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wannabe-fic-writer · 4 years

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Natasha Romanoff x Reader : Her Other Family

As requested by @slvt-4-bees Hope this meets your expectations and thanks so much for the request!

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1,826

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The anxiety that’s coursing through you right now would worry even the most oblivious of people.

You wring your fingers together as you pace the floor of your bedroom, thoughts running a mile a minute.

“I’m almost positive the neighbors are gonna make a complaint soon if you don’t stop.” Your girlfriend speaks, eyes watching your form.

Bringing your hand up to your face, you continue the unhealthy habit of biting your fingernail(yes just the one, on your thumb).

“Look I didn’t think it’d stress you out. You don’t have to come if you don’t wa-“

“I want to!” You cut her off,“ I just- they’re the Avengers.”

Natasha lets out a small laugh,“ I’m an Avenger.” She reasons.

“That’s different.” You wave her off.

Jokingly offended, she asks,“ how!?”

“Tasha you walk around here in light pink fuzzy socks and pout when I don’t bake you cookies.”

Admittedly, yes, Natasha is very soft for you. But having not met her other family you aren’t aware of how soft they actually are.

That is to change though, tonight at Tony’s costume party. With the man having plans with his daughter on Halloween, he planned this party so he could celebrate with his team(and it’s Tony of course he wouldn’t pass up a chance to have a party).

Standing up, Natasha steps in front of you, her hands gripping your shoulders,“ Y/N, love, it’s just a party and they are normal people.”

When you look into her forest eyes you can’t help but take in her assuring words. After a deep breath, you nod, and mentally agree to calm down and let things happen.

For the couple hours you have before the party you hang out with Natasha: helping dye each other’s hair for your costumes and then cuddling on the couch and talking about her team(you didn’t want to go in with only the knowledge you got from the media).

Soon enough the two of you are getting dressed.

You stand in front of the mirror, wiggling your hips as you pull the small red and black shorts up your legs, then tugging on the matching corset. As you’re fixing your hair Natasha walks out of the bathroom.

E/C eyes trail up the expanse of her body, over the green knee high boots, nude colored stockings, and green one piece. The plastic leafy material covers all the important parts of her body but leaves her legs, cleavage, and arms exposed.

Looking at her now, a big part of you wants to negate the whole party plan just to stay here and ravage her.

Natasha shares the same adage, biting her lip as she takes in your costume clad body. With a smile, she stands behind you, admiring how good you two look together in your costumes.

“If this party weren’t so important to the team I’d tie you to the bed right now.” She whispers against the shell of your ear.

A tingle travels through your body at her words and it takes everything in you to push away from her. It takes even greater strength to actually get out of your apartment with Natasha constantly putting her hands on your body. Even on the ride over her hand remains on your thigh.

You’d heard about Tony Starks legendary parties, you’d even treated a couple patients with broken bones who came from said parties to the urgent care clinic you work at. And all those stories are completely true.

The party is in full swing when you and Natasha arrive. People move about the large space dressed in a variety of costumes, drinks flow freely from the bar and the DJ in the far corner fills the room with music as orange lights strobe. If you didn’t know any better you’d think a teenager planned this.

At your moment of entry, you’re greeted by the first two members of her team. Clint, her best friend/brother who you’d met before, approaches in a leather Green Arrow costume accompanied by a pretty brunette in a Wonder Woman outfit.

“Nat, Y/N, you made it.” Clint wastes no time pulling you both into a hug.

You chuckle and return it,“ it’s good to see you too Clint.”

The brunette looks on curiously, urging you to nudge Natasha a little to introduce you.

“Right, Y/N this is my friend and teammate Wanda. Wanda this is Y/N, my girlfriend.”

Wanda didn’t need more explanation than that. She’d seen the illuminating grin on Natasha’s face when she’d get texts from you or the same grin that appeared when she left the compound every night. Wanda now knows the source of Natasha’s happiness.

She immediately pulls you into a hug, gushing about how good it is to meet you and how much she loves your costume.

“Thank you so much. I love yours too. Wonder Woman is a brilliant choice.”

A thankful smile plays on her face,“ oh thanks. It was suggested by Clint’s daughter. If not for her I’d be in my mission gear.”

You laugh at that, the four of you heading deeper into the party.“ Like Iron Man over there.” Natasha laughs as well.

Tony is indeed in his Iron Man suit, arm wrapped around Rhodey(who’s dressed in a black suit with black glasses) in front of the DJ’s set up.

“Did he paint his suit orange and black?” You squint trying to see clearly through the lights.

“Yes, yes he did.” Wanda nods.

An unfamiliarly smooth voice joins the conversation,“ cause he’s dramatic as hell.”

All your gazes turn to the source. A dark skinned man dressed in silk boxing shorts and a matching robe stands at the bar.

“I think he has a reason to be. Or at least the goods to back it up.” You retort.

Tony’s a billionaire and a genius. Alongside being among the heroes who saved the universe, he’s lead groups and contributed to organizations that better the world. He(if anyone) deserves to relish in the spotlight.

The “boxer’ scoffs,“ if you wanna talk about the goods to back it up why d-”

Before he can even finish, an arm circles around your waist. The familiar woodsy and cinnamon scent relaxes you,“ Wilson, always looking for an excuse to have your shirt off.”

It’s not lost on you that this is a possessive move. Wilson was clearly about to pull some corny ass line but Natasha was not about to have it. Your her girl.

“Don’t act like you aren’t impressed Romanoff.” He smirks back.

You raise an eyebrow at her, only playing,“ are you impressed Romanoff?”

Suppressing a laugh, Natasha shakes her head,“ not at all. But I’m sure you know exactly how to impress me.” Her voice drops seductively as well as her hand on your waist.

“Woah woah. Is this- is this a thing?” Wilson points between you and Natasha.

“Sam, this is my girlfriend, Y/N.” Natasha introduces you,“ Y/N this is Falcon, aka bird boy, aka Sam.”

You extend a hand to him,“ nice to meet you Bird Boy.”

Addressing him as that made Wanda, Clint, and Natasha laugh.

Luckily the laughter continued through the night. The four of you stuck close through the party, drinking(all of you except Natasha who’s driving you two home later), and talking. Sam popped up every so often to join conversations.

It wasn’t until the party started to end that you met the rest of the Avengers.

In a way that seems completely routine, the team grabs drinks, and heads to a seating area. Natasha fixes you a f/d and tugs your hand.

Tony, who’s now removed the Iron Man suit, frowns at you, that frown directing to your hand linked with Natasha’s.

“Am I missing something here?” He asks.

“Just an introduction.” Your girlfriend teases, pulling you on to the couch between her and Wanda, who you admittedly hit it off with.

Not that you were ranking Natasha’s teammates but you like Wanda the most. She’s a very genuine person, giving off a warm and welcoming vibe.

Everyone waits for Natasha to introduce you, eyes widening and eyebrows raising when she says you her girlfriend.

“Y/N that is Steve and Bucky,” she points to the blonde and brunette men in Dodgers uniforms,“ that’s Thor,” another blonde man but he’s dressed as Superman,“ and obviously that’s Tony and Bruce.”

Thor very loudly and boisterously speaks of how nice it is to meet you. Bucky and Steve make mention of how they’re glad you make Natasha happy. Bruce’s reaction is hard to put a single emotion on, but he seems okay with your presence. And Tony, surprisingly, is pretty excited to get to know you.

Over the next couple of hours you see how chaotic the seemingly put together group of heroes actually is. As drinks flow further they fall into teasing but playful banter and they include you in it as if they’d known you for years. Until it shifts to childish games, mainly being that of lifting the hammer.

Natasha whispers in your ear that it’s basically a party tradition to do so. They reason that one of them could very easily have become worthy over the time that’s passed between parties.

“Y/N, you’re up.” All eyes fall to you as Tony calls you out.

Eyes wide, you look around at them,“ what about Natasha?” You point out.

They all laugh at that, saying how Natasha doesn’t participate in this.

“Why not?”

Natasha chuckles,“ cause love, I can’t lift it.”

“Like hell! You wouldn’t know, apparently you haven’t tried.”

The team instigates it, ‘ooo’s ringing out.

Letting out a sigh, Natasha rolls her eyes, and stands. Everyone’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.

Her slender fingers wrap around the handle of the hammer, she sends an uncertain look receiving a challenging eyebrow from you, before she pulls.

When nothing happens, Tony is quick to mention that it’s rigged. For the hell of it you go over and attempt to but it doesn’t move.

Faking upset, you fall on to the couch beside Natasha,“ I thought I was worthy.” You pout.

The team watches in slight awe at how soft Natasha responds to you.

“Awe, lyubov moya, you are worthy of all the stars. That hammer obviously uses fingerprint recognition.” She presses a kiss to you temple making you smile.

“Isn’t that sweet.” Tony mocks.

Sam rolls his eyes,“ so Romanoff is soft, huh?”

The Black Widow mask slips on instantly as she levels Sam with a glare,“ I won’t hesitate to kick your ass.”

He makes his next statement as he runs away and your girlfriend chases after.

With everyone laughing at the two around you, you can’t even remember why you had been so anxious in the first place. More than anything you find yourself looking forward toy getting to know Natasha’s other family better.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff imagine #natasha romanoff #black widow x reader #black widow #marvel x reader #marvel #mcu x reader #mcu #avengers x reader #avengers #reader insert

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callisto-rants · 3 years

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Starting a new ✨series✨ that no one asked for! ( ꈍᴗꈍ)

Callisto-Rants presents...

Here's my Two Cents

Where we just throw down our two cents on how we would change a series to make it better, in our own personal opinion.

[You can Block this tag if you're not interested in this series: #Here's Our Two Cents]

Here's my Two Cents

Yarichin Bitch Club.

Ever since I had the misfortune of having that opening theme song stuck in my head because of countless memes and tiktok edits. . . I have wished for days to have the ability to create a time machine to prevent myself from saying. . .

"okay, fine I'll bite the bullet and check out the source material."

Now if you're reading this and thinking, "huh. I never heard of this series..." let me just tell you, GOD I WISH I WAS YOU RIGHT NOW.

No one was going to tell me this BL Manga about a "pHoTogRaPhY cLuB" wasn't completely INSANE? I was just supposed to find out Three Volumes Later??

Now some of y'all who have read the source material might be thinking. . .

"Okay Callisto, get over it it's obviously supposed to be a comedy it's not meant to be taken seriously 🙄"

And to that I say... I mean I guess??? But do we really need all of THAT to make it a comedy?? I feel like you could still have an entertaining comedy BL Manga without 90% of the shit that goes on in that series..... But that's just ✨my two cents✨ take it or leave it.

FIRST THINGS FIRST, here's all the stuff I'd automatically remove from this series off the bat.

💀 The Gang Bangs.

💀 Teacher x Student Relationships.

💀 In fact all instances of unconsensual acts & sexual assault committed in this manga. Throw all of that away.

💀 the fact that the term Bisexual was used as a replacement for the term switch, and had nothing to do with the sexual orientation itself whatsoever.

💀 The High School Setting.

💀 Whatever the fuck Yuri was on.

💀 90% of the hyper sexualized traits these characters had.

Now here's what I'd change to make it better... Basically here's an AU of what if it was actually a normal photography club....

Actually make it a fucking Photography Club. Not a sex club that's in a fuckin HIGH SCHOOL. Hell, you could just throw this in a college setting too, for more mature themes.

Main character, Takashi Toono a college student that's trying to get out of his comfort zone more. So he decides to join the photography club, because he thinks it's not demanding to require anything of him compared to any other club on campus. He knows completely NOTHING about photography, and doesn't have any passion for the art media. His Character growth would be learning to appreciate the art media While learning what it means to him, as well as who he wants to be as he enters the adult world as a young adult.

Yuu Kashima, can stay as Takashi's love interest. Also, I feel like all the members should have a specific style of taking photos that correlates with their personality in some way. Yuu's photography style would be something the lines of Candid photography which is a type of photography style that's main focus is to take photos in the moment or in surprise. Something he has already done when he took that photo of Takashi. I also feel like Yuu would be the one to keep pushing Takashi to love photography, and understand it's more than snapping a photo.

Kyousuke Yaguchi, can stay as the Love Rival for Yuu Kashima and overall keep his personality? It was actually pretty interesting and I liked his Character dynamics with everyone else. Kyousuke Yaguchi can also stay as the outsider that directly / indirectly influences Everyone else in the club. Causing Takashi to explore his feelings and expand his social group, and make him think about what he wants to capture in his photos. Overall the same interaction between Kyousuke & Yuu Kashima with their rivalry and brotherly relationship at it's breaking point. As well as, Kyousuke and Yui's relationship being tense with miscommunication.

Yui Tamura, I imagine Yui's photography style would be more of Adventure (capturing shots in the great outdoors, usually involving extreme sports; mountain-climbing, skiing, kayaking, sky diving, etc) & Sports Photography. Which could create interesting interactions between Kyousuke and Yui. Cue Yui trying to cover up the fact that, every time the soccer club commissions Yui to take some photos of their club activity to promote their club, all of Yui's photos are of Kyousuke playing soccer. Causing Yui to complain to Kyousuke to get out of his shots and that he's ruining them by being in all of them. So, Kyousuke just shouts back "then stop following me around with your camera, DUMBASS". Just imagine Them bickering, because Yui 100% did not delete the photo he captured of Kyousuke getting knocked out by a soccer ball to the face.

Itsuki Shikatani would definitely be in the club, but only because he prefers to have his photos be taken, more than he likes taking photos himself. He would probably be a cross dresser, who enjoys dressing up in feminine articles of clothing and posing for photos. Everyone on campus who doesn't know Itsuki personally, always asks who the beautiful woman in these photos are, the club president and vice President always just says it's one of their cousins that happen to be in town. If Itsuki had to have a style of photography, it would probably be fashion.

Toru Fujisaki. . . This one is difficult only because his Character is purely centered around Yuki's Character. . . So I'm going to take some creative liberties here. . . Probably really insecure about himself, because he feels like he's a wall flower that's really forgettable, that no one cares about. Although, it's mostly because he's shooting himself in the foot by not letting one have the opportunity to get to know him to give him a chance, in the first place. Until, he meets Yuki who makes him realize that not everyone sees him as a wall flower and someone can notice his nicer qualities about himself that he's hiding away. Toru's Character development in this AU, would be for for him to learn to love himself more and try to trust people to accept him. As well as to expand his social circle with the support of not only Yuki, but the Photography Club as well. At first I bet, he would only feel comfortable with Yuki taking his photos and modeling only for him, but over time he'd let the other club members take his photo when he gets more confident in himself. While also, developing his own style of photography, that isn't just "cute photos of Yuri", it would probably be Still Life or Portrait.

Ayato Yuri, okay first. . . I'm still not over the fact that this boy was written like a deranged feral child, that was given access to a pornhub account way too early in life. While being dropped on his head several times, before and after his first words. Anyhow. . . I feel like Yuri would fit the trope of the genius, that no one understands in any capacity. His mind is 10 steps ahead of everyone else and he forgets to slow down and explain what the fuck he's talking about, when he goes into a passionate rant about photography. With endless rambles about golden ratio, gold lighting and blue lighting, and how he needs these specific props, that don't seem to fit the theme of the photo at all to make it perfect. But despite that, his photos always come out beautifully. No one can deny that his methods might be extremely weird, but they always work out way too well to give anyone the opportunity to chastise him. Anyone trying to work with Yuri often leaves the experience with a beautiful photo in hand, but an enormous headache. Even members within the photography club can't keep up with Yuri most of the time either, he's often in his own little world that just makes sense to only him. He can be a eccentric and passionate about his hobby and goofy to not make people feel too uncomfortable with the huge distance he unintentionally places between himself and others when he doesn't bother to slow down for anyone. But, he still has a good heart to make sure everyone gets a piece of art that'll always be memorable to them. Additionally, with that being said I feel like Toru would be the few people that would consistently attempt to keep up with Yuri, when he's a light year away from everyone else in his rambles. Toru wouldn't shut down and show disinterest in what Yuri says when he can no longer keep up, he's always being supportive and encouraging Yuri to continue because he knows it makes him happy to be able to express his passion. And sometimes, Yuri will pause and explain a bit to let Toru keep up with him, because he just truly appreciates someone trying to get closer to him, without making him feel bad. I would say Yuri is a jack of all trades when it comes to Photography styles. There isn't a single style he is terrible at, but he truly excels at Abstract Photography.

Koshiro Itome I think Koshiro would fit the silent type trope, but with a lot on his mind. Always over thinking things, and although he looks calm his mind is always buzzing with 500 things at once. Because, of this the only way he can find some semblance of peace is by going out for a nature walk and letting the environment take his mind off things. He's always worries about deadlines for projects, meeting up with clients face to face for the first time, whether or not a company will like his photos he submitted, if his boyfriend Akemi is okay, what if he doesn't find anything to take a picture of or if he's missing the perfect shot right now, will the club be okay after they all graduate, what else can be learn to improve his skills etc etc. Akemi can always tell when he's actually calm and when he's just zoned out and drowning in his own worries behind his calm demeanor. Luckily for Akemi, he knows exactly what to do to make him feel better, like a life boat to his pleas for help in the vast ocean of his thoughts. Koshiro is 100% the mom friend in the club, always helping newbies out on how to properly take care of their equipment, and the general basics, stopping people from bickering and carrying around a Mary Poppins bag of useful items. "Damn I forgot to bring my infrared lens with me!" "It's okay I brought a spare, here you go." Koshiro's photography style would be Nature & Wild life, cue everyone wondering how the hell he managed to capture a photo of baby bear and it's mother so close up with such clarity with the equipment he has on him. It should be impossible there's no way he could it's just unlikely, but all Koshiro does in response is just shrugging calmly "I just slowly walked up to them, and took some photos and went my way after I was done, they weren't bothered at all." At first no one believes him, until they see the next photo of him petting the mother bear, and within the next photo of him holding the baby bears paw. I like to think Akemi is always bragging at how his boyfriend is basically a Disney Prince, with the way animals just trust him enough to let Koshiro approach to take the photos. Of course Akemi has the proof that his Boyfriend is not making any of these up. With photo evidence he had taken from a incredibly safe distance away, of Koshiro just interacting with wildlife at such a close distance. Because, Akemi was not in fact gifted the ability of a Disney prince, to be doing that shit that Koshiro pulls on a daily basis. I feel like because of this Akemi can be a bit over protective of Koshiro, always telling him to text him before he goes to work and he gets back home, so he knows a feral bear didn't devour his boyfriend in the woods. He tries his best to join Koshiro while he works so he can be at peace of mind that Koshiro is in fact safe, but they both know it's very difficult for Koshiro to focus. When his boyfriend is being incredibly cute how could he remember he's here to take photos of the wild life and not his boyfriend? That and Akemi always accidentally scares away the wildlife, when he accidentally reads the animals body language wrong as any attempt to devour his boyfriend. Akemi will lose 25 years of his life with amount of false alarms, he has encountered in those damn woods.

Keiichi Akemi, Akemi is definitely one of those smug bastards, that has an ulterative motive or an ace up his sleeve. Appearing sweet and kind until you realize it was a facade. But one way or another you find yourself wrapped up in his convoluted plans, where you're either in his photoshoot as a model or you're carrying all his equipment, while he goes from one job to the next. Akemi's photography style would be Wedding Photography & Landscape something he definitely would've picked up from the countless outings he had with Koshiro in the outdoors. Akemi's friends are almost always married or paired up together, and that's no coincidence. This man is a match-making demon, a hopeless romantic who loves to see a budding romance finally bloom. So, he can snag a fat check when they thank him for brining them together and hire him as the official wedding photographer. His intuition is never wrong about the perfect pairings and how to push the right buttons to move things along, without getting directly involved until the right time comes. Something, that will be a pain in Toono's ass down the line as he stays in the Photography Club.

Overall, I feel like this could've been a really nice BL Manga which was a love letter to the art media of Photography. As Toono figures out what Photography means to him and how he wants to use it to express his feelings. "Why do you take photos? What do you want to say in these photos and tell people without the ability of using your words?" I feel like at first Toono, would just be confused "it's just a photo what's so special about it? You take it as a cool momento for something."

But, as time goes on, and he learns why everyone in the club enjoys photography and why they're here, he learns it's more than that. Whether it be to vent something you're unable to express in words, express your love for something or someone, to tell a story, to inspire others, to feel free, to share something with someone. All these different forms of expression, will let Toono figure out what he wants from photography and how he plans on expressing it.

Also instead of the whole "have sex with someone in one month or we gang bang you against your will" dilemma. . . I feel like another suspenseful situation could have been, "Create a photo album, that will impress all of us in one month, or you have to help us all out with our next projects." Which at first doesn't sound terrible, until you remember...

Yui is a thrill seeker, and would probably push you off a cliff to snag a cool photo. Or force you to be his pack mule as you climb up serval mountains.

Itsuki would force you to cross dress and model different fashion styles to make you look like a clown for his own amusement. All the while he revels in your shame, and points out how these colors don't suit you at all, but ignores the fact he's the one who put you in that outfit in the first place.

Yuri is such a wild card that you honest to God don't know what the fuck will happen to you, it'll be like being on an acid trip the whole time. And not knowing what will happen brings you more fear than knowing what will.

Koshiro would probably bring you to a wolf den full of hungry ravenous wolves, and let you accidentally get eaten alive by a pack of wolves. While he takes pictures of puppies, without a care in the world.

Akemi... Akemi just scares Toono, he seems like the safest bet out of everyone else. But Toono knows better to trust that sweet smile. Toono would be safer walking into Satan's house than spend a day with Akemi at work. Whatever he would have planned for them if he were to lose this challenge would not be good for his sanity. He hates how he knows Akemi wants just that for Toono to know he's not going to be safe either. Akemi would probably make him cry with prying questions about his romance life. While hitting too close to home with all his assumptions about him that he can't argue back. It's losing battle from there on out.

The only problem for Toono is Everyone in this club is so different, that it's almost impossible to be able to impress them all. None of them agree, which style is better or having almost anything in common photography style wise. Toono can't just half-heartedly replicate anyone's style either, he's going to actually try and fail miserably to understand this art media better, like everyone else. I think after losing the challenge and spending time with everyone, Toono would come to really like the club and everyone else in it.

And that's my ✨two cents✨ on how this story could've been better if it didn't focus too much on the whole pwp aspect.

Take it or leave it.

#Here's Our Two Cents #Callisto Rants #yarichin b club #god i hope one day i forget this series exists #and no I don't care if there's people out there who like this series unironically y'all do you!#just wanted to rant on how i would change this story to make it less hyper sexualized 乁| ･〰･ |ㄏ #not trying to say y'all should be cancelled or something silly like that #Takashi Toono #Yuu Kashima #Kyousuke Yaguchi #Yui Tamura #Itsuki Shikatani #Toru Fujisaki #Ayato Yuri #Koshiro Itome #Keiichi Akemi #basically a huge rant post #AU where it's actually a fucking Photography Club hcs

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simpsiren · 3 years

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sticky notes: the story

mark lee x reader

introduction

main masterlist

description. you use sticky notes to get into contact with your soulmate.

genre. soulmate au, high school au, strangers to lovers au

warnings. nonee

a/n. so some people requested for a full story of this so here it is! i really liked making this because the concept is just so cute cudndn oh and i did include the same idea as what i did in my previous post but i had to change it a little so that it would fit the plot. this is a really really long ff since its a slow burn typa thing so please try to stick with me on this one HAHA anyways enjoyy! :D

“you actually believe that?”

you lift your head up from your notes to look at soyoung. she nods her head and hum eagerly. you rub your temples from seeing her respond. “i do believe soulmates exist. but sticky notes to talk to them? what’s social media for then? and how is it even scientifically possible?” you question soyoung, bringing your eyes down as you continue to do your homework.

“that’s the beauty of soulmates, ray!” soyoung whines. you shake your head. “you’re dumb to believe it without confirming the information with other relevant sources.” you mutter out bluntly. you hear soyoung letting out a ‘tsk’. “here you go again being a history student. i swear im glad i never took it.” you scoff and slam your pen on the table gently.

“excuse me, woman! at least i dont have to memorise the whole textbook and only having 5 pages of content coming out in the exam.” you stick your tongue out playfully to tease soyoung. “i cant get over the fact that valcanos didn’t come out eventhough i memorised so much for it.”

the both of you laugh, knowing that the two of you can never stop debating on whether history or geography is the better subject.

“ray complete your homework at home. we cant stay in the classroom for long you know?” soyoung stands up to get to her seat, which is 2 rows down yours since you were sitting right at the back. you liked sitting at the back. it allowed you to always be able to use your phone in case you get bored in class. you still cant believe that your teachers think you’re a good and obedient student. you figured they only assumed that due to your high grades.

you sigh “that’s true.” you turn around to grab your back that was hanging in your chair and start packing your materials. once you were done, you grab the class key and walk over to soyoung’s seat, waiting for her to finish packing. you notice soyoung has finish packing and went to switch off the lights. you allow soyoung to step out first before you close the door behind you and lock the classroom door.

you and soyoung walked down the hallway silently, you were looking out the window to watch the sunset while soyoung had her eyes on her feet. only your footsteps could be heard as almost everyone has left the school grounds except for some teachers who were working late. the school normally closes at 7pm and you’re walking out at 6:50. to break the silence, soyoung opens her mouth to start a conversation.

“okay if you dont believe me why dont you try it yourself? like write a simple introduction to your soulmate.” you raise an eyebrow as you shove your hands into the front pockets of your mom jeans. “why dont you do it?” you fought back as you huff. soyoung bites the inside of her cheek as a moment of silence passes for her to think of an answer.

“because i believe it. and you do not. so you should try it.” you smacked soyoung’s arm, making her flinch back and shouting a loud ‘ouch’. you roll your eyes, knowing you didn’t hit her hard and she was just overreacting. “brilliant excuse,so. but if its going to make you stop talking about it, i might as well.” soyoung face lit up as she jumps happily and starts skipping ahead of you. you laugh and pull the handle at back of her bag to keep her explosion of excitement to the minimum.

“you owe me brown sugar milk tea. large.” you taunted. soyoung waves her hand lazily. “i’ll buy you one after school tomorrow. but you better update me during math.”

you wanted to say how you could just text soyoung to update her, but you remembered the fact that soyoung’s mother took away her phone since she didn’t do well for this year’s midterms. although to you, soyoung’s grades were decent. unfortunately for her, soyoung has to live up to her asian mom’s high expectations. the thought of this made you want to frown, but you showed a bright smile regardless as the two of you finally made it to the school gate, waving to each other and bidding farewell before walking down opposite paths.

once you arrived at home, you took out your phone from your back pocket. you saw a notification from your mother saying that your parents would be home late. you shrug your shoulders as you walk to your room. “as always.” you breathed out.

you did your normal routine of showering and eating leftover dinner that you needed to heat up at the couch while you completed one episode of the anime series you were so hooked on. you continue watching but with the amount of homework you have, you might finish them all by midnight if you dont slack.

you turned off the tv and washed your plate before heading into your room. as you close the door behind you, your eyes immediately went to your desk, which was pretty messed up since you had a test to study for yesterday that you completely weren’t prepared for and had to squeeze in as much information as you can. hence, the scattering of notes and textbooks.

you stroll over to your desk and sat down. you take out your homework from your back which was beside the desk. looking at the stack of homework, you groan in despair as shove it to the back of the desk till it hit the wall. “ah fuck it! im just going to ask kun for help.” you admitted your defeat depsite thinking you would be able to gain some energy from your dinner. you also thought about how you’ve done your homework in the morning plenty of time so i shouldnt be a problem unless kun doesn’t offer his help.

you jump to your bed and lay down, bringing your phone out and immediately start scrolling through instagram. as you swiped your finger up to look at the posts of the people you follow, you stop at one. a picture of a couple who met through the sticky note theory. or so they claim. your thumbs hover over the screen as your eyes look up to the ceiling, starting to remember what soyoung asked to do to get your bubble tea.

yoy tap your index finger on the side of your phone as you constantly started to think whether you should do it or not. you’ve heard the rumours. but are they even true? the more you thought about it, the more intriguing the idea got. but at the same time, you also thought of how stupid it sounded and was probably made to fool people.

after contemplating and having in a debate in your head that felt like forever, you finally place your phone down beside you and take a deep breath. “ill do it.” you groan to yourself, letting curiosity take over your other feelings.

you gather up your strength to stand up from your bed and walk over to your desk. you push all the papers and textbooks aside, grabbing a yellow sticky notepad from your stationery organiser. you had other colours too like pink and purple, but you figured that you should go with the classic.

pulling out a random pen that was laying in between the pages of one of your textbooks, you tilt your head to the side as you start thinking of what to write, unconsciously biting the end of your pen in the process.

you bite the side of your cheek and shrug, deciding to go with the plan of writing whatever that comes to your mind.

um hi? i dont even know if you’re going to see this. its funny, really. i heard a rumour that you can communicate with your soulmate through sticky notes. it’s probably just fake news and im writing to a nobody. that would honestly be embarrassing but it’ll be like love letters.. to myself(?) or my soulmate. write back? haha

you read over what you wrote an endless amount of times, thinking if you should make changes. you groan and immediately stick the sticky note onto your wall, giving up on giving second thoughts about what you call this ridiculousness.

you went about your night, forgetting you have left the sticky note on the wall. as you were on you bed scrolling through tumblr at 2 in the morning, you hear something. it sounded like a piece of paper had fallen from your desk.

unable to see in complete darkness, you turn on the flashlight from your phone and walk around your room, trying to find whatever it is that fell. it didn’t take you long to find a small yellow sticky note that you accidentally stepped on.

you pick it up, remembering that you wrote on the sticky note and thought that it was yours. however, once you were able to get a closer look, you noticed that the words on the sticky note have changed. so has the handwriting.

holy shit. i dont know what is this. but apparently a sticky note appeared on my wall saying i have a soulmate. my friends told me i should write back because of some rumour. so here i am trying. hi im mark. i dont know your name, but hope you’ll tell me once you recieve this. you’re in luck because apparently the rumour is true. im just as crepped out as you are.

you froze in your spot. your fingers shaking as you read the note again. you scratch your head. being too tired and unable to think straight at 2 in the morning, you place the sticky note on your desk and went back to bed to play with your phone. you soon forget about the fact that your soulmate has replied to your message that you have written on your sticky note.

as you got ready for the next period which was math, soyoung immediately runs over to you, dragging the chair from the desk beside you and taking a seat. you flinch a little when you suddenly see her close to you.

“so did you try it?!” soyoung asks, her voice filled with enthusiasm . you brushed a few pieces of hair behind your ear, nodding your head as you take out your textbook from under the desk. “did you get a reply then?”

your mind started to take you back to the mysterious encounter that you had last night. “mhm.” you reply simply. “though the only thing i remember because it seems to be the only relevant information is that the person’s name is mark.” soyoung gasped loudly, making you crease your forehead as you watch her overreacting again.

“your soulmate’s name is mark then.” soyoung concludes, folding her arms confidently as if she made a great discovery. you laugh, rolling your eyes sarcastically. “isnt it obvious?” soyoung frowns fakely.

your mouth gapes open as you hit soyoung’s arm lightly. “buy me my milk tea!” you demanded with a wide smile. soyoung places her notebook on your table and nods constantly. “i will you addict.” she groans. you happily say thank you as your teacher comes into the classroom and class began.

“what are you going to do about it now though?” as you recieved the question from soyoung, you kept silent for a moment, giving time to think of an answer.

“ill write something back? i dont know.. ill have to read the letter again when i get back home.” you whispe to soyoung. she nods in reply as the two of you payed your attention to the front again. it surprised you that soyoung was paying attention but you only assumed that she wanted to do better in class and shrug your shouders, writing down the notes youve missed while talking to soyoung.

as for you, your concentration in class dipped slightly because now, the thing that is occupying your head the most is the thought that the sticky notes theory might actually be real and you cant say its not possible anymore, making you even more shocked than you did last night.

lucky for you, today is the only day of the week where your class ends the earliest, along with two other lower ranked classes. you and soyoung quickly pack up to go to the mall to get your reward. after soyoung buys you your drink, you and soyoung went your separate ways.

after about 30 minutes of taking the bus and walking, you finally arrived at home. you place your drink on the living room table and proceed to place your bag in the room and head for the showers.

once you were done showering, you walk out of the bathroom to head to your room while drying your hair with a small towel. opening the door, you enter and went straight to your clothing rack. just when you were about to grab a shirt from the hanger, you heard the same noise last night. another piece of paper has fallen on the floor.

you turn your head and look down. this time, you found another sticky note right in front of your feet. the colour of the sticky note changed from yellow to a light blue. you tilt your head as you pick up the stick note from the floor, finding it odd as you wonder how the colour of the sticky note changed.

you take a deep breath before reading it, noticing that the handwriting was similar to the one you read last night. a little messier, but still readable.

hi again.. im not sure if you’ll recieve this since its the afternoon and i know people are busy with work or school. i skipped school today so haha. um i just wanted to write to you, despite me not knowing a single thing about you. its odd really. its like i feel the need to write something to an unknown identity that people assume to be my soulmate. i still dont know your name, so i hope youll reply soon. take your time and take care :)

- mark

“skip school? what is he, a bad boy?” you scoff to yourself. you try to take in whatever’s on the note, but another thought comes to mind. you walk over to your desk and saw that the yellow sticky note with mark’s reply was still there. you find everything about this weird and just odd in general. a lot of questions sprouted, but you didn’t want to think of it since you were afraid you would complicate your thoughts and just throw yourself into a stress hole.

you continue to dry your hair with one hand while the other held onto the light blue sticky note. you bit your lip and gulp. after letting out a long sigh, you place the sticky note next to the other one and changed into your clothes, as well as bringing your drink from the living room table to your room, placing it on the desk as you sat down.

you take out your pencilcase from your bag and brought out your fresh new black pen that you just bought at the school’s stationery store. the previous pen you had was full of ink till soyoung was dumb enough to drop it, spoiling the pen and was unable to be used again.

peeling off another yellow stick note from the stack at the edge of your desk, you were about to put your pen on paper when you realise you dont even know what to write. what do you say to this person you barely know about? you continuously tap the edge of the pen against your desk as you take a sip of your drink. you look over to the two sticky notes with the messages that the person has left. its funny how you have to think so hard just to write a short message.

hey again. i actually ended school early today. my name’s raven. but my friends call me ray. i honestly don’t know what to say to you. im still dumbfounded over the fact that you’re my soulmate and we’re here communicating over sticky notes. the world really does work in a strange way. if you dont mind, i guess i want to know how old you are and you’re education status?

you held out the sticky note in front of you and sigh in satisfaction. why? it’s because of your neat handwriting. it was always a trait of yours that you deeply appreciate. you place the sticky note on the wall and advert your attention to the other sticky notes, placing them on the wall beside the new one you have just written.

“will this drive me insane? i might end up with a whole wall of this.” you say to yourself, rubbing your face with your palm before going to your bed and laying down, wanting to have your evening nap.

“this is awesome!”

“no its scary.”

mark and his group of friends stared at the sticky note that has a message written with beautiful handwriting. mark flinched when he felt an arm on his shoulder, turning around to notice it was chenle’s. “when did you write your previous sticky note?” renjun suddenly asked. mark tilts his head as he tried to find an answer.

“less than an hour before you guys came i guess?” mark shrugs, standing up from his desk and taking a seat at the edge of the bed beside jaemin and haechan. “this raven girl is your soulmate then.” chenle walks towards mark and stands in front of him. mark nods slowly. the room grew silent again with everyone having the similar thoughts.

“you know what would be funny?” haechan smacks mark’s thigh, the sound making everyone turn their attention to mark and haechan. “what?” mark asked with a sigh, running a hand through his hair.

“why dont we prank her and say you’re a sugar daddy and live in a mansion?!” everyone gave yuta weird looks, making haechan laugh hysterically. “are you crazy? do you think i want to chase my soulmate away?” mark scolded haechan, smacking him hard on the chest, resulting in haechan’s back falling onto the bed.

“you’re always asking for a beating i swear.” renjun comments, walking towards haechan and balling his hand into a fist and acting as if he was about to attack. jaemin laughs to try and calm them down. “kids let’s not fight.” jaemin announced, looking over to jeno only to find him standing there watching quietly.

“go ahead, mark. you should write something. we cant keep her waiting.” jeno finally spoke up, grabbing the sticky notepad and a random pen from mark’s table and passing it over to him.

mark stared at the blank paper while the others were talking about what to have for dinner. it didn’t take him long to decide what to write. when mark starts writing and began to be in full concentration, everyone crowds around him to see what he’s writing.

sup raven! i wont call you ray since we aren’t friends yet. im still shocked. like the possibility of things like this being possible is just another possibility that can possibly happen. but anyways, to answer you question, im a high schooler from dream high. im in my third year. its kind of awkward for me while im writing this since my friends are reading every word im taking down. i guess i should ask you the same question back then. hope to hear from you soon.

“will you guys stop being nosy?” mark groans, standing up and pasting the sticky note on his wall, along with the other sticky notes he received from you. “you didn’t have to say that we’re here.” haechan retorts. mark rolls his eyes. “jesus..” mark mutters under his breathe. “anyways, yall are paying for dinner since you guys bribed me to write back.” mark sticks his tongue out playfully and runs out to the living room. everyone follows suit.. except for jeno.

jeno slowly walks towards the wall and leans forward to get a closer look of the sticky notes, specifically the two others beside the new one that mark just wrote. “raven? why does that sound so familiar? the handwriting...” jeno brings his finger up and lightly hovers them over the uniquely written words. it looked like calligraphy, and retro looking. jeno felt as though he had seen it before somewhere, or knew someone who wrote like that.

jeno snapped out of his deep thoughts when jaemin called out to him, making him walk towards the door and glancing at the sticky notes once more before joining the others in the living room.

you were currently video calling your friends when you heard the crackling of a piece of paper. of course you knew what that meant. you peered down the the floor from your bed and reached your hand out to pick up the sticky note. “ray?” doyoung called out to you when he noticed your face wasnt on screen. you lay back down on the floor and brought your phone up to show your face.

“what was that sound earlier?” lucas asked, currently sounding hyper. “the mysterious mark sent me another sticky note.” you reply sarcastically, waving the sticky note to the camera to let everyone look at it. everyone nodded their heads at the some time, some letting out a long ‘ah’ as well. “read it out loud!” yuta shouted.

“the fuck no!” you shouted back. you stared at the sticky note, but didn’t bother to read it. you thought of doing that once you’re done video calling them.

“how was today for you guys?” you asked, wanting to know how they’re doing.

“its tiring! we had dance practice, then we have to do recordings for our new albums. we barely get any sleep.” ten whines, his tone filled with stress. you laugh loudly. it made everyone frown and pout. you sigh. “pursuing your NCT world domination is never easy.” you commented, highlighting the word ‘world domination’ with a change of tone.

everyone lets out a long sigh and started to complain one by one, making the whole video call chaotic for almost 10 minutes. you could only smile and shake your head.

after about an hour or so of talking about basically everything and catching up with each other, everyone decided that they should end the call here since it was beginning to get dark and they needed to start practice soon. you bid your goodbye to them once more and ended the call.

you now adverted your attention to the sticky note. reading the letter, you raise both eyebrows. “dream high? that’s not far from here..” you mumbled to yourself. you started to think about everything you know about dream high. you know it’s was about an hour’s journey from where you live. it wasnt really well known either. the overall vibe of the school was mediocre.

however, you felt like you were missing something. something about that school is somehow related to you. you just couldn’t think of an answer despite squeezing all thoughts that you have in your brain. you groan and stood up from your bed and to your desk, proceeding to wanting to write a reply to mark.

hey. sorry if you get this quite late. i was busy video calling my friends. to answer your question, im a third year as well from jookin high. i would ask for your number so we dont have to do this all the time but my friend would scold me saying “but you’re removing the fun out of it.” but anyways, mark aka my soulmate, tell me about yourself, to start off.

you stick the note onto the wall, looking at the row of messages you’ve had recieved so far. you found it weird how the first time you’ve sent the note and got a reply back, it was on the same sticky note, just different handwriting. but you had to write on a new sticky note to send a new message only to get the same sticky note with a different message in return.

you only see his answers lined up on your wall. you started to wonder how this mark guy looked like. is he good looking? what are his hobbies? his attitude towards school? you really wished you could just text him through instagram and not have to go through all this trouble. but that option would earn you a large smack on the back by soyoung and your really didn’t want that.

“do we really need to be here now? like now?!”soyoung whined, while pushing the cart and following behind you while you tossed some packets of frozen bacon. you stopped walking and turn around, nodding your head intensely. soyoung groans and took out her phone, proceeding to use it while still pushing the cart.

you walk around the supermarket, trying to find the ingredients listed on your notes in your phone. it was the weekends and you’re parents were going to be away for a business trip for a week so you thought of inviting soyoung over and making home cooked meals as a bonding session for you two.

after about 30 minutes of gathering the ingredients and having soyoung constantly screaming and fangirling over tiktok edits of jaehyun from NCT. one note: she has yet to know that you know them and that they’re your friends. you figured that it would be best to not let anyone know so as to avoid any situation that would put your friends in a tight spot, since well they’re idols, you were looking for one last item that you had trouble finding.

“soyoung help me! stop watching tiktoks!” you groan, snatching soyoung’s phone away and shoving it in her back pocket. soyoung rolls her eyes lazily and the two of you proceeded to scan the different isles and shelves, looking over every item.

while you were too concentrated looking at the bottom shelves, you felt that you have bumped into someone. you squat down, letting out a soft ‘ouch’ before standing up and looking to see who you bumped into.

“wait. jaemin?” you furrow your eyebrows as you tilt your head, pointing your finger at the guy in front of you. “raven!” you noticed that it was jaemin after all, and both your faces lit up and the same time, grinning widely at each other.

“uhhh..” soyoung says out loud, you and jaemin turn your heads to face soyoung who was behind you. “oh! this is jaemin. we used to be neighbourhood friends before he moved out 4 years ago.” you introduced jaemin to soyoung. jaemin nodded and gave her a bright smile. soyoung only shrugged her shoulders and took out her phone. you turn your attention back to jaemin.

“why are you even here? dont you live quite far?” you ask, your fingers interlocked behind your back. jaemin nods, running a hand through his hair.

“well yes. but we came here to find something that only this supermarket sells.” jaemin replied back, his warm smile never leaving his lips. you smile, reached your hand out to ruffle his hair, laughing softly afterwards. “we? who’re you with?” you stared at jaemin with eyes of suspicion. jaemin started pinching your cheeks, making you whine and begging him to let go.

“with my friend, ray chill. im still single.” jaemin pulled away and folded his arms, pouting. “im sure you’ll find one soon.” you reached out to ruffle his hair and give off a wide smile.

while you and jaemin were catching up and being in your own world, soyoung got too bored of watching the two of you and decided to walk around the supermarket, leaving the cart behind you.

just as she was looking at the drinks isle to get her favourite sweet drink, she sees someone picking up a bunch of bottles one by one and placing them back on the shelve. out of kindness, she decided to help, picking up a bottle and placing it on fhe shelve before looking up to face the guy, who had a straight face while looking at her.

“i was just trying to help. im soyoung.” soyoung smiled, reaching her hand out and waiting for thr guy to greet back. he looked at her but doesn’t respond, proceeding to pick up the last bottle that was seen on the floor. “im jeno.” jeno stands up and nods his head to greet soyoung. soyoung nods back, walking down the isle to grab her drink from the shelve. “have a nice day.” soyoung says before leaving the isle and disappearing out of jeno’s sight. he only shrugged in response and went to do his own thing.

“you met who?!” haechan asks as he takes a sip of his ice cold water. everyone had their heads turned to jaemin, who raised an eyebrow at everyone’s weird expression. “i met my old friend raven. what’s so shocking?” jaemin asks back casually, picking up a few pieces of fries and dipping it into the sauce before shoving it in his mouth.

“dude that’s the name of mark’s soulmate!” haechan screams, making everyone flinch due to the loud noise. “i highly doubt it. there’s plenty of girls in the world with the name raven.” jaemin protests with his mouth full and chugging down gulps of coca cola.

“i mean that’s true. jeno you were with jaemin, right? dont you suspect anything?” renjun starts to question jeno, who was silently playing with his phone. looking up at the others, he gulps.

“i didn’t know he met his friend. i was picking out drinks. i just met a girl named soyoung.” jeno shrugs, taking a bite of his burger. mark scratches the back of his head, now starting to think of the fact that jaemin might have met his soulmate. though he also thought about how that could not be totally possible.

“nah i dont think its her. like really ‘raven’ could be anyone.” mark says, siding with jaemin. haechan tilts his head in awe. “jaemin do you know what school she’s going to?” jaemin only shakes his head.

“i lost all contact with her when i left her neighbourhood. plus we were young. i barely knew her honestly.” the living room falls silent, everyone trying to think of a conclusion to this.

chenle groans, standing up from his seat and slamming his hands on the table, gathering everyone’s attention as their heads shot up. “instead of pondering as if yall are solving some crime, why dont mark just ask her through the sticky note god dammit?” chenle pinches the bridge of his nose.

everyone’s mouths gape open as the room was suddenly filled with ‘ah’s all over. chenle shakes his head. everyone was now looking intensively at mark. mark furrows his eyebrows. “okay guys hold up ill grab the stick note.” mark stands up and takes one bite of his burger before going into his room for awhile and coming out with a sticky note and a pen.

jaemin noticed jeno being silent the whole way. and althought thats normal since its jeno’s nature and personality to not be so outspoken like the others, jaemin could sense that jeno was off and seem to be in deep thoughts.

and jaemin was right. jeno couldnt stop thinking about jaemin’s encounter with ‘raven’. the name sounded so familiar. he tried to recall every girl he has came into contact with during his life. why did he feel like the name was tied to the handwriting he saw on the sticky notes?

“jeno.” jaemin nudged him in the shoulder. jeno mumbled a soft ‘oh’ before turning his attention to mark just like the others. “she didn’t send me a reply after my last one though.” mark says, looking up.

“its fine. she probably didn’t see it. just write already.” chenle says in anticipation. mark shakes his head. “calm the heck down its not like we can get an answer immediately.” mark rolls his eyes and began to write.

hey raven. um i know this may sound weird. but have you gone to a supermarket and met a guy names jaemin? im not a stalker i swear. its just that he’s my friend and apparently you know him. though i dont think that such a coincidence and come by just like that. hope you hear from you soon.

jeno stared at the sticky note that mark proceeded to place at a random wall of the living room while everyone continued to eat and chat. his thoughts finally linked and a imaginary lightbulb appeared on above his head when he finally realises why he was so drawn to mark’s soulmate.

you were focused on wanting to solve a math question when the sticky note above your desk’s wall had fallen in front of you, revealing a new message. you place your pen down and let out a sigh, remembering that you hsve forgotten to write a reply and that mark probably sent you another one.

you tied your hair in a messy low bun before picking up the sticky note to get a closer view. you blink your eyes rapidly as your eyes furrow in awe. what the note said really shocked you and made you freeze in your spot. jaemin is friends with your soulmate? there’s no way.

you sat there for awhile as you constantly read over the words, still in shock with your moutb hanging open. you just couldn’t believe it. was it really what it seemed to be? another thought came to your mind as well. the thought of just who is this friend of jaemin’s? could it be mark? was your soulmate literally in the same place as you yet you never knew?

you grab a fresh new piece of sticky note and proceeded to write a reply after staring at it for so long and thought that it was finally time that you do something.

okay what you wrote really was weird. jaemin’s my old neighbourhood friend. its such a coincidence how you know him. i guess the connections are there. so haha yeah. damn. im very mind blown right now.

you take a look at your handwriting again, smiling to yourself. “i really do love my handwriting.” you mumble under your breath. you stuck the sticky note on the wall and resumed doing your homework, hoping that mark would reply soon.

while the boys were immersed in the horror movie they were watching on friday night, everyone turned their heads to each other when they heard the noise of a piece of paper falling onto the floor. in unison, everyone turned their head to where the noise came from and seeing the sticky note that fell.

jisung grabs the controller and pauses the movie. “we’re watching a scary movie and creepy stuff like that happens?!” jisung asks, stuttering out of complete fear.

mark decided to be the brave one after seeing everyone’s terrified face and stands up to pick up the sticky note, going back to take his seat on the couch soon after. “d-does that always happen?” mark shrugs. “well duh. that’s how i know she sent a reply. it wouldn’t be this scary if we weren’t watching a horror movie.”

everyone’s heads once again gather around mark as he read the note out loud. everyone gapes their mouth open, some covered their mouths while jeno could only stare at it in disbelief. “i guess we’ve confirmed its her.” mark breathes out, placing the sticky note on the table.

jeno reaches out to grab the sticky note to have a look. the unique handwriting that he suspected would belong to you really was yours. out of anger, he tears the sticky notes into two. everyone had their eyes widened at jeno’s sudden shocking action. mark snatches the now torn note back, looking down at them before facing jeno.

“what the heck was that for?!”

“dont talk to her anymore. she’s trouble.”

everyone lets out a sigh in unison except for mark, looking at everyone’s weird reaction. “what do you mean trouble? and why does it look like you all know something except me?” mark furrows his eyes as everyone exchanged glances continuously for a moment.

��she’s just not someone you should be with. that’s all.” jeno stands up and walks to his room, slamming the door shut and produring a piercing noise. the room was silent for awhile until mark speaks up.

“what am i missing here you guys?”

no one replies.

“we’ve been friends for a year and you guys are all keeping secrets for me?” mark scoffs in disbelief, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“we arent in the position to tell you. its jeno.” jaemin murmurs under his breath, looking down on the ground just like the others.

marks keeps silent and stands up from the couch, the palm the torn note was in is balled into a fist as he goes into his room as well.

haechan sighs. “jeno has to tell the truth. he’s been holding onto that grudge almost forever now.”

everyone nods their heads in agreement. “if not, he’s going to live in despair now that he knows she’s his best friend’s soulmate..” jisung adds on.

everyone could only silently hope that things could go well.

after that day you’ve sent a reply, you havent heard from mark since. you dont know why. due to your lack of information on him, it felt as if he disappeared into thin air. although only a week has past by, you felt concerned and somewhat worried for him. did something happen to him? what made him cut off his connection with you? its not like you did anything wrong.

out of pure desperation, you decided to skip school today. youve never skipped school before, and you felt so rebellious and bad. why did you do this? so you could go to dream high and meet mark in person. youve had enough of the sticky notes. you just wanted to see how he was like in real life, not having to think about it through notes.

with a little help from jaemin by texting him on instagram, you knew that mark’s class should be ending by 4pm, and you were there at 3:50 in the canteen where jaemin told you to wait. funny how the security guard lets a student from another school come in with a pass or anything.

you slowly start seeing groups of students going down the flight of stairs that lead to the canteen which had a path leading to the front gates. some eyes glanced at you as they notice someone who doesnt belong at their school, you couldnt care less though. your thoughts were only filled with mark. how he looked like, how he would carry himself. your anticipation was the only thing you felt.

you wore your headphones yet you could suddenly hear a lot of squealing and shouting. you look up, turning you attention to the stairs. a large group of girls crowding around another group of people, who you assumed to be guys. you scoffed, thinking about how there’s always that one group of good looking guys all girls seem to go crazy for. you watch as the group of guys push through the large crowd.

once you got a closer look, you tilt your head to the side. you slowly bring your headphone down from your ears and let them rest on your neck, getting intrigued by how the girls were getting so crazy, even more crazy than the ones from your school.

“its mark! he’s so cute!”

you widen your eyes as you heard the word ‘mark’. you stood up from your seat, peering your head up to find which one is the girl referring to. you only see two guys walking. one smiling sheepishly while the other kept a straight and cold face. just which one is mark?

suddenly, you felt an arm grabbing yours and pulling you back. you jump out of fear and turn around noticing it was jaemin. you calmed your breathing as you look at jaemin.

“meet mark under the block nearby. its too hectic here for you to talk to him.”

jaemin dragged you out of the school grounds and to a secluded block where only a few students where walking past and left you there. you were lost in confusion but decided to trust whatever jaemin was doing, sitting down at a random bench.

“jaemin told us to meet him here where is-”

“raven.”

“what?”

you immediately stood in front of the two guys you saw at the canteen as you notice a familiar face. you werent able to get a clear look at them before, but now you realise that you knew one of them. “jeno..” you look at a different direction a you tried avoiding his gaze, though you knew you couldnt, forcing yourself to meet his eyes.

mark looks at the both of you, utterly confused as his attention shifts from you to jeno constantly. “this raven?” mark points at you, tilting his head. you nod slowly as your turn your head to face mark. you observed his body up and down. he was good looking, just like jeno.. yet his aura told you that he was way more outgoing and open than jeno.

“you look...”

everyone was silent.

you gulp in nervousness. “im busy. bye mark.” before jeno could go, mark pulled on his arm to bring him back to stand beside him, earning a glare from jeno. the one you could never forget. “stay. i know something happened. you were always quiet whenever we talked about this girl. and i also know you all kept something from me.”

you slowly turned to jeno. you could he was annoyed whenever he looked at you. you felt it through his eyes, and it was terrifying. jeno took a deep breath in, folding his arms and placing his weight on one leg.

“if you remember clearly, chenle told you that before we became friends with you, we had a fight and didnt talk to each other for a long time. we didnt tell you this, but it was her who caused it. she brought chaos into our group. everyone forgotten about it clearly, but i cant. after what she did.. i cant forgive her.”

you opened your mouth, wanting to reply but your words were somehow stuck in your throat. you didnt exactly know what to say or do in this awkward situation.

“it.. it was a long time ago jeno, please. my feelings for you were real, even if we werent meant to be. i dont know how many times you need me to say sorry.” you pleaded, biting your lip as you waited for jeno’s reaction.

jeno sighs and runs a hand through his hair as he lets out a huff of rustration. “then why did you leave? you left me stranded, and because of you, i almost left my friends becaused i lived in agony since i missed you so much. i almost pushed everyone away.” you shivered as jeno’s voice started to raise.

you also glanced at mark, who still kept his confused expression on his face. through his gaze never left you as you felt his eyes scanning you body up and down.

“you two used date?” mark asks. you nod in reply.

“we were kids. we didnt know about all this soulmate stuff. but now..”

“you know what? be together. im not going to leave my friends just because of my pent up grudge and feelings. i cant control fate either.”

years had now past since you met mark. it really was fate. the two of you became close in no time and now.. you were fianally married. you couldnt be more happy to be with mark. who you were destined to be really was made for you, and you only. and to think this all escalated due to a note you sent out in pure curiosity.

you still remember what happened with jeno after that day, despite the lack of interaction between you two, jeno was open enough to accept you as his friend again. you are now living a happy life with mark, and always being able to hang out with his group of friends. today was no different.

“haechan get the chilli sauce!” you hear mark shout as you smile widely, feeling his arm snaking around your waist to pull you close. having a barbeque was a great idea to celebrate jisung’s birthday.

you soon see haechan with the bottle of chilli sause, placing it on the table where everyone gathered around the table which had jisung’s birthday cake. “before we do anything with the cake, let me announce my wish.” jisung announces proudly. you raise an eyebrow. “you cant say you birthday wish out loud!” you scolded jisung, but everyone laughs.

“his wish is something we all know.” jeno says, winking playfully at you. you tilt your head in confusion when you suddenly feel mark’s arm leaving you waist. you look over to mark who was shoving his hand into his pocket as if to find something.

you were completely clueless when mark nods towards jisung, to show some kind of signal. “i wish for mark and raven to get married!” jisung shouts.

you gaped your mouth open in shock when mark pulls out a small box, opening it in front of you to show a ring. you cover your mouth in disbelief. “did you guys really-”

“please marry me, raven. my sticky note soulmate.” you hear everyone clapping s a tear of happiness drips from your cheek. you quickly wipe it away as you heard the nickname that mark gave you. “we wouldnt normally do this but it was jeno that suggested this.”

you look over to jeno who had a soft smile on his face as he nod his head. looking back at mark, you grin widely as more tears started flowing out. “of course ill marry you, you dork.”

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spiritualgateway · 3 years

Text

We are not impressed

wiritten by Steven Black:

Welcome.

This is mission control. We come with greetings from home and some thoughtful words. When we wrote you in the manual to act like natives on Earth and act just as narrow-minded, alarmist and ignorant as the majority of this planet lives, we did NOT mean this to be a permanent condition. It was only meant to allow you to pass as natives and be accepted as the same. We brought you, the troublemakers and rebels of the universe on board to kick the butts of the powerful on the planet hard, get things moving and wake up the sleeping majority rudely.

You've done a wonderful job of that. We are pleased about that. However, we are not impressed by the fact that a lot of you have been treading water ever since, doing nothing but creating more excitement and spreading some sensational information. No, folks. There was nothing about this in the manual and it wasn't planned that way. Seriously, we are not amused.

A few of you are running around proclaiming, "look, the end is near," and other participants in the cosmic plan suddenly desperately want to be Germans, Austrians, or whatever, and are indulging in national small-mindedness.

Hello, seriously now?

At the beginning some of us found it funny to observe beings, which were always known in the universe for expansion that they were suddenly occupied with shrinking and decreasing. Meanwhile, we don't find it so funny anymore. We find it quite exhausting. Like, by the way, some of the other things you fabricate there on Earth.

For the majority of the planet it is an accustomed, acceptable condition to see themselves only as receivers of information. You can just slap everything around their ears. And it is considered completely normal to simply pass on any information, no matter how negative and fearful it may be. They however should know that they are receiver AND transmitter of information. Please use your consciousness and your mind in the future, when you receive negative information again, before you simply pass it on. That is what a mind is for. You use it. Please be aware that any information should be checked for validity and sense first.

Further, make sure that what you want to pass on is really useful and helpful to other people. As a sender of information, you have a responsibility. Ask yourself, is this really the kind of energy I want to send into the world? It's not about not giving criticism. It's about examining that criticism for validity and usefulness. What is of no use to anyone is a waste of time - and energy.

Whether something is true or not cannot be evaluated by internet. None of you know the people behind who spread such information. You know neither their motives, nor the personal backgrounds to judge something like that. And the anonymous sources they refer to - well, the mainstream media work the same way. They know that, "close intelligence circles said, blah blah blah." Meanwhile, the "alternative media" is starting to work the same way.

Anyone can claim to care about humanity, the people or whatever. Most of the time other interests are at the forefront. Their predictable reaction when they believe this is fear, resistance, powerlessness, anger, hatred. It lowers their personal energy vibration to a little light that may just be blinking.

Did you know that there are more and more "social bots" in your so-called "social networks"? These are small programs that collect and spread information, especially used in political discussions, but also in sports and dating portals. Various political and economic interest groups use this tool to create the "right mood".

The postings are attributed to real people, but in fact various "News" are generated automatically and by machine. These social bots are so adaptable that it is almost impossible to distinguish between human and machine. At least not if you don't bother to check these "news".

Today, hate propaganda and xenophobia is often created by software and scattered on the Internet. There, this "fake news" meets people who, without checking, simply believe it because it seems to fit with their worldview - and off it goes, creating shitstorms. Be very clear about this. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it has to happen. But it can happen if you are not aware that your reaction serves the interests of power groups that are masters in creating enemy images and are very adept at turning people against each other.

There is a war going on on your planet for the information interpretation sovereignty, because "the power behind the throne" is fighting for its survival. Hereby it is tried to direct your attention and to areas which are far away from your personal life. Population management means arousing fears, reducing positive energies, injecting powerlessness and victim consciousness, and psychologically overwhelming the citizen in order to channel a reaction of anger, indignation, rejection. If consciousness has been successfully directed to a situation with a lot of information, some of it contradictory, and the individual is confused, the desired reaction occurs.

Stirring up trouble and waking up are only a tiny part of the multi-step plan, the main part is that you come back into your full power and demonstrate to the earthlings how to radiate from within. You seem to have completely skimmed over this chapter, or, knowing you, you didn't read it at all. This is bad. For us and for you. Not to mention the majority of the planet. All this 3 D actionism is starting to worry us. We get the strong impression that some of you are stuck in the middle of the process.

You are just repeating the information education that we started since the 1990s. All the information about the elite of this planet, mental manipulation, pharma, military, politics, wars, etc., served a purpose, but really should not be used for you to go here and point fingers at the supposed bad guys. Nor should you fight against them. We were hoping you would see the bigger picture in this. By processing the information given and really getting the point in what it's all about - which is you, personally - and realizing how the planet is controlled so YOU could stop falling for it and raise your personal vibration. Okay, didn't work so well, at least not for many of you.

Please try to understand that the power behind the "official power", basically profits from hatred, anger, powerlessness, even if this hatred may be directed against them themselves, or various political, economic interests in which they have invested and are involved. Because anger, fear, rage, hatred, powerlessness, victim consciousness and helplessness are very low vibrating energy fields, the more people are stuck in it, the bigger the field and the easier it is to maintain the "status quo" and carry out their plans.

The fear of a world war and/or an irrational religious war of course works very much into their hands. This is how the old energy works, always has and it is now fighting for survive. Scattering fear, uncertainty and doubt are a powerful weapon in the hands of those who for millennia have power over the planet.

In the course of the further step ignition it comes now to the intensified dissolution of your energetic barriers, within their multi-dimensional bodies. You have probably already noticed that they are becoming more permeable. That is why these fear-inducing messages have such an impact on you. And if you do not make an effort to clear your emotional body, you may not succeed in overcoming the low vibrational fields. Because these go into resonance with repressed and hidden contents IN your own consciousness and your emotional field.

You are here to raise these fields. Since we cannot need energetic blockages, or various subtle constructs that block the energies we send to your material body and Mother Earth through YOU. Because if you are not free of these blockages, the soul parts and energies that we send to you for support keep coming back to us. We send in, it comes back. We send in, it comes back. We find this annoying, constantly operating in repeat mode without getting anywhere. So please, finally take care of it.

We are very aware that you are tired and very disillusioned. We told you at the beginning - going to Earth is one of the hardest jobs in the universe. But we also know you can still do it, and you will. Apart from that, unfortunately, there is no alternative. There is only you. You are all we have and we put all our trust in you - still, because we have no other choice.

While the denial of the facts staggers along its peak, the biosphere contains less and less oxygen, the food is enriched with more and more toxins and the ecological balance mutates to a term that mocks every serious description. However, there are no other special forces which we could send to mankind to hold it back from the abyss of self-destruction. They are on their own. You all knew this before and now we remind you again of the briefing that you found so boring.

They were so full of themselves and thought it would be a piece of cake to take care and clean up on Earth. But the 3 D Matrix had them all under its spell. Unpleasant surprise, isn't it? In our experience, it takes a good 30-50 Earth years to fight your way through it. We gave you that time, but believe us - if you had paid more attention during the briefing and read the manual or at least just the emergency edition, you would have been spared a lot. Hopefully, that will teach you a lesson for the next time.

Please be aware, we need you! Mankind needs you, the earth needs you. And we have heard your personal calls for more help, which you sent to us on behalf of the people. But since this is probably a big misunderstanding on your part, we would like to remind you of another section of the briefing:

YOU are the help you are calling for! You and all other suicidal volunteers ARE the help we sent!

Pretending now that you are not in charge and hoping others will do the job will not look good on your leadership record. And demanding that God finally step in and fix this problem (yes, we heard that exactly) gives some of you an even less appealing report card. People caused the problems, people need to solve them too. Besides, God is at present fully occupied with the re - organization of universe and the creation of new codes and must not be disturbed (HE has given us personally to understand this).

You are on earth. You are responsible. You wanted the job and YOU also got it. So you make now obligingly something halfway reasonable from it.

Your present reality on earth looks honestly quite shitty. And that is actually good and wakes you up. There are truly more uplifting images we can imagine than watching a world afflicted by madness, whose social, economic and political world structure is falling apart, die. But that, of course, is what it's all about - dying. Your old, familiar, accustomed world is dying and there is nothing you can do about it. But many of you still try to stubbornly hold on to the old reality - and stop the dying process.

Things are changing, sometimes tremendously and in ways that none of you can oversee. However, you can help shape the way it happens. How chaotic it becomes is entirely in your hands. Some helpful points in this regard, for your kind attention:

Keep a little distance from the free will of others and tame your spiritual ambition. Or best of all, direct the energy of your ambition toward the avoidance of spiritual ambition.

If someone is desperate to spin the wheel, don't stop him. Cheer him on, because only a crash landing will bring him back to his senses.

Please give up your remaining victim attitude and switch into the responsible creator mode. We certainly understand and know from our own earth experience how difficult it can be to discard cherished worries and various notions of how small and helpless you are. It's so terribly convenient to rant about everything and name culprits, there's no need to get off your own butt.

Spread courage and optimism, no matter how little it may seem to be justified - but appearances are deceptive, they are always blinding. NOTHING is as it appears to be.

Please stop trying to dissolve your ego. Instead, see to it that you get a reasonably sane ego that is at peace with itself. You cannot dissolve your ego, you can only split it off. And that is not something we would like to see in you. "The ego" is your vehicle through which you were able to have an experience in the first place.

Please do not pretend that you are invulnerable and untouchable. What is happening here hurts, allow that pain. Meet the shadows inside you, integrate and digest these inner shadows. This will hurt, real shadow work breaks you open. This is a good thing and prevents the pain inside from forming into a weapon that turns against you.

Stay with yourself even when the world around you seems to be going crazy. Sweep outside your own front door, there is plenty to do there.

Rise above the low fields and try to wring something good out of your life.

Never forget that you are a star child who has successfully completed this task in many corners of the galaxy. Earth may be a particularly stubborn nut to crack, but you will crack that nut. In any case, giving up is not an option. Please pull yourself together and hold out, that would be even nicer.

Come on, impress yourself! Show us who you are and please stop playing the tourist!

Written in the style of E.T. 101.

Nothing you read here is THE truth. It is my truth, my perception and how I see things – now, in this moment.

Until next time same station ..

THE INFORMATION SPACE

#spiritual

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blackasteriia · 4 years

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🔥 story structure bih

Feed the Fires of my Salt

I jumped into Kingdom Hearts right after KH3 came out. I had the privilege of watching the series’ cutscenes from beginning-to-end, starting with the KHUX back cover and ending in KH3. This is a very confusing way to enter Kingdom Hearts. The start of the story is in KHUX and the beginning is in KH1. It’s KH1 that introduces the core mechanics, themes, and principles of the story. Yet, the story starts in KHuX, which is a mobile game. The KHuX itself is a baffling mess with too many twists for me to even bother tracking it. For the purpose of this essay I’ll focus on Sora’s story, he’s the protagonist after all.

Kingdom Hearts 1 begins medias res, ‘into the middle of things.’ It doesn’t know that. It thinks it’s a straightforward story and probably the best told one in all of Kingdom Hearts. Sora and his friends live a normal life. He has a call to action when his island falls into darkness and he losses his friends. To find his friends he must travel through several worlds. On the course of this journey he learns of Kingdom Hearts. He then meets Ansem, the antagonist who believes that all people and things belong to the darkness. Sora takes all that he has learned to confront Ansem. Ansem is defeated and Sora’s journey comes to a close. It’s a simple story but it is effective, charming, and fun.

Then, Sora loses all his memories in a random castle through an event that he does not remember, he wakes-up after sleeping a full year, and we go into Kingdom Hearts 2.

Kingdom Hearts 2, is another hero’s journey. Sora seeks guidance from the wise Yen Sid, a mentor archetype we most often find in stories of this type. Yen Sid informs Sora that he must defeat Organization 13, an insidious group seeking to obtain Kingdom Hearts. This bunch isn’t as straightforward as Ansem was. They’re manipulative, and also, very human, with their own quirks and personalities, some even befriending Sora. The series delves into a more mature grey than the pure black and white of KH1. Sora learns that light and dark aren’t clear-cut concepts, but to accept the complexity of himself, and others. Sora defeats Xemnas and returns to Destiny Island with his friends, concluding his journey.

In Dream Drop Distance, Sora and Riku undergo training by Yen Sid to become keyblade masters, which is very important. Sora must unlock the power of waking by *shuffles notes* freeing seven sleeping keyholes, in the realm of sleep. Okay, yeah, anyway he does that. Then this Xehanort guy --who the hell is this guy? He was in Birth by Sleep. Wait, what?-- kidnaps him and tries to possess him so he can fill out the ranks of Organization 13-- Didn’t we kill all of them in the last game? No, they came back. Then why bother killing them off?-- But he’s saved by Axel --who died in the last game-- and Riku. Anyway, this is apparently grounds for failure and Sora does not become a keyblade master.

In Kingdom Hearts 3, Sora embarks on an adventure to unlock the power of waking by traveling through the worlds and training to become stronger. Didn’t he already beat like, three series antagonists by now why does he need to grow stronger??? Sora is confronted by the members of the Real Organization 13, who taunt him as he travels. Sora gathers the Seven Guardians of Lights and defeats Xehanort and the Real Organization 13. He returns to Destiny Island with his friends and concludes his story by vanishing into a burst of light.

And that, from beginning to end, is Sora’s journey through the Kingdom Hearts series. I skipped a lot of details. I didn’t include side games. I told it as Sora experienced it. Here’s a few things I noticed:

1). There’s a lot of start and stops. The series has three endings. The end of Kingdom Hearts 1, Kingdom Hearts 2, and Kingdom Hearts 3, are all satisfying stop-points for the series. This makes sense, as Nomura, for the most part, intended them to be endings. Of course, he leaves some running threads to intrigue and hint at another game. It means that Sora has his powers reset twice and he begins another hero journey three times. The goals never change: train, grow stronger, beat-up bad guy, go home. Sora never grows past the dumb kid that picked-up a giant key in KH1 and started swinging, or any growth he does develop is reset.

2). The side games are useless. I can tell Sora’s story without Birth by Sleep. I can do it without 358/2 Days, Chain of Memories, Re:Coded, and I bet I could kick-out Dream Drop Distance too. Xehanort is the sole character that you need. He is by far the worst antagonist. He shows-up without fanfare and is defeated with little trouble. Ansem and Xemnas both had something to contrast to Sora, some sort’ve dynamic, a personal stake. Xehanort is just a jerk and he needs to be beaten-up.

3). Xehanort is a terrible antagonist. An antagonist is the character that opposes the protagonist. It is the antagonist who the protagonist must overcome in order to complete their journey. Ansem and Sora jostle over the very nature of humans, idealism vs cynicism. Xemnas forced Sora to recognize the complexity of the human condition. Xehanort-- bullies Sora until Sora kicks his ass. Never mind untangling how unbelievably complicated the relationship between Xehanort, Ansem, and Xemnas are. You’d believe that Xehanort would be some culmination of Sora’s journey-- but I’d argue that it’d complete the Sea Salt Trio’s story more to defeat Xehanort, than it does for Sora to do it.

4). Final Fantasy and Disney are window dressing. This game series is supposed to be a crossover between Disney and Final Fantasy. If you read my synopsis, you would not know this. Maleficent in KH1 is the sole character I feel I could’ve added. None of the Final Fantasy characters are on the list or come close to deserving mention. Why do we have the fiftieth Xehanort clone, and not Sephiroth, or anyone else, as a main antagonist? When I watched this series for the first time I did not watch a single Disney World, and I lost nothing for it. About 60-70% of this entire game series is useless, poorly written filler. This becomes worse as it drags on too. There’s some neat character study in KH1 but by KH3, it’s all crap. Instead of using the Disney World’s for character exploration and building plot, they’re usually charmless retellings of the original movie.

5). There are so many useless characters. We don’t need Roxas. Get rid of Xion. Namine, who? Xehanort just needs to go. You can remove Kairi after KH1. Maybe we keep the BBS-trio because we have to have someone fill-out the Guardians of Light in KH3, but I think Terra is expendable. All of the Union Cross cast, gone. After KH2, all of the Organization members are wasted screen time. These characters do not contribute to the main plot and they have no satisfactory, useful, or good character arcs. They’re just here, repeating what we already heard. Axel finished his story in KH2, why is he still here? The entirety of Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days and Re:coded can be removed, and you would lose absolutely nothing. If I was Nomura’s editor, I’d be making judicious use of a red pen on his scripts. Characters that die don’t stay dead, characters that finish their arcs just hang around taking-up space, and characters that shouldn’t be added, are added. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, trim this down to like, 2-3 games, tops, and you’d have a powerful story. Not a long overwritten piece of absurdity that’s wheezing like a pneumonic horse on its last legs.

6). Dream Drop Distance and Kingdom Hearts 3 are the worst. Sora sets out to complete one task: become a keyblade master, and, he fails. He doesn’t even finish his secondary task, master the power of waking. Kingdom Hearts 3 has no tension, it’s so cut-and-dry, you need about... an hour of the game to know what happened in it. Sora defeated Xehanort, the all important villain, introduced in DDD. It then ends on a stupid cliff hanger. Also, goes to show that Re:Mind was stupid and didn’t help anything or anyone. KH3 had one job, complete all the character arcs introduced in the series in a satisfying way, and it failed on every single account.

How this series tells story is terrible. It’s done through long-winded exposition that is boring and confusing. Somehow, after watching hours of cutscenes and reading all of the additional side material, I still do not know what Kingdom Hearts is supposed to be. Sometimes, it’s the ‘heart of worlds,’ other times it’s a ‘source of wisdom,’ or it’s a ‘source of power,’ or it can just grant Xemnas’ wish like a star, and it looks like Scala Ad Caelum inside, or its the door to the Realm of Darkness. How can it be the name sake of the series and be so poorly defined? The Metal Gear series is just as convoluted as Kingdom Hearts is, but at least I know what a metal gear is.

Nomura can structure a plot. He understands the basics of hero’s journey. Every single game is based on that structure, individually. When tied together, however, they make this weird mass of starts and stops, retcons, wasted time, and poor story telling. I like Sora and I like his story. I would not be here if that was not the case. It’s the same way with Xion. I really like Xion and her story, but she shouldn’t be here. That, or it needs to be written in a way that it matters. This plot stuff isn’t just about the events. It’s about the characters. What happens to them. What do they do. How do they behave. How do they change? Plot happens when characters act. What a bad plot indicates is bad character motivation and action. These characters don’t matter because Nomura didn’t give them backstories, nuanced motivations, real flaws, or meaningful action. So he crams as most information into the dialogue and pretends that counts as a plot.

And it’s not like plot is complicated, shit happens, that’s it. To add in some RP salt? It bothers me when muns says they’re ‘bad at plotting.’ What do you mean you’re bad at plot? Plot happens when our two muses meet and shit happens. Your muse has encountered a wild Xion, what do you do? > Run > Attack > Talk to > Feed. I’m not writing a passive brick here, ya’ll. I want shit to happen. And when I’m slogging through 13 hours of Kingdom Hearts 2 I want shit to happen, and not watch Sora faff about in a Disney world for forty minutes. Why is that so much to ask for?

#hclianthi #✰*✦ This is the idiot speaking ⎧OOC⎫#✰*✦Enjoy your days off! ⎧Memes⎫#salt tw #this series has a stupid amount of dumb charm and i hate it

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lastsonlost · 5 years

Link

Following the premiere of My Hero Academia Season 4, members of the fandom hurled tired accusations of pedophilia and sexualization of minors at the production studio, Bones Inc. (aka Studio Bones) due to the appearance of Nejire Hado in the season’s first episode.

On October 12th, the premiere of My Hero Academia Season 4 was aired in both Japan and simuldubbed in English. The episode, The Scoop of U.A. Class 1-A, explores the fallout of All Might’s retirement as the Symbol of Peace and his search for a successor, with reporter Taneo Tokuda interviewing Class 1-A and narrowing down the identity of the successor to Izuku Midoriya before leaving and pretending that his investigation was fruitless. Following her first full-fledged appearance in the previous episode, the episode also featured an appearance by Class 3-A student and member of The Big 3, Nejire Hado.

It was the appearance of this character, and a slight exaggeration of her chest made in the translation of the source material from the pages of the manga to the television anime, that drew criticism and accusations of pedophilia from the more vocal members, who view media with a focus on social justice, of the MHA fandom:

hi studio bones can you explain to me how her chest went from this to that pic.twitter.com/133EbXqFyH

– homestuck avi (@dorkamami) October 12th, 2019

studio bones where do you live i just wanna talk

– homestuck avi (@dorkamami) October 12th, 2019

the pedophiles and dudebros have found me this is why the bnha fandom gets no rights bye

– homestuck avi (@dorkamami) October 12th, 2019

Ah yes, very normal thing for animators to do to child characters

– 🗡⛤𝕻ł𝖆𝖌𝖚 𝕽𝖊𝖓’𝖖𝖚𝖊𝖊 𝕹𝖆’ 𝕭𝖆𝖗𝖗ł⛧🍌(@inalovelyrose) October 13th, 2019

boobs aren’t sexual, but have been extremely sexualized. there’s a difference. inflating the tits of anime schoolgirl, age be damned, puts your misogyny on full blast.

– bridgey loves jadenaya (@jadeEnthusiast) October 13th, 2019

One user even suggested to “hunt [Studio Bones] down” and posted an excerpt of the studio’s Wikipedia page with their location highlighted, which some saw as particularly tasteless given the recent attack on Kyoto Animation Studio.

Related: Kyoto Animation Studio Targeted in Arson Attack; 33 Fatalities Currently Confirmed

The accusations of pedophilia towards Nejire’s depiction are unfounded, as Nejire was 17, on the cusp of her 18th birthday, in her first appearance. She is currently 18 in canon. The characters are also fictional, and thus do not depict any real life persons being sexualized or harmed, and thus constitute no legal crime.

These same accusations and arguments are an almost exact copy of the criticisms leveled at Nejire’s depiction in her first appearance during the finale of Season 3, by the same vocal elements of the MHA fandom, a little over one year ago to the day.

Related: My Hero Academia Fans Criticize Female Character Nejire Hado’s Design

These comments are made frequently by this faction of the fandom, with some accusing these users of repeating the same, intentionally inflammatory arguments as a means of garnering attention:

Further attention was brought to the situation by anime YouTuber Hero Hei, in a video originally titled Hero Academia Season 4 just started and ALREADY MASSIVE rage on social media!!. The title has since been changed to the less inflammatory and more pointed People on Twitter are targeting MY HERO ACADEMIA with RECYCLED arguments to brigade it DOWN!:

youtube

Following Hero Hei’s coverage, while some viewers criticized Hei for potentially giving the situation more attention than warranted, the same vocal section of the MHA fandom accused Hero Hei of purposefully directing targeted harassment against critics by bringing attention to the more inflammatory statements and accusations, despite the comments being made in a public forum and by an author who was actively engaging in the discourse.

Calls were made to even report Hero Hei’s video for “inciting harassment” against a teenager. Twitter user dorkamami has no identifying age in their profile, but did indicate they are 16 in a subsequent tweet.

You can see a number of people showing their dislike of Hero Hei because of the Twitter user’s alleged age.

Hey if you’re a grown ass fucking adult with 65.3k YouTube subscribers and your response to a random teenager on twitter complaining about boobs is to make a 16 minute video ranting about them without censoring their @ you are the ACTUAL worst https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EGyNxr4X0AIGCjg.jpg

female protagonist (@AigisFricker) October 13th, 2019

Feel free to report the video for inciting harassment since the @ wasn’t censored and it’s causing people to brigade her account 🥴

female protagonist (@AigisFricker) October 13th, 2019

Wtf… they really went and did that about some random teenager on the internet?? Are they okay?

🎃Spooky Song🎃@ Code:Vein (@SongBirdDemon) October 13th, 2019

It’s really messed up to go after one teen over a minor complain about a girl’s boobies. Especially seeing that he didn’t censor that person’s @. Me personality, I like girls of all size breasts. I consider myself as a Titty Connoisseur. But I would never do something like that.

The Spooky Let’s Player (@THESLPLAYER) October 13th, 2019

Imagine being a grown man sending your followers to harass a teenager because she thinks it’s weird you want to sexualise underage characters.

A Spooky Archivist (@EnbyFireHead) October 14th, 2019

What do you make of this situation?

< Art stores should have a gun section and and art studio workers should have the right to invoke the stand your ground law.

I have the 72 piece Copic Marker set and a 10mm Kriss Vector Gen 2 Carbine.

#nejire hado

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cuddleslutloki · 5 years

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I have a genuine question. How often do you actually deal with antis? I've been following you for a bit now and it seems every so often you bring up antis. I've certainly kept my interest about thorki shut and locked away in a box from my friends for the simple fact that all of them think it's incest. It's not an easy topic of conversation but you just seem to handle all the antis so well? Also on an off note about beast!Thor, his favorite pass time must just be rutting into Loki 24/7 🤔

when someone tells you that you're romanticizing abuse [bc i made a stockholm moodboard for a fic] I don't know what I'm supposed to say other than I don't condone it but I write about it? Is writing about abusive relationships bad in writing??? you're the only person i ask for advice so thank you for anything in advance

i’m honestly really glad you came to me. i really do like discussing this topic in this kind of way bc i’ll never reblog an anti or answer an anti ask. even if you’re arguing against them, i don’t think it’s worth it to argue against them if it means also spreading what they’re saying

the basic premise of all anti behavior and ideology is censorship. that’s all it is.

“i don’t like this topic, you need to stop writing it and making art for it. if you don’t stop there will be consequences.”

that is censorship and that is the kind of shit fandom has had to fight ever since there’s been fandom. women, poc, lgbt+ folks have been dealing with people telling us what we can and can’t write and enjoy for... well, probably forever. but we’re still here, creating the kind of content we want to see and indulge in.

as far as how to deal with antis, my advice is to ignore, ignore, ignore. they want what any bully wants: attention

you stop paying attention, you stop giving them time they don’t deserve from you, they’ll die off. there’s no point in fighting them directly. produce the content you want to see and enjoy what you want to enjoy. drown them out. you don’t owe them a response just because they come to you. they don’t have any qualms about being rude to you, so be rude back and just ignore them. i love blocking antis, personally. take out the garbage, y’know?

antis use the words ship and support as synonyms because they think that shipping is some radical call to action for lgbt rep instead of entertainment

shipping is not activism. shipping is about entertainment and enjoyment, nothing more

so this is why i have this very blasé attitude about antis. i just don’t give a fuck about them beyond making posts trashing their idiocy. because that’s what it is. it’s idiocy, but going deeper it’s puritanism at its finest. antis use fox news scare tactic logic under the guise of some pseudo feminist agenda because they don’t understand and don’t want to understand that enjoying dark fiction as entertainment isn’t equivalent to some greater moral stance

they use the same argument about shipping and fanfiction that WASP moms use against video games and loud music: that enjoying and consuming it will make you think it’s normal and there’s nothing wrong with it irl

okay, well, vlad the impaler never played CoD or far cry and caligula never watched hentai but we know why i’m bringing them up in this context without even heading over to wikipedia, don’t we?

they use the words abuse and pedophilia waaaaaayy too liberally and they’re doing more harm than good because they’re twisting and warping words that should have very specific meanings by using them so goddamn vaguely and irresponsibly

my own personal theory is that these people are terrified that if they don’t yell in opposition to these topics 24/7 and actively attack content creators that they’d probably enjoy it, and they’ve been so programmed by the echo chamber of tumblr and twitter that they think this means they’re bad people.

spoiler alert: that’s not what it means

i literally watched a circle jerk on twitter where screenshots of some mafia starker au got tweeted and retweeted w/ pictures of someone pouring bleach into cereal and people had asked to see more of the post. if you really don’t like something, you shouldn’t hate-read about it. it’s not productive, it does more harm than good if that’s the actual issue rather than some reverse psychology-style enjoyment they’re probably getting out of it.

they claim to hate this shit so much, but they’re reading hundreds and thousands of words and putting these images in their heads of their own free will. i don’t do that with shit i genuinely dislike. i avoid it.

i see antis say they enjoy thorki fanart because they think it’s cute, then they see it’s tagged thorki and they have an over the top reaction because the nature of anti ideology states you should never enjoy something like that, so if you do then you have to make the excuse of ignorance to prove that you’re still innocent and pure. enjoyment is apologism to them because they aren’t content to simply attack fan creators, they want to try and drive away the people who consume our art as well because they know you’re the cornerstone of fandom. consumers are why creators create. yeah, i write because i enjoy it, but i also write to connect to my readers and have people commenting on my fics when they like them.

it’s also worth noting that antis only ever talk about shipping. they only talk about sexual and romantic ships. i’ve never seen an anti talk about (often extreme) levels of violence in canon source material for the ships and characters they want to froth at the mouth over.

seeing someone bleed out and choking on their own blood after being stabbed or shot or bludgeoned? meh

seeing a character who was once a child have a sexual thought about a character who was also once a child and is also their close friend? omg why are we trying to make fandom unsafe for people?

personally, i’ve also noticed that fandoms with darker canon material tend to have more chill fandoms most of the time. i think it also depends on the average age in a given fandom. there’s a major difference between fannibals and steven universe fans, let’s just say that.

creating a moodboard for a dark fic is not “romanticizing abuse” and at this point antis honestly have no fucking idea what that phrase is. they use those words the way a bored CEO uses social media buzzwords and hashtags in a staff meeting

if antis want to see true romanticizing of abuse then they can go to serial killer thirst tags and spot the fucking differences between shippers and people who forget that ted bundy was weak, flaccid, cowardly piece of shit

writing something dark or violent or whatever else and condoning the act or doing the act are different. this is why stephen king isn’t under government surveillance or in prison.

make no mistake, this anti shit only applies to fandom. they’re attacking creators here because creators out at the professional levels don’t give a fuck. they’ve tried, and they’ve failed.

creators at the professional level understand something antis don’t: that being able to reconcile your enjoyment of dark media can be a sign of emotional intelligence and good emotional health. it’s cathartic. it’s allowed to be cathartic.

the most common consumers of dark fiction are members of minority communities and people who’ve been emotionally and/or sexually repressed for one reason or another.

antis want to say that fiction doesn’t exist in a vacuum and they are 100% correct! because writing fanfiction and original fiction that relates to parts of my life that nearly killed me gives me control over something that was beyond me in the original context. writing about fucked up codependent, violent romance allows me to process my shit in a way that’s healthy and produces something fun and enjoyable.

my therapist knows i ship thorki, she knows i write thorki. i’ve had her read pieces of fanfiction i’ve written in addition to pieces of original fiction. y’know what she said? “wow, baylen, that’s vivid. you have a way with words!”

i read her a line out of smart boy and told her what the story was about and this trained professional said “well it’s a productive way to process some emotion that you clearly need to let out”

but you know what? if someone doesn’t have the trauma i have? let them write it, too! let them create and enjoy the fictional content they want! more cake, y’all!

finally getting around to one of the first parts of your ask, lol. thorki is incest. thor and loki are brothers. they were raised believing they were blood brothers, even. loki being adopted doesn’t change a thousand years of personal history where thor looked at loki and thought that they came out of the same woman, y’know?

that’s his brother and in the comics his attachment to loki is even more intense. the mcu nerfed that shit. loki’s life has been intrinsically tied to thor’s ability to feel a full sense of joy.

enjoying an incest ship isn’t some sign of moral depravity. writing abusive relationships isn’t bad. gone girl was made into an award winning movie. art should look like life, and sometimes life fucking sucks. dark stories, sad stories, fucked up holy shit idk if i can go to sleep after i read this stories exist for a reason. we need them. we have to have an outlet for our frustration, our anger, and especially our fear.

so which is the healthier option of these

to write up a piece of fanfiction where two siblings are in love in a way that might be cute and soft or might be destructive, depending on your mood?

attacking strangers you don’t know online and threatening violence against anyone who doesn’t think like you do?

i know what kind of person i want to be.

ship and let ship, thanks for reading my doctoral thesis office hours are always

#anon #baylen chats

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tlbodine · 5 years

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Every Single Last Thought I Have About Game of Thrones

My rambling obsession with Game of Thrones has cost me at least a dozen followers so far, and I promise it’s nearing an end now that the show is finished and the fervor is dying down. But I do have some Final Thoughts(tm), and I thought I would assemble them all here as best I can. In the interests of saving you all from a million future Game of Thrones posts, I will endeavor to put Every Single Thought I Have into one monstrously long GoT masterpost. You’re welcome, I guess?

Rambles under a spoiler tag, as much for actual spoilers as for, uh, rambling. Buckle in. This post is a monster.

In a contentiously-named Vice article called “Game of Thrones Was Doomed From the Start,” Peter Slattery makes a point that maybe we all needed to hear: Whatever our problems with the Game of Thrones TV show, they’re not wholly endemic to the show itself. The article is worth a read, but the tl;dr is this: GRRM created an astonishingly complex world with his book series, and the story has spun out to ever greater complexity as it approaches its supposed end.

Anyone looking for a way to wrap it all up is going to have a tough time. Just ask GRRM himself, whose inability to finish the series in a timely fashion has basically become a meme at this point.

Now, of course, D&D did not need to try to end the story in 6 episodes. They could easily have kept the series going on forever and HBO would have allowed it, because GoT is pretty much single-handedly keeping the network’s lights on at this point. Why the showrunners chose to turn down that opportunity is a matter of speculation.

What I will say is this: There had always been an expectation that the show would be seven seasons. The internet has a short memory about these things, but back when this all started, the intent was clear enough: There would be 7 books in the series, and 7 episodes in the show, one for each book. At the time, four of GRRM’s books were out, with the fifth being released during this time period, and there had been an expectation (even then, a bit over-optimistic) that the books would finish before their respective seasons, or maybe just trail it by a year or so.

The anticipation, in other words, was that A Song of Ice and Fire would roughly follow the trajectory of the Harry Potter films in their relationship with the books.

That’s not what happened, obviously.

But I do remember there being some grumblings of unease when we audience-folk started to realize the show might not wrap up tidily in those 7 planned seasons. And I definitely remember some grumbling about how Season 8 would take more than a year to come out (surely you all remember that impatience!)

And facing that -- a restless audience, source material that stayed stubbornly unwritten, the increasingly complex logistics of an enormous cast including young actors who were picking up other roles -- I can understand the impulse to speed it along. If your options in finishing a story are to rush it a bit to force the plot points out, or else risk being caught plodding forward indefinitely...I can see the appeal of rushing. I won’t say it was the right creative choice, but it’s one I can understand and one I don’t think is indefensible. I’m not in love with what happened, but I can think of far worse ways for the show to have gone.

Here’s more analysis on that which you may find interesting: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/21/18633029/game-of-thrones-got-ending-season-8-george-rr-martin-apology

Scope Creep & Themes that Get Away From You

So why is the ASOIAF universe so gosh-darn complex, and why are these books so hard to finish, and why is the show’s ending so hard to stick?

It’s not just because GRRM is pantsing his way through the story (excuse me, tending his garden) but because ASOIAF is not actually a story so much as it’s a history. Part of what makes this world so compelling is that it is indeed its own world. And not just in the Tolkien sense of multiple cultures and complex histories and languages fleshing out the world. What’s made GRRM’s work the most interesting and compelling from the beginning is that it promises even more than that: Here is a richly textured world of geopolitical intrigue, populated by real people; each and every character has their own fears and hopes and aspirations and petty squabbles.

ASOIAF tells a story about normal people and the way they get caught in the machinations of war, and it doesn’t take any shortcuts. And I think we need to take a moment here to appreciate how unique that actually is as a concept.

In Lord of the Rings, we receive a richly detailed world with its own history and culture and grand war, but the war is also limited by the parameters of the story: It can all be ended if Frodo destroys the ring.

GRRM did not give himself such a straightforward McGuffin for ending his story.

And that, indeed, is part of the appeal of the ASOIAF series. A big part of what makes it all so compelling is that it’s a deconstruction of the fantasy genre and, really, a deconstruction of epics in general.

Game of Thrones, the first book in the series, dares to ask: What happens when being the good guy is what gets you killed?

Maybe GoT has been part of our cultural fabric for so long that this doesn’t seem all that shocking, but let’s just take a moment to appreciate here how utterly wild it is that this story begins by spending hundreds of pages (or many hours of film) with a protagonist, only to lop his head off -- and that, really, the rest of the series isn’t even about avenging that death. Oh, sure, vengeance for Ned Stark colors the motivation of some characters, especially in the beginning...but the story soon spirals way beyond that, because the Starks are just one piece in the epic machines of war.

So by its very nature, ASOIAF is not just complex in terms of its sheer scope and number of characters and storylines, but also in terms of its themes. It’s a story that raises a number of difficult questions about the nature of good and evil, of the influence of power, the personal vs the political, and so forth.

These are difficult questions, the type of questions at the very core of the human experience, questions that we’ve been grappling with for thousands of years, and GoT’s deconstructive nature means that it can’t take shortcuts to answering them. The answers simply cannot be as satisfying as “good triumphs over evil” or “evil wins” because the very nature of ASOIAF is complexity and the rejection of such simple platitudes.

From that angle, I think the show did a brilliant job of wrapping things up. The plot had its share of inconsistencies (although not as many as people argue, more on that in a minute) but I think it stayed true to the spirit of what Game of Thrones had always been about. Season 8 raised some really important questions and touched on some extremely interesting themes, and I personally found it both thought-provoking and powerful.

But, well, I will confess that my aesthetics have always leaned more toward intricacy, and that I do not have what many would call “good taste” about a great many things. I always prefer for things to be interesting rather than beautiful, and from my perspective, the home stretch of Game of Thrones was exceedingly interesting.

How Did You Honestly Expect It Was Going To End?

For all of the belly-aching on social media about the ending of Game of Thrones, I have both a rebuttal and a genuine question: What did you think was going to happen?

A lot of people seemed to think that something like this would happen:

(art by https://www.instagram.com/raymondwaskita/?hl=en and no, this isn’t saying the artist believes or endorses any of this, just saying I saw this image on Facebook accompanied by a lot of wistful sighing)

I saw so many people who were all so very angry that Daenerys doesn’t walk away the winner of everything, that Cersei doesn’t get a more satisfying death, that Jon didn’t get to be the true king, that Jaime and Brienne don’t get a happily-ever-after, etc. etc. etc. And to all of those people I have just one question to ask you: What the fuck show have you been watching?

Daenerys deserved better?

Tell that to Ned Stark. Tell that to Robb and Catelyn and Shireen and Margaery and all the rest of the Tyrells. Just for starters. We could do this all day.

Just because we had a few bad guys get some deliciously just endings does not mean that the Game of Thrones universe is fair or that anyone gets what they deserve. That’s just silly.

But okay, fine then: Was it fucked up to tell a story where the breaker of chains and inspirational strong woman becomes the villain?

I mean, sure, maybe. But doing so allowed us to ask some other really interesting questions (and, as previously noted, I always prefer when things are interesting).

Is excessive force justified when it’s against evil men? Who gets to decide who is good and who is evil? How many losses are acceptable? Can you fight monsters without becoming a monster yourself? Should you be uncomfortable with how happy you are when “others” are slaughtered? Are you a little bit culpable too?

Was Dany’s heel-face turn perfectly executed? No. But it was believable, and it was powerful, and I think the questions it asks are good questions that deserve to be talked about.

Game of Thrones is all about subverting tropes, and Daenerys is the obvious Chosen One. She’s the one with the fantastic birth and the underdog story and the magical powers. She and Jon Snow are both the characters that every story tells us will be the heroes. So of course they don’t get what they “deserve.”

If the first episode of Game of Thrones asks, “What happens if being good doesn’t save the hero?” then the last episode asks, “What happens if being the hero doesn’t make you good?”

And that, to me, is interesting enough that it more than makes up for shortcomings in the road we traveled to get there.

A lot of the criticism of the show -- take, for just one of many examples, this: https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a27527950/game-of-thrones-finale-character-endings/ -- seems to fundamentally misunderstand what the show actually is or what it was attempting.

And like...I can understand being disappointed, but...like the scorpion & the frog...you knew what this show was when you picked it up.

Here’s a Twitter thread I really liked about this point: https://twitter.com/leighalexander/status/1130750999684161537

So Am I Just Some D&D Apologist Who Loves Everything About This Show?

I’m so glad you asked, hypothetical reader!

No. No, I am not in love with every creative decision made by the GoT showrunners. There are plenty of things I disliked about the show and its creative choices.

Re-framing Daenerys and Khal Drogo’s sex as rape, and then making the same mistake later when Jaime and Cersei have sex after Joffrey’s death.

Giving Sansa to Ramsay Bolton. Not only do we get more unnecessary rape plots (and, honestly, wasn’t there enough rape in the source material?) but it just is so much less interesting than what was happening with Book!Sansa, who is my favorite character (and was my favorite long before it became cool to love Sansa).

The entire three-eyed raven arc and “hold the door.” I mean, it was cool and tense, but I never got a really good idea of wtf the three-eyed raven’s powers actually do and what Bran inherited, and I kind of got the feeling that the showrunners didn’t understand it either and thus skirted around it. (Overall the show seemed uncomfortable with its more fantastic elements and knowing what to do with them).

I thought Rickon was a wasted opportunity of a character. I wanted to see him do something cool. I admit that this is based entirely on my pet theory that the direwolves represent the souls of the Stark children, and I hoped Shaggydog’s vicious nature meant that Rickon was going to become a badass somehow. Alas. (I am also deeply sad that Arya and Nymeria don’t reunite to go fuck some shit up together)

Euron Greyjoy was a disaster. He is so much more interesting in the books, and so much weirder, and he’s just so pointless and annoying in the show by comparison.

I didn’t like the “let’s go beyond the wall and oops there went my dragon” storyline very much, and honestly at no point did I ever really believe Jon and Dany’s relationship because it was rushed and the actors have zero chemistry.

So no, I don’t think the showrunners made a perfect TV show. But I do think it’s deeply unfair to say that they are incompetent writers or that they can’t work without the original source material.

My Criticism of the Criticisms

The internet is full of idiotic opinions, and I could be here all day if I addressed all of them (I’ve already been working on this for two hours) but I will address a few of the complaints I’ve seen that have most rankled me.

“Daenerys goes crazy because a boy rejected her”

I think calling Daenerys the “mad queen” and writing off Targaryen madness as A Real Thing That Definitely Exists And Is Not At All A Metaphor For Power And Entitlement is silly and reductivist. Yes, generations of inbreeding have probably unsettled the Targaryens a bit. But Dany didn’t just go crazy. As I’ve said before: She was already prepared to sacrifice the lives of the commoners on King’s Landing. She knew that Cersei would use them as a human shield and Dany wasn’t going to let that stop her. She had endured so much on her journey to get to this point, and nothing was going to stand between her and the Iron Throne. I talk about this in great length in another post so I won’t get into it here, but just...don’t be stupid.

“Cersei’s ending was stupid and pointless”

I’ve spent so much time dissecting Daenerys that I haven’t had a chance to talk about Cersei, which is a shame because I love her character a lot. I really loved her ending. All this time, the only thing she wanted was the security that power would bring her. Watching the look on her face when she realizes that Daenerys is going to destroy everything and that no political maneuvering can save her -- it was really powerful acting, and a major moment of change for her character. That she dies in Jaime’s arms, admitting at last that she is frightened, that she doesn’t want to die, that she doesn’t want her baby to die -- not only is it heartbreaking, but it’s honest. That is Cersei laid bare. She is who she has always been. That encapsulates her arc in a way that no other death really could have, and I personally found it a lot more satisfying than if Arya or whomever had just stabbed her in the back.

“All of Jaime’s character development just went out the window”

I’ll give you some of this. I don’t know that the show has ever fully understood Jaime. Just as Cersei is so much more sympathetic in the show, Jaime is much more sympathetic in the books. But I don’t think that all his character development is for nothing. I think we still have his journey, no matter what. And in the end, I can understand why he chose to leave Brienne. He didn’t think he deserved that happiness, for one; Brienne was too good for him, not just as a person but as a knight, and he knew that. And what was his long-term plan, anyway? Daenerys certainly wasn’t overly fond of him. There’s a non-zero chance she might have executed him for killing her father once he’s outlived his usefulness. Cersei and his unborn child were in the path of danger. He had a chance to maybe go rescue them and save the family, somehow, as he’d so horribly failed to save any of his other children. It was a stupid choice, but Jaime is the dumbest Lannister, and his self-loathing go deep. Did we think that Brienne’s redemptive vagina was going to save him from himself? Come on.

As for his last moments with Cersei...well. He was already mortally wounded by Euron. And I loved that the fight was so inglorious, so raw and dirty and stupid. They wrestle in the mud and it was perfect, as far as I’m concerned. So Jaime knows he won’t get out of this alive, and here’s Cersei, frightened and vulnerable. What else CAN he do but try to comfort them both? I thought it was a beautiful end for both of them and just because Jaime’s story ended up being tragic doesn’t invalidate his redemption arc. (I mean, for fuck sake, how many people go through rehab just to die of an overdose when they backslide?)

“The scorpions are deadly weapons except then they’re useless”

Okay like. This is annoying to me. By the time we see Rhaegal, he has suffered a lot of damage courtesy of the white walkers. His wing has a big freaking hole in it. He’s not 100%, and he’s not being ridden by anyone, and the attack comes as an ambush. Drogon evades being shot down because he’s being steered by a rider and he’s not injured and exhausted.

“D&D are incompetent writers who have no idea what they’re doing”

This one just makes me mad, and not just because of the fandom entitlement that I hate so much. (in this house, we stan for creators). Look. If they’re so incompetent, how did they manage to make a show that y’all loved for seven seasons previous to this? Also, like it or not, they know exactly what they’re doing. Like, they had such a clear idea of what they were doing that they managed to foresee the exact counter-arguments that fans would have and directly address them in the show.

Like. Hot damn. I will admit: I was very nervous about this season in the first few episodes. Dany was making me uneasy. She was acting selfish and entitled, and her attitude toward the war was making me uncomfortable -- because she was still in the role of hero, and I wasn’t sure if we-the-audience were meant to just swallow this as being OK. And then Varys and Tyrion have a conversation about exactly that, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Because that made it clear that the show knew what it was doing.

And then later? Jon and Tyrion have a so-accurate-its-painful discussion about Dany’s heel-face turn and her potential motives, and it so perfectly mirrored the discussions on Twitter the week prior that I almost wondered if they’d snuck off to film it last minute.

The point is: Like it or not, D&D knew exactly what they were doing. And, remember, GRRM gave them an outline, and while we don’t know for sure what’s their invention and what’s his, I think we can safely say that the broad strokes of the ending were GRRM’s invention, not theirs. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/game-thrones-showrunners-know-how-687589

So love it or hate it, the ending of GoT cannot be blamed on incompetence.

Okay Fine But the Pacing Was Still Really Bad

Yep. I’ll grant you that.

The ending blazes through plot points at breakneck speed. A lot of really important character development is left to performances; we’re forced to infer, as the audience, what a character is thinking or feeling at any given time. A lot of really important plot information is delivered by way of single dialogue lines. There’s a lot of “if you blink you’ll miss it” storytelling.

It’s not ideal by any means.

But it’s still pretty fucking good. The performances are good enough that, to me anyway, it’s pretty easy to intuit what’s going on internally. And the show still gave me things to think about, and made me feel things, and the impact may actually have been stronger by virtue of leaving so much to the imagination. By leaving a lot of questions unanswered, the show invites conversation and thought and speculation, and I think that’s valuable.

Would I Have Done It Differently?

Here’s a fun relic from history -- check out GRRM’s original story pitch, back when he thought this would be a trilogy: https://www.insider.com/game-of-thrones-original-story-2017-8

Talk about scope creep.

It’s fascinating, though. I know myself all too well that the book I set out to write and the book I end up with are never the same. There are some really interesting ideas in here, but I think the story we ended up with is a lot better.

But as for the ending of the Game of Thrones. Was it perfect? Would I have handled it differently?

Thematically, I think the resolution is mostly fine. Putting Bran on the throne is...well, it’s a choice. I have a little bit of a hard time with it just because it’s not really clear what Bran is, exactly. What are the scope of his powers? Is it a bit of a cop-out to put a supernatural king on the throne?

But what I do like about it is the idea that it doesn’t actually really matter who we put on the throne. The story makes a difference -- we need something that makes for a good song, because maybe at the end of the day one of the messages is that we need to believe in all these tropes we’ve deconstructed because reality is hard, it’s painful and boring and often nonsensical, and maybe we need stories in order to survive.

But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who we put in charge, because the people who are actually in charge are the council, and they will deal with everything the way they always had. After years of bloody rebellion, maybe the best thing really is the status quo. Maybe the solution to the game of thrones is to just stop fucking playing it. Put somebody on the damn throne and get back to running the country. I like that a lot.

I also like the idea that change is important, and it’s possible, but it’s slow. That strikes a good balance of realism and optimism. No, we’re not bringing democracy to Westeros, but we’re establishing the roots of a Republic. No, a queen doesn’t sit the Iron Throne, but a queen does get to rule in the north, and the north gets its sovereignty. No, Jon Snow doesn’t get to be the hero, but he does get to go beyond the wall with the Freefolk, which honestly will probably make him happier than anything else (and while he doesn’t get to claim his birthright, he does know now why Ned did what he did, and gets some closure on the daddy issues front).

All in all, it’s good. It’s not a happy ending, but we were never going to get a happy ending. And it’s not a particularly dramatic ending, because we weren’t going to get one of those either.

THAT SAID. I will say there are a few things that really bothered me about the way the finale plays out.

Drogon spontaneously melting down the throne for....some reason? Uh? I mean thematically it’s great but like....why though?

It would have made more sense if the dragon roasted Jon, except Jon doesn’t burn because fire can’t burn a dragon, but the throne behind Jon melts down. It also would have made sense of Jon hopped on the dragon and melted down the throne himself, and maybe went and either killed Dany’s force or made them surrender/yield to him.

I also have a hard time believing that the Unsullied who were just executing Lannisters would have locked Jon up instead of executing him immediately for treason.

And wtf have they all been doing after Dany died? OK, fine, maybe the Unsullied don’t have any ambitions of their own, but you’re telling me the Dothraki were like “oh, ok, queen’s dead, guess we’ll just hang out and not do anything then?”

None of that made any sense to me.

Also wtf how are there still so many Dothraki and Unsullied left? Didn’t, like, a whole lot of them die fighting zombies?

Ugh.

Anyway.

Perfect? No. Thought-provoking? Absolutely. Thematically on-point? Yeah, I’d say so. One of the best shows on television, still? Definitely. Are there valid criticisms? Yes. Are most of the criticisms valid? Not by a long shot.

One final thought:

We never do learn why the Night King doesn’t burn. Our pet theory in the house (courtesy of my husband) is that he is of Targaryen descent. He can ride the dragon, after all. What if that’s not just because he resurrects it with his powers, but because he is himself a dragon-rider?

So with that as a possibility...Well. I’m just saying.

We don’t know where Drogon took Daenerys after she dies. But wouldn’t it be interesting if she is somehow resurrected, and somehow gets to spend the next few centuries amassing an army of the undead to come back and take what’s rightfully hers, effectively re-starting the cycle and bringing winter back once again?

(this is what happens when you give a fantasy series to a horror writer)

#got spoilers #game of thrones #writing advice #rambles #thoughts #long post #analysis #this is going to get like five notes #and that will make me very sad #but here it is #here are all of my thoughts #everything that's been swirling in my brain for weeks #please enjoy

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jeffreyrwelch · 5 years

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Is Your Dog Vomiting Blood? What to Do Next

The post Is Your Dog Vomiting Blood? What to Do Next by Jackie Brown appeared first on Dogster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren’t considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Dogster.com.

Picture this: It’s 11 p.m. on a Saturday night. You’re roused from your slumber by the sound of your dog throwing up all over the bedroom floor. With a deep sigh, you crawl out of bed, flip on the light and kneel down to clean it up. But wait, you see something dark-colored in the vomit. Blood. Your heart skips a beat. Your dog is throwing up blood. Is a dog vomiting blood life threatening? Do you need to rush your dog straight to the emergency clinic?

What to do about a dog vomiting blood

What are the next steps to take for a dog vomiting blood? Photography ©Rasulovs | Thinkstock.

A dog vomiting blood can be a sign of a serious emergency or a minor problem. “It sounds gross, but you should look closely at the vomit,” says Kelly Diehl, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, scientific communications advisor for the Morris Animal Foundation, a nonprofit foundation that funds animal health research. “Is it a just a thread or a few streaks of red blood? Is it a volume of fluid that’s very red, like fruit punch? And is there anything that looks like coffee grounds?”

A small amount of red blood in your dog’s vomit could be caused by simple stomach irritation. “If [your dog has] an upset stomach and [he’s] been vomiting a lot, the stomach becomes so irritated that [he] can have a little bleeding,” Dr. Diehl explains. “Sometimes, we see stomach bleeding in pets that are taking non-steroidal [anti-inflammatory] drugs.” So, a dog vomiting blood that looks like just a few flecks or streaks of red blood is not necessarily very serious. As long as the bleeding and/or vomiting doesn’t get worse, you could potentially wait until the next day to contact your vet.

Is your dog vomiting blood and exhibiting these symptoms?

In some cases, a dog vomiting blood necessitates an immediate trip to your veterinarian (or the emergency clinic, if it’s after hours). A dog vomiting blood that is uniformly bright red signifies a large amount of bleeding. Black or dark-brown blood that looks like coffee grounds indicates the bleeding has been going on for a long amount of time, so that is very concerning. “A lot of people don’t realize that’s dried, partially digested blood,” Dr. Diehl explains. “That is almost always serious, even more serious than a streak of red blood.”

Another factor to consider with a dog vomiting blood is your dog’s demeanor. Is your dog acting fairly normal other than throwing up blood, or is he very lethargic and depressed? A dog vomiting blood who is also acting very sick should go to the vet immediately, even if it’s the middle of the night.

Additionally, a dog vomiting blood should be checked for other sources of bleeding. “For example, if [your dog] ate something like rat bait, that can cause [him] to vomit blood, but [he’s] usually bleeding somewhere else, too,” Dr. Diehl says. “[He] might be bleeding from the mouth or the nose and swallowing it. Any kind of bleeding that doesn’t seem to be slowing down, from the nose or the mouth, or any other signs of bleeding, including bruising on the skin or passing blood in stool, is an emergency. You don’t wait — you go right in.”

The bottom line on vet attention for a dog vomiting blood

The answer is easy with a dog vomiting blood during normal business hours. Call your veterinarian, describe the blood you saw, and ask if your dog needs to come in immediately or if you can take a wait-and-see approach.

However, if your dog is throwing up blood after business hours, consider the appearance and the amount of blood, how your dog is acting, and whether he has any known medical issues or is taking any medications that might be contributing to the bleeding. “If it’s really a lot of red-looking vomit, versus a streak or flecks, you should come in right away,” Dr. Diehl advises. “When you see that much bleeding, you should go in, even if your pet seems to be okay. And if your dog starts feeling really lousy, even if you’ve just seen a little bit of blood, you should go in right away.”

If you choose to wait until morning, always call your vet to report what you saw, even if your dog seems to be feeling better. “Don’t ever just completely blow it off,” Dr. Diehl says. “Even if you don’t see the blood anymore, call and talk with your veterinarian about what your next step should be.”

Tell us: Have you ever dealt with your dog vomiting blood? What caused your dog to vomit blood and how did you treat it?

Thumbnail: Photography by Kickers / iStock.

This piece was originally published in 2018.

Did you know? Vomiting blood or coffee-like material can be a sign of gastritis in humans. Find out more >>

About the author

Pet expert Jackie Brown has spent 20 years following her passion for animals as a writer and editor in the pet publishing industry. She is contributing writer for National Geographic’s Complete Guide to Pet Health, Behavior, and Happiness: The Veterinarian’s Approach to At-Home Animal Care (April 2019) and author of the book It’s Raining Cats and Dogs: Making Sense of Animal Phrases (Lumina Press, 2006). Jackie is a regular contributor to pet and veterinary industry media and is the former editor of numerous pet magazines, including Dog World, Natural Dog, Puppies 101, Kittens 101 and the Popular Cats Series. Prior to starting her career in publishing, Jackie spent eight years working in veterinary hospitals where she assisted veterinarians as they treated dogs, cats, rabbits, pocket pets, reptiles, birds and one memorable lion cub. She lives in Southern California with her husband, two sons and miniature poodle Jäger. Reach her at jackiebrownwriter.wordpress.com.

Read more about dog health on Dogster.com:

What Causes Dog Seizures and How Should They be Treated?

Dog Scooting: Why It Happens and When to See a Vet

8 Alternative Dog Cancer Treatments

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amonicano · 2 years

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Week 9 - Fandoms

For this topic, I will be specifically focusing on Kpop groups and One Direction fandom.

What is Fandom?

First, let me start off by explaining what fandom is. Fandom is basically another saying of "fan culture". A fandom us a group of people who have formed a community or subculture around a piece of pop culture, such as a book, movie, video game, comic, music groups, or sports team. This group of supporters is united by their love for the source material.

While most fandoms are made up of people who buy the source material and its various offshoots (action figures, posters, books, etc.), they can also be made up of people who actively interact and engage with the original material through creative works. Posting fanfictions and drawings, as well as writing songs or creating videos on the original work. People may even dress up as the characters from the source material.

Kpop fandoms

If you're unfamiliar with K-pop music, consider pop bands such as One Direction, Little Mix, and Fifth Harmony in the western countries: they're similar to the concept of idols.

Fandoms are a large part of K-pop fan bases and what comes of fandoms in general is always that one common thing you always see: Toxicity. The power of social media has become so popular among fanbases. The K-pop fandom is immensely popular on Twitter, with some accounts as old as the platform itself.

I'm pretty sure everyone has heard of cancel culture. If no, cancel culture is a form of online shaming involving a celebrity/or fans receiving backlashes if something offensively done by them. This is a very common thing in K-pop fandoms as K-pop fans are not afraid of this idea. In fact, they can even start canceling people or idols at anytime. In some cases, these fans have gone as far as making death threats or directing massive pile-ons for innocent opinions. Pretty disgusting.

I have never really linger around in any of the K-pop fandoms because I have been on Twitter loooooong enough to actually see the amount of sh*t happening just from a trending hashtag or accounts appearing in the normal hashtag like #BTS I follow. I admit that I love and support BTS in terms of their music but I do not want to associate myself with the fandom because of the amount of pathetic people within the fandom, especially the new fans (I hope I don't get killed but this is the truth)

Pretty sure we all know who Charlie Puth is. ARMYs started to cancel him after his live performance with BTS in 2018 (If I’m not mistaken) as they accused him for using BTS just to gain more popularity. It is really insane because some of these fans gives 0 craps and just went all out cancelling him for no damn particular reason or actual evidence.

I’m done talking about BTS ARMY. This is so tiring so I’ll talk about One Direction instead.

One Direction (Directioners)

Awwww, look at their glowups.

Ah yes, this takes me back to my time back in early secondary school days where I was an absolute hardcore One Direction fan. The fact that I still have their autobiography books as well as merchandises till today. Maigod, I feel embarrassed. But hey, I still listen to their songs cause it’s so goddamn good and even though they have disbanded, I still keep up with Harry Styles LOL. Yes, he’s my bias. Okay, moving on xD.

Also, people who are a fan of One Direction (1D) are called Directioners.

I’ll just get straight to the point and keep in one paragraph LOL cause this post is getting a bit too long. Basically in short, One Direction was badly mistreated by both toxic Directioners and people from other fandoms back then. Louis Tomlinson was called horrendous names and people commented how his voice wasn’t good enough when in actual fact, HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD AND HE HAS THAT ANGELIC VOICE. When his mom passed away in 2016, I was so disgusted at the fact that people had gone so far to commenting “I would love to make out with his mom’s dead corpse,”. This is so disgusting. Niall Horan was badly picked because of how he wasn’t as good looking as other members as well as being told that he was not good enough for the band as well. Liam Payne went into alcoholism due to the amount of stress he had to go through, which resulted him to go for therapy after the disbandment of One Direction. Zayn Malik was called racial slurs because he is a mix Brit and Pakistani. What’s even worse was that when Zayn was the first one who left the group, fans, especially the hardcore Zayn Malik simps went as far as cutting themselves thinking the faster and sooner they cut, the sooner Zayn will go back to the group. As for Harry Styles, when he was 16, he was labelled as a ‘womanizer’ by their management. Yes, you heard it right. The damn management. Even the damn management mistreated them badly back then.

I’m literally facepalming as I’m typing out all of that.

But yes, those are all some of the major points I’ve mentioned about Directioners and the mistreatment towards One Direction. There’s more to those I’ve mentioned and I can literally write a short book about it LOL.

Anyways, in summary,

Every single fandom out there is bound to have toxicity happening within. The thing about toxicity is that it cannot be avoided and stopped. Some fans even go as far as to cancelling other fandoms just for the sake of power of who do better and all that shit. It’s honestly tiring I swear, and that’s why I never involve myself with any of the fandoms after One Direction, and I’m glad I’m not in BTS ARMY fandom, though I’m a big fan of BTS music myself. Heck I rather just fangirl over them by myself like for real.

#mda20009 #fandoms #week9

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kincringeemporium · 7 years

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"How Do I Stop Being Kin!?”: A Helpful Guide (Long Post)

so... yup. tumblr ate some of my archive, including one of my most important posts: a list of steps on how to distance yourself from the kin community. as there’s no way (that i know of) to get that post back... here’s this!

how to use the guide: all complaints/problems that kin frequently send when they don’t want to be kin anymore? those are in large bold. each complaint has a list of steps on how to solve it; the steps (my responses) are just in the normal font. don’t see what you need? send an ask saying you want to see it in a part 2!

“I don’t want to be kin with (x) anymore!”

okay! this one centers mostly around keeping lists. and as i said to the most recent anon, the first step toward stopping is wanting to stop.

1. get two separate sheets of paper (or start digital documents you can print later). on one, write “(Your Name) List”. on the other, write “(Kintype Name) List.”

2. fill the YN List first. write down every one of your own traits that you can name. they can relate to appearance, gender, hobbies/interests, mental health, neurodiversity, hopes and aspirations, etc. these do not all have to be good things. try to have a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 balance of good, bad, and neutral traits. (an example of a bad trait/habit is “nail biting”, because that’s harmful. not “brown hair”. if you don’t like your hair color put “brown hair” down as a neutral trait. it’s not bad, you just want a different color.)

3. fill the KN (kintype name) list next. do not use “i”, “we”, “myself”, in this list becase it’s not about you.

• if it’s a fictional character, write down facts relating to the character’s creation. who’s the author/designer/creator? what year was the source released? what type of media is the source -- a fantasy book, a video game, a movie? emphasize that the character is fictional, not real (add ‘in this universe’ if you believe in the multiverse theory) and cannot be reincarnated.

• if it’s an animal, write down all of its behaviors: does it eat meat? what sounds does it make? is it dangerous or not? now, if you believe in reincarnation, it’s way more plausible that animals can be reincarnated and their next lives can be as humans. emphasize that even if you were the animal in a past life, you are a human now -- it is not healthy to think you literally still are the animal and/or to behave like it.

• if it’s a part of nature, like a star or a tree, write down all the facts about it that you know and emphasize that it is not sentient, it doesn’t have a soul, and it cannot make choices or be reincarnated.

keep the lists with you (as a physical copy/paper).

4. tell yourself that it’s okay to like the character, animal, or thing, it’s okay to feel that it represents part of who you are. it’s okay to feel comforted by it when you’ve had a shitty day or you’re in a bad mood. feeling these things does not automatically make you kin. write these down on a small piece of paper and keep the paper with you.

5. even though it is okay to like the character/animal/thing, slowly start avoiding content that includes it. if you are trying to stop being fictionkin, do not watch the source. stay away from fanfic, pictures, etc, that make you have strong emotions about it.

6. if you ever are feeling guilty about something your kintype did (and this applies mostly to villain kin), you are projecting. whether you’re feeling guilty about your own mistakes without realizing, or you want the chance to fix something/apologize, you are projecting. if you are acting out what you really, really want the villain to do -- ie, you relate to them strongly but they’re not repentant and you want them to be... rp. start a roleplay blog, write a redemption au. look back at your lists again.

• if it’s not a villain, but you’re feeling guilty about something bad your kintype did, still do a bit of rp and keep looking back at those lists!

7. whenever you have “kinfeels” or “kin memories”, look at your YN and KN lists. read them to remind yourself that you are not the same person as the character, not the same being as the animal, and not something inanimate.

8. try new things and (now i’m not saying this to be a bitch) go outside. i mean it. vitamin d is good for you. you don’t have to exercise, but if you are able to, go for it. visit the library, the park, a coffee shop, the mall, anywhere. test out new hobbies, like

• writing fiction (could be about the character/animal/thing, if this is how you maintain a connection with it while not identifying as it)

• traditional drawing

• digital drawing

• sewing, knitting, or crochet

• writing movie critiques/analyses

• jewelry making

• making non-kin-related selfcare

• sports

“I want to get out of the community, but I’m not ready to let go of my kintypes!”

so you’re not ready? okay. this is still your first step. you will fuck yourself over badly if you push yourself to 100% stop being kin before you can function without it. this is true in situations like abusive households or trauma: if you pretend that you’re someone else who’s never had to deal with those things, you are using escapism to let off stress and unwind.

1. change your blog theme. i know it sounds dumb and unrelated. however, having a visual change will make you more inclined to change other things -- and it will start to tell other people in the community that you are able to change.

2. update your about, kin page, and byf. take things like “don’t follow if you don’t see me as (kintype)”, “no doubles”, and kin-related discourse out of those pages. anything that typically appears in kin cringe comps? take it out. (look through my blog for example of typical cringe comp material.)

• don’t say “literally me”, “100% me”, “ID” about the kintypes you list.

• instead of having separate sections for “primary”, “secondary”, “tertiary”, things like that... just say “kintypes” once and list them/insert their pictures.

• do NOT link to others’ blogs saying “this person is my (canonmate name)!” or “i found my (important canonmate)!

• whatever your stance on ace discourse... take that out of your pages. i have no idea why, but the kin community is fucking overrun with people thinking that aces/aros aren’t lgbtq+. removing this discourse from your blog will remove you from another common kin community behavior. (it’s totally okay to post ace/aro positivity, but don’t involve yourself in heavy discourse and don’t put “Aces/aros are/aren’t lgbtq!” on your about/kinpage/byf.)

3. if you list kin friends or kin blogs on one of your pages, consider taking out the links and just describing the friends/blogs. this will distance your blog from the network of kin on here.

4. instead of requesting “kintype selfcare/positivity” from those kin resource blogs:

• reblog aesthetics that remind you of the kintypes, but is not labeled as “(kintype) aesthetic”.

• make some aesthetics yourself based on the kintypes. if you’re tagging, then just use general tags (ie, “kin”, “otherkin”, or “fictionkin”), not specifically the character’s name or the type of animal you identify with.

• write positive affirmations for yourself, such as “i got enough sleep so this will be a better day!” or “i didn’t lie in bed all day so i feel motivated!” or “i ate something healthy instead of junk food!”

• if you’re writing affirmations specifically about a kintype, don’t refer to the kintype using “i” or “we”. instead, write “(character) tries their best to fix wrongdoings, so i will too!” or “(character) makes an effort to overcome anxiety, so i’m going to try harder too!” or “(animal) isn’t inherently bad/gross; it’s trying to survive like me!”

• basically, when writing positivity/affirmations, pick a trait that the kintype has that you want to have too. don’t just say “i have this trait because i am (kintype)!”

• sorry not sorry, but the overwhelming majority of the positivity on those blogs is useless. it might make you feel better for a couple minutes, but it’s superficial. even if the person running the blog genuinely wants people to feel better, they are still operating under the obligation to give positivity.

it is not as genuine as it should be. the person doesn’t know who you are, and they might not know a lot about the kintype. the positivity from those blogs is generic, ie, “even if you’ve done some bad things, you’re not a bad person!” You need specifics, which only you can come up with -- because only you know yourself. when something is vague or general, we think deep down that it’s not true. (btw, that’s the same psychology behind the “sounds fake but okay” meme.)

5. if your mutuals get into kin drama, or if you see kin drama on your dash, stay out of it. it does not matter right now if these people are your best friends in the world, because once the drama dies down, your url is still all over those posts. even if the people who started the drama delete the posts, other people have everything saved. the things you said in anger or anxiety or whatever are still on tumblr. and tumblr has an extremely difficult time recognizing that what someone said three months ago doesn’t define what they say now.

6. unfollow people who have ‘typical cringe comp material’ on their pages and/or people who frequently are involved in drama.

• if they have “ask to unfollow” on their pages, unfollow anyway. if they harass you about it, block them (and maybe report for... violating community guidelines. or harassment). DON’T PUT THIS ON YOUR PAGES. EVER. FOLLOWING YOU IS NOT A CHORE. MAKING PEOPLE ASK PERMISSION TO UNFOLLOW YOU CAN CAUSE THEM HUGE AMOUNTS OF ANXIETY. IT’S SHITTY AND ENTITLED. DON’T DO IT.

7. if you’re going to send hate to antis, i can’t stop you, but for fuck’s sake, do that on anon. (”what!?” you say as you read this post. “but don’t antis think anon hate is cowardly!?”) you just don’t want to be known as someone active enough in the community to send off-anon shit.

8. if i have or another anti/cringe blog has screenshotted your post/page, ask for it to be removed. no promises that other blogs will remove your stuff, but here on kce and over at @only-on-tomblr, we will. having your content up on popular cringe blogs can definitely get you recognized among the community, and you don’t want that.

“I don’t want to rely so hard on being kin -- I want kin to be a casual thing!”

1. first off, follow the “i want to get out of the community” list. you don’t have to stop identifying as kin, you just need to distance yourself from that network of over the top, hardcore kin people.

2. recognize that kin is your coping mechanism. it is okay to use escapism (that’s what kin is tbh) to cope. it is okay to step away from reality, unwind, then go back to reality after a few hours of doing kin stuff/rp.

3. recognize that any coping mechanism is going to be harmful when you take it too far. when it goes too far, it becomes an obsession. (because i am sure someone’s going to say this, i’m not dragging special interests. those are not the same as coping mechanisms gone wrong and this post does not relate to special interests.)

4. guess what? you don’t need just one coping mechanism. and because you’re not completely dropping the kintypes, you need to focus your kin-related energy into a creative outlet. what i mean by that is... write about them. draw pictures of them. do commissions, even for people who have the same kintype. not to mention, if you write about/draw them a lot, you are getting so much better at those skills.

5. optional: it would also help to make lists of your traits and the kintypes’ traits, like in the first section of this post.

6. as with the other sections, do not refer to the kintypes as “myself”/”i”.

that’s about it

Other things you can do

• write a brief analysis of an episode, movie, chapter, etc in which the character/kintype appears. what does the person/being do and why? how do their actions result in the episode/chapter/game/movie ending? how do other characters react to it? and how is this different from what you would do, right now, if you were in the same situation? (obviously no one has to see it, so doesn’t matter if it sucks)

• interact with people who have the same kintype so you can become more comfortable with “doubles” and thus be less intense about being kin

• when you’re watching/reading/playing/listening to new media (’source’), and you begin to have “kinfeels” for someone, step back. put the book down. pause the show or podcast. remind yourself that this is fiction. even if the multiverse does exist, your kintype cannot cross between universes and ‘be’ you. you are most likely projecting onto the character or you are inspired to create a similar character/oc.

• aaand.... here it comes... oh god. oh no. limit your time on tumblr. do not spend all day on this forsaken hellsite.

Things to absolutely NOT do

• post anything like “why did the author put me/kintype in a relationship with a girl!? i’m gay!” all that does is imply that you think you have some kind of ownership over someone else’s character. it makes you look like you want everything to go your way -- and not everything can. i am not saying that to be a jerk.

• ask people to unfollow you. as i said before (now, i don’t have anxiety so this isn’t from firsthand experience), do you have any idea how much anxiety that causes people? and how shitty a thing it is to do?

• harass someone over being a double

• tell them to unfollow/stop interacting because they are a double

• compare being kin to being trans or nonbinary. for fuck’s sake. there’s no such thing as a “kingender”.

- even if your kintype was female in ‘your source’, but wasn’t female in canon... that does not mean you are trans and it does not mean the kintype is trans.

- even if you are trans yourself, it has absolutely nothing to do with you identifying as kin. they are not related. you are a trans person who also happens to be kin.

- things like “canidgender: a gender that feels tough and ready to defend, a gender that makes you feel alert, a gender that....” are not real. gender is not an emotion. besides, these descriptions have nothing to do with gender.

• say that you have dysphoria about your kintype. again, if you have dysphoria, it’s because you are transgender/nonbinary. you do not have “species dysphoria” about your astral ears. just because it’s listed on google with a definition does not mean it’s legit.

• use ‘kin pronouns’ like glitch/glitchs/glitchself. ne/nes/neself. star/stars/starself. it/its. the very concept of kin pronouns suggests that gender is automatically tied to kin. it’s not. and you are not an object.

• send people hate or get into discourse about headcanons involving your kintype

• tag art as “me” or “kin” or “id”. even if the artist says it’s okay, avoiding this is another way to distance yourself from a harmful community. if you need/want to keep a tagging system, just tag it with the character’s name or the type of animal.

• tell someone that they are “your (important canonmate).

• especially do not tell someone that your characters dated and that you must begin a romantic relationship because of that!

• insist that someone just has to remember something that you remember! here’s an appropriate exchange on this.

you: “do you remember when our kintypes had that huge fight, then made up and dated for a few months? we drifted apart and stopped dating.”

them: “no... i recall something different.”

you: “oh. well, that’s okay!”

comments i just know i’m going to get (they’re useless. don’t post them and don’t send them to me)

• you’re policing our identities!

•you can’t dictate how we cope!

• you can’t take away our fun!

• how would you know how this stuff works? you’re not kin!

• ableist!

• go do something productive!

• i don’t care. i’m doing these things anyway!

-k

#long post #very long post #not cringe #kin #otherkin #fictionkin #fickin #kin help #kin stuff #antikin #kincringeemporium #kce #refs #resources #guide #resource #mental health #mental help #coping

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kootenaygoon · 4 years

Photo

So,

It felt like driving to a battle ground.

My RAV rumbled over the exposed roots of massive trees and navigated the meandering forest road into Shambhala for the third year in a row, with Andrew Stevenson riding shotgun. I was already dressed for the part in a pair of paint splatter tights I’d borrowed from Natalya, and we were sharing a joint with dappled sunlight on our faces. A grinning skull wearing a ceremonial headdress cackled at me from the hood of a derelict truck as ghost fingers of smoke reached longingly from between the trunks. The further I immersed into the grey haze, the more I felt like I was appearing on an episode of Game of Thrones. They had just released the third episode of the seventh season, and Queen Daenerys’ continued ascent could only mean one thing: a coming conflagration of epic proportions.

It was Thursday afternoon, and we’d just put the paper to bed with the following cover story: “Shambhala dodges evacuation alert”. I’d called the Southeast Fire Centre to ask them about a 75-hectare fire that was currently raging 20 kilometres southeast of Salmo and asked them a bunch of questions: What were the chances of it coming closer? How long would it take if to reach the ranch? Was I an idiot for heading out there in person? How close does a fire have to be to trigger an evacuation? The representative reassured me that the fire was extremely unlikely to close the distance to the festival in the next four days, and promised there were plenty of obstacles in the way to keep it contained. I hung up relieved, but also skeptical.

Guessing at the behaviour of a forest fire seemed as wrong-headed as underestimating a dragon.

Lately I’d been re-reading the Song of Ice and Fire series on my Kindle, scouring the text for new clues about the various theories I’d heard on the Internet. It amazed me how George R. R. Martin used layer after layer of world-building, doggy-piling the reader with names of secondary characters, so that each time you read it there was something new to discover. I was convinced the whole narrative was cleverly disguised science fiction, with the world’s population having regressed after an apocalyptic event. Readers who only engaged in the present tense storyline, wondering what would happen next with Jon Snow or Arya or Tyrion, were missing out on the decades and even centuries of Westeros history Martin had created to establish their current setting. There was no way the show could match this intricacy, and the quality of each episode had been diminishing dramatically since the show-runners overcame his source material.

“Do you think I’m the villain of this story?” I asked Andrew Stevenson, as the RAV continued to splash through pot-holes. He was picking at his fingernails angrily, and didn’t look up.

“What makes you say that?”

“I started off as this blond Cupid that everyone was rooting for, now it’s like I become a shittier person the longer I stay in the Kootenays. I feel like it’s been one long plummet since Paisley left, like I’ve become this person I don’t even recognize. This pot-head asshole piece of shit.”

He snorted. “You said it, not me.”

Andrew was wearing a dirty white tank tucked into his jeans, and a pair of those cheesy wrap-around sunglasses you buy at gas stations. His hair was poorly cut, maybe by his wife, and his clusters of acne on each cheek made him look like a kid. I’d looked at Andrew Stevenson from all kinds of angles, but I never found one that truly satisfied me. I thought of him every time I came to Shambhala, because this was his town. These were the people he started out doing drugs with. It was his friends that were dropping dead of fentanyl overdoses, his people who were killing themselves with shotguns. He’d spent his entire life in the Kootenays, moving from one community to the next, and he’d fathered all his kids here. It was thoughts of them that propelled him over that bank counter, that got him swinging his shotgun around at those tellers while he shrieked like a fucking goblin.

He passed me the joint. “Once you have kids, man. It’s this whole other element. Like think what Eminem would be without his daughter, right? He’s living for her, the same way I was living for my kids every day.”

“Sometimes I worry, you know? I feel like it’s a sexual version of musical chairs and I’m going to be the one left holding my dick,” I said. “I’ve wanted to be a Dad since I understood what that meant. I feel like it’s my whole purpose, but who the fuck is going to have a baby with me?”

He snickered. “It’s going to hit you like a shovel to the face.”

As I pulled out of the forest into the yawning fields of the ranch, we were met with a security officer, who tried to send me the normal route even though I had a press pass. I argued with him, entitled, telling him that the last two years I’d come they always let me go through the back way.

“You can call Jimmy. He’ll tell you. Will Johnson from the Nelson Star.”

The guy shrugged back a bit, cowed by the power of Jimmy’s name. At the end of the day, he was the guy. He owned the ranch, founded Shambhala and basically made this who endeavour come to life. He was like Zuckerberg, always wearing a humble T-shirt and never rocking the millionaire vibe. It looked like he still shopped at Value Village.

“Give me a moment, I’m going to ask my manager,” he said, rounding the hood of my car and making a call through his walkie talkie. He was bouncing his chin along with a beat I couldn’t hear.

I sulked, annoyed with the delay. I wanted to get situated on the grounds with enough time to walk the ranch in daylight. It was late afternoon already, and I really didn’t want to go through with the indignity of a search. Especially because I was carrying things they could find if they did their jobs properly. While I waited for an answer, Andrew Stevenson jutted out his hip and pointed to it, grinning.

“I’m not shoving everything up my ass,” I said. “Shut up.”

Eventually the guy returned and waved me through the back way, a muddy cow-trail that led out to where all the cars were parked. It still struck me, how bizarre it was to see that many vehicles randomly parked in such an idyllic place. It was like seeing an army preparing to attack, the soldiers getting organized into rows. As I followed the smiling flaggers into the media section, I felt like Queen Daenerys as she patrolled the ranks of her invading Dothraki. When was my ascent going to be?

Once we got ourselves parked, I dug out a bottle of vodka from the dash and sat on the hood of my RAV doing shots. Some nearby campers shouted “Happy Shambs” and gave some half-hearted introductions, but mostly left us alone. I’d been feeling grateful to Andrew lately, now that the Maisonneuve story had come out, but also a little guilty. I wished I could’ve gotten an interview him him. It felt strange to tell his story without his input. Maybe he hated the article, maybe he felt I got it wrong.

All I wanted was to get it right.

Next I pulled out the provisions Niles had given me. I was meeting Steph the next day, but this evening was reserved for me. Andrew opened the Ziploc bag and handed over my share. We chased it with vodka.

“What people always forget about Daenerys is that her father’s the fucking Mad King. So who’s to say she’s not going to become the Mad Queen?”

Andrew laughed. “It wasn’t genetic. It was his reality that drove the Mad King over the edge, all his political rivals scheming and plotting to take him out. She’s in a totally different context than he was.”

“But they say all Targaryens are a little mad, right? They’ve all got that fire, that purple magic?”

He sighed. “She does seem to enjoy burning people to death.”

Taking one more shot of vodka, Andrew threw himself down on the grass and started slipping out of his boots. He pulled off his shirt to reveal a bullet-proof vest, then pulled off his scruffy jeans. He pulled on a bulky black sweater, then tight black military-style pants, followed by black boots. He threw a matching set in front of me. This was what we always wore when we were hunting rapists. It was a task I was getting increasingly ambivalent about, but Andrew pursued it with a religious glee. He wanted to find sexual wrong-doers and feed them to crocodiles. That’s what he fucking lived for.

I began to get dressed as well. “Where’re we going?” I asked.

“We’re heading to the Fractal Forest. We need to be there by 6 p.m.”

“Who’s playing at 6 p.m.?”

“It doesn’t matter who’s playing.”

“Then why do we need to be there by 6? What difference does it make?”

He turned dramatically towards me, for effect: “The difference: it’s your funeral.”

“What are you talking about, my funeral?”

“After crucifixion comes resurrection, right? Think about the Greyjoys: what is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger. You have to die so you can be reborn.”

“What’re you gonna do? Drown me in the Salmo River?”

He shook his head. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

Next he held out two black balaclavas. Ski masks. This was what he was wearing at the Nelson & District Credit Union, that day in 2014, two weeks before I moved to town. This was the event that had connected us, and I wanted to feel its truth. It wasn’t enough to know that he robbed that place, that he escaped on a bicycle, that he was so high he couldn’t even remember the events afterwards. I wanted to feel that urgency in my blood, that desperation, I wanted to evoke it on the page and make it so real it couldn’t be brushed aside. A full-grown human man was pushed to these lengths, felt he had no other choice but to take a blind run at crime. It was like Breaking Bad in real life. I wondered constantly what happened to his kids when their two parents went away.

We pulled on the balaclavas. Facing me, Andrew put his hands on both my shoulders and spoke through the black cloth. Maybe it made him feel more comfortable saying what he had to say next.

“Think of it as a car crash, okay? You know it’s coming, and you know that you won’t have any control over what happens. But you also know you’re going to survive it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He sighed. “Look at yourself, Will. You’re a chronic pot smoker living in your friend’s basement and doing drugs at Shambhala like you’re some rave kid, in the middle of an overdose crisis. What the fuck are you thinking?”

“I just figure, you know, when in Rome.”

“That’s the level of intellectual thought you’ve put into this: when in Rome? You’re gambling with your whole future, fucking around like this. What if you permanently alter your brain chemistry?”

“My brain was damaged to begin with. I’d rather be fucked in the head than depressed. I couldn’t deal with the sadness anymore.”

“Those are your excuses. That’s all they are.”

After a while we stopped arguing, had a couple more shots of vodka, then headed off towards the festival reunited. It was true he was like Eminem, while I was Stan, and Ryan Tapp could be our Slim Shady. We were a trifecta that way, three souls with interlinked stories. The Bank Robber, the Legend and the Holy Spirit. I wished Ryan could be there, but this was something that had to be settled between Andrew and I. And just as I was thinking that, he chose our target. I rushed up to see what would happen next.

“We’re going to make a little human sacrifice,” Andrew said, channeling Tyler Durden, as he held his black shotgun to the throat of a quivering rave kid. “Yeah, and this guy looks like he’ll please the Gods.”

“Hold on, we can’t do this here. People will hear the blast,” I said, my head whipping back and forth. There were people parading past only twenty feet away, but they weren’t looking over to where we were crouched in the shadows.

“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”

“Are you quoting Fight Club?”

“Raymond K. Hessel, you are going to die.”

He motioned for me to join him, then carefully transferred the gun into my hands. I looked down at the panicked Asian kid in front of me, who was stretching up his hands to unveil grotesque pit stains. He was 22, maybe 23.

“Ask him if he wants to die,” Andrew whispered.

“Do you want to die? Do you want me to kill you? Is that what you want?” I asked, really getting into my part now. I was really feeling it, like I was actually the guy with the gun. My whole life I’ve been the guy on the other side of the gun, but now it was in my hands. Mine mine mine.

“No, please. I’ll do anything,” the guy said, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

He blinked, confused. “I don’t know.”

After a long moment of silence, I lifted the barrel and gestured with my head. The raver kid want off into the darkness screaming with relief, and left me standing in the shadows with Andrew. He’d never killed anybody either, though he had the chance multiple times. He carried that black shotgun with him everywhere he went, but he only fired it once — into a door. He was trying to show me that he wasn’t a killer, not really, though he couldn’t admit it out loud. Much easier to embrace the guilt, to characterize yourself based on other people’s moral judgements. Much easier to be the bad guy.

By this point we were heading into the downtown of Shambhala, where all the food vendors clustered around the Pagoda Stage. I bought myself a burrito and shared it with Andrew in the dark, stumbling off towards Muscle Beach, our balaclavas pushed to our foreheads. The music was electrifying the night sky, so there was a lightning storm of purple energy reaching into the heavens. I figured sooner or later we would encounter Daenerys and her dragons, seeing as the smoke continued to billow into our faces. It smelled like campfire, like somebody was telling an increasingly grandiose story for all the gathered campers. It smelled like imagination.

“So here’s a question,” I said, as I wiped burrito off my chest. “How do you think Dany gave birth to those dragons? Was that science, or magic?”

“My money’s on science.”

“Even with all that blood sacrifice, with tying the maegi to the pyre and everything?”

“Dragons are biological creatures. They can only be birthed in a biological way. It was probably the heat from the pyre triggering some sort of genetic process or something. I don’t know, exactly.”

“Well, what about the fact that she wasn’t burned to death?”

He wagged a finger at me. “Now that’s different. That was a miracle. And that’s why people follow her: she performs miracles, just like Jesus.”

“She’s a sexy little Jesus with a holy trinity of dragons on her side.”

“Exactly.”

I’d never really been a Daenerys fan before this conversation. It seemed too obvious, in a literary work with hundreds of characters, to go for her. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that her story resonated more strongly with my life than any of the others. I felt her familial exile, felt her frightened youth. I also knew the part of her that considered herself royalty, despite what anybody else says. She was determined to find her rightful place in this world, and that place was at the top. I grabbed ahold of two fleshy scales on Drogon’s back and soared above Shambhala with a dragon between my legs, high enough to see the forest fire on the other side of the mountain slope. It was orange, mostly, and didn’t seem especially lively. I circled around it, surveying its shape.

“There’s no way that fire’s going to come for us,” I said, dangling from the scales as Drogon swooped. Andrew was clinging on right beside me. We were thousands of feet in the air.

“You haven’t been listening to anything I’m saying.”

The Kootenay Goon

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writingsbyexiledfromazerath · 7 years

Text

Saudade; Chapter 3 Papercut

"Hello, Sockhead! Earth to Sockhead! C'mon man I don't want to be here any longer than I have to be!"

Eddward's eyes focused to the blank piece of paper before him. Tutoring Eddy was difficult enough, but it was even more challenging with his mind running in circles.

It was not healthy where his mind was drifting off to, but he quickly attempted to shake it off. Distractions were not of the essence right now.

Eddward cleared his throat before picking up Eddy's textbook.

"My apologizes, Eddy. Let us start over. What were some of the initial factors and conflicts that instigated World War II?"

Eddy paused, furrowed his brow and ripped the textbook from Edward's hand. As he pried the book open and flipped frantically through the pages, Eddward realized Eddy has yet again neglected study.

"Eddy, you'll never get out of remedial history if you don't at least skim the material." Eddy groaned.

"I don't see why we even have to learn this stuff, Double D. I mean, the past is over right? Isn't that the point?What does it matter what Turkey or Hungry did 70 years ago?"

"Stuffing anyone?" Ed approached the library's wooden table with full arms and a matching grin. His arms and his forehead had slight streaks of paint in a variety of colors. His arms were loaded with folders and loose papers.

"Hello Ed! And how was your art class?" Ed dropped his items onto the table and began to sort through them.

"I'm working on a new peice guys! He held up an elaborate space and alien sketch, half painted. The painting was realistic enough that Edward could almost feel the aliens breathing and hear the lasers firing. Ed had a real gift.

"Ain't I a Pinocchio or what, Fellas?"He asked with a smirk. Eddward grinned.

"Picasso Ed, and I must say you're artwork has certainly improved since middle school."

Ed beamed. It made Eddward so happy to see Ed show some confidence and pride in something he had accomplished.

"I really hope to have this one finished by Nazz's party. I think it would be a nice gift." Eddy ripped his eyes from his textbook to Ed's half completed piece before breaking out laughing.

"Yeah right! Like Nazz would be interested in a dumb ol' painting. Why don't' you give it to May and see if she'll let you hit second base?"

Ed noticeably recoiled, hunching his shoulders over and looking down.

"I don't want to play baseball with May, Eddy. I just want Nazz to have a nice birthday gift."

Eddward resented Eddy for how much he had been trying to push Ed sexually. Clearly he was not emotionally or mentally mature enough for such endeavors and he was not helping by teasing him about it.

"Well I think that's a very thoughtful idea Ed."Eddward commented "We all know Nazz loves thoughtful and kind people."

Eddy paused, narrowing his eyes. "Are you trying to say something, Sock Head?"

Eddward sighed, defeated.

"Of course not, Eddy. I'm going to go find a textbook with simpler timelines. Be right back."

Edward pushed out his chair and huffed to the History section of the library. He knew it was easier to walk away from Eddy than to argue with him, but sometimes he wished that standing up to him was the easier option.

Dazed hazel eyes glazed over the series of textbooks lining the dusty shelves. Hundreds of years of history and Eddy could not show interest in a single moment if his life depended on it.

His fingers grazed the plastic bindings until he found the material he was looking for. He slowly pulled the book from the shelf and lowered his eyes to the binding as he turned around.

A smooth talking voice graced Eddward's ears that was far too familiar.

Kevin.

Before Eddward could evaluate his actions, his legs developed a mind of their own, carried him closer to the source of the voice. He peered around the edge of a bookcase, attempting to remain silent.

Kevin had Nazz pressed up against a bookcases, his arm pressed against the bindings above her head. Nazz giggled flirtatiously and confidently as Kevin gave her a smirk.

That mischievous, devious smirk. Eddward was too familiar with that.

Eddward watched Kevin whisper something into Nazz's ear. After another giggle he planted a quick kiss onto her strawberry lips.

Eddward felt his chest tighten. Could they be dating? It was certainly possible. What could have happened over th course of the summer to trigger that?

"I was sure that Kevin…"

His knees started to tremble but he found himself somehow unable to move. The textbook he had clasped between his palms had escaped and fallen to the floor with a gratuitous thud. He needed to leave. He needed to get Kevin's face removed from his brain. This was too much for him.

Kevin and Nazz paused, turning their heads towards the sound of the thump and the thin teen's direction.

Curses, they've noticed me.

His feet would still not remove themselves from the library carpet.

Kevin and Eddward's eyes met, and once again Eddward found himself unable to read Kevin's eyes. Why did his eyes look that way?

"Dude, a little privacy, would ya?" Kevin uttered, casting his eyes downward.

Eddward obeyed, spinning on his heel and almost sprinting towards the back of the library where his friends were waiting, ignorant of his situation.

When Eddward returned to his friends, his face was read and his body was starting to perspire. His chest still felt tight and the last thing he wanted to do was to explain why he was so disheaveled.

Eddy looked up from his cellphone, appearing disinterested before his eyes squinted in confusion.

"What the hell happened to you, Sockhead? And where the hell is the book?"Eddward looked down into his suddenly empty hands; the book was gone, probably only a few feet from Kevin and Nazz's hiding spot. Eddward swallowed a hard lump.

"Oh, someone seems to have checked it out already."Eddward muttered. Eddy grunted, appearing bored.

"Well let's go do something else Double D. I'm getting bored of this stupid studying stuff." Eddy pushed his body out from the table. Normally, Eddward would protest, but the defeat in his mind had worn his body weak, and for a brief moment Eddward no longer cared about academic goals.

"Sure, Eddy. We've done enough. Let's go back to the Cul-de-Sac."Eddy's eyes widened. With a triumphant cheer, he sprung from the table and started to dart towards the door. His smartphone left abandoned on the table.

Eddward grabbed the phone, still open on the popular social media app that Eddy was so addicted to. His finger skimmed the screen, causing the screen to scroll down to more oversharing from his classmates.

Kevin and Nazz had posted a picture together, captioning it "two month anniversary", complete with hearts and smiley emojis. Eddward could have just swallowed a brick with the heavy feeling in his stomach.

Eddward felt the air escape from his lungs, suddenly unable to breathe. His eyes began to water.

"What were we then, Kevin?" He thought to himself. "What the hell were we?"

"Dammit. God dammit."

"Are you okay Double D?" Eddward turned to see Ed, still packing up his art projects with a concerned sadness in his eyes. Eddward sniffed and straightened his body, attempting to compose himself. This was not something he wanted to tell anyone, and was far too complicated for Ed to handle.

"Yeah, I'm fine Ed. Just feeling really out of it today. I think a good night's sleep would help" He tried to smile, but realized quickly that it probably was not very convincing. Ed tilted his head.

"Is it about Kevin and Nazz?"He asked slowly, Eddward almost choked.

"Wh...what would make you think that, Ed?" The nerd stuttered, chest so tight he thought his ribs would break.

"Well you guys got really close last year right? And how he won't talk to you? What happened?"

Floored, Eddward found himself speechless. As much as he and Kevin had worked to hide it, Ed had noticed the changes. They were so convinced they had everyone ignorant of their secret.

"Well I mean, friendships change Ed, and sometimes people grow distant. It's a perfectly normal part of growing up." Ed stared at Eddward, sadness still present in his eyes.

"You gotta talk to him, Double D. It's not fair for you to not understand what's going on. It happens to me sometimes and I would change it if I could, you know."

Edd could not speak.

"Ed, that is the most coherent thing I've ever heard you say."

Ed looked down, picking up his art bag and his football jacket from the wooden table.

"Just because I don't talk alot don't mean I don't have alot to say, Double D. Noone really stops to consider what I'm really good at, they just all look at what I can't do."

Without another word, Ed slung his bag over his shoulder and quietly walked past Eddward. Eddward watched him keep his solemn face until he was approached by Rolf, and suddenly that goofy smile had reappeared on his face.

Eddward felt morbidly embarrassed. He was so sure he knew the people around him, including his best friends. How could he have missed Ed's strengths?

Perhaps he was underestimating Ed and Eddy. They were his best friends after all. He should be willing to focus more on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. Perhaps telling them what had happened between himself and Kevin could be a beneficial action. Perhaps they would understand…

But then again, would they really believe him?

#eene #eene fanfiction #fanfiction #saudade #exiledfromazerath

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