#guess who spent time doing stuff other than homework
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Something I don’t see talked about (and yes I know that’s a loaded opening sentence but I have feelings so I’m going to ramble) is how it feels to come to art late.
Like people throw out examples like George Clooney being 40 or something? Or Samuel L Jackson, or you know there are many, of people who came into something older and then were fantastic at it. It’s like a “it’s never too late” reassurance and ok cool, cool, but that doesn’t really help.
I didn’t draw as a kid. I hated art class at school because they didn’t teach. I wouldn’t know how to get the effect I wanted and given no guidance (but plenty of “that’s not what I wanted” criticism). If I found a workaround it was wrong. Like I spent a ridiculous amount of time drawing a model train once by measuring every single line. Best drawing I did as a kid but my teacher told me I was never to do that again as I should spend no more than an hour on the homework.
Part of this was probably being undiagnosed autistic. I need structure and rules and I need to understand. I can’t just experiment how I probably should. So I internalised the “I am not artistic, I have no artistic flair” and I didn’t doodle or decorate. I would be envious of the other kids who did. My notes always looked so boring. We didn’t do art at home. Mum always tells the story of how she was excluded from art class at school for “being a waste of public resources” and so is adamant she can’t draw.
For some reason at 19 I decided I wanted to draw. But again with an undiagnosed autistic need for things to be “right” and obviously any lines I made were ‘wrong’, plus the computer was where I sought answers I fell very quickly into tracing photographs. That was a huge mistake because it taught me nothing and only made it worse if I tried to draw without the crutch - as obviously that was much much worse in comparison.
You see I didn’t have the willingness to draw something awful that little kids have (because to them it isn’t awful) and I judged myself so so harshly. I wanted to draw what I imagined and I found workarounds, like modelling programs to make my own pose references, or smushing multiple references together - I still do this and I absolutely hate it. It doesn’t help but it’s like that bandaid trying to hold a water leak back - it’s better than what I can do without it, so I keep going back for fan events etc. as I feel if I’m gifting someone something it needs to be the best I can do (and merlin knows I am deeply ashamed of what I have posted for past exchanges, 30+ hours or not of effort it was baaaad).
A few years ago I decided enough was enough and I needed to “go back to basics” and get away from the computer. I have got a ridiculous number of courses from places like Udemy/Domestika and enough art supplies to open a small store. I talk a good game - I can sound like I know - but my hand does not.
The problem with the YouTube videos or the courses is these people are skilled - obviously, I mean that’s the point - but sometimes they will show their “old art” from when they were 13 or something and it’s better than what I can do now, or maybe at 9 or something it was about the same but that’s 9 - I’m going to be 34 this year.
I’m still that kid that wants to be told what steps to take. I am still flailing and I still don’t know how best to move forward. Worse I am not a kid and so I feel ashamed I guess. And I’m also alone because there is no actual person I can talk to. I have looked into in person art classes but there’s nothing suitable. I need to find a path forward.
But to circle back to “coming into art late”. I’m 33 and surrounded by so much inspiration (I see art and I so desperately want to be able to make something half that good). But that’s a curated thing because people only post their good stuff (obviously) and so I don’t want to post my shitty stuff so I can’t engage with “art tumblr” or whatever, and I’ve never been good at engaging anyway. I have always felt like an outsider in every community I have tried to join. Plus with fucking AI I don’t want to post my stuff online (although it’s so bad if it did get scraped it would probably act like poison).
So yeah basically flailing and lonely.
It’s deeply demoralising and frustrating. I have never put in the practice time that I should have but that is more to do with my chronic mental health issues than anything - but that then compounds the age problem as I am not 19 any longer. It has been getting on for 15 years - actually I hate putting it like that because then I have to see that I have been wanting to draw for nearly half my life and I have still not managed it. I am still flailing around near the starting line.
Anyway yeah I just feel like nobody talks about being older, and still being shitty at things, and how damn lonely and scary that is. I get majorly stressed out everytime I try and do “serious learning” as I guess it’ll take time and I will be shitty for a lot longer. Maybe there’s also a point here about adulthood and immediate gratification I don’t know. I just know I wish for the impossible to be able to be the child I never was I guess, to start art when people are supposed to - as a kid - and get this stage done and so I can be better. Is that just me wanting to skip the work? Maybe I don’t know.
It’s as I said - I have feelings.
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Madrid Week 2: Taking Time
Hola a todxs! Niko here again, back for week 2 of studying abroad in Madrid. This week felt nearly as long as my first one in the city. Class started on Monday. Thankfully, schoolwork has been pretty light thus far, so I’ve had the spare energy and time to focus on adjusting to the new schedule, commute, and teaching/class style at UC3M, all while attempting to make new friends with Spanish, American, and International students from across Europe (and Oceania!). Also, I took a weekend trip to Granada in the southern region of Andalucía — more on that later.
SCHOOL STUFF (ACADEMICS?!)
With the first week now under my belt, I wanted to quickly touch on my academic experience so far in Spain. This semester, I’m taking a Spanish language class for international students, and three classes in English for a both national and international students: “Social groups and their cultural imaginaries” (a mix between philosophy and culture, INTERHUM 300 equivalent), “Materials Science and Engineering” (MATSCI 220 Equivalent), and “Databases and Structures” (EECS 400 Level Equivalent). Given that I pass 🙏, all of these classes should count towards my degrees (aerospace engineering major, international minor for engineers, computer science minor).
School at UC3M is quite different than it is in the states. Most notably, the grading system is unfamiliar. At Michigan, a big emphasis is put on required assignments that are due throughout the semester — homeworks, problem sets, mini projects, etc.. These required assignments force students to continuously engage with the content, which I feel improves focus and learning (if the assignments are completed with the right intention). At Carlos III, the final exam constitutes 60% of the final grade for the vast majority of classes, with the remaining 40% of “continuous assessment” depending on things like in-class quizzes and one-off assignments.
With no homework to keep me on track, I’m gonna have to pay close attention to make sure my classes don’t fall to the wayside with all of the 1,000,000 other distractions in Madrid (and Europe) vying for my attention. I’ve already decided to switch one class (Neural Networks) because I thought it would require a level of effort that I simply wasn’t prepared to put in while I’m abroad with bigger priorities than school (namely, exploration, self growth, meeting people, etc.).
This is a shift in itself that I’m going to have to get used to — for my entire life, performing well in school has been at the top of my list. However, while in Spain, all I need to do is pass (get a 5/10, 50% overall) for my credits to transfer with no effect on my GPA, so that’s what I’m shooting for now. I’m certain that this will cause some internal conflict (e.g.: a 60% on [x] quiz?! Oh no!!! tbh math 216 already got me over those bad grades tho lol) when things start to pick up, but I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
ON RELATIONSHIPS
Going into my study abroad experience, my biggest goal was to understand the culture of Madrid & Spain from a local point of view. I knew from studying in Buenos Aires that living in a different city can be a much more enriching experience than touring it for vacation, so long as I put in the effort. A big part of that goal was to make friends with people local to Madrid, along with other Americans*/ International students who shared that same mindset. I think that in explicitly setting this goal, I inadvertently put a lot of pressure on myself to make all these friends really quickly, in an environment and language I’m unfamiliar with, all while trying to adjust to and internalize a major lifestyle shift.
As a result, I think that — up until this week — this self-imposed pressure gave me unnecessary anxiety that inhibited me from being my true self. I spent time worrying about whether the Spanish students in my class would like me, if my Spanish was good enough to communicate with them, if they would judge me for being an American, how soon I should message the new person I met in the cafeteria so I wouldn’t appear too clingy… the list goes on. I was stressing and strategizing to make friends, when the best strategy is always to just be myself.
This is a lesson I’ve learned during my transition to Michigan, but being implanted into a new environment and University gave me a bit of a factory reset. I had to remind myself that I’ve only been here for 2.5 weeks. Directing my attention inwards instead of outwards will enable me to be fully present (and able to overcome the initial discomfort of making new relationships [see week 1 for discussion on discomfort]) when people that I can click with inevitably come along. Through this process, I’ll undoubtedly develop a stronger relationship with myself and increased comfort being alone, which is another personal goal of mine.
Funnily enough, that’s how things started to turn out in the second half of the first week. When I caught myself overthinking and was able to redirect my focus, I slowly started to reach out and become more friendly with some of the Spanish students in my culture class, and I met a group of Spaniards by chance that I really vibe with at the club on a Wednesday (oops, sorry it’s syllabus week :P ). Simultaneously, I’ve begun to get closer to some fellow American study abroad students. By no means have I found the perfect group of friend-soulmates that I’ll proceed to travel and experience Europe with for the rest of my 17 weeks in Spain, but that wasn’t something that I was ever expecting, anyways. Moving forward, I’m going to do my best to avoid resisting flow, always assuming positive intent to keep myself open to new interactions (check out what I mean by this by watching this video clip from a speech Mark Rober gave at the MIT graduation, I highly recommend the whole video), all the while prioritizing my own peace and happiness.
This weekend, I also visited Granada, a small town in the south of Spain famous for its Moorish influence and the incredible La Alhambra palace nestled in its hills. I might cover the trip in more detail next week, I guess we’ll see… but it was a beautiful weekend filled with beautiful architecture, beautiful sunsets, and great company. Per usual, check out the photo captions for some more context.
Until next week :)
Niko Economos
Aerospace Engineering
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Madrid, Spain
*A LONG ASIDE ON THE WORD “AMERICAN”, for context & completeness
I would like to be clear about my use of the word "American". In English, there is no succinct way to say “Person from the United States of America”, unlike other nationalities (Spaniard, Argentinian, Norwegian, etc). American is the best word that we have. However, in conversations about US culture with people from other countries, I’ve been met with a similar critique in multiple instances (both with Europeans and South Americans). The Americas include the entire continent of North America and South America, which encompasses a huge variety of countries, cultures, and nationalities. When saying the word “American” while describing a person from the United States, we are inadvertently reinforcing the narrative that the United States is the most significant country across both continents and thus more righteously deserves the blanket term “American” over any other country in the region.
This conclusion is obviously more nuanced than what I’ve stated. The United States of America uses the word “America” in its name, which is likely where this blanket term came from. Also, I don’t think that the perpetuation of this US-centric language is due to intentional individual action, but rather a result of complicated cultural and etymological phenomena which I don’t have a comprehensive understanding of.
I won’t stop saying American in these blogs — primarily because saying “person from the United States” each time would likely distract from the points I'm trying to make — but I felt that an acknowledgement of this common criticism was important. In Spanish, Estados Unidos = United States, and US citizens are more precisely described as “Estadounidenses” (although the word “Americano” is still commonly used). When introducing myself to people from other countries, I always do my best to use the most precise language possible when referring to my nationality, which is one of the many ways I practice cultural humility. Stay tuned for another blog sometime this semester about how I go about practicing cultural humility, something that I think is very important for Americans who come from one of the most — if not the most — influential countries on earth (something that has also become apparent through my conversations).
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Happy New Year! 1/3 (Tumblr why)
My oldest posts that I did for New Year’s just started with that very simple title and I’m feeling nostalgic. But I also like the ‘Farewell’ of 2021 so I guess we’ll see what I stick with as time goes on. (Also dang, would you look at that, fucking COVID is still around.)
Part 2 || Part 3
It’s funny, the more time goes on the more I actually want (as in: I remember and am then driven) to get stuff done ahead of time. All through school (which was forever ago) I really struggled with doing any task that wasn’t immediate. Homework didn’t exist until the night before (and the only reason I didn’t forget entirely was because I talked to people who would ask if I was done and I’d go Oh Shit), any basic task anyone asked me to do I would forget existed because it couldn’t be done immediately (and I also chaffed under tasks being sprung on me out of nowhere that had to be done immediately). Now I get the urge to do things ahead of time, with the same focus and drive that usually only showed up when something was ‘due’. The former is still a problem for a lot of things but somehow my brain has decided that sometimes we can and will remember to do a task ahead of time and get it done.
Which is to say I am currently writing this from December 26, 2023 and whenever I get tired of writing it today I’ll pick up tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, until I post it. I just decided: Fuck it, instead of binge-writing this right at the end of the year we’re basically at the end of the year and I just want to chill the fuck out. I just had a mad dash to write something for my sister I don’t want to mad-dash write again. I think I wrote last year’s write-up a few days before but this time I want to be so deliberately chill. I just want to gently coast up to the new year. Which is good because I did a stupid amount of things this year and this has been the longest year-wrap-up I’ve ever done. Is anyone actually going to read this to the end? Maybe but these are mostly for me. I always like scrolling back through these and this year is a doozy. Who gave me the gumption to do so much stuff. And despite all that I just said It is January 1st and I am mad-dashing writing the second half of this and editing it.
Without further ado let’s get into it.
I dropped my goal to 25 books because I was in the last week of the year at 26 out of 30 books read like “yeah I can read 4 books in a week” and then I was like “yeah but… fuck it let’s not.” Why barrel towards the end of the year, panic reading books to reach some arbitrary number I set for myself. That’s not really how I want to read and experience books so… I won’t. I read 26 books this year and 17 graphic novels for a total of 43. Which is only 4 lower than my total from last year so despite reading a lot less that’s not bad at all.
I kept it the same as the previous year: Read for 30m a day, catch up days allowed. At this point what I usually wind up doing is reading a lot on one day and counting it toward multiple days. Same amount of time reading, but doing it in chunks. If I read for 6 hours on one day I highlight 12 days (30 minutes a day) on the calendar. That might sound confusing but my main focus is having spent the time reading and doing a task every single day just does not work with my brain.
I do it this way because the time-spent is the same but filling out a calendar like this is way more satisfying than just highlighting one day that I spent a lot of time reading on. Anyway as you can see my summer was largely spent not reading. A huge chunk of my summer my brain was taken up by wrapping my sister’s car (more on that later), from May to August I basically read almost nothing. It’s hard to remember to highlight in the calendar for other tasks I do (especially when it’s a task where I don’t know exactly how much of my time it will be taking up) but I do think it would be fun to be able to have a highlight calendar (or time track in some other way) to be able to see what I was doing when something didn’t happen on another calendar. I don’t have a super feasible way to set that up, though (as fun as it would be) so I don’t think I’ll be doing that.
Anyway, as always, I love the goodreads yearly recap:
Once again my average rating is “high” not because every book I read this year ruled but because I now use stars as a “would recommend”, “would probably recommend”, “my feelings are so Nothing I neither recommend nor not recommend”, “mostly don’t recommend”, and “do not read this” instead of the recommended level of how much I liked it. This means not a lot of books wind up below 3 stars anymore. I am also increasingly perplexed when I look at reviews for a book, see someone said nothing but good things about a book… and rated it three stars. It’s like dang, what does three stars mean to you.
I was shocked to see how few people had shelved The Game of 100 Candles though. I don’t know if people are scared away from it because that series is technically part of a table top role-playing game universe but the books absolutely stand up as their own thing. I’ll talk about it more in a bit, and then probably again when the final book comes out. But here’s the wall of books I read this year:
When I was thinking about what I read this year I could only really think of the books I had read recently and was like “man I don’t think I really read anything super good this year” but I did have some fun, cozy reads in there. So as has become custom I’m going to talk about some. Just so I don’t keep going forever I’m going to do a ‘top five’ kind of thing and then some honorable mentions.
As mentioned I was utterly shocked that Marie Brennan’s The Game of 100 Candles was shelved so few times and looking back at the first book, The Night Parade of 100 Demons, it’s only been rated 132 times (which is still 100 times more than the second book). This series isn’t done yet but it’s such a delightful and heartwarming read. It’s basically this quiet samurai from a smaller clan who has a lot of secrets he has to keep a lid on for the best of his clan and himself who has to figure out what’s going on with the demons/yokai in this village on the edge of their territory. Meanwhile another, bigger and more wealthy, clan has sent one of their much more extroverted scholars to the same village to also see what’s going on. They both have things to hide from each other but wind up falling for each other. It’s a really fun fantasy romp with a very sweet gay relationship that grows out of it.
Then the second book has them re-meeting and understanding the consequences of something they did in the first book so it also has some chronic illness (even if it’s magical and not 1:1 with anything in real life) representation. I’ve found both books very good so far and if anyone reading this is inclined to pick up anything I recommend I really hope it’s these. They’re so good.
So I really, really did not like Uprooted by the same author, Naomi Novik. A friend read this though and liked it overall and my sister-in-law happened to give me her copy (she didn’t like it) so I figured I may as well give it a shot and I was so pleasantly surprised. The way the faeries (which aren’t called faeries but whatever) work in this world is so cool, the magic is so cool, I really loved how the author managed to ride that thin line between everything feeling cohesive and like it ‘makes sense’ while relying on not overly explaining anything which means she had to rely on things ‘intuitively’ making sense which can be very hit or miss. It really hit for me and it was always fun getting to a point in the book where it felt like the plot was winding down only for it to get back up again. I was so delighted by this one I wanted to include it here.
Similarly I wanted to include this duology, The Assassin’s Curse Series by Cassandra Rose Clarke. I’m not sure I recommend them. The narrative voice is a little strong (I think it gets better in the second book but I also might have become desensitized to it) and overall the plot and characters aren’t anything to write home about. It did really scratch an itch I didn’t know I had for the most ridiculous ‘refusing to communicate’ relationship dynamic ever. I had a great time but I mostly wanted to mark these here on my New Year’s post because I read these a decade ago around the same time in the year and they’re a fun marker of how far I’ve come and how much the way I track books has come. I only had a rating for these from 2013, and now I have a long document of notes. I don’t know if I actually will reread these in another decade, but if I do it will be fun to compare how I feel then to how I feel now, and I wish I could have done the same to my 2013 self.
Going forward, though, I do want to re-read something I read a decade ago at least once a year. I think it will be fun especially once I start butting up against the books that do have notes written on them. I had a really good time with these and I want to continue circling back to what I’ve read before.
Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson is a great read even if you’re not doing the exercises inside it. It’s a self-help book which I tend to roll my eyes at (maybe that’s unfair of me) but Dr. Johnson uses examples from her own practice and backs up claims and theories with scientific studies. It’s a really solid and insightful read, it took me a long time to get through because with nonfiction I tend to be much more thorough in my notes and I was reading this at the same time as other books but it was a phenomenal read. Even though it’s catered to romantic-relationships I honestly think it applies and shows insights that are applicable to any close relationship (romantic or platonic). I really enjoyed reading it.
I don’t see asexual characters often so Loveless by Alice Oseman really touched me. It’s funny, the first time I encountered ace representation in a book I really didn’t like it. I was, unfairly, annoyed that the author hadn’t captured my experience. And oh boy do I see a lot of that in the reviews of this book online, non-ace people upset that the asexual lead “shames” sexual people (she just doesn’t get it, which is not the same as shaming someone). Asexual people are upset that this isn’t their experience and remember fellow readers there are other ways of being asexual even though this book pretends there’s only one! (The book is told from one POV, of course it only reflects one experience.) There were things I really related to in this one, and other things I didn’t but overall it was a great read and I am very glad that there is so much more representation to be found in books these days.
So my actual honourable mentions are: Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree which was just a very charming, fun romp. I enjoyed my time with it and look forward to reading the second book. The Deep by Rivers Solomon which was insightful, depressing, and hopeful. It’s very short so if you look up the content warnings and think you can handle it I would absolutely recommend it. And Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata which is a very wild book that is maybe making an argument for fair wages for all or maybe ‘just’ a story about a neurodivergent queen, I don’t know.
The final two books in the Market of Monsters series by Rebecca Schaefer are on there because I mentioned the first book in my write-up for last year and while I overall had a really good time with the series (I find there’s always something almost relaxing about a book/series where the protagonists are terrible people) the ending left something to be desired. I’m not crazy about characters just going ‘yeah, we’re evil and we like it that way’ especially when the rest of the series was the character’s doing “evil” things because the other option was having evil done unto them. Oh well.
And Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett is peeking in because as far as I can tell people love this book (it came out this year and has been popular) but it really didn’t work for me. I’m spoiled because Marie Brennan’s Lady Trent series does what this is trying to do but succeeds, I just could not buy into the fiction that this is this woman’s journal from out in the field. I would enjoy myself when I forgot it was supposed to be a journal and then get annoyed every time I was reminded. I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more if it hadn’t bothered with the “this is a journal” conceit (or if it had done that well) but what can you do. It is a fun book, I get why people like it, but it was driving me wild (in a bad way).
And before I move onto graphic novels here’s some fun stuff from storygraph:
Onto graphic novels.
Ducks by Kate Beaton was the standout one here. Really incredible auto-biographical comic. My Wandering Warrior Existence by Kabi Nagata and The Girl that can’t get a Girlfriend by Mieri Hiranishi which were both really interesting auto-biographical comics that both revolved around sexuality and identity. Kabi Nagata’s comics, in general, can be very stressful to read but they’re so good. And the rest were fun! I was recommended the Given series made by Natasuki Kizu by a friend and it was charming, it’s not done and I haven’t checked in a while if more is out in English but, while charming, it hasn’t really captured me. Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour by Tee Franklin (and art and colour by Max Sarin and Marissa Louise respectively) was a really delightful little romp—and I have not watched Harley Quinn: The Animated Series. The art is just so freaking cute and while I have basically no knowledge or investment in the DC universe it was really nice seeing Ivy and Harley together. Horizon Zero Dawn: The Sunhawk by Anne Toole (and Ann Maulina doing the art) was mostly just amusing, I think it came out before Horizon Forbidden West did but I happened to read it right in the middle of Talanah’s quest in that game so I read the comic and then got to hear Talanah tell me about it in the game when I played it two days later. And finally The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour was fun and, like always, just made me want to go and relisten to the podcast.
I’m making my goal 30 books again, and if some unforeseen project takes up the majority of my brain space I have no problem with dropping it to whatever it winds up being at the end of the year. And my filled in boxes will count for 30 minutes a day again. I’ve been setting the goodreads goal for the graphic novels to 5 just because chances are I’ll probably read at least five but it’s also not a hard goal.
Last year I mentioned wanting to read one book I own in my tbr pile for every library book I took out and looking at the books (not graphic novels) 15 out of the 26 were ones I owned (or were in my book pile being loaned to me by others) so that’s not bad! (The graphic novels I am also less pressed on this front—I have a small stack of them waiting to be read but 12 graphic novels take a lot less time for me to read than 12 novels.) I am pleased to have 15 fewer books in my tbr pile! Granted, two of those were books I had read a long time ago so they were previously on my not-tbr shelves but… well whatever.
I’m probably going to be watching a few more films after writing this as part of the lead up to New Years (I did, I have changed the numbers to reflect that) but, once again, the amount of movies/shows/etc. I’ve watched has again worked out to be in the 40s. I have watched 46 things this year, which is the exact same amount as last year. I am finding it really interesting that it always seems to work out to being in the 40s. I am extra tickled it’s the exact same amount as last year. Film I don’t really feel any desire nor make any effort to meet any sort of quota each year, I just sort’ve watch what I want to watch (or what I get roped into watching) and for the past four years it seems to work out to low-40s every single time. I am so, so curious to see if this is some sort of bizarre fluke or if this will continue into the future.
Just like with books, because a year is such a long length of time, without tracking what I watched this year it’s easy to sit here at the end of the year thinking I didn’t really see much. But then I look at my list of things I watched and go “holy shit I watched so many good things this year.” The power of tracking things, it’s incredible. As for new films/films-I-watched-for-the-first-time…
There’s some films from this year that I contemplated including on the graphic just to have them easy to spot as a reference point in time—like the Barbie movie and The Last of Us—because they were such big hits and while there’s more I really liked this year I didn’t want to make the image preposterously huge (says guy who wrote this before writing later sections in which they made preposterously huge images). And I also didn’t want to cram everything on in the weirdest way possible like I did last year (why did I do that).
Steph actually had me watch Knives Out and Glass Onion on New Year’s Day (which I don’t remember but that’s what I wrote down) and I really enjoyed both! I had been avoiding them because they just didn’t seem like my kind of thing but I was very glad to have been proven wrong.
I feel like I’ve been mostly out of the anime/manga world for a long time so I was surprised to see how much I had watched this year. Most of it I watched with friends and all of it was a good time even when the shows sucked. Chainsaw Man also surprised me, both because it is (so far) a very good show (I will cry if there is some kind of horrible training arc), and because Steph recommended it after not being sure if they would even finish the first season. I am very glad they did because this show is wicked cool. And then Trigun Stampede was so good that I started re-watching the 1998 show, and then all the friends I watched Stampede with wanted to watch the 1998 show so I stopped, and then nobody watched the 1998 show. Trigun Stampede was overall a delight even if I am mildly perplexed at the 1998 show had way more female characters than the new show does (but also Vash isn’t putting on a weird lecherous front and is just Baby so, it works out).
I waffled on whether or not to included Dungeons & Dragons: Honor among Thieves because it’s not like it was life changing or anything but I had a really good time watching it, and I had a really good time talking about it. It’s just a really fun film that didn’t feel like it was bogged down by trying to be anything else.
The Green Knight I had wanted to see since it came out and finally got around to it this year, twice, because the first time I watched it with someone who will usually fight me on putting on subtitles so I just had no idea what 90% of the words spoken meant the first time I watched it. Despite understanding almost nobody I really enjoyed every other aspect of the film and it was surprisingly watchable. Gorgeous film, great acting, great soundtrack, all over a fantastic time. The second time I watched it was with subtitles on and it still ruled.
It’s been such a long time since I read Nimona. I read it in its entirety when it was still online for free so I don’t know how long ago that was. After watching the film I wondered about going back to re-read it online and found that (I assume since being traditionally published) it’s no longer available. I’m glad for the author but also sad that we live in a capitalist hellscape that can’t let things be free. I have yet to re-read the comic and still plan to but the movie is gorgeous. I am so, so glad that more 3D movies are breaking away from the default style Disney had established when moving to 3D that everyone seemed afraid to stray too far from. I am genuinely so thankful we’re getting 3D movies with style now. Not to go on a tangent but I saw some video (or maybe it was a post?) recently where someone was going on about how the different art styles movies are being made in is now ‘less special’ because everyone is doing it and I don’t understand how someone could think more diverse styles could ever be a bad thing. People don’t do it to be ‘special’ people do it because they see beauty in different ways. Anyway. Nimona made me cry three times. I absolutely recommend it.
And of course, Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse. I went into this not knowing it was a two parter and I think that’s my only real upset with this movie. I was getting so nervous toward the end when I realized the runtime was almost up and there were so many loose ends to tie up, and then I realized it must be a two-parter. I was relieved to be right but also wish I went in knowing so I wouldn’t have to have the HOW ON EARTH ARE THEY GOING TO PULL THIS OFF stress. Otherwise this movie is more gorgeous than the original and I’m really liking where the story is going. I’ve been meaning to re-watch it and haven’t gotten around to it (I could not understand Hobbie on the first viewing) but this movie made me realize that physical media is getting harder to get. All the big stores have basically eradicated their movie/show sections and replaced all of that with one little ‘recent releases’ stand. Older things can still be ordered online but I am very nervous about all our media being in the hands of streaming companies and harder to own.
There were some other things I saw this year like, as mentioned, Barbie and The Last of Us that I also really enjoyed. Steph had me watched Midnight Mass which was sad but good. Vin and I watched the Lockwood & Co adaptation which was surprisingly good (and, of course, cancelled because why market something when you can just decide it failed). I’ve been watching a show called The Afterparty which I’m really enjoying.
I also re-watched a lot of things this year, many with friends.
I found out Vin hadn’t seen Moulin Rouge so I had to fix that. I don’t remember when the last time I watched this movie was but it’s so much fun and it looks like everyone had a good time acting in it. We had actually watched Van Helsing first (which ruled, for some reason in my memory this movie sucked but it was awesome and they do some astonishingly good looking stuff considering its age) and I can’t quite remember how Moulin Rouge came up (I am certain it was RP related, though) but when I realized the Duke in Moulin Rouge was the same actor as Count Dracula in Van Helsing that sealed the deal. I need to watch more of that man’s work, he’s a delight onscreen. I was also just totally shocked that it was Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing. I’m terrible with actors but when one I know is in something like this it’s always surprising to me.
Steph played the original Silent Hill game for all of us (which was also very fun) and we decided to watch the first Silent Hill movie afterwards as well. This was another one I hadn’t watched in years, I probably hadn’t watched it since I was a teen, and by default I seem to assume anything I saw a long time ago probably sucks. Once again I was proven wrong, the film’s not perfect but overall it’s a great watch. The costuming is incredible (especially for the monsters) which I did remember, but also:
Wow she looks awesome. Everyone was hooting and hollering when her helmet came off. (Shame about the jacket, though, and being a cop). And then Steph found us every lesbian amv they could with Cybil and Rose. It ruled.
We watched Darker than Black because, again, Vin had never seen it. I’ve rewatched this show a few times over the years and this is the first time I’ve watched further than Season 1. I didn’t enjoy Season 2 when I originally watched this show and never finished it, and still didn’t like Season 2 this time but the OVA for Season 2 was mysteriously really good. Izanagi’s design was awesome, though, even if nothing else was. The first season was also still really good, really cool, and I always forget about the weird this-must-have-been-inspired-by-Evangelion bit at the end. I will absolutely be watching the first season again at some point in the future, and maybe season 2’s OVA but not the rest. I’m not strong enough.
And I had the pleasure of showing my step-sister Howl’s Moving Castle. She had seen The Boy and the Heron and was interested in watching more Ghibli films and knew I liked them, so I decided to start with the one that everyone I’ve talked to lately says is their favourite Ghibli film (or one of their favourites if they can’t choose). It’s been a while since I last watched Howl and it was great to see it again. Steph and I also watched some more Ghibli films for New Year’s Eve and Princess Mononoke still rules and The Cat Returns remains as charming as ever.
I also rewatched Kill Bill this year which I enjoyed this time around a lot more than I did the last time I watched. Part of me is like: I should also write down my movie/show thoughts. The other part of me is like: Let’s not make homework for ourselves for everything we do. With stuff like this though it’s like man why did it hit so different. I rewatched some other stuff, too, of course but nothing I have much to say about.
I started 32 games this year and finished 32 (and 100%’d 4 of those). Spoilers: A huge chunk of that total number are Humongous Entertainment (HE) games that I played as a child. Let’s get into it.
I don’t know what happened last year with Nintendo’s thing but they are back to giving more info, unfortunately I barely touched my Switch this year.
By which I mean I played it a lot, but only two games. I think I almost exclusively played Splatfests this year after finishing the single player campaign and Pokemon Scarlet I have been picking at so slowly that I am still not done it (DLC just came out but I am still in the middle of the preceding DLC).
I’m assuming I missed the July splatfest, and I also missed the November one though I swear I chose a team so I don’t know what happened there. I guess I just got immediately distracted somehow. You may be wondering where Tears of the Kingdom is because everyone with a Switch played it this year. After hunting down a collector’s copy of Tears of the Kingdom, because I missed the pre-order for it somehow, instead of playing it I, for no real reason, decided I was going to play every single other Zelda instead and end it off with TotK.
So my 3DS and my N64 got more of a workout than my Switch did this year. For my Zelda-replay I mostly want to go in order but I wanted to start with the N64 titles first as those were my childhood Zeldas. Majora’s Mask is my favourite in the franchise, it’s the first Zelda I ever beat, and Ocarina of Time I never beat before starting this project. As a kid my friend’s brother would play on my OoT cartridge (his save file is still on it and I will never get rid of it) and then I’d just go mess around in his file. I was pretty familiar with the young-Link dungeons but almost all of the adult temples were a mystery to me. I got the 3DS version of the game at some point with the intention of finally playing OoT myself… and then still didn’t until this year. So I have now played: Majora’s Mask 3DS, Majora’s Mask N64, Ocarina of Time 3DS, Ocarina of Time: Master Quest 3DS, and before watching Ghibli films Steph and I finished off Ocarina of Time N64.
Images that make you feel nostalgic (I took this when trying to do the archery courses in Majora’s Mask because aiming is very hard when you only have one stick to do it on).
I don’t think I’m going to be playing every version available for the other entries in the Zelda series but as these ones have a special place in my heart and life I thought I’d do them justice that way. I’ve gone from knowing very little about Ocarina of Time to knowing where everything is in the game almost as well as I know Majora. I still think Majora is the stronger game overall and playing it like this it’s really clear to see how Majora, as a direct sequel, was improved on after Ocarina but it definitely has some totally mystifying problems that Ocarina didn’t have. (That said: The 3DS version ruins all the bosses in the game, they’re terrible, the N64 version is much better in how it feels to play. If you are going to play Majora’s Mask I recommend following a walkthrough, I adore this game but it definitely helps that at this point I know it so well that I almost never have to just wait around for things to happen because I can cram other things in if I have to wait for something.)
I don’t know how much time I spent playing the N64 Zeldas, but the 3DS does track that stuff and I played Majora’s Mask 3DS for 29 hours (sometimes a co-worker would play so I’m not sure how much of that time was her messing around) and Ocarina of Time 3D was almost 60 hours (so I’m assuming 30 hours for regular and 30 hours for Master Quest). I’m really looking forward to playing the rest of the Zeldas! My plan right now is to (finally) finish up some other games and play BotW as I play the oldest Zelda games just because it seems like TotK builds off BotW so I’m worried if I do those two in order I’ll wind up burnt out on TotK. I might not, but I also don’t want to risk it.
Here’s my graphic for games I wanted to finish this year from last year:
Of the games I said I wanted to finish last year I was right in being so confident about Fahrenheit and Haunting Ground. As games that I was playing for friends it was a lot easier to be on top of them and beat them. Fahrenheit I even 100%’d because I have a weird obsession with 100%ing David Cage games (it was still a terrible game but was very fun to play with friends). Haunting Ground was a delight from start to finish, I know people want a remake but I’m not sure it’s the kind of game that would get made today.
.hack//G.U. I’m not too fussed on not finishing, it’s a long game and I was trying to show it to Vin so I’m not surprised it got lost in the shuffle. Pokemon Scarlet I’m also not fussed on having not finished because its DLC just came out—I beat all the base game stuff but haven’t done the DLC yet (well, I’m partway through the first DLC). That one I’ll finish this year, for sure. .hack//G.U. I’m not sure when I’ll return to it.
Horizon Forbidden West and Pokemon Legends Arceus I’m not sure how they kept slipping behind but I really want to beat those, preferably soon. I’m very good at getting busy with things, though, and then I feel too guilty to play games outside of times when I’m not doing it as a social activity with friends. I need to figure that out. Anyway for this upcoming year the ongoing games I have that I want to beat are:
I didn’t realize until I was reviewing this image that I accidentally went red-blue, blue-red, red-blue and I’m kind of laughing at how that turned out. I realize Folklore is more pink-y and Hades is really dark but the back and forth of red and blue games is amusing to me.
Three of these are the ones that slipped through the cracks this year that I already mentioned. Folklore I’m playing for friends right now (I’m having a good time but also what is even going on) so I’m pretty confident I’ll have that beat sooner than later. Hades I’ve been meaning to get back to forever, I mentioned it in my New Year’s post last year but maybe if I make it as a thing I can check-off next year I’ll actually get to it (or maybe not, who knows). And Tears of the Kingdom is here because that (should) be the last Zelda I play in my weird sudden desire for a Zelda marathon so by getting to and beating that one it means I’ve played all the rest.
Before I go over to steam I wanted to start chronicling the seasons of Fortnite I play through. I count each season as a game-played, and even though the experience is mostly social I still sink as many hours into a season of Fortnite as I would any single other game, so I wanted to start posting the season pictures as a memory-thing. Here they are:
And the most recent season is ongoing and won’t be done until sometime in 2024 (so I’ll post it on next year’s). I find it’s a fun social game to play, easy to hop on and off of, and while there’s a story the game is so gameplay focused that it really doesn’t matter if you do not pay attention to whatever anyone is yammering on about. I was shocked to discover there’s a community of people really into the Fortnite story. Good for them, I’m here to drive cars around the map excessively and be the quest-Adderall for my friends.
A friend had me try Destiny 2 earlier this year but I found the game weirdly ‘hostile.’ The gameplay itself is great, it feels really good to play, but the game does nothing to try and draw new players into the story in a way that feels good. We played for a while, I got up to rank 5 or something? Level 5? There was some weird progression thing and we got through all the basic-stuff and it was really trying to drive us into Lightfall-stuff (I think it was Lightfall that just released at the time) but the story was just incomprehensible. People are telling us to go places and do things and that some-guy is doing something and so on and so forth and it just felt weird. It didn’t help that I was having some bizarre computer issues at the time. I don’t know if I want to play more of it, honestly. I still have it on my computer and keep it updated just in case but I’m starting to wonder if I should free up that 100GB (jesus). Right now I really don’t need to, but I think about it.
The other social game I really got into this year was Plate Up!
I was introduced to it by a streamer, TheScareLab on Twitch, and it is so much fun. It’s a great game for me if I have a few minutes and don’t really want to get into something I can fire it up and work away at trying to make a fully automated restaurant (rng hates me) but it’s also very fun to play with others. Mostly it’s just me and my partner who play but sometimes other folks join in. The screencap is from their Halloween event I was delighting in being able to make hamburgers float in midair. There’s another holiday event on right now, actually, but I’ve been too busy with irl holiday stuff to check it out.
I love the steam recaps, both mine and looking at all my friends’ but I’ll just post mine here--OOPS Tumblr only lets you do 30 images per post and I'm unhinged, I'm unstoppable. To be continued in part two! I'll link it once it's up! Tumblr Why.
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Good progress
Day 19/100 of Productivity
Hi everyone. Welcome back to my blog! I actually intended to post tomorrow, but I did a lot of work today so I wanted to update you guys.
Things have been going really well lately. I have been studying well, and all my assignments are finished or at least manageable. I found a lot of time to study today, and it really helped!
I started studying by doing my literature assignment at my lunch break. I must admit that I really hate that lesson, reading books is nice but memorising the names of obscure authors isn't really my cup of tea. It took nearly one hour to complete, but at least I don't have to worry about it anymore.
In the afternoon, we had a couple of free classes. Our geometry teacher let us study because we only had a single lesson, and we also had office hours after school where I could study. I had my geometry recourses with me because of maths class, so I did my geometry homework. It was mostly easy stuff, but I had to spend 2 hours solving the questions on it.
I got back home at 6:30 like usual. I had dinner, it was lovely. They had actually eaten before I arrived but I think that was kind of fair, I am usually the last one to get home. I also managed to start studying earlier as I eat faster when I am alone.
I took my books and continued studying at 7:30 pm. I studied some biology first, I know that I studied a lot of biology this week but the teacher keeps giving us a ton of homework! I studied biology for 2 hours, mostly some reproductive system stuff. There's a lot of hormones and a lot to learn, but I think that I understood the topic pretty well. After that was done I started to study some physics, and it was really fun. It was mostly about basic machines, and I like that topic. The reason is that it is more reliant on understanding the topic rather than memorization, which is a stronger suit for me . I spent an hour with physics.
That's all that I did today on the studying front. I also found some time to socialise, spend time with my friends. I used to be a little challenged with this stuff growing up so it feels really nice. I still feel that it is hard to connect with people but at least I have a lot of people who I can confidently tell are my friends!
Well other than that I got some news today. Our school is going to make us enter an exam tomorrow. It's not going to affect our grades so I don't really get the point, but I guess it could be nice to see what I can do. I have been improving my grades lately, so let's hope I can do well in the exam.
That's all for today! Good night everyone, and good luck.
#diary entry#studyblr#100 days of productivity#studying#online diary#100dop#self improvement#productive
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All in the Family
Chapter 185: The Deathly Hallows
James crashed into something so hard it might have made his hair go flat, he could have been bashed into another dozen stairs, but that wasn’t why he froze in pain as he rolled onto his side clutching his skull in the freezing cold snow creeping through his clothes. His ears were ringing slightly, the pain was there, he could feel the new lump he should be able to tap himself to vanish...but he still couldn’t see.
“Prongs!” Remus sounded quite distressed, he really should answer, but Merlin’s beard this was bad-
“James?” Sirius sounded so concerned he sat up on instinct and reached out, he knew that was Padfoot who snatched him upright first because his hands were rough like leather, same as his from all the times spent outdoors on brooms. He still stumbled to feel the deep slush all around and shivered for himself as he smelt the fresh air, his hip knocked against whatever he’d landed against, but he had to whisper, “Evans around?”
“Yeah,” the dread in Padfoot’s voice made him want to draw his wand on instinct even as he knew it was for him. James pitched his voice higher, trying to sound as casual as could be, “oi! How long was that stuff supposed to take to kick in?”
Her touch was gentle on his shoulder, her nails blunt and well worn from constant use of peeling and crushing and cutting in her favorite class, she never took the time to do anything like spruce up her looks she was always so focused on her work. He jumped in surprise she’d been in arms reach. He went colder she didn’t answer.
That was still Sirius who grabbed him roughly and began pulling him along, he went without complaint and asked in concern, “well come on then, tell me where we are now.”
“Maybe a kindness you don’t see that,” Remus said quietly, he could have reached out and smacked him he was so close.
“Oh, enough,” he sighed. He stumbled hard on a frozen patch of earth and Sirius’s grip went bruising. “Sirius,” he snapped in no uncertain terms.
Padfoot still sounded really messed up, he hoped he hadn’t hurt his arm upon relanding. “You and Lily landed right on your- well, we’re back in Godric’s Hollow mate.”
“Oh,” he whispered in understanding. Guess they hadn’t been abstained from the pleasure of finding their graves. This trip would truly find every way it could to wreck every part of their souls.
He heard the sounds of the other four approaching through the crunch of the frozen earth and Alice summoning the book. He bit back the smart ass remark if this would get him out of homework permanently when they got back, he didn’t think even Sirius would laugh at that.
The chapter title disturbed him greatly, the Deathly Hallows. Was Harry going to find them then, were they real?
Harry certainly believed so, he made quite a few logical leaps and valid guesses what and where each of them could be and he listened in fascination to each.
Sirius started pacing, just a small little back and forth of agitation without releasing him when the idea of that Stone was mentioned again. He suspected he still wanted to be trying to talk to Remus at the oh so casual news from Ron he went back to Tonks. He could practically feel Moony cringing in disgust away from all of them, hear how his breaths went shallow, the look on his face burned into his mind for how much he loathed every part of this future. He’d never heard Sirius so quiet in his life before at any rate and hoped it wasn’t worry for him and his grave in the distance keeping Sirius so uneasy in one spot. “Bet you I could find a wand of elder around here before you Pads,” he suddenly teased as he pulled his arm free and took a tentative step away.
There was a frigid moment of silence as he felt attention turn to his stupid comment rather than Sirius’s for once, but he took another step away and smirked when still nobody stopped him. “Fine, I’ll have all the fun myself.”
“Oh no you don’t,” Lily suddenly huffed, she even grabbed his hand! “I’m freezing just standing around here, let’s go find a magically oxymoron wand.”
He smirked in triumph and knew they didn’t walk very far, but he stretched and stuck his tongue out to catch little flakes and breathed heavily to still daydream the puffs of smoke that would come out all the same, imagining the results fine even if he couldn’t see them for himself as he sporadically ducked down and came up in triumph, pretending every twig he snapped under his feet was the famed stick of death.
Lily still wasn’t really laughing along, but at least she wasn’t calling him an arrogant arse as she held his hand carefully and occasionally pulled and steered him around from stumbling over anything too problematic. She was gentler in her grip than Sirius, but more forceful than him as she steered, he felt a bit like a show pony.
“I’ve got one of them on me you know,” he just told her in the same airy way he would any of his mates, as if they hadn’t known this for ages. She made a little clicking noise with her tongue of disbelief and he smiled grandly and couldn’t quite stop the flourish of his wrist as he waved empirically at himself. “Harry’s invisibility cloak, found it all the way back in his dorms. It’ll stop us from dying I’m sure.”
“Uhhu,” she muttered, still unimpressed. She might have thought he was just joking, though he wasn’t. He would have liked to pull it out and show her now, but he’d wait until they got back so he could all at once, though he had no reason to. He wouldn’t get to see the looks of awe on their face anytime soon apparently.
If it even would block one from spells, it’s not as if they were actively throwing curses at each other, and he couldn’t imagine what it would protect them from. It had still felt just marginally safer occasionally to still have it on him. “Will it stop Sirius from murdering me?” She interrupted his train of thought with a quiet plea.
James fumbled to a stop in surprise. “Lily nobody blames you for this, least of all him,” he almost laughed in surprise but held it back as he gestured to himself. “How could anyone be expected to make the perfect antidote without all the ingredients? It’s not like we’re able to do any better, we only learned the big stuff for Moony’s sake.”
He couldn’t see her still, he sighed with longing she was still being so quiet, and he couldn’t even see why. “Listen, I’m not freaking out about this because I’m positive Pomfrey can put me right when we get back. Until then,” he shrugged, putting a lot more nonchalance into his voice than he really felt, but he would not start freaking out about this until they’d exhausted all other options. “I’ll just let Sirius keep toting me around I guess. If he runs me into a wall, I can still smack him. It’s all I need to get through this.”
She finally laughed, just the smallest one on the edge of something else he couldn’t tell, but he smiled back all the same.
There was a significant pause from Alice, the chapter must be almost done. He tipped his head back in the direction out of pure habit and opened his mouth to say something else, like worry for what was going to happen when Harry said Voldemort’s name under the taboo like that and what it would summon, but then something fluttered, just on the corner of his vision. He twisted excitedly to get a better glimpse of the flaming red color and blinked excitedly to see.
It was wavering in and out like a bad, flickering connection, but Lily Evans was watching him. There was snow in her hair, the white flecks resting in the thick locks in a lovely pattern his hand automatically wanted to twitch and run through. She looked pale in the poor lighting as she stood shivering in place still in Alice’s light and loose clothing, surrounded on all sides by the headstones of their final resting place. Where they’d landed was even still visible in the distance.
Her green eyes were only on him. His breath caught in his throat for how sad she looked. He’d thought he’d seen every expression under the sun on that freckled face, he’d still been internally cataloging all of them as he watched each new one play out fresh as he freely interacted with her like some part of him still thought was a weirdly elaborate dream. He got to watch now, in person as he gazed at her watching him and blink while he said dazedly, “well hi there.”
Her breath caught, the mist of her warm exhale hanging between them for a sparse gust of wind before she threw her arms around him. He laughed in delight and automatically hugged her back, putting his arms carefully around her back like she was as fragile as an ice sculpture. “Guess it did take a few moments to kick in.”
She laughed for him, and it was the best noise in the world.
#Jily#James Potter and Lily Evans#Lames#godric's hollow#reading the books#fanfiction#HP#Harry Potter#Wolfstar#James Potter#Lily Evans#Remus Lupin#Sirius Black#Alice Smith#Frank Longbottom#Sirius Back#Regulus Black#Peter Pettigrew
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30. A blast from the past
[Elementary School]
Do you still remember any dreams you had a child?
I do, quite a few actually. I dreamt one of my favourite dreams at that time. Always wanted to turn it into an actual story.
What was your favorite game to play back then?
Probably Sims 2.
How many best friends did you make through the years?
Hmm, I had a few. I don't think I really had a best best friend, but I hung out with quite a few kids.
How many enemies?
Okay, sooo, I didn't have a real enemy, but this girl I knew from kindergarten joined my class in second grade. I never really liked her, and let's just say that dislike only grew stronger the more time we spent together in the same class. Seven years in total.
Did anything tragic happen to you when you were little?
My childhood was generally pretty happy. My grandma died when I was 7, though, and I had a serious existential crisis about death around that time. Like, I guess it was the first time I realized everyone will die at some point, so I kept wondering what I would do when my parents die, but even more so, what would happen when I die. This tortured me for quite some time, so much so that I couldn't even read the word "death" somewhere without slightly panicking. I guess I was always kind of anxious, even as a kid.
Did anything absolutely amazing happen?
I don't think there was anything super amazing -- my childhood was just generally happy.
How was your relationship with your parents back then?
Pretty good.
Did you believe in cooties?
We didn't have that here lol
Did you ever get a cootie shot?
Refer to the answer above.
What was your favorite snack to eat?
I'm not sure about snacks, but my grandpa bought this 50g chocolate in blue wrapping for me and my sister every single morning. That was my favourite thing. Also, thanks grandpa for the chocolate addiction lol
Did you own any pets during this time?
Nope.
What was your personality like?
Quiet, shy. Tbh, not much has changed in that regard. Actually, I think in elementary I was more friendly and talkative than at any point after.
What was your favorite song[s]?
I have no clue. I don't think I even listened to music aside from the stuff my parents listened to in the car or cartoon opening themes.
What kind of toys did you like to play with?
Oh I liked anything. I think I mostly played with Barbies and other dolls with my sister though.
[Middle School/Junior High]
How did your personality change from Elementary to Middle School?
I got much quieter and much more awkward. I think this is when social anxiety kicked in, I just had no clue what it was and why I struggled so much to talk to other people. It just felt like I'm totally fucked in the head, basically. And I didn't know how to talk about it to my parents, and they definitely didn't know what that was either. So I was just getting quieter and quieter and lonelier and lonelier. But it got like 1000 worse in high school.
What was your favorite thing to do during this time?
I liked hanging out with my sister and her friends. They were three years younger than me, but it didn't really matter. All of my friends from school lived in a village near the town, which, at the time, felt like it was too far away to hang out often.
Who were some of your closest friends?
Aside from my sister's friends, I had a tiny friend group of three girls in school. Also, I remained friends with one boy who I was close to earlier in elementary.
How often did you get involved with Middle School drama?
I don't think I ever did. I'd hear about it, but it had nothing to do with me.
What kind of "clique" were you in? Or did you not beleive in cliques?
We didn't have cliques per se, but there was a bit of a distinction between who's popular and who isn't. I definitely wasn't. I guess I'd count as a nerd, but my friends weren't.
How did people treat you?
Mostly like I didn't really exist until they needed my help on a test or with homework. Tbh, I didn't mind that, but I hated when people would pull out the "we are friends" card to get me to do stuff for them. Like, no, we're not friends. I'll help you either way, but don't pretend you'll give a shit about me once the test is over. That's especially true for the girl I mentioned above, who went so far as to invite me places to hang out just so she'd ensure my help in school, all the while being condescending and putting me down. I should've told her to fuck off, but I was too scared to at the time.
Do you look back on these years fondly?
Absolutely not. Couldn't pay me to go back there. The only thing I look back on fondly was that tiny friend group I had.
What was your typical kind of lunch during school?
We never had lunch in school lol. We were basically let out on the streets to buy something to eat during the big break. Or you could bring something from home if your parents were inclined to prepare you food.
What school[s] did you go to?
The same elementary/middle school for eight years and then a different high school.
Was it really as bad as some people say Junior High is?
I mean, for me it was bad. Idk what other people say.
Did you like to read?
I loved to read. Which some people actually teased me for at the time, and I find that so stupid now looking back.
What was one good memory you have of this time?
My summer holiday on Thassos with my family. Meeting those other kids and running wild for ten days together was an amazing experience I will never forget.
Were you still enemies with someone from elementary school?
Yeah, the girl I mentioned. I started full on hating her in middle school and could hardly stand her presence. Unfortunately, we were stuck in the same class and she only got worse.
If you could go back and change one thing, what would you change?
I'd get rid of anxiety for sure. And stand up to that girl earlier than I did.
[High School]
Are you still in High School?
No, thank God.
Who were some of your close friends?
I had a little friend group in high school too, first with Ivy and Tanja, and then that expanded to a few other people. I was really close to Tanja for a while, plus, I had Jane who was always my friend but not really in any of my friend groups.
On top of that, I had Chris and Sam, though both of them were long-distance friends. And Anna from middle school.
Who were some of your enemies?
Well, my former enemy went to a different high school, so I was very much enemy-free. Not that it mattered, since high school sucked anyway.
How did your personality change from the previous years?
I was even more anxious than before, which prompted me to try and people please even harder. I wasn't doing well mentally at all. For a little while, I thought I found some good friends but that all fell apart in senior year, which stressed me out enough to basically stop eating (though not on purpose), which then led to some other health problems. Also, I was fighting with my mum all the time. Mostly because she was worried about me, but to me it felt like I couldn't open up to her and like she always blamed me for everything. On top of that, I also blamed myself for everything, I had no idea why simple things felt so difficult to me. So, great times, all in all.
Going in, did you really think they were going to be the best four years ever?
No, but I thought they'd be better than middle school. It was going to be a new school, that girl I disliked would be gone, fresh start. Well then it turned out that like half of my class would be made up from kids I went to elementary and middle school with anyway, so in reality, there was hardly anything fresh about that start.
Were they? [or are they if you're still in High School]
No, they were much worse than I expected. Especially the last two years.
What's one memory of High School can you look back on and grin?
Well even though I made it seem like it was all doom and gloom, there were some okay times. I remember the whole class got addicted to Flappy Bird and played it incessantly during all breaks and classes lol. We even had pictures of everyone standing in the corridor staring at their phones and playing.
Did you ever cry while you were in school?
I only remember I cried when the teacher kicked me out from one class once. It's a long story, but I went out and cried a bit when no one was around. I never cried otherwise, and definitely not in front of others.
How was your love life?
Lol very much non-existent. I had kind of a crush (though I think it was a platonic crush if anything) on this one boy for years, but I never wanted anything out of it and he was an asshole anyway.
How was your social life?
I mean, on the outside, I guess it would look okay, at least in the sophomore and junior year. I had friends, we hung out, went together on breaks, went out on the weekends. I was getting invited to birthday parties. No one was outwardly mean or bullying me. But yeah, when you really dive into it, it wasn't great. The only people I felt close to lived far away, and Tanya, my best friend in high school, basically abandoned me as soon as something better came along. I spent so many birthday parties in the last year feeling totally alone while surrounded by friends, and let me tell you, there's no worse kind of loneliness.
Did you have any teachers that you just absolutely loved?
Hm yeah, our class teacher was cool.
Did you have any teachers that you just absolutely despised?
I'm not sure. I had some I disliked, but I don't remember totally despising anyone.
How were/are your GPA?
Not how it works here and I'm not really sure if I remember now tbh. I was always a pretty great student, though, never struggled with the academic side of things.
Did you know anyone who got pregnant?
Not in our high school, no.
[There's no time like the present]
Do you currently have a job?
Yup, a few too many actually.
What kind of job do you *want* to have?
I mean, I'm cool with what I do. My dream is to become an actual fiction writer though, but idk, I don't think I'm brave enough for that.
What do you like to do on your free time?
What free time lol? When I do have it, though, I like to meet my friends, go out to eat, take walks, read, travel, go to gigs and concerts...
What's your relationship with your parents now?
It's good now, it got better as soon as I moved out for college. I mean, I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully trust them to open up about certain things, but I do know they have my back most of the time and they're trying their best.
Do you own any pets?
Yes, we have a cat.
How many places have you travelled to?
Lots, I don't feel like counting.
Do you own a cell phone? If so, what kind?
Yup, a Huawei.
What are your goals for the future?
I don't want to think too long term, so to go to Transylvania, do more things by myself (travel by myself, for example), see BTS in a concert, and yeah. Practice my Japanese more.
What's your favorite kind of drink?
Hot chocolate. As for alcoholic ones, I like Tequila Sunrise.
Did you ever get into the Twilight saga craze?
Of course. I made my mum buy all the books. She still holds it against me lol
What about the Harry Potter craze?
Yup, I grew up on Harry Potter.
Where is your mind at: The Past, the Present, the Future, or all around?
Lately it's been a bit too much on the future and I don't like that very much. I used to be much better at grounding myself in the present.
What's a really good movie you've seen recently?
Talk to Me.
Are you happy where you are right now?
No, but it's not really about where I am. I mean, my life circumstances are great and I have my dream job so theoretically, I should be happy. Sadly, my mental health is taking a bit of a nosedive.
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6 Years Past
CW- Suicide, Self-Harm
It’s July 20th. Six years ago, Chester Bennington, lead singer of Linkin Park, passed away. He took his own life. For fans current and past it was the sucker punch we all saw coming but could never be prepared for.
Six years past and it still aches the heart.
Folks outside a fandom will not understand what it’s like within the cult of personality when a famous person dies. Yes, it’s a person you never met and who never knew your name. But paradoxically it was also a person you spent your most intimate, emotional moments with.
Chester was with me in the back of my parents’ van on the long vacation drive when I first picked up Crawling from a local rock station on my portable radio. He was with me during my most lonely after-school hours in junior high. He was with me when I wrote my first stories. He was with me when I staged my first autodrama, a piano cover of Pushing Me Away softly playing as the curtain opened.
Chester’s voice and lyrics opened my young mind up to the possibility that the angst and aggrievement I felt was not something to be buried but something to be expressed- written, sung, screamed, put front and center. Most importantly- it was a signal flare, letting me know I was not alone.
Every year I mark this occasion by listening to Linkin Park’s music and checking in online about my own mental health.
I’ve oscillated between being very loud about the work I’ve been doing and being very quiet. I’d like to think I’ve fallen somewhere in the middle in recent months. There’s a lot of use in being transparent. There’s also a lot of bluster in it.
I’ve experienced a lot of change in the past year. I’m currently in with two therapists, one behavioral, one nutritional. It’s less intense than it sounds, as one basically serves as a sounding board for petty grievances and the other just asks me if I’m eating fruits and vegetables. I am on a program for working through panic symptoms and have some meager goals in sight- drive a car, see the dentist, run a race, that kind of stuff. That said, the program goes slow, partly due to my lack of diligence. Turns out even at my age, homework is still hard to commit to.
I’ve come to accept that for me, at least, there is no grand turning point where suddenly I wake up as a new person. Change is a process of small movements that coalesce into something more grand after months and years. I told an old friend this week “I wish the person I am now had met you back then, rather than the person I was”. It was a bleak but honest admission- I’ve experienced change, and I am mostly better for it.
But still so very far from perfect. I’ve had challenges this year and I have failed them. I still struggle to caretake, to empathize, to reject my own selfishness when tasked with bearing the burdens of another. I’m still racked with panic and imagined pain that rules my decision-making. I still struggle with truthfulness and decisions made purely to manage my own anxiety. I’m told I also struggle with cutting myself some slack- something I often counter with “but so many people have cut me slack already”.
I guess I still have work to do.
I lost a friend to suicide this year. It was someone I hadn’t spoken to in years- someone I didn’t cut slack even when they asked me for grace. As I’ve said of Chester’s death so many times, I’ll say again here- it was the suckerpunch you see coming but can’t brace for. Suicide is just like that.
The last time they reached out to me was almost ten years ago. They were in the process of making amends with people they’d wronged. It’s a sentiment I understand well, having been in that position often enough. It’s rare that I’m on the other side hearing the apology. I guess that’s why this particular moment stuck out to me- as did my failure to yield. This person asked me to forgive them for their habitual abuse. I ignored them. They lived another ten hard years- it’s likely they never thought of me again after that DM. And then it was over and I was at their visitation, alone, like a cat that had snuck into a house uninvited.
I felt immense regret in that moment. I should have written back. It is possible it would not have made a difference if I did, or even that it could have opened me up to further abuse. I don’t believe my acceptance would have changed their overall fate. I’m not that vain. But it weighed on me nonetheless. Still does, to some extent.
In therapy, I was told there was nothing to learn from this moment. I kinda hate that. I’m not a spiritual person, but I don’t like the idea that these things happen and there’s just nothing to take away from it. So instead, I choose to believe that the lesson here is that grace can be granted, but guarded- and still be worthwhile.
...and that at this new age, there are no guarantees of a next time. Because people will break and healing is a finite quality. Some things- many things, really- will break and stay broke, including people. Especially people.
With all that said, let’s come full circle to discuss Linkin Park once more. That’s what we’re here for, after all.
This year’s single that really leaped out at me was Leave Out All The Rest.
The chorus feels eerily significant after the fact-
“When my time comes,
Forget the wrong that I’ve done.
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed.
Don’t resent me,
And when you’re feeling empty
Keep me in your memory;
Leave out all the rest.”
If that’s not the strongest possible directive on how to remember Chester and his music, I don’t know what is.
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06.06.2023 - Period Mood
Today is Tuesday.
My last post was cut short because Taylor called, and I just talked to him before getting back to work.
I am officially done with my 3rd quarter of grad school, and I am so happy. I finished my last homework assignment like an hour ago, and I think I am going to chill for the rest of the day. I was gonna go to the gym, but my period finally started after being 33 days and it’s hitting me pretty hard. I can’t even remember the last time my period gave me this much pain and bloating. I am gonna try to really rest and not think about school for this short break I have because I think I need to take care of myself better while I am in school. Of course, I do the gym and do my work properly, but I don’t really think I take care of my mental health well. I kind of just push things until I hit a breaking point and have a panic attack about it. I am taking one course again this summer because I am pretty busy this summer, and I think I should enjoy it rather than constantly studying and doing work. I hope this will be a good summer. I am really excited because I’ll be doing to California for my birthday in like 3 weeks, and I’ll be going to see Fall Out Boy. I am also planning to work on my volleyball fundamentals while I am on break because I feel like I have been getting lazy. I am not sure if it was because I was in school or if I am actually being lazy. We will just have to see how I do while I am playing on break. I did really poorly yesterday on offense, and that really bothered me. I am not an offensively strong player, but I was giving up points there which is the problem. If I am not scoring then I shouldn’t be giving up points.
Moving on to the real reason why I am writing today, and I believe it’s mostly my period really pushing the thoughts forward. As I have said before, Taylor and I’s relationship has become that of regular friends, and it’s like we never even went through the stages we did to get here. It’s as if we have always been like this which is fine with me, but every now and then, I get SMACKED with all the things we use to do and talk about. Let me kind of break it down:
April 2022 - June 2022: Getting to know each other, talked everyday, and I dumped Peter
June 2022 - mid - Aug 2022: Friendly, but definitely had conversations that were not considered “just friends” things, really pushed the friend boundary
Mid-Aug 2022- End of Oct 2022: Definitely not a relationship between two people who were just friends, sexual stuff, and more couple stuff, time of my confessions and rejection
Nov 2022 - Feb 2023: Confusing time after I got rejected, but we still were intimate(?). A very confusing time for me because I am def not able to do that whole no string attached thing.
Mid-Feb 2023 - present: Taylor ending our sexual relationship and reverting to normal friends or as normal as we can be I guess
For starters, I am kind of sad because I feel like the time we spent together during the April to July period was really wholesome and fun, and we were just there for each other as people. I really felt like we both cared about each other not that we don’t now, but for me, I feel like part of it was invalidated by the progression from that point. The time period where we had a sexual relationship. I don’t feel like I did anything wrong of course, but I also have to deal with the new emotions it brings. Nothing I said during our early stages of friendship was a lie, but I can’t help doubt Taylor intentions from the beginning. I don’t think his intentions were bad though because we are still friends now. Its just a thought here and there. I just don’t really know how to deal with it sometimes because he is still my friend, and we still talk everyday. I understand that people do what I did with other people and move on, but this dude is literally a huge part of my life. Like what the actual fuck? On top of that, it is my first time even having this kind of relationship with someone, and I really got bamboozled. I really thought this man liked me because I would not have done any of that if I knew he didn’t like me. I guess there were signs that he didn’t like me, but there were way more signs that he liked me. Literally, everyone around me thought he liked me, and they all supported me saying something. This is why I have trauma now. CALL ME BABE ALL YOU WANT AND ACT JEALOUS, BUT YOU DON’T LIKE ME UNTIL YOU SAY IT. I literally cannot LOL. I do not understand it. There are times where I wonder if I was the one being delusional during that time, but I have been assured that it wasn’t me. Like... this man hates talking to people and being social, but he spent time talking to me everyday morning to night. We still talk everyday now even though it’s much less time wise. He called me babe, got jealous, and sends me money for boba. He told me he wanted to sleep with me, and that if something ever happened to me, then he wouldn’t last very long. SIR? UM, SIR? I’m sorry, but imagine having a boyfriend with that kind of past with his girl best friend because that’s what I am to Taylor (unless he lied about all that). I don’t think he lied though because he is always very concerned about me when something happens. I am his best friend.. that he wanted to fuck, and that was reciprocated. I was interested in sleeping with him too. He says he is never going to get a girlfriend so it won’t be a problem, but for me, I don’t know, dude. I didn’t really plan on being single forever, but I mean, I guess, it could happen. Who knows LOL. I get so many emotions every time I think about that period of our friendship because it just confuses the fuck out of me, AND I didn’t get any closure. The only thing I pursued after my rejection was why he decided that he wanted to sleep with me and all that stuff, and all he said was “idk”. I was speechless. I was like... this man changed our whole relationship dynamic on impulse though which I am not surprised after getting to know him more. He does things impulsively with no explanation pretty often, and I happen to be on the receiving end of those impulses this time. I have accepted that, but I feel like not all of it was impulse. I fully believe there was a part of him that liked me, but he simply didn’t want to commit to anything. I am fine with though. I didn’t really pursue much after my rejection because I felt like it was for the best. I don’t think we would be able to handle a romantic relationship with each other because he doesn’t like to communicate, and I place a lot of importance on communication. He is also rude af when he talks some times, and I don’t mess with that. I definitely get annoyed with what he says a lot of time, and I hold it in because we’re simply just friends. I would not be okie with it if we were more, and this includes things he says to me personally too. I feel kind of bad assuming a relationship between the two of us would fail, but it’s true LOL. I think it would also be to the point that we wouldn’t even be able to be friends after. I already think the friendship we are maintaining right now is destined to fail some time in the future. Random thought I am having right now, Taylor literally says that he ghost friends or drops them randomly for no reason at all, but he told me that I am stuck with him forever. He told me that, and I still feel like our friendship might end one day. That’s so pessimistic of me, but it’s because I know him pretty well. He may have said things that show that I am special/important to him, but we are talking about a dude that broke up with the “love of his life” to go fuck other girls soooooo like... his words.... not reliable. I hope that he gets help one day and figures all this out. I will be here to support him though because regardless of all the things we’ve been through, I love him and consider him my best friend. He knows more about me than anyone else who has walked this earth.
-P
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Perspective is a weird thing. As an adult looking back at myself through my academic career, I have spent hours wondering how I had the energy to get through whole days at school AND do my homework AND participate in whatever theater and other extracurricular stuff I had going on. These days I often feel like I only have energy for one thing a day. I know I have a chronic energy disorder, but I still beat myself up over it because I’ve had it all my life and yet I STILL managed those long days full of all the things I had to do and keep track of and was fine.
Only. I wasn’t fine, actually? Somehow between then and now I forgot that I was constantly exhausted and at least once but more often twice a semester I broke down sobbing over how tired I was and how I just couldn’t keep going. The cry was the BEST because it helped level out my brain chemistry which then gave me what I needed to get back up and continue doing what I was doing. I didn’t have a choice if I didn’t want to fail school. How did I forget how I was always so tired? I once had a cold that lasted for three or four months - so long that I remember thinking that I must not have a cold anymore, this must just be how it is to be healthy. Brain fuzzy, nose constantly running, throat all muggy, that was just normal right? I didn’t have a fever so I must be fine and I’m just not trying hard enough to concentrate. The feeling when that cold finally cleared up was revolutionary. Pretty sure that cold stayed so long because I was so run down that I didn’t have the energy to fight it off.
Somehow I forgot all this and have been comparing myself now to this version of myself in my mind who was better for some reason and could do so much for some reason. Then I was reading something that I guess triggered the release of that memory? Reminded me that actually I wasn’t fine? I was constantly exhausted and hitting walls and burning the candle at both ends and running on fumes? And none of that was healthy and I got colds so easily.
I haven’t had a cold in years. I don’t push myself as hard as I did because I have the option to rest and I take it. I’m healthier than I was then. I’m less active than I was then. I’m better at setting boundaries than I was then. I’m still treating my disorders but I’m not as tired. I’m not exhausted like I used to be all the time without knowing how exhausted I was. I knew I was exhausted, but I just accepted it as normal and I know better now.
#adulting#sometimes means getting a new perspective on who you used to be#and forgiving yourself for not realizing sooner
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#guess who spent time doing stuff other than homework#i know it may not be cool or sexy to not hate tumblr#but i do support their ad policy of 'whatever the fuck'#tumblr#twitter#tiktok#facebook
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Given how the second movie handled Sonic's universe and characters, what characters at this point do you think are most likely to show up in Sonic 3 & Knuckles (that will never get old) and who would you be genuinely shocked by?
(This post contains spoilers for Sonic 2.)
Okay so part of me thinks that Shadow opens the floodgates for them to go beyond the Classic cast, but I also think that Shadow is just so absurdly popular (arguably still the second most popular character behind only Sonic himself) that he was always a shoe-in
I think right now I would say Amy is probably a relatively safe bet, just because she's a staple of the franchise who's been around since the Genesis days, and at a certain point you gotta start letting the girls in on the fun. Plus, she's a key player in Shadow's arc, so like. Duh. But who knows. I'm kind of surprised she's not there already.
Metal Sonic is also an A-lister who would be easy to include, but they might find him redundant next to Shadow. (You can absolutely have the two act as foils to each other, but I just don't know if they'd consider that too much for one movie to introduce.)
Like I said before, if we've now got both a Knuckles show and a Shadow-focused movie coming out, then they share a major supporting character, and that's Rouge. (Yes I am also a known Rouge stan so I'm biased lol.) If they wanna loosely adapt SA2 like how this movie loosely adapted S3&K, then Rouge is obviously a key part of that story, especially if they spent part of that movie setting up GUN. (Hell, have her interact with Agent Stone since he's infiltrating GUN!) And if they're trying to go full Cinematic Universe on us then setting her up in the Knuckles show so they don't have to do as much work introducing her in Sonic 3 makes a lot of sense. The problem with Rouge is just, you know... the boobs. It's the boobs. But I want to see them try to make Rouge work in live action because either they keep her as-is and general audiences are completely bewildered by the furry bait character, or they downplay it and thousands of people online all cry out in agony. Either way it's going to be very funny.
Other than that, I really don't know. Anyone in SA2 feels fairly likely just because they seem to be building towards a version of that story. The Knuckles show is really the big question. Beyond Rouge, people are guessing maybe the Chaotix, but like... for one, Knuckles isn't actually associated with them anymore, and two, as much as I like them, they aren't important characters to set up ASAP if the focus is on stuff from the iconic Genesis and Adventure stuff
Oh, and I'd be surprised if we didn't get a quick Big cameo as a gag before the end of this
Really I just want them to use all of the characters. I'm growing tired of Cinematic Universe shit where you have to watch a bunch of different movies and streaming miniseries as homework for other movies and streaming series, but I'll watch the shit out of any Sonic stuff they make if it keeps being this fun. Give us the Sol Dimension miniseries with Blaze. Give us Silver time traveling. Add Omega as the funny evil robot, audiences will eat that up. Give it to me
As for who I'd be most shocked to see, idk. Literally anyone from the comics? The Babylon Rogues, because they barely exist outside of the Riders games? Gemerl? Honey? Marine? Cream? Actually out of the major recurring cast Cream might be the least likely to ever show up lol. Sorry Cream
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john abused both dean AND sam, just differently. in this essay i will
prove that the abuse manifested in different ways for each of them because that’s how abuse works in real life. this is based on the fact that john saw dean as mary’s surrogate but once he found out about the deal and sam having demon blood he blamed sam for her death. ok let’s fucking go
dean as mary’s surrogate
there are loads of parallels made between dean and mary in early season spn and late season spn. in season 12 dean directly calls himself sam’s mother, but even earlier than that we see him doing the cooking and child rearing. compare that to all the parallels made between sam and john (both of them losing their blonde woman significant others in a ceiling fire) and it’s clear that dean was meant to more resemble mary. it’s not a stretch to say that if we can see it as viewers this is how john saw it in his actual life. i do think john loves dean for being dean but he loves him more for being mary.
sam as the reason behind mary’s death
i think once john learned that sam had demon blood, some part of him must have always been waiting for the other shoe to drop with sam, not ever fully believing this kid was human, and maybe not even knowing if this kid was HIS. a popular theory back in the day was that YED fathered sam (something they had to actually address in season 4 to stop the speculation), and if WE speculated that hard, surely john must have too. i’m sure he loves sam as an extension of mary, and keeps and raises and protects him BECAUSE he’s mary’s, but similarly (or maybe inverse) to dean, i don’t know if he ever fully gave himself permission to love sam for being sam. in fact, i imagine john harbors a lot of self-loathing for failing to save mary. if we directly parallel john and sam, that means by some extent he would also hate sam.
john trusted dean with far too much, and sam with far too little
dean knew about monsters; sam didn’t. dean had memories of their mother and the night she died, and shared that trauma of watching her die with john; sam didn’t. dean knew when john was supposed to be home and who to call if he wasn’t; sam didn’t. dean was given the money and the guns and the CAR ITSELF; sam wasn’t. dean was taught to drive; SAM WASN’T.
dean was expected to do everything john was supposed to have been doing in his absence - he was to be a mother and father to sam, he was supposed to protect sam from evil, he was supposed to see to sam’s meals and homework and getting to school on time. and he was put under an EXTRAORDINARY amount of pressure not to screw this up even a little bit, despite the fact that he was only a kid. sam on the other hand was kept on a strict need-to-know basis for his entire life, right up until season 1 when they reunite at last. john didn’t trust sam with ANYTHING, and sam knew it. this contributed to his lifelong anger issues because he didn’t DO anything to warrant that kind of mistrust and probably got gaslit about it a lot of times either by john himself or dean (unknowingly, by parroting/believing the things john said). even in the pilot sam says very casually of his mother “she’s gone,” because her memory doesn’t hold the same place of reverence for him - best guess is that john didn’t talk about her much to sam because he didn’t trust sam with emotional stuff either. in s14 we learn that dean was the one who told sam stories about mary, including her terrible casserole - and their attempt at recreating it infuriated john to the point of him throwing the entire concoction in the trash.
john relied on dean for everything, and refused to rely on sam for anything
canonically dean was the one who comforted john after a bad hunt, looked after and fed his brother when john wasn’t around. dean knew how to use a shotgun; sam didn’t. dean knew who to call in an emergency; sam didn’t. dean knew about monsters; sam didn’t. this was done under the guise of “protection for sammy” but turn it around and it’s also protection FROM sammy. think of how angry john gets when he learns sam has been having psychic visions. he’s not just angry that dean didn’t report it to him, he’s angry that the demon’s plans for sam are coming to pass, and that sam is becoming less human. again, he can’t TRUST sam if sam’s not human, and it proves to john that he was right all along to keep sam in the dark as much as possible.
john gave dean too much freedom, and sam no freedom at all
“watch out for sammy.” sam was under constant supervision by either dean or john; john made sure of it. again, it’s protection FOR sam but also protection FROM him, in case he did something inhuman or evil. dean on the other hand was left alone without any supervision at all for days or even weeks at a time - he resorts to stealing bread and peanut butter and (according to jackles) turning tricks for money. he had to make it work and got up to whatever the fuck he wanted when john wasn’t looking. sam had to LITERALLY run away from home before he got the simple pleasure of eating pizza and having a dog by himself, independently. dean was given too much independence and freedom but sam was kept on such a short leash he had none at all.
john made dean feel unworthy, and he made sam feel unclean
when dean fails to protect sam from the shtriga in the season 1 flashbacks, he says his dad looked at him differently after. he also implies that john physically beat him when sam ran away in flagstaff. whether he meant to or not, john made it abundantly clear that his love for dean was not unconditional; it depended very much on how well dean performed the multitude of tasks john assigned him. dean grew up believing that his only worth was in what he could do for other people. he demonstrates this an an adult over and over and over, from letting his possessed family members beat him up to refusing to take care of his own needs, emotional and otherwise, and snapping at people who try to talk to him about his own feelings.
on the other hand, sam talks in season 8 about how even at a very young age he felt impure and unclean, even before he knew that he had demon blood, even before he knew that there was any such thing as monsters. kids aren’t stupid, and sam picked up on the vibes john was putting off - that john didn’t trust him, might not have loved him, and might not have considered him human or even his own child. without even knowing why, he spent his entire life feeling unclean and inhuman, not worth of being loved by his own family. even dean, who we all know loves sam unconditionally, admits in season 14 that he often took dad’s side on arguments because he had “his own stuff,” further leading to the alienation that was sam’s constant companion growing up.
AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY:
JOHN’S ABUSE PITTED SAM AND DEAN AGAINST EACH OTHER
john saved dean after their shared trauma of mary’s death. dean says in season 1 that the reason he stopped talking was that he was scared. iirc john’s journal implies he was mute for over a year, and dean in season 2 says that when he was 6 or 7 his dad took him shooting for the first time. if mary died just before dean’s fifth birthday, the timeline works out to dean talking again because john took him shooting. i believe that dean hero worships his father because after mary’s death, and dealing with the terror that something like that could come in and take his family away by killing them horribly at any time without any warning, john learning to fight back against the darkness - and teaching dean to do the same - is what gave dean his voice again. BOTH of them saw and carried the memory of mary burning on the ceiling for the rest of their lives. “watch out for sammy” and “get the thing that killed mom” were dean’s reasons to get up in the morning, because they were john’s reasons to get up in the morning. these things were LITERALLY his reasons for living. john gave dean a way to fight back against fear and gave him a cause to keep him going. abuse or not, dean never stopped being grateful for that, and he was the only other person in the whole world who understood the unique horror of what john went through that night. even all the way into season 10, he tells other people that john did right by him. it’s borderline brainwashing. part of dean’s self-worth will always be based on how good of a son he was to john.
on the other hand, knowingly or not, john did everything possible to alienate sam. he kept him on a short leash while also keeping him at arm’s distance. he didn’t trust sam with emotional things like the memory of mary, he didn’t trust sam with the truth about monsters and what they did for a living, he didn’t trust sam with his plans, he didn’t trust sam with the truth about demon blood. canon STRONGLY suggests john knew YED bled in sam’s mouth as a baby, but instead of telling sam or even dean about that, sam had to learn about it in a horrible flashback recreated by YED himself. when sam wanted to go to school, john told him no, and when he left anyway, john told him not to come back.
this is an equal but opposite kind of abuse. john totally fucked up BOTH his kids in complete inversions to each other.
which means that, no matter what john did, it caused sam and dean to fight. this isn’t an interpretation. this is straight up canon.
again, dean says in s14 that he frequently took dad’s side in arguments because he had his own stuff to deal with, and he was trying to keep the peace. dean, a victim of emotional (and implied sometimes physical) abuse himself, was not able to shield sam from all of john’s bullshit. he could stop sam from getting hit and having to see john during the worst of his drunken rages, but he couldn’t trick sam into thinking john loved him unconditionally, because john didn’t love either of his kids unconditionally.
when john acted in a way that was not befitting of a parent, sam rightfully took exception, which forced dean (who was ALSO BEING ABUSED, almost brainwashed) to jump to his defense. that led to john getting to do whatever the hell he wanted and sam and dean arguing about the effects. when sam ran away in flagstaff, DEAN was punished, leading dean to resenting sam for that incursion, even though sam was perfectly right to want to get away from an abusive household. when sam did a normal thing wanting to leave for college at age 18, he left, and dean resented him for that because that meant he was alone to bear the brunt of john’s anger.
sam repeatedly made logical, emotionally healthy choices in attempting to break the family dynamic, but because of JOHN’S BEHAVIOR, not sam’s, those choices wound up causing dean harm. JOHN HIMSELF was the ultimate wedge between sam and dean growing up and beyond.
and let’s not forget the biggest sin - john spent 22 years impressing upon dean that taking care of sammy was EVERYTHING, and then without any explanation at all, he asked dean to kill him, and then he DIED, which meant dean had to carry that weight by himself (because again, he’s been trained not to trust sam with things). like of COURSE sam got angry when he found out - that’s fucking fucked up! once again sam is being treated like a ticking time bomb for absolutely no reason - he didn’t ask to have demon blood or psychic visions or a dead mom or an abusive father. nor did dean ask to be saddled with the upbringing of an entire human at four years old who he then might have to kill. because dean will always feel gratitude towards john, and sam will always feel resentment, and because based on john’s treatment of them BOTH OF THESE FEELINGS ARE JUSTIFIED, john continues to cause fights between sam and dean long after he’s dead and gone, and that will never change.
on a final note: i’d like to bring this around to season 13.
after cas, mary, kelly, and crowley all die (or are presumed dead in mary’s case) in the season 12 finale, season 13 opens with nobody but sam and dean and jack. dean directly blames jack for these deaths. he says so multiple times. he says where jack can hear him that he knows jack is evil and impure and cannot be saved and calls jack a freak. when jack tries repeatedly to kill himself dean says to jack’s face not to bother, because WHEN jack does go bad, dean will be the one to kill him. dean does NOT see jack as castiel’s child - he sees jack as someone who brainwashed cas and kelly both and got them killed. dean does not even see jack as a human person worthy of life. from the get-go, all he wants is to put jack down. jack is born into a world shaped by pain and grief and anger, where people hate him simply for what he is and who died to get him here.
and again, sam identifies hard with jack. he justifiably protests dean’s treatment of him. jack is a kid and didn’t ask for any of this. jack is terrified of dean. sam reminds dean that john said all these things about sam that dean is saying about jack. john is still causing a rift between his sons over a decade after his death.
eventually, after jack uses his powers and brings back cas from the empty, dean pulls his head out of his ass and admits that he was wrong. he calls jack his kid more than once, and jack refers to dean as one of his dads. but the damage has already been done. jack struggles multiple times with his powers, accidentally hurting people and then wishing himself dead after. he also struggles without them; even when using his powers means using up pieces of his soul, he does it, because dean taught him that he’s only worthy of being loved and trusted if he’s “good.” even when he has NO SOUL, when jack does something bad he panics about it and seeks to undo it at any cost. that’s how deep the damage runs.
i see a lot of people remarking that in the arc of 13.01-13.05, dean became john, and i agree that he did. but dean didn’t do to jack what john did to him. dean did to jack what john did to SAM.
[spn masterpost]
#supernatural#dean winchester#sam winchester#john winchester#jack kline#liz watches spn#liz's meta#liz's spn stuff#YES YOU CAN REBLOG THIS PLS DO I WORKED HARD ON IT.#WHEW. glad i got that off my chest#this is why u can't call it the widow arc#sam revisited a WHOLE childhood of trauma here#the arc is about all of them!!!!!#backtagging to add#broken road#brcu
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everything happens for a reason part 6 - zuko x fem!reader
The thing about forever is that it's a fucking lie
part 5 | masterlist | part 7
a/n: you all know whats coming lmao i got nothing to say for myself
wc: 3.5k
warning(s): pakku's usual sexism, typical siege of the north stuff, mostly angst but a lil bit of fluff in there
chapter title comes from forever is a lie by bea miller!
“I can’t believe that your tribe doesn’t teach waterbending to women!” Katara fumed, the snow beneath her feet packed tightly from her continuous pacing. “I mean, how can they even do that? Master Pakku’s all about ‘his culture and his teachings’ but his teachings are completely sexist!”
Y/N just nodded along as she listened to Katara — Master Pakku had refused to teach Katara, and after a disappointing healing lesson she had found Y/N to rant. “Yep. It’s unfair, but there’s not much we can do about it.”
Katara frowned and stopped in her tracks. “Don’t you want to learn how to fight too? I love being able to heal and help people, don’t get me wrong, but healing isn’t all I want to do.”
A shaky sigh fell from her lips and she shrugged, adjusting her position on the platform of ice she had made to sit on. “Well… yeah, I guess. I know a couple of martial moves, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to know more. But Katara, I—”
Y/N was silent for a moment as flashes of the past played behind her eyelids. “I’m not like you. I’m not the kind of person to challenge the rules. Not anymore.”
Katara shook her head, already back to her pacing. “I think you’re selling yourself short. I saw your healing during your class — you’re really talented, Y/N, and I know that skill will transfer over to fighting.”
“Thank you, but— but it doesn’t matter how good we are. Master Pakku is just as stubborn as he is talented, and I think he’d rather die than be a decent person. It’s a shame though. I’d really like to see someone knock some sense into him.”
“Yeah…” Katara sighed. “Hopefully Aang is having a better time than I am.” She looked up at the sky then fixed Y/N with a wry smile. “Speaking of Aang, I should probably get back to him and my brother. Sorry for talking your ear off the whole night.”
Y/N waved her hand around nonchalantly. “Don’t worry about it. You have my permission to rant to me any time you want while you’re here.”
Katara grinned and offered her hand, which Y/N took with a small smile as she got up from her ice platform. With a slight movement of her hand she bent it back into the ground, and the two girls began their walk back to the city. “I just wish I knew how to get Pakku to let up.”
“You’ll think of something,” Y/N reassured.
-
Katara did indeed think of something. Y/N’s wish of Pakku getting some sense knocked into him was granted when Katara challenged him to a fight, which was quite possibly the best thing that Y/N had ever witnessed. Though she ultimately lost, he still decided to take her on as a student — and in a move that Y/N would forever be grateful for, Katara had gotten Pakku to take her on as well. Katara made history that day, and she felt a shining sense of admiration for the girl for shaking things up.
And now, her days consisted of early mornings spent training, afternoons in classes, and nights doing homework, as well as fitting in time to hang out with Yue — it was a miracle she had any free time at all.
Lately though, it seemed like all Yue could talk about was Sokka. She liked him just as much as he liked her, but Yue was good — no matter how much she cared for someone, her tribe would always come first.
(“Did I hear that you and Sokka have a date later tonight?” she teased. “Aren’t you moving a little too fast?” Yue was silent at her attempt at humor and Y/N frowned. “Yue, are you okay?”
Silence lingered in the air for so long that Y/N almost thought she didn’t hear her, but finally the princess spoke as she pulled down the collar of her jacket to reveal an engagement necklace. Y/N gasped.
“It’s from Hahn,” she said quietly. “He proposed an hour ago, and I accepted.”
“You what?” Y/N cried, prompting a slight grimace from Yue. “Hahn— you can’t stand him!”
“Y/N, please,” Yue sighed. “He’s not that bad — he’s handsome, I guess. And he’s the son of a noble, and he’ll be really good for the tribe.”
“Yue, you’re the one who has to deal with him. He proposed to you, not the tribe — Spirits, half the boys in this tribe like you, why him?”
“It’s best for the tribe,” she repeated, her words an attempt to convince Y/N as much as herself.
“But what’s best for you?” Y/N countered.
Yue hadn’t answered, and had made up some half-baked excuse that she had to be somewhere. She had watched her go sadly, hoping that she would figure something out with Sokka.)
And it’s not like she wasn’t happy that her friend had found someone, it was just…
Y/N was upset that someone wasn’t her. And she didn’t know how to deal with that revelation.
But one morning, while making idle conversation with Katara as their lesson came to an end, a matter much more pressing came to hand.
Black snow. Soot raining down from the sky, tarnishing everything it touched.
A feeling all too familiar brewed in her chest as she met her friend’s eyes, and one thing was clear.
The Fire Nation was coming.
-
The air was even more frigid than usual with the knowledge of an imminent invasion, and Y/N had parted ways with her friends once they reached the town hall to be with her grandparents. The tension in the air was thick as Chief Arnook stepped up to address the people.
“The day we have feared for so long has arrived — the Fire Nation is on our doorstep. It is with great sadness I call my family here before me, knowing well that some of these faces are about to vanish from our tribe, but they will never vanish from our hearts. Now, as we approach the battle for our existence, I call upon the great spirits. Spirit of the Ocean! Spirit of the Moon! Be with us! I'm going to need volunteers for a dangerous mission.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Sokka stood up. “Count me in.”
Her eyes widened as she met Katara’s from across the room, and she looked equally surprised. “Sokka…”
“Be warned: many of you will not return.” Several other men stood up after Sokka, including her grandfather. Despite his age he was a skilled fighter, but that was no comfort to Y/N. She reached up for his hand and shook her head almost desperately, but he smiled sadly and squeezed her hand, a sentiment to express words unsaid. “Come forward to receive my mark, if you accept the task.”
As he walked forward to join the line, she found the only solace she could in her grandmother’s open arms, burying her face in the fur of her jacket. “He will be okay,” she soothed. “He’s just as strong as he is brave. You have to have faith.”
She hoped that her grandmother was right. She couldn’t handle another loss.
Once all the men had received their marks, they left to confer about the battle plan. Y/N found her way up to the stage where a tearful Yue sat. It pained Y/N to see her in such a way, and when she sat down and offered her hand the princess immediately took it.
“I saw that your grandfather volunteered,” she said after a beat of silence. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too. For Sokka.” Y/N adjusted her position so their shoulders were touching, and she sighed heavily. “I can’t stop thinking about my village. My father.” She met Yue’s eyes, her own beginning to tear up.
“What if it happens again?” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I can’t— I can’t do it again.”
Yue let go of her hand to wrap the girl in a hug, the warmth of the embrace managing to chip away at some of their hopelessness. “You won’t have to do it again,” she stated, the reassurance seeming like the truth when coming from her. “You’re not alone this time.”
She finally pulled away from the hug as she wiped the tears off her face, and Y/N nodded. Yue somehow always knew exactly what to say. “What would I do without you?” she asked, her voice slightly watery.
“You’re never going to know,” the princess smiled. “Because whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with me.” That got a laugh out of Y/N and the two of them stood up as Yue gestured outside with her head. “I think I saw Aang and my father out there. It’ll help to talk with them — I think you need some fresh air anyways.”
Y/N nodded and the two girls walked out hand in hand, a small reprieve from carrying the weight of the world.
-
Things were so much worse than she had been anticipating.
After a short talk outside the hall with Katara, Aang, and the Chief, Yue had been transported somewhere safer as Y/N steeled herself for the front lines. After all, as a student of Master Pakku, she could fight damn well — it was just a matter of putting it into action.
But a line of warriors and children alike were no match for the strength of the Fire Nation from afar, and the first few fireballs had done their job at disrupting both the fighters and the wall — Seeing her home get destroyed hurt nearly as much as constantly getting thrown around.
After Aang had taken off on Appa and Chief Arnook took a section of his soldiers off for a different plan, the work on the ground began. The fleet of ships seemed endless , and the same went for their artillery — the fight went long into the day as Y/N worked with various other waterbenders to stop fireballs and repair broken parts of the city’s infrastructure, but just as the full moon began to show, the attacks stopped coming. Limbs heavy with exhaustion from their work in the field, Y/N and Katara met up with the princess back at the balcony of the palace.
“They’ve stopped firing,” Yue noted as they all gazed off into the distance.
“Thank the spirits,” Y/N muttered as she worked out a knot in her shoulder. “I don’t know how much longer I could’ve kept going.”
Just then, Appa came into view and a grin spread across Katara’s face. “Aang!”
He landed below them and the three girls hurried down to meet him. Aang landed on the ground, exhaustion clear in every part of him. “I can’t do it,” he muttered as he placed his head in his hands. “I can’t do it.”
“What happened?” Katara asked as she ran up to him, Yue and Y/N close behind.
“I must’ve taken out a dozen Fire Navy ships, but there’s just too many of them!” His large grey eyes were full of hopelessness, and Y/N’s heart ached for the boy. “I can’t fight them all.”
“But— you have to!” Yue pleaded. “You’re the Avatar.”
“I’m just one kid,” Aang countered wearily. He buried his face in his arms and Katara kneeled next to him in an attempt to comfort him. Y/N could almost forget about the pain in her body at that moment, feeling an odd responsibility to this boy as she looked down at him.
“Aang,” she muttered, following Katara’s example and kneeling next to him. “You’ve already done so much for us. Just by being here, you’ve inspired hundreds of people — you’re a beacon of hope all on your own! We don’t expect you to take out this whole navy by yourself. As long as you’re here, fighting with us? You’re helping us more than you know.”
He managed a slight smile at that and he took her outstretched hand, getting pulled back to his feet with her help.
“We’ll have a better view from up there,” Katara noted, pointing back up to the balcony. “You can help us keep watch, Aang — in case they start attacking again.”
He nodded and the four of them began the walk, the Avatar in slightly better spirits.
“The legends say the moon was the first waterbender,” Yue said once they had reached the balcony, all of them gazing at the sky. “Our ancestors saw how it pushed and pulled the tides and learned how to do it themselves.”
“I’ve always noticed my waterbending is stronger at night,” Katara mused, causing Y/N to hum in agreement.
“Our strength from the spirit of the moon, our life from the spirit of the ocean,” she said. “They work together to keep balance.
Aang’s expression brightened at her words as he popped up from the ground. “The spirits! Maybe I can find them and get their help!”
“How can you do that?” Y/N questioned.
“The Avatar is the bridge between our world and the Spirit World,” Katara explained excitedly. “Aang can talk to them!”
“Maybe they’ll give you the wisdom to win this battle!” Yue exclaimed.
“Or maybe they'll unleash a crazy amazing spirit attack on the Fire Nation!” At that, all three girls met him with strange looks. Aang coughed and straightened his posture. “Or wisdom. That's good, too.”
“The only problem is, last time you got to the Spirit World by accident,” Katara said with a frown. “How are you going to get there this time?”
Yue’s eyes lit up and she looked at them with a smile. “I have an idea. Follow me.”
-
A few minutes later, they were standing in the Spirit Oasis, the most spiritual place in all of the North. Yue, Y/N, and Katara all shed their coats as Aang walked around, marvelling at the beauty.
“I can feel… something,” Aang said as he sat down, getting into a meditating position. “It’s so tranquil.”
Soon enough, after a few moments of silence, Aang’s eyes as well as the arrow on his head began to glow.
“Is he okay?” Yue gasped.
“He’s crossing into the Spirit World,” Katara reassured. “He’ll be fine as long as we don’t move his body. That’s his way back to the physical world.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Y/N whispered, astonishment etched into her face. For as much as she had been taught about the ocean spirits, she wasn’t well-versed in the Spirit World as a whole — she was thoroughly fascinated by every part of this.
“Maybe we should get some help,” Yue suggested, still on edge as she took a few steps away from the gate.
“No, he’s my friend. I’m perfectly capable of protecting him. Besides, I already have some help here.” She smiled at Y/N, a sentiment that she returned happily.
A deep voice, almost mocking, broke the silence as it echoed throughout the oasis. “Well, aren’t you a big girl now? Even got yourself a little student.”
The three girls all whipped around to find the source of the voice, and Katara’s whole body stiffened. “No…”
“Yes. Hand him over and I don’t have to hurt you.”
Y/N immediately eased into a bending stance along with Katara as the princess fled to get help, but her confidence faltered when she took the time to focus on their assailant.
She almost didn’t recognize him — it had been nearly four years since she had last set eyes upon the boy, but it was as if he had become a completely different person. His head was shaved completely save for a ponytail, and blues and reds marked his skin in various cuts and bruises. His eyes held an anger she had never seen before, an expression only heightened with the addition of a large red scar across his left eye.
“Zuko?” she breathed, her chest tightening up beneath the weight of the revelation. Katara stared at her in bewilderment — she had no idea that Y/N knew the prince that had chased them halfway across the world, but Katara supposed that she had no reason to ever suspect she did.
His eyes flashed with recognition as they ran over her, and it seemed as if he had a similar epiphany as he staggered backwards. “I… I thought you were dead.”
“You’re with them,” she muttered, blood turning to ice. “Your nation is invading, and you’re helping them— you’re after the Avatar? What are you doing, Zuko?!”
The momentary surprise was replaced by steely determination as he shifted his weight forward and kicked up his leg, sending a blast of fire that she barely managed to dodge. “You know nothing!”
Y/N fell back into position next to Katara, but the newfound knowledge was like a fog over her mind. “Whoever he was when you knew him, that’s not him anymore!” Katara yelled as she bent water out of the pond and blocked his following attacks. “He won’t hesitate to hurt you, so you can’t either!”
“O-okay!” she stammered. This was the moment she had been waiting for, wasn’t it? After training with both Katara and Pakku, her martial skill had increased tenfold, and she was desperate to try it out — she only wished her first opponent didn’t have to be him. But another fire blast snapped her out of her paralysis, and she jumped into action.
The two girls worked impossibly well together, one stepping forward when the other fell back, the bending between them nearly seamless. Any fire that the prince sent their way was quickly extinguished, and with two against one on home turf, Y/N and Katara were able to hold him off with relative ease.
Y/N bent another jet of water up from the oasis and shot it at Zuko, the force of which knocked him several feet back. Katara took the opening and froze his feet to the ground, then began to move her arms about as she formed a ball of water around him — one more movement and it was frozen solid.
“You little peasant,” he growled. “You’ve found a master, haven’t you?”
The orb of ice began to glow, the air around them becoming hotter and hotter until it melted around him. Blasts of fire were flying at them as soon as Zuko hit the ground, and they were forced to retreat back towards the oasis as they grew more intense.
Y/N drew up a shield of water, extinguishing the flames on impact. Zuko dodged around them, his fingers inches away from Aang’s collar. Y/N propelled the water already at her fingertips towards Zuko with a grunt of effort, which sent him flying into the shallows on the other side of the oasis. She conjured up a large wave and sent it towards the prince, sending him up the side of the wall and trapping him once Katara froze it.
She breathed a sigh of relief and let her arms fall, a part of her wondering how they were still connected after the tediousness of the earlier battle. But this, one on one in a fight with real stakes? It was as exhilarating as it was nerve wracking, and she had never been so thankful that Katara had gotten her in with Master Pakku. Y/N felt intensely guilty over the pain she had inflicted on Zuko, but she tried her best to push it out of her mind — like Katara said, he would’ve done worse if she hadn’t fought back.
“You fought well,” Katara smiled. “I told you that you were talented.”
She chuckled and shrugged, cheeks heating up slightly at the praise. “It’s not exactly my first fight, just… the most intense.” It reminded her of the early mornings and late nights spent sparring with Zuko, a memory that only twisted the dagger in her heart even more.
The two girls smiled at each other as they began to walk back over to Aang — it seemed the boy was undisturbed by the fight by virtue of his glowing tattoos and closed eyes — when Y/N found herself squinting from the rays of light filtering in.
“Huh,” she mumbled. “The sun’s out. The sun’s out— Katara!”
Y/N turned to find the prince free from the ice, and the pair barely had time to draw water from the pond to shield themselves from the impending flames. But it was too little too late, and the power of the blast sent them back several feet. They slammed into either side of the gate, the force of it immediately knocking Katara out.
Y/N gasped in pain as she tried to push herself up, but the fight combined with the impact of her landing had taken a toll on her and she collapsed once more against the gate. When the smoke from the fire cleared, Zuko was there with Aang’s collar in his grasp.
“You rise with the moon,” he muttered, his face tinged with the slightest bit of guilt as he met her eyes. “I rise with the sun.”
The last thing she saw before her consciousness faded out was the boy she loved escaping with the Avatar.
-
why did i make yue and y/n like this when i KNOW what i have to write next omg i hate myself
perm tag list: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin @maruchan77
ehfar: @chandies-sideblog @persica27 @anzanity @randomthingssss @escapingthoughtsandsecrets @shanksfav @shephard17895 @ilovespideyyy
atla: @marianne1806
#zuko x reader#zuko x you#zuko x y/n#zuko x reader fic#zuko#zuko fic#avatar#atla#avatar the last airbender#atla fic#avatar fic#avatar the last airbender fic#avatar x reader#sadie writes#ehfar#i already had this chapter half written so thats why its out so soon lmao#SOMEONE doesnt know how to hold their chapters and wants to release them as soon as she finishes them#its me. im someone
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I Hear A Symphony - Shouto Todoroki x Reader
❀ Back to Navigation ❀
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of these characters, they belong to Kohei Horikoshi
Event Masterlist - MHA Masterlist - Main Masterlist
WARNINGS: None!
Requested by: @vdoesthings
(Hii! Can I request a Shoto Todoroki fic with "I can hear a symphony" by Cody Fry? Also love your writing so muchh)
A/N: Thank you so much for your request as part of the Sing To Me event! I had a TON of fun writing this one as I kinda delved into something I hadn’t written a ton about before *cough* support course *cough* and I’m pretty happy with it! I hope you enjoy, and again, thank you for participating in the event!
Word Count: 1.6K
Shouto’s life was so simple, everything planned to a ‘t’. He would be forced to wake up at ungodly times by the person he hated most in the world and immediately put to work. An hour on the treadmill, an hour lifting, and an hour training his quirk. Then, he would be given a breakfast that was chock full of proteins and supplements - he was told it was good for him, but there was never any flavor to it. Then he would be off to school at UA. He guessed that his time spent there did add some variance in his life, but it was not enough to rock the boat he was currently sailing. He would have chats with Midoriya from time to time, but that was basically it. What he wanted in his life was something more than what it was. He couldn’t lead this tasteless life forever, because if he did, he was sure he might just go crazy.
“Alright class, listen up. Today we are playing host to the support class. It is part of their curriculum to not only help patch up your hero costumes and support items, but to make suggestions and experiment on their own. Each of you has been given a student to partner up with - if I hear of one of you trying to switch your partner with someone else, I’m not afraid to assign an extra packet of homework,” a single groan from the class was heard, “to all of you.” The entire class contributed to the cacophony after that comment. “And please, do not give them much trouble. They are students, just like you, learning the ropes. Okay then, now that we’re done with that, please welcome the students of Class H-1.” The door of the classroom slid open to reveal 20 students, all dressed in the U.A. uniform with boxes and duffel bags hanging off their shoulders and arms. At the front of the group was Mei Hatsume.
“Alright! Time to get to work! Who’s this… uh Iida? Who’s Iida?” She shouts, causing Class 1A’s president to stand with a start.
“I am Tenya Iida! The guy who you used as a walking advertisement in the Sports Festival!” Mei looked to the side with a cheshire grin.
“Never heard of ya!” Then, a sweet voice graced the room.
“Mei, you’re holding up the rest of the group - mind if we come in the room too?”
“Oh! Sorry, Y/N/N, didn’t mean to hold you guys back!” Then, the floodgates opened and the students of class H-1 descended upon the room. Shouto looked around to see everyone pairing up, so he decided to just wait at his desk - it was probably easier that way anyway.
“Todoroki?” The same sweet voice he had heard before, the one that asked Mei to move out of the way earlier, called his name. Turning around, Shouto saw you. A heavy looking duffle bag was thrown over your right shoulder while a tape measure and several fabric swatches were draped over your left. In your hands were two boxes - one that looked like a tool box and the other that looked like a briefcase. Immediately, Shouto’s hands were grabbing onto the duffle bag as it began to slip from your shoulders. “Oh! Thank you, the stuff in there is pretty heavy though, so be careful,” your warning came a bit too late as the bag slid into his hands and then ended up on the floor, pulling his arms along with it. Shouto’s eyes widened a bit, wondering how on earth you could’ve carried it slung around your shoulder when it weighed that much.
“My apologies,” he said, somewhat sheepishly. He looked up to your face, expecting an expression of distraught, but instead there was a wide smile.
“No worries at all - I’ve done that way too many times. I’m just glad that the stuff in there is strong enough to not scratch easily!” You say cheerily, letting the duffle bag stay where it was and placing your boxes on Shouto’s desk. You let the fabric and the tape measure settle on top and then reach out your hand to Shouto’s. “I’m Y/N L/N, your new support item consultant and designer.” You say proudly. The red-and-white haired boy accepts your handshake and nods.
“My hero costume isn’t really that interesting and doesn’t call for many support items, so it might be a bit boring. I’m sorry for that.” Shouto admits, a little embarrassed to see you pulling out his hero costume. It was true, though. When the forms were sent out asking what kind of hero costume he wanted, all he put were the necessities. Something where the fabric was flexible enough to do hero work in and one that was comfortable. He left the colors, style, and little accoutrements up to the designers.
“I wouldn’t say it’s boring at all,” you say, scanning over Shouto’s costume. His eyes watch yours as they dutifully take in every detail - you looked like a professional at work. “I think it has incredible potential though. You’ve got all of the necessary stuff here - a good base, flexible but not easily breakable fabric, and sturdy looking combat boots. It just needs to be personalized.” Shouto cocks his head at your last word.
“Personalized?” He repeats, earning a nod from you.
“Yeah! Like, let’s see… what’s your favorite color?” Your question made him pause and think.
“I,” he begins, his eyes now just on the hero costume in your hands, “I don’t think I have one.” He can see the little frown sprout on your face which makes him immediately want to retract his previous sentence. For some reason, he just didn’t like seeing that frown on your face - it didn’t look like it belonged there.
“That’s okay, let’s just start off with something else then. I was watching a lot of footage of you competing at the festival and just training, and I noticed that whenever you use your fire side, that sleeve burns off.” This earns a nod from Shouto. “Well,” you say as you take the fabric that was the same color of the blue of his hero costume, “I’ve been experimenting a lot with different kinds of synthetic fabrics and developed this.” You hold it out in front of Shouto for him to touch. “This fabric has the same feel and flexibility as the one you’re currently using, but I modified it so that it can withstand the temperatures both your left and right side produce.” Shouto looked at the fabric warily and then back to you. This caused you to giggle a bit at his reaction. “Go ahead, try it out.” You say as Shouto’s left hand reached up to it. A small but concentrated flame burned at the fabric, but it left no scorch marks at all.
“That’s quite impressive,” he says, stunned at the fabric’s durability.
“Thanks!” You beam, meeting Shouto’s eyes. “It took me forever to get the formula right, but now that I’ve got it it’s become my new speciality!” You put the fabric back and then begin talking to him about the other points of his costume. The two of you talked about his boots and the possibility of adding ice picks to the bottom, the implementation of a thermal regulator, and even a device that lets Shouto know the exact temperature of his own body and what he was outputting. The conversation, really, was just you telling him about everything, but he quite liked it that way. Seeing you so excited, so marveled at your own creations and life just brought him joy. If he was just dull background music, you were a symphony. You were violins and cellos, french horns and flutes. You were brimming with an energy that Shouto has forever longed to have and experience. The more the conversation between the two of you continued, the more he felt himself leaving the out-of-tune bass he had once occupied and becoming drawn into your loveliness. And, as Aizawa called out to the class that there would only be five more minutes to this meeting, he realized he never wanted to leave it.
“Well, I guess I should pack up and take off,” you say, your voice a little sad. “It’s been really fun to finally meet you and talk to you about your costume! Hopefully we’ll have another class like this to catch up soon!” You chime, slinging that heavy duffle bag over your shoulder with ease and gathering the fabrics and boxes into your arms. Shouto stood there with nothing coming from his mouth until you had almost walked out the classroom door.
“Ah, wait!” He said, drawing the attention of everyone, including you. “What if we could, maybe, talk about it more this weekend?” He asks you, earning gasps from a few of his classmates. Was Shouto Todoroki actually asking someone out?! The smile that is spread across your cheeks makes him forget all about the audience the two of you had attracted.
“Definitely! The card I left you?” You asked, causing Shouto to dig into his pocket to find it. “It has my number on it, in the hopes that you would ask me.” The red-and-white haired boy shook his head and smiled. “Maybe then you could tell me your favorite color? I have a feeling it’s white, but I like to be surprised. So let me know then, ‘kay?” With a nod and a wave from Shouto, you shoot him one last grin before you follow your classmates out of the door. He didn’t tune in any of the questions from his classmates he was being berated with, instead thinking about his favorite color. White, he decided, was quite a good color. If it’s what you suggested, he thought, then it’s perfect for him. That beautiful little melody that you wove through in around his heart had captured him completely. And he loved you for it.
Taglist: (Let me know if you want to be added!)
@luluwiie
@maiacroson
@nerdypuppytimemachine
@lovers-liability
#todoroki shouto#bnha shouto#shouto todoroki#shouto x reader#shouto x y/n#mha shouto x reader#shouto x you#shouto x#shoto todoroki x reader#shoto torodoki#bnha shoto#shoto headcanons#shoto todoroki#shoto x reader#shoto x you#todoroki shoto x reader#shoto x y/n#shoto x#Todoroki Shōto#todoroki fluff#todoroki x reader#todoroki#todoroki x you#todoroki x reader fluff#shouto todoroki x reader#todoroki x#Shouto#Shoto#shouto fluff#shouto fanfiction
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📚School Struggles📚 w/ 💥🪨KiriBaku💥🪨 HeadCanons
Pairings: KiriBaku X Black!Reader
Summary: College AU! Reader falls behind in course work, and won’t tell anybody. But Kirishima and Bakugou find out.
A/n: I’m an adult who went most of my life with undiagnosed learning disabilities so this would just be comforting to me. Lil angst! Lots of fluff. Implied ADHD and Dyslexia.
📕🖊 First tests are handed back in four of your eight classes.You’ve failed all but one which you barely passed. You are asked stay back as yet another professor suggests you find a tutor
📕🖊You’re lowkey offended. You’ve never needed a tutor before. Up until recently your performance in other areas compensated for your less than stellar academics. You were in gifted courses all your life. You would just hafta try harder
📕🖊 Kiri and Baku are saving a spot in line for you by the time you meet them at the cafe when you shove the thoughts of failure out of your brain and perk up to your usual self
📕🖊 Kiri’s face lights up as soon as he spots you. “Over here, Babe!” He beams flagging you down. Like it was hard to make out the giant red head in a crowd. Especially with the large lean, continuously pissed blonde scowling at everyone right by his side.
📕🖊 “Hey,Dumbass.” Baku smiles slightly and pulls a hand from his pocket to offer you a hug and a kiss on the temple
📕🖊 Kiri pulls you by your waist into his torso kissing your forehead “What took you so long?” He asks letting you free from the vice grip he had on your curvy hips
📕🖊 “I got a lil turned around again.” You lie pulling Bakugou’s free hand into yours then lean into his shoulder. There’s something very comforting about how warm he is all the time. You wanted to snuggle into his back but PDA really isn’t his thing and you are already pushing it
📕🖊 “It’s a big campus, Teddy, you just have to get used to it. You just transferred. Me and Eiji can take turns walking you from class to class until you get the hang of it, you know?” Baku says trying to read your eyes. He could just feel something is off. Your box braids and the angle itself saves you from any further scrutiny.
📕🖊“You guys, gotta be pretty sprung to do that for me, ya know.” You quip smirking up at him then over to Kiri. “Fuck you too, Teddy Bear.” Baku huffs smirking *maybe he was wrong, unlikely* “Yea basically, Pebs. Liking who you date is super manly.” Kirishima laughs grabbing his tray.
📕🖊 You three finally sit in a small wrap around booth. Bakugou taking the middle spot today. You do your best to not zone out and hyper fixate on your test scores by making sure to laugh at Kiri’s jokes and nod along with Baku’s venting
📕🖊 You slide your fork in and out of your picked over food as you strategize how to fix your current problem without alerting your boyfriends. Before you knew it your table is quiet with two crimson gazes fixed on you
📕🖊 “You’re quiet today, L/n.” Bakugou says fixing you with a deeply fierce gaze which was his way of looking concerned. Sharpness of your actual name drew you from your thoughts in a instant. “Hmmm I think Kats has a point, L/n Y/n.” Kirishima says in between slurps of his smoothie. His red eyes practically dripping with curious concern
📕🖊 You make a quick split decision between the truth and charm. “Wow, my government. I must be in real big trouble.” You pout trying to flirt your way out of a more serious conversation. You poke out your plush bottom at Kiri while slipping a hand onto Baku’s inner thigh and gently squeezing before hitting him with the same seductive pout
📕🖊 Big Mistake!😳 Bakugou’s vermillion eyes widen before becoming instantly stern as he grips your wrist tight enough to hurt. “The fuck are you doing?!! I was being serious, Y/n! And in public?!! You’re fucking priceless!” The ash blonde hisses with angry pink cheeks. Guilt washes over you when you snatch your wrist back. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to...talk about it.” You mumble. “Then use your fucking words!” 😤 Bakugou kisses his teeth and stands so Kiri lets him out. “He’s just a little embarrassed, Pebble. I needa talk him down. You can find your next class right?” He sighs watching Baku storm out
📕🖊 “Yea. I’m sorry. Tell him, Kiri. Please.” You squeak sheepishly grabbing your stuff. “He knows but I will. He’s mad about other stuff.” He nods following after Bakugou
📕🖊 It’s intimidating to compete with their history at times. You couldn’t bring yourself to just dump all your issues on them
📕🖊 You’ve only been dating since summer and Kiri and Baku have been dating since their senior year in high school year. You guys are starting your junior year and are still learning each other.
📕🖊 You get lost a couple times before finding the right building. The noise in your head going nearly at light speed to wrap all the problems you’re having. The professor passes the test you’d spent majority of last night and early morning studying for. You felt confident until it was in your hands.
📕🖊 You chew the pen top trying to finish up the last 7 short answer questions when then alarm for 5 minutes left is given. You panic not even having started the true false section on the last page. You scribble down answers just as time up is announced across the classroom
📕🖊 Defeat washes over while you shuffle out the door. You reach in your pocket to dig out the card for Student Accomidation Services your World Civ professor gave you. Maybe this was something simple as a “processing problem” as she had explained when you visited her during office hours
📕🖊 A throat clearing pulls you from your thoughts. You jump stuffing both hands into your jeans card and all. Bakugou stood unreadable propped up on a wall only a few steps away from you. “Eiji, thinks we need to talk about the cafe. Plus he doesn’t get out of lab til 3:45, so you’re kinda stuck with me.” Bakugou mumbles offering his palm as an olive branch.
📕🖊 “He’s probably right. I don’t mind just you, Tuff Guy. I really am sorry though, Katsuki.” You sigh interlocking your fingers with his. “I know, Teddy. I wasn’t really mad about that anyways.” Baku concedes as you two stroll down the hall. “I didn’t hurt your wrist earlier, did I?” Baku asks softly opening the door and meeting your eyes with gentle concern. “Nah, You didn’t, King Explosion Murder.” You laugh giving his hand a firm squeeze before kissing it
📕🖊 The walk to your dorm is quiet and peaceful. He lets you settle your school bag before speaking again “I just feel like you’re still trying to hide parts of yourself from us, especially me,” He says looking into your eyes now, “Like you’ve been pulling back. Eijirou thinks I’m looking too deep, but I doubt it. I know I can be a little rough and mean sometimes...well a lot of the times. I’m not easy to get along with. But you know you can talk to us when you’re upset or if something bothering you... if I’m bothering you. I don’t like you feeling like you have to pretend to be ok if you’re not.” Baku finishes crossing his arms tightly across your chest.
📕🖊 You dig your nails into your palms mercilessly. You open your mouth to reply and reassure him but the words won’t come. Baku notices what you’re doing to your hands and steps closer to take them into his. He rubs slow circles into the backs of them. Hot tears pool at the corners of your eyes as you try to find your voice. “Kats, I’m...I didn’t me...I...Of course you’re not what’s bothering me.” you croak out just as tears roll down your face and Baku pulls you to his chest.
📕🖊 Your breathing hitches and you just let yourself be disappointed, confused, frustrated, and upset about the last month and a half of struggling and wondering why you couldn’t tell anybody and why no one was even noticing. But He did. Baku had noticed. He rocks gently as you tremble in his arms rubbing firm circles in your lower back.
📕🖊 You two stay like that for what seems forever. Once your breathing evens out Baku’s hold relaxes. He kisses both your temples.You reluctantly let go , so you can pull wrinkled failing test pages from your backpack. “Please don’t laugh at me, Suki.” You peep placing the cause of your meltdown in his hands not attempting to have your puffy eyes met his red ones. Lifting your chin so you’re looking him in the eyes. “Come on, Teddy Bear. I wouldn’t dare.” He nods with the most serious face
📕🖊 Bakugou is quiet for a while as he leafs through the exam papers. “Why didn’t finish any of them?” He asks “Time. I’m a slow reader.” You mutter back. “I’ve seen you doing homework for two of these courses and passing those, what’s happening?” Baku says staring in disbelief at the scores at the top of each exam.
📕🖊 You swallow the lingering fear of judgement. You place a hand at your temple to remind yourself of Baku’s earlier tenderness. “I get anxious. It gets so much harder to read when I’m that worked up, and I can barely focus once I start forgetting answers...I know it’s just a test. I guess...That sounds dumb, doesn’t it?” You sigh shrug off your own explanation.
📕🖊 “Nope. Not dumb at all. Sounds like test anxiety to me. I struggled with that in high school . I didn’t know you were a slow reader, Teddy.” Baku says pulling your hand before you can dig your nails into it. “Yea. One of my professors thinks I have dyslexia and ADHD...but I’m not stupid sooo.” You hum rocking on your heels “That is not what either of those words mean, and I know you know that, L/n.” Bakugou growls he absolutely hates when you or Kirishima talk down on yourselves. “Yea but it feels like it though.” You sigh biting your lips
📕🖊 Before Baku can say a word, Kiri swings the door open. “Babes! Have you two hotties missed me?” The red head shouts coming through the door way smiling until he sees your puffy eyes and tense posture. “Bakugou Katsuki, I know you fucking didn’t?!!” Kiri questions suspiciously leaning down to rest his chin on your shoulder and wrapping a protective hold around your waist.
📕🖊 “The Absolute fuc-” Baku’s defensive rant is cut short as you kiss the hand holding yours to quiet him as you answer Kiri “No Eiji, he didn’t. I’m flunking like half my classes.” You huff meeting his eyes with quivering lips trying your best not to cry all over again
📕🖊 Kiri is stunted into complete silence. The only thing he can think to say is an apology to his boyfriend for jumping to conclusions. Last time he checked your GPA’s a lot more impressive that his. “How the fuck is that even possible? You transferred into the honor courses.” Kiri says completely baffled moving to where he could see your face.
📕🖊 You explain to your boyfriends all the things that have been tripping you up and confusing you. You detail how hard studying has been as far as staying focused and actually understanding lengthy test questions
📕🖊 Kiri has a million questions at first but stops half way through after Baku grabs your overnight bag and leads you out the door. “You’re gonna freak her out all over again, Shitty Hair, if you keep going at her like that.” He could tell you were getting overwhelmed, and might cry again “My bad, Pebs.” Kiri says kissing your cheek as he follows behind
📕🖊 Once you get back to their apartment and Baku askes for your help making dinner. He has you read the directions and ingredients to him. You stumble through most of it, but that doesn’t stop him from praising you as soon as you finish. He has since learned you and Kiri do best when told how well you’re doing vs his typical shouting method
📕🖊 The three of you set an assessment time with the Student Disability Services on campus that doesn’t conflict with the Boys’ schedules, because they insisted that they’d both be there to support their baby and wouldn’t take your bullshit excuses for an actual reason to miss it
📕🖊 Kiri helps you make flash cards for your next test. If he remembers nothing else from Baku’s tutoring sessions the importance of repetition is drilled into him...among other things. Each time you ask him how that went he’ll just shudder. “It was the most intensely terrifying experience of my high school career, and we fought villains pretty regularly.” Kiri deadpans before grinning like the Cheshire Cat and covering his head. “You’re full of fucking shit, Shark Week! I’m the best tutor you assholes could hope for.” Baku yells pushing Kiri’s face into his pages of notes.
📕🖊 The night before your disability assessment you find yourself tossing and turning at like 4:45 in the morning. Kiri repositions pinning you in place so you face Baku’s back. You trace soft shapes into him just before he flips meeting your eyes. “Lil early isn’t it, Babygirl?” He whispers brushing away a few stray box braids covering your face. You don’t bother answering and instead offer him your palm and he takes it without hesitation interlocking your fingers with his. “Nervous?” He hums when he feels the steady trembling of your hand.
📕🖊 “Katsuki, what if there’s nothing wrong with me? What if it’s just me? What if I’m just...” you trail off not sure if you want him to hear how much this subject shakes your confidence. Bakugou moves close enough for your foreheads to touch. “If you’re just not smart? Not even possible. Whatever it is me and Kiri will help you go beyond. I know this is scary, but every first usually is.” Bakugou smiles softly
📕🖊 “Bbbbbuuut maybe I’m just du-” You attempt to argue until a sharp nip on the side of your neck where Kiri was peacefully nuzzled quiets you. “Nope. Not a chance. Pebble, don’t talk shit about my girlfriend again.” He mumbles in a gravelly half sleep voice. He settles again and snakes an arm around hips as he tugs Baku into you with the other. You open mouth your more to defend yourself but KatSuki just bops your nose as he closes his eyes, “You heard, the sexy ass red mountain. You’re fucking smart. Go back to sleep, Kay?”
📕🖊 “Kay.” You sigh digging your face into the crook of Baku’s neck. You lay there out argued but feeling overwhelming loved, so you chose to let them win the debate. The boys hardly agree on most things so they were totally probably right about this one anyways.
📕🖊 You are on a very very short list of people who Bakugou Katsuki repeats himself for. Like boy lets you “huh?” the fuck out of him. He will often cup your face or hold your hands if he needs tell you something important b/c he understands you’re a tactical learner
📕🖊 Best believe that all your future successes in classes big and small will be celebrated you getting taken out for icecream and if it’s a graded paper they’ll put on the fridge like you’re in grade school. You find it a little embarrassing but it really makes you feel like you’re making progress
📕🖊 Kiri brings your favorite snacks for study sessions so he can reward you for right answers and staying on task. You call it “childish” at first until he shrugs “Oh my bad we can try something els-” about to put them away. “Noooooo no those are my favorites.” You nearly jump over the table. Kiri has a shit eating grin the rest of the study session
📕🖊 When giving directions from the passenger seat both Kiri and Baku typically do a good job of remembering you need them to point left and right
📕🖊 If you’ve had long day in tutoring and homework and you guys are watching anime Bakugou will read the subs to you. Sometimes if he’s in a particularly good mood he might even imitate a voice or two
📕🖊 Kiri would politely let you ramble about one of your niche interests and will help you get back to your point when you get lost in a tangent
📕🖊 Don’t let these two hear you call yourself “dumb” or “stupid” Kiri will just act like he can’t comprehend what you’re saying like deadass “Pebs, speak English please. Nope not catching that, Babygirl. Did you say you were a smarticle particle? An intelligent ass motherfucker?! Oh, of course you are!” While Baku is more like “Sorry what was that? I thought I heard a very accomplished and creative thinking ass bitch say something? A incredibly capable ass bitch say something?A smart ass bitch say something?” Your only response is yes and then you get a forehead kiss
#kiribaku x black reader#kiribaku x reader#kiribaku x dyslexic reader#kiribaku x adhd reader#adhd reader#kiribaku headcanons#kiribaku x reader HeadCanons#learning disabilities#school struggles#kiribaku fluff#kirishima x bakugou#kirishima eijiro headcanons#soft bakugou#bakugou x kirishima x reader#bakugou katsuki#kirishima eijirou#mha kirishima#mha bakugou#adhd#dyslexia
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netflix & chill
summary If you planned things right, you could rain down your raging displeasure on Jeon Jungkook right after the meal but before this proposed ‘Netflix and chilling,’ maybe dramatically throw your glass of wine at him, before storming out of his place and reporting him to the authorities (Namjoon) for his douchebag personality.
warnings grinding, 2 seconds of sub kook, oral (f), cum eating, vanilla but [ passionate ], unprotected sex, dirty talk
tags use of the oldest trick in the book (“your hands are sooo big”), shy oblivious AND gentleman jk? pick a struggle, brief ment of app developer kook, evil and conniving oc
wc 10.2k !! wow!!
will I ever write a serious jk fic? NO. this entire thing was based off this pic of jungkook which i’ve said before that i would print out in sepia filter and crumple and stuff in a drawer n then tell my kids 35 years from now was a long lost lover i met on a cruise to the bahamas and never saw again
ty to mia more @daechwlta for being there during my brief crisis over this fic 🥺
When Namjoon had first not so subtly mentioned the idea of setting you up on a date, it was with a faux air of disinterest that you had masterfully pried the details out of him. Namjoon has a friend, he said, a friend who was kinda sorta attached to his hip. And while Namjoon loved the kid, he also thought this friend could use some social interaction outside of Namjoon.
Now you and Namjoon weren’t exactly the most conventional of friends for him to be proposing blind dates to you at whim. He was your senior at school, your mentor in your scholarship program, an educated man studying for his masters. So when he’d first uttered the words you were immediately on the fence. Sure, the two of you knew each other well and probably got along better than most mentor-mentee pairings among your year, but you doubt Namjoon knew enough of your tastes to offer you up for a blind date.
According to Namjoon, his friend was a kid in the same year as you, making him not so much as a kid as he was your classmate. You brushed it off at first, spewing some bullshit excuse that you’d rather focus on your studies, and how dating was a distraction to your education, as if you hadn’t spent the weekend prior binge watching some Spanish novella while you dutifully ignored your essay.
The second time Namjoon mentions it you agree on the spot. Life on campus could only be interesting for so long, so you might as well make the best of it and go on as many stupid dates as possible.
Namjoon is over the moon.
He tells you he’ll pass your phone number on over to that friend of his—“Jeon Jungkook”—and promises you you won’t regret this because his friend was amazing, really. And for Namjoon to sing his praises for just any underclassmen was unheard of. In fact, besides you, you don’t think Namjoon knows many other students younger than him, and if he did, you hardly doubt he would regard them so highly.
So he gives his friend your number, and so ends your weekly meeting with your mentor. You only realize on the walk back to your dorm that you forgot to ask him about some club at school, the whole goal of this week’s meeting, but by then you don’t really care, the whole conversation fading into the background.
In fact, you forget about the whole ordeal until Friday night rolls around and you’re once again, binge watching another novella on your laptop, when your phone suddenly vibrates.
You were by no means a loser at school, a friendless nobody, but you were also not the outgoing, school-spirited student on the front page of your school’s website, and thus had nearly every app that could produce a notification on your phone muted, every text thread silenced. The only notifications and messages you allowed were from your email and from your roommate, and considering the fact Doyeon was face down in a puddle of her own mid-semester tears right across from you, it was probably your email.
Much to your surprises, it isn’t that “Monday’s Class is CANCELLED” email you were hoping for, but instead some unknown number in a text notification. You roll your eyes, click it open thinking it’s a reminder from some store or from some guy claiming to be from your bank, only to pause at the words written inside the little grey bubble.
hey its jungkook!!! joon gave me your number to I guess ask you on a date soo are you free tmrw night??
The excessive punctuation reminds you a little bit of your kid sister back home and the dorky emails she’ll send you from time to time. It’s with that memory and a smile on your face, that you’re suddenly reminded of what exactly this message is saying. “Oh shit,” you mumble, moving to sit up and reread the text. Doyeon complaining loudly in the background has you reading it twice more before you understand it, and by then there’s a fluttery feeling in your chest.
You were by no means easily swayed by people, but this guy had received praise from Kim Namjoon of all people, so he definitely had some prestige to his name. He doesn’t seem overbearing from this one text he’d sent, but he also didn’t seem completely disinterested.
You try to match his nonchalant energy, letting him know you were in fact free and down to meet him, just to let you know more details.
You won’t lie, there’s a giddy feeling bubbling within you at the prospect of getting all dolled up, hitting the town, pawning a free meal off some unsuspecting college soul, and maybe even hitting it off. It’s been a while since you’ve dated, sue you.
Jeon Jungkook’s response crushes those dreams as well as hurdles you straight into a nightmare.
cool!! was thinking i could cook for us at my place, drink a little wine, maybe Netflix and chill a little bit??
You are blown away by the absolute gall of this man, to butter you up by painting a pretty picture only to reduce you to a mere booty call. The fact he had felt confident enough to say all that within the same sentence blows your mind.
Did this Jeon Jungkook, who you had no idea of what he looked like, who had no idea of what you looked like, seriously just invite you over for some quote unquote Netflix and chill?
Who, in the ever living hell, was this guy who so sleazily invited women over to fuck with no qualms about who they were?
You’re offended that Namjoon would set you up like this, pawn you off to such a greasy friend. But then again, you guess not everyone knows their friends thoroughly, because this Jeon Jungkook flirtatiously inviting your over for some sex sounds nothing like the golden boy Kim Namjoon had raved about earlier this week. You click your phone off, tapping the device against your lips as you ponder how to best rip this jerk to shreds via text.
It’s amidst Doyeon cursing out her statistics teacher that an idea hits you.
Tomorrow was Saturday night, and as far as you knew, you really didn’t have anything else going on for you anyway. You’d take Jeon Jungkook’s offer, let him cook you a free meal and drink some of his wine. He mentioned having his own place, and vaguely you remember Namjoon saying he lived alone, hence his introverted tendencies, so you could slip in and out without doing that walk of shame through a boy’s dorm hall.
Not that there would be anything to feel shameful about. In fact, if you planned things right, you could rain down your raging displeasure on Jeon Jungkook right after the meal but before this proposed ‘Netflix and chilling,’ maybe dramatically throw your glass of wine at him, before storming out of his place and reporting him to the authorities (Namjoon) for his douchebag personality.
Ha! That would certainly teach the asshole not to use his poor, unsuspecting friends to reel in nice girls like you into one night stands.
You could practically feel the devil horns begging to poke out of your skull, the forked tail wiggling behind you, as you click your phone back on and text Jeon Jungkook a great!! what’s your address :)
——
Saturday morning and afternoon are as boring as they usually are. You do a little homework, and spend thirty minutes filling Doyeon in on your master plan, which she eats up and even gives you some pointers—“and then you can be like, ‘you sick freak, as if I’d let you near this 5-star, Michelin reviewed, Gordon Ramsey approved coochie’ and throw the whole plate at his head!”—before getting ready for your little date at Jeon Jungkook’s.
You try hard to look good, harder than you would have if he hadn’t offended you by reducing you to a booty call, and Doyeon helps. She does your eyebrows all nice and natural, dusts the thinnest shin of liquid highlighter across the high points of your face, the whole shebang until you’re looking like a sexy, glowing goddess. You shimmy into a pretty dress, nothing too fancy nor too casual, and even pull on those strappy sandals you’d bought on sale last winter before blowing a kiss to Doyeon and meeting your Uber downstairs.
You don’t quite remember what the reason behind Jeon Jungkook living in such a swanky neighborhood a few minutes from campus was, if it was from a job you vaguely recall Namjoon mentioning, or if it was just purely hereditary, but his place is nice. It’s a connected townhouse, something you’d expect a newly wed couple to live in and not some douchebag third year.
Worse comes to worse, you get banned from this rich neighborhood after humiliating one of its residents in his own home, not that you’d ever make it big enough to live here anyway.
You’d texted Namjoon sometime that morning to let him know you were meeting his friend, an ominous text with an even more ominous smiley face attached to it. But it seems Namjoon is easily blinded by underclassmen he trusts, if Jeon Jungkook’s assholish feats and your own suspicious behavior is anything to go by, because he texts you back a polite have fun! he’s a little shy, so it might take a while for the ball to start rolling hahahaha.
Shy my ass, you think closing the door of your Uber behind you. You double check the address that had been texted to you, walking up to the neat townhouse and knocking against the polished door.
It’s a little chilly, and you hope finding an Uber is easier later tonight when you make your grand escape. It’s between these thoughts that the door swings open, revealing the most handsome man you’ve ever met.
He’s attractive, disgustingly so, with dark hair and light brown tips to contrast, tickling his cheekbones. His dark eyes are round and imploring as they meet yours, gaze almost innocent and doe like as he takes you in. He’s got this soft, blue turtleneck on, and it looks like it should be a seasonal sweater reserved for the holidays but he pulls it off nicely on this premature spring night. His pretty pink lips move, and it takes you a second to realize he’s talking.
“___?” He says, and his voice is deep, yet soft in its own unique way. You nod, like a stupid bobble head, because your throat constricted the moment this beautiful angel opened the door. “It’s cold outside, come in!” He urges you, out stretching his palm to make sure you don’t trip over the slight step up the door as he brings you into his home.
“Hi,” he exhales when you’re finally inside, standing a little too close to you in his small entryway.
“Hi,” you finally choke out, a little dazed by how handsome he is, and the sudden realization that you’re supposed to throw your glass of wine at him tonight because he’s a douchebag dawns on you. You blink yourself out of your stupor, taking a step back and gesturing towards your sandal clad feet.
“Oh!” Jeon Jungkook exclaims at the sudden realization. “I forgot to set out a pair of slippers for you,” he sheepishly admits, before he excuses himself to go get some. There’s a tiny ottoman pushed against the wall, beneath a long mirror, that you take a seat on it, carefully unstrapping your sandals.
All the while, you’re deep in thought.
It makes sense that someone like Jeon Jungkook was so forward in inviting you over for sex during your first interaction. Realistically speaking, the guy had it all. He lived alone in a swanky townhouse in a wealthy neighborhood (you finally remember Namjoon saying he did some app developing for major companies—yeah, still in college but already making it big because he was that good), and looked like the blueprint for the perfect man, someone who’d impress your parents. On top of that, the man was was a 21st century Adonis. You hadn’t missed the flash of ink on his knuckles, or the way his jeans had hugged his legs.
He’s making his way back now, inspecting the slippers in his hands, and you don’t miss the way the jeans are pulled taut around his thighs in particular.
Yeah, he definitely knew his way around a woman’s body, there was no way he couldn’t have.
You slip your feet into the slippers he places before you, wiggling your toes around, before glancing back at Jungkook. He smiles warmly, a little beauty mark beneath his lip making itself known. He takes your hand, pulls you up onto your feet, and begins guiding you down the hall and to what you assume is the kitchen.
“I didn’t know what you liked, and I figured asking you three hours before you came over would be too awkward,” he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. He glances at you again, and upon seeing your inquisitive stare, quickly turns away with flushed cheeks.
Oh this man knew the game, and he knew it well.
Jeon Jungkook still thinks he can play that cute campus boy being set up by his senior card now, after he’d shown you his true colors last night via text. But he has a big storm coming. As much as you could admit he was good to look at, you would not be fooled by some pretty face and tasty food. No, you came here with one goal and one goal only, and that was to give Jeon Jungkook a piece of his own two-faced medicine before running off to tattle to Namjoon.
You reach the kitchen and the heavenly smell of Alfredo sauce swarms your nostrils. “I… I’m still new to cooking, so I hope you don’t mind some Alfredo pasta,” he admits, shy smile adorning his features as he avoids your gaze once again to toy with the dish towel by the sink.
You creep closer to the counter, where two meticulously presented ceramic plates sit beside a wine bottle, and the glands in your mouth suddenly go into overdrive in their rush to make you salivate, and you choke out an overly eager, “it looks amazing!” before you know it.
Okay, you came here with two goals.
——
Jungkook carries the two bowls in his big hands to the dining room beside the kitchen, and you follow behind with the bottle of wine and two glasses as you set the table together. The utensils are already there, but Jungkook runs back into the kitchen anyway to return with some fancy cloth napkins for the two of you.
Just as you're tugging a chair out to sit, Jungkook beats you to it. “Ah, let me,” he smiles, and your heart thunders nervously in your chest as you return the expression, brushing your hands beneath you before sitting down and letting him push you in. Jungkook takes his own seat in front of you, and before you can dig in he calls out to seemingly nobody, “Alexa, dim the dining room lights.”
The overhead lights dim, and with their overbearing glow gone, you can finally appreciate the battery powered candles snuggled neatly into a little bowl on the table between you two. You ooh appreciatively, and Jungkook looks proud of himself.
Then, he says, “Alexa, play…Date Night Playlist.”
You blink, and a soft piano tune begins filtering through a speaker he’s hidden somewhere in the room. Even with the fake candles being your main source of light, the flush on Jungkook’s cheeks is evident as he gestures towards you to eat.
You won’t lie. Jeon Jungkook was extremely endearing.
This much becomes evident the further you get into the meal. As small talk devolves into full fledged conversations and story telling, his shy demeanor slipping away but still sticking to the edges of his personality, you begin to have a more difficult time connecting this Jungkook to the one who had less than 24 hours ago asked you to come over and “Netflix and chill” with him.
But the more you speak, the more distant that image begins to feel. For one, Jungkook does put on a fairly reserved aura for you, telling you about his job but refusing to brag about it even when you egg him on. He has no qualms gassing up his friends, Namjoon in particular, who Jungkook claims is his role model for some unknown reason, given the fact they are neither in the same major nor in any of the same clubs. They’re friends, point blank period, but Namjoon is very obviously a star in Jungkook’s eyes.
Additionally, he’s quite embarrassed to admit why Namjoon had been so set on getting Jungkook to date, but eventually tells you it’s because Jungkook’s last girlfriend had been during your freshman year—two whole years ago! It makes you wonder what he’d been doing since then, if he’d used the time to fully invest in his work or if he’d been mingling around, unbeknownst to his friends, which would explain the flirtatious offer that landed you here.
Still, a part of you refuses to believe last night’s Jungkook and tonight’s Jungkook were one in the same, and if they were, what had made this shy man so unabashedly invite you over for some sex. Was this act all a ploy? Or maybe, was he purposefully trying to ward you away by coming off as a gentleman now that he’d seen your face and wasn’t interested in you anymore?
Apparently it’s neither of the two, and you don’t realize this until you finish your meal and make your way into his living room to finally get down to the long awaited Netflix and chilling. It’s only when you sit down on the couch, smack dab in the middle, because at this point, you’re not gonna throw your wine at Jeon Jungkook like you planned, he was too nice. And if this niceness was an act to get in your panties, you didn’t care at this point. He was hot, achingly so, and at least you’d get a good fuck out of it.
But as you said, apparently not. Because Jeon Jungkook sees you purposefully take up the entire middle of the couch, sultry eyes staring him down, and decides to sit flush against the armrest, somehow leaving a good foot between the two of you, despite the fact you’re sitting next to each other.
Your brain can’t work fast enough to comprehend the situation, before he’s asking you what you want to watch. “Um,” you say, pointedly staring at him and not the screen. “Tr-Transformers?”
The way Jungkook’s eyes light up is insane, already round eyes nearly popping out of their sockets as he eagerly rushes to select it from whatever streaming service he has, probably not even Netflix, all the while chattering on about how much he loves that series, and is so glad you do too.
The whole time, you’re struck by the oddness of his casual tone, the way he’s overly invested in the 20th Century Fox opening, and how he’s very carefully avoiding intruding in on your personal space.
The last point in particular has you wanting to pull your hair out, because you want Jeon Jungkook intruding in on your personal space. You want him pressed so tightly against you you can’t breathe, you can’t move, until you’re drowning in him as he finally lives up to his promise of some Netflix and chill, because you want him, and you want him so. very. bad.
“Oh, I forgot the popcorn!” Jungkook exclaims, and you jump at the sudden volume of his voice, because he’d been pretty silent as he avidly watched the first few minutes of the movie. “Sorry,” he chuckles, and his leg brushes against yours as he shuffles between you and the coffee table on his way out. You vaguely hear the popping of the popcorn in the kitchen, but you’re too distracted by your suddenly overwhelming thoughts.
Okay, one thing was for sure, and that was that Jeon Jungkook definitely had no fucking idea what the phrase Netflix and chill meant, because the way he’d zeroed in on the movie and the popcorn, and not you, was unheard of on such invitations. You deduce he probably heard it somewhere, and, now understanding the true nature of Jungkook’s sweet and shy personality, made no such perverted connection to the phrase.
Which meant he most definitely did not demean you to a mere booty call, like you’d deluded yourself into believing, someone he could hump and dump with no regrets, before calling Namjoon up to thank him. Which meant he’d had no ulterior motives in meeting you tonight, just planning to get to know you at the suggestion of his friend, and had—unbeknownst to him—successfully wooed you thus far.
Which was great! If you turned a blind eye to the evil, conniving plans you’d made without even meeting the guy, and the subsequent flood of self-inflicted disapproval when you realized Jeon Jungkook was a sweetheart who definitely did not deserve having a glass of wine thrown at his face after making you a home cooked meal and giving you the full Olive Garden experience, with his dimmed lights and candlelit dinner and piano music on the background.
Yeah. Perfectly fine.
The only problem now was that you had become so dangerously smitten with the man that you wanted to sleep with him. You wanted that Netflix and chill, needed it like it was the last slot in a daycare class and you were a soccer mom of five wanting to get at least one kid out of the house for the summer for the sake of her own sanity. You were desperate.
No, you scold yourself. This was fine, this was good, this was perfectly okay. If anything, this just further made you enamored with Jungkook, because it proved how gentlemanly he was by not trying to sleep with you on the first date.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to, the devil on your shoulder crooned.
The microwave in the kitchen stops, and you hear the sound of cabinets opening as Jungkook pours the popcorn into a bowl. On screen, the main character is meeting a bunch of giant cars-turned-robots, you don’t fucking know.
But the devil was right.
Jungkook hadn’t offered to sleep with you, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to. Furthermore, that didn’t mean he couldn’t be seduced into wanting to, your evil brain suggested, and the hope that had slithered it’s way into your chest from the very moment Jungkook had opened the door, took that fact and ran with it.
“What’d I miss?” Jungkook says when he returns, popcorn bowl in hand.
“Oh, um, he was with the car,” you offer, trying to stop the nefarious smirk from slipping onto your features. Jungkook laughs, cute and airy as he shuffles past you.
He’s too absorbed in the screen, not looking as he sits down, closer than last time until his thigh brushes yours and he jerks back in embarrassment. “Oh, sorry,” he flounders, goes to move away but you act fast.
You grab onto his upper arm with both of yours like an octopus, keeping him flush to you as you gaze up at him with wide eyes. “No, it’s okay,” you rush to assure him, loosening your hold as he tentatively relaxes beside you. You glance down at the popcorn bowl in his hand, swiping a piece to pop between your lips. “It’s easier for us this way,” you say, and you’re pulling that straight out of your ass, because you hate popcorn and have literally zero desire for it and wouldn’t have reached for it anyway if you weren’t trying to convince him this was all for popcorn sharing purposes.
Jungkook’s eyes briefly flicker down to where you’re munching on that popcorn, your lips, before he’s quickly averting his gaze. “Ah, y-yeah,” he agrees, and though he tries to relax back into the couch, you can still feel the tension of his muscles as he settles beside you.
With his eyes no longer trained on you, you snuggle closer into his side resting your cheek against the soft material covering his shoulder, finally letting that devious smirk slip onto your face. You keep yourself close to Jungkook, loving the way his warmth permeates the thick sweater he’s wearing, even if he’s still overly into the movie. You know he’s seen it before, because he keeps telling you random tidbits like, “they use this in the next movie!” Or “he ends up becoming really important in the sixth movie,” and you want to listen to this endearing nerd’s commentary, you really do, but once your brain is stuck on horny, it is stuck on horny.
He doesn’t even eat a lot of popcorn, setting it down not ten minutes later onto the coffee table. You release him as he moves forward, but quickly latch onto him again when he sits back down.
Much to your surprise, Jungkook is way more relaxed then, shrugging you off to rest his hand on the couch behind you, and you inwardly squeal at the prospect of getting to cuddle up to his body, and not just his arm. You cuddle in close to him, leaving your slippers on the ground as you tuck your legs up onto the couch cushions.
Jungkook is so warm and firm, and you know it’s your horny brain speaking, but you swear you feel a tight set of abs underneath the palm you rest on his stomach, and you give an experimental brush over the area. His heart picks up, you hear it by where your head is leaning against his chest, and you tilt your head up to give him a curious glance. His cheeks are red, and he doesn’t look at you even though you know he sees you, so you decide to kick things up a notch.
You sigh loudly, peeling yourself away from him to properly level him with a pout. “Jungkook, aren’t you hot in this?” You ask, pinching the wooly material between two fingers and pulling it from his skin. Jungkook finally looks away from the screen, nibbling his lower lip as he takes in your quizzical expression.
“Um, only a little… but it’s fine!” He rushes to say, and you recall from your conversations over dinner that Jungkook doesn’t much like people fussing over him, so you quickly change gears.
You press a hand against your cheek, the same one that had been resting against his shoulder earlier. “Oh, well… it’s really itchy,” you announce, and his eyes widen, one hand absentmindedly reaching to clutch the material at his chest. “It’s making me really itchy,” you emphasize, and part of you feels bad for taking advantage of his caring nature, but this is all for the greater good, you convince yourself. “Do you mind taking it off?”
“I, uh, yeah,” he agrees, reaching for the hem of his sweater before carefully peeling it off. When he pulls it over his head, you can’t help the triumphant grin that overtakes your face, though you quickly mask it when he finally frees himself from the material. “Better?” He says once he’s clad in only a plain black shirt.
“Mm, much,” you sigh, and nearly soak your panties then and there when a tattooed sleeve comes into view. “Woah!” You exclaim, snatching his wrists up to examine his skin. “What’s this?” You marvel, tracing every inch of delicious skin with your predatory gaze. Jungkook huffs out a laugh, and you glance up to watch as he rubs the back of his neck in that same embarrassed way he’d done multiple times throughout your night together.
“My tattoos,” he says, and then seems to realize the simplicity of his statement and rushes to add to it, “I hope you don’t mind?”
You hum, shifting onto your knees to face him as you continue tracing over a huge tiger lily by his forearm. “Why would I? It’s your body,” you say, and watch the nervous glance melt off his face as he regards you with something new. Something akin to wonder as he lets you trace over more of his ink, nodding along to your words.
“Yeah… yeah!” He agrees, and you grin at his sudden zeal. He chuckles, physically relaxing beneath your touch, and it’s probably the most relaxed he’s been all night as you continue rubbing your hands over every tattoo on his skin, and then purposefully focusing on the ones near his bicep. “Sorry, ‘m just used to people pushing off their own opinions about them onto me,” he explains, and for a moment, the horniness that had been fueling you all night fades away, and you let your hands trail down, past his wrist, until you’re sandwiching his hand between yours.
“Fuck what anyone else thinks,” you tell him, eyes hard as you imagine anyone imposing their stupid thoughts on Jungkook, who was too good for this world. “If you think they’re cool, then they're the coolest thing in the world.”
He smiles at you, and you’ve seen this smile about a million times tonight—when you first came in, when you talked about yourself at dinner, when you mentioned this stupid movie—but it has something swelling in your chest. Something too intimate for a first date, so you quickly move to repress it.
Glancing down at his hand in yours, littered with smaller tattoos across his knuckles, your brain whirls into action. Bringing it up between the two of you, you turn his hand over to line your palms up. “Wow, your hands are so big,” you sigh, slowly reverting back to dirty thoughts as you twist yours and Jungkook’s hands this way and that. He snorts, bends the tips of his fingers over yours just to hear you ooooh again.
“Yeah, they’re pretty big,” he agrees, completely ignoring the film playing on the screen, which is a huge win in your eyes considering how deeply he’d been watching it earlier.
Finally, you see an opening and pounce.
“Well, that means something else is pretty big too,” you murmur, chancing a glance up at his face. His face is the perfect definition of composed, and you can tell when exactly he processes your words because those little pink lips part in surprise, red slowly filling the apples of his cheeks. You let go of his palm, letting it slide between your fingers until it falls limp beside him.
Jungkook watches you with wide eyes, as you raise yourself up onto your knees. “Jungkook?” You mumble, giving him no warning before you’re throwing a leg across his lap, knees pressed into the couch on either side of his thighs.
“Y-Yes?” He stutters, brown hair falling away from his face as he stares up at you. You flash him a sweet smile, and you can tell it relaxes him because his fists unclench beside him.
“You’re a really nice boy,” you sigh, and when you’ve scooted your knees a little closer to his ridiculously thin waist, you finally let yourself sit. You find yourself right before his crotch, which he desperately tries to hide as he shifts around, but can’t with you on top of him. You let your hands flutter to rest at his shoulders, and he gulps. “You’re so sweet and cute,” you add, relish in the flush that climbs up to his ears. “But I’m a little sad you invited me over to Netflix and chill, but won’t do just that,” you pout, a finger tangling itself in a soft strand at the back of his head.
“Huh?” He stutters, eyes nearly bulging out when you wiggle around again. “I-I’m sorry?” He huffs, and when you move too close to his crotch, where his jeans are slowly growing more and more strained, he panics and reaches a hand out to steady your waist.
You feign confusion, flashing him another pout as you duck closer until your noses bump against each other. “You know what it means, don’t you, Jungkook?” You inquire, eyes falling dangerously lidded as you swallow up every inch of his appearances.
He stutters, hands moving up and down as if he doesn’t know where to put them anymore. But you know exactly where Jungkook can put those hands, and you waste no time catching his wrists in your hands to guide him towards your hips. “No?” He breathes, fingers flexing against you, and you smile sweetly at him.
“It means,” you purr, shifting forward until you’re flush against where you need him most. You can barely contain the whimper that climbs out of your throat when you finally feel the rough material of his jeans against your panties. “It means you wanna fuck, Jungkook,” you exhale, tossing your head back as your body basks in the slight reprieve, the way Jungkook squirms beneath you aiding greatly in providing that sensation you craved.
“It’s nothing more than an excuse,” you huff, placing a hand on the back of his neck to steady yourself. At your touch, Jungkook jolts, thighs jumping beneath you and you stifle another groan when the zipper of his jeans prods against your core. “For you to fuck my brains out while some s-stupid movie plays in the background.”
You’re not sure when, but sometime during that last explanation your hands had fully delved into the thick tresses of Jungkook’s hair. You give an experimental tug, and poor Jungkook, so lost in all that you’re telling him, lolls his head back for you easily until the long expanse of his neck is available, soft creamy skin yours for the taking.
You pounce, kissing the skin gently at first, before sprinkling in a handful of nibbles. He’s sensitive, devastatingly so, as he gasps at a particular suck. You suction your lips on the spot below his ear, carefully biting down on the skin as he unravels beneath you. “Will you do it, Jungkookie?” You murmur against the shell of his ear,
He nods eagerly, and his fingers hurt where he’s pressed them deep into your waist, like he’s trying to brand you as his with his mere strength alone. “Y-Yes,” he exhales, hips jerking when you swipe your tongue over the pretty mark you’d left on his perfect skin.
You smother your smirk against his neck, grinding down on him once again. “Yes what?” You tease, and let his strong hands roll you against him afterwards.
“Yes, I-I’ll…” he stumbles, eyes dazed as he watches you through hooded lids. You raise a brow at him, shifting in his lap. It’s enough to kickstart him back up, and he’s biting down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. “I’ll fuck you, I’ll fuck you just like you want,” he rambles. He surprises you when he begins rutting up against you, so animalistic and uncontrolled, nothing like the sweet Jungkook that had indulged you over dinner. “I’ll make you come, p-promise,” he rasps.
You smirk down at him, hoping he doesn’t see the metaphorical horns sticking out of your head the further he falls into your trap. Before he can say anything else, you surge forward, slotting your mouths together for the first time that night.
It’s no surprise that Jungkook kisses just like he speaks, carefully like he’s afraid one hard press of his lips will ward you off. His lips are smooth, a fact you’d hyper-fixated on all night as he spoke, but before you can ponder on that any further, something hot and wet is prodding at your lower lip.
The gasp you barely manage to contain ends up escaping anyway when Jungkook’s hand comes up to cup the side of your face, tilting your head to the side as his tongue slithers into your mouth. You become obsessed with the way he touches you, every bit the gentlemen he’d been all night, fingers just barely pressing into your cheek like he doesn’t want to mess up your makeup. His other hand, snuggly wrapped around your waist, pulls you tighter against him until your chests are pressed together.
And that tongue. That tongue of his that leaves no room for argument, quickly shutting down any attempts of yours to overtake him. He’s graceful about it too, one nudge enough to convince you he’s got this, he’ll take care of you. You whimper, a sound Jungkook swallows before he’s biting down on your lower lip.
When he pulls away, his lips are red and glossy, and you wonder if yours are too. “Fuck, you’re so pretty,” he sighs, gazing at you like he can’t believe you’re there in front of him.
Before you can say anything else, he’s burying his face in the crook of your neck to brush kisses over your skin. “Let me eat you out,” he begs, but his voice is so silky and smooth that it doesn’t sound so much as a plea as much as it does a suggestion. He licks a stripe up your neck, and you jump in his hold.
It’s at this moment where the sudden realization hits you, the feeling of having the reins yanked out of your hands. You so vividly controlled every aspect of Jungkook just a few moments ago, when you’d had your own mouth on his neck, and carefully coaxed him into some sex.
But it seems Jeon Jungkook isn’t as soft or as pliable as you had dubbed him to be, and if the way he’s begun subtly rolling your hips into his crotch is any sign, he certainly wasn’t the submissive type either. Which leaves you wondering, exactly what type of person was Jungkook in bed?
Well, you had all night to figure that out.
“Hey,” he whines suddenly, ripping you out of your thoughts. You glance down at him, registering the bored set of his eyes and the unimpressed quirk of his lips. “Pay attention to me.”
You blink, lips twitching. You can barely muffle the giggle that tears itself from your throat, leaning your forehead on his shoulder as your body shakes at his suddenly childish words. Jungkook chuckles too, as if suddenly realizing how out of place his own statement was. “Sorry,” he smiles, cheeks pleasantly rosy and you can’t even stop yourself from kissing him silly.
Jungkook, bless his heart, let’s you rain down a good three kisses on him before he’s pushing you down on the couch beside him. There’s still a slight gleam in his eyes, but the rest of his face schools itself into a hungry expression as he drinks in your body laid out before him. “Let me eat you out?” He asks again, voice but a soft whisper.
You nod, heart beating loudly in your chest as he shuffles down until he can press a kiss to the tops of your thighs. He hasn’t even done anything that intense yet, but you already feel the muscles in your leg ready to spasm just from his proximity.
He’s mouthing at your skin, nudging your legs apart, and you, usually so confident in your sexuality, can’t find the courage to look at him as he so lovingly carries out his ministrations.
As if sensing your sudden bout of shyness (you! shy! Doyeon was gonna tease you about this for the rest of your life once you recapped this for her), he places a soft kiss just below where the hem of your dress begins, before pulling back and uttering, “this okay?”
You hum in response, face warm from just imagining how good he must look down there, peppering your skin with kisses. Your heart nearly rips itself out of your chest when a strong set of fingers wraps around your wrist suddenly, sliding over and around your hand until he’s tangled them with yours.
At this, you nearly break your neck trying to look at him, only to be met with an amused smile. Jungkook gives your hand a squeeze, and you barely get to appreciate the schoolgirl flood of emotions in your chest, when suddenly his free hand comes out of left field, cupping the back of your knee to push your legs further apart, before gliding across the expanse of your thigh to push your dress up.
If Jungkook holding your hand was enough to make your heart skip a beat, Jungkook pressing a chaste kiss to your panty-clad mound was enough to send you into cardiac arrest. Your leg twitches at the sudden touch, a gasp catching in your throat at the delicate path he kisses over your panties, until he’s flicking his tongue over your clit. “Oh,” you moan, and against your better judgment, your free hand is tangling itself in his silky strands.
Jungkook smirks, what sounds like a tiny chuckle muffled as he continues mouthing along your sex, until your panties are soaked both from your arousal and his saliva. Your little thong stares him in the face, and he groans at the sight, glancing up at you with those wide eyes of his like you’re his entire world. “Can I?”
Jungkook gives your clit one final kiss, before he lets go of your hand, and you can’t help the whine that leaves you upon the lost contact. Jungkook eats it up, pressing a kiss turned smile against your knee as he tugs your underwear down. It coils up as it goes, until he’s pulling a tightly twisted maroon thong off your ankles, and tossing it off somewhere behind him.
If his mouth felt good through your panties, it feels even better without. You mewl when he brushes his lips over your clit, plush lips working your sensitive bundle of nerves, sly tongue occasionally creeping out to toy with you further. “Jungkook,” you cry out, back arching. He licks and slurps likes he’s a starved man, and you're the first meal he’s ever had. You want to sob from how good it feels, his tongue flicking over your bud like he just can’t get enough.
He pulls away to catch your gaze, doesn’t let it go as he runs a lone finger over your slit, coating the digit in your own arousal, before carefully plunging it into your warm, wet heat. “Is this good?” He rasps out, watching your facial expressions carefully as he wiggles his finger deeper into your core, his other hand wrapped around your thigh to keep you still. You moan, feeling like a boneless heap of organs beneath this insanely handsome man who can’t keep his hands off your quivering pussy.
His fingers don’t let up, slowly pulling out before plunging back in. The room fills with disgustingly wet sounds, but that fact drifts to the back of your head the faster his fingers go. Your eyes roll into your head, your body twitching with each press of his fingers.
“Is it good, pretty?” He repeats, and since you’re not looking at him anymore, the sudden lick against your clit has your back arching and your thighs quivering with surprise. “Tell me it’s good, ___,” Jungkook croons, and you nod in a hurry.
“It’s good!” You cry, moaning loudly when he slips another finger into you, scissoring the two inside of you. “It’s so good, Jungkook—y-you’re so good,” you moan, and nearly cry actual tears when he curls his fingers inside of you, pressing down against the most sensitive spot within you.
Jungkook doesn’t let up, continues licking and slurping against your sensitive bud, even when your orgasm hits and you’re begging him to stop. He doesn’t let you go until he feels the warmth coat his fingers, feels the wetness begging to seep out of your plugged pussy. He lets you go then, only to move closer to your hole and replace his fingers with his mouth. There, he carefully catches and collects the cum that trickles out, mouth warm against your trembling body.
Your body quivers with each long drag of his tongue over your sensitive cunt, and you’re about to ask him to stop, when he finally pulls away and pushes himself over you, arms caging you in as he stares down at your withered form. “Kiss,” you manage to gasp out, and Jungkook raises an eyebrow in question. “Kiss me,” you repeat, and then, thoughtfully, “please.”
Jungkook complies, leans down to connect your mouths in a sweet kiss. You’re blinded by the delicacy of it all, that you in no way see coming the sudden substance that slides down your throat from his own. You choke at the sudden intrusion, belatedly realizing it’s your cum he’s pushing down your throat, the cum he didn’t swallow.
“That’s it, pretty,” Jungkook croons, licking up the residual come that hadn’t made it into your mouth. “See how you taste for me. Isn’t it sweet?” He murmurs, pushing his tongue into your mouth as if he regretted not saving any for himself. It’s the first time you’ve had your own pleasure in your mouth, so you’re not exactly sure how to feel. What you do feel is the overwhelming surge of arousal at seeing Jungkook rave about it and lap it up inside your own mouth.
He kisses you for a few moments, mouth moving languidly along yours. One hand reaches down to rub soothingly at your inner thigh, like he’s coaxing the feeling back into your body after lulling you into one of the most heavenly orgasms of your entire life. You whimper when he bites down on your lower lip, like you’re still too sensitive to reciprocate, but Jungkook doesn’t mind. He lets you go, licks over where he’d bitten like an apology.
After a few minutes of just this, of feeling like the most cherished girl in the entire world, Jungkook finally pulls away and levels you with a dashing smile. “All good?” He asks, hands still trailing up your waist until they’re framing the swell of your breasts, where he gently circles your nipple.
You nod, dazedly staring up at him and it’s at this exact moment that you realize there’s something stiff poking at your hip. You glance down, and Jungkook glances down with you, until you’re both staring at the hard on he’s hiding beneath his jeans. Jungkook chuckles, low and dark by your ear as he experimentally presses it against you.
Before you can stop yourself, your hand is untangling itself from around his shoulders and slithering down his front. You cup his erection, his shaky exhale giving you the courage to toy with his belt buckle until it’s undone and you're battling with the button on his jeans instead. You put up a good fight, but in the end the angle is too tight for you to properly undo it, and Jungkook brushes your hands away with a soft kiss to your lips.
He pushes himself off you, and you’re immediately craving the warm press of his body against yours the second he’s gone. “Get that dress off for me, pretty girl,” he says, pulling his shirt over his head, rendering you completely speechless as you gawk at his body. Jungkook glances down at you as he goes to undo his pants, a shapely brow raising in your direction and a soft quirk of his lips gesturing for you to do as you’re told.
You spur into action, wiggling the dress up and over your breasts until you’re pulling it over your head and letting it drop beside you on the floor. You’re just in time to see Jungkook push his jeans down his hips, a classic black Calvin Klein underwear band glaring back at you.
The chance to marvel at Jungkook’s thin waist framed by that tight underwear is gone as quickly as it came, and you’re greeted with an even more mouthwatering sight when he pushes the elastic band down, and that big cock you had alluded to springs out of its confines. You groan, subconsciously rolling your hips into the air as you take in the sight of his cock, mushroom tip swollen and flushed. There’s a thick vein that runs along the underside of it, one you only see when Jungkook grasps his dick in his hand and tugs upward like this isn’t his true form, and he can get bigger.
“Ready?” He asks, biting down on his lip as he continues to stroke himself. You nod, wiggling closer to him until the backs of your thighs rest on top of his, knees knocking against his waist. He grants you one more of those kind smiles, before he’s leaning down to press a hand beside your head, the other lining himself up with your soaked entrance.
Running his cock over your folds one last time, collecting as much of your cum as he can, he brushes a kiss against your cheekbone before he’s pushing in. You moan, throwing your hands around his neck as he pierces through the initial ring of muscle surrounding your warm heat. “Holy shit,” you choke, mouth dropped open as you pant like a dog against his shoulder. “J-Jungkook,” you cry, legs tightening around his waist the closer his body presses against yours.
Once he’s at the hilt, pelvis flush against you, you can’t help the series of whines and mewls that escape your lips from being so comfortably filled to the brim.
To your surprise, Jungkook is the first to speak. “Fuck,” he groans, breath hot against your ear. He sounds fucked out, once silky voice raspy with need as he grinds his hips against you tentatively. “This is what you wanted, isn't it?” He huffs, both hands coming down to wrap around your waist, your back arching under the wonderful hands that find themselves squeezing every inch of your back in an effort to pull you closer.
His mouth brushes against yours from this new position, and Jungkook puckers his lips, tongue coming out to lick at your bottom lip. You nearly cry when he finally pulls his hips away, relieves his cock from your tight heat before surging back in. “Wanted this from the moment you walked in, didn’t you, sweetheart?” Jungkook grunts, repeats the same motion until he’s picked up a steady pace of pushing and pulling, each roll of his hips sending a shock of ecstasy crawling up your spine.
You nod, eyes screwed shut as pleasure warms every inch of your body. It’s even worse to not see, because every sound and every touch is magnified tenfold, until you’re drowning in sensations. Jungkook’s choked groans, the slide of his hips, they all become too much too quickly and you’re choking back a sob.
“Fuck,” he groans, glancing down at your withered form like an animal as he picks up his pace. His hold on you tightens, never letting your body move away from him and he begins jack hammering in his thrusts, swallowing your cries with his lips. “Had me thinking you were a nice girl,” he huffs, and you wonder if he knows how tightly he’s holding you, how this grip will most likely leave you with fingerprint bruises tomorrow morning. But then again, you don’t care. All you care about is Jungkook’s voice and his body, guiding you toward completion. “But all you wanted was a quick fuck.”
You steel yourself to look at him again, and when your eyes finally open and focus, you’re wishing you hadn’t because Jungkook looks so hot over you. His pretty eyes, the ones that had led you into a false sense of comfort throughout the night and tricked you into believing he would be easy to bend to your every whim, are hard now. “Isn’t that right, doll?” He spits, and you whine when he punctuates this question with a particularly brutal thrust of his hips. His balls slap against your ass, and you squirm beneath him as you begin to feel the beginnings of an orgasm build in your core.
“I-I thought—“ you stammer, tone pitched from the way he jostles you with every thrust he gives. “Y-You wanted that,” you weekly defend, canting your hips down in a feeble attempt to progress this along.
He snorts, captures your lips in a rushed kiss where he wastes no time snaking his tongue inside your mouth. His saliva trickles into your mouth, and you whine as he purposefully lets it happen, pulls away just the slightest to pucker his lips and let a thick trail of spit fall straight into your open mouth. Satisfied with his little stunt, he rams his cock against you once more.
“If you wanted a quick fuck,” he says, nearly loses himself in your pussy, “you came to the wrong guy, sweetheart.”
You’re too caught up in the nice drag of his cock against your pussy, the tip of his cock stopping him from ever pulling out completely, that it takes you a second to process his words. “H-Huh?” You choke, teary eyes flickering across his face wildly as if the answer will be right in plain sight.
But all you’re met with is the soft pull of his lips as he flashes you a smirk, pearly white teeth tugging at the pink flesh, as he levels you with a glare of his own. Before you can question him further, he’s letting go of your waist to hike your knees into the crook of his elbows, his pouty lips growing further away as he leans back.
This shift has his cock nudging up, rubbing against the hood of your clit where a bundle of nerves he’d only briefly brushed before sits. You shriek in pleasure, writhing beneath him as the sudden sensation hits you full force. “Jungkook!” You sob, his hips slowing to a grind as he watches your face crumble beneath him.
“You like that?�� He murmurs, rutting his hips against you shallowly. The change of pace, the rabid piston of his hips slowing to this, has your body melting into his touch. You barely manage a nod, eyes fluttering open and shut as his hips move sensually against you.
His cock brushes against that sensitive spot with each roll of his hips, and you’re a mewling, puddle of emotion by the third thrust. “Pretty girl,” he hums, letting go of one leg to place a hand above your mound, thumb circling your clit until you’re trembling beneath him. “Did you think I would fuck you and kick you out?” He husks, watching your body like he’s a lion and you’re his prey.
Your brain is far from comprehending anything at this point, reduced to a mere mass of nothingness as he continues moving against you, fingers rubbing your clit in all the right ways.
“Well, you were wrong about that, doll,” he huffs, and you’re blessed with the sight of his head lolling back as he loses himself in the tight grip of your pussy, skin glistening with sweat, trailing from behind his ear and over his neck, until you’re watching a pearl roll over his collarbones. “I don’t do that,” he informs you, and he pinches your clit between two fingers, hard enough that you almost miss his next words as you moan. “No, baby, I’ll fuck you and keep you forever,” he spits, and you whimper at his words. Finally, he lets go of your knees, right as you’re teetering on the edge of an orgasm and you moan out in protest as he ducks down to cage you between his arms again.
“Please,” you beg, voice hoarse as his hips slowly return to their pace from before. He’s still not pulling out as much, keeping his thrusts shallow as he kisses a trail up your neck and over your jaw.
“Gonna fuck you so good, you don’t ever want to leave, pretty,” he says, kisses the corner of your mouth as his hips pick up pace. You wanna cry, feeling so warm and cherished in his arms, his voice telling you how good you’re doing as the coil in your stomach tightens and tightens until you’re begging him for more. “Do you want that?”
“Yes! Yes!” You sob, rolling your hips against his like a madman as you chase your high.
Jungkook hums, smile smushed against your lips as he watches you desperately writhing beneath him. “Yeah? You want that?” You nod, mewls swallowed by his kisses. “Then cum for me, pretty girl.”
You whimper, just as he bucks into you once more, and suddenly you’re falling apart. It starts in your lower back, the ecstasy climbing it’s way through your body until you’re quivering and sobbing in his embrace, muffling your sounds against his shoulder. The muscles in your entire body tighten painfully, until suddenly a wave of contentment washes over you, and you’re too weak to even hold onto him anymore, arms flopping back onto the couch cushions beneath you.
The whole time, Jungkook mutters encouragement against your jaw, keeps his thrusts short but quick, guiding you through your orgasm. When you’re done, he presses an open mouthed kiss beneath your ear, pulling away to look at your boneless frame beneath him.
A few pistons of his hips later, and Jungkook is coming inside of you, cum coating your walls as he hammers his way through his orgasm. He pulls out when he’s done, and you instantly feel your mixed arousal drip out between your thighs.
Woozy from the wine and the two orgasms, you fall asleep soon after.
——
“Good morning,” you murmur, standing at the doorway leading into the kitchen, an area you’d only been able to find after stumbling around the upstairs of the house in confusion.
Jungkook whirls around, wide eyes taking in your appearance. You clutch at the hem of the big t-shirt you’d pulled on, the only article of clothing you saw that was thrown over a chair in a bedroom you didn’t dare snoop around. “Morning,” he exhales, calculating gaze never leaving you as you tiptoe over to him by the counter.
He doesn’t say more, spluttering into action when you peek over his shoulder to see what he’s up to. “What’re you making?” You inquire, and his hands begin fidgeting with the knife.
“Oh, um,” he stutters, and perhaps he’s overly aware of your presence so close beside him, because he suddenly doesn’t remember how he’s supposed to cut an avocado. Cute, you think. “Just, um, toast with avocado spread…”
You hum. After a moment, it seems Jungkook is able to quell his nerves, and he carefully slices the avocado open, spreading its innards across the toast. He hands you the first piece, which you take after masking your own surprise, and soon after he’s turning away from the counter as the two of you eat in silence.
After a few thoughtful munches of bread, you speak. “Thanks for carrying me to bed,” you say, refusing to look at him.
“You’re welcome,” he replies, almost a little too fast and you barely bite down a grin as he rambles on. “Wasn’t gonna leave you on the couch, especially not when you were so tired after… ah, yeah.”
It’s the reserved way he carries himself that gives you the balls to look at him. His ears are flushed adorably red, like when you were at dinner last night talking about his job, and all you wanna do is pinch his cheeks. “Yeah,” you agree, and then add with an air of faux shyness, “you were really cool last night.”
It’s the little devil in you begging to jump out, curious to see how far you can push Jungkook before he shifts into that suave version of himself from last night, and you would feel bad had the corner of his lips not tilted up in amusement.
He chokes out a laugh, mutters a “yeah?” and you don’t stop yourself when you jump into his arms and kiss that avocado spread right off his lips.
——
On Tuesday afternoon, Kim Namjoon is in the midst of delivering another sermon-like speech on the importance of utilizing your student ID when visiting any of the Starbucks within a two mile radius of your school, when you spot a chestnut head of hair from the corner of your eye.
“Sorry, Joon! My ride's here!” You yelp, shoving your notebook into your bag as you stumble over yourself in your haste to leave.
Namjoon blinks. “Huh? I thought you lived on campus?”
You nod, that giddy feeling starting up in your chest as he comes closer to where you and Namjoon have taken up residence on a table in the commons for your weekly meeting, and by the time he reaches the table Namjoon is still in the midst of questioning you.
“Jungkook,” You say, all dreamily and dazed, and you know this because Doyeon caught you with this same exact look on your face after he dropped you off at the dorms Sunday afternoon.
Namjoon startles. “What the f—“
“Hi,” Jungkook beams, leans down to brush a kiss against your cheek, which only serves to make you even more ditzy and dumb in the face of this handsome man. “Oh, hey, hyung.”
“What’re you doi—“
“All set?” Jungkook asks you, completely ignoring whatever his beloved senior was saying in favor of taking your bag off your shoulders. You nod, have to swallow a giggle down when he takes your hand in his. “Bye, hyung.”
“Bye, Joon!” You barely remember to throw over your shoulder, too busy wrapping yourself around Jungkook’s arm to hear Namjoon blabber in shock.
“Kids these days,” he huffs.
[ part 2 ; hulu & woohoo ]
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