#i have not been online a couple of days bc i am really busy with uni atm

[gabessquishytum]

SLEAZY PICKUP ARTIST HOB GOING INSANE AND BUYING DREAM'S BATH WATER.....ok well NOW im thinking of Influencer Dream whos only in the business to get sponsorship for his music+artsy pursuits. Hes got a couple million followers on instagram, tiktok and twitter handled mostly through his friends and agents Jessamy and Lucienne. He barely knows Hob exists but Hob's highkey OBSESSED with him; always claiming in his podcasts that he could get Dream so easily dickmatized if he could just give him one chance...boasting he could get Dream hooked if only Dream would give him the time of day (derogatory) (in denial). Like hes so sleazy about it its actually lowkey creepy.

Theyve interacted ONCE bc they both support queer rights and live in the same district(???) So theyve both participated in a tiktok trend to spread awareness and fund and boost a local pro-trans right campaign. One to one, Hob actually gets starstruck and practically shy, stuttering and sweet and clearly in love. Dream rolls his eyes about it but secretly thinks its cute, and didnt actually think about him twice for a while. Meanwhile Hob's obsession just got WORSE. Hes out there claiming they ABSOLUTELY flirted in the dms and Dream was "practically drooling" over him (hes projecting. Its the other way around.) Sthg sthg Desire swindles a couple hundred bucks selling Dream's bathwater to him and Hob has pathetic wanks over it. God im SO OBSESSED with this AU.

YES SLEAZY PICKUP ARTIST HOB. THE SUPERIOR AU.

I can't get this image of Hob in his gaming chair just absolutely DELULU about Dream. He's bragging to his followers about how it would be sooo easy to get Dream into bed, it's not even really worth his time! Then the next video has a thumbnail with him actually drooling over this container of bathwater (because of course he would post it online).

Dream happens to see and feels obligated to message him and be like "hey dude that is. NOT my bathwater. you have been scammed." And Hob is so upset and literally crying in his dms, Dream actually gets kind of fascinated by him, like he's studying a bug??

They start hanging out semi regularly and it's like. They're both INCREDIBLY weird. But very different brands of weirdness. And they almost cancel each other out? Dream reminds Hob how to be a decent human being, and Hob reminds Dream that it's not generally socially acceptable to put rocks in your mouth in public.

Hob’s followers are like "boo he's so dickwhipped for that twink" and Hob is raging in the comments like "NO I AM NOT ACTUALLY ITS THE OPPOSITE HES OBSESSED WITH ME 😡😡😡". And in between he's browsing the Internet for the exact rare antique edition of the weirdass book that Dream wants for his birthday.

Maybe he'll get a little kiss from Dream if he likes the gift enough 🥺🥺

#iprefertheterminsane #the sandman #dreamling #nsft

[pan-de-queer]

big thanks @nostradamus0 for the tag!

1. Are you named after anyone? No! My parents say that my dad had a dream about my name or smthg, but I am the reason all me and my siblings' nicknames start with the same letter hahaha

2. When was the last time you cried? Earlier this week or last week! That fic Hit

3. Do you have kids? Not unless you count my weekend students hahaha but no I don't have any

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Yeah, quite a bit. I've cut back a lot from when I was younger but it's still a bit of a bad habit I'm trying to break and use less of

5. What's the first thing you notice about people? First physical thing is either their face or shoulders/arms (face if same height, shoulders if they're taller than me lmao). Personality-wise, I've learned that it's easy to tell a lot about a person by the way they talk

6. What's your eye color? Brown!

7. Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings, too aklsjdlkasjd scary movies and I Do Not Mix

8. Any special talents? i think i do? i just Cannot remember right now aksldjkslajd

9. Where were you born? in the hospital 💕 i'm a hospital baby

10. What are your hobbies? Woodwork! Writing and video games (solo games mostly bc online is so stressful for me) and baking as well. A bit of knitting when I remember I haven't touched my blanket project in months. And I definitely love eating bread too ✊️

11. Have you any pets? My family has a dog that, when we first got her, i was basically the one to raise her bc everyone else was busy back then. i moved out recently so only see her on the weekends but PLEASE look at her baby face i miss her so much

12. What sports do you play/have played? Used to do track, badminton, basketball, volleyball, itty bitty bit of archery, and like one special class of arnis and then i did like a couple months of self-defense (mostly krav) a couple years ago too. i was really sporty when everything was accessible and i had the time for it lmao

13. How tall are you? 149cm or 4'11"

14. Favorite subject in school? in gradeschool/highschool it was reading & writing (a singular class) and english. in uni it was either my genders class or my popular culture class!

15. Dream job? i'd love to go back to my roots and scriptwrite professionally someday. been so long since i've even seen an EXT - DAY line lmao

tagging for funsies but no pressure: @hellmo @anastasia-93-daybidaylove @snowonebutyou @rustingcat and anyone else who wants to join in!

#tag game #i was gonna tag others but i i forgot y'alls new usernames #or old usernames #i just forgor

[astrangewoman]

I just realized I forgot to take my wellbutrin this morning. I’ve been spiraling into a depression all week, but it really plummeted today. ugh, dammit no wonder!!! I’ve had that feeling you get right before you sneeze all day, but instead of a sneeze, it’s been needing to cry. I think most of it is warranted, considering the absolutely devastating events that took place this week, but damn I had no backup to help me.

is anyone else having an especially Hard Time right now, though? just with everything that comes with being an American? everyone at work is just going about, business as usual, and I can’t tell if everyone is just pretending like I am to keep from totally losing it or if they genuinely just don’t feel anything.

my partner and I are talking more and more seriously about leaving the country, but from what I’ve seen online, it’s like way fucking expensive and we have $0 in savings rn. he barely makes over minimum wage (which in TN is only $7.50) and I figured out on Tuesday that I make just a little over $20/hour. not to mention, we’ve had hardship after hardship hit us the past couple of years. so yeah, we’re starting with nothing. I also really want to be able to take our chickens and 2 turkeys, but I know that’s like a whole Thing when it comes to moving to other countries bc of avian viruses.

I just want to feel safe in the county I live in. I’m tired of being scared to leave my house bc you never know if some nut job is gonna go on a rampage somewhere, especially considering the main demographics in our area (i.e. gun slinging die hard Tr*mpers with an ax to grind and a mission to “cleanse” the county and “make it conservative again”—although it’s literally as conservative as you can get rn. like we live in a rural county in east TN. there’s no such thing as progressive out here, but I digress)

anyway, we’re trying to figure out where we’d even want to go, what we’d do about our loved ones (aka my sister and mom bc my partner has just about had it with his family) and how we’d get visas in the first place. I thought about looking for schools that one of us could attend, since that’s the easiest route usually, but then the other would have to be a sole breadwinner and that’s a scary thought.

I really didn’t intend for this post to be so long. I honestly meant to write this in my journal but didn’t feel like hand-writing anything tonight.

I hope you’re doing okay, whoever reads this. life is really heavy right now.

I love you.

#personal #tw gun mention #just in case

[adhdsleepdeprivedstudent]

holy fuck it’s been a minute since i posted!

almost 1600 days as a matter of fact aka almost 4 and a half years. my last post was early december of 2019, so like 3 months before life as we knew it ended.

tldr at the end!

this blog was largely based around the adhd experience in school, so some school updates!

i was a senior in 2020 so i “graduated” that may and my entire first year and a half of college was 100% online so that was certainly…interesting. second semester of sophomore year they reintroduced a couple of in person classes, mainly ones where zoom was impractical to use, such as my ASL classes. so i was one of the first students back on campus and that was cool but also horrible and extremely stressful and difficult to navigate. i was already struggling with my grades but that just made it worse. i started failing classes left and right, and basically failed my entire junior year first semester. second semester junior year i had just completely given up but was still taking classes to please other people, i enjoyed the actual learning between my two degrees but i just couldn’t keep up with school and everything else in my life. and then this last fall i had signed up for classes two weeks into the semester bc i was originally planning to take the semester off so i was extremely behind….and then two weeks after that i found out i had to move to a different state and ended up having to drop my classes anyways.

that break really forced me to slow down not just in school but all aspects of life. i got “settled” about halfway through october just to have to spend about 50-60% of the next 5 months traveling to and from home and my new state for many reasons. as it stands currently, unless i wish to pay out of state tuition i have to wait until about february or march of 2025 before i can get enrolled in a local university.

HOWEVER, i have decided and am actively looking into EMT schools for the summer and am currently looking for a second job in order to save up for that and im extremely excited about it! ill finish those degrees later lmao.

now, for the not school related life update that will show yall just why i was gone!

as many of yall may know i was diagnosed with adhd at 16, so in 2018, and had just been figuring a bit of it out when i started this blog. i was working and going to school and dealing with a lot at home but it was manageable for awhile. junior year was stressful and then i got extremely sick right around when i stopped posting so i had ended up taking some time off from content in order to focus on that. then covid hit and my life completely crumbled. i was already in online school so i didn’t have to slow down or wait for my school to figure stuff out and was able to finish business as usual. i was living at the time, with my grandparents, mom, sisters, and brother in one house, so it was always chaotic but being stuck in the house became a nightmare. lots and lots of family drama came from that and we were all stuck there because of how at risk both my grandparents and mom were.

the summer rolls around and i end up finally able to leave the house and get another job. it was a shit job but it got me out of the house so that was worth it. my “best friend” and i had been searching for apartments together so id needed to save money and was actively buying things and scheduling tours until she told me with less than a weeks notice that she was moving states and shortly after that basically quit acknowledging my existence. between family stuff, struggling with the start of college online, and then that i was not doing well mentally. i was lucky enough to have a couple friends that saw this and made sure to constantly keep checking on me and getting me out of the house more and more.

and then we moved. my mom, sisters and i started looking for a new place to live winter of 2020. my health had also taken a serious toll. i couldn’t even sit up in bed without feeling dizzy and was fainting regularly and had to quit my job because it got so bad. january 6th i got a call from my dr to go to the er immediately after she got some lab results back (i watched the capitol riot live on tv in the waiting room!) and was hospitalized for a few days after that. i got released and that next day we toured a house and it ended up being the one we bought.

within a month we were moving into the new house, school was kicking my ass, and i was still struggling physically and it had taken an even bigger toll on my mental health.

at the end of my freshman year i got a puppy and he and my friend genuinely saved my life. that summer, our family dog passed extremely unexpectedly and i had to pay all the vet bills for that and it really damaged my finances. my brother moved in and my life got worse again. and then we rescued a 3 week old kitten and couple months later i started another job. and then quit that job because my health was declining once again.

spring of the next year my sister and i got a job at the same place, and life seemed to start to steady minus my failing every class i took and my mental and physical health continuing to decline.

by fall of that year, after a lot of struggling throughout the family and a lot of other issues, we collectively agreed we had no choice but to send my brother rehab. he went, got out, immediately relapsed and we decided he had to go live with his biological father. i was thrilled because my brother genuinely abused me and then i adopted another kitten for my birthday that year.

this situation led my mother and his father to reconnecting and a month later they were engaged, they got married about 6 months later and had a long distance marriage of my mom traveling back and forth between him and my brother and the rest of the family.

about 4 months later my best friend moved states and it really sucked. and then another couple months passed and we found out that despite my working 60+ hours a week on top of school, i wasn’t going to be able to make ends meet anymore as we lost one source of income that had been what we needed to make ends meet each month.

so we moved my sisters into our grandparents house again since they wanted to stay in that state to finish school as they had less than a year left, i packed my stuff and my pets and after months of wondering what i was going to do a room at the house my moms husband/his parents and family/my brother opened up and my brothers grandparents were gracious enough to let me move in without having to pay rent. apparently i was a better option than the alternative. my mom conintued to split her time between here and back home.

i unexpectedly had to make a trip with my best friend back home as an old friend had passed and we wanted to attend the funeral so we went home for a couple days. a week later i was back home once again for thanksgiving and birthdays during which i was present at the mall for black friday shopping w mom and grandma and experienced a mass shooting. and then thought my sister was shopping at the same mall w her boyfriend and damn near was running back in while on the phone with them when he corrected her and told me they were at the other mall……not at all traumatizing. and again three weeks later for christmas. january i was job searching and got a job early february…just to have to, you guessed it, make another emergency trip home! my sister had gotten into a snowboarding accident so we flew my mom back there that day and the next day my sister stopped breathing because she was medically overdosed so that was a very traumatic call to get. my best friend flew me back home about a week after her accident to help out, god bless him for buying the plane tickets and my boss for hiring me and immediately letting me leave town!

while back home, my other sister got engaged, and a month later we went on a family vacation. i’m now back at my new house again, planning my next trip back home for my sisters wedding in less than a month, and a second trip later in that same month for their graduation.

seriously, bless my boss for being so insanely understanding and flexible.

throughout all this time my grandpa has had a handful of major health scares so that’s been a constant concern. but they are moving out here after my sisters graduate! and my sister that isn’t getting married is going to school in another state, and the one getting married will obviously be moving in with her soon to be husband.

hopefully i’ll have a second job by early june, and will be able to save enough to start EMT classes by august.

i don’t know how i would’ve made it through the last few years without the friends i have. they’re genuinely the best people i know. and of course my dog and cats, my babies, the reason i get out of bed.

so, if you read that far, first of all, congratulations bc that was a lot! and second, if you think that was bad, just know i was only scratching the surface! yay me…

tldr: life has actually sucked so insanely bad the last 4.5 years and it is from the combined effort of a miracle from God and a couple of ridiculous lot stubborn friend and my pets (and multiple therapists! sandra, natasha, kennedy if you see this, you the real ones!) that i’m still here.

#i forgot to add that i was diagnosed w bipolar and cptsd/ptsd😄

[moonlightperseus]

That's fair, if it makes you feel better I experienced the opposite in a way (I was pretty much directly told I'd have to quit my job, which if I think about it is obvious, but I'm still so sad- I love my job and the people. Part of me is like "it's okay, I can quit my job, go to school, ask for my job back <3" as though It makes any sense to go back to my CASHIER job after completing four years of nursing school) 

And that's completely understandable, everything is one day at a time. I'm sure the future will be better!! 

I would love for that to be something I'm capable of but instead I'm way too?? Bad at consuming media. Like TWO of my friends LOVE sandman so I was like "okay I'll watch it for you guys" put it on and didn't pay attention to a single second. 

I honestly judge that one less I tried so hard to watch Titans so go off. I know she appears in some Wonderwoman comics because I opened volume 8 and she was PISSED about something I missed because I only had volumes 1,2 and 8. But it was definitely largely important. (It should've been the new 52 run) hopefully you like the one you have open!! 

I use it a lot at work to make my hands feel right again, that's it. But you're right!! It's all personal and that's what matters. 

i have a tag on the first book so I know when it's available and then I'll probably try it. I'm glad you've been enjoying it! And that makes sense I get that (personally if I DO start reading it I'll probably google all the vibes because I hate suspense- it's why I got yelled at the last time I read a book my friend recommended. Apparently I "spoiled the end of Gideon" and "found out the whole thing harrows trying to figure out in Harrow" and I was like ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ but now no surprises) 

I went to the library yesterday!! I had to go to work to get something so I just kept running errands so I went to the library and I asked for an online library card. I spent like all night after that just *looking* at my options now. I picked a sad book (my favorite kind) that I need to remember to read and tagged a bunch for later (including, like I said, the Raven Boys- audiobook I think) 

i got to issue 11!! I know that's not a huge jump but I decided I was gonna read a couple and then I did. (because your site is so linear, and like just automatically goes to the next issue, it's a lot harder to stop lmao) 

Did you read the annual with Harley and Lobo? On my old old site that was counted as something else but not yours so I imagine you did? 

and tbch I haven't read ground zero yet, I own it but I just haven't cracked it open. That all sounds great though. 

His name IS Jake. HOWEVER he got the nickname Music Man because he just started playing music out of his pocket because the radio wasn't good enough so I started calling him "music Man" and then I heard his co worker call him Jake so boom Music Man Jake. But if it helps I have to physically restrain myself from instead calling him music man *Kyle* for some reason. (I believe it's because of the existence of Theatre Gay Kyle and Crackhead Kyle already in my life)

I know of that too but I also don't remember where it's from. And she IS in fact significantly better than all of them. Everyone knows boys drool girls rule. She can fuck'em all up and I love her for that. 

I think, in all honesty? I don't know how much you'll *like* year zero (Dinah's in it but not largely, Diana Might have a larger role? But iirc it's not really the marks you're trying to hit) HOWEVER that being said, it's a very short run so I'd say go for it. I'd you don't like it and it's hard to get through just stop. 

​​​​​​​Have a good day <3 

boy howdy my life has been busy, apologies for my delay in response.

as it turns out, and now i can say it bc before i was paranoid somehow someone would find my blog and relate it to my job and learn the news this way, i am losing my job in the sense that my place of work will be closing end of january. i’m gonna miss my coworkers most of all and a good amount of the dogs as well but i’m otherwise handling this news pretty well i think? idk like i’ve said i’ve been so burnt out and i thankfully have the fallback of being able to go back to living with my parents while i recalibrate. i have a feeling i will be sadder the closer it gets to closing time but for now i’m putting emotions about it on a shelf for later.

oh that’s totally fair. i definitely don’t consume every media friends like/recommend bc i don’t have the time and tbh not everything interests me but if the interests vaguely line up i do try. or at least im trying to try. and sometimes trying to try things that don’t necessarily sound particularly interesting but sound like they could be surface level fun and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying something at surface level. idk. its hard to commit to starting new things to be invested in. there’s just not enough time in the world.

(personally if i ever end up in a time loop i will be fucking around and consuming as much media as possible before looking for a resolution.)

i think i honestly stand by the fact that titans has some really good moments. but it just also has some really bad moments. i wouldn’t say it’s balanced necessarily but god the good stuff is so good to me and i am willing to suffer through the bad. (and to some degree. some of the Bad honestly became comedic to me-though bald connor will never be one of those that shit was god awful. boy needs his hair, i’ll say it.)

congrats on going to the library!!! huge step and i love that for you!! you are SO valid re googling the vibes. i didn’t feel like there was a whole lot of suspense in the first book personally but i also was not surprised by two of the “dramatic reveals” but i may have also been potentially over analytic of the first book so i’m not sure i’m the best judge of character.

ALSO!!!! the locked tomb!!! love that series!! they make for great audiobooks though a little confusing and confusing stuff is harder in audiobook format bc i can’t easily reread bits until my brain has digested them. but it’s so much easier for me to get through an audiobook because i can do it while doing other stuff.(i feel like i’ve already talked about audiobooks so i’m not gonna continue on the ramble that’s forming in my head and move on instead.)

i try to make it my philosophy that any progress no matter how small is still progress so congrats on making it to issue 11. i definitely agree that it’s a little too easy to just keep going thru the issues on that site bc i’ve definitely been like “i’ll read a few” and then binge a whole lot. ah well.

i did read that annual! all the annuals were put at the start of each year so i read them before each year.

ground zero is definitely fun if you can put aside the joker of it all! would recommend!

i have not done any more reading of the injustice verse because again. life been busy. but i do think i’m gonna give year zero a try before starting on injustice2 just because it is so short. i keep telling myself i should start on it and then i am so easily distracted and lately i’ve been on a sudoku kick. my sister also shared this house flipping game with me and it’s fun but very frustrating bc it doesn’t run well on my computer so i don’t know how long i’ll keep up with that game.

ahjsjd that’s valid. i take it he was playing it out of his phone in his pocket and not a very small but very cool tiny instrument in his pocket anksdjs

life has been hectic but i’m hanging in there and doing relatively well right now. hope you are also hanging in there and doing relatively well!!

#comics anon #abby replies #anon #i actually typed this out in one go look at me!

[rainbowdelicsunshine]

Hiiiii bff I’m here to make you busy for an hour. Do all of the identity asks bc I want to know the answers 💚

1. If someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

I'll make this a short one to start things off!

To Read: Iguana Girl by Moto Hagio

To Watch: Chucky/The Child's Play Franchise (esp Bride and Seed)

To Listen: (This time I'll be giving out two songs for this since it'll represent two sides of me as a person) The Clown by Beecake and NRG by PonySauce

2. Have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? if so, who?

One person that comes to mind for me would be none other than Opal Whiteley!

She was a naturist and a writer who became famous for her childhood diary that she started at the age of five called The Diary of Opal Whiteley or The Story of Opal: The Journey of an Understanding Heart, which tells her account of befriending and hanging out with fairies and talking animals in the forests where she grew up nearby Cottage Grove, Oregon

I just find her to be an extremely fascinating person who I highly relate to due to her views of the world and mythical creatures and talking animals (plus I have a feeling that she was autistic so yeah)!

3. List your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with

For this ask, I'll shorten this to five of my fandoms since I'm in so many of them!

Chucky/Child's Play - Glen Ray

Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Master Shake

Danganronpa - Teruteru Hanamura

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers/The Freak Brothers - Freewheelin' Franklin

Welcome Home - Barneby B Beagle

4. Do you like your name? Is there another name you think would fit you better?

I do like my IRL name since it's both unique and pretty (plus it's a biblical name that means "weary-eyed" so there's that too)!

The thing is, I'm basically namefluid so I LOVE being called nicknames and other names that aren't my real name (for example being called Fozz and Hobbes makes me super giddy since I love being called multiple names

(also my IRL name is Leah, but ONLY CLOSE FRIENDS/MUTUALS/MY GF ARE ALLOWED TO CALL ME BY THAT)!!

5. Do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? Do you identify yourself by the things you do?

OH, I DEFINITELY SEE MYSELF AS A HUMAN DOING MORE THAN ANYTHING!!!!!!!

I never heard of this saying before, but now it makes so much sense to me, it feels like two dots connected for me and I love it!

But yeah, I have a VERY hard seeing myself as even human, let alone a human being lol!

6. Are you religious/spiritual?

As stated in previous asks/posts, I am very spiritual, just in my own way where I just mish-mash a bunch of things about life and how it came to be into one belief system of my own making!

These beliefs include believing in the multiverse, believing in past lives/being otherkin + fictionkin, believing that certain kinds of mythical creatures like fairies and magic, and believing that Jesus was actually a wizard that knew and was capable of magic due to being a demigod of sorts!

7. Do you care about your ethnicity?

Other than my heritage in German, Irish, British, and 1/16th Native American (Shawnee), there's not really much about my ethnicity that I truly care about due to how white me and my family are!

8. What musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime?

For this question, I'll give out a top three list since, again, there are so many musical artists that I've connected with over my lifetime!

Daft Punk

Sublime

ICP (Insane Clown Posse)

9. Are you an artist?

That would be a big fat YES!!!!

10. Do you have a creed?

I have a feeling that I do, it's just not the definition that was created from Christianity!

11. Describe your ideal day

At this point in my life, it would be spending my entire day with my girlfriend since we're currently long distance/online so I've been waiting for the day that we'll be able to do all the cutesy couple things I've been LONGING to do!

12. Dog person or cat person?

Most definitely a dog person! I just love dogs and the way they show their affection, plus I just wouldn't want to have a litter box in my house, or to deal with cat shit n piss in general (ew sorry)!

13. Inside or outdoors?

Though I love going out to do things (like eating out, going out to malls, going to dispensaries, etc), I mainly just love to hang out at home and binge-watch TV and other indoor activities with my friends if we're all broke or there's nothing better to do! (sorry to those who like walks and hiking with no destination like a store or food, but its just not something I'm into unless someone else is walking/hiking with me)

14. Are you a musician?

I may not make money off of any of my singing/music I make but I do consider myself a musician of sorts!

15. Five most influential books over your lifetime

Any and All the Calvin and Hobbes books

Goodnight Punpun by Inio Asano

Most Books written by Beatrix Potter

The Eye Book by Dr. Suess and Theo. LeSieg

How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

16. If you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d have turned out the same?

I have a feeling that since I have autism, I feel the only way I would've turned out differently was if my family had more money/had connections in money. Another would be if we had more family around us that wasn't dead or dead to us

That way, I feel I would have more opportunities and connections to make myself money/get myself a job and a one way ticket tf out of where I live currently cuz I hate it!

17. Would you say your tumblr is a fair representation of the “real you”?

Personally, I feel myself online/on social media is a much more genuine and authentic version of myself than my IRL self since I'm in an environment where I have to "tone down" myself so I come off more "quiet and introverted" than I personally would like to present myself as

Plus autism and other shit makes me super anxious IRL, thus not being able to be as open and easy going as I want to be IRL (plus other people and their anxieties and pressure they put on me doesn't help either)!

18. What’s your patronus?

Since I'm not a Harry Potter (and never will be), I will not be answering this question!

19. Which Harry Potter house would you be in? or are you a muggle?

Please refer to the previous question above for your answer!

20. Would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else?

I would LOVE to live in the world of MLP:FIM!!

I just feel that it's pretty much the world in its most ideal state and the only problems are god-like beings, monsters, magic, and racism against other species (which got stomped out straight away like it should) which is all very easy to take care of, so why wouldn't I wanna live there?

21. Do you love easily?

I would say I do to varying degrees depending on how close I am to a particular person!

Like, it's not easy for me to find someone to fall in love with but when I do, I do fall HARD and super easily so there is that!

22. List the top five things you spend the most time doing, in order

Alright it's gonna be hard since I don't do much on a daily basis but I'll try!

Sitting in my bedroom, on my bed, browsing around on my phone and doing nothing

Smoke Weed

Wandering around my house, doing various chores like taking out garbage and washing dishes

Napping/Sleeping

Drawing/Working on Artistic Projects

23. How often would you want to see your family every year?

I mean, since I live with my dad and brother I see them every day (and it gets tiring ngl lol)!

When I am able to move out and live on my own, I would visit them a couple times every four months or so

But once I have a family/kids of my own, I would visit a lot less due to that, but will still try to see them anytime possible that's not just birthdays or holidays!

24. Have you ever felt like you had a “mind-meld” with someone?

Oh I've had a few mind-melds with people online, my best friend here (aka you lol!) and in IRL, and my girlfriend but I feel that's only a few people in my life since its pretty rare for me to connect with people right away in the first place!

25. Could you live as a hermit?

I would only be able to live like a hermit for half of the time, but I still LOVE going on trips and going out to do fun stuff (I am an ambivert after all!) so being a full time hermit is out of the question of me!

26. How would you describe your gender/sexuality?

Man,,,,,, I can explain them in the most stupidest and simplest of terms so here we go!

My Gender: I'm everything and nothing under the sun, you can basically call me whatever you feel fits me, even if it's Burnt Toast!

My Sexuality: Mmmmmm Hot people,,,,,, but most rlly Hot people who are good people and aren't douchebags! Plus hot people who love to cuddle!

27. Do you feel like your outside appearance is a fair representation of the “real you”?

It. Does. Not!

Mostly because I feel like being human in a human body constantly with being able to shape shift into something else to change things up to not get bored of myself

But half because I feel my IRL appearance is too "plain jane-y" for even my taste (like, I literally look so boring, even the outfits and wardrobe I have barely helps)!

28. On a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it for someone to get under your skin?

Honestly, it varies highly on what's being said to me and who's it's being said by!

For strangers, it can vary from 3-5 depending on how horrible what they said was

For people I know, friends and family, it's a definite 5-7 since I feel they know how to get under my skin and get away with it by making me out to be the bad guy who's ""overreacting""!

29. Three songs that you connect with right now

Seafood Sushi BBQ - Geordie Kieffer

The Blasta - Insane Clown Posse

The Pot - TOOL

30. Pick one of your favorite quotes

"The Touching of Hands"!

- Chucky (Scene Commentary from the Child's Play Anniversary DVD)

I just find it a very funny and underrated Chucky quote that has contributed to my vocabulary and the way I talk today so hooray!

-----------------------------------------------------

Thank you soso very much for sending in this ask Beetle my awesome bestie, I had such an awesome time with this post even though it took forever to type all this down XD!

I hope to see you drop by again and have a fantastic night my friend!!

#🌈 fozz's posts #🌈 fozz chit chats #answered ask #ask games #tw weed #weed tw

[gvnningwiththeboys]

Last year I made this post about struggling w queer joy and community.

I can say I am doing much better. I stepped out of my comfort zone.

I have made 1 or two closer friends and joined a Queer WLW meetup (community/interest group finder), looked up queer events, been out alone.

One thing I do sometimes is write down big & small queer joy moments in a journal. Here are some moments that I have had since college:

I still remember smiling at the guy in my Old Testament religion in college class who had painted nails, a rainbow bracelet & wore the gay agenda t-shirt.

Did Karaoke at local beach gay bar.

Saw my original queer awakening in concert , same place & band as time I missed in 2015. Went from thinking “it was divine intervention” that I missed the show (gettin outta christian school) to yelling about “Going to Hell!!”

Went to first pride in 2018 ish with my mom (big growth for her)

(Had some homophobic shit go down with other parent) Now me & mom have a One Day at a Time watch party . We still cry with Elena.

Went to small pride festival w new meetup group. It was cute and nice.

Went to first lesbian wedding. It was a family wedding. Was beautiful & I met my great Aunt’s partner for first time (OG lesbian couple in out fam). Also all the gays screamed & sang to songs together.

Went to a queer NYE dance party. It was an overwhelming but good time. Found a fellow introvert & quite literally talked about animals & cosplay nerd stuff on edge of dance floor trying to hear over loud music.

Made friends with same person & hung out a few times after.

Been on a couple dates. They were alright but didn’t lead to anything really. Gosh online dating is an experience.

Went to WLW bar for event which I won a free drink.. The event had a typo on social media so was there on wrong day.Still got a drink. Munched on some food & drank alone. Bc literally one shows up until late night apparently.

Went to a local sapphic night. Got dressed up real cute & met friend there.

This weekend went to 2 different pride events. A girl I didn’t know asked if I wanted to hang out with her and her dog for a bit cuz we were by ourselves. Busy but fun weekend!

#queer joy #lgbt community #happy pride 🌈 #pride #pride month #mine #personal #reflections #sapphic #queer #it gets better #lgbtqia

[badbitchfiles]

Venting....

I feel so stuck rn.

The plan I had to get out of my low paying job & expand my income fell through, and then my backup plan fell through. My business is making single sales/month, which I'm very happy with bc everyone starts somewhere but baybee the bills are due now lol. Plus I've kind of stalled out on the other business; I have a shitload of stuff designed but it costs money to put it in motion and.....🥴

I'm trying to remind myself that pressure builds diamonds*(which is what I told myself to get through the last time I had a season like this) and that every valley leads to a peak—and it gets really bad right before the peak—but my GOD! How much longer before I hit the peak? This is like the third time I've been through something like this and I'm trying to make this the last mfing time bc this is GHETTO!!! The stress, the anxiety, the confusion, the directionless wandering is for the fucking birds!

I'm between seasons rn, I'm in the middle of a transformation (and headed into—if i haven't already started—my saturn return, not to mention the foolishness that comes with being in between eclipses) and let me tell you the in-between part is NOT fun; the part where the old shit no longer works but you don't know where to even start to develop new shit. And then you look around and everyone else is having fun & living life meanwhile you're in a boat with a hole in it & the flex seal is nowhere to be found 😭 I'm trying to remember that social media is an illusion and even with the rise of "getting paid to be yourself online", most things we see are very much staged, edited and all the other fake things. Part of me wants quick money but then I remember that nothing worthwhile comes quickly and then I'm like "well maybe I need to start losing a couple hours of sleep & put more effort into my businesses" but I know how I function when I'm sleep deprived (which is not at all) and I REFUSE to fall into hustle culture bc that'll lead me right back into the generational trauma that I'm trying to heal from

BUT THENNNNN I'm like "Okay what are you doing differently to ensure that the pattern doesn't repeat again?" And.....I lowkey don't have an answer lol. Yeah I'm writing in my day planner but then I'm not doing the things I write down. I'm not keeping on top of my habits so how am I going to ask for something different when I'm not doing anything to open myself up to something different? I'm spinning my wheels by trying to do too much at one time and I'm looking outside of myself for answers instead of looking within

That being said, here's what I've found out about myself:

One of the first things to be neglected when I'm stressed & burnt out is myself (skincare, meditation, diet, etc)

I run to social media (namely Twitter & tiktok astrologers/tarot readers) for answers instead of looking within & fostering my relationship with my own tarot cards and guides. I've been feeling called to go back to my tarot cards recently too

I've learned that what works for most people probably won't work for me. Idk what it is but my path is to literally go as far away from the cleared path as possible. It's very difficult especially when you're the only one in the family deviating but 🤷🏾‍♀️

I lack patience (wbk it's definitely a fire & air ruled thing lol). It's very hard for me to develop a habit bc I expect immediate results—with the exception of going to the gym bc I genuinely enjoyed that like an alien lmao. I also overthink, get discouraged & talk myself out of changes before I begin bc I focus on the mountain in front of me instead of the stairs that will get me up the mountain in small, incremental steps. Also the best part of doing something is the things you learn along the way and I'm missing out on that

I'll do a separate post on what I want in life rn bc that's been weighing heavily on my mind too

*diamonds are basically worthless & the "value" they do have is through man-made price gouging)

#ngl this REALLY helped lol #i started this post with such a weight on my chest but it feels way lighter now #😌 #getting my life together #growth & self development #journal entry #journal 11.6.2022 #saturn return

[lovietmars]

my day was actual dogshit and the person i’d normally rant to is the reason my day is this bad

summary: my house is infested with wasps, i’m failing history and stressed about school, and i don’t think my boyfriend likes me anymore???? send help ;-;

(this basically turns into a huge rant about my boyfriend by the end lmao)

tw: wasps (obviously), divorce, cheating, a heterosexual relationship (ikr, disgusting)

i’ve been having a really shitty day and i wanted to rant about it on tumblr because it’s the only social media where people on here don’t actually know who i am. to begin with, my house is literally infested with wasps. apparently my mom found 30 wasps in my room. actually screaming. then, i got to school and got my grade back on my ap history test that i thought i definitely did well on, but turns out i got a 58.3% which is the second worst grade i ever got on a test (first place is the 57% i got on a precalc test last year). i have two tests tomorrow which i didn’t study for. plus an entire math packet. and 4 ap chem worksheets bc my teacher for some reason assigned every single homework from the entire first month of school to be due on the same day. so basically i am incredibly stressed from school and i literally have a C in ap history rn. which is kinda bad bc i’m trying to get a 4.0 gpa (i have maintained it for the past 2 years) and i don’t think i’ll be able to this year thanks to this test. not to mention the fact that my boyfriend-ish (like a guy i’m basically dating and has asked me to be his girlfriend but i said i wanted to wait until after homecoming to make it official) is acting really fucking weird over the past couple of days. he was literally acting so normal 2 days ago, but suddenly started being weird as fuck yesterday. i saw him at school 2 days ago, and we even stayed up calling until 2am like normal. i thought something was up when yesterday he didn’t send me a good morning text and supposedly woke up at like 3pm. okay so clearly that’s a lie because first of all man doesn’t need 11 hours of sleep. supposedly he was just dying to get off the call at 2am bc he was soooo tired, so assuming he went to sleep right after the call, he woulda got 11 hrs of sleep which is excessive. also he literally never goes to sleep that early like bro usually up until like 4-5 am at least. secondly i literally saw him online before he texted me that he just woke up so like mans not slick. we barely talked the entire day. any convo we had was dry as fuck and i had to start it myself. which is weird bc usually he texts me himself first and isn’t a dry texter at all. i usually get a “how’s your day love” and like it’s not just that i didn’t get a “love” but i didn’t even get a text from him at ALL. and it was yom kippur and i was fasting and he didn’t even ask me how i was from that. then that night i finally text i’m like how’s your day, you’ve been absent all day just like my dad. and like i know he appreciates a good absent dad joke bc one of the things we joke about is our dads bc like my parents are divorced and his dad just straight up cheated on his mom. and anyway he was being really dry and i noticed and i mentioned it, and he was like i’ve had a busy day, i’m watching stranger things. but even so, i didn’t get a “goodnight love” text, or even a goodnight text at all. the next day (today), i didn’t get a good morning text either. and at this point i was getting kinda upset. at lunch i texted him to ask if i could come over and say hi for like the last 10 mins of lunch, which supposedly “didn’t see” until lunch was over. then at the end of the day i asked him if he wanted to walk to the buses with me, which he didn’t respond to despite responding to my other message answering a question he asked. i asked again if he wanted to walk to the buses and he said sure so we ended up doing so. the walk was awkward, he seemed different. when he got on his bus, i didn’t even get a goodbye hug and he didn’t even dab me up (which we do for some reason), he just got on the bus. and then he hasn’t texted me for the whole rest of the day since then even though i literally went to the mall and got my homecoming dress and sent a picture of it to him???? like he’s literally my date to hoco, you’d think he’d be interested in what i’m wearing to it, especially bc he’s supposedly matching his tie with my dress. Continued.. see next paragraph..

apparently that paragraph was maximum length so we’ll continue here. anyway, i finally sent him a message a couple hours ago (at like 9:45pm - and mind you, i sent the picture of my dress at like 4pm) asking “Hey are you okay? Maybe I’m being too critical but you’ve been kinda distant the past couple days. Is everything okay? Do you need to talk about anything? Do you need to take a break from me?” which i thought was a pretty good way to handle the situation but like idfkk i’m bad at life. but the funny thing about that text isn’t that he didn’t respond to it, but that it simply didn’t SEND to him. and i’ve sent texts to other people since then that delivered, so idk what’s up with him. the wifi at his house is bad at times, like stuff sometimes takes a bit to send, but not 2 hours. not to mention that he’s been online on discord this whole time, so clearly his wifi is working to some capacity. that’s the whole rant but omfg i am so confused and upset about this. and in case you forgot, my house is still infested with wasps and i have a shit ton of homework due tomorrow. probably wasn’t a good idea to waste all this time i could have been doing hw making a rant on tumblr but like i had to rant. anyways that’s all. goodnight loves <3

UPDATE

apparently his mom took away his phone. first of all, that’s such a lie because he was on discord for literally hours last night. every time i checked discord, bro was online. and if he cared about me that much, he would have messaged me in discord to tell me that he got his his phone taken. i often get my phone taken, and i have messaged him in discord before to tell him that i got it taken. and i usually texted him from discord in these circumstances. not to mention that his mom really isn’t the type of person to take his phone, plus he didn’t even provide a reason why. and he didn’t even say sorry. i think he doesn’t like me anymore. and for some reason i’m not even that sad. he can go fuck himself. oh and also i skipped school today bc i had so much work to turn in that i didn’t do. i know that’s bad. but yeah. and i don’t even feel sad about my boyfriend. i’m just mad at him for very clearly lying to me. i wonder what his reason was. and it’s not like i don’t have a date to homecoming. i was originally going with one of my friends as a joke in addition to my boyfriend. i think he might have gotten jealous of the friend and that might be part of the reason he’s being like this. yes i am bisexual, but the friend is straight, and i would never actually want to date her even if she wasn’t. i still have a homecoming date at least. so all is fine. i’ll update more later

UPDATE AGAIN

broooo what??? he’s not at school today. bc according to the snap map he was at his house an hour ago. and it’s currently 1pm to clarify. i skipped school bc i had too much work, not bc of him. but i wonder why he skipped. bc of me?? i wonder if he thinks i skipped school bc of him. i would never. with all due respect i’m in 6 ap classes and i wouldn’t sacrifice a day of education for such a reason. humble yourself. but like now i can’t even ask him why he wasn’t at school bc i wasn’t either so he’d know i’m stalking. my strategy now is to just do nothing. keep stalking him and see if he texts me at all. i bet i won’t get a single text the entire weekend. see if i give a fuck. and i bet he won’t come to my game that i invited him to, either. and i won’t go to his soccer game either. L

oh and even if he had gotten his phone taken, he probably should have responded to the texts i’d sent him earlier, including the actual pictures of my homecoming dress??? like bro is supposedly my date, shouldn’t he care? or even just say that he saw the pictures? like some acknowledgement please??? plus he started not responding like around 3pm so his mom would have had to take his phone like right after he got home from school. which is unlikely. and sure even if his mom did take his phone, he was on discord the whole time and could have easily messaged me from there. plus it’s not just this. he was acting weird in person yesterday too. and over text the past couple days. like literally 3 days ago was so normal and suddenly the next morning bam everything was different. i wonder what happened. because clearly something is up.

and this whole rant post probably makes it seem like my boyfriend is a really toxic guy which couldn’t be farther from the truth. he’s just your standard nice jewish boy. he plays soccer and chess and d&d and he likes marvel and stranger things and listens to the beatles and the beach boys. i’ve had really deep conversations with him before. about our friend who died about a year and a half ago. about the universe and creation and whether god was real. about our parents, about mental illness, just so much. literally 4 days ago we had this really deep conversation about the universe and everything and the next day he asked me to be his girlfriend. i said i wanted to wait until after homecoming but yes. and me not choosing to be his girlfriend immediately clearly wasn’t the reason bc that happened on monday, but monday and tuesday were totally normal. on tuesday i asked him if he wanted to call and he said “double yes please.” and then literally the next morning he started being weird. i hope the call didn’t contribute to the weirdness. but i don’t recall the call going badly at all. he was trying to get off the call like at 2am which is a bit weird bc he usually goes to sleep way later, but he said he was tired so why would i think anything of it? especially bc he was like so eager to call me. and literally the day before he’d asked me to be his girlfriend. i really didn’t expect that he’d start being different. i was really hoping to be his girlfriend. i just can’t believe it

#lovietrants #bisexual #jewish #judaism #jumblr #yom kippur #tw divorce #tw cheating #tw bugs #tw wasps

[jeanmoreaux]

i know i’m awfully late and no one really cares bc it’s already old news and everybody knows, but fearless (taylor’s version) is so good wtf

#and the humming parts in hey stephen have been stuck in my head for days now #and i’m so not mad about it #/// #i have not been online a couple of days bc i am really busy with uni atm #but i listened to fearless tv on release day and every day since and i am mildly obsessed again #i love her mature vocals with these songs!! #i just really connect to them on a different level know?? is that weird?? idk #it definitely makes me nostalgic listening to these songs #really transports me back to my much younger self #it makes me reflect on my younger self too and all the ideas and expectations i had #funnily enough i think i like the rerecordings as much as the old versions and some song i actually prefer taylor’s version #her vocals just improved so much #and the production is so good too #i mean tell me why is just such a good song but she made it even better somehow??? same goes for the piano version of forever&always!! #i feel offended how dare she #i realized i haven’t been listening to fearless a lot in past couple of years which is such a shame #even tho there are so many bops #aaahh okay i just had to get this off my chest bc my family and friends don’t care #so i needed to dump this information on someone #and what’s the internet for if not rambling about the things you like but no one you know irl cares about #hope you are all having a lovely day <3 #mish rambles #ts #okay i’ll probably be back in a couple of hours 😅

[jakesimfromstatefarm]

notoriously yours | jay park

✰ summary: jay park is a rich kid. it’s safe to say he has everything every broke college student on his campus could dream of and more. but the one thing he doesn’t have, which money definitely can’t buy, is a girlfriend. and his friends won’t see of it. literally.

so what happens when his friends bet him to date someone for more than three months? what happens when jay decides that fake-dating someone would be easier than actual dating (because god forbid Jay–the campus’ notoriously known fuckboy–decides to commit to something once in his life)?

and what happens when that someone is you, his childhood best friend he hasn’t spoken to in years..who has absolutely no interest in being in his life anymore?

✰ pairing: jay park x y/n [ft. members of enha]

✰ genre: fluff, comedy, angst | fakedating!au, college!au, childhoodbestfriends!au, (kinda) e2l!au

✰ warnings: cursing, nothing suggestive but jay's a fuckboy so slightly suggestive themes, mentions of parental neglect/leaving, it's hella long (and i thought my last fic was long)

✰ wc: 14.7k (how did i get it this long oh lord)

✰ author's note: picture creds go to original owners/editors! peep that edit of jay that lowkey inspired this entire fic 👀also this took me so, so long bc i lost motivation half way thru and bc college is a thing,,,so i honestly don't know how to feel abt it so pls bare with me :')))) ALSO the dividers are weird bc idk how to add more than 10 pics for the dividers so pls excuse those ٩(× ×)۶i hope u guys enjoy!! <333

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Jay Park is a rich kid.

Jay Park has enough to buy every textbook he needs for his courses without having to look up the free versions online. Jay Park has enough to bribe his professors to let him pass every class with a perfect 4.0 GPA (but because the boy has morals, he doesn't). Jay Park has enough to afford a car to drive to his furthest class from his dorm building instead of walk or bike like every other college student, meaning he also has enough to afford a parking spot on campus (those things aren't cheap!).

Jay Park walks around your school's campus like he owns the place (and considering the amount of money his family has donated to the school, he practically does), looking like he just walked out of your local coffee shop's newest fashion magazine. His blonde hair is never seen untouched, his attire usually consisting of an undoubtedly high-end all-black fit, accessorized with multiple earrings and rings that probably cost more than all the overpriced textbooks you had to rent out this semester. It's safe to say that everyone knows Jay Park.

Bottom line is, Jay Park has everything.

Well, his friends beg to differ.

In their eyes, Jay Park has everything but a simple factor in the equation of love (or whatever love is to the minds of a couple of 19 year olds): commitment.

So yes, it's safe to say that everyone knows Jay Park. Because everyone knows he's the campus' rich fuckboy. (What's a college fanfic campus without one anyways?)

Jay doesn't go unreminded of this by his friends, to the boy's annoyance.

Jay is aware of this on a Sunday afternoon, in his dorm building's first floor lounge, where he and his said friends are having a study session.

They're doing anything but studying.

In fact, no one has any books out or anything. Not a single laptop in site.

"You don't think it's the slightly bit concerning?" Jake's words are muffled as he continues munching on the fried chicken that he spent majority of this study session debating if he should have it delivered through UberEats or not.

"I really don't, no," Jay shrugs as he continues mindlessly scrolling through his Instagram feed. They're having the same argument conversation that they've revisited multiple times over the course of their friendship, one that Jay has been lectured on too many times for his own good. He thinks his friends could become his new parents if they really tried.

"Look at it this way, okay. You're about to graduate college in a couple of years, into the big world. Like the actual, adult world. And that means you'll have to settle down. Which you can't do when you. have. no. commitment!" Jake punctuates each word with a single clap of his hands, desperate to get his point across.

Jay simply rolls his eyes. He looks over to Sunghoon, who's minding his own business, not bothered by the same topic he's heard over and over again. His eyes tell Jay you're on your own, in response to his blonde-haired friend's look of despair.

Jay thinks that maybe he should get new friends. Yes, that's the only solution here.

"My love life," Jay reaches across the table for a drumstick from the greasy tub seated in Jake's lap until Jake swats his hand away, "is none of your business. Also, ouch."

"Uh, it kinda is. Because of you and your reputation around campus, it kinda affects us, your best friends. How do you think we look, hanging out with the guy who's known to ghost every girl in existence after one night with them? No offense to you," Jake deadpans to him. Jay mentally reconsiders the term best friends.

Tough love. Jay tells himself it's tough love.

"Yes, because every girl totally hates Jake Sim, the teacher assistant of a physics class who volunteers at the pet shelter every Sunday and brings their pet golden retriever to campus every two weeks," Jay rolls his eyes at his Australian friend.

Jake sighs. "Okay, then I'm coming from a place of worry for you."

Jay groans. "Again, none of your business!" This doesn't stop Jake. He comes from good intentions, really, but Jay wants nothing more than to stuff the kid's mouth with some of that chicken to shut him up.

"What are you gonna do if one day you meet someone you like, genuinely like, and you screw yourself over because you've never been in an actual relationship before? A real, committed one. Like one that lasts at least three months."

"You don't think I can last three months in a relationship?" Jay questions the boy currently taunting him.

"Honestly? No. What's the longest relationship you've been in?" Jake cocks an eyebrow at his friend across from him.

One month and two weeks. But Jay's smart enough to not say that out loud.

"I can so last over three months," Jay mutters more to himself than Jake.

Jake laughs at that, pausing to take another bite of the drumstick in his hand. "Jay, I am willing to actually bet you. Bet that you wouldn't be able to." He leans back on the couch, the ball now in Jay's court.

Jay freezes, looking up from his phone, narrowing his eyes at Jake.

"Forget it, Jake. He's not gonna agree even if you offered him money," Sunghoon finally perches from beside him. Well he's not wrong. It's not like Jay is exactly in need of more money, per say.

"What kind of bet are we talking here?"

Sunghoon's right. Jay doesn't need the money, but he does hate being wrong. Even if it's over something as stupid as this matter.

Caught off guard by the blonde's answer, Jake blinks blankly at him and takes a second to think.

"Hmm..what about...what about if you can date someone for at least three months, and I mean an actual, committed relationship, then I'll do all of your physics homework next semester."

Jay's eyes sparkle at that. If there's anything he despises more than commitment, it's physics.

"And if I win, you have to buy all of my textbooks," Jake sits back from the edge of his seat with a smirk lying on his face.

Jay pauses to think about it. I mean, what does he have to lose? A couple hundred dollars over college textbooks? No. Because he just simply won't lose.

And maybe he'll learn what it'll be like to actually be in a committed relationship for once. Maybe he'll finally learn what it's like to actually devote yourself to someone, open up to them. He shivers at the thought. Never mind. He'll warm up to it. Baby steps.

Nonetheless, what could go wrong? Even if he does lose, at least his money would be going somewhere productive––towards his friend's education. Jay was probably gonna use that money on something useless like a blanket that resembles a tortilla (a burrito blanket, he calls it)––something he doesn't necessarily need, but must have, he would argue.

"Fine. Whatever, okay. Deal," he grabs Jake's extended hand in front of him and shakes on it.

Jake's impressively smiling at the boy as Sunghoon lets out a sigh, in disbelief with the two guys he calls his best friends.

Jay concludes that this will be easier than his Introduction to Photography 101 course he took his freshman year. How hard is it to find someone to date the Jay Park? Surely, everyone will be lining up once Jay switches his FaceBook relationship status from "it's complicated" to "single".

Turns out, it's not as easy as his class where all Jay had to do was take pictures of a pretty sunset, slap a VSCO filter on, and call it a day.

He comes to this realization on a Wednesday evening, as he's seated at one of the many study tables lined in the middle of the campus' library, staring down at his phone's dry iMessage app, with his laptop and blank sheets of scratch paper scrambled across the entire table, as an attempt to look half as studious as the other students studying in the facility.

Turns out, being known as the campus' fuckboy who ghosts every girl on campus isn't a good thing when it comes to wanting to find a real relationship.

He comes to this realization after failing to receive a single text back to the many ones he sent out throughout the first half of his day. The ghoster gets ghosted. Oh how the turn tables.

Jay groans dramatically as he tosses his phone on the hard surface of the table, earning himself a harsh shush from the librarian filing books in the aisle beside him.

He sheepishly smiles back as an apology, directing his attention back to his open laptop screen, where his untouched calculus homework stares back at him––his mind preoccupied with the looming threat of Jake's bet. Not that it was threatening in any way, per say, but Jay just hates losing. And from the looks of things, it's safe to say that Jay won't be celebrating any victories anytime soon.

Jay thinks he should just change his identity and just transfer to some boarding school in Switzerland. Yes, that's a much better solution than admitting defeat to Jake.

Jay sighs as he lies his head on the table, figuring he might as well just write the check for Jake's textbooks now. He wonders how he got here in the first place. Not how he got into the bet, and definitely not how he's sitting in the middle of the library, having yet to start his calculus homework due at 11:59PM tonight (he should really start that).

But no, he wonders how he gained the reputation as the campus' playboy. To be fair, his friends (mainly Jake), are constantly reminding him of his notorious habits. But how did they come a habit in the first place?

The idea of being in a relationship is nice, sure, but the commitment that comes with it? The idea of being dependent on someone? It's scary, vulnerable, and one that Jay can't picture for himself.

Maybe some people just aren't meant to be paired. Maybe some people, like Jay, like being independent and are meant to stay that way.

But Jay also likes affection. He likes the fleeting, warm feeling he gets every time he finds himself under someone's sheets. He likes the short-lived comfort he receives from someone else's touch, even though he knows it's going to cease to exist the second he steps out of those bedroom's doors. He just likes affection, simple as that.

That and he's a 19 year old teenage boy with needs, what did you expect?

And so what if he likes the idea of affection minus commitment? Is that so bad? Apparently it is, to people like his friends and the entirety of his school's campus, at least.

At this rate, he might as well pay someone to date him.

Wait. Jay lifts his head off the table's surface in realization.

He might as well pay someone to date him.

There's no harm in that, is there?

He wouldn't have to endure through an endless amount of dates to find someone he clicks with, then continue going on dates with said clicked person, all while trying to develop an actual, serious relationship.

He'll win the bet, get his physics homework done for an entire semester, and some lucky girl out there will be making profit for the small price of hanging out with Jay Park for three months.

And lucky for him, Jay knows the perfect candidate for this scheme.

Simple as that.

Just as long as said perfect candidate says yes.

And as long as Jake and Sunghoon don't find out. Or else Jay might really have to move to Switzerland after all.

You love your friends, you do.

Hana and Heeseung have been there for you when others haven't––they were by your side when you knew no one entering high school, and they were still by your side when you were all graduating said high school. Needless to say, you're eternally grateful for friends like them.

But right now, in this moment––with you seated in the middle of the campus' library, trying to write your essay, as your two friends blabber on and on about the most recent gossip across from you––your two friends could be your villain origin story.

But again, you love your friends, you do. So you don't have the heart to tell them to leave. You've managed to naturally tune out most of the conversation, anyways, for this––your friends coming to hang out while you're trying to study––is no rare occurrence by any means.

"Oh yeah, Jay Park texted me last night."

You hate how your brain's filter suddenly turns off at Hana's words.

You hate how your ears catch the sudden mention of Jay Park's name.

You hate how the thought of Jay Park gets to even occupy a single brain cell of yours.

You hate how you even know who Jay Park is. Well, knew.

Past tense. Because up until eighth grade––when Jay decided to just suddenly pretend you didn't exist––he was attached to you like a koala to a eucalyptus tree.

And if you had asked past Y/N, ideally, Jay would've never left your side. Ideally, he would've never left you to fend for yourself when entering high school. Ideally, he would've stayed your best friend through out all four years of high school and ideally, you would've eventually told him how you really felt about him after growing up with him all your life. And maybe it would've lead to a completely different story. But for the sake of this fic, we don't live in an ideal world.

So yes, if it wasn't for his attendance at the very same university as you, you would've forgotten about the boy who brought you the painful memories of your childhood.

And since the universe clearly doesn't work in your favor, avoiding Jay Park's existence like he's the plague would have to suffice. And it works.

For the most part.

Until some people, bring him up uninvited into your conversation. Like now, for example.

"When was the last time you guys talked anyways?" Heeseung mindlessly asks as he reaches across the table to grab one of the many snacks you usually bring to your study sessions.

"Uh..like a few weeks ago. Give or take. Whenever you threw your house party. Can't say there was much talking involved however," she teasingly says with a giggle and wiggle of her brows.

Heeseung's rolling his eyes as you scoff and chuck a nearby crumpled piece of paper that was once one of your many essay drafts at her.

She bats it away right as it's about to hit her face as she laughs. "Doesn't matter anyways. He ghosted me the next morning, as he does with everyone else. Telling you this now," she extends a finger right at you, "stay away from Jay Park. That kid's just bad news."

You nod in response, mentally telling her she has nothing to worry about.

Been there, done that.

College. Ah yes, the very concept of spending four years of your life imprisoned on a campus where you'll be tearing your hair out from stress and spending all your life's savings just for a laminated sheet of paper with a golden stamp at the end of it all. We live in a society.

Because of said college, and all the weight that comes along with it, you had adapted a strict daily schedule in order to not completely lose your mind. It's a simple schedule really, one of a typical college student who's just trying to get by everyday with as little mental breakdowns as possible.

Wake up, get ready, go to class, go to the library to do your homework, walk all the way across campus to get back to your dorm, shower, then sleep. Oh and eat, of course. And maybe if time permits, be an actual social being and socialize.

It's gotten you this far into the college life without dropping out so, you conclude, you must be doing something right.

Sometimes, if you're feeling nice to yourself, you'll tweak the schedule a bit to fit in some exceptions. Maybe squeeze in a little trip to the bubble tea shop that's on the other side of campus, or maybe get dinner at that one dining hall that you don't usually go to because of the unncessarily long lines (but because they serve ice cream, you go anyways). It doesn't matter what the exception is, you still plan it out to fit into your schedule somehow. Everything is planned out.

Sometimes, however, the universe disagrees with your schedule, to your demise. Such as today, for example.

Because what you didn't expect for today was for a particular blonde-haired boy who you haven't spoken to in almost six years (but who's counting?) to approach your table in the library––a table you were sure no one could find you at, as it was quietly tucked away in the back corner, right next to the Astrophysics shelves. Because who browses the Astrophysics aisle for fun? Actually, maybe Jake Sim would. Anyways.

You definitely didn't anticipate a visit from the boy you've been actively avoiding, so you definitely didn't expect the first words coming out of his mouth when he sees you for the first time in six years to be:

"Fake date me."

You blink up at him.

Yeah, definitely not expected.

But you only let it phase you for a split second, until you feel a slight annoyance beginning to bubble up deep inside of you.

"Wow, hello to you too Jay! It's been what––half a decade? Yeah I've been pretty good, thanks for asking!" The sarcasm is practically dripping off your tongue.

You don't know what runs through Jay's mind, but apparently it isn't common sense––or the ability to read the room. Because next thing you know, he's sliding the chair across from you out from underneath the table and making himself at home.

And he's smiling right at you.

Curse him and his smile.

But no, you're not giving into it.

Not yet, at least.

"What do you want?" You deadpan at him when he makes no sign of making the next move.

"A girlfriend," he deadpans right back at you, as if he was casually telling you what he wanted for dinner. As if you two were close-knit friends that could approach one another without any proper greeting. As if you two had kept your friendship all these years. As if you two even had a role in each other's lives.

"Can't help you there," you scoff, deciding to not even question his lack of manners on top of his uninvited presence.

"Aren't you gonna ask me why?"

"Well gee, seeing that the first few words you decided to say to my face for the first time in forever were a demand, a demand to date you no less, then....no," your monotone voice says as you keep your eyes focused on your laptop screen, not daring to look at the boy across from you.

In the Introduction to Sociology course you took your freshmen year, you had learned of one important term: interactional vandalism. Textbook definition being: "ignoring signals of disinterest in a conversation, leading it to an offense."

Your definition being: "are you oblivious or just plan dumb, read the room!"

This was interactional vandalism, alright. Whether Jay's truly oblivious or just trying to annoy you until your head explodes (it's really the former, but you're convinced it's the latter), he takes your signals of disinterest and tosses it right out of his head to continue the conversation.

"I'm stuck in this stupid bet with Jake--do you remember him? He bet me that I couldn't date someone for more than three months and I figured having someone fake date me would be easier than actually dating someone, right? That's where you come into the equation," he proposes as he leans back in his chair, as if he had just finished a sales pitch to a prospective customer looking to buy a car.

You couldn't believe this. You're 98% sure this has got to be a prank. You're mentally preparing for a camera crew to jump out from in-between the library's aisles any moment now and scream into your ears that you've just been punk'd!

The remaining 2% of you, however, wouldn't put it past the two boys to get themselves in such a situation. The last memory you had of Jay and his friends were pretty much their childish selves back in middle school. And by looking at the current scene unfolding in front of you...it's needless to say they haven't changed much.

"Again, can't help you there. Ask one of the many girlfriends I thought you had." Ouch.

"But Y/N, you've known me all your life--"

"Up until you dropped me a few years ago but sure, let's call it that."

"--and convincing other people is gonna make me look--"

"--desperate? Yeah."

"C'mon, Y/N. What do you have to lose anyways?"

"Uh..my dignity? Pride? Self-respect? Sorry Jay, not happening," you turn your attention back to your unwritten essay in front of you, mentally checking out of this conversation. This would be a good time for that camera crew to jump out now.

"Look, no one else is gonna do it, Y/N." Jay has always been stubborn, you suppose. But so are you.

"Yeah, because you've managed to push every being of the opposite gender away from you. You gave yourself this reputation in the first place," you give it to him straight. It's not like you had a relationship with him to uphold anyways––Jay himself broke that friendship years ago.

Jay hates that you're right.

You're always right. He remembers how he used to always go to you for advice and clarity on the world's biggest problems. Granted, the world's biggest problems to him at the time equated to what he should dress up as for the fifth grade Halloween party, but still. A tough decision, for the mind of a ten-year-old.

You abruptly stop typing and begin putting your laptop and textbooks away as you huff in frustration. There's no point in trying to get your work done now. The longer you stay arguing with Jay, the bigger your headache gets. The longer he continues to occupy any part of your brain, the bigger your headache gets.

Getting up from your seat, packed and ready to slam your head into your pillow, you turn to the blonde one last time.

"Look Jay. We went on our separate ways years ago. If you weren't so notoriously known around campus and my friends would stop talking about you, I would've long forgotten you. I'm sorry you're in this situation, really. If I were you, I'd just tell Jake I can't do it. Or don't, I can't tell you what to do. Just don't get some innocent girl involved in whatever stunt of yours this is."

Jay stares at you, mouth agape, as you find your way out of the library and through the main doors. By the time he comes back to his senses, he realizes how he looks plain stupid––standing in the middle of the library, the look on his face screaming befuddlement, to say the least. Jay quickly makes his way out of the building, in hopes of convincing you one last time.

Jay catches sight of your figure already half-way down the walkway that connects the library to the main quad of your school's campus. Geez, you walk fast.

Not fast enough to outrun Jay's legs, however. If Jay running after you through the middle of campus in order to convince you to fake date him doesn't show how desperate he is to win this bet, I don't know what will.

"Wait, Y/N!"

You groan to yourself before turning to face the boy who can't seem to take a hint and leave you alone. You stare at his out-of-breath state as he heaves up and down from the slight jog he had to endure to get to where you are. If you're humored by him chasing after you, you do a good job of hiding it.

He meets your unimpressed state before stating his final proposition: "I'll pay you. Five hundred dollars."

You nearly stop breathing.

Now this catches your attention––after all, you're but a broke college student who's just trying to survive. And preferably not by feeding yourself instant ramen cups every night.

And so, naturally, you begin rethinking about the opportunity presented in front of you. You narrow your eyes at the boy as you weigh your options.

The first problem being, it's Jay Park––the bane of your very existence. You spent the last few years of your life pretending he didn't exist...for good reason. Not only did he do you dirty when you were merely a couple of 13-year-olds, but you just didn't want to be involved with someone like him. Someone known for his nature, someone who left your own current best friend ghosted. And not that Hana herself would care, for she has called herself the "female Jay Park", but you're sure this would be breaking some rule in the girl code handbook. Plus, if you agree to this, you'd be betraying 13-year-old Y/N, the one who decided to never speak to nor think of Jay Park again––which by now you've failed, but you get the gist.

Second problem being, three months is a long time. Three months is practically the rest of this semester, and did you really want to spend the rest of the semester tied down to the label of being Jay Park's girlfriend? There would have to be some negative connotations that came along with that title, right? No offense to Jay, but being his first girlfriend since, what, high school could make you come off as..naive, for lack of a better term. As if the only person you could settle for was Jay Park. As if you barely had any standards for yourself. Again, no offense to Jay.

Needless to say, if your school's debate club had to argue on why you shouldn't be doing this, you're sure the negating side could win with these two reasons alone.

But before you're rejecting the boy currently standing in front of you one last time, you find yourself mentally listing rebuttals.

First of all, you'd be getting paid. And again, you're merely but a college student living the stereotypical broke college student life––burdened by the costs of tuition, textbooks, and midnight McDonalds runs for when you're out of aforementioned instant ramen cups. Five hundred dollars could provide you with more than enough chicken McNuggets to last you the semester, and maybe some more to treat yourself to an online shopping spree.

Second of all, it's not like you were going to do anything better with your next three months anyways. It's safe to say you were too busy being a diligent student to actually look for anyone to date, per say. And if anything, having a fake boyfriend might actually be helpful in your case. Your mom would be off your ass about how you're still single, for one. And two, your friends (though it's really just Heeseung) would stop trying to hook you up on blind dates with guys that you would choose Jay Park over any day (and that really says something).

Third of all, it's Jay Park. As much as you despise the kid, you still know him. He's not a complete stranger to you, no matter how much you try to deny it. It could be worse, it could be a complete rando asking you to date him. At least you two have some sort of history, which would take care of the typical small talk and getting to know each other bit of this equation. And truth be told, you'd be lying to yourself if you said you weren't a tad bit satisfied by the fact that Jay chose you, of all people, to pull off this stunt with him. You don't know if it's the nostalgia of your childhood memories rushing back to you, but it reminds you of the endless schemes you two used to plan behind your parents' backs all the time. Granted, your childhood schemes––such as the both of you faking sickness so you could skip school together––don't even fall close to being in a fake relationship with one another, but still. It's the thought that counts.

All of those reasons plus, Jay isn't the worst to look at. He may have a spoiled reputation, but at least he has his looks going for him, you'll give him that (you're still secretly wondering when and how did he get his glow up, but don't tell him that).

And so by the guidelines of a college student's logic that states the pros outweigh the cons, you come to the overarching conclusion that maybe, this won't be so awful after all.

"Five hundred?" You ask, just for clarification. Jay's immediately nodding at your words. You continue to ponder on your thoughts as he stares at you hopefully.

The silent atmosphere of your campus heightens the tension so much, you swear you're in one of those overdramatic pausing scenes that occur too many times in k-dramas.

You sigh, then nod.

"Okay," you're internally praying that you won't regret this decision. "I'm in."

The next time you see Jay is at 12:17PM on a Friday afternoon, as you're exiting the doors of the lecture building that's home to your awfully long Capitalism in the Western World class.

You're going down the steps of the building, mentally deciding where and what you're going to treat yourself to for lunch––as the three hour lecture you had just attended drained all the life and energy out of you––when you hear the slight call of your name.

Turning to the source, you're met with a waving Jay, leaning against the passenger's side of his car, parked in front of the lecture hall building you were currently leaving.

Great.

You walk over to where he's casually waiting––he's unaware of all the stares he's attracted from fellow students leaving the same lecture as you. Can you blame them? It's not everyday you see a sleek, black BMW that probably cost more than your tuition pull up in front of your Friday afternoon lecture. It's not everyday you see Jay Park waiting for anyone outside of his said sleek, black BMW that probably cost more than your tuition.

"Hi," you simply let out as you plant yourself in front of him, not sure whether or not to question him why are you here? Surely, he wasn't waiting for you?

"Hi," he smiles down at you. There's a beat of silence. "I was waiting for you."

Bingo.

"Oh. What are you, my chauffeur?" You raise an eyebrow, unimpressed.

"Maybe. I am your boyfriend, after all," he says into the air, loud and clear, as if he wanted people to hear. Well that is the point, you suppose.

But still, all you want to do is smack the smirk right off his face.

Before you have time to put your next question into words, he answers it for you.

"I'm taking you out for lunch," he declares as if you have nothing else planned for the day. Well, to be fair, you didn't have anything else planned for the day. Except for your usual library run. But you figure the library could wait.

"Oh, like on a date?" You raise your eyebrows teasingly at him as you get into the car, Jay holding the door wide open for you. "Is Jay Park treating me to lunch as a date?"

Jay fights the scowl (or is that a smile?) growing on his face as he bends down to meet your eye level from inside the car. "Don't flatter yourself, princess. We've got fake lives to live."

"Call me princess one more time and you won't have a real life to live," you flash him a sarcastic smile and slam the door in his face.

Jay meets his own shocked reflection on the passenger's side window.

Cute.

"When you said you were taking me out to lunch, I expected like...I don't know...the diner on campus. Not whatever this is," you mutter to Jay as the two of you are brought to your table by a waitress at an upscale sushi restaurant, one that is undoubtedly out of your usual budget, but for sure an upgrade from your dining hall's pizza you were planning to have. You should've figured as much, the drive here was a little more than out of the way from campus, and who are you kidding, it's Jay Park you're eating with.

You stare down at your current outfit, which consisted of a hoodie you've owned since your junior year of high school and leggings that you threw on without second thought this morning––because you didn't exactly wake up and decide I'm going to go to a fancy sushi bar for lunch today!

"Why are we here anyways?" You ask him when you're both settled in your seats and the waitress walks away after listing the chef's specials for the day.

"Oh, they have killer dragon rolls here, you have to try it," Jay tells you nonchalantly as his eyes rake the menu in front of him, blocking your view of him.

How dense can one be? Your hand snatches his menu as you stare into his unamused eyes.

"No, Jay. I mean, why are we here? It's not like anyone's around to see us put on a show anyways."

"Oh. I figured," Jay's quick to grab the menu back from out of your hands as he continues, "that we should sit down and establish how exactly we're going to deliver this performance. After all, you're stuck with me for the next three months."

Again, smacking the smirk currently resting on his face would satisfy you beyond relief. Just once.

"If I drop out halfway through, do I still get $250?" You tease, leaning back.

"Ha ha. Funny. No," he narrows his eyes at you from across the table. "It's all or nothing."

You dramatically huff to make a show just for his annoyance.

"Worth a try. But sure, let's solidify this. What's the game plan?" You sit up in your seat, leaning over the table as if the two of you were hosting a secret meeting.

"It's simple really," Jay mirrors your actions, face leaning in close to where yours is hovering over the table. "Just pretend to be deeply in love with me for three months, and try not to actually be charmed by my cunning looks."

If someone gave you five dollars for every time you've already rolled your eyes at him today, you wouldn't even need to be in this deal for the five hundred dollars.

"Wow, smooth. Can I just remind you you're the one paying a girl to be in a fake relationship with you because you're just not competent enough to find an actual girlfriend?" You lean back, arms crossing over your figure.

Jay, unfazed, laughs, tongue briefly hitting the inside of his cheek. "Touché."

Your eyes go back to the menu in front of you as a silence falls over the table. Because you're not a loaded trust fund baby who comes to fancy five-star sushi restaurants for lunch on a daily, you don't recognize half of the entree names on the menu. You spot the dragon roll Jay suggested, but seeing that a basic California roll is less expensive, your natural broke-college-student-instincts figure the California roll shall do.

"Okay, in all seriousness," Jay begins as he puts his menu down. "It's simple really. We'll just go on weekly dates and post cute pictures of each other once in a while and a little after three months, I'll just say it didn't work out. I'll give you the five hundo and boom, we move on with our lives."

It's clear Jay's put some thought into this. Safe to say he's put more effort planning this out than the amount of work he's been putting into his classes. Someone's got their priorities straight.

You're impressed to say the least––you figured Jay would just be the kind to go with the flow and wait for the situation to unfold on its own and maybe blow up into flames. But seeing as he was just as serious about winning this bet as you were with making five hundred dollars, your doubts about this entire situation were slowly withering away.

Don't get it wrong, though, you still despise him. To an extent, at least.

"And don't worry about the dates. I'll pay on your behalf, as the loving, doting boyfriend I am," Jay finishes with a wide, cheesy smile you can't help but return a growing smile back at.

"Well then, as the loving, doting girlfriend I am, I shall gift you coffee, breakfast, all that fun couple stuff, whenever you please. Or maybe unannounced, if I'm feeling nice," you figure you should pitch in as much if he's paying for all your dates. And deep down, you find the idea kinda cute. But don't tell anyone that.

"Wow, look at us. We should become Dispatch's couple of the year already!" Jay exclaims, earning himself a small giggle from you, which pleases him to say the least. He thinks that maybe when this is all over, he'll hopefully make a good friend (well, for the second time) out of it.

And you're thinking that maybe the next three months won't be as bad as you initially had thought.

As the two of you delve deep into a debate about who would be the better significant other to each other, the waitress comes over to take your orders.

And because you're laughing and Jay's brightly smiling at you from across the table, you order the dragon roll.

The second time Jay takes you out––this time he gives you a heads up to get ready––it's at a, once again, high-class steakhouse.

The third time, you insist on the on-campus diner that's popular amongst the student population. Partially because you feel bad for the amount of money he's spent on you (even though he couldn't care less), but mostly because if you have to put on another fancy dress to just eat an overpriced meal that doesn't even fully satisfy your hunger, you might lose your mind.

And by this third time, Jake is aware of this newly blossomed relationship.

"Three dates! I didn't know you had it in you, going on three dates with the same girl!" Jake excitedly exclaims as he jumps into the empty spot on Jay's dorm bed and shoves his phone's screen into Jay's face.

The smaller screen displays Jay's most recent Instagram post: an image of you sitting behind your too-small-to-be-this-expensive-steak and smiling right into Jay's camera––a memory that brings a smile to his face:

~ ~ ~

"C'mon! We said Instagram posts would be a part of the deal! How else can we convince people we're dating?" A pout rests on Jay's face as he stares at you from across the table in the middle of the extravagantly decorated restaurant he picked out for your second date. You remember your eyes bulging out of their own sockets when you saw the "$$$$$" rating Yelp gave the place when you searched it up earlier.

"Okay, okay! One picture," you give in, already slightly annoyed that you were here instead of the comfort of your own bed, where you could be rewatching your favorite Netflix show for the third time. But because you made a deal and because you're desperate for money, you had to follow through––so here you were.

You flash an unconvincing smile to Jay's camera, which doesn't satisfy him, to say the least. "At least pretend you're somewhat enjoying this date," he frowns at you.

You sigh, until a thought crosses your mind and a smile grows on your face. "Only if you get me boba afterwards."

He narrows his eyes at you, but then meets your smile. "Sure, whatever you want. But only because I've been craving some mango milk tea lately."

"You're a fruit milk tea kind of guy? Sorry, but I might have to fake break-up with you," you tease as you take a sip of your overpriced drink to go with your overpriced meal.

Jay scoffs, feigning hurt by placing his hand over his heart. "Ouch. But before you break up with me, let me get this Instagram post in."

"Wow. Your priorities are so straight," you roll your eyes at him, eliciting a cheeky smile from him as he watches you through his held up phone screen.

"3,2,1."

"Hey, I wasn't ready! That was like mid-laugh!" You reach over the table to grab the phone, but not quick enough for him to put his phone back into his pants' pocket.

"Nope, nuh uh," he laughs as you quickly sit back down into your seat, not wanting to cause a scene in an establishment as proper as this one.

"It's fine. It's a good picture, you look cute," he casually lets out, unaware of the blush rising to the surface of your cheeks, thanks to the fact that you were suddenly interested in playing with the left-over food on your plate.

"Jay! Delete it, I'll let you take another one," you whine from your seat, imagining just how bad a candid picture of you could be.

"Ugh, fine. Ever so picky." He playfully rolls his eyes at you as he takes his phone out and opens the camera app as you prepare yourself.

"Okay, how's this?" Jay turns the phone screen to you after he takes a few snaps on his phone.

"I approve," you grin at him as he goes through the pictures himself, unaware of the smile growing on his face.

"Okay now delete the first one," you point your finger at him, narrowing your eyes at him.

"Okay, okay! Bossy," he laughs as he raises in hands in surrender.

When Jay gets home that night, he recovers the image from his Recently Deleted folder, telling himself it's for the sake of the memory.

Obviously.

~ ~ ~

"It's not that big of a deal," Jay mutters from his spot as his eyes go from the Instagram post to his Exile and Belonging in Modern Literature reading that's due tomorrow, bright yellow highlighter in hand. Typically, you'd find the reading buried deep at the bottom of his school backpack. But because Jay ran into you this morning and because he complained to you about the amount of work he's fallen behind on and because you had threatened him to do his work or else you're not going on another date––a fake date that is––with him, he figured he should at least get one reading done and annotated, despite his strong dislike for highlighters (they hurt his eyes, okay?)

What he doesn't know, however, is how your threat was completely full of bluff––but don't tell him that.

"It is so a big deal, for you at least!" Jake hops off the bed and lands on the wooden floors of Jay's dorm room so hard, Jay winces and sends a mental apology to the poor person who lives below him.

Jake suddenly gasps. "I have to meet her, Jay! As your best friend, it's practically mandatory that I meet her."

Jay opens his mouth to protest, but not before Jake interrupts him once again. "Oh! We can bring Sunghoon too, it'll be so fun! The best friends meet the girlfriend."

Jay can't think of anything worst. Jay imagines that bringing you to meet his best friends would just intimidate you out of dating him––fake dating him, that is. Obviously.

He stares at his friend in agony then back at the reading in front of him––the one Jake said he'd come over to help annotate, but the intention completely left Jake's head the second he heard about Jay's recent dating life.

"You don't have to meet her," Jay says pointedly. "Plus, you already know her."

Jake frowns at his friend's excuse. "Yeah, but that was in middle school! This is different."

Jay's hands shuffle through the reading's pages in front of him as he realizes there's no way the two of them are going to finish the assignment at this point. He supposes he'll have to save death by blindness from highlighters for another day and hope you still agree to go out with him.

Jake suddenly gasps in realization.

"Oh my gosh! Childhood best friends turned college sweethearts," Jake says so dreamily, he might as well plaster heart eyes on. Hopeless romantic, this one.

Before Jay can argue, the piercing sound of three loud knocks echo through the small room, followed with a:

"Jay, are you in? It's me!"

Jay stills at the sound of your sweet voice. He whips his head to Jake, who is also frozen in place.

But the widened-eye boy is quick to come to his senses––unfortunately quicker than Jay himself––because the next thing Jay knows, Jake's eyes are lighting up and he's running to the door, ignoring Jay's screaming whispers through this seething teeth that were somewhere along the lines of Jake––stop, I swear to god if you open that door I'm gonna fucking--

"Y/N!" Jake swings the door wide open, revealing an overly excited him and a frozen Jay half-way to the door, as if he was about to grab the very boy welcoming you in. It's as if we're living in a Sims game and the player clicked pause on this very moment.

Jake's eyes are wildly going back and forth between you and your supposed boyfriend, as if he was waiting for Jay to run over and smother you in hugs and kisses...or something couple-y like that. Jay wouldn't know.

"Uh––hi," you're awkwardly standing inside the room now, a relatively large paper brown bag resting in your palms as you look around for a surface to place it on. Jay makes his way to you without a second thought, quickly taking the bag out of your hold.

"You seemed stressed out earlier, so I figured I could bring you some food as a little pick me up. I didn't know what you liked, so I kinda just got a little of everything from the dining hall. Nothing fancy," you're rambling, but smiling so excitedly at him, Jay doesn't know what to say.

Instead, his mouth slightly drops open as he stares at you in awe, mostly because he's not used to being on the receiving end of such spontaneously generous actions––all while Jake's still excitedly looking back and forth between the two of you, as if he was expecting a marriage proposal to come next.

"Oh wow. Thank you. Really," Jay, still touched by your simple act of kindness, softly says as he places the bag on the limited amount of empty space on his desk surface––the rest of it is covered with his untouched textbooks and unfinished assignments. He wonders if you did this out of playing your role or just because you wanted to. He internally hopes it's the latter. "Seriously, you didn't have to do."

"Nah, don't worry. I wanted to," you shrug with such a genuine smile that Jay realizes he actually missed your smile.

Despite having seen you during your brief run-in this morning when you were fetching your morning coffee, Jay realizes he missed you. The two of you haven't been seeing each other recently because of your busy schedule and if Jay didn't realize it before, he's now sure he missed your company and presence around.

Weird.

"Well, you two have fun! Sunghoon needs me for something," Jake suddenly chirps from his place near the front door, halfway through with putting his shoes on already, breaking the comforting silence that fell between the two of you.

Jay frowns. "But you said you were free all da––"

"SUNGHOON IS CALLING BYE!" And before Jay can even register what's happening, Jake's out the door without another word.

"Er..sorry about him, he's...weird," Jay scratches the back of his neck as he returns to his spot on his bed, mentally setting a reminder to yell at Jake later for leaving the two of you alone. Jay doesn't know exactly why, but he's nervous at the fact that you're here in his room. It's not like you two are complete strangers––or whatever you guys were before––anymore. "Good job on your part, though. How'd you know Jake was here?"

"Oh uh, I didn't"," you let out an awkward laugh. "I just felt like doing it."

Heat rushes to Jay's cheeks and he's not sure 1) what this newfound feeling is and 2) how to respond, yet again.

Having expecting you to leave after dropping the food off, Jay's taken by surprise when you take your shoes off and come over to his bed to look at the pile of work he's spread out.

"Is this everything you have to do?" You question the stressed-out boy as you flip through the various assignments, readings, and essays he put off in the past week.

"More or less," he groans. This is no rare occurrence by any means––Jay being behind in his work––but this time, Jay realizes he may actually be in deep shit, considering he has no idea where to begin.

Right as Jay's expecting a scolding from you, he looks up to meet a look of sympathy on your face. "Well, I mean, I'm pretty much done with my day. I can try to help, I recognize some of these readings from last semester."

Jay thinks to himself that the universe has sent him an angel through the form of you.

"Really? Wow, you were't kidding when you said you'd be a good girlfriend," he sends you a surprised look.

"I'm just being nice, Jay. A concept I'm sure you're not familiar with," you remark back at him, causing his forming smile to grow into a laugh.

"I can too be nice! Need I remind you of who's paying you $500, covering all of our dates AND giving you rides to class everyday?" He remarks pointedly at you, a teasing look resting in his eyes as you're reminded of the first of many times he's come to pick you up before class:

~ ~ ~

You're late.

This never happens.

But then again, your life's been a series of unexpected occurrences lately. Such as the fact that you're currently known as Jay Park's girlfriend, for one.

You're scrambling out of bed once you take one look at your phone and realize shit, you're already late for class. Throwing on whatever articles of clothing your eyes land on first, you're already mentally groaning at the fact that you'll have to skip breakfast and run across your campus to get to said class.

Curse your professor for hosting her lecture at the furthest possible building away from your dorm. Curse the architect who decided to make your campus so large.

You're running down the steps outside of your dorm building's doors when you're abruptly stopped by a familiar sounding cough. You look up from trying to gather all your belongings together at once to meet the gaze of the source of the sound––Jay.

"Wow, you're a mess," he smirks as he gets up from the spot on his car he was leaning against to make his way over to you.

"Gee, thanks! Good morning to you too," you flash him a sarcastic smile before your default frown quickly makes it way back onto your face.

"Aren't you gonna ask me why I'm here?" He grins as he grabs hold of your backpack to sling it across his own back as the two of you walk towards his car.

"Why are you here, Jay?" you sigh, your sarcastic tone hard to miss.

"To give you a ride to class, of course!" He's beaming at you, as if he's a pre-pubescent teen who just won their first girlfriend a prize from the arcade's claw machine.

Oh. That explains the car, you figure. Deep down inside, you're relieved that you'll no longer be bursting through the lecture hall's doors as a sweaty mess––a result of having to run across campus to get to class.

Determined to not let your satisfaction completely show, you resort with a little smile directed towards Jay as he opens the passenger door for you.

The second your enter Jay's car, the strong scent of coffee hits you, and your attention is targeted at the two small cups of coffee sitting in the cupholders of the car.

"Breakfast?" Jay asks as he enters through the driver's side and reaches into the backseat to whip out a small pastry bag. A small, deliciously smelling, pastry bag.

Okay, well. You suppose you could drop the annoyed act now.

Your eyes widen with joy as you grab the bag from him and open it to reveal your favorite breakfast sandwich. He's been taking notes, you'll give him that point.

"Okay, you win. Thank you," you grace him with a soft smile before taking a bite into the glorious gift in your hands.

"Of course, I was just feeling nice," he grins at you as he starts his car. "But don't get used to it." His tone is serious, but his smile directed towards you says differently.

And the fact that he still showed up to drive you to class the next morning.

And the next.

~ ~ ~

"And need I remind you who has to date your dumb ass for the $500 in question?" Your eyes narrow at the boy who can't seem to get that damn smile off his face.

Jay sticks his tongue out at you, ending the conversation. Really Jay? What are you, five? Well, mentally––probably.

You're looking around his minuscule dorm room for a place to sit down, and Jay can't help but feel embarrassed now that you're here, in his messy single studio room that pretty much reflects how Jay treats every other responsibility of his oh so hard life: neglected.

"Uh...here, you can sit on my bed," Jay immediately offers as he moves to the side to make room for your presence––and it isn't much, considering the university only provided him a twin XL bed which is definitely not built for two grown college-aged kids.

If you told yourself a few weeks ago that you'd be shoulder to shoulder on a bed belonging to the guy you cringed at the very thought of, you wouldn't have believed yourself. You wouldn't have believed yourself if you said you were actually glad Jay let you stay instead of kicking you out after delivering the food. Huh.

Weird.

"You know, this kinda reminds me of when we were kids. I always carried us through those horrible multiplication tests in the fifth grade," you wink at him as you settle in the spot next to him, hands grabbing hold of the papers in his lap.

Jay let out a laugh, nudging your shoulder with his. "Hey! The twelve times table is hard, okay?"

You roll your eyes at him––a habit of yours he's noticed whenever the two of you are together, but more recently, he thinks it's been more out of fun than annoyance.

He wonders why.

When Jay had first brought up the idea of bringing you as his date to his father's company dinner, you had expected a fairly fancy five-star restaurant with a formal dress code––for you've become accustomed to Jay's lifestyle. Turns out, your expectations can continue to be exceeded. Because what you had expected to be a simple dinner with a few other business men and women turned out to be an entire party, hosted in a hotel whose interior resembled something close to a castle (Or what you assume a castle looks like, as you've never personally been into a castle yourself, but this hotel is close enough).

Your eyes sparkle at the extravagant columns and diamond chandeliers hanging high above you, and Jay smiles at the expression on your face; like a little girl being brought to the amusement park for the first time ever.

"Wow, this is...wow," you mutter as you drink in the scene in front of you: people dressed in formal attire likewise to yours and Jay's, mingling and drinking what you imagine to be beverages that cost more than your entire life's worth.

Jay laughs from behind you, "Yeah the company goes a little...extra when it comes to these company dinners."

You scoff as you look up at him. "Oh really, you don't say?" You look around and you're suddenly aware of the many people surrounding the two of you and the attention you've acquired ever since entering the building.

"Jay, people are staring." You shuffle closer to him, your voice lowering down to a whisper.

"Well, it's not everyday the son of the company's CEO brings his girlfriend with him, so...looks like we'll be the talk of the party tonight. Smiles on," he winks at you, and you just know he's loving the attention the two of you are receiving right now.

"Jay Park? Is that you?" You hear a warm voice call out from behind the two of you.

The two of you turn around to meet the owner of the voice, a middle-aged woman dressed in an evening gown that matches the pattern of high-end brands you've been recognizing ever since arriving.

"Mrs. Lee! It's so nice seeing you again," Jay cheerily addresses the woman as the two of you bow in greeting.

You internally giggle at the thought of your Jay being so picture-perfect in the eyes of his father's co-workers.

"This is Y/N," he continues, his hand finding its way to your back, protectively resting it there as you go to introduce yourself. "My girlfriend."

You swear you feel goosebumps rise from where he's lightly touching you, and more so when he introduces you as his girlfriend.

You tell yourself it's just your nerves. Yes, that's it, you're just nervous. I mean, you're in a room filled with people who could easily pay off all your college loans with just a snap of their fingers, who wouldn't be nervous? Right? Right.

"Y/N! It's a pleasure to finally meet you, I've heard so much about you!" Mrs. Lee excitedly exclaims as you turn to Jay with a slightly confused look plastered on your face. He mirrors your expression as he shrugs, moving to stand behind you completely, bringing his hands to rest lowly at your hips.

His hands feel like feathers on the thin fabric of your evening gown, so light, so delicate, as if he's unsure if he's crossing a line. It leaves you wanting more, wanting to naturally lean against him and his warmth. You quick to shake the thought of your head as Mrs. Lee chirps up again.

"Jay's father is always talking about how you've been keeping Jay pleasantly busy nowadays! Good thing too, about time this poor boy settle down for someone as beautiful as you," the woman rambles on as you feel a blush creep up on your cheeks at the thought of Jay talking about you to his dad. If only they knew.

"We should probably go find our seats, I think the dinner is beginning soon," Jay says from behind you, saving the two of you from having to listen to Mrs. Lee's story of how she's known Jay ever since he was five years old and seeing him grow into this mature, loving, young man is so amazing. Oh look! I have baby pictures.

Yeah, he was more so saving himself from embarrassment.

The two of you bid your goodbyes before Jay gently uses the hand on your back to maneuver you through the crowd of socializing business moguls.

"She's not wrong, you know," you feel Jay dip his head so he's speaking near your ear, his warm breath tickling your earlobe, as the two of you make your way through the large foyer room.

"Hm?" You hum in question, turning your head up just enough to be able to make eye contact with him as he responds to your look of confusion.

"You look beautiful tonight," he says, eye contact not breaking once. You freeze in your steps.

You stare back at him in silence. Oh.

Your mind is panicking as it flips through your mental book of responses, unsure of what to say back. But because your mind is cloudy from staring at a put-together Jay in a dark navy suit to match your dress (mixed with the nervous butterflies in your stomach––have they always been there?), the only sound that's able to leave your lips is the small stutter of a:

"Huh?"

Wow Y/N, you had one job. A simple "thank you" could've sufficed! And you went with "Huh"?

You felt like a fifth grader who just learned from a friend of a friend of a friend that their crush likes them back.

"U-um. Mrs. Lee. What she said about you. You look good, really," somehow your nervousness made its way over to Jay now––his eyes flickering from yours to anywhere, anything, else in the room––the awkward tension growing tenfold each second.

Goddamnit Y/N, this is just Jay you're talking to, get a grip.

You're knocked back into reality when he slightly nudges your back to continue making your way to the main ball room, where the dinner is being held.

"Is that a compliment from the Jay Park?" Your smirk can't be seen by Jay, since he's still trailing behind you, but he can definitely hear it through your tone.

"Don't make me take it back," he chuckles, his words felt against your neck, leaving behind a tingly sensation you're not sure why you're feeling. You're glad he's behind you, so he isn't able to see the blush creeping onto your face for the second time tonight.

Jay gives a small nod to the people behind the check-in desk stationed at the entrance as the two of you waltz right into a large ball room lined with countless circular dining tables. So much for a small business dinner.

As the two of you approach one of the tables placed at the front of the room, you notice a familiar figure seated next to the seats reserved for you and Jay.

"Y/N!" Jake exclaims as he gets up from his seat to greet the both of you. "I'm so glad you made it, Jay was so excited to bring you tonight. Deadass would not stop talking about it."

Jay lets out a noise that falls somewhere between a cough and a goose being strangled, his widened eyes warning his talkative friend to just shut up. He's silently cursing the company for always seating his and Jake's family at the same table for these events.

"Aw, is that so? He's lucky he's cute or else I wouldn't have agreed," you grin, winking at your assumed boyfriend sitting next to you.

"Hey, YOU were the one excited to come! I recall a certain someone's face lighting up when I suggested we go shopping for tonight," Jay immediately retorts.

"Only because you were buying," you giggle, causing Jake to laugh as well.

"Damn, Jay. Tough," Jake jokingly adds as you laugh alongside him. The scowl sitting on Jay's face expresses the opposite of what he's feeling right now: warmth filling him up from the sound of your laughter and the image of you getting along so well with his best friend.

"I'm gonna get us some drinks, you two have fun making fun of me," Jay narrows his eyes at the two of you as he gets up from his seat. You bid him off with a smile before turning back to Jake.

"No but really though, this boy would not stop talking about you coming tonight. Then again, he doesn't really ever stop talking about you," Jake nonchalantly says, not knowing how much he was exposing his friend to you right now.

You raise an eyebrow up in response, "Oh really?"

"Seriously! I don't know what you did to him, Y/N, but this Jay I've been seeing recently is new. He complains a lot less about life nowadays, especially on the days he sees you," he leans back in his chair as his comment brings a smile to your face. Little does he know.

You stretch your neck up to find the boy in question and spot him right as he's returning to your shared table, two drinks in hand. You lock eyes with him from across the room and without a second thought, you're giving him a genuine smile that he's immediately returning.

Your heart beats faster at the view.

You wonder why.

It's 3:07AM when you hear the first ding.

You're not 100% sure as of why you're awake at this hour on a Tuesday night––perhaps a combination of your restless thoughts and feelings not letting you sleep plus the typical stress that comes hand-in-hand with the life of a college student.

It's 3:09AM when you hear the second ding, and you brush it off, assuming it was just Heeseung spamming you with memes again––something he does often when he also can't sleep (you found this out the hard way).

It's still 3:09AM when you hear the third ding, and at 3:10AM , you finally reach over and decide to acknowledge the being who's bothering you at this godforsaken hour.

Jay [3:07AM]: Y/N

Jay [3:09AM]: hi

Jay [3:09AM]: r u awake rn

Y/N [3:10AM]: unfortunately so

Y/N [3:11AM]: why are you up

Jay [3:11AM]: come outside

Y/N [3:13AM: jay it's 3am

Jay [3:13AM]: ye and? don't tell me ur a college student with a curfew

Jay [3:14AM]: plus im alrdy waiting for u outside so u have no choice

Jay [3:15AM]: :)

You groan at your bright phone screen currently illuminating your dark dorm room.

You ponder the consequences you may have to suffer tomorrow if you stay up any later than you already have. But considering the fact that you're probably just going to stay awake lying in bed for god knows how long anyways, why not?

(And you would like to point out that this decision has nothing to do with the fact that you haven't seen Jay in a few days and that maybe a tiny, tiny, tiny, part of you may have missed his presence. Nothing.)

And since that logic is obviously valid (you really gotta work on justifying your life choices), you're suddenly grabbing a hoodie from your closet and hoping it'll be enough to keep you, who's merely in an old band t-shirt from high-school and pajama shorts, warm.

The breeze hits your skin the second you open the doors to your dorm's building, and you're met with the view of Jay's sleek, black BMW that probably costs more than your tuition. He waves at you from the driver's seat, motioning for you to get in.

"To what do I owe you the pleasure at this hour," you deadpan at him with a stone-cold voice as you enter through the passenger's side door, hoping your tone was enough to hide the fact that you're giddy at the fact he invited you out at 3AM in the morning. Like a high-school girl sneaking out of her house to meet up with her bad-boy boyfriend that her parents dislike.

The second you enter his car, you're instantly comforted by the warm air blasting through his vents and his playlist softly playing in the background. Jay's pajama pants and messy hair give you more than enough information to know that he probably just rolled out of his own bed as well. You don't know why, but your view: Jay in his oversized hoodie with his unkept hair in front of your dorm building at 3AM on a Tuesday night, gives you comfort in weird ways you can't explain even if you tried.

But it's obviously just your cloudy, 3AM mind not thinking straight. Obviously.

"When I can't sleep, I go on drives around campus. It helps clear my mind," he says, looking over at you to give you a quick smile before starting his car. "Plus, SnapMap said you were still awake, so...figured you'd wanna join."

"Oh so what, you're my stalker now? You're not driving to the woods to kill me now, are you?" You tease, an eyebrow brought up. Jay lets out a laugh from beside you as he begins to drive further into your campus.

"Guess you'll just have to wait and see," he throws you a wink before reverting his gaze back to the road, mindlessly driving to wherever the road decides to take him.

A comfortable silence falls in between the two of you as Jay continues to drive endless routes around your campus. You look over to the boy driving next to you and take in his features––you don't know what changed, but you no longer feel the same anger or annoyance bubbling within you when you're around him. You're not sure when this changed, but you figure it's just the effect of desensitization. After all, you've been spending so much time with him, you're bound to get used to it. Right?

"Why were you up?" Jay finally asks after a few minutes of just the two of you silently basking in each other's presences.

"Ah, you know. The usual. Endless thoughts running through my mind, stress from school, nothing new," you sign, giving him a soft smile followed with a shrug.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

You answer him with silence as you search your head for the answer.

"I don't know. This is kinda weird, isn't it?" You don't know why you get a sudden surge of confidence, but before you can stop yourself, you find yourself rambling on. "If you had told me a month ago that I'd be here driving around with you when it's nearly 4AM, I would've laughed in your face."

Jay doesn't know whether to laugh or scoff. "Is the idea of hanging out with me that unappealing to you?"

You give him a serious look back. "I mean, up until a month ago when you needed me for whatever this game is, you literally pretended I didn't exist."

Oh. Awkward.

You freeze at your own words, mentally screaming at yourself for letting the words leave your mouth. Why, why, why.

"Y/N..." Jay says after clearing his throat after a few seconds of silence.

"No it's fine, it was a joke," you awkwardly cough and direct your attention to anything else around you right now. The view of your campus' buildings zooming by. The clicking of Jay's blinker when he switches lanes. The quiet roaring of his car's engine. The nervous tapping of his fingers against the steering wheel.

The rest of the ride is excruciatingly silent as he exits the main road and into an empty parking lot of some administration building made out of glass that has too many floors for you to count.

You don't know why you feel your heart beating in your throat as Jay puts the car into park––why you feel uneasy. You slightly turn towards him in your seat, hoping to pick up any sign of well...anything from him.

You don't know why you feel a twinge of guilt––it's not like what you said was necessarily wrong. If you were being honest, you were slightly bothered by how the two of you seemed to silently agree not to mention your past all this time. You were always one to seek answers, to seek closure. You couldn't help but bring it up––Jay was your best friend during those years. For him to just wake up one day and pretend you were nothing to him hurt you, and you couldn't help but still wonder what in the world you did to initiate his actions.

"I'm sor–" You're interrupted with his timid voice, as if he was almost afraid to speak.

"I'm not good with people." He's nibbling on his bottom lip, fingers nervously picking at a spot on the steering wheel.

You're opening and closing your mouth, unsure how to respond. You're 100% positive you look like a fish right now. Good for you.

"I don't know why. Jake calls it commitment issues but in order to have commitment, people have to stay in my life. And people just...don't. They're all bound to leave at some point. So what's the point of putting in effort into relationships if they're just going to leave you at the end?"

You're stunned by his sudden confession, not having been prepared for such a heavy topic to arise between the two of you. Up until tonight, your interactions had always been light-hearted and easy––you guys got along well. You didn't know this is how he felt all along.

But you knew where he was coming from.

You knew what Jay had gone through as a child––his mother having left him and his dad when he was young. You remember when your parents had told you the news at the young age of 13, and you remember the pain and sorrow you felt for your then friend. All you wanted to do was go to him and comfort him, but he had already cut you out from his life by then.

"Or maybe I'm the problem. My dad barely acknowledges my existence because he thinks giving me an allowance is all the parenting I need, my friends probably only stick around because they feel bad for me, you wouldn't even be here if it weren't for the bet, and, fuck, I'm literally known as the campus' fuckboy," Jay continues, falling deeper and deeper into the hole he dug himself.

He hates this, he hates opening up and feeling vulnerable, so he doesn't know why he's doing it now. He doesn't know why he feels comfortable voicing out his fears and worries when he's around you. But he does know it's a new feeling––one he doesn't know how to deal with.

"Jay," you lace your voice with as much comfort as you can provide. None of this is his fault, you want to tell him. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything," he says with a hint of bitterness and you can't tell if it's directed towards you or the topic at hand.

You're completely turned in your seat now to face him––despite the fact that he refuses to meet your gaze, afraid that looking at you is gonna bring out the most vulnerable in him. "You can talk to me. Talking about it makes it a lot easier. I'll always be here for you, as a friend."

Jay doesn't know what it is or why, but something in him snaps at the sound of a certain word falling out of your lips. Friend. Friend.

Friends don't make his heart beat nervously whenever he's around them. Friends don't keep him up at 3AM in the morning, pondering about his feelings for them. Friends don't provide him with this new, warm comfort he's become accustomed to whenever he's around you.

Deep down, Jay knows you didn't mean to add fuel to the fire. But because he's strong-headed, stubborn, and hates how vulnerable he feels next to you, he unleashes his emotions without thinking about the destruction coming along.

"It's none of your business, Y/N. Forget I said anything. You're just a toy for this stupid game and when it's all over we can go back to our own lives and forget this ever happened."

His sudden words cut deep, but they hurt him more than you. The second the words tumble out of his mouth, he's hit with the feeling of instant regret washing over him, and the lump forming in his throat restricts him from finding the right words to take them back.

The silence that falls between the two of you this time is different. It's a cold silence. A loud silence.

Jay feels his walls coming back up around him––the ones you managed to get through––and all he wants to do is apologize but he's terrified. Terrified of seeing your reaction, terrified of losing you again. For the second time.

You tell yourself he doesn't mean it. You tell yourself that he's just enduring more pain that one should ever receive.

But you also tell yourself that this wouldn't be the first time Jay leaves you in the dust.

You tell yourself that you're foolish for ever believing a friendship, or more, could come out of this act at the end. That you're so naive for feeling those stupid, stupid butterflies you've started to notice in your stomach whenever you see, or even think of, him.

"Okay," you begin with a firm tone. You're hurt, but you refuse to show it. You won't let him hurt you for a second time. Not again.

"Just...find me when you need me. As your fake girlfriend or just...me. I'm still here for you," is the last thing you say before un-clicking your seatbelt and leaving his car, beginning your walk back to your dorm hall.

Jay is unsure about many things in life. He's unsure about what he wants to do in the future, he's unsure of where he's going to settle in life, heck, he's unsure about what to have for lunch tomorrow. But he's sure about one thing.

That he's wearing his heart on his sleeve right now, and it's all because of you.

That you've become this new lifeline and he has to choose between holding onto you or drowning.

When Jay wakes up the next morning, his first gut instinct is to get ready to pick you up for class. But today's different. Jay doesn't know where the two of you stand now, especially after last night.

Jay doesn't know how to deal with this combination of unknown emotions he's been feeling lately. They didn't come out of no where, by any means, he realizes. They've been slowly growing over the past month of seeing you so often––like a plant he's been watering overtime, not expecting it to bloom into a flower so suddenly––but he figured it was nothing more than just enjoying the company of a friend.

Until he realizes that the term friend just doesn't suite you anymore––not to him, at least. And that scares him. It scares him that you've made him genuinely smile more in this past month than he ever has in his 19 years of living. It scares him that when he's around you he can't comprehend his own thoughts, his feelings. It scares him that you make him vulnerable, that you've changed him. That you've managed to make the walls that he's spent so long building and polishing to crumble with a simple tap of your finger.

In a perfect world, Jay would have already told you all this––he would be unafraid of how you would react, unafraid of your rejection, unafraid of losing this growing relationship with you. But alas, we don't live in a perfect world. And so when Jay drives to class that day, he drives right past your dorm building.

"Where's Y/N?" is the first thing Jake questions when he enters Jay's car that morning, confused by your absence, having been used to you being in the front seat every morning when Jay goes to give Jake rides to class as well.

"I don't know," Jay mutters, unemotional eyes focused on the road in front of him, not interested in continuing a conversation that involves thinking about you.

Jake hesitates as curiosity gets the best of him. "Did you guys get into a fight or something?"

Jay's hands tighten around the steering wheel of his car. "Or something. Let's just leave it at that."

There are a few beats of silence before Jake speaks up again.

"Well, I guess this works out because I wanted to talk to you about something."

Jay continues to stare straight ahead of him, focusing on just trying to get by without mentally beating himself up at the simple thought of you.

The simple thought of you and your smile. Your witty remarks. Your stupid eye rolls. Your laughter. Your kindness. So much for not thinking about you.

"I'm calling it off," Jake's words catch Jay off guard.

"Huh? Calling what off?"

"The bet. I'm calling it off. I don't care about the textbook fees I'll have to pay next semester. Look, fight or not, you and Y/N are good for each other, everyone can see it. And I really don't want this to end up being one of those messed up teen TV shows where the girlfriend finds out the entire relationship was based off of a stupid game and then they break up and the boyfriend falls into eternal sadness and regret. And I don't wanna see you sad, dude. So yeah! Congrats," although he's admitting defeat, Jake's beaming widely, just content with the fact that his best friend has finally found happiness through the form of you. "You win."

But Jay feels like the opposite of a winner. Because even though his only intention coming into this was simply winning the bet, his life isn't as simple as it was a month ago. Because he discovered something much more valuable than some stupid textbook fees or five hundred dollars or getting his physics homework done for an entire semester.

Something he's scared he's already lost.

You.

⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺

The next time you see Jay is at the same time and place as when he first ever appeared to pick you up––at 12:17PM on a Friday afternoon, as you're exiting the doors of the lecture building home to your awfully long Capitalism in World History class. This time, however it's different.

Because this time, it's one month later, and Jay Park is no longer a forgotten side character in the story of your life. This time, you're frustrated because it's been three days since you've last heard from Jay. And because it's been three days since you've last heard from him, you can't focus on anything else, and because you can't focus on anything else, you're falling behind on every other aspect in your life. Jay's somehow managed to become the center of your life without even having to be present.

Well, up until now. Up until you go down the steps of your lecture hall's entrance and look up to be met with a figure leaning on a car you're far too familiar with. You freeze in your steps as you make eye contact with the boy you've been thinking about non-stop for the past month three days.

Your mind tells you to walk away, to just follow your flight instinct instead of fight, to just go back to your normal life. But here's the thing. Ever since Jay's made his way back to your life, it's been far from normal.

And if you're being honest, you had no interest in going back to your normal life. Normal's overrated anyways. You find your legs bringing yourself over to him, your heart leading the way.

"Hi," you simply say, planting yourself right in front of him.

"Hi."

"What are you doing here?" You already know the answer, but you want to hear him say it.

"Waiting for you," Jay doesn't hesitate in answering you. This time will be different, he tells himself.

"I can walk myself home, thanks," you state, but your actions tell differently, as you make no sign of moving from your spot in front of him.

Jay's mind contemplates telling you everything. About how he regrets that friendship-breaking decision he made that one fateful day in the eighth grade, about his true feelings, about how he first suspected these feelings when he was 11 years old and saw you in your fancy get-up for the sixth grade dance but put it off as a little crush, and about how the same feelings grew into something so, so much more in the present. But seeing that putting all these thoughts into words would involve more than one functioning brain cell (which is all he's convinced he has in the moment, for the view of you staring up at him, looking like that, has his brain short-circuiting), he settles with:

"He called it off. It's over. The bet."

"Oh."

Silence.

Okay, Jay. This is your chance. Say it.

"Is that it?" You lift an eyebrow, awaiting for more explanation. When it doesn't come, you slightly nod and start backing away. "I'll see you around then."

Is that it? Do the two of you just go back to your respective lives now? How can Jay do that, when he doesn't even recall what his life was like before you entered it––and especially when he has absolutely no interest in going back to that life?

Fuck it.

"Y/N!" He stands up straight, a newfound confidence taking over. This time will be different, he tells himself. Because now, he knows what he wants. For sure.

You turn towards him, to see him already making his way towards you, stopping in his steps when he finds himself close enough to you that he can't concentrate anymore.

"I'm sorry for ditching you in the eighth grade. I'm sorry for ignoring you since then. I'm sorry for dragging you into this stupid mess and for pushing you away and I'm sorry for calling you a toy. Because it's far from truth. I like you. A lot. And––and I'm scared. I'm scared of what this means for us, because I just keep messing things up and all I know is that I don't wanna wake up tomorrow and realize you're not in my life anymore and––"

"Woah, woah, Jay. Slow down," you look up at him, the corners of your lips threatening to curve up into a smile. "You're an idiot, you know."

Jay's never really confessed his feelings to anyone before, per say, so he doesn't really know what to expect. But he's watched enough Netflix rom-coms in this lifetime (which is still not that many) to know that hearing the words "you're an idiot" isn't what you're supposed to hear after pouring your heart and soul out. Surely not, right?

"I––I'm not sure how to respond to that," he quietly says, searching your eyes for a sign, for anything. You giggle at his sudden shyness as you grab both his arms and look at him right in the eyes.

"It's okay. I get it, if anything, I'm also scared. But you somehow got me wrapped around your stupid finger, and I hate it," you smirk at him, your hands slowly making their way up his arms to circle around his neck.

Jay's hands naturally fall at your waist as he lets out a breathe he didn't even know he was holding as he returns your smirk. "Well, I could say the same about you. And I also hate it, for your information."

"Hmm, is that so? I guess it cancels out then, right?" You smile at him as he's pulling you in so close, your head turns cloudy.

Jay grins at you, his eyes holding so much joy and endearment as they quickly flicker down to your lips before returning to your own eyes. "I guess this only means one thing then."

"Mm, and what's that?"

And before Jay can answer––and because your life's been anything but normal lately––you make the first move this time, moving your head up to close the small gap between the two of you.

His arms instinctively tighten around you as you capture his lips with your very own, and Jay swears he's about to lift off into space right now. He's on cloud nine, and he makes no plans to touch the ground ever again.

The kiss quickly becomes fervent, all the pent-up tension that the two of you had for one another finally finding its way out, all the words that were previously left unsaid finally expressing themselves. You don't even care if you're being judged by the conservative faculty members of your school right now, or by the looks of fellow students walking past the two of you.

You try your best to keep yourself from smiling as he continues to press his lips against yours, his hand moving to hold your chin, guiding your mouth with his.

Before you find yourself getting carried away, you step back to take a breath, resting your forehead against his chest as his hands rest against your back. He smiles at the sound of you giggling against him.

Jay takes a step back to take one look at you and realizes, in this moment, that change can be good. And he's willing to undergo this change. As long as it's with you.

⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺

The next morning, you bounce down the steps of your dorm building's entrance to meet the wide, bright smile of your ex-childhood-bestfriend-turned-fake-boyfriend-turned-real-boyfriend waiting for you in front of his car, small pastry bag in hand. You smile back at him.

Jay drives you to class that day.

And everyday after that.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ :

✰ let me know what you think! if u made it til the end, mwah :') <3

#finally finally finally #im so sorry this took so long #anyways #enhypen #enhypen imagines #enhypen fics #enhypen scenarios #enhypen oneshots #enhypen jay #jaypark #enhypen jay park #park jongseong #jay park #enhypen fluff #enhypen angst #enhypen x reader #enhypen jay fluff #enhypen jay angst #enhypen jay fic #jay park x reader #enhypen jay imagine #enhypen jay oneshot #jay fluff #jay park fluff #iland #iland jay park #iland jay #iland imagines #jay #kpop

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

sometime in this last week, or this week coming, my blog has turned/turns 10. god. a decade old. a whole ass chunk of my life i’ve spent on this hellsite. when i began on here, i was a kid. a lost, lonely, depressed and anxious 15/16 year old kid. a kid scared of her future. a kid confused about her future. what to do for uni. to change schools or not??? to do drama/acting at uni or english/philosophy or to move 8hrs away to another regional uni to “escape” her “washed up, dead end hometown” that was so typical of all the pop-punk music that she was listening to at the time.

she was a tad overdramatic, loud, “funny” (as described by her school friends) and terribly forgetful in regards to homework and school assignments. she was angry at the world, most especially the catholic school she was fucking sick and tired of attending. but she was convinced that since she was the so-called “funny girl”, that she simply couldn’t be depressed or anxious. she believed herself unloveable because she didn’t look like a weird mixture of hayley williams and emo-pop queen lights. but now, i no longer believe that i have to look like the women that i looked up to in the ~emo scene~. fuck beauty standards. i am loveable.

in the years since joining tumblr, i’ve managed to get through business college, my undergrad degree and, well, failed out of postgrad due to obvious burnout and health issues amongst other things. although i’ve lost many friends irl and many followers/mutuals online on here. for those who’ve stuck around to see me get through all of this, thank you. to all the friends/casual mutuals that have since deactivated or only followed me for a short time then unfollowed; thank you.

like obviously i was never/have never been a massive popular blog on here, like thebootydiaries or vampireapologist (who has since deactivated a couple of months ago) with tens of thousands of followers. my follower count is still close to the 8,000 range at 7,892. obviously that’s still a lot of people (and of course, porn bots lmao and many, many non-active blogs), enough like one super old post from like 2012 tumblr pointed out, enough for a small to medium sized city or town, or something like that. i don’t know how many people i’ve really reached. i really don’t know how i actually amassed this small army of people.

i am aware though, that on other platforms like snapchat (lmao does anyone even use it anymore in 2021???)/instagram/youtube/tiktok etc, i’d PROBABLY be considered as some type of ~micro influencer (🤮🤮)~. hell, i actually had a bot slide into my notes about being one on here on this hellsite back in 2019. i don’t know if i’ve ever actually ~influenced~ anyone on here with my shitposts (when i started making some) or my personal posts. i don’t know my reach. even though, now, i do occasionally get featured on buzzfeed listicles (although pay me buzzfeed along with the OPs of those original embedded posts), i still don’t know how many people i’ve reached… and even with my very occasional checks of google analytics lmao. on top of this, grappling with the loss of followers at times is much, much easier than it was when i began on here and the first few years following that. i know that my follower count doesn’t determine my worth and stuff.

but over these 10 years, i have grown. i turn 26 this year. back in 2011, 15/16yo me never thought she’d be here. she was partially down the suicidal thoughts hole, with things about ~picturing her funeral and wondering who’d bother to turn up. if only she could pretend to be dead for a day to see who’d give a fuck~ and 16-18yo me was defs down it with her HSC hellscape thoughts in 2012/2013. that 3rd floor tafe/tech women’s bathroom window drop and the thought of scarring her class for life (and that cool dude from catholic school that she crushed on who ended up at tafe with her) with jumping out of it onto the concrete below. instead, she just posted on fb about ~being a failure~ etc which ultimately did lose her a bunch of facebook friends lmao. it was practically the same thing. her mental breakdown after the end of her hsc, where she let her earrings go green and get infected in her ears because “fuck self care, bc what the fuck is it??? i’ll never get better! let me fucking wallow in my self loathing bc it’s the only thing that i’m fucking good at!!!” so i no longer have my ears pierced. oh! it was just all too fucking much!!

i am happier today. i no longer have those semi-suicidal thoughts. hell, i almost died in 2020 from a fucking bowel aneurysm, after my stomach tumour excision surgery. that forced me to put things into perspective. i appreciate the little things . i appreciate the very few friends that i actually have. yes. i’m still depressed and anxious. some days are still shitty and hard. but nowhere as hard and shitty as they were back when i began on here 10 years ago.

how the fuck last 10 years have gone past, with my ass on here; clearing out my blog and caring more about doing that than my uni work (lmao whoops); having made some lifelong friends both internationally (from the US) and long distance domestically in australia, it’s been a long ride; i honestly have no fucking idea. obviously over these past 10 years, i’ve debated with myself over and over and over again whether i should delete/deactivate this account or not. would it make me healthier??? more than likely. but then when i have meltdowns or just inner ramblings i have to get out somewhere, where else to post??? on fb?? obvs not. it’s “attention seeking” or the like on there. no one will read them. no one will resonate. but on here??? even if i got/get one “like” in the notes or one “yo i feel this” response in the tags or replies, it feels like i’ve reached someone??? okay yeah. i know this place IS NOT therapy and i’m not using my followers as amateur (or probs even actual professional) armchair psychologists…. which is a thing i think people need to stop doing internet-wide: but that’s a whole other post that i reblogged a few days ago lmao. i really need to get another therapist, actually lmao.

but it’s the community i’ve found hard to leave. i have what feel like friends, when i’ve never been employed (still as of yet); and when all of my irl friends/acquaintances are working and doing the whole ~adulting~ and ~grown up life~ thing right. it’s also the frenzied rabidness of spite with hating staff’s godawful ideas. the memes. oh the memes. and also the RaWrInG 20s XD emo scene reemergence on here that’s kept me here. the messy petty drama from time to time of big blogs fighting it out.

this place really is bizarre and fun sometimes. and also the fact that i can still hide behind the ridiculous “roaring pikachu” URL that i made all those years ago. i am anonymous. it’s freeing. but on fb it’s all like “WHY WONT YOU ADD A BANNER IMAGE AND TELL US 20 FUN FACTS ABOUT YOU!!!!!???? LET PEOPLE WHO HAVENT SPOKEN TO YOU IN 10 YEARS KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU BECAUSE WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE!!!” and the same goes for Corporate Hellscape Facebook™️ (linkedin) but in the professional sense instead. y’all know fuck all about me really. besides my posts. and i love that and live for that. okay yeah. y’all know more about my mental health than my fb feed obvs… which is probably a terribly unfortunate thing. but still.

over the last 10 years then, my superiority complex for being ~so original and intelligent~ or whatever the fuck i had in high school, has all but ebbed away. i’m not that smart just because i went to uni. hell, i literally did NONE of my in-class work and none of my philosophy readings in uni….. so i have fuck all idea of how i got through undergrad like that lmao. i’m not original when so many people can articulate the same thoughts that i have, but like, sometimes better, on a post (even though sometimes/most of the time the Tumblr User Hot Takes Tuesday™️ takes on here are fucking awful lmao). but still. originality is not something i really have anymore. or really had in the first place lmao.

so will i deactivate after these 10 years, like i’ve been saying for so, so long??? i honestly have no idea. but just know. thanks guise. have a nice gpoy selfie day XD. grab your wands. your tardises. grab your war paint. grab your whatever the fuck other fandom specific stuff that was one that hella cringe post from 2011 til 2015 random tumblr. that relic is as old as time itself. just as this mysterious roaring pikachu is for someone whose too loyal to leave this W E B B E D H E L L S I T E that’s just as much of a train wreck as she is. lmao.

#life #about me #shut up ilona #tumblr is legit my fucking life now #motivate me to deactivate this blog to leave the hellsite forever 2021 #trigger warning: suicide mention #tw: suicide mention

[savrenim]

hi hi hi. so I just got into the Hamilton fandom, I swear I am four years late where did everybody go, and, well. I am apparently a hamburr shipper. bcs that is my life now. anyway I saw your fic ifmlam and I swear it is my favourite of all the fics I've ever read (and trust me I've read literally thousands). I love it so so much, how do you write fics like that??? I cried about four times during the whole thing, I stayed up till 4am reading it even when I had to wake up at 7 because it is just. that. good. I could not stop thinking about it for days afterwards and ifmlam has just ruined me. I can't think of listen to Hamilton without thinking of ifmlam anymore.

on to my qursttion: is it abandoned? of course it's perfectly FINE if it is. don't let anyone tell u differently, your fic is YOURS and u are amazing.

but pls I really need closure from ur fic, it has been haunting me if its abandoned or ongoing and I've read ur other fics and they are just chefskiss and thank you so much for writing them all. thank you thank you thank you, I will never be able to thank you enough for writing this fic and for everything it's done for me. I am probably thousands of miles away but I am sending you virtual jugs through a co.puter screen right now.

(don't feel pressured to reply to this or update it flam, I know how overwhelming it can get with so many messages and after a while u get desensitized to it. u can literally reply "thx. itfmlam is abandoned" and I would still be amazingly star struck. anyway has gotten way too long and I need to sleep and I'm sorry u probably won't see this so I'm just talking to myself right now but bye!!)

and thank you so so much for writing itfmlam.

aaaah hello anon!

thank you so so much???? I am so??? honored??? that ifmlam rates so highly to you, and also that you've read my other fics??????

the answer to the "is ifmlam abandoned" question is probably the worst possible one, which is pretty much "I do want to finish it, both for the folks that still want closure as well as it bothers to me have abandoned projects that are in the public eye/ already partially published, but also, it is last on my current writing projects list"

my current actually active writing projects list, kind of in order of priority, is

I'm literally three chapters away from being Actually Fully Done with the not-quite-first-not-quite-second let's call it 1.5th draft of an actual?? full?? original?? novel?? Opus which of course then goes out to beta readers and then gets who-knows-how-much edited and then maybe beta readers again if a lot does change and then a copyeditor my mom, my copyeditor is my mom, and maybe my little brother he's one of the betas but is very good at catching typos and then I!!! get to publish it!!!! which is the single thing I am most excited for!!!!!!!!! this should be closed up in the next week or two, and then take a while for people to actually read the draft and get back to me.

I really desperately want to finish my open-but-like-90%-written fic, which means we raise it up, the final chapter of to the bottom of the river bc I realized that it was kind of incomplete, and the second chapter of a buried and a burning flame because any more work there will need to wait until the author publishes the next book in the series. this should be closed up in the next month or two.

Speedwrite the draft of the second book of the Opus series so that hopefully by the time book 1 edits are happening, I have an almost complete draft of the second book. this is mostly me side-eyeing myself about taking nearly four years to write the first book, but that is solidly in part because I had so many other open projects which point 2 is about clearing that docket. this should be done in the next year.

And then just have my major projects be, at least until books 1-5 are written and published, books 1-5 of that because that is arguably the first major 'plot arc' of the series, so if I'm looking for a pause point on writing, that's probably where to stop.

There are two or three other short side projects (a weird fun second person short story tentatively titled witch-queen, a collection of four short stories Memoirs about a not-so-evil necromancer and the shenanigans he gets up to trying to rule a kingdom, working title Perfectly Normal Recipe Blog which is a collaborative project about a perfectly normal recipe blog that definitely doesn't include anything out of the normal) that will happen when they happen

There are other projects that are on the backburner -- The Numanok Files, a series of probably 12-15 short novellas about a mercenary/ bounty hunter esque person in space whose specialty is dealing with hauntings, but, like, 80% of their jobs is actually "you are effectively a space home inspector pointing out faulty wiring reacting to solar flares/ there's a weird alien fungus/ it's carbon monoxide okay change your atmosphere filters" and 20% of it is punching ghosts; there's a post-post apocalypse novel that I want to write that I know characters and general pacing and half the setting but need to work out the other half and figure out how much aesthetic I want to commit to; there's Strangeside7 aka spacerace book that is my reaction to how much I love how Redline the anime movie commits itself to "no we are about a race, like 60% of the screentime is just fully going to be an utterly ridiculous sci fi space race"; there's even a ridiculous YA trilogy that I would have to completely transplant the setting but might end up writing because the interplay between angel-physics and physics-physics was one of my favorite things in the world. and I guess the weird ridiculous technically a sequel series to ifmlam that was going to be published as original books that was basically me having fun with 'okay I fucking love star wars prequels old rotting space bureaucracy galactic republic style' except with seers and that also still might happen because it does have some of the coolest sci fi concepts and honestly I thiiiink that's all?

but the tl;dr of that timeline is I'm trying to finish a punch of projects Right Now, so that I can write books 2-5 of Opus, and then when I'm done that (which honestly, my average fiction-writing output is close to 100k a year. if I'm concentrating purely on one project, and writing books that are about 100k, we are talking four years. although my job situation is super up in the air in that period and writing might get put solidly on the backburner as I try to make it in academia, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) I will re-evaluate which projects go next, and that's when ifmlam is likely to come up for review.

I do not have any expectations that I will make it as an original author. I'm planning on posting all of my stuff online for free, but, like. it is incredibly difficult to convince people to try out even a piece of free and easily accessibly original work even if one has a huge following, I am a very small fanfiction author, and from what I can tell the majority of the people who are interested in my work are mostly interested in me finishing ifmlam. writing is a hobby for me, and while I'm writing mostly for me--and hence the for me bit at least for the next five years is pretty solidly going to be this series that I am deeply excited about and have sunk my heart and soul into every single aspect of--I'm human, and I don't really like shouting into the void, and I expect if I spend five years publishing to absolutely no response I will either stop writing for a while and do other things gods know my life is busy enough, return to fandom in general to write some other fanfic about whatever I get deeply into, or return to a work that I actually get response to. so ifmlam will probably start getting worked on a bit at that point one way or another. unless, of course, we are in the incredibly rare timeline in which I do make it as an original author, there are people who are deeply hyped for my original works and an actual demand for them, in which case as you may have noticed there are enough ideas there to keep me busy for a decade or two, and they will just get my full attention instead of fanfiction*. in this timeline, I will do what I was considering doing a few years ago, which is officially declare ifmlam otherwise abandoned and make one more giant chapter update which is a full and cleaned up outline of what I was going to write, interspersed with the scenes already written, and have ifmlam be given at least that closure.

*I want to make it clear that I very much love fanfiction and am proud to have been a fanfiction author and in my heart of hearts would keep writing it forever, I just also have a lot of ideas for characters and settings and magic systems and Aesthetics and I have been biting at the bit to write something that is //mine// and all mine and only mine for a while, I don't see original work as superior so much as there are a dozen fandoms that I am currently in and bursting to make content about except oops these fandoms currently only exist in my head, and I want to correct that

of course given how much as writing is my vent activity and I write what I'm in the mood for, there's a chance I'll feel ifmlam cravings before then, just... expect it to take a couple of years for an update, but also for there to be an update one way of another in a couple of years? but as for right now, I'm turning to original writing, because that is what brings me joy.

but I am really deeply honored that it brought you so much joy!!! and while I will never publish spoilers in a public place, if you message me off anon I am perfectly happy to give a run-down of my current plans for the ending, bc I know "wait a couple years and see" is not the most satisfactory of answers! and hey maybe you'll be like me and once you've given Opus a try you'll decide you like it better too, it does have Seers although they are deeply different Seers than in ifmlam but imo it's very gay and fun and at least politics on one side

#my life #my writing #ifmlam

[marciaownsmylife]

purly hc - “what could go wrong”

curly sneaks ponyboy out to a concert that he is not supposed to be at

•ponyboy is stupid in love exhibit A

•the entire town was buzzing for spring break because there was a rock concert being held at the drive-in

•concerts didn’t happen often in tulsa and when they did they were usually some boring old people music the parents went to

•so just about every teen in tulsa had a ticket or knew someone or was gonna sneak in

•except ya boi ponyboy

•darry said no, and ponyboy begged for weeks and weeks but darry was not budging in the slightest

•soda was going tho, but he didn’t have school and he could pay for his own ticket

•practically everyone in the gang was going, except for darry and ponyboy

•pony was so upset over this, he had been sulking anytime anyone mentioned it, and it’s all everyone talked about, so that was a lot

•even dallas has gotten johnny a ticket, darry wasn’t too keen on that but it wasn’t his place to judge

•curly however was not only certain that he was going, this bitch had a whole ass plan to get on the stage

•and pony was apart of this plan

•so it came quite a shock to him when he tried to explain what pony had to do, that ponyboy told him he wasn’t going

•”what tf do u mean you’re not going?! how am i supposed to become tulsa’s next rockstar if ur not there????”

•pony was already in a bad mood because of the concert being mentioned so he wasn’t humouring curlys jokes (curly was dead serious tho, we been knew)

•but curly always got his way so he decided that he would just have to do a little more thinking than he was used to

•which was any sort of thinking in the first place

•curly suggested to pony that he’d just sneak out

•pony pointed out that he still didn’t have a ticket

•”leave that part to me, baby curtis, all you gotta do is be at your window”

•and so it was settled ponyboy was going

•but he made curly promise not to get on stage because if ponyboy was going he had to be careful not to run into any of the gang,

•darry had personally told them that there would be a cash reward for anyone who snitched on ponyboy, and this wasn’t just for the concert this was in general

•most of the gang didn’t really snitch that often but they all knew that the cash would be high if pony was caught at the concert

•curly was fine with it, as long as he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, whether that be sneaking pony out or getting up on stage, he was cool

•the night of the concert came and pony had gotten dressed with his pyjamas over his clothes and gotten into bed, he’d also made sure to be extra pissy that day so everyone knew he was pissed off because he ‘wasn’t going’

•which was pretty easy because being a brat was like his specialty with him being the youngest child and everything

•soda and steve has already left, so all pony had to do was wait until darry went to bed

•darry was a heavy sleeper, once he was down he wasn’t getting up until tomorrow

•but of course, he went to bed late tonight to make sure pony was asleep before him, or so he thought

•tap tap tap

•right on cue, that would be curly

•pony stripped off his pyjama layer until he was in his normal clothes and tugged on his shoes

•he opened his window, with as little squeaking as possible, to see curly with his signature grin

•”why ponybabes you look stunning,”

•”it’s the same thing i wore to school today,”

•”did i stutter,”

•they hurry to the drive-in because darry had made them late by going to bed later

•by the time they get there they missed the first song but it didn’t matter to them much, now at least all the flashing lights were already going and it would be harder for people to recognize them (more so ponyboy)

•pony had obviously forgotten his jacket because it’s what he does, so he grabs curlys because it’s fucking freezing

•after they had shown their tickets to the guy at the door, he had put X’s on their hands to show they were under 21 and shouldn’t be served at the bar

•curly wasn’t happy about this, he tried to convince the guy that he was 22, it didn’t work for a second

•they get in and decide to stay around the edges of the crowd to avoid people they knew

•pony was having the time of his life, the adrenaline of sneaking out and the excitement of being able the feel the guitar solo shake the ground was the best thing he had ever felt (bc he’s a virgin lol)

•curly was happy because pony was happy, he even managed to convince him to dance

•as the night went on the boys hadn’t seen anyone they knew, and they had even been to the bar to get water (to curlys disappointment), so they started getting closer to the middle

•curly really wanted to show ponyboy the pit before the show ended so they made their way there for the last couple songs

•this is where it gets tricky

•as another song started the singer instructed for people to get on eachothers shoulders

•curly thought this was a great idea

•and they had managed to sneak a beer each from the bar in the end so ponyboy wasn’t really at his best thinking capacity

•so pony got on curlys shoulders and it was all going fine until he looked to his right and saw johnny about three feet away from him on dally’s shoulders

•johnny didn’t see him yet so pony still had a chance, tugged on curlys hair to get his attention and motioned for him to let him down

•curly did so straight away because he thought pony was about to fall, when pony was down he pointed out johnny and dallas to curly, they were still pretty close to them

•they pushed through the crowd and we able to get away

•until pony bashed straight into his brother soda

•pony thought they were done for, his whole life was gonna be spent locked up in his room because darry was never gonna let him out again

•but he didn’t have long to contemplate his doom, before soda hurled on the ground next to him, and pony quickly put together that sodapop was absolutely shitfaced drunk, he probably didn’t even recognize ponyboy

•pony wanted to help him, but he knew if soda was here steve wasn’t far behind and he didn’t want to push his luck so he left his poor brother heaving up his dinner on the ground

•he raced after curly to catch up with him

•once they had evaded the gang they made a stop a the port-i-loos and decided they would leave now before the last song so ponyboy would be home in bed before soda stumbled in, ponyboy wasnt so sure that soda was even coming home that night but they had to be sure they weren’t caught

•two-bit finally made his appearance when they were on their way out, he was also on his way out but it wasn’t his decision

•he was getting dragged out by security for being too drunk. two had a surprisingly good memory so if he saw them he would remember it, no matter how drunk he was

•curly had spotted him just before two-bit looked their way, he was going to see them either way, so the only chance they had was to make sure he wouldn’t recognize them

•so curly did what any rational tipsy teenager would do, he shoved ponyboy up against a wall and started making out with him, covering ponyboy from view in the process

•it took ponyboy by almost complete surprise, almost because curly was a sucker for spontaneous kisses, pony just wasn’t expecting him to be so rough but then again curly had to make it look like it was some random broad he was with

•it worked, but pony and curly had forgotten all about two-bit by the time they were done, and two-bit was long gone by then

•they got back to pony’s house and snuck him through the window without waking darry and they kissed goodbye and that was that

•it like 5am when they got back and pony had to get up for school 2 hours later and he was not feeling it fam, let me tell you, this boy had never felt to tired in his 14 years of life

•darry was suspicious but pony had the perfect excuse that he didn’t sleep well because soda wasn’t there and he got a nightmare so he was covered on that front

•school however he had no choice but to go or darry would have known, it wasn’t too bad since most of the school were either taking the day off or in the same boat as him since they were all at the concert too

•the teachers knew what was up too so they didn’t really bother much that day

•he was walking home with johnny, he was honestly surprised johnny went to school today until johnny told him that he wasn’t actually at school

•he just showed up to talk to ponyboy after

•now ponyboy was like (nervous laugh) hehehehe whaaaattt ???

•johnny doesn’t fuck around, he gets to the point

•”so like are you and curly a thing??”

•ponyboy is just kinda like ‘deny until you die’

•”what? no, i don’t even know him, like, curly who???”

•spoiler it doesn’t work

•turns out johnny and dallas had seen them in the pit, they were gonna say hi after the song but curly and pony had sketched before then

•pony was like “shit when are you gonna cash in to darry and snitch on me then,”

•he had accepted his fate

•”nah man i’m not gonna do that, and it took me all morning to convince dal not to either,”

•pony’s like tf?? why not?? because if he’s being honest if he were johnny he’d be cashing in as soon as he could

•but what ponyboy didn’t know was that before he saw johnny and dallas, curly had.

•but not in the pit, behind the bar

•they had been making out

•so curly had this information that johnny had assumed he told pony about but clearly he hadn’t

•by now pony caught on to the fact that johnny thought he knew something so he played along

•they switched the subject after that, but johnny hadn’t forgotten that pony still hadn’t answered his previous question about him and curly, he decided to leave it for now

•soda had stayed at steve’s the night before and when ponyboy got home, darry was too busy lecturing soda on his drinking that night to even notice ponyboy practically passing out as soon as he got in the door

•but in the end, curly and pony counted this as a win

anotherrr purly hc because i love these boysss, my online school started back from easter break today so there might not be any more hc too soon :(((

but i have 2 more ideas lined up, one for jally and one for johnnyboy

i also kinda want to do a point of view from jally of this night at the concert idk we’ll see

#purly hc #purly #ponyboy hc #ponyboy x curly #ponyboy curtis #ponyboy #curly #curly shepard #jally #johnny cade #dallas #dally winston #the outsiders hc #the outsiders #darry curtis #sodapop curtis #steve randle #two bit mathews

[sapphosvioletts]

Well my chores haven’t ended up taking too long considering it took me the first 20min to simply find my ear phones 😂

But we were watching the Venom movie!!! I’m not sure if you’ve ever watched it, but I’ve gotten really hyped for the second movie trailers so my mum decided that we might as well watch the first one again in the meantime, so that was fun!!

Oh, and me and my cousin play on our PlayStations together!! We usually spend the first half of our nights playing call of duty and the second half playing minecraft which is always fun

I’m also excited to hear to hear your gonna try and make an axolotl as I think they’re really cool animals!!! Does sound like it’s gonna be hard to make tho, as they’re kinda fiddly shaped - especially with their weird head tentacles which probably have a proper scientific name but idk what it is 😅

And I’m sorry to hear that about your grandad, I obviously haven’t met him but he really doesn’t sound like a nice person from what you’ve said. Especially the fact that he’s most likely gonna be bringing up politics at a family get together that’s just unnecessary

That may be just me though, as I really don’t understand politics and always feel bad when someone brings it up, cause I end up sat there not understanding a word people are saying. In fact I’m pretty sure the most I’ve ever got involved in politics was last year when Donald Trump was the president, and even then that’s mainly because I was getting worried for people who were of colour or in the lgbtq+ community ((or both)) due to all the racism and homophobic/transphobic stuff that was happening

Even then though, that was American politics not my own country politics so probably need to work on that

Either way though, I hope things don’t go too badly, as you really don’t deserve that

- 🦋

omg i felt that like i take more time preparing to do something like chores then actually doing them lmaooo like i have to find my earbuds and then pick the right songs or videos to watch too before i can even do it lol

and i've never seen it!! from what i have seen he kinda creeps me out though lol it's not too scary right though?? he just looks kinda freaky lol??

and that's cool!! i used to play playstation a bit with my bother when i was younger but as older brothers do, he was annoying and rude about it so i eventually just gave up lmaoo we played call of duty but i was terrible at it and i haven't played since i was like 10 lol but i love minecraft!!! i haven't played it in a couple weeks but i definitely got hyeprfixated on it on summer break i spent like all day on it lol hope you have fun with your cousin!!!!

and yeah normally their bodies are shaped kinda weird but this pattern has them a little bit different shaped cause it's not really realistic it's just meant to be cute lol and his gills (at least from the pattern) look pretty simple, but i don't wanna speak too soon bc i'm still only cutting out the fabric and templates i'm not even on the actual assembling and sewing part yet lol

and yeah it's definitely unnecessary lol but i am more into politics, i haven't been as much into it recently because i've just been kinda busy that the last thing i wanna do is pay attention to it lmao but still i watch political content all the time and do still relatively pay attention to it

and i take classes with a college in my state online and one of them is political science so i've taken that for i think 2 semesters?? so like he knows that i actually know about politics but she still tries to argue with me on it and it's gotten to the point that i've just gotten so tired of trying to argue and correct him that i just let him talk at this point case it's not like he's even gonna listen to me anyways

i really want to know more about politics in other countries and i try my best to keep up with them, but it's hard to find a like starting point to start learning about it. but still at least for current topics i try to pay attention to other countries as well because unlike my grandpa, i don't believe that the u.s is literally the only country in existence lmao

but thank you, you're too kind 🥺

#violet replies #🦋 anon