let him dig his fingers in hard enough that it would bruise if it could. When he’s close to his peak, he stops thrusting, just sits inside you as he grinds your hips down to his, and presses his forehead against yours.

“I love you,” He tells you, lightning casting his shadow across the wall for a brief moment. “I love you, I do, I wish-”

“I know,” you tell him before he can continue. “I know, Namjoon, I know, and I do, too. I love you, too.” He comes a few seconds later, the warm seed soaking into his sheets because it has nowhere to go. His warmth disappears from under your hands and his arms fall to his lap when the only thing holding them up is gone. All you can hear is your quiet sobs mixed with his and the rain against the window, and for the first time since you came back, you really, truly, wish you had died. There’s no point in being a ghost when you can still feel your heart breaking in your chest.

“Casper, are you ever scared?”

It’s the middle of the afternoon. Namjoon is sprawled across the couch wrapped in blankets while Lucifer plays in the background and you doodle aimlessly on your board. You don’t need it as often now; you’ve gotten better at focusing your energy into being heard, though being corporeal still eludes you. You don’t know how you did it that night, but you’re grateful for it.

“Of what?” You ask, looking towards him. He’s not looking at you or watching the show, just staring at the ceiling. He focuses at your words, lifts himself up into a sitting position. A shiver runs through him when his legs move through you, and you settle a weightless hand against his knee out of habit.

“I don’t know,” He replies. “Just...whatever comes next. If there’s something that comes next. Being forgotten. Being stuck here forever.”

You aren’t stupid; you know why he’s asking. The question lingers in the air, colors all of your conversations now, but the truth is that neither of you has the strength to ask it and neither of you knows the answer.

“Sometimes,” You tell him. “Sometimes I wonder what Jihyo is doing, if she ever had a baby like she wanted to. I wonder if my parents are still alive, and what they say if they visit my grave, what they tell me now that I can’t respond to them.”

Namjoon nods like he’s already thought of that, and he probably has.

“Most of the time I try not to focus on it, though. It’s not helpful, it only upsets me, and I don’t…” You trail off, unsure of how to word your thoughts. “I don’t know what might happen if I only focus on the negative. I don’t know anything about what’s true about ghosts and what isn’t beyond that I exist now, and I can’t risk becoming something bad. So I try not to focus on it. It’s easier when you’re here.”

He grins and blows a kiss in your general direction, and you pretend not to notice the blood on his cracked lips. He’s quiet for the rest of the episode of half of another.

“Have you ever seen a light?”

“What?” He doesn’t seem to hear you, and you repeat your question on your board for him.

“A light,” He echoes. “Like, the light.Y’know, the light at the end of the tunnel, ‘don’t go into the light,’ that thing.”

You hesitate at that. You knew what he meant, what he actually wants to know here. He’s easier to read now than he was in the beginning.

You watch him as he watches the space where you sit, curled up beside him on his couch. He can’t see you, of course, but he can see where the board rests in your hands. His gaze is heavier than it was when he first moved in; his cheeks are hollower, skin more gaunt with a grey tint that’s only made worse by the constant rain. The sun is just starting to break through the clouds, a brief reprieve after weeks of the dreary stone-colored clouds. It casts shadows along the walls, reflects off something in the window across the alley, and backlights Namjoon beautifully, casts a halo of light around the brittle brown hair you love.

Once, you tell him. Just once.

“Why didn’t you go to it?”

There are so many things you could tell him, so many different ways to answer such a simple question, but you find yourself lingering on the one thing you know is the ultimate truth.

Because I love you.

September comes with even more rain and a bittersweet atmosphere. Jeongguk spends his birthday at Namjoon’s apartment and then comes back a little over a week later, surrounded by the other guys and carrying enough food to last a few months. You stay curled on the bed, one of the only safe places for you to not mess with anyone or anything. Your board is tucked into the blankets, ready to be used but hidden from view just in case. You watch as Namjoon sits on the couch, tucked between Taehyung and Yoongi with both of them leaning into him as much as possible, Yoongi’s hands wrapped in one of his and Tae’s head on his shoulder.

The other’s aren’t far, leaning against the back of the couch and on beanbags they’d brought with them, all laughing as Hoseok does his best to act out whatever he’d been given in charades. He’s not bad at it - you’ve guessed the last few he’s done - but he is utterly ridiculous in his mannerisms. You know why; it’s the same reason everyone kept smiling when Namjoon refused all of the food he was offered, why Seokjin would crack a terrible joke whenever it got too quiet for too long, why everyone is resolutely ignoring the growing pile of tissues on the table.

It keeps a smile on Namjoon’s face, though, and a laugh in his eyes, and you can’t ever be anything but grateful for that.

Hoseok stumbles, nearly falling and whirling his arms to catch himself before eventually falling anyway. You laugh along with the others, grinning at the way Hobi pouts and rubs at his hip. You’re focused on the way Joon laughs, the way it lights up his face and brightens the entire room, which is why you see it first.

The tickle at the back of his throat quickly becomes a cough, wet and wheezing and enough to make him throw the blankets from his lap and stumble to the bathroom.

You’re there before he is, helping him slide the door closed and locking it behind him as he bends over the toilet again. The six of them are quiet in the main room, speaking in hushed whispers that neither you nor Namjoon wants to hear. You turn the knob on the sink, wetting a towel while you drown out the sound of voices, and letting a hand run over Namjoon’s back.

“I’m okay,” he mutters. You ignore the way his voice shakes, the way his lips are redder than before, the way this happens more often than before. Instead, you just press the damp rag to his neck and watch his eyes close in relief. When he stands and flushes the evidence away, you already have his toothbrush ready and waiting, and you stay as close to him as you can until he takes a deep breath.

“I’m okay,” He repeats. “I’m okay. It’s my birthday, and I’m okay.”

He goes back out with a smile on his face and a laugh in his voice, teasing Hoseok about the way he fell and reenacting it, even. When he settles on the couch, he urges the others to continue the game. There’s a brief moment of hesitation before Jimin declares that he’s next and pulls something from the bowl on the table.

You know you aren’t the only one that notices the way Namjoon’s eyes linger on the six men around him, but you are the only one that notices the way they also linger on his steamer trunk, the shelf with his books, the TV, the record player, the scrapbook of his life that they all worked on and Taehyung pieced together over the months, the plants on the wall that he had cared for. He looks around his apartment as if he’s looking at it for the last time.

As if he’s already planning who’s going to get what.

He finally asks the question you both have been thinking about, nearly two months later. His breathing comes in ragged pants, his lips stay chapped, and he keeps several blankets around him at all times to try to hide the shaking of his body. Your soft sobs echo through the apartment constantly; while you reheat the tea he doesn’t drink for the millionth time, while you quietly water and prune the plants he’s saved from death the way you wish you could save him, while you sit curled around him as he sleeps, soothing his coughs with quiet whispers.

Night has just begun to fall, the rain of the day turning into a soft drizzle, and you stare at him blankly, unsure how to process what you’ve just heard.

“Do you think I’ll come back?” He asks again, slightly louder. As if you hadn’t heard his shaky voice the first time. It’s not the question that floors you. You’ve been expecting this for weeks, months even. You’ve wondered it yourself as you prepare tea and ignore the sounds of him vomiting blood in the bathroom, as he disappears to the hospital and returns with a worse prognosis than before, as you’ve adjusted to the idea that you are dead and he is dying and you cannot do anything to help him.

You never would have expected the hope that his words carry though.

“Why does it sound like you want to?” You ask. Your voice is clear in the air and you’re glad for it, because this isn’t something you want to talk about through your board.

“Because I do?” His response is delayed and sounds more like a question than a real answer.

“Why?!” You demand.

“Are you serious, Casper?” His brow is furrowed as he sits up and lets the blankets fall away to sit haphazardly off the couch.

“Are you? Joon, why would you want to come back?”

“You’re seriously asking me that question? Why would I not? I’ve got so much I still want to do, I never thought I’d get the chance to after I got the diagnosis and now I might be able to. Why wouldn’t I want that?”

“Because it doesn’t work like that! You don’t get to just wander the world and fuck around, Joon, you’re dead.”

“Yeah, but you can still read and write and everything. I’d have all the time in the world to read the books I want to read, watch the shows I want to watch, write the music and stories and lyrics that I want to write.”

“Yeah, so long as it all stays in this apartment!” The light in the room flickers slightly with the force of your irritation. “You can’t do anything that isn’t in this room, Namjoon, you can’t use any of the electronics, you can’t read a book unless it’s here, you can’t write music unless it’s on actual paper, you can’t do anything.”

“Yeah, and I could make that work. Why are you so upset about this? I thought you’d be happy.”

“Happy? You think I’d be happy that you’d be stuck in these four walls forever, too? Why would that make me happy?” Namjoon stands, running a hand through his hair and shaking his head.

“Because I’d be with you! We’d be together, forever! Do you not want to be with me?”

“Of course I want to be with you, Joon, but not at the cost of you being stuck here. I don’t want that for anyone, certainly not the man I love.”

“And what if that’s what I want? What if I want to spend the rest of time with you? I’m already spending the rest of my life with you, I’m in love with you, I don’t want to leave you.”

“And I don’t want you to go, but Joon, why would I want you stuck here, too? This isn’t something fun. This isn’t anything that I enjoy.”

“Oh, so you regret it all then?”

“I didn’t say that, I just don’t want you to be stuck in a shitty studio apartment for who knows how long when you can’t fucking do half of the things you love! You wouldn’t go on walks, Namjoon, you wouldn’t go with Guk and Jimin to the movies, you wouldn’t get visits from Hobi, you wouldn’t get to shop with Taehyung or Jin, you wouldn’t get to drag Yoongi away from his thesis or celebrate with them when he finishes it! It’s not like being alive, Namjoon, you’d be dead and alone and in hell!”

“Whatever,” He mutters, shoving his arms into his coat. “Why can’t you understand for one fucking second that it wouldn’t be like that with you? I’d rather be stuck here forever than have to die in some shitty apartment and not even be able to touch the person I love.”

“Why can’t you understand that it’s still death? You’d be dead, Joon, your friends would go to your funeral and disappear from your life, and you’d be stuck staring out that window at that shitty alley for the rest of time. You don’t get it, you don’t how terrible it is to be stuck here and watch life pass you by.”

“Then why the fuck are you still here?” He asks. The door slams behind him before you can answer him, and your scream shakes everything in the room. You just barely catch one of the plants in the kitchen, a brown-potted one with ‘Shooky’ scrawled in Yoongi’s familiar handwriting, before it crashes to the ground. You return it to its place gently and huff another frustrated groan.

You wish you could explain it better, but you know he wouldn’t get it even if you could. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to be trapped between four walls and unable to do anything without massive amounts of effort. And he won’t, not unless he experiences it himself.

You’ve already watched him wither away. You’ve watched him become thin and sallow and a shadow of the Namjoon who first moved in, and you don’t know what you would do if he came back. You wouldn’t be alone anymore, of course, and you’d have him here with you, but at what cost? Namjoon was built for cherry blossoms and sunshine and the riverside. He would hate being trapped here even more than you do.

Still, you could have been more understanding of his view. You can admit that even being stuck in a shitty apartment wasn’t so terrible when you had Namjoon there to make you laugh or watch TV or read to you. It may even get better if he turned into a ghost; maybe you could hold his hands in yours, could feel him wrap his arms around you, could press kisses to his skin again.

You move to the window and stand there waiting. It’s not good for him to be out, even if the rain had stopped a few days ago and the forecasters promised it was the end of the downpours. He was still weak, you’d be surprised he even went anywhere to begin with but you know he likes to walk to calm himself down.

You worry for what feels like hours. You can’t focus on anything, not the way the sun starts to set, not the sound of cars passing or the neighbor leaving. You’ve worked yourself into knots by the time you hear his whistle echo up through the streets, nearly lost in the sound of some argument in the alley below you. You catch a brief view of his coat and smile when you see that he’s got some half-dead plant tucked under an arm. There’s the briefest glimpse of what looks like a Ca scrawled onto it, and your heart jumps in your throat.

You make your way to the stove, turning the heat up slightly too high so that it’ll be ready when he comes in. The arguing outside gets louder but you pay it no mind, pulling the honey out and setting it next to his favorite mug. You’re reaching for the tea when you hear something else. It definitely sounds like Namjoon’s voice, but it’s not in the hall or at the door like usual. It’s raised, like he’s yelling at someone, like it was just a while ago when he was fighting with you. A crash startles you and before you can even reach the window to see what’s going on, there’s a deafening bang.

You slam your fist against the window, watch the red mix with dirt, and the kettle isn't that only thing that screams.

“I think that’s the last of it,” Jeongguk says. His voice is scratchy and quiet, but it’s deafening in the silence of the apartment.

“Yeah,” Hoseok replies. His eyes are rimmed with red and his hands shake as he slides the last mug into a box. “Thanks for the help, Guk. I don’t, um.” He sniffles. “I don’t think I could’ve done it myself, y’know?”

“I know,” Jeongguk agrees. They’re quiet again, adjusting the things they’ve boxed and avoiding finishing what they’re doing.

“Oh, can you get that?” You don’t have to look to know what Hoseok is talking about. Jeongguk grunts an affirmation and makes his way over. It’s a strange feeling, having someone pass through you again for the first time since. His hands fly into the air as he tries to lift, clearly not having expected it to weigh anything.

His reflection in the window frowns, and he tries again, tugging on the pot.

“I can’t get it,” He says. “Do you think he glued these things down or something?”

“No,” Hoseok replies as he wanders over as well. “He used to pick them up to re-pot them, remember? And the others came up with no problem.”

“Well it’s stuck or something, you try.”

Hobi takes Jeongguk’s place and pulls hard at the plot, but your grip doesn’t waver. He huffs and disappears. When he returns, he’s got a butter knife in one hand that he does his best to slip under the pot. He tries hard to pry it up, so hard that you almost want to give in. You don’t though.

The knife clatters to the floor with as much force as Hoseok can put behind it, a curse following quickly behind it.

“Fuck it,” Hoseok says. His voice is shaky and you know he’s near tears again. “Just fuck it.”

“But that was-”

“You can try if you want, Guk, but I just-” He chokes back a sob, shaking his head and moving to pick up the boxes he’d set down. “I just can’t, okay?” He disappears out the door in a hurry, and you wish you could follow after him.

Jeongguk looks down at the small plant, with its painted periwinkle pot and soft leaves. He runs a quivering finger over the leaf and sniffles. He doesn’t try to lift it again, just stands and lets his tear soak into the soil.

“I wish you could come back to us,” He whispers. “We thought...we expected more time. It’s not...it’s not really fair, y’know? So if you can hear me, if you can come back to us, please do. Please.”

He turns and leaves, the apartment door slamming behind him like the lid of a casket. Your grip on Mang loosens now that you know no one’s going to try to take it. You’d watched them pack everything else up; you’d let them take the steamer trunk full of records, the shelf full of books and movies, the collection of mugs, the soft blankets, the ratty couch, the rest of the plants he’d cared for so tenderly.

Piece by piece they had packed Namjoon up and walked him out of the apartment, but this was the one piece they couldn’t have. This was his favorite and none of them knew how to care for it like you did, and you had to. You owed it to him. He deserved to come back to at least one familiar thing, never mind that you woke up not even a day later and it’s now been weeks. If there was one thing you wanted him to see when he got back, it was his favorite of his plants.

The sun glares into your eyes from where it shines down on the city. It reflects off something in the window from across the alley, would be blinding if you actually had eyes. You pay it no mind, focused instead on the remains of the broken brown pot down in the alley, the way you’ve pieced them together in your head a thousand times just to trace the word Casper with your eyes. You can almost hear his voice saying it, even now.

You whip around, eyes darting through the empty space of the apartment as your hands tighten around Mang.

All that rests there is empty space, mocking in its loneliness. You remember when he moved in, remember how it felt to test the boundaries of the apartment and wish you were free. The want is still there, to leave and never think of it again, never think of him. You know better, though. You could never escape the memory of him, the way he laughed and smiled and spoke. You could never abandon Mang. Not when he said he’d always come back to you.

You turn back to the window, cursing the sunlight with every other breath. It fades, slowly, into the black of night, before returning again, and again, and again. Days pass, each one feeling like years. Hoseok doesn’t appear to show the apartment, no one comes to collect the small periwinkle pot between your palms, and the ghost of his laugh echoes around you.

The sun blinds you again. You don’t even know how long it’s been, just that you’ve yet to move. Light glints off whatever hangs in the window across the alley. That's when you see it, a vague reflection in the weathered glass of a dimple and a grin, and warmth surrounds you.

“I told you I’d always come back, Casper.”

1K notes · View notes

purplesurveys · 3 years

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1191

survey by voicedance16

name yourself: Robyn

name (one of) your best friend(s): Angela; she’s for keeps.

name 3 things in your fridge/freezer: I don’t think I opened the fridge at all today, but if I had to guess...eggs, bread, and our pad thai leftovers from dinner earlier.

name a color you're wearing currently: Green.

name the last thing you ate: I treated myself and ordered spicy tuna salad tonight because I had a shit shift. It’s been a while since I felt a little burned out with my job, but it happened today and it wasn’t very pleasant.

name the last store you went to: I never go out these days...does online shopping count? I’m always browsing through Shopee, if anything lol.

name the song you're listening to: ON - BTS.

name the artist of that song: BTS.

name your favorite animal: Dogs or elephants.

name what pets you have, if any: Two dogs. Kimi, Cooper.

name the town/state you live in: No thanks. I live near Manila though, which is probably the only city most people know from the Philippines anyway so that should suffice.

name something commonly ordered at Starbucks: I think my usual is a pretty common order – caramel macchiato.

name the last person you talked to in person: Not sure. I think it may have been Nina? I was just jokingly asking her if her bias recognized her again on a VLive, since her comments have been read by her favorite group recently, and she tells me they even laugh at them :( Perks of liking a smaller, more underground group for sure; pigs would have to fall from the sky before anyone from BTS notices me lol.

name the last person you talked to on the phone: My mom. I didn’t hear her calling for dinner last night, so she ended up having to call me from downstairs while I was hanging out at the rooftop.

name the current day of the week: Tuesday.

name the current month: May.

name the current time: 10:22 PM.

name the last movie you watched: I have not watched an entire movie since i’m thinking of ending things back in September. I did watch a snippet from Portrait of a Lady on Fire a few weeks ago, though. That’s the closest thing I’ve got to watching any film recently.

name the last book you read: This one I’m even more uncertain about.

name a place you've been on vacation: South Korea.

name a place you'd like to go on vacation: Malta or Turkey.

name 3 things you can see from where you're sitting: It’s pretty dark so I technically can’t ‘see’ anything, but based on what I know I brought up to the rooftop tonight I have my phone, my salad, and my vape pen.

name your favorite musical: Miss Saigon, if anything. I’m not a big fan of musicals.

name an animal (any): Turtle was the first that came to mind.

name a fruit: Mangoes.

name a vegetable: Lettuce.

name a common breakfast food: Pancakes. They’d sound so good rn, too.

name a color: Grey.

name a type of flower: Dandelions.

name a type of tree: Uh...mango again? HAHA I’m not very good with trees.

name a city: New York.

name a state: Indiana.

name a country: India.

name a continent: Asia.

name a planet: Jupiter.

name a girl's name: Jessica.

name the last person to comment you on Facebook: Angela. She tagged me on this post that was promoting a local shop that makes customized face pillows and she told me we should order a Taehyung one for me and a Seokjin one for her, hahaha. The concept is definitely cute but it wasn’t my style, so I showed her another shop that also makes face pillows, but prettier.

name a clothing store/brand: Thom Browne.

name the last book you got at the library: If I remember correctly, it was History of the Filipino People which, coincidentally, my great-uncle wrote.

name a restaurant: Yabu but eugh, haven’t eaten there since the breakup. I should order from them soon to commemmorate moving on heheh.

name a grocery store: Can I just name a local one? SM.

name an iPhone app: YouTube.

name an actor: Eddie Redmayne.

name an actress: Emma Stone.

name a music group: BTS.

name your favorite/lucky number: It used to be 4, but I’m now going with 7.

name something you've accomplished: Continued from...last night, I think? I have no concept of time anymore. I managed to survive this week so far considering how deadly my schedule was.

name something you'd like to accomplish: Get a promotion once I’ve proven myself capable.

name someone who makes you laugh: Hans can make anything funny.

name something exciting coming up soon: Some of my online shopping orders arriving I’m guessing by later today, yayyyy.

name a song that makes you emotional: Oh man, there are a lot. O by Coldplay is probably the one that hits the worst, though; I still can’t listen to that song completely to this day. Recently, I also can’t really avoid being sad whenever I listen to Butterfly by BTS.

name one of your pet peeves: Overly slow drivers.

name someone you know who is an amazing singer: Hannah.

name someone who is the same religion as you: JM.

name a holiday you celebrate: Christmas.

name the last 4 digits of your phone number: That’s too many, lmao.

name one of your cousins: My cousin Lei from my dad’s side.

name a book you loved when you were younger: The entire Septimus Heap series. I must’ve reread Magyk (the first book) a hundred times.

name a song you loved when you were younger: Let’s go withhhhh Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne. Making sure there were no adults around whenever I sang along to “I’m a motherfucking princess” as an 8 year old was always a thrill.

name your favorite movie: Two for the Road.

name a popular book series: Percy Jackson.

name a musical instrument: Saxophone.

name a language: French.

name what other tabs you have open: Archive of our Own, Dailymotion, Bzoink.

name 3 things on the walls of the room you're in: The walls of the rooftop are bare.

name your house number 4.

name your high school: Nope.

name your college, if applicable: UP.

name your middle school See high school.

name your elementary school: See high school.

name the college you wish you went to/hope to go to: I was able to qualify for the university and degree I wanted to attend.

name your favorite teacher: My music teacher in high school.

name the color of your backpack: Hm, don’t really use backpacks anymore but the main one I had in college - at least until I switched to a simple handbag (aka my senior year when I started to not care lol) - was a pink Herschel backpack.

name a dessert: Leche flan.

name a famous landmark: Statue of Liberty, only because of the question after this.

name a place you might go in NYC: Tiffany’s.

name an inventor: Nikola Tesla.

name an article of clothing: Jeans.

name an ice cream flavor: Pistachio.

name a religion: Islam.

name an emotion: Resentment.

name a room in your house: Mine.

name a website: Twitter.

name a car: Hyundai Palisade.

name something you need to do today: It’s a holiday today so I technically should be off work, but since it’s a holiday squished in the middle of the week that’s just another way of saying my dayoff will be a scam lmao. That said, I need to draft an article today for a client.

name someone you admire: My dad.

name someone you miss: My two best friends.

name a part of the body: Thighs.

name the last youtube video you watched: It was a Taehyung-focused compilation.

name a quote you love: “If you really love to be loved, it’d be good to show those who love you how much you’ve changed.” There’s some background context obviously playing around in here and most people might not recognize the weight it holds if they’re unfamiliar, but it’s a quote that really means a lot to me and came to me during a time I needed to hear it.

#survey #surveys

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shouta-aizawow · 4 years

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2) What if.... Crossover with PJO? Like: Bakugou being a child of Athena or a child of Hephaestus or Ares or even Apollo or Nike. There are other demigods like Mic (Apollo's kid) and kids on other clases (gen ed maybe). Usually the demigods don't become heroes, it's too much doing quest and also being a hero, they want a pice of normality, but Kat is different and want to protect and save and win. The monsters are more difficult to fight but it's ok. Points extra if the class finds out. 😉😉

Okay, so I only read the first book of the PJO series (idk why i didn’t read the rest) YEARS ago, so I barely know anything about it. Only the very basics.

That’s why it took me so long to answer this!! I had to look some stuff up after I finished my morning classes!!!

Anyway, this would obviously take place after the original series ends for plot convience and more artistic liberties.

SO!!!

After much consideration, I say that Bakugou is the son of Zelus. (have I ever heard of this god before? no.)

He’s the god of many things, but what fits Bakugou is the Dedication, Emulation (though not imitation), Eager rivalry, and Zeal.

I was tempted to make him the son of the goddess of victory, Nike, but I feel like this would fit more. This way, he has a rival (“you’re the child of Nike, but i’m the one that’s gonna win”).

Also, in this AU, All Might would be Heracles.

Of course, people wouldn’t know that.

They’d think that he just has a quirk, but no, he’s Heracles. Maybe, still got the quirk from the previous OFA user, so he still passes that off to Deku, but he’s still extremely strong and whatnot.

I think that during the battle at Kamino, he still shrinks, but he’s still the strongest man. He was still injured, so he still coughs blood (does that happen with gods? idk but it does now).

So Bakugou still feels guilty and whatnot.

———

Every summer, Bakugou went to Camp Halfblood. Obviously, no one except his parents knew that.

(his canon parents. He looks like Mitsuki because she’s mortal and had a child with Zelus. Masaru is basically Katsuki’s stepdad)

At the camp, Katsuki met Shinsou, son of Aizawa, who’s the god of sleep. (greek name is Hypnos)

So when they find out that they’re both attending U. A., the only hero school that knows about gods and goddesses and whatnot and trains them, of course both of them are excited.

At the camp, they bond, and even when they have to go back to school, they find themselves meeting on the weekends and whenever both of them are free.

(There’s really no plot I have in mind, just characters and relationships)

So they get into UA, and here, Shinsou got accepted into Class 1-A of the hero course.

————

Things stay relatively the same plot wise, except more of the classmates are children of gods:

Momo and Jirou, daughters of Apollo (sisters in this AU)

(or if you don’t want them to be sisters, Momo could be the daughter of Athena and Jirou is the daughter of Euterpe, the muse of music)

Deku, son of Hephaestus (he was weak, but his father didn’t just have a fire breathing quirk, he was the god of fire, and this is why after only 10 months, he was able to wield the strongest quirk(s), OFA)

THAT COULD BE THE REASON WHY BAKUGOU HATES THE NOTEBOOKS. BECAUSE IT REVEALS ALL OF THEIR SECRETS.

OR DEKU COULD JUST BE A REGULAR HUMAN AND THE REASON WHY BAKUGOU PUSHES HIM AWAY IS BECAUSE DEKU IS THE CLOSEST THAT ANYONE HAS COME TO FINDING OUT HIS SECRETS!!!

Kouda, son of Gaia, “Mother Earth” and sister to Rhea, goddess of nature (the reason he’s so quiet is not only because he prefers nature to people, but because he’s a terrible secret keeper, and he doesn’t want to accidentally reveal anything)

Not in UA:

Ms. Joke could be Thalia, one of the Muses. the muse of comedy!!!

Inasa is obviously the son of the god of wind, Aeolus.

AFO could be Ares, god of war. ig

I DO NOT KNOW IF ANY OF THESE ARE ACCURATE. IM JUST LOOKING AT THIS LIST OF GOD(DESSES) ONLINE LMAO!!!

(and the formatting is probably really weird but i wanted to provide a hint of organization!!!)

————

So anyway, there are a few demigods and gods that either teach or are students.

They all somehow gravitate towards each other, and kinda bond over this.

Really all I can think about is them trying to balance living normal lives with normal humans and trying to deal with the monsters that are constantly being sent after them because they’re always managing to piss off the other gods and goddesses.

Like,, for some reason, Aizawa and a lot of the students that never miss a day are gone. The rest of the people there are panicking when none of them answer any calls or texts.

After about a day, everyone is ready to wreak chaos in search of their peers when they hear what sound like people collapse outside.

They run out only to find their classmates and their teachers in a heap on the ground, covered in dirt and superficial injuries and passed out.

They’re all confused/worried and just try to get them all inside.

Deku either wakes up and pulls out a notebook (demigod ver) or gets suspicious and pulls out a notebook (human ver), and Bakugou immediately gets up, destroys it (whether with his quirk or he just eats it) and passes out again.

Ofc everyone else is Even More Confused and Worried, but they just take care of everyone’s injuries and cleans them up as much as they can.

When the students and Aizawa wake up, they’re bombarded with questions, and everyone has a different excuse or just doesn’t answer.

After the 5th time this has happened, anyone that has the displeasure of having to take care of the exhausted pile of a god and some demigods just stops asking questions. (yes, they have woken up in stranger places and situations).

THIS IS REALLY LONG BUT NOT A LOT OF PLOT LIKE MY OTHER ONES!!! I JUST DIDNT KNOW MUCH ABOUT THIS, SO I HAD TO TRY MY BEST AND MOSTLY ENDED UP EXPLAINING WHO WOULD BE THE GOD OF/CHILD OF WHAT/WHO!! ITS NOT TOO BAKUGOU CENTERED BUT I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE LITTLE BIT OF ACTUAL WRITING AT THE END!!! IM SO SORRY!!!

THANK YOU THOUGH!! I DONT KNOW MUCH ABOUT MYTHOLOGY, BUT IT HAS NEVER BEEN BORING WHEN I HAD TO LOOK STUFF UP FOR IT!!! 💖💕💓💞💗💝

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ljungfrun · 5 years

Note

Are your anti Inoue :D??

Personally I’ve never understood that anti stuff and I’m not sure how far it goes, but let’s see if I can sum up my feelings about Orihime. Like I just assume you’re talking about her and not Sora lmao.

Atm I’m giving “second chances” to a lot of characters because it’s been so long since I watched the show and keep finding that characters that I used to consider irrelevant and boring I like more now. And looking back I’ve come to find that I probably would’ve viewed a lot of characters differently if I has just read the manga instead.

I think the majority of the reasons I used to find her obnoxious, uninspiring, and kinda useless was because of the writing of the show. I don’t think she’ll ever be one of my favourite characters but I do want to reconsider her potential as a character. She’s a kind and caring girl with a crush, can’t really hate anyone for that. She’s got some pretty neat powers, I just wish she was allowed to fight more. I wish she was more independent too, and I wish I didn’t still hear the “Kurosaki-kun!” echoing in the back of my head whenever I thought about her, because that’s pretty much all I remember and I really wish she got to be more than that.

With that said, I don’t have much more of an opinion of her beyond that but I’m definitely gonna take some artistic liberties once I write out my pirate AU.TLDR: I don’t know, but I think Orihime as a character could’ve been much better if she wasn’t fucked by the writing. That and it was such a long time ago I watched it so I don’t remember everything lmao.

#asks #anon #orihime #orihime inoue #you think this is long but i swear it's the short version #i'm kinda dead sure someone's explained this better already but i hope i got the point across #i have a pretty bad headache atm but i did my best #if anyone has more questions i can elaborate a bit

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jaylos · 7 years

Text

i hated descendants 2 and here's why

a collection of reasons why i am utterly disappointed in this sequel.

warnings: there will be swearing and negative commentary about these ships: Mal/Ben, Evie/Doug, Carlos/Jane. (so basically all the canon pairings lmao)

buckle up this is gonna be long and salty. (also spoilers, duh) (and i take artistic liberty in the capitalization of words and i like to be dramatic)

also check out other rant posts i made bc they kinda tie in with all of this (reading not required in order to understand it tho): magic ban Rise of the Isle of the Lost my thoughts during my first time watching it Bal

1. Characters

Ok i need to go back to d1 for a second: they already did a bad job on introducing the characters to us there. For exapmle: Carlos and technology. He does that thing where he locates the museum or when he turns off the alarm, but without the first book (the isle of the lost) the fact that he is supposedly a tech genius would've flown over everyone's heads. And this is the problem: the movie(s) rely on spin-off media (the books, wicked world) to explain the characters to us. A movie shouldn't have to do that in the first place, but what makes it worse is that the books and the webseries are inconsistent like no tomorrow and also contradict each other on several occasions. Now that wouldn't be so bad if the movies were enough to solidify the characters, but they're not. They also try to patch up plot holes in the books so they don't have to deal with it in the movies. But someone who hasn't read them might wonder how the pirate crew got their ship, and they're offered no explanation in the movie whatsoever. (i'm pretty sure this could've been avoided with a few tweaks to the script tho??)

What I think happened here is that they simply had too many characters and so basically all of them fell flat because they didn't have time to explore them properly. And what did they do in d2? they dragged that problem with them, introduced more characters who's arcs they could half-ass and got rid of what little personality the original characters had.

We don't actually know shit about them. What are their hobbies? What are their interpersonal dynamics like? What are their struggles in Auradon after a life of abuse and neglect? (i'm convinced that that last one can absolutely be dealt with in a child-friendly manner, but instead they brushed it off almost completely. I say almost because we got a few tidbits here and there but those were about as deep as a puddle on a sidewalk)

1.a. Jay

Why is he depicted as a main character when he has less lines & relevance to the plot than Jane? Even the gotdam dog had some purpose. wouldn't change a thing if Jay wasn't there at all.

l i s ten i love Jay for the character that i made him out to be in my head and through some of the things the fandom has contributed but in canon he is redundant as all fuck.

Also i'm not gonna go into the outfits in this rant bc that's too subjective and is not what contributed to d2 being a bad movie but let's just say i found most of his looks kind of.. off-putting. why they didn't take advantage of Booboo Stewart's beauty is a mystery to me. Especially since his looks are supposed to be Jay's strong suit.

2.b. Chad

He was a completely different character. Not only did his personality shift from deceitful to moronic but his morals changed?? like in d1 he didn't actually play by the rules - he let other people do his homework, and he didn't tell on Evie because he found her cheating wrong but because he wanted payback.

And in d2 he suddenly cares about rules word for word because the writers and the (young) audience already hate him so he can be sexist too i guess. Instead of making him a meaningful threedimensional character that offers a different perspective as the child of a disney hero he was turned into the comic relief and the overdone trope of the jock that lost his status and is now laughed at. Groundbreaking. you hate him i get it i g e t i t. (also stay tuned for the sexism part i'm not done with that)

1.c. Carlos

to get super subjective again: i absolutely hate the direction they went in with his character. why not make him even more nerdy now that he has the freedom to do so? the only thing that referenced his tech stuff was that he supposedly improved their 3D printer. wow. his new hairstyle, the golden headphones etc. were things that don't fit into the impression i got from the first movie and/or the books at all. they didn't even show him tinkering with some device or whatever? how tf am i supposed to believe that he's a techie???

Also in Rise of the Isle of the Lost he is anti-magic for some goshdang reason, but in d2 he asks Mal to help him with magic, which is one of those inconsistencies i was talking about.

1.d. Evie

here's what i would have done with her instead: make 4 Hearts less relevant (do show her sewing and talking about commissions) and let her care for the remaining isle kids from the very beginning. her introduction in d2 could've been her talking about wanting to bring them over, but having difficutly to make it happen (maybe the royal council pushes back or whatever).

instead she spends 6(?) months doing jackshit about the isle kids and only remembers it like halfway through the movie.

1.e. Ben

he just pisses me off. not only is he dismissive and ignorant of Mal's struggles and blames her for when she fails to be perfect, but he is also incompetent as a king, at least when it comes to the Isle. Why the fuck did it take him so long to bring more isle kids over? and why does he need to hear it from Evie first? it was his idea in the first place but then he completely forgets about it for some reason even though he is literally dating a vk. "i guess i've just been busy" with what? being a fuckboy? (also sidenote: there it is again with the "tell don't show" that i've already talked about in the rant about Rise linked above. it's one of the biggest problems i have with the storytelling across all installations in this franchise. Ben is not shown being busy one single time. We're just supposed to believe it because they said so.)

(another sidenote: why the fuck does he have those beast traits, by which i mean all that redundant roaring like i get they want to reference beauty and the beast but do the writers realize that his father was cursed he does not actually have those furry genes)

1.f. Jane

? per s onalit y ?¿?? literally who is she

There's not much to say about the others (some i will cover later when i talk about relationships). Do you know that thing when a character's potential is wasted? In descendants this happens with every last one of them. They're like those cakes that are just for show: they look amazing and tasty but when you take a bite it's cardboard.

2. Plot

pretty basic for the most part, but i personally found the suspense curve really weird. it has two climaxes (? what is plural): 1. the sword fight and 2. at the cotillion. Also i hated that it took place over the course of like 2 days, but that might just be my personal taste. There are some plot holes of varying degrees of annoying. For one, Maleficent probably starved to death in that box because Mal and the writers forgot about her. And her moped is gone, it left, like i should have as well, good-fucking-bye.

Then there's the fact that Mal didn't go back with them because she learned some kind of lesson or grew as a peson or whatever but because she didn't have a choice and they never talked about her initial struggles except "my hair and dress are purple again so it's fine". i mean yeah she said her piece about not fitting in or whatever but we don't actually see it working out after all that trouble?How did the dynamic in their relationship change? who knows.

Then there's the fact that Uma is somewhere in the ocean, she's a giant monster and 100% capable of using magic but no one gives a shit??? at this point i'm willing to bet that in the next isle book it will be explained what happened to her so it doesn't have to be dealt with in descendants 3 and i will scream.

By the way i didn't understand what it was that Ben said that convinced her to retreat, his speech was so lame.

Also the octopus/dragon "fight" was ridiculous. they didn't do shit? Uma was just wiggling around and Mal was floating, which looked stupid because she made flying/gliding motions but stayed in the same spot.

And one thing that really annoyed me is how they only made 5 smoke bombs and then also needed exactly 5. b better prepared u idiots. that whole thing was so weird anyway bc the point was to avoid a fight but it didn't work. maybe it would've worked if they had made more than 5 who knows. and the plan to make them in the first place came completely out of the blue. (-plan? -smoke bombs -k)

Also why did Uma expect the wand to work under the barrier? The only explanation I can think of is that it's because the wand was what created the barrier (although the whole thing about the Isle is that magic Does Not Work and we should have been given an explanation as to why the wand is an exception) but 1. How would Uma know that and 2. If it had been the real wand they could've used it to knock the pirates out or whatever and Uma should've expected that. This whole trade-off thing was sketchy and holey as fuck.

You know what was one of the best things about d1? The parents. I mean this was probably a budget issue but the parents were arguably one of, if not the, most entertaining aspects. and boy could it have been interesting to see the confontation between them and their kids...

The isle was really weird and underwhelming btw. i saw people say it was great bc we got to see more of the isle but did we really? it was just a bunch of disjointed locations and we still have no idea how anything is located in relation to one another, how big it is, or how and how many people actually live there. And why did no one there give a shit that the rotten four were back? most of all Mal, whom the people hated the most for betraying them and becoming a princess. Also why did Mal not go back to her old home instead of this building that was a.. warehouse? their gang hangout?? that came out of nowhere??? correct me if i'm wrong but do they say something along the lines of "we used to hang out here" even once? why was there a bed in there

And hey remember tourney? It's not even like roar was necessary so that they'd have swords? Also it could have been mentioned like "now that tourney season's over we're focusing on roar" but no?? Let's just forget about it like the writers did.

3. Music

not really much to say, except that they used way too much autotune but i guess overall it's an improvement compared to the first movie but it's whatever. the only thing that confused me about what's my name was that in the movie (as opposed to the music video on youtube etc) there was this weird echo that made it sound like it was playing in another tab with a slight lag??

and another thing that stuck out to me was it's going down: the rap parts were already hella uncomfortable to watch but when ben started singing i just about died of secondhand embarrassment it's so bad lmao.

4. The Thing With Lonnie

Don't get me wrong, i love that she got a bigger part and that she's a good swordfighter and whatnot.

BUT:

First of all, why is it even a thing that the roar rule book has gendered language like that? i mean aren't there countless women in auradon who have proven over and over again that they're just as capable as man? why does Lonnie need to prove anything. especially since her mother is mulan of all people???

listen, the exploitation of gendered language has brought forth some great moments (eg: lotr "i am no man") but it's getting old. Girls and women have proven countless times that they can do "anything a boy can". how many times more does it have to happen until we can take the next step?

And it wasn't even handled well in d2. Sure, Lonnie's captain now, but do we really have to wait until d3 (or god forbid the next book in the isle series where the movie can lean back and let the book do all the storytelling work) for something to actually change in a system that is still misogynistic for whatever goddamn reason??

for this sideplot not to fail miserably like it did, what should have happened is that Lonnie changes the rules so that anyone can join the team, because as we were left it was still "captain and 8 men". we did not see the actual change happening and this was a half-assed attempt at this tired old "girl power" shit.

in this kind of storyline we only ever see the first step, we never see the actual progress that follows. it's always just "huh, i guess girls aren't useless after all" it's 2017 get with the program and move the fuck on.

OR just drop this overdone trope and have a team consisting of different genders from the very beginning.

It's time to tell girls that they don't need to prove themselves in order to be respected.

5. Relationships jesus christ here we go

okay okay there is a number of things that get my blood b o i l i n g and one of them is lazy fictional heterosexual romances and boy oh boy is this movie a fucking gold mine in that regard.

5.a. let's take a look at janelos first (don't worry i will talk shit about bal and devie individually as well): it's boring, shallow, if it was a spice it would be flour. look, if you ship it, by all means be my fucking guest. i even encourage you to write fanfiction or do something to make something out of this bland ass mess of a supposed romantic relationship.

it's a perfect example of what is wrong with this kind of fictional romance. first of all i will disregard the books bc 1. the movies shouldn't need the books for that, yadda yadda and 2. they don't do much to save it anyway. so. it's the easy route, the tried and true formular, and that's the problem. he was a boy, she was a girl, and that's enough to make their interest in each other believable, right? the answer is no. it's lazily written and i am tired™. why, how, when did they fall in love? are they even friends? what do they have in common? what activities do they enjoy together? those are all things we don't know, this relationship comes out of nowhere. how did they go from not even so much as look at each other in the first movie to being head over heels for each other? and not to mention, was it worth sacrificing their personalities for? you guessed it the answer is no yet again. Neither Carlos nor Jane receive any character development whatsoever. None. They could have done so much with them (if you hear a strange sound it's me weeping).

And it is replaceable. Change their names and it won't make the slightest bit of difference, because this relationship does not have one single distinguishable trait (in fact it has no traits period) compared to the 87632947 others out there. it is so. generic. and frankly i don't understand how people can settle for it. i mean i get how people can just watch the movie and not care bc why would they, but how does someone look at this and go "yes, this is a well-written romance" ????? ? ? up your standards people.

and now some predictions that came (somewhat) true from that Heterosexual Romantic Subplot Bullshit Bingo i wanted to make for d2 but never finished:

- by the end their relationship won’t have developed like at all, but they dance together to show us that they’ve come sUcH a LoNg waY

- one wants to ask the other out/they both want to ask each other out, but they’re too shy and also the plot keeps interrupting them.

- it will take away screentime they could have used to give them actual character development.

- jane won't receive an arc besides being and obligatory love interest.

- carlos tries talking to her but he stammers and it’s supposed to be cute.

5.b. Devie

Like i get that Doug is jealous bc of his own insecurities but what is hip with the kids in the year of our lord 2k17 is mutual trust and communication. To think that Evie would cheat on him is such an insult tbh?? And why did Evie not tell him where she was going in the first place? i mean granted i could think of a few reasons why she wouldn't but we don't even see her give a shit bc Doug is irrelevant in her quest to go and sing a duet with the person she'd rather be dating. She probably just forgot about Doug like I, the viewer, did the second he left the screen.

Also it's just the same bs again. We don't know shit about their relationship. What is it like? What do they enjoy doing together? What is their dynamic? Doug could literally be a pair of Pradas and it wouldn't make a difference.

But for real tho can we go back on how he accuses her of cheating?? like wow dude that's so gross pls don't present that to young viewers as cute because i assure you it is not.

5.c. Bal (h e r e w e g o)

Ben is such a bad boyfriend omg. I mean i get that he couldn't possibly understand what Mal is going through, but he isn't even trying. She changes everything about herself and he doesn't get suspicious in the least. And apparently they don't talk about anything that matters because 1. Mal can't be honest with him (she dragged all that shit around with her for ~6 months!!!) and 2. he would know more about the isle (but he has no clue).

out of all the relationships in this movie this is the one they should've put some effort into. i mean they succeeded in making Ben look like a dick but that wasn't their intention so i just ended up feeling sorry for Mal for being stuck with him bc it's ~true love~ .

Mal to Ben: "you've always known who we were" he didn't tho?? just bc he gave her a purple dress in that stained glass picture? he could've just told her that instead of letting her suffer for months bc she thought he'd leave her if she was more like herself. and that's the resolution, Mal shouldn't have been worried oh how silly of her! i guess everything is fine after all!

but you know actually their love for each other is totally believable bc they had an emotional and heart-wrenching duet together - oh wait.

A big reason why Sofia Carson and Dove Cameron got a duet is probably because they're professional singers and Mitchell Hope apparently can't get out a single correct note without 10 layers of autotune but when the story is about true love saving the day shouldn't that aspect get a little more attention? i mean don't get me wrong i like that the duet between mal and evie is there at all (but hey @disney make it gay you cowards) bc the friendships between the characters and especially the vk's don't get nearly as much attention as they should.

not to go on a tangent about how hand-holding and forehead-touching can totally be platonic but put next to Ben and Mal who Do Not Do That it makes their romantic relationship even less exciting. like, i don't know why i should care about it.

also while typing this i realized that it's not really that different from other movies and i thought hey, maybe i'm being too hard on it, but then i remembered that 99% of all canon heterosexual romantic relationships are bland and boring and i need writers to try harder (or try at all) because i am bored to death by the same shit over and over again.

i know i'm wasting way too much energy on this but i was already too invested in descendants so might as well go all the way amirite. i just had to get it all off my chest. if you need me to elaborate on anything feel free to message me.

and the first movie wasn't all that good btw, it is trashy in a way that was enjoyable, but the second one is just trash.

so yeah all in all that script was just straight up a pile of garbage consisting of washed-out tropes and no amount of bright colors or catchy songs can save it.

#disney descendants #descendants 2 #descendants 2 spoilers

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atsumus · 7 years

Text

I was tagged by @kakkoweeb, thank you so much! ^-^

Rules: Answer the 11 questions, then come up with 11 new questions of your own I’m too lazy, so just use the same ones again lmao and tag 11 people to answer them.

1. put your music on shuffle and give me your favourite lyrics from the first five songs.

New Romantics by Taylor Swift: “The rumors are terrible and cruel but, honey, most of them are true. 'Cause, baby, I could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me.”

Pearl by Katy Perry: “She could be a statue of liberty. She could be a Joan of Arc. But he's scared of the light that's inside of her, so he keeps her in the dark.”

Letting Go by Gabrielle Aplin: “The higher you hope, the higher you go, the further you fall, breaking your bones. It's time to let go. The higher you try to follow the light, the brighter it shines, burning your eyes. It's time to let go.”

On Top of the World by Imagine Dragons: “ And I know it’s hard when you’re falling down, and it’s a long way up when you hit the ground. Get up now, get up, get up now.“

Fearless by Taylor Swift: “There's somethin' 'bout the way the street looks when it's just rained. There's a glow off the pavement.”

2. how do you feel about kids? Hmm.. I’m not too fond of kids and not sure if I ever want some myself, and I hate it when they do nothing but scream for no reason, but I like spending time with my best friend and her baby and I absolutely don’t mind taking care of my little cousins for a while now and then. It’s interesting to see them grow up, and they can be cute too after all..

3. if you could be one fictional character for a day, who would it be and why? Oh my god, that’s such a hard question ashdksglgf.. I think I’d want to be Yaoyorozu Momo (from BnHA) for a day because her quirk is just hella cool and I wanna make lots of cool things with it and all lol

4. if you could have dinner with any celebrity, alive or dead, who would it be? Oh gosh.. I guess I’d choose Taylor Swift or someone from One Direction lmao. I don’t really care about celebs, so I don’t know stuff about any of them aside from those and they seem to be cool people :D

5. at a glance, who is your most popular artist in your music collection (i.e. whose songs do you have the most of)? I have the most songs in my library from Die Ärzte (a German band), but I doubt they’re the most popular. I also have lots from Eminem, Arctic Monkeys, Coldplay, The Wombats, Taylor Swift, One Direction..

6. what would be your last meal? Sushi (spicy tuna, salmon, cooked tuna with mayo) and chocolate (needs to be Kinder chocolate!) I guess...

7. favourite toy as a kid? Dinosaurs! I had so many! I actually still have them somewhere in the basement I think..

8. what song fits your favourite character the best? WHAT DO YOU MEAN FAVOURITE CHARACTER?? I HAVE MORE THAN ONE! But hmm, if I go with Kageyama, I’d say “Neptune” by Sleeping At Last. (And for Oikawa, how about “Sassy Girl” by Kat Graham lmao jk please don’t kill me.

9. ramble about something current affairs related. You know, there was the G20 summit in Hamburg, and whoooo boy, the black bloc was active again (fucking morons). I get it, you wanna protest and hate capitalism and all that’s cool.. BUT DON’T GO AROUND HURTING PEOPLE AND THEIR PROPERTY?!?!?! I’m completely against all violent protests, and honestly, setting people’s cars on fire is just super shitty. And they didn’t just target the super rich people, but the ones who probably put money aside to afford a car for a long, long time. This is not how you stop capitalism.. that is just... horrible... you... fucking... idiots...

10. what fandom discourse makes you angry? EVERYTHING. Well, first of all, all the bullshit that goes down in the Voltron fandom.. I’m staying fucking 10000000km away from these people, it’s horrible. How about you learn to be tolerant towards people who like different things than you.. huh? HUH???!? And the same just goes for all fandoms actually... And of course, the hate some (of my favourite) Haikyuu!! ships are getting is making me super angry too, but I’m pretty used to it by now unfortunately. I just hate most people on the internet... or most people in general... *sighs*

11. what’s your opinion on smut? Nice to read I guess? Depends on what and if it’s well written and all.. but it is a little frustrating that fics with actual plot get less clicks and kudos and comments than a short smut one shot of a popular pairing... :/

Aaaand I’m tagging some people: @kyzurya @jiyong @holesaresentient @daddies-cum-whore @ukimya @akaashi-tooru @kagamine-sphere @blueberrytobio @seamarmot @josai @rykrae Just do it if you want to :)

#tag meme #thanks for tagging <3 #elea talks

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hyeonwoo · 7 years

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if it's not too much to ask of you, could you do an analysis of kihyun personality-wise? i'm personally really fond of him after seeing many sides to his personality, but i feel like they're quite hard to pin down at times, and i was just curious about another person's perspective of him ^^

( note: i’m so sorry this has taken me so long. i had a lot going on life-wise, and on top of that, i really wanted to make sure this was as accurate and detailed as i could make it, bc kihyun is the idol i probably relate to the most, and i think we’re quite similar. i bet i’ll still feel like i want to add to this even after i post, orz. thank you for your patience! )

i usually start analyses with an overarching theme, but for kihyun, it’s a little more difficult, since he is complex, and yet so straightforward... if i had to summarise him, i’d say he’s aware. immediately, i have to clarify: this doesn’t exactly mean he goes out of his way to be caring or to exert his influence in some way, i mean he analyses things quite quickly--sizes them up, if you will, but not in a manipulative way, just for his own sake. this isn’t something that’s very apparent, but it is the foundation of the way he acts and carries himself, in my opinion. one big sign of this is the way he talks about himself, especially during no.mercy: he knows he’s good at singing and is embarrassed to be ranked low, but he doesn’t particularly show this off or trashtalk others, unless he is asked. he knows the facts, but holds his cards to his chest until he needs them in some way. furthermore, he’s logical and rational enough that this isn’t so much a question of self-confidence anymore; he knows his strengths and limitations, and he doesn’t see a need to make it seem otherwise.

to take a leaf out of my case study interview prep lmao, i’ll now segment this analysis into how he interacts with people, to better illustrate and delve deeper into his aforementioned traits!

firstly, with his members. obviously, this is the side of kihyun we see most often, from no.mercy until now. he’s known to be honest, funny, direct, and naggy, all of which stem from the fact that he’s comfortable with them. he’s lived with them and trained with them, so he knows them well, they’re all on friendly terms, and thus he can exercise less (or well, zero, sometimes) caution in the way he expresses himself, because he knows it won’t be taken the wrong way.

this manifests itself in his “savagery”, because kihyun prioritises things quickly: he doesn’t like wasting time, shown during his mc stints during which he’s always good at guiding the conversation back to the topic at hand, and doesn’t like expending unnecessary effort or energy on superfluous or trivial matters which don’t contribute to their current objective--in the domestic sense, this means he knows he doesn’t need to waste time beating around the bush to soften the blow when he can just be honest and give his real, albeit cutting, opinion. in his work and hobbies, he’s focussed and always delivers, he’s sharp and works hard, and he has strong opinions and preferences when it comes to something that’s his own (for example, his photography aesthetic).

with that in mind, he isn’t exactly calculating, nor lazy, at least, not actively. it’s more like, making the most of his life, getting the most accomplished, etc., in the most efficient way he can, but since this is part of his personality, he considers this automatically, so it all comes naturally. the fact that one can’t exactly see his thought process in an obvious or external way means he does get seen as “cunning” or working towards his own means, which, in a way, is true, but it’s not done in a malicious sense.

secondly, with his seniors. kihyun’s worked with soyou and giriboy during no.mercy, then again with starship labelmates through starship planet and such, and i think it’s important to give some background! in general, starship artists, especially soloists, are all rather direct and in some cases, blunt, and this is very evident if you’ve seen any interactions between them (see junggigo, hyorin, madclown, in particular). this, coupled with the fact that they’re senior to kihyun, means he can’t take the same liberties with them as he does with his members. as mentioned before, a good part of the intensity or carelessness of his behaviour hinges on his accurate assessment of a situation or person, thus allowing him to predict how they’ll respond to him.

in this case, he can’t really do that, so we see another side of kihyun. when addressed directly, he’s earnest and polite, and wants to make a good impression (this can be a tenuous link to his “most efficient way possible” outlook in that he wants to always do the best he can); when he’s just in the vicinity, like during their christmas vlive, he’s watching and listening and laughing in that cute awkward way he does when embarrassed or uncomfortable, usually in the secondhand sense. he really tones down his sense of humour and steps back to let the seniors talk, which is another good illustration of how conscious he is of his surroundings.

the last case is with his juniors. i’m not really counting seventeen in this since they have a friendly relationship, so i’m focussing on his interactions with cosmic girls: yteen promotions, singing the blue night of jeju island with yeunjung, and the christmas vlive which he co-mc-ed with yeunjung (i am a hardcore yeunjung stan lmao). once again, he doesn’t really know them well enough to joke around or be brutal, but he doesn’t need to really care about how they’ll react to him, since they’re juniors.

to be honest, he kind of ignores them most of the time, which i suppose factors into the “avoiding unnecessary things” standpoint. still, you can tell he’s quite mindful of them, watching where they’re going, keeping at a respectful distance, that kind of thing. the christmas vlive was particularly insightful to me, because he just laughed at yeunjung’s oblivious mc-ing for the most part, especially when her starship seniors called her out, but then when they had to sing, he whispered “be careful” to her as she was getting tangled in the wires. it might not seem much, but i think it does show he’s more of a hands-off type as opposed to uncaring, and that he does have compassion for others who are naturally in a position lower than his own. furthermore, he was careful not to fluster her even more, while showing concern, and yet keeping the atmosphere in line with the attitude of the other artists.

to wrap this up, i think kihyun is a really interesting person, with lots of subtle nuances to his personality. for that reason, i do feel like my analysis might seem drawn upon tiny observations, but that’s really what subtlety is about orz; it’s difficult to describe kihyun since he’s so aware of everything that these situational assessments happen in his head, and he adjusts himself accordingly, all while still staying himself, as mentioned with regards to my introductory comment of his not displaying his knowledge of facts, despite, well, knowing them. aaah, i hope this analysis was what you wanted; i know it’s different to the approach i’ve taken before, but i felt like this was the clearest way to structure it ;;

#monsta x #kihyun #yoo kihyun #mx #long post #nat writes essays #i'm so sorry it took so long and /is/ this long #anon #replies

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purplesurveys · 5 years

Text

534

Have you ever hallucinated? No, I haven’t.

What side effects does Prednisone give you? Hahaha I guess surveys assume you take medications now? Do worship songs comfort you? No I’m not religious. I had to take part in singing and dancing to religious songs in high school, and I hated every second of it. Have you ever had a nickname at your church? If so, what? No nicknames but it’s safe to say some of the regulars remember me as the girl who never sings, never smiles, and looks like she hates it there. Do you have things on your mind right now? Yeah I have work to do today and I also have to prepare to go out in a bit because I’m seeing Gabie.

Are you at all stressed right now? A little bit, since I’m moving on a schedule. What was the last stuffed animal you bought? I don’t know, I don’t buy them. I did win a Hello Kitty stuffed toy at the arcade a few months ago, which I gave to my sister. What's the last new good song that you discovered? I Will Follow You Into the Dark, by Death Cab For Cutie. Are you in your pajamas? I’m in home clothes, but I’m not strictly in pajamas. What's a craft project that you really want to do? None of them. I hate crafts. Do you own any duck tape? I’m sure we have some somewhere in the house. What color are the socks you are wearing? I don’t have socks on. How many days until the next holiday you will celebrate? 24 til Halloween. I don’t really feel like celebrating it this year. Do you have ambitions? Of course. Do you know any families with 10+ kids who all have biblical names? No, ten is crazy. But encountering families whose kids are all named from the Bible is a very common thing in the Philippines. Even my closest cousins (a set of siblings) are named John and Elijah, so yeah very common. Do you listen to Casting Crowns? Nope. ^If so, what's your favorite song by them? Would you rather write for a magazine or a newspaper? Magazine. The writing style is more loose, and I feel like I’d enjoy writing there more. Are you artistic? Not really. Which nationality do you personally think has the most beautiful women? Can we not pit women AND nationalities against each other? It’s 2019. Are you a hoarder on Pinterest? (lol) No. I never understood Pinterest. What do you think has been the best decade for fashion? 50s, 90s, 2010s. Do you prefer common names or unique ones? Common, old-school ones are nice. By old-school I mean like Olivia, not like Ruth or Debby or Betty hahahaha Felicity, Fiona, or Flavia? (with the "v" pronounced like a "w"--it's Latin) Fiona. I have a friend with the same name who’s incredibly pretty, so the name has since won me over. Lydia, Lynnea, (pronounced Ly-nay-a), or Liberty? Probably Lynnea. Lydia is an old woman name in the Philippines and also the name of a bitchass Breaking Bad character so that’s a no; and I hate names that are values/nouns so Liberty is an automatic no. Kendall or Cassidy? Cassidy. Sounds cute on a girl. I love the name Kendall too, but with my experience growing up with a unisex name I wouldn’t want my kid to be teased about being a boy. Zoe or Cloe? Cloe is nice, but it’s better if it’s spelled Chloe. I like the name Zoe but it highkey just reminds me of Zoella, who I’ve grown to be annoyed by in the last few years. What is the most unique name you have heard lately? I have a friend with twin godchildren named Alab and Alon and those are honestly the most badass names I’ve heard in a while. In Filipino, Alab means flame/fire and Alon means wave.

What do you think of these famous youtubers' baby's names? Flynn (boy): I’m a fan. Flynn is pretty cute, but a little hipster. It would be a nice tribute to Flynn from Breaking Bad.

Posie (girl): Also a cute name. Posie sounds like a sweetie. I wouldn’t know what full name to get her though in order to get Posie :/

Disco (boy): NO.

Everleigh (girl): I know Gabie likes this name, but I’d rather it be spelled Everly. Keep it simple.

Kaymen (girl): Not really sold.

Karma (girl): Bad idea. What if she turns out to be really mean lmao???

Brayler (girl): Sounds like a wrestler’s name. No thanks.

Makaya (girl): It’s a little cute. It sounds like a Filipino word though so I might ultimately pass on this one.

Sabre (girl); Meh, it just reminds me of the LeSabre so no.

Sockie (girl): Why.

Kesley (girl): Kinda cute. I wouldn’t use it though.

Klailea (girl): This would be a bitch to pronounce and an even bigger bitch to spell. No.

Rykel (girl): Nope. Damn, what is up with some of these names?

Sienna (girl): Prettyyyyy. This has always been in my runners-up list of names.

Addisen (girl): It’s decent. I’d rather it’s spelled Addison.

Everest (girl): Screams hipster. Cute, but no.

Cora (girl): Hell nah. Cora is a 60-year-old woman’s name here.

Shae (boy): No. Please don’t give your kids a hard time having to spell their name for everybody.

Greyson (boy): Meh.