#how lucky are we to be able to connect on a silly app about a band we all love so fucking much

[advancedatrophy]

Checking In: A Love Letter?

I haven’t put much thought into how I am going to utilize this application to my advantage. I am not sure if I am going to write to an imaginary “you” with hopes that you will read these one day when you are bored and looking for answers or if I am going to write this under the assumption that “you” are reading these in real time and will be able to acknowledge that you have read it.

I have decided, though, that I will be treating this little application as my diary. Whether it is read or ignored or otherwise, I think maybe I should practice actually communicating my thoughts and feelings somehow. I feel that my inner self is very connected with my emotions but as soon as I am prompted to actually express them, something gets lost in translation.

I decided today, I would like to try.

The biggest emotion I am feeling these days is love. For now, let’s ignore the melodrama and hone in on that feeling. This will be either super romantic or super lame but I need to practice this so I am willing to give it a shot.

When I think about you my entire body feels a wave of calm over it. It’s going to make me sound insane talking about this in depth but I don’t care. You have a way of making me feel so safe and comfortable. Just being near you makes the entire world stop. I find myself getting lost in your presence and I could give less than a fuck about anything else. I become obsessed with trying to get that adorable laugh out of you. All I ever want to do is make you smile so big your cheeks hurt (the ones on your face, moron). When I use the term “sickness” when describing how I feel for you I am not using that term lightly. I feel completely head over heels. I get so excited just thinking about the next time we will be able to be in the same room. Finding new things out about you makes me feel so lucky you let me in on any secret. I get a high knowing I am one of the few people in your life that has the pleasure of really knowing you.

I love to know you. I love being able to predict your reactions in our silly conversations. I love being able to know what makes you tick. I love being able to guess what you’re going to wear, what you did the night before, and what you want in your future. I am so grateful you share so much with me.

I don’t believe in god but thank the lord that you are so funny. I would have wanted you regardless, but the way you are able to hold an engaging conversation with anyone in your path, and at the same time; make them laugh, is honestly astounding and a trait that I am jealous of. You say I light up a room? You set that bitch on fire. You have a unique talent that, for real, was one of the first things I noticed about you. It drew me in like no other. You are magnetic.

The way you’re mind works is incredible. You are so fun to analyze. Watching you make decisions and think about next steps is honestly a turn on. I can see the gears turning in your mind when you think. When you speak, you can relay your thoughts so clearly and really paint a picture so that anyone listening can get a perfect grasp of what is going on up there. I love trying to figure you out. Sometimes I have a race with you to see if I can guess what conclusion you’ll come up with, inside my head. That sounds fucking crazy but I hope you know what I mean. I love you.

I didn’t want to mention this first in an effort to not sound shallow, but babe… you are hot. If you weren’t a man this would be easier to describe, but I’ll do my best with the limited masculine friendly verbage. You are the sexiest thing I have ever seen. The moment I saw you for the first time I knew if I couldn’t have you, I at least wanted to (this app won’t let me use these kinds of words) f you. You have beautiful eyes, did you know I had to purposely bite my tongue for the first while of knowing you for risk of sounding too much like “other girls”? I wanted to stand out so I purposely did not mention them. But holy moly I love getting lost in them. Your smile melts me. And your body? Sheesh. I mean, you look like a god damn greek god. You are gorgeous babe. It makes me feel like I need to be working out and eating better just so that I don’t make you look like you are towing around some troll when we are together.

I could go on and on forever, and I plan to, but for now I think I should stop there just in case I sound like a total psychopath.

How did my first attempt at being expressive go?

If you are reading this, I love you.

[allisonallura]

A Mystic Message.

Did I really just write a whole one shot about the game going down today? Yes. Yes I did. While I was reading over the facts of the game, a thought occurred to me, what if the game was down because someone, was trying to reach out to you?

The male character is just referred to as "Him" so that you may fill it with whatever character you desire! (Sorry Jaehee stans)

◈ ━━━━━━ ⸙ ━━━━━━ ◈

It had happened again. You had tried to log into the messenger only to find that it wouldn’t let you in, The beginning menu would appear before you to give you fact after fact, you were sure that by the end of this you would know everything about these characters.

Yoosung Attends SKY University

The name of Jumin Han’s cat is Elizabeth the 3rd

Assistant Kang has been working with Jumin Han for 2 years

This game runs in real time.

Gama Data Download Checking for Updates…

You were currently lying on your couch upside down out of pure boredom, and considering you were still in quarantine, you didn’t have much else to do. Your eyes watch the spinning envelope mock you as your eyes narrow at the screen. Whatever was happening with the servers, you hoped it was fixed soon. You had already missed three chat rooms and was in the middle of your route. Now was not the time to be missing chat rooms and messages.

You sighed softly to yourself as you sat up, setting your phone down beside your thigh as you thought this over. Maybe you were a little too obsessed with this game, You were obsessed with a 2D man for crying out loud. But was it really your fault real men didn’t meet your standards? No.

Maybe it was because you could relate to these characters. Each of them were broken in their own way, most of them had rough pasts, Some have been through more than others, but that’s what makes each one unique and loving... But him.. He hits way too close to home. You could feel every emotion he showed you, his joy, his sadness, his pain. It had always felt like you were talking to a real human and not just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s thrown together to make a fantasy. As if those eyes.. Were looking at the real you. You made emotional connections with all of them, you laughed with them, you cried with them. Only now did you notice you had just been sitting here, lost in your own thoughts.

As you stood from the couch, you headed into the kitchen, if the server was going to be down for a while, you might as well get something to eat right? Then the next time they ask you don’t have to lie just to get the subject dropped. Preparing a sandwich you sat at the counter, eating your quickly made meal until you heard the beep. The beep to inform you that you had received a text message in the game, was it back up? Furrowing your eyebrows lightly, you stood to retrieve your phone.

Walking over to the couch you lifted your phone, Your lock screen was of course, him. Unlocking it your homepage lit up before you, which was also him. Opening the app that was located in your hot bar, you waited patiently for the main screen to load.

Your eyes watched the spinning envelope for two minutes before you became confused, but you had just gotten a text notification from the game? So how was it not working? Tilting your head softly you shrugged before shaking your head, ready to lock your phone until the same ding came through.

This wasn’t a text from the game.. This was.. A text from your actual phone? But.. that wasn’t your notification sound? Opening your message app, You grew more confused as you saw it, there, two unread messages from an unknown number. Opening the messages you read over them.

Unknown: Hello? Unknown: Is this working?

The messages read. This seemed all too familiar to you, you hesitated to answer. Your thoughts raced for what felt like the millionth time today as your eyes scanned the screen, something inside of you calling to answer the messages. It couldn’t be anything bad.. Right?

MC: Yes… it’s working.. MC: Who are you?

Unknown: MC? Is it you?

Your eyes widened, they.. They knew your name. How did they know your name? Your brain trying to come up with any possible explanation for this. Perhaps it was just an old friend and you had lost their number? That did seem to happen quite often since you moved to Korea.. Your American friends would attempt to contact you only for them to come up as Unknown. Nodding softly, you decided to keep the conversation rolling.

MC: Yes, it’s me. MC: But who are you?

Unknown: It’s me.. [Your Favorite]

Your breath hitched, now you knew someone had to be messing with you. But even if it was just someone pulling a prank, how did they know who your favorite was? Perhaps just a lucky guess? Or.. was someone watching you as you played? Did you have a stalker? You grew nervous at the thought, looking back to the screen, ready to call them out on it.

MC: Yeah.. nice try. MC: Come on.. You can tell me your name. Nice prank though.

Unknown: MC.. It’s not a prank. Unknown: It’s me.

You rolled your eyes, they seemed pretty persistent with this prank. However, there was still one way to end this rather quickly.

MC: Sure… if you say so. MC: I’m going to call you okay? MC: You can prove it to me there.

Unknown: Very well.

For some reason, you felt even more nervous. Hitting the “contact information” you saw the number, hitting the phone symbol beside it as you held the phone up to your ear. It was ringing.. You couldn’t believe you were calling a complete stranger over some silly prank. But hey.. You might make a friend out of this. Shrugging once more at the thought as the ringing continued.

Less than a minute later, whoever this number belonged to had answered. An uncomfortable silence rested between you both, neither of you seeming willing enough to speak first. You were prepared to hang up when a voice came through.

“Hello, MC.” That voice.. You could recognize this voice anywhere.. That was his voice. All of your senses seemed to stop in that moment, you couldn’t register his voice continuing until his voice held concern as he spoke your name once more.

“I’m sorry.” You replied softly, your voice just above a whisper. There’s no way this could be real, there’s no way he could be real. He was just a character to a game, that was all. “This.. this can’t be real. Your voice changer is very convincing I have to say, it must have been expensive, But.. I think I’ll be going now.”

“No wait!” His voice pleaded for you to remain on the line, but quite honestly, you were a mess of emotions in this moment. You were confused, scared, but also hopeful in a sense. A small part of you wishing it could have been him.. But it was clearly impossible.

“Please, MC. It is me.. And I can prove it.” Your silence was all he needed to continue, he began to tell you every detail of your game experience. The moments you laughed, the moments you cried, How sometimes you would look at the screen with pure adoration in your eyes for him and the others. He kept going until he knew you now believed it was the real him, then he grew silent once more.

“But.. how.. H-how are you able to be on the phone with me like this?” Your voice seemed fragile, you couldn’t believe this was really happening, even though he had given you all the proof you needed. “And of all the people who play.. Why me?” You questioned lightly.

He simply chuckled. “Darling, with the right connections and you can do anything in this world.” You could feel his smile, it was so bright and warm. “I picked you because you’re the one for me MC. It’s as simple as that. You’ve played my route time and time again and everytime you show different emotions, surprising even me… No one else who has played has ever looked at me the way you do. You truly care for me and don’t see me as just some 2D man you can get over so quickly… even if in reality that’s all I am.”

You were speechless at this point. You felt as if the sun itself was shining down on you. “You’re so much more than that… I connected to you because.. I saw a lot of myself in you. You’re so important and kind.. Even after everything you’ve been through. You deserve so much more than what you’re given..”

You heard a soft sob on the other side of the line. “I’m sorry.” He said. “I wish there was something more I could do to be with you.. Maybe one day we’ll find a way to physically be together.”

You huffed softly at that, though.. If he can call through dimensions, who’s to say he can’t build a portal or something. “Maybe one day..” You smiled to yourself. “Though if we do manage to do that.. I think I'll come to you. You’re needed there whereas me here..”

“MC.” He stopped you before you could speak anymore. “You’re needed no matter where you are, even if you don’t believe so. You have people who love you, though if you wish to come here that is something I can’t change your mind on.. But we’ll worry about that when we come to it. For now, I must be going.. The signal will be getting weaker soon.” His voice sounded disappointed. “I’m sorry I stopped the app to do this.”

You laughed softly. “I think my app freezing was well worth this surprise.. I’ll be playing your route again though.. So don’t worry about it too much.” Your smile grew brighter as you said this, now know that when you played, it was *actually* him you were responding to.

He huffed in amusement. “Promise no bad endings?” His voice took a light playful tone as you heard the line begin to go fuzzy. “I promise.” You spoke with ease, not even needs to think twice about it, you had never gotten one of his bad endings, and now you didn’t plan to, even if it meant you would never completely finish the game, his happiness is worth it.

“I love you, MC.” He spoke suddenly, you felt a bright blush form on your cheeks as he spoke those words you had read over and over in his route. But actually hearing them.. This was something completely different.

“I love you too.” You spoke, your voice as soft as silk before the line went dead. Though you were sad the call had ended so suddenly, you were more happy that it had happened. The missing piece of you was now complete..

Quickly wasting no time, you got back on the messenger to see that it was working properly once more. Your progress for his route continues as the familiar text sound beeped from your phone. You have received a text from him. Figuring it would be one of the basic ones you saw everyday you clicked on it. Though your eyes widened as you read over the text.

“One day we’ll be together.. I promise. I love you, MC.”

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Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this story! I'm sorry it wasn't as good as my other pieces but this one wasn't really planned and I was just kinda going with the flow.

But still! feedback is appreciated! Thank you :heart: Word Count: 1,882

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24012616

#mysticmessenger #mysme jumin #mysme zen #mysme 707 #mysme yoosung #mysme jihyun #jihyun kim #x reader #fanfiction #follow #mm #cheritz

[readyouagain]

The Hating Game: Epilogue

It’s a red dress kind of day. It’s Friday afternoon. I’m sitting in my office at Bexley & Gamin and I can see my reflection in my floor-to-ceiling window. Outwardly I look remarkably corporate, but on the inside I’m forever an immature little weirdo. I cross my legs and begin to play the Mirror Game with myself. The Staring Game. Even a whispered How You Doing Game. It’s just not the same without my opponent. It’s been a shitty day. I spent the afternoon fighting a valiant battle against Mr. Bexley over electronic distribution royalties, and then I found out that there’s a bug in our latest e-library app.   I’m so tired I can feel my own skeleton. I need to be lying on my perfect couch but it’s not going to happen tonight. It’s so quiet I can hear the fluorescent tubes buzzing. The elevator bings. Whoever’s just arrived on the tenth floor needs to be kept out of my office so I can get the hell out of here. Scott, our executive officer, is a pretty good gatekeeper. I can hear muffled conversation, and then there’s a rap on the door. There’s only one person in the world who can put so much short, sharp love into a single knock. “Come in,” I say. The door swings open and there he is.

Joshua Templeman is dressed in black. Everything, from his underwear to his cufflinks to his tie, is ink-black midnight. He enjoys the drama of it on a Friday, sliding into people’s office doorways like Dracula just as they’re loosening their ties and thinking about their weekends. All he needs is some devil horns and a pitchfork. I feel vaguely bad for whoever he’s been terrorizing today. He leans against the doorjamb and we’re playing the Staring Game for a minute until his dark navy eyes spark. “Shortcake,” he breathes like he can’t believe I’m real. “I missed you so bad.” My. Heart. Bursts. I stand up and go to him. He picks me up off the ground, kissing my jaw, my cheekbones, his fingers stroking my nape. He turns me in a circle and I cross my ankles prettily. The tiredness falls out through my feet and dissolves. He’s here, and I’m lit up. It’s the kind of light that never fades. People in the opposite building might be able to see us. Motorists at the traffic lights below can probably make out the silhouette of a ridiculously large man twirling around a ridiculously small woman. During one slow revolution I catch sight of Helen and Mr. Bexley, standing near Scott’s desk. They’re all looking at us like we’re the most gorgeously silly couple in the world. It’s accurate. We are. Helen glances at Mr. Bexley with a wry expression, and I swear I see a little moment of connection between them. I’ve been suspecting it more and more. I know love-hate when I see it. I speak into Josh’s neck. “I hate not being able to stare at your pretty face all day.” I breathe in his addictive, perfect scent. Deciduous trees in the sun. Evergreen trees in the snow. A pencil sharpened to a razor point, pressing into fresh white paper. “It’s against HR policy to stare at your corporate rival all day.” I hug him harder. “Whose HR policy?” “One of them, I’m sure. I’ll look it up.” Josh sets me down and kisses my cheek again. Once he starts, he can’t stop. In the elevator I’ll wipe off my Flamethrower lipstick so I can get my proper hello kiss. If I’m lucky he’ll hit the emergency stop button, although we’ve been pissing off the security guards with that. I treat myself to a nice squeeze of his torso before I remember the door is ajar. “Who have you made cry today, Overlord?” At the Sanderson Christmas party, I overheard his nickname and had to laugh. He earned it. “Nobody,” he tells me with adorable sincerity and a blink. “Not a single person. I’m a changed man.” I’m trying to teach him how to be more approachable. More understanding. More like me. At the first Sanderson Christmas party, I stood alone and awkward for an excruciating two minutes, during which time I was the subject of speculation. I felt like the word how was said a lot. I could hear their drunk, high-pitched whispers. She looks normal. Sweet. So small! How does she cope with that…monster?  We should rescue her. Maybe he keeps her chained in this basement. I waved like a dork to show that I was not shackled and was there on my own free will. They shrank back, then fell totally silent as their chief financial officer, aka the Overlord, approached me with a glass of wine. His eyes were soft with tenderness and my heart stopped beating until he restarted it with a kiss. The Overlord snuggled me into his side, fitting us together just right. Hard and soft. Darkness and light. Good cop, bad cop. I registered the jaws dropping. He’s smiling! He’s the Overlord, he calls them his Underlings, but I can see the little signs that he’s getting better at this. At a lot of things, actually. “Did you remember your dad’s present?” “Yep. We’d better get going if we’re going to make the party. Mindy and Patrick have been texting me obsessively. Don’t be late, don’t be late.” He’s sarcastic but I know how much this means to him. I give his arm a stroke and a squeeze. “We won’t be late.” I can’t lie on the couch tonight because I’m needed in Port Worth. I’m Josh’s little lucky charm. When I’m there, he and his dad don’t fight. Luckily for them both, I’m always there. “Got quite a collection by now, Shortcake,” Josh says, looking at the rows of Matchbox cars on the shelf behind me. He forgets our hurry and takes a red Volkswagen beetle out of his pocket, sliding it into one of the gaps. “My toys have given me a reputation for being quirky and approachable.” “No one would guess this strawberry-sweet exterior hides a complete hard-ass.” “I learned from the master. I’m known for being firm but fair.” “Mmm. Tell me more.” He loves sitting at my desk to look at everything I surround myself with, and he lowers himself down into my chair like it’s a milkmaid stool. His eyes are lit with a creepy kind of devotion as he looks at the castle of books against the wall, and the Smurf hiding in one of the battlements. He finds my bottle of perfume and smells the lid as he strokes my computer mouse. “That’s where you’ve been,” he says in a scolding tone to the cardigan slung on the back of my chair. He folds it into a bread-slice square on his knee. I’ve turned him into such a total freak. I’m an even bigger freak when I visit his office. I once touched the speed dial button on his phone marked SHORTCAKE just to make my cell phone ring. Then I was jealous of myself. That’s a sensation I feel a lot. How am I living this life? How did I win so much? Like he can read my mind, Josh picks up the framed photograph on my desk. It’s us together in the strawberry fields. Our eyes are summer bright, and I am sitting between his legs leaning back against him. Around us is a carpet of green, studded with red. The picture is a tiny bit crooked because my dad was a little overexcited by the secret he was keeping. Five minutes after this photo was taken, Josh said, “Hey, it’s an old Smurf in the dirt.” He knew nothing would make me drop to the ground faster. I scratched frantically through the leaves. Where? Where? What I found in the vines at Sky Diamonds Strawberries was a Tiffany blue box. Then I realized he was kneeling down, too. Lucy blue. True-love blue. Even as he squeaked the box open and began to speak, I was dimly aware of cheering from the house. My parents were spying from the office window. After I brushed the squashed berries from the back of his T-shirt, I learned that Josh had become an expert in diamonds. Carat, cut, color, clarity. He shivered with delight as he described staring at imperfections through a loupe. I could just imagine his laser eyes crumbling stones to ash. The way he tells it, he searched through a pile of worthless pebbles until he found something worthy of my tiny finger. I tell him it’s too big, too much, too perfect. He just laughs and says, I know, then makes me forget whether we’re still talking about a diamond. I think my cheeks are going pink right now. When he looks me in the eye, he smirks. He’s definitely a mind reader. “We need a vacation,” he decides, his finger straightening the terracotta tile I use as a coaster. I got that tile in Tuscany. “I’m taking you back. Cheese and wine and sleeping in the sun.” His eyes follow the line of my dress down my body. “Red dresses and champagne and carbohydrates.” A pause, and there’s a little vulnerability in his expression now. “I didn’t go crazy and dream it all, did I?” “I have frequently assured you that I’m real.” I take his hand in mine and use it to pinch my forearm. “I was there for every incredible second. I always will be. Now, quit talking about carbohydrates. You’re turning me on.” He laughs. “We’d better get out of here.” He grabs my coat and walks out to chat with Helen and Mr. Bexley. I log off and lock away the stack of slush pile manuscripts I’ve been reading as my own little treat. I lock my door and just watch his reflection bounce around off the slick, glossy surfaces that make up level ten. The only thing better than having one Josh is having a hundred. I look at the plaque on my office door as I lock it. It says, Chief Operating Officer, and usually it has me grinning like a dork. But right now, I’m smiling over something else. The gold ring on Joshua Templeman’s left hand has set off a shower of firework sparkles in this huge black prism. Each time I focus on one particular reflection, it fractures and doubles. It’s a kaleidoscope of his love around me now. There are a hundred gold rings. A thousand. It’s still not enough. I want to spin around while they circle me like fireflies. That’s how he makes me feel, every day of ours lives. It’s wonderful. It’s primal. It’s nothing short of a miracle. My name is Lucy Templeman.

#the hating game #sally thorne

[caught-in-a-seesaw-stigma]

Map of the Soul, Chapter Two

For the @btswritingcafe​‘s Map of the Soul: 7 Workshop

Pairings: OT7 x reader (kinda); Taehyung x reader

Series Summary: If you give a piece of yourself to everyone you love, at some point, there will be nothing left for yourself. While feeling lost and alone in your adult life, a strange box falls onto your head in your own closet, and you take an unexpected walk down memory lane wondering where everything went wrong.  Was it the romances that fizzled out, the friends & loved ones you left behind, the “what could’ve been” moments, the brush with Fate that never quite connected? Could the strange map you find have the answers you are looking for?  Determined to feel complete once again, you embark on a journey to reclaim the missing pieces of your soul.

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Smut (references to previous)

Word Count: 8k+ 

Warnings: cursing & vulgar language, accidental flashing, mentions of kinks and other sexual content, sexual innuendos, mentions of previous sexual encounters, nerdy soulmate things, bisexuality

Chapter Two: Soulmates are a Forever Kind of Thing

March 18th, 11:37am

The sound of an incessant car alarm outside tore you away from the breezy dreamscape you were enjoying with a scantily clad Jungkook. You pried your eyes open and groaned at the never-ending beeps and boops below your window.

SHUT UP ALREADY, YOU PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A MACHINE!

You grumbled angrily as you slid out of bed and made your way to the bathroom. The soreness between your legs made you smile, and you flirted with the idea of texting Jungkook.

Hmmm, too soon. Better give it a day or two.

It was a lazy Sunday for you, so you spent the next hour lounging and snacking while Oberyn curled up next to you on the couch. You were starting to submit to an afternoon of mindless YouTube streaming when a notification dinged on your phone.

Jungkook?!

You scrambled across the couch to take your phone off of the charger. The notification wasn’t from your messaging app though, it was from your Instagram. Your old friend Taehyung sent you a message and you smiled when you saw his profile picture. Your heart warmed as you thought about the first time you met Kim Taehyung.

↸ᶠˡᵃˢʰᵇᵃᶜᵏ

Several Decades Earlier

You met Kim Taehyung in kindergarten when you fell off the monkey bars and he unknowingly broke your fall. You couldn’t figure out how to soothe the sobbing mess he was, so you kissed him on the cheek like your mother would whenever you got hurt.

“Better?” you hoped. “Did I make the hurt go away?”

He sniffled slightly and looked up at your face with tears streaming down his face. He pouted and shook his head emphatically, then pointed to the top of his head. You simply nodded and planted a soft kiss to the top of his chocolate locks.

“How about now?” you tried. “All gone?”

He pouted again and then pointed to his forehead. You pulled his head closer and placed another kiss on his forehead. His tears stopped, but he was still hiccuping as a result of his earlier crying fit.

“What’s wrong?” You asked gently, still holding his head. “Are you still hurt?”

His pout deepened and he nodded slightly. He tried to look you in the eye, but he kept hiccuping and closing his eyes in protest.

“Where?” you pleaded. “I’ll make it better.”

He lifted his shining puppy dog eyes to meet your concerned face. Slowly, he lifted his finger and placed it on his own pouty lips. You gasped slightly and widened your eyes.

“There?” you asked. “I hit you there?”

I guess that makes sense. I probably kicked him when I fell.

New tears formed in his big brown eyes and your heart sank at the sight. You sighed and gathered up your strength. With a huff, you leaned forward quickly and placed the softest little peck on his lips and then pulled away. However, before you could escape, the boy reached up and grabbed your wrist. You panicked for a moment, but then realized he just needed help standing up.

You helped him stand and as soon as you dusted the dirt from the fall, he enveloped you in a crushing bear hug.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “I feel much better now.”

He pulled away and wiped at his eyes. You offered him a small smile and grinned at the adorable sight. A sudden realization hit you and you gasped loudly, which captured his attention.

“Hey,” you cried. “Your hiccups are gone!”

The boy froze and looked around, as though hiccups were tangible things he could track with his vision. A wide grin blossomed across his face and you noted the cute boxy shape. As troubled as this first encounter was, you still felt drawn to the silly boy with the rosy cheeks and fluffy hair.

“What’s your name?” you asked sweetly. “Want to be friends?”

“My name is Taehyung,” he replied while grabbing your hand. “I would love to be your friend!”

ᵉⁿᵈ ᶠˡᵃˢʰᵇᵃᶜᵏ⇲

A soft smile spread across your face at the memory. A lifelong friendship started from that first tumble, and you never regretted giving your first kiss away to the cute boy you’d crushed when you fell from those monkey bars. 

Sigh.

You opened up your Instagram app and searched for the message Taehyung sent. Your eyes widened and you laughed maniacally when you saw the picture he sent.

You were laughing so hard, you nearly fell off the couch. Oberyn scuffled away angrily, clearly annoyed that your outburst of laughter disturbed his nap time.

When the giggle fit finally died down to a manageable sense of amusement, you looked at the message again. Taehyung always did have a way of saying just the right thing at just the right time. Your amusement quickly shifted into longing and nostalgia, and you could almost feel your soul aching for its mate.

I miss him so much.

Over seven years had passed since you last saw Taehyung in person. The summer before you were going to start high school, his parents had to move to another state. You were both happy that his dad was finally getting the promotion he worked so hard for, but it was devastating to think that you would be going through high school without your best friend and soulmate.

Throughout high school, you kept in touch (thank the gods for the internet and smartphones), but you both went to different colleges and were only able to meet up during breaks. Once you both graduated, you took jobs in different states and your communication dwindled to random messages and the occasional phone call or video chat.

It wasn’t enough. You needed him as a permanent physical fixture in your life, but there wasn’t much either of you could do about it. You both loved your jobs and you were comfortable in your current living situations. However, if an opportunity to change that ever revealed itself, you were positive that you would both jump at it like feral cats.

You briefly considered messaging him on Instagram, but your lingering nostalgia convinced you to call him instead. It was so long since you’d heard his resonant baritone voice purring into your ear. Honestly, that voice alone could wreck someone to pieces. Luckily, you knew the man connected to the voice so it didn’t affect you nearly as much.

You quickly scrolled through your contacts and hit the “Call” button. After three rings, the man himself answered with a long sigh.

“You couldn’t give me a few minutes to dry myself off before calling?” he whined cutely. “I had to rush through my shower just to answer the phone.”

“No one told you to do that, Tae,” you countered. “You could always let it go to voicemail and then just call me back.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed playfully. “You know better than anyone that I am the worst when it comes to returning phone calls. You’re lucky I still remember to send you messages on social media.”

“Fair point, sir,” you giggled. “The only reason I haven’t kicked your forgetful ass to the curb is because you’re my best friend and I love your stupid ass.”

“Ummm, I think you mean soulmate,” Taehyung argued. “Remember, we decided that the term “best friend” wasn’t strong enough to accurately describe our relationship.”

“Ah, yes,” you concurred. “How could I possibly forget the Great Soulmate Debate of 5th grade? You almost got us into detention with that speech of yours, Tae.”

“It’s your fault,” he shot back. “If you had just accepted the term soulmate when I first suggested it, everything would have been fine. But, noooooooo, someone just had to argue with me and keep us in the hallway until we were officially skipping class.”

“Don’t complain, Tae-Bear, you love it when I argue with you,” you reminded him. “It’s part of the dynamic of our relationship. If we just gave in to each other all the time, it wouldn’t be any fun.”

“Exactly,” he chuckled. “You’re the ice to my fire, the sweet to my sour, the jelly to my peanut butter.”

“Why do you get to be the peanut butter?” you challenged. “Why do I have to be the jelly in this metaphor?”

“Because I’m smooth and you’re cool, remember?” Taehyung responded. “Don’t tell me your memory is slipping, babe.”

“No,” you sighed sadly. “I think it’s just been too long since we’ve actually seen each other in person. I miss you, Tae-Bear.”

The video call feature started ringing in your ear and you almost squealed in excitement. You swiped a finger across the screen and adjusted the phone on the coffee table. A shirtless Taehyung with wet hair greeted you with the boxiest of smiles, and you couldn’t help waving and squealing like a ridiculous fangirl.

“My Tae-Tae,” you cooed. “Baby, I miss you so much!”

He chuckled and pulled a scarf headband on to push his dark curling locks away from his eyes. You smiled at his golden skin glistening in his after shower glow, and shook your head at how many women despise you for being so close to this delicious morsel. It was a blessing and a curse, but you carried that burden with pride because you just loved him so much.

“Ok, now, let’s do the math, babe,” Taehyung ordered while pulling on a flowy button down with a wild print. “I know you hate math, but try to work with me, ok? When was the last time we were actually together in person?”

“Well, this is my eighth year teaching at the university,” you recalled. “I think it was that first Christmas after I started working here. We went home and had sleepovers every night until after New Year’s. You had just gotten your job at the marketing firm, and we were upset that we wouldn’t be able to see each other as much.”

“Shit,” he gaped at you. “Has it really been that long? That doesn’t seem right.”

“A little over seven years,” you calculated grimly. “We’ve tried to meet up almost every year, but something always comes up either with you or me.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, babe,” Taehyung apologized. “I didn’t even realize that much time passed. How are we even surviving?”

“Barely,” you pouted. “Whenever I’m off from school, you’re busy, and whenever you get vacation time, I have school. The cycle never ends.”

There was a few seconds of reluctant silence and then Taehyung had a visual epiphany.

“Actually,” Taehyung grinned. “I do have some vacation time I can take. I have a full week that I need to take this year or else I lose it. Aren’t you on Spring Break right now?”

You popped up in your seat and nodded quickly.

Was this really happening?!

“Kim Elizabeth Taehyung!” you scolded. “Don’t you dare play with my emotions right now. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Taehyung giggled and angled the phone so you could see that he was on one knee. He comically cleared his throat and gave you his best pouty face.

“My beautiful darling soulmate,” he purred in a purely saccharine voice. “Can I stay at your place while I take my vacation? I don’t want to stay in a lame Airbnb again.”

“Of course you can!” you exclaimed. “I could never say no to that adorable face.”

He jumped up and started breaking out into his signature celebration dance, but you quickly noted that he was just wearing a towel from the waist down. Before you could comment on his lack of clothing, the towel unraveled and you got an eyeful of Taehyung that men and women alike would kill to have.

“TAEHYUNG!” you screeched. “Cover your shame!”

He dropped the phone on the bed and you could hear his cute laughter filling the room. He was nearly gasping for air when he finally picked up the phone. You noted the reddened ears and rosy cheeks showering his boxy grin like a halo. The man was far from an angel, but at least he had the decency to be embarrassed by his accidental flashing.

“I never took you for a cam-boy, Tae,” you teased. “Is that how you’re earning extra money these days?”

He rolled his eyes and shot you a look over the phone. It’s not like you’d never seen Taehyung naked, but you had to admit, it had been a while.

“You know that isn’t one of my kinks, babe,” he reprimanded. “I am not an exhibitionist. I would never make it as a cam-boy.”

You leaned forward and glanced down and then back at his face and lifted your eyebrows suggestively.

“From what I could see,” you mused. “You are more than qualified to have a big, long successful career as a cam-boy. You could be rolling in some thick money stacks, if you know what I mean.”

He tried so hard to resist your perverse innuendo, but the scowl he threw at you quickly morphed into unadulterated amusement. He fell back on his bed and clutched at his stomach with a major case of the giggles. From your slanted angle on the bed, you could see him gasping for air with tears forming in his eyes. Once he regained his composure, he wiped away his tears and wagged his finger at you.

“Naughty, naughty,” he scolded. “I may have to punish you when I get there.”

You rolled your eyes at his insinuation, but quickly brightened at the prospect of his arrival. It was time to make plans for your Tae-bear’s trip.

“Ok, let’s get serious for a minute,” you stated. “I need dates, times, number of checked bags, everything. When should I expect you to get here, TaeTae?”

“Let me check with the office and I’ll get back to you, babe,” he replied. “I just finished off a big account, so I do have a little down time coming my way. I will get everything cleared at work and then book my flight. As soon as I know, you’ll know.”

“Ah, I’m so excited to see you!” you squealed with delight. “It’s been way too long. I’ll set up the guest room for you.”

“Umm, guest room?” Taehyung queried with a smirk. “Yeah, that isn’t going to work for me. I’m going to need the left side of your mattress, babe.”

“Tae, that’s my side of the bed,” you growled. “You know that.”

“I know,” he winked cheekily. “But as your guest of honor, I get first dibs. You could always sleep on top of me, if you so choose.”

“Absolutely not, Kim Taehyung,” you spat. “Soulmate or not, you know how crucial my sleep cycle is. Any disturbance hitherto is a recipe for disaster.”

“Meh,” he shrugged. “I’ll risk it.”

The sound of an alien space gun text tone went off and his brow furrowed slightly.

“Hey, babe, I gotta go,” Taehyung announced. “Duty calls.”

“Ok, baby,” you pouted. “Text me later!”

You both blew kisses at the camera and ended the video call. You plopped back onto the couch and took a deep breath. If the Universe was feeling generous, you would soon be enjoying a full week of soulmate time. It felt like a dream.

Please let this happen. I need some Tae-time to recharge my soul.

Oberyn randomly popped up by your side and pawed at your arm with a pathetic whine.

“Ok, ok,” you relented. “Let me get my shoes on and I will take you for a walk.”

As you slipped on your favorite pair of rainbow Crocs, you reached up to grab his harness and leash. Oberyn danced around you in circles and it took a few tries to get him situated and out the door. By the time you returned to the apartment, you decided it was time to grab some lunch and start planning your vacation week.

So much to do, so little time.

March 18th, 7:47pm

You were just starting up another load of laundry when you received a Snapchat notification from Taehyung. You unlocked your phone in a flash and opened your Snapchat app. You clicked on his name in your messages with your breath held hostage.

Oh no! I’m not ready for the disappointment yet.

You were just about to fall into your familiar pit of despair when another message popped onto the screen.

Your shrill cheers and exclamations scared Oberyn right out of the laundry room and into the safety of the living room. You almost felt bad for scaring the daylights out of your dog, but turnabout is always fair play in this house. He scared you half to death on multiple occasions. A little payback was definitely in order.

You immediately started a video call to Taehyung, bouncing with glee all over your apartment. He answered after only a few seconds, and thankfully, was fully dressed.

“Well, hello, beautiful,” Taehyung quipped. “Feels like I just saw you hours ago. Couldn’t get enough of me earlier?”

“I think you showed me plenty this morning,” you joked. “Now, dish out the deets, Kim. Will you be here by this weekend?”

“How does tomorrow sound?” he replied with a smirk. “I was able to cash in my miles to book an early flight tomorrow morning. I’m packing as we speak.”

“Are you kidding me?” you nearly shrieked. “You’re really going to be here tomorrow?!”

“Yup yup,” Taehyung chirped. “If you pick me up at the airport, I’ll buy you lunch. How does that sound?”

“It sounds perfect, Tae-Bear,” you sighed happily. “I can’t wait to see you.”

“Same here, babe,” he smiled softly at you. “I’m going to finish packing and then I have to go drop off Tannie at my sister’s. She’s going to dog sit for me while I’m gone.”

“Awwww,” you cooed. “Bring him with you! You know Obie misses his little brother. You already have him cleared as your emotional support dog. Why don’t you just bring my precious Yeontan to see his favorite aunt?”

“You really don’t mind?” Taehyung questioned. “You know he’s just chaos disguised as a ball of fluff.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you retorted. “Tannie is an angel. I’ll start clearing out a space for him. I have an extra bed for him and everything. The boys still eat the same food, right? Just bring his bowls and a blanket for the bed.”

Taehyung considered your proposal carefully, and then pursed his lips.

“I think you need to ask him yourself,” Taehyung suggested. “Maybe you can convince him to come with me.”

Taehyung switched the perspective on the phone so you could see into his apartment. He walked down the hallway calling for Yeontan. Curled up on an elaborate dog bed and surrounded by a plethora of dog toys sat the fluffiest dog known to man. Yeontan lifted his head and yawned cutely into the camera.

“Tannie!” you cooed at him. “What are you doing, sweetheart? Are you napping?”

Yeontan’s fluffy tail wagged in excitement and he stood up and shook the sleepiness out of his fur. You reached over to lift Oberyn from his spot on the couch and put him in view of the camera.

“Look, Obie,” you instructed. “It’s your little brother. Say hi.”

Both dogs tried to sniff at the other dog in the frame, and their eyes lit up in recognition.

“Tannie, do you want to come and visit your big brother Obie?” you asked the animated pup on the phone. “Tell your daddy that you want to come over to stay with us.”

Oberyn barked at the screen and wagged his tail, and Yeontan followed suit. The yips and growls from both dogs made you and Taehyung giggle profusely. You released your wiggly pup and sat forward on the couch to grin at your soulmate as he switched the perspective back to his handsome face.

“Ok, I guess you win,” Taehyung relented with a smirk. “I’ll pack Tannie’s things as well. Let me call my sister and cancel the sitter. I will forward you my travel itinerary as soon as that’s done. I love you, I miss you, and I will see you tomorrow, babe.”

“Same,” you replied joyfully. “Please be careful and get some rest. I know how cranky you get when you don’t get enough sleep.”

Taehyung stuck his tongue out at you like a petulant child and then made a goofy face into the camera. You made an equally funny face and then you both blew each other kisses and ended the call. He had a lot of packing to do, and you had to prepare for his arrival.

This is unbelievably wonderful. I never would have expected my break to go as well as this.

March 19th, 6:17am

You parked your car and dashed inside the airport lobby. You were supposed to meet Taehyung in Baggage Claim to help him with his bags and with Yeontan. The little fur ball was pint sized, but he was also fierce.

You spotted Taehyung’s silky waves under a hunter green beret near the middle of the baggage claim area. Once you were close enough, you noticed he was struggling to keep Yeontan calm and quiet as the carousel started moving.

“Sir, you need to control your dog,” you chided in a nasally pretentious voice. “Don’t make me call security.”

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung sputtered, not looking up. “I promise he’s actually really sweet, but he’s just really excited right now. He’s seeing his aunt for the first time in years.”

Taehyung spun around abruptly and shoved an ecstatic yapping Yeontan into your arms and then leaned in to place a fat kiss on your cheek. You gaped at his playful grin and shot him a knowing smile while Yeontan placed numerous kisses to your face.

“You knew it was me, huh?” you giggled, giving Yeontan a few kisses in return. “Sneaky Tae-Bear.”

He shrugged and wandered off to grab his bags from the carousel. You placated Yeontan and waited patiently as Taehyung rolled three suitcases over to you. Once you got everything packed into the car, including Yeontan strapped into the dog car seat, Taehyung lifted you around your waist and spun you around joyfully. Once he lowered your feet to the ground, you stayed wrapped in his bear hug on the verge of tears.

“Tae,” you breathed out shakily. “I really missed you.”

His arms tightened around your waist and he nuzzled his face into your neck.

“I missed you too,” Taehyung sighed sadly. “Let’s never let this much time pass without seeing each other. I didn’t realize how empty I felt, darling, until I held you in my arms.”

You chuckled at his dramatics and pulled away to look at his face. His mischievous smirk was fully loaded complete with a lifted eyebrow and you shook your head at his antics.

“Drama queen,” you joked.

“Hey,” he shrugged. “It’s the reason you gave me the middle name Elizabeth.”

You hurried home to get Yeontan settled in with Oberyn and Taehyung situated in your guest room. Once everything was unpacked and set, you ordered Thai food delivery for lunch so you and Taehyung could catch up while the boys played around the apartment.

“I really like your place,” Taehyung commented with a mouthful of Pad Thai. “It’s smaller than mine, but the setup is so much better.”

“How do you do that?” you asked in a pout. “How is it possible for you to compliment and insult my apartment in the same sentence?”

“Just talented, I guess,” he grinned while stealing a spoonful of your Tom Yum soup. “Speaking of talent, what hot stud did you have over recently, you little minx?”

You felt a rush of blood creep across your cheeks and ears at that last comment.

How the fuck does he know?

“What are you talking about, Tae?” you muttered nonchalantly while clearing your throat. “What makes you think that I had anyone over?”

“Well, I happened to notice the condom wrapper and used condom in the trash can in your bathroom,” Taehyung mused. “Someone had a big guest to entertain, didn’t they?”?”

You nearly choked on the Thai tea you were drinking, and Taehyung was damned lucky you didn’t do a spit take all over his expensive looking vintage clothes. After you recovered from your near death experience, you glared at the smug look on his face. He was chomping away happily on yet another spring roll and he paused to waggle his eyebrows at you and grin.

“Sooooo,” he drawled. “Who was it? Anyone special or just a rando from the bar?”

You hesitated. Taehyung would remember Jungkook. How could he not? You were constantly raving about Jungkook’s adorable bunny smile, his rippling muscles, the beautiful mole under his lip that you wanted to kiss every time you saw him. As you were debating the issue in your head, Taehyung picked up on your hesitation and scooted closer to you on the couch.

“It’s someone I know, isn’t it?” he assumed correctly. “C’mon, soulmate, dish me them dirty deets. I won’t judge.”

“Uh, yeah, you will,” you shot back in defiance. “You always judge, Tae.”

“Well, yeah, ok,” he admitted. “But I promise it will stay between us. Pinky promise!”

He stuck out his pinky and your heart fluttered with elation.

The pinky promise…

After the Great Soulmate Debate of 5th grade, you and Taehyung developed a signature “Ultimate Soulmate Handshake” that started with a linking of your pinkies. You lifted your eyes to meet his challenging gaze and you knew that he was testing the true strength of your relationship with his little gesture. You smirked at him and linked your pinky with his own, and you both stood up to do the proper handshake.

What followed was an overly complicated ballet of fingers, palms, and ridiculously dated dance moves ending with you jumping into his arms and you both striking a pose. Almost a decade had passed since you’d both completed these actions, yet it seemed like only yesterday you were sealing some kind of deal or promise with the Ultimate Soulmate Handshake.

Taehyung wrapped his arms around you once again and twirled you around the living room. Both of you were giggling like idiots, and you could not remember when you ever felt so happy. Taehyung truly was the other half of your soul, and you didn’t realize how much you missed him until that exact moment. Your giggles morphed into a quiet sob, and Taehyung quickly lowered you when he felt the atmosphere between you shift.

“Awww, babe, don’t cry,” he pleaded while wiping away your tears. “Why are you crying?”

“I just realized how much I’ve missed you, Tae-bear,” you sniffled. “It’s been too long.”

“Oh, honey,” he cooed while pulling you closer. “I know, believe me. I feel it too. I definitely feel like you were the thing that was missing in my life. Come here, baby, let’s dry those tears.”

Taehyung pulled you into the kitchen and grabbed a paper towel from the counter. He dabbed at your tears until you pulled the napkin away to clean up your face and blow your nose unceremoniously into it. He grimaced playfully at your actions and then pulled you close so he could kiss your forehead. You walked around the counter to toss the used paper towel in the trash and turned to find Taehyung looking curiously at the box you’d left on the counter.

“What’s this?” he asked in wonder. “It’s beautiful. Look at the embellishments on the feet and the resin lacquered over the collage. Did you make this, babe?”

“No, I found it in my closet,” you said. “I don’t know where it came from. It’s not mine.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” he quipped. “This totally screams your name. Look at those stickers, these colors, and that handwriting. How is this not your box?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “I think I would remember making something like this, Tae. I honestly have no idea what it is.”

“What’s inside?” he asked while lifting the lid. “Hey! My hamburger!”

Taehyung lifted out the small plastic hamburger toy and his boxy smile made a sudden appearance on his glowing face. As bright as his smile was, your confusion was matching it in intensity.

“What do you mean your hamburger?'' you questioned carefully.

Taehyung’s smile dropped and transformed into utter disbelief.

“You don’t remember?!” he shrieked. “Are you fucking kidding me?! How dare you?!”

Taehyung stomped off in the direction of your bedroom and you followed him, still perplexed by this mystery hamburger toy that brought both joy and anger to your soulmate.

You walked into your room and found Taehyung digging into the bowels of his suitcase. A few perfectly folded articles of clothing flew over his shoulders and you caught them in midair. You were just setting them on the bed when Taehyung screeched and startled you into a sitting position. He rounded on you and held up the hamburger toy and another small toy resembling a strawberry milkshake.

“딸기/ttalgi (strawberry),” he stated simply. “That was what I started calling you after you spilled that milkshake on my head after our first fight, remember? I said it was superior to apple, even though you refuse to accept it. In fact, I’m bringing it back because it totally suits you.``

The confusion on your face evaporated as the memory came hurtling back to you. You brought your hands up to cover your mouth and your eyes widened at the revelation.

“Holy shit,” you murmured. “I haven’t thought about that in years. What was that fight even about anyway?”

“It was over that Japanese girl we both wanted to date in 4th grade,” he reminded you. “The one who had the bright red hair, what was her name?”

“Oh yeah,” you drawled. “Asuka. She was beautiful, just like a cherry blossom petal falling from the sky.”

“A little cliche, but ok,” Taehyung chuckled. “But yes, her. We were at that burger place and we saw her. You told me you were going to ask her out and I got mad because I wanted to ask her out. We fought and ended up throwing food at each other.”

You blushed at the memory and tried to hide your face. It was so embarrassing to think about how immature you used to be.

“Sorry, Tae-bear,” you apologized. “I don’t even remember what you said that made me so angry.”

It was Taehyung’s turn to flush awkwardly. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously and huffed out a sigh.

“I, uh,” he stuttered. “I said that you couldn’t ask Asuka out because you were a girl.”

“Oh snap,” you gasped. “You did say that, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” he admitted sheepishly. “We were in 4th grade, babe. We didn’t know shit about sexuality back then. You just knew you liked both genders and I refused to believe that was possible.”

“That was until senior year when you met that percussion guy from marching band,” you scoffed. “What was his name? Kai?”

“Oh, Kai,” Taehyung reminisced fondly. “The pretty one who got away. He was adorable.”

Taehyung shook the memory away and lifted the toys again, determined to finish his story. He kneeled in front of you, leaning his forearms on your thighs for balance.

“After Asuka turned us both down, we were left filthy and heartbroken,” he continued. “Your shirt stained from the hamburger I threw at you and me covered in sticky strawberry milkshake. We made up in the parking lot and bought each other prizes from the bubble machine inside the lobby. Ironically, these were the prizes we got. I kept the burger and you kept the milkshake.”

He handed you the toys and you cradled them against your chest.

That was such a long time ago. My, how things have changed.

“Before we moved, we swapped toys,” he murmured, his voice thick with melancholy. “It was like our special soulmate talisman. I was you and you were me.”

You both looked at each other with misty eyes and failed to stifle the sniffles coming from your noses. The memory of your first real separation haunted both of you still. That day was agonizing for both of you, realizing that you may never be close to each other again. Almost two decades had passed and the wounds still felt so fresh. It only worsened when his parents moved back into town the year you and Taehyung left for college.

Oh, the irony…

“Oh, Tae,” you croaked. “I’m so sorry.”

You lurched forward and encircled his neck with your arms. He held you in his tender embrace and you both rode out the outpouring of emotion leaking from your faces. It dawned on you that neither of you ever really dealt with the separation, choosing to remain mute about the whole thing and pretend it never existed. In reality, it did exist, and it almost broke the both of you. Through carefully placed visits and outreach, you’d managed to keep the friendship bound haphazardly with metaphorical glue and tape, but it was never the same. You both had some real damage control to conduct, and maybe this was your opportunity to do so.

You pulled back and brushed your fingertips along Taehyung’s tear streaked cheeks and planted a fat kiss on his lips. Displays of affection were completely natural for the two of you, and it was established long ago that any emotional baggage that came along with it was just another piece of your soulmate bond.

“We’re both idiots,” you laughed against his lips. “You know that, right?”

Taehyung returned your laughter and your kiss, palming your cheeks to squish your face playfully.

“Come on,” he sighed. “Let’s get off the floor. I didn’t fly all the way over here to cry on the floor with my soulmate.”

You both huffed out a little laugh as you got up off the floor. You wandered back into the kitchen hand in hand after cleaning your faces with makeup wipes. Once you made it back to the box, Taehyung placed both hamburger and milkshake toys on the counter next to the box and proceeded to investigate the other items in the box. He lined up the other items next to your toys and then pulled out the folded piece of parchment. His interest was definitely piqued because you saw his eyes light up like flying saucers in the night sky.

“Whoa,” he breathed out in amazement. “What is this?”

He carefully unfolded the paper and spread it across the counter. You sat on one of your bar stools next to him and leaned on the counter. You hadn’t spent much time investigating the paper since the first day you discovered it.

“This is incredible,” he said, his voice heavy with excitement. “The parchment is well worn, which means it’s pretty old. Look at these colors, this calligraphy is amazing, and the brushstrokes are gorgeous. Where did you find this map, babe?”

“I already told you,” you repeated. “I don’t know where it came from. I found it in my closet. How do you know it’s a map?”

“It has all the characteristics of a map, the checkpoints, the layout, the design,” Taehyung explained. “Don’t you remember when I was collecting all those maps in junior high?”

“Oh yeah,” you drawled. “You became obsessed after we watched The Goonies and you were convinced that we would find treasure somehow.”

“Hey,” he insisted. “We found some really cool stuff with my Dad’s metal detector, remember?”

“Yeah,” you admitted. “We also found out about trespassing on private property and that it’s illegal to dig holes on government property and-.”

“Regardless,” Taehyung cut you off. “I know what I’m talking about and this map is really fucking cool. How are you not excited about this?”

“Honestly,” you sighed. “It kinda freaks me out. I don’t know who made it or where it came from and that bothers me.”

“Well, that’s why you have me, your own personal map expert and detective,” Taehyung bragged. “So, all of this random stuff was inside that box? There wasn’t anything else?”

“Well, almost everything,” you began. “There was a banana key chain USB, but it was Jungkook’s. He traded this four leaf clover necklace for it.”

You immediately regretted the words as soon as they left your lips. Taehyung’s face registered the name “Jungkook” as familiar, and you knew the instant he connected the dots.

“Oh shit,” he teased. “Jeon fucking Jungkook, that hot guy you tutored in college? That’s the stud you had over?! Damn, boy must be packing some heat!”

You buried your face in your arms and tried to hide from his incessant mockery.

Of course, he would remember.

“Stop,” you pleaded. “It was totally random and unplanned. I went out with Gina for St. Patty’s and I bumped into him at the bar. One thing lead to another and, well-“

“You had a midnight snack of Kookie and milk?” Taehyung suggested, lifting the clover. “You got lucky?”

You smacked his arm and he winced from the impact. You tried to stay mad at him, but his lips dropped to a pout and he started fake crying.

This boy…

“That isn’t going to work on me, Tae,” you said sternly. “Not gonna happen.”

His fake sobbing increased and he kept giving you the sad puppy dog look. When you saw an actual tear gloss over his cheek, you sighed and walked over to kiss his arm. He kept pouting until you finally gave in and kissed his lips. You both smiled at each other, and you rolled your eyes at your overly dramatic soulmate.

“Why does that always work on me?” you whined. “It isn’t fair.”

“What isn’t fair is that you traded a USB drive for this cheap plastic clover necklace,” Taehyung argued. “I mean it does light up, but it probably wasn’t an even exchange. Was the sex just that good?”

“If we’re factoring that into the equation,” you blushed fiercely. “Yes, it was most definitely an even exchange. In fact, I may owe him.”

“I am going to need a full detailed report later, babe,” Taehyung announced. “But for now, I want to talk about this map. Tell me what you know about it.”

“Not much,” you admitted. “I just know that there are seven smudges with words next to them and then there’s that big swirly heart thing connecting everything together.”

“Six smudges,” Taehyung corrected. “And why are some of these lines darker than the others?”

“What are you talking about?” you huffed. “I counted them. There are seven smudges.”

You finally took a closer look at the map and you gawked at the absence of one of the previous smudges from your earlier inspection.

What the hell?

“That can’t be right,” you whispered. “I know I counted seven.”

You pointed at the space where the first smudge had been. In its place was another block of text connected to the first block of text with a flourish of swirled ink. The text now read:

Were you wandering around looking for an erased dream too? It’s different from the typical definition of destiny. Your pained eyes are looking at the same place as me. Won't you please stay in dreams?

One time for the present, two time for the past, Happy that we met each other, now til’ the very end.

You traced your fingers over the new block of text and your brows furrowed in confusion.

That definitely wasn’t there before.

You also noticed the darkened line of ink running between the blocks of text. You traced its path across the page to the next block of text. This block read:

The heart no longer races when hearing the music play, Seems like time has stopped. Oh, that would be my first death I been always afraid of. If this can no longer resonate, No longer make my heart vibrate, Then like this may be how I die my first death, But what if that moment's right now?

The charcoal smudge was on the other side of the line, which abruptly faded as it neared the cryptic verse. You continued to trace the line across the page while Taehyung examined the lacquered box again.

“Hey, ttalgi,” Taehyung asked. “Why does this word have glitter around it but the others don’t?”

You looked up at him and focused on the word Time he was pointing out on the box. There was indeed a double line of purple glitter surrounding the letters that certainly wasn’t there before. You sighed in exasperation at this new information.

What the hell am I getting myself into with this box and this map?

“I don’t know, Tae,” you sulked. “It probably doesn’t mean anything.”

“How can you say that when something belonging to Jungkook and something belonging to me came out of it?” Tae quirked. “You’re doing that thing where something gets complicated and you just want to walk away, aren’t you? This is the Chinese puzzle box all over again.”

“Tae,” you whined. “Please don’t bring that up again. I was tortured enough with you hovering over me until I opened the stupid thing.”

“It was worth it though, right?” he insisted. “What was inside the puzzle box, baby?”

“This,” you pouted, holding up your right hand. “My soulmate promise ring and I’ve worn it every day since then.”

“Maybe this map is going to lead to something amazing,” Taehyung suggested. “I’m already invested in solving this mystery. I just need a trusty sidekick to help me along the way. What do you say, soulmate? Want to help your Tae-bear solve the Legendary Spring Break Map Mystery?”

“Why does everything you name have to be named like that?” you scoffed. “Naming something Great or Legendary doesn’t automatically make it awesome, y’know?”

“Well, not with that attitude,” Taehyung argued. “If you want, I can lay everything out so it isn’t so scary for you. It’ll be just like the detectives on TV with the boards and the Post-Its and stuff. You don’t have to set anything up, I’ll do it and then you can decide whether you are in or not.”

You briefly weighed your options and decided that any adventure with Taehyung was worth exploring. It wasn’t like you had anything else to do during this break, and you couldn’t deny that the map wasn’t igniting your curiosity. Apparently, Taehyung’s enthusiasm was taking root in your mind.

“Fine,” you sighed out dramatically. “But if this ends up going badly, I’m going to beat your ass.”

Taehyung squeaked enthusiastically and started setting up an investigation station on your coffee table. After he procured paper, pencils, and other office supplies from your desk, he laid everything out and started marking items of interest with colorful Post-It notes. 

“What am I supposed to do while you’re playing Detective, Tae?” you asked indignantly. “Just sit here and look pretty?”

Taehyung looked up with a marker and a stack of purple Post-Its in his hands. He grinned and wrote something on the Post-It and walked over to place it on your forehead. 

“There,” he beamed. “Now, you’re officially part of the investigation. Now, make yourself useful, dollface, and get me something to drink.”

You removed the paper from your forehead and read what he’d written and immediately scowled. You crumpled the paper and threw it at his retreating figure. 

“I’m not your secretary, Taehyung,” you growled. “And call me dollface again and not only will I make you a pot of tea, I’ll pour it in your lap.”

Taehyung giggled and scrunched his nose at you while he attached the map to the wall with thumbtacks. You watched him scurry back and forth, continuously making notes and labeling portions of the map, and you shook your head and sighed heavily. 

What am I getting myself into?

March 19th, 3:27pm

“Ok, it’s ready,” Taehyung announced. “Come check it out, babe!”

Taehyung swept his hand across the living room and presented a color coordinated layout of seven different investigation stations. You tried to track his organization, but got a little lost as your eyes scanned the living room.

“Ummm,” you began. “What exactly am I looking at here, Tae? You need to explain the method behind this madness I see.”

“It starts over here,” Taehyung proceeded to explain, pulling you to the far left of the room to a purple hued collection of Post-It notes. “I’ve divided up the map into seven distinct sections and separated them by color. I think the items you found correspond to these sections, but I don’t know how yet.”

“What makes you think they have any connection at all?” you queried. “Did you find something else?”

“No,” Taehyung continued. “But there are seven different sections on the map, seven different items, and seven different words on that box. That has to mean something. The words also seem to coordinate somehow. That section with two blocks of text mentions time and the word Time on the box is the only word with glitter. That seems to be a connection.”

“Ok, but what about the items?” you challenged. “How are they connected?”

Taehyung lifted a finger and started to speak, but then deflated. He put one hand on his hip and blew out a breath. He was stuck.

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” he admitted. “I was hoping you could help me with that.”

“How?” you wondered aloud. “I know about as much as you do about this stuff.”

“Well,” he began. “You said that the only item missing from the original collection was that banana USB, right?”

“Yeah, but it was Jungkook’s,” you reminded him. “He took it and gave me that shamrock necklace. What about it?”

“I think that’s a clue,” he decided. “I also found my hamburger toy in there, and I’m trading back for the milkshake toy. That’s two items from the original set that are being traded out for something in return.”

You rolled that around your brain and found that it surprisingly made sense, even if it was a little far-fetched.

It can’t just be a coincidence.

“Say they are connected somehow,” you relented. “What would be the connection?”

“I have a theory,” Taehyung expressed with a smirk. “But I need you to go along with it because it sounds a little nuts.”

“You know I always give in to your crazy schemes, Tae,” you chuckled. “Why would this be any different?”

“Good point,” he grinned. “Ok, so, here’s the thing. I think you are the key to all of this. The box, the map, the items, everything.”

You stare at him without blinking and slowly digest his statement.

That’s impossible.

“How could I be the connection?” you probed. “I didn’t make this box or the map and none of this stuff belongs to me.”

“Exactly,” Taehyung reiterated. “They don’t belong to you, but they are connected to something that does belong to you.”

“What do you mean?” you continued. “Is this about the hamburger toy?”

“Yes,” he exclaimed. “And also the USB you found. You said it belonged to Jungkook, right? He gave you the shamrock necklace in trade and now that’s part of the collection, but it actually belongs to you now.”

“Yeah,” you assented. “But what does that mean, Tae?”

“Maybe it’s symbolic?” Taehyung suggested. “Like you two had to make the exchange so it could be complete?”

“What exchange?” you asked. “You mean the banana or the sex?”

“Both,” Taehyung insisted. “Two things could be true. You guys traded information and bodily fluids. Bet you’d both been thinking about doing that since college, huh?”

“Yeah, actually,” you giggled. “We just never found the right time.”

“Time!” Taehyung screeched suddenly. “That’s it!”

He reached over to grab the box and he pointed out the word Time on the box surrounded by purple glitter.

“Time,” you echoed softly. “You’re right. Jungkook and I even talked about how often we kept missing opportunities because the timing was never in our favor.”

“Well, time was absolutely in your favor when you ran into each other at the bar,” Taehyung insisted. “You said it yourself: unplanned and random, almost like it was-“

“Destiny,” you cut him off, moving to reread the text in question. “We had been dreaming about each other, looking at the same things, all those unanswered questions finally answered.”

“You told me that this wasn’t here earlier,” Taehyung stated, pointing at the second block of text he’d marked with a purple Post-It marked with a JK. “It’s here now. I think this text, this word on the box, and the shamrock-banana exchange are all connected to you and Jungkook. It all makes sense.”

“But why?” you murmured softly. “For what reason?”

“Let me ask you something,” Taehyung said, sitting you both down on the couch. “After all of this happened with Jungkook, how do you feel?”

“I don���t know,” you admitted. “I mean, I thought it might lead somewhere, but he said he’s not ready for anything serious right now.”

“Not the right time?” Taehyung smirked. “And yet, you aren’t crushed by this shocking news. Why do you think that is?”

“I get it,” you explained. “I’ve been there before. Remember when I was dating Hoseok? I felt the same way, I wasn’t ready for something that serious even though he was. That’s why we ended it.”

“Oh yeah, Hobi-hyung,” Taehyung remembered fondly. “I liked that guy. It’s too bad that didn’t work out. You were so happy with him.”

“I was,” you sighed. “But I was young and selfish. I wasn’t ready to share my life with anyone yet.”

“And neither is Jungkook,” Taehyung pressed on. “Do you still have any lingering doubts about what might have been with him? I know that’s been bothering you for years. Don’t think I didn’t notice all those wispy sighs and pouts whenever his name entered the conversation. I don’t see any of that now though. Maybe you finally got the closure you needed with Jungkook.”

“Yeah, I did,” you smiled softly, grabbing the shamrock necklace labeled Exhibit A from the table. “I just got lucky, I guess.”

“In more ways than one, you minx,” Taehyung teased. “But you can tell me all about that later because I have another theory to toss at you.”

Taehyung pulled you over to a collection of green Post-Its and pointed out the hamburger and milkshake toys labeled “Exhibits B & C.” You nearly choked on the giggle threatening to escape from your lips, but you offered your soulmate a reassuring smile instead.

“If the purple section is Jungkook,” Taehyung began. “Then this green section is all about you and me. The toys fit into that theory, but I don’t know which word and block of text connect to them.”

“Assuming that’s true,” you retorted. “What unfinished business could you and I possibly have? I mean, we literally share everything with one another. We don’t have any secrets, Tae-bear.”

“That’s true,” he agreed. “But maybe we’re overlooking something. I’m trying to figure out which block of text would best describe us, and I can’t figure it out. It certainly isn’t the next one on the path.”

He pointed out the second block of text following the section he’d labeled JK. The words “music” and “death” kept swirling in your vision, and you felt a creeping tingle down your spine.

There’s only one person that could be.

Your phone dinged across the room, and you snapped out of your reverie momentarily. Leaving Taehyung to ruminate over the cryptic clues laid out before him, you picked up your phone and read the email notification you’d just received from work. As soon as you read the Subject line, you gasped and dropped your phone on the floor. The clatter captured Taehyung’s attention and he glanced up at your face and noticed the drain of color on your paled expression.

“Ttalgi?” he worried. “Is everything ok?”

You shook your head and tried to keep the tears from slipping from your eyes. Taehyung quickly made his way across the room and pulled you into his arms, trying to soothe the unknown pain away.  He didn’t know what was going on, but he instinctively knew that you needed someone to hold you together.

“What happened?” he whispered against your hair. “What’s wrong?”

“I know who it is,” you croaked out. “I know who that block of text is talking about.”

You leaned down to pick up your phone and you showed him the email you’d just received. Taehyung’s eyes widened and then darkened considerably when he read it. He couldn’t control the growl which clawed its way out of his throat.

“Min fucking Yoongi.”

Author’s Note: The plot is thickening, y’all. What do you guys think of my Tae-bear? Isn’t he something else? The story is really going to take off from here, so I hope everyone is ready for an adventure. Please fee free to ask me any questions or leave any comments. I’d love to hear what you think of the story so far. 

PREVIOUS:

Chapter One:  There’s Always Time for Euphoria

NEXT:

Chapter Three:  The Beautiful Music We Used to Make

Map of the Soul Masterlist

@caught-in-a-seesaw-stigma​‘s MASTERLIST

#btswritingcafe #map of the soul #bts collab #bts series #bts fic #bts fanfic #bts fluff #BTS au #bts angst #bts smut #kim taehyung #V BTS #V BTS TAEHYUNG #kim namjoon #RM #rm bts #kim seokjin #seokjin #jin bts #yoongi #min yoongi #suga bts #hoseok #jung hoseok #bts jhope #jhope #park jimin #jimin #jungkook #jeon jungkook

[michael-radi-the-glamorous-life]

Take Direct Action, Get More Benefits

There are two things I’ve been hearing a lot during this quarantine. One is a question and the other is more of an uncertain statement:

“I feel lost, unmotivated, unsure what to do.”

“How can I help the struggling people/organizations that I love not go under?”

I must admit - although these are both tinged with the sadness and anxiety of our present moment - I’m heartened by the love and care that has poured out of our communities online. A desire to do something at all is a marker of self-care, and a desire to give is a marker of care for others.

And that is beautiful.

But acknowledging that beauty doesn’t provide an answer to the above queries, both of which are searching for fulfillment.

So, how can we take some direct action - for ourselves and those around us - that will provide fulfillment? And are there other benefits as well?

Here are some thoughts.

Direct Action

First of all, what do I mean by “Direct Action”?

We take tons of actions all day, every day. Little decisions that affect the course of our lives.

When we take a direction directly, it means that we are the masters of that decision.

We are in control and no one else was involved in the process, either as a middleman or an agent to alter our decision. Now, that doesn’t mean that you didn’t consult with others before taking the action, but when you took it you, did it alone and were the direct cause of change.

This could be anything, from small to large:

Cooking, shopping for, or ordering food

Turning on a movie or TV show

Helping someone complete a task

Putting a down payment on a house

These are actions you are choosing to take and are in total control of.

Indirect action is making the decision to let others take full or partial control.

Something will still occur, but you are not the direct cause of change. These things can also be big or small.

Things like:

Letting your spouse make dinner

Handing over leadership on a project to a colleague

Giving to a charity organization

Signing up for a guided tour

Ultimately a change is occurring, and you made the decision to not stand in the way of that process, but you also don’t have full control over the specifics of the result.

“But Michael, I’m not a ‘control freak,’ so why should I care which action type is being taken?”

Because, if you’re feeling a little lost right now and want to do something about it - as so many of us appear to be - you will find the greatest personal fulfillment and affect the greatest change by taking direct action.

And there a few ways to do this.

Gift Yourself

I don’t meant give a gift to yourself.

Well, I kind of do. But not directly.

What I mean is to give something that comes from you out to the world - to a friend, to a loved one, or just out into the interwebs!

What is something that you like to do that can provide some sort of service, kindness, information, or gesture to someone other than yourself? (And yes, this idea is very similar to the blog I wrote on Craftivism!)

I’ll start.

For my sanity, I write these blogs.

Writing is something that I love to do and do pretty well. I enjoy doing the research, gathering my thoughts, testing my opinions, and then structuring it all together into a piece of writing from my personal perspective, which I hope provides some information and comfort to people in my communities.

These are my personal thoughts and stories, and I share them with others as a small gift to the world. I don’t make any money from this, and the time I take to write them isn’t coming from my “free time.”

So why do I do it?

This is a direct action I take every week that has done a little bit of good for some people. Every time someone tells me they read my blog and - enjoyed it/learned from it/needed to hear it/etc. - I am rewarded with positive feelings of giving, accomplishment, and satisfaction. It’s a little fulfillment.

But that’s me, personally. What about other people?

Right now I know approximately a dozen people who are spending their time using their skill sets at home to create much needed masks for health professionals across the country. And I think this is brilliant.

Are they getting paid to do this? Nope.

But is taking this action for someone else giving a sense of purpose and fulfillment? If their posts are all to be believed, then hells yes!

“Michael, I don’t have any useful or creative skills!”

Sure you do!

Do you have the ability to go to the store for a neighbor who cannot? This counts!

Can you recommend a great comedy show to a friend who needs some humor right now? Great!

Are you able to call or video chat with a family member struggling with their anxiety or depression? What a fantastic act of service!

Direct actions, all of them. And these are actions that you can take to fulfill your desire to just do something.

You’ll feel useful, others will feel better/supported/loved, and in turn you’'ll then feel even better.

Join Up

Community is everything in a time like this, and yet it’s so easy to ignore that fact and stay more isolated than we have to.

So, what to do about that?

Join up with a group of people online!

“What group? Like an online support group?”

I mean, you could if you feel you need that. But what I’m talking about is taking a group that you either already belong to in in-person-land, or one that you don’t belong to but is of interest, and joining up together online!

Some examples:

That friend group you’re always texting with but never get to see in person? Have an online happy hour!

That craft club that’s too far of a drive for you? Check out their online get-togethers!

Book discussion group can’t meet in person? Online!

Best friends movie night cancelled? Try Netflix watch party!

Miss cooking with your mom and grandma? Try doing it remotely at the same time!

Love your board game group and miss them? Find some online apps and play together, with or without video chat!

Want to more directly follow the journey of an artist/band/activist/etc. that you know and love? Check out their online community on their webpage, twitter, facebook, or wherever they do it!

Waiting for someone else to put it together won’t benefit anyone involved, and just wishing things were back to normal won’t help you either.

But reaching out to organize or join a group is a direct action that will make you - and everyone else involved - feel far more fulfilled.

Gift Directly to Others

This one is more of a monetary idea.

I know that not everyone is in a position to give financially right now, but if you are and you’re feeling the itch to help out a person or organization who isn’t as lucky, here are some ways to do so directly - aka make the greatest impact!

I’ll speak from the arts, since this is an arts blog after all!

A couple days ago, the people behind patreon.com put out a call-to-action video called Creativity Over Everything. (Do watch, it’s very short)

The basic idea driving this video and webpage is this:

The pandemic crisis and quarantine have made the flaws in our current system of Creativity and Compensation more apparent and also more detrimental to Artists.

And boy is it true!

As we’re all stuck at home and using all kinds of art to entertain ourselves, the people who created that art are - for the most part - not the people reaping the benefits of that creation.

“Then who is?”

The major companies and corporations behind the financial backing and distribution are the ones who often get the lion’s share, even though they wouldn’t be getting anything if it weren’t for the artists in the first place. For the most part, artists are treated as contractual freelancers and gig workers - therefore they have no safety net and must share the fruits of their creations with distributors.

Sound unfair? Well, it is.

“But what can I do? I can’t change a whole system from quarantine!"“

Actually, you can.

Do you have a favorite artist or musician? What about crafter, podcaster, or entrepreneur? Do you know one personally? Is there a creator you love who is struggling?

You can give to them, directly. No middleman, no company. How?

Websites like Patreon and OnlyFans were made for exactly this. Not only can you give financial support to your favorite artists (and usually receive great benefits by doing so!), but you can often purchase their art directly from them!

It’s like a crowdfunding campaign with no end date or limitations and better benefits. And you have the ability to connect directly with the artists in need! (Also, check if they have a crowdfunding campaign going for a specific project as well!)

For a personal example, on my Patreon page you can connect with me directly as I post snippets of all kinds of creative work - daily hellos, videos, musical demos, in-the-making, blogs, and more - and much of it is only for my patrons, who then have direct access!

[Here are a few examples of non-public content:

Daily Hello video

Unreleased Musical Demo from The King’s Legacy

Something silly

Other behind-the-scenes creative work

And plenty more is being created daily]

And what about arts organizations?

If you personally want to give to an organization directly, all it takes is an email or phone call to find out how to do so. If you want to help fundraise for them - if they’re non-profits - you can use the FaceBook fundraising feature to set up a campaign, which is super easy and very quick!

I’ve seen a few of these campaign casually come across my feed over the past two weeks, ultimately raising thousands of dollars for arts organizations that are struggling during this shutdown.

I mean, is there a better way to feel helpful than to be able to give directly to those who need it? Talk about fulfillment.

I again recognize that not everyone has the means to do this, but if you can and want to find a way to help, give your favorite creators a quick search and see how you can best help them, and directly!

More Benefits

Honestly, I’ve just scratched the surface of the benefits that can come from these actions.

Sure, you might:

Feel useful, feel better, enhance someone’s life, get gratitude, get personalized benefits, get perks from giving pages, find a community, etc.

But you might also:

Gain new friends, find new joys, change a life, change your own life, discover a passion, or create something new of your own.

You may feel lost and want to help, and I get it.

So take a breath, take a direct action, and help change the world for the better. Cheers!

#glamorous life blog #glamorous life #action #benefit #direct #gift #give #talent #skill #join #community #support #Patreon

[jumphq]

A Hand to the Devil? A Gift to the Masses?

I’m thinking that this might be my last post here on Tumblr. I’m not antiTumblr, necessarily…it was a necessity in 2015 to get up and going as quickly as possible. But it has always felt clunky and now that we have other options: our official page, Medium, Patreon…it’s time to consolidate, I think. I feel like this blog has kind of been out in the wilderness a little and maybe it’s time to give it a better home.

Speaking of Patreon, our page launched last Thursday, and while I was very much looking forward to it, I can’t lie: I lost a number of nights of sleep over it. Why?

It’s the oldest way for artists to exist: through the patronage of people that want to support the artists in making new art. This practice allowed tons of artists do what they did for centuries, and happily. But this practice hasn’t really been a part of the modern world until “crowdfunding” became legal. Even then, it is one thing to ask people to help you pay for one thing. It’s another to ask for people to give part of their monthly income to you, not knowing about the thing, but hoping that a thing happens. So, anxiety.

It is thrilling and feels icky at the same time, to ask for people to be your patrons. On the one hand, why shouldn’t you ask? I want to create things, as an artist. I want to create things for a living, as an artist. Why would those two statements need to be separate thoughts?

I was actually taught that they were separate thoughts. If you are a son of two artists, you learn that money isn’t something that is easy to come by. You go to art school, you are encouraged to wear the “starving artist” badge on your sleeve proudly. Artists are special. They are different. Artists are poor.

Again, why? I don’t know. If you’ve never tried to make a living being a full-time artist, you might don’t know this. It’s hard. When I make money as a web developer, it sometimes makes me angry. Why do I make so much more money building a website for a marketing firm, or an app for a company that sells stocks? These jobs aren’t nearly as difficult or interesting to me as writing a song or acting in a play, but they are far more highly valued by society.

I like writing code. I like getting paid to do so. But I don’t like it as much as being on stage. I can (more easily) support my family writing code, and live a comfortable life, but if that’s all I do, I feel unfulfilled. I could build websites by day and act in plays at night, but that is sort of a drag for me because then I’m in two full-time day jobs and am always sort of strung out and exhausted and can’t give my best to any work I do.

This is just me, by the way. I’m just speaking about my experience as an artist. My fellow developers are very fulfilled being full-time coders. Tons of actors here in Chicago love to have day jobs for money and then put on their “Artist Caps” at night. They have the drive and energy to do that. I am not knocking their choices. I’m just a better person, a better artist, when I am single-tasking: getting paid to do one, fulfilling, creative job.

Jump, Little Children never got “famous”. We were successful for a rock band in that we could hit the road and have between 50 and 5000 people come see us when we played, depending on the location. In some cities we were almost a household name and in others very few people had heard of us. We weren’t as business-savvy and easy to swallow as Guster and we weren’t a sexy two-person band like Shovels and Rope. We just didn’t catch on enough, and there is no big clear reason why. We cannot really blame bad management and record label issues. The truth is that tons of amazing bands don’t catch on, don’t make it to Conan, but love writing and playing and do it for as long as they can financially and emotionally stay afloat. It doesn’t matter “why”. We gave it our all, made some good decisions and some bad ones, and were proud that it was our full-time job for as long as it was.

Of course, by “full-time job” standards, we were way below the poverty level our entire career. It’s expensive to run a business, and Jump was our sexy business, which meant that if there was anyone that was going to get a pay cut when times were tough, it wouldn’t be our manager, tour manager, lawyer, or sound guy. Just us. You keep going in the hopes that you’ll eventually be the ones making the most money; that didn’t happen for us and I have no regrets.

It was amazing to finally get paid a living wage when the band was done in 2005. The first time I made a weekly paycheck I couldn’t believe it. Making $30k a year for the first time was like being fabulously wealthy…and this was in my very late 30s. Being comfortable was intoxicating for a while, but not being a creative person for a living kind of left me with a empty feeling in my chest. My journal entries pre-2015 had a theme: ask after ask for the Universe to bring me something that would both be a fulfilling career and support my family at the same time.

Yet when the Universe brought the Jump reunion in 2015 to me, I was the last person in the band that said “yes”. I assumed that the chapter was closed and I was fine with it. The five of us weren’t that close at the time and I had forgotten what it was like to play music with people that knew you as well as Jay, Johnny, Ward and Evan knew me. I knew that saying “yes” was going to open up a lot of baggage that had been packed away, would be a ton of extra work for me personally, was going to be scary and emotional and possibly a big fucking failure.

It has been some of those things, too. But as you’ve gathered from this blog, it has also been incredible–a great creative lump of plaster putty to fill in my unfulfilled chest hole (gross!). Worth the being away from home, worth the pay cuts again, worth the anxieties and fears and insecurities. Lots and lots of sleepless nights. Worth it.

I’m luckier than the members of the band that don’t live on Facebook and Instagram, I’m luckier than those that don’t stay in the lobbies of rock clubs after every show until the venue kicks us all out. I’m luckier, because I can see the direct impact our saying “yes” to JLC in 2015 made on your lives and therefore on my life. You’re very honest about it, and I don’t take it lightly. The music has gotten you through bad times and good and happy moments and sad. The community has not just been a place to put your love of a rock band, but also a place to put your own dreams and hopes and needs. Every band might be required to say “we couldn’t do it without our fans” but I know more than anyone how true that statement is for Jump. I’m lucky.

So, Patreon.

Man, it is hard. I get it. For those of you that are a little taken aback at our choice to try this out in order to keep our creative little rock and roll world afloat, I feel you. Everyone is asking for your money these days. How can people that don’t have 9 to 5 jobs ask you to help pay for their lifestyle? Especially if you like your 9 to 5 job? I do not have an answer, because it feels a little icky and uncomfortable to me, too.

Cards on table: Jump, Little Children has two options in 2019. We can’t afford to do what we did last year and not get paid for the intense amount of work it takes to be a mostly-full-time band: writing, recording, touring, posting, streaming, marketing. We either try this Patreon thing out, or something like it, to see if it will help us be able to spend more time writing music and creating things, or we spend less time on the band and do more lucrative things to keep food on tables. Realistically, we will still have to do other things anyway, but anything helps. The days (and chances) of a big record label swooping in and paying us to write and record songs are over, and even when our big record label did swoop in, we didn’t get a pay raise anyway.

Friday morning I woke up with an idea to record some Irish music with my friend Amanda Kapousouz in time for St. Pat’s. And I felt a freedom to have that thought that I didn’t have before. Sure, I might have done the recording anyway, but knowing that I could at some point make a creative work like that happen and get paid for it was inspiring. I’ve just spent three hours writing this letter to you. Connecting with you has always been my job and always will be, whether I get paid for it or not, but it does take time, time that I could spend coding, I suppose. I’d rather write these love letters to you.

Patronage isn’t about putting a price on your love. We are putting a price on the pride we take in our work, the time we take to agonize over details, the care we put into everything from a melody, to a sentence, a pixel, a shade of hair dye. It’s not your responsibility to feed us. It’s our responsibility to find the means to feed ourselves. We would like to do that by writing songs and producing new content, and we are attempting to find new and creative ways to do so.

It could be a winning solution for everyone. If this works out for us, the goal is to keep writing music and performing. With something like Patreon, we could possibly have a new album next year. Without it, we might have a new album in 2022. That’s not a huge difference. Either way, it’s OK, right?

Support us on Patreon if you can, but if you cannot: please don’t. Please please don’t. If you like this idea and want to support us, but can’t afford to, let us know how we might help you make that work. Is it to change the tier prices? To put more stuff in the lower tiers? What would make it worth it? We need to have all the data at hand.

And if you can’t, please accept that we are still going to be around and not play games with your hearts? We’ll post to the same social media and do the same silly LIVE chats and tour and hopefully write new music. We are here, we love you just as much, so you can let other people pay while you reap the benefits, OK?

Whew. I feel better getting this off my chest…thank you. I’m gonna go record some flute, now, for fun…and profit?

We love you,

Matt “Overshare” Bivins

#patreon #last post? #crowdfunding #creative holes in chests

[joytoasheshq]

below is my sample application for robert baratheon-lannister. apps won’t be posted with acceptances. this is an example to give you an idea of what i’m looking for in apps, but there is not an exception that applicants write each part in the same style or of the same length as me; i’m self-aware enough to know this sample is a lot! hope this is helpful and enjoy!!

OOC.

name: roman

age: 26

pronouns: they/them

timezone: est

triggers: {omitted}

in the game of thrones you win or you die, would you be open to your character dying?: he’s gotta die for things to get better, kill this motherfucker, but only once he’s served his purpose and i’ve had some fun with him

anything else: i smell like beef

IN CHARACTER.

full name: Robert Steffan Baratheon-Lannister

gender + pronouns: cis man + he/him

age & dob: 35 years old, July 25, 1983

faceclaim: Oliver Jackson-Cohen

personality:

Those who’ve known Robert his whole life will tell you what he was like in his youth with something of a wistful smile. That he’s always been CHARISMATIC, a natural people person, who somehow attracts loyalty from anyone who gives him the chance. Maybe it’s a little different now, a little less charming, and a little more entitled, but it’s a charisma that still exists, one that he still turns on when he wants something or needs to get something done. One a lot of the people of Westeros are still charmed by, if not the elite.

There’s PASSION to everything he does, every little choice full of so much intensity that at times it’s overwhelming. Everything he does, he does fully, whether it’s good or bad. There’s no such thing as middle ground in his world, he cares deeply, or he doesn’t care at all. And that comes with the BOLDNESS. In a way, it always felt like he had to be bold, had to make choices strongly and quickly, without fear. After all, he was barely nineteen when his father died, leaving him with not only a business to look after, but also a family.

More often than not, though, he’s RASH about what he does, not giving anything much thought, but letting explosive emotions rule action, without considering consequences. STUBBORN and NARROW-SIGHTED, unwilling to consider any other option once he’s made his mind up. He willfully blinds himself to the problems around him, because he doesn’t think there’s any point in trying to change things if it’s not going to work, in his mind.

There’s an unwillingness to acknowledge mistakes, or accept consequences when the choices do lead to bad outcomes. It leads to a lot of anger, and that’s something he’s never dealt with properly. In his mind, it’s much easier to deal with pretty much any problem with a PHYSICAL solution; it’s something he is very good at, but rarely is the appropriate response to a problem, especially now that the fighting’s been done for so many years.

headcanons:

storm’s end & the eyrie (cw death)

Family has always been about a name in Westeros, a person’s whole identity inexplicably wrapped up in something they can’t even control. It’s fucked up, at least to him. It’s fucked up, but he’s aware, even if most people think he’s too much of an idiot to be, how caught up in it he is, too.

Appearance is everything, after all, and even if he hasn’t managed to keep up his own public appearance, he cares about the name, even if the people he considers his family don’t share a surname with him.

He loves his brothers, of course. That is something he will always argue, no matter what it seems to the outside world, no matter what it seems to either of them. But he’s never been able to bring himself to feel truly connected to either of them. Stannis is too different at his very core, almost as if they didn’t share a father at all, for how utterly unlike both of them he was. And Renly, well, he was already a teenager when his youngest brother was born, and he ended up more like an amusing plaything than a brother before their parents’ deaths. After, he was a burden, passed off to be raised by close family friends instead of looked after by his own brother. Robert already found someone who actually felt like what a brother should be in a way Stannis never quite had, and Renly couldn’t by then, after all.

So he loves his family, yes. But his family hasn’t been anyone with solely Baratheon at the end of their name in quite the way it should be for a long, long time.

He was so caught up in it all, so caught up in his own life, that he hadn’t considered the idea that things could change.

It was all going fantastically after all. They lived lavishly, and his parents were good, genuinely good. His mother and father and their partners ran the business, Stag Realty Group, ran the real estate market of Westeros. They’d made sure he was set up with a good future, one that he chose, and that started with finding a mentor in his mother’s close friend, Jon Arryn. And that’s where he found the people he would come to consider his family, that’s where he met Ned.

The thing is, it actually wasn’t going fantastically, but he didn’t notice until it was too late to try to help. His father didn’t have quite as much time, as years passed by, to devote to his children, Aerys asking more and more of him as he deteriorated himself. Not as much time, either, for the love they’d all built. More strain, less openness, Robert didn’t even realize he’d been making up for it by spending more and more time at the Eyrie with the ones who still had time for him.

And then the family he’d let himself forget was gone, a storm breaking it completely. A shipwreck with his parents and their partners on it, returning from a business trip on Aerys’s behalf across the Narrow Sea. And he watched, he stood there with Stannis on the docks, there to greet them after a few weeks away, and instead saw them all die. Somehow, it was harder to look at Stannis than to look at the wreckage together, to identify the bodies together, to go through belongings, to go through wills together.

It’s hard to look in the eye of someone who looks like the death of your childhood, after all.

It’s hard to look at someone who thinks the same of you.

the trident (cw violence, blood, murder)

The thing is, it wasn’t self-defense. Maybe for a moment, at the beginning, when he’d tried to ask him why he’d done it all, when they stood there, the riots raging on the other side of the river, looking at each other. He couldn’t help but remember how they had played together, laughed together, way back when as kids, when names meant nothing, and something as silly as love couldn’t get in the way of things.

Love.

That was only a moment, though, because Rhaegar smiled. Had said so simply, voice somehow clear over the din of the riots...

You don’t understand love, cousin. If you did, we wouldn’t be standing here, you would’ve let her go a long time ago.

No. No part of what he did to Rhaegar could be considered what the court ruled it, not before those words, and certainly not after. When he went to the Trident to meet him, he knew exactly what he was going to do, one way or another. The words just sent him over the edge, forcing him to take action sooner. But he had already decided.

Why else would he have had the brass knuckles gripped in his pocket?

Dozens of witnesses, and yet not one of them was able to say for sure how it had started, although most swore it was Rhaegar. He still wonders how many of them Jon had bribed with power or safety, how many of them were threatened to lie under oath to guarantee he’d walk free. How many of the jurors were gifted generously afterward for their verdicts with Lannister money. And yet he doesn’t ask, even though he knows he could easily find out. Because he knows it was him who began it. He had to do something about that smile, had to prove him wrong by fighting for the love he seemed to think he didn’t understand.

It was lucky that his cousin had had the same plan. Lucky, oddly enough, that he’d pulled the knife so soon, had caught him just under the collar bone with the blade, before he’d pulled his decorated fist from his pocket. That was enough to put it on him.

Robert Baratheon would’ve died instead, Jon had insisted, if he hadn’t defended himself from Rhaegar Targaryen’s vicious attack.

He hardly remembers most of it, just the smell of copper, his own grunts of pain mixed with Rhaegar’s, the sear of the blade cutting any part of him he could find as they struggled. And the blood, he remembers the blood blooming from broken skin as he kept hitting, over and over again, long after he should’ve stopped.

He’d never admit to anyone now just how convinced he was that he would end up locked away for the rest of his life. He’d never admit how much sleep he’s lost thinking of what he did, or worse, not regretting it at all. Would never admit how he still hears those words now, and wonders what they meant.

How selfish, that after everything, that was the only time he truly felt fear. Not even when he heard that Lyanna had been kidnapped, not when he had helped in the fighting, not when he stared down the cousin he used to love. No, dying would’ve been easy; he’s so intimate with death already.

Living is much worse.

And now he’s not so sure that he hasn’t been punished anyway, even though he walked free. He thinks maybe the power is his real punishment in the end. What is the realm, anyway, when what he had been fighting for was his love, his humanity?

There was a gun, he’d had a gun somewhere, and he learned during the trial that Rhagaer did, too. And yet, neither of them had used them.

No, it wasn’t self-defense. It was something much more personal.

king’s landing

He changed his middle name when he changed his last name. It was a two-for-one deal, after all; since he already had to change his last name, then why not do another while he was already at the courthouse signing the paperwork? It was a whim, but it felt right, and that’s really all it’s ever taken to get him to do something, an urge and some confidence.

He always hated his middle name, anyway, first because it sounded stupid, and then later because it attached him to the Targaryens. Aegon, after his great-grandfather. Who throws Aegon on their kid, even smashed between two semi-normal names? No, he shed the weight of a name like that as soon as he had the chance, having always conveniently left out his middle name even before the betrayal that led to the rebellion. He used to tell people his parents just forgot to choose one. That was easier.

He’d rather just be a Baratheon, anyway.

So that’s what he chose. Steffan was his late father’s name, and it only felt right to pay tribute to him. He was a good man, a good leader, the sort of person Robert always hoped he could be. Maybe he thought somewhere in the back of his mind that taking his name might make that easier. But it didn’t work.

Because he’s a fucking Lannister, too, apparently.

Here he is, with the stupid fucking hyphenated surname on every official document he has to sign. Hell, it still looks like a third grader learning cursive for the first time is writing the Lannister part, tacked onto the signature he’d already perfected. The issue of the last name still makes him roll his eyes to this day. Even knowing her well, he’d foolishly assumed Cersei would take his surname. But he should’ve known, because hasn’t he done things equally as wicked as every other Lannister in history?

“Why should I have to be the one to take on your identity? We’re getting married, it’s not some life changing thing.”

“I’d disagree with that, but fine, I’ll bite. It’s not fair to lose your name. Hyphenate it.”

“You hyphenate it, if it’s such a throwaway thing.”

“As much as I like you, sometimes you really just make me want to punch myself in the face, did you know that? I’ll hyphenate, if you hyphenate, too. Fair’s fair.”

“Alright then, Lannister-Baratheon it is.”

“No, no, no, how the fuck do you think it’ll look to the realm if I’m Robert Lannister suddenly? Besides, it sounds better alphabetically. Baratheon comes first.”

“No, it doesn’t, Lannister does.”

Silence.

“There’s no law saying we have to match, and if there is, well, I can get rid of it...”

blacktyde (cw alcohol, drugs)

It’s not something he ever planned on becoming, somehow who relies on escapism to get through one fucking day, one fucking night, but here he is.

It’s not like he ever imagined his life as any of this, anyway. And that’s the problem, it’s always been the problem. He never wanted to rule, not really, all he wanted was to bring her home safely, to be together, to have a life. But he couldn’t even do that right, and now that life is gone for good, just like Lyanna.

Before, it was always just something those around him laughed at, or rolled their eyes at. It was a joke, the way he never tried to reel in any of his appetites. When he was younger, it was something amusing, to see how he literally charmed the pants off of anyone he wanted so easily, and never hung around much longer than that, it was impressive the way he could drink anyone under the table, it was cool how he never backed down from a fight, and always won.

Boys will be boys, that’s what they say.

No, boys will be men who have no fucking clue how to cope with any hint of emotion; who have to keep drinking, and fighting, and fucking to even try to deal with reality when things don’t go their way.

Now it’s just depressing. But he can’t stop, doesn’t know how, or maybe worse, is too afraid to confront any of what happened to stop.

There’s been too much loss, and he’s tried too hard to fill in the gaps that can never be filled. So that’s what he keeps doing, because what the fuck else is there? It’s easier to be halfway to drunk at any given moment to keep the thoughts hazy, easier to find a pair or two of random arms to keep him warm in the hard moments than to let himself risk a heartbreak, easier to get to sleep if he’s sent off with a sip of the evening than to wake up thinking he’s smelling the copper of his blood mixed with his cousin’s.

It was nice, for a while. He knows, even if they all think he’s too fucking stupid to realize. He knows that they’re all tired of the act, knows that they see through it. For a while, it was excusable. Maybe even further than that, the city was glad to have a Protector so human, one who was as unafraid of standing against injustice, as he was to show his vices. But that ended years ago. He knows they whisper about how incompetent he is.

The funny thing is, though, that they think he doesn’t agree. Because he does, truly. He knows he’s been a horrible Protector, maybe as bad as Aerys, in a different way. He knows, but somehow he can’t bring himself to do much about it.

It’s always been easier to ignore a problem, after all, until it’s taken care of, or it consumes him whole.

INTERVIEW

ii. what’s your morning routine?

“Morning routine? Is this a personal interest piece you’re writing?” he laughs, shaking his head as he runs through the truth, crafting a lie.

Wake up late hungover from shade of the evening, coffee with whiskey (mostly the latter), scalding shower to try to feel less dirty, another drink, listen to messages, ignore messages, swipe through Tinder, swipe through Grindr, lie on bed for half an hour thinking of every mistake you’ve made, get up, get dressed, look in the mirror, hate yourself, wait for someone to tell you what to do.

“It’s like anyone else’s. Alarm wakes me up, I’ll go through messages before I even make it out of the bedroom. Sometimes I’ll go for a run if I manage to wake up early enough. Stop on the way back and get Cersei her venti iced almond milk cappuccino with cold foam, extra shot of espresso, and three pumps of hazelnut. Or whatever. Drink half of it myself before I can make it to the Red Keep,” a wave of his hand brushes that one off. People like that sort of thing, a little humanity thrown into it. Not that that matters anymore, not that the whole city doesn’t know how horribly human he is.

“Usually, though, I’ll go through the news with some coffee, then take a nice hot shower, wake myself up. Breakfast with the family, sometimes Jon comes up early and goes through the day, then I get ready and head to work. Work being downstairs, but you know, nice to forget that sometimes. Simple.”

vii. have you ever lost someone you loved?

“What a cruel question. Who hasn’t in this damn city? To death, to circumstances, to life. If there’s one common thread in my life, it’s that. Loss. But I’m not special in that. Any of us who lived through the riots share that. I think that’s why it hasn’t gotten to that point again, in over a decade, no matter how much we all disagree. It’s not me, that’s stopping it––I’m not an idiot, no matter what the people think––it’s knowing how it feels to lose what you love. We can’t bear the thought of doing it again.”

ix. who was your last text to, and what did it say?

“You know I probably can’t tell you, right? Like, it was probably something important. There’s a council meeting tomorrow,” he says raising an eyebrow, but shifting to pull his phone out of his back pocket.

“Are you saying you run Westeros through text messages?”

He stops where he was, looks up as his thumbprint unlocks it with an amused smile, before looking back down as he goes on.

“Are you saying you wouldn’t if you had the option? What year do you think this is? Texting is faster than emailing, I’m not going to get on a fuckin’ conference call with them, and gods know I don’t want to see their faces every day,” he laughs, a hint of something bitter to the words.

Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, thumb finally stops. He goes on before the reporter can question it. “It was to Ned. I said: ‘knock, knock, motherfucker, I’m outside with a dozen boston creme donuts with your name written on them, and yes, I do need something in return.’”

A long pause.

“Are you saying you were bribing Eddard Stark?”

EXTRAS (OPTIONAL):

pinterest board!

character tag!

old playlist! (yes, it is exclusively fall out boy songs because bobby b is a walking emo song)

likes: Being surrounded by people, expensive clothes, Ned Stark, being shirtless, drinking, an intricate skincare routine, Cersei’s voice, using his Alexa for anything at all, beautiful people, being praised, making fun of Littlefinger to anyone, too-sweet coffee, sleeping in, skin-on-skin contact, a well-placed punch, a life of luxury, fucking with Stannis, Davos’s onion rings, shade of the evening, candles that smell like men (you know the ones), bubble baths with other people

dislikes: Targaryens, wearing suits, aging, responsibility, council meetings, the cold, storms especially on the coast, monogamy, sailing, the smell of blood, the justice system, board rooms, listening to Tywin, being alone, being sober, the Narrow Sea, having to be serious, thinking critically about his actions, dealing with the Martells, having every action judged, sharing a bathroom with Cersei, conversely having to go downstairs to take a shower when she’s taking too long

random hcs:

He still has the brass knuckles he killed Rhaegar with. He knows he shouldn’t, knows that if the public found out, it would look even worse for him than it already does, and yet. After the trial was over, after the council had chosen him to lead, he used that power to get that piece of evidence back, even if it is an illegal weapon. He hasn’t used them since, but it’s a comfort, knowing he has them. It’s a small thing, to have a tangible reminder that he got the revenge he needed, even if it was too late.

In all honesty, Robert doesn’t really have many true friends. He has plenty of acquaintances, plenty of people who try their best to act the part, to get something from him. But there’s only one person he really considers his friend and trusts wholly, and that’s Ned Stark.

His favorite drink at Hightower is their version of Pink Drink, and you’d be hard pressed to get him to have a coffee when that’s an option.

His favorite alcoholic drink is any. Literally just whatever’s closest.

Even though after his parents’ deaths he was put in charge of Stag Realty Group and Storm’s End, it was never going to be his business. He was more interested in what he learned from Jon Arryn, ended up with a degree in law instead, using it for his political motivations. He wanted to be loved. Instead, he put his parents’ close family friends, the Penroses, in charge of the real estate group on his behalf until Renly is old enough to take over, and he worked his way into politics, taking over his father’s empty council seat a few years later. He didn’t even bother to offer Storm’s End to Stannis.

His passion for law and politics has long since cooled into indifference, though, now that he’s seen how royally fucked the whole system is, and knows it doesn’t matter, anyway, that the people with enough money can do what they want, run the city from their high horses, and that the people’s love doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

The only person he has ever been in love with is Lyanna Stark. He loved her for years and years and years, and did everything he could to win her love, too, which was easy, because of how well they fit together. They gave each other the adventure and excitement they needed, and he looked forward to every moment spent with her, every moment apart like a small eternity. She made him want to be better, because she deserved someone who was good. And it feels a whole lot like the good parts of him died with her, like she was the only thing keeping him from becoming what he is now.

Well, maybe he’s a little in love with Ned, and maybe he always will be, but that’s neither here nor there, since Ned’s happily married having built what Robert considers the greatest family in the world, and he knows he isn’t interested in being married to two people at once. (He knows, because he asked.)

Cersei does mean the world to him, even if not in the way a spouse necessarily should. He respects her deeply, and at this point feels more comfortable with her than without. The thing about her is that not for a minute did she ever expect anything else from him, but exactly what he was. Even from that first night spent together, in which they both hesitated to leave, a change of events in which they both stayed and slept next to each other, there was never any illusion. She’s the only one who’s ever been able to handle how he is, and he feels that he could say the same vice versa. He’s not in love with her, but maybe he loves her, in his own strange way, without realizing it.

Thanks in part to the unconventional family situation he was raised it, Robert finds it nearly impossible to even fathom monogamy. To him, it’s not cheating, because he knows Cersei knows, even if it’s not always him who tells her. Even if he were married to someone he was in love with, he would still crave the openness of polyamory. And it’s easier now, too, to indulge in his desires with whoever he wants, because it keeps him from getting too close to any one person, and the potential of losing love again.

As such, he’s bisexual as fuck, and would never let something as silly as gender keep him from having fun with someone. Are you attractive and consenting? Then you’re Robert’s type.

#lsrp #lsrpg #got rp #asoiaf rp #mature rp #sample app

[klaineanummel]

unexpected 2/24?

Blaine Anderson was just about the last thing Professor Kurt Hummel expected out of a TA.

I'm still massively playing catch-up, because this chapter ended up being a bit longer than I expected. Written for the prompt "Cinnamon" from @klaineadvent day 2!! I'm cheating a little and using whichever prompt I like best ;) Hope you enjoy!!

Oh, and since I am writing this rather quickly and without betaing, I want to apologize in advance for any grammar/spelling errors, as well as errors in terms of NYU’s Steinhardt campus, which I have never been to and have done minimal research on. Sorry!!!!!!!!

Read on AO3  |  Previous Chapter

“Well, it was wonderful to meet you, Professor Hummel,” Tina says from her position by his office door. “I’m really looking forward to working with you this semester.”

“Likewise, Tina,” Kurt smiles at her and raises a hand to wave goodbye. Tina responds in kind and heads out the door.

“I should go, too,” Mercedes says, standing up and slinging her knapsack over her shoulders. “I’m meeting the chair of my thesis advisory board in twenty minutes across campus.” She smiles at Kurt and Blaine in turn. “It was awesome to meet you, Blaine,” she says. Then, she turns to Kurt and says, “And it was wonderful to see you again, Professor Hummel. I’m excited we get to work together again this year.”

“I am, too,” Kurt replies. Mercedes waves at them both, then heads out the door as well, leaving Kurt alone with Blaine.

The man stands once Mercedes is gone, smiling warmly. “I don’t actually have to be anywhere else today,” he says. He tilts his head to the side ever so slightly. “Would you be interested in getting a cup of coffee?”

Kurt’s eyes widen, and he presses his lips together. “Uh, well—”

“I mean, I’d love to get to know you better, Professor Hummel,” Blaine says, clasping his hands together in front of him. “Since we’ll be working together this semester.”

“Right, of course,” Kurt says, nodding, internally rolling his eyes at himself for immediately jumping to the conclusion of date, he’s asking me on a date. “Well, I don’t have anywhere to be for another hour, so why not. Sure, let’s grab some coffee!”

“Wonderful,” Blaine says, smiling again, and wow, Kurt needs to get his feelings under control.

The entire meeting, he had to keep reminding himself that Blaine was a student, that Blaine was his TA. This wasn’t some beautiful man he’d just happened upon at a coffee shop. He wasn’t a gorgeous profile picture on a dating app. He wasn’t a fellow professor. He was someone that Kurt definitely should not be noticing as much as he is.

Blaine takes the lead as they leave the building, and Kurt shamefully lets his eyes fall down to Blaine’s surprisingly toned ass.

He groans quietly. He can’t believe how difficult he’s finding it to hide his attraction to the older man. Usually he…

Well, he’s never actually been in a situation where he’s had to hide his attraction to someone. At least not for the past twenty years he’s been in New York. Every man he’s been attracted to since moving to the city has been someone it was appropriate for Kurt to be attracted to. He’s never found himself attracted to a TA before, or – thank god – a student.

“How long have you been teaching here?” Blaine asks, breaking Kurt from his thoughts. He’s lagging a little, allowing Kurt to catch up with him so they can walk side-by-side.

“This is my eighth year,” Kurt says. “I actually got this job almost immediately after getting my PhD.”

Blaine whistles lowly. “A professorate offer right out of college? Damn.”

“Well, hey now,” Kurt chuckles, raising his hands up to his shoulders. “I’ve been here for eight years, but only been a full-time professor for three. My first five were me scraping by on a part-time salary, practically begging them to view my research as worthy of their investment. Still,” he says, shrugging a little. “I know I’m lucky to be where I am, so I will still accept your congratulatory ‘Damn’.”

Blaine laughs, and Kurt feels his heart flutter at the sound. Their hands brush against each other where they’re swinging between them. Kurt feels his cheeks heat up a little, and, as casually as he can, he places that hand in his pocket.

Kurt looks ahead, catching sight of the campus Starbucks near them. He glances at Blaine and finds him already looking his way. Those eyes are going to prove a huge problem for him this semester.

“What about you?” Kurt asks, turning back towards the Starbucks logo on the side of the building. “What brings you to Steinhardt?”

He can see Blaine shrugging out of the corner of his eye. “Just wanted a change of pace,” is his reply, though his tone suggests there is far more to the story.

They reach the entrance to the coffee shop and Blaine skips ahead, holding the door open for Kurt. He smiles winningly and says, “After you, professor.”

Kurt’s stomach swoops, but he ignores the feeling. “Thank you very much,” he says instead as he strides into the shop.

He and Blaine join the line, which is thankfully not too long. Kurt shifts so that he’s half-facing Blaine, then says, “Really, though.”

Blaine chuckles, hands going to his pockets. He shrugs again, then says, “Really, I’ve always wanted to study music. I didn’t have the opportunity during my first go at it, and so I figured why not. You only live once, right?”

Kurt raises his eyebrows. “Isn’t YOLO a little 2012?”

Blaine shrugs. “Probably. Slang tends to trickle down a bit slowly to me. My only real connection to it is my kids, and they…” He looks down at his shoes. “Well, it takes some time for it to get to me.”

Kurt licks his lips, hoping this will be the axe to the head of his crush. “You have kids?”

Blaine nods, arms coming up to cross over his chest. “Yeah, two. Jane and Roderick. Twenty-one and sixteen.”

“Wow,” Kurt says, and, unconsciously, finds his eyes drifting to Blaine’s left hand. It’s a necessary habit now that he’s in his late thirties, but not something he should be doing to a student.

His heart does a little flip when he sees Blaine’s ring finger is bare. He tells his heart to cut it out.

“Yeah,” Blaine says. “Actually, Jane is just starting her senior year at the main NYU campus.” He smiles wistfully. “When I originally decided to come back to school, I had hoped we’d be able to go to school together, but the Music Business Major was only available through this campus, so.”

“That’s too bad,” Kurt says. “That it didn’t work out.”

“Ah, well,” Blaine shrugs, face deceptively nonchalant. “I’m sure she’s glad in the end. I doubt she would have wanted her old man hanging around during her last year of college.”

“Next,” the cashier calls, and they step up to order their drinks. Blaine orders a medium drip, while Kurt opts for a non-fat mocha because, what the hell, he’s developing a crush on his goddamn TA. He deserves the splurge.

They each pay for their drinks and then step to the side to wait.

They’re silent for several minutes, casually looking around the small coffee shop. It’s quaint, for a Starbucks built into a university building. They’ve made it look homey, like you’ve just stepped into your parents living room. Kurt can only imagine that, as a Starbucks set up in a university, this was more than purposeful.

“So,” he says, finally. “Why Music Business?”

Blaine looks up from where he’d been staring at the pick-up counter. “Well,” he says. “I’ve been in business since I graduated from Columbia back in the day.” Kurt tries to hide how impressed he is by Blaine’s alma mater. “It seemed silly to throw almost thirty years of business experience down the drain when I could incorporate it to my love of music.”

“Practical,” Kurt replies, which makes Blaine chuckle.

“That’s one word for it,” he replies.

Kurt wants to pry more. Everything about Blaine calls out to him. He wants to know everything about the man. He wants to know the other word for why Blaine chose Music Business for his graduate degree. He wants to know every detail of why he’s got two grown children, but no ring on his finger. He wants to know about the past thirty years of Blaine’s life, and however many years he lived before that, too.

Thankfully, before he can blurt out any of the undoubtedly inappropriate questions flying through his head, the barista calls out their names.

They each grab their drink and head to the small stand next to the pick-up counter full of everything they might need to make their coffee’s spectacular. Kurt doesn’t need much more than a stirrer and an extra cardboard cozy, but he watches as Blaine imbues his drink with a cocktail of sugar, milk, and cinnamon.

Somehow, it feels too intimate to be watching Blaine do this. Like knowing what his TA puts in his coffee isn’t something Kurt should know. Which is ridiculous, because he’s known the coffee orders of most of his TA’s over the years. Their pizza preferences, as well as Chinese food, too. This is nothing. This is normal. He would have learnt this eventually anyway.

Still, he looks away just as Blaine sets the cinnamon down. Maybe it’s less the act of knowing what his TA puts in his coffee, and more the act of watching Blaine’s gloriously long, slim fingers putting said things in his coffee.

He really needs to get this under control.

“So,” Blaine holds his cup up once he’s placed the lid firmly back on it. “Do you have a bit more time to chat, or do you have to be getting ready for your next meeting?”

He doesn’t. His next meeting isn’t for another hour, and it will probably be a short one, so he doesn’t have much to prepare for.

Despite that, he says, “Yes, unfortunately I should get going. But thank you for suggesting this, Blaine. It was nice to get to chat a little more.”

Too nice.

Blaine nods and smiles as Kurt begins to walk towards the door. He waves goodbye to Blaine, who is setting himself up in one of the few empty tables in the shop. Blaine waves back as he pulls his laptop out of his bag. Kurt watches him just a moment too long, watches as he takes a sip of his coffee and opens up his laptop.

When he finally leaves, it’s with the treacherous thought that Blaine’s lips would probably taste of cinnamon.

Chapter Three - Deputy

#klaine advent 2018 #klaineanummel fic #klaine fic #klaine au #klaine #multi chapter #unexpected

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, HONEY! You’ve been accepted for the role of PARIS with a faceclaim change to Luke Pasqualino. Admin Jen: I had high expectations for Priam as he’s such a nuanced, multi-faceted character but you exceeded them by leaps and bounds, Honey! You captured all the concepts that I was hoping to see someone explore and unravel such as his identity, search for purpose and moral ambiguity and you added all these little details that built off of that but also made the characterization wholly yours. My favorite one was the detail regarding his knack for fixing up cars and the backstory you built off of that in terms of his family’s corporation. I can honestly keep going for hours because there was just too much to love about your app. It’s left me absolutely thrilled to see how you’ll develop him on the dash! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Honey

Age | 22

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her

Activity Level | I’m a final year college student who’s doing a short film as my final project, which might take up some time. But I’m taking less classes this semester so that kind of evens out the workload a little. I’d place my activity level at about a 6 (maybe even 7 if I’m feeling particularly inspired) out of 10.

Timezone | GMT +8

Current/Past RP Accounts | apcstasies.tumblr.com

In Character

Character | PARIS ; Priam Taravella (FC: Luke Pasqualino)

What drew you to this character?

The fact that everything about Priam is manufactured, a carefully curated collection of personality traits and mannerisms that he can turn on and off at will whenever it suits his purpose. By all intents and purposes – be it business or personal – Priam is a self-made man. But even though his perfectly-crafted veneer is his greatest strength, paradoxically, it is also his biggest weakness. There is a void inside him, a hollow point that eats away at him. It is a slow decay, but it consumes nonetheless. Personally, I feel that this emptiness he feels is a lack of human connection, and for all his ambition and apparent desire to rise to power, what he truly seeks is a sense of belonging. Priam wants so badly to be seen, but ironically the way he makes himself visible is by putting on a mask.

I feel like he probably struggles a lot with his upbringing and his resentment towards his parents. On the one hand, he’s very aware that as far as childhoods go, his isn’t terrible. He grew up extremely privileged and never wanted for anything (besides his parents’ affection, but that’s besides the point). Sure, it sucked that his parents were distant and that he’s had all these expectations placed on his shoulders from such a young age, but Priam is very aware of the fact that there are many people who would give anything to trade lives with him. He was deeply unhappy with his life growing up, and when he was younger he had been more inclined to complain about how much he hated his life, as children are wont to do, but then everyone around him constantly reminded him how lucky he was and so he learned to bury his discontentment. He carried his unhappiness inside him like a cancer, letting it fester until he was sick with it.

I also find his potential struggles with self-identity to be a compelling part of his character. At what point does the mask become the man? When does the line between the part he plays and his true self start to blur? Does he ever catch himself in the middle of a moment and think–– am I still pretending, or is this truly the man that I have become?

+ Bonus: I just find it amusing that he’s named Priam.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character?

TENDER LIKE A BRUISE

Love is an abstract concept that Priam can’t quite grasp and it shows. Still, there is a part of Priam that believes in love. Perhaps it is because he’s never had it that he wants it this badly, or perhaps it is the way he’s heard Julianna speak of love. Romantics talk about all-encompassing love, the kind of love that consumes you until you can think of nothing else except your dearly beloved and being with them. Priam is no stranger to being consumed, except it is poison that fills his veins and a monster within that eats at him inside out. As a teen, he’d thought that he could fill the void inside of him with love, only he never quite understood what love meant. He’d confused love with lust and, sleeping with girls, and boys, and girls and boys, but even if it kept the hunger at bay for a little while, the emptiness alwayscrept back in. Whether Priam realises it or not, he wants Juliana to be the one who might finally be able to carve a home in his ribs. Maybe they’re not in love, but when he’s with her, something in his chest settles, and maybe, maybe, maybe, that will be enough.

WE MUST BE KILLERS

Priam’s never had much of an appetite for violence, but if there’s anything he’s learned from his parents, it’s that the means are always justified by the ends. And if that’s the case, then what’s a little bit of spilt blood in the grand scheme of things? But just because he can understand the necessity for violence doesn’t mean he’s any more willing to be an active participant. He’s a hypocrite and a coward; he may not ever be the one pulling the trigger, but he is the one who looks away and lets it happen. It makes the ugly parts of the job easier to stomach, soothes his conscience some. But things are changing, tensions are rising, to remain passive is to bare your neck your enemy and pray they won’t tear your throat out. Priam is a survivor, and if it comes down to killing someone or being killed, he knows which side of the line he wants to fall on. He’s a liar, he’s manipulative, he’s ruthless –– he’s never been a killer, but perhaps it’s time to change that.

SHIFTING IN THE LIGHT

Despite being neck-deep in the corruption of Verona, he likes to think that he has some morals, or at least a sort of ethical code that he follows. People like him are the worst, criminals who refuse to acknowledge themselves as such. For Priam, part of the reason is pride, but fear is a factor as well, even if he won’t admit it. He had been the one to go to Cosimo, and the man has always treated him as something of a son, but sometimes he does wonder if he’s sold his soul to the devil and it’s days like those that he can’t bear to look himself in the eyes. But Priam can’t run from the person he’s become forever. One day he’s going to look in the mirror and not recognise himself, and he’ll wonder if maybe the mask is stuck, or if he’s just become the mask. He’s grown into a man, hardly recognisable as the little boy he used to be, and only time will tell whether that’s a good or bad change.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character?

Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve killed off one of my characters : )))

(That means yes, please feel free to kill Priam.)

In Depth

In-Character Interview:

• What is your favourite place in Verona?

“My favourite place?” Priam echoes. The slight twist of his lips hints at amusement, but it is the sort of indulgent humour one might direct at a particularly precocious two-year-old. It’s an expression that borders on condescension, but the reporter is either oblivious to it or doesn’t much care, continuing to watch him with expectant eyes. Over the years Priam has found that people are usually too enamoured by his pretty face to really notice the ugly parts of him that lurk underneath the surface, and it feels like a challenge, almost –– sometimes he toes the line just to see how much he can get away with by virtue of being young and beautiful.

“You’re standing in it,” he finally answers, the words accompanied by a vague sweeping gesture of his hand, inviting the reporter to take a proper look at the garage they’re currently in. This is the first time anyone other than him has been in there, and a part of Priam tingles with the wrongness of a stranger in a space that had before this been only for him. Still, it’s a small sacrifice he has to make. People love to be reminded that the rich are regular people with regular hobbies behind the glamour of wealth, and if Priam throws them a bone now, it’ll keep them from digger further into other truths he’d rather not divulge. “I apologise for the mess, by the way,” he adds, allowing a sheepishness he doesn’t actually feel to seep into his voice, “I probably should have cleaned up a little, but it slipped my mind. Don’t usually let people in here, y’know?” Hook, line, and sinker, Priam thinks, watching the man flush slightly at the implication that he’s the exception.

• What does your typical day look like?

“A lot of paperwork,” he answers with a laugh, and then, “No, really. I left Taravella Corporation because I got tired of sitting around in an office all day. Albeit it was a very nice office, but I’ve always been more of a hands-on kind of guy.” He pauses to pick up a wrench from his worktable, pretending not to notice the double entendre, or the way the reporter’s gaze catches on his fingers as they wrap around the shaft of the wrench.

“I traded aerospace for automotive, thinking with a smaller company I’d get to be more involved with the actual manufacturing process, but I still spend most of my day signing papers.” He looks up from the car then, sharing a wry smile with the reporter before adding, almost cheekily, “Except now I get to do it in a smaller office.” Despite the reporter being the only other person in the room, Priam lowers his voice anyway, letting the reduced volume provide the illusion of candour. “Some might say it’s a downgrade, but it’s nice to have a space that finally feels like it’s mine. It sounds silly, but back at T-Corp, I always felt like I was just messing around in my old man’s chair.”

“Anyway,” he says, talking normally once more, “After work I like to grab some drinks with my friends, maybe dinner with my fiancée if I end early enough. I’m really not all that different from other guys in their twenties.” If other guys his age routinely met up with members of one of Verona’s most well-known mobs, of course, but he decides to leave that last bit off the record.

• What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

“I accidentally wore mismatched socks to work once,” he deadpans, and then more seriously, “I suppose it depends on how one defines ‘mistake’, but to me, a mistake is something you wish you could undo.” He ducks under the open hood even as he continues to talk despite previously having made it a point to make eye contact whenever he answered a question, knowing that the reporter will interpret it as him feeling more comfortable being honest when he’s not actually looking at the person he’s talking to.

“For a while, I had wondered if leaving the family business had been a mistake,” he admits, sounding genuine even as he lies through his teeth. Priam had never been more sure of anything, determined to forge his own path to the top without the burden of his family’s legacy weighing him down. “But that worked out pretty well for me, I’d say, so no regrets there.”

• What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

“Picture this––” he starts, “You’re five years old and your father brings you to work.” It’s perhaps his earliest memory of his father. Before that, the man had been a mere spectre in Priam’s life, the bogeyman that his nannies had used to keep him in line. Your father wouldn’t want you to use that word, or keep your voice down, your father’s resting in his office. That day at Taravella Corporation’s main office had been the first time they’d spent more than half an hour in the same room. Back then, Priam had thought it had been some sort of a father-son bonding experience, but he knows better now.

“He showed me around, brought me to all the different departments before he took me to his personal office. There, he said to me: this will all be yours someday.” On some nights, he can still hear his father’s voice, still remembers grappling with the realisation that he’s not so much a son as he is the heir to an empire he never asked for. It’s not a happy memory, but he recounts the tale with a carefully calculated smile that’s just this side of sheepish and a half-shrug, proud and self-deprecating all at once, “That’s quite a lot to ask of a young boy, don’t you think?”

• What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

War. It’s such an ugly word, but there’s hardly any point debating the reporter’s choice of words when it’s the truth. Priam is under no illusions –– while the interview might have been disguised as a spread on one of Verona’s most successful young entrepreneurs, this one question is the true crux of it all. But he wouldn’t be such an invaluable piece on the Capulets’ chessboard if he hadn’t been well-versed in the art of lies and half-truths, and that ability is sure to serve him well now.

“If you think that I have anything profound to say just because I’m engaged to Juliana, then I’m afraid you’re mistaken.” He places his wrench back down, walking away from the open hood of the car to lean against the passenger side door instead, allowing the reporter an unobstructed view of him. His stance is carefully neutral, arms at his side, nothing in his posture to suggest that he has anything to hide. “I’m a businessman, I make and sell cars,” he starts, but knows that there’s no way he can get away with not commenting on the issue at all. “That being said, my family has always been close to the Capulets, so. Whatever Cosimo and Juliana are doing, I trust that they’re doing the right thing.”

“Speaking of my fiancée––” Priam straightens up suddenly, his tone returning to it’s earlier light-heartedness as his lips pull into a grin. “I’m supposed to meet her for lunch today, and I should probably wash off all this grease before I do that. I assume we’re done here?” It’s phrased as a question, but combined with the slight raise of a single eyebrow, it’s clear that it’s a dismissal more than anything else. The reporter’s smart enough to catch on, nodding in agreement as he thanks Priam for his time.

Extras:

Taravella Corporation is an aerospace engineering company, mostly dealing with the manufacturing of commercial planes, but they have the occasional military contract as well as an R&D department that’s looking into space travel

After leaving T-Corp, Priam went and set up Argentum, an automotive engineering company that produces some of the most innovative luxury cars in the world

In his youth, Priam had a brief stint with street racing. It had been an attempt to distract himself from the gnawing emptiness inside of him, and for a while it worked. Now, occasionally he’ll drive over the speed limit, but he’s not nearly as reckless anymore

Really good at poker but we’ll probably never actually get to see this in a thread (besides maybe a passing mention) because I have no idea how to play poker despite having been taught multiple times

Sexy and he knows it !

I wish I could end this app on a more coherent and/or profound note but it’s 4 in the morning and I just want to write a fake ass hoe whose entire existence can be boiled down to: was unloved as a child and now has no idea how basic human emotions work

He tries though, really

#accepted: paris #accepted

[tech-battery]

The Asus RT-AX86U Is a Wi-Fi 6 Router That Doesn't Sacrifice Looks for Power

Wi-Fi 6 has accelerated its creep into mainstream wireless networking, urged along by the similarly accelerating spread of gigabit internet. Until the last few months or so, purchasing a Wi-Fi 6 device has largely been a decision more about future-proofing and less about immediate gain. That’s quickly changing, however, with all manner of wireless device manufacturers releasing products boasting about blazing this and blistering that, and it’s finally time to take a serious look at 802.11ax routers.

The Asus RT-AX88U was an early entrant in the field, and the company now has several follow-ups, including our best gaming router runner-up: the RT-AX86U. There, I gave it credit for being extremely fast and for its restrained physical design. However, I took issue with Asus’s UI decisions. In the end, I concluded that I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good gaming experience. Now I’m taking an even deeper dive to find out: Is this router worth it for just any old person and not just gamers presumably reading this in a hoodie with some kind of RGB lighting and heat vents? I think so, and you should, too.

As far as the design of the Asus RT-AX86U goes, there isn’t much to say, and frankly, that’s a good thing. It’s neither a slab nor a monolith, neither an ancient alien artifact nor an air freshener chic pod (though it can be a Gundam, apparently). It’s black, it stands upright, and it has three stabby, removable, adjustable antennas jutting from the top. It has four outgoing gigabit ethernet ports—one of which is an auto-prioritizing gaming port—in the back, a gigabit WAN, and a 2.5-gigabit LAN/WAN port for those lucky enough to be able to make use of it. Two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports give you a fast NAS if you’ve got a hard drive lying around.

Getting it set up is a quick process, refreshingly letting me choose up front whether to separate the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. Knowing that I would need to reconfigure some real dumb smart devices, I opted for separation, and my network was up and running in about five minutes.

But it should be noted there are two ways to handle setup and management. One is via a lovely mobile app, and the other is via the browser, and I hate the browser-based UI of Asus routers. It’s just a weird, unfocused, confusing mess. If you’re the type of person who wants deep, granular control of your home network, but don’t want to shell out for expensive enterprise-grade hardware, you could do a lot worse than Asus, but prepare to hunt for the settings you need to adjust. Trudging through the settings reveals menus and submenus that stretch out seemingly to infinity, with an intimidating depth that would have most people regarding it with narrowed eyes and a feigned understanding, muttering, “Yes, I see,” as they slowly mouse up to click the X button on that tab.

The intro screen has a basic network topology map which gives you a diagram of what all is connected, and a section where you can split out your 2.4 and 5 GHz bands or update your network SSID and password. After that, you get the shiny feature-y stuff, the majority of which, like the specific data-type prioritizing Adaptive QoS, Traffic Analysis, and various media modes and security, is powered by Trend Micro.

Together they offer a host of security features in the AiProtection section, promising to block malicious sites, protect you from Distributed Denial of Service attacks, and network vulnerability attacks like Heartbleed, while also monitoring outgoing traffic for suspicious packets from virus-infected devices. Each tab under this section gives you reports of suspicious network behavior, with downloadable logs for your review. In testing at wicar.org, the router blocked all but two of 10 sites, with Safari catching the last two. It seemed to work well, though the experience is barebones, and unlike the rest of the settings for the router, there are no opportunities for customization, just toggles for each of the three categories of protection. But using this, or a few other key features powered by Trend Micro, will bring you eventually to this EULA notice:

It seems that in order to have access to Trend Micro’s features, you must agree to give them access to all kinds of data, which may include your e-mails or your web browsing history. It’s spooky stuff, as usual, but thankfully all fairly easy to opt in or out of, as well—so long as you can bear the ensuing message about the valuable capabilities you’ll lose out on. So, it’s not quite the deal with Ursula the Sea Witch I initially worried it was, and, in the end, the details in the EULA are perhaps not unexpected for security software like this. I reached out to both Asus and Trend Micro for their input on what sort of data they collect and how exactly it’s used, and we’ll update here when we get a response.

Deeper in the menus, you will find a surprisingly pleasant Open NAT section with pre-configured port reservations for specific games and consoles, and NAS options that include support for Apple’s Time Machine backup software. Most people will go wall-eyed looking at options past these, but it’s worth noting that if you want to use features like OFDMA and MU-MIMO, beamforming, and, I don’t know, the actual Wi-Fi 6 standard, you’ll want to push on into the advanced settings—just don’t expect to understand much of what you are presented with here, unless you have studied networking down to a very specific level. That said, if you have time and sufficient grit, you can sift through it and find some truly powerful options.

Now, for all the shade I throw at the browser interface, Asus actually does a pretty decent job with their mobile app. Appearance-wise, it’s far from the tidy design of most of Asus’s competitors; the app looks the way we might have imagined the UI of the future would in the early aughts or late ‘90s—all sci-fi space controls floating against a star field, complete with animations that are just there to look neat. While very silly, it’s a breath of fresh air after using the web interface, with more of the stuff you would want quick access to right there on the home screen, like Adaptive QoS mode switching, letting you quickly switch priority to games, video conferencing software, media streaming, and more.

While not quite as robust as the browser UI, the mobile app is far more user-friendly, even if it isn’t perfect. I greatly appreciated seeing signal noise shown for individual devices—also an option in the browser—which helps a lot when placing them for the best signal, which is especially important for things like smart speakers, which can be made or broken by your choices regarding network topology.

Looking at the feature list, it’s not unusual to wonder why in the hell you would want to command your router with Alexa. But, in the interest of being thorough, I grabbed my long-banished Echo Dot to test, and I did find some genuinely useful bits here—temporarily activating your guest network, for example, or pausing wifi. Perhaps the most useful of the bunch is the ability to change Adaptive QoS modes without going into the app.

The main shortcoming of Alexa Skills remains: Every command must be prefaced with “Alexa, ask my router…”, followed by a prescribed set of phrases you must memorize (or look up every time, defeating the purpose). The pricier RT-AX88U gives you a small selection of more natural-sounding phrases like, “Alexa, pause my wifi.” I tried anyway; not only did it not work, but Alexa pretended not to know who I was.

The rest of my smart home experience on this router, initial difficulties aside, was a good one—lightbulbs flicked on and off, routines ran, and my chosen smart assistant didn’t hesitate to respond to my requests.

The RT-AX86U is powered by a 1.8 GHz quad-core CPU with 1 GB of RAM and 256 MB Flash memory. Theoretically, it can transmit up to 4804 Mbps on the 5 GHz band, or up to 861 Mbps on the 2.4, but you’ll never see those speeds, nor should you expect them. It has four antennas—one of which is an internal, printed circuit board antenna, and works all the way up to the 160 MHz band, which is a key component of Wi-Fi 6, and necessary to reach the fastest speeds the router is capable of. It has a long list of other terms that describe how powerful it is.

As I’ve noted previously, the RT-AX86U is great for gaming. I wanted to take it further, so I decided to stress test the router, streaming music at the highest quality available on multiple devices, watching a 4K nature documentary on Apple TV, which is known for its high-bitrate streaming, conducting a video call with a friend, and playing CS:GO on official servers. This is a realistic scenario in my home, and the RT-AX86U aced it—I saw no sign of buffering or stuttering anywhere, my friend reported clear audio and smooth video, and in-game ping seemed unaffected. In raw numbers, I had to move into my back yard to get anything slower than the max I’m getting from my ISP, finding that I had good, usable internet even at the farthest reaches of my yard, which is about a fifth of an acre.

I tested file transfers with a 734 MB copy of Ernest Saves Christmas—a typical use case for network storage—and found the transfers to be very fast, with the limiting factor seemingly the actual read/write capability of the router. Transfer speeds reached as high as 465.79 Mbps, but averaged between 310 and 350 Mbps, and hardly budged at any distance. Write speeds were about half that.

After determining that the RT-AX86U was gross overkill for my needs, I thought I would look at Asus’s AiMesh, which lets you use multiple Asus routers to create a mesh network. Self-healing and pretty straightforward to set up, an AiMesh network can definitely get you that kind of blanketed internet plants crave.

I tested the mesh capabilities with the addition of an RT-AX82U, and for some reason, setting this up ended up actually being the only way I could finally get my “smart” bathroom light switch to join my new network. I came to this experience with the breezy setup of Eero already in mind and found it similarly easy with Asus. Network performance was as expected, with devices generally connecting to the node closest to them or, at least, with the lowest amount of signal noise, and no real noticeable changeover time. Basically, mesh networking is a revelation to anyone who hasn’t used it, and that much is true here, as well.

In the end, the Asus RT-AX86U is a great router, with speedy performance and easy setup, despite an annoying menu system. Actually getting down and dirty in the settings is a pain, thanks to confusing, incompletely explained technicals and messy organization, but basic and intermediate settings can be easily changed in the mobile app. Security and device prioritization for the router is decent, though I recommend you review the EULA before proceeding to make sure you’re comfortable with the exchange you must make to take advantage. The mesh setup was fairly painless. The RT-AX86U met and, in some cases exceeded, my expectations, at least where it counts. Of course, you’re going to pay for it, at MSRP $250—though you can find decent discounts at the usual online retailers.

Whether you just want lag-free gaming or you need something that can handle a heavy overall load, this router does it with aplomb. We are rapidly approaching the day when recommendations like this one isn’t just about future-proofing, but you will find in the RT-AX86U a router more than capable of meeting the unexpected demands put upon all of us this year. If you’ve got a smaller home that needs a lot of power and would prefer to check out mesh networking at a later date, this is absolutely the router for you.

[this-is-big-lady]

Swipe Right part 6/10

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, can be found on AO3 here

Hey all! Full time work has been kicking my ass, so this took longer than I would’ve liked, but it’s here now! Also, this is my first time writing a Jewish character talking about their Judaism - please, if I have anything wrong, flick me a polite message or direct me in the way of resources and I will be ever grateful for your kindness. 

After passing texts backwards and forwards between him and Jack, Davey found himself at Jack’s apartment in the afternoon of a day not too long after their coffee date. He was ready for his portrait to be drawn, perched on a small stool a couple of arm lengths in front of Jack, who had a little table set up in front of him. The flat surface on top was angled down towards him with a piece of A3 paper laid out, and a collection of pencils, sharpeners, and erasers in his lap. Jack’s phone was propped up on a small shelf behind him. He explained to Davey that he’d record the session so that if he missed anything important, he could go back to it later to draw inspiration from the recording. Jack asked his subject to angle himself slightly to his left on the stool and to relax - Davey was picking at his fingernails, and if he was as tense as he looked, Jack would have a hard time getting information out of him.

Soon the silence between the pair was filled with a gentle scratching sound from the pencil on the paper, and Davey looked around Jack’s apartment. It wasn’t huge, but it was cozy - a typical student place. They were currently in the living room, Jack sitting on a couch with a few stains and rips, and Davey’s stool was purloined from his roommate’s bedroom. Did he really say that his roommate’s name was Spot? Surely Davey wasn’t hearing him correctly. There was a window to his left where the afternoon sun was streaming in, and the curtains appeared a little worse for wear. The shelf behind the couch with Jack’s phone had a few political science textbooks - presumably Spot’s - and the walls were dotted with various drawings and paintings - presumably Jack’s.

Jack could see Davey’s eyes gliding around the room, and while Jack was trying to get a rough outline of Davey and his features, it was a little distracting. So he tried to get him to settle down the only way he knew how, talking.

“So, Davey…” The boy was snapped out of his observations by Jack’s voice, replying with a soft ‘hmm’ sound to show that he was somewhat paying attention. “I’ll ask you what I ask all my subjects. Why’d you join tinder?”

Davey balked a little at the question, slightly surprised at exactly how forward Jack was with it. He rubbed a hand across his face to hide how awkward he was feeling from the artist currently studying his facial features. “I mean, I guess there were a few reasons, if you want a list?”

“Sure,” Jack said flippantly, frustrating Davey slightly with exactly how nonchalant he was with this whole situation. “Well, I guess I was relatively lucky because I have a pretty accepting family, but we’re also Jewish, so there was a bit of a conflict between the Jewish and gay elements of my identity-“

“Lets start there. If your family was accepting, where exactly did that conflict come from?

“We’re Reform Jews, so my family and community didn’t have a problem with me liking boys - my synagogue back home even has a lesbian rabbi - but it’s not uncommon to see people in the media twisting and interpreting holy text to support homophobia.” Davey carded a hand through his hair, tugging at it a little harder than he normally would. Why did he have to start with the topic that hit closest to home? He glanced over at Jack, who had his head down sketching furiously, or maybe he was writing words? All he could do was take a deep breath, drop his hand back into this lap, and carry on.

“And I guess being shown those perspectives every day through social media took a toll, and I probably internalised some of it along the line. That I, to some extent, expect people to do that. And even though I had an amazing support system, knowing that other people out there could use something really important to me as a way to devalue me can really hurt.” Jack’s pencil stopped skidding across the paper, and he looked up to face Davey. His eyes were honest, he was actually listening to what Davey had to say, and he could feel the breath catch in his throat at the end of his sentence.

“But as I got older I saw that my Judaism and being gay didn’t have to be seperate parts of me, they could totally interact - I’m pretty happy to say that I’m a gay Jew now. So I guess by using a dating app, I hoped I wouldn’t be interacting with people trying to pit the two against each other. I mean, I’m yet to meet any antisemitic people on tinder, but you’re also the first person I’ve met on it, so I’m one for one so far.”

Jack let out a little huff of laughter, putting down his pencil, and leaning over his table a little as he made eye contact with Davey. “That’s very true, and thank you for being so honest with me.” Jack’s easy smile was infectious, making Davey’s nerves settle down and allowing a small grin to spread across Davey’s face. “You said you had a whole list, hit me with something else.”

The pencil Jack was holding was being chewed on by its owner as Davey racked his mind for some of the other reasons. “I’m quite introverted, you know? And I guess I never really felt comfortable dating back home. Like I knew almost everyone my age in my area because we went to school together and the idea of dating someone in that tight-knit community just made me… nervous, I suppose. As did approaching someone I didn’t know, kind of a catch-22 I guess.” Jack chuckled softly at Davey’s involuntary shiver as he talked about his discomfort. It was pretty cute, if Jack was to be honest. “So I would rather be able to chat with new people with some slight veil of anonymity and see if I’d actually like to talk with them in person. Being able to connect with people from the comfort of my phone before actually meeting them makes me far more content with the idea of dating. Just… talking to people is scary.”

Davey ducked his head a little, staring at his hands in his lap. He knew it was silly: here he was, talking to a guy he met of tinder about why he was scared to talk to guys. He found the dirt buried under his fingernail very fascinating to pick at until Jack brought him back to his attention with a gentle repetition of his name. “I totally get it, Davey. Why do you think I ask people to sit for these drawings on the internet, rather than approaching people on the street? It’s easier, I understand. You ain’t got nothing to be ashamed of with me.” A small smile spread across Davey’s face, which eased Jack’s mind in knowing that he was being of some sort of help to his subject. And gave him enough courage to ask a niggling question at the back of his mind. “So then why did you choose to meet up with me, Davey?”

Davey’s eyes locked with his, and muttered a barely audible sentence that caused Jack’s heart to start hammering: “I just knew I had to meet you.”

A few moments of silence passed as both boys processed the implications of that sentence. Was it some of of simple attraction, love-at-first-sight kind of phenomenon? Or could there have been a more heavy spark between the two, an intangible sense of feeling what was to come, and the resultant revelation in hindsight? Neither party could say. But they enjoyed toying with the possibilities.

Davey had had enough time in the spotlight, it was his turn to spin this onto the artist. “So Jack,” he began, “why did you join Tinder?”

Jack couldn’t help but laugh at Davey’s change in tact, he was too smart to just let this whole session be about him. But Jack still needed to get a sketch done, so he gave Davey the abridged version. “Well, I’m bisexual, and I liked Tinder because it meant I could put it flat out in my profile and didn’t have to deal with coming out to people. And it meant I could see both men and women together, it just made life easier.” Jack’s gaze drifted down from Davey’s actual face in front of him to the sketch of Davey’s face lying on the table, meaning he missed Davey’s excited smile at hearing Jack was definitely into guys. Jack shrugged as he continued, “And I mean it’s good for casual sex, but I’ve met some pretty cool people on there too… Some that I hope that I could consider a friend.” Jack knew that already thinking of Davey as someone that he could get close to after only a few days was dangerous, but  he didn’t really mind. There was something about Davey being reserved but so willing to be open with him that pulled Jack in, and he wanted to know more about the guy whose profile made him genuinely intrigued about the person behind it.

Quickly leaning towards Jack, Davey simply answered Jack’s sentence with, “Me too, Jack. Me too.”

The pair fell into silence as Jack finished off the portrait of Davey, but they asked questions of the other when they popped into their heads. As it turned out, Davey hadn’t been to a service since moving to college - he’d yet to find a synagogue that was both close enough to his apartment and that he felt comfortable in. Jack was adopted by a local theatre artist after his parents died in a car crash when he was 7, and his roommate Spot (his correct name, another shock for Davey) is his adoptive brother too. Davey considered taking a gap year to England before college. Jack dyed his hair blonde for a year in high school, but stopped after he burnt it all off one morning when retouching his roots while hungover.

When Jack’s pencil finally stopped scratching across the pencil, the sun that was stretching across the floor had disappeared behind an adjacent building and Davey could feel his bones stiffening from sitting upright on the stool for hours on end. Jack leaned back into the couch, sighing with a hint of laughter in his voice. “I’m done, ol’ Davey boy!”

Davey just groaned, leaning forward to push himself up to standing, hearing a couple of joints click as he did so. He could help but wonder exactly how Spot could ever want to use that stool for more than chucking dirty clothes on top of it. Davey took a step towards Jack, asking if he could see the drawing. Jack snatched the paper off the table and gently help it facing towards his chest, insisting that he couldn’t see it until it was done. After a bit of moaning and whining on Davey’s part (he just wanted to see how Jack saw him, was that such a crime?), his stomach decided to let out a rather loud growl. Realising that they both skipped dinner because of the portrait sitting, Davey took that as his cue to say goodnight to Jack and to go find some food for himself.

Jack walked him to the door, and leaned against the door frame to say goodbye. He quickly reached out to brush his hand against Davey’s wrist, both boys staring down at the point of contact between the two of them. It didn’t feel like sparks, or electricity between the two of them, but more like a comfortable warmth. Like when you’re leaning against a sunny window in summer, or like slipping into a item of clothing after it’s just come out of the drier. It just felt right.

“Thanks for doing a sitting and being so honest with me, Davey. I, uh, really enjoyed it.” Jack’s eyes were still cast downwards in an attempt to hide his blush. Being honest with his emotions always scared Jack a little, while Davey thought it was incredibly endearing. The taller moved shifted his arm so he gently held Jack’s forearm, insisting that he had an equally great time, and couldn’t wait until he saw the finished product. Davey dropped his hand from Jack’s arm, turning towards the door and reaching towards the doorknob, but froze before he could turn it.

Because Jack’s placed a very soft kiss on Davey’s cheek. It was light, gentle, and barely there, and yet it was. As soon as Davey felt the pressure on his cheek, it was gone, but the way his heart soared was unmistakable. He turned with a stunned expression towards Jack, with whom he locked eyes in an instant.

“Text me when you get home safe,” he insisted, his eyes displaying an honestly and vulnerability that made Davey melt. Not trusting his voice to not betray him, Davey just smiled and nodded, before slipping out onto the doorstep and closing the door behind him.

#tinder au #Javid #javid fanfiction #davey jacobs #Jack Kelly #jack x david #jack x davey #newsies fanfiction

[our-legacy-rp-blog]

KAY has been accepted for EOIN CRAWFORD

What an amazing app, Kay! We’re so lucky to have you back, and Eoin seems like the perfect fit. You really dug into hi personality, and we can’t wait t see where he (and his brother!) go next.  Welcome back to OL, and be sure you fill out the checklist HERE.

OOC name & pronouns: Kay, she/her

Age:  24

Timezone: PST

IC INFORMATION:

Character’s name: Eoin Crawford

FC choice: Dylan O’Brien

Position request: Beater on Slytherin’s Quidditch team. ( also, I picture him being in the Herbology club because of his odd love for plants. )

Birthday: September 8th, Virgo.  -  Virgo’s are seen as the perfectionist of the zodiac, something that I think rings true for Eoin. He has an almost obsessive need to be perfect that often extends into a need for efficiency. He’s also reserved and outwardly calm, which are two traits of a Virgo. However, they are always the butt-end of a joke, due to being overly critical.

Wand: 11", Chestnut wood, and Dragon Heartstring core.  -  A wand wood that is most curious, and a wand core that tends to allow the beholder to learn more quickly than other wands. It seems the best match for someone as ambitious as him.

Patronus: A cat. This often represents someone with patience and watchfulness. Something that Eoin very much possesses, especially day-to-day. He’s very observant and waits for the right moment to act. The cat is strongly symbolic of the connection with what usually hides in darkness or the unknown. Eoin has very little trouble slipping by unnoticed; being able to hide in plain sight and watch with curiosity.

Boggart: His mother, angry and disgusted with him. This is his subconscious fear, because she is the one person who’s opinion truly matters. If she ever lost hope in him or no longer cared, then everything would ultimately fall apart. Life would be grey. It’s a silly thing to be afraid of but for someone who doesn’t have a father, or always feels overshadowed by a brother who’s perfect in everyone’s eyes - hoping that your mother never stops loving you doesn’t seem so silly after all.

Headcanons:

1. ) Unlike his brother, Eoin has no feelings towards their father. He never knew the man. To him, Neal was just a blurriness glob of grey in a seemingly green landscape within his mind. Maybe Eoin should have felt anger for what he put his mothers and Charlie through - or felt sadness for never having a father figure throughout his childhood? But he didn’t feel anything. In fact, his father rarely came to mind. He had three great people in his life - his two mothers and Charlie - and they were, in his eyes, more than enough. So why bring up a man that did nothing to raise them? The answer was simple, he didn’t. 2. ) If anyone showed him unwavering affection, it was his mother. She was his greatest fan despite having very little of those. Eoin’s mother, Amelia, tried to give him all the opportunities her weathered arms could, and it was for that very reason he cherished her the most. Yes, there were often times when she’d embarrass him in front of a pretty girl by showering him with kisses as if he was a toddler instead of a teenager. But deep down, he knew she only meant well. Eoin often wondered what his mother had gone through as a child. She rarely talked about their family back home or her childhood in Ireland. And consequently, he stopped asking long ago as he found it hurt her too much to think back on those times. It was a puzzle he wasn’t sure she’d ever let him finish.

3. ) Quidditch was a sport that snuck up on Eoin. The quiet and reserved boy was the last person anyone would have thought to show a strange talent with a broomstick and a beaters bat. In fact, it came as a shock to many onlookers in the stands to see Eoin tryout for the rumored “elitist” Slytherin team. It was all thanks to Charlie, really, that he had the courage to even set foot on the Quidditch Pitch to begin with. And it was the older boy who had prodded and pushed Eoin to show off his ability. Just another reason for why he could never really hate his brother, despite the darkening jealousy he felt. They were inseparable, those two. And it only seemed fitting that the younger brunette showed some kind of gift on the Quidditch Pitch. After all, hand-eye coordination ran in the family.

History:

Ireland raised Eoin’s mother, Amelia, and pushed her out the door when she was eleven. A muggle with a working class family, Amelia was sent abroad to ease the strain on her family’s funds - with two younger sisters, it fell to Amelia to step up and take the brunt of the burden. She didn’t want to leave - in fact, she begged her father not to make her - but the boat was docked and her ticket paid for, and in the end she went anyway. England was to be her home from then on, and an uncomfortable one at that. Staying with an aunt who took good care of her, Amelia could never quite feel settled with wherever she was - she longed to see Ireland again, to hug her sisters, but in order to get there, she’d need money. Amelia worked hard as a young woman fresh from school, putting in hours at several stores and saving every pound she could. That was how she met Neal: she’d been working in a vintage store when he’d walked in, looking at old books.

Amelia hadn’t known at the time that Neal was married - all she knew was that he was handsome, smart, and he liked her. It was electric between them from the word go, and for the first time she was a little girl, Amelia no longer wanted to see Ireland. In fact, she hardly thought of home - she was head over heels for Neal and spent every moment she could with him. Naively, she’d dreamed of marriage and a house and a happily every after with him, and when she became pregnant, it seemed like the first step toward that dream. But every time she mentioned children, he would panic and they’d fight, so Amelia kept the pregnancy a secret. By the time she was showing and forced to tell, Neal cut contact with her and left, leaving Amelia stranded at five months with only her aunt for support. Of course, when Eoin was almost born, she tried one last time - and found that Neal had a wife and child of his own.

Eoin was born and immediately became the apple of his mother’s eye. Her aunt was displeased with the fact that Amelia had gotten married out of wedlock and all but kicked her out of home, and with nowhere else to turn, Amelia and Eoin moved in with Neal’s ex-wife, Katelin. With a newborn son of her own named Charlie, the four of them lived in Katelin’s parents house - and found that they had a lot in common. Fast friends, Katelin and Amelia joint-raised Charlie and Eoin as their own so that Eoin grew up with two mothers. He was a born that followed his brother everywhere: no matter the danger or the location, if Charlie was going, Eoin wanted to be there. He was easily manipulated because of his shy, introverted nature - and Charlie tended to protect him from anyone who would take advantage of him. They attended school together, always in the same classes, but it was always Charlie that got the spotlight, not Eoin.

Magic meant an opportunity to Eoin that he didn’t feel he was getting in the muggle world, and he went to Hogwarts hopeful. Placed in Slytherin not 30 seconds after Charlie had been placed there first, Eoin realised that he might not get that second chance after all. For the first few years, he lived quietly in his brother’s shadow, pushing himself in classes to consume as much of the magical world as he could. And in some areas, he exceeded his brother - but he never was ever able to outshine him; he often didn’t even try. Eoin is nervous by nature and someone who is always cautious of the consequences: he always wants to be on the winning side to save his own skin.

Learning from Charlie after all these years, Eoin isn’t bad with words, either - he fumbles over them more often than not, but he knows what to say to the right person in order to get what he needs to survive. Eoin is someone who will lie, manipulate, and flatter his way to the safest corner of the world if he needs to, but not out of maliciousness. He values self-preservation more than anything, and will always go with the turn of the tide. Seeing a lost cause makes Eoin’s stomach turn and every instinct tells him to run the other way - a cautionary tale learned from his mother, perhaps. But Eoin is smart and a welcome addition to whatever side he’s on: quick with facts and figures, Eoin has a good memory and a good ability to blend into any background, observing unseen. Unassuming, sly, and with the ability to judge a person’s most likely actions from a glance, Eoin is someone always watching and always trying to stay one step ahead.

Now:

Cast as a shadow by most, if not all, Eoin had felt the green ping of jealousy when it came to his older counter-part, Charlie. It was a conflicting feeling. Much like a bee-sting or a rose thorn getting stuck in someone’s palm and reveling scarlet red droplets. But despite those emotions, he never harbored any hatred towards his brother, he simply wished to be seen in a different light - a brighter light. And yet, after many years of trying, that light remained dim. Even within the walls of Hogwarts, Eoin took that wave of envy as motivation to dive into his studies. To learn all he could about the magical world around him and succeed with knowledge of Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts, among countless other classes. He thought that if his peers couldn’t see his greatness, maybe his professors would.

Eoin was gifted with a smart mind and patience among all else; spending summers locked in his room with books and pens instead of going outside to join the neighboring teens in the hot sun. He took much pride in his grades, and learned all he could with his chestnut wand, and yet his professors still showered his older counter-part with more praise. Something the young brunette could never wrap his mind around. Still, with a quiet mouth and wondering eyes, Eoin kept his roaring thoughts to himself. He was much quieter than his Slytherin peers and enjoyed simple things. Coffee was a beverage that gave him warmth on a cold morning, and he coveted nature, which was why he was often found perched on a rock overlooking the Great Lake or in one of the green houses, studying the many peculiar plants. His deep chocolate gaze focused on the ins-and-outs of Hogwarts, finding all the secret passageways and shortcuts to save him and his brother walking distance to their classes. He was a peculiar boy, even as a sixth year. Not as cunning as the other snakes or as prone to getting in trouble; he was just Eoin, the Not-So-Great. He was an anomaly within his house, always being questioned as to why he was sorted, though Charlie invariably hushed those queries with a sneer. But if he learned anything from his perceptive mother, it was how to survive no matter the consequences. If selfishness and manipulation was a given trait for a Slytherin, then he was right at home. And he’d prove it soon enough. Eoin could pick a side if direly needed, and he was beginning to think that time was coming. All this talk about a pure wizarding world and equal rights for the supernatural made the back of his hairs rise. Which side would he fall under? He was muggleborn, far from what most considered pure and he wasn’t supernatural. But if there was one thing he was certain of it was that he would find a way as his mother had all those years ago.

#accepted

[gracemolteniisnothome]

A Year of Quiet, aka Lessons in Isolation

First and foremost, I want to emphasis staying informed, and taking your health and the health of others seriously. Period.

I have the luxury of working in the news (which, admittedly, can get exhausting), and a science reporter as my sibling, who has been on the coronavirus beat for over 2 months. I trust her and her concerns. I am also lucky to have a handful of friends who work on infectious disease research and response for the CDC—I trust them and their concerns. That access to information doesn’t raise my anxiety so much as make me feel informed and prepared. However, I fully recognize how dire and scary this all feels. Frankly, it feels that way because the reach and reality of this pandemic is indeed scary. 

My office moved quickly last week to setting us up to work from home, and for that I am deeply grateful. I spent most of the weekend indoors, save a few runs and some fresh air, and a quick stop at my local cafe for coffee-to go (support your neighbors and tip well, y’all.) As Americans, it’s been a while since social solidarity was asked, let alone required of us. I can’t remember a moment in my lifetime that felt as dire in regards to personal responsibility.But, we can find a new normal in balancing being isolated and practicing social distancing, while also staying sane and staving off the stir crazy. I think it is possible to be diligent about self-isolating, and vigilant in our social distancing, and still find ways to connect, to support, to find joy, even if that means remotely. 

Strangely, I feel more prepared for self-isolation than I ever have in my life, and I realized this weekend that my year of quiet in rural Japan taught me a lot about how to manage limited social contact and a uniquely singular life. I figured there’s no time like a pandemic to share a few things that kept me sane: 

Remember that internet is the friend of the curious and the enemy of the anxious. 

What a time to be alive! There is more access to real time information than ever before. This is gift, and at times, a trap. Know when to unplug, and definitely know when to stop checking Twitter. Delete some apps off of your phone (Instagram, Facebook, Hinge, etc) for the weekend and enjoy reclaiming some of your mental space. (Plus coronavirus-inspired pick-up lines are eye-roll worthy at best.) When I would find myself deep into Instagram scrolls with no end in sight, that was usually time to delete the app for a week or so to break the habit. 

Set your expectations.

Consider this a marathon, and not a sprint, and adjust your mindset accordingly. We should be thinking of this in months, not weeks. It’s helpful to consider this in the long haul and not just a temporary inconvenience. 

Go for walks, long ones when time allows, particularly if you can avoid crowded areas. 

I usually ended my day with a sunset walk through the rice fields near my apartment and it was a regular time to reset and get some fresh air that now I often miss. I certainly take for granted how nice a short stint in the sun can be. Don’t forget to look up at the sky or take some picture of flowers if it pleases you. Send them to friends who are self-isolating in colder climates (looking at you, Chicago.) 

Create some structure

Outside of being able to live abroad, my teaching schedule allowed me to reclaim many of my daylight hours (something I had little of in my previous job.) I don’t consider myself a particularly disciplined person, but I wanted to make the most of this time. An easy thing I tried to adhere to was doing 3 things every day: something creative, something educational, and something active. The categories were purposefully broad – physical, for example, could be anything from a run to stretching while watching Netflix – and it helped to have daily, achievable goals.

But also, allow yourself some rest

WFH and self isolation are certainly not the same thing as a vacation. However, especially with the world feeling like it’s ending, it’s ok to not need to be productive (after remote-office hours, of course.) Lean into binging tv shows, taking long baths or reading books, diving back into the world of Sims. It’s ok to seek out comfort right now, because… 

Isolation can be painful! 

Loneliness is real. And if you’re the kind of person who needs to share physical space with people, this adjustment may be particularly uncomfortable. But it doesn’t last forever, and in 2020 there are so many ways to stay connect and close to the folks you care about. On that note…

If you’re feeling panicky, anxious, stressed - talk about it! 

Reach out to people you trust and share where you’re at. If you need support, now is as good a time as any to ask for it. For alternatives, consider starting a journal, recording voice memos, making videos, if only for yourself, to talk through those thoughts and stop them from occupying precious brain space. Speaking of videos… 

Send your friends dance videos, or schedule a GoogleHang and have solo dance parties, together.

When I lived in Japan there were some nights that my beloved apartment felt not just sparse, but empty; in those times that I felt particularly distanced from my friends and life back in the US, I started sending these dance videos to select folks on Instagram. It was silly (still is tbh) and yet very much helped to keep me sane and connected to people I love. Dancing around my apartment was a good way to save me from my melancholy self, and now is kind of a necessity during quarantine times, to shake off some of that excess energy and loosen up some of the stir crazy. Another great option is tuning into groups like Dance Church, who have taken their weekly gathering online and available for streaming.

On the topic of GoogleHangouts…

Throw some on your calendar! Make it weekly, make it daily, make them random. I am convinced that my Groupchat of high school pals played a large part in me tolerating the weight of isolation as a foreigner; WhatsApp with and Instagram messenger acted as lifelines when it came to feeling connection with my people back home.

Not sure where to start? Host a quarantine happy hour where everyone calls in at the same time with their beverage of choice! Start a Netflix viewing party! Make a free account on Tabletopia and play board games against your friends remotely! Start an online bookclub! If you’re musically inclined, go live on Instagram and let folks tune in!  It’s no stand-in for IRL social time, but I can say after moving around a number of times, it’s actually pretty incredible how many ways there are to hangout from afar. 

Revisit your internal project list. 

What is something you haven’t been able to get to in your regular life because of daily commitments like work? Reading the stack of books by your bed? Baking the best bread humanly possible? Learning another language? Having a project (or 5) to chip away at during my time abroad helped me to feel productive and take pride in accomplishing something. There’s so many great online (often free) resources for learning new things. I like to rely on Skillshare for prompts, but recently have purchased a few classes through Moment to learn more about mobile filmmaking. That being said, I’d also be careful not to fall into the trap of turning everything into work. Don’t put more pressure on yourself than needed right now. If there’s room to chip away at personal projects, be they anything from self portraits or cross-stitch, take the time to find some pleasure in creating. Oh yeah, and do update your damn website (me, to me.) 

An additional list of thoughts in no particular order: 

Make a collaborative playlists

Check in on your freelance friends (help them out financially if and when you can, promote their work, buy their merch, shoot them a Venmo, a PayPal, a CashApp.) 

Deep clean your place! 

Consume podcasts like it’s your job.  

Finally clear the open tabs on your browser window (wishful thinking) 

Do your taxes! Annoying, but hey, if you’ve got the time.  

StoryCorps! If you’re already cooped up with folks - family or roommates or partners– take the time to get to know them in a way you usually don’t 

Send snail mail! 

Participate in Instagram challenges or prompts 

I’m a fan of #DrawThisInYourStyle for illustration projects, but I really like @rockthatmuseumgirl’s idea of posting art we’ve seen and tagging them #throwbackmuseum since so many art institutions and public spaces are closed right now. 

On a community note…

Donate to food banks! Blood banks! Buy local gift cards to use later or see if your favorite spots are doing pickup or to-go options! Support your neighborhood any way you can, while staying safe, and more than anything, be kind. As a wise art director reminded us on Instagram this week: “everyone is fighting their own battles. be mindful & grateful for what you have”

Ok, enough rambling from me. Till next time, y’all

#coronavirus #self-isolation #social distancing #solitude #creativity #advice #travel-abroad #travel-blog

[ossyuche]

Why Would My Boyfriend Suddenly Break Up with Me?

I’d been in what seemed like the perfect dating relationship with a man for a couple months until just last week, when he broke up with me out of nowhere. I know a lot of articles tell people who were blindsided by breakups that just because the relationship seemed great to them, it doesn’t mean their partner had been feeling that way, too. In all honesty though, it had appeared to be great on his end, too…

The day he broke up with me, he’d left my place to go to work, kissed me goodbye, and said he couldn’t wait to see me that weekend. The day before, he’d texted me at work just to say how much he missed me, and told me just two days before that I was meeting all of his relationship needs and he was so lucky to have such a sweet girlfriend like me.

Every aspect of our relationship seemed great… The communication seemed strong, we had so much fun together, our goals for the future matched up, the sex was great, and we both showed our appreciation for each other through gestures (he’d surprise me with flowers and gifts, and I’d surprise him by cooking his favorite meal and remembering to check in with how he was doing on the anniversary of his mom’s death).

The night he broke up with me he’d called, and just sounded like he was in such a bad mood. Things just sounded so off compared to the night before, when he’d been at my place getting tickets for a show we were planning to go to that weekend. We got off the phone and I decided to call him back later, saying something had just seemed off and I was worried about him, and did he have anything on his mind he wanted to talk about? He then proceeded to say I liked him more than he liked me, he didn’t see a future for us (in spite of what he’d been consistently saying, even that week) and then blocked me on every social media platform, possible.

When he got his stuff from my place two days later, I asked if we could sit down and talk now that we’d calmed down and some time had passed, because it just didn’t make sense… He looked at me like I disgusted him, grabbed his things, and left without giving me a backwards glance. He even made sure to “unfriend” me on seemingly insignificant apps, like “MyFitnessPal.” I just don’t understand… There was no fight, no distancing, and plenty of letting me know he was crazy about me and loved where our relationship was going.

What causes a man to just break things off abruptly like that? And why did he go to such extremes as to erase me completely from his life, immediately, when I didn’t so much as raise my voice, call him names, or give him reason to think I needed to be blocked from even a food log app? I haven’t tried to contact him at all since he got his stuff, and I just don’t understand… I’m so confused, and it’s really making it difficult to move on. My brain just doesn’t seem to grasp that it’s over because it doesn’t make sense, and I have to actively tell myself each day that it is over and not to contact him because it won’t bring him back and I deserve better. Still…

How do I heal from this? How do I prevent this from happening again? What takes a guy from “I’m so lucky to be dating a sweet girl like you,” to looking like he hates me while saying, “I will never love you,”?  

Thank you so much, Evan. I’ve been listening to your podcast for years, and I greatly appreciate any advice you may have to give!

Katie

Aw, Katie… I’m really sorry to hear about your heartbreak. There’s never a good story about a relationship ending, but yours does seem like a particularly bad one.

As you know, it’ll get better. As you know, you may never get answers to everything. As you know, you came to the right guy for counsel.

Your situation brings mind two past relationships — both when I was the dump-er and when I was the dump-ee — in the same year. Here’s what I can glean from each experience:

This was a perfect example of “it’s not you; it’s me.” In January, 2004, I started dating Shari, a sweet, silly, cute, adoring therapist who I met online and lived only a few blocks away from me. We hit the ground running and were exclusive in a few weeks. Less than a month later, I broke up with her. I remember her tears like they were yesterday, wondering why? Wasn’t everything so good? What happened to all that sweet stuff I’d just said? What could she do different to change the outcome?

I had recently been to New York and felt a stronger connection with another woman I met there than I did with my own girlfriend. That cognitive dissonance was steadily pulling at me over the next four weeks, even though there was absolutely nothing “wrong” with Shari and I. As a man of integrity, I never dated anyone I had no intention of marrying, and while I could have kept it going, it felt more ethical to let Shari go find a man who WOULD be all in on her, since I wasn’t able to.

(Needless to say, the woman I fell for in New York didn’t feel the requisite chemistry with ME to embark on a long-distance relationship, so there you have it.)

Looking back, the one thing I wish I could have explained to Shari and will explain to you is that a good person may have second thoughts for a few weeks or months, but does not let it impact his interaction with you. Think about it. You have a sweet guy who doubts whether you’re on the same page long-term. What is he supposed to do? Be a dick? Start berating you? Do the slow fade to send a non-confrontational message?

A good guy will treat you well right up to the very last moment because that’s what good guys do.

No. A good guy will treat you well right up to the very last moment because that’s what good guys do. So while you’ll feel blindsided, he will have been thinking about breaking up with you for a while, as his is right.

I wish I understood this later in 2004, when I went out with Lori for three months and fell madly in love with her. Best relationship I’d ever had by far and I was convinced we were going to get married fast (I was 32 and she was 38). Suddenly, before I was to take her to Las Vegas for a weekend, she told me she needed a “break.” The official breakup came a week later. This time I was in tears, asking all the same questions that Shari did. I even asked Lori why I didn’t see it coming. She told me that since I’d mentioned that I’d had critical girlfriends in my past, she didn’t see fit to criticize me. She just had some doubts about whether I was the right long-term fit for her and it took her about a month of our three-month relationship to figure it out for sure. Completely knocked me sideways, but I don’t know how I could criticize her for how she handled it.

Perhaps the only thing one can criticize, Katie, is how your ex cut you off entirely without as much as a consoling conversation that might give you some measure of closure.

That kind of seems like a dick move. Mean at worst. Insensitive at best.

At the same time, if I were your dating coach, I’d recommend that YOU block HIM everywhere to better move on with your life, so while it may hurt, he’s actually put you on a faster path to healing. Perhaps you’ll realize that this guy wasn’t as great as he seemed — especially in terms of how he communicated with you through this break-up, and that will free you up to find a man who gets how special you are.

Hang in there, my friend. It gets better.

P.S. Shari got married after I dumped her. Lori never got married after dumping me. Just sayin’.

The post Why Would My Boyfriend Suddenly Break Up with Me? appeared first on Dating Coach – Evan Marc Katz | Understand Men. Find Love..

Related posts:

What Traditional Men and Modern Women Have In Common

Passion Vs. Comfort: Do You Have to Have Fireworks to Have a Successful Relationship?

I’m in a Relationship With a Great Guy Who Just Won’t Change. What Should I Do?

Original source: https://www.evanmarckatz.com/blog/letting-go/why-would-my-boyfriend-suddenly-break-up-with-me

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[skabunny]

2018 a Year in Review

Hey Adventurers! Every year on social media I devour lists of list of lists all the good, bad, sweet and terrible things that happened through the year. The more pictures, tweets and ideas the better. I don’t have a whole lot to talk about to review this year so this is gonna be a two part blog. Today we’re gonna talk about things that happened and Tuesday I’m going to post a special blog of the things that I’m hoping to do in 2019.

I think I’ve talked about it here. I don’t really hold to new years resolutions. I think the process is a bit silly and it doesn’t really talk about goals, it more talks about all of the things you hate about yourself. and I’m super not ok with that. I’ll be starting the Love Your Life in 30 Days workbook from Mike Dooley. You can find the book anywhere, I have it on my kindle and I try to do it in the first 90 days of the year to give me perspective and help me to see what I’m doing and where I want to go. Last year I didn’t get super far, but I’ll be updating progress on Instagram and thanks to integration you’ll be able to follow it on Twitter and Facebook as well. I’m usually pretty good at starting so hopefully with your help I’ll get through all 30 days no problem.

Without Further Ado…

I made goals this year to work on my health, emotional well being and saying no.

I improved my boundaries. I learned to say no more often and especially when it’s in my best interest. I’m not perfect at it, but as someone who’s recovering from saying yes ALL the time, no was a pretty big deal to begin with.

It took a while, but I finally called financial aid and was able to get help affording my health care costs. I saw doctors for help with all kinds of things including my hips, weight loss, my tonsils, and the constant nausea.

I lost 10 lbs. Which is a freaking miracle. The number isn’t a big deal to me. I’m more excited that it’s 10 lbs less on my hips and what is hopefully at least a little more time to a hip replacement.

I started journaling. First using a bullet journal adjacent to my planner and then with the Journey app I purchased for my ChromeBook. I’m a huge fan of journaling. I talk to people about it all the time and I’ve been using it a lot as a tool to really kinda pull my shit together and bring things to focus. Sure they’ll exist forever and whatever, but this is more for me as a tool to be a better me now.

I took a risk at work and it paid off

When I found myself tasked with the responsibilities of someone in a Senior role, I didn’t wait around to find out when I would be made a senior tester, I took the initiative to learn what I needed to do for that role and then make it happen.

I also had an opportunity to step into a new department and take on a whole new standard of testing. This is must more strict, but also way more fun. It’s a huge risk, but hopefully it pays off in the long run with a great experience and a fantastic learning opportunity.

I met someone.

I’m not gonna go into details, for many reasons it didn’t work out. But finding people in your life that really meet you and see you for who you are is such an incredible and life altering experience that I’m grateful for every second of that seriously unique experience. I may talk about it someday, but for now I’m gonna keep it as mine.

Meeting someone who makes you feel like you’re made of magic is such a huge thing, but it seriously opened my eyes to a lot of the things that I’d been missing around me and allowed for a huge piece of closure for me. I talked about it a bit here. I’m incredibly lucky that my ex and I worked on our friendship and I feel so wonderfully blessed that his girlfriend has become a friend. They’re wonderful people together and I’m so excited to watch them grow.

I have some amazing friends

Work friends are weird. You meet because you’re all in the same place and then somehow you’re all friends based on almost no feature, just the nature that you’re friends now. Some of those friends have become regular parts of my day, regardless of what department I’m in or what I’m doing I make a point to talk with them. Laugh with them and try new things they recommend. We share videos, details of our lives outside of work and are people in a way that you can only be people with real friends. I’m super lucky that they wanted to talk and that we all still get along even when my world is crazy.

I also had the amazing opportunity to re-connect with one of my favorite people. I’m super grateful for her and for the joy she’s brought back to my life and I’m beyond excited to see what amazing things come for her in the new year.

One of my favorite people started her next chapter by moving to Oakland this year. I’m super excited for her and all of her adventures, but I super miss her.

I started streaming

Twitch is a whole new world, but it’s been really exciting to get started and really see the community from the inside. I’ve been wanting to do a lot of creative things and streaming on Twitch was one way to really get started with some of those things.

I also relaunched skaBunny Makes! This was a big deal. I had to close down the site in February because I was out of funds and creative energy to really work on it. After helping other people really work on reaching for their dreams and watching them go for it regardless of consequences I decided to leap and start again. I’m still rusty, but I’ve been pretty empowered to keep going and I’m loving the opportunity to talk about things that are going on and stuff I think is super important.I have a lot of stories to tell and I”m hoping to do more of that here.

I edited a book of poetry. I’m really proud of the poet who took their opportunity to tell their story on their terms. I may not have always been happy with them, but I’m super proud of all the work they did to complete the book.

Intersectional Feminism came into my life this year

I’ve always been a feminist, but this year I really started critically thinking about the world around me. It’s made it hard to really love certain things that I did love, but also it’s opened my eyes to just how blind I’ve been to my own prejudice and the ideas I learned back in the day. I am a huge believer in challenging my assumptions. This year I put my money where my mouth was and started learning instead of just talking. I’m hoping to bring some of these lessons and stories to you over the next year, but we’ll see. I have a lot more to learn.

I also stepped outside of my comfort zone at some point this year and started reading new authors I hadn’t experienced before. The new perspectives were enlightening and I found that the new stories really re-ignited my passion for storytelling and for listening. I’d become very good at talking over the last few years, so this year I really tried to listen more than I spoke. It’s something I’m gonna have to keep working on. But it’s a process I’m not going to stop.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - I didn’t get to see many movies this year minus the fact that I had movie pass, but I did get to see the new Spider-Man animated movie which was a beautiful, smart, brilliant movie about a biracial Spider-Man who’s father is a police officer and his mother is a nurse. It’s a brilliant story, but beyond that there are several moments that just kinda punch you in the stomach. I was told I’d cry a lot and I did. Linda Holmes from NPR picked the conversation between Mile’s father and the locked bedroom door as her moment, and it’s a good one. Mine might have been the one a few minutes before. I can’t give up all the details, but I keep thinking about it. I highly recommend the movie.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2017 book “Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions” - I found this book while looking up stories I hadn’t read before. It’s a bright take on raising children to be feminists. Adichie a Nigerian novelist and writer of the essay “We Should All Be Feminists“ makes some incredible points about how we raise children and what is beneficial to raise socially aware, strong, intelligent children. It’s a great read and her TED Talk is fantastic if you’re looking for something like that.

Killing Eve - OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG. This show. I had to start off slowly, but the last few episodes I couldn’t stop. Sandra Oh's Eve was a brilliant balance to Jodie Comer’s Villanelle. Both dark, both completely honest about who they are, both strong amazing women. I was so blown away by the power of these incredible women. The supporting cast was brilliant, I am still kinda in shock from the end. I can’t spoil anything, you should watch it.

Timeless - Ok, so the show is basically a soap opera with time travel, but they meet some amazing people and I really loved every second of this silly show. I have the two hour ending to finish, but I’m still not ready to be done with this silly show.

The Marvelous Mrs Maisel - Brilliant show from the creators of Gilmore Girls. I love it more, I think it’s hilarious and amazing and so much fun to watch. I feel like there could definitely be more representation, but it’s still charming and I still can’t wait to finish it.

Cartoons of 2018 don’t need their own individual sections. I’m still super in love with Steven Universe, Star Vs the Forces of Evil, Gravity Falls, Bob’s Burgers, Super Monsters, Young Justice, She-Ra and Hilda. They’re all worth a watch and a lot of fun.

Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette - I can’t talk about this enough. You need to see it. You can watch it on Netflix. It’s powerful, brilliant and so very smart. It’s a story, it’s a comedy, it’s a whole lota truth. Watch it and then read this Wired piece. I can’t even tell you all the feelings and ideas and discussions that were started because of this piece. She’s amazing and I am so delighted we share a name.

The 13th Doctor - I haven’t had a chance to start watching the episodes, but knowing that the Doctor is a woman and that she’s off having adventures and kicking ass makes me so incredibly happy and the clips I’ve seen are brilliant.

DC Universe Titans - This was an unexpected addition to my life. I’ve never been a big DC comics fan. I have a lot of feelings regarding how they handle lots of things, but this show started and I was able to watch with someone who’s a huge fan and it has been a trip. Another dark and serious show, but it’s been really interesting and very good. I’m really interested to see what happens next. I’m also super excited for the launch of the new Titans comics in June with art by Gabriel Picolo .

So that’s 2018. Lot’s of things made better by experiences, some sad moments, lots of happy ones. So much more going on and so many more adventures to have. I’ll be back on Tuesday with goals and plans for 2019.

XoxO Adventurers!

Hh G

Thank you for coming to visit and for continuing to support skaBunny Makes. This is a project I work on because I love it. If you love it and want to support, please contact me at [email protected]. You should also reach out if you have a guest post you’d like me to publish or if there are topics you would like me to cover. You can find a list of projects I’m working on in the Other Projects folder and you can listen to me chatter, mostly at myself 3 days a week on Twitch - Mondays, Thursdays from 7:30 to 9:30 pm and Saturdays from 7 pm to 11:30 pm.

New blog posts will be posted on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Some of it will be new content, new series, new images, but we’re still gonna talk about real life here. That’s not going to change. We will still cover loads of things that aren’t easy, mental health, life choices, living with your body, new families, life, changes in the world and all kinds of other things. Life is an adventure, this one is mine.

#2018 #Year In Review #Lots Going On #Happiness #happy tears #What I learned #what makes me happy #Questions #2019 #Bring It On

[datingadviceonreddit]

I’ve seen a lot of posts asking for advice that end up having incredibly similar and sometimes preventable problems with the fascinating world of online dating.​I’m 28, female and have been using various dating sites with small successes for the last 7 years. I’ve gone from someone incredibly open minded about dating to realizing that I need to narrow down my focus, by a lot, if I want to find someone to fall in love with. I used to write a blog about my bad dates. I probably have enough material to write a book about online dating at this point. I thought I would jot down a few of the common mistakes or problem that people seem to be running into. Maybe all of my experience will make it a bit easier for someone else. I’m not an expert and I’m single currently so take this all with a grain of salt.​1) Tinder is the worst dating app out there if you are looking for real love.​Tinder is perfect for very pretty people with very interesting hobbies. It is the most look based dating app out there. It’s amazing for hookups and non-serious encounters. Of course there are people looking for their soulmate on Tinder and they may very well find them but that is going to be rare. You swipe based off looks and a headline blurb. It’s very hard to make yourself stand out on Tinder. You have one shot to make an impression. So if you aren’t having any success on Tinder, keep it but download another app. There is no rule saying you can’t have 15 different apps trying to meet people. As long as you're not overwhelmed, you do you. At my peak dating point I had Bumble, OKCupid and Tinder. The free apps are great and you can meet someone looking for similar things but if you are tired of the game and want someone who is as serious about it as you, you might need to pay for an app. If you are both paying for a service, the chances of them being more seriously focused is higher. Not always true, but try to tailor your app choice to what you are looking for. Just a hookup for a night? Tinder is perfect.​2) When the person you are talking to starts not responding as often or if you have to initiate every time and it’s like pulling teeth to have a conversation, they are not interested in you. Move on.​It sucks, I wish people would just tell you “Hey I’m not interested anymore” but that rarely happens. Yes, sometimes certain life circumstances do pop up. They can get busy with work or a personal emergency pops up, but at the end of the day if they aren’t making any effort to reciprocate or try to get to know you, you need to walk away. If you think they are losing interest and you don’t want to waste your time, ask if they are still interested. Rejection sucks but its dating so it comes with the territory. Better to find out sooner and focus your energies elsewhere. On the flip side of this, if you start losing interest, just fire off a “You just aren’t what I’m looking for” you don’t have to be mean or rude or point out specifics unless asked but give them the courtesy of telling them goodbye.​3) Be honest and upfront about what you want.​This seems silly but the amount of times I was willing to settle for less than what I was looking for because I liked the person is much higher than it should be. If you absolutely are looking for your soulmate and marriage is what you want as your end game you can absolutely say that. I wouldn’t necessarily lead with the ‘I want to get married within the next 3 years” but telling people on your profile that you are looking for a serious relationship only is a good first step to weeding out the people you wouldn’t end up marrying anyway. If you just want a hookup, make sure that’s apparent too. If someone tells you they just want a hookup, don’t expect anything more. If you do, that’s on you.​4) Stop taking rejection as personally as you are.​Before online dating we used to have to strike out in person. So we didn’t go after as many people as we do now. We have a surplus of options, at least at first glance. Now we have easy access to hundreds of profiles instantly. We can be pickier if we want and there still is a certain anonymity online. If we are stepping up to bat 50% more than we used to, the chances of us striking out also increase. That’s part of the give with online dating, you have more options but you still aren’t going to be able to win most of them. The thing about online dating is you are really looking through hundreds of profiles to connect with one person. Rejection sucks every time, but just as not everyone will be perfect for you, you won’t be perfect for everyone. So stop taking it as personally.​5) Online dating sucks for both sides. Guys have a harder time being given a chance and girls still have to fend off a ton of unwelcome offers/creeps.​I will admit when I was online dating I would get at least 10 messages a day, if not more. But out of those ten how many were worth responding to? Several would be hookup offers or something about a penis, some would be rude or sexual. It was rare to get a tailored message saying hi from someone who had actually read my profile. I responded mostly to those. Every girl is different but if you treat us like people we will treat you like people. There are exceptions to every rule, so if a girl is rude to you, move on.Girls, guys have to deal with bots and the pressure to continuously reach out. Generally they don’t have as many options and they aren’t bombarded with messages like we can be. I wouldn’t be willing to say online dating is worse for men or women but both definitely have some major pitfalls that are gender specific more than not. Online dating sucks for everyone, just in different ways.A good piece of advice is to read the profile, find what resonates with you about them and start from there. Don’t be pushy, if you wouldn’t say it to their face as a first interaction it probably isn’t going to be a good first message. Ladies, message men first too! If you see a guy you find intriguing send him a message! Never know what could happen.Give people a chance, they might surprise you.​6) Have realistic expectations.​Some people look like truck wrecks and have amazing personalities and some look like a perfect 10 and have the personality of a truck wreck. We all have a little truck wreck in us in some way, so expecting perfection from someone is just unrealistic and setting the encounter up for failure. Stop putting so much emphasis on just looks. Looks fade or don't hold up as much in person. There is so much more to people than their looks. I would rather have a guy who treated me nicely than a hot stud who looked amazing in photos but couldn't hold a conversation to save his life. I see a lot of people here saying they aren’t the most attractive person out there and they think that’s the sole reason they aren’t getting any dates, it probably isn't. Looks matter but so does everything else about you.​It sucks to be judged by your looks but that is the harsh reality of dating; lots and lots of instant judgement. If you look like Dick Cheney made love to a walrus or 2018 Lindsey Lohan mixed with a gorilla, you probably aren’t going home with Heidi Klum/Mr. Universe home but if that is your type and you absolutely will not talk to anyone less attractive then it’s on you if you keep getting rejected. If you are banking on getting lucky with one hot person saying yes, you probably aren’t going to get a ton of dates. By all means, aim higher than you think but don’t be surprised if you get rejected if you are continually going for people well out of your league.​7) Present yourself realistically and take pride in what you look like.​Looks absolutely matter (for better or worse) but your face and body are only so much. If you aren’t presenting yourself well then that’s almost more of an issue with being not generically attractive. The care you put into your appearance matters, wear nice clean clothes, take pride in your appearance. I’m not saying you have to lose the weight or go to the gym or spend hundreds of dollars on expensive clothing but make an effort. If you look like you got hit by a truck, you are wearing dirty wrinkled clothes and it looks like you haven’t brushed your hair in weeks, you probably aren’t going to be reeling in any fish. You don’t have to be physically attractive to look nice. If you are on the bigger side and not willing to lose the weight (it’s hard, absolutely no judgement from me) just be honest about it. You can't exactly hide it and attempts to do so just look worse. Don’t take ‘angle’ photos. Don’t use photos from when you were 20 lbs. lighter. You aren’t going to shock and awe someone with your personality if you lied about what you looked like in reality. If you are honest and up front about what you look like right now, people who ask you out or agree to go out with you aren’t going to be shocked when they see you. It hurts to be rejected based off appearance but it sucks to be lied to about what someone looked like.​8) Stop trying so hard.​There is a reason some of the most common things people will say is that they found someone when they weren’t looking. If you make finding a date your second job, it’s going to consume you. The rejection will hurt more and you’ll feel more discouraged because while you’re putting in so much effort you are still not meeting the one you want. A healthy balance is key in everything in life so it applies to online dating too. Have hobbies that matter and you are interested in. Devote time to friends, yourself and the life outside of dating. Once you have a steady person in your life you are still going to need hobbies and activities outside of this person.​If you have any specific questions or just want my take on something, I’m an open book and I’ll gladly try to help. Like I said, take all this with a grain of salt. None of these are rules by any means but guidelines to maybe help steer you in a better direction. Everyone is looking for something different and you might be exactly what someone is looking for as is, so if this helps you great, if this pisses you off and does nothing for you I'm sorry you wasted your time. Good luck out there. via /r/dating_advice

#dating #dating advice #reddit