#how did they even figure out how to make a tumblr account with this level of comprehension??

[fromtheseventhhell]

I'm so tired. This is why this fandom has so many issues, because people want to write their own fanfiction about what happened and then pretend that it's canon. None of this is in the books. You aren't going to be able to find a single shred of evidence to support any of this and yet they present it as fact. I'm so tired of this hypocritical nonsense from Sansa stans and this is exactly why I'm never going to take them seriously when they cry about the "hate" that Sansa gets. At least when we talk about Sansa we're actually using the books. I need them to just stop speaking about Arya altogether.

#anti sansa stans #arya stark #pro arya stark #imagine being this stupid #how did they even figure out how to make a tumblr account with this level of comprehension?? #this is the same person who said 9 year Arya had a /persecution complex/ btw #they're obviously reading /asoiaf: Stansa edition/ cause they didn't get this from the books #anyways crying about how much of a victim Sansa is isn't going to impact the books so I need them to pack it up #they say shit like this and then wonder why nobody likes them or their fave

[bit-b]

AVOID USER "THATTECHNIQUE"

There's a VERY problematic artist that's been infamous in the Hat in Time sphere for a while. It is the user "ThatTechnique". They've been called out in the past for their suggestive/explicit drawings of the young characters in 'A Hat in Time'. They have long since been banned from the Hat Discord, and generally shunned by the community.

Recently, a document released detailing her attempts to groom a 14-year-old aHiT fan. The screenshot evidence shows clear attempts to manipulate this teen into being in a relationship with them. I encourage people to go read the document. I do warn that it's stomach-churning. And people sensitive to grooming and discussions of NSFW should proceed with caution. Though, any explicit material has been censored and cropped. Investigations were done by 'Impactor' and his team. The doc was signal boosted by 'Aster'. 'The Thatti Document'

Despite this evidence, Thatti is trying to play it off like the document is no big deal. Saying that the document didn't reveal anything that people couldn't already figure out. (complete lie, since the grooming evidence is brand-freakin'-new™) Also, she didn't reply on the tweet that had the Google doc. She instead replied to Impactor's comment saying "On stand by for questions as always". My guess is that she did this so that she wouldn't inadvertently make the callout show up in people's feeds. A user would need to add a couple extra clicks to reach it. Not a lot of extra distance, but distance nonetheless. This is clearly an attempt to de-legitimize the claims made by the document, and to manipulate her current followers into thinking that reading it is a waste of their time.

Even though she claims it's a "waste of y'all's energy", 2 hours later, she made a poll on her account letting people know that she's considering closing her main account and making an 18+ one in it's place. She also plans to focus on using her Tumblr account for her SFW art.

This tells us WAY more about how she actually feels about this. If this was about not liking Twitter, she'd just up and leave the platform. NOT create an 18+ account to replace the SFW one. And a few of her followers have even chimed in saying how odd it is for her to wipe out her whole account instead of leaving it up as an archive.

She knows she's been caught. And she's running.

I write this post to warn people on Tumblr about her actions. She's been here a while, but it seems like she's planning on making it her new art home. If that is the case, and if this isn't an isolated incident, she might attempt to groom people here.

I urge you, DO NOT engage with ThatTechnique. Don't comment or reply to her posts. Do not @ her. Do not DM her anything. A manipulator is VERY risky to interact with, and you could put yourself in danger by doing so.

Instead, spread the word about Thatti. Warn others about her past and current actions. To be extra cautious, block her on whatever socials you have in common with her.

If you are/were a victim of Thatti, Impactor is keeping their ear out and wants to hear from you. Please get in contact with him via DMs or mentions on Twitter. He plans to update the document with whatever new information he can find.

I wanna thank Impactor for organizing this document, and thank everyone who gathered and contributed information. More specifically, I wanna thank Apple for reaching out and giving all these details about their abuse. That was a brave thing, and I applaud you for it. I genuinely hope that things smooth out, and that these callouts give you a level of closure. Please stay safe, everyone. There are some great people in this community. But every community will always have some creeps on the underbelly.

#ahit #a hat in time #hat in time

[ceasarslegion]

Your content on tumblr is really good. You seem like a decent person, and I wish I knew more people like you.

Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Barbie movie. I got some weird, idk, gender essentialism vibes I guess? I haven't really been able to figure out if only watching maybe two movies a year has left me bad at film analysis or if I hit on something.

Thank you

I didn't get those vibes at all. I like to approach films from multiple angles, like who the target audience is, what message they were going for, what any "goals" it had were, etc. Which is never going to be the same for every film, and why it's divisive to try to equate portrayal to endorsement. And why you have to meet cinema where it is instead of trying to force expectations upon it (and subsequently why you get those media takes that boil down to "why wasnt this action blockbuster just like my underground arthouse films? Clearly this makes it bad"). Being a long time fan of exploitation cinema has definitely hammered that into me over the years.

Barbie is definitely a feminist movie, but not all levels of feminism are as in depth as others for the same reason that you don't learn about semiotic film theory on the first day of your middle school film elective. It's a blockbuster, so it naturally appeals to a very wide-sweeping audience, and it's also a movie for selling a line of dolls to a target audience of little girls. All of these things are true at once and don't cancel each other out.

What those things tell me already is that barbie wants to appeal to a lot of people at once, but still primarily focus on the audience mattel sells their dolls to. I dont think it was gender essentialist at all because it's a very good way to introduce feminist concepts to little girls in a way they would recognize and understand, which aren't going to be as nuanced or complicated as an adult's understanding of it, much less a genderqueer adult. You can build into "gender and sexuality itself is pretty complicated and all this stuff gets even more muddled when you take that into account" after you establish that base of "this is how women and men both suffer but suffer differently under the patriarchy, extremely generally speaking." But you still have to establish that base somehow, and when you meet barbie at the age range of the kids who but the dolls, it makes a lot more sense than trying to make it fit into your way more experienced and nuance adult worldview.

(This was also why i really hated the takes i saw about oppenheimer on barbenheimer day, as someone who did the double feature challenge. It felt like everyone was trying to jackhammer oppenheimer into the goals and audience and expectations of... barbie? And then getting mad when it didnt meet that)

[minnowtank]

founders of eden fake tumblr posts

kind of long so im putting it under a cut

🍎 brainworm9 Follow

Every time I see an article on this I lose my mind a little bit more. For the last fucking time. The sinkholes in Japan do not give you cancer. They don't. That's a rumour and it was debunked 6 years ago. Why do I keep seeing posts about how no one wants to torte to Japan because they'll get cancer are you guys just stupid. Also we are right next to El Salvador and they have sinkholes too but no one talks about el Salvador ooohh nooo it's just Japan Japan Japan don't go to Japan youll get cancer ooooooohhhhhhh

4 notes

🌠 jacquie-dearest Follow

of course i have to be a serial monogamist who years for marriage. why does nothing ever work out for me. and i cant even blame my transition because i got more game as a woman so. are all my relationships just destined to fizzle out? am i doomed to be alone forever? doomed to wander alone as never-happy-jacquie...

💄killyourcreator Follow

^33 years old BTW

🌠 jacquie-dearest Follow

i forgot to make my post unrebloggable also youre going to the scrapyard if you pull this shit again

3 notes

✝️ bianca-neve Follow

Why does no one believe I can see into the future when I tell them I can? Not even the religious people believe me immediately. What happened to faith guys? You all pray to Saint Kauhane but you can't believe that I have the same ability as him?

#ok I guess yousef is fine because hes muslim and they dont pray to kauhane but this is still very frustrating.

0 notes

🫁 y-ousef Follow

Neo-Catholics continue to be the most annoying group of people on Exodus. We love historical revisionism. Shit in my hands and clap

🫁 y-ousef Follow

Sometimes I still miss my ex-wife because I could complain about this with her and not alone in my apartment talking to myself as if i were possessed

#i should delete this post

1 note

🇸🇪 stefansohlman Follow

And this is just one of the many things they took from us.

🗺️ historyfan28 Follow

What kind of faggy ass shit is this that is a furniture corporation it's not even like the fucking stockholms slott or whatever

Also I reported your account 18 times

🇸🇪 stefansohlman Follow

Ignore my son, he is "Schizoposting"

24 notes

🪓 the-manila-shakers-deactivated2412 Follow

We would like to address the false claims that we are a "cult." Members are allowed to leave at any time and all who join our group do so out of their own free will. We Manila Shakers do not believe in extortion.

🌠 jacquie-dearest Follow

i believe you john mark but aren't you guys supposed to be off the grid and not have social media theoretically

🪓the-manila-shakers-deactivated2412 Follow

You're right. Will delete the account

63 notes

💄killyourcreator Follow

Want to start a support group for ex-sexbots but when I try to use another site to make a community post it has this thing called a "captcha" and I can't seem to figure out the answer to it.

0 notes

🗺️ historyfan28 Follow

Hes like five foot six and he got franz ferdinand's death mixed up with whitney houston's death and he said he didnt know who whitney houston was and I desire him carnally on a level beyond human comprehension im like idiotsexual morosexual. Stupidosexual as it were

🍎 brainworm9 Follow

How am I the stupid one when I'm the third youngest nwg medical division member in history and you're unemployed

🗺️ historyfan28 Follow

Jesus christ how did you find me

2 notes

#🐟 #<-new tag? #founders of eden

[foul-milk]

Did you see that George was getting called homophobic slurs on Twitter because the bot/algorithm on his account meant to hide harmful/offensive comments (like Merc has) wasn’t working properly/running mad and was hiding Brazilian comments? Some started calling him slurs and then post spread so others started also.

Yes, unfortunately I saw this last night.😓 I even took screenshots and typed out a whole post for tumblr, because I wanted to start a conversation about how George gets treated in the f1 community and how (and why) he gets called homophobic slurs, but I changed my mind, because this whole thing disturbed me so much that I didn't want to keep thinking about it that late at night and because I didn't want to subject other fans to witness that level of abuse. Honestly, some of those comments were unbelievably mean. (I wonder, do people who comment mindless abuse not have any shame?)

As far as I understand (and as you said), this whole thing started a couple of weeks ago, when some portuguese comments (from brazilians) got deleted from under his twitter posts by a bot that was supposed to filter out abuse, but the whole Brazilian community took offence to this and started saying that he's censoring them. Well, they figured out that the bot hides comments that have homophobic slurs in them, so they started purposefully commenting slurs, so their comments would show up in the hidden replies tab and could get noticed by the other haters who were also there to comment abuse. (Some of these comments have literally thousands of likes, which is just unbelievable to me.)

I can't believe that in the year of 2023, a driver can still get massive waves of homophobic abuse. I thought humanity have outgrown homophobia by now, but I guess not. But what upsets me even more, is that no one is standing up for him, not even his own team. Mercedes is supposed to have very strict community guidelines that they woved to enforce and they have failed to do that. George always got a lot of hate, not just under his own posts, but Merc posts as well and they never did anything. I wish they would at least put out a statement that they do not condone this behaviour and start blocking the people who act like this. They've stood up against racism before, and it's time to stand up against homophobia.

Another factor that makes this thing even more disturbing, is that George isn't even gay. He has a girlfriend! And even if he was part of the queer community, that would be none of our business. That's a private matter that literally no one is entitled to know the details of. So these people are calling him slurs based on his mannerisms alone, which just reinforces negative stereotypes. George has shown effort in trying to brake down stereotypes about how a man can and can't act, most notably with his work in supporting mental health and it breaks my heart that he is still subjected to this level of hate against him.

I regularly see George fans on twitter saying that they are going to deactivate their accounts because they can't handle seeing George receive so much hate, and honestly, I understand them. F1 fans are ruthless with almost every driver, but the hate he gets is just such a disgusting flavour of abuse that it just drains your soul when you see it. George is such a sweet guy and everyone on the grid always says that he's the nicest, but he still gets the most hate.😢

#f1 #george russell #✉️ #tw homophobia

[mists-reading-nook]

The anon who mentioned the depth perception has the right idea, fluff is running thin in the lore and we gotta get two naked sheep to eat some wheat.

Any activities Kaeya and Reader do with one another?

What about Earth does Kaeya like or love?

anything about this world he prefers over Teyvat, and how much did the learning curve of going from ✨fantastical magical medieval-ish setting✨ to Plain Planet Earth with only science and technologies but significantly more advanced challenge him in addition to pretending to be someone else?

What are his opinions of Planet Earth?

Does he use the internet? Has he made his own accounts for social media or other sites, or did he create new and separate ones? If so, what does he think of the Genshin Impact fandom or community? HoYoVerse the devs of Genshin Impact? It certainly gotta solidify his belief in Teyvat being fake that's for sure.

Does Kaeya ever get curious and explore the Genshin Fandom? From AO3 to Twitter or Tumblr or Reddit or YouTube or anywhere else? Does he avoid any and all Genshin Content, blocking every Genshin creator or account he can? A mixture of both?

Speaking of fandoms, is he in any fandoms by chance?

This is for my fluff loving people <3 have a lil break before we deep dive back into the soul crushing angst <3

-Kaeya and reader like watching TV or playing cards or board games

-occasionally (depending on readers cooking level) reader will help Kaeya make dinner

-Keaya avoided the internet for a solid couple months,mostly because all of it was pretty new

-He's a fast learner though,so he managed to get some help to figure out how everything worked

-Luckily he's very good at social situations,or else figuring out how to both work modern technology and figuring out how to talk to readers freinds and family would be too much

-He thinks Earth is pretty nice. He mostly likes it because he finally feels free. A freedom he hasn't felt in a long while

-He does use the internet,but only a little. He has an Instagram,and a twitter,maybe even tiktok,but that's about it (would he have tumblr?? Idk...)

-he is terrified of the Fandom. He stumbled onto an R34 site and he's never been the same since...

-Ships highly confuse him. Like him? With albedo? What?

-Oh and Kaeluc made him genuinely sick.

-He does like reading fics,but avoids the genshin Fandom like the plague.

-he does block almost every creator he can find,no matter the content. He doesn't want to stumble on anything else.

-I think he's in a couple fandoms,some for shows and some for games. Which fandoms exactly? I'm not too sure,but he strikes me as someone who might enjoy dnd :]

****

That's all I got!!

#fluff lovers come get ur food #genshin impact sagau #genshin sagau #sagau #♡mist answer's<3♡ #sagau kaeya #kaeya reader body swap au

[bylightofdawn]

2023 Wrap Up.

It’s officially New Years in Texas. 2023 has been a weird year for me, one that both dragged and flew by way too quickly. There’s so much pain and awfulness going on the world right now that it’s hard to not dwell on or carry that into 2024 but I’m going to try and keep this relatively light-hearted and positive if only because I want to try and start the New Year on a positive note. For me personally? I didn’t really do anything big or notable but I had some smaller but meaningful victories.

I made a New Years resolution (something I’m pretty vehemently against because I always feel disappointed in myself when I don’t follow through) that I was going to start writing again and I would try and write every day. I didn’t manage every day but boy howdy did I still keep up that resolution. The major project of course being Seeds for the Future which I clocked in at 176,456 words minus I want to say around 10,000 words which I’d previously started like 3 years ago before abandoning it. So we’ll call it 165,000 to make it even-ish.

Holy. Shit. 165,000 in one year. I did not in a million years think I had that in me. And it’s been a wild ride. At points I felt like I was being ridden by a damned demon that was demanding I write this NOW. I was especially busy the first six months or so and then I burned myself out which….completely understandable when you consider your standard basic fiction book is around 70,000+ so I wrote two fucking novels in six months length-wise. But I also wrote a bunch of other stuff. I wrote A Fragile World Between Sharp Teeth which I’m still absurdly in love with. Wrote two whole-ass Witcher fics this month and one Star Trek fic as well as some other WIPs.

By my calculations I wrote -drum roll- 233,383 words in 2023.

223,383 WORDS WRITTEN ARE YOU SHITTING ME

And actually followed through on a New Years Resolution.

I also forced myself out of my comfort zone in little ways. I pushed myself to take action on my health to try and figure out the cause of my chronic pain and while the diagnosis was a bummer as was getting diagnosed with diabetes on top of everything else this year, I am proud that I forced myself to do it. I also did silly things like bleached my hair and dyed it all manner of crazy colors.

I think for 2024 I’m going to try and hold myself accountable for my health. I desperately need to go back to therapy and as much as I hate to admit it, I need to join a gym and strengthen my body. It will be the best thing I can do for my RA if I can help strengthen my muscles and I think it will help with my pain levels. It just...it sounds like so much effort though and it scares me so we’ll see how that journey goes. I’m going to keep plugging away slowly but surely.

I’m also going to keep trying to write in 2024. I have so many fic ideas I want to write. I’m definitely not going to do anymore crazy fucking 100K fics again. It definitely takes a toll on me creatively and not going to lie, after a while it feels like I’m just kinda screaming into the void because the sad truth of the matter is, long-fic will turn readers off and they won’t click or interact with it. And eventually my imposter syndrome reared its ugly head and the last half of this year and trying to finish Seeds has been a slog for the most part and not one I enjoyed.

Now, I’m going to go pour myself a glass of Moscato, eat some stupidly expensive caprese salad and I think edit the first chapter of my Gallahir sequel. I think I might be able to get it up and posted today if I can edit the first chapter tonight. Thank you to all my tumblr buddies, both new and old who have stuck it out with me through everything. I love and appreciate y’all and I am hoping you all have a happier, more kinder year than 2023.

#life of el #out with the old #in with the new #ngl I'm glad 2023 is over it's been a slog the past six months

[blingblandfanfic]

Lup and Barry clone Taako

i've been dabbling in taz fic lately, and i started this and realised i only wanted to write this scene, and thus didn't want to flesh it out further LMAO

one scene isn't enough to post on ao3, but it is enough to post on tumblr ;)

It starts with Lup’s hovering.

Her metaphorical hovering, that is, not her literal hovering. It’s been a month, maybe a bit more since they’ve defeated the Hunger, and on account of being a lich with no legs, she’d have to drift from place to place for all that time.

Taako doesn’t know why she and Barry haven’t made her a new body, but whatever.

To be honest, it takes a while for Taako to even notice her metaphorical hovering, let alone be bothered by it. There’s something about being separated for over a decade that’s made it so that neither of them can be apart for too long without getting panicky about it. But as Taako soaks up sister time, his Lup quota fills up a little bit faster every day until it’s almost back to pre disappearance levels. 

He’d expected it to be the same for Lup, but she’s still clingy. Still hovering. Metaphorically. It’s obvious that there's something she wants to tell him, and he’s never known her to be shy about anything, so he’s waiting for her to spit it out herself. 

One night, when she’s decided to ‘sleep’ in Taako’s bed instead of Barry's, she finally plucks up the courage to ask whatever she wants to ask him.

“Taako. How much do you love me?”

“What do you want?” his eyes are closed, but if they weren’t, they’d be squinting suspiciously. 

“Seriously, babe, just answer the question.”

“You’re my heart, duh,” if this is what she’s been worried about the whole time, then Taako’s gonna be pissed. 

“How would you like to make that literal?”

He finally pulls open an eye to see his sister, floating ominously above him, “and what the fuck do you mean by that?”

If Lup had a face, she would use it to give him a bashful smile. 

“Well… we need like, a lot of DNA samples in order to create a clone, and it was easy for Barry because he always had access to his body but–”

“But your body is dust,” Taako closes his eyes. 

“Hey, we’re already technically clones of each other! We just need to do it manually this time!”

“It’s still fucking freaky, though!” he sits up on his elbows, “I don’t wanna go about my day knowing there’s a version of me growing in a test tube!”

“Then don’t think of the clone as you, dummy, it’ll be my body, I just… won’t be in it, for a while.”

“Oh my god,” he slumps back onto the mattress, “when the fuck did this become our life?”

“I think we were pretty much locked in the moment we got the IPRE acceptance letters,” she floats down to lie on Taako’s body, her not-face propped up by her hands. “Seriously, though, if you really don’t wanna do this, then it’s fine. We’ll figure something else out.”

“Oh yeah, like what? Possess some poor schmuck and spend the rest of your days running from Kravitz? No way, this is the easier option.”

“I have a feeling you’re not fully 100 percent on board with this.”

“Yeah, of course I'm not! Who wants to be cloned? But I’m doing it anyway because you’re my sister, and I want to fucking hug you.”

“God, same,” Lup sighs, “and I want to bang my husband,” she ignores Taako’s retching, “it’s just that we have to be really careful about this, now that me and Barry are working for the Raven Queen and all, we have to make sure this is super duper ethical. Cloning is super light necromancy, and she’s barely willing to let us do it.”

“Fine,” Taako raises his hand, “you have my full unequivocal consent to clone my body and bang your husband with it. I just don’t want to see the fucking thing until you’re in it. Do you need that in writing or what?”

“Actually, yeah. Like I said, the Raven Queen is being super strict about it. Kravitz says we’re lucky she’s letting us do this at all. I guess being the saviors of the universe helped us out there.”

“She also has a big soft spot for Kravitz. She’s like his Mom.”

“Aww, really?”

“He can deny it all he wants, but I know the truth. He blushes like a motherfucker when I bring it up.”

“Ha!” She barks out a laugh and sits up, “I'm definitely gonna bring that up the next time I see him,” she floats off him and makes for the wall– doors are obsolete to a lich– but she pauses, turning back to face him. He can almost imagine her face in the empty darkness that is her hood, a reflection of his own, but far more open and gentle than he’s ever allowed himself to be. “Seriously–”

“Seriously,” he raises his hand, “I'm cool with it. Now can I go the fuck back to sleep?”

“Yeah,” she says, soft, with a hint of a smile, “you can.”

#Taz #the adventure zone #lup #Taako #exclusive content #snippet #taz balance

[mywifeleftme]

292: Various Artists // Abstract Magazine Issue 5

Abstract Magazine Issue 5 Various Artists 1985, Sweatbox Just got up to flip the record after sitting cross-legged on the couch typing on my laptop for quite a bit, not realizing my leg had fallen asleep until I tried to plant on it and had to pinwheel my arms to keep from falling flat out and cracking my head into my turntable. Absolutely how the coroner will shoot my body someday too, ass-naked and alone on the floor of my apartment, surrounded by instruments I can’t play and books I haven’t gotten to, bleeding into my record collection with a scythe propped sardonically against the wall in the background.

Speaking of ignominious deaths, while doing some research on the compiler of today’s record, a post-punk compilation / fanzine combo from 1985, the first thing that came up was a 2007 post from Burl Veneer’s old Typepad blog, specifically this inimitable sentence: “Abstract was the brainchild of Rob Deacon, who died last month in a canoeing accident at age 42 (same as me).” Strange nautical coincidence that, and a neat trick for Burl to keep blogging after death too (in fact, he’s still at it here on Tumblr), but I kept link hopping, and have learned that Deacon was quite a special guy, and a pivotal figure in two or three generations of UK music.

There’s genuine fondness and grief in The Guardian obit, the kind they reserve for lesser-known people who busted their asses and made a difference behind the scenes in media, and they spell out a resume I’m a little ashamed not to have been more up on. He was in his late teens when he started Abstract magazine, profiling the cream of the post-punk crop and cajoling exclusive tracks out of a bunch of them. Abstract would eventually morph into his own label, the influential Sweatbox, but the magazine + compilation bug stuck with him, and he’d go on to start the CD-era Volume series, which moved real numbers for an indie comp and featured… Jesus, everybody, apparently. He followed that up with the groundbreaking Trance Europe Express and Trance Atlantic electronic compilations, became a dance night impresario, did music photography, started a label (Deviant)… and then he fell out of his fuckin’ boat. Damn.

Abstract #5 is a real time capsule of 1985, featuring songs and interviews with the likes of Swans, Gene Loves Jezebel, Cindytalk, Colourbox, and the Jazz Butcher, interspersed with record reviews, scene reports, comics and more. The written pieces are all over the place stylistically, some transcribed in a borderline-incoherent fashion, others fighting for their lives against the adventurous two-tone printed layouts, but it has a wonderful fanzine energy and a level of ballsy spite you don’t see much these days.

Nearly every artist has a bone to pick with their label or journalists or bands they used to like that sold out or fans who have any sort of expectations of them. (The editorial pages get into it too, describing Morrissey “prancing daffodilously” and previewing a new New Order tune called “I’ve Got a Cock Like the M1,” which would see daylight as “The Perfect Kiss.”)

It’s zany and vulnerable and, even just shy of 40 years later, totally inspiring stuff. Highlights include Swans’ Michael Gira’s typically serial killer-coded interview, in which he talks about watching TV for 14 hours a day and shares the trans body horrific lyrics to a song called “BASTARD” that would eventually come out during the band’s maniac 1986; an account from industrial music pioneers Test Dept of the ’84 miner’s strike in South Wales, with a photo of one member who appears to have two sets of upper teeth like a shark; and the 400 Blows talking about having recorded their contribution to the issue in an echoing drainage pipe in which they nearly became trapped and drowned.

Musically this is by design a mixed bag (side one is kind of the uncommercial, experimental bits; side two the peppier guitar pop stuff). None of these exclusives would make anyone’s definitive collection of any of these bands, but as a complete listening and reading experience, Abstract #5 is a beautiful celebration. Cheers to Rob.

292/365

#abstract magazine #rob deacon #swans #the jazz butcher #pat fish #colourbox #cindytalk #gene loves jezebel #test dept #the wolfgang press #400 blows #and also the trees #nyam nyam #in the nursery #'80s music #fanzine #post punk #noise rock #sweatbox #burl veneer

[foxxybenedict]

How It Feels To Abandon Yourself

I deactivated my twitter today.

Please, hold your applause. Allow me to pontificate a bit first, then you may shower me in praise for doing the bare minimum for my mental health.

When I first got onto tumblr in 2011, it was so incredibly freeing. I could share exactly the aesthetics I wanted to uplift. I could put my thoughts out there in formatted blog posts. I could share quips in the tags of posts I shared. It felt like I was in control of every aspect of my identity, my aspirations, I set up a queue schedule so my posts would be evenly spaced and I wouldn’t spam people’s feeds. I had such a handle of who I was and what I wanted and how I wanted to express it. 

oh shit what’s that oh no it’s the tumblr exodus of the 2010s

When I went to twitter, I had to delete most of my tweets and revamp the whole thing, because twitter wasn’t a place on the internet where you lived your life and shared it with people, back in 2015 twitter was where I went to depression post, shitpost, and stalk each person that was ever involved with team starkid. But when the exodus happened, I had to learn how to live my online life on twitter, not only that, but I was on twitter at the behest of someone who was once very important to me, and for years my identity, specifically on twitter, was tied to this person. So I never really felt like myself, I never felt the same sense of comfort in myself or my expression like I did on tumblr. But it’s where the zeitgeist was, and you just had to be there. And when I went there, I deleted my whole tumblr. I abandoned myself. I burned the most comprehensive record of who I was from 2011 to 2018. 

When I did this I had no idea that it would be like burning every journal I ever wrote, but worse, because I’ve never written a journal, so it’s actually the closest thing I’ve ever had to one. But I didn’t realize how devastating that is, until **dunn dunn** 

The Breakup

in 2021 my best friend, my father figure, my BDSM dominant, and far too many more “my”s made the correct assessment that our relationship had run it’s course, and it was time for it all to end. And then he deleted any archive of our correspondences so not even I could not access them. I dunno I never understood telegram but as far as I know, that shit is gone forever. And that broke me inside a bit. Not only was this relationship over, the entire chronological dialogue of the entire thing was eradicated. It felt like someone wrote you the most valuable stack of letters you hold dear and then snuck into your home and burned them. But worse because we never wrote letters it’s all in those chats and they’re just gone. This is the first time that I realized the impermanence of all of this is existentially horrifying. Things I have poured my hopes, my dreams, my desires, my fears, hell my fucking soul, things I have poured my fucking soul into, just don’t exist anymore. 

I always loved the scene from The Lord of the Rings where Bilbo uses his ring to dazzle his fellow hobbits once more, and taking the most self aggrandizing exit from the pleasant fakeness of hobbit life. What I am trying to say, that he did in fact have the charisma uniqueness nerve and talent. This fucking camp queen. Bilbo has successfully made his way back into Plato’s cave without getting killed but then heckles the people making shadows on the wall cause it’s so funny to him.

So how I am coping with abandoning myself after I know how much damage that can do to my future self? I’ll be honest, because it doesn’t feel like me anymore. And I feel like I’ve been holding on to twitter solely because it’s where my largest following on the internet is. I had 5556 followers on twitter when I deactivated my account 30 minutes ago. That level of reach, that level of influence, it’s hard to let go of. I want to hold tightly onto it and hope to maybe make something out of it in the future. But that was all a cope. I just didn’t want to relinquish the only power I felt like I had on twitter, and that power was a silly little number. But the tradeoff I didn’t want to acknowledge is that you belong to that following, and I got that following from being in the proximity of people I am no longer in the proximity of. It feels like I’m sitting in a college course I didn’t sign up for, but I am too terrified of admitting I’m in the wrong classroom to go get up and find the right one. 

So this leaves me sitting here thinking about the very real parts of myself that have been abandoned. The parts of me that I’ve given to people that have been forgotten, erased, taken for granted, or taken as something more than that it is. How many fragments of myself am I going to just allow to be impermanent? Can I even at this point forward be myself when so many parts of my self have been erased? Do I even try in the future to express myself, give parts of who I am to these cooperate entities vying for my attention, my AdSense, my data, in exchange for the feeling of permanence?   

It feels futile, to fragment who you are into these very real pieces, and leave them behind, hoping someone picks it up, tosses a like, makes a comment. It feels silly, it feels hopeless. Jonathan Larson spent decades of his life fighting a clock he himself antagonized because he felt like if he didn’t, it would consume him. I am almost 29 years old and I don’t even have a rough draft of a meticulously crafted grandiose unique perspective that leaves behind an idea of why I deserve to be remembered. 

Maybe it’s about time that I stop abandoning fragments. The issue is, it’s all I know. And a part of me I don’t want to give any credence to, secretly loves to ability to kill a version of me once every few years, and burn the evidence.

#foxxythoughts

[girlking]

js u kno some goth wrestling stans did a call out on u bc u said no wrestler is unproblematic lol but stans shitty wrestlers w allegations

i have decided to stay away from wrestling tumblr for my own mental health. i assume there was a miscommunication and it resulted in this whole mess. i don’t think “no wrestler is unproblematic” – i think everyone has flaws and has made mistakes, but certain flaws and mistakes are much worse than others. i got informed of my favourite’s problematic behaviour and i obviously cannot support them anymore. what i was asking from the community was how do they deal with their favourites being problematic as well (on different levels and in different ways) – i’ve seen fan accounts for wrestlers i know have done cancel-worthy things, yet there is no discussion of those actions or accusations to be seen.

it was never meant to be “i can like this person because you like that person” – i didn’t communicate it clearly and it was interpreted like that. i meant it like “i am losing my favourite and that sucks and makes me sad, how do others in this fandom deal with finding out problematic things about their favourites.”

i said something along the lines of “i want to stop finding out these things” and i’m pretty sure that was the thing that got misinterpreted – i am still not going to be doing fbi level background checks on anyone, but i will be googling things before going all heart-eyes-emoji online. it’s disappointing as there are so many figures in wrestling that have done and said things or supported people they really shouldn’t – i would rather not find out about them and just enjoy the show but of course that’s not how it can go either. i was also struggling with the difference between “i like seeing you on my tv and enjoy watching you wrestle and do your thing” and “i support you as a person, including all views and opinions.” i didn’t know how the difference was viewed/treated, especially because as earlier mentioned, certain wrestlers are still very much liked by tumblr, even with all their problematicness.

but yeah, as i said, i’ve left wrestling tumblr for now. i got so many death threats and just horrible, gross messages. i don’t want to have anything to do with it. i learnt my lesson and will be making better choices in the future. i’m kind of sad in a way over the fact that one of the characters that got me into wrestling is now completely ruined, but it’s for the best because i would never want to be viewed as someone who agrees with their opinions: i don’t, and i don’t think they’re acceptable in any way.

if anyone wants to discuss this with me further, i am more than happy to have a non-anonymous conversation. i’m on a holiday right now and don’t have access to a stable internet connection but i’ll be home on monday to answer anyone who wants to talk. i can understand how this situation got to be the way it is – what i don’t understand is how the tumblr community can condone the behaviour of those users who came into my inbox telling me to kill myself or that they are going to doxx me, or even much worse things that i don’t want to think about anymore. for that reason i deleted the whole side blog and i don’t think i’ll be back for a long while, if ever.

also, regarding your message: i don’t really know who stans who and what most individual wrestling figures have done (which is exactly how we ended up in this mess) so i’m not going to judge anyone before i do some serious googling. i just hope this clears things up. i’m going to keep watching wwe and enjoying it and figuring things out on my own, it’ll be slightly weird after this whole episode but oh well. at least i won’t be unintentionally supporting anyone transphobic anymore.

#anon #ask #wwe

[scarluxia]

alright, i'm taking to The Tumblr for this just to get some thoughts and feelings out. I've written in my diary and bitched to friends ad nauseum about this but... And I'm not censoring my fucking thoughts so if this comes off ✨problematic✨, fucking touch grass and cope.

So I had this friend since 2016, and I mean, sure, there were some red flags in hindsight in our interactions. Going back and reading our old conversations, she's extremely self-involved and seems more interested in appearing concerned than actually helping someone's emotional situation improve, and then she fuckin pats herself on the back for her Cracker Jack wisdom. But we became buddies and she made me some edits for one of my old accounts and that was nice.

2017 I had all this drama with guys who, essentially, I'd start dating them, I'd get attached, and they'd ghost me. She was THERE seeing all my fuckin post about what neglect, ghosting, and abandonment did to me and all the shit from my past it brought up to the forefront. That's relevant later.

2018 we have a few fandoms and boy-crushes in common. She knows about some specific *cough* issues I have and recommends me a fic for a ship that 50/50 would have that dynamic. The fic was absolutely terrible and I told her straight-up "I'm never reading anything you recommend me ever again", to her confusion. When asked, I explained what I didn't like about it and she acted all confused, but I figured she wasn't smart enough to get it at my level and I didn't feel like delving into a big conv about it.

2019 (?) this show comes out that's diametrically opposed to my religion and she B E G S me to watch it so I can RP one of the main boys for her. I explained more than once that it was against my religion and seemed too dark for me anyway, to which she replied (gleeful) "It gets SO MUCH DARKER AND COOLER later!" Yeah I dropped the subject again because it's not worth getting mad enough to smash her ✨oblivious✨ head in with a mallet, whatever.

2020 we've both got new babies and I'm quietly comparing and contrasting our parenting styles. Can't remember if it's here or next year when I video call her for the first time freaking out about how to calm down my baby when my husband's out of the house. (Spoilers: Newborns hate EVERYTHING and everything makes them cry. For anyone who needs to see it, you're not a bad parent if your baby bursts into tears at the drop of a hat. They're also highly empathetic so your stress makes them even MORE stressed, which is great for those of us with pre-existing emotional dysregulation, amirite?)

2021 I'm browsing for shows to watch and ooh, this one looks interesting! The title is something I've been called and the premise is something I would totally do if I had the resources! So I start watching it and it's like the perfect mix of hilarious, cringey, relatable, and schadenfreude. Also, it's a musical. So anyway there's this guy who shows up in a few episodes who is EVERYTHING. He's sweet-natured, out-of-touch in that he does things that would be scary out-of-context but he means them in a nice way, BUILT AF, successful, with a great smile and dimples, and his actor just radiates this wholesome energy. He's so much fun to watch and I immediately PM my friend and say, "You've got to watch this show with me, you're gonna love this character." I also vent to anyone who will listen (and catch some heat for it in the fan groups because WAAAH PROBLEMAAATIC) about how the main girl did him dirty, took advantage of his kindness, led him on, etc. And like I predicted, she absolutely fell in love with this character as much as I did.

So we started writing together. We'd had a few casual threads here and there with our OC's and we knew a couple friends in common but I'd never really been invested in anything. This, I was HARDCORE into. We were gonna write a fanfic and it was gonna turn into a book and I was just so excited! Yeah problem was, now I felt obligated to watch the show she had wanted me to watch back in 2019, like a... you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Anyway, yeah so, not to suck my own dick but the ship from MY show would actually work with a little bit of work. The ship she proposed from HER show? uhhhh would not work with the OC she chose; it's completely OOC for the guy she wanted me to play to show any kind of interest in that OC. But I figure, you know what, she's being nice and letting me drag her into this fandom so I'll be nice and not play her dream boy as the misogynistic prick he is in canon.

Then my characters sort into dynamics that intrigue me from a psychological perspective. I'm not sure how much of it I let happen and how much of it I made happen, if that makes sense to fellow writers. Like ok, character A on my side attacks character B for power reasons. Character B has displayed masochistic tendencies in canon, both physically and emotionally, and he gets bodied more than once so ykw I figure he's into it. Problem is, my Character A is shipped with her Character Z, and Character Z doesn't like it.

even though canonically, character Z would totally be down for a devil's threesome.

but WHATEVER, so, her reaction is confusing to me, and I try to explain Character A's point of view, like, now that he's inadvertently got Character B in love with him, he can't just abandon Character B, because he knows firsthand what that psychological damage does (psst: Character Z did similar to character A in canon). And Character Z's reaction is basically, "But you're not responsible for the feelings of those around you." Which fucking BAFFLED ME.

So naturally our minds being so different led to some conflicts that we did manage to sort out in side-chat/DMs. Then we started bantering in DMs alongside the main RPs that were happening. Enter the next problem: her OC for Verse 2. This chick has

☑ a dead mother

☑ an abusive father

☑ a kid brother on behalf of whom she takes extra beatings from their dad

☑ purity culture taken to its logical extreme-- she's not just a virgin at the tender age of 24, she's a SUPER VIRGIN!

☑ her family's been exiled from various different states due to her father's misuse of power

☑ EXTREME UNTAPPED POTENTIAL in a type of magic uncommon to canon!

☑ a crush on the canon her admin wants me to play (who's her married professor expecting children btw)

☑ the jealousy of all her classmates for... no known reason!

☑ a ZOMG WORST ENEMY (also an OC) who shows up in like two seconds

My sister and editor doesn't like the term "Mary Sue", but like... if you've got another succinct way to describe this chick, be my fuckin guest. In the main RP she actually wasn't too bad, but dear GOD, the fucking SIDE CHATS! You couldn't throw a spitball without hitting one of her shills! This rubbed one of my characters-- let's call him Character N, who was shipped to one of her characters-- let's call him Character G-- the wrong way when G was paying unwarranted attention to MS. And when I say "unwarranted", I mean both "What she was doing wasn't worth the OOH'S and AHH'S," and "Canonically, G would literally catch a grenade for N, and wouldn't even THINK of ignoring him in favor of anyone else."

I tried, both in and out of character, to explain what was so fucking annoying about MS, and her admin's response was basically just refusing to get it. At one point there was a conversation between our characters that went something like:

"I don't understand why you hate her so much!"

"UGH I've explained this fifty fucking times. I'm not getting into it with you again because you refuse to fucking OPEN YOUR GODDAMN EARS AND LISTEN."

"See, you can't even come up with a reason!"

But I mean, I was emotionally invested in continuing my verse's RP and she was emotionally invested in continuing her verse's RP so I did my best to just talk to her person-to-person and say, "Listen, this here is a problem for me so how do we deal with it?" Nowadays I don't know why I fucking bothered. Anyway, that conv was in September or so and we were still going pretty strong for a while!

November/December I noticed she was tapering off more. Things kept coming up. They sounded plausible and innocuous at first like "oh my friends kidnapped me to go kayaking" or like "it's really hard to get my son to sleep so i have to go for the rest of the night." I tried not to let it get to me because everyone gets busy, but then I noticed there was a new person she was writing with during the times she claimed she was too busy to talk to me. You know, rather than saying, "Sorry, I'm caught up in this plotline with so-and-so and I'm going to have to put our project on hold for a little while, but feel free to continue it without me," like a fucking adult.

So mental health things started happening with me. Extreme depression, thrill-seeking, taking more of prescriptions than I was supposed to or like multiple downers at a time that I wasn't supposed to mix. She performed concern but looking back, I doubt she actually felt it.

So the person she was chatting with had a screen name that's indicative of one of my lifelong special interests and I thought, "You know, this person seems actually really cool." So I add and start chatting. At the time I thought "him" and this person's pronoun-neutral so that's what I'ma go with. He actually is super fucking awesome. His characters are intricate; he's so creative with backstory; bantering with him, whether or not I know the fandom, is an absolute joy. We're among each other's best friends to this day. Anyway so at first, yeah, we're all bantering and it's chill. Friend 1 suggests a group chat for banter and things. Friend 2 and I have amazing writing chem and bounce off each other sooo fuckin easily, like, there's one ship he actually warned me against because my favorite OC is the opposite of his canon's type... but they actually ended up having great chemistry AND he (admin) helped me figure out how to get his character's attention!

Friend 1 was... weird... about it, like, I remember thinking at the time that she gave off the vibe of a tagalong trying too hard to be one of the cool kids, butting into threads on main that she had no business butting into. At the time I also judged Friend 2 for not asking her to stay out of threads she wasn't tagged in, but present-day I understand that Friend 2 doesn't like conflict or pushing people away & didn't want to get in the middle of things he believed were going on between Friend 1 and me. We both got frustrated and irritated with her and vented privately to each other about things we'd noticed-- first with her characters and then with her as a person.

It was... a while... before Friend 2 told me that Friend 1 had warned him off me. Friend 2 was skeptical of me as a person because he was told that I was clingy, pushy, this-and-that. Which is weird to me because I had asked Friend 1 in the past, before meeting Friend 2, "Am I being too much? I'm sorry to push you on this thread, is this okay?" Like I constantly checked in to make sure I wasn't pushing any real-life boundaries. So for her to say that about me was really disingenuous.

Then I think Friend 2 started noticing Friend 1 had gone off him a bit in favor of another new shiny. I don't remember if this came up before or after the Big Fight, but Friend 2 brought up an excuse Friend 1 had made that didn't match up with either something Friend 1 had told me or something we saw her posting about. Anyway that sparked a whole new series of conversations between Friend 2 and me.

February 2, 2022. I'd started getting fed up with Friend 1's transparent excuses and neglect. I'd started being a bit more passive-aggressive than I really should be and she got super butthurt over things that plausibly could have been about someone else because she knew what she was doing; she was just mad about me """retaliating""" or whatever. She went on this fuckin rant out of ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE, calling my OC a Mary Sue, calling me a hypocrite, saying she's sick of my OC insulting her canon (it's IN-FUCKING-CHARACTER but go off), and then blocking me before I can respond, because you know, she's almost a decade older than me and wanted to showcase her shining maturity, I GUESS.

So about my character-- she KNEW my OC did not like her canon. There were things in my OC's background, Character S, that made them basically the nemesis of hers, Character R. So yes it was fully IC for S to call R a "fat slut", even though I as a person would never fucking say that about R. Meanwhile, she had this OC for another verse-- everything was crossover-- who had healing powers similar to what S has. Mine just happened to get to Friend 2's character first, and she got all jealous and butthurt instead of taking it OOC and saying //hey next time I'd appreciate it if you gave me a chance to heal him, because your character gets 90% of the spotlight// or whatever.

Anyway, things had become so bad by this point that probably on both sides we had people saying "you should probably unfriend them", but it was a huge shock to my system because I didn't even have a chance to defend myself or talk things out. Like, I was SURE this shit was a misunderstanding! And this was... a week? ish? after she'd said something to the effect of "you guys will never be able to get rid of me, I love you so much" to both of us.

I'ma leave out a few of the behaviors I resorted to but none of it was harmful to her. Fast-forward to June (I think?) 2022. I'd been devastated for months, like, Loki noticed I could barely fucking function. He'd sent her a message telling her to get her fucking head out of her ass. Meanwhile Friend 2 had felt caught in the middle and just gone on hiatus. Impetus for that was, I was frustrated with a project I was working on and I didn't tell him because I wanted to keep it a surprise; at the same time, Friend 1 was paranoid about me """stalking""" her and kept asking, "Is this her? Is this her?" to which of course the person who's known me for two months is going to have a concrete answer, amirite?

So out of nowhere in June/July/something, I get a message from Friend 1 on Discord, Instagram, maybe another platform? apologizing and wanting to talk. I was fucking ecstatic! I got to have my friend back?! I hate losing people so I was over the moon and so ready to just put the past in the past. We VC'd for a bit and then she unblocked & re-added my known Facebook accounts. She had posted a status along the lines of, "This is either going to be my best decision or my worst mistake." Two people she'd been gossiping about me with (as told by another source) reacted to the status but neither of them said anything. P sure they wanted me to see it, like, it was definitely for show but I'm not sure how so. We did some karaoke together later that week, we started writing again, like, everything was awesome for a little bit.

Well, then the excuses started to set in again, plausible at first. "My daughter's visiting and it's her birthday but I'll TOTALLY plunge headfirst into writing again when she's gone!", things like that. We did plot and write some new things, but she dragged her feet on the project she KNEW I wanted the first draft finished by August. I publicly announced that I'd replace her as a writing partner if she didn't help me finish the draft and... WELP. She claimed she wanted to, and then didn't, but she got so threatened by the idea of being replaced that she made these promises to get me to stay my hand.

This time round I didn't care so hard. Friend 2 came back shortly afterwards and apparently he and Friend 1 had linked up on Discord. Friend 1 had told him she was gonna add me back like a week or two before she actually did. I later learned she'd read my frantic apologies/attempts at resolution (one message sent to multiple accounts trying to clear things up), and the letter I'd sent to a mutual in a last-ditch effort to find out if she was okay because she'd made some pretty serious claims about her physical health. Friend 2 and I started comparing notes again. I cleared up some things and we started discussing Friend 1 and some of the disingenuous things she'd been saying and doing yet again.

September or October she invited me to an event in November in the city she moved to. At first I wasn't gonna go but my son had a doctor's appointment the day before so I figured it'd be fine for me to leave for a few days, have fun with my friend, come back refreshed. I miss traveling and I needed a vacation. Loki agreed to it and told his boss he needed those three days off.

I did find it a bit weird that leading up to the visit, she barely talked to me, like, she'd already been barely talking to me but now it was she'd pop in with a token "OMG I'M SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU FINALLY" and then bounce every few days. Event got cancelled but I went to see her anyway. I thought we had a great time! I had so much fun hanging out with her, she was a lot cooler in person, didn't get on my nerves (which is SUPER RARE for in-person); nothing I had been afraid of about the visit happened. I got along great with her family and her kid really liked me. I thought things were golden between us. I thought we'd be chatting more, RPing more, doing more banter and skits....

hahahaha nope. I staged a fight with a mutual who found out for me some things she was saying about me, things she was still saying even though I thought for SURE we'd be good after that visit. I video called her to look her in the eye and confronted her about it. I asked her if she has any problems with me that she hasn't told me about, and then I asked her about what was in the screenshots. She made it sound to me different from how she made it sound to my source, and she was putting out heavy "make this not my fault" vibes. At the end of the call I asked multiple times, "So now we're good? We've got everything out in the open, and you're gonna tell me straight-up if you have a problem from now on?" And she said she would. (We'd gone over some things she'd like me to change and I agreed to them calmly, you know, so I didn't think it'd be a problem.)

Next day she's whining to my source about how she "couldn't sleep" and "can't believe [ I ] did that to [her]." We've spoken maybe once since. My physical and mental health took a downturn as a result of just the stress caused by being lied to multiple times. God, that sounds so fucking dramatic but take it up with my stupid body.

Now I consider us basically on meme-sharing terms, like, if I see something I think she'd like I send it to her and then promptly archive the conversation. I'm not going to make a big dramatic statement by unfriending her. I was being a little passive-aggressive again recently, but that's a bad habit, so I've decided to stop doing that.

And like I know this friendship is a dud. I also know that all the things she wants to pretend to be are things I actually am. I know that most of the people she spoke to about me decided to give me a chance & get to know me anyway, and turns out they have some similar issues with her that Friend 2 and I have had, and they DON'T have those same issues with me.

I just wish I could stop thinking about it. I wish these things didn't hit as hard as they do. I feel like anything I have to say is just redundant and irrelevant, and I regret giving her the chances I did. I regret buying her a $300 painting of her BIGGEST character crush (that's an estimate including shipping). I regret sending her a Chromebook with a bunch of books and read-aloud services (along with Facebook and Messenger because she'd been having trouble with her laptop and didn't like accessing them on her phone). I regret growing so attached to our friendship that I felt like I was in love with her. I regret letting myself hope things would be better the second time round.

But I don't regret taking that trip. I was torn for a while between, "I could have saved myself $2,000 and gone to fucking Santa Cruz," and "No, actually, Myrtle Beach is a different experience." I now know the truth about what she's like; if you can talk that much mad shit after meeting someone in-person and claiming you had the best time, then you're two-faced.

And yeah I'm saying a lot of stuff ABOUT her but believe me, I've also tried to say things TO her, albeit phrased far more kindly because I actually don't like stepping on people's toes if I can avoid it.

I just... really hate not being heard. It should be enough for me that I have all these amazing friends, and that I've met people through her who are basically the best people in the world next to my sister. It should be enough for me that most people are siding with me when she's trying to warn them off me. But it still stings that she's gotten a few people to block me for no reason or keep me on their friends list but refuse to interact just to spy on me (you know you have to actually talk to your mark, right?) to see if I'm plotting against her.

Well... I'm not plotting against anyone, actually. I'm sharing the truth about what was said between us. I'm sharing receipts. If I could afford a lawyer I'd go after her for libel, since I was told you can do that if it's online. I talk some mad shit about the story we wrote together, but guess what? I talk equally mad shit about my cringe parts as hers; there's just fewer of them, and either way, I'm getting a lot of help rewriting the story into something that's not cringe.

I'm going to have to continuously recommit to just Being my Awesome Self and not trying to reach her because it's fucking impossible to reach her and it's not worth the effort, but I also can't fuckin help wondering-- and I wish I could stop thinking about it-- how the friends she's retained don't see through her chicken-fried baloney.

[youjustgotxfiled]

Hey X-File it's the blight twins here and we just wanted to know if we're screwing something up on our account and posts because we haven't received any questions besides yours which we love but honestly I don't know if we upset someone or If we did something to harm someone we wanted to see if you could help us figure it out

Hey guys!

Before I answer your question, please know that I can only speak from the perspective of someone just getting started as a quote-unquote “content creator” for Tumblr and the Internet myself, so much of what I say is stuff I’ve mostly gleaned watching others’ success and failure over my past 10 years as a regular Internet consumer. In short, your mileage may vary with what I'm about to say, but I think you may find a lot of it helpful nonetheless.

Now on to your question. To be honest, it’s a cold reality of any profession--but especially that of an Internet content creator, where finding and maintaining an audience is beyond critical--that success won’t come right away. Maybe not for weeks, maybe not even for months or years, but the principle still remains: overnight success is the exception, not the rule, of any creative endeavor. How does one resolve this? Work. Productivity. Authenticity. Oh, and a healthy dose of luck and interactions with audiences and fellow artists, too.

To the first point: it’s hard for people to get attached to your stuff if you don’t, well, make any for them to see. Vlog posts, videos, stories, drawings, however you prefer to express yourself, it is VITAL that you not only get serious about creating and finishing these things to the best of your ability, but also to get it out there for people to see and look at--and to also get serious with others in your life that this is important to you and that you want to do this. Stigmas about using platforms like Tumblr, A03, or DeviantArt as a jumping-off point for broader creative projects don’t erase themselves; advocating for one’s work and how important it is to them is essential. 

Now to the second point: routine, planning, and goal-setting is a criminally-overlooked aspect of being an artist of any kind, but especially one just starting out who’s never been inclined to have any of these things to begin with. One thing I can tell you off the bat is that it does NOT pay to live up to the stereotype of the artist who only works on their art when the inspiration strikes. In order to get meaningful amounts of work done on meaningful projects, you ABSOLUTELY MUST PUT IN WORK ON THEM EVERY DAY. Even if you’re in a down mood, even if you can only manage couple of sketch lines or edits or pages, even if you’re busy most of the day with other tasks around the house, it is critical that you keep. Moving. Forward. Not only will there be all the time in the world to revise and change what you’re working on when you finish a draft of it, you’ll never feel like you’re wasting your time doing nothing even if you don’t initially like what you’re putting out. So, my advice is to set a goal for yourself to get a certain amount of work done on projects every day, and to make that as regular a part of your day as making one’s bed or brushing their teeth. Whatever that level is, whatever you’re comfortable with (I CANNOT stress enough not to overwork yourself if you can help it--sometimes circumstances will force your hand, but your health and happiness come first and foremost), whatever time in the day you can find to do it, MAKE IT HAPPEN. It’s YOUR art, YOUR passion, and something that you’d ideally like to be doing for the rest of your life. Treat it, and yourself, accordingly.

Now for point #3: by the same token of putting in the work to put yourself out there, it’s also vital that it’s, well, YOURSELF that you’re putting out there through your work. Everyone has different tastes in genres, art forms, and intensity of content, but there is one universal thing that everyone, across fandoms and generations, agrees on: an artist that isn’t clearly being themselves is hardly one worth following at all. What do I mean by this? To put it bluntly, DON’T BE A PALE IMITATOR. Put your own spin, your own experiences into whatever you do; even if it’s an AMV of something some people think is cringe, make it YOUR AMV style, YOUR own unmistakable brand of “cringe.” Own and embrace yourself and your unique tastes and experiences, and there WILL be an audience for your work. Put even more simply: be yourself, and be HONEST about being yourself. People will always respect authenticity, even if the flavors you offer don’t quite jell with their proverbial palettes. 

Next is point #4, and a rather brief one at that. Honestly, it can often be luck of the draw whether enough people suddenly connect to your work at a given time to thrust you from lowly grunt to Internet superstar; it’s always amazing when a Markiplier or Jacksepticeye is able to capitalize enough on the zeitgeist to become something bigger than what they were before, but it’s not something that everyone should expect to have happen to them. Because of this, it’s often just not worth it to worry about whether or not it’ll ever happen, because 90% of the time, it’s out of your control one way or another. What you should worry about is what you CAN control; everything else deserves to be put aside in favor of more concrete endeavors--like, say, working on or sharing your stuff. Or interacting with audience members and fellow creators. Speaking of...

Point #5: One of THE biggest things you can do to grow your audience is, well, being an audience member yourself. Not just talking with those who respond to your posts, but checking out THEIR channels and pages, too. Not only might you find someone whom you can take inspiration and valuable information from, you can also gain legitimate friendships and relationships with them by helping them feel more valued in both their work and themselves. And the more an audience member feels cared for by you, the more likely they are to be engaged by your work and want to help you out with it, too. Hearts, comments, and reblogs, as I’m sure you know, are the LIFEBLOOD of any artist on this platform. Similar with Christmas/birthday presents, it often goes both ways between artist and audience: in order to get, you must be able to give, too. On top of all this, this goes TRIPLE for any artists on the platform in general--the more of them you engage with as an audience member, be it with hearts, messages, suggestions for improvement, or anything else, the higher your potential standing will be should you decide you want to start sharing your own works, too. In short: If you want to succeed as an artist, seek out other audience members and artists that you want to see succeed, too. And if you come across an artist you like and want to see succeed, LET THEM KNOW. Being an active community member will go a long way towards achieving this. 

By the same token, however, it is ESSENTIAL that you NOT FORCE OR GUILT-TRIP PEOPLE INTO DOING THIS WITH YOU. It’s fine and all to mention that you’re an artist starting out and would appreciate all the help you can get with your own work (drafts, revisions, etc.), but begging for follows or messages or anything of the like is THE fastest way to send someone running for the hills. If there’s anything an audience member hates more than feeling like the artist thinks they’re stupid or want to be pandered to, it’s feeling pressured into buying into something that doesn’t feel like it's THEIR decision to make one way or another. It’s important, therefore, to keep this cardinal rule in mind: let your audience come to you, NOT the other way around. This also circles back to the authenticity point from earlier: it’s perfectly okay--encouraged, even--to want to care for your audience as much as you can via accommodating whatever boundaries, traumas, and/or triggers you or they may have. It is still up to you, however, to curate what kind of audience you want at the end of the day, and that can ONLY happen once people start making the decision to check out your stuff (that you made in YOUR own way, remember) on THEIR terms. While I myself only have 6 followers on this platform at the moment, each of them are people I care about and respect because I love the way they express themselves, and I let them know as much. Each of them came to me on THEIR terms, because THEY liked the posts I liked and some of the ones I posted, too.  This helps foster a sense of trust, safety, and loyalty between all of us, even though it seems to just be a commercial artist-audience relationship on the surface of things. In short: treat your potential audience members like actual human beings with their own capacities to make decisions for themselves, NOT as potential customers to try to grow your business quickly. One is warm, friendly, and fosters personal connection; the other is cold, giving off a sense of corporation-esque disconnect and distance from someone who only wants your money or other valuables.

Again, take this all with a grain of salt, since I’m relatively new to doing this myself and I can only speak as someone who’s watched many other creators succeed and fail spectacularly over the last 10 years or so. I do hope it helps you out, however, and that things do get better for you from here on out. Please feel free to reach out to me again any time if there’s anything else you guys need. I wish you all the best of luck. <3   

#artists on tumblr #artist advice #drawing advice #writing advice #helping fellow artists #blogging advice #video advice

[tressasinterlude]

𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐓 #𝟑: Female Public Figures Dating Men with Questionable Views That Contradict Their Image & Alleged Politics

𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗥: These rant blog posts are really just reflective of my thoughts at the time that I make them and are posted here because I need an outlet to release all of this shit I have going on my busy ass mind. That’s it and that’s all. Now let’s get into it..

This rant was greatly inspired by none other than Ms. Robyn Rihanna “Tell Your Faves To Pull Up [in regards to social injustices directly affecting black people]” Fenty and her openly colorist boyfriend, A$AP Rocky. Aside from the fact that Rihanna tends to slip under the radar and is never held accountable for her problematic ways due to her conventional beauty (i.e. Her heavy usage of anti-Asian slurs, particularly targeted towards Chris Brown’s ex gf, Karrueche), it’s very alarming that a woman who has an entire makeup brand with a campaign based around the inclusivity of ALL black women is publicly flaunting a beau who once said that DSBW do not look good with red lipstick.

And yes, I’m very much aware that Rakim said this tasteless comment over 8 years ago but from the looks of it, not much has really changed with him. Don’t @ me about it neither because I don’t care.

Also peep how he compares a hypothetical darkskinned woman to a man (Wesley Snipes) while trying to explain how his antiblackness isn’t wrong because he said something about white women as well. Gaslighting at its finest. Don’t you just love it! 😀

Furthermore, you would think that somebody of Rihanna’s level of stature would know not to associate themselves with someone as messy as A$AP Rocky but... Stupid is what stupid does, I guess! I can’t even begin to place the blame on him anymore because he’s revealed his true colors and we all have made the deliberate choice to either accept it or don’t and have discontinued all support for him. Unfortunately, misogynoir is never the dealbreaker for most people and the hatred for [dark-skinned] black women is so engrained in society that it’s frowned upon when we publicly speak out against it. Very ass backwards if you ask me but that’s society for you. Now, enough about that. Let’s focus back on Ms. Vita La Coco.

As a woman who claims to be a girl’s girl and is always presenting herself to be someone who is the epitome of a pro-black feminist bad ass, it just makes her alleged activism come off so disingenuous when she’s also laying down with the same man that actively attacks the demographic she’s supposed to be standing in solidarity with. It’s “Black Lives Matter” on the IG posts but your vagina is getting moist for a man who openly stated he doesn’t relate to what goes on in Ferguson because he lives in Soho & Beverly Hills. Ferguson being the exact place where a 17-year-old black boy’s lifeless corpse laid on the hot concrete for FOUR hours after he was murdered by a police officer. He couldn’t 'relate' to the fate of so many black men, women, and children who are murdered or seriously injured from state-sanctioned violence because they’re poor and he is not or so he thought.

But then again, what can I really expect from a woman who identified as being “biracial” until as recent as roughly 6 years ago? What can I really expect from a woman who called Rachel Dolezal a ‘hero’ for cosplaying as a black woman? I’d be lying if I said my expectations for her were high in this regard because sis has always shown us she was lacking in this department. And just for the record, this is not a personal attack on Rihanna at all for the die-hard Navy stans in the back. I admire her latest fashions and bop my head to her music just like the next person but she’s getting the side-eye from me on this one.

Trust and believe me though, she’s not the only woman who I can call out for being a hypocrite. Of course not! This stone can be cast at a few others. So without further ado, why don’t we bring Ms. Kehlani Parrish to the front of the congregation? Prior to Kehlani’s recent declaration of identifying as a lesbian, her last public relationship with a man was with YG. Yes, the same YG who felt it was necessary to say him & Nipsey had ‘pretty light-skinned’ daughters to raise in the middle of his deceased friend’s memorial. By the way, Nipsey’s daughter is not even light (or at least not in my book anyways.) She’s a very deep caramel tone just like her father which makes what he said even more moronic. Yes, the same YG who thought it was clever idea to use slavery as an aesthetic for a music video to a diss track about 6ix9ine. And yes, also the same YG who has derogatory lyrics targeted at bisexual women. Just to end up sweating the red carpets with one. I swear the jokes just continue to write themselves.

This raises the question once more; How high of a pedestal can I really put a multiracial woman who has a song titled ‘N*ggas’ and when received backlash for the song in question, she used the ultimate ‘I’m mixed’ copout while not having a visibly black parent in sight?

It’s also kind of suspicious to me that many were not privy to Kehlani’s secret romance with Victoria Monét (pictured bottom right) until Victoria did an interview with Gay Times revealing she fell in love with a girl but they subsequently broke up because Victoria had a boyfriend and that girl was pregnant in a polyamorous relationship. Fans began to speculate because both Victoria & Kehlani previously candidly spoke about their sexual orientations, Kehlani had just had Adeya and they both were seemingly close. Their short-lived fling would later be confirmed when Victoria released the song ‘Touch Me’ on her last project and Kehlani hopped on the remix. Meanwhile, Kehlani’s relationship with Shaina (pictured bottom left) was very overt and all over her Instagram feed from my recollection. And as you can see, Shaina looks absolutely nothing like Victoria. They look like the complete opposite of eachother in every aspect which is kind of alarming(?) to say the least because why is it that the women she proudly claims as her partners tend to have a very racially ambiguous look such as herself but her ‘sneaky links’ on the other hand are undoubtedly black women? Again, it could just be me jumping conclusions. You know, I’m kinda good for that however something tells me I’m not. Y’all be the judge of the material though.

Last but not least, I’d like to touch on Ms. Raven Tracy very briefly. I was very weary about even including in this segment and if I should just put her in a entirely separate blog post with other women who openly date abusers despite their checkered past (alongside Nicki Minaj & her r*pist murderer of a husband, India Love & Sheck Wes etc.) being this particular blog post was based around the theme of lightskinned/mixed women dating men with extremely problematic views about DSBW. Raven obviously isn’t lightskinned or mixed however I refused to ignore how contradictory her [former] relationship with an alleged (I used this word very loosely and mainly for legality purposes.) serial r*pist while promoting a brand that is all about feminism & body positivity. This also traces back to A$AP Rocky by default being that Ian Connor is his very close friend and he came to Connor’s defense when several women came forward detailing accounts of Connor allegedly s*xually assaulting them. (I wish I could place the actual video of what A$AP Rocky said verbatim but Tumblr only allows one video per blog post. 🙄)

Back in June of this year, Ian & Raven had a back & forth on Twitter after Ian tweeted about Raven “fucking everybody” behind his back. I can only assume that he was alluding to Tori Brixx posting a video of her ex, Rich the Kid & Raven kissing on her story. Disgusted is not even the word to describe my feeling when she admitted she stuck by Ian despite of his many allegations of s*xual abuse because she loved him and her being a empath causes her to want to help everybody. Imagine aiding and abetting a predator and even paying for his bail & legal fees just to turn around and expect sympathy because this same individual cheated on you and exploited you all over Twitter for the public to see. The same man that you would get back with not even a WEEK after the fact & turn off your IG comments because it isn’t our “business” after making it our business...

That being said, I just genuinely want to know: Why do these women completely go against what they stand for in regards to these men? Maybe it was never genuine from jump street and if that’s the case, why jump on the bandwagon of performative activism? Is it because it’s profitable right now? Is it because disrespecting black women is not an immediate death sentence to your careers and more often than not actually helps you advance even further? I guess that’s the billion dollar question that’ll never truly be answered. I just want the world to stop using black women as their stepping stool to get to where they need to go and then discarding of us when we’re no longer beneficial. Support us all the way or don’t support us at all. We deal with enough disrespect as is so we’d appreciate if y’all would stop straddling the fence and partake in your misogynoir out loud if that’s what you choose to do. We have no use for fake allyship and quite frankly, it’s doing more harm for us than good. Please and thank you!

Sincerely,

- 𝙼𝙸𝚂𝚂 𝙴𝙳𝙶𝙰𝚁 𝙰𝙻𝙻𝙴𝙽 𝙷𝙾𝙴. 💋

#i’m finally done after having this sitting in the drafts for about a good month... or two. 🥴🥴 #abuse apologists #pro black #activism #feminism #body posititivity #colorism #raven tracy #kehlani #rihanna #yg #asap rocky #rant #my uploads.

[burnedbyshoto]

hawks_littledove.mp3

— You’re an avid listener to NSFW ASMR artist Hawks. It’s just your luck that he’s offered to have phone sex with you.

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pairing: takami keigo (hawks) x fem!reader

warnings: smut, 18+, slight abuse of power/influence, phone sex, masturbation, degradation, praise, nsfw asmr artist!hawks

word count: 5,018

a/n: my keyboard is broken and i could actually cry. but hey, hawks do be sexy even tho I would never trust him with my life. also LOL this might be a call out to a lot of us, do not be offended or I will cry.

kinktober day 14 main kink: phone sex | kinktober masterlist

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Fantasizing about being in relationships with fictional characters was entirely healthy and normal.

That was something you believed to the core. It was fictional; thus, no one but you were to be hurt at the end of the day. The character, being fake, could never have an opinion because you must be real in order to have an opinion. So when you were between boyfriends, you discovered a new anime, and before you could stop yourself, you fell hard for a character.

It started as a mild obsession.

You had looked up fanart via google images, your heart warming when you saw the plethora of different fanart. The anime itself had been in circulation for a few years now, the manga for much longer, so the content was endless. Then google images wasn’t enough, and you began crossing into Twitter and Tumblr.

The fanart became better, more engrossing, and definitely much more NSFW. And then, one night during your endless rabbit hole down Tumblr after your daily search on Twitter, you stilled when seeing a new type of content.

⇒ grey fullbuster x reader

The obsession grew worse.

So much so that you had followed nearly five hundred self insert writers and artists on Tumblr, and maybe seven hundred artists, meta writers, and thread makers on twitter. But three months into consuming all the content you could find, you came across a new name that made you tilt your head.

Hawks Fierce Wings

It was a name that was being repeated and heavily talked about on both sites. It was an ASMR artist, apparently, and you frowned at the thought. You didn’t have anything against ASMR videos, but you weren’t exactly sure how to handle an anime ASMR artist. Were they cosplaying while making all those weird ASMR sounds? You really didn’t have any idea, but due to the immense boredom of your lazy day in, you decided to hell with it and tried out his most popular video.

It was simply entitled: Hawks is Jealous.

Did you have any idea as to who Hawks was? God, no, you didn’t. But if it was just some random cosplay he was going to do, you didn’t think it was going to matter. So as the only slightly educated ASMR listener, you never truly became invested when it was a thing; you slipped on your earbuds and pressed play.

The introduction screen faded into an illustrated picture of a slightly handsome man, and some calming yet tense music played in the background. You shifted, eyebrows drew as you waited for the ASMR session to begin, and when it did, you were not ready.

“I saw you walking around with that asshole today,” a voice practically growled in your ear, and you froze.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Oh, no!

For almost an entire hour, you sat glued to your sofa, your fingers digging into your lap as the jealous, spiteful words of this man named Hawks poured bitterly in your ear. His words were a near aggravated assault on you and definitely something you were beyond uncomfortable hearing from a stranger, but there was something about his voice that kept you there. Maybe it was the tenor of his tone or the way there was this sly, cunning scent to his words that he seemed to hide deep within his throat, but there was something that kept you there.

The second the passionate, heated kissing noises and heavy moans began to spill from his lips, you screeched, slamming your laptop closed as your cheeks pounded heavily.

Oh my god?!

It took a bit, but eventually, you were able to finish the audio and quickly figured out why he was an NSFW artist. You had never, ever heard a man eat a pussy fake or real as eagerly or vigorously as he did. Your hands were gripping the pants of your leggings, and your chest heaved.

Oh, motherfucking shit.

Finding out there were almost seventy other videos for you to still experience sent you scrambling for more, and eventually, you had to confess you were obsessed. Despite the anime fandoms you had discovered him for, Hawks seemed to be more famous for the content he created as himself. His real name was unknown by the looks of it, and he was only addressed as Hawks by his audience, something you caught on to quickly. So only after creating a new profile for his Youtube account, you made quick work of liking and commenting on every single of his already published seventy-eight nearly one hour and thirty-minute videos. 

Each one was different.

Each one filled with various roadmaps on how Hawks' scenarios would play out for you — the listener. When he used his own persona, he called the listener his little dove or his chicken nugget, sometimes his KFC thigh, or his shish kabob. 

You were glad at the very least he didn’t call you by any of those nicknames when pretending to fuck you at a speed only a “porn-is-my-only-education-on-porn” virgin teenage boy. You knew it wasn’t ideal, usually, but for some reason, it just worked. You commented on everything, read his summaries and thoughts on each video. Eventually, when you found yourself on his final, most recent video, you were ready to go a step further.

The Patreon app on your phone seemed jarringly out of place as you opened the app and subscribed yourself to Hawks' highest tiered option for the price of twenty USD.

And when you got your access to his page, you were immersed in more heavier, better content.

It was a goldmine in a sea of fools gold, and you absolutely went insane.

You weren’t sure if you were insane, needy, or just straight-up idiotic for scrolling to the very first Patreon post and indulging in the content Hawks created. 

There was a stark difference between the warnings alone between the Youtube videos and the Patreon posts. While the porn was readily accessible on Youtube, the kinkiest thing that ever happened in a video was a slight implication that Hawks had left the listener on a vibrator and fuckmachine as he went to go talk to the visiting neighbors.

It was a slight, tiny zone out and miss a detail, but one you had clung onto like an obsessed psycho and even commented on in your comment on the post. Of course, Hawks hadn’t responded, not that you had ever expected him to because all things considered, a video that was eight months old and hadn’t done that well, to begin with, didn’t seem like anything he would remember: notifications and all. 

But Patreon? Oh good, sweet, ravishing Patreon.

The very first video was of the following:

Stepbrother!Hawks fucks Stepsister!Listener in the stairwell during Christmas Dinner.

After praying and swearing to all the deities of the world that you were merely a person with a voice kink for this man and not, in fact, a perverted pseudo-incest worshiper, you clicked on it and began. It was downright sinful.

There were active voices whispered in the background as Hawks laughed about how fucking slutty you were for letting your brother fuck you like this. In the hallway, like a dog, where anyone in your joint family could walk out into. He laughed that you probably wanted it, how your wet ass pussy was greedily sucking him in, so how could you even begin to deny your lust for your brother.

You had to take a break five times during that audio.

Eventually, you do end up catching up.

Each video he had ever posted to your disposal, and most likely due to the different tier levels, you always commented on the videos. Even if it made you feel awkward for lusting over things months old, even if there were no other comments on the videos, which was much more common than you thought, you always commented and liked. It wasn’t anything ever crazy, you had seen the rarest comments bring a whole essay of analysis on why they loved it or the hating words, but you kept it simple.

Just something to keep Hawks spirits high without draining you even further of energy.

A simple: holy shit, that was hot as fucking hell!!!! you never disappoint me!!!

You never expected anything out of it; as a matter of fact, you had merely thought that you were doing the least by merely appreciating his creations when, one night, a few hours after you had gotten home. Your phone chimed with an alert.

Your mouth formed an ‘o’ in surprise; you hadn’t realized there was going to be a new release after he had just updated four days ago. Still, you popped in your earbuds and began the audio with a simple title.

i fuk ur stupid lil pus until u cri

He wasn’t precisely putting much effort into his titles these days, but his tags were definitely accurate and entirely explicit in what was to come. And in this newest video, the prominent tag was degradation.

You weren’t entirely into degradation, but still, you did what you had to do because you weren’t turned off by it. With the beginning sounds of the music playing in the background, you warped into the situation Hawks carefully carved.

But, oh?

Your face simmered with heat as Hawks dirty words dripped from the earbuds, the wet, squelching noise of your cunt and throat being fucked like some inanimate object made you soak through your panties as his disparaging words burned against your spine like a hot brand. After the thirty-minute audio was finished. Your body trembling with the aftershocks of an orgasm that had come despite the lack of actual stimulation of your clit, and you panted on your bed.

Opening your phone once again, you quickly liked the new audio and typed out your comment.

listen, i know i always comment about how fucking hot this shit is, but i have /never/ fucking soaked through my panties… you just did that and i expect a full refund for these panties 💦

You pressed send and, without so much of a second thought, continued your night. You had dinner, talked with friends, and ended the night curled back on the couch with a wine glass in your hand and a simple sit-com playing on the TV. The familiar sound of the Patreon alert rang in your ear, and you frowned, confused.

Grabbing your phone, you opened up the device and nearly shrieked at the sight of the information the notification that said:

Hawks F.W.: lets see those panties before i refund anything

A chill ran down your spine as you quickly put together the indications of this message, and you smirked, despite your quivering hands. 

Me: I have a seven inch dick requirement before seeing any of the goods — yes, that includes my panties

And from that very moment, you began a strange arrangement between you and the NSFW ASMR artist Hawks.

.

..

.

Working was the worst part of your life, you would say.

At work, you would sit in your small 4x4 cubicle, your shelves stacked with plenty of papers and items you needed, not to mention the computer that took up the majority of your desk. You weren’t quite sure what your job here was, you sort of sat at your desk and did meaningless assignments when assigned, but you did nothing for the most part. 

Before becoming an active Hawks stan, you would spend your time doing nothing playing video games. You had somehow managed to install a VPN onto your hard drive so that your employers wouldn’t be able to see what was on your screen outside of the home screen. They couldn’t trace what you did all day, but they could care less, given you got all your work completed on time and done in an over exceptional way.

But lately, since you had dropped into this… engrossed whore like relationship with Hawks, things changed. 

To be honest, it still shocks you to no end when he tells you that he had always been aware of you. Well, with your consistent, ever appearing comments on his posts and overall enthusiasm for everything he posted, it was hard to not be aware. The mental image of your soaked through panties after a long day at his own work had sent him over the edge, and he finally messaged you.

Through the DM’s in Patreon, the two of you grew to become quite the friends with benefits. He would send you countless personalized audio files because you had quickly confessed to your voice kink and how his voice sent your stomach into hormonal knots. In return, you’d send the picture of an occasional soaked panty, and if he was lucky, an audio clip of your pathetic whines back to his audios.

You couldn’t complain about this arrangement.

But as the number of his patrons doubled, and he wanted to entice his subscribers with paying him even more money, Hawks began to offer a bimonthly personalized five minute audios for his $20 tier. The fans poured into that spot, and Hawks and proudly sent you the new number of adoring fans he was getting. On account of growing platforms such as Tiktok, the number of new listeners he got was nearly exponential, as he currently passed one million followers last week. 

The cheeky bastard was also making enough money to stop working his regular work hours anymore. Choosing to transition slowly into his Patreon career while recording.

Hawks, however, seemed to have other ideas for your eventual personalized voice audio.

Hawks had simply asked if, by any chance, you were going to be working tomorrow the night before. Groaning loudly in recognition of your work schedule, you had texted him back that you were going to be working. Snidely including the fact that you weren’t rich like him, you needed the tedious old nine to five job.

Hawks: how utterly boring anyway u can b free around 2?

Me: Eh… probably not. Busy girl w busy schedule, ill be back from lunch so no break Why?

Hawks: well, u knw tht uve been amzing & th bst follower so i wanted 2 give u smthing better then the personalized audio

Me: Oh? Well, what is it?’

Hawks: pick up tmrw n find out

He had changed the subject immediately afterward by dodging all of your questions with ease. So you dropped it, and the two of you resumed a night of flirting. But now, sitting in your small cubicle, your eyes flashing to the clock that read 1:57 p.m., sweat began to build on your palm.

You peered down to your phone as you waited for something, anything from Hawks to show up. The fucker was too cheeky, evasive, and quick for his own good. You felt like pouting as you glared at the phone, waiting for the screen to light up.

And you stilled when finally, at precisely 1:59 p.m., your phone gleamed with light. You couldn’t abandon your computer mouse quicker than you did as you grabbed your phone, unlocking it, and reading the message from Hawks.

Hawks: do u have earbuds?

Me: Yes?

Hawks: good put them on n pick up

The moment you had read the first message, you were already pulling out your earbuds, synching them up to your phone, and placing them into your ear. But your jaw dropped when, for the first time, the call feature highlighted onto the screen, the time immediately changing to that of 2:00 p.m. The decline or accept button had never looked as daunting as it did right now.

Despite the call trying to go through, you still saw his follow up.

Hawks: if u dont pick up u wont get shit

[Accept]

You felt your heart hammering in your chest as both fear, apprehension, and excitement boiled through your veins, the hammering blood pounding in your ears as you waited for some sort of noise on the opposite side of the line.

“Little dove?” Hawks' voices filled your ears, and despite yourself, you smiled softly. The naturalness of his voice sends warm thumps down your spine.

“Hi, Hawks,” you whisper breathlessly, your head already checking to make sure your neighboring cubicle mates didn’t try to look over the divisions to stare at you. For the most part, the office building was quiet except for the phone calls, the clanking of computer keys, and the monotonous music playing softly on the speaker's head. 

“Whatcha doing?” he drawled, and you felt your skin heat up when you heard the all too familiar sound of his shoes hitting the top of his desk, the soft whine of his chair as he leaned back onto it. “Are you really at work?”

“What do you mean, am I really at work?” you squeaked, half horrified at the way the lazy, warm heat of lust was infiltrating your body at the sound of his voice, and the annoyance that he thought you had been lying? “Of course I am; it’s two p.m. on a Wednesday!”

“Ah, so little dove-chan is a raging pervert who engages in phone sex to bypass her long hours at work?” Hawks sighed his tone that of understanding and dismissal. You splutter. “You never fail to surprise me.”

“I do not do… that!” you stammer, your face feeling like hot cinders, your fingers and eyes double-checking to make sure that the audio was going to your earbuds and your earbuds only. You also couldn’t help the way your eyes swept around you, trying to make sure you hadn’t accidentally invited unwanted attention. “I said I was busy!”

“But, you picked up my call?”

“You said, or else!”

“Mmm, okay, I think I see,” Hawks tutted, and although you had never seen what you supposed to be his handsome face, you could imagine a lazy, toothy smirk on his face. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind using your little cubicle to talk you into fucking yourself good for me.”

Your jaw drops.

It hits the desk, and the muffled shriek of utter humiliation is only silenced because you bit onto your tongue like a rabid animal.

“Aw, you sound so excited for me already, little dove. I bet you want to know what I’m going to do to you, don’t you? I just know that I’m going to make you feel so... good…”

“Hawks!” you plea in a hushed whisper, your heart hammering where you sat frozen like a deer in headlights. Sure, you had definitely played his audios before to pass the time, but never before in your existence had you had actual phone sex. This was riskier than just listening to his audios; his audios always had a pattern, a way to escape from the madness of his voice when people were closer than you’d like. But this? No, there was no escape. “I’m at work! I c-can’t!”

“But, fuck, I want you so bad,” Hawks' voice dipped into a gravely tone, his voice just perfectly scratchy enough that your shoulders trembled in unspoken, untouched want. “I want to feel your cunt around my cock, baby, your pussy is so hot and I want to be the fucking lucky bastard that gets to fuck you through your bed.”

“O-Oh my god…”

“I’ve been thinking of what your tits look like,” Hawks continues on, his voice continuing in the style you liked the most. It was raw, heavy, and deep. No character impersonations, just him, pure Hawks. “I hope they bounce the way they do when I imagine you riding me. I want to see you moan when I kiss the underside of your tit, I want to see your face when you realize that you’re my girl, nobody's else's, but mine.”

Heat floods your panties at his words, your shallow breaths making him chuckle on the other end. 

“You’d be so lucky to be just mine, wouldn’t you, little dove?” Hawks snaps, his voice demanding a response, and you heave.

You look around, no one is near, and you croak out: “I’d be so lucky.”

“Louder.”

“I’d be so lucky.”

“Mm, there we go,” Hawks laughs, and your ears prickle for any noise that may indicate that someone was listening in. “What? Are you getting nervous that your needy ass will be heard by your coworkers right now? Answer me.”

“Mhmm,” you hum loudly, your cunt pulsing with more incredible heat and your hands shaking with a slight fear of being caught.

“Aww, don’t worry, little dove. I’m sure your boss will understand that you’re my newest fucktoy and will let me continue. Maybe they’ll want to join in?”

You whimper softly, shifting in your seat at that thought. You didn’t really want your boss coming anywhere near you, he was old and gross for one, and nothing could take the place of this beautiful man's voice in your ear right now.

“Oh, was that a no? You don’t want other people fucking you, do you, y/n? I bet you only want to have my cock in your tight little pussy, bet you want to watch the way that greedy little thing sucks me in, begging for my seed. Would you want me to cum deep inside you? You would like that little dove; you’d like to be full of my cum.”

“H-Hawks,” you keen as quietly as you can, your hips shifting uncomfortably in your seat, your heart hammering in your throat. The pressing heat in your cunt is growing, your panties growing with wet slick as Hawks' voice whispers down your ear, filling every empty and void space in your brain until you were having trouble focusing on the very much public spot you were in.

Hawks let out a soft, guttural moan, and you froze, face entirely combusting into an inferno as the familiar slick slapping of his fapping cock filled your ear. Immediately, you forgot everything.

“A-Are you—?!” you splutter, unable to find the words or the energy to come up with a way to ask if he was masturbating right now. Your eyes spun, your mind in a complete haze as soft, raunchy moans spilled from his lips, striking against your nerves and soul with each successive sound.

“I’m only trying to help you out here, dove,” Hawks growled, undoubtedly in effect to a rather loud smack of his fist colliding with his thrusting hip. “You’re the little office slut who picked up a phone call to entice in phone sex. I bet you knew exactly what I was going to do, and your pathetic, needy whore self caved to my instructions.”

Your fingers curled into the armrest of your chair.

“I bet this makes your boring ass job tolerable, the perfect distraction to a shit job, then imagining a few minutes of fucking yourself against my hard cock.”

“That’s not true!”

“No?” Hawks laughed, not believing you any more than you did. “So you wouldn’t hate it if I showed up and fucked you into the wall of your cubicle? You wouldn’t mind if I claimed your sweet-smelling pussy against your desk for everyone to hear? I know you can scream like a bitch in heat. I know that pretty little cunt of yours would milk my cock dry. Oh, I just know you would look so fucking sexy with your back arched, eyes closed, and you begging for hours just to cum. You wouldn’t cum without my permission, right?”

You gasped, heart fluttering, hammering in your chest as you shook your head, not trusting yourself to speak.

“I need a verbal answer, little dove.”

The heat in your core was blistering, your thighs shaking with your unadulterated lust and need as you ground into the cushion of your chair. All logic and moral long gone as he snarled and moaned your name in your ear, the slick of his fapping cock echoing like a great bell in your ear. You wanted to hear him cum, wanted to listen to the pithering sound of his echoing moans as he spilled the contents of his balls onto his hand — and how you wished it was your womb.

“I won’t cum w-without your permission!” you whispered, your skin shivering with your fear of being caught. 

“God, you sound like such a dirty fucking bitch. I bet your pussy is fucking soaked already. Bet you really want to run that slutty embarrassed finger against your clit but don’t want to be caught by your perverted coworkers,” Hawks hissed, his breaths turning into steady, heavy hot pants. You mewl softly, confirming his spoken thoughts, and he huffs out a laugh. “How many fingers do you normally shove up that pretty cunt of yours, little dove?”

“T-Three!” you gasp, your forehead pressing to the cool of your desk, your eyes glazed over and looking at the entrance of your cubicle, fervently wishing that no one tries to check on you as you grind against your stable chair. “O-Only three fit.”

“Fuck, you really do have a tight cunt, don’t you,” Hawks snaps, the wet sounds of his fisting hand around his cock a beautiful melody in your ear that makes you whine at the back of your throat. “Bet you can’t even fit cocks up your cunt without lube, huh. You gotta stay on top, or else you’ll get hurt with how thick and long my cock will be up that baby pussy of yours.”

“H-Hawks!” you grit out, the friction of grinding on the seat no longer working.

“Go to the bathroom, now,” Hawks commands, the small gasps on his voice from his approaching orgasm more than enough ammo for you to do as told.

You sprint to the bathroom, the slick of your cunt hot, and evident to you as you sped to the bathroom. Your phone clenched in your hand as you locked the door behind you, glad the room was empty. Barely managing to get yourself into the stall, the toilet paper placed on the seat as you raised your legs up, already prepared. The skirt you wore was bunched above your ass, and the panties you wore, stretching out around your knees.

“Sounds like you’re ready to start fucking that pussy for me,” Hawks laughs, but there's no humor, just bite. “Put in three fingers, now.”

Without even arguing or caring, three fingers slip into your cunt, and you cry at the feeling of your fingers completely stretching you out. The smell of sex and slick filling your nose as your fingers slick up, fucking your tight cunt as you moan louder and louder for Hawks. 

“God, your fucking pussy is so fucking wet, I can hear it from here!” Hawks moans, the frantic sound of his drilling hips gaining speed and momentum. 

“I want it to be you!” you moan, your face burning in your humiliation. “I want it to be you fucking my pussy, claiming me in this bathroom. I need you, Hawks, I want your cock so badly!”

“Fuck,” Hawks gasps, something tumbling in the background. “Such sweet words for a fucking dirty ass cumslut,” he growls, and your legs shake, your clit and cunt thrumming with your increasing arousal and pit of tightness in your core. 

“HAWKS, FUCK!” you sob as your hips try to start a merciless speed against your fingers, your body trying to match the speed in which Hawks was fucking his own hand.

“Keep screaming my name, whore.” Hawks gasps, his noises of pleasure beginning to grow louder and louder, your eyes crossing in satisfaction. “Screaming my name like the fucking slutty mess you are. All this shit just to get me to fuck you? God, you’re so fucking pathetic y/n. Begging for me, begging for more? I think you’re my favorite little dove ever, gonna make you mine whenever I get to fuck that pussy.”

“Hawks!” you wail his name again, your arms and pussy throbbing with the energy it takes to keep up with his inhumane speeds. Your vision seeing stars as you tremble more and more, your legs slipping from the toilet seat, yet. “I am your whore, your little dove. Please let me come, please! You fuck me so well, fucking hell, please, I needa cum, I needa cum!”

“Cum with me,” he snaps, his voice so deep, so dangerously smooth. It was precisely what you needed, the voice kink you had for his tenor exactly fulfilled entirely with that simple, last command. And just like that, your jaw slackens, head slamming backward, and pleasurable waves crash through you.

Your fingers still rock at your clit, and your vice gripped walls, your toes curling within your shoes as you soundlessly scream. Hawks, on the other end, is practically snarling, voice deep and altogether dangerous as grunt after grunt leaves him, and you can imagine the milk-white cum splattered all over his chest and hand. A beautiful, perfect sight that you wish you could see for yourself.

Exhaustion settles in your bones as you sit on the toilet, still entirely exhausted as you heave for air. 

“I think that was the best fucking orgasm I ever had,” you mumble, your eyes closed, not ready to stand up and move. “Thank you.”

“I’m good at what I… at what I do,” Hawks stumbles, husky exhaustion ringing in his own voice. “Now, little dove, finish up work, and I promise there’ll be a surprise waiting for you when you’re done.”

Not entirely agreeing, but not disagreeing with his command to go finish you last… two and a half hours at work, you begrudgingly said goodbye to Hawks before washing your hands and exiting the bathroom.

When five o’clock came, you watched as your phone screen lit up, and your face flushed as you read the DM from Hawks.

Hawks: this is my fav audio now ↳ hawks_littledove.mp3 but you surprised me today, so in case u ever want to have more fun sometime  call me 03-9183-2495 ;)

#hawks smut #hawks x reader #bnha #bnha x reader #mha #bbs kinktober 2020

[yyxgin]

my only hate, my only love (kim seungmin)

pairing: kim seungmin x fem! reader genre: enemies to lovers au, highschool au             angst, fluff word count: 11 k requested by: @joons-asscrack​ warnings: swearing, mentions of broken home 

synopsis: A high school Shakespeare club angrily splits into two groups when they can’t agree on the correct interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. One group thinks it’s a cautionary tale about the stupidity of youth and shallow lust; the other group of youth thinks it’s a beautiful tragedy about poisonous hatred conquered by love. Reconciliation seems impossible-- then a person from one group falls in love with a person from the other. 

(this dea is not mine !! I found it on pinterest under the tumblr user @/sarah531, however, i looked for the account and couldn’t find it. if you have any idea what the current @ of the owner of this prompt is, please let me know !!)

I actually used a lot of passages from this essay of Romeo and Juliet since I didn’t actually read it, all passages of the characters that talk about the play and are in italics belong to the rightful owner of this essay.

1.

“A glooming peace this morning with it brings. The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head. Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things. Some shall be pardoned, and some punished. For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.” your voice resonates in the quiet classroom, your words followed by more silence as you drop to your seat and close the book, placing it onto your table. The reality sinks in as the entirety of your English literature class doesn’t dare to say a word, the moment you finish reading the oh so famous Shakespearen drama making everyone lose themselves in their thoughts.

Your professor looks you in the eye, smiling a little. “So? What did you think about it?” she asks, moving her glasses further up her nose with her pointer finger, gazing onto the few people that actually chose this class as their subject of choice just to get more credit. You liked reading, to be honest. Everything about this class seemed inviting-- there were only a few people there and those that did actually care about the literature itself enough were thoughtful enough to hold a proper conversation with. You actually made friends with a lot of your classmates, your brains working at the same frequency as your shared ex gifted child burnout syndrome draped over your brains way too often after arriving to high school, making you connect on another level as you tried to soothe each other’s nerves and be there for each other. It was no secret that only the biggest of nerds went to the English literature classes, but you were okay with that idea.

You snort out a laugh, raising up your eyebrows in amusement. Your classes were always open for discussions, so you didn’t even have to raise your hand to speak-- one of the perks of being the professor’s favorite. You open your mouth to begin talking, when a voice cuts you off, beginning the discussion instead.

“Well, I think it was pretty,” mumbles a boy from the corner of the room, the only one you didn’t even particularly like in this whole class, making you roll your eyes. It was hard, being in the class of your favorite professor when you had to fight over being her favorite student with Kim Seungmin himself-- the devoted dandy boy, the member of the book club, the student council president. You despised everything about him only from one sole reason-- he was the top of the class. That was enough for you to hate him. 

You’re asking why? Well, you were supposed to be the top of the class, of course. And you were, for the main part. You didn’t share any other classes with him, making it easy for you to ignore his existence, but it just so happened that your favorite class also had to be the one where you had to see his face so often.

He was your moral enemy.

“Care to tell us more, Seungmin?” professor Jung asks, motioning for your classmate to continue speaking, to tell her all of his thoughts. You knew Romeo and Juliet must have been her favorite play by the smile on her face, eager to hear all of your reviews and thought processes while reading the piece.

“Well, I think it was quite poetic. Tragic, even. I like the way Shakespeare portrayed the prejudice and ending of a long conflict just with the power of love.” he nods, licking his lips after his bold statement, making you laugh out loud this time. 

All the eyes of your classmates turn to you, even your seatmate-- ever so laid-back and chilled out Han Jisung furrows his brows at your sudden outburst. You were never the one to turn attention your way in classes, the sight of you not reddening under the gazes of the people in the room nowhere to be seen surprising even you.

“Is there something funny, Y/N?” asks the professor, calling you by your first name. You liked the way it sounded, cringing at every teacher that called you by your last name as if you were a legal adult with your life figured out. This seemed more friendly-- it seemed kinder, even. You liked the way it made it feel like your professor actually cared about your opinion.

“I think there is, yes,” you nod, giggling to yourself again. 

“And what is that?” she seems intrigued, taking a few steps to your desk, listening to what you have to say.

“Well, I think what he said is ridiculous.” you point out, a shock spreading on your professor’s features, making you continue. “The only thing tragic about this whole play is how Shakespere portrayed the fake image of love. I mean, Juliet was only 13, don’t you think it was a bit early to get married to a man? After a day, that is?” you explain, intriguing your classmates even more.

“It was the 16th century. It was normal to get married young back then,” mumbled your enemy, Kim Seungmin from his seat, locking his eyes with you through the classroom. 

“Of course I know that,” you ironically smile at him, rolling your eyes in the process and looking back at your professor with a genuine smile this time, explaining more of your point of view, “I think it portrays girls as boy-crazy. Like love is everything they are made of and that they are worthless without a partner-- and that’s why Juliet chose to kill herself. If anything, I think it portrays the stupidity of the youth the most.” 

“So you think she was stupid just because she killed herself upon seeing her loved one dead?” Seungmin’s brows are raised now, looking at you as if he was mocking you.

“Well, Romeo did the same thing, so yes. I think it was stupid of them. They were reckless, the whole situation was. How could they know they were in love when this all happened in one day? Nobody can fall in love that quickly.” you mutter, shaking your head in disbelief.

“I think the play portrayed love at first sight beautifully,” grins Seungmin, the teasing smirk on his face bothering you so much you want to wipe it off his face. Is he really that ridiculous?

“There’s no such thing. And what were the families doing, after all? Arguing without even knowing why? For all we know, their ancestors may have hated themselves because they accidentally took their cow and they decided to kill each other for that?” you scoffed, your voice raising increasingly.

“Now that’s ridiculous.” rolls his eyes Seungmin, taking you over the edge, your voice raising with every spoken word.

“Your view of love is ridiculous. If I knew the boy I was eyeing was my family’s enemy, I wouldn’t bat an eye before dropping him, but no, she chose to marry the guy. Did she really have such twisted morals?” you scoff, a part of your class laughing at your outburst.

You hear a few quiet, amused ‘yeah’s and ‘she’s actually right’s from everywhere around you, only flooding your ego more as you recognise that your point of view is shared by more people and you aren’t actually crazy. 

“I think love is more important than rivalry.” speaks Seungmin, cocking his head to a side, teasing you just by the look on his face, your eyes scanning his features as you hear a few other comments from your classmates around you. Some girls even go as far as cooing at his romantic statement, making you laugh and roll your eyes at them. Were they all this ridiculous? 

“She was thirteen!” you argue, screaming. That is all that takes professor Jung to interfere your heated discussion, clapping her hands in authority, making everyone’s heads snap to her figure standing in front of the classroom with an amused look on her face. 

“Looks like we have quite the discussion here,” she points out, seeing your angered face. 

“Yeah, because Seungmin’s point of view is stupid!” you grunt, making her point a scolding look into your skull that almost makes you shrink in your seat in embarrassment.

“Y/N, no one’s point of view is stupid. Literature is all about the impertretation,” she states, earning a few nods and hums from your interested classmates, “now, who agrees with Y/N’s interpretation of the play?”

A few hands shoot out into the air, Jisung’s following as you angrily nudge him into his side, making you grin. No way your friend is going to support your moral enemy’s idea-- he was your friend, after all. Something inside of you is telling you that this whole feud wasn’t only about the play anymore,. You were fighting with Kim Seungmin, and that was enough to keep you standing by your point.

“And who agrees with Seungmin’s interpretation?” she asks again, searching through the classroom. It seems like the amount of people that agree with your classmate is about the same as the amount of people that agree with you, making you annoyingly roll your eyes at the realisation that you once again didn’t manage to outpower your moral enemy. 

“I see the classroom has split into two teams,” she grins, nodding her head, “well, I did think you were going to have different opinions on this, but I didn’t think it was going to get so heated over here.” she points out, switching her gaze from you to Seungmin and back, as if to scold you and support you with your antics all at once.

“Yeah, well, it’s not my fault Y/N can’t appreciate one of the most important pieces of English literature-”

“I’m all about supporting, if it was actually good and meaningful-”

“Stop it, you two!” she scolds you, making both of you shut up and finally provide some silence in the room. “Well, since you all look like you have different opinions on the topic, let’s try a fun experiment. I was going to make you all write an essay on the play by yourselves, just like we usually do, but I think this is going to be much more fun for all of us.” she states, smiling to herself like a happy child on Christmas. You wonder what’s racing through her head as she searches through the classroom, locking eyes with you, then continuing.

“I want you all to write an essay and do a presentation on Romeo and Juliet-- you can write about anything, whether it is your ideas, what you took from the play, what is your view-point on it. But you have to write it with the person who has the exact opposite opinion on this play. So this way, we can get the story from two points of view. Let’s see what you agree on, what you don’t, make it a discussion, I don’t care, just make it make sense. Do you understand me?” she smiles and you swear you can already feel what is going on before she says it, making your head hurt and breath hitch in your throat.

“And since Seungmin and Y/N seem to have the most different opinions on this, I am picking them as a pair-- no, there’s no way for the two of you to change.” she says before you can even open your mouth to argue back, leaving you to stand up from your seat just at the time when the bell rings.

“But miss Jung-” 

“I want it done until the end of this month.” she smiles, taking her things and leaving the classroom, letting the thought sink in. You lunge yourself back to your seat, defeated and left to process the fact that you now had two weeks to work on a project with Kim Seungmin-- your biggest enemy.

A sigh escapes your seatmate’s mouth upon the scene, running his hand through his hair in frustration. “That’s what you get for always picking fights with him.”

2.

That’s how you end up in a coffee shop two blocks away from your house. You didn’t exactly ask for Kim Seungmin’s number-- you weren’t in the 2000s anymore-- you swiftly added him on Facebook in order to get this over with so you wouldn’t have to meet with him anymore. Yes, you were mad at Mrs Jung for pairing you up with him, but you still adored her and wanted to do well, so that’s why you chose to do what you had to and arranged a meeting with him.

Kim Seungmin appears in the coffee shop in his usual cozy demeanour-- oversized sweater and everything, with a backpack hanging off his shoulder and a serious look plastered on his face. He places his copy of Romeo and Juliet onto the table and sits his figure into the chair right in front of you, sighing heavily as he stares at you from under his eyelashes, voice low and defeated.

“Hi.” he greets, resting his back against the head of the chair, waiting for you to take initiative. You were the one who arranged this whole thing in the first place, so it was kind of your responsibility now in his books.

“Hello,” you cleared your throat. You felt like you were sitting there with the devil himself, just begging yourself in your head not to explode like a raging volcano with every movement he made that always somehow ended up irritating you. It was like his aura was everything you despised-- his collected way of discussing and his calm way of thinking getting on your nerves with every sigh he sent your way.

“So… how do you wanna go around this?” he asks, raising his eyebrows at you in question. 

You sigh back at him just to show him how annoyed you are by your professor’s choice of your partner, bringing your hands to rest them on the table and cracking your knuckles in nerves. You didn’t meet his eyes, you felt too intimidated to do so in the moment, before you spoke up and managed to get your point across. 

“Well, since we have to gather both of our viewpoints in the essay, I think we could just start of by telling the other one what topics we want to talk about so the other one can debunk them.” you mumble, suddenly feeling nervous by the possibility of your idea being rejected. If you could disappear on the spot, believe me, you would. 

Seungmin hums from his seat, nodding. “Seems reasonable.”

You try your hardest not to let out a relieved sigh, nodding back at him. “I brought some notes.”

You did some preparation for this. Well, a lot of preparation. There was no way Kim Seungmin could catch you unprepared at your study meeting. You wanted to prove to him that you were worth so much more than sharing your grade with him and if he had any snarky or teasing remark, you best believe you mastered up a response just as spiteful, if not more than what could possibly leave his lips in the moment. You weren’t here to embarrass yourself. You were here to look smart. Smarter than Kim Seungmin. 

“Perfect.” he just mutters, taking the sheet of paper you were offering to him from your hand, placing it on the table in front of him and skimming his eyes through the lines of text you scribbled down yesterday evening.

The silence makes your palms sweat. It makes you nervously bite down on your lower lip. You felt embarrassing-- you were never the conservative type. All this time, you used to hate your classmate from afar. You never actually spoke to each other, all you did to express your hatred for the boy was in the way you always rolled your eyes when he spoke up in class, or you sighed when Mrs Jung was complimenting him in front of everyone, making sure he heard you. You don’t know what broke in you that day-- you were quite the shy type, to be honest. You didn’t like to be the centre of attention. What were you even thinking by all of this?

“I don’t think we should mention their age as an argument,” he says, finally meeting eyes with you. 

“Why?” you ask, dumbfounded.

“Because as I already said, it was long ago. People used to marry young.” he shrugs, offering the sheet of paper back to you with a judging look on his face.

“Okay and? My point still stands. They were too young and reckless.” 

“I also don’t think we should talk about the sex part.” he concludes, landing his hands into his lap.

“Why? Because it’s controversial?” you teasingly grin at him, waiting for his response.

“No. Because it clearly brings nothing to the table about our arguments. It doesn’t even really play a big role in the whole thing, so I think it’s useless to mention,” he shrugs, looking at your face. It felt like his eyes were studying you, judging you. It was hard to keep eye contact with him-- so you didn’t. You averted your gaze out of the window, opting to watch the passer-bys instead. 

You sigh, waiting for him to say something against your notes again. Of course you could expect this-- there was no way Kim Seungmin would agree with anything you’re trying to say in the matter at all.

“And the point about Rosaline is a little over the line as well…” 

“What do you want me to put in the essay if you’re just going to tell me it’s unreasonable and over the line, huh?” you voice out, pinning your eyes onto his shocked figure, “it’s supposed to be an essay on everything I didn’t like about it, so that’s what I’m going to put in it and your job is to comment on my arguments. Just like my job is to comment on what you loved about this piece of shit of a play, and that’s what I’m going to do, so fuck off.” you growled, standing up and taking your things with you, too frustrated and hot-headed to continue the discussion.

Only Kim Seungmin could make you this mad and you hated him for it even more.

3.

You hear your door open, revealing your mum standing in the doorway with a mug of hot tea and a soft smile playing with her features. You sigh, playing with your pen in your hand, waiting for her to say what she needs to say and leave so you could have some silence to finally work.

“Sweetie, you should really relax for a while. You’ve been studying for the whole day…” she mumbles, taking the tea to your desk and running a hand through your hair. You fight off the urge to pull away from her, knowing damn well it would hurt her feelings, so you just opt to nod at her face and faking a smile.

“Yeah, sure, mum.” you respond, but make no effort in getting up from your chair and moving to your bed. It was already late in the night and your mum was wearing her pyjamas, signaling that she was going to sleep. She always went to sleep early, because she needed to wake up in the early hours of the day to go to work, but you usually didn’t go to sleep earlier than midnight anyway-- homework was taking you too much time sometimes.

“I mean it. You’re doing great job in school, sweetie, but you have to lay off for a while or else you’ll overwork yourself.” she says affectionately, making you grunt on the inside.

“Okay, okay, go to sleep now, good night mum…” you mumble, waiting for her to finally leave you alone. 

“Are you telling me to go away?” she asks with a hint of laugh in her voice that you know for a fact is fake, because the expression on her face looks hurt. You hate to see that face, because it makes you feel guilty, but you really can’t help yourself sometimes.

“No.” you mutter, shaking your head.

She just stares at you for a while, biting down on her lower lip, before she hangs her head low and sighs out. She turns around, taking a few steps to your door, turning around only for a moment when she stands in the doorway and whispers a quiet ‘good night’ at you, closing the door behind her and disappearing into her bedroom. 

You feel a sense of relief coming over you. Of course you weren’t going to sleep yet, but she didn’t have to know that. She didn’t have to know a lot of things. 

The small, old copy of Romeo and Juliet falls into your eyes in the corner of your desk. You had to borrow your book from the library and you hated how some pages were torn and the ink was so old it was hard to read sometimes, but you couldn’t afford to buy yourself one, because you were saving up for college and every cent counts in your household. 

You take it into your hands, reading over the passages you bookmarked when you were first reading the book, wanting to refresh your memory with the lines that stood up to you and made you snort at how ridiculous the book truly was again before typing them down into the document you had opened in front of you.

“Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- it’s everything except what it is!” it says. You run your fingers along the words, the curves of the ink cutting you like a knife. Love is all of these things-- it’s terrifying and it’s unpredictable. It sounds scary in your ears and you’ve seen it right in front of your eyes- love is everything except what it is. 

Love isn’t heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold. Love isn’t sick and healthy. Love is pain. It takes everything you have, it ties you down, it makes you do things you would never do if you weren’t in love. It intoxicates you and makes you make bad decisions. When you love, you’re irresponsible. You’re like a storm. 

Your mum and your dad were in love. Or, your mum always told you they were.

So if your mum and your dad were in love, they were supposed to be together through the heavy and the light. Through the bright and through the dark. Through sick and healthy. They were supposed to be there for each other. 

They were both really young when they fell in love. You understand-- they were reckless and they were stupid. 

But did your father really have to leave you? 

Love is nothing from the above. Love is sick and love is just a play. It would be stupid to be hung up on that idea that Kim Seungmin so desperately wanted to believe in.

4.

“So, how far did you get with the essay?” asks Jisung on your lunch break, looking at you with expectation. You told him about your planned meeting with Seungmin, but you didn’t get around to telling him just how it went yet. 

“Oh, that…” you mumble, letting out a dry chuckle, “well, he told me my ideas are stupid, so I’m just going to write it by myself and send it to him so he can add his points into it.” you shrugged, taking a bite from your sandwich, stuffing your cheeks with the food so you didn’t have to explain any further.

Jisung sighs in front of you, rolling his eyes like every time you gush about Seungmin and how he gets on your nerves. “Can you lay off that Anne and Gilbert attitude already?”

“Stop saying that, that’s disgusting,” you scrunch up your nose, shaking your head in disbelief.

“Well, it looks like you two are doing a whole 21st century remake right in front of our eyes, though,” chuckles Jisung, teasing you further, “with that whole top of the class students that hate each other and act like children just because they don’t agree on something. It’s only a matter of time before you fall in love.”

“Ew,” you fake a gag, rolling your eyes at him, “that is so not happening.”

“Yeah, sure, tell me about it at your wedding in a few years.” he mutters.

“I am not getting married in my whole life, marriage is wack,” you roll your eyes at him for the millionth time, the gesture so familiar to you over the past few days. Everything seems to annoy you recently. Maybe you were just going through a bad patch, who knows?

“Oh would you look at that, Y/N’s acting like a Grinch again,” giggles Jisung, ruffling your hair in the process just to annoy you even more, making you pull away abruptly from his touch.

“That doesn’t even make any sense! Grinch hates Christmas, not fake images of love.” you argue back, finishing your sandwich and rolling the plastic that was covering it into a little ball, throwing it into his face to shut him up.

“Yeah, sure.” he snorts, throwing the ball back at you. You catch it in your hands with a promise to yourself to throw it out when exiting the cafeteria later, when you feel a light tap on your shoulder that makes you turn around.

The sight in front of you makes you shoot your eyebrows up in shock, leaving you flustered and surprised. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to ask when we can hang out again to work on that essay, since it’s, you know, like half of our final grade…” mutters Seungmin, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly and pointing his eyes at you, casually waiting for your answer.

“Oh, we’re not meeting again. I’m just going to email you the file when I’m done.” you shrug.

“But that’s unfair to me?” he offers, eyebrows shooting up and his hand falling to his side.

“Why would it be?”

“That gives me less time to work on it, you know. And you have to add your comments to my work anyways, so it would mean you’ll have to write those at the last-minute.” Seungmin explains, his tone of voice calm and collected, just as always, after all, making you roll your eyes and fume up again. 

“I don’t really care,” you shrug, smiling ironically at his face.

“Why- what?” he asks, looking genuinely concerned and confused, eyebrows scrunching up and his voice raising a little by an octave.

You don’t answer him, though. You’ve had enough of his snarky comments and remarks in the coffee shop-- you weren’t going to meet up with Kim Seungmin again, even if it meant the possibility of getting a bad grade from your most favorite and treasured subject. 

After the boy is met with silence, all he does is scoff at you, shooting his arms up into the air and shaking his head in disbelief. “You’re such a fucking child, oh my god.”

And with that, he strides off, your eyes following his every move to make sure he doesn’t come near you again. His steps are quick and angry, and this is actually the first time you’ve seen him get so frustrated with something. You take pride in getting him over the edge. You were finally even. He doesn’t look back once and you think you finally made it.

“Stop staring, Anne.” you hear from your friend sitting right in front of you, making you break away from your bubble and taking a look at him, seeing him amused and with a teasing grin plastered on his face.

“Fuck off.”

5.

“Peace? I hate the word as I hate hell and all Montagues.” Mrs Jung reads out, when you start dozing off in the class. You’ve read the play a lot of times already, making you feel bored even by the repetitiveness of your class. You understand that she is just waiting for all of you to turn in your papers, not wanting to move on from Romeo and Juliet just yet, but you find yourself slowly falling asleep under the spell of her voice and the fact that you spent the whole night studying again. The sentence startles you awake, making you chuckle to yourself.

‘Peace? I hate the word as I hate hell and Kim Seungmin himself,’ you think. If Han Jisung could read minds, he would be surely teasing you with another smart remark of how much energy you’re spending by hating the poor boy and how it’s not possible for you to not fall in love with him soon after how much time he spends in your mind, but Han Jiung can’t read minds. And even if he could, you’d just tell him to fuck off. Because he is wrong.

“Am I boring you, Y/N?” asks Mrs Jung, fully startling you awake as you straighten your back and properly sit on your uncomfortable chair again. 

“Of course not!” you call out, blinking rapidly to keep your eyes from closing on themselves again. 

“Oh, I thought I was, by how tired you seem by listening to me.” she just smiles at you, then continues talking and looks at the other students in your class, leaving you to blush to yourself without giving you more attention. 

You chew on the inside of your cheek, looking around the classroom. You feel embarrassed. You really didn’t mean to give your favorite professor the wrong idea-- you just got to bed really, really late yesterday. It happened often, but you guess that it just took a bigger stroll on you today. 

Your eyes meet the orbs of your moral enemy, that just gazes into you with intensity. You quickly look away. Why is he doing that? His eyes look worried. He’s not supposed to look at you in such a way-- he’s supposed to laugh at how you’ve just been scolded. He just won a few points to himself by paying more attention than you, he just got on the better side with your favorite professor, yet he doesn’t look like he’s enjoying it at all. 

A small piece of paper catches your interest from the corner of your eye. You read through it, recognising the loopy handwriting of your seat-mate.

did you stay up late studying again?

You sigh, taking a pen out of your pencil case and neatly writing under it, trying not to get caught by Mrs Jung. You really don’t want to get scolded for the second time today.

yeah

you should probably relax a little, your grades are already good to begin with

You roll your eyes at the note. Of course he’d say something like that. In elementary school, your grades were good without even trying. All you had to do was pay attention in class and write what you could remember, but now, in high school, everything is a little harder for you and you suddenly weren't good enough anymore. And yeah, you could say that grades don’t even matter that much, but for you, they meant everything. 

yeah that’s bc i study jisung

now you’re falling asleep tho how is that helping

You don’t answer him. It’s not that he’s wrong. It’s just that… you’re not going to tell him that he is. Yes, you falling asleep wasn’t helping you in the tiniest, because the less you pay attention in class, the more you have to study at home, and the more you study, the less you sleep, which means you’re going to fall asleep in class the next day and it’s just an endless cycle.

sorry :( but just remember that grades aren’t everything Anne you can get an F once in a while

thanks

You write. But you don’t really mean it. 

Because if you get an F, you’re not going to be the top of the class anymore.

And how will you get a scholarship if you’re not?

6.

You arrive to the library, sighing to yourself as you quickly take your coat off and smile to Mrs Kim, the older librarian that let you work here part-time for the time being. You didn’t get paid much, but you loved the job. For the most part, it was easy-- there weren’t many people coming to libraries these days anymore and you could just stay behind the counter, occasionally letting people borrow books and writing them into the evidence. You had a lot of time to study there as well, it was silent and calm. Sometimes, you felt like your heart could rest a little in the small place.

“I’m sorry for coming late Mrs Kim, but the bus was late so I couldn’t get here sooner-” you rush out out of breath, dropping your backpack under the counter, ready to change seats with your employer that was done with her shift for the day.

“It’s totally okay, sweetheart, you know there’s no rush.” she smiles at you, reassuring your nerves with the gesture. You were glad you had such caring people around you. You met with Mrs Kim more than you did with your own mother-- it was strange, but comforting to know that at least someone close to a parental figure was still in your life.

Maybe you just hung yourself into older, reliable people because you lost the security you had in your own mother. Or because you didn’t even have a father to begin with. You don’t know if you’re doing the right thing, but in your heart, it surely feels like you are. 

You nod at her, seeing her leave and wave at you as she takes her things with her before you’re left alone with your thoughts. You sit yourself on the chair, looking around for a moment, before you take out your notes and start working on your homework. The library felt like a safe space-- not that you didn’t have the silence and comfort at your own home, since you were home alone all the time anyway-- but here, at least you felt like there was a reason behind your loneliness. You were at work, after all. 

You wonder if things would have been different for your mum if she didn’t have you so young. Maybe she would still be happy with your dad-- maybe she wouldn’t have to work a lot just to get you through life. It’s not easy, raising a child on your own when you are a child still, you realise that. And your mother does a good job-- at least you think she is-- but sometimes, you wish your life would be different.

You curse at your mother for being so reckless when she was young. If you’d be born later, she’d finish school. Give you a better life. Maybe, you would even have a father. You would be a little happy family, going on vacations and enjoying your lives.

Now, you’re stuck with trying your hardest to be the best at everything. To have your life figured out, because at your age, your mum surely didn’t. You know you shouldn’t blame her-- you need two people to create a child, but there was no other person for you to blame. 

You try your hardest to get a scholarship, because you can’t pay for college on your own. You work so your mother doesn’t have to stay at her job over-night so often just to pay the bills. You educate yourself to be smart and successful-- because that will surely change your life for the better, right? 

Suddenly, you hear the bell above the door of the library ring, startling you away from your thoughts. You look that way with a polite smile on your face you’ve taught yourself while working at customer service, ready to greet the customer with fake enthusiasm, when your mouth hangs open without a word. Startled would be an understatement to the feeling you feel at the moment.

“Hello,” the person greets politely, looking at you momentarily before going up to the counter with a stack of books in his hands. He looks up after placing them on the surface and that’s the moment when you see he realises your presence fully-- after seeing his face fall into shock.

“Good afternoon,” you grunt ironically, taking the books closer to yourself so you can check them in, recognising his eyes following your every move from the corner of your eye, “your ID?” you raise up your eyebrows at him, annoyance apparent in your features.

“Oh, right,” he catches himself, quickly patting every pocket of his clothing, until he puts up his hand into his backpack and browses through his wallet, slender fingers offering you the little card so you can scan the code.

The computer freezes for a bit and you curse to yourself-- did it really have to happen now? With Kim Seungmin watching you like an alien? The computer at your local library wasn’t the newest, per say. It didn’t even have to be, your usual customers were just as old, if not even older than that piece of machinery, they didn’t mind waiting. But now wasn’t the time for the computer to freeze. You feel yourself losing your nerves, bouncing your leg up and down, angrily glaring at the screen. 

A minute passes, than another-- could it even get worse than this? 

“So,” clears his throat Seungmin, making you snap your head up to meet his gaze, “what’s up?” he asks, shocking you again. 

“Why do you care?” you snap, glaring at him instead. How dare he act so casually after saying all those mean things to you? You couldn’t believe your ears. 

“Because you’re my classmate…?” he furrows his brows, tone of voice cautious, sounding like a question instead.

“And?” you ask, watching the screen of the computer instead, cursing at the new electronic system Mrs Kim decided to install. It would have been so much easier if you could just scribble down your signature on a small piece of paper and take the books like you used to do before, but no, she was all about innovation. 

“And I thought we were civil enough for a casual conversation,” he rambles, making you snort in disbelief.

“Oh, we are anything but civil.” you respond, losing your nerves, taking your hand and angrily hitting the top of the screen, as if it was supposed to make the computer work. You violently curse under your breath, hitting it a few times, each one more lightly, until the program starts to work, finally registering the books back into the library evidence.

“Why do you even hate me so much?” he asks after you stop, looking at you with annoyed eyes and a look worthy of an oscar-winning actor. He didn’t care, you knew that, but he sure looked like he did.

You just scoff at him, shaking your head. 

“Goodbye,” is all you offer him, his library ID in your hand, before he takes it and rolls his eyes at you again, like many times before. With that, he leaves-- just like you wanted him to-- and you can finally relax. 

You sigh out, taking a seat on your chair again, angirly shutting your textbooks close and grunting under your breath. You put your head into your hands, resting them on the table, breathing heavily. You won’t even be able to study now, and it’s all thanks to him.

Why do you even hate him so much?

7.

Kim Seungmin is an interesting individual. As you continue to work in the library the next week, you meet him there every single day. You don’t even have the energy to bark at him anymore-- he slid into your life like a gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. Always there, but you never get used to it and it’s still annoying when you walk around. 

Kim Seungmin is your moral enemy, as we already established. He comes into the library every day and you’re convinced it’s just because he wants to piss you off, but you don’t give him the satisfaction of letting him rile you up anymore. You just silently glare at him and sigh when the timing feels right to show him how much you actually still hate his presence. 

He comes back one day while you’re working on your essay, sitting at the table with furrowed eyebrows and the end of your pen trapped between your teeth. The copy of the play is sitting open right in front of you and his eyes fall into it, recognising the underlined replicas and words. You didn’t work on that essay together ever since your first meeting and the due date was nearing, all he wanted to do was review it with you to at least know what he was getting into.

“Can you even read all of these books in a day when you keep coming back for more every time?” you grumpily mumble as you check back the books you, as the librarian, let him borrow yesterday. They are quite thin, but still, you doubt he was so quick to read all of them in a single afternoon.

“Why do you care?” he asks, snickering to himself. Of course, here he is-- annoying every single cell and fiber of your body again.

“Oh, trust me, I don’t. It’s just getting a little annoying.” you ironically smile at him, sitting back to your chair as you finish lending him the new stash of books. You’re not even sure where he got all of these from, since they don’t even look that interesting, but you choose not to think about it any longer as you get back to your essay, scribbling onto the lined paper.

“I like what you’ve written so far,” he says, startling you. You thought he left already-- I mean, why would he even stay? But he didn’t and he was standing right in front of you, eyes skimming over your messy handwriting.

“No you don’t. You’re arguing against me.” you snap back, darting your eyes to him, seeing him sigh.

“Whatever,” he shakes his head, “I was just wondering when you’re going to finally stop being so childish so we can work on that project together, you know.”

“I’m not childish-”

“Stop arguing with me for once, for god’s sake!” he rushes out, throwing his arms in the air in nerves, huffing out in frustration. “Look, I’ll be here tomorrow. The same time. I’ll bring my things and if you still don’t let me work with you, I won’t write anything and we’ll get a bad grade together. Take it or leave it.”

And with that, he is gone. 

Fuck Kim Seungmin.

8.

Turns out your enemy is a man of his word. 

He truly does show up the next day-- with his backpack slung on his shoulder, cute big glasses sitting on his nose and a stack of papers in his hands. He raises his brows at you upon arriving and you just let out a defeated sigh. 

You put a lot of thought into this yesterday evening. Did you hate Kim Seungmin? Of course you did. Was he really annoying? Yes. But were you going to get a bad grade just because of that? Not a chance. 

And so you choose to give up on the small war and let him sit in front of you, you let him casually ask you questions about the essay and surprisingly, you answer. It is kind of easy, working with a partner on the same exact level as you, because, and now, don’t get me wrong, you love your classmates, but it seemed like you did all the work all the time. It was nice to have somebody by your side that actually managed to do something and took his part responsibly.

“So, since we’re not just gonna go there and argue right from the start, I wrote a little something about William Shakespeare and his background as well in the introduction, I actually didn’t get around to writing the introduction to the play itself, but-”

“Oh that’s fine, I have it done. We can just stick that in there,” he smiles at you warmly, taking you by a surprise. 

You’ve never seen Kim Seungmin smile at you. It was strange to act so friendly around him. Perhaps you were really losing your mind while studying so much. 

“Perfect.” you nod, chewing on the inside of your cheek. 

“I also have the general storyline written down so you don’t have to do that…” he mumbles, looking away for a while when your eyes meet. Is this supposed to be so awkward?

“Nice.” you opt to simply reply in your usual cold nature, nodding.

“Can you tell me which topics you wrote about? So I know if I need to write my part about more things…” he takes the initiative again and you’re actually kind of glad, because that means you don’t have to think of the schedule of your little meeting anymore. 

“Oh, right,” you say, shuffling around in your papers, “um… I just wrote about the age aspect, how reckless their love was, the image of love itself in the play, I also wrote about how meaningless the rivalry was…” you mumble, averting your eyes to the blue ink on the paper.

“Awesome, so we have all of that done… except from the love thing. Okay, I’ll write it next time I come around, since I have tutoring in a few,” he smiles, standing up from the chair, taking all of his things with him.

“Next time?”

“Yeah, well, we still have to finish it. You’ll be here on Tuesday, right? Since the class is on Thursday, so we can have time for the finishing touches.” he proposes, leaving you staring at him, startled.

“O...kay,” you nod, watching him leave.

“Perfect! I’ll see you around, bye!” he cheers, escaping the library that now feels so much hotter than before, leaving you all alone. You notice his tall figure rushing the other way of the library, watching it until it disappears completely out of your sight. 

You notice how hot your cheeks are, bringing a hand to rest against the burning surface, taking deep breaths to somehow calm down the racing heart you are only recognising now, that he’s gone. 

You still have a lot of work to do before Tuesday-- one of your tasks, it seems, is to try to not fall for his friendly nature and welcoming smile. Because perhaps, he was right all along-- why do you even hate him so much?

9.

Kim Seungmin has always been your moral enemy-- you despised everything about him, from the way he was always so calm and collected, so sweet and caring, so smart and thoughtful. You despised his composure. You despised the way he always somehow managed to make friends with everyone around him no matter who the person was. 

He was everything you weren’t. You were just the quiet kid from a broken family that always had to look after herself. You were the kid that had to keep on trying to be the best one, because your mind didn’t let you accept the second place. 

Yet now, that Kim Seungmin is sitting right in front of you with a sweet smile plastered onto his features and a stack of notes in his hands, making your heart race with his every move, you start to quietly doubt your silent hatred for the boy.

He makes it so easy to be likeable. You’re jealous of him.

“Okay, so, do you want to start reading? I think it might help us to have a run down before presenting this on Thursday,” he asks you, leaving you to take a deep breath in, nodding to yourself.

You skip the introduction bits-- both of you know a little too much about the play and its author already, you have no reason to be reading those parts out loud. Something inside of you starts shaking at the thought of presenting your work to him. You were never really good with presentations, your quiet nature leaving you getting hot in the cheeks and stammering every time you had to read in front of the class, but now, it feels even worse with the boy staring at you, listening to everything you have to say.

“They say Romeo and Juliet describe a love that surpasses all boundaries, but a close reading of the play suggests the lovers’ feelings are more complicated than pure love. If we look, we can find plenty of evidence that Romeo and Juliet’s love for one another is, at least initially, immature. Romeo begins the play claiming to be passionately in love with another woman, Rosaline. When he sees Juliet, he abandons Rosaline before he has even spoken to his new love, which suggests that his feelings for both women are superficial. Juliet, meanwhile, seems to be motivated by defying her parents. She is unenthusiastic about her parents’ choice of husband for her, and at the party where she is supposed to meet Paris, she instead kisses Romeo after exchanging just fourteen lines of dialogue with him. When Romeo returns to see Juliet, she is focused on marriage. For Juliet, part of the appeal of marriage is that it will free her from her parents: ‘I’ll no longer be a Capulet’,” you read out quietly. The room is silent, you can even hear the passing cars outside of the window, but Seungmin says nothing. You pay a daring look to him, finding him focused on your face, which makes you shakily drift your eyes back, reading some more so you can distract yourself.

“Marriage is, also, another great aspect of the story-- Juliet is only 13 in the play and even though we can argue and say that historically, she was of age to get married, I still think it is irresponsible to marry so young and so quickly. It brings a bad view of reckless love to young readers that are forced to read the play while growing up.” you continue, hearing Seungmin smirk from the other side of the table.

“‘With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out’, Romeo says, however, to Juliet, all of the freedom she gets from love sparks in the idea of leaving her parents so she can have sex.” you read out, hearing Seungmin finally burst out laughing.

You stop reading, looking up to him with questioning eyes. 

“Why are you so dramatic about all of it anyway?” he asks you, making you furrow your brows in confusion.

“What do you mean dramatic? I was supposed to write about my own view of it, so I did just that. You don’t have to laugh at me for it,” you shake your head, kind of feeling pathetic for the way your heart is racing. The thing is, and you know it sounds ridiculous, you actually feel kind of hurt by the sound of his laughter.

“I understand that, but why do you keep bashing the author for writing it like that? It’s like you don’t even believe in love, all you did was criticise all of the ideas he had. And so what if they were young and reckless? They were still in love, you know?” he rambles, making your blood boil again.

“You can’t just ignore all of it because it was in history. I don’t think it’s normal to marry so young and to claim you are in love so quickly, because you know what? If they survived, they would make a child. And then, they would realise how they fucked up their own life and Romeo would run away from her with a snap of his finger, because that’s what young, immature boys do. And then-” you raise your voice, not even realising how heated you got with the argument as you continue to ramble. The vision of your own parents and your own story is slowly eating you all up from the inside, when suddenly, Seungmin cuts you off again with a laugh.

“But you don’t know that. It’s not even in the play and your conspiracies are just… pathetic, really,” he shrugs, taking in your distressed state.

Pathetic conspiracies. Is this what he called your life?

“Leave.” you say, breathing heavy.

“What? We didn’t even-” 

“You criticize everything I write, not even recognising that maybe I do have a reason for feeling like this and maybe I really do not want to idolise young, immature love when I know just how much damage it can make, so please, for the love of god, Kim Seungmin, leave me alone!” you yell out, standing up from your chair and pointing to the door.

“Y/N-”

“I said get out!” you scream. His deep eyes stare at you for a few minutes, startled, before he hurriedly takes his things and leaves through the front door. 

Once you’re finally alone again, you sigh heavily and put your head into your hands. You feel your eyes burning, trying to desperately blink away the stupid tears filling your saddened orbs, but it’s no use as you see a few teadrops fall onto the opened copy of Romeo and Juliet on the table. 

‘It’s easy for someone to joke about scars if they’ve never been cut.’, it says.

Maybe you were fooling yourself when you thought Kim Seungmin will no longer be your enemy after all of this.

10.

You raise up to your feet when Mrs Jung calls on you on Friday. You already know what’s going to happen-- you’d been preparing yourself for this moment for the past two long, miserable days. You hadn’t spoken to Seungmin since that day in the library and frankly, you feel like after all of this, you have nothing to say to him. You feel like all energy has been sucked out of you, like you are just a walking cage without a soul just ready for this whole project to be over.

You scan the faces of your classmates, most of them looking interested by your essay. They must be expecting drama, an outburst of emotions as you listen to Seungmin’s words, but you won’t give them the satisfaction today. You’re just going to do your part-- you’re going to read out what you have to say and that’s where it ends. You’re not wasting your energy on Kim Seungmin anymore. It’s not worth your time at all. 

So you start, just like that time in the library. You make all your points, you mention all of the topics you wanted to discuss. You throw it right in front of their faces, silently confessing to them all of your deepest secrets and insecurities, because the truth is, you wouldn’t feel so strongly about the play if it didn’t affect you as much. 

And when you’re done, you let your rival speak. You listen to him with curiosity, it doesn’t matter how much you’re trying to convince yourself you don’t actually care. His words flow into your ears and fill your mind with thoughts, every single one of them dedicated to his neat handwriting and his brain full of mysteries he is currently uncovering right in front of you.

“To be honest, Y/N’s words made me think. They made me think too hard. They made me question if my point of view was actually as correct as I thought it was. You see, Y/N is a smart girl. No one can deny that. Perhaps that is what made me doubt my own words so much in the first place,” he starts, looking you directly in the eye, but quickly averting his eyes to the small group of people in the classroom instead, “but still, even though there are some points of her essay that I agree with-- like the age aspect, even though historically, it could be meaningless, as well as the way their marriage comes too fast, there are still things I strongly disagree on.”

He takes a deep breath, shuffling the papers in his hands until he finds the right one, and starts speaking again. “Y/N says their love isn’t as pure as it seems to be. With Romeo abandoning Rosaline and with Juliet desperately wanting to break away from her parents, it may seem that way. However, I think that yet, while the two characters may have initially fell for each other due to a mixture of convenience and lust, Romeo and Juliet’s language shows their passion maturing into real love,” he says, taking a short look at you that makes your insides burn in flames, “In their first meeting, they compose a sonnet together using the religious language of pilgrimage. They both start using astrological language to describe their love. As their relationship develops, they use less rhyme, which has the effect of making their language feel less artificial. These changes in the lovers’ language show that they are growing together. They are growing to care more deeply for each other, they are growing into a feeling of love they have for each other.”

“Another thing I disagree with Y/N on is her image of love. ‘Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn,’ she quotes. Romeo asks his friend, Mercutio, this question when he feels hurt by his love. Yet, as I already mentioned, in my opinion, love is growing. And growing is a journey-- in every journey, there is going to be some pain,” he looks at you again, as if to tell you that his words aren’t meant for the class, but for you and your ears only. It doesn’t look like he’s arguing with you anymore--he is simply telling you what’s on his mind. What he believes in. 

“In theory, I think love is beautiful. I understand the pain and I understand the journey. And with me saying I disagree, I’m not saying Y/N’s opinion is wrong. It’s simply what she believes in,” he nods his head, locking his eyes with Mrs Jung, “but perhaps, it’s the romantic in me that believes that the image of love portrayed in this book was, in fact, beautiful.”

He clears his throat, looking at you again, but this time, his eyes don’t drift to the papers in his hand, rather speaking from his memory instead of reading out the things he had written down. “‘The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing, and think it were not night.’ Isn’t that beautiful?” he averts his eyes to the class, smiling to himself and looking to the ground. 

Somehow, his words feel heavy on you. Like they hold the weight of the world, like what he said wasn’t just to prove a point to you. Perhaps Kim Seungmin saw through the hurt you feel-- perhaps he tried to understand. Maybe, he even tried to make you feel better. 

Somehow, his words feel like a confession. His ending ment of saying ‘thank you for your time’ goes unnoticed in your brain, everything turning blurry as the bell rings just as your presentation ends, your brain, eyes-- your whole being focused on Kim Seungmin and the way his voice recitated the words with such passion in his heart.

“‘And where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury,’” the voice of your English literature teacher cuts through your senses like a knife, the smile on her face bringing you back to reality, “Good job, you two.”

11.

A kick in a face wouldn’t hit you harder than seeing Kim Seungmin appear in the library the next day. You aren’t prepared to see him, not when all you’ve been thinking of the last night without being able to fall asleep were his words, his mind and his face. You saw him every time you closed your eyes-- it was like he suddenly imprinted himself into your brain. It was crazy. You felt crazy.

Romeo and Juliet fell in love at first sight. Romeo and Juliet got married the next day. 

How much time did it take you to fall in love with Kim Seungmin? 

Suddenly, you have no idea. And what makes it all worse is the fact that somehow, it all makes sense in your eyes. Maybe Jisung was right when he told you that giving so much energy into hating the boy would somehow make you end up like the 21st century replica of Anne of the Green Gables and Gilbert Blythe.

“Hello,” he breathes out, the corners of his mouth slightly curving up before he bites the nervous smile down, chewing on his bottom lip. 

“Hi,” you shyly greet him, noticing the book in his hands alongside with the library card, taking it from his reached-out hand. You recognise the book way too well, the hard covers a little dusty and the spine damaged from the amount of people that had borrowed this book from the library before.

You take the copy of Romeo and Juliet and place it on the table, registering it back into the database. It feels like a chapter of your life is ending. It seems like forever since you’ve been assigned the project, but in a way, you know that nothing will ever be the same. 

You kept thinking of his words in the night. How in his romantic mind, love is beautiful. And it’s a journey that requires pain, in a way. 

You kept thinking of how your parents were in love. And then, they were in pain. It was their journey that somehow ended up with you being born, ended up with your father leaving you because he couldn’t bear the responsibility. You kept thinking about how you used to blame your mother, even though all she ever did was raise you and love you. And in a way, you knew Seungmin was right and love was beautiful-- it brought your mum pain, but she was happy while it lasted. And you were the proof of that.

You give him back his library ID, fully expecting him to leave without another word, but he doesn’t. He takes it back from your hold, slipping the card into his back pocket, giving you a meaningful look as he sighs.

“I-”

“Look-”

You both start at the same time, nervously laughing before prompting the other one to speak first. You avert your eyes away from his face, letting him know you won’t be the first one to speak this time, patiently waiting for him to start talking.

“I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry if I ever made it seem like I hate you or anything, because, well, it’s quite the opposite, really,” he chuckles, wiping his hands against his pants, “I never had the guts to hold a proper conversation with you before, because honestly, I was too shy to do that, since you’re like… so smart and everything, but yeah,” he sighs again, shortly looking you in the eyes before finishing his little speech, “I’m just… sorry, I guess?”

You feel your lips tugging into a smile, shaking your head in disbelief before speaking up again. “No, I should be the one saying sorry, because I was the one acting like a bitch… I guess that were just my own insecurities getting in the way.” 

His smile mirrors yours in no time, taking your breath away as you curse in your own head. You feel crazy. So, so damn crazy for liking it so much.

“It’s okay. I guess we both had some things that came in the way. If I wasn’t acting so cold, maybe you wouldn’t hate me as much-”

“No, it’s not your fault!” you stop him, reaching out a hand to gesture him that he is talking nonsense. 

He nervously shifts his weight from one leg to another, taking a short look at his shoes, gaining all of his courage before speaking up again. “I know this may sound ridiculous, but would you maybe want to… hang out sometime?”

“Hang out?” you repeat, voice a few octaves higher than usual.

“Y-yeah,” he nods, eyes big, “I was actually thinking of asking you out on a date but since you used to hate me until now, I didn’t want to go too fast-”

“It can be a date,” you jump in. The voice in your head is screaming at you now, hell, it is running around your head and hitting the walls in anger and panic. How the hell did you end up in this position? Asking Kim Seungmin out on a date? You really must be ridiculous.

“Okay,” he smiles, urgently nodding. 

“Okay.” you grin. You exchange a daring stare into each other’s eyes before he deeply inhales and scratches the back of his neck, turning on his heel and quickly pacing to the door. You almost think he’s going to leave, but he quickly looks back and stops in his tracks, shooting you one last, bright smile.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow!” he cheers, not even letting you respond before he runs out of the door.

As the library falls into dead silence, you take a seat on the chair, sighing deeply and bringing your head into your palms resting on the table, just like many times before when Seungmin left the comfort of the library, but this time, there’s a goofy smile playing with your lips as you think of the last few minutes, chuckling to yourself. This was an outcome you did not expect from the project-- but it’s an outcome you don’t mind at all.

Romeo and Juliet fell in love at first sight. How long did it take you? 

It’s fair to say at least two weeks.

Maybe you were foolish and maybe it will hurt, but there’s something tempting at the warm feeling in your chest and the excitement Seungmin’s presence makes you feel, and that feeling alone doesn’t let you give up on this just yet. 

Your eyes fall to the opened book of Romeo and Juliet you’d left on your table just before he arrived, meaning to return the copy of the play to the library. You’re met with a sentence that makes you chuckle at the irony, the foolishness washing over you mixed with a feeling of joy you can’t quite comprehend yet, but welcome it with your arms wide open and expecting heart.

‘My only love sprung from my only hate.’

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