#the only thing that got me through spring 2020
Text
Untitled | KNJ
Pairing: Namjoon x (f.) Reader
Genre/Tags: idolverse (no explicit mentions of BTS), strangers au; angst, smut
Warnings: foul language, inexplicit smut (making out, non-descriptive penetrative sex) (18+)
Word count: 16k
Summary: For years as a sculptor, you felt detached from your own work - unable to title them, describe them, name the most basic emotions that artists should be in tune with. A chance encounter with a man one winter night finds you in a journey of finding your own meaning. And as you slowly discover what it means to create and to feel, you find out that this might also be what pulls both of you far apart.
A/N1: It’s been tough being on a writing slump and not being able to come up with something new, but then Indigo happened. I’ve been so into Closer and been wanting to write something that would encapsulate the song’s emotions, but the more I listened to NJ talk about his album (especially Yun), the more I got to reflect on so many other things. So here we are. This was a quick write (and an experiment, too!) filled with my own ramblings and questions that only one Kim Namjoon would prompt me to have. Please enjoy.
A/N2: I’m not an artist, but I’m fascinated by them and what they create (Van Gogh’s Digital Art Exhibition in the LUME, Melbourne from last September just blew my away). In another life, I probably would’ve been a collector. But the essence of humanity in my professional work links to my own appreciation of art in that sense. All the things that I wonder about life and the essence of being human are reflected here. I’ve taken from Namjoon’s reflections and insights as well, and once again, I was reminded of his brilliance and his heart.
2020, early winter
A little boy with a bucket painting stars in the sky.
That’s what this season’s artwork on the side of the building is. Just this fall, it was a girl raising a paper airplane on this exact spot; in the summer, it was another kid on a swing, and in spring, it was a child with an opened suitcase, their toys falling out and drifting into a stream.
Lost childhood, perhaps. That’s what happens when the world stands still, Namjoon thinks. He’d written a song about it - the things we lost during the time when time froze, and maybe just like these paintings, life continued to go on. The yearning remains, though, and he can see it on the piece that he’s been looking at for minutes now.
Maybe the artist is young, mourning their own youth that slipped from their fingers. Maybe it’s someone a little older, mourning it for others. Maybe it’s just a person who’s trying to understand the situation through a child’s eyes - with innocence, confusion, trust. Maybe it’s—
The sound of footsteps disrupts Namjoon’s thoughts. It’s 2AM and he’s a little surprised that someone is in the area at this time. It’s a busy street during the day and the crowd falls away early. It’s completely deserted by this hour; it’s why he likes taking this route from the office to his apartment. He’s always liked walking home regardless of the distance, but it’s at night when he feels most free, and it’s become something he looks forward to everyday.
He’s about to turn away when he notices a figure run up to the small building where the painting he was just admiring is. The individual lays their bag on the floor and retrieves a paintbrush and a pail, seemingly about to continue their work that Namjoon didn’t even realize was still unfinished.
“Fuck,” the voice curses out. “Fuck fuck fucking shit. Why do I always forget my hot packs!”
The person removes their mask and blows into their cupped hands, rubbing them after in hopes of sustaining the heat from the friction.
“Just a bit more,” they continue, gloved hand now pointing ripples by the boy’s legs as he stands in a body of water. “Just a bit more.”
As chattering teeth and the blowing of air on hands continue, Namjoon decides to make himself known. The stranger is clearly trying to finish their work - and he’s curious to see this all unfold, finding amusement in watching an artist in action - but the cold air is quite uncomfortable.
“Hey,” he says, as the figure stops their movements. “I’m not a creep, I promise. I was just looking at your work but you’re freezing and I… I’ve got some extra hot packs with me.”
You slowly turn around with furrowed brows. This is the first time you’ve come across another person during the early mornings you paint on this specific building. You’ve gotten used to the emptiness of this street at this time, but somehow, hearing this man’s deep, rough voice is giving you comfort. Especially since he’s offering something you need.
“Sure, that would be great,” you say, blowing into your hands again.
He slowly walks forward - clad in a thick hoodie and beanie, his mask covering half of his face. He looks familiar, but you don’t have much time to place where you know him from. You take the hot packs he offers, squeeze one with your free hand while the other continues on with the piece that you want to finish tonight.
“Will it take much longer?” He asks, his voice kind. “I didn’t know it was unfinished and it’s quite interesting to see an artist complete their work. So, uh, can I watch?”
You turn towards him. On a normal day, you’d turn him away. You’re not too keen on anyone on your ass while you finish something, but he doesn’t seem like a creep and he was kind enough to give you hot packs at a time like this, so you nod.
It doesn’t take long. It’s just some ripples and a few strokes left anyway; you were freezing too much last night so you put off the final details for tonight. And then the last bit. You sign your name on the bottom corner, and a gasp leaves the stranger’s mouth.
“Wait, you’re Blue…” he says, the realization dawning on him. “
“Surprise,” you reply, standing up from your squatting position.
“I mean, I figured since you’ve been painting children and their lost youth this past year but… the man in the rain, the distorted face on the mirror, the hand on the neck… those were you, too.”
Namjoon can’t believe he’s finally face-to-face with the artist whose work has been haunting him since he first came across one on an electric post 3 years ago.
They were in other parts of the city. He remembers seeing them on walls and buildings during his walks home or when he was in the car, and then some weeks later, they were gone, either replaced with a new piece of work or just painted over, as if it never existed. He’d seen the signature a few times, and seeing it again reminded him that it was you, too. The one who’d created those masterpieces that got him thinking, feeling, wondering.
“You have a good memory,” you simply smile at him, realizing at this point that you’ve left your mask off. You put it back on and take in his domineering form. “Those were years ago; I’ve almost forgotten about them.”
“I haven’t. I mean, sort of.”
“Good. That was the point,” you reply. “I mean, sort of.”
“The point being? That I find something that speaks to me and then the next minute, they’re gone?” He says, quite defensive. It bothered him for a time that he never got to see those pieces again.
“What did they make you feel?”
“Desolate? Alone? Confused? Desperate?”
“Then you forgot about them, didn’t you?”
“The paintings, sort of. Not the feeling, though,” he frowns. “I still think about them but… I think I’ve forgotten exactly what they look like. Is that what you wanted?”
“Pretty much,” you hum, starting to pack your things. “The stuff I leave on for a few weeks are mostly sad, and I paint over them because I don’t want people to dwell on them. I want people… to forget, to move on.”
“But they don’t, not really. I’m sure they’ve taken photos if it spoke to them so much. At least I did, but then I deleted them because…”
“Because you got over the sadness,” you smirk, knowing that somehow, he proved your point, and he lets out a chuckle at the realization. “It may be on their phones but it’s not the real thing. The image may be distorted, the colors different, the strokes a lot smoother. It’s not the same.”
“They should be preserved,” he voices out. “It’s art. Those things are meant to be immortalized, no matter how they make people feel.”
“Not always,” you counter. “At least for me, I make those to forget. The feelings fade once the art does. I created them that way.”
“Hmm,” Namjoon hums, taking this time to observe you, as you’d rendered him speechless.
There’s this softness in your eyes that contrasts the words you say. He doesn’t want to imagine what you might’ve gone through to create hauntingly beautiful pieces inspired by feelings you want to forget.
Whatever those are, he truly does wish you’ve let those go. He knows he has. But he still disagrees - he doesn’t think art ever fades. Perhaps feelings do, but he’s come to learn that visual art is eternal.
“So how long will you keep this up?” He asks, wondering when he’d see you again; the allure and intrigue from your words makes him want to know more.
“Until the next season,” you say, picking up your bag now. “It’s been a tough year and I hope the spring brings more hope.”
“But you also don’t want them to dwell on this… the loss of childhood, of youth,” he continues. “You want them to move on from this, focus on what’s to be gained after losing something important.”
“You’re a fast learner,” you wink, and Namjoon surprises himself by the way his heart jumps at the sight. “You must be a genius or something. Or an artist yourself.”
“Neither,” he lies. “I mean, I’m barely anything, really.”
“I doubt it. A guy like you being affected by all this means you’re something, whatever it is.”
There’s something validating about your words, and he smiles behind his mask, something you see, as you smile back.
It’s odd, feeling a sense of connection with a stranger like this, something he’s never really experienced, most times because he’s always wary of who he meets, especially at this time of the night. But you don’t seem to know who he is. And if you do, you don’t seem to mind or want to make a deal out of it, something that he appreciates.
There’s comfort in your smile, and he wants to discover what other things cause it. There’s a dearth of experience in your words, and he wants to know more. There’s a tenderness in your eyes that he wants to mirror; he wishes he can give comfort to someone just by looking at them.
Maybe it’s the cold breeze. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s the end of the year and he’s spending it alone again. Maybe it’s spending an entire day cooped up in his studio only to go home to an empty apartment. Maybe it’s knowing what a year it was and what’s about to come. He didn’t think that a stranger in a yellow puff jacket who cursed so crisply would be the one to make his walk back home not feel so lonely. That the woman who’d casually painted some ripples and splashes on the wall was the one who’d make him feel a little less alone.
“So, uh, do you usually paint at the start or end of the season?” He wonders.
“Are you trying to ask when you’re gonna see me again?” You look at him with an arched brow.
“Maybe,” Namjoon chuckles. He’s also just trying to delay your departure, seeing as you seem to be ready to leave.
He doesn’t want to ask your name, not ready himself to share who he is. But perhaps the next meeting won’t be as serendipitous as this.
“It depends,” you tease. “But maybe I’ll see you again, either here, or elsewhere.”
“I hope it’s soon,” he confesses. He’s being bold, but his eyes light up when you reply.
“I hope so, too.”
Namjoon walks the opposite direction of where you are headed, turning back once to look at you, and catching your eyes when he does.
Winter passes. His busy schedule doesn’t permit him to take this route for a while, and it’s mid-spring when he sees a new painting that’s been completed - a young girl looking through a glass window to a world outside, her fingers holding onto the latch as she readies to open it. A small smile forms on his face; he at least sees something of you, even if it isn’t you.
The next time he’s able to pass by, it’s the end of summer, and all he sees is a gray wall - empty, undisturbed, as if there was nothing there to begin with.
2021, autumn
The bell rings as Namjoon enters the building, an art gallery that he’s been frequenting the past few months. There are new pieces, he’s been told, and one of the curators that he’s become friends with informed him that some of the artists are in town.
He nods in greeting at familiar faces - employees, artists, casual visitors. He walks around, taking in the new paintings and sculptures displayed. As he turns towards one of the smaller rooms, a piece catches his eye.
It’s something he’d seen before, a piece of ceramic sculpted in such a way that it looks like a flower in one angle, a seashell in another. And, dare he say, a vulva from a little farther away.
He reads the label. Untitled 56, Samantha Lee.
Namjoon goes through the photos on his phone, knowing it was a trip to LA over 2 years ago where he’d encountered something similar.
And there it is. Untitled 48, Samantha Lee.
He took the photo from an angle that looked like flowers, thinking about the simplicity and beauty, the choice of colors, and how they hung on the wall as part of the installation. It was one of many pieces he documented, but was the only one he didn’t get much story from. There was no description, no background. He wasn’t quite sure what to feel.
“Find something that interests you?”
Mr. Hong is one of the founders of this gallery, and he spends much of his time getting to know the regular visitors and the artists. He’s definitely someone who knows when something strikes Namjoon, like right now.
“Samantha Lee,” Namjoon responds. “Are they a local artist? I think I saw their work in LA some time ago.”
“Ah, yes Ms., uh, Ms. Lee. She’s a local and has her pieces displayed in several galleries. She’s here, actually,” Mr. Hong excitedly shares, noting how important it is for the Kim Namjoon to meet one of the artists. “She was supposed to come yesterday but decided to drop by today instead. Would you like to meet her?”
“Ah, that would be great,” Namjoon smiles back. “If she is fine with that, of course.”
Mr. Hong is never sure if the said artist is, but Namjoon is a special guest, he thinks, so the older man nods. “I’ll lead you to her.”
Namjoon is led up a small flight of stairs and out to a patio with more installations displayed. He spots several people outside, and he tries to determine which one of them is the artist he wants to meet, perhaps ask why she’d untitled all her pieces, and why there’s nothing of her at all that she chooses to share.
He stops in front of two women as instructed by Mr. Hong.
“He’s a fucking asshole, that’s what he is,” a familiar voice spits out. “The next time he harasses you, I’m going to impale his dick with my heels and—”
“Ehem,” Mr. Hong clears his throat, prompting both women to look at him. “Ms. Lee, one of our patrons would like to meet you.”
He shares a look with the woman before she nods and smiles. She turns to Namjoon where he’s met with familiar tender eyes, eyes he’s been yearning to see since that cold winter night.
“Blue?” He asks, surprised.
“My favorite color, yes. How did you know?”
You look at the man in front of you, tall and broad with caramel skin and a smile that could melt even the coldest of hearts. You’ve seen this smile before. Even behind a mask, you could tell it’s him, the man who’d saved your ass that one cold winter night with his extra hot packs and his calming voice.
You thought you’d see him again, seeing as he seemed to want to, but he never came that spring. You even left a small, ridiculous note at the corner where your signature usually is, asking when he’d come, thinking he’d communicate with you there. But the response never came.
The universe is tricky sometimes. You passed up on coming to the gallery yesterday because you felt dizzy when you woke up. And of all days that your winter night man visits, it’s the one where you’re here.
“I just figured,” Namjoon smiles, picking up your hints. “It’s one of mine, too.”
“Perhaps we should talk about the complexities of the color, then,” you smile back, nodding towards one of the sections in the large patio.
You lead him there, leaving Mr. Hong and his warning gaze and your assistant, whose smirk and teasing laughter makes you glare at her.
“I’m guessing they don’t know about you being Blue?” Namjoon asks, feeling a little jittery standing next to you again and being able to see your face much more clearly, your hair tied loosely in a bun and your clothes a nice fit for the cool weather.
“Minji does. She helps me find materials,” you respond. “Mr. Hong doesn’t. He’s not much of a fan of street art.”
“That’s a bummer, especially since one of the artists creates amazing pieces on buildings and posts and then signs them, then abandons them, and leaves spectators like me to wonder where they’d gone,” Namjoon replies, hoping you don’t find offense with his tiny jab.
Your chuckle tells him you don’t. “You never came.”
“I didn’t know when to,” he defends. “Well, more like, I stopped having the time. That place is so far from where I live and I only walk from my office because I like that time alone and I haven’t had that, but then I came back in the summer but you—”
“You don’t have to explain,” you assure him. “That was a chance meeting and I didn’t really expect I’d see you again in the same spot weeks later.”
“Did you expect to see me this time?”
“Oh, not at all,” you shake your head. “Why are you even here?”
“Why are people ever in art galleries?” He counters. “To check out the art. Maybe chance upon the artists if they’re here.”
“I guess,” you shrug, turning a corner to a small maze of an installation. “You wouldn’t have known it was me, though.”
“I didn’t. I was staring at Untitled 56 and realized I took a photo of Untitled 48,” he reveals, earning him a shocked look from you. “It was in LACMA. I saw it a while back. The name rang a bell because I don’t know anything about you. You leave so much to the imagination, Ms. Lee. There’s nothing about y—”
“It’s Han,” you correct him, feeling comfortable now. “I mean, Han ___. Samantha Lee is another pseudonym. Or like a stage name. You know, like you?”
You bite your lip at the slip-up, not wanting him to be uncomfortable at the thought that you clearly know who he is. But he just nods, affirming that he now knows that you know who he is, but he smiles right after, his eyes turning into the smallest, prettiest crescents and his dimples framing his strong-featured face that makes him even more handsome.
“I suppose you’re right,” he hums. “But why blue? And why Samantha Lee?”
“It’s the simpler version of my favorite color. Aegean blue is too complicated to sign every time,” you chuckle. “And Samantha Lee… Well, she was my roommate back in college and she once told me she wanted to be famous and the only way that could happen is if I used her name as a pseudonym. I had a crush on her so I agreed.”
There’s a long pause before Namjoon realizes that you’re not joking, and he comments that it’s interesting but he doesn’t ask again.
“I’m Kim Namjoon, by the way,” he reaches out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise,” you say, internally melting at the feel of his warm and large hand. “So why did you take a photo of Untitled 48?”
“It looked like a clam.”
At this, you burst into laughter.
“I don’t mean it in a bad way, just to be clear!” He insists. “It was beautifully made. It was of a neutral color but it somehow stood out the most to me in that section. And it was the 48th; I wondered why they didn't have titles. And your 56th, which looks like—”
“A vulva,” you snort.
“Yes,” he chuckles, “and a flower, yeah - something I’ve been into lately. And well, it was interesting. And seeing your piece here reminded me of that,” he goes on. “And I just wanted to know… why.”
“Why what?” You furrow your brows at him.
“Why those pieces? Why are they untitled? What prompted you to create them that way?”
“We’d probably have to tour the gallery 4 more times if you want to know,” you chuckle.
“I have time.”
“Do you?” You ask, eyeing the phone in his pocket that's been vibrating for the last 5 minutes.
He smiles shyly and excuses himself. When he returns, he has a disappointed look on his face. “Turns out, I don’t have time. But I want to. I… uh, will you be here again anytime this week?”
“I will. I’m just not sure when.”
There’s something alluring with these coincidental meetups. Somehow you want more of those, perhaps to let the universe tell you that you’re meant to constantly meet this man whose time you know you’ll never have enough of, even if he makes it for you.
“Let me see you again?”
“You will.”
You catch his eyes when he turns back as he walks away. There’s a sparkle in them, and you’re afraid to want to see it once more.
**
The walk to the site of the lost youth is a long one, but not knowing when you’d see the tall man with the prettiest smile again, you head there.
Your last piece was of a child at the brink of freedom, about to take the step outside the cage she’d been in for the past year and a half. You painted over it once autumn started; maybe the next time you’d paint over a building, you’re no longer yearning for lost things. Maybe you’d paint something about finding something new.
“I’m gonna start believing in a higher power if we continue meeting like this.”
The raspy voice is familiar, and you turn around to see Namjoon, clad in a hoodie and a baseball cap, leaning against one of the streetlights across the empty wall of the building you’d been staring at. It’s been 2 days since you saw him at the gallery, about 7 months since the first time you’d encountered him here. You’re unsure what this all means.
“Maybe you should,” you head towards him. “I missed the last bus so I decided to walk home. I’m still far away but this is on the way. Why are you here?”
“Stayed up at the studio,” he replies. “I’m incredibly exhausted but I don’t know, I got the energy for the long walk. Then there you were.”
“There I was, appearing so suddenly again, yeah?” You chuckle, leaning on the opposite side of the pole.
Namjoon merely hums before he nods towards the direction of his apartment. “I’m heading there.”
“Me, too.”
With his hands in his hoodie pockets and yours crossed against your chest, you try to match his long strides.
“Painting came first,” you say, as if answering the question that he’s been thinking of asking. “Painting was everything. We had so many pieces in our home, and it’s as if they spoke to me. I mean, in a not creepy way, it felt like all of my parents’ own pieces spoke to me. And they always told me I wasn’t good enough.”
Namjoon turns to look at you with empathy in his eyes. He lets you speak, and he finds out that both your parents are the artists he’d been researching lately. Your father is a classical painter, and your mother does contemporary. He can’t imagine living in gigantic shadows like that.
“When I was 15, my parents pulled strings to get some of my pieces displayed with theirs,” you sigh, recalling the mixed emotions then. “It was exciting at first, but the patrons wouldn’t mention my name unless they mentioned my parents’. And then one of my favorite pieces that I made was sold to a man who wanted it as a decoration in his summer home’s living room.”
Namjoon slows his walk and you match his pace. You meet his comforting eyes, and there’s that warmth you feel from, technically, a stranger that you didn’t expect.
“I made that piece at a time when I was frustrated living in my parents’ shadows,” you continue. “Someone once told me that art is meant to be shared, that there’s humanity in the community we create when it’s shared, that the meaning deepens when others make their own. That piece had so much of me in there; I felt like the meaning of that piece was stripped away from me the moment that stranger took home that canvas for a select few to look at. It wasn’t mine anymore, it was his; it was theirs. I stopped painting after that.”
There’s a certain kind of pain in giving up something that matters deeply to you, in losing meaning in the thing that’s given your life meaning for most of your life. Namjoon knows a bit about that pain. Many times, he’d found himself questioning all that he does, what he stands for, and what the world expects him to be.
He sees that pain in your eyes, of losing a part of you as the art stopped meaning what you wanted it to. But he doesn’t think that all is lost.
“But your street art,” he reminds you. “That’s still you. That still has meaning. And that’s something that you share.”
“That’s Blue, though,” you manage a smile. “She’s just a part of me.”
“She’s still you,” he insists. “Can you tell me about her?”
And so you tell him - how you argued with your parents about quitting painting, how you were going to turn down the scholarship in a prestigious art university to take up sociology instead, so they shipped you to a foreign country to fend for yourself, and that’s when you learned what loneliness felt like. But that’s also when you learned about people in their rawest sense, what it meant to struggle to survive, what it meant to lose something that mattered, because you studied them - you studied how humans grieved and how they persisted. You studied how they lived and how they died.
“Blue wants meaning, and she still struggles in finding it,” you explain.
“Does she?” Namjoon questions. “I’m in my late 20s but your lost youth series resonated with me. All those paintings of the man in the rain, the distorted face… they’ve inspired me in ways I can’t explain. That’s meaning, ___. That matters.”
No one outside of Minji knows all these versions of you. Except Namjoon, the brightest star you never thought you’d ever meet. Hearing him speak about your work this way makes you feel something - a first in a long time.
“Thanks, I guess,” you say shyly.
“It’s a shame they’re not displayed in galleries and museums, though.”
“I don’t want them to,” you say, surprising him. “People intend to go to museums, but they pass these streets out of necessity. I want them to stop and look, to feel, to think for a few seconds before they go back to their routinary walk. And then I remove them, so they can forget what pain and sadness feel like.”
“Looks like you found your meaning, then,” Namjoon smiles, comforted by the fact that someone as talented as you had found purpose again, something he relates with at a deeper level than he imagined.
“The painter in me did,” you reply. “The sculptor, not so much. “
“Untitled,” he hums.
“Yeah. I don’t think I can name something I understand, or at least, feel,” you say.
“That’s a lot of untitled works for you to not understand what you do,” he chuckles.
“I’m prolific because there’s not much of me I lose when I create them,” you explain. “I just sit in my stool, craft something, then call it a day. Not to brag or anything, but it comes easy. They’re shallow pieces, Namjoon. They don’t even deserve to be in galleries but Mr. Hong insists they do for some reason. I wish this version of me, Samantha Lee, understood why it matters, why someone like him would believe in my pieces, why a Kim Namjoon would think that 48 stood out to him enough to keep a photo.”
Namjoon processes your words. As an artist himself, he believes in the meaning of the pieces that he creates, whether it’s a song or a poem or an album or a concert. There’s effort put into them even if it’s something created in 30 minutes. Your pieces are beautiful, and he wants to explore more - you and your meaning, you and your value.
“Then why do you keep making them? What about it makes you keep sculpting?”
“The feel of the clay on my skin, the way my fingers get to mold and create the details,” you explain. “I get to touch it. I don’t get to do that with painting, you know? It’s the paintbrush and the canvas I feel but with sculpting, I get to mix the materials, I get to shape it, hold it.”
“There’s that intimacy,” he offers.
“Yeah. And it’s addictive because it’s closeness I’ve never felt before.” You turn to him before speaking the next words. “It's an intimacy I’ve never experienced before with anyone or anything.”
“Isn’t that your meaning, then?” He questions. “The piece itself might not have a story on its own but all these untitled works, the process of creating, of it being easy because you can’t get enough of the intimacy you get from creating… that’s meaning. That desire for closeness, for meaning… that’s meaning.”
No one’s ever put it that way for you, probably because you’ve never let yourself be this honest with someone about your art. All your friends aren’t artists because you wanted that world separate, you didn’t want to have to talk about it feeling as insecure and lost as you are.
But Namjoon - he’s one of your generation’s greatest artists. He weaves words and sounds so beautifully to create masterpieces that people consume and hold so closely. He understands.
“I’ve made songs that took me 30 minutes,” he shares. “But I’ve also made songs that took me to dark places, that broke me as I wrote them. But once they came out, once I’ve shared them to others who’ve shared what it meant to them… slowly, I started becoming whole again. Isn’t that an artist’s burden? To break to create, to feel whole after that, and then to break all over again?”
“You are truly one of a kind, Kim Namjoon,” you tell him. “I’ve lived with artists my whole life and they never let me understand art in that way.”
“I’m still figuring it all out,” he shrugs. “I still feel lost sometimes, but I think it’s natural to feel that way, to be unsure or confused. I guess what matters is that we’re still walking on some road to somewhere, even if we don’t know where we’re heading.”
“Is that where you are right now?” You wonder. “On a road to somewhere you don’t quite know yet?”
More than you know, he wants to say. He’s in this period of experimentation, of figuring out his signature style, of figuring out who he is and what he means to his teammates, to the industry, to the world.
“Sort of,” he shrugs. “It’s hard sometimes. Walks like this give me a reprieve. Consuming other people’s art lets me understand things a bit more.”
“Yeah, I get it. I mean, conversing with strangers gives me time to breathe, too.”
“Ooh, so I’m still a stranger, huh?” He chuckles, shyly looking at you. “Our third unplanned meeting, an hour of walking home… and I’m still a stranger.”
“What would you want to be, then?” You turn to him, a little teasing smile on your face.
“A friend, for starters.”
“My nighttime friend?”
“Not just,” he shakes his head. “I would like to see you again, actually. And I don’t want to put this up to chance this time. Like, something planned or—”
“And how exactly would that work?”
“I, uh…” he thinks. “I’d invite you to my apartment. And you can invite me to yours?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to get to know you more, if that’s okay.”
“Are you always this bold?” You giggle, not missing the way your cheeks start to feel warm at the mention of visiting each other’s homes and him wanting to get to know you.
He’s obviously handsome - you’ve known of him since his band made it to your TV screens, being young men who were around your age, singing songs that resonate so deeply with you. But he’s more than that, as you’re learning. There’s this passion for creating that's refreshing, something you seem to lack.
“Not always,” he looks away, the dips in his cheeks something you’re sure you won’t get enough of.
“You should be. It makes a girl flustered but it makes it so difficult for her to say no,” you smirk. Sometimes, you also don’t know where your own boldness comes from.
“You? Flustered? That’s quite hard to believe,” he teases.
“That’s true. But it happens, believe it or not, when a gorgeous, brilliant man asks me over.”
Your heart stops for what feels like a minute, but his sweet, child-like laughter melts away your worry.
“Did I make you uncomfortable?” You ask.
“Surprisingly, no,” he replies. “I appreciate your honesty. About everything. I hope we can give that to each other.”
“Okay then, your turn,” you challenge.
“Hearing you curse was kinda hot.”
You try to hold off your laughter, your defense to your true reaction, which is to smile like an idiot and feel like floating.
“That’s interesting. I would’ve thought it’s something to do with my looks or my talent, you know?” You arch an eyebrow teasingly.
“It is. I think you’re beautiful. And I’m usually a forgetful person but I haven’t forgotten your sweet smile since I first saw it last winter,” he says, catching you off guard. “And your talent… there’s a reason why I have 48 saved on my phone, and why I sought out your street art these past years. I want to know what intimacy in art is like for you. I guess I’ve sort of lost that in creating my own.”
“Intimacy,” you repeat. “I think we both lack it in certain ways.”
“Maybe we’ll find it,” he says more confidently now, holding your gaze as your eyes trace his face.
“Maybe we will,” you respond, feeling your whole body warm with embers of fire.
He insists on taking you home, another 20-minute walk away from his. But you claim to enjoy that time on your own, assuring him that you do this all the time and the streets are safe.
“Let me know when you get home safely?” He asks, and you give him your phone for him to input his number.
“I will.”
It’s 30 minutes later when you do. It’s 1AM, but you and Namjoon spend the next 2 hours talking some more - about his songs and your pieces, about his plants and your collection of wind chimes.
You didn’t expect to make him laugh as much as you did, and he said he didn’t expect you to think his ramblings are adorable and amusing. You most definitely didn’t expect your heart to beat as fast as it did when he told you, in his deep, raspy voice, that he’s glad he took that long walk that winter, that he visited the art gallery when he did, that the hopeless romantic in him pushed him to go to the place you first met.
“I think I’m crazy but somehow I feel like I’ve known you for so long,” he muses.
“I feel the same way,” you assure him, as you hug your pillow and slowly surrender to sleep.
“Good,” he hums. “That’s all I wanted to know. Good night, ___. And I’ll see you soon.”
2021, winter
There’s a warmth in Namjoon’s home that’s hard to replicate. Filled with his favorite art pieces of all forms, he said he curated it to reflect his emotions just as much as his tastes. It’s clean and well-organized, with books on shelves and stacks on the floor, and an entire area full of liquor - his new interest, he’d said.
He’s had you over several times already; the first one, barely a week after that long walk home. You both spent hours that day talking about his favorite artists, and it wasn’t enough, as he asked you back the next day.
You often talk about your childhood, one that you weren’t always comfortable sharing, but being with him makes it easy.
It’s easy when he looks into your eyes when you speak, as if he’s telling you that he knows you say more than words. It’s easy when he’s got his own stories to share - stories of vulnerability and honesty, of fear and confusion. It’s easy when he still stutters over words sometimes and then gets lost in his own ramblings, then he chuckles when he realizes he’s talked so much, and you tell him that it’s okay because his voice is calming and his thoughts are a breath of fresh air.
It’s easy when his presence is comforting, when his anecdotes about his friends and family make you laugh until your insides hurt. It’s easy when he makes you feel like you can question everything about your art and your purpose and your abilities but he never makes you feel like a failure. It’s easy when he smiles and laughs nervously, when he’s funny without meaning to, and when he makes sure you’re comfortable by always having your preferred tea and biscuits next to the wine you once said is your favorite.
The only time it gets hard is when he stands a little too close as you look up at a painting or a book on a shelf. You could feel the heat from his body; a slight movement and you’d be touching, mere cloths in between you. It’s hard when his arm brushes the slightest bit against yours. It’s hard when he gazes at you when there’s silence, and it’s like he’s studying your face before you call him out and he apologizes because he “can’t stop looking at pretty things.”
It’s hard when he hugs you goodbye and he wishes you a safe ride home. It’s hard when he sends you a message right after, saying he wishes you both had more time.
Being attracted to Namjoon is hard; being attached to him is torture.
“You’re looking for him again,” Minji states the obvious as you walk around the gallery, your eyes darting to the door every time the bell rings.
“No I’m not,” you deny. “He just got back from his trip abroad and he’s tired. He won’t be coming here.”
“Doesn’t mean you wish he would,” she smirks. “But why rendezvous here? You guys go to each other’s houses. And no one goes to your house… aside from me.”
“We can’t exactly see each other in public, you know?” You glare at her. “But… I don’t know, it’s nice to see him look around and talk about what he sees. I feel like I learn more from him. And that’s weird, isn’t it? This is my field. The arts have been my entire life, but I’m learning more about it from him.”
“What is it about him?” She wonders.
She doesn’t say that she’s noticed more life in your eyes since he came into your life. She doesn’t say that she’s noted that you take more time creating pieces, seemingly savoring the process unlike the way you used to. She doesn’t mention the smile that she hasn’t seen in all the years that she’s known you.
“Passion is sexy, you know?” You giggle. “He has so much of it, it’s inspiring.”
“Is that all?” Minji smirks.
“He’s also fucking gorgeous. I try not to ogle him but I think he’s noticed. Fuck me.”
“Maybe he wants to.”
“Shut up. Don’t make me hope.”
“You do that to yourself,” she laughs. “Keep denying that you don’t want to see him or want anything more with him and let’s see how you do.”
The truth is, you know. You know that you’d fall hard if you let yourself go like that, but it’s human to know danger and then still want it, isn’t it?
The vibration from your phone ringing surprises you.
“Hey,” Namjoon’s voice booms on the other end.
“Hey,” you reply. “How was your trip?”
“Good. I just got home. We had to stop by the office for a bit. My place is a mess and we have something again in the afternoon,” he huffs, sounding incredibly tired. “Can I come over tonight?”
You almost drop the flute of champagne you’re holding. He’s been to your house twice, but this is the first time he’s specifically asked to come over, especially considering that he just arrived from a trip abroad.
“Of course,” you hum. “Any dinner preferences?”
“Your cooking,” he says simply. “But wait for me, okay? I’ll let you know when I’m on the way.”
“Okay,” you say, before dropping the call, unable to hide the wide smile that forms on your face, to your assistant’s amusement.
“Why don’t you try to let go this time?” She advises. “Maybe you’ll find the intimacy you’ve been longing for.”
**
Namjoon overestimates your cooking abilities. Truly, all you know to do is prepare ramyun and fry anything. But, compared to him, he’s said you’re chef level. “The guys” don’t even want him near the kitchen, he tells you all the time.
But instant noodles and pork belly seem enough for him, as he eats with his mouth closed and hums in satisfaction. You take the time to savor the way he looks. A few weeks without him has started to feel like months.
“It was overwhelming,” he finally says.
He knew the moment he landed that he wanted to see you. There’s comfort in your presence that he’s begun to accept, and being with you allows him to be honest, to feel real, to feel human.
“It was great to be able to perform again, to hear the cheers and the sounds and everything. It was also terrifying,” he continues. “I was nervous and excited, I was scared and elated. I felt so fulfilled and satisfied but I also felt like it wasn’t enough.”
“That’s a lot of conflicting emotions,” you hum.
“Are they? Conflicting, I mean.”
“It depends, I guess. They seem up and down to me. Does it bother you?”
“That I felt all that, all at once?”
You nod in response.
“It used to,” he admits. “At the start of all this, I thought, I can’t be scared. Six other guys and an entire company are looking to me to succeed. I have to be strong and confident. And then, an industry is waiting for me to fail. And then, my own country is letting me - us - represent an entire generation, it’s asking me to carry on this cultural wave. It never ends. And I used to think I couldn’t be scared, that not wanting all this anymore means I’m ungrateful.”
“But you aren’t,” you try to assure him. You can’t imagine the burden he feels, leading a group that feels all kinds of pressure. “I’ve heard you talk about your art and your poetry and your brothers and your fans. You’re easily the most passionate, hardworking, and appreciative person I know. I don’t think you’ll ever run out of things to give.”
“It’s tiring,” he sighs.
“I’m sure. But you’re honest about it. You’ve always been. Doesn’t honesty unburden you, even just a little bit? Doesn’t it leave you space to feel more, to be more?”
Namjoon hums. For someone who claims to not know much about feeling, you seem to know what to say to make him stop and think, to remind him of why he does what he does. And why ultimately, he’s always going to love it.
“It does,” he finally says, sitting up straight to take a better look at you in your linen pants and soft sweater. “Do you do that, then? Unburden yourself by being honest?”
“I’m not good at doing that,” you chuckle. “If you don’t know by now, I say a lot of seemingly profound things that I don’t necessarily live by.”
“Why not?”
“Honesty scares me. Being vulnerable scares me. I don’t know how to return it.”
“Has anybody ever been all that to you?” He wonders, feeling the tension build a little.
“Once” you say, standing from the dining table and heading to the large window that overlooks your garden. “And I ran away.”
“Is that why you sculpt, then?” Namjoon asks, walking towards you. “Because you don’t know what to do with intimacy so you do it with your art? You want to hold and touch what you walk away from? You don’t give it a name because you don’t want to define it? Because you’re scared that if you do, you’ll realize that you actually want it - the closeness, the warm body, the rawness that you can only get from being with someone else.”
You look up at him, towering over you. He came from a short filming, donned in a white, buttoned polo with his long sleeves rolled up to his elbows. You can see the darkness of his hazelnut eyes and the stubble on his chin. You spot the beauty mark on his neck and the smoothness of his skin, especially on his chest, as he leaves 2 buttons undone.
“Reading me now, Kim Namjoon?” You cock an eyebrow, trying to break the tension that’s built up in the last few minutes.
“I’m trying, because I want to get to know you more, find out what you’re afraid of and ease it somehow,” he admits. “Because I feel the same way. I’m honest but I’m scared, yet with you, I’m honest but I’m brave. I feel like I’m brave. I don’t know what it is, but ever since I met you, I just wanted…” he glances at your lips then meets your eyes again. “I just wanted to know more, to feel more. To understand what it’s like to be intimate with someone who doesn’t know much about it like me. I want to figure it out. With you.”
“How?”
One word is all you get to verbalize, as you feel him come closer, the heat of his body intensifying with every second. You’re backed up against the window, the distance between you and him decreasing and decreasing.
His eyes are boring into you, and you bravely gaze at him back. You mirror his desire, as you lick your lips when he glances at them again. Your chest is heaving as is his, and your heart races even more when he breathes out your name.
You palm his chest, and for a brief moment of uncertainty in his eyes at the thought of you stopping him, you instead grip the cloth that covers him, and you slowly pull him in.
His lips are soft. And the way he gently presses against you is tender, comforting, like he wants to savor it and go slow. He angles his head the same time his hand reaches for your waist, and you feel the slightest wetness from his tongue.
You grant him entrance, and the second you do, he takes control, tightening his hold on your body as he cages you, his one arm now propped up against the window. You moan into each other as tongues and teeth clash, and you can’t help your hand that travels to pull on the ends of his hair, brushing your fingers against the nape of his neck right after.
It’s a little sloppy, needy, but there’s still gentleness in there. It’s in the way he cups your cheek, caressing it with his large fingers and letting it slide down your chest, back to your waist. It’s in the way he smiles into the kiss when you moan your pleasure; you can almost feel his dimples as he does. It’s in the way that he asks for more, not with dominance but with care, with understanding, with caution.
You both pull away to catch some air, lips swollen and wet, but your smiles say you enjoyed it. The way your bodies haven’t completely detached from each other shows that.
“Would you let me stay the night?” He asks softly, as if it’s a request he’s afraid to ask.
“Yes,” you breathe out. “Be with me tonight.”
Underneath the covers of your bed, you lay in his arm while your fingers trace patterns on his taut chest. You can hear his heartbeat still drumming, and you can feel the care in the way he caresses your cheek, your arm, your waist.
“I don’t know what I can give you, Namjoon,” you admit. “I don’t know how to be as honest and vulnerable as you. I don’t know how to share parts of me that I don’t understand. I don’t know what I can do to ease all your worries and concerns. I—”
“Just give me moments,” he interjects. “Nights like this, days at our homes, afternoons at the galleries, hours on the phone… I just want to feel something that I can actually touch, that I can savor. And I want it to be you, the one I get to hold and taste and kiss.”
He leans forward again, and you capture his mouth in yours. There’s no need to do more - much as you’re wet and he’s definitely hard, but neither one of you is rushing, neither one wants to scare the other.
He’s hot, the kind that burns. That’s how it is with people as passionate as he is - their touch can light a fire on your skin, and you won’t be able to stop it.
“I can give you moments,” you whisper. “Just tell me.”
2022, spring
You can count the moments with 2 hands.
Namjoon stayed with his parents over the holidays but he videocalled you everyday. You both went to a few galleries outside the capital but did so separately, spending hours after that talking about the pieces over the phone.
You’ve come to appreciate your world much more deeply with his commentaries and reflections, and with you, he said he’d gotten to breathe a little longer, laugh a little louder, and feel a little more human.
He stayed over your place 4 more times; you stayed over at his thrice. You debated over movies and recommended each other books. It was common to spend the day wrapped up in each other on the couch while you both read separately. He made you listen to a few songs he’s been working on - some of which were inspired by your many conversations and your own musings, and you’d showed him sketches of your upcoming planned series on sculpted landscapes.
It’s freeing, being able to share about your world with someone else like this, and being part of someone else’s, too. Whatever it is you both have is freeing - kisses included, which never went beyond what you first did. Despite the obvious desire to do more, neither of you ever tried, perhaps knowing what it would entail. There’s distance between you and him but there also isn’t. There’s enough comfort and intimacy that you’ve only scratched the surface of, but this seems to be just enough.
“I have the weekend off,” he pants over the phone. It’s 11PM and they’ve just finished rehearsals for an upcoming series of concerts abroad. “Do you want to do something?”
“A trip to my parents’ summer home?” You wonder out loud. The spring air has come and you love going to the lake at this time. “It’s by the mountains and it’s really private. The estate is like their personal art museum with their works and others’. I visit every year. But if—”
“Yes, a hundred times yes,” he huffs. “That’s fucking amazing.”
“I know I got you at the art museum bit,” you laugh.
“You got me at the really private bit, actually,” he says seriously, causing your heart to race. “And the art of course. And you. Always you.”
“Alright, Casanova,” you tease. “Just make sure I don’t get in trouble for taking you somewhere weeks before you leave.”
“We’re alright,” he responds. “I can’t wait.”
**
It’s a 3-hour drive to the estate by the mountains. In the far future, your parents want to open it up for private viewing, and so you want to make sure that your art lover more-than-but-not-really-friend gets a first peek.
You spend the entire ride talking about a hundred topics, going off tangent when he rambles again, and you’re the one who circles him back to the original discussion. You hum tunes while he sings songs, and when you find private spots, you take the risk and take photos.
You make it to the estate in the late morning, and as you expected, Namjoon’s jaw drops.
The fountain at the front is an art piece itself. The front door was shipped from Indonesia, and the furniture are a beautiful curation of pieces from all over the world that were gifted to or bought by your parents.
You watch him gently trace the carvings and the details. You’re in awe as he absorbs the sculptures and paintings as you tour him around. And you melt every time he turns to you with the biggest smile on his face, like he’s discovering a secret that only both of you know. It’s breathtaking and absolutely precious.
“Keep looking at me like that,” he says, as he catches you marvel at him. “I like it when you look at me like you want me.”
“Don’t fluster me,” you say, turning away.
“You’re not denying it,” he counters, walking closer to you.
“I would be a liar if I did.”
“That’s good to know,” he hums, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “I know I only asked for moments but can this weekend be filled with that?”
He looks nervous, like you’d turn him down.
“I… it’s been tough, dealing with a lot of things,” he continues. He’s mentioned some difficulties lately, and you know there’s not much you can do about it. Except, maybe this. “I just want something to hold onto, like being here with you, experiencing all these art pieces, being close…”
He cups your cheek and gives you that look that you’ve become familiar with, his request for intimacy that you both continue to explore.
“Okay,” you respond, taking his hand and kissing it. “Okay.”
You eat lunch, explore the east wing of the property, and at mid-afternoon, you convince him to swim on the lake with you.
“Isn’t it freezing?” He asks worriedly.
“That’s the fun part of it,” you insist. “There’s a hot tub we can stay at after.”
Namjoon gives in. It’s easy to, with a smile like yours that makes his heart race every time. Especially when you come out in your blue swimsuit, shaping your curves and all other parts of your body that makes his own react. He can’t help but marvel at you, even as you tease.
“Hey, big guy, eyes up,” you smirk.
He blushes when you giggle, but he does tease back, removing his shirt to reveal his body that he’s been working so hard on. He does flex a little to give you a taste of your own medicine, and it works.
“Hey, eyes up,” he chuckles.
You feel a shiver when his finger tilts your chin up, and you do the childish thing and bite it before you run to the lake and dive in. Namjoon follows, canonballing and then swimming over to chase you.
You haven’t swam here in years. You merely used to watch the sun rise and then gaze at the sky and imagined doing all this with someone else. You didn’t really think you’d end up here with Kim Namjoon, but here you are.
Namjoon pulls you to him as you swim close, and you both float in the water with your arms around his chest and his arms around your waist. You’re obviously both drenched, and that just leaves so little to the imagination, especially with the cold water a little more overwhelming than you expected.
His hair is swept back, with beads of water lining his face and sliding down his neck and his chest. He’s broad and incredibly built. It’s unfair that his body looks as amazing as his face.
“Does Minji know you’re here with me?” He asks.
“Yes, teased me nonstop until I picked you up. What about the guys?”
“They do. They insist we are a couple.”
“And?”
“And I said that we aren’t,” he says cautiously. “We’re friends who spend a lot of time together and cuddle, and uh, sometimes do a little more.”
“What a complicated way to say we’re friends with benefits,” you laugh.
“I don’t see it that way, though,” he furrows his brows. “I don’t want to reduce what we are to each other to just benefits or something sexual or shallow. Do you see it that way?”
“No,” you say. “I… I’ve come to understand art a lot more because of you. I’ve come to appreciate what I do. That’s not just some benefit.”
“And I… can’t even explain all that you do for me,” he says. “We’re more than that. Less than lovers, but more than friends. And our moments shape this, whatever name we call it.”
“Untitled,” you wonder out loud. “Sometimes artists name their pieces as such when they can’t find a better descriptor.”
“So 58 sculptures in, and you still can’t find a better descriptor?” He teases.
“Shut up,” you smack his hard chest. “I titled them that way because I didn’t have a meaning for them. I just created them. But then I met this man, tall and built with a sexy brain, and he made me realize that the meaning is in the creation, too. So 58 works, 58 times I experienced intimacy, the only times I do.”
“Ah, so what about us?” He nudges you with his nose. “Aren’t we intimate?”
“It’s a different kind, I guess,” you say. You’re not my creation and you’re not mine, you choose not to say. “You don’t break. You’re the one that breaks other things.”
You pass it off as a joke, and he buys it. You don’t want to think much about what you and Namjoon aren’t; you just want to think about what you both are - something that may or may not be fleeting, but something beautiful nonetheless.
The sun shines a little too bright, and you take the chance to get out of the water and into the dock to soak up its heat. Namjoon follows and you both lay that way, just next to each other, catching your breaths.
“Are you feeling a little better?” You ask, wondering if he still carried over all his concerns here.
“Yes. It’s exhilarating,” he responds. “It’s nice to feel this way for a change.”
“I’m sure you’ve felt this way before, too.”
“Not this way,” he turns to you. “It’s different, I guess. It makes me think of all the other emotions I have yet to feel, the ones I’ve felt only briefly before, and the ones that I’ll never feel. I think life’s too short for a person to experience all kinds of emotions. I was it wasn’t.”
“Are humans built for that?” You question. “To feel every possible thing out there? To feel every variation of pain and sadness and joy and elation and pleasure and desire?”
Namjoon thinks. Surely, being able to have emotions and to truly feel is what makes us humans and what makes us different from animals. It’s what marks our humanity, regardless of what emotion that may be. But are humans really capable of feeling everything without breaking? Without it being too much?
“Maybe not,” he finally responds.
You think, too. You’ve often wondered why you were so scared to be vulnerable, to take risks, to love. You thought once that feeling things is overwhelming - what do you do with them? How do you handle them when they get too much? When you become too happy or too sad or too scared or too excited?
You think maybe because like all things in this world, you can never have emotions. You feel them, but you can’t own them, they can’t be yours. Like your art. You can create them but they stop being yours once you share them. Like music, as Namjoon has told you, it stops being his the moment he releases it for others to consume. And it’s scary to not have that permanence; it’s scary to not have that assurance that you’ll always have that joy or that excitement or that elation. And in some way, it’s also scary to know that you won’t always have that pain or that sadness.
“Maybe humans are only built to try to feel everything,” Namjoon states, having thought about your question and his years-long quest of figuring himself out. “But we aren’t meant to achieve it. Maybe our life is about just feeling bits and pieces of it, sometimes longer than others, but we can’t feel it all, and definitely not all at once. It’s like truth; we spend our life seeking and trying to live it, but we might never be able to. Still, we have to keep trying.”
“Hmm,” is all you manage to say. “Do couples have deep conversations like this?” You laugh this time, needing his thoughts to linger a little longer.
“They should,” he laughs. “But it’s enough for me that I have someone like you to make me question things. It reminds me that I have more to discover, to feel.”
To feel.
Sometimes Namjoon makes it seem so easy to just do that. He’s able to name what he feels, unlike you. You wish it was easy, like saying that the cold water on your skin is refreshing, like the sun’s heat is comforting, like the clouds in the sky are soft.
You don’t notice your hand reaching up, wanting to just touch them because you want something concrete, something more real than what your imagination says that clouds feel like. But instead, you feel rough, warm fingers interlocking with yours.
“If you want to feel something concrete, I’m here, you know?” Namjoon says, thumbing your hand to let him know he’s right next to you. Somehow he just knew what you were doing, what you were wishing for.
“But this is what couples do,” you tease, yet tightening your hold nonetheless.
“Friends hold hands,” he smirks.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. They kiss, too,” he hums, lifting himself up only to hover over you, catching you by surprise, but your desire trumps that, as the view of him - damp and natural-looking - makes your insides twist in circles.
“Hmm, like this?” You peck his lips, then his nose, teasing him.
“Sometimes. Other times it’s deeper. You know, like this.”
He dives in, and you welcome him immediately, your mouth already slightly open for your tongue to entangle with his. It’s long and deep, as how your kisses always are, and you feel him shift above you, fixing his position with his arms caging your head for support. He angles his mouth so he can have more of you and control how far he goes, how hard, and how fast.
Your fingers, whose spaces were filled by his just minutes ago, ghost over his neck. They trail down to his chest, gingerly passing by his pecs and his abs, the tips now resting on his hips.
“Fuck,” he moans in your mouth, and you immediately know why he does, feeling his length getting harder by the second.
It prompts him to grind on you, and you meet him halfway.
“Fuck, Joon,” you whine once his lips detach from yours, only to meet your neck when he sucks then licks over the sting. “Fuck.”
He hums in satisfaction at the sounds you make, going south now as he teases by giving tender kisses on the exposed part of your breasts before biting your nipple over your suit.The obscene sound you make turns him on, especially when you pull his hips harder against yours.
“Oh fuck, baby, yeah,” he groans in your ear now, and you might as well have just come from the way he said those words.
And then you remember where you are - in the outdoors, in your parents’ summer home. Private as it may be, you’re still exposed, and you remind him of the fact before he slows down and agrees that you can’t be doing this out here.
“I’m sorry I got carried away,” he says shyly now, as if he didn’t just devour you with his skillful mouth.
“Yeah, this is totally your fault,” you tease.
He chases you back to the house where you both spend another hour in the hot tub, just talking like normal friends, as if you didn’t almost just cross a line. But it’s like that with Namjoon, you’ve come to realize. Everything is easy, everything is natural, like you can just forget that he isn’t him and you aren’t you.
You spend the rest of the day looking at all the pieces on the first floor, with you sharing as much about them that you can remember. You both sleep that night with his head on your chest and his arms around you.
He sleeps soundly, snoring even. And as you comb his hair, you think of how close you were to wanting so much more in the lake earlier. You think of how much you wanted his lips on your mouth, all over your body, and you wanted it everyday. With the way he held you close and breathed desperately on your skin, you had a feeling that so did he.
Living in this dream-like state with him feels surreal, several months in. Because that’s what he is - a dream. Here’s a man grounded by his principles despite the fame that seems to shackle him, yet constantly propels him to new heights; a man whose search for truth and humanity shows you that he just wants to be a good person, and a person who does good.
Beyond his unmatched talent and gift with words, beyond his strikingly stunning looks, is a man who cares deeply, who feels deeply, who submits himself to what he commits to, whether it’s his music, his brothers, his plants, or his interest in art and nature and even whiskey. You have a feeling he’d do the same to whoever he plans to be with. You don’t know if it’s you, and the more you find yourself wanting him, the more you wish it isn’t you.
Namjoon is a dream, and you know at one point, you’re going to have to wake up.
**
The gallery is buzzing, as it always is when there’s a new exhibition. You’re excited for this, too, as the featured artist is one you admire.
Namjoon admires her as well, which is why he’s here, dressed in a black long-sleeved buttoned top, looking immaculate as per usual. He has a busy schedule but he made time, knowing how special this event is.
The room holds its breath when he enters; as a well-known lover of art, everyone has come to expect him to be a guest in exhibitions and various art shows. He bows at the other patrons and artists present, and they fawn over him, being the famous man that he is.
You don’t think you’ll ever get used to this side of him. You’re used to him rambling, making jokes he doesn’t realize are funny, and being lost in his own thoughts. You’re used to him in his natural environment - in his home full of books and paintings, and in his studio, which you’ve seen dozens of times through your phone screen. He fits right in here, though - he can easily follow on with the conversations, whether it’s about business or culture or literature. He can charm anyone with his smile and his good looks, and too many times, guests awe at his presence, finding out that he’s much more commanding and handsome off the screen.
You hide a smile as he glances in your direction. You’ve agreed not to talk much today; there are too many people around and any kind of interaction might be grounds for rumors that neither of you are ready to face, at least that’s what you think. You and Namjoon don’t really discuss those things. You always see him in your periphery, though, and perhaps just like you, he just wants to be where you are, even if no pleasantries or conversations are shared.
But Mr. Hong pulls him aside to introduce to Ms. Suh, and you can see from afar how Namjoon is fanboying over the artist whose work he’s very interested in.
It’s nice to see him in his element like this, too. Here, though still a celebrity in the eyes of everyone else, he’s a spectator. He’s told you several times how his trips to these places have made him think about the kind of legacy he wants to leave with his music, with his poetry. And how pieces in museums and galleries are timeless, permanent; they live on regardless, and each person is free to make their own meanings. You know he wanted to comfort you then.
You become involved in your own conversations until someone barrels inside the gallery and makes a scene, of all days. The slightly inebriated man is familiar; perhaps a patron you’ve seen before, but he comes in and starts yelling at the staff, going on about something you can’t understand.
Not wanting to be part of the scene and be involved in something you don’t know how to handle, you slowly step away, that is, until you see him storm towards the room where your art pieces are. He seems to be targeting someone as he looks around, but the security gets to him first and he flails his arms around, eventually knocking over Untitled 56, and the cracking sound rings in the entire building.
“You knocked over a precious piece, you bastard!” You hear Mr. Hong yelling.
You start walking slowly to where you see the shards of ceramic have fallen on the floor, and you’re unsure what you feel. Is it loss? It doesn’t seem like it. Is it anger? Perhaps not.
“It’s just some useless flower anyway,” the raucous man answers.
Shame. You think that’s it, maybe that’s the feeling. Insecurity, sadness. It’s all of that yet nothing at all.
You stand there over your broken piece, the one you created while the rain was pouring and you’d just finished a bottle of wine by yourself because you could. Everyone seems to be as shocked as you, especially with the man finally contained and led out the building. You look up to take your eyes away from the scene, but you see Namjoon’s instead - anger filling his, sympathy, care, all at once.
You shake your head once, instructing him not to say or do anything. And he follows, loosening his clenched fist and stepping away to the back of the crowd. You instruct the staff to sweep the broken piece away, not wanting to see how fragile and temporary your creation is. All that had been reduced to shards and pitiful looks of the crowd.
You don’t really want to be here.
**
You’re filled with emotions you can’t name. You’re afraid to feel them all, so you cower on your couch and cry to yourself.
It’s just a piece of useless flower. It’s the 56th of untitled works that you couldn’t name yourself because you didn’t know what they meant, what they symbolized, yet it hurts you this much that it’s gone. Hurt. Is that it? You’re still not sure.
The banging of your front door startles you. It’s 9PM and it’s been 4 hours since the incident. Minji offered to tell you the whole story but you didn’t really mind. You wonder if it’s her this time, wanting to know how you’re doing.
But it’s Namjoon, panting on your doorway when you open it. And the first thing you think to do is bury yourself in his arms.
It’s immediate, the catharsis of being in his hold. It’s like you’re enveloped in a warm, protective blanket that you don’t want to get out of. He embraces you tightly, letting you cry on his chest as you try to make sense of what you’re feeling.
“I’ve got you,” he says in your ear so that the words don’t get lost in the sound of your sobs. “I’ve got you. Don’t tear yourself. I’m here with you.”
You don’t know for how long you both stand there, but it’s long enough for the tears to stop falling. When you’ve calmed down, Namjoon tilts your chin up to face him.
“Hey,” he greets with a soft smile. “I’m sorry I couldn’t follow you right away. I wanted so badly to punch that man.”
The shift of emotions is immediate, as you see his furrowed brows.
“He didn’t have a right to be there and to ruin what you worked hard for. I asked Mr. Hong to look into him and I’m so sorry, ___. That piece… that piece is–”
“A useless flower,” you shake your head.
“Please don’t listen to him. Listen to me,” Namjoon insists. “You know what I feel about it. That piece led me to you.”
“And now it’s gone.”
The thought hits you hard. That piece led you to each other, and temporary as it is, it’s now broken. Maybe art isn’t timeless, you think. It can burn, it can break, just like all things. Just like emotions. Just like what you and Namjoon have.
“It may be but look what it did for us,” he challenges your thoughts. “A broken piece won’t change us, it won’t erase us.”
Tonight, this is what you want to hear. And with his fingers tracing your cheek, you think that tonight, he is what you want to feel.
You pull him close and crash your mouth onto his. It’s fervent, desperate, wanting. There’s this need in you, this animalistic desire that has you wanting him to prove you wrong again - that some things can be touched and felt and that they’ll stay and won't break, that emotions can be just as real and tangible, that they matter and that it’s worth it. You want him to prove it to you with his mouth, his words, his touch, his body.
He answers back, inhaling you completely, his tongue working on yours right away, doing that dance you’ve both memorized by now. Your moans are loud and needy. You want all of him, all over you, and with the way he groans your name and curses as you grind against him, you think he feels the same.
You’re in a haze, falling into hypnosis as you feel his hands all over you. You guide them to your clothed breasts, down your waist where he sneaks underneath. His touch burns so deliciously, and it’s what prompts you to unbutton his clothes, to feel him bare and naked, his skin against yours - raw, vulnerable, honest.
Things you don’t know how to be.
You pull away, feeling as if you’ve been snapped out of the spell.
And then you’re crying, as you look at Namjoon with his top undone, looking at you curiously before he’s walking towards you in concern.
“No,” you almost scream. “I’m sorry, I– I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t supposed to. We’re not supposed to do this. We’re just… we’re just something that’s temporary and–”
“No,” he replies, surprising you. “Don’t be sorry, please. I wanted it, I still do. I want you. Fuck what we said about being just friends. I want more. I–”
“You don’t mean that,” you insist, not wanting to hear his words.
It should comfort you, shouldn’t it? You’ve known long ago that you’ve fallen for him, but you made yourself believe that all things are temporary, and this one time you wanted something permanent with him, you got scared out of your mind.
“I do,” he counters. “Fuck it, all I wanted to do earlier was hold you in my arms. Fuck the other people around who’d see. I just wanted to be with you. Is that what friends do? Is that what they feel? I have to be honest, right? We said we’d be that to each other. I want you, ___. I want to be with you.”
“I can’t, Joon. I can’t,” you sob.
“Be honest with me this once. Do you want me?”
“Yes, so fucking much.”
“Then why can’t you be with me? Why are you making it so hard for yourself, for us?” He yells.
“I–” you start, but you don’t know how to continue. You cover your face with your hands and fall onto the floor.
You don’t think you’ve ever cried this hard, and you’re unsure exactly what you’re crying over.
“Hey,” Namjoon softens, leaning down next to you as he tries to free your face. “I’m not mad, I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I can’t even… I can’t even say what I want to say because I don’t know. I don’t–” you sniff. “I don’t know what I feel, what I want. I–”
“It’s okay,” he says, taking you in his arms again. “It’s okay. We can talk about it tomorrow. Just get some rest.”
He calms you down again and leads you to your room. He waits as you wash up and then he tucks you in bed.
“I’ll come over in the morning, okay?”
“Okay,” you whisper. You watch him eye your lips, and then he looks away.
**
Namjoon comes over the next day with a basket of pastries and coffee. He knows enough that you won’t have energy to prepare anything to eat.
You can’t imagine losing all this, but that’s what’s about to happen.
You’d been so close to giving in to him, so close to letting yourself be vulnerable to him, but doing so in flesh isn’t all there is to it. You can make love to him, bare your body to him that way but you wouldn’t be able to do it with your soul or your heart.
What does being raw and honest mean? You don’t know. He deserves someone who knows.
“I still don’t know what I can give you,” you tell him as you both sit across from each other in the seating area in your garden. “Months later, I should know but I don’t. Even just moments, I… can’t. They make me want you more and I can’t. I don’t know exactly what I want - with myself, with my art, with you. I don’t know what to give.”
“You act like you’re the only one unsure,” he says softly. “I don’t know if what I can give you is enough. I mean, with what I do? It’s tough, and I don’t know if it would be fair. But I want you. I don’t know how the arrangements would be but I want you.”
“At least you know what you can give, even as you shine as bright as you do, you know yourself and what you can give me, what you can give us. I don’t.”
“But what if we try?”
“That’s unfair to you, Joon,” you insist. “You put your all into everything, and this - us - won’t be any different. But that just means that falling short would break you, and I can’t have that. And then there’s me who can’t give much of herself to anything - not my craft, not my friends, not myself. And you matter too much to only get the barest parts of me. I don’t want to be with you that way.”
Namjoon sighs. It’s not an easy thing to accept. It’s something he understands - all he’s ever known to do was to give his all to everything he wants to keep. If that’s not something you’re ready to do yourself, he can’t fault you for it.
It hurts so fucking much, though. He’s learned in the course of these months of knowing you that you’re another one of those he wants to keep, that he wants more of, that he wants to learn inside and out - you’re also the first person to ever be that for him. For you to slip away like this is a kind of pain that he doesn’t know how to get over.
“Continue to be raw and honest in everything that you do, okay? Live,” you say, and he nods in reply. “Don’t stop yourself from seeing other people, from finding someone else,” you add.
You can’t even be honest with this. You hope he’ll always want you, but you don’t let yourself be selfish with him, not this time.
“I won't” is what he answers.
It breaks your heart all over again and you let it. You deserve it. Who walks away from someone they want, especially when they want you back? Someone afraid like you, someone who doesn’t trust herself enough like you, someone who wants permanence so bad that she lets slip away the one person who’s made her feel it.
You give a half smile and he smiles back.
Namjoon gets up from his seat. “I’ll see you around, okay?”
“Okay.”
It’s a month later when one of the museums you frequent launches a new installation. A tall man catches your attention. He looks at you and smiles, his hazelnut eyes gazing at you the way they used to.
He nods in acknowledgement and so do you.
And that’s the last time you see him in a long time.
2022, winter
You stare at the package in your hands - white, with words of comfort. He’s finally completed it, you think. A piece of himself he’s been working the last 4 years on, and it looks just like how he described it to you all those months ago.
You don’t know if you’ll listen to it. You haven’t heard his voice in so long. You’re afraid you’ll break if you do.
Perhaps just one time, to get it off your system. That might be enough.
You open it, unsure when you’ll unpack this obviously beautifully curated work of art. But the note at the top leaves you no room to ignore it.
Nothing’s changed for me. Let’s find ourselves. And then let’s find each other. I’ll just be here. But please, stay where you are.
Namjoon
You let one tear fall and then leave the package on the top shelf of your closet.
Your bedroom door opens.
“Are you all packed?” Minji asks.
“Yes, I’m all good,” you smile.
She helps you with your luggage, down the stairs and into the van waiting for you.
“That’s a lot of stuff,” she hums, holding back her tears. “How long will you be away for?”
“Until I find myself.”
“That might be a long time.”
“It will.”
**
**
**
2025, winter
Namjoon has been to several galleries in New York, but this particular one is a place he’s never been to. It overlooks Central Park, towering at the 30th floor like the other buildings in the city. But it’s 3 floors and he thinks it’s stunning. It’s not overly grand, but it’s also not as simple and natural like the others he’s been to.
He may say it’s not entirely his vibe, but there’s a reason why he’s here.
Some patrons recognize him and greet him. He bows in response, engaging in small talk when he needs to, but stepping away to get to the exhibition he flew here to see.
It’s nothing like what he expected, although years later, he doesn’t know what to expect anymore.
The first thing is, well, it’s titled. There’s a year and a description, too.
2023, swing in the summer home
The piece is beautiful, made in clay and metal. It’s familiar, too. He’s seen this on a lake house by the mountains, over 3 years ago.
2023, the piece that lost its meaning
It’s a painting, but one placed atop a sculpted frame hanging on a wall in what seems like a living room. This scene feels familiar as well.
2024, lost youth
A group of children look up at a plane, with opened suitcases and toys on the floor. The nostalgia hits him.
The rest of the sculptures are new to him. There’s one about a lady in red, one of a neighbor, one of a woman with an umbrella and clouds, aptly titled, what am i hiding from? Further down the room, the emotions become more pointed, straightforward, and a lot more focused.
2023, coward
2024, i truly was sorry
2025, is this what regret feels like?
2025, i hope you knew i lied
2025, maybe someday
Someone from the outside who knows nothing about the artist might think that the pieces are a little over the place, although one can tell from the titles that they tell a story. The sculptures are made from the same materials - clay and metal, all free standing and in similar sizes. Each caption holds a narration, and all Namjoon can read are words describing emotions, of states of being - innocence, anger, confusion, fear, loss, regret, loneliness, pain, hope, and few more.
There’s not much about joy or intimacy, though, and the thought saddens him. He had hoped that by this time, you already knew how those felt.
“So, what do you think?”
Namjoon didn’t think he’d ever hear that voice again. He’d cry if he could, especially as he turns to his side and finds you, dressed in a classy, aegean blue satin dress. Your smile is one he’s missed so much, and he wishes he could frame this moment, just so he doesn’t forget. He almost did, and he hated himself when he took so long to remember how you sounded like, how you looked like.
“Nothing like I imagined,” Namjoon replies. “In a good way.”
“I scrapped previous works and experimented with these ones. It took me years to complete,” you explain. “I almost stopped at one point, wondering if anybody would ever get it but then I figured, it didn’t matter. It’s a good thing that lifestyle magazine reached out for a feature. I think that was Mr. Hong pulling some strings. At least I got to say that for years, I didn’t know what I was doing, who I was, but now I do.”
“That’s how I knew about it, actually,” Namjoon hums. “It was in the art gallery because he was giving it away for free. It said your exhibition was here, so I flew in.”
“Oh,” you say, surprised. “I thought you had a show or filming.”
“Nah,” Namjoon sighs. “I came here for you. Otherwise I wouldn’t know where to find you, or how else to see you. You stopped… you stopped showing up. You just disappeared.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
It’s all you can say, really. You didn’t expect to see him here, but when you saw a familiar face enter through the doors, your heart stopped. You had a feeling Mr. Hong had told Namjoon about your exhibition - your first in 4 years. But nothing would have prepared you for this - seeing him again after you walked away from the one good thing you found in your life. You watched him from afar as he went through each of your pieces, perhaps savoring them, remembering them.
“Have you been well?” He asks, the concern still overpowering everything.
“I have.”
“You seem to have lost someone,” he says, nodding towards one of the pieces. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“She was my neighbor when I spent 8 months in Sweden,” you share. “She took care of me but then she passed away due to an accident. It was hard for a while.”
“I–” Namjoon reaches out his hand - for comfort, perhaps - but he brings it down. “I wish I knew.”
“It’s okay. And I’m okay. It’s been a year, but I wouldn’t have finished all this without her.”
You’d forgotten how silence sounded like with Namjoon, and you want to remember what it was like. You remember a lot of things, actually, like his laughter, his voice, his smile, the feel of his lips on yours, and many others.
“How long are you here for?” You finally ask, as you both walk side-by-side past the rest of the artworks inside, with a bit of distance between you.
“I’m here for 3 more days.”
“I stay at the hotel next to the building,” you say, being bold. “I leave here in 2 hours.”
You fumble for your room key and discreetly hand it over to him. “3802, if you want to. I have more to say, and I– uh, shit. If you’re seeing someone, forget what I said.”
“I’m not,” he answers. “I’ll be there.”
**
Namjoon watches the city from your full-wall window, wondering when you’d decide to finally speak beyond a greeting. It’s been 10 minutes since he arrived at your suite with the key you gave him, and you haven’t said anything since then.
“The buildings aren’t the same here,” you finally say. “I’ve been here for 3 months and the sounds of the cars are too loud, there’s too much smoke, people don’t smile… I don’t have anyone here.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I decided to finish some of my pieces in the city. I’ve been staying at one of my parents’ apartments not far from here.”
“And where were you before that?”
“Puerto Rico, Greece, Sweden,” you answer.
“When I said to find ourselves, I didn’t think you’d actually leave, and then not tell me about it,” he laments. “I knew it was stupid to wish you’d stay close. You weren’t in any of the places where I used to see you, where we used to go. I… I asked around but they said you haven’t visited in so long.”
“I couldn’t stay,” you try to explain. “I couldn’t because it just meant waiting for you to come even if I was the one who walked away. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to find myself in a place where I’d always be looking for you, and so I had to go. I’m so sorry, Joon. I–”
You drop the hand that reaches out to him, unsure if your touch would still be welcome. You clench your fist to stop yourself from doing it again, but he notices. He notices and takes your hand, uncurls it so he can hold it properly.
“How was it being away?”
“It was good. Hard. Terrifying,” you share. “I experienced a lot of new, fun things. I learned a lot. Made a lot of mistakes, too. I met so many people. I–”
“Were you with anyone?” he asks, turning away briefly.
“No, I… I couldn’t bring myself to,” you answer nervously. “And you?”
“No one since you. There was a reason why I asked you to stay right there, so that I knew where to find you.”
“You still found me, 3 years later, on the other side of the world.”
“I had to know if anything’s changed for you. I had to know if you made it, if you found what you were looking for. I had to know if you were happy. But you didn’t create it. There was no piece for it.”
“I found what I was looking for,” you say, looking into his eyes, glancing at his fingers that are softly exploring yours. “I realized that I could only gain whatever permanence I was looking for if I learned to let them go. Because if they come back, they stay. I walked away from you then, and I had to lose myself to all the emotions that I was so scared to feel. And I felt a lot of them, Joon. I felt a lot of things. I was going to go back home after this. But you came to me first. You’re the one always finding me. That hasn’t changed.”
“I suppose it hasn’t,” he cracks a smile. “Did I take too long?”
“You were right on time,” you say. “I would’ve come for you in a few days though. But I’m glad you’re here so that I can tell you that I can finally have this. I can finally give you everything without being scared, without it breaking me, without it ruining the ones I love.”
“Is that what you feel for me?”
“Yes. I guess I did then. I still do now.”’
There’s uncertainty in your voice, perhaps due to the fear of him no longer returning what you feel.
“I found myself, too,” he says. “I figured out what I wanted to do for myself, what more I can give, what more I desired. And I guess you’re right. That permanence can come from losing something and then having them back. And then having them stay. So many times then I regretted that I wasn’t more honest. That I was denying what I felt for you because I was scared of losing what little of a normal life I was afforded. I wished I told you much earlier, but I guess things happen when they do, right?”
“Right, but you can also say them again now.”
“That I want you close, holding my hand, tracing my skin, kissing me? That I want all that everyday?” He smiles, as he pulls you towards him and places your hand on his chest. “That I want everything from you? That I haven’t stopped thinking of you, wishing for you?”
“Yes,” you say, sighing into the kiss you’ve missed too much.
There’s that tenderness you expected, but the desire is unlike the times before. There’s more confidence now, more security in the way his mouth moves against yours. It’s as if he knows that he’ll always have this. That this time, he’s loving you in more than words, and that you’ve come back, and that you’ll stay.
Namjoon presses you against the wall, lets his lips trace down your neck and your chest. He undresses you, remarks that he’s starting to believe in a higher being who created a body like yours, and then proceeds to mouth more praises down your thighs and in between them.
He takes you slowly, amorously. He watches your face contort in pure pleasure, and you mention needing to add a piece for this, too. The way he goes in and out of you is out of this world, and you never want it to end.
You’d think it’s the intimacy you didn’t know how to feel. But it’s more than that. In fact, you find that in being with Namjoon, the intimacy is in everything - the way he holds your hand, the way he wraps his arm around you, the way he lets you bite his arm and tickle him just for fun. It’s in the way he kisses your forehead before he kisses your lips.
It’s in your bike rides together and watching the river whenever you catch a glimpse of it. It’s in your moments of calm - reading books, writing songs, sketching.
It’s in the deep, tender way that he says he loves you.
You don’t have a piece for this yet. Perhaps it’s another series altogether. Perhaps it’ll require an installation.
Or maybe, this is the one emotion you don’t need to put into art, the one that you’ll keep for yourself to hold onto because no clay and metal mixture, no tangible piece, could ever describe what this love and intimacy feels like.
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Written: 2020-04-28
Bucky Barnes x Black female reader
Bucky Barnes thinks he doesn’t deserve you.
That he was unworthy of this very moment too.
Rain fell in sheets swelling the air around you in scents of dark soil and juniper. He sniffed the moist air again and breathed in deep, it smelled a touch like honey too. Bucky huddled in further next to you, hair wet, the droplets fell to your cheeks and he discovered the sweet smell was coming from you.
A pavillion of sorts, but it was a small and broken pile of wood to the point a stream of spring rain came pouring in from the roof, on to the base of the floor and down the side like a waterfall.
Bucky groaned inside, What are you doing here? Why did you follow him?
You slid down the column running through the center of the junky gazebo with a frazzled but excited gaze.
“Just a little rain,” you said in a chipper tone.
He was not sure whether to sit or to continue to stand. Bucky glanced from your bare legs, to your flip flop barely on one foot, to your hands gently wiping off the rain from your thighs. Not entirely comfortable with how smooth he found your skin to be, he quickly looked away to the rain that was still coming down hard.
“Aren’t you going to sit?” You loudly asked over the roar of the downpour.
The apple of his cheeks were still pink when he nodded stiffly, refused to look you in the eyes and sat down next to you.
“Afraid of me?” you asked playfully and bumped his shoulder with yours.
Bucky brought a knee up and rested his metal arm on it and didn’t speak.
He shook his head and kept his eyes panned on the rain. In the past, he had women, some of those moments he had become hopelessly devoted too, though to his detriment for only just one thing. But now, his eyes fell to your hands cupping and rubbing the bottom of your foot.
Bucky imagined your hands, the soft pads of your fingers tracing along his face, his lips. The little movement of your thumb messaging the pinch in your hell was enough to send his heart hammering into his chest.
“It was a pretty day,” you said offhandedly.
You rocked forward on your hands and knees, pushed closer to the cascade of rain and rinsed your hands.
Tilting your head back over your shoulder a small smile met his. Blood rushed to his head again and Bucky looked away.
It was still a pretty day, he thought.
Bucky concentrated on a blade of grass being pelted. “You got stuck out here with me. Why’d you follow me in the first place?” He asked.
“You looked upset after the reaming from Fury.”
You scooted closer, folded your legs underneath you letting your knee touch his shin.
“So?”
Bucky’s eyes fell to the place the two of you were connected up to your eyes.
You shrugged gently, he could see the confidence melt a bit and the shyness take over.
“I didn’t want you to be alone.”
Tender, with merciful care you laid the tips of your fingers on his calf.
The rain let up a bit. “Why would you care if I was alone?” he asked quietly.
“Same reason you cared when I didn’t show up for the briefing a few weeks ago.”
He remembered. He found you in your room, unbathed, the assertiveness in your eyes had vanished and you just wanted to be alone.
And he remembered in that moment he wanted to touch you then, like he wanted to now.
“I just want you to be okay,” You said and your eyes moved to his stubbly cheek. Smoothly your fingers left his calve and with the tips of your fingers you caressed his jaw.
He felt his inside skip and stuttered, his skin flushed to a deeper pink. Bucky’s jaw tightened, his heart thumped quicker as your palm was joined by your fingers.
Your touch was like light, raw and pure it cut through the dark muddling his mind and he shut his eyes. Bucky unclenched his jaw as the back of your other hand swept up his neck. The warmth of your body fell over him, through him and he breathed in the sweet silkiness of your rain soaked skin.
A sob racked from his chest. It scared him, he hadn’t expected to feel this unfiltered joy. You hesitated, and Bucky opened his eyes and gazed at you.
“Don’t stop,” he said softly.
You brushed a few wet strands away from his forehand.
“Never,” you whispered.
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Top 5 favorite Amy March fan fics!
Only 5!?
I really like the ones that offer a glimpse into their life while respecting the canon. Extra points for deepening a small scene or element in the book that deserves more exploration. And of course, AmyxLaurie cuteness.
They’re numbered but it’s not that strict. I really love them all.
1. It reminded me of you by lauraschiller
This one gets extra point for taking one of my favorite elements of Amy (and Laurie): faith. I found it absolutely lovely and telling that Laurie gave Amy an ebony cross after spending time with Estelle at Aunt March’s. And then she kept it for years! How dare people say that Amy and Laurie were not close?! Also, how does people just ignore the effect that faith had on Amy to become a better person?!
Anyway these are short but absolutely lovely scenes surrounding the ebony cross. Actually, lauraschiller has another story about John and Meg that is equally fantastic.
2. The art of parenthood by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker), Beth_Harker
This fic gives us a glimpse into Bess first year or so, when she was very ill and they didn’t know if she was going to survive. I can’t imagine what it was like to know how high child mortality was then and face the possibility of losing your baby. So this is very sad bit hopeful. And one of the greatest thing is to read how the situation made Laurie and Amy be more gentle and it brought them even closer, which does not always happen. Also, it features Amy painting!
(The author has other canon-compliant stories for them and other couples, so check them out.)
3. Spring breaks loose, but so does fear by lovelacegsl
This one is from my mutual and fellow Amy March defense squad member @lovelacegsl, and it was a lovely gift. And it’s a nice moment during their first years of marriage. It’s sweet, romantic and has steamy bits.
4. Not in so many words by therealchancewriter
The first chapter, especially, is very influenced in the 2019 featuring Amy's insecurities about being second to Jo. BUT! the rest is a heartbreaking, yet hopeful and loving story about Amy and Laurie's journey until they got Bess. It's amazing and it's super long. Each chapter is a little less than 10,000 words! (there aren’t really long stories in this tag) And it's steamy! The love scenes are very well written, they're tasteful and hot.
And! It has lovely JoxFritz moments. I love that the author shows how close the couples are and that there is absolutely no drama between them. They’re friends and they support each other.
TW for depression, post-partum depression, miscarriages.
5. Countryside Dream by valkyriex
This one is an AU but it’s absolutely beautiful. There’s not really many fics that give them a big family and this one gives them 5 children! It also has them living in Paris for a few years, which I loved. I know some people think that Amy should have remained a bit far because going back to Concord pulled her again to being “baby of the family” (she does goes back to sit on her mother’s lap the next day). So this is a nice compromise. And there’s a beautiful moment where her daughters discover her paintings.
Ok, there are my top 5, it wasn’t easy. There are many great stories, usually from the same authors, so I recommend checking their profiles.
Runner ups (but come on, I love them so much, all of them. And I read them constantly)
The other man by Tara R.A. Boomdiay
A lighthearted tiny shot of Amy and Laurie 20 years into their marriage. This is incredible, I love it so much
Visage through thine tears by Kamuela
Someone recommended this one to me, and Ican’t remember if it was you. But it’s another exploration of their difficulties having children.
Glory in the flower by frankie_bell
This would have been up there if it were finished. But alas, we haven’t had an update since 2020. So, if anyone wants, go ask for it, kindly.
I want your midnights (you and me forevermore) by reciprocityfic
This is the only modern AU that I have here by @reciprocityfic.
It’s a New Year’s fic so famous midnight kiss comes into play.
And, one of my favorite things: Jo totally shipping AmyxLaurie and basically putting them together and saying “kiss!” Like she basically did it in this fic.
Thank so much for the question, Niina!
Let me know if you read them.
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This past weekend I had .. A truly lovely experience. One that will stick with me forever, I believe.
Story time.
About a month ago I got an unexpected message that Tom Hiddleston would be at NYCC. I'd never heard of NYCC before - though I live within driving distance of NYC. I visited last year to see a Broadway play and visit the Loki figure at Madame Tussauds. But more, in 2019, my parents surprised me with tickets to see Betrayal on Broadway.
When we went to the show, I hoped to give Tom a letter, thanking him for the impact his work has had on my life, and get some art autographed. After the show - which was breathtaking and fantastic and funny and heartbreaking - I stood outside in the bitter cold and watched as Tom stayed outside for 2 hours talking to and autographing things for his fans. I distinctly remember saying his name and him looking me right in the eye - I asked if he'd take my letter. His response? "Of course I will." those words also stuck with me. spoken surely, as though kindness was deserved without question.
I got an autograph from him that day on my Playbill - they didn't allow non-Betrayal works to be signed. But I wanted, very badly, to see him again. Namely for a hug ... And to get that art signed.
In the spring of 2020 I heard about a drivable convention Tom was slated to be at. Tickets to see him were hundreds of dollars, but I was willing to pay.
Then the pandemic hit. Everything was cancelled.
Fast forward to last month. My birthday is coming up and I have no idea what to ask for, I have a steady job and I'm trying to give myself permission to buy fun things so I actually feel something when I get a paycheck. ive legit been getting money and just feeling nothing when it goes into my account. :')
And I did it. I bought a pass. An autograph pass, since the photo passes only allowed a few seconds with the individual - I wanted to talk even for a moment, not stand awkwardly while I try to make myself give a natural smile.
I'll spare you the details of the convention itself - it was huge, and while it was exciting, that wasn't the main draw. Tom was. I finished an art piece and had it printed, and took it with me to give to him. I also wrote a message on the back of it, so there was no risk of the message being lost (I don't know if he actually got my first letter. There's really no way to tell!). That message is private, but the art is not.
It took over two hours to get through the line. As someone with joint and sensory issues, this was .. Quite an experience. if i hadnt had my compression socks on i honestly dont think i would have made it. also i really need to look into what ADA passes they have because there is an ADA line and i continuously tell myself im not disabled enough for that but maybe i am, idk
But I got through the line and went around the corner where they had a curtained-off area, and there he was.
My first thought? "Oh, you're real."
its always surprising to see him in person.
But as happened before, the nervousness and excitement and heart beating out of my chest gave way to a quiet calm.
He took the piece I brought to be signed, and signed it. And I spoke up.
"I made this for you, if that's okay." And I handed him the above artwork.
He took it. Looked at it. "You're very talented."
I thanked him.
And he looked at me again.
Now, it's relevant to mention I am autistic. Eye contact is extremely difficult for me. It feels unsafe, exposed, scary. I can literally get physically unsettled if I look at someone's eyes too long. This man is the only person - not even my mother and father feel safe to look in the eye - that I can not just stand to look in the eye, but actually feel ... peaceful. i think it's because he has lokis eyes.
"Thank you. Have a good rest of your weekend."
He smiled at me, and I smiled back. I thanked him again.
It's a small interaction. It was in the last event on the last day of the con - this man was probably exhausted, and rightly so. I also want to be clear, I don't have any sort of parasocial feelings toward Tom, or even romantic/etc. feelings. Tom is his own person, with his own life and experiences, and I don't feel anything toward him other than a general fondness and gratitude. More importantly, he is married, a husband and a father, and that is so important to remember.
I'm simply grateful to him. Out of hundreds, possibly thousands of people over the weekend, he took a bit of time to look at the art, and say something kind, and to look at me and smile.
Photos weren't allowed in the area, or I would have wanted one. Likewise, there were tables between the attendees and him - I would've asked for a hug otherwise. But I don't regret the weekend, for all its ups and downs. I got to give Tom a present, and I know I'll see him again someday.
And maybe next time, I'll get that hug.
#for context i want to get as close to hugging loki as possible lol#i have hugged the madame tussauds figure#i have hugged disneyland loki#i have even hugged loki cosplayers#tom is the closest thing to loki that remains un-hugged by lokislittlesigyn#she will hug him someday#that is a threat /lh#i'll post the digital version of the art soon#<3#nycc#nycc 2023#tom hiddleston#storytime#sigyn goes on an adventure#sigyn loves loki a lot
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I wish the books (and fans) didn't make William Afton such a horrible father.
The books came out in 2020 and are continuously produced. The games I am referring too such as "Sister location" and "Fnaf 4" came out in 2016 and 2015, I mention this because I'm explaining I'm discluding the books in my arguments, as they aren't relevant to the games as they are confirmed to be their own universe and not canon to game lore.
I mean, yeah, you could argue he was quite neglectful, but how do we know he wasn't a single father in the duration of the games (specifically the flashback scenes of Sister location and Fnaf 4). In Fnaf 4, he'd take his kids to work with him when he could so he he could watch over them and do his job as the manager of the diner, because I doubt you have much time when it's just you and one other person managing a diner. As we were shown during many of the scenes where Evan and the older brother (persumed Michael Afton) would be inside the diner. There was even a scene where a man (presumably William Afton) was getting inside a spring Bonnie suit. So we can infer that he would watch over them when he could.
In the sister location flashback scenes, we could obviously tell he cared for his kids at, like, were it implied he made circus baby for Elizabeth and were he told her to never see Circus Baby alone, knowing what would happen to her if she did. Or how in the final scene of Fnaf 4 where the crying child is dying in the hospital and William Tells C.C. "You're broken...I'm still here. I will put you back together." It is confirmed by the Fnaf ultimate guide that Willaim (or C.Cs father, we can all infer is William) was watching over C.C using Fredbear because in the Sister location Private room, we see that there is a camera directly in C.Cs room, which is also the reason that Frebears eyes follow C.C around anywhere he goes and why wherever C.C is, Fredbear is.
I honestly have no idea where the idea of William physically hurting his kids (specifically Michael) came from (I saw someone say it came from the books, specifically The fourth closet, which I have not read yet, so I am unsure if that is true) as the games never give us much information of their relationship. I assume that the reason Springtrap (aka William) attacks Michael in Fnaf 3 and Pizzaria simulator, is because he was unaware it was his son, as at these moments of time Michael would be way older and also, a dead decomposing corpse. Again, we really don't have a lot of information on the two's relationship, so this is a difficult argument to make, but I would like to assume they had a decent relationship since Michael in the beginning was putting Elizabeth and the others back together, as William had asked, which seems like an effort only people fond of each other would got through, then Michael says "... I'm going to come find you. I'm going to come find you,". Then, I assume that his view on William changes after he runs into Henry and learns the truth. Because, how do we know he knew the truth about the missing kids before pizzareia sim? It seems like he was only taking up the jobs to find Circus Baby and Springtrap.
I bring this all up because of the new lore drop that Fnaf 4 was an experiment done by William Afton on his own kids. Which to me seemed out of nowhere and slightly out of character because William was killing those kids for remnant, but I don't see a reason why he'd do things like that to his own kids. I feel like this lore drop is an attempt to bring back Willaims relevancy since Secruity Breach and to make him look even more like a villain.
If I got anything mixed up or wrong, sorry, it's been a while since I refreshed my memory on Fnaf, and I'll edit anything that is off.
#five nights at freddy's#william afton#fnaf fandom#michael afton#crying child#the crying child#elizabeth afton#fnaf 4#fnaf sister location#fnaf 3#circus baby#fnaf springtrap#springtrap#fnaf#fnaf movie
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My Journey with Omori
Hey everyone. Rather than my usual analysis-type posts, this is going to go into my own personal experience with Omori. I've kind of wanted to do this for awhile, because I feel like I have a lot that I want to say about this game. This post is going to have major Omori spoilers. I will also be going into some criticisms of the game (though not particularly heavily). This one will be a long one.
My Background
This might not be something that people care about, but I feel it is important to start with my life situation at the time I discovered the game.
In 2020, I graduated from college with a degree in game design. If you remember 2020, you can probably guess where I'm going with this. Everyone left for spring break, and the day before we were supposed to come back, they extended break by a week. Then, at the end of that additional week, classes had gone fully remote. My three roommates at the time never really came back to campus, and I finished out the lease alone. I never got to do any kind of internship, and I didn't get a graduation ceremony. I really didn't know what I was doing with my life, and finding a job in the games industry seemed impossible. So, I made a decision to move in with my aunt and work at an insurance agency. I was states away from anyone I ever knew, working in an industry wholly unrelated to what I had just dedicated years of my life to studying, but it was a job.
I wonder a lot if this was the right call. At the time, it seemed like an obvious decision, but now, I'm even more unsure of my skills when it comes to breaking into the games industry, and working 40+ hours a week can really sap your motivation when it comes to personal projects.
As the world opened back up, I started hearing from all my friends less and less, and life really started getting monotonous. Living alone is expensive, and I'm not good at opening up to new people.
Last November, by chance, a comic by twitter user Shrimperini appeared on my feed (it's still the pinned tweet on her account if you want to see!). One thing led to another, I saw some more positive reviews of the game, and I ended up picking the game up on Switch when I saw at on sale at a Best Buy.
Now, anyone that knows me could tell you, this isn't the type of game I usually play. I've always gravitated towards things like strategy games or rogue-likes. I only really stray from that in a few cases, whether it's to play a game with my friends, or just a game that I've had a long-standing connection with, like Pokémon. I did play Undertale and Deltarune (and loved them!), but overall, this type of game was not one that I typically went out of my way to play.
Also important: I've never interacted with any fandom in the way that I do with Omori. You can trawl through my Twitter, you won't find much of me talking about ships or obsessing over details until I started talking about Omori. All this is to say: Omori was a bit of a first for me on a few different levels. So, let's get into my actual journey with the game.
The First Playthrough: The Sunny Route
I unfortunately already knew a few details about the game going into things, but nothing that was too big of a spoiler. Something that I think gets overlooked is how great Omori's prologue is. In my opinion, the first night in Headspace is the best night in Headspace, bar none. It perfectly sets you up for what the game's going to be about, and I want to talk more about that later, because I feel that it really shines on later playthroughs.
Based on what I said about my background, you can probably guess what I'm going to say. Sunny's story and personality resonated heavily with me. At school, I was always the quiet one, just kind of following what my friends wanted to do until I started coming out of my shell a bit later on. Faraway is very similar to the town and suburb that I grew up in, and I know that many people feel the same way. Walking around Faraway felt like walking around my own home town today, years after almost everyone I knew back then has moved out and started their own lives. I mean this literally, as well, since I started playing this game right around American Thanksgiving, so I actually was back in my home town. It's nostalgic in a way, and I think that that is a major strength of the game.
I also do want to say, that while a Kel/Sunny comic is what introduced me to the game, I mostly assumed that it wasn't actually a canon ship. What I didn't expect was for the game to actually depict a close male relationship that does border on romantic in its presentation, which made those opening transition scenes of Sunny and Basil so interesting (as well as Basil indirectly calling Omori cute during the flower meaning segment), though I do want to talk a little bit more about that later.
From there, I feel that my experience was a lot like most people's first time with the game. I got to experience Faraway, then tried to rush through Night 2 of Headspace without paying much attention, so that I could get back to the real world plot. I didn't pay much attention during Sweetheart's Castle, and it's already-commented-on gameplay drag issues felt exacerbated by the fact that I just wanted to get on with it.
Real world day 2 happens, I got to meet Hero in the real world, Basil gets pushed into the lake, etc, etc. The shroud has started to lift on what's actually going on here. The North Lake segment got me ready to figure out what was actually going on, but first: Last Resort and Humphrey.
It was around this time that I began wondering if there actually was any kind of gay subtext actually going on. Of course, I had seen the Lost Library entry for the ride home from the beach, but as I descended into Sunny's subconscious, the way that the game started talking about Basil took on a much different tone. I got to the Branch Coral, and listened to it talk about how Sunny and Basil are connected by a "string of fate". This immediately set off some alarm bells in my head. A lot of debate has been had about this line, but for me personally, even if a string of fate isn't always romantic imagery, it certainly is most of the time. Seeing it written in the game (as something that Sunny's subconscious is saying, no less) completely had me reconsidering if there was a connection, which I hadn't really thought about since Basil's disappearance. I thought about the photo album, and how well Basil is treated in Headspace, and it just had me thinking.
I got through Humphrey, finished up the side quests that I still had, and it was time to start Black Space. Prior to that, however, Stranger lead me through Basil's garden once again, going over the flower meanings. I took note about how the meaning of sunflowers, as it was the first time I made the connection about Sunny's name and Basil's meaning for them (plus him literally always facing Sunny in several scenes lol). And then there was what Basil said about white tulips.
Being honest, it was difficult for me to interpret Basil as not being in love with Sunny after that, and Stranger's dialogue in some of the Black Space rooms really cemented that for me.
Black Space as a whole left me extremely intrigued as to what the plan was. The way it ended really left me in suspense for what was really going on. How did it all relate to what happened to Mari? I had already assumed at this point that she had taken her own life, due to some of the imagery. But what else was going on here? I didn't exactly think the game was going to veer back from being a horror title to turn into some kind of dating sim, but it was clear to me that Basil was involved with some other secret.
In a reversal of what I had expected of the game up until this point, I found it difficult to care about the real world plot of the game during day 3. It didn't help that it felt like a rushed resolution of the Aubrey plot, and I felt like I was simply going through the motions. I still have no idea how I'm supposed to interpret the key in the treehouse and how it got there, and it felt a little aggravating that plans were being made between Aubrey and Hero to include the hooligans next time, while Basil himself was still locked in his room.
So then, the truth sequence. It completely blew away my expectations for what the game was saying, and recontextualized so much of what came before it. Sunny had done something awful by accident, and Basil had done something awful to protect him. That last "Do you want to save Basil?" really hit me hard. I hadn't felt so part of the game until this moment. It was like I was Sunny, and I was mulling over whether or not I forgive Basil for the horrible situation his actions put us both in. The stakes are high, because it's clear that something bad will happen to Basil if I don't. I didn't actually know it at the time, but this is the first time you can actually choose not to save Basil. It's emotional.
And the fight. The way the game creates confusion as to what is actually going on between Sunny and Basil during it by using vague wording and hallucinations. Basil's desperation and the way his desire to protect Sunny as his "perfect" best friend come together, leading to the fight.
Memory Lane happens, and I honestly didn't think much of it at the time. It was cool to see some of the memories in better detail, but it wasn't as emotional to me as what came before or what will come after.
I would be remiss to not include that we learn that it was actually Sunny that had a crush on Aubrey, and not the other way around. I had already suspected this, based on Aubrey not being close to him in the photo album, along with the Lost Library memory, but I remember thinking it was an interesting choice to have Basil be the one to call it out.
I finished up the game, and it impacted me a whole lot. I wasn't planning on playing the other route at first, as I heard that it was just Headspace and mostly unchanged, and I felt satisfied with the story that I got. I walked away with the understanding that pre-canon, Basil had feelings for Sunny that he likely didn't understand, while Sunny had a crush on Aubrey that he was never bold enough to pursue. How they felt at the time the game actually took place is irrelevant to the story being told, outside of us understanding that these are relatable individuals, and I walked away alright with that.
Of course, after that initial wave of emotions from the ending subsided, I did have some criticisms. Sunny's actual friendship with Aubrey felt underdeveloped, as her behavior both in Headspace and the real world differ so heavily from how she behaves in the glimpses we see of the past. Unlike Sunny's relationships with the others, there's no real unique identifiers other than Sunny's crush. While I would not have wanted the only living female character in the main cast to have been treated as a love interest in both the real world and dream world, it would have been nice if the game gave us a little more than just the swing set conversations, like how we get Kel talking about their late night trips to Hobbeez. In addition, while I understood on a base level that whether or not Basil and Sunny are forgiven didn't really matter to the story being told, not seeing it happen left me feeling a tad empty.
Finally, I felt extremely dissatisfied with Headspace. On a superficial level, I could see that many of the things in Headspace were based on things from the real world, it didn't really feel like it had all that much significance, and the knowledge that it would be more of the same in the other route kept me from playing it. I occasionally visited the subreddit, read a few post-canon fics (Bask in the Sun by Lemari and They say Flowers are Meant to be Sunkissed by Witherdahlia being highlights with very similar concepts), and slowly immersed myself in the Twitter community.
Of course, as time went by, I started making my own interpretations about the game. I got very attached to Sunflower, as I felt the fics were the most interesting to read, and I already held the interpretation that Basil had those feelings for Sunny, even if I didn't think it even mattered if Sunny reciprocated (though I did like talking about their dynamic a lot). In February, Sunflower week happened, and I randomly happened across a tweet that pointed out how Sunny knows the recipe for a strawberry cake in Headspace, with that being relevant due to Basil's birthday being one in which a strawberry cake appears. This blew my mind a little bit, and I made the decision to go back and play the Hikikomori route.
The Second Playthrough: The Hikikomori Route
What I had previously assumed would be a slog through things that I had already done before turned out to be far more interesting. Without the desire to get back to the real world plot hanging over me, I found myself paying a lot more attention to the things that were happening in Headspace. Playing the prologue again was amazing, because I was taken aback by how it practically parallels the entirety of the Sunny route, right down to having to retrieve a stolen item and receiving an eyepatch after the boss fight. Some day, I might break that down further, because it's so interesting. But not today.
Pyrefly Forest and Sweetheart's Castle were much more bearable this time around, because I was paying attention to the little references to Basil and Sunny's friendship in Pyrefly, and the ways Sweetheart's Castle represented a candied-up version of the way that Sunny interprets the concept of "home". This time through Headspace, I saw the very subtle ways that Basil's thoughts "follow Sunny into his dreams". And then, rather than Mari leading you through North Lake, it's Kel. Stranger no longer tells us what Basil thought about white tulips and Sunny, but this time in Black Space, I noticed the implications that Sunny would open up to Basil about his trauma coming from the Lake Incident. It ends with Omori catching Basil in a bridal carry before returning his flower crown.
Whereas the Sunny route was this heart wrenching tale about forgiveness and guilt, and overcoming your fears for others, and how ignorance hurts those you care about the most, the Hikikomori route functioned almost as this deep dive into Sunny's subconscious. The fact that I was playing through pretty much the exact same stuff again but with a completely different perspective kind of blew my mind, and I wonder if this was intentional.
This is all to say that it was around this time that I was once again asking myself the question of if Sunny's feelings for Basil (at least pre-canon) were entirely platonic. Especially as I played the Basil Rush, with its new Tag Photos and Release Energy, I wondered if the game was actually trying to imply a romantic connection. And if it was, why? What purpose would it serve in the narrative for these feelings to exist? How does it relate to Sunny's crush on Aubrey, which surely must've existed in the story for a reason? And how does it all relate to the litany of things Sunny things about in regards to romance?
From a narrative perspective, I could reason that Sunny and Basil having feelings for each other that they could never healthily explore injects further tragedy into the day of the incident and Sunny locking himself away. It provides a context for Sunny's focus on "saving" Basil, both in Headspace and the real world. Basil is undeniably linked to photos and flowers, which are two huge symbols that appear throughout Sunny's mind.
Everything else is stuff I've already spoken about before. The way Sunny treated Aubrey parallels how he treated Basil, and via both things like his fear of spiders, and the way all the foods Sunny appears to know information on how to prepare being associated with Basil, his dynamic with Basil mirrors the way Sunny thinks of Hero and Mari's relationship during Memory Lane.
Playing through the Hikikomori route completely changed the way that I thought about Omori. It was no longer just the story of Sunny accepting his role in his sister's death, I was also now considering the possibility that the game did have a romantic subtext between its two deuteragonists, and thinking about the repercussions of such an idea.
As I completed everything that there was to do in the Hikikomori route, I was immediately taken in with the idea of replaying the Sunny route, with all the knowledge I now had from my previous experiences. First, let me say: Everything that I assumed about playing through Headspace a second time and was luckily wrong about, actually applied on my third run. I did not enjoy playing through Headspace on my third run through, and it will likely be awhile before I do so again.
However, I did start to get an appreciation for details that I missed in my first run in Faraway. Basil's little mannerisms during cutscenes, such as looking to Sunny before responding to Kel's insistence that they were all still friends, as well as the repetition of Sunny backing away from his friends' pain due to his subconscious guilt and fear of facing it, before the final payoff of Sunny choosing to walk back into the center of the room on his own accord during the confrontation with Basil. During Memory Lane, I took note that in the Treehouse Memory, Sunny asked to see one of Basil's pictures that had nothing to do with Aubrey, when previously he only asked to look at pictures of her. There are three different instances in which the player is reminded that Hero and Mari's relationship specifically is one in which they cook for each other specifically, and this information was now recontextualized with the knowledge that Sunny knows the recipe for a strawberry cake, owns a book about tofu (which he hates), and that's not even getting into all the stuff about smoothies in Headspace. Where Aubrey saying that Sunny "would listen to her talk to hours" was once a confirmation that Aubrey and Sunny did have any kind of dynamic at all, I now saw it as a recontextualization of how we were told Sunny interacted with Basil. (also, the "truth" being hidden in the toy chest, which is itself hidden in the closet was certainly a choice /j)
What was the point of all this?
Frankly, it's starting to feel like I'm running out of things to say about Omori. With every post I've made on here and Twitter, there's less things for me to extrapolate from Omori's storytelling, and it's unlikely that we will ever get any more added on to canon. I've grown to love this community, and I think it's so interesting when I look back at how I interpreted the game back in November when I first discovered it, and today. I hope that that will become evident with the mod that I am working on, Senesce.
Obviously, everyone has their own ideas when it comes to what Omori is trying to imply with its characters. Accepting Sunflower as "canon" (in the sense that those feelings do exist in some form) has deepened my love of the game and characters, and I love that other people can have entirely different interpretations and still be just as satisfied with the game! Even if it was all unintentional, I cannot deny that it has lit a fire under me when it comes to game writing.
I desperately want to create a game that has someone at home obsessing over the smallest details to extract meaning in the way I have for Omori. Flawed as it may be, it's special to me, and I'm glad I played it. Thanks for listening to me ramble about it!
#omori#omori spoilers#omori sunflower#sunflower omori#sunnflower#omori basil#omori sunny#why omori matters to me#this has actually been sitting in my drafts for awhile#also ive never really gotten the chance to say#but i actually think it's irrelevant if sunny and basil's relationship would be healthy or not#or if they actually get together at some point#what happens after the credits is pure speculation and not worth arguing about#what's important is how those feelings impact interpretation of the game and its themes/symbolism#(even if I do find it most satisfying to think that they do get together at some point years down the line)#(and find the post credits scene of them smiling at each other to be extremely satisfying due to the idea that regardless of being forgiven#(they at least have each other)#ramble over
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Drarry Fic Recs!
I've written very little the past week because I've been on a reading rampage. Stating up front, I'm a speed reader. Oh my! I usually read something everyday but set it aside at night when I do most of my writing. These stories, though, just took me in and I couldn't stop. They run the spectrum from a Regency A/B/O WIP to a 580K Dystopian Voldemort wins with a Draco and Harry you will never ever forget. These fics are all on AO3. So let's get started...
Let's start Light: Seeking: pet carer for Bartholomew (four-year old rescue greyhound, no special needs) by @gallifrey1sburning (14.5K, 2020). The fic is non-magical AU and features overworked, recently dumped, lawyer!Draco. He and his previous partner had adopted a rescue greyhound (Bartholomew). The poor beast needs care during the day, walking and such. Enter dog-walker extraordinaire Harry. It's lovely and it reads true to their characters. Pansy plays a very Slytherin role in putting these two together. It's not too fluffy but is definitely sweet in just the right amount.
Follow the Water by @xanthippe74 (38K, 2020). The atmosphere the author created for this fic is so gorgeous. You can picture and almost feel the breeze of a spring day. The heat of summer relieved by brooks, forests, and rivers. It starts on a Spring day with Harry taking a long walk from the Burrow because he doesn't feel like going home. He has a boring job and leads a boring life. He comes upon Luna's house, now rebuilt into a one story stone home. He finds Draco, Pansy, and Greg visiting Luna. Soon he is coming every Saturday to work in the garden, cook, and other things as they put together an outdoor camp. The whole fic takes place on these weekend adventures and mostly outside in the fresh air as the group bonds. While this is a light fic, it is not fluffy. They are children recapturing a youth most never got to experience. So come enjoy Pansy reading romance novels, Draco singing, a promise of flying kites, spending the night in tents, and taking long hikes. Oh, and finding Love.
Strawberry Fields (bitter bites) by @eddietoz (54K, WIP 15/18) And now we come to the Regency A/B/O. I mean really, do I need to say more than Omega!Draco who was caught with the gardener in Malfoy Manor being sent away to live with his aunt and cousin in Godric's Hollow, where he quickly insults the most eligible Alpha, one young Harry Potter who is joining the Navy. Captain Harry returns five years later and the fun ensues. Well not for Harry who has had his heart broken by his childhood sweetheart. Draco, still trying to redeem himself after the incident in Wiltshire and insulting Harry, meets with Captain Potter and they devise a plan for Harry to win back his love and Draco be redeemed. This may or may not backfire. You can feel the A/B/O heat in this fic, but given the era, everything is repressed and societal norms of courting must be followed. *fans myself* The author is still updating. The 14th chapter went up a little over a week ago (update...chapter 15 just went up). I haven't found many Drarry A/B/O fics of my liking (besides Embers by @shiftylinguini), but this one is like a Jane Austen/HarryPotter/ A/B/O crossover. Delish!!!!!
Where all the Veins Meet by @saxamophone (146K, 2023) How good is this fic? It's so good I read it despite it being the usual type I normally wouldn't. I'm not a fan of depressed, 'woe is me' Harry after the war. Not that he wouldn't have problems...most definitely. I just usually stay away from depressed!Harry for my own sake. However, the author won me over on this one. It takes place right after the war and through the summer of 1998. Harry's friends are trying to support him by showing up at Grimmauld Place to be with him. They love him. But, Harry, is so confused on what is him, who he is now that Voldemort is not only physically gone but also gone from his head. He becomes...shall I say...dickish. But still they love him. He meets up with Draco by accident in a museum, and this continues. They become almost friends. Draco (on parole having to take Muggle studies) is living with his Slytherin compatriots and they aren't doing so well either. Especially Pansy. Meetings continue, trust builds, friends aren't happy (some furious) when they find out. But in all this confusion, a light appears at the end of this tunnel. Beautifully told, heartbreaking, but resiliency and forgiveness is found.
And now for the beast of a fic I mentioned up top. I'm giving two links as the Completed original is in Spanish and was just completed a few weeks ago). The second is the translation that is not yet completed and I believe will take quite a while to do so. Desolación by SimpleNefelibata (2023). Desolation translated by JhonnyBotello01. (24/67 ~200K). Here is the summary: Harry Potter was dead. The war was over. The whole (UK) Wizarding World was finally under Voldemort's regime. And Draco Malfoy was part of the most inner circle to the Dark Lord. Eight years after the Battle of Hogwarts, and with the sudden apparition of Hannah Abbott at the Manor door, Draco is faced with desmanteling all the hard truths he's learned to live with. The fic comes down to one point, Nagini disappeared before being killed by Neville and one Narcissa Malfoy has been in Azkaban for 8 years for treason (lying to Voldemort about Harry being dead). And Draco has spent 8 years moving up the ranks so he could get her released.
I'll say up front, do not come near this fic if you cannot read torture. The author gives this warning: This story takes place in a dark world. It will touch themes like slavery, torture, violence, sexual abuse, and death in VERY grusome ways, as far as detailing them graphically and explicitly from the start, with the idea to not romanticize these themes. Take this seriously.
There is a Resistance, there is an Order and there is a BAMF Harry Potter who is now a seasoned warrior. He's surrounded by the most faithful including one Minerva McGonagall and, of course, Ron and Hermione. The Weasleys, Luna, Theo,and Kingsley all play starring roles, too. On Voldemort's side, Greyback, Theo, and an OC are front and center.
When we meet up with Draco Malfoy, he is a member of Voldemort's highest inner circle the Nobilium. Draco, called by the name Astaroth, is feared by all as he is the potion and spell maker of the Darkest kind. He discovers his mother has died at Azkaban and she is his world. The only person he truly loves and cares for. He breaks. He knows the master he's been serving was responsible but his father has been blamed and is in Azkaban, too. Narcissa saw something at the end of the Battle, but couldn't be broken to tell what it was. What she knew would be the turning point for both sides. Draco meets with the Order and despite almost everyone telling Harry not to do it, Harry brings him into the fold...well kind of...
The worldbuilding for this dystopian fic is amazing. The storytelling so very very original. The characterizations of Harry and Draco, masterful. And almost every chapter will have you on the edge of your seat. There is no let up.
I will say, there is one subplot towards the end, I detested and couldn't buy into it. But when you write a 580K fic, you cannot please everyone. I stand by that this fic is masterful despite this issue.
Now, how did I, who doesn't read or write Spanish finish this fic? I read the translation version, which is terrific and then switched over to the original story and read it on my Iphone. You're given a choice there to read it in English. Okay, its a google translation which massacres each and every pronoun and translates Draco calling Lucius PaPa into Potato. LMAO. But I was so hooked, I had to know what happened. If you have patience, I advise subscribing to the translated version. If you can read Spanish, I'm highly jealous of you!
Hope you find something you enjoy reading here. And remember to comment with love on what you read.
I seriously have to get back to my writing now.
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five good things
okay, gonna start with the main one because it's a big one:
LAST CAT STANDING IS GETTING HIS THYROID SORTED! He's had an overactive thyroid for pushing on for three years and we've been managing it with medication but it's been getting worse and although there is a treatment that will fix it outright (radioactive iodine injection) there have been such shortages that only one place has been doing it and their waiting list is over a year long, so he wouldn't be getting it this year, and he's nearly 18 so the longer he has to wait the worse he's going to get. However! Our vet called us last week and said she'd been doing a bit of research and found a couple of places much closer to us who are offering the treatment again and have much shorter waiting lists - one of them only about a month - so we said please refer him to one or other of those, and settled down to wait. Then I got a call yesterday from a very lovely vet at one of the places who talked me through it all and booked him in FOR TWO AND A HALF WEEKS' TIME. He'll have had it done by the time he turns 18 in mid-April! The really amazing thing is that this treatment has a 99.9% success rate - the vet described it both as 'the gold standard' and 'magical' and if a Sensible Veterinary Science Person is describing a treatment as 'magical'...well. I can't even begin to describe how thrilled we are. Our other three all had things that couldn't be cured (we don't even know what it was that Beanie had) so to have something that really can be cured straight off with one injection is just...it's such a relief you guys, I don't know how to tell you.
I've just had a really good two days at job number two with my gardener-lady biographer (who has turned into a really good friend and in fact bought our lovely little car off us a couple of months ago - so I got to see the little fella again which was lovely) - we did some reboxing of the stuff she's been sorting out, shuffled everything up and sorted it into a better order, and it all feels a lot more manageable now.
X-Men 97 is out!!! I haven't had chance to watch it yet but I'm SO EXCITED YOU GUYS OMG. I've seen a few stills, and it looks like my beloved Gambit is just as he was, and oh I am so pleased. <333333
The sun's been out today and we went for a wander at lunchtime, the spring flowers are all out and it was just so gloriously lovely to stand in the sun and feel warm.
Barduil Month is nearly here! (if anyone wants to prompt me please feel free - I have a couple but am always on the lookout for more!)
I am sitting in the pub with a very nice pint of Camden Hells and the laptop, one of my fellow regulars who I get on really well with is in the back room watching the rugby on his ipad and is going to come and join me when he's done, and some of my favourite bar staff are working. I am utterly knackered (I am such a lightweight, I'm not used to doing five-day weeks any more, and when I do two days in a row for job number two, to make it worth it for my friend to come up from London to work on gardener-lady's papers, I am always utterly wiped out at the end of it) but I'm chilling out and decompressing, there's a Wall of Sound playlist on the speakers (Da Doo Ron Ron currently) and everything is very lovely.
Both Isaac Howlett from Empathy Test and The Holy Ones have new singles out! Isaac's is here and is just perfect wounded-yearning-boy electropop (much like Empathy Test really) and THO's is here and is huge fun stoner-rock and Japa-the-guitar-player (who is one of my favourite people from the Finndom) hasn't changed a bit in fifteen years and I adore both him and the song. I'm hoping they'll announce some shows - they were playing in Helsinki in May 2020 and announced the show with enough notice that I was able to make arrangements to go, and I was on the point of doing so when Covid happened, the show was postponed to the September (when I still wouldn't have been able to enter Finland) and then cancelled, so I'm really really hoping they come through this time because I'm dying to see them. I also have itchy feet like you wouldn't believe and am dying for an excuse to go somewhere, and Helsinki being one of my favourite places in the whole world, well... :D :D :D
I had a fab birthday last week, and we went up to the new 'food dock' in town (one end of the docks has been converted into lots of bars, cafes and restaurants and it has been a very protracted process but it's finally finally all open) and had awesome burgers, locally-produced ice cream and locally-produced beer and looked at the pretty lights on the water and generally had a lovely evening of it.
Aaaaaand I have a fancy record player that works with our fancy wifi sound system, and Placebo's last two albums on vinyl, courtesy of the missus, and it's fancy enough that it doesn't auto-return at the end of a side so for the first time in about forty years I heard the track in the runout groove of side two of Sgt. Pepper which I hadn't heard since my dad got a tower stereo system in the 80s that had an auto-return and didn't play the runout groove and...yeah. Awesome. I sorted all my vinyl back into order (the missus does not do alphabetical order, and she'd had it all out of the cupboard at some point to do something or other behind the cupboard and then had not put it back in the right order), rediscovered a good few things, listened to a bunch of stuff and generally nerded out quite happily for a good few days XD
I had 96% on my most recent OU assignment XD all that's left to do is an essay plan for the final assignment, and then the final assignment itself, and given that I find planning really difficult, I'm probably going to write the final assignment and then summarise it for the plan, hand that in, then hand the final assignment in once I've had the feedback from the plan XDDDD And then I will be done, and I will be the king's favourite band (the Three Degrees) XDDDDDD
I think that's more than enough, don't you? :D Things are pretty all right at the moment, which is rather nice.
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I was tagged by @bright-thorn in a quick get-to-know-you game, and what the heck. I've got time before a meeting, so let's do this!
Tag nine (9) people you'd like to know better!
Last song: "Doo Wop (That Thing)," Ms. Lauryn Hill. Today was our first day back in the classroom for pre-planning, and I have a million things I need to do before I have kiddos in front of me on August 1st. And because one of the things I have to do is check transcripts for all of my rosters-- gotta make sure that my seniors aren't missing any graduation requirements, gotta keep an eye out for ELL and 504 and IEP and gifted services, gotta check that no new transfers have duplicate credits, or aren't placed correctly-- I was working my way through a lot of old favorites today as background music. Stuff that would keep me awake and focused so I wouldn't miss anything critical-- and that I knew well enough for it to not be distracting. So The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill fit the bill and was my last selection of the day.
Currently reading: Oh, like four different things. The City of Brass, by S.A. Chakraborty, which I started reading ages ago and then got distracted by life, so I've started over. A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine, which I started reading during the early summer of 2020 and absolutely adored-- and then both my parents needed major surgeries within the same week, and a week later my gallbladder gave out on me-- and in the chaos and haze of am-I-dying-or-is-my-gallbladder-infected, I couldn't concentrate on it. So I've started it again as well, and it's so brilliant. I love it. But it does take me immediately back to that godawful summer in a very visceral way, which makes me somewhat uncomfortable. A couple of historical murder mysteries. And I've just started The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, which is about the role of the British East India company in South Asia.
Currently watching: Literally? I've got the replay of Stage 3 of the Tour de France Femmes on right now because I couldn't watch it live. (Stupid having to work for a living.) In the greater sense, I've just finished watching The Law According to Lidia Poet on Netflix, which hits all sorts of buttons for me, because I do love a good period mystery show-- especially if it's not set in the UK. Plus the costuming is fabulous. I'm two episodes into the second season of Shadow & Bone, but-- eh, I dunno. I really am only interested in one or two of the storylines, so I'm not sure I'm going to finish it.
Current obsession: I am so sorry to everyone who has suddenly been thrown into my rabid cycling fandom, especially if you started following me for, like, Andor stuff or whatever. I'll be somewhat normal again soon, I promise, and will only occasionally reblog GIFsets of Wout van Aert doing Wout van Aert-ish things until it's time for the Vuelta. What you have to understand is that this is not a new thing for me: I've been following men's pro cycling in the form of the Tour de France since I was... twelve? Thirteen? That's when I got seriously into long-distance cycling for a while, there. And while I'm nowhere near as fit as I used to be and the week-long cycling journeys my dad and I used to do are now well out of my reach, I still watch cycling obsessively. It used to be just the Tour de France, and then I started following riders and related folks on various social media platforms, and then started listening to podcasts, and then I started watching the other Grand Tours, and the past several years I've also gotten sucked into watching the spring Classics, and now I've also fallen down the rabbit hole of women's pro cycling, too. And as an obsession it is at its most all-consuming every year during July, which is when the Tour is on-- and I live blog the whole thing. (Not on this platform, although I've considered it.) Like, I do detailed narrative stage-by-stage write ups. The document for this year's total recap wound up being 46k words long, so. Yeah. Definitely an obsession, and it's one that everyone around me just has to kind of learn to live with during the summer every year.
And if you would like to answer these questions yourself, please consider yourself tagged! I love learning things about folks.
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St. Vincent on How Her Love of Podcasts Led to Narrating Audible’s Rock History Series — and Why She Relates to Skynyrd’s Episode as Much as Bowie’s
By Chris Willman
Annie Clark, better known to most as recording artist St. Vincent, first took a step out of rock ‘n’ roll and into “voice work,” as it were, when she wrote and recorded a compelling original audiobook, “Words + Music,” for Audible in 2020. Now she’s taking a step further into the realm of pure narration as the host of a new six-episode podcast series, “History Listen: Rock,” which premiered on the Audible service in January. She didn’t write the series, which produced by Double Elvis, creators of the lauded “Disgraceland” podcast, among others. But f you’re a fan of St. Vincent’s through material like “Daddy’s Home,” there’s a good chance you’ll take to her intonations as she speaks into life some well-crafted mini-histories of rock, from the R&B of the ’40s and ’50s through folk, psychedelia, punk, metal and (the arena where she’s picked up her three Grammys) alternative rock.
Variety spoke with her about her love for the medium and some of the genres and artists covered in the new series, which can be found here.
Was doing the autobiographical audiobook a few years ago the thing that was a gateway drug into narrating something that’s not about yourself?
No. I mean, honestly, I probably listen to more podcasts than music, so it’s just a genre and a medium that I am intimately involved with and intimately familiar with. So, you know, there’s certain things I’m aware of that, if I’m listening to a podcast, I cannot abide — like a dry mouth. I stay very hydrated. You’ve gotta have that Poland Spring, just right there at the ready.
No, really, I listen to so many podcasts, and I was also a fan of “Disgraceland” and some of the other Double Elvis things — that brand, shall we say, of podcasters. And I love narrating, and I’d love to do more of it. I was excited when they asked me to do it, and I learned things too, definitely, doing the podcast, so for sure that’s a two-thumbs-up for me.
It is a medium that I’m kind of obsessed with. I mean, I just consume an insane amount of them. But not the murder ones anymore. I’m good on on female pain as entertainment for a minute. That’s stopped feeling OK, personally.
Does developing a speaking style differ from the work any singer does to find his or her own voice?
It’s a bit more like acting. The only tool you have at your disposal is the tone of your voice, is the inflection, is the cadence. So in that way, it was a discovery, a little bit, using my voice just.as a different kind of instrument. I found it really informative. I think everybody remembers the first time they heard their own voice back, on an answering machine or something, and went, “Ooh, I sound like that?” In terms of the actual narration part, I had a couple hiccups there. I was like, “Oh, no, just go a little lower.” The podcast voice is a little lower than my, natural chit-chat. It’s interesting to discover that. I was lucky enough that I was able to record it by myself in my studio, so I got to experiment and play and not worry if I messed up on some of the tongue twisters, and to make sure that the meaning of the words was never lost in my inflection.
I didn’t know if you were the kind of person who reads a lot of music biographies or just picks things up through other means.
I’m more of a person who has the kind of stories that you swap in the studio. And of course those are stories that don’t necessarily have a journalistic rigor that these do. But I definitely liked reading the Miles Davis autobiography by Quincy Troupe — I know thst sounds funny, to say that his autobiography was by Quincy Troupe. I found that very, very fascinating, and I recently read the Sammy Davis Jr. autobiography. But for the most part I kind of like to engage with it in a more organic way than necessarily reading autobiographies.
I’m not a historian. I am obviously very knowledgeable about what I know. But this is, I think, a nice overview for people who are fans of rock music, from a very casual fan to someone even more invested. Because you get the real stories and kind of the guts and the glory of the different scenes, and also so much of the roots of rock and roll. There’s so many things that it’s sort of crazy that they were even able to distill it down to what they were able to distill it down to. I think it’s a good, fun listenand overview for people who really care or are just casual listeners and just want to have a little bit more context.
Did some of the episodes appeal to you more than others? People would think, well, of course, she has a gravitation toward punk or alternative or glam, and maybe less so, say, Southern rock…
No — I mean, hey, I learned “Sweet Home Alabama” on the guitar when I was 12! I know it well. I’m well-versed in the classic rock staples.
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Is there anyone that jumps out at you from the early days of rock ‘n’ roll as someone especially interesting or a kindred spirit?
Of the stories that we covered, I’d say there is no Prince and there is no Bowie without Little Richard. I mean, he was so slick, and such an incredible performer, and to be playing with gender and sexuality and all of those things at that time was just pretty staggering. You don’t have rock ‘n’ roll without Little Richard, that’s for sure.
How about the folk era?
I’m more a fan of the politics of that man-on-the-street style of songwriting than I am necessarily aching to put on an Arlo Guthrie record. But I appreciate its point in history.
There is an episode on what is described as psych-rock, and having seen your “Daddy’s Home” tour, where it feels like you mixed in some of that along with the soul-revue aspects, it seemed like you might have some affinity for those late-’60s sounds of early Pink Floyd and such.
I think harmonically, it really started to just blow wide open in the ’60s, whether it’s the Beatles or the Beach Boys, and then add a healthy dose of acid into that, and people were like, “I want to see colors that don’t exist yet,” you know? To me that music is very visual. I mean, you go, like, “This guitar’s melting, and then those drums are dripping, and then the bass is all swirling around with it…” I’m sorry, I’m going poetic with it.
Since you mentioned the Beach Boys, you just performed one of their songs at the taping for a “Grammy Salute” special (airing later in the year). How was that?
It was really sweet. Brian Wilson looks great, he really does. “You Still Believe In Me” was the song I sang, and I’ve always loved that song so much. It’s amazing to get to sing the song for the person who wrote it, to say thank you. I mean, I’m not supposing that’s some big gift. [Laughs.] “You’re welcome, Brian Wilson!” But just to honor and get to kind of do your best in front of the people who made it is very special. I did one last year when I got to sing “Court and Spark” for Joni Mitchell [at the MusiCares person of the year dinner]. It’s very moving personally.
Going back to the episodes of the podcast: You mentioned earlier that Southern rock is in your wheelhouse, or at least was part of the wheelhouse of growing up.
Yeah, it totally is. I mean, I’m a kid from Texas. I know the Skynyrd catalog. I’m a guitar player — you know what I mean? I know “Free Bird.” So of course that was just part of the canon. And Duane Allman, I always loved his playing. So I know it, yeah. To me, the sort of current Duane Allman is Derek Trucks. Jesus Christ, what a beautiful player. You see the sort of Allman to-Trucks kind of line. I’m a guitar player who doesn’t care that much about guitar, but I’m just truly just like, what a transcendental player, Derek Trucks. Such a voice. Oh man, what a stunning player.
Glam is something that people automatically assume is part of your background and what informed you. Did anything from that episode bring up any particular love of yours?
Yeah, I mean, I think I always have just thought of Mark Bolan as cool. I didn’t realize that there was such a major kind of backlash against him where the British press really kind of went after him. It’s Mark Bolan — what’s the problem? And I know he died young anyway, but it made me quite sad for Mark Bolan. As far as the Bowie glam era, obviously that is unbelievable and iconic. For me, I’m a kind of Berlin Bowie gal, if I had a gun to my head. I’m kind of a “Low” gal… or a “Station to Station” gal, shall we say.
But I mean, just the theatricality of it… it’s the age-old question of: What are you selling? Some people are selling you authenticity, and then some people are selling you a dream, selling you magic. And I’d rather be kind of in the latter camp. We’ve talked about this with “The Nowhere Inn” [her satirical film that deals with issues of authenticity]… So, I sell the magic.
Finding authenticity in showmanship is one of rock ‘and’n’ roll’s great tricks. And certainly something you’ve been able to do is write emotionally meaningful songs, presented in a way that takes you somewhere else other than basic street reality all the time.
I mean, that’s the call, to just absolutely go for the heart and go for the jugular. But with some acid dust kind of sprinkled on top, it’s more fun, you know?
Anything about punk, metal or alternative, as explored in this podcast, you would want to speak to?
Yeah, one thing from punk that I will say… You know, again, it’s not a complete history of anything. It’s really entertaining, bitesize chunks of a trajectory. But I wish we could have talked more about bands like the Slits or Siouxie and the Banshees or the Raincoats. So if anybody sees this article, also go check out the Slits, Siouxsie and the Raincoats, et cetera, et cetera, forever and ever.
Last summer you finally wrapped up several rounds of touring behind the “Daddy’s Home” album. Any quick promises you would want to make anyone for 2023?
It’s gonna be a great year. Gonna be a great year. I’m in my studio right now.
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Started reading castles and it’s so good! Don’t know if saying this correctly but… how did you came up with it? Like what made your brain go “ I wanna write about this”?
aw thank you so much! glad you're enjoying!
wow, this is such a deep question. i don't think there was, like, one thing that made me want to write it. i didn't wake up one day with a fully formed idea of what this fic will be. even now, while i do have the overall structure in my head, i definitely also make things up as i go along. castles has known many iterations of itself over the years, and it just kept growing until i felt i was finally able to write it.
the first time i got the urge to write something was when i was 14, right after i first finished reading DH. i remember writing fic in my little school notebook during class. at the time, it was mostly a harry/ginny story about how-they-got-back-together after the war. i lost it and never finished it, but i remember very clearly it already had that sort of quiet, blurry sort of vibe that you get in the early chapters, especially chapter one. that sense of the calm after the storm, and not really knowing what to do with all that time. back then, i was writing exclusively shippy content, and so that's the sort of iteration it took. but i think what drove me to write it was this sort of frustration at the epilogue and at the "lack" of a direct aftermath of the battle. i'm not an epilogue hater, i actually like the epilogue for what it represents, but i think i would have liked more details on the characters and the "rebuilding" prior to it. i think that's where that came from.
the second time i tried to write it, i had just turned 18. i'd done a re-read that summer and by then, i already had a lot more writing experience under my belt (for context, i started writing at 13). i remember, again, it being post-war, and a sort of more "polished" product than what i'd written prior. i think i didn't finish it/publish it back then because a) the hugeness of the HP fandom scared me as a writer, and i didn't want to expose myself to the crazies, b) that's around the same time i fell into House MD, then TGW, and both shows took over my life, and c) i think, looking back, maybe some part of me knew i could write a better story, if i just waited a bit. but, it was then that i wrote the very first draft of what you will now know as the "first time" scene between harry and ginny, and also the line that has now become the fic's summary: to him, the spring of '98 is about sex and funerals. i remember this re-read was also the first time when i actually sat down and thought about what might have happened to ginny in hogwarts and (i'm remaining vague here cause you've said you only just started reading), had the idea for The Thing. which wasn't so much an "idea" as much as the fact that i was 18 and now a lot more attuned to the world i was living in as a young woman.
i picked up the books again in late 2017 (then, 24) and i remember pulling the story out of my massive archive of abandoned projects, and reading through it after finishing DH. i remember getting to the line "to him, the spring of '98 is about sex and funerals" and thinking: jesus, that's a good line, lol. and, i think at the time i wrote a bit more of it (i specifically remember writing the scene where ginny, ron and hermione help harry move in to his new flat - now chapter 3), but the issue was that i was knee-deep into writing another long-work in another fandom, and so this sort of took the backseat.
finally, we got to the 2020 lockdowns. i used the first lockdown to fully finish and put in the edits i wanted to add to my previous long work (which i'd finished writing in 2018). then, there was a second lockdown, and a third, and was a bit like: what now? and i re-read HP for comfort (considering the global crisis ongoing lol), and, well, the rest is history. i reviewed and repolished what i already had and put it out in september 2020. i thought to myself, i'll write another five chapters (LOL) and be done by december and, well, again, the rest is history.
so, i think, to answer your question, what made my brain go "i wanna write about this?" - time, really. the passage of time and the idea maturing in my brain. harry/ginny came first, then ginny, then the sort of broader environment (harry moving into a flat, etc), and finally, the overall arc of the story. i think the fascination with the post-war era is just - this idea that how do we get from kids who have been through so much and so deeply traumatised to "all was well". i remember seeing an interview from jkr once where she said that would probably have been the hardest part, and being like "yes, exactly." and, i think that fascination was always there, for me, but it just took a while to fully form.
which is something i now very much try to keep in mind: just because you abandon a project now, doesn't mean you are abandoning it forever. maybe it just needs more time in your head to fully bloom.
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Well due to circumstances beyond my control I am back on a Ducati in the British Superbike Paddock. Unfortunately one of my team mates got clobbered at Silverstone and is temporarily broken. This means I get to keep the seat warm on his V2 whilst he fixes.
I haven't ridden a Ducati race bike since 2019 in the Tri-Options when I finished a run of five seasons on the 899/959. I have been given the opportunity to ride a Supersport V2, provided by Laguna Motorcycles, this coming weekend at Oulton by the team. I wasn't sure at first as I feel like I finally have the Superstock Suzuki where I want it to produce my best performance.
Instead of jumping into it blind this coming weekend I managed to ride the V2 for the first time last weekend at Castle Combe with NG Road Racing. It was very wet Friday for the morning sessions which I was on. I only had three 12 minute sessions and needed to test a few things on the Suzuki so did that first. I tried a harder compound SC2 wet tyre then did my second run on my usual SC1 as a comparison in identical conditions. For my last session I intended to have another run on the SC1 front and rear but to my utter surprise the mechanic got the V2 through the noise test.
The bike hadn't been ridden since Silverstone and was still showing a few battle scars and didn't have the lightweight alloy tank on it but it was perfectly functional so I got ready to take it out. It still had the other rider's springs in it and was set up for him but I just softened it off a few clicks and jumped on.
I was shown how to use the new dash and popped it into wet mode which has been developed by Moto Rapido. The bike obviously felt familiar as I'd ridden it predecessor a lot but it also felt very alien as I have been on the Suzuki since 2020. It didn't take long to get into it though and the sheer joy of being able to open the throttle hard in the wet without fear of being launched to the moon was immediately noticeable. I managed to go within .5 of a second of my lap time from the session on the Suzuki.
The bike has been built over the winter but I hadn't really paid much heed to what has been done to them to make them eligible for the British Supersport. Visually they have the Termi (sounds great) and the dash/ECU combo. The rest of the mods consist of trying to shave off as much weight as possible and I think there are Febur rads on the way for when the warmer weather gets here. Other than that I don't know but I'm sure I will learn more this weekend. They are restricted on power/throttle and I've been told it's somewhere between 70 and 75% but again I will find out this weekend.
I raced it on Saturday in the dry and although I had data from my 959 for Castle Combe I don't think the gearing was working particularly well for me. It was hard to tell due to the power restriction so I just left it. I had a good couple of races with Jamie Coward and I was thankful he was there as it made me push on a bit to try and see what I could do on the bike prior to Oulton.
Overall I was impressed with the Supersport set up and will see whether I can make it go quick around Oulton with the appropriate group of riders around me. If I can get anywhere near my lap times that I am capable of on the Superstock bike then I will be a happy rider.
I will be running #50 not my usual #22 as that is taken in the Supersport. Adding a few pics, wheelie bin included of course and I will get a few more this weekend once the scuffed fairings are off and the alloy tank with the livery is fitted.
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Next style guide 🥺
For you,my muse:
Carolyn Bessette
She was a publicist at Calvin Klein when she met the king of prep, my personal hearthrob, JFK Junior. I love this deatched vibe that you get from her and well JFK Junior got that too from her. I loved her because she gotJFK Jr but I love her even more because she has never not looked good.
Carolyn’s style in three words would be simple, androgynous and straightforward. She doesn’t venture into anything too colourful or too risque but that is what works with her look and why she looks good all the time. Her style is a result of having a solid capsule wardrobe with items she van rotate throughout the year. But her capsule wardrobe is slightly different from the modern 2020 capsule wardrobe. What I love about Carolyn is the lack of blazers. Instead she uses long coats, long sleeved knits or she just goes sleeveless. Constantly wearing a blazer (imo) isn’t as stylish as people think it is, it is very easy to use a blazer as a scapegoat when you know your outfit is heading south. Sure, there isn’t alot of variety in her style but that 'simpleness' is what looks good on her and her commitent to that, is why she looked good all the time.
The basics of her style is a button down, trousers and loafers. In most of her pap photographs she is wearing a variation of this. During warmer months, she switches to a silk skirt. She wasn’t a accessoriezer either or a makeup girlie. Infact in most of her pictures she is only sporting red lipstick and her hair either out and in a bun.
Regardless she has the coolness about her and she complimented JFK Jr well... a lot of people did not think so but I say she did.
How to dress like Carolyn Bessette in..
Autumn/Winter?
Long silhouettes work beautifully during winter. Long A-line coats made with good quality wool are some of the best types of coats. Thicker knits layered on top of each other paired with structured trousers. I like to advise my friends to keep their knits and cardigan loongg. Long shilotues are very pleasing to the eye, it makes you look more uniform and it makes you look taller with a silmming effect. If you are petite and/or you have a large bust, avoid crowding your neck with knitwear. High necks tend to make women with bigger bust look congested and stuffy. ( It also gives us the most unforgiving uniboob too) Try more v-line neckline or scoop neckline with knits, also I tend to avoid thick knits as the volume of the fabric makes me look clunky and not oversized chic.
In a style where everything is so consistent, colour is how you are going to look different. You would think people would wear darker, rich colours in the colder months but they don’t. There is no need to be mono-chromatic all the time and again being dressed in mono-chromatic head to toe, isn’t the hallmark of good style. Carolyn used a lot of red to stop her outfits from looking repetitive. I think red is avery underrated colour. You only ever see it in lingere or silk-satin dresses because people only associate sensuality with red and compelty ignore that red also means power. Red in coats has the power to draw you in becuase you look different but the sleekness of your style isn’t screaming clown from the travelling circus but powerful lady coming through.
Carolyn (i say as we were besties) loved wearing loafers. I think she wore them a lot because loafers show skin which helps break up an outfit. Because she wears a lot of long silhouettes and matching dark trousers and dark footwear, it is good to wear something that breaks up your body so you don’t look like a long line with no feet. Ballet flats are coming back and they do the same thing as well. Boots are another staple. I love pairing boots and long dress together. For the Carolyn Bessette look I would ditch the bratz esque knee high boots for something that is more loose with a moderate heel height.
Spring? Summer?
Personally, I am resortwear kind of girl. Heavily perfumes, heavily adorned and in soft fluttering fabrics is how you will find me. But Carolyn, nope. She still maintains those structures in her clothing choice during the summer months. Boxy oversized shorts, structured linen shorts (I highly reccomend everyont to have one pair in cream or beige, its such an essential), sandals, chinos, ribbed cami and silk-satin dresses that end just under your knee.
Hamptons chic is her summer style. Linen, cotton and merino wool for the chiller knits. This is the time to wear the lighter colours of your favourite colours. If you want (and Carolyn did this) you can wear the same ensemble of an outfit but with lighter fabrics.
What I have noticed that is different in her spring/summer style and her autumn/winter is that there is a certain laissez-faire in her dressing style. Top buttons are undone, her hair is messier and she is relaxed. Her hair was always unkept but I think that really worked for her.
Brands to get inspo for Carolyn’s style: Iris & Ink, Khaite, Joseph and The Row.
There is a girl on tikok who is a great person to follow if you like Carolyn’s style ( i will tag her when i find her) .
Overall her style is very model-off duty-esque. There isn't really anything that stands out about her style from the next model but her style is undeniably hers. Apart from her marriage to JFK Jr her cool style is what she is remembered for. Everyone who met her in NYC would say that her style and grace were what caught their eyes. She had a way of holding her neck eye and she has this look that nothing could truly surprise her. It was her who truly established the minimalist look when fashion was heading straight to colour, glitter and prints. I miss her and I think about her all the time and I hope as she looks down from heaven that she is the blueprint and 20 years later people still want to emulate her signature look.
Daphne xoxo
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So after yesterday I feel like I should have a bit of real talk with y’all.
While I have not made any concrete decision, I’m contemplating about my future on Tumblr.
I’m not exactly a new spring chicken. I’ve been on this platform for over 10 years. That’s... a bloody long time. The amount of fun I’ve had with so, so many people is phenomenal. Roleplaying and writing on this platform in all the different scenarios and stories not only allowed me to develop my writing skills to levels I wouldn’t have considered when I started, but also allowed me to explore my imagination and create a story that not only I’m proud of, but something which has intrinsically become a part of me.
I’m pretty sure I’ve said before about back in the early days there was rarely any drama at all. There were moments here and there, some of those people left the platform ages ago. I’d say things really got bad from 2020 onwards. A lot of bad decisions, mostly trying to seek closure, getting ‘the last word’, things which on reflection are pretty pointless. Getting sidelined because of favoritism, along with one particular event which, six months or so later, eventually brought down an entire fandom and the joy that came with it, it’s kind of surprising that I’m still here to be honest, after everything that I’ve gone through and, well, after everything I’ve put others through.
Nowadays it’s hard to say whether the landscape has changed or if I’ve changed. Maybe it’s both. When I first came to Tumblr in 2012 I was unemployed with a lot of time up my sleeve. I could be active every day and get so much writing done. In 2015 I had my first proper experience of a job which lasted 8 months and even then, I still had time to roleplay.
In 2019 I ended up in the job which, after a change of company, I’m still carrying now. 2 days per week, but around 2021 I began to carry extra responsibilities in life. Every weekend is dedicated to something. Time on replies began to wane and I think there were quite a few instances where replies would be like.. a month or more late. I didn’t think about it as much as I do now that, my lack of activity may have affected my relevancy on this platform.
And as of 2022 I’ve taken on a project which, if I’m going to be honest, has taken priority over Tumblr. Roleplaying takes second fiddle to it. This project is giving me more joy than Tumblr right now. That is saying something.
But what is it saying? Is it saying that all the drama I’ve been though has affected how I feel about the place? Is it saying I’ve replaced Tumblr with something new and exciting?
I sometimes feel that the longer I’m inactive the less I feel relevant. I miss out on things, I don’t know what’s going on and catching up can be... hard, if not sometimes impossible. I really have become the definition of low activity, a snails pace on everything.
And in addition it’s like... the drive to write in this canon, to roleplay on this platform. It’s diminishing. For months I feel like I’m reaching the end of this chapter in my life, the end of this part of the story. I used to say I’ll quit tumblr when I turn 30. I’ve made it one year on, but now for different reasons I wonder if there’s much point to continue further.
The anger I felt yesterday at that group of people who, well, pretty much tossed me out like trash 2 years ago. It took me back to this dark place, this vindictive place that just made me want to get up on some theoretical podium and chant to the nines about how bad they are and how much they’ve hurt me. That this drama even years on just... hasn’t stopped, the thought that people really hate me so much they’ll tell others to avoid or block me just to make them feel safe. It might not even be the truth at all, but at the time it’s how I felt.
It made me think, just do it, you’re not really here anymore, you’ve got nothing to lose if you expose them for who you perceive them to be.
And yet, that’s not true, is it?
It was the post of someone I was keen to interact with who had seen that post that brought me back to reality, that indeed, you can potentially lose. An aggressive post about threatening a group of people not to fuck with you is a pretty shithouse impression, isn’t it? Despite the situation at hand, from an outsider’s perspective, I think even if I was looking in to someone else doing that, it’d make me think further on whether or not to interact.
Probably because I’ve been through it too much.
It’s put this whole talk to the forefront, really. If I left I wouldn’t even say things ended too early. I’ve had a bloody good run on this site. I’ve seen many good friends disappear on this platform, some without a trace. Tumblr nowadays is nowhere near the same platform as it was when I joined. Some things don’t change, like the problems with canon RP communities (this is widespread throughout many fandoms!), but the atmosphere as a whole, it just.... doesn’t feel the same.
I sometimes parrot on that nobody deserves to be left out or left behind but, in my inactivity and absence from this platform I’ve done that to myself.
Even after this wall of text it’s hard to put feelings into words. Back in the days there were grand plots, stories that I reckon could attest to the ages, threads that made me feel like I was writing at the peak of Tetsuwan ATOM. Now in this phase I feel like those days might have gone, without chance of return. In some ways it’s the lack of the drive, the absence of the big, multiverse-jeopardising plots that brought an actual story to the fold, once a landscape of so many plots and ideas, now all really just thoughts and memories.
I could make the decision now to retire Tetsuwan ATOM and leave Tumblr for good. Rolescape has been in alpha for a while and who knows when that would come online. Even then, would I have the drive to move over? With my baggage in this form, is it really a fresh start for this series? Some last glimmer of hope that everything will be okay, this struggle of holding out, for grass that may seem greener, but will it be by the time I come to plant?
I wonder if I’ve reached the end of this chapter.
Yet, not everything is finished.
There are plots and threads currently ongoing that I am very keen to see through and finish. Hell, even future threads with mutuals I’m looking forward to. Building more bonds, ships, reaching grand events, some I just feel like I’m on the cusp of, that years of plotting and writing are leading up to some incredible moments. Ideas for ships that I want to explore, some more radical than others.
I can’t be done with this platform while things are not finished. I’m not ready to let everything die just yet.
The decision to quit, while not ruled out completely, is not something I can consider without the input of others. I wouldn’t spring this on my friends, my mutuals, who have been with me over the years. If I were to quit, it would really just be quitting roleplaying on all internet platforms, like Tumblr, Rolescape, etc. In this event I’ll be switching to full time roleplays on Discord, which has greater benefits over Tumblr in many ways.
There is the thought of a hiatus, but for how long? How long is a piece of string? Is it even really worth going on a hiatus when nothing’s going to change IRL with projects, commitments and work? I’m inactive as is, it’s like accidental hiatuses every other week with the odd day of getting replies done.
There is also the thought of cutting back. No, I don’t mean dropping threads or partners or anything like that, but it’d be more that I won’t be seeking future partners myself. If anyone finds me and wants to follow me, I’ll still consider them like I do now, but I won’t be personally looking and dash-checking. In fact, in this option I might be considering ignoring my dashboard as a whole and focussing entirely on my activity feed, like I used to do in my early days of Tumblr. Downsides here are I may stop posting ask memes and I’d probably lose sight of everyone else posting ask memes, but it would allow me to focus entirely on my stuff with those I write with. In some ways going back to the bubble of just my threads, asks etc with others.
At this point in time I haven’t made any concrete decision about the future, but there is a lot to think about. Do I still have a place here? Would it be better to take everything I have with my moots to Discord? Would they all even follow me over? Despite the drive to retire I still want to finish things, build things, rekindle some old ships and the like. I can’t see myself as being done yet.
Could this be some sort of ‘Tumblr Existential Crisis’? I don’t know.
All I know is I don’t know what the future holds and if it’s best for me to stay here or go...
#OOC : KFC CHICKEN BUCKET#Negativity cw#Negativity tw#This post is about the future of this blog#Stuff I've had to think about.
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I want to show off some of the concept art I made for SJ prologue styleground.
A lot of the stuff here was just trying out a bunch of ideas to see if anything stuck. We originally were going to have a picnic style credits but the idea was cut due to it simply being way too much work.
We spent, like, a month(?) or so planning out the prologue's styleground before any work really began.
This is the first concept art that actually resembles the final version of the styleground. I was like "what if there were giant berries in the water?" But we decided against it because they looked soggy and gross (this idea got reimplimented much better by nerferd, they made some concept art too but I don't feel like I should share it here without their permission).
Here's an annotated version of the artwork, to communicate the decision making. The idea was for the prologue to be based off the San Juan Islands because an Archipelago would be a really strong symbol to represent the collab as a whole, and the San Juan Islands are really close to irl Celeste Mountain.
The idea behind the Archipelago was for a few things. I really wanted the Prologue to embrace the vastness of SJ without pressuring the player to experience every screen of every map. Especially since most players will never even reach the GM Heartside and I want them to be as welcomed as players who intend to 100% everything. An Archipelago is a sum of islands. Each island can be very different from each other but they combine to make a cohesive unit. Kinda like this collab. You also don't have to explore every island in an Archipelago to say that you've experienced it. It also served as a callback to Spring Collab 2020, which this mod is heavily based on. The thing that made SC so special was that the entire modding community got together to make something special, which is the exact same thing SJ was striving to do. So, having similar prologue aesthetics was meant to communicate that sentiment. And it was meant to welcome people who played SC and really enjoyed it.
I also wanted the prologue to tease at the lobbies and maps (maps idea was scrapped because it wouldn't be fair to only tease some maps and trying to tease all of them wouldn't be feasible). Beginner is beach, intermediate is a forest, advanced is a mountainside. These could all theoretically take place in the same physical space as the prologue. Meanwhile expert and gm are beyond the horizon (technically I suggested saying the GM lobby canonically takes place inside the sun but that didn't bite).
This was the final concept art I made for the prologue. Celeste Mountain was included off to the left because I wanted to communicate "you've conquered your mountain now look at all this cool stuff you can do."
After that I made a beta styleground.
The final thing I did was make an animation for the first trailer.
I'm not sure experienced with animation but I wanted to give it a try. This is was the first instance of someone drawing the mountains curved.
After this, life shit happened and I didn't contribute much, so nerferd took over. The way the look evolved was definitely different, but not in a bad way. My style was much more literal and I think the abstract looking islands do a lot to sell the point that these maps aren't meant to inhabit a literal space together. I also like how the underwater berries tease the player a bit (even tho I initially complained about it, seeing ppl play through the prologue first time did a lot to make me understand the decision better). But yeah, SJ Prologue Concept Art.
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CFWC Writer of the Month: Gryffindordaughterofathena
Each month CFWC highlights one of our many talented fanfic writers and this month’s writer of the month is @gryffindordaughterofathena! We hope you will enjoy learning more about her and her work below!
Writer is selected at random. More info can be found on the navigation page.
Blog: @gryffindordaughterofathena
Quick Links:
Blog
Masterlist
How do you want to be known on Tumblr? Dri
1- When did you start playing Choices? What's the first book you played?
Spring of 2020! The first book I played was Desire and Decorum, I was also playing the Freshman on the side for diamonds
2- When, and why, did you join Choices fandom?
September 2020, After I had completed Open Heart Book 1 and played the first few chapters of Book 2 that were available, I was trying to find more content, so I googled Ethan Ramsey and it took me to @jamespotterthefirst Bree's fic Lovely, from there I went down the rabbit hole of the fandom and soon had to make a blog to read and interact more.
3- How did you pick your url name?
Before Choices two of my biggest hyperfixations were (still are) Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, so I just mashed my Hogwarts House and Godly Parent to make an url because "Gryffindordaughterofathena" sounds very cool!
4- Go back to your archive and tell us about the first post on your Choices blog.
This post of me squealing about the last chapter of Open Heart book 2. Before that it was all reblogs from other people.
5- How long have you been writing fanfiction?
For this fandom since November 16, 2020 right after Open Heart Book 2 ended, I have some unpublished Harry Potter and Percy Jackson fanfics from around 2015 though
6- What is your favorite Choices book to write about?
Open Heart forever and always!
7- Share the first fanfic you wrote with us. Do you still like it or would you change anything about it?
Whispered to The Stars Honestly speaking, I love all my works, I wrote them, I feel like I am obligated to love them, also this fic was what started it all for me, the outpouring of love I had for the fic is extremely heartwarming. I like what I wrote in there, so no changing anything for me.
8- What is your favorite fic that you’ve written?
Definitely 5 Stages of Grief I wrote it at a time when I had nothing I was sure about, my life, my career, my friends and sure as hell my writing, this mini series of about 540 words came to me at the middle of the night and I handwrote it and it might seem very cliché story writer of me, but every word came from somewhere deep within me and once I wrote the last line it seemed that something changed, with Diana (My MC) finding her way through her depression, it felt like I was finding mine.
9- Do you have a fic that you didn’t expect to be well received, but it was? What about one you expected to be, but it could use a little more love?
Probably It's All in the Chemistry, which was a rewrite of Open Heart Book 3 Chapter 1, I had a feeling that since there are so many authors who write amazing chapter rewrites, mine would probably be unnecessary and not so well received, but I was pleasantly surprised by the love it got.
10- What is your specialty as a fanfic writer?
I don't know if this can be counted as a specialty or if I even have one, but I think it's emotions, I like dealing with the way my characters' hearts work, how each of their convictions make them act differently. People who read my work would probably say tearing hearts apart in less than 300 words so there's that too 😆
11- If you could write only angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?
A tough decision but probably Angst (but with happy endings) so that no matter how sad someone is they can feel the hope of things getting better.
12- Do you ever recognize yourself in any of your MC’s or in your writing?
Definitely! Diana is a projection of myself, she's what I would become if I were someone who saved lives for a living. Her ideals are mine own and her actions are what I'd do in her situations.
13- What element of writing do you struggle with most?
Finding the right voice for my characters, I often feel that they are all very similar. I've been working on it, so here's hoping I can improve.
14- Do you have any neglected work you really want to finish?
My Murder Mystery AU called "Love and Lies", I'd probably get it done sometime in the future.
15- If someone you know in real life (who isn’t involved in fandoms) asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?
It would depend on the person honestly. If it's someone who'd read without dismissing it for being fan fiction then sure. One of my best friend's has even read a few of my works.
I'd recommend Five Stages of Grief and A Million Cuts A Million Waves at first.
16- Are there any writers (published authors and/or fanfic writers) who influenced your writing?
So many! From Fanfic Writers, there's Terr @terrm9 who's writing is absolutely beautiful and I have tried putting in that soft casual intimacy of a homely feeling in my works as she does in her's and there's also Ruby @starrystarrytrouble if you read her writing you'll see the kind of rhythmic cadence her words have which I have tried emulating into my own. From published writers, I love English writers like John Green, Leigh Bardugo, Holly Black and Bengali authors like Suchitra Bhattacharya, Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay and Satyajit Ray. To be honest I think every writer imparts something into a reader's works and mine is probably an amalgamation of every writing I have ever loved.
17- Which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series?
Probably My Fix It series and Also Whispered To The Stars because I think it has an aesthetic quite Short Film-ish.
18- Do you write original stories?
Sometimes!
19 - What other hobbies do you have?
I love reading, making jewelry, listening and analyzing songs and gardening and I don't know if this counts as a hobby but I also love playing with my two hyperactive, slightly feral cats!
20 - What’s your favorite emoji?
🥺 this one! I don't know if it's my favorite one but it's most definitely my most used emoji, because I am at a constant state of 🥺🥺🥺
21: BONUS - tell us anything you’d like (if you want to).
First of all thank you @choicesficwriterscreations for selecting me! And secondly, this fandom is my safe space, my little corner of the internet with my little internet friends (most of whom sleep when I am awake) and this place will forever hold a very special place in my heart ❤
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