#also my 2022 post worked for so many people. including me ;)
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rb to have a super gay 2023
#this was a hit last year so lets do it again for 2023#here’s to being even more gay next year#gonna make 2023 the gayest year yet#also my 2022 post worked for so many people. including me ;)#bex talks#lgbt#lgbtqia#gay#bisexual#lesbian#transgender#asexual#queer#intersex#pansexual#pride#txt#txt post#text post#text
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wtf is dracula daily?
i’ve seen a couple people ask this question on my posts about it, so i thought i’d go ahead and clear it up here!
ok so, the classic horror novel “dracula” is an epistolary novel - that means it’s told via letters, diary entries, ship logs, and news articles. (technically the term “epistolary novel” refers to works told solely through letters or emails, but many have expanded it to mean any work that is told via in-universe documents, hence why diaries and logs often get included as well. “frankenstein” is another classic example; the whole framing device is robert walton is recounting the story he heard from victor to his sister via letter. a modern example would be “several people are typing,” which is told via slack messages, or “the perks of being a wallflower,” which is told via letters from charlie to his anonymous pen pal, which is functionally more like you’re reading his diary.)
because of the nature of the narrative, we actually know the exact day nearly everything in dracula happens - the letters, news articles, diary entries, etc. are all dated.
“dracula daily” is a substack project where the novel is broken up into parts, with people who are subscribed to the project getting emails every day something in dracula happens - for example, the novel opens with jonathan harker’s journal entry on may 3, so on may 3, subscribers are emailed that entry. the action of dracula takes place from may 3 - november 6, plus an epilogue set some years later. the project started in 2021 (i think), but fucking BLEW UP in 2022, and they’re doing it again this year! lots of us are very excited - especially people like me who fell behind last time.
why not just read the book?
valid! due to some parts of dracula being told out of chronological order, dracula daily does reorder some things. for example, the first section of dracula is told entirely from jonathan harker’s pov, then the second section switches the pov to mina murray. their sections have some overlap in the timeline, so dracula daily jumps back and forth between their perspectives.
if you want to read the book as bram stoker intended, dracula daily may not be for you. but for a lot of people (myself included!), it breaks up a very long text into easily digestible chunks (....mostly. there is one entry that is 10k words), and the fact that it’s a big project means there are a lot of people reading along with you.
i think there’s also something valuable about experience the slow revelation of wtf is going on along with the characters. the book which you might otherwise get through in a few days is stretched out into months of suspense and agony as you wait for the other shoe to drop, and it’s great.
plus, the whiplash between “jonathan harker’s neverending horror” vs “lucy is basically on the bachelorette” that you get in dracula daily is very very funny.
how do i sign up?
right here! and if you sign up and fall behind in the emails, no worries - the dracula daily website posts past entries so you can catch up.
what if i prefer audiobooks?
have i got great news for you!
like i mentioned before, i couldn’t keep up with the emails last year. part of it is that it is much easier for me to focus on an audiobook or keep up with a podcast than it is for me to sit down and read, especially with longer entries.
this year, there is going to be a podcast titled “re: dracula” that was inspired by dracula daily. every episode will be a dracula daily entry, with a full voice cast! (seriously, if you listen to british podcasts, you will recognize some of these names. the magnus archives and wooden overcoats girlies are WINNING.) you can find that here.
there is also a podcast called “cryptic canticles” that has an already-completed audiodrama of dracula that i’m told is also extremely good, and was also broken up by date. you can find that here.
why do i keep hearing about paprika/the boyfriend squad/lizard fashion/cowboys?
you’ll see.
oh god am i gonna hear about this nerd shit for the rest of the year
yes. sorry.
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[MESSAGE FROM THE CLERGY]
An important (and overwinded) announcement regarding this blog below the cut.
Hello everyone! This is Rawkin Ghoul/ Tumblr Ghoul/ Tumblrina/ Soda/ etc etc.
First thing’s first: no, this blog is not an official Ghost social media account.
I started this blog in late 2022 when ghost-official started blowing up (I do not believe this one to be real either, and honestly I won’t believe they have a Tumblr until it is linked on their official website) and thought, “wow, I could make a better Ghost blog than that. One that’s way better organized and actually advertises properly for them, and posts regularly!” So I did.
Originally it was meant as just that, a little joke between some friends, and wasn’t meant to really get farther than that. But then I thought, Ghost does have a lot of fans on Tumblr- a lot of exquisitely talented and devoted fans. Maybe I can kinda “roleplay” it for a while, build almost a bit of a portfolio, and then either offer the blog to management or offer to run it for them officially, for fun, if they were interested.
More time passes and more people followed. I thought “xofficial” as a username was a common enough joke/ gimmick that people would realize it wasn’t for real (and in fact, when I first searched the URL, I found that this username was once in use years ago! Sorry, previous owner), especially after posting that April Fools joke post- this was wrong of me to assume. There are a lot of roleplay/ joke “official” Ghost accounts all over the web but I failed to really properly disclaim that I was one of them.
I of course don’t plan to reach out to Ghost anymore and haven’t for some time, for multiple reasons including Tumblr just not being a good website for advertising. But another one is I got pretty loose on here. Tumblr is so different from Twitter and Insta and all that- you guys (and myself! I go here too) don’t want to have someone sell something to you- but you do love interaction and jokes and solving things together.
I think we can all admit it- when Ghost is dormant, the fans can get bored and even agitated, and can start to have a go at eachother. I’m certainly not guiltless there either. I wouldn’t say I’m notorious or even particularly well known in general but I’ve gotten into drama here and there. I figured the blog would be a fun way not just to distract the community, but really engage with it. The blog passed 5k a month or so ago and I started thinking, we could do something really cool with it. Smaller events like fanart contests and zines. But what if we did more? Organizing pre-ritual meetups. Larger community projects like fan-made music videos. ARG. Maybe even a short video game- there are so many incredibly skilled and hard-working Ghost fans and I wanted to try to bring them together because I think our love for Ghost, for whatever reason we love them, screams so loud and everyone deserves recognition (also a reason I started Fanart Friday as a regular thing).
You guys know I do my best to keep up with your tagging and what you’re saying and everything and I’ve seen the people pointing out the blog isn’t real from the beginning- I didn’t want to address it directly at first because I thought if nothing else people enjoyed the mystery.
But, more lately there’s been more and more people who are agitated, disappointed, and even a little scared to hear that this blog is not official.
I want to offer my very sincere apologies to people who I made feel that way. I should have made it obvious sooner- I know so well that there are a lot of very young Ghost fans especially who wouldn’t necessarily surmise that this isn’t real. I’m really sorry to those of you I disappointed.
I will never ask you for money here, or any personal information, or send asks anonymous or otherwise from here or my main personal blog as “Tumblr Ghoul”. I have had one person ask to message me so I messaged them to allow them to do that. If somebody contacts you claiming to be the person running this blog, they are lying. Please block them. My interactions here I aim to keep as public as possible, hence being increasingly liberal with replies and reblogs as the number of people interacting grew.
My only goal with this blog is to advertise for a band that I love and to entertain/ help the fandom when and where I can. I love and appreciate all the fanart and interest in the character of Tumblr Ghoul but I don’t want anybody to feel obligated to me and I especially don’t want to hurt anybody. I started this blog for fun and that how I want it to remain- fun for everyone.
People pointed out when I didn’t post for some time a few months back and it was because I had lost interest in the blog and was going through a rough time- and then one particularly bad day I got on to check it by chance and just seeing your guy’s tags and comments made me feel so much better. I tell people that I found Ghost when I really needed a friend and they fulfilled that for me, but the past few months you guys have done just the same for me. I am so sorry to have betrayed that and made you feel unsafe and lied to in return.
As of posting I do intend to still run the blog as I have been (with a disclaimer added to the bio regarding the legitimacy of this account)- posting about tours, chapters, merch, etc, as well as Fanart Friday. I 100% understand if anybody doesn’t want to be involved in that, so anybody who has tagged me in something and don’t want it on the blog now, I can open messages and you can let me know. I will probably close them again after a week or so if I get a large flood of unrelated messages.
Please do not message me asking me who I am, who knows about the blog, etc. Gaining popularity was never something I wanted from this so I will stay anonymous, for the time being at the very least. A very small number of people know who is behind the blog and to my knowledge only one of them is even on Tumblr and in the fandom.
Thank you for all the support you’ve shown me, Ghost, and eachother. It can be easy to see the bad parts of a community and roll your eyes electing to keep your distance, but since starting this blog I’ve been reminded what good community is even when it’s frustrating sometimes.
Thank you for reading, I won’t hold it against anybody who wants to separate themselves from this blog at this point, and please don’t let my oversight and general dummyness sour your experience with Ghost or its other fans. Enjoy the rest of this tour and whether it’s with or without me, please keep rawking 🤘 Be good to eachother.
Thank you.
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So... @muffinlance wrote a really awesome story. I read a post from a point in time, though I truly do not remember when since it seems like I've been working on this project forever, saying that she gives blanket permission for people to print and bind the story into a book (I think there was an also addendum saying that they do not give permission to be sold, since selling fic is illegal). This fic has had total control over my whole brain since it was sent to me (@creatorofthemind I believe it was you, so thank you forever for tuning me into it) back during the days of like chapter six or seven.
So here I am now, sharing this amazing journey of my first ever bookbinding adventure. Further reading below.
So to give you an idea of what's going on, this is a fanfiction about Zuko (Avatar the Last Airbender) (animated show version, the LA show did not exist yet and we do not speak of the movie) being adopted by Hakoda, Father of Katara and Zuko. (This might have also been what kicked off the Give Zuko A Parent craze, but don't fact check me.)
Overall, the characters from the show stick very well to the cannon versions, but where MuffinLance really shines is in the rich backstories and fleshed out feeling of all the non cannon elements. Especially the background characters. I would argue that the writing in this peice of fanwork could easily rival the cannon show at many points of comparison.
Now that you have context, we can get into the actual process.
To start, I used this guide to figure out where to even begin, and fount the included resource list to also be quite helpful. I cannot for the LIFE OF ME figure out where I found the template I used for the front matter and such, but it must be somewhere and I will link to it when I inevitably come across it again.
Then I began to typeset. This step took... a long time. I worked in chunks from about September of 2022 to late March of 2024. I would get a big section done, sometimes even the entire thing, but then find I hated the way I had done it and give up for months at a time. Such is the life of ADHD and flitting interest in projects I suppose.
And then finally, step one was done, and I was left with pages on a word document that look like this. (And do please let me know if you want the link to the document. It was so much work, and I would love to not be the only one to use it.)
Next step was printing out this beast. Ended up being about eight pages of front matter, and about 630 pages of body text.
That I printed wrong.
Twice.
Before finally getting it right. And then not getting a picture of it, because I finished at 4 am and had work at 7, and am also an idiot.
Then I simply stitched along, putting everything together into a beautiful text block.
And came up with a design for the cover.
Yes the glue did end up lumpy. Ignore it.
Yes I did have to sketch out the design onto a scraped page several times before I figured out what I was doing. Ignore that too.
The cover design does wrap around the entire cover. No I did not get a picture before I glued the thing down. See again: I'm an idiot. And just... massively impatient.
Finally, we get to the stage of gluing. Behold, my bookpress.
Of course, topped with Madam MuffinLances own actual professional-people book, Fox's Tounge and Kirin's Bone. It is Excelent. Here is the LINK so you can go and support this amazing author with the real-monies as well as the internet-kudos.
Then, once everything is glued together, one must give the book its "gilt" edges.
#atla#salvage#bookbinding#fanbinding#muffinlance#I'm a really big fan of this story and the characters ok?#They're really fun and I love them.
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AITA for writing a paragraph on how I want to drop my friends?
(15F for ref, everyone in here is also F and around the same age)
In 2022, I returned from a six-week camp session with friends I only see once a year (pretty shitty experience ngl, but I still had fun), A couple days later, they accused me of stealing this girl's shirt since I was the last one to wear it. I told her I didn't and I wouldn't. I had a similar steal it because. They proceed to accuse me, so to get out my feelings I write this lengthy paragraph in my notes app expressing my thoughts and what I don't like about the group. This never gets sent out, and we stay friends.
In 2023, they went to camp again (for the last eligible year so it was very special to them), but I stayed home due to pre-existing commitments. This was also the time when the notes app trend was going on, a.k .a. where people would post their notes app and all the antics they wrote. I also posted a video like this, and on the sixth slide, I put the paragraph that I wrote in 2022 (it said 2022 at the top). They didn't immediately see this because they weren't allowed to have their phones, but I private the video before they got back due to a mental health issue I had accidentally aired out. At this time, I saw nothing wrong with the paragraph being included because all the issues had blown over.
A couple months later, I un-privated the video because YOLO and the group found it and immediately got hated on so hard for the video. They post pictures of me to social media stories write paragraphs about how awful of a person I am, create lies about me, and comment on all of my Tiktok posts where I talk about the issue, despite me being vague.
I don't know where I stand in this issue because yeah, I didn't go to the trip this year, and the paragraph was admittedly rude, but they didn't even give me a chance to explain, and getting body shamed on a private Snapchat story when they know I had an ED isn't something i think I deserve, but I need outsider perspective.
The paragraph for reference:
I’m sorry but I can’t do this anymore. The whole entire time I was at camp I felt isolated because I was not as involved and as social with the boys as you guys were/are, and that might not be your fault, but you guys have no care in that being the only thing you discuss on this group chat. Every time I text about something else, it always gets pushed to the side and now you are accusing me of stealing (name)’s top. I agree, I was the last on to wear it, but distinctly remember throwing it back into (name)'s trunk. I am sorry it did not make the trip back home, but it is not my fault. I don’t want your slutty top anyways, I only borrowed it because my ebb to street wasn’t going to work. I have done so much for you guys, like letting everyone borrow my clothes, giving away my lululemon, and while some of my pieces were stolen, I am not pointing fingers at random people because I have control of my feelings. So many words have been wasted protecting the reputation of Cabin 10 from others who think you guys are attention-seeking whores (you want names? It’s the whole fucking camp), and everyone looked at me in pity when I cried into my hands because I was so sad. I have heard you guys talk shit about me in front of my face (*giggling and whispering* Are you going to try out for the play? No that’s weird. Both heads turn towards me, and laughter erupts out of the two mouths. You know who you are), and you guys have talked shit about each other to me, so I can only imagine what has been said about me. I felt ashamed about my passions, the only personality trait you guys addressed was that I was so mean and I was smart (you only revealed the latter on in private, the former was told to everyone). I am done feeling horrible about myself because you guys are so wrapped up in what every (camp) boy thinks of you, so I am cutting contact. You have ruined my camp experience to the point where I am not coming back.
What are these acronyms?
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Survey Dates: 11/15/2023 - 12/15/2023
Number of Participants: 326
Tumblr will not allow me to post pictures of all the survey results, so only part of them are included in this post. You can download and view the complete results here or view them in the BSD-Bibliophile Online Library.
Thank you to everyone who participated! If you are interested in viewing the results from past surveys, here are the results from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
View the complete survey results here or on the BSD-Bibliophile Online Library.
Comments:
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:)
:3
All my favs are the ones who aren't from Japan💀
As a huge bsd fan, I admire how commited you are to the blog. Have a good day, as well as a happy new year!!!!! I´ve been filling out your annual surveys since 2020, and I´m glad that you still carry them every year. Thanks!!
BSD Bibliophile is generally such a cool and useful resource, I’ve used it both for fun as well as for school work (I didn’t have my physical copy of Akutagawa’s works with me and needed to cite “Spinning Gears”/“Cogwheels”). Thank y’all for everything you do!
BSD-Bibliophile, the website and the Tumblr posts have been invaluable to me in my literary journey. I thank you so much for your service to the community, I can't express how happy I am that the lesser known or completely unknown authors are getting more western attention. Thank you so much!!
comments on my answers: I used to own more books but when I emigrated I could bring only one. The book I brought here from Russia is Dazai’s stories collection. Since many of the books are available in Japanese for free, I also read them on aozora app.
Finding Japanese literature from these authors is actually pretty difficult in Scotland. Also, Dazai and Nakahara are such fangirl answers, but I actually adore both of their works
First of all, sorry for my horrendous English 💀 I love this page so much! I was absolutely lost as to where to read the translations of the LN, wan! And others, it had been so helpful for me when it comes to my time enjoying BSD. Also, I enjoyed a lot that one section of like fun facts of the real authors and I was so happy when I found the bunch of English translation of the real authors, it really made my day.Now when I want to read a book of the real authors, or read something BSD related I know where ti search for first! I absolutely adored all the work you put into this (or the team (?) I don't know how mane people is running the page:(), thank you for all of it, keep going! 💗
for the images included on posts; the only thing i don't like about them is that they're a bit too tall (making the post look too long as well). i think images would still be nice if they were longer width than height! also, thank you for all of the work you do running bsd bibliophile! you've put together such an amazing and invaluable resource for bsd fans and non-fans alike.
Great work!
Have a nice day!!
Hello! - princy :3
Honestly, I would read stuff by the authors but I just don't have that kind of money
hope you are having a great day!
I absolutely love BSD it made me get into japness literature, as well did Bungo To Alchemist. ALSO BSD LIGHT NOVEL ON TOP!!
I appreciate the work you do! It has really expanded my taste in literature, and for that I am very grateful <3
I appreciate your work🥰😘❤
I believe that having more of a separation from the BSD characters and the real life authors in the bibliophile’s posts would be highly appreciated from a lot of other people; and not just myself
I bought Summer of the Ubume by Kyougoku Natsuhiko when it still was in print in English. I took it with me when rereading and lost my copy. I’m kicking myself years later for not buying a used copy for $50. Earlier this year I was able to borrow a copy from a library and took a picture of every page so I can keep it with me that way. I was delighted to find a scan PDF of the novel when your tumblr linked stories to read for Halloween. Thank you for sharing and thank you whomever made that scan. The BSD Gaiden novel is my favorite thing from BSD and I’m deeply thankful to the person who shared their amazing fan translation. It’s led me to buying all of the English translations of Ayatsuji’s works, plus the two volumes of the manga. I’m a newer follower of your tumblr, but have enjoyed reading each new quote and seeing ones I’ve recognized. Thank you for your work, it’ll definitely be inspiration when I want to read more Japanese literature.
I enjoy the BSD-Bibliophile page on tumblr! I like reading parts (?) of the authors' works and i've become more interested in their works. Thanks for all that you do!! :D
I have the page bookmarked in my browser so that I can check it out from time to time. Also I love Chuuya
I honestly love this website like literally. This bibliophile has helped me Soo much like finding the authors I want to read and learning more about the authors featured. Honestly, words can't describe how grateful I am that this site being created to help accessing literature more easier
I just want you to know that i adore all the effort that goes into this page and that its (In my opinion) a staple of the fandom
I look forward to the survey every year to see how far I’ve come in interacting with Japanese literature. Thanks for running the blog and library, it’s an amazing resource. Best, Comical tuber
I love BSD bibliophile so damn much, whatever BSD related author work and BSD manga (both wan and anthologies) weren't possible for me to find this easily. This website is the work of art. My favourite place
I love BSD-Bibliophile Online Library! Thank you for managing it!
I love the 'recently published' section!
I love your blog and what you do for the fandom! It really scratches the itch which is my obsession with BSD and classic/20th C literature <3
I love your site so much, it's made it so easy to get more info about Japanese authors and figure out what else I want to read. Thank you so much!i love your work!!
I personally believe that using advertisement through mangas and animes specially bsd connects me to the world of books one more time Also I’m grateful for free online websites for putting pdfs of books that I can’t easily have access in my country
I really appreciate all the information you have online here. I have learned a lot and I admire you and your passion. This might sound weird but I truly hope I can collect and read Japanese Literature and organise information as you do when I am older.
I really like your blog, keep it up :3
I really want to read Q's Dogra Magra but I think it's only been translated completely in french so far. Thank you so much for your database! It makes it so much easier to access learning.
I think it's so cool that you're doing these surveys! I think this bibliophile project is just awesome in general tho :) (also dang its hard to choose a fave char) lots of <3 <3 <3
I want to read many more books of the real authors so i cannot yet judge who my favorite will be. Dazai's works are the easiest to get access to in my country and I got Chuuya's poems as a gift so I am still hunting for more :)
I want to read some of their books but i'm to scared of telling my mom this fact
┻━┻︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻
I wasn't sure if that question about reading Japanese lit was about reading it in Japanese or not
I will try to get more into this Library ! It's really good and good job for the the tumblr blog, i love it !
I would like if the quotes didn't repeat a lot– Like finding more than 4 posts of the same quote is weird to me at least... instead of doing the same authors in repetition, do more characters that have been published a few times in the blog 🙌🏻
I’m a BSD anime fan who would like to try some of the works by the authors the characters are based on but hasn’t gotten around to figuring out a good entry point for people who don’t usually read literature
I'm new to the fandom, but I'm looking forward to check out any translation that are available (I plan to read at least the work the ability is referring to for a start)
I'm so thankful for your website making Japanese literature available, as I live in a somewhat rural area. Keep up the good work!
I'm very grateful for the resources that had been accumulated by bsd bibliophile, really, I've only been able to nurture my interest in Japanese literature and grow to be passionate about it because I had such easy access to the translated works so thanks a lot for the work you do!
I've just decided to make use of the online library and I'm very excited! I'll check of Oda and Nikolai first because they are most interesting to me :)
i've remembered about the bibliophile purely by chance. in a span of a single night, i've read another media that draws heavy inspiration from japanese literature – ""hashihime of the old book town"". i say ""finished"", yet i'm only done with a single route of this novel. i plan on seeing it through the end. i am enamoured by this script. it's as If i've found true literature again. i truly do not know why im saying this. forgive me If my words are unclear in my ramblings. i am simply here to pick up some kyusaku. maybe then i will be able to fully unravel the fabric of this novel, thread by thread.
I've used this blog to help open myself up to more Japanese literature for years now, ever since I first got into bad, and I can't thank you enough for running this!
Just followed a little while ago so my answers probably aren't that helpful, sorry! I'm looking forward to going through your blog though! Hope you have a nice day/night! :)
Just started following the blog recently tbh, but I’m excited to check out the online library!
Keep up the good work!! :)
Keep up with the good work! I'm always happy to see your content
Love your blog and everything you do!!!
My 1st fav character is Atsushi, but Chuuya's also on top :))
My book count is prolly squewed as I had to go off of memory (since I left many behind in the US at my parents house). I counted Japanese fiction from non BSD authors but not manga and light novels. Also I used to watch & read BSD but no longer do so, but still enjoy Japanese literature.
sorry i took this for fun and wanna read a lot of multiple authors works but uh i havent come around to it yet (also money 😭)
Thank you :)
Thank you <3
Thank you for all the posts you have posted! I can find it hard at times to have the motivation to sit down and READ lol but you inspire me to read more with all the quotes you have shared with us on your blog. <3 Take care!
Thank you for all you do
Thank you for all you do <3
thank you for creating and running this beautiful blog anne♡✨.
Thank you for creating this amazing website ! :D through this website i can learn more about the authors and im happy because of it thank you once again !! <3
thank you for everything you do!
Thank you for letting me know of the library! I've been wanting to read the authors' works but couldn't find them along with money issues
Thank you for providing information that I could not find in anywhere else on the internet in English!
Thank you for the hardwork!! <3
thank you for you blog! literally my go to anytime i need any bsd related! it is literally invaluable and im so so grateful to you!
thank you for your hard work <3 i'm currently studying japanese, because i really want to read japanese literature in its original language and translate it, but until then i will continue relying on english translations - most of which i was only able to find on your site. again, i thank you and the translators from the bottom of my heart for providing us with such amazing resources and translations for free <3
Thank you for your hard work and efforts to share and compile the legally available works of the BSD authors! Your site has allowed me to appreciate BSD as well as Japanese literature itself a lot more.
Thank you for your hard work o7
Thank you for your hard work! Have a nice day:)
Thank you for your hard work! Was it not BSD-Bibliophile I'd be completely lost with researching irl authors and their art of writing. You helped me lots of times.
thank you for your hardwork! i appreciate what you do <3
Thank you for your work and your posts! :D
Thank you for your work at BSD-Bibliophile. For the research that I am conducting and for leisure purposes, the curated library is immensely helpful. I am happy to see that interest has grown in Japanese literature alongside the depth of available resources.
Thank you for your work! It’s always a bright spot in my day to see these quotes :)
Thank you for your work! Your blog has been a great source of information for me for a few years now. Sending love and hugs 🌸
Thank you for your work!!
Thank you so much for all you've done for the community!!!
Thank you!
Thanks :D
Thanks for all the work you do
Thanks for all your work! It's because of you guys that I've been able to read as much as I have (and will continue to do)!!!
Thanks for this resource, it's helpful as a Universal Literature student
the online library has really helped in finding japanese literature
The online library helped me so much in getting to know more about japanese literature thanks a lot for you ♥️
The website has been of great help to find my way around the literature! Truly a godsend! Keep up the great work
The world of literature is a big one & some of it aren't really that accessible. It's great that there are more people translating these previously untranslated works so we can see just how unique each author's style is
There were questions asking for "favorite Japanese BSD author", but those questions were very misleading. First of all, the characters in BSD aren't authors; they don't do or haven't done writing for living or anything along the lines. Secondly, said questions made it sound more like you were asking for whether I like Asagiri, Harukawa, Kanai, Hoshikawa or some other creators who are credited as authors of BSD. They are BSD authors, not the characters like you made it sound like in your questions. If you are asking about real-life authors who happen to have characters based on them in BSD, leave out BSD from the questions, or specify them with something like "Which Japanese author do you like the most, who has a character based on them in BSD?". Last I would like to suggest adding option to the question regarding BSD media, where people who are ex-BSD fans could specify that they've been previously fans, but don't consume or follow the series anymore. The option could be literally just "Previously have been BSD fan, but don't consume any of the official content anymore". I'm pretty sure there are plenty of people like me who have enjoyed BSD in the past, but now just enjoy Japanese literature alone or through some other medias that have nothing to do with BSD. Thanks for the annual survey as always. It's been interesting to see how much the fandom reads and who are the authors who people read in the first place. I wish more people would pay attention to some less popular authors, as there are plenty of hidden gems and your favorite author doesn't have to be the same as your favorite BSD character.
there's a redditor in r/templeofes who's working on translating dogra magra and they're working very hard :D
This blog is a national treasure, thank you all <3
This initiative is so beautiful, thank you for all the hard work.
This website is amazing!!!!!! It’s hard to find Japanese classics in America but this list has them all ❤️
Tumblr doesn't show me many of your posts, so I will try to interact more to see them ^.^
Very cool survey! Thanks
Well have have read many of Fyodor dostoevsky books but not any Japanese novels or poems
When I first got into bsd your online library was an invaluable resource and the only reason I have read works by bsd Japanese authors. I use it less now because my hyperfixation has waned but I still really appreciate all that you do and the resources made available to fans. Thank you!
will check the BDS-Bibliophile website <3 hope u have a nice day
yooo!! thanks for this super awesome survey!! happy easter <33 -a migrating tumblrer
You’re one of the best resources I have for BSD and JP literature. I’m eternally grateful for all the work you do
#bsd-bibliophile#survey#results#survey results#2023#japanese literature#bungo stray dogs#bungou stray dogs#bsd
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With all the propaganda and rhetoric against top surgery that "Gender Criticals" and general transphobes are spreading, here's some info on what top surgery was actually like for me, from surgery all through the healing process! (This post will include some images of drains and a little blood!)
I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria (which is necessary in the UK for surgery) around May 2020 and started testosterone February 2021, all through GenderCare. I got a letter from the gender therapist and a surgery referral from GenderGP and consulted with my surgeon then booked surgery for 14th Feb 2022.
I had to travel all the way to Manchester, on a coach that took many hours, and book a hotel. I raised surgery money via GoFundMe because despite being referred to (now closing) Tavistock GIC in early 2020, my appointment to even be assessed wouldn't have been for over 5 years.
I had a double incision top surgery (double mastectomy) on February 14th 2022 as scheduled! I woke up in a fairly minor amount of pain, still on painkillers from the surgery, with drains. As you can see, I was also so happy that probably made it hurt less!
My top surgery took a few hours. Pre-surgery, my chest size was a 32 H. That's a lot of tissue to be removing, and so I did end up with drains for the first 48 hours after surgery, though drains aren't used as broadly in the UK anymore and not by default.
I was discharged from the hospital the morning after my surgery (some people go home the day of, but I pre-arranged to stay overnight). I took no painkillers after surgery at any point during healing. I was up and walking around from the moment I left!
If you take painkillers, that may make you more fatigued and/or constipated, so those things are totally normal. If you need painkillers, you should absolutely take them - it's not a point of pride to suffer more than you need to. I didn't take any painkillers because I have a history of addiction to them. However, I found the pain entirely tolerable even despite the lack of medication.
The evening after I was released from the hospital, I was pacing my hotel room carrying my drains! Moving promotes healing and prevents blood clots. I was very hunched!
Directly after surgery I got to briefly see my chest, but not for long given that I needed to have the compression vest on! I didn't have too much swelling, so I could see what my chest actually looked like and was so excited. Once I got my drains out, I got to see it for longer!
The pain post-surgery was manageable. I had to bend forwards a little when walking so as not to pull on my stitches and make it hurt more, but I never took any painkillers and the pain was never intense enough to make me feel compelled to. I kept wearing my compression vest!
The drains were honestly the most painful part of the experience for me, and once they were out the most pain I felt was from my back from walking hunched forward. I wore the compression vest on and off for 2 weeks then abandoned it completely, because I had such little swelling.
3 weeks after surgery, I got my dressings off (except nipples). I could see the full scar. I told my surgeon I wanted scars that were mostly straight, and that combined with the size of my chest meant the scars needed to meet in the middle in a little triangle.
Everyone's scar shape is different, and you should talk to your surgeon about what you want. I didn't want semi-circle shape scars, because I wanted the scar to follow my pectorals so I'd have the option in the long-term of fading/medical tattooing and mostly hiding the scar.
3 weeks after top surgery, I was well-healed enough that I went into London for the Sex Work Strike and did a speech there! I was well-recovered by this point, though still fatigued. (A link to my speech if you're interested.)
Around a month, I took off the nipple dressing as instructed by my post-op nurse, and one was healed enough for no dressing but the other took about another week to be as healed. Healing isn't perfectly symmetrical.
Once all of my dressings were off and I was able to probably clean my nipples and scars, I got to see the full result of my chest. This is the thinnest my scars ever were, because they hadn't developed as scars yet - they were healed shut but weren't done scarring.
Once I was past a month of healing, all of the physical effects of top surgery had dissipated. I was no longer fatigued, my scars didn't hurt (though they did itch!), and I was in the secondary healing phase. My chest below the top of the nipple had minimal sensation.
I got phantom sensations, like water being poured over my chest, as the nerves reconnected. It wasn't painful, but it was weird! By month 2, I regained full sensation in most of my chest, with very little sensation on the scar and the skin directly between it and my nipples.
I have pretty much full sensation (including erotic sensation) in my nipples now. It's important to note: double incision almost always results in some loss of sensation, especially in the nipples. I'd have been fine with that, and this was an extra bonus for me!
This is my chest and scars 8 months after surgery.
And this is my chest now, just over 2 years after top surgery:
I'm very happy with how it looks, with how it feels, and I have zero regrets!
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Mine | One Shot | myg (m)
☾ Pairing: Yoongi x Succubus F. Reader
☾ Summary: Yoongi lives a quiet life. His days are organized neatly, and every week he can expect the same results. Then he meets you. Hypnotizing. Otherworldly. Strange. And his life never goes back to the way it was before.
☾ Word Count: 14,864
☾ Genre: Smut, Horror, Thriller
☾ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.
☾ Warnings: Buckle up bitches this list of warnings is going to exhaust even me. Overall creepiness, descriptions of liminal spaces, tons of mentions of subspace-like trances, Yoongi's mind is not always his own, unexplained happenings, Yoongi being manipulated subtly, written jump scares (like three of them?), nightmares, hallucinations, the cutest and also creepiest fucking little succubus you'll ever see, Succy (succubus reader) really likes Tokyo Ghoul that should be a hint, hints at eating raw meat (bleh), Yoongi turning against his friends, Yoongi feeling sick/depressed in a couple of scenes, Yoongi is literally addicted to eating reader out soiejijrghij, explicit sexual content including, spit play, nipple play, oral (f. and m. receiving), grinding, unprotected sex in multiple positions, cum eating, switch dynamics between the two of them often, subspace mentions, fingering, ass play (m. receiving), just.... so many bodily fluids all the time, mentions of animal death (it is a cat and it's dead body is briefly described), a lot of confusion and pace changes as a style choice, Succy is literally obsessed with Yoongi so a lot of the pet name Kitty, very cringe behavior for some rando Yoongi met at a bar, ambiguous ending. I think that covers it idk this is almost 15k of pure nightmare fuel I will send you my therapists number alright
☾ Published: October 30, 2022
☾ A/N: If I have to write this authors note one more time because 'a wild tumbeast ate my fucking post I will scream. Do better Tumblr please stop eating my content over and over lmao. ANYWAY. SURPRISE THIS IS HERE A DAY EARLY. I have zero self-control and @gimmethatagustd told me to post it now so I really said fuck it we ball. I didn't use a beta for this one because I'm insane but I did edit it myself.... so if you see errors..... no you didn't. This one was so much fun to write and I hope you all love Succy as much as I do. She deserves the world she is very... scary and cute.
HAPPY HALIWEEN!!!
☾ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.
Masterlist | Ask
Friday nights are spent blowing off steam from work with friends. Yoongi has always lived a simple life, and he likes his Fridays like this: second person to the bar after Taehyung, a quick shot of whisky to take the edge off the day, followed by a whiskey neat and some fries from the kitchen that will still be a little unthawed in the middle.
Yoongi loves his Fridays at Serendipity.
The name is a bit of a joke, Jimin says. He inherited the old, rundown bar under another name from his abusive father after he passed away. Mysterious circumstances, the long-term patrons mutter into darkened ale and frosted mugs. Still, they come despite Jimin flipping the name. It was the only thing Jimin could afford to flip, the floors still the same sticky concrete that collect vomit, spilled beer, whiskey, and perhaps a little piss.
It's an ugly thing, with the vinyl stool covers splitting open to reveal guts of yellow foam, and countertops that need another layer of lacquer to fight the chipping from heavy mugs being slammed down every time Seokjin gets into an argument with one of the regulars. Yoongi tries to avoid the bathroom as much as he can. Jimin spent two weeks cleaning it and stocking it with a nice care basket with sprays, cotton rounds, and other products, only to have someone puke in it on the first night.
Yoongi doesn’t care that Jimin named the bar as a bit of an inside joke. Yoongi knows in his heart of hearts when he sees you that this moment is serendipitous.
Because when Yoongi sees you for the first time, the world ends.
Not really. But it feels that way the moment he turns at the bar. Perhaps he’s meant to see you – or perhaps it was by your design. He tilts backward when the door opens, searching for any sign of Seokjin who said he would be there in a few minutes.
And there you are.
Lights dim. The world takes on a muted feeling, like the two of you exist between murky, brackish water with something lurking just beyond the clouded space that he can’t quite make out. The roaring voices of the bar fade softly into the background until it’s just a buzz of pressure between Yoongi’s ears - or maybe that’s not right. Maybe it’s the buzzing pressure of awareness pressing on his spine and eardrums.
It isn’t pleasant but it’s not… uncomfortable.
It’s impossible to look away from you. He tries - tries to remember where he is. A bar, perhaps? Not this weird, opaque space where the only thing he can make out is the rogue on your lips, a spark in your eye, and the way you walk forward. No. Walk isn’t the right word. Glide might be more appropriate, he thinks.
As you near him, Yoongi breathes in sharply. Something like cedar mixed with jasmine and amber makes his head spin. The world tilts and Yoongi begins to slide on its new axis until suddenly, the mist surrounding him shatters as his foot comes into contact with the ground, knee buckling under his weight as his hand flies to the bar to hold himself up.
He fell off of his stool.
Yoongi almost doesn’t believe it, except Taehyung is laughing so hard next to him that Yoongi flushes furiously. He slides back onto the stool, brows furrowed and head ducked down to hide his rapidly glowing red ears and face from you.
But then you speak, and Yoongi cannot fight the urge to look at you once more. It’s an instinct pulling him from blushing furiously in his lap to stare at you.
“Hi,” you murmur. Yoongi is a fish out of water, mouth parted slightly, heart racing. Jasmine. Cedar. Amber. It’s all he can smell. His head swims, mind foggy as he tries to string together words. “Is this seat next to you taken? It’s the only one empty.”
Is it? Yoongi can’t tear his eyes from you, but he could swear Old Ass Han had been sitting there before you walked in.
Old Ass Han is the least annoying of Jimin’s customers and sometimes Yoongi doesn’t mind when Old Ass Han rambles about his late wife. Yoongi has no idea how old Old Ass Han is, he just knows that he was ancient even when Yoongi studied as a high school student tucked in the far corner of the bar.
“Um, yes?” Yoongi says and it comes out like a question.
You grin at him and the world ends a second time.
Pleasure-laced fear shoots down his spine. Your teeth are white and straight, but he swears for a split second they were razor sharp. He shakes his head, dispelling a little of the floating feeling as he says, “Of course. Yes. Please sit.”
Yoongi holds his breath and averts his eyes as you slide onto the stool next to him.
It’s suddenly too loud in the bar, a cacophony of voices and chairs scraping against concrete. Yoongi can still smell you, making the world rotate awkwardly as he spins on his stool to find Taehyung staring at him, brows raise and barely concealing his laughter.
“I don’t think I have ever seen you fumble like that,” Taehyung murmurs. He loses control of his laughter and tries to hide it in his cup of cider. Yoongi flushes and angrily stares into his whiskey, hyperaware of you leaning on the bar to call the bartender’s attention. “I mean – she is – holy shit I never believed in faeries or witches before but there's no way she’s human.”
Yoongi opens and closes his mouth. He tries to find a response to Taehyung, but his tongue feels heavy in his mouth and something tingles along every hair on his arm and neck, a sense of awareness as you lean on the bar, speaking to the bartender.
Again, your voice haunts Yoongi in a matter of seconds. He feels the need to turn and look at you again, but he doesn’t want to be weird. He’s already fallen off the stool once, and he doesn’t plan on further exacerbating his humiliation.
So, Yoongi remains facing Taehyung. Clutches his whiskey glass with shaking hands. Tries to take a breath – it comes out shaky – to calm himself. He has no idea what kind of delirium is threatening him every moment you’re next to him, but he wants to fight it - tries to fight it.
“Are you okay?” Taehyung’s brows twitch, mouth pouting. He ducks his head slightly, trying to find Yoongi’s gaze, but the older keeps his eyes fixed on the wood grain bar. Yoongi wants to look at you again. So bad. Wants to ask you your name. Wants to memorize the curves of your mouth. Wants to memorize every stroke of color in your eyes.
Want want want want.
A sudden throb pulses in Yoongi. He doesn’t know where it comes from, but he feels it bloom inside of him, unfurling with warm petals of want want want want.
The urge to turn and look at you gets stronger.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck –
Yoongi grits his teeth. Feels pressure at the back of his head, like there are featherlight fingers pressing into the base of his skull to urge him to turn around and look at you again. His muscles constrict and he feels himself start to turn, hips beginning to swivel in your direction, arms rigidly placed on the bar as if to fight his lower half.
When he doesn’t turn to look at you, Yoongi swears he imagines the light press of fingers turning into a steel grip. His eyes start to water and he clenches his teeth, feeling an immovable force on him pulling, dragging, tearing - and he lets out a small gasp, the grip on him so strong that he -
“Yoongi,” Taehyung says again, voice firmer. Yoongi looks up this time, eyes soft and round, face flushed. There’s a little sweat collected on his brow, and Yoongi feels a dull throb at the back of his head like a fading migraine. “What’s wrong?”
“Um-“ he cuts himself off and clears his throat. The pressure on his head is gone, but the menthol-cool, awareness of you is not. “Maybe too much to drink? It’s been a stressful week, I think I knocked these back too quickly.
“You do look sort of flushed.” Taehyung raises his brows. “Maybe water?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Water, please.”
Taehyung asks for water when the bartender returns with your drink. Yoongi doesn’t look at you, though he can see from the corner of his eye you’re looking at him. He grits his teeth and stares at the mismatched, colored bottles behind the bar. None of its top-shelf – Jimin certainly cannot afford it – but it doesn’t need to be.
A glass of water appears in front of Yoongi in time for Seokjin’s arrival. The pressure in Yoongi’s skull doesn’t return, and the tingling along his nerves like an electric current dies down a little. He still feels shaken as he sips the water, freeing up the dry feeling on his tongue.
Seokjin nestles between Yoongi and Taehyung, ordering himself a drink. Jimin appears around the bar this time, finally done with his bookkeeping in the back, and slides a beer over to Seokjin. Yoongi watches the way Jimin smiles at them before his attention falters and slides to you sitting next to Yoongi, making Jimin blink rapidly a few times.
Irrational irritation flares in Yoongi for a split second. Though his attention is on his friend and watching Jimin reacts to you sitting in Old Ass Han’s place, it occurs to Yoongi that he doesn’t want anyone else to compete with him.
Not that he stands a chance. But for once in his life, Yoongi wouldn’t mind being the one to take someone home. Why can’t it be him? He saw you first. You’re sitting next to him.
Just as Jimin’s eyes glitter, turning to half-moons as he smiles at you, Yoongi spins in the chair, giving you his full attention. Your eyes turn to meet his and Yoongi is falling into them, no end in sight.
“Hi again,” you greet, voice velvet. “You have pretty eyes.”
“All right, hyung,” Jimin murmurs. Yoongi isn’t looking at Jimin, but he can hear the smirk in his voice as Jimin retreats to their friends.
“Thanks,” Yoongi murmurs. He allows himself to drink you in. His head begins to buzz like he’s had too much whiskey, his tongue heavy and cotton-fuzzed in his mouth. “You have a pretty… everything.”
You have to know how beautiful you are. A deity beneath silk-smooth skin. But you duck your head, a shy giggle leaving your lips. You have the decency to look shy, averting your eyes, lip tucked between teeth.
Perhaps later Yoongi will be embarrassed by the honesty. But right now, it’s all he can do to keep his heart rate normal. You are incredible to look at. Taehyung was right – perhaps not human.
An unnatural glow hums under your skin. Your eyes are vivid, drinking him in with a spark that Yoongi swears echoes a deep flame in the pit of his stomach. He wrestles with himself, his hands fighting a magnetic pull to reach over and brush his fingers across the canvas of your skin.
Yoongi won’t be able to stop if he touches you. His thoughts repulse him – you’re a stranger. Someone he doesn’t know. Someone his mind is begging to violate. He fists his pants, flexing the muscles of his hands and willing the strange pull toward you to go away.
He doesn’t even know your name and Yoongi feels like Pandora, watching you with coveted desire and shaking, greedy hands. Fuck he wants to pry you open and see what treasure lurks beneath the surface.
“What’s your name?” You ask him. You stir a beverage straw in your drink – an Old Fashioned. His lips twitch in a smile at your taste in drinks as he offers you his name. “Yoongi,” you repeat back. The way his name melts in your mouth like sugar entices him. “Cute. You’re cute.”
Yoongi flashes you a shy smile, echoing yours. You share a laugh, his rough and scratchy as he chews the inside of his cheek nervously, yours light and floating. It echoes in his ears and Yoongi loses his sense of self, thoughts drug-laced with only you.
And then your lips are on him and once again, Yoongi swears the world around him has fallen to destruction.
It’s hard to remember the order of events. Yoongi doesn’t care. Your mouth is sugar-sweet and hungry, licking into Yoongi’s open-mouthed kisses as he presses you against something firm. He wants to melt into you, your skin like fire under his seeking hands, your breath delicate and soft against the empty air of what he thinks is his apartment as his lips attached to your neck.
Even your skin tastes sugared. A delicacy for him. For his mouth only.
Mine. The word echoes across his mind, but not in is own voice.
You writhe underneath Yoongi’s hands. He squeezes the flesh of your lips, tongue snaking out to lick a broad stripe of skin up your neck. Your fingers card through his hair, tugging slightly, just enough to make him groan against your skin.
Yoongi is painfully hard. His cock throbs in his pants, the material restrictive and making the ache so much worse. He grinds his hips against yours, mouth sucking viciously at your collarbone, the top of your cleavage, anywhere he can taste you.
“Fuck,” you whisper, your head thudding against the wall behind you. Panting, you hike up one of your legs, wrapping it against his waist to pull him in tighter to you. Yoongi whines as you connect your mouths again, tongue and teeth, and spit as you grind against him. “I want you so fucking bad.”
“Have me,” he mumbles sucking your tongue into his mouth. You moan, deep in your chest. He swears for a second it’s like a growl. Thinks nothing of it. Just pushes against you hard, cock pulsing. “Whatever you want.”
“Please.”
Yoongi never wants to hear you beg again. Or maybe he doesn’t want you to stop begging. He can’t make up his mind as he pulls you toward a room – his room. Yes, you’re both in his apartment. That’s his slate grey couch that you’re stumbling past and that’s his sheets that you fall backward against.
Licking his lips, Yoongi takes a moment to look down at you. You’re splayed out for him, unfurling in his sheets. He knows tomorrow morning they’ll still smell like you – jasmine, cedar, amber. You look divine, a flower unfolding delicate petals, open for him.
Only for him. Mine.
You wrap your legs around Yoongi, pulling him flush to the edge of the bed. You release him and press your feet to the bed, knees resting against his hips. You blink at him through fluttering lashes and starry eyes. He’s never seen anything like you. He never will again. He knows it.
“God damn you’re beautiful,” Yoongi murmurs, the words slipping through his lips, unrelenting.
The stars in your eyes vanish. Yoongi recoils, seeing the fathomless black threatening to eat him alive. He begins to pull away, terror shooting through his chest, sharp and angry. You squeeze your knees against his hips, nearly shattering him. Your mouth is a gash of red with rows and rows of black teeth, churning and churning.
“Don’t speak his name here,” you hiss, words slithering in layers of many different voices. “Never again.”
Yoongi blinks and you’re blushing as you look up at him, knees splayed like butterfly wings, open for him. Just for him. He smiles at the way you giggle and hide behind a hand. “You’re so sweet.”
“You are beautiful. I swear it.”
“Touch me.” Your voice drips honey-sweet on his senses. “I want to feel you, Yoongi. Please.”
There is a prickling sensation like fear at the base of his spine but Yoongi can’t remember why as he smiles at you lazily, dipping down between your legs. He props himself above you, hands planted on the mattress on either side of your head to cage you in.
“Ask me again.”
“Please. Please please please-“
Yoongi swallows your begging tongue first, delving into your luscious mouth.
It’s been a long time since he’s been in his room like this with a partner, much less with someone who looks the way you do, but Yoongi’s hands are confident as they sweep up your sides, pulling the fabric of your shirt up with his hands as they go. You lean upward, letting him pull it off you before it flies from his hand somewhere in the room.
The lights are off in his room, but a silver shaft of moonlight spills through the window to paint you silver. Your eyes reflect the light as you drink him in, his hands brushing up your arms, warming your skin as he traces them to your tits, palming them generously over your bra.
A sigh escapes through your parted lips, red lipstick smeared artfully from the clash of mouths and tongues. He dips back down, tongue hungry for your sugar-warm taste and the liquid heat of your mouth.
Yoongi is dizzy. He’s a little off balance as he breathes you in. Your fingers pull through the strands of his hair, hips canting upward as he reaches around to unclasp your bra, peeling the unwanted layer from you.
Heated, shameless eyes meet his. You tilt your chest toward him, eager for his mouth. He doesn’t miss a beat, placing wet kisses over the tops of your breasts, more tongue and spit than lips, leaving a slick trail to your right nipple. Yoongi’s mouth is possessive, sucking your pert but between his lips and flicking it lightly with his tongue, looking up where your lips part in the moonlight to let out a soft moan.
It spurs him further, plucking your nipple with his teeth, pulling any sound he can from you. He gets a loud whine then and you wiggle your hips under the weight of where his waist is pressed into yours. Grinning, Yoongi repeats the motion, giving a generous suck before pulling away with his teeth, gentling scrapping your peak.
“Fuck,” you whisper. “Feels so good.”
Yoongi trails chaste kisses from one nipple to the other, giving it the same attention. He snakes a hand down your body, fingers dancing across heated skin to pull at the zipper on your jeans. His hands tremble, making it difficult to free the first button.
Reluctantly, Yoongi pulls his mouth away from your breast, a glossy strand of spit connecting his mouth to your swollen skin as he looks down, using both hands to pop the button on your pants and tug violently at them.
“These jeans are the fucking devil.”
“Yes,” you murmur, so quietly that he can barely hear you. He gets them to your ankle, yanking one more time and tossing them. He loses your hushed words in the rustle of clothes hitting the floor when you whisper, “I am.”
“Hmm?” he asks.
You silence his question by pulling his shirt over his head, leaning to capture his exposed chest with your tongue and teeth. Yoongi stands between your legs, head falling tilting toward the heavens at the worship of your mouth.
Deep groans leave his mouth. You bite more than you kiss, but Yoongi likes the way your mouth leaves a trail of little teeth marks, your mouth pinching his flesh before your tongue soothes it. You have him trembling, nearly making him double over as your hand presses over his clothed cock firmly, applying the pressure he needs.
It’s not enough.
Every part of Yoongi feels exposed. Even half dressed, the world is brushing against him raw, every touch of your hands like pleasure and torture, every fan of your breath like the coldest breeze on a hot summer day.
None of the sensations make sense but he feels high – higher than that time he and Jimin took shrooms at that one festival in college where the lights had whispered secrets of the forest to Yoongi and where he had tasted something beyond what he could describe.
But under your carnal touch, Yoongi knows that is nothing compared to this. Nothing compares to the way you work his jeans down to his midthigh, too impatient for him to kick out of them before you’re dipping a hand in his briefs and taking his cock into your hand.
“Holy fuck,” Yoongi gasps, nearly toppling backward. Your grip is firm, strokes deft and confident and oh my god he might come like this.
You lean up to teeth at the pulse point of his neck as your tongue darts out to take a firm lick. “There is nothing holy about me, Min Yoongi,” you murmur against his neck. He shivers, eyes rolling behind closed lids as you speak. He can feel the trace of your incisors, sharper than he remembers against his skin.
Stars dance behind his eyes. You pull your hand away from his cock, making him protest. You hush him with a bite against his shoulder, sharp enough that he thinks you break skin. He doesn’t open his eyes, letting his world sweep from under his feet as you turn him and knock him onto the bed.
When the feeling of spinning stops a little, he blinks his eyes open to help you peel his clothes the rest of the way off. You’re fully naked and Yoongi doesn’t know where to keep his eyes. The swells of your breasts, marked with bite marks and spit from his mouth, the curves of your stomach and waist as you climb atop him, predatory and eager, or the glistening slick of your thighs where you’re dripping for him.
“Come here,” he demands. He’s dying to have you on his tongue, knows you’ll taste saccharine. He grabs your thighs harder than necessary, zeroing in on your pussy as he pulls you toward his mouth. “Wanna fucking taste. Bet you’re fucking delicious.”
You hum in delight, a lethal smile on your face as you crawl up to where he wants you, knees firmly on either side of his head. Yoongi lets out an appreciative noise. Your cunt is sticky and glossy for him, the perfect meal.
With gentle fingers, he parts your folds gently to reveal your slick, clenching hole and needy clit. Yoongi is eager, a finger trailing up and down your warm slit as he lets out a moan.
“Fucking wet,” he whispers before leaning up for a long, slow lick.
Stars explode behind his eyes. He hums in delight, shivering at the taste of you, heady on his tongue. He repeats the motion a few times, flattening his tongue for a slow-drag, appreciative lick up your cunt. He feels the way you drip into his mouth, spill on his chin and he can’t help but curse, at how addictive this feels.
You moan when he dips his tongue into your entrance, gathering your essence on the tip of his tongue before he drags it soft-slow up to your clit, circling your bundle of nerves lazily. Yoongi pulls your clit into his mouth with gentle lips, feeling the way it pulses as he sucks gently.
The sounds you make above him spur him further. He alternates between sucking your clit delicately and butterfly-soft tongue flutters, watching your mouth go slack as you watch him. The more you drip into his eager mouth, the greedier Yoongi gets, fastening his entire mouth on you and sucking harshly.
It becomes sloppy and imprecise. Yoongi can’t decide where he wants his mouth most. He can’t remember ever feeling this lightheaded from oral, much less giving. But he’s starstruck under you, sucking and sucking and sucking – fuck he doesn’t know if he’s even taking breaths.
“Feels so fucking good,” you whisper, a hand going to knot in his hair. His scalp tingles pleasantly where you hold onto him, his eyes fluttering shut. Your hips move slowly over his face. “Fuck keep going.”
Pride swells in his chest. Your voice is airy, breaths short and stilted and overwhelmed as he eats you vigorously. His fingers dimple your skin, pressing into the meat of your ass as he rocks you on his tongue, jaw slack, tongue flat for you to let you fuck yourself on his face the way you want.
Yoongi feels you drip down his face, hears the wet-smack of his mouth against your cunt. He moans. Buries his face further, letting you grind yourself on his nose, chin, mouth lips, anything. He doesn’t care, sticky-coated to the jaw, so fucked out from pleasing you that he almost blacks out when you cum.
Something happens.
He doesn’t know how to describe it – it’s like for a moment, everything goes dark. Perhaps he does blackout. Perhaps he wasn’t breathing. He can’t remember. All he knows is that between one heartbeat and the next, there’s a moment of pure darkness accompanied by a laugh that chills his spine.
And then your mouth is on him, spit and cum making the glide of your mouths sticky-sweet.
Yoongi sucks your tongue into his mouth, pressing his fingers gently to the back of your head, pulling you closer closer closer. He just wants you closer, his stomach burning with a sudden hunger for you. He feels on fire, skin too-warm where your chest slides against his, sweaty and flushed.
Sheets stick to every part of him. He’s aware of the sweat that slides down his neck, a cool finger of relief as you press him further and further into the mattress. He feels like he’s sinking, entering a new domain where he’s no longer in his room – he's just with you. Somewhere. Anywhere.
Your fingers claw at his hair, pulling the strands to pin him to the mattress as you lift yourself, looking down at Yoongi. He blinks, stars in his eyes as he starts up at you, looming. Glowing. Beautiful. His hands are on your hips, a sparking current humming just beneath the surface of your skin.
You feel alive and vibrant.
A moan escapes Yoongi’s mouth, pleasure rolling through him as you grind your cunt on his throbbing cock, warm and wet. His eyes flutter, Yoongi squirming under you, legs kicking and twitching as you tease him. Just the glide of you on his shaft makes him shiver, the pit of his stomach clenching.
“Please,” Yoongi rasps. His fingers dig into your hips, begging. Pleading. Desperate. “Please please please please.”
“You look so pretty when you beg.” Your grinding increases and the room spins. His hands fall from your hips to the sheets, fingers fisted tightly in the fabric. “You’re so beautiful, Yoongi. My Yoongi. Mine. Mine mine mine.”
Your words are lost on him. There’s only the firm touch of your hand against his cock, gripped tight at the base as you lift yourself. He feels his cockhead catch on your swollen entrance and he lets out a strangled noise. He doesn’t know if he can stop himself from cumming. He is bursting at the seams with heat, an inferno so intense he swears that the world catches fire as you slide down his cock, warm and tight.
“Shiiit,” Yoongi hisses. He takes a deep breath and holds it, hips twitching where you straddle his waist, letting him suffer beneath you.
“Feels good.” You lean forward, hands pressed to his chest to support your weight. Yoongi’s eyes flutter open. He blinks at you through wet lashes. The room is so dark he can only make out the barest features on your face, but he sees your eyes clearly. Looking at him. Watching. Hungry. “So good,” you repeat. “So fucking deep.”
Nails bite into the skin of his chest. He feels his skin smart. The hot bead of blood that forms. He doesn’t care, watching as slowly, you lift your hips, your walls hugging every inch of Yoongi. He lets out a shaky breath, hands settling on your waist. He plants his feet in the bed, angling himself better as you reach the tip of his cock before sinking back down.
Heaven and hell. Yoongi wavers between both, gritting his teeth to keep from coming, to keep the feeling of you gripping him tight going. He doesn’t want it to end, it feels so good but it’s wonderful agony, fighting the curl in his stomach, the twitching of his abs, the threat of exploding.
Yoongi's eyes are drawn to where you fuck yourself on him, sticky arousal turning silver in the single shaft of moonlight that spills across the bed where you’re joined. He can’t look away, entranced by the wet smack of your ass on his thighs, the way you just fucking take him.
It lights a fire in him more intensely than the solar flare that threatens to send him spinning into his orgasm. Yoongi growls, digging his nails into your skin, half-moons on smooth flesh as he grits his teeth and fucks up into you. You gasp, nails raking down his chest as he jostles you. His breath comes out as stilted hisses behind clenched teeth.
“Touch yourself for me,” he grits out. “Wanna feel you come all over me – please.”
“Gonna,” you pant, head falling to his chest, claws leaving pink lines on pale flesh. You slide one hand down his body, making him groan as he fucks you with abandon. You gasp, hand working your clit between your writhing bodies. “Gonna come.”
“Please - for me.” He thrusts hard, thighs trembling with the effort, holding his breath as his muscles squeeze. He can feel you tense, pussy clenching so tight he curses and stops, letting you pulse around him as you moan and an unintelligible string of curses that sounds... like another language. “Fuck, just like that.”
Yoongi feels himself come apart. His universe shatters and he floats among the stars. Weightless. Happy. Tired. He feels nothing and everything, a soft frequency of... something dancing along his skin. A soft buzz. Pleasant and warm.
He doesn’t know how long he exists in that space. He can still smell notes of cedar, jasmine and amber. It's stronger now, with a touch of something else... something burning. He leans into the smell and it wraps around him, soft hands around his middle and petal-soft lips against his cheek.
Yoongi becomes vaguely aware that it’s you curled into his side, nose hidden in his neck, chest rising and falling against his arm. It grounds him a little. Brings him back into a dark room that is too obscure to be sure it’s his bedroom at all.
As he drifts off into sleep, he remembers the feeling of your tongue against his neck and nothing more.
-
Cedar. Jasmine. Amber.
It wakes Yoongi up. His stomach feels empty. His hands seek your warmth, palming your ass, pulling your hips flush to his. He doesn’t open his eyes, content to feel your heat. Again, something like electricity thrums under your skin, tickling his wandering hands.
Your mouth catches his. Pulls him further from sleep. He feels his skin ache from your teeth and nails the night before. Feels the weight of something inside of him that wasn’t there before, although he cannot put into words what it is.
Even in the morning, your mouth is sweet. Gluttonous. You suck his bottom lip between your teeth, nibbling softly followed by a light giggle. He smiles into the next kiss, sloppy and filled with too much tongue but he lets you taste him.
Yoongi swears there is an echo of your taste from the night before. It’s enough to kickstart desire in him, detaching his mouth to plant kisses down your neck. Chest. Stomach. His tongue licks a trail down your velvet skin.
In a shuffle of sheets and skin, you lay back for him, pliant. He’s awake now, pressing your thighs open, teeth nipping the tender flesh. You giggle and the sound makes him pause, lips pressed to your leg, eyes looking up at you in the dim light of the morning. Or night. It’s hard to tell what time it is, here with you in this bed.
Glowing eyes look at him. Round. Soft. Curious. You watch Yoongi with rapt attention, lip pulled between your teeth. Spread. Eager. Ethereal.
Yoongi drops his gaze, groaning when he sees how fucking wet you are. He pulls you closer, sliding a hand under your ass to provide support. Curious, he brushes his thumb up and down your folds, collecting your essence as he does.
“So swollen and wet,” he mumbles, morning voice deep and scratchy. “You’re always so ready to be eaten, hmm?”
You nod. “Please, Kitty.”
The new nickname makes him pause, thumb resting on your clit. He can almost feel your cunt throb under the pad of his finger as he applies a little pressure, watching you whine and kick your legs a bit. He grins.
“Kitty?” he asks as he resumes playing with you. His thumb dips into your hole, ring of muscles clenching around him. His grin spreads as he pulls it away, watching you fight with the loss.
“You have- ughhh – cat eyes. Pretty. Soft. Smart. Kitty.”
He hums, dipping his head forward to give you a single kitten lick. He shuts his eyes and sighs heavily, your taste heavy on his tongue. You taste just as good as the night before. “Cute,” he murmurs, more to himself. “I like it, baby.”
Yoongi doesn’t wait for a response. He presses in, tongue lapping at you hungrily, refusing to let you drip without his mouth for another moment.
-
Greedy.
You’re greedy. You always are. Yoongi isn’t sure what day it is. It might be the same night as when he brought you home or it could be the weekend or it could be next week. He somewhat remembers the taste of a meal. Some cool water. But he doesn’t recall when he made it or when he showered.
He only knows he showered because he smelled the mint soap on your skin a few moments ago when you had your mouth attached to his throat.
Now, your mouth swallows his cock whole, throat pulsing around him. He curses, fingers twisting in your hair as he listens to you choke. Feels your drool dripping down his thighs. You relent, pulling back with a slick sound. He looks down at you between half-moon eyes, lashes fluttering.
You’re a vision: bruised lips smeared in spit and cum, chin covered in slick, watery, round eyes that blink up at him, innocent despite the fact that you rub the flushed tip of his cock against your abused mouth.
“Fuck,” he swears, watching your devilish tongue snake out to lap at his dark tip. “Fucking cock hungry, huh?”
You nod your head, trailing your tongue along the bottom of his shaft, taking time to suck slopping kisses to his skin. He can’t look away, even as you pump him lazily with your small hand, ravenous little mouth sucking coyly at his balls.
His fist tights in your hair. You look up, tears spilling over rounded cheeks. You look angelic at that moment, weeping before him. He nearly busts right there.
“Does Kitty like when I do that?” You ask softly, voice almost a whisper. Your voice changes, he’s noticed. Sometimes coming out dark velvet, other times tangerine-sweet. “Am I a good girl, Kitty?”
You always call him that. He wasn’t sure about it at first, but with a mouth full of his precum and neck covered in his teeth marks, Yoongi thinks you can call him whatever the fuck you want. He’s never seen a creature so drunk off fucking him before and he’s no better. All he wants to do is fucking live in you.
“Such a good girl,” Yoongi promises. He holds your head with one hand and your chin with the other, pulling your bottom lip down with one thumb. His touch is soft and reverent. You preen for him, smiling around his thumb as he slips it in your mouth and presses on your tongue. Feels the spit and god knows what else there. “Come on, baby. Suck.”
And you do. Yoongi’s eyes roll back in his head. He falls backward on his bed and it feels like he has passed through a portal to somewhere else. He floats. All he knows is your mouth, unforgiving. Your tongue, sinful.
And when Yoongi comes down your throat, and when you pull off of him and smile at him with the slow drip of it, Yoongi feels like he’s in fucking heaven.
-
Monday he calls out of work.
Crunching numbers at an accounting firm seems like hell in comparison to where he is now. You’re bent over the kitchen counter, drooling on the granite as he slowly drags his cock through your drenched heat. He ignores the spilled glass of water next to you. Instead, he watches himself disappear deep into your cunt, collecting cream on the base of his cock every time he pulls out.
Yoongi senses you looking at him. You are, eyes intense and heavy. Your gaze shifts so often he can barely keep up – thinks maybe he imagines the way you go from soft, round-eyed sweetheart to a siren-eyed vixen.
It’s the vixen look at him now. And as though you can read his mind, you slick your tongue out of your mouth, bubble gum pink and eager, eyes dragging down to where he works himself in and out.
Yoongi pulls out slowly, running a finger along your arousal smeared along his shaft, and leans forward, thrusting in hard. You pant, tongue still out and eyes focused on his as Yoongi delicately places his cum-slick finger in your mouth. Presses your cream on your tongue.
Your lips close around his finger, tongue swirling around the digit as you shut your eyes and hollow your cheek, gently sucking your arousal until there’s nothing left.
“You’re so fucking hot,” he whispers, in awe of you.
And you are. There’s nothing you won’t do for him. Nothing Yoongi won’t do for you. So he slams into you, deep deep deep, and grunts until you’re coming around him for what feels like the hundredth time since he’s met you.
-
Yoongi startles awake. He blinks away a dream that he immediately cannot remember. His skin is clammy and his sheets stick to him all over. He kicks them off, heart hammering as he jumps to his feet, trying to get away from the bed.
He doesn’t know why, but he feels danger near him with every slam of his heart.
For a few moments, he’s in total darkness. He can’t make out the shape of his dresser. Or the pile of clothes in the hamper. He can’t see any light filtering through the window. He knows there’s a streetlight out there – why isn’t the light streaming through his curtains?
Panic threatens to seize him. He takes a deep breath and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, rubbing fiercely. He opens them, bursts of starlight blinding him until they fade finally and he can see.
There’s a shadow in front of him, all razor teeth and red eyes.
Yoongi screams, flinching backward. He topples over and feels weightless like he’s falling through time and space. The moment of fear stretches out long – too long – and for a second he thinks he will die. His heart is beating too hard in his chest, his mind is screaming too loud, and the adrenaline threatens to crack him open and spill out on the floor.
He hits the curtain behind him and fists the fabric, ripping the entire rod and holders down backward as he goes. Streetlight pours into the room. He thrashes, blind and screaming among the now ruined curtains, the curtain rod, and drywall dust.
Yoongi frees himself, grabbing the rod to defend himself against the creature in a last-ditch effort to live.
Grey light saturates the room. There’s no shadow creature with teeth and red eyes. There’s just you in the middle of his bed, the reflection of the street light turning your doe-eyes to glowing coins. You’re in a t-shirt of his, soft and crinkled, hair messy. Lip trembling.
“Kitty?” Your voice is small. Almost childlike. “Kitty are you okay?”
The panic beat of his heart slows. He swallows down nausea and realizes his shaking, the remaining waves of adrenaline taking their toll. Yoongi lets go of the curtain rod and nods, pressing his head into the wall.
“I’m sorry,” he rasps. Throat dry. You move on the bed – more of a prowl – and you flick the lamp light on. Warmth rushes into the room and with it, relief. “Thank you.”
“What happened, Kitty?”
“A nightmare. I got up and … I don’t know. I thought I saw something.”
You sit on your knees. Hands in your lap, one palm splayed on your thigh, the other lifted toward him. Beckoning. Open. Warm. Safe. He peels himself from the wreckage by the window and walks toward you, feeling as though there is a string between you and him, tethering you to him. Reeling him in.
When Yoongi’s hand touches yours, exhaustion bleeds into him. Safe. He is safe. You smile and there are no razor teeth. Just kiss-stained lips as you shuffle backward, pulling Yoongi back into the bed.
“Come sleep, Kitty.”
“Okay.”
Carefully, he turns off the lamp. The streetlight floods his room now, but it’s comforting, the grey wash of the world enough that he can see anything creeping in the shadows.
Eventually, he falls back asleep with the slow drag of your hand back and forth across his forehead, and your mouth pressing gentle sucks to the side of his throat.
-
“Where are you going?”
Yoongi almost smiles at the pout on your face. You stand in his kitchen, brows pinched, mouth furious. You’re in another one of his shirts – there is nothing else for you to wear. His grin spreads as he comes around the counter, placing his messenger bag down.
Somehow you seem so much smaller in the daylight. Yoongi swears when you’re riding him in the early hours of the morning or when he has you on all fours fucking you deep into his mattress, you’re a force to be reckoned with. A fierce creature feeds on carnal pleasure only.
But now in the light of day, with your bottom lip jutting out and scowling brows, Yoongi thinks there is nothing more adorable. His perfect baby. You reach out, opening and closing your hands and he laughs.
“Work,” he answers gently, pulling you toward him. You don’t fight him. You never fight him. Yoongi is always your top priority – you’ve made that obvious. He smells the cedar. Jasmine. Amber. His head swims and for a moment, he forgot what you asked.
Moments like this with your skin touching, that high-frequency current that is unfamiliar but feels so good – Yoongi forgets himself. Every time he touches you, he’s somewhere else.
His phone rings and he remembers he’s supposed to leave. “I have work.”
Your scowl gets worse. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Whatever you want.”
“I want to be with you.”
He laughs, pressing a kiss to your forehead. When he pulls away, you’re almost snarling, gripping him like iron. He sighs and squeezes your hips for reassurance. “I’ll leave a little early, yeah? For you.”
“Do you promise?”
“Of course, I promise.” Your lip wobbles and he leans forward again, nipping you. “Get some sleep. You woke me up very early this morning, hmm?”
You don’t answer, but you loosen your grip.
When he gets in the car, he sees the curtain in his living room shift and he grins. Cute.
-
Work drags. Yoongi’s in a bad mood. His coffee is extra bitter. The water tastes off. The fluorescents in his office are too bright, prompting him to turn them off. When he begins auditing his client’s monthly spending, the numbers swim on screen.
Yoongi takes his glasses off. Puts them back on. He swears that he sees symbols and that the screen glitches, flashing between letters and numbers and… something he’s unsure of. When he rubs his eyes, the screen is just numbers in an Excel sheet.
Sighing in defeat, he glances at the clock. It’s only been an hour.
“Fuck.”
He pulls his phone out, thumb hovering over the screen. Your contact information is in his phone, right? The silence in his office is deafening. It presses in on him as he stares at his phone, unseeing. Why didn’t he have your phone number? Shouldn’t a boyfriend have their-
A knock at the door startles him. He drops his phone, mumbling an apology as he bends down to get it before righting himself and looking at his director.
“How are you feeling?”
Yoongi shrugs. “A little off.”
And… it’s true. Yoongi’s head hurts suddenly, a migraine slamming on the confines of his skull. His too-bitter coffee burns in his stomach. The back of his neck feels too hot and his hands shake as he puts his phone on his desk.
“You don’t look too well. Maybe take the day?”
Yoongi nods. Sways a little when he stands up to retrieve his things and turns his computer off. On the drive home, the headache recedes a little. He grips the wheel tight, taking deep breaths as he tries to steady the feeling in the pit of his stomach.
In the drive, Yoongi takes a deep breath. The pressure in his head is gone and his stomach doesn’t feel as rotten as it did twenty minutes ago. He makes a mental note to look up his symptoms when he gets inside – perhaps he has the flu. It won’t do to feel this way before his client’s quarterly financial reports are due.
Thankfully, when Yoongi steps into his house, he feels much better.
Feels fine as he drops to his knees in the entryway, tongue buried hungrily in your cunt as he presses you hard against the door, drinking in every drop. Above him, you tremble and cry, begging him never to leave again.
When you cum on his tongue, creamsicle sweet, he thinks he never will.
-
Pain shoots up Yoongi’s foot as he stubs his toe making his way to the bathroom. He can barely see in his room now that he has fixed the curtains – and put blackout ones at your request – and the floor is covered with his shoes and chargers and boxes of snacks you keep in his bedroom like a nest.
He has never in his life seen someone with an appetite for junk food like you – especially sweets.
Yoongi opens the bathroom, the gentle, white glow of the night light casting a dull halo against the whitewash walls. He glances in the mirror and his heart launches into his throat. His hand slams against the door for balance and a moment of terror bleeds him dry when he sees the shadow behind him, white teeth flashing and red eyes.
Whirling around, Yoongi’s hand shoots for the light, painfully jamming fingers against stucco. He manages to flip the switch while his heart pulses in his throat, terror working its way through him like an injection straight into his cardiovascular system.
Light spills into the room, so bright that he flinches, closing his eyes for a second. When he opens them, there’s nothing. It’s just his messy room, covered in clothes, empty and half-full bottles of lube, a generous amount of junk food, and you.
Asleep. Soft against his pillows, lips parted slightly.
Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Yoongi chastises himself and shuts the bathroom door. A few splashes of cold water from the tap do the trick, calming him down and cooling the red splotches of anxiety blooming on his neck.
When he returns to bed, your hands seek his warmth, making grabbing motions even in sleep. He indulges you, sliding closer. Tucking you into his chest. You hum in your sleep, that vibrating feeling that lives just under your skin ever-present.
Gently you lean forward, mouth seeking as you press your lips against the soft spot under his ear. He shivers as the innocent kiss turns into a soft suckle, pulling skin between teeth your tongue pressed against his flesh. But you don’t wake up. You seem content to lay in his arms with the gentle pull of your mouth against his skin, smelling like cedar. Jasmine. Amber.
And he falls asleep, moment of terror forgotten.
-
Yoongi has a problem.
Time management was always one of his strong suits. As someone who lived an organized little life in an organized little home, he thrived on order, repetition of days, and knowing what to expect each day.
Except now Yoongi never remembers what day it is. He hardly remembers how he spends his day. But what he does remember are moments with you. Bodies against bodies. The press of his fingers in your sticky cunt. Your curious fingers, pressing into the tight rim of his ass, pulling out orgasms so deep that it takes him hours to move.
Now, you’re pressed against him on the couch, eyes fixed on the TV. He watches you and you watch the screen, completely focused on the world of Spirited Away. His lips twitch in a smile and he yawns. You snuggle closer to him, nearly attached. It’s second nature to you, to fasten yourself to him. He doesn’t mind, pressing a kiss to your forehead.
When Yoongi’s phone rings, it interrupts everything. You immediately hiss, looking toward the ringing device on the counter. He can’t remember the last time his phone rang but he begins to lift himself off of the couch.
Your fingers dig in. “Finish the movie.”
It’s a demand. He laughs as your brow pinches. “I’ll be right back, let me just see who it is.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“Why don’t you want to watch the movie with me?”
Your voice has grown small again. Not the sultry purr he is used to in the middle of the night when you mouth at his cock, hard before he’s even awake. Not the demanding crack of a whip when you order him to come.
This voice is tiny, a soft thing that immediately draws him to look at you. He cradles your face, your big eyes looking at him with tears rimming them. His stomach drops and he hushes you, thumbs brushing back and forth.
“Fuck – baby why are you crying?”
“Why don’t you want to watch the movie, Kitty?”
“Hey, Kitty wants to watch the movie.” He croons and you pull yourself into his lap, arms going around his neck and winding in his hair. He keeps a soft grip on your face, eyes searching. That thrum is just beneath the surface, like a beating heart. “I just have to answer the phone, baby. I still want to watch the movie.”
You shake your head. “You don’t.”
“Of course I do.”
It isn’t often that Yoongi upsets you. He vaguely recalls one time when he left for work, you had been a bit sad. But ever since he’d started working from home – wait, he works from home? He shakes the question from his thoughts, saving it for later.
It isn’t often that Yoongi upsets you. He vaguely recalls one time when he left for work, you had been a bit sad. And now you sit on his lap and he hates himself for the way a tear slips down your face, turned into a diamond from the reflection of the TV.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, heart aching in his chest. He leans back. He pulls you flush against his chest. You tuck your face in his neck, your favorite spot to nuzzle and he feels the gentle tuck of your mouth, the tiny suckle of your teeth against his neck. Your comfort.
It isn’t often that Yoongi upsets you. He vaguely -
He doesn’t remember. What was he thinking about? He doesn’t know.
Yoongi loops his arms around you and squeezes you tight. And his eyes flutter shut, suddenly tired and lulled to sleep by the gentle pull of your mouth on his skin.
-
“Come look at this cat,” Yoongi laughs, crouching down on the back porch. The tabby rubs itself between his legs, purring as it twists figure eights. “It’s so friendly, baby. Come say hi.”
Night sky stretches over the city. It’s colder outside – almost Halloween, maybe. Yoongi lost the calendar in his house and he only turns the computer on if he has to sign on for work, which he rarely does these days.
You peek from the door, looking at the cat rubbing its face on Yoongi’s hand. He looks up at you and smiles. You’re swimming in a sweater of his, though your legs are bare. His mouth waters at the thought of tasting you again – he can’t ever get enough, licking the sweetness from between your thighs only to finish by fucking himself into you until he blacks out.
The blackouts happen more after sex now.
“He’s sweet,” Yoongi promises, holding out another hand to you. “Like you.”
Tentatively, you step outside of the door. The floorboard creaks under your step, drawing the cat’s attention. It happens so fast that Yoongi falls from his crouched position, sitting abruptly on the floor. The cat lets out a terrible sound, somewhere between a horrible yowl and a hair-raising hiss.
A blur of claws and teeth, Yoongi yells as the sharp talons catch him, letting the cat go. It becomes a streak of fur and screeching, vanishing from the yard.
You rush to him, dropping down to hold his scratched hands, blood surfacing.
“No!” You look up at him, holding his hand gently to your chest. He feels the strange hum, the heartbeat that… isn’t a beating heart as much as a constant buzz. “Are you okay, Kitty? You’re hurt.”
“It’s okay.” He smiles. The fear in your eyes is heartwarming. You love him – he knows this. He feels it. “Sorry it startled you.”
-
Autumn sun beats down on Yoongi as he goes to peel logs from the stack of firewood in the backyard. As he jogs down the steps, he slows, frowning. There’s a dead tabby at the foot of the stairs, broken body and dark blood smeared underneath.
“Weird,” he mutters, rushing to get some firewood. “I’ve never seen cats here before. Poor thing.”
When he goes back inside the house, he sees you sitting on the counter. Spread. Finger tracing up and down glistening folds, swollen cunt begging for his mouth. Yoongi drops the wood. He zeros in, licking his lips as you spread your legs a little wider.
“What a perfect fucking pussy,” Yoongi grins. “That for me?”
You nod. “Please, Kitty.”
Yoongi forgets about the dead cat.
-
“I want candy.” Yoongi looks up at you, brows raised. You’re standing in the middle of the aisle at the grocery store, chewing your bottom lip as you look at him with hopeful eyes. Yoongi immediately softens. Feels his heart flutter. “Is that okay?”
“Sure.” He looks up at the aisle names. “It’s three aisles over. Can you get what you want while I go back and get milk? I forgot.”
You hesitate for a moment, a moment of fear on your face. Before he can brush away your fears with a simple kiss, you take a deep breath and give him your bravest smile. He preens, proud as you give a confident nod and dart off in the direction of candy.
Yoongi is impressed by you. Leaving the house is hard for you – always has been. The two of you mostly stay inside, locked in your little world. Yoongi likes it that way. Loves knowing after dinner you’ll be nested on the couch, watching him with inquisitive eyes and asking him to put on a new show or to continue the anime you’ve been binging.
Every new experience for you brings stars to your eyes. He loves that about you – loves the way you go awestruck while watching old anime that Yoongi adores, or the way you hum and spin in circles to music he shows you.
Yoongi remembers hearing once that people live many lives. He thinks that if that’s true, you must be in your first life, curious about everything. Surprised by the world. And he gets to watch it over and over, the way you grin when something startles you or when you furiously pout because you don’t like something.
Grocery store trips are new for you. The first time, you’d been stitched to his side, refusing to separate from him. Cagey and flashing mean eyes at everyone. Now, though, Yoongi doesn’t worry as he pulls open one of the glass doors in the cold section, looking for milk.
“Yoongi?” He turns mid-reach for a carton of milk, the cold air hitting him in the face and turning his cheeks pink, glass frosting with the humidity rushing into the fridge. Taehyung is standing behind him, hands shoved into pockets. “Holy shit it is you.”
Yoongi gives Taehyung a funny smile, pulling the milk from the fridge and adding it to his cart. “Why wouldn’t it be? How are you?”
“Dude, how are you? You don’t answer anyone’s calls, I heard you started working at home from some sort of illness, and you refuse to answer your door when we come by.” Taehyung’s face is picture-perfect concern, brown eyes fixed on Yoongi, bottom lip pulled between his teeth. “Why can’t you tell us what’s going on? It’s been weeks.”
“What are you talking about? I talked to you two weeks ago.”
Taehyung cocks his head. His brows furrow and an unsettling feeling flips Yoongi’s stomach. He remembers the call exactly. Recites their conversation back to Taehyung, but before Yoongi can finish, his friend is shaking his head.
“We never had that conversation, Yoongi.”
Taehyung takes a step closer. Yoongi’s heart starts pounding. He remembers talking to Taehyung. He had been standing in the kitchen when his phone rang, and you had handed him his phone. Yoongi remembers because he had been half-paying attention to the conversation, transfixed by the way your eyes caught the light and the way you watched him catch up with Taehyung.
But… another thought swirls in Yoongi’s mind. A vision of you slamming the phone down on the counter, shattering it. Yoongi begging you to stop – stop something – and then your soft lips on him.
He shakes his head, setting the thoughts free.
“What’s going on?” Taehyung asks, moving past his cart to get closer. Yoongi backs up. He doesn’t know why, but it’s automatic. He feels panic surge as Taehyung pauses. “Are you sick or-“
Maybe he is. Yoongi knows he talked to Taehyung and yet… doubt wiggles into his mind. Eats at it like a worm. There feels like there is a box somewhere tucked in the recesses of his memory, shielded and without a key. If he applies pressure on it, he gets a headache.
Licking his lips, Yoongi places his trembling hands on the cart. Looks at Taehyung. Sees the pleading in his friend’s eyes. Yoongi opens his mouth to ask when Taehyung thinks they last spoke and -
“Kitty?”
Your soft voice cuts the anxiety in half. Yoongi’s thoughts ease as you appear a few feet away from them, bags of candy in hand. Your doll face morphs into unease when you look at Taehyung. Yoongi wonders why that is – you’ve talked to Taehyung plenty of times. You encourage Yoongi to call him.
“You?” Taehyung asks. The vehemence in his voice startles Yoongi. “You’re still around? Jesus Yoongi, have you been shacked up with some girl you met at a bar this entire time?”
Words have consequences. Taehyung’s immediately has an effect, your expression going from soft and sweet to something that makes Yoongi’s hands grip the push-bar on the cart tightly.
“He has nothing to do with it.” Your voice is a layered hiss. A tingle slides down Yoongi’s neck – familiar and dangerous. He has the sudden urge to bolt, but his feet are rooted to the ground as you advance, putting yourself between the two men. “Yoongi hasn’t been feeling well. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“I’m one of his best friends!”
Taehyung is one of his best friends. And Jimin. And Seokjin. Yoongi remembers sitting on a stool at Serendipity, listening to Old Ass Han tell him some superstition about female demons who snatched one of his sons in the middle of the night. Jimin had laughed so hard and made Old Ass Han so mad that Jimin covered his tab for the night.
It was such a funny memory that the next Halloween, Jimin had dressed up as a sultry, female demon. Yoongi vaguely recalls laughing with them into the night, especially when Jimin picked up a guy to go home with that night.
Yoongi is full of those memories – at least he was. He thinks he is.
The little place in his mind that feels inaccessible cracks a little and Yoongi winces, a headache splitting him open. He clutches his temple as a bolt of pain lances through his skull. Then your hands are on him, gentle and cradling his face. You’re saying something but he can’t hear you over the high-pitched ringing in his ears.
Colors dance across his vision as Yoongi squeezes his eyes shut, trying to pant through the pain. The pain doesn’t come from that tiny little box in his mind – it comes from somewhere else. Pulling him away from whatever is hidden there, in that dark little forgotten corner.
Suddenly, it becomes too much and darkness swallows him whole.
The last thing Yoongi remembers is the gentle kiss of your mouth on his neck.
-
Yoongi has a problem.
He’s getting headaches all the time. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night with them, sharp pain digging behind his eyes. It always worsens when he tries to recall the dreams he has before he wakes up – he knows he has dreams. They’re on the tip of his tongue. But the more he thinks about them, the more he tries to draw up what he imagined, the more the pain grows.
The bed sinks as you crawl in next to him. It’s too hot in bed. Sheets cling to Yoongi’s skin. He feels like there’s a furnace under the mattress, burning through and making everything sweaty and sticky. He shifts a little away from you – your body is always warm, skin heated with the thrum of energy beneath the surface.
Cedar. Jasmine. Amber. Your scent swells as you tuck yourself close to him. Not touching, but Yoongi can sense you there, an awareness tingling along his skin. It’s happened a few times, where a second awareness blinks an eye open and Yoongi feels on edge. Like there is suddenly an instinct inside of him that has awakened, one he is unfamiliar with.
That awareness yawns. Blooms at the back of his mind, where that same throbbing ache has settled. Yoongi tries to steady his breathing, but he can feel his pulse against his pillow, thumping faster and faster as your cloying scent muddles his thoughts.
You don’t say anything. You don’t reach out and touch him. You just lay there, silent and omnipresent. Yoongi squeezes his eyes shut, and for the first time in a very long time, he wishes that you would go to the other room and watch TV. You love watching TV. Sometimes he finds you sitting in front of it on the floor, knees tucked to your chest, chin on top of your knees while you watch a variety of shows.
Though it seems you have settled on Tokyo Ghoul as your favorite.
“Kitty?” you whisper. He holds his breath. Perhaps if he pretends he is asleep, you’ll go to sleep too. Long beats of silence stretch between you, filled only with the sound of Yoongi’s measured breathing. “I’m sorry.”
He pauses. “Hmm?”
“I’m sorry.”
Yoongi swallows past a knot in his throat. Every muscle in his body is clenching. His fingers are fisted in his blankets, and he’s curled into a ball. He doesn’t remember feeling so braced. He tries to relax, letting himself melt in the bed a little.
“For what?”
“You… need space.”
He doesn’t need to turn around to hear the tremble in your voice. You sniffle a little. The lamp on his bed flickers, catching his attention. He watches the flicker of the bulb as you cry softly behind him. He wants to turn around – wants to gather you in his arms and tuck you into his chest and yet… he doesn’t.
“A little,” Yoongi admits softly.
“Okay.”
Licking his lips, Yoongi steels himself. He rolls over in bed to look at you. You’re buried in one of his hoodies and the blanket he likes to sleep with on the couch. He can barely make out your cherubic face. Your round eyes blink at him, pools of light in the darkness of the hoodie and blanket.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Okay.”
He softens. It’s not so warm in the bed anymore, so he reaches across the space, finding your hand clutched in the blanket. You let him pry your fingers open and he traces your palm. “Just a little space, okay? I can sleep on the couch tonight.”
You shake your head. “No.”
“Baby-“
“I’m not tired.”
Your voice is firm. He knows that voice – it’s the one that precedes a tantrum if he’s not careful. He nods, pulling a hand away and sighing, closing his eyes. He is tired. He realizes just how tired he is.
“Good night, Kitty.”
-
Most days it’s easier to placate you.
Yoongi feels like he is worn at the edges. Hot water runs down his neck, his back. Relieves a deep ache that has begun to grow on his bones, pained turned lichen. He feels like a watercolor painting with too much liquid medium, running at the edges and blurring across a once-beautiful canvas.
Sleep comes every night, but Yoongi still wakes up tired. He misses meetings even though he has been working from home for… however long. He doesn’t know where his cell phone is. He lost it somewhere in the house – doesn’t need it much.
Water drips onto the floor as he steps out of the shower. He watches it run down milky legs, soaking into the towel. Steam permeates the air and slicks across the mirror, Yoongi’s reflection as opaque and bleary as he feels.
Yoongi heaves a heavy yawn, wiping a hand across the steam in preparation to shave. When his eyes look up at the three-paneled mirror, a shadowed creature with rows of gnashing teeth and red eyes is behind him.
A scream rips its way out of his throat, the terror is so awful that Yoongi’s knees buckles. He hits the tile hard, head smacking the cabinet. His world explodes into color as he blinks the stars from his eyes, scrambling with damp legs, slipping uselessly on the steamed tile as he backs himself into the corner of the wall and sink.
There’s nothing there. Just an open doorway.
For a few seconds, it’s just Yoongi’s heart pounding so hard that his stomach roils. He fumbles for the toilet, flipping the lid and rolling to his knees to heave the contents of dinner into the bowl. He gasps for air, stinging his vomit-burned throat as he throws up again. Stomach-churning. Lungs screaming.
When he flushes and settles against the bathtub, he hears the TV in the living room. Cool air drifts in from his bedroom. He closes his eyes and takes in deep breaths, counting in for seven and out for seven. There’s the soft patter of your feet on the carpet, and he can sense you in the doorway.
His spine always tingles when you’re around.
“Kitty? Are you okay?”
“Don’t feel good.”
“Oh kitty,” you whisper. He keeps his eyes closed. You slide closer to him and your hands are warm. When they touch his face, he feels a little energy pour back into him and he opens his eyes. You’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, still. “I’m sorry.”
“Why sorry?”
You chew on your lip. “I’m sorry.”
It feels like you say that a lot these days. Yoongi nods his head and closes his eyes again as you lean forward and press yourself to his side, giving him a gentle kiss.
-
The headache is bad. But he has to know. Lays in his bed writhing in the sheets.
Ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurts.
Memories crack across his mind, each one hurting more than the last.
A creature of shadow. Blacking out after sex. A dead cat that hadn’t always been dead. Your innocent eyes. Your angry eyes. You smashing his phone to pieces. A doctor forging him a medical note. Blood on your hands and face as you came out of the doctor’s office.
-
For the first time in a long time, Yoongi has energy. He feels more himself. Clearer. He gets up early in the morning and makes himself coffee. He sees you lurking near the fridge, throwing him wary glances. You’re a little more worn than usual: sallow cheeks, bags under your eyes. Your eyes are as starry.
When he asks you what’s wrong, you don’t answer. You duck into the bedroom and shut the door firmly behind you. He stares, a little confused and hurt before sighing. You’re touchy sometimes, and on the days like this where you’re more like a feral cat than a preening girlfriend, he knows to keep his distance.
Yoongi shrugs and tosses the sugar packet in the trash, frowning. There are empty bottoms of foam that are stained red - meat packages, he realizes. He doesn’t recall having steak at all this week, but perhaps you’re thawing it in the fridge for dinner.
He shrugs and goes to his office, leaving you to your devices.
A morning meeting kickstarts his day, and Yoongi forgets about it.
-
Yoongi has a problem.
You’re worse. You don’t want to come out of his room and you won’t go near the light. There are harsh lines around your eyes and he swears your teeth are sharper. More lethal. You won’t sleep in the same bed as he is.
Worst of all? Yoongi feels great. Feels like perhaps it was just a depressive episode he was in. He no longer feels like he is melted together at the edges, barely hanging on. But it does mean that he’s getting frustrated with you.
“Feral,” he mutters as he walks into his office after you snarled at him and then proceeded to cry because you wanted him to take the day off. “Sometimes I swear she is feral.”
-
Soft lips wake Yoongi up in the middle of the night. He stirs, feeling a tingle run down his spine. He can smell cedar, jasmine and amber and smiles. You’re pressed against him, mouth seeking his delicately, though there is some urgency behind your kisses.
Yoongi opens his mouth to you, an invitation. You suck his tongue into your mouth greedily and arousal shoots to his cock, your mouth doing wonders on his tongue. Fuck he knows you like to suck him off like that too, all greedy and sloppy and spit-slicked.
Your hands pull at his shirt and you kiss him with more fervor, lips becoming teeth, moans becoming hisses. When Yoongi rolls onto his back, pulling your hips on top of him, the dynamic changes.
A gasp escapes his kiss-bruised lips, eyes flying open as you mark his throat. Harsh stings of teeth followed quickly by lavish licks of your tongue. It’s messy and you leave a trail of spit dripping down his neck, making him squirm underneath you, cock tight against his pajama shorts.
“Fuck,” he moans when you suck that spot under his ear he loves. “Greedy devil.”
“Yes,” you shoot back, voice firm. Your hands seek his, pulling them from where they massage your ass to pin them above his head, your grip iron. “Please.”
There’s no way she’s human.
Taehyung’s words flash through Yoongi’s mind when he looks up at you. Your pupils are dilated, two black disks that absorb the barest hint of light in the room. He shivers, afraid of falling into your dark eyes and never finding his way back home.
Have your eyes always been that soulless? No, he thinks.
“Please,” you say again. “Please let me have you.”
He frowns. “You can always have me.”
You shake your head. “Not always. Too much. I take… I take too much. But now not enough. I just…” Your lip trembles and where you hold his wrist begins to ache. He whimpers and you hush him, your fingers loosening a little. “I just need some. Not a lot.”
It’s hard to understand what you’re asking for. Yoongi is lost in the sensation of fluttering in his stomach and the way blood rushes through his body. He feels high when you dip one of your hands below the waistband of his pajamas, taking a hold of his cock in your hand, thumb brushing precum from the tip.
You always take care of Yoongi. His eyes flutter shut as he feels a steady static build in his brain. Your touch is careful but deliberate, each stroke of your hand and squeeze of his shaft sending him spinning. His hips twitch under you.
When you shift down his body, he lifts his lower half off the bed, kicking at the sheets and letting you tug his bottoms down. He’s shaking and eager, unable to look down at you when you take him fully in your hand, tongue tasting the stickiness at his tip.
“Fuck,” he whispers. His hands are still above him, twisted in the pillowcase. He leaves them there, helpless as you tongue the head of his dick before sucking it into your mouth. Your tongue is gentle and your mouth is warm, the barest of sucks making him whine. “Don’t tease me.”
You hum and the vibrations make him speechless. His head rolls to the side, mouth parted, panting as he sees stars. You suck him eagerly, messily. He hears the wet pull of your mouth, the choked cough of your throat when you take him in deep and swallow.
Gentle nails scratch down his legs. He feels like he’s disconnected from the rest of the world, a single strand tethering him as he floats. He babbles as you take him in deep, a hand reaching down below his balls, a single, shy finger pressing against his tight rim.
Everything inside of Yoongi goes taught. He comes immediately and without warning. Spills in your mouth and the world fades away. There is nothing where he goes. No memories, no thoughts, no anxiety. It’s just Yoongi and he feels good – the kind of warm from a bubble bath laden with creams and salts.
Eventually, he comes back down. Opening his eyes, Yoongi sees you blink down at him. You smile, brushing light finger strokes over flushed cheeks. He grins up at you, elated. Hypnotized. You’re so… he doesn’t know the word.
There’s no way she’s human.
That phrase makes Yoongi’s smile falter. You are exquisite. Shrouded in darkness. Yoongi feels the press of unfamiliar air. When he looks beyond you, there’s just darkness. There is nothing. No light streams in from the window again. There is no soft hum of the nightlight in the bathroom where he usually leaves the door open now.
It’s just you.
Yoongi’s heart begins to speed up, panic rising.
You kiss him softly. It’s sweet and his anxiety melts away. Feels the weight of you on your hips, wet pussy dripping on his thigh. You’re being patient, which surprises him. Usually by now you’re needy, grinding your cunt on his thigh to seek friction.
“I want more,” you whisper against his mouth, fingers pressed into his cheeks. “Will you give me more?”
He nods. You lick his mouth, sighing contentedly as you roll your hips on his thigh. He moans, feeling the glide of your bare folds against his leg. You are always so ready for him, eager to take him. Easy to please. Excited to take what you want.
Shaking above him, you bury your face in his neck. Yoongi slides his hands from their position above his head, resting one hand on your thigh and sliding the other between your legs. Sticky arousal greets him, his fingers brushing up and down your cunt as you stop grinding, letting him take control.
“Kitty,” you beg, words muffle in his neck. He grins, eyes half-lidded as he plays with you. “Please, Kitty.”
Yoongi sinks two fingers in your greedy hole, feeling the way your walls flutter around him. It doesn’t matter how many times he buries his fingers, cock or tongue in you – every time is divine. Feels like something holy, taking him somewhere else.
“Fuck yourself on my fingers,” he murmurs, pressing a thumb to your clit. “Come on, baby. Wanna see you make a mess on my hands first.”
“Want your cock.”
“Fingers first, baby. Come on, you can do it.”
A growl rips through your frame. Yoongi stills under you for a moment, heart skipping. But then you move your hips and he hears your soft breath. Feels the drip down his hand. He grins, feeling you swallow his fingers as you work yourself on him, his thumb circling your clit lazily.
Nails dig into his thighs as you lean backward, spreading yourself for him. He can barely make out your figure in the darkness, but he can see the swell of your chest, the line of your neck as you toss your head back, his name falling from flushed lips and floating up to the ceiling.
When you come, it’s wet and loud. He hums, pulling drenched fingers from your legs. He surges forward, surprising you and moving you backward, letting your head bounce near the foot of the bed as he cages you in, stealing a kiss.
You wrap your arms and legs around him, clinging and whining and rubbing against his thigh again, begging sweetly. No one has ever wanted Yoongi the way you do. Ever. He cannot recall a single time someone has been as vigorous in their pursuit.
It makes him hard again, the rush in his veins igniting once more as he slides into you. He pushes in to the hilt, settling there for a moment. You clench around him, clawing at the back of his neck and thrashing under him. Begging for more. Always wanting more. Swearing you just need a little more.
Yoongi sets a slow pace, stroking deep with a purpose. You gasp every time he fucks all the way into you. He grins against your sweaty neck, tongue licking a stripe up your salty skin. You turn your face and catch his mouth with yours, swapping more spit than kissing, moaning into one another’s mouths.
An orgasm winds tightly in Yoongi’s stomach. He feels it at the base of his spine this time, a second sense tingling as he picks up speed, slamming into you until you’re crying under him, babbling again in something that sounds like a language but isn’t quite.
“Fuck, fuck fuck fuck –“ He grits his teeth and the moment he comes, you squeeze him like a vice, shouting and pulling him into an orgasm so hard that he feels himself fall on top of you, the energy leaving him as quickly as his orgasm had gathered.
At some point, he falls asleep.
-
Hell on earth is waking up battered and torn at the seams. You’re out in the living room, enjoying an early morning episode of Tokyo Ghoul again. He hears you giggle at the TV and he lifts his head in the shower. The rush of the hot water is loud, but the sound of you laughing is in his head.
It always feels like you’re in his head.
Yoongi stumbles when he gets out of the shower. His feet are heavy and there is pain behind his eyes. The throbbing kind that makes him turn the lights out and shoot a text to work telling them he needs a sick day. How many sick days has he had this year? He has no idea.
Yoongi stumbles to the mattress and collapses into the sheets. Everything feels heavy like he is made of glass bones with the weight of the world threatening to break him.
Sleep comes and goes. It doesn’t make him less tired. Yoongi places a hand on his forehead. He is not over-warm, but he wants to cry, the ache in every muscle so real that it takes him several tries to say your name.
You appear immediately, hovering at the edge of the bed in his hoodie, wrapped in a blanket.
“Are you feeling sick, Kitty?” He nods and you sniff. “I’m so sorry, Kitty… do you want some water?”
Yoongi nods again and you vanish. He rolls onto his back, groaning. He reaches for his phone. The screen is cracked from some incident or another, but it’s mildly legible as he searches his symptoms online.
When you come back with water, he thanks you with a sweet kiss and smiles when you lick his nose affectionately before darting out of the room again. He hears the show start again.
Carefully, Yoongi tries to sit up a bit. The water is cooled with two cubes – just the way he likes it – and it helps staunch the thirst. He drains the entire glass, but still, he aches with exhaustion that has no name.
Every combination he can think of brings Yoongi undesirable results. He has the fatigue of many different illnesses, but not any of the others. Mono seems the most likely, but still, it doesn’t feel right.
Yoongi considers and then types a new search: constant exhaustion after sex.
The results make him roll his eyes. He knows he’s going to get several ads for erectile dysfunction medication, but he scrolls anyways. Maybe he’s just fucking you that hard. But he does remember blacking out after sex and… well he never feels great the next day.
Slowly tapping through pages, Yoongi sighs. There’s nothing that provides much thought beyond Yoongi knowing he’s had too much sex. You’re a starving little thing, constantly wanting –
A word catches his attention: succubus.
Yoongi snorts when he opens the article. It’s a weird string of evangelical stories and musings, and overly sexualized depictions of female demons with generous breasts, shapely figures, and cute little bat wings.
The succubus needs sexual desire and energy to survive. He scoffs and wonders what heterosexual male wrote that dream.
Repeated sexual activity with a succubus will result in a bond being formed between the succubus and the host.
“Romantic,” Yoongi deadpans, scrolling up to close out the article. But a drawing catches Yoongi’s eye - a shadowy figure with rows and rows of teeth and red eyes. “Huh.”
Clicking on it, the page loads to a Reddit thread. Yoongi curses when he has to download the app, but his fingers move of their own volition, tapping across the screen as he creates a login and reopens the thread.
There are streams and streams of comments and links on the thread, a little overwhelming. As expected, it sounds like most heterosexual men overly-sexualizing women or asking about roleplaying – and yet, there’s a thread with a lot of upvotes that he clicks on.
Loss of time. Constantly exhausted. Nightmares of shadow creatures following me. Yoongi licks his lips, feeling his mouth go dry as he continues. Blackouts after sex. Not able to remember life before meeting entity. Dead animals –
“Kitty?” Yoongi flinches, dropping the phone on his stomach, hand covering his chest as his heart pounds in his ribcage. You blink in surprise, cocking your head where you stand in the doorway. A sense of dread draws a slow finger down Yoongi’s spine as he stares at you. “Do you want to come watch with me? We can put on Spirited Away.”
Loss of time. Constantly exhausted. Nightmares of shadow creatures-
“Kitty?” Yoongi has waited too long to reply. He nods his head and clears his throat. He wants to laugh at how ridiculous he’s being, shoving the phone away from him as he slowly peels himself out of bed. You grin and hold out a hand. “Thanks.”
-
Like a cat, you’re curled on the couch. Yoongi gives you a wide berth as he walks to his office. Night has passed into morning, and the flash of the screen lights the way as he opens the door, slipping through a tiny crack before he closes it softly and firmly behind him.
While watching movies, Yoongi could not help but think about the thread he had seen. He doesn’t turn the light on, too afraid of it showing under the door and tipping you off where he is.
Fear settles in the pit of his stomach. His hands are shaky as he wakes up the mouse, the computer light nearly blinding in the dark room. He jams the settings on the keyboard, turning it down a bit as he settles into the chair, taking a few breaths.
It feels ridiculous. You’re his girlfriend, not a sex-craving demon. But Yoongi finds the thread again anyways, clicking through and going back to that original subthread of people claiming to have survived an encounter with a succubus.
Time doesn’t seem to pass as Yoongi reads. He leans on his hand, eyes burning as he clicks through story after story.
Met at a bar – she was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I never remember going home with her, but my life was suddenly consumed by her. I lost my job and my friends. Felt good at first, but started getting headaches any time I would try to remember something. And she was always around, always lurking around every corner.
Yoongi clicks on to the next one, stomach flipping nervously.
- I ran into a friend and she swore we hadn’t spoken in months. I remember talking to her but it felt like… they were false memories. Like I didn’t really do those things. It was strange, but I forgot again after a while.
Taehyung’s face flashes in Yoongi’s mind. His palms get sweaty as he navigates the mouse, leaning closer toward the screen. A nervous beat starts to drum up in his heart as he pours over the words and the accounts of others.
The evidence is damning, but it can’t be possible, right?
Yoongi thinks of Old Ass Han telling the story of his son being swept up by a she-demon. Yoongi doesn’t think the story is very funny anymore, and the thought of Jimin dressing up as one makes him nauseous.
Carefully, he navigates to another thread.
I was lucky. She didn’t want to kill me, but she was constantly hungry for more energy that I didn’t have. She would get cagey and feral, hissing at me and hiding in the dark, like she was weaker in the sun when she wasn’t fed. I would find packs and packs of meat rotting in the garbage like she was trying to get her fix elsewhere.
I hope that you take this thread seriously. They are real. And while they look and talk like people, they aren’t. They might grow attached to you, but they don’t love you. You are a meal – and if your succubus is only feeding off of sex, it’s only a matter of time before they need more.
Think Jennifer’s Body, people.
Yoongi has never seen that movie before. He clicks away from the thread and pulls up the trailer. It seems a little ridiculous, but he gets the idea. Sex, eat the guy, move on to the next. But you certainly have never tried to eat him.
So Yoongi clicks back to the thread and searches for something new. How to get rid of a succubus.
He leans back while the page loads, switching to a white screen. This bright, the monitor reflects what’s in front of it, Yoongi’s round and tired face, pale from lack of sleep, and a looming shadow behind him. His stomach plummets and he goes rigid in the chair, frozen with fear.
Yoongi smells cedar. Jasmine. Amber.
"Kitty is looking at bad things,” you sniffle. Your shadow grows in the computer monitor and Yoongi swears he sees the white flash of teeth before his world turns red. "I loved you, Kitty."
#yoongi smut#suga smut#min yoongi smut#suga bts#min yoongi fanfic#yoongi x reader#yoongi x demon reader#bts fanfic#bts smut#min yoongi#happy haliween#haliiimede writes#minors dni#minors do not interact#tw manipulation#tw supernatural#tw dead animal
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i wanted to write some fandom-related new year's reflections down and this felt like the best place for it! i miss livejournal every day!
i don't generally do formal new years' resolutions, mostly because i am always too busy around the new year to really sit down and think and reflect about what they should be and how i would want to measure them, but i do think the new year is a good time for a little mental reset regardless and i have been Pondering over the past few weeks about what i would like that to mean for me...... i have always complained that tumblr as a platform is terrible for making friends and i stand by that (i have met good friends on tumblr but the friendships flourished when we took the conversation elsewhere) but i do think this past year i have been #blessed in obtaining some really lovely mutuals and acquaintances On Here in a way that has made me feel more connected to hrpf fandom at large, which has been really nice ❤ so that is something i would like to continue in 2024. i hesitate to be like "i want to spend more time on tumblr" because i probably do not need to do that lmao but i do maybe want to try to be a little more proactive about making/maintaining connections and loose ties. my dear pal kasper @moregraceful has talked about fandom as community and that always resonates with me, because it can be so easy to feel like you are feeding Content into the Content Machine for people to Consume and honestly that is so miserable! i don't want that! maybe 2024 will be the year i finally post my thoughts on the interminable "bookmarks comments are for readers, not writers" discourse.
anyway. i know a lot of the actual fandom ~conversation these days happens on discord, which is am afraid of, but idk maybe i'll try to have more of an open mind about it this year. but maybe i won't. making no promises to myself there 😂 i am trying to be realistic about how much free time i will have for fandom in the midst of work and grad school and real life social life so i think the upshot here is wanting to be thoughtful and deliberate about how i spend the free time i do have for this stuff.
on the fanfiction front...... i came into 2023 in a pretty shitty mental place about writing, mostly due to how lonely i felt about writing-as-community in 2022 — it's just not fun to feel like your friends are having fun without you about things you thought you'd be included in! — and spent most of the year trying to pull myself out of it, with middling success. like, i enjoyed the head above water ficlets i added to that universe but i do still feel a little crappy that those were the only things i was able to finish writing. i have so many stories i want to get out! so i am also trying to look at this new year as maybe a chance to give myself a clean slate and say that no matter what writing goals i set for myself i will also try to be gentler with myself and focus on enjoying the writing process regardless of the end product. but i would also like to actually finish some real fics this year, lol. i might set some measurable goals, but that will not be happening until i get home next week.
in conclusion, idk what i want this year to be yet! a friend of mine recently mentioned the joys of using the julian calendar for her winter celebrations means the new year isn't until january 14, so the first two weeks of the year get to be kind of a "soft launch" of the year to figure out what works best and i did immediately steal the concept even though i am a gregorian calendar girlie. so i am still pondering, still percolating. if for some reason any of you actually read all this and have your own fandom- or writing-related new year's goals/resolutions, i would love to hear them ❤
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On The Survivor's Network Admin's "Apology"
As many know, the Admin of the Survivors' Network made an awful post about me back in November. In the recent document from the Survivors' Network, it included the admin's "apology" to the server, and I wanted to address that.
The Original Post
Pictures of the original post are at the bottom under the Keep Reading. TW in advance for fakeclaiming, transphobia, misgendering, bullying, etc.
The "Apology"
When the post resurfaced this year, the admin had this to say in the Survivor’s Network:
i am going to be fully transparent. i am the one who made that post, on November 28th of 2022.
it was a shitty post. but ugh. i don’t know. i was in an abusive situation i was still in denial about and taking my anger out where i felt it was righteous. i had been trying to stay away from syscourse for similar reasons, but i’ve got a part i failed to keep track of there. and that is shitty. i was just so pissed that, just like she is now, she was only afloat after some terrible shit coming up because of claiming oppression she neither understands or actually experiences. i was so fucking upset, as a trans person, that she had repeatedly waxed about being and identifying as cis and then as soon as it benefit her claimed that she was oppressed in the same way trans people are. it fucking hurt to see that and to see so many people just accepting it— because that was why she said it. not because she actually believed it, but because it put her back in good standing to have a few more made-up oppression points. and then i did the Really Shitty thing and i decided to break through the Sophie Wall and talk directly to the host. and i got really fakeclaimy, and i regret the fuck out of that. if i could go back and have not made that post, i would. it’s private now, and, for full transparency, if any of you want to see the full post i can send it but in honestly ashamed by it now. i don’t care whether or not sophie is experiencing what she says she is, i don’t want other people to see that and be hurt by it. i just. ugh. i was being an idiot. in the place i am now, i’d never make a post like that. i feel really bad about it. it was immature and a very obvious display of lack of inhibition on my part. it does highlight where i think i’m still in need of s lot of growth, though, and reminds me i do need to continue to work with [alters name that I am not going to include in this incredibly public post, for system privacy] in therapy.
i do also want to apologize to you all for doing this. i wasn’t leading by example. i wasn’t being mature. i was spitting vitriol, something that especially now, more than ever, with my current religious/spiritual growth and my personal growth in therapy, never feel is okay.
i used to be a very hateful person towards people that i felt were wronging me and/or my community, and this is no exception to that. i regret it deeply, and can only rectify that by promising that i have been growing and will continue to grow as time goes on.
i’m really sorry. and i’m sorry that i didn’t deal with that post sooner— i would have if i had remembered it was there. i actually need to go through all my oldest posts, some of them are pretty bad.
Who the apology was for...
To be clear, this was not an apology to me.
It did not express any regret whatsoever at how it might have affected me. They express that they're concerned about other people being hurt by it and that they're sorry to the Survivors' Network for not leading by example. But they don't seem overly bothered by its impact on the person it was about.
Which is fine. I don't care. I'm not asking for an apology, and certainly wouldn't want them to fake one for my benefit. But since that one ask suggested I was given apologies, I suspect they might have mistook this post made in the Discord server... which wasn't intended for me, didn't express guilt over how it affected me, and wasn't in a place I could even find it unless I had a spy in the server... as an apology to me. I just wanted to establish for the record that this apology was worded in a way that it was directed at basically everyone but me.
Reasons are given in the document why they chose not to reach out and thought it would be a bad idea. And while those may have truth to them, this post reads as if they don't feel guilt for how this might have impacted me.
Maybe I'm wrong, but if that is the case, then I'm genuinely thankful they didn't try to give me some fake apology they didn't mean. I don't need and don't want it.
That's not what I wanted to talk about though.
Yes, Cis-Identifying Headmates With Different Genders Than The Body's AGAB Are Still Oppressed In The Same Way Trans People Are!
Let's zero in on this...
i was so fucking upset, as a trans person, that she had repeatedly waxed about being and identifying as cis and then as soon as it benefit her claimed that she was oppressed in the same way trans people are.
Do you think that the reason trans people are oppressed is because cis people just really hate the word trans?
That if trans people just called themselves by a different label, they'd totally be accepted in society?
No. Of course not!
And likewise, just because cis-identifying headmates with different genders from the body's AGAB don't identify as trans, that doesn't mean that they aren't oppressed in the same way trans people are.
That doesn't mean they won't be directly impacted by the way society treats any GNC people, and even much of the transphobic legislation being passed right now!
Transphobia isn't actually hatred of just the people who call themselves trans. It's hatred of people with different genders from their AGAB and GNC people, regardless of if they call themselves transgender or not.
On Why I Identify as Cis...
First, the most obvious reason I identify as cis is because I am. As far as I'm concerned, my inner form is my true form. And it's always been assigned female. What our shared body's assigned gender is doesn't matter to me.
But I will make a confession: the reason I talk about being cis so much, the reason I flaunt it, is to make a statement.
There was a very infuriating bit of sysmed gatekeeping last year that argued that headmates can't identify as transgender if their gender is the same as their AGAB.
I found this incredibly hypocritical given that almost all systems have non-transgender headmates with differing genders from the body's AGAB, but they're not forced to label themselves as transgender.
At the same time, they also don't publicly call themselves cis despite feeling cis on the inside.
So my goal of bringing up being cis frequently is to challenge accepted norms for systems. To normalize publicly identifying as cis headmates, and by extension, to normalize headmates with the same gender as the body's AGAB identifying as trans.
If people have a problem with trans-identifying headmates with a different gender from their body's AGAB, then they should also have a problem with cis headmates with a different one. And that means the vast majority of the plural community.
I call myself cis, all the time, to get people to think seriously about how we conceptualize gender when it comes to systems.
But identifying as cis doesn't mean I don't experience gender dysphoria while fronting, nor does it magically stop me or any other cis-identifying headmates from being victims of the same oppression we would face if we identified as transgender instead.
On Having Room To Grow
It was nice to apologize to the other people who saw it.
But this apology still doubles down on some of the most harmful points. It denies the oppression systems with cis-identifying headmates face, and practically presents our gender identities as less valid than those of trans-identifying people.
And in this way, they fail to understand a huge part of WHY their original post was bad.
Yes, the fakeclaiming was awful, and could easily send people into derealization spirals. The language itself was cruel and verbally abusive.
But let's not ignore the huge problem with the premise itself. The whole ideology it's built on that the only way GNC people can be oppressed is by explicitly identifying as trans. That discrimination against systems for our genders isn't as bad as discrimination against transgender people.
And this is something that I sincerely hope the user and anyone in the system community who agrees with them, can grow out of.
The Original Post:
Oh, and no one in our system has ever used 4Chan. 🤷♀️
#syscourse#transgender#gnc#lgbt#lgbtq#transphobia#queerphobia#pro endo#pro endogenic#discrimination#survivors network#social justice#multiplicity#sysblr#system discourse#gender#queerness#gender stuff#plural#oppression
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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: The Bad Buddy Rewatch Edition, Part 1 -- Where BBS Came From, What It References, and More
[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I kick off the first of four (or more, whoa!) posts on Bad Buddy. I'll look today at Thai BLs that preceded Bad Buddy that BBS spoke to, the tropes and themes that BBS reshapes and adds to the genre's existence, and I'll also take a look at singular commonalities among Aof Noppharnach's shows.]
Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4
Since April of this year, I have been watching drama after drama, BL after BL, to get myself familiar enough with the Thai BL genre in order to understand... at least, much more about Bad Buddy than I previously understood when I first watched BBS in January. Today, I'm going to test my mettle, my newfound exposures to the genre, in taking a look at what made BBS so special by way of what came before it.
(Let me quickly note that in no way, shape, or form do I consider myself an expert in the Thai BL genre. That honor is for the people who've been through the trenches for years, people like my dear friends @bengiyo, @so-much-yet-to-learn, and more.)
As usual with my OGMMTVC analyses, here's a little outline for the lovers:
1 ) Some quick additional thoughts on how BBS reshapes Thai BL tropes, building off of meta from the time of BBS's original airing,
2) How I think earlier shows spoke to BBS by way of influence, as well as shared writing and/or directing teams in some instances, and
3) Similarities in the emotional structures of some of the most important protagonists of major GMMTV BLs, including Third, Sarawat, Phupha, and Pran.
Just as a quick reminder from my preamble post a couple of days ago, one of the inspirations for my creating the Old GMMTV Challenge was from a discussion I had with @miscellar regarding the Thai BL tropes that Bad Buddy referenced and reshaped. This post is what I have permanently linked as a means of partly explaining the context of why I created the OGMMTVC, but I also want to direct your attention to this other post by @miscellar regarding from whence BL tropes often stem from -- namely, conventions of reference from the het romance genre.
I want to posit two points to get this started. I think that, fundamentally, the general fandom loves what BBS did by way of both including and reshaping Thai BL tropes. Tropes do indeed give structure to many Thai BLs very often, as @miscellar notes in their second linked post. Even director Aof Noppharnach and the cast of Bad Buddy note this point as a central structural foundation to their show.
I would also posit that us as a fandom (or, at least, just speaking for myself)... happen to love many (but not all) of the tropes themselves, or at least to some extent, particularly by way of nostalgic reference. When I was really getting underway with the OGMMTVC watchlist earlier this spring, I could see in watching, say, Love Sick or SOTUS, the birth of the tropes. Phun and Noh hosing each other down, Kongpob and Arthit not only being engineers in SOTUS, but seeking out careers in the field in SOTUS S. The hubby/wifey language, the strong seme/uke energy in Make It Right, in Together With Me, and so on.
I felt that the Thai BL trope framework, in the course of my watchlist progress, first truly coalesced as a means of a coded and referential artistic infrastructure in Love By Chance. Love By Chance, based on a novel by MAME and written and directed by the longtime BL creator, New Siwaj, had it all. Engineering students in a university setting, rich boy/poor boy, seme/uke/top/bottom dynamics, queer revelations, beach trips, the guitars and the singing, all of it. Back in June, I called LBC the first derivative structured BL -- clearly a BL that came from those that preceded it.
To @miscellar's points in their second linked post: LBC also had, I feel, quite a lot of problematic elements. Before I watched TharnType, I was already calling out a discomfort I felt about homophobia within MAME's material in LBC. I also noted very strong macro cishet romance elements in the way Ae approached his engagements with Pete, romantic and intimate.
We know now that Bad Buddy just grabbed these tropes, and even some of these problematic elements, like the demand for a clearly binary seme/uke dynamic -- and turned them on their heads. Pat and Pran were equals and partners, full-stop. No seme/uke, no top/bottom, no gay for you, no wifey this and hubby that. Bad Buddy took SOTUS and LBC by their shoulders and said -- not today, not on my watch (and BBS AND A Tale of Thousand Stars did it AGAIN in Our Skyy 2!). Especially in closing out Bad Buddy through Our Skyy 2, I love how very specific Pat and Pran were about their verse relationship, with both guys, throughout the series and in OS2, asking each other for each other's ratings of their nightly performances. Yes, it was hilarious and cute and flirty, but those conversations were also very pointed -- and they very much harkened way, way back to themes that Aof and his colleague, Jojo Tichakorn, had explored as screenwriter and director of Gay OK Bangkok (here and here), and in Jojo's The Warp Effect, all of these shows preceding their work in BLs.
I think the turning-on-the-heads of these tropes, within an otherwise classic Thai BL, created an utterly unique fabric by which a new kind of nostalgia for the particular show that is Bad Buddy could be created -- something that almost cannot be RECREATED by the way of the construction of the universe of equality, love, mutual respect, and miraculous communication that Pat and Pran had established between each other. The equitable dynamic in Bad Buddy between Pat and Pran, of the honesty and incredibly open empathic communication that these two had between each other, seems to me to be truly unique -- ESPECIALLY in the face of the massively biased and dysfunctional communicative styles of their parents.
Moreover, now that I'm at this point of the OGMMTVC list -- AND including what I know about his shows post-Bad Buddy, in Moonlight Chicken, Our Skyy 2, and Last Twilight, which is airing now -- we now know that Aof has created HIS OWN SET OF TROPES THROUGH HIS SHOWS. He is the queer filmmaker in Thai BLs par excellence to create a conversation among his shows, and shows made by his colleagues, that speak to each other by way of symbolism, and, I believe, a harkening back both to previous expectations of older queer media AND to older Asian media, particularly by way of either open-ended and/or melancholic endings, as well as general explorations of melancholy and bittersweetness in his shows on behalf of queer characters.
(Before I give some specific examples of Aof's own trope structures by way of inspiration and influence, I do want to note that the aforementioned New Siwaj does this, too, particularly by way of his making references to The Love of Siam in his shows. Love of Siam is known for having a relatively tragic ending between two young queer men. The movie itself is shown and referenced in New's Absolute Zero and My Only 12% -- and the actors who play Tong's parents, who interfere in Tong's relationship with Mew, are reunited as parents in New's Until We Meet Again, where they support Dean's relationship with Pharm. However, I tend to focus on Aof in admiration as his art is generally more consistently excellent.)
So! What are the new tropes that Aof references in his shows -- the new trope frameworks that he's created for himself, to reflect his own interpretation of the Thai BL genre? We have upside-down smiley faces in Bad Buddy -- but we saw them first in Still 2gether! We have picture boards all over the place in Aof's cinematic universes -- in ATOTS, in BBS (TWICE!) (in two different apartments!), in Moonlight Chicken between Alan and Wen. We have scenes of temples, of culturally-rooted spirituality, from He's Coming To Me, to Moonlight Chicken, and now in Last Twilight. From Phupha's internalized homophobia in A Tale of Thousand Stars, to Jim's internalized homophobia in Moonlight Chicken, Aof doesn't shy away from examining the impacts of the pasts of traditional childhoods in rural settings. Call me a cheesy mom, but I happen to love Aof's tendency to punctuate light moments with cute sound effects.
But beyond tropes and trope frameworks, I think the ways in which Bad Buddy speaks to prior shows -- and vice versa, the way that prior shows ended up contributing to Bad Buddy -- were far more impactful by way of larger, macro-level themes.
While we see on BBS the impact of shows like SOTUS (in SO MANY PLACES in BBS besides Pa's gay-for-you reference and the husband/wife reference, including here and here), I Told Sunset About You, and I Promised You The Moon (I'll have more on IPYTM in a post next week about pain, trust, and separation), we also see what themes the future Bad Buddy team was trying out in their own previous shows. Besides Aof's Still 2gether and A Tale of Thousand Stars, the writing team of Au Kornprom, Bee Pongsate, and Pratchaya Thavornthummarut worked on Theory of Love together. Besides becoming a HUGE fave of mine through the OGMMTVC project, I think Theory of Love held possibly some of the most important proto-BBS themes that I saw along the cinematic way to get to Bad Buddy.
Theory of Love, generally speaking, is about how one person can try to change for another person -- and how that other person, and/or the world, accepts that change.
To fast-forward to the end of BBS: we know that the boys take inspiration from Uncle Tong that they will not let the world of their own intergenerational traumas from their families keep them from loving each other, and being in a devoted relationship with each other. Their empathy for their parents dictates that they'll spare their families the pain of being open about their relationship, and they'll keep the somewhat transparent secret that they're together from being discussed in the open.
Pat and Pran negotiate the impacts of how their relationship may change the people around them -- and they make an empathic decision to spare the families the pain of the upfront realization of that truth. Remember what they say in episode 12:
While Bad Buddy focuses on how the team of Pran and Pat negotiate how their relationship will change others -- I see in Theory of Love the testing of this theme within the potential romantic relationship of Khai and Third. I see Au, Bee, and Pratchaya playing with an idea of change and saying, hey, this is how it can work, and this is how it may not work, realistically. I think Khai and Third end up being a successful couple because -- unlike Pran and Pat -- they don't have to negotiate a generational divide to allow change to infiltrate their lives. (In fact, Third's own process of change, and his acceptance of Khai's change, reflects Pran's journey to welcome Pat into his heart, and Wai's journey to accept Pat's and Pran's relationship.) I love how we see this getting played with, literally by the Bad Buddy squad themselves, in Theory of Love.
It was @lurkingshan who first noted the similarities between Third and Pran for me, and I want to expand on that conversation for a moment to talk about another importance fencepost in Aof's thematic universes -- what our dear friend @bengiyo calls The Knowing of queer male characters in BL dramas.
Third is not Aof's character -- Third belongs to X Nuttapong as the director of Theory of Love -- but Pran, Sarawat from 2gether/Still 2gether, and Phupha of A Tale of Thousand Stars all belong to Aof, and Third was written by Aof's usual squad of writer homies. Third, Sarawat, Phupha, and Pran are all characters written with The Knowing of their being queer in their bones and existences, dealing with a certain amount of suffering and realistic realizations related directly to that Knowing -- in large part, carrying with them painful assumptions of unrequited love, and/or the inability to live openly in love with those that they pine for, until a happy or somewhat-happy ending meets them at the end of their dramatic journeys.
I've unwound quite a bit in my past writing (namely regarding The Love of Siam and the endings of Gay OK Bangkok) of how it moves me incredibly deeply that Aof doesn't shy away from pain, reflections of pain, and either painful and/or open-ended endings in his works. With Third, Sarawat, Phupha, and Pran, us viewers were treated to detailed and empathic journeys of realization and change as these characters negotiated their own paths to intimate honesty with their eventual partners. But those paths were DAMN hard. Many of us still can't shake Pran walking away in crushed tears at the end of episode 5. I'm forever moved by Sarawat's meditation to Earn about the meaning of his relationship and of his love for Tine in Still 2gether as he and Tine are temporarily separated before their school competition.
As an out, queer man, Aof treats his Knowing characters with the greatest empathy. Not all of them, interestingly, are great communicators. In my humble opinion, Third treads chump territory many times throughout Theory of Love. Phupha's, like, one of the worst communicators ever, and this was absolutely solidified until the very end of Our Skyy 2 x ATOTS. We had to have Pran compete with Pat throughout all of episode 6 of Bad Buddy for them to finally confirm their relationship as boyfriends -- and a huge part of that was about Pat revealing to Pran that Pat's competitions with Pran are really more about getting closer and more intimate. The incredible @telomeke (via their side blog, @telomeke-bbs) has written about Pran's outside façade vs. his inner sanctuary, and how so very often in his external life, Pran feels compelled to be visually far more organized than he feels internally. The stress and pressure of that will naturally cause some amount of dissociation, emotional confusion, and distance of the kind we saw at the end of episode 5.
I'm going to unwind more about this in an upcoming Big Meta on pain, trust, and separation in many of Aof's shows, but I want to highlight these melancholic themes and infrastructures here now, because I really think they lend emotional depth and connections to shows either led by Aof and/or his close colleagues. These are tough themes to think about. The endings can absolutely be interpreted as happy endings in most cases -- even though an Asian viewer like myself, very much raised on Asian content, can read between the lines of these endings to understand their melancholic underpinnings.
Bad Buddy is perhaps the most popular of Aof's dramas, I'd posit, because while the ending of the series is a little sad to contemplate -- it ends, as it began, with utter equality between Pat and Pran as protagonists who deeply care about each other, to the point of establishing what I might term as a radical re-envisioning of the broken and traumatic paradigm that their parents forced upon each of them as children. By engaging, essentially, in radical empathy to each other, they triumphed over the global framework of what was set before them by their own private familial society.
I think this emphasizes the tremendous largesse of the personal changes that Aof's characters undergo in their emotional processes -- whether these characters are Knowing characters, or if, like Pat, they've experienced queer revelations within their shows. To hand to these characters these TREMENDOUS emotional journeys, and to situate these journeys in shows that treat these characters with the utmost respect, lends to Aof's shows -- especially Bad Buddy -- a safety net for us as viewers to trust fully in the journeys we're watching.
Aof takes tropes and problematic themes and reorganizes them, like a Rubix cube. He takes themes that Asians and queer family know of far too well, like intergenerational trauma or social outcasting, and shows how his characters can still find happiness, while realistically keeping these traumas within a character's horizon. And, he's created his own trustworthy frameworks of art that we can depend on as fans. I love and appreciate the patterns in this, and I continue to remain in awe at the power that Bad Buddy had in encapsulating so much of what was percolating in Aof's mind and fingertips as he constructed this show with the influence of others -- making this show a truly legendary one.
(Tagging @dribs-and-drabbles and @solitaryandwandering by request! If you'd like to be tagged, please let me know!)
[First BBS OGMMTVC meta down, and more to come! Stay tuned next week for a Big Meta on Pain, Trust, and Separation in Some Asian Dramas. The piece will hew close to Bad Buddy, but I've got some other GMMTV and non-GMMTV dramas (and even a Japanese dorama BL) in there to analyze as well.
Here's the complete OGMMTVC watchlist as it stands today. Tumblr's web editor is utterly jacking with this list; for a more accurate look at what I've watched, please mosey over to this link!
1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here)
2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here)
3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here)
4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here)
5) Make It Right (2016) (review here)
6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here)
7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here)
8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here)
9) Together With Me (2017) (review here)
10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here)
11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here)
12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review)
13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here)
14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here)
15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here)
16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review)
17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here)
18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here)
19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here)
20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here)
21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here)
22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here)
23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here)
24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) (review here)
25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here)
26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here)
27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here)
28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here)
29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here)
30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here)
31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here)
32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here)
33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (The BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series is ongoing: preamble here, more reviews to come)
34) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] (watching)
35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)
36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist
37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here)
38) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch For the Sake of Re-Analyzing an Politics-Focused Show After Not Me
39) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL)
40) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023)
41) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here)
42) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)
43) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon)
44) Wedding Plan (2023)
45) Only Friends (2023) (tag here)]
#bad buddy#bad buddy meta#bad buddy the series#bad buddy the series meta#backaof noppharnach#theory of love#still 2gether#a tale of thousand stars#our skyy 2 x bad buddy#our skyy 2 x bad buddy x a tale of thousand stars#nanon korapat#ohm pawat#patpran#pat x pran#pran x pat#turtles catches up with old gmmtv#turtles catches up with thai BLs#turtles catches up with the essential BLs#the old gmmtv challenge#ogmmtvc#the bbs ogmmtvc meta series
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Seb, a few days before his final race, did a fascinating interview discussing many, many things, including:
his decision to retire being for him
the World Cup in Qatar (and when, or if, sports should go there)
sportswashing and flowery words, and
the need for F1 to put its money where its flowery words are in terms of improving human rights
that human rights, and projects to improve human rights, require funding $$$ and actions, not words and photo-ops
that F1 must be be a) transparent, and b) accountable about the money it gets and where that money goes
It's a really good discussion, and he's really thoughtful - I think that even if one were to disagree with his conclusions, you'd leave recognising his logic and sincerity (and moral conviction).
The interview, with Philipp Schneider of Süddeutsche Zeitung, was difficult to get access to (here's a link to it on archive.ph) so I'm posting the google-translated text behind the Read More. (As always when something is google-translated, we're probably missing some nuance, etc)
I really recommend reading it!
Tw for discussion of homophobia, etc.
-----------------
Conversation with Sebastian Vettel
"I want to experience happiness without having to drive for it"
Nov 18, 2022 at 6:51 p.m
Before his last race, Sebastian Vettel talks about the reasons for the end of his career, the driver's dependence on the car and material - and makes demands on Fifa and Formula 1.
SZ: Mr. Vettel, a face-to-face meeting was originally planned. Now we can at least connect by phone. That saves CO2 emissions and should be in your interest, right?
Sebastian Vettel: Absolutely. That's how it works wonderfully.
Your Formula 1 career ends on Sunday with a final race in Abu Dhabi . And a lot of people get excited because they want to know what you're going to do in the future. Does that surprise you?
Luckily, my decision doesn't affect the people, it affects me. And it's not like I got up in the morning and thought: like that! Now is the time to stop. I've been thinking about this for a long time. And even if I can't say exactly what comes after that - I'm looking forward to what comes after that!
Good to hear.
At some point, every athlete reaches the point where their career can no longer continue, for whatever reason, whether self-chosen or not. I'm not super special in that regard. The big task for me will be to find something that gives me the same level of satisfaction as I did in the years in Formula 1. One thing is certain: the big adrenaline rush and the feeling of sitting in the car will no longer exist. But that was clear to me.
We have a theory as to where the keen interest in your post-career life comes from.
How does it look?
We don't know of any professional athlete who has ever pushed his career with so much momentum during his active time. Lately one had the feeling that you are more often in the beehive than in the car and more of a political ambassador than a racing driver!
yes, good Maybe that's because there's not much to celebrate for me on the track at the moment. The sporting success in recent years has not been so outstanding that one could have said or written much about it.
You are not only leaving Formula 1 as a four-time world champion, but also as an important eyewitness. What do you think has changed the most in the past 15 years?
I think the sport, the genetics or what defines the sport is probably unchanged since Formula 1 came along. Yes, cars are changing, and so are people. But the core of Formula 1 has remained the same. I still love this sport, since I was little I've done nothing else, dreamed of nothing else, nothing else has ever really driven me. So what's different? The dimensions of the sport have grown enormously in recent years. So internationally, in Germany Formula 1 has shrunk.
Is that how you perceive it?
Formula 1 was far bigger in Germany when I started. And of course it was greatest when the boom years around Michael (Schumacher, editor's note) were around, in the mid-nineties, early 2000. Then there was another strong wave at my most successful time. But after that, interest in Germany decreased significantly.
Why is that?
On the one hand, because not all races are broadcast on free TV. But there is another important point: I am afraid that Germany is only a pioneer in terms of its view of Formula 1. There are simply more and more important issues that are coming to the fore. And that's why the question of the relevance of Formula 1 arises for many people.
But are you still a fan?
Naturally! I'm totally euphoric about our sport! That's exactly why I see how important it is to look at him critically. The way we deal with resources is not a role model, we should be much more economical. If that is not the case soon, the question will quickly arise around the world as to whether Formula 1 is still viable. And then interest should decrease everywhere, as has already happened in Germany.
Exciting theory. The general perception is rather: Formula 1 is going through the roof everywhere, just not in Germany and Brazil, because people there don't want to spend money on pay TV.
The problem is deeper. We as a society do not want to underestimate the emergency we are in. In the decades to come, we will increasingly have to ask ourselves the question: What is still possible, what can we still afford? And every sport then has to justify itself for the way in which it is played.
So not just Formula 1?
Not at all. Us first, of course, because in our sport we drive around, burn resources and still need fossil fuels. But a football World Cup, the Olympic Games, the Bundesliga too: every major event has to reinvent itself and see how it can leave a smaller footprint.
From ecological to sporting criticism: The season began with a technology amendment that was announced with great pomp and aimed at pushing the field closer together. Why has the season turned out to be the most one-sided in years?
After big rule changes there is often a gap between a top team and the rest. The goal was to make overtaking and the show better and to make it easier for us to overtake. It's gotten a little better, but the big revolution that was announced with the new rules didn't materialize. It would have been better for the sport this season to have left the rules as they were. However, a process has been started that has the potential to bring the field closer together in the coming years. Also thanks to the budget cap, not only the teams with a lot or a lot of money will win in the long term, but also the smaller teams. However, this will only happen in a horizon of five years.
It was far more exciting in 2010: you only snagged your first title in the last race. Has Abu Dhabi been a happy place for you since then?
(laughs) Well, the racetrack and what happened on the racetrack, yes! I have many fond memories of winning the 2010 World Cup. It doesn't feel like yesterday. And a lot has happened since then.
Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz then said that the way to the world championship title in the next few years would only be through you. And adds: Provided he's in the right car. The sentence was prophetic: it included all the titles that followed, but also your sometimes dreary years in worse cars. A driver drives the competition to the ground in the Red Bull and fails to win a title after switching to Ferrari and Aston Martin . Do you understand critics who say: what kind of sport is that?
The dependency of a driver on the team and material is actually enormous. But even in the Bundesliga you don't really have a chance of winning the championship if you're not FC Bayern.
The difference, however, is that while a player can shine on a bad football team, it's much harder on a Haas or Aston Martin.
Formula 1 has always been like this. In the fifties, in the seventies, and it's still like that today. From this point of view, however, the past few years have been very instructive for me. In the beginning, my aspirations in Formula 1 were very much focused on success. And then success came, very quickly and very powerfully. I rode the wave for as long as the wave was available.
A wave called Red Bull , on which you won four world titles...
Well, and then in the last few years the water has been under my board (laughs) ... or the wind has been taken out of my sails. But that doesn't mean my efforts are any smaller. I learned that there is a midfield and a backfield that I didn't bother with that much before because it was too far away. In any case, something interesting also happens there: the efforts are just as great, but the reward is completely absent.
Completely?
I would say yes. And that is of course a very, very hard bread for the motivation of the teams and also the drivers. They bob around in the back for years, go unnoticed and hope that they will take the small chance to shine when they present themselves. They are not only dependent on their motivation, their skills and talent - but also on the surrounding environment. It takes a bit of luck to be in the right place at the right time. The past few years have shaped me in this respect and taught me a lot, including about myself. In that respect, I don't want to do without them, even if I could have given them all away from a sporting point of view.
When we spoke in 2018, you said: your dream isn't finished yet, you still wanted to be world champion in a red car like your role model Michael Schumacher. Do you now console yourself with the belief that you had no chance of winning the Ferrari title?
We did not make it. So I could say: We didn't stand a chance. Or I could torture myself and ask: what was missing from the car? What slowed us down in development? What was perhaps structurally not ideal? You could have recognized some things and saved yourself some mistakes. But it wasn't like that. We tried everything as a team and gave everything. Even in hindsight, it doesn't feel like I left anything behind or that I was completely off track. Yes, I think unfortunately we didn't have a real chance to fight to the end.
Because Mercedes was too powerful?
You have to be fair enough to accept that the Mercedes- Lewis Hamilton package was the best. They had a better pace of development and therefore drove better than us. Which of course is a shame. I think I can live with that now as well as with the question of whether this is the right time for me to say goodbye. Or whether it might have needed another sense of achievement.
The question then arises as to what a sense of achievement in the Aston Martin could even look like.
What is the right time? Do you need a title to finish? A won race? A fastest lap? Any climax? Those are all questions I asked myself. It's not my fault if people expect something just because it would have been a nicer story. Or when they nag because they think my career is not smooth because I drive around the back and quit anyway. I'm the only one who has to live or deal with my situation. And after all these years I know exactly what I can do. I know what it takes to win races. And I know I don't have any of that right now. I'm still so confident in myself that I say: If I'm in the right package and have the right attitude, then I can get back up there at the front. Still.
When Nico Rosberg retired after his only title, not everyone was pleased either: critics said he fled because he felt he would never defeat Lewis Hamilton again.
Even. The length of time after your career is so infinitely long. Definitely wanting to win another title is not a recipe for success for the 40 or 50 years that follow. And I was lucky enough to be able to celebrate so many titles that I don't even know which one was the best. Just because you stopped with a title doesn't mean your career after your career will be 100 percent great.
After all, Nico Rosberg made it into the TV show The Lion's Den. But because you so often talk about your career after your career and recently said in Der Spiegel that you wanted to do it like Stefan Raab: just finish and then go underground. Anyone who has followed your activities beyond the race track will understand: you want to do things differently than Stefan Raab. They create a new stage for themselves so as not to disappear afterwards.
(laughs) Time will tell. I just said that I admire it when someone manages to transform their life in such a way that they say: I don't need any of this anymore! Maybe you can now simply bring your experience, your strengths and also your knowledge, which you have brought to bear in front of the camera over the years, behind the camera. So maybe you still work in the same profession, but you don't need the limelight as much anymore.
Fortunately, more people work behind the camera than in front of the camera in Formula 1 anyway.
Honestly, I wish I could find something I'm happy with. I want to experience good luck without having to drive (laughs) .
But to your legacy as a critic of Formula 1: Formula 1 is expanding into more and more countries where human rights are not respected. Football fans are protesting in the stadiums against the World Cup, which begins in Qatar on Sunday . Are motorsport fans less political?
Good question. In controversial countries like Qatar, football was kicked off ten years ago. There may not have been a World Cup yet, but that's where clubs held their winter camps.
FC Bayern has been going to Qatar regularly for years.
For example. We as Formula 1 have been organizing races in these countries for a long time. I think our world should keep evolving. That's why certain things can no longer be considered okay.
Qatar's World Cup ambassador described being gay as "mental damage" in front of the camera in a ZDF documentary.
That is not how it works! This is outrageous!
The mantra of the Qatari whitewashers that society is becoming more liberal, you just have to keep going there, organize big events and wait a few years - isn't that obviously a misconception?
Might be. But Formula 1 is booming internationally and is opening up to a younger audience thanks to the Netflix series "Drive to Survive". And when these young people come to the races, they may hear from other spectators that unbearable tone that many women, for example, suffer from. Then the young people can raise their voices and say: Hey, that's not possible! And this is how debates may arise that will help society as a whole. What is definitely no longer possible: that someone in a country where there are human rights violations talks their way out; For example with the argument: "That's just the way it is with us. Get over it!"
Isn't it naïve to believe that such a change is taking place?
That's why I specifically demand that sport should give itself a compass, set up a moral code and then stick to it. There it is then precisely determined what the basic political requirements must be in order for sport to be allowed to take place in a country. Certain things and certain countries are simply no longer there. Too much is too much. And then we say no as Formula 1 or FIFA . And don't just nod politely and take the money or help us with any other perks the country might offer.
For example, it could say: Don't drive in countries where critical journalists are cut up with bone saws. Formula 1 has signed a ten-year contract with Saudi Arabia.
Again: homophobic comments like that of the World Cup ambassador are absolutely unacceptable. And it puts the athletes in an extremely difficult situation: us drivers in Formula One, but also the players who will take part in the World Cup. You all have to ask yourself a very difficult question: Can I or am I even allowed to practice my sport in this place?
Your Answer?
You can't expect the players to get together and decide: We're skipping this moment, this unique feature in our lives, playing a World Cup, for political reasons. On the other hand, that would be an extremely good sign. It's difficult for the players, but easier for the spectators. You just couldn't look. I myself really enjoy watching football and I love European and World Cups. But sometimes I think: If I don't watch now, don't I also punish all the players who do their best for themselves and their team and are passionate about their sport? But when I think about it that way...
Then?
If statements like those of the World Cup ambassador are made, then we simply shouldn't go to Qatar! The saying was more than backward-looking. The sport, the whole association should say: This is not the right place to do sport there.
Especially since the ambassador still gets money to show as friendly a face as possible to the outside world. He proves that nothing gets better just because sport is organized.
There's a chance. Even our Western societies have not eaten wisdom with spoons and can now say: Dear country XY, do everything as we do and everything will be fine! We also have things that should be significantly better. But if you want to accelerate change in Qatar or Saudi Arabia, then as a sport we need transparency: we have to publish the unembellished numbers of how much money we collect from the countries. And we have to clearly communicate how much of it flows back into projects that then really drive change there on the ground.
A very large and a very small number.
Allegedly. But as long as these issues remain in the background and are veiled, as long as no one knows how much money is being spent and what is being done with it, we will remain stationary. It also doesn't help if you meet somewhere and take a picture of banging a spade in the ground or planting a tree.
You went karting with young women in Saudi Arabia and published photos of it.
That was only a small gesture, but social change does not come for free. Many important projects cost money. And if a country has plenty of money to attract big sport, then some of it, even a large part, should be used to improve people's lives.
Some problems in Qatar cannot be solved by projects. Homosexuality is forbidden, the ambassador only said what is the law. So shouldn't the code you're asking for it say: don't drive in countries where same-sex lovers are jailed?
Just as. Fifa, Formula 1 and other sports associations should also consistently demand the implementation of the demands that they formulate in flowery words. And then say: You can bid as much money as you want, but we won't come. At the moment it is unfortunately still the case that as an organizer you can get away with it if you take a few nice photos. The fundamental problem is another.
That would?
There is still no authority that can demand consequences if an association does not meet the requirements it sets for itself. Formula 1 has set itself the goal of being climate neutral by 2030. Nice and good. But why can't it be checked by an independent and critical body along the way? To then live with the consequences and possible penalties, whatever they may look like? What happens if Formula 1 takes a wrong turn on the way to climate neutrality and doesn't meet its own demands? Or FIFA on the way to more equality and diversity? Unfortunately, at the moment it's like this: Formula 1 controls Formula 1, and Fifa controls Fifa.
But who should control the big associations?
There are independent instances that deal with all kinds of tests that could be won. But it would help if you didn't just set an abstract goal, but divided the way there into transparent intermediate stages. And then there's the general public, the fans in the stands, journalists reporting on it. And wouldn't that be a very, very broad, international and good control body? So I don't see why a lot of problems can't be solved with transparency.
It's a pity that you drive your last race. Actually, because of your sense of mission, you should be forced to continue to circle until retirement age.
Oh, I do not know ...
With all his love for Fernando Alonso, it is unlikely that he would be interested in anyone other than Fernando Alonso in his old racing days. And there is no one to be seen growing up as a political driver.
Every driver has his or her own issues... Maybe some drivers are still too young. But the climate issue will also come to the fore with them. Even if they don't want to.
After leaving Haas a year ago, Mick Schumacher is without a cockpit in Formula 1. Various driver's seats have become vacant in the past few weeks, but no team boss has thought of Schumacher. How do you explain that his services are not in greater demand?
It would be a shame for the sport if it lost Mick. We talked about the fact that in some cars you can't shine as a driver. And sometimes a driver and his car don't go together at all. Mick has had a difficult year, but has set his highlights and accents. As high as you sometimes fly in Formula 1, you can quickly fall again. Basically, you are never as good as people say you are. But you're never as bad as people say you are. Of course, I wish that Mick stays in Formula 1, because that would be very, very important for Germany's motorsport scene .
Nevertheless: You won your first race in the defeated Toro Rosso. Michael Schumacher amazed the world in a Jordan. How do you recognize a talent? And how do you recognize when a talent isn't that great after all?
It's a difficult subject for me: I know Mick better than most drivers and have known for a very long time. He has a lot of potential. Although he may not be the type to get in the car and run into everyone like some people are. Mick is someone who can always improve. This is his gift. But will it then come to the point where he regularly wins and competes for the title? I don't know that. Mick is still too young for such an assessment. I can only hope he gets the time to find out.
#Sebastian Vettel#F1#Seb telling F1 to put its money where its mouth is#Seb telling F1 to open the books and prove it#Also if anybody tries to use this as an excuse to be Islamophobic I will personally come and kick you 👍#Tw: homophobia
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Posted on August 26, 2022 by Jean-Carl Elliott and Susan Fabrich
The text below is transcribed from a hand-written document by Susan Fabrich that I came across while digging through some IWW boxes at the Walter Reuther Archives in Detroit. I wanted to make sure that it was published so that it could be better circulated, but also because I think it’s a great example of what honest reflection on organizing can look like. Too often we mimic capitalist journalism in our writing and in doing so we feel the need to leave out our mistakes while sensationalizing our wins. Focusing on only publishing “historic” and “first ever” victories erases hard-won lessons that also come through struggle and failures. Insights from these less glamorous stories can provide us with wisdom that can strengthen our organizing and cultivate important institutional learning.
I like this piece because it articulates barriers that the organizers faced and the author makes an attempt to prescribe why things didn’t play out as they had hoped. Many of the challenges they came across are still challenges for organizers today. I think that if we try to incorporate more of this sort of introspection in our strategies, it might help us address and overcome some of those obstacles. There have been some slight formatting edits for readability, but otherwise the text below appears as it was written by the original author. I have also included some of my own insights at the end.
FLORIDA–The Pizza Hut organizing attempt suffered from one essential flaw that prevented it from ever really getting started. This was a lack of contact with any solid social groups at the workplace. Since this was not present, we never got the chance to make any tactical mistakes, simply because there wasn’t a basis for organizing in the first place.
Why did this happen? It was a consequence, I think, of student-radical ways of relating to people which both Paul Green and I fell into. Specifically, I think that Paul began with a fairly clear understanding of how his dissatisfaction with his job fit in with larger social patterns, resulting in turning to the IWW in an attempt to find a collective solution to a collective problem which would be directly related to his work.
But Paul came to this conclusion due to personal background (grew up in a union family) and an intellectual interest and training which are by no means common among the types of people who work at Pizza Hut. Armed with the conviction that unionism is the right answer to worker problems, he pressured and cajoled two of his workmates to somewhat reluctantly support organizing. He also contacted the IWW for help.
I don’t know what he expected, but he got me, another student radical with no organizing experience. Perhaps because our backgrounds and inclinations are similar, I didn’t pick up on the lack of enthusiasm of Paul’s “recruits” as a crucial issue. I am used to the pushing and prodding technique myself.
With the assumption that we had enuf [sic] of a core group to start with I asked Dan Pless to come down and help us figure out preliminary tactics. If the core group had been solid, his advice, research and support would have been invaluable. As it was, we never really got a chance to put any of it into practice.
Several things happened that slowed us down to a crawl over the summer. I was working at another Pizza Hut and developing a relationship with people there – altho the turnover was so great that it was next to impossible to get to know everyone. This was tied up with our tactics – at first Paul and I, naively, were hoping to organize all four Gainesville Pizza Huts. Dan convinced me that, in terms of the definition of the bargaining unit, concentrating on Paul’s Pizza Hut would be better. So after about a month and a half at one Pizza Hut I started trying to get transferred to the other Pizza Hut.
Paul, due to cancellation of his student loan, had to move for the summer to a more lucrative job in New Hampshire. At this point I had met only one other person from his Pizza Hut, and had no regular contact with that workplace.
Two things happened over the next few months, until the end of August. I was in the middle of a complicated process of getting transferred, as I felt I could get nothing done as an outsider to that working situation. This involved finding a new apartment, cross training as a cook, and making up complicated stories to justify my move.
The other thing was the disintegration of my relationship (tenuous at best) with the union supporters Paul had lined up. We had met with Dan Pless in June, and they seemed willing (tho not eager) to put some effort out to begin an organizing campaign. They were to try to convince people to sign auth [sic] cards.
I met with one of them, Jay, at the beginning of July, and gave him some blank auth [sic] cards. The other person, Pam, began to back out at this point for reasons that she never made entirely clear. Without Paul around to nag them, they seemed to be taking the union less and less seriously.
When I finally got a job at the right Pizza Hut, Pam was totally detached from the issue and Jay was very reluctant to talk about it. I was busy getting to know the other employees, but I was also reluctant to talk union to anyone. By the time my sense of outrage exceeded my shyness, after about three weeks on the job, it was September and time to go to IWW Convention. I was beginning to talk union to some people. Pam moved up into management. I got mad at Jay for various reasons, including his reluctance to discuss unionizing with me or to give me an honest decision or whether to stick with it or not.
I lost my job when I stayed at convention longer than I was supposed to, and Paul got his job back at the same time. When I came back to Gainesville, Paul and I got together and discussed the situation. We decided that the problem all summer had been the lack of contact of the ideas of the union with the social group formed at the workplace, and with the absence of conviction on Pam and Jay’s part that the union actually filled some need for them. The work to be done went back to the basics – for Paul, as ‘organizer’, to develop relationships with other employees of trust and a feeling that the union fulfilled their collective needs.
This ‘subjective’ need was not the only obstacle to our organizing attempt, but it was the basic one. Other problems which may have wrecked it if we had gotten any farther were also legion [sic] – such as:
Pam, who became assistant manager, had full knowledge of our plans.
The turnover, though low in comparison with other Pizza Hut’s in town, was still great enough to make it hard to reach each employee.
The NLRB would have had fairly good grounds for rejecting a single Pizza Hut as a bargaining unit.
Many employees were part-timers studying at U of F, with a lack of commitment to their work and the improvement thereof
– Susan Fabrich, 1970s.
Initial Reflections
As an IWW member and lifelong restaurant worker, I found this piece to be particularly fascinating. I joined the union in 2012, which was right on the heels of IWW campaigns in the food and beverage industry at companies like Starbucks, Jimmy John’s, and even Pizza Hut. Through the creation of our Organizing Department and the Organizer Training Program, we have been able to take wisdom from campaigns like these and build them into our institutional memory, so that we don’t make the same mistakes and can repeat our wins. In 2013, I became an Organizer Trainer for the IWW and then in 2017 I was part of an organizing campaign at a local sushi restaurant. As a trainer and organizer, I’ve come across many of the mistakes and challenges listed above, both from personal experience and from other IWW members. I’ve tried to learn from those mistakes (and occasional successes!) and to become a better organizer as a result. And of course the IWW as a union has made some pretty significant changes in the 40-50 years since this piece was first written. Here are some of my observations on the above piece, based on those experiences:
Theoretical Organizing vs Workplace Realities
I think to really understand these failures, we need to start by taking a closer look at Susan (the author) and Paul. Susan mentions early on that the “student-radical ways of relating to people which both Paul Green and I fell into” were “by no means common among the types of people who work at Pizza Hut.” I think this disconnect is a common experience for many wobs and can often lead us to think that our coworkers are either apathetic or conservative. Business unions and universities both seek to shape the way we think about labor by pointing us towards the “proper,” i.e. state-sanctioned channels. In the US, that takes form through the National Labor Relations Act, contractualism, formalized grievance processes, and using disruptive action only as a last-ditch resort. What results is that we only legitimize the former methods of organizing while overlooking the everyday ways in which workers struggle against the boss’ control over the workplace.
If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant (or probably anywhere really), you are going to know what I’m talking about. Our bosses try to control every aspect of the working day, but you really don’t have to look very far to find all sorts of ways in which workers undermine that control. We refuse to abide by their scripted interactions with customers, we don’t upsell if it’s not worth it to us, we sneak food to our friends and regulars without charging them, we have people watch our stations while we sneak extra food or cigarette breaks. There are all sorts of ways that workers subvert the status quo and exercise their own power on the job. Oftentimes these actions can become concerted through what some labor writers have named “the informal work group.” Unfortunately, we don’t think of these actions as being part of the struggle for job control because they happen outside of the state-sanctioned labor relations framework and we end up completely writing off the ways in which an overwhelming majority of the working class struggles against the boss’ control over the workplace. But organizers have turned these smaller and more atomized actions into more concerted disruptions by organizing walkouts, work to rule, good work strikes, service refusals, and all sorts of other creative actions.
Because Paul doesn’t see the workplace this way and because he’s the one seemingly calling the shots, he recruits two workers based on vocal support for unions but without much substance behind that. In fact, Susan points out that there was a visible “lack of enthusiasm” but ignored it. In the IWW, we organize through committees that build their strength and capacity through practicing direct democracy and direct action. In other words, it requires participation. And you can’t build a participatory committee with people who don’t participate. Many unions follow the AEIOU and assessment models of member recruitment, in which they ask workers what issues are important to them and then use that as an opportunity to ask them to sign an authorization card for the union. The current IWW version of this is unique because instead of asking them to sign an authorization card, we ask them to participate in planning and executing collective job actions that will win demands. And whether or not they deliver on those tasks determines how we assess them. If there’s a lack of follow through, then you might need to agitate them more or try to find an issue that they are more passionate about, but we don’t want to recruit workers to the committee until they are enthusiastic and demonstrate it concretely through participation.
Understanding the Workplace
Something else the author mentions right off the bat is a “lack of contact with any solid social groups at the workplace.” In the IWW Organizer Training 101, we have a whole module on Social Charting in which we discuss the existing social dynamics in the workplace, both in terms of the boss’ forms of organization (shifts, departments, positions) and in terms of how workers begin to organize themselves (cliques, people who take breaks together, people who hang out outside of work). It’s important to understand how these formal and informal organizations on the job contribute to the status quo before we start having 1 on 1s with coworkers because we should know ahead of time *why* we want to have 1 on 1s with coworkers. It doesn’t seem like the two workers that Peter recruited were brought on board because they could help provide inroads to social groups in order to build better connections with workers. It sounds like they were recruited because he was able to pressure them. And if workers don’t feel that they have a personal stake in organizing then they are likely to flake or worse yet, betray the organizing committee down the line.
Who Decides When We Get To Be A Union?
Two other issues the author brings up are employee turnover and NLRB bargaining units. I think these can be addressed simultaneously because they often feed into each other. Turnover is something the industry has been dealing with for a long time. Even prior to COVID, parts of the food service industry were reporting turnover rates of 100% or more. This has caused many unions to take a hands-off approach to the industry because of how this dynamic affects their ability to win elections. But part of what constitutes shifting the balance of power away from bosses is taking back our ability to define what a union is, who is in it and what it does. Former IWW General Secretary Treasurer Alexis Buss had a great column in the Industrial Worker which centered on what was then called “minority unionism.” Our methods have changed since that time, but what remains the same is that we believe that small groups of workers can tackle grievances at work and win on them on their own terms. Obviously the goal is to expand the union beyond that small group, but especially when turnover is high you can still have a committee of a few dedicated members who can hold their ground until they can build a stronger density. Three IWW members at one workplace can become chartered within the union as a Job Branch. As such, they can collect and manage their own dues, elect their own officers, and share the same functions as other branches in the union. The important thing is not to get bogged down because you don’t think you can get everyone on board, but to instead focus on what is possible with the people who do get on board and to use that as your foundation. As Laborwave Radio recently said: “Who has the power to bring a union into existence: the state or the workers? Your perspective on this question will shape your strategies for organizing.”
On a larger scale, the IWW charters Industrial Union Branches. In industries like food service, workers may change workplaces several times throughout their career but stay within the same industry. Many business unions in the industry will have high turnover because membership is tied to employment. Once the worker leaves the workplace either through quitting or being fired, they are no longer part of the bargaining unit. In the IWW, membership stays with the worker for as long as they continue to pay dues and are working class. In other words, the IWW focuses on its relationship with workers and not with bosses. Contractualism prioritizes the latter. This is why we say “organize the worker, not the workplace”: if members are active in workplace committees, take trainings, and participate in direct actions then they can take that experience to other workplaces and recruit more IWW members. The goal is to build more and better organizers and more committees and branches will follow.
Final Thoughts
What has gotten the IWW to where it is now versus where it was at the time this paper was written is that we have been learning how to learn. Having a strong popular education program has been crucial to that end. Training is a huge component of that, but trainings are also shaped by who trains and the first-hand experiences they bring. Experiences bring stories and stories bring lessons and lessons bring progress. It might seem like Susan didn’t get very far at Pizza Hut, but I think the lessons she learned and the example she set by sharing them will inspire more IWW members to share and reflect on our own experiences to keep learning from them so that we can keep moving the work along.
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As the studios continue to shoot themselves in the foot, I thought some people might like an explanation for what all this "writing off for taxes" means when a studio, network, or streaming service pulls a show to write it off.
Disclaimer: I have worked in accounting but am not and never have been an accountant. This is a simplified explanation that doesn't go into all the details so people have a basic understanding of what's going on.
Long post continues below...
Businesses (including self-employed people) are taxed based on the profits the business makes. To determine what the profits are, companies tally up all the money they made from various sources then deduct all the expenses they paid for the business.
For a very basic example with completely made-up numbers, I'm screening a movie to 100 people who pay $10 each to see it. So I have $1000. It cost me $200 to rent the theater, I spent $20 printing the tickets people bought, and I bought $80 worth of flyers to advertise the screening. So I add up all my expenses ($200 + $20 + $80 = $300), then I subtract that from how much money I made ($1000 - $300) to get how much profit I get taxed on, or $700.
Now let's say instead of paying to have the tickets and flyers printed, I buy a printer to do it myself. The printer costs $200, but I'm going to be using it for several years. This is where Amortization comes in.
Amortization is a type of deduction businesses take on assets they purchase where the deduction for that asset is spread over time. The value of the asset is going to decrease over time due to normal wear and tear, but it's going to be in use for many years so I can choose to deduct it over time as well. So for my $200 printer, I deduct $50 the first year, $30 the second, $20 the third, and so on until the full value of the asset has been deducted over the course of several years. Again, it's way more complicated than this but you get the general idea.
Now, in 1993 it was made legal for films and television networks to write off the expenses in creating a movie or show via amortization. The idea is that, instead of losing value due to wear and tear, the intellectual property loses value because it becomes less popular over time. A movie released in 2000 is never going to make as much money in 2001, and less in 2002, and less than that in 2003, and so on because DVD/bluray sales will fall over time and it won't be licensed as frequently by networks or streaming services and those licensing fees will go down. So now all the expenses for a film or show can be amortized over 15 years.
The thing is, if you amortize something and it loses all value, you can claim all remaining amortized value at once. For example, if you have a company vehicle that breaks down completely and can't be repaired, it's not worth 25% less than it was the prior year, it's now worthless. So the company can declare the asset no longer has value and claim whatever expenses were paid as a deduction at once.
So what the studios are doing are saying "This TV show no longer has any value, so we're pulling it from distribution and writing off all the money we spent on production this year."
The problem is, that IP is considered to have no value from that time forward as far as taxes are concerned. If the company makes money off of that IP again, they have to repay all the money they saved on their taxes.
So if I make a movie that costs $60 million in 2022, I can decide not to release the movie and write off all $60 million as a deduction on my taxes for 2022. But I can NEVER release that movie. Because if I do, I then have to pay back the taxes I would have paid in 2022 if I didn't take that $60 million deduction.
So what's going on is all these studios, networks, and streaming services are permanently shelving all of these shows and movies to reduce their tax burden THIS YEAR ONLY, and then they can NEVER release them again or they have to pay those taxes. It also means they don't have to pay any residuals to actors, writers, directors, and other people who made the film (which is funny because residuals paid out are business expenses and can also be written off).
It is the epitome of goosing the numbers for a single quarter at the expense of the entire business. They're saving money on taxes for a single year while destroying the very thing they use to make profits in the first place.
#wga#sag-aftra#film#accounting#Hollywood accounting#I know I used the tag 'Hollywood Accounting' but that's something else really#It's the studios using a separate set of accounting books to 'prove' that a movie or show has never made a profit#Thus they don't have to pay percentages of profits since it didn't make a profit according to their magic math#You'd be surprised the number of movies that grossed hundreds of millions or even over a BILLION dollars made no profit
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20 Questions for Fic Writers
Got tagged by @somewhereapart, and I figured y'all may be sick of seeing me just post fic so here ya go.
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
88
2. What's your total AO3 word count?
305,612
3. What fandoms do you write for?
AO3 tells me I've written for Battlestar Galactica, Buffy, General Hospital, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: OC, Lie To Me, Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, and The West Wing. And I honestly can't think of any others outside of just ficlets I've tossed into the wild over the years.
4. What are your top five fics by kudos?
Flinktober 2022 (EO, SVU/OC)
i remember skies (EO, SVU/OC)
gala (EO, SVU/OC)
bizarre love triangle (EO, SVU/OC)
Chautauqua (EO, SVU/OC)
I did not include one that was cowritten with a bunch of other people because I will always assume the kudos are for them.
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
As often as possible. If someone takes the time to comment, I want them to know that i care enough to acknowledge and thank them for that kindness and effort. Especially when I write mostly for a fandom where I've seen people specifically state that they will read works but NOT comment on them as some sort of punishment for whatever random/imaginary fandom sins the writer whose free content they are enjoying has committed. That's just dumb and unkind, so I make the effort to let people know their comments are appreciated, even if it takes weeks to circle back.
6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
Hmmm. There are several chapters in the first flink posting that would qualify, but I'm going to go with my largest Sam/Jack (SG-1) fic, Gravity Sings. It's hard to pretend it's not angsty when you've literally killed off half the planet.
7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
Hmm. Not really sure. I'm a sucker for fluffy endings, so I tend to write them quite a bit. Maybe waltz or Chautauqua?
8. Do you get hate on fics?
Occasionally, but I shut it down quickly. If you come up in someone's space where someone is providing you free entertainment and be rude? Don't expect a pass from me about it. The scroll bar isn't difficult to use, and neither is the back button. I use it frequently on poorly-written works or things that may be well-written but just aren't my thing. What I don't do is sling entitlement issues around demanding things be written to my satisfaction (unless you employ my beta services, in which case, you asked for it!). :D
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
I never really did prior to the first flink experiment, and I created that experiment purely to practice writing smut. Well, I take that back. @rgrdsalxndra would be the first to remind me I'd often cockblock Elliot and Olivia by having them dream-smutting without real-life release. But I started that project with the express purpose of getting better and more comfortable with writing smut, so I'm making that the hinge point.
10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?
Because SVU and OC are different shows, I write them regularly. But if you mean out-of-universe crossovers, I've only really written one, R.E.M. (SGA, BSG, Buffy). It was based on a prompt from an LJ friend, "Elizabeth Weir, Kara Thrace, and Buffy Summers walk into a bar..."
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I'm aware. There are much better people out there to steal from. Also, I always assume if something is similar to what I've written, it's because fandom truly does become a hivemind at some point. Nothing new under the sun and all.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Not that I'm aware. If I had to guess, I'd say Gravity Sings would be the most likely candidate since SG-1 fandom is probably the most global and that fic has been around much longer than any other likely candidates.
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
Wrote Wet Dream with much better smut writers than myself in a group chat, and a bunch of us in SG-1 fandom way back in the day once built an SG-1 AU loosely based on The Big Bang Theory called The House That Jack Built, and I have several entries in that little universe.
14. What's your all-time favorite ship?
How does anyone pick this??? I love them all for different reasons. I will say EO has a grip on me nobody else ever has, but then they have that 25 year slow burn that is just absolutely and sickly delicious.
15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
Glazed and Fired (SGA) was originally the first part of a 5 Things fic that got away from me, and I had always intended to go back and finish it but eventually just put it away for good. I fully intend to finish my others (Skies, I'm looking at you).
16. What are your writing strengths?
Grammar. Economy of language (this is also sometimes a weakness). Getting into the head of characters who are typically very closed off.
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
I feel my writing is way too mechanical. I'm also still not comfortable writing smut. I always walk around with a sense of imposter syndrome with my writing.
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?
I'm literally one class shy of a degree in French, and I had to write many upper level term papers in that language, but let me assure you I have zero plans to ever write in another language. I sincerely applaud those of you who do.
19. First fandom you wrote for?
Stargate SG-1
20. Favorite fic you've ever written?
Geez. It probably changes regularly, and I'm hesitant to say because my faves are never anyone else's. all i ever wanted (a rather dark Elliot-centric fic) holds a very dear spot in my heart just because of how my muse just grabbed a keyboard and churned it out. This is not a popular opinion, and hardly anyone read it, but I still love it a lot. And just because it was the first fic I wrote that was widely recc'd, I have a soft spot for Things Not Dreamed (SG-1), a Sam & Jack & Daniel fic written from Daniel's POV.
tagging in a no-pressure way (and sorry for any double tags):
@morethanwords229, @whatbecomesofyou, @samwrites99, @rgrdsalxndra, @shut-upjohn, and anyone else who wants to do it!
#fanfic#ao3#memes#writing#writer stuff#sg 1#buffy the vampire slayer#lie to me#l&o svu#law and order oc#law and order svu#battlestar galactica#stargate atlantis#stargate sg1#west wing
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Orange Peels on Fire: aka Townsend lore
because someone asked: here's a big dump of stuff about the story Townsend is from, i.e. the narrator of Choker!
Major TW for suicide/hanging, and obviously OCD.
Also, heads up that it's a really silly, REALLY emo story about ghost hunting lol.
Townsend is the deuteragonist of a (really extremely unfinished) story I had, that was provisionally called Orange Peels on Fire (opof). I started working on it when I was watching a lot of Demon Slayer, and it was basically my attempt to create a cast of shounen anime characters who were all girls but look exactly like the typical shounen anime protagonists. (I mention Demon Slayer because I took a LOT of inspiration from that - at times I described it to people as a shitty lesbian Vietnamese Demon Slayer knockoff... wow it's like it was made for me!!!)
A lot of lore is super wishy-washy because I did like the OG concept art in 2021, then I just kinda fucked around until 2022 when I revamped it for a screenwriting class. I don't really consider either version more canon, but I did a lot more work on the screenwriting version so I'll just describe that :P
Setting
It's set in post-apocalyptic US (either Virginia or like California but I couldn't commit because I've never seen California). A lot of the human population is gone - old civilization is being reclaimed by nature and the surplus oxygen means that there are also giant bugs now who take a lot of the niches previously held by mammals (like mice, dogs, deer etc). The oxygen is also how I campily explain away people being able to do epic anime jumps and stuff lmao. This, plus global warming, also means that the middle of North America now has a sort of tropical climate.
The part that actually matters is everyone in the US lives in tiny villages created out of suburban neighborhoods, and they're constantly having Ghost and Monster Problems of some nature because society has forgotten how to properly bury the dead --- and also because that apocalyptic event 100-or-so years ago caused so many ghosts to be created.
Phượng Lê
The protagonist is Phượng Lê, an 18 year old girl who can see ghosts. She's a triplet, with a living brother (Thanh) and a stillborn sister (the titular Cam / "Orange") who she's always seen as just a normal sister because she's a ghost that lives with them.
(All three of these characters are from a depressing realistic fiction short story I wrote, which I personally consider to be their "true" versions, but I imported them into this because I thought it'd be stupid and funny to turn a story like that into a shounen anime lol)
This is what Phượng looks like! (modern on left, old on right)
She's struggled with depression her whole life, partially because everyone thinks she's a sad and delusional pyromaniac for acting like she has a living sister (whose bones she keeps in a box) and for burning stuff to send it to her. Because of that she puts a LOT of stock in Cam's happiness because keeping Cam's ghost kind of cost her everything (including her parents abandoning them etc).
Cam's remains get stolen one day and long story short, Phượng and Thanh end up traveling around the country trying to solve ghost problems, scooby-doo style, in pursuit of the person who stole them. There's like a different category of ghost every time, based on Vietnamese folklore. (And if you're wondering, Cam's bones are valuable because stillborn baby remains can be used for evil magic, which is of course what the evil people in this story want to do).
That finally brings us to...
Townsend! (aka May Hoàng)
Townsend has pretty different lore between 2021 and 2022, but again I'm going with the latter because I've spent more time on that.
In the story:
She's a self-proclaimed "evil ghost" who haunts a tree at the edge of town. Phuong comes to her to ask if she's seen Cam; Townsend is surprised to meet a human who's friendly to ghosts.
She lightly antagonizes P & Th (in what is later revealed to be an attempted suicide-by-cop type thing) and runs away from them a few times before finally deciding to join their team. (In some versions she has to pretend to be human to deceive Irene, the secretly evil lady helping P & Th out).
Originally I had her birth name as Townsend - in the most recent iteration, this is a nickname Phượng gives her through this miscommunication:
She's the only member of the team who can actually, you know, touch ghosts? (Except when Phuong goes all danny phantom on their asses but I don't need to get into that).
Despite this, and despite the fact that she constantly threatens to kill people*, she basically bursts into tears at the thought of enacting violence on people/ghosts, so she ends up just serving as their strategist **(as the only one who isn't kind of dumb lol).
* Her catch phrase is basically "Don't touch me, i'll kill you." This is really emo lol, but what you find out eventually is this is actually a warning and not a threat.
**Specifically, because Thanh is the only one with absolutely no ghost powers, he has to use weapons made by Phuong, and because Phuong is like the main character, Townsend and Thanh have to work together to strategize & fight in the background. That's a whole arc because Townsend is a coward who doesn't want to be in fights, and Thanh doesn't trust Townsend because she constantly threatens to kill him and Phuong. Fair, I guess.
Townsend's backstory:
She's supposed to be this fundamentally irrational character, who eventually becomes a love interest of Phượng (they're both lesbians) but still never brings herself to stop antagonizing her whenever they get too close. After months and months of working together, Phượng finally gets Townsend's backstory:
She was originally a 17-year-old girl named May Hoàng, who lived in a town next to Phượng's. She suffered from something that we would in modern times describe as OCD, but had since been forgotten by society because of the apocalypse (rip). Her family was Catholic, and they didn't think much of her earlier obsessions (except that she was being annoying), but when she confided in them about her newest obsession about dropping and strangling her baby brother, Meri, they confided in the church - and eventually all the townsfolk came to believe she was being influenced by the devil.
May's parents kept trying to work with her, but eventually she ran away to hang herself.* In some versions, instead of going through with that, she conveniently gets attacked by a hangman ghost (which is how I really loosely translated ma thần vòng) right before that, who strangles her and she still dies. Fun!
*This is what's described in the beginning of Choker. In the original version, she runs away on the back of a giant-giant american millipede, as depicted on the cover, and that becomes kind of a faithful steed that they can all ride around on later.
Either way, what she didn't realize (I guess because she's Catholic) is that if you hang yourself and nobody finds your body, you turn into a hangman ghost, and can only pass on if you strangle a living person to take your place.
So..... obviously that's not going to happen.
Phượng & Townsend
May died about a year before the story starts. She was kind of hoping Phượng could just exorcize her, but because it takes about 3 seconds to realize May isn't actually a threat, Phượng refuses to do that.
Instead they kind of fall in love (shipname Phuongsend if you're wondering lol), and they eventually figure out she's just mentally ill and reinvent ERT or something.
Meanwhile, because of both Cam and May, the whole team is looking for a way to turn ghosts back into living people. I never decided if they actually succeed, but honestly I don't think they ever will. May committed suicide and that's just not something you can undo.
As foils
They both care a lot about each other, but that's despite (or maybe because of?) some very conflicting values. There's a little undercurrent of each trying to change the other's morals.
Phượng's mother abandoned her and Thanh because of her obsession with her sister, Cam, who was stillborn and never even got a chance at life. She's only leaving home now to find that sister and maybe even bring her back to life.
From Phượng's perspective, May HAD a shot at life, and somehow thinks she has the right to get it back even after squandering it. May also loves her baby sibling to death, but her idea of protecting him was to run away forever --- and to Phuong, that's just about the worst thing you can do to someone you love.
They were both treated as heretics, but Phượng reacted by getting a superiority complex and starting to hate everyone, while May still thinks everyone is fundamentally good, except herself. Phượng is (technically) a younger sister and constantly pushes back against Thanh's overprotectiveness, something May sees as disrespectful and scary, as an older sister who spent years obsessing over Meri's safety. Finally, Phượng's violent tendencies/occasional anger issues are something May sees as a big moral problem.
And.... that was a LOT. I'm not sure if I'll keep this post up honestly because there's still like a TINY chance I'll adapt this into something. But for now enjoy the lore dump :P
#my posts#my art#opof#townsend#phuong#rch#i really meant to put this on my main blog but oh well#also not to be serious on this post but i finally just got my official ocd diagnosis irl lmao
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