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#was the one who was victimized. why should i rely on these spaces at all. its clear yall favor the more fem person in any situation

cardentist · 5 months

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this is all gonna be very disorganized and rambly, but

"the male loneliness epidemic" as a concept is like.

does anybody remember when it was common knowledge in feminist spaces that part of the Point of feminism was recognizing that All groups of people were negatively impacted by sexism?

I Remember the ridiculous "mens rights activist" era. I REMEMBER feminist talking points at the time pointing out that it was Toxic Masculinity that contributed to things like men not being able to be vulnerable with the people who care about them, or men (or Boys) not being taken seriously as rape victims.

and the point of this Wasn't to blame men for their own pain, to blame men for the system that they were negatively impacted by. but to point out how Feminism Was Meant To Help Them. how it was Sexism that needed to be dismantled to address the things that these very ridiculous men were angry at feminism about.

and now it's just like.

not only have people not learned this lesson, it's becoming increasingly Extinct as a concept even within feminist and activist spaces.

I Do find "male loneliness epidemic" silly as a term. it's particularly strange to me that there have been several articles ran about it.

But Ultimately This Would Not Be Necessary If The Climate Was Different.

like. the term is silly, I'm sure the articles are silly. but it is just Objectively True that men are statistically more likely to kill themselves. the exact number fluctuates depending on the study and the years they were conducted, but this has been Consistent for literally decades.

and it just ! feels abjectly cruel to watch people act like acknowledging something Like This is stupid. to watch people lump in men together As A Class and more or less victim blame them.

why should We care about Men when it's Men who are sexist? if Men care so much about being Lonely then then why [screenshot of 4channer]

a conversation on sexism creating a system where men are emotionally isolated, are discouraged from vulnerability, from relying on the people around them emotionally, are discouraged from affection, Is Good Actually.

like ! I really do wish that people didn't take a nose dive into gender essentialism and decide that men and women are just categorically and fundamentally different from each other. that if one suffers then the other must only be the one that inflicts suffering. that to recognize the pain of one is to deny the pain of the other. when that is Literally Not How It Works.

it's not about why Women should care about Men. it's about recognizing a facet of sexism that is negatively impacting PEOPLE and discussing it in the hopes of starting a long term conversation about it. to potentially encourage change and reach the people that need to hear it.

because All People are victims of sexism, All People can enforce sexism, and All People benefit from recognizing these facts and working together to undo the effects of sexism on a wide scale.

and I Dunno. I think it's really telling that some people actively choose Not to show basic human decency and compassion towards people if they can get out of it. if social convention in their circles say that X group of people don't Deserve It.

we live in a time where compassion fatigue is a real issue. where we have to process more atrocities on a daily basis than the human mind was ever meant to handle. but I still feel like human suffering should just like. Matter As A Baseline. it shouldn't be anyone's job to Convince You that it's worth caring about, you should just care about people.

#discourse #long post #male loneliness epidemic #I'm either gonna get zero notes or a beehive #but whatever #I needed to vent this out of my mouth

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spacelazarwolf · 9 months

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(to your knowledge) are there any genuinely trans affirming versions of ra/di/cal feminism? I've seen a few people here and there on the internet saying Their version of it is trans inclusive but I haven't had the time to do any extensive research..

imo no. ra/di/cal feminism relies on the idea that there is a Victim Group and an Oppressor Group. for traditional ra/df/ems, those groups are based on agab. "females" are victims and "males" are oppressors, and these are immutable categories. if you are female, you are and will always be a victim and nothing you can ever do will change that. if you are a male, you are and always will be an oppressor and nothing you can ever do will change that.

for neo ra/df/ems (tirfs, whatever you want to call them), those immutable categories are "man" and "woman", or sometimes "man" and "nonman." if you are a woman or "nonman", you are and will always be a victim and nothing you can ever do will change that. if you are a man, you are and always will be an oppressor and nothing you can ever do will change that. this ideology appeals to a lot of groups like trans and queer people who were afab that don't align with manhood and also to trans women and trans femmes, because those are groups who understandably have a lot of resentment toward the patriarchy for the trauma it's caused them.

but when you look at the other side of the constructed binary, you have a lot of trans and intersex people (whether that's trans men, trans people who pursue masculinizing transition, trans people who align with manhood regardless of agab, intersex people who choose to align with manhood or are forcibly aligned with manhood because of their intersex traits that are perceived as "male", or trans people who were amab that are forcibly aligned with manhood because of the way they present) who simply do not hold any societal power and are in fact profoundly oppressed under the patriarchy who are now being labeled as oppressors simply because of the way they identify or they way they're forcibly aligned. this can be particularly traumatizing for trans people like me who have a lot of deep trauma from the several decades being perceived as and treated as a woman/"female", because our trauma is usually dismissed as "misdirected" or "not as bad." this incongruence between lived experiences of oppression and perceived status as oppressor further marginalizes these groups; they continue to experience oppression in general society because of their status as "other", but are also turned away from safe spaces because of their perceived status as oppressors, and this leads to high levels of isolation, depression and anxiety, violence, and suicide.

ra/di/cal feminism also holds the idea that misogyny is the one true/most important form of oppression. it asserts that all other forms of bigotry stem from misogyny, so the priority should be to overthrow the patriarchy. which sounds like a noble goal in theory, but in practice what it really looks like is a lot of white women wanting to flip patriarchy on its head so they're the ones in charge instead of white men. and historically white women have had an integral role in maintaining white supremacy, so it's understandable why a lot of people of color, including women of color, reject ra/di/cal feminism.

this presents itself in neo ra/di/cal feminism as well when discussions surrounding gender based oppression and transphobia fail to take race into account. trans men are perceived as transitioning into an Oppressor Group, therefore they must be transitioning into an easier and more privileged life. but black and brown trans men report experiencing more violence after they transition. white trans women's voices are prioritized over trans men of color because one is seen as the Victim and the other as the Oppressor, which results in white voices and narratives being prioritized in trans discussions, and does not take into account the way white women have historically used their whiteness as a weapon against black and brown men.

so in conclusion of this mini essay, i argue that there can never be a form of ra/di/cal feminism that is truly accepting of all trans people because the mandatory binary way of thinking is incompatible with queer and trans existence, and because it is not structured to take race and ethnicity into account which makes it inaccessible to racial and ethnic minorities. intersectional feminism that challenges binaries and targets the system instead of individuals or groups of people will always be more inclusive and successful.

#ask avishai #gender studies #atm #neo rf

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becomingpart2 · 6 months

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It really bothers me how people inadvertently end up shitting on Skyler when the praise they send Kim's direction seems to rely on how good of a female character she is and by extension how relieved they are that we finally have a good one on the same level of the male characters. There's always this underlying tone that this universe finally has a complex female character worth talking about and getting invested into. And yes I agree that she is an interesting character but the underlying tone that seems to accompany that praise is a sense of putting down Skyler for being just "the wife" or, mostly, the battered housewife. It seems people are only ever interested in talking about her when they want to (rightfully) defend her from the misogynistic attacks she's suffered over the years or to talk about how much she suffered in universe. Not much about her as a character on her own, not much about how she's complex and interesting on her own.

I understand the need to highlight her suffering and how she was victim in all of Walt's bullshit (and unfortunately that is still needed) but I also think it's hypocritical and condescending (and a touch misogynistic on its own) to only ever see her as a victim and thus less of a character than someone like kim, that gets to be maker of her own ruin.

Skyler is not just the good loving mother that wants to protect her children from their father and the criminal world he inserted them into. She's also smart and funny and quick on her feet. She's able navigate and adapt to different environments and she does it well. She's proactive, she comes up with plans on her own; sometimes against Walt (ted, the pool incident), sometimes to help him and them (the carwash) and sometimes to help herself (the IRS thing or when she evades police by pretending to be in labor). She's also flawed like all good characters are.

There's a lof of the talk about how Kim has more agency, and while I think that's true and good on its own, it can often fall prey to the point of view that the only way for a female character to be a good character is if she dominates predominantly male spaces and make those her own. As if the only way to be interesting is if you do it in the same way men do. It's a little diminishing towards women that don't do that or aren't interested in doing that (I'd also call into question how effective is that agency when It's conveniently one that doesn't go against what the male partner wants).

It's interesting how I have seen people say that the reason some might not like Kim is because she's a woman that exhibits traits usually associated with men and how she's the one who "wears the pants" in her relationship with Jimmy. That's true but I think it's important to remember that misogyny doesn't make those kind of distinctions and while she might be hated because of that, more "traditional" female characters are hated just the same, if not more.

In fact, I'd argue that Kim is hated significantly less than Skyler ever was. A lot of the male viewers like her and most of the analysis you see of the show regards her as one of the best characters in television history.

It's also funny because that comment seems to imply that Skyler is the "traditional female character" archetype, the housewife that's only there to take the abuse and that's not true at all to Skyler or how she was received by audiences. A lot of the reason she was hated as much as she was (is?) is precisely because she didn't fit into the expectations of what a "good wife" should be like. Because she didn't bow down and take Walter's side, because she was too independent and didn't support "her man" when he needed, because she couldn't see where he was coming from (which, strangely enough, it's something Kim always does, regardless of why you think she does it, the fact is that she's always by Jimmy's side).

This is not an attempt to shit on Kim but rather to highlight how often the conversation surrounding her character seems to veer in the direction of inadvertantly putting down Skyler as "less" of a good female character when I would say both have strengths and weaknesses from a feminist standpoint.

#breaking bad #skyler white #better call saul #bcs #kim wexler

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aronarchy · 1 year

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i definitely agree with your positions on youthlib, adultism and the nuclear family model, however my question is - what's your positive plan, if any, assuming you could remove / already have removed these oppressive constructs?

Ok first off: this has been sitting in my inbox for several months, and I’m really sorry that I haven’t answered it sooner, and I feel really bad about that, and I’m not even entirely sure why (I started drafting my answer a while ago, then developed a sort of mental block around the whole thing and somehow only got over it today); I’m sure this probably feels irrelevant by now, or unnecessary, and sorry about that!

If the question is “what will replace adultism/nuclear family wrt performing their [actual] current functions,” the answer is—nothing. Their purpose is to control large swathes of people, to regulate certain behaviors, and to concentrate power and resource in the hands of some at the expense of others. There is no need for anything that oppresses and abuses youth to exist at all, and it should not exist, and the whole point of a youthlib movement is to get rid of them.

If the question is “what will replace adultism/the nuclear family/current educational institutions/etc in doing what they currently claim to do/be for,” that’s a rather different question.

Adultists claim that the nuclear family allows for youth to be sheltered, fed, clothed, and taken care of: that without it, youth will die en masse, will starve on the streets, etc. But this is not actually true; the prescription of the Family leads to many neglectful/abusive parents refusing to or inadequately feeding, clothing, and caring for their children. If youth were able to easily acquire food, clothing, shelter, and other resources without having to rely on parents, that would solve this problem. If youth were not forced to remain with their biological family, they could leave when they wanted, the same way anyone else would leave a living situation or relationship they find harmful to themself, or just not something they want, and form relationships that they do want, when they are able to do so and not under social, economic, and political pressures to remain.

I question the popular framing of what will you do when The Revolution is Over, as if these are only things we can do later, rather than things we are (or should be) doing now, and things which are a part of revolution itself and also contribute to the undermining of oppressive structures. What we hope we’ll be doing Then is what we’re struggling to do right now. One of those things is simply living our lives the way we wish (while not preventing others from living their own lives the way they wish). Like anyone else escaping abuse, youth who have escaped adultist oppression will start doing the things they want to do which they were previously unable to because they were forced to not do them. The youthlib project works toward maximizing the ability of doing these things unimpeded, and also doing the things themselves. i.e. moving around in public spaces without harassment, living with people they want to live with, dedicating their time to hobbies or projects they find useful or other things without being dragged away to meaningless forced labor daily.

One thing adultism (like other oppressive systems) promises is to prevent not only various harmless activities but also harmless ones. Adultists claim that if not subject to adult rule, youth will be violent toward each other, and that without adultism, there would be no recourse for victims of abuse by other youth. The adultist’s solution is to maintain figures with far more power than either party so that adults will be able to stop a youth abusing another youth. This is clearly wrong, of course: this makes it so that when adults abuse youth, there is no possible recourse (apart from seeking an even higher authority, which poses the exact same problems as this); most adults don’t even bother to use their power to stop abuse between youth, as it is in their interest to uphold hierarchies among the people they oppress, and they are themselves pro abuse, so why would they care to stop abuse? It is far more common for a parent, a teacher, etc who is called on to stop a case of bullying to disbelieve or blame the victim and to punish the victim instead. (When they do punish bullies/abusers, this isn’t usually great either, because they are simply enacting more abuse by the more powerful onto the weaker.)

How do adults resolve adult-on-adult abuse or victimization? Most appeal to a third party of higher authority than them both (the manager, the boss, the cop, the judge, the state leader). Some don’t, and instead resolve the conflict by seeing where they are at right now, and what they need, and acting accordingly. Without the reassuring (but ultimately poisonous) presence of a Higher-Up to solve the problem, how would youth deal with violence among themselves? The same things many are doing right now when struggling against abusive authority figures, or trying to stop a bully without the help of indifferent adults. Youth liberation simply means that the many barriers to this are taken down (and the process which takes them down is also the process that solves the problems themselves). Without the ability to lock up “violent juvenile offenders” in psychiatric wards to “fix” them or detention facilities to “neutralize their threat,” how would we stop harm? Community protocols, mutual aid, self-defense... everything everyone is doing now, as part of their day-to-day lives, these are the options that we struggle to make more available and more successful.

I generally don’t like trying to give answers to questions that are too vague or broad, because it’s rather difficult for me—my mind is much clearer when I am answering about specific situations—but I can discuss some of the things that have come up in conversations with my friends, or conversations I’ve seen my friends have. One was about the family. We talked about what could be the alternatives to the current “bio parents = raise them in their own house” model. I think we can generally agree that 1) a parent who don’t want to raise their kid should not have to, for both their sake and for the kid’s; adoption should be an easily available option, but without the bureaucratic bullshit and abuse and neglect we have going on right now; 2) if a child is too young to state which particular person(s) they would prefer to live with, and doesn’t indicate with other reactions that they dislike an adult/prefer a different adult, we’re not for grabbing babies out of bio parents’ arms to redistribute on some bizarre planning principle; 3) it should be easier for more than just two adults to live in one home taking care of a child/children, and children and adults should be able to get outside and move around more, and non-familial adults should be able to help out with raising a kid more (i.e. the old “it takes a village” mantra). Education not coercive and strictly regimented; information (i.e. libraries, bookstores, archives, the internet) available and more specific teaching programs (i.e. specialized educators, other teachers, classes) available but not forced. Better mental health services. Cultural shifts; earlier education about boundaries, consent, autonomy, and abuse being wrong. Disability accommodations without bullshit red tape. Neurodivergence, mental illness, physical illness, and disability testing and information more widely available and not limited by ableism. Improved mental health services, harm reduction, queerness not stigmatized/treated as taboo, youth who come out as weird early not invalidated or locked up.

Some less “formal” things I’m particularly interested in right now are things like accountability processes, protocols when harm occurs, and getting each other to get better and more proactive at stopping harm and de-platforming abuse/abuse advocacy. This involves things like group education/information sharing, but also practicing, and acknowledging and resisting incentives to enable harm for the sake of “group cohesion” or other social pressures. I imagine this would look similarly IRL, though I’m not really socially connected with anyone offline because of certain limitations in my circumstances. But I have been reading about how IRL leftist communities have fared; applying something like the above to youth would involve being more aware of predator red flags, working against incentives to ignore discomfort from boundary violations, encouraging each other to respect consent and to not tolerate boundary-crossing, and collectively removing predatory/abusive/bigoted adults from spaces/events or positions of power that allow them to continue carrying out harm. Some other things would be, i.e., distributions of food and clothing to those in need without violent and unjust gatekeeping; current versions of that look like mutual aid, or shoplifting and theft when otherwise unavailable.

There’s a lot I haven’t covered, and I don’t feel up to trying to cover everything that could fall under the above (especially not in one go); a lot of people have discussed other examples and answers elsewhere (tweets, posts, blogs, papers, orgs...) and there’s been even more written out in much more detail in books (first that came to mind was Sophie Lewis, Full Surrogacy Now & Abolish the Family, I haven’t read them yet but I’ve heard good reviews and they seem to have that kind of planning goal, specifically discussing the nuclear family and other possible kinship formations which were a thing your ask mentioned in particular so).

#ask #mrjocrafter #late answer

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mrdrhenwardhykle · 10 months

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I was in a silly goofy mood, so here’s a Bad End/Goons Dragon’s Lair AU +drawings c:

(Body horror, blood, rotting flesh, +kinda sad tw ig)

Idk, this may be set up like partially disorganized DND stats

Hollow:

Alrightly, so the first one we're talking about is more of a remake/redesign on an established character in the franchise. 'Hollow' is a character from the possibly non-canon 3D game, and is like the evil Dirk or something (idk-I tried to look into it, but looking at this game for too long makes me cringe)

Yeah, this guy.

But instead of just being a recolor and a copy of whatever Space Ace did that one time, in my version he's just Dirk from an alternate timeline.

So basically, in this timeline either a. this follows one of the deaths where it doesn't fully show him die/just shows him fail and get stuck somewhere, or b. a timeline where Mordroc and his goons take another route and attack him all at once when he first enters

Anyways, Mordroc (with intention of getting another servant to his castle) gets to Dirk and places an amulet over his neck, explaining he just gave him the 'gift' of immortality; confusing Dirk, wondering why he just did that in the first place. In a turn of events Mordroc stands back and allows his goons to tear Dirk's eyes out and throw him in a random room.

With the amulet, the victim cannot remove it themselves- but have to rely one someone else taking it off for them. You can gain fatal injuries with the amulet and not die, but the injury will likely never heal (other than maybe bleeding stopping), and the one who wears the amulet will never have the pain ease.

'Hollow', as the inhabitants of the Dragon's Lair have come to name him, isn't inherently evil; nor has any forced villainy caused by the amulet, and is still just normal Dirk- but cannot hear or see, and is thriving off of desperation to leave the castle without adding anything else to his anguish. Having a good intuition at first, he has forced himself to concentrate enough so his instincts can help him 'survive'. But no matter who you may be, good or bad, Hollow takes no chances and swings first.

To survive, remember to be smooth and agile in your movements if you see freshly killed goons/knights, smell old blood and rotting flesh approaching, or hear a man crying, screaming in anguish, or calling out 'Daphne' or help. Remember that harming him only makes him more desperate and hostile. If you have his well being in mind, avoid harming him at all costs and just sneak and dodge- and barricade the nearest door if possible.

If you don't care and just need to get closer to saving the princess, just disarm him by cutting off his arms and/or legs but that's pretty cruel. It's actually frowned upon to do that and should only be the last resort.

You can actually befriend Hollow, and it's one of the most recommended routes (other than taking the amulet off yourself). To do this, you need to dodge his attacks, and reassure through some way of touch or presence to show you are a friend or to reassure that he's safe. Show though grabbing his hand or arm that you're going to be guiding him, and just stay in literal touch or out of range when enemies are near-and he should take care of the issue. If you are able to lead him out, let him know he's safe and comfortable before paying your debt by taking the amulet off.

It's unclear if you can save Hollow, as taking off the amulet will just let his fatal wounds catch up to him and instantly kill him (Aka the amulet keeps him alive). Asking most guides, they would just tell you that yanking the amulet off is the best you can do, as he's 'cheating' death and won't suffer any longer- but there may be a 1% in reversing it. That is, to begin the route; take Hollow out and find the best healing mange you can. It's hard to say if healing magic or medical attention can actually 100% help him out, as there's plenty of issues causing him anguish, and either magic or medical care can miss that. And that being said, it's likely difficult to find a good mange in the kingdom, and an even better mange to cure full blown missing eyeballs and other organs- and he might still live with difficulty. This isn't the most recommended route to deal with Hollow, but taking the chance is by no means frowned upon.

Any time Hollow gets close to the exit, a goon is sent to pull him back to another room to screw him up again. It's unknown if they would do this if he got close to the gold room. They've lost a few goons while doing this, but Mordroc insists in keeping him as a guard and a good selection to his 'collection' of knights.

Anyways, ignore the quality of my horrible colored pencil drawings

The Banshee Princess:

After Dirk's 'failure' to save her, Daphne officially became another new 'toy' to Mordroc's collection. Mordroc basically went through the same ritual as seen in the second game, and casted the Banshee curse on her through marriage. The Banshee curse itself forms out of loss and grief, and being that Daphne was in a slightly different position of grief (Aka, no children or husband to lose-but rather just a whole kingdom and boyfriend((?)) ) her form composed into a different and lesser variation.

After she was let out of the bubble, she claimed Singe's room-even to the point of becoming to agitated with him to the point that she killed him by eating him from the inside-out while he was sleeping.

This rendition of the banshee is smaller and more agile like a lizard; and can be found mostly at the back end of the castle. She can crawl on walls, and uses that to her advantage to sneak on her prey. While she can attack goons, she mainly aims for and lives off of knights (as Mordroc won't announce her change to the kingdom and also won't bother to come close enough to feed her).

Her scream is loud and shrill enough that it instantly paralyzes her victims- however she only does this at a very close perimeter.

Look for signs of the Banshee once you enter this area. Keep alert if you feel like your eyes are making up something crawling on the wall beside you. Don't follow if you hear a woman's voice crying out anything like 'help me!', 'save me!', 'mom!' or 'Dirk!'.

Unlike Hollow, there's more of a chance to save Daphne from this fate (albeit she will revert back due to fatal injuries). The one and only cure is a kiss of true love (maybe where befriending Hollow comes in,, but you can try if you wanted to ig)- but the issue with that would be in getting her to remember who she was before so she could stop attacking. Memories are quite rare to get, but it's at least worth the try. Memories are also quite temporary, and she'll just quickly revert back to her animalistic instinct if you're not quick enough to communicate to her.

The ring is no longer there, and the deadline for the ring to enact the curse is long past due. She ripped it off herself while she still had a little bit of control at some point.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed the random angst

#idk if you can foreshadow the tragedy I'm thinking of in my head #aka nobody comes for hollow and he makes it into the gold room thinking Singe is attacking him #gore tw #bad ending au #blood tw #body horror tw #rot tw #angst au #banshee #curse #dnd #you can use it for dnd idk if it works that way but ig it's cool #dragon's lair

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abetternamethananyother · 4 months

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Sims 4: Naturally Young Challenge

Disclaimer: This challenge doesn't require any DLCs or packs. I highly recommend the MCCC mod, although it's possible to play through the challenge without it. You may play with any mods or cc you like as long as it doesn't greatly impact the challenge.

People have been talking about this Sim for years. From what you heard, they live alone in a small house, living from the plants they grow. You know people who talked to them and who described them as a polite young Sim open to talk to strangers. So why does everyone seem so afraid of them?

Your parents told you never to go near the house this particular Sim lives in. As a child you never understood their concerns, but as you got older it became harder for the adults to hide things from you. Stories spread like fleas, after all. Stories about people who became too close with them... and who never returned from their house. Rumours about the Sim have always been part of the local life, each one more sickening than the other. Are the missing Sims held hostage? Killed? Locked away in the dark?

Despite the warnings, there are always those eager to meet this Sim, be it out of curiosity or even pity for the lonely dweller. And, well... You're young, you're supposed to be brave, right? But when you actually meet them, your heart stops for a moment. They're breathtakingly beautiful and their smile makes you fall in love instantly. Over your bliss you don't even notice the strangest thing about them; They're way too young to have been living here for as long as the people claim...

Welcome to the Naturally Young Challenge!

The goal of this challenge is to stay a young adult for as long as possible and to support yourself solely by fishing, planting and gathering. In order to maintain your youth (and, therefore, near immortality) you will need to rely on the life essence of others - and your most loyal friend, the Cow Plant.

CAS: To start the challenge, create a teenage Sim of any gender. They need the Romantic and Loves Outdoors trait, as well as the Freelance Botanist aspiration. Upon aging up to a young adult, you may freely choose your last trait (or traits if you play with mods that allow more than three traits).

Property: Move your Sim into a small home you can afford with the starting 20 000 Simoleons. The house should have a rather big property, as you'll need a lot of space for planting and uh.... other stuff. If you cannot find such a home, you may use the FreeRealEstate cheat, although you'll need to set your household funds to 3000 Simoleons afterwards (Cheat: money 3000).

Game options: If you want an easier challenge, set Sim lifespan to Normal. For the regular challenge it should be set to Short. Auto-age must be enabled.

You may not take a job. As long as you're a teen, I recommend skipping school - your grades won't matter anyway and you'll need the time. The only way to make money is by selling plants, fish or whatever you find by searching the area (minerals, fossils, frogs,...). You may not sell handmade items, books, paintings or photographs, although you are allowed to create them for your own use.

Apart from making money you'll need to raise your greatest weapon - the Cow Plant. The seed(s) may not be bought or taken from another Sim. You may have as many Cow Plants as you want, using them to gain the Essence of Life from other Sims in order to stay young forever. But here's the catch: No one would just randomly walk up to a dangerously looking plant belonging to a complete stranger, especially when they've been warned about said stranger their whole life. You'll need to earn their trust.

To make it short: In order for your Cow Plant to eat a Sim they need to be part of your household. You'll have to manually ask them to join - cheats aren't allowed. For a more difficult version your victim has to be your boyfriend/girlfriend before moving in with you. Alternatively, being friends with them is enough. As soon as they're part of your household you can take control of them and let them... Try to eat a plant's tongue? Honestly, who'd ever think eating something still attached to the mouth of a huge, sentient plant with dangerously looking teeth was a good idea? Anyway, the first time they are eaten apparently isn't enough reason to stay far away from the Cow Plant. The second time, chances are they'll die. Too bad!

After the Grim Reaper has done his work you may milk your Cow Plant. Voilà! You have a brand new glass of Life Essence to keep you young for a couple of days and a tombstone to prove it. Good thing you have your garden to hide the remains of your victim... Place the tombstone somewhere on your property and build your very own graveyard. Just don't be surprised to find some angry ghosts roaming your house.

The challenge can end in two ways:

Bad ending: If you age up to adult you officially lost and countless Sims died for nothing. Sorry not sorry.

Good ending: The Grim Reaper isn't impressed easily, but you do seem to put a lot of work into ending lives. As soon as you have ten (or more for a harder challenge) tombstones on your property the Grim Reaper grants you actual immortality as a sign of his respect. If you play with MCCC, flag your Sim as immortal.

Additional rules:

-> You may use cheats to remove any sad moodlets you receive from the death of one of your victims. I mean, that's what you wanted, right?

-> While you can own as many Cow Plants as you like, you're only allowed to harbour one Sim at a time. In order for another Sim to move in you first have to kill the first one.

-> You may take any aspiration after completing the Freelance Botanist one. However, you are not allowed to marry, have children or move out.

-> If you play with packs including occults, you may not be a vampire or ghost (for obvious reasons). Other occults are allowed, but may not use any abilities that influence relationships or grant them a longer life/immortality.

I hope you'll give this challenge a go and enjoy it. If you have any suggestions or criticism, feel free to let me know!

#sims 4 #sims 4 challenge #sims 4 base game

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glassprism · 2 years

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Am I the only person who doesn't think RK playing the Phantom as autistic was offensive? Most of the takes I've heard are from neurotypicals and as someone who's on the spectrum and struggles daily because of it, I feel kind of alienated from the fandom and a little bit like a horrible person. I completely understand why people find the performance itself offensive, but some have really taken his statements about it in the worst faith possible.

"He definitely is not an evil person. He is a victim of circumstance and environment. He has been conditioned with such prejudice in his life. I believe the Phantom to be Autistic. I think he has a form of Aspergers Syndrome. When the Phantom kills I truly don't believe it to be premeditated. He's just losing control. Again, this all stems from his social conditioning. He's never felt a mother's love, nor his father. He has had to become a man without being a child." -Payvand.com

Why should this make me angry? I get that RK is neurotypical, and saying that the Phantom is "just losing control" when he kills certainly lends itself to unfavorable interpretation, but he immediately follows that up by saying it's due to his "social conditioning," not that a propensity for murder is somehow a symptom of autism.

If it is commonly understood by the fandom that Erik's deformity is not the literal reason for his wrongdoings, and it was the horrible treatment he received because the world looked upon him as inhuman that led to that, why should we assume that an actor who was portraying him wouldn't apply the same idea to autism? I'm not just some rabid stan who's mad that their senpai is being attacked. RK is lightyears away from being my favorite Phantom and he honestly seems kind of douchey, but why should I jump to the worst conclusion about his reasoning?

I really get the feeling that NT people who are mad about this don't know what it's like to be autistic, and think that we can't be violent or bad people. It feels very infantilising to me. I've been told I sound dead or robotic time and time again. I've had my comfort object lost or stolen and been treated like a threat when I get upset about it. I've had my needs and concerns downplayed, even by my family members. I've had relationships fall apart completely when the other person learns what I really am. There are times when I literally don't feel human because of the way I'm perceived. I find the idea that RK relied solely on stereotypes to influence his idea of the character, frankly, insulting, because it means that I must be a stereotype.

Hello! Thank you so much for your thoughts.

First, let me just say that nobody in the fandom deserves to feel alienated because of their opinions. I've seen people who have definitely resonated with Ramin Karimloo's Phantom because he portrayed the character as autistic, and while they may not be as "big" in the fandom, they certainly exist. As with many fandom spaces, you just have to find your people, whatever that may be!

As for the rest, I actually wasn't comfortable with answering it because I am exactly that neurotypical who is mad about it. So I went to a Discord server I am in for thoughts, and one of the members there, who has autism, wrote a response which they generously gave me permission to share. I don't know if they want me to share their Tumblr handle as well, so I haven't, but if they do, I'm sure they'll reblog this so you can continue the conversation with them. Anyway, here was their message in response to your ask:

I think the most important thing to remember is that no community is a monolith. There are people who will find certain portrayals or headcanons offensive, and others who feel comforted by them, and a lot of it depends on life experience. I could say “it’s ableist to assume that autism makes people more capable of violence because it plays into harmful stereotypes,” OR “it’s ableist to act like autistic people are never violent because there are violent autistic people and they deserve representation and dignity too,” and both of these statements would be true in various ways and settings.

For me, it’s more of an issue of discussing when (and if) non-autistic people get to draw these conclusions, and under what circumstances. On one hand, it’s very hard for non-autistic actors to play autistic characters, and can also be frustrating when there ARE autistic actors who aren’t getting work. One of the other, there’s a huge difference in impact between Ramin Karimloo, who is relatively unknown outside of theatre, watching a documentary on autism (which, it’s my understanding is what he did) and saying “I think the Phantom is autistic,” and then attempting to portray it (even badly) in a long established show than, as an example, an extremely famous actor (Benedict Cumberbatch) saying, effectively, “yeah I decided Frankenstein’s Monster in this brand new play is autistic so I went to an autistic school and watched people for research. They were just, like, pissing and shitting and had no understanding of the world. Anyways it’s offensive to call Sherlock Holmes autistic because he’s intelligent and that could give false hope to the pathetic shit-slinging autistics.”

That is. Not as hyperbolic as I wish it was.

So anyways, it’s mostly like. Is what Ramin Karimloo said/did ignorant, in kind of bad taste, and arguably offensive? Yeah. Is it a valid reason for some people to feel uncomfortable about him/his take on the Phantom? Yeah. Should it get him thrown into Ableism Jail for all time? Probably not.

As far as headcanoning Erik as autistic goes. I’m autistic. I see Erik as autistic. I HIGHLY disagree with the idea that morally good characters are inherently good rep and that morally gray or bad characters are inherently bad rep. For some autistic people, seeing villains portrayed as autistic can feel othering or even triggering. I’m not (generally, with a few notable exceptions) one of those people, but I get why they feel that way, even if I don’t agree. I feel a lot of solidarity with autistic people who want to see the side of autism that is messy and difficult and yes, sometimes violent, in characters they relate to. I feel a lot of solidarity with people who don’t feel human because of their autism. As a person who is frequently told “but you don’t SEEM autistic” by people who have never seen me have a meltdown and hit my head on stuff, I absolutely understand that impulse. Even more so, I think more people need to understand that some autistic people ARE violent or otherwise considered socially unpalatable, and that those people do deserve to feel represented.

I also think that for some people, it’s kind of a defense mechanism. Ironically, the first time I ever really heard someone discuss autism it was my brother, who said, “the Phantom is probably autistic.” I asked him what that meant and he told me “being autistic means you’re a r*tarded genius,” right before he told me about Rain Man. The day I watched the episode of House M.D., where House gets told “you’re not autistic. You don’t even have Aspergers. You wish you did. It would exempt you from rules. Give you freedom. Absolve you of responsibility,” is the day I started headcanoning House as autistic. Sometimes we feel like have to hold onto it or say it first, especially with villains.

If I see an autistic person who headcanons an antagonistic character as autistic, I assume there’s something in that narrative that resonates with them. If I see a non-autistic person do it, I tend to disengage. Non autistic people doing it isn’t necessarily wrong, but it may come with an unwanted response from autistic people.

It’s like Harry Potter. My best friend is transfem (they/she pronouns) and they love Harry Potter. They don’t monetarily support JKR, but they also haven’t covered their HP tattoo. I don’t get it AT ALL. I recoil from Harry Potter. We’re both within two of the specific demographics JKR is doing the most damage to (transfems and autistic transmascs), and we have very different responses. When it comes to my friend, I don’t feel comfortable policing her relationship with that thing. On the other hand, a cis person can tell me they’re an ally all day long, but I usually disengage with cis people who hate JKR but just HAVE to go to Wizarding World, or whatever. Like maybe you’re the world’s BEST trans ally aside from that. But when you make that kind of choice, you accept the consequences and boundaries from those communities. I’m somewhat uncomfortable with Ramin Karimloo’s Phantom for that exact reason.

Ultimately what it comes down to is that autism is a spectrum, and by necessity autistic people aren’t monoliths and will have different opinions and needs. One isn’t inherently better or more important than the other, but needs still need to be met and boundaries still need to be respected, and those things can be both contradictory and necessary.

I hope that helps, and again, thank you to the person who wrote the above for their wonderful response as well.

#GP gets asks #anonymous #long post #but I didn't want to put it under a cut (I'm sure Tumblr will do it for me anyway)#tw ableism #tw ableist language #tw transphobia

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papirouge · 7 months

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I'm glad everything went well with your surgery and that you took some time to figure things out... i hope you're on a better head space - i know what is like to deal with suicide ideation so you should put your mental health first. It also makes me happy to know your mom can enjoy her retirement traveling and doing what she wants.

What you mentioned about that policeman who killed Nahel it's the same thing that happened with Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, remember that case? Conservatives donanted so much money to Zimmerman that he basically retired and could enjoy the rest of his life loaded.

And I dont know what to even think about black women who mess around with altright and white supremacist men. Like I know the men are just thinking with their dicks, but what do these women even gain in these relationships? Is it like a kink or something? You know how Candace Owens one time posted a pic of her kids and people in the comments were being vile towards them, calling them monkeys and ugly and disgusting. Like how can you stand having these kind of people as your audience? She obv deleted the picture and never did it again.

I was thinking that another reason why some tradmen and tradwomen don't mix is because some of them are womanchild and manchild. Basically, there's a breed of tradman that wants his wife to take care of him like he's her baby, never doing any of the domestic work, not even loadong the dishwater or making the bed. And there's a breed of tradwife that wants her husband to take care of everything so she can relax and "rest in her feminity", whatever that means. You would think they would work but they don't, as the both of them can't be the baby of the relationship.

Thank you for thek kind message anon ♡

I'm doing a little better. Lately, God showed me he was still there, and that's the most reassuring thing EVER. I had to let go lf things..and he's currently helping me to rely on faith and faith alone...

Leaving the internet for a while helped me a lot. For some reason I thought of not coming back lol but I love you all so much..i think if I leave Tumblr for good I'll tell you.. that's what you deserve 🩷

Yeah it's funny to see conservatives/rightoid complain about how the immigrants are sucking off the country's money & how they they (the good citizens) are getting poorer, and then turn around and throw money at randos who killed someone 🥴

I'm not surprised about what you say about Candace Owens. I think she's a genuinely smart woman and she definitely knows that 90% of the ppl she hangs arounnf with don't respect her. She knows the moment she steps out of the line she's done (apparently that what happened to Tomi Lahren after she said she was pro choice - I remember homegirl was conservative sweetheart during Trump mandate and was EVERYWHERE 💀)

She's just beneficial to them for being the 'token Black conservative'. The grifting is mutual so I gues there's no victim out there.

The Prophet Apostate did a great job reading her hypocrital support for Andrew Tate when she dunked on Steven Crowder to filth :

Both Candace and Blaire White are similar because they both embody tragic grifter who will have no issue hanging around people they know that. Blaire White loves to defend himself saying "at least conservatives will not tell me to kill myself like liberals do uwu" yeah, and? They still hate you, boo. Just bc they're not as blunt as liberals telling you to kill yourself doesn't mean they respect or genuinely like you.... Imagine having such low self esteem that people you can even state they genuinely like you BUT don't tell you to kill to kill yourself is enough for you to hang around them, go to their show, etc. This man is lowkey so pathetic... (there's no wonder he looks so miserable). Does he even realize that if he wasn't the token conservative trans, his rightoid buddies would clown him like they do with the liberal one?

And yes, the thing with online tradmen is that they're hypergamous (in a way) when that role traditionally abide to women: tradmen want a tradwife to level up (sexually, livelihood, etc) and tradfem want to level up (marry financially secure men to build a family). That's why they fail matching with tradfem who are ALSO hypergamous. It's like trying to stick magnets on the same polarity lol

There's indeed something extremely childish in men stating everything they expect fro from a women, when they are supposed to be the provider.... I guess that's why I find tradmen so repulsive...

#answered

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seoadmin · 1 year

Text

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mysaldate · 2 years

Note

First of all, on the ob thing Kalim did it too so don't act like Rook was the only one Vil's overblot was mostly self inflicted.

And the punishing? For what? Don't act like Vil didn't need to believe in his own self and beauty, you may argue that he already did but Vil didn't. Most of book five showed that Vil wasn't confident in his own beauty and ability to win, that's why he cursed Neige.

Besides it wasn't only punishment, Rook genuinely felt like Neige did better and his actions reflected that. Vil wanted to win bc of his own talent and beauty, not out of pity. Don't act like Rook wasn't entitled to his own vote. And don't act like Rook doesn't care or wants to hurt Vil when it's definitely not like that.

Okay, first of all. Kalim did NOT push on Vil after Vil asked to be left alone. In fact, Kalim told Rook to stop because Rook was being insensitive and pushy. If even Kalim, who is bad at reading people, tells you to stop acting a certain way because it's harmful, to not only not stop but keep pushing it is definitely a dick-move at best. Punishing was in that, not in the vote. The "punishment" that Rook self-admittedly bestowed upon Vil was by not giving him privacy and space when Vil was on the verge of a breakdown. THAT was what made Vil overblot.

I'm not sure if you're a twstEN player or something but Vil was not insecure for most of book 5, not in the JP canon anyway. He got insecure once Neige showed up with nursery rhyme and shitty choreography and still was overtaking him. That is when Vil got insecure.

Rook is, of course, entitled to his own choice. But he should make the choice and stick to it. Not make a choice and then say "Well actually, I only did this because Vil didn't deserve to win" which is exactly what he said in the JP canon. AND what he got Vil to believe too between the end of book 5 and the start of book 6.

As for your last point, you either aren't reading my responses or you purposely misinterpret what I said, and I'm not sure which is worse. I said before what many gaslighting victims will tell you too: The perpetrator doesn't always realize they're being abusive. They don't always do it with the intention to hurt you. But they end up hurting you in horrible ways regardless and it can fuck you up for years.

So no, when I say Rook is a gaslighter, I'm not saying he's actively trying to hurt Vil. Is he trying to isolate him and make him rely only on Rook himself? Yes. Does he repeatedly undermine Vil's self-confidence and hurt his perception of himself? Also yes. Does he attempt to make Vil doubt his senses or perception? Yes. Does he try to make Vil think other people dislike him? Yes, on multiple occasions.

Does he do all of that on purpose to hurt or socially cripple Vil? Who knows. I personally believe he does, but that is just my opinion and not really supported by canon like all the other things I brought up here. The canon doesn't tell us either way.

Now, if you'd be willing to come off anon and have a normal discussion like two equals instead of hiding behind a mask while I'm the only one giving actual arguments and proof, that would be wonderful. I will no longer be responding to any more anonymous asks on this topic. My dms are open for those who want to have a normal discussion.

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ladycardinaljen · 2 years

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Entry 23 - So, cial Media...

5/6/22

This is my second post tonight, and this one is a bit more emphatic. It may even be more suggestive and well, visibly relevant. I am by now means saying these statements are profound, but perhaps they are important things to know. I love Social Media. I post on Social Media quite a bit. Not all the time. Not every day. But I do like to spend time on there sharing my soul. To me it’s actually really fun to share that side of me with others. But before I can go on about the deepness of how I feel about Social Media being a good tool, it is also a double edged-sword. Recently I watched ‘The Social Dilemma’ on Netflix and had to take it in parts. Now I don’t know how far it goes into saying that this was maybe dramatized or made with a deeper impact than it should have, but it did at least expose something: There’s a problem. The problem is this..

We rely too heavily on Social Media. We base our lives off of it, and we spend a chunk of time wondering in and seeing other people’s lives. We see so much of them that we don’t see a lot of ourselves. Or allow ourselves the ability to explore our own lives and experience things just from our point of view. We post statuses and expect a certain amount of likes or comments, we post photos of ourselves in hopes that others will approve, and when they do not we feel down on ourselves or begin to think negatively about ourselves. We engage in arguments for the point in expressing our views, but know it often won’t do anything. We look back on our pasts and feel bad when things are different. We visit pages of others who have moved out of our lives or post passive aggressive statements, pictures, or posts because we feel upset. We block others out when we’re angry at them to make them feel canceled, or because we can’t stand to see anything of them. And the worst part of all, we scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, looking past others stories, statuses, and tweets. Do they all matter and if they do than why am I posting this? Because I also don’t think it’s a bad thing. So long as we use it for good. Posting things that make us happy is fine when we’re not showing off. But then again isn’t posting showing off? It’s how we look at things and see things. It’s what brings us joy to share. But I also remind myself of the time that I am off of it, and how great it feels. To live in my own life, in my own place, in my own space, and existence. It helps my creative process for my art. I feel part of that as an artist also means they express, and share, so this for me, is too, part of the creative process. With that being said, as an artist I am also pretentious and share a lot of what others don’t understand. So in constantly sharing my thoughts, ideas, and expressions with everyone, isn’t to start a fire, but to shed a light. To share and express my soul through art in writing, painting, photographing, filming, blogging, vlogging, tweeting, or posting.

I as an artist am simply sharing my soul with the world, not to upset, anger, or humiliate, but to show kindness, love, peace, and positivity, especially when there is so much darkness in the world. I have lived in the darkness and enjoyed it a lot, it’s latched itself to me several times and there aren’t times where I fight it still. Things like depression, anxiety, alters in moods, hallucinations, delusions, paranoias, and fears. All the worry the negativity, the toxicity, it always there. But I’ve chosen how to push it away and not let that take over me, make me feel, or hinder me. No matter what worries or dangers lurk, the fact is this: I am beyond thankful, joyous, passionate, and excited about life. All things before this were for this moment and more. Social Media, though? That may have been what did it to me. Or at least contributed to, heavily. And maybe there were things i did that I listed before, and it brought me no good. So does this just make me another victim of the system? The social dilemma? To this I say, recognize this moment now as very different. Use social media as a form of expression of yourself, but don’t use it as a tool and a mechanism for self destruction. Spend more time in your life exploring, reading, doing things, trying things, watching things. playing things. Just don’t let it takeover you, use it for good, and only when you truly want to, not because you feel like you have nothing else to do. Even being in the moment somewhere is better than not fully immersed. I am both for and against this system. So much. Should it collapse, should it fall, can I live without it? I would have told myself yes before and not really meant it. But now? I use it because I want to. If it’s taken for me, then I simply say, “Thank you”. This post was not made FOR or AGAINST Social Media, just me posting some of my thoughts!

For me its...

Use it when I really only want to. Don’t use it to against myself or others. Be kind. Be expressive. Have fun. Live Life.

If I’m an artist, I must use my phone as a tool, like a brush, my strokes are important to painting a picture and must be done right. Have control over it, do not let it control you.

#SocialMedia #Blog #Writer #Writing

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sukirichi · 3 years

Note

Breakfast: ingredient 64 + sugar 5 for inumaki

Okay, but like- what about inumaki's first kiss? His mouth is a very sensitive area and his first kiss would be a very intimate act, so here's what happens: reader and him are mutually pining BUT all everyone else sees is the sexual tension between them.

Somehow itadori manages to lock them in a dark small space, where they share their first kiss, yet they don't speak about it and to each other for a long time. At some point itadori (i swear this kid is a matchmaker) points out how y/n and toge can't even glance at each other and inumaki breaks. Late at night he shows up at reader's dorm, pins her to the wall and kisses her like no tomorrow. After they eventually have a rough make out with toge's shirt coming off, they lay on her bed where reader tells him she really likes him and he grabs her chin to stop her rambling and she looses it when she sees so much love and lust swirling in his eyes (they maybe have a third make out round 👀) and in the end they come to the conclusion they love each other and that they should have acted sooner on it.

I don't know if make outs count as nsfw and i read that you can write only sfw for inumaki, so it's okay if you can't complete this request. Just let me know you if can't.

Also get prepared to be spoiled spammed with asks.

— 🍰 strawberry shortcake anon

delicate

the first kiss with inumaki toge is as delicate as he is.

meal order: ★🥞 + 64 (canon au) + 5 (mutual pining) + sensitive first kiss with inumaki, them trapped in a room + yuuji as matchmaker uwu + WALL PIN KISS YES SIR + basically hot af inumaki

warnings: nothing really, just make out sessions and implications of smut, also UH soft dom inumaki toge, i guess? unedited as always

song i listened to while writing: I.F.L.Y. by Bazzi

note: 🍰 anon TYSM for this request, my heart was legit doki doki the whole time. this totally reminds me of why inumaki was my first crush and he’s the reason i came to watch jjk lol i love him so much <3 i hope this is what you’ve been looking for and that you like it! i had a lot of fun writing this one!

“Yuuji, don’t!” You tried to scramble against the strawberry haired boy’s grip, but he was far too strong, and it didn’t help that Nobara’s riled up self was helping him push you back inside the storage room. “Yuuji, Nobara, I’m your senpai, have some respect—” You don’t get to finish your words before you’re pushed inside, landing on the floor with a thud.

“Yuuji!” You banged your fists on the door once you’ve recovered, screaming at the top of your lungs. From outside the door, you heard the underclassmen giggle and run away, leaving you with your crush, Inumaki Toge, of all people.

Falling down into a squat, you wrapped your arms around yourself, refusing to look at him. You were only thankful that it was dark so Toge wouldn’t see how your pupils blew wide, your body responding at the soft scent of his perfume and laundry detergent. He’d been your crush for who knows how long now, and your first memory of meeting the cursed speech user burns at the back of your mind to remind you that it’s been years, and yet you’ve barely spoken to him.

Unlike the other students, your cursed technique wasn’t the most useful in combat. Your technique allowed you to nullify the abilities of others, but the downside of it was that it didn’t have much advantage against curses, so you had to rely on your physical strength to exorcise.

On the bright side, though…

“So,” Toge begins, shuffling away from the dusty wall and closer to you. Your heartbeat raced when his knees brushed against yours, thighs pressed against one another. “You’re a victim of them too.”

“Hmm, guess so.”

Neither of you speak for a while. Toge himself wasn’t much of a talker, and he barely batted an eye when Maki and Panda hauled his ass inside the storage room. He was so calm and placid that your mind was in mess – both because you were comfortable and happy in his presence, but at the same time, your palms were so sweaty and the room was so stuffed you could barely breathe. It didn’t help that Toge was humming too, reassured that he wasn’t going to hurt you with his powers.

“Uhm,” you started nervously, fiddling with your fingers. The silence stretched out thick and cordial that you couldn’t bear it anymore, and you turned to Toge with wide eyes, blinking back rapidly when he faced you as well, his deep purple eyes like a painting before you. “Do-do you know why we’re locked in here?”

Your palms grew wetter with each ticking second; Toge taking his time to answer.

Nobara had eavesdropped on you gushing to Megumi on how Toge looked so cute during breakfast this morning, and the girl immediately ran off to tell her best friend, Yuuji; the two of them sharing the same braincells.

Before you knew it, everyone split into two groups, your classmates dragging Toge away while Nobara and Yuuji manhandled you, hissing into your ear to man up and fess.

As if it was as easy as that! Inumaki Toge – albeit approachable and kind – was still the light of your life, the apple of your eye, and he barely acknowledged your presence the whole two years you’ve been with him. He was much closer with Maki and Panda while you got along more with the younger ones (although you wouldn’t hesitate to redact that statement after doing this to you), so the chances of you ever striking up a full conversation with him were low.

You only admired him from afar, sighing dreamily into your hands while he trained with Panda. Megumi seemed to be the only decent one, silent and bored as ever while you rambled on tirelessly on how much Toge looked so buff under his uniform yet had the face baby, stating over and over again he was born just to drive you crazy.

You should’ve known someone would find out one way or another, but heavens forbid, not him. The both of you were barely friends to begin with – you didn’t want to shatter whatever mutual respect you had for each other just because you crushed on him hard.

Mind running back and forth over the different ways Toge could reject you, because obviously someone had told him, or obviously he knew already – why else would he be locked here with you if your friends didn’t know something? It was getting hard to read his face from the darkness; the only thing you could make out were his long lashes and lips visible with his collar down.

“I don’t know, to be honest,” he avoided your gaze, and you swallowed audibly at the sound of his husky voice; unused to speaking this much. “But…but we’ve got nothing to worry about. Gojo-Sensei or Nanamin will come around soon.”

“Okay,” you nodded at his words, cursing inwardly that this was your perfect chance to confess or at least try and be friends with him, but your whole body was burning, feet frozen in your place that you just couldn’t bring yourself to do it. You watched from the corner of your eye as Toge rocked back and forth in his heels, cheeks puffed out, and your eyes zeroed in on the snake tattoo beside his lips.

Toge rarely ever let his collar down to muffle his voice, so seeing him expose his lips like this almost felt intimate. He looked so pretty, long lashes fluttering on top of those warmed cheeks and strong arms wrapped around his knees.

He was just an arm’s length away. This was the closest you’d ever gotten with him, and maybe it was because you’d kept your feelings a secret for so long that it suddenly burst through. Faster than you could take notice of yourself, your arm reached out to cup his cheeks, thumb swiping against the tattoos. “Pretty,” you murmured, Toge stiffening up under your touch.

His eyes skewed over to yours, wide and unreadable, but there was something there – something burning. He had to bite down his cheek as you caressed his face absentmindedly, and it wasn’t until his fingers came up to your wrist that you realized what you were doing.

“Oh!” you exclaimed, the warmth of his skin now searing because of your embarrassment. “Toge – I-I didn’t mean to – I’m so sorry! It’s just, your tattoos look so pretty and I’ve always—”

Your words are thrown right back into your mouth when Toge tugged you forward, sending the both of you toppling to the ground. Toge’s hands were delicate, just as delicate as your touch, when he cupped your face, his lips moving with yours. You were stunned for a moment before pleasure and fireworks exploding everywhere burst within you, prompting you to kiss him back in urgent fervor.

Toge’s lips tasted like candy, his sighs into your mouth melting your insides until you’re crumpling his shirt, eyes shut so tight in fear that maybe this would all disappear the moment you opened them.

Your hands travelled everywhere – from his shoulders, to his neck, his jaw – before it settled into his hair, the satisfaction of finally getting to run your hands through them has you weakening in his hold. Toge keeps his grip on your waist firm, almost possessive even, and he held you up both, sitting up while your arms wound around his neck.

A curse must’ve possessed you because you moaned into his mouth when he nipped at your bottom lip, tugging it inside his mouth so he could taste your cherry chapstick.

He wasn’t in a better state than yours. As the cursed speech user, his mouth was one of his most sensitive parts, and it took all energy it had in him to not kiss you senseless right then and there, your lips swiping over his mouth in such a mind-numbing sensation.

It felt like his body was on fire, the heat licking up from his toes to right where you were pressed on him. Your lips on his was scorching, the soft sighs and moans you gave him only adding to the fuel.

Toge groaned as your nails subconsciously pulled at his hair, making him grind you down into the V of his lips, pressing your chest firms against his until there was no more space. Through the darkness and nearly airless atmosphere of the room, Toge still managed to take your breath away, your lips moving in synch and you were falling, falling, falling.

He effortlessly held your weakening arms up before he pulled away, both your chests panting at the sudden heated kiss. His eyes trailed down from your lust-filled gaze to the bow of your lips, where the flesh was plump and abused.

Toge’s thumb swiped over your lips that had you frozen solid because he looked at you so gently, delicately, almost as if he didn’t want to hurt you. But he never could – you nullified everyone’s powers and allowed him freedom in your space. You’d let him come again and again, welcoming him with open arms if he wanted so, and in that moment, you believed he did.

Although why would he want you?

Fears and insecurities struck a chord in you and you scrambled away from his lap, leaving Toge all alone in the ground. You ducked your head down to ignore the confused and hurt expression on his face, turning back to the door instead. “I’m so sorry,” you rasped out in one breath, “I-I didn’t mean for that kiss to happen and I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. Please just forget this ever happened and I really wish you and I aren’t awkward for this. Okay, good night. See you around.”

Pulling your phone out of your pocket after cursing yourself for not thinking of texting Megumi sooner, you speed dialed the younger boy, begging him to unlock the door.

Megumi came around a few minutes later. Toge had long settled behind you, silent but still catching his breath from your previous lip-locking. His presence unnerved you and you rubbed your hands up and down your arms, praying to whoever divines self that Toge would forget about this as well. The moment Megumi came around, you leaped out of the room, leaving two confused boys – with one of them unknowingly shattered.

The next few days were hell.

You and Toge hadn’t talked much at all before, but now, you both pretended as if the other didn’t existed. During class where there had to be pairings, you immediately sided with Maki and pushing Panda to Toge’s way, the latter frowning behind his collar every time you avoided his gaze.

You just couldn’t handle being anywhere near him after that kiss. You feared that your heart would combust and you’d further embarrass yourself in front of him, as if you weren’t embarrassing enough with how excited you were as you kissed him.

Gosh, what would Toge think of you now?

You bet he found you so weird, and your suspicions were only confirmed when he’d resorted to avoiding you as well. No more polite and cheery good mornings! in the hallway or asking what he had for lunch, no more random texting of memes at 3am because you both didn’t have friends outside the institute.

Pure silence from the other side.

It should’ve comforted you – you wanted to stay away from him, right? – but you only grew restless. Your focus dwindled with each passing day, finding yourself at the back of Toge’s head longingly when he wasn’t looking, then sighing as you chastised yourself from being stupid.

To be honest, that kiss only made your feelings multiply tenfold.

Now that you knew how warm and comfortable Toge was to the touch, how his lips tasted and how his hair felt under your touch – you crushed on him impossibly harder than before.

You reached a point where you tossed and turn around in bed, unable to fall asleep; completely unaware that just a few doors down, he was doing the same. It had you thinking back to that day all over again, wondering why did he kiss you? If he liked you, why did he never talk to you? He never even noticed you before and you were always the first one to strike conversation, but because the others were always around, chats were limited, one-worded, and awkward.

That cursed technique of yours was still useless, after all.

“Would you please stop moping around?” Megumi slammed his book down on the table next to you, and you jumped in your seat, clutching your pencil to your chest. “I’m tired of you eye-fucking Inumaki-senpai.”

“Wha – ? No, I wasn’t, what are you talking about?”

“You’ve both been acting weird,” observed Yuuji who stopped fighting with Nobara over who would win in an arm wrestling fight without special abilities: Gojo-Sensei or Nanami. Nobara nodded beside him, stealing Yuuji’s crisp chips before speaking. “You both can’t even glance at each other. All of us can feel that something’s wrong between you two.”

“They probably fucked in the storage room.”

“Nobara, keep your voice down!”

“Why should I?” she smirked, jabbing her thumb to an asleep Toge lounging on the field with Panda. “Your precious crush is asleep. He won’t know. But whatever, what did happen when we locked you both there?”

“You all humiliated me, that’s what happened!”

“What do you mean humiliated?” Megumi asked this time around, and you buried your face in your arms, glancing over at Toge again. He was slumbering peacefully, his body shaded from the sun under the tree, and your fingertips itched with the urge to hold him close again.

“He doesn’t like me,” you concluded with trembling lips, sending one last longing glance at Toge. “And I think I just absolutely ruined everything.”

No matter how much your underclassmen tried to cheer you up, your spirits were never lifted. You trudged back to your room that night, tired and drained from all the events that you just buried your nose in your textbook, studying about curses for next week’s exams.

The words began to blur and you sighed on your seat, glancing at your phone. It was nearing midnight and the dorms were oddly quiet, but you guessed everyone just had a long day.

Soon, you brushed your teeth and moved to retire for the night when three soft knocks came from your door. Your hand stilled on your blanket, brows furrowed at who could it be this time of the night. After fixing your hair to make yourself presentable, you swung the door open, ready to hit Yuuji if he came here to drag you down to the movie room and force you to watch horror movies again when you were harshly pushed, the stranger kicking the door back.

You gasped as warm lips came crashing down to yours, your hands pinned above your hand with just one arm.

You didn’t have to open your eyes to know it was Toge who’d placed a knee between your legs to prevent you from falling; your knees already turning to jelly before you even registered it was him. The familiar taste of something sweet like candy and cough syrup coated your senses and you moaned in his arms as his hands ran under your shirt, making the hairs on your body prickle up in anticipation.

Toge took advantage of your moan, his tongue slipping inside before it clashed with yours. It was too much – his overwhelming scent, his tongue tasting yours, his hands squeezing your breasts tenderly – you were on the verge of falling apart.

Fire burned all over your body, pure instinct dominating your conscious mind as you pushed him back, Toge falling down with you scrambling above him.

He grunted at your sloppy actions of trying to tug his shirt over his head, but he complied, reaching up at the same time you leant down for another wet, heated kiss. The kiss this time around was far less gentle and more urgent; your mutual pining for one another tipping over the edge until all hell broke loose.

You settled into his lap as if it were a throne and he encouraged you to take it, to claim him because he considered you the queen of his world.

“Toge, I,” you rambled after every peck, unable to form a complete sentence because you kept wanting to kiss him. It was nearly impossible to pull away now that he held you so close, making you feel like home and driving you absolutely insane. “I can’t do it anymore, mmhm, I want you so much – always have – I don’t want to avoid you and I just want to—”

He stopped your rambling by grabbing your chin forwards, his lips molding over yours again and dancing with it like two perfectly syncopated performers.

Toge’s curious hands ravished every crevice and dip of your curves as he sucked on your tongue, tasting it fervently like a traveler memorizing his path. You shuddered when Toge’s nimble fingers travelled down to cup your ass to lift you upwards, pushing you closer and deeper into his mouth.

None of you cared about anything anymore. You could barely focus on anything but letting your hands roam free down his chest, Toge rutting up to you when your cold hands brushed over his nipple.

Needing air to breathe, you pulled away first, panting as your forehead pressed against his. You stared at each other, lips swollen and wet from the hot make-out session. You were sure that your adoration for him was clearly evident in your eyes, that your feelings for him sparkled and radiated like the bright sunshine’s warmth he always made you feel.

But that wasn’t what drove you crazy.

It was the fact his expression mirrored yours; only his had lust swirling around his dark eyes, an unexplainable plethora of emotions flooding through them. You were breathing hard and so was he, his soft pants warming your lips that were still sore from his hungry ministrations.

Now was the time.

It didn’t matter that maybe he didn’t feel the same way for you; you liked him so much. Your feelings poured over the glass and your eyes glossed over with how your heart frantically chanted his name, wanting nothing and no one else but him.

“I love you,” you confessed, “I fucking love you.”

To your surprise, Toge chuckled, pulling you forward until his chest was flushed against yours. He captured your lips for one last kiss, delicate this time around as his hands cupped your jaw. You tilted your hide to the side to deepen the kiss, and you sighed while Toge rubbed soothing circles at the sides of your jaw then down to your neck.

“You better,” he mumbled through your lips, “Because I fucking love you too, and I don’t want to play this game of push and pull anymore.”

It was your first time to hear such dominance in his words, to witness such need and possessiveness shine back through his eyes, his lips travelling to the sides of your face. Submissively, you arched your back to him and allowed him access to your neck, head lolling to the side. Even as Toge slowly but surely left little love bites to mark you as his, he was gentle and delicate, soft yet hard, bitter but sweet like the longing you had for one another.

Even as he had you trapped under his arms, his heat nestled into the deeper, intimate parts of you that only welcomed no one else but him; your lover was absolutely delicate.

And you only fell for him harder than you already have.

#inumaki toge x reader #inumaki to/ge x reader #inumaki toge #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen #inumaki to/ge x reader fluff #inumaki to/ge x reader romance #inumaki to/ge x reader imagines #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jujutsu kaisen romance #jujutsu kaisen x reader fluff #jujutsu kaisen x reader romance #inumaki to/ge #toge x reader #toge x reader romance #I LOVE INUMAKI SM

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soobmint · 3 years

Text

paper hearts | choi soobin [f] ; [c] 80s! au, 9.6k words

s u m m a r y ; if there was one thing you wanted to avoid on valentine’s day, it was running into your ex best friend, choi soobin. but when a series of unfortunate events involving too much purple eyeshadow, drunken punches, and one stolen bicycle leads you right back to his side, you begin to realize that maybe you truly belonged with him all along.

c o n t e n t s ; soobin x fem!reader, 80s! au, valentine’s day, ex best friend! soobin, rich boy! soobin, but he’s a major dweeb and the biggest softie, yeonjun is a major prick (i’m so sorry junnie), reader is a part time worker, soobin is best friends with lee felix of stray kids, some themes of social classes, roughly inspired by the 80s movie “pretty in pink,” mentions drugs, alcohol, and single parent households, mostly just fluff, fluff, and more fluff, with a hint of crack/humor

n o t e ; hello friends! this was a very quickly planned, last minute valentine’s day idea, and it’s actually a collab with one of my dearest friends, @chanluster ! she posted her piece of the collab as well, you can check it out by going to the collab masterlist here! this was so much fun to write and i think that 80s! soobin was just too good of a concept to pass up! anyways, happy valentine’s day, i hope you enjoy this oneshot! do leave a like, reblog, or comment if you could, it really helps so much <3

[back to my masterlist] [oneshot playlist]

IF ONE MORE CUT-OUT, CRAFT-PAPER HEART HIT YOU IN THE FACE, YOU WERE GOING TO QUIT YOUR JOB.

Of course you would never actually quit. With your mother out of the picture and your father working nonstop overtime just to barely have enough cash to put food on the table for the both of you, you had come to rely on your minimum wage part-time hours more than you liked to admit. However, the handmade strings of paper hearts that hung from wall to wall throughout the entirety of the record shop you were employed at was enough to make you consider it; not to mention the Phil Collins record that had been spinning all day, filling your ears with melodies embodying the very air of romance, and the embarrassing pink sweater your boss had forced you to wear. You mumbled curses beneath your breath as you pulled at the collar, itching away at your neck.

When you made a step towards a crate full of records, ready to tidy it up after a customer had rummaged through it leaving it a mess, you were met with another face full of cheap red construction paper. With a large growl of exasperation, you swatted at the hearts and accidentally caused the entire string of them to fall to the ground. You cleared your throat, glad that no customers were present to see your little outburst.

Your boss, Jen, still saw it all.

“That’s not very festive of you, kid,” She said, taking a drag on her cigarette. “It’s Valentine’s Day! Lighten up.”

“Ah, my bad. I forgot that I was supposed to be overjoyed on the day honoring the execution of St. Valentine,” You said as you gave her a sarcastic smile. “I’ll make sure to smile at the next couple that walks in and ask them how they plan to contribute to the commercialization of a martyr’s death.”

“You must be real fun at parties,” Jen mumbled. She shook her cigarette at you from behind the counter. “You’re just bitter because you don’t have a valentine. I can’t blame anyone for giving you the cold shoulder with that attitude of yours.”

You scowled, picking up the string of hearts that you had sent crashing to the floor. “I’m not bitter, and I don’t want a date. Also, I told you to stop smoking inside! It smells awful.”

“Last I checked, this was my shop, not yours.” You rolled your eyes as you approached the counter, handing the discarded string to Jen so she could throw it in the trash. “Now you’re making me do chores for you too? You’ve got some nerve, I’ll give you that.”

“Jen, please, I’m really not in the mood for this today.”

Jen shrugged, bending towards the trash can to throw away the string of hearts when she paused and pulled something from the bin. You glanced over your shoulder and gasped when you saw what she held in her hand—a small red envelope with your name scrawled across the front and a pink heart-shaped sticker stuck on the back.

“What’s this?” Jen asked, opening the envelope and shaking out the contents. A single slip of paper fell out, landing atop the counter. You rushed to grab it, but Jen snatched it up just before your fingers reached the countertop.

“Give me that,” You insisted, face growing warm. “I threw it away for a reason!”

“It’s an invitation to a party?” She seemed beyond surprised, glancing back and forth between you and the paper several times. “You got invited to a Valentine’s Day party, and instead of going, you asked me to give you extra hours? Why?”

You looked down at your feet, digging the toe of your sneaker into the blue carpet. There were, in fact, many reasons why you did not want to go to that party. They were as follows:

One: Choi Yeonjun was the one who had invited you. After you had rejected his offer when he asked to take you to a basketball game a month before, you could barely make eye contact with him in the school hallway without feeling guilty. That and the fact that he was one of the richest preps in the school, you knew he had just been asking you out for some sort of prank or dare that you preferred to not potentially fall victim to.

Two: you needed to work as much as you could. Money, as always, was tight for you and your father. There was no way you would sacrifice precious hours to go to a party full of rich kids where nothing but humiliation was sure to await you.

Three: your old childhood friend and the one person you couldn’t bear to see was probably going to be there—Choi Soobin.

You had barely spoken to Soobin in the four years you had been in high school. Crossing paths with him in the cafeteria, turning down the same aisle of books as him in the library, all those tiny stolen glances and accidental encounters were the only bits of interaction you had kept throughout all that time. The worst part was, he hadn’t done anything wrong.

It was nothing but your own cowardice that had driven the two of you apart, and you were still too afraid to own up to it.

Instead of explaining all of this to Jen, you simply shrugged and said, “I dunno. It just sounds lame.”

Your boss sighed, holding the invitation out towards you. “Okay, I’m letting you off early. Go to the party.”

With wide eyes, you shook your head immediately. “Absolutely not. Why in the world would I go?”

“Well, first of all, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for you. Who knows when your next chance to go to a party will be.”

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at that.

“Second, it’s a holiday! The only reason I even opened today was because you were begging me for hours. I thought it was because you were bummed about having no plans, but clearly it’s because you wanted an excuse to be a recluse.”

“Hey, I’m not a recluse.”

“Clearly.” She shook the invitation at you once more, brows raised. “If you go, I’ll raise your pay by fifty cents for the next month.”

Your ears perked up at that.

“Well?” She asked, well aware that she had hit the jackpot. “What'd ya say?”

Weighing the risks against the benefits, you bit the inside of your cheek.

“Make it a dollar and you’ve got a deal.”

“HAPPY VALENTINE’S, CHOI.”

When Soobin heard the sarcastic remark coming from his best friend, Felix, he had to fight back the urge to burst into tears then and there. He still wasn’t quite sure how Felix had convinced him to come, but he was already regretting it. The last thing he wanted to do to celebrate the day dedicated to love was spend it at a house party—or, as Soobin preferred to call them, any outcast high school kid’s version of hell on earth.

With a quick peek between his fingers, which he had used to cover his eyes immediately upon arriving at the site of the Valentine’s party, Soobin caught another eye-full of couples getting all too familiar with one another out in the open. He gulped, letting his hands grip the handles of the bike as he averted his gaze, choosing to cast his best glare at Felix, who was busy adjusting his ever-present beanie.

“Shut up,” he murmured, slowly sliding off the seat of his bike. He dusted off the worn, tearing cushion, glancing around the area. “Now quick, we gotta put our stuff somewhere safe.”

Felix looked aghast, making no moves to help Soobin in his search for a hiding spot. “What are you doing?”

“Tryna find a safe place for my bike?” He thought the answer to be somewhat obvious, but clearly Felix wasn’t on the same track of thinking. “You don’t know today’s world! Anyone is willing to steal nowadays.”

“Soobin, your bike is coughing up oil from its chains. It should be in its own care home at this rate.”

“I don’t wanna hear your slander, skater boy,” Soobin retorted, eyeing Felix’s ebony skateboard that he refused to be seen without. As if on cue, when he pushed his bike forward, the chains squealed, drawing the attention of a pair of particularly passionate individuals who had been wrapped up with one another moments before. Soobin ignored their annoyed stares, feeling his ears burn from embarrassment. He glanced back to Felix. “Help me find a hiding spot.”

Felix was anything but enthusiastic, but he began to help Soobin search nonetheless.

“Slide it in here, Soobs,” Felix called a few moments later. He was pointed to an empty space between the home’s perfectly trimmed bushes. Soobin pursed his lips together, pushing his large glasses further up the bridge of his nose—a nervous tick of his. Felix groaned, rolling his eyes. “Or you can leave it out in the open so it’ll spit more oil on the passersby? Is that what you want?”

“Fine, fine!” Soobin huffed, wheeling his bike over to the shrubbery, chains squeaking all the way. He carefully laid it beneath the brush and moved a few branches to cover it up nicely. He stood up straight, dusting his hands on the front of his loose blue jeans. “What about your skateboard?”

Felix gave the board a pat, awarding his most prized possession a dazzling smile one would expect to see a proud father giving his beloved son. But in reality, it was the school’s stoner grinning ear to ear at his old, dusty skateboard. “Nightrider stays with me.”

Soobin scrunched his nose, cringing on instinct. He still calls that thing by that stupid name?

Felix clapped him on the shoulder before he could make a remark, catching him off guard when he said, “Right. Let’s go and get your girl.”

There was nothing Soobin could do to stop the flush that rushed to his cheeks right away. Images of you, his ex-best friend and the only reason he had even come to this party in the first place, flashed through his mind. Had he not overheard Yeonjun invite you earlier that morning and then casually mention the encounter to Felix, there was no way he would have even stepped foot out of his house that night. Part of him was peeved, wishing he had never uttered a single word about you to his overbearing friend. Yet, deep down, there was hope within him—the tiniest sliver.

If there was even the slightest chance that he could talk to you that night, he would do anything. Even if it meant dealing with a stupid party, and the never-ceasing teasing he was bound to continue receiving from Felix.

“Don’t even say that,” He said, emphasizing each word as they walked up the front steps. Soobin had to glance down at his much shorter friend to see the devious grin on his freckled face.

“Say what? That she’s your girl, your woman, your one and only?”

The blush must have been creeping to his neck by that point. He could feel it. “I. . .” There were many things Soobin wished to say; angry words that would hopefully shut the blonde skater boy up real quick. But he couldn’t bring himself to say a single harsh word, so he sighed in defeat. “I can’t even say it.”

“That you hate me?” Felix only grinned even bigger, and Soobin couldn’t help the tiny defeated smile that slipped over his features. “Oh, I know. It’s because I’m too good of a best friend.”

They stepped into the house then, instantly being overwhelmed by loud music, boisterous laughter, and drunken yells echoing throughout the halls. Soobin latched onto Felix right away, gripping his friend’s sleeve as someone stumbled into him, a bit of beer spilling from their cup. He pushed his glasses up, only for them to slide right back down as he began to sweat.

“Maybe we should go home, Lix!” Soobin shouted to be heard over the noise as they travelled further into the house. “We can always try next year!”

“Stop being a scaredy-cat!” Felix shouted back, and Soobin thought he might actually begin to cry as they squeezed their way into the living room. Soobin nearly gagged at the strong smell of alcohol as it burned in his nose. The scene was nothing short of a nightmare to Soobin—loud voices, smoke rising in the air, vodka assaulting his nose and sweat beading on the back of his neck. He had never been one to drink, and he didn’t plan on starting that night; but he was beginning to understand what Felix meant when he had once told him it was nearly impossible to get through one of these parties sober.

He was about to make another complaint and beg to leave when someone from the crowd hollered his name, causing him to wince when he recognized that voice as the one that belonged to none other than Choi Yeonjun.

“Soobin! Where you been?”

Soobin smiled nervously at the school’s heartthrob—and textbook snobby rich kid—before he turned back to Felix. He didn’t want to leave his friend, but he knew that he would never hear the end of it if he ignored Yeonjun’s persistent calls. “I’ll be right back,” He promised Felix, still holding onto his sleeve.

“No, no,” Felix assured. “You go. You’ll probably find her around that place anyway.”

Soobin wasn’t so sure of that. You were definitely not of the right social standing to be caught amongst the circle of the school’s rich boys—which was why it had surprised Soobin that Yeonjun had invited you to the party in the first place. Your high school had its own caste system, and you were near the bottom of it.

And, as much as it pained him to admit it, Soobin was stuck at the very top with all the other rich snobs who cared about nothing more than their daily allowances that came straight from their daddy’s bank account.

“What about you, buddy?” He asked Felix, desperate for any excuse to remain by his friend’s side. He would have tried to bring Felix with him, but his friend was in an even worse social standing than you were—he was poor, and he was most known for being the school’s pothead. There was no way Soobin would willingly drag him into a situation where nothing but slander and torment awaited him.

“Me?” Felix shrugged, gripping his board tighter. “I’ll just smoke away the night.”

Soobin pouted, glancing back at the group of preps as they called for him once again. He sighed, clapping Felix on the shoulder. “Just make sure you won’t smell too much of it when I come back.”

Submitting himself to his doom then, he turned on his heel and slowly made his way to where the group of boys sat near the sofa, giving them a half-hearted wave.

“Why were you hanging around that Felix guy?” Yeonjun asked once Soobin had reached their circle. “Did he blackmail you or something?”

Soobin frowned, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “He’s my friend.”

Yeonjun rolled his eyes, brushing a hand through his perfectly-straightened ebony locks. “Sure he is. Tell me, do you see every kid you find on the streets as some sort of personal charity project? Or is it just Felix and—what was her name—” He snapped his fingers then before he said, “Y/N, right?”

Soobin didn’t respond—well, it was more like he couldn’t respond. By nature he was a very passive being, but nothing drew him closer to bouts of anger than when the people he cared about were being insulted right before him.

Especially when it came to you.

Yet, as much as he wanted to tell Yeonjun off or give him a nice shove into the smoke-stained walls, words failed him. They always did. Perhaps this was why you had abandoned him all those years ago. Nobody knew him better than you did, so of course you were able to see what he truly was beneath all the expensive clothes and nervous laughter—a coward.

He figured that he’d probably have left himself too.

“Drink up, buttercup.” The chipper voice that belonged to the other Choi in the small gathering of socialites, Choi Beomgyu, thrust a plastic red cup towards Soobin’s chest.

He shook his head, throwing another wavering smile in his direction. “No thanks. I don’t drink.”

Yeonjun rolled his eyes. “Of course you don’t. Why are you even here then?”

Once again, Soobin chose silence as his only response. He swallowed, patting the front pocket of his denim jacket. As the group of boys began conversing once more, he couldn’t help but let his eyes wander around the room, searching every drunken face for the features that belonged to you, trying to hear your name in every conversation, desperate for your voice to break through the blasting music and shouting voices.

“Who ya looking for there, Big Choi?” Soobin grimaced at the nickname. He was skinny, but incredibly tall, and nobody would let him forget that. “Big Choi” was one of his most common nicknames among the elitists. He despised it, but of course, he would never voice that aloud.

He glanced at Beomgyu and smiled nervously again, shaking his head. “Nobody.”

His eyes met Yeonjun’s and he gulped yet again as the latter eyed him with suspicion. It wasn’t as though he had anything to hide, but something about Yeonjun’s calculating gaze made his skin crawl.

He needed to escape. Just for a moment, at least.

“I’ll be right back. Going to find some water.”

He slipped out of the living room then, apologizing profusely to each couple he accidentally bumped into, bowing in remorse to each person’s toes his big feet happened to stumble over. He ached to be by Felix’s side—the stoned skateboarder had become somewhat of a security blanket to the taller of the duo—but his blonde friend was nowhere to be seen.

After snagging a bottle of water from the kitchen, Soobin managed to slip into an empty bathroom. He slammed the door shut and wasted no time in locking it. Letting out the biggest sigh of relief, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the door, taking a big gulp of the ice cold water.

He set the bottle on the counter and carefully reached into the front pocket of his jacket, his fingers finding the piece of paper he had been storing there all evening. He pulled it out and let his eyes wander over his middle school creation. It was a big heart, cut out from a scrap piece of red construction paper. Scrawled across it in his eight-grade handwriting were the words, Be mine this Valentine’s! His name was etched at the bottom, and at the very top, delicately printed in hot pink glitter glue, your name was written as well.

He had planned to give this to you four years ago on Valentine’s day. Everything had been planned out perfectly; he was to pick you up on his old, trusty bike. It wasn’t really made for two people, but the two of you had fashioned a makeshift extra seat for you to sit upon whenever you went places together.

He wanted to take you to the Dairy Shack, which was the local ice cream shop where the two of you spent the most time together. You always got a large chocolate shake to share, playing a quick game of rock, paper, scissors to decide who got to eat the cherry on top. He was going to order a shake and specially ask for two cherries that time, and planned to give both of them to you before he would bravely present you with the handmade card he had spent all day working on.

However, when he waited for you outside your house that day, the red dusk turned to pitch black night, and you never stepped foot out your door.

He had even gone up to your door a few times and knocked, but there was no answer. Eventually he pedalled off into the night, back to his house. He was disappointed, of course, but more worried than anything else. He had hoped you weren’t sick.

But when he saw you at school the next day, he knew that hadn’t been the case.

And when you ignored him calling your name as you passed by him in the hallways, he knew that something had drastically changed.

For weeks, Soobin was in great turmoil as he replayed your last few encounters together before you had stood him up. Perhaps you were angry that he had won the last few games of rock, paper, scissors? If he had known, he would have given you all the cherries for the rest of time if it meant you would still talk to him. He didn’t care about them—he cared about you.

He missed you.

And as weeks turned to months, and months turned to years, you still barely spoke to him, and he missed you more and more. The best friend he had wanted to take a step closer to had taken a thousand steps back from him, and he still had no idea why.

But that night, he was determined to find out.

Well, if he could muster up the courage to get a single word out, of course.

He folded the heart back up and stuck it back in his pocket, taking a deep breath as he observed himself in the fogged-up mirror. He fixed his bright blue hair that Felix had helped him bleach and dye, making sure the pieces fell over the corners of his eyes just right. He straightened his white turtleneck and cuffed the sleeves of his denim jacket until he was at least somewhat content with his appearance.

“You can do this, Soobs,” He told himself, adjusting his big round glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “That’s what Felix would say.”

“Hey, rich boy!” A loud scream came from outside the bathroom door, accompanied by harsh knocking that sent Soobin stumbling backwards until he fell in the shower, pulling the curtains down with him.

“Hurry up in there! I’m about to piss myself!”

Soobin let out a shaky sigh, scrambling to his feet as he rushed to fix the curtain he had torn down with his clumsiness. “Sorry,” he mumbled, though he doubted the person on the other side of the door could hear him.

He realized then with an ever growing dread that it would be a miracle if he survived the night long enough to even find you, but it would take the work of God himself for him to actually speak to you.

He figured it was time for him to start praying.

YOU KNEW IT WAS A MISTAKE TO LET JEN DO YOUR MAKEUP.

When she had stopped you on your way out the door with a compact of bright purple eyeshadow, you had turned her down right away. No way in all of creation were you walking in a party with such an atrocious color caked up to your brow bone.

“How can you say it’s gonna look bad if you haven’t even let me try?” Jen had asked.

You had given her a once-over, your lips pressed into a thin line. “If it’s gonna look anything like the way you do your own makeup, I’m gonna have to pass.”

After that snide remark, she had threatened to fire you if you didn’t let her apply the makeup. And so you obliged, though you didn’t have much of a choice.

The booming sounds of the party hit your ears before you had even reached the lawn. Screaming teens—well, there were probably some adults thrown in there as well—and the sound of music spilled through the open windows of the home. Couples and singles alike were scattered throughout the perfectly kept lawn that was now littered with empty cups and other assortments of garbage.

You looked down at your patchwork jeans and pink sweater, certain that you would be underdressed compared to the rest of the partygoers. But from the looks of things, as you carefully squeezed your way through the front door and into the home, everyone was probably too wasted to even notice your arrival, let alone care about your looks.

You caught a glimpse of your face in the hallway mirror, cringing at the sight of your eyeshadow. You had tried to wipe some of it away before arriving, but it simply smudged, giving you quite the shocking smoky, purple eye look. For someone who didn’t even know the difference between a paintbrush and a makeup brush, it was a bold look, to say the least.

If Soobin saw you looking like this, he’d probably have a heart attack.

Soobin.

In the midst of all your frantic preparation, you had nearly forgotten about the main reason why you had planned to avoid this party at all costs. With a quick glance around the room, you realized that he was nowhere to be seen. You wouldn’t have been surprised if he hadn’t shown up at all. He was never a fan of parties, anyway.

You crossed your arms over your chest and slowly slipped past the couples crowding the hallway with their limbs intertwined, mouths practically swallowing one another whole, until you reached the living room. Surprisingly, it was less crowded in here than you thought it might be. A few minglers were scattered about the room’s perimeter, but they all kept away from the center of the room, which was occupied by none other than Choi Yeonjun and all his brainless, rich-boy worshippers. You quickly scanned the group, not able to make out Soobin among them. When you realized he wasn’t there, you were partly relieved and partly disappointed. If was to be anywhere at this party, it would probably be with these guys.

With a quick turn on your heel, you planned to make your way out of the living room before Yeonjun could see you. The last thing you wanted was for the boy with a bruised ego to see you, regardless of whether or not he had been the one to invite you.

“Y/N? You came?”

Too late.

Plastering a forced grin to your face, you slowly turned to face Yeonjun, who had just called your name. He was eyeing you with slight surprise, but soon, a smirk slipped across his lips as he motioned for you to come over. You had to hold back your sigh, wishing there was some way for you to get out of this situation. It was all Jen’s fault that you had to show up in the first place. You decided you were going to demand an extra ten cents be added to your raise the next time you saw your pushy boss.

“Hey Yeonjun,” you said once you had walked over to him. “I figured I’d stop by for a minute or two, since you were kind enough to invite me.”

He smirked, glancing at a few of his friends. They shared a knowing laugh with one another, but the meaning of it was lost to you. You wanted nothing more than to get away from them, but that wasn’t an option.

“You’re too busy to go out with me to a basketball game but free enough to come to a party, huh?” He asked.

You blinked, digging your nails into your arms. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s fine, really,” He drawled, swirling his plastic cup of beer in his hand. “You didn’t think I’d be upset or anything did you? I only asked you out because I was dared to shack up with you. But I’m guessing you already knew that, since you’re so smart and all.”

Your eyes went wide, but you managed to control the rest of your expression. It was just like you had guessed—Yeonjun had invited you to the party with the sole purpose of making a scene.

If you survived the night, Jen was never going to hear the end of it.

“You’re not gonna say anything?” He asked, pushing himself to his feet. You could tell by the slight stumble in his step and his hooded eyes that he had quite a bit to drink. He took a step towards you, causing you to back up immediately. Your back hit the wall, and you placed your palms against it as Yeonjun towered over you.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I know why you’re here anyways.” He leaned forward, his lips hovering near your ear. “You’re here to see Soobin, aren’t you? Since he’s the only one here willing to waste his time on filth like you.”

Your blood boiled, and you had to clench your fists at your sides to control your anger.

“Don’t,” You seethed, “Call me that.”

“Call you what? Filth? Or sweetheart? Why, is that something good old Binnie used to call you—”

He never got to finish that sentence, because with one big burst of anger, you stomped on his toe as hard as you could with your worn-out platform sneaker.

“What the hell!” He screeched, drawing the attention of several others in the room. His outburst even caused a few of the couples to pull away from each other’s faces long enough to eavesdrop.

Before you could even say anything back, lukewarm liquid was splashed up in your face, burning your eyes and nose. You gasped, running your hands over your eyes to see Yeonjun with his now empty cup of beer pointed towards you.

“Think twice before you act out against me next time, sweetheart. Never forget your place.”

Tears of anger burned in your eyes, and you scanned the room to see several people exchanging whispers and giggles as they glanced in your direction. You pushed past Yeonjun and quickly made your way out the back door of the house, unable to stand the humiliation for a moment longer.

Soobin arrived in the living room just in time to see you leave.

He wasted no time in rushing towards Yeonjun, grabbing hold of his arm. “Yeonjun, was that Y/N?” He asked, eyes quickly taking in the puddle of alcohol on the floor and the empty cup in Yeonjun’s hand. “What happened?”

“Nothing you need to worry your pretty blue head about, Big Choi. I just put her in her place is all.”

Soobin’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean you ‘put her in her place?’”

Yeonjun laughed, giving Soobin a nonchalant pat on the back. “Just drop it, would you? It has nothing to do with you.”

“What did you say, Yeonjun?”

Yeonjun was growing irritated now. He huffed out a breath, crossing his arms over his chest. “I said it has nothing to do with you, Soobin. I know you like to hang around people like that pothead Felix, but the rest of us live in the real world, where we’d rather not waste our time with those who have no future anyways. I bet he’s the one that got you to dye your hair that god awful blue, isn’t he?”

Soobin bit the inside of his cheek. He so badly wished to rip Yeonjun to shreds then and there. If he had Felix’s courage, the cocky bastard would have been knocked to the ground ages ago. But if there was one thing Soobin was sure he could never be, it was brave. And so, despite his rage, he remained silent, his eyes practically burning a hole through Yeonjun’s chest from how intently he was glaring.

It seemed as though Yeonjun was about to say something, but his eyes landed on the bit of red that peeked through the front pocket of Soobin’s denim jacket. Before Soobin had time to defend himself, Yeonjun had reached forward and snatched it from his pocket, revealing the large paper heart—his valentine for you.

“So this is why you care so much,” Yeonjun said, laughing as his eyes scanned the glittery words that decorated the page. “You want her to be your valentine.”

“Give that back,” Soobin said quietly, his hands beginning to shake.

Yeonjun instead lifted his eyes to Soobin, gave him a sickly sweet grin, and ripped the heart straight down the middle. He let the two pieces fall from his hands to the ground, and with them Soobin’s heart went also.

“You’re really willing to try and go against me, and for what? For the sake of a girl who can’t even afford a new pair of jeans and a boy that smokes his life away in the bathroom stalls?” Yeonjun took a slow step towards Soobin, his eyes glinting with a sinister determination. “You may be rich, Soobin, but if you choose to lower yourself to their standards, you may as well be dirt poor just like they are.”

With his hands clenched into tight fists, his glasses sliding down his nose, and his heart quite literally in two pieces on the floor below him, Soobin decided that he had had enough.

“I’d much rather be associated with people who are kind and have actual depth to their character than be lumped together with a bunch of pricks like you with no real personality—because that’s something you can’t buy with daddy’s paycheck.”

He had to physically restrain himself from slapping his hand across his own mouth in shock. It was as if the spirit of Felix himself had possessed him to say such harsh things. He wondered where Felix was then, wishing more than ever before to have his best friend by his side as he began to tremble from either the rush of adrenaline that coursed through his veins, or from fear. Or perhaps it was both.

He didn’t have time to ponder it any longer before Yeonjun’s fist collided with his nose, resulting in a sickening crack as pain echoed throughout his face in tidal waves.

He stumbled backward as people began to shout, raising his hand to his nose and gasping when he saw that his palm was covered in blood.

Beomgyu had his arms wrapped around Yeonjun, who was desperately trying to lunge towards Soobin once again.

“Knock it off, Yeonjun!” Beomgyu shouted, pushing the elder back. “His dad is on the school board! Are you trying to get expelled?”

Beomgyu looked over his shoulder at the still stunned Soobin, who was gaping at the blood that now stained his once white turtleneck.

“Get lost, Soobin,” Beomgyu said, to which Soobin only blinked in reply, his ears ringing.

“Now!”

Head spinning, Soobin picked up the two halves of his paper heart, stuffed them into his jeans, and stumbled out the same door he had seen you go through just minutes before. After checking to make sure his glasses were still intact—they were, thankfully—he shook his head in an effort to clear his mind of the static, eyes scanning the front lawn looking for any trace of you.

It didn’t take long for his eyes to spot you among the now dwindling crowd of partygoers. Your bright pink sweater stood out against the darkness, so he was able to recognize you even with your back towards him. He sniffed, wiping the back of his hand against his dripping nose as he slowly made his way to where you sat on the curb, your feet planted on the asphalt street. He wished that he looked a bit more presentable—when he played this scene out in his head over the years in which he would finally reunite with you, he never imagined himself dazed and covered in blood.

Desperate times called for desperate measures, he supposed.

When he reached you, he simply stood beside you in silence for a moment, unsure of what to say. He could tell that you sensed his presence, but you refused to look up at him as you kept your face buried in your hands. He could have sworn he heard a few muffled sobs slip through your fingers, but of course, he wasn’t going to bring that up.

Eventually he decided to slip his jacket off of his shoulders, leaning down to drape it over you. You still kept your head down as he sat beside you on the curb, but he watched you grip the jacket and pull it tighter around your body. He smiled a bit, holding the collar of his turtleneck against his throbbing nose.

“Thank you,” you muttered, wiping your hand across your eyes. You finally looked over at him, and when you did, you couldn’t hold back your gasp. “My God Soobin, what happened to your face?”

“Oh, well, I might have gotten punched,” He said quickly, trying to wave off your concern. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Punched? By who?”

He looked down at the ground, sniffing as a drop of blood hit the pavement. “Yeonjun,” he muttered under his breath.

“I’m sorry, did you just say Yeonjun? Are you insane? Why on earth would you butt heads with the Choi Yeonjun?”

Soobin didn’t say anything in response, he simply stared at you, eyes wide with beer dripping off the ends of your hair, makeup smeared across your face, your sweater stained down the front. It didn’t seem to take long for you to put the pieces together, as the shock left your face and was replaced with something akin to guilt.

“Oh,” You said, looking back down at your shoes.

“So she knows that I did it all for her,” Soobin thought.

For some reason, the idea of that both terrified and excited him.

A second later, he glanced over to see you ripping one of the hand-sewed patches of fabric off your jeans, leaving a square of your skin exposed to the chilly night air. You leaned towards him, pushing his hand away from his nose so you could use the patch to clean up some of the blood on and around his puffy red nose.

“Y/N, your pants!” He exclaimed, trying to push your hand away. “They’re ruined!”

“I’m not worried about my pants, you idiot,” You said, swatting his hand away as you continued to press the cloth against his skin. “You got punched in the face because of me, this is the least I could do.”

“That was my choice though,” He muttered, although he stopped trying to resist your touch. He ignored the way his heart thrummed harder in his chest, hoping that you couldn’t hear.

“Well, this is my choice too.” Your eyes flicked to his for a brief moment, your bottom lip pulled between your teeth. “Why did you do it, by the way?”

“Do what?”

“Stand up to Yeonjun for me and get a nasty nosebleed as a result.”

“Oh.” He blinked slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on yours. “Just ‘cause.”

“Because . . . ?”

“Because of you.” He blurted, causing your hand to go still against him. He swallowed his fear, braving the best smile that he could. “Just you. That was my only reason.”

You didn’t say anything as your hand fell from his face, the cloth clutched between your fingers. The anxiety he had tried his best to suppress came rushing up all at once, and he was surprised that his ears didn’t begin to squeal like a tea kettle from all the pressure.

“Y/N,” He said, gently placing his hand over yours despite how his fingers trembled. “Why did you pull away from me?”

“What?”

“Four years ago. Why did you stop talking to me?”

You were quiet for a moment, digging into the ground with the toe of your sneaker. Soobin held his breath until you finally replied with, “I was afraid.”

“Afraid? Of what?”

“We were getting older, Binnie,” You said, and his heart skipped at the use of your old nickname for him. “You and I, we’re from very different walks of life. You get to hang out with people like Yeonjun, whereas I get a cup of beer poured all over my face just for existing, and you get a fist to the nose for trying to stand up for me. We’re from different sides of the track, one might say.”

“So?” Soobin asked, his hand tightening around yours. “Did you really think that would affect us that much, Y/N?”

You frowned, glancing down at his hand over yours.

“I thought you’d be embarrassed of me,” You said, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Embarrassed?” Soobin’s eyes went wide as he gripped your hand tighter still, pulling it into his lap. “Y/N, I would never, ever be embarrassed of you. Besides, have you seen my best friend? He’s on a first name basis with the principal because of how often he gets written up for smoking behind the school. If I’m not embarrassed of him, why would I ever be embarrassed of you?”

You laughed, wiping the back of your hand across your eyes once more. “I guess I was worried about nothing, huh?” You sniffed, giving his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry, Soobin.”

He shook his head, squeezing your hand right back. “Don’t apologize. You’re here now, that’s what matters. Do think we could—you know—”

“Pick up where we left off?” You smiled, nodding vigorously. “I’d like that very much, Binnie.”

He beamed then, almost pinching himself to be sure that he was not dreaming, but the pain in his nose was real enough to remind him of that on its own. He jumped to his feet, pulling you right up with him.

“In that case, how about we finally go on that Valentine’s date I had planned all the way back then?”

“Date?” You asked, a brow raised. “Is it really considered a date if two friends are just hanging out?”

He didn’t respond as he pulled you along behind him towards the bushes where he and Felix had hidden his bike. He crouched down and moved the branches aside, feeling his heart drop to his stomach when he realized that his bike was, in fact, no longer there.

He shot up, turning to face you with eyes wide. “Felix—that bastard took my bike!”

You were quiet for a moment, but then, you burst into boisterous laughter, leaving Soobin utterly confused.

“It’s not funny, Y/N!” He whined, shoving your shoulder lightly. “I was supposed to take you to the Dairy Shack on my bike!”

“It is funny,” You said between bursts of laughter. “Only you would get such a rusty old piece of metal stolen from you.”

He pushed his lips out in a pout, sliding his glasses up his sore nose. “It’s a good bike, don’t make fun of it.”

You grinned, interlocking his fingers with yours, which was enough to instantly wipe the pout right off his face.

“Let’s just walk, Binnie. The Dairy Shack isn’t that far anyways.”

You were right; the walk to your favorite milkshake place was very close to the house where the party had occurred. Although Felix stealing his bike had thrown an obvious wrench in his plans, it was a minor hiccup, and one he could most definitely handle. Besides, he wouldn’t have to see Felix until the next day anyways. He could deal with his frustration then.

At least, that’s what he thought anyways, until the two of you spotted Felix at the skatepark on your way to the dairy shack.

Soobin’s eyes took in the deplorable sight before him—from where he stood on the dimly lit sidewalk, he could see Felix and a girl he had never seen before, their faces nearly pressed together, and most importantly, with his bike discarded a few yards away from them.

“Soobin,” You said, tugging on his arm. “They look like they’re busy, let’s just go—”

But Soobin, who had little patience when it came to Felix messing up his plans, didn’t let you finish before he screamed, “Give me back my freaking bike!”

You had to hold back your snort of laughter at his choice of words. Even when he was trying to sound angry, he was undeniably adorable.

Soobin watched as Felix startled, clutching his spliff between his fingers as he glared daggers back at his friend. Soobin gulped, trying not to let his fear show on his face. What did he have to be afraid of, anyways? He was the victim of thievery, and his best friend was the offender.

Felix took a big step towards him, but he paused, his eyes landing on your interlocked hands. Soobin glanced down as well, his face growing furiously warm as he realized the situation he had gotten himself into.

He decided to divert the subject before it could even be brought up by saying, “I can’t believe you stole my bike! All this time I was trying to hide it from strangers, but you, my best friend! I should’ve been hiding it from you!”

Soobin noticed Felix’s female companion step off the skateboard and walk over in his direction, and for a second he felt bad for possibly ruining her night with his best friend. However, his frustration was more prominent in the moment as he fixed his gaze back on his best friend, who had fixed a mischievous smirk upon his face that made warning sirens blare in Soobin’s head right away.

“Now, now, buddy,” Felix said, his voice calm and carefree as ever. It probably had something to do with what he had just smoked, but Soobin didn’t care all that much. “You’re just gonna have to let me borrow it for a little longer.”

Soobin nearly laughed at the audacity of such a statement. “You are gonna give me the bike, or—”

“How about this, Soobs?” Soobin’s lips clamped shut at his friend’s interruption, as the thief in question gestured with his joint to where Soobin’s fingers were locked with yours. “You let me keep your bike for the night, and I don’t tell your dad about you hanging out with the opposite gender.”

Unable to control yourself, you let out a big laugh. Soobin would have felt betrayed, but he was more terrified than anything else at the idea of his father finding out that he was taking a girl out without his permission. He would be grounded for weeks—no, months.

“You wouldn’t.”

Felix’s lips curled up even more into a twisted grin that Soobin wished he had the guts to slap off his face. “God, just imagine the look on Mr. Choi’s face. Imagine him finding out about your premarital hand holding.”

No. Not the hand holding.

Soobin almost felt faint, but he steeled himself to the best of his abilities as he cleared his throat. “One night, Lix,” he warned. “If I don’t see it on my porch in the morning, you’ll be sorry!”

“Oh, I’m so scared,” Felix teased. His expression changed a moment later though, when he finally noticed Soobin’s swollen nose and blood-stained turtleneck. “Wait, Soobs, the hell happened to you?”

Soobin, however, had already taken his first steps away from the skatepark, pulling you along behind him. “I’ll tell you later, bud. Enjoy your spliff with that kind girl who you probably don’t deserve!”

“Hey!”

Soobin couldn’t help but laugh as he swung your interlocked hands together, grinning as you let out a laugh as well. The anger that had seeped through him seemed to melt away in an instant as the two of you continued your journey to the Dairy Shack.

“Would your dad really be that upset if he found out about this?” You asked.

Soobin grimaced. “We should probably wait til next year to tell him about this outing. Or maybe the year after that.”

When the two of you had finally reached the Dairy Shack, you waited outside for him while he went in to order your drink. A large chocolate milkshake, with two straws, just like you used to get every time before.

When he had the drink in hand, he walked back outside and sat down beside you on the curb, smiling as you wrapped his jacket tighter around your shoulders. You smiled back up at him, your eyes creasing from the expression. Your smile had always struck him right to his core; he had missed seeing it every day.

He hoped he could see it every morning and every night from that day onward. There was no way he would let you go this time.

He just had to muster up the courage to grab hold of you first.

“You know what, Binnie, you turned out to be a lot taller than I thought you ever would be,” you said as you took one of the straws from his hands. “You’re actually enormous. It’s shocking.”

“Should I find that offensive? It sounds kinda like an insult.”

“Take it however you will,” You teased, leaning over as he popped the plastic lid off the milkshake. He grabbed the cherry by the stem and held it towards you.

“What are you doing?” You asked, holding out your fist. “We have to rock, paper, scissors for it. Remember?”

Soobin laughed as he shook his head. “I’m giving it to you this time. It’s what I planned to do all those years ago, when I asked you to hang out on Valentine’s.”

You seemed to be taken aback, but you simply shrugged as you plucked the cherry from his hand and pulled it from the stem with your teeth, glancing back over at him. It was silent for a moment, but then your eyes landed on the pocket of his jeans, where you could see a bit of red paper poking out. You leaned over even further, reaching your hand out to snatch the paper.

“What are you—hey! Give that back!”

Soobin desperately tried to take his Valentine back from you, but it was too late. You held both halves of what used to be a whole in your hands, your eyes scanning the words as you pieced them together.

“Soobin . . .”

He held his breath. Had his act of young love left you completely speechless? Were you so touched that you would burst into tears?

“This looks like a middle schooler made it.”

He let out the breath in the form of a long, long sigh.

“That’s because it was made by a middle schooler,” He said as he set the milkshake down beside him. “I made it back in the eighth grade. I planned to give it to you that Valentine’s.”

“Oh.” You ran your finger along the card’s surface, the smallest smile creeping across your lips. “Well in that case, it’s not half bad. Why’s it ripped though?”

“Ah—well, Yeonjun . . .”

You nodded, taking another glance at his swollen nose. “No need to elaborate. It seems you had a lot planned for our Valentine’s Day back then. Is there anything else you wanted to do?”

His mouth went dry at that, and he wished that you couldn’t see his face because he was sure that his expression was quite comical. All the way back then, four years prior, he had in fact planned the perfect, ideal day in his head. Picking you up on his bike, giving you the cherry from his milkshake, and presenting you with his hand made card.

There was only one thing left on his list.

He didn’t move at first, willing himself to have enough courage to even look back in your direction. But when he finally did allow his eyes to meet yours, he felt his shoulders relax and his heart rate became more manageable.

He took a deep breath, leaned forward, and pressed his lips against your cheek.

He lingered there for only a moment before he pulled back, daring to pry one of his eyes open to take in the look on your face.

The disappointment was palpable—from the way your brows furrowed together and the way you pursed your lips. His stomach dropped, and he scooted the tiniest bit away from you.

“I’m sorry,” He blurt out, his face growing warmer by the second. “I shouldn’t have done that, I just—”

“Is that all?”

Your question stopped him mid-ramble, his eyes growing wide. “Huh?”

“Is that all?” You repeated, closing the distance between you that he had created. “It’s Valentine’s Day, Soobin. I think we can do better than a peck on the cheek.”

The implications of what you were saying didn’t register with him right away, but when it finally did, he could have sworn his heart began to beat loud enough for the entire town to hear. His hand curled into a fist as he gripped the denim of his jeans. He leaned forward, keeping his eyes open just enough to watch you as he brought his lips closer to yours. He could feel your eyes on him all the while, causing his heart to pound fiercer still within him.

When he was just a breath away, he whispered, “Can you close your eyes?”

“Hm?”

He lifted his hand, gently placing it over your eyes. He leaned closer then, filling the space between you both as his lips met yours. You tasted vaguely of cherry and strawberry slice soda, and he found it quite nice the way his lips seemed to fit perfectly against your own. As the seconds drew on, your hands slipped around his neck, pulling him closer. He slowly let his hand fall from your eyes, tracing lines with the tips of his fingers down your cheek before he cradled your jaw, letting his lips part just enough to taste the sweet sugar on your lips once more.

He thought in a haze that it was a good thing he didn’t drink anything at the party, as kissing you was proving to be intoxicating enough on its own.

When you finally pulled away, leaving your forehead resting against his, he let his eyes flutter open enough to see the euphoric smile that adorned your features. He grinned as well, gently running his thumb against your cheek.

“I think that back then, I had planned to ask you this before kissing you,” He whispered, “But Y/N, will you be my Valentine?”

Instead of a spoken answer, you laughed, leaning forward to capture his lips with yours once again, and that was the only answer Choi Soobin would ever need.

WHEN SOOBIN ARRIVED HOME THAT NIGHT, HE WENT STRAIGHT FOR THE TELEPHONE.

It was kept upstairs at night right outside his parent’s door, to keep himself and his brother from using it in the late hours. Of course, this never stopped Soobin from sneaking it downstairs to his room in the basement to make late night calls to Felix.

And that particular evening, he really needed to give Felix an update.

He grabbed the phone from the small table in the hallway, carefully tiptoeing towards the basement stairs. Before he had even taken the first step down, the bathroom door creaked open. Soobin whipped his head around to see his brother Kai standing there, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he raised a brow at his older brother.

Soobin froze, blinking slowly as he realized the incriminating situation he found himself in.

“Please don’t tell mom,” He whispered, his eyes pleading with his younger brother.

Kai nodded, although Soobin wasn’t quite convinced that the boy was even coherent enough to understand what was going on. Soobin offered a rushed thank you, and ventured his first step down the stairs.

Well, he tried, anyways, and ended up missing the first step. He tumbled down the rest of the stairs, landing on his butt at the very end.

He winced in pain, glad to see that the phone was still intact in his hands. He glanced over his shoulders to see Kai staring down the stairway with wide eyes, his lips parted in shock. Soobin quickly put a finger to his lips, begging his brother for silence.

Kai simply shook his head and walked away, allowing Soobin the freedom to breathe out a sigh of relief.

He quickly ran to his bedroom and shut the door, collapsing onto his bed with the phone as his breaths came in ragged gasps as an aftereffect from his tumble down the stairs. He figured he should have dialed Felix’s number right away, but he couldn’t help but brush his fingers against his lips, remembering the feeling and taste of having yours pressed against them.

He was so caught up in his daze that he didn’t notice Felix calling until the third ring.

He picked it up, breathing heavily into the speaker as he rubbed a sore spot on his lower back.

“Please tell me that panting is from running a marathon, and not what I think you’ve successfully tried.”

Soobin nearly gagged, holding the phone away from his face as he coughed, flustered by his friend's crude words. He brought the phone back to his face and said, “No, you sicko, I just fell down the stairs.”

“How the hell did you manage that with those long legs?”

“That’s not important, Lix!” He laid back onto his pillows then, twirling the phone cord in his hands as he stared up at his ceiling, the memories of his adventure with you that night flooding his mind once more. He couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear as he said, “Look, I need to tell you something important.”

If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought that he could hear the smile in Felix’s voice too as his friend replied.

“Well buddy, I got something to tell you too.”

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blakelywintersfield · 3 years

Text

Minors

Okay so, I originally wrote this in response to this post (my friend's reblog is linked instead of the original because OP either deleted it from their blog I guess?), but I feel like this constitutes as its own post.

I know this may sound like an overbearing parent "don't trust strangers on the internet" talk, but like. I don't think a lot of you understand just how quickly a situation can escalate; it's scary. I mean that not in a condescending "you think you're untouchable you stupid little child, you don't really know what the world is like" way either, but as in, I don't think internet safety is being taught realistically, so those things you're told to watch out for are far-fetched or already seem suspect.

Predators don't work the way TV shows joke that they do -- most predators aren't going to try and message you at random posing as a teenage girl and attempt to strike up a friendship. A lot interact in community spaces like tumblr, where some level of anonymity is allowed, and it's not odd for there to be people of both minor and adult ages. They interact with a variety of people -- not just targets. They will have full-fledged social circles. Their blogs and social interactions will look like literally any other person's on here.

Then, of the different blogs they follow, they end up interacting a lot with a certain user. Maybe the kind of humor clicks, or similar opinions, or interests. Nothing out of the ordinary; that's how people make friends. Maybe then they start by sending an ask, or a message, or whatever, and that continues for a bit until you two are kind of acclimated to one another, and then, as far as everyone is concerned, it's just a new friend! Neat! That's how you make friends on the internet. They most likely did this with their other friends on tumblr. Nothing weird. In this hypothetical, the minor party has their full name and city public.

But then this person you make friends with -- the way you would any other person on this website -- turns out to be 10+ years your senior. Which like. Honestly, you don't have to cut them out of your life and block them immediately, but you inform them you're 10 years younger than them. A responsible adult would respond to that knowledge with anything from the range of "oh holy shit you're baby uhh I feel a little weird interacting with you so personally" to "oh goodness you are a youngling I will now enter caregiver/parent-like mode". And there will be an established tone from there of "we may still interact but there is going to always be a set emotional distance". It'll have a different dynamic/feeling to the friendships you have with people your age. And it should. Both parties can still care about each other! But this isn't someone you would like. Hang out one on one with. You wouldn't hang out with your mom's friend one on one, or at your teacher's home alone. That'd be weird, right? That should be the same kind of vibe you get with any adult "friendship" you make online (I put friendship in quotes because I feel like... there's a better term for it, or should be one that establishes that adult/minor relationship, but if there is I can't for the life of me remember it).

But maybe that person doesn't go down that path. Maybe it comes off that way at first, but there's a subtle level of emotional manipulation that is subtle enough that you're not certain you can accuse them of being manipulative. "Oh wow, you're so much younger than me... do you still want to talk to me / be friends / etc.? I can leave you alone now if you want." Warning sign #1: they are pressuring you to make the decision; they are placing responsibility on you. And it might feel a little mean to just drop communication all of a sudden because of age -- you got along fine before. Why should that change anything? That's a rational thought process, but it's also the one that benefits them too.

So hypothetically, you say "no it's okay, we can still talk. we were talking just fine before we found out each other's ages so why should that change?" And then maybe the conversation continues normally from there. But then they continue interacting with you as your peers would. You guys talk about stuff that's been stressing you or your problems, just like you would with your peers. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Warning sign #2: That form of emotional connection isn't normal with an adult/minor relationship. I have minors that follow me. They have talked to me about their problems, and I've offered advice and wisdom; I don't condemn that because, well. As adults, we should help guide the younger if asked. But when it comes to my troubles, I limit how much I discuss with them. I don't bring them up myself (it's often brought up by the other party because I'll post about it on here, like a vent post or whatever). And while I don't brush them off with a short "don't worry about it", I make it clear -- I appreciate that you care enough to make sure I'm okay (because their sympathy / care is just as valuable as an adult's), but even if I'm not okay, the burdens and problems surrounding my troubles will be dealt with by me. I don't ask them for advice. I don't goad them for sympathetic words. And it's not that I believe they couldn't give good advice, or their sympathy means less, but an adult should not be relying on a minor for those levels of emotional labor. That established emotional connection where both parties exchange advice and comfort is how predators manipulate their victims because it's subtle and seemingly harmless, and difficult to paint them as a bad person when you have that level of emotional trust.

And once that emotional connection is established, that's when things can escalate, and get scary, quickly.

One day while talking they will probably bring it up -- the way one of your peers would. Something along the lines of "hey can I tell you something?" or "there's something I want to tell you but I'm afraid you won't want to talk to me anymore if I do" etc. etc.; with that peer/peer dynamic, that'll make you anxious, sure. You'd probably get anxious if they were your own age and said that too. So then, it comes out in some form that "I like you, but like... as more than a friend" or "I think you're really cute; I have for a bit now actually" or something similar. Obviously then it's uncomfortable.

But then you realize -- this is an adult. This is someone who has access to transportation. This is someone that doesn't have to report to someone (i.e. a minor can't just say "I'm going out of town for a week bye!" like your parents would, or SHOULD, be like "uh okay where are you going, who are you going to be with, why, etc. etc. etc."). And they know your full name and a general idea of where you live. You could just block them then and there and remove that information from your blog. But what if they already saved it? What if they already used one of those websites where you can look up a person's address by name for $5? What if they already know where you live, and they had planned on asking to meet up? They might know where you live. And you can't confirm or deny that they know. You can't say for sure if you removed that information before they saved it and used it for that purpose. Suddenly, there's the very real possibility that a pedophile that admitted to being attracted to you knows where you live.

Then what do you do? You should tell your parents or a trusted authority figure. But you're also a teenager and there's the likelihood that your parents might brush it off, or get angry with you, and you might get your internet taken away, etc., which is stressful because that takes away a major social area. To build upon the anxiety with that, there's the risk of unknowing if this person does know where you live, and if they do, if they are just unstable enough to do something drastic, like, y'know. Kidnap you. Because they know where you live. And they may know your school schedule too. And if your parents or trusted authority figure doesn't know about this situation, you may end up a missing child never found at worst, or found with far more trauma (5 years of life being kidnapped as opposed to a few months) that could've been avoided had someone known the situation.

But to 100% ensure your safety, it would have to be reported to the police. Because your parents can't do anything about the fact that a pedophile on the internet might know where you live. They can't confirm or deny that they know, and if they did, there's not much they can do other than keep an eye out for someone that looks out of the ordinary. But if they're most likely not home at the same time you are all the time. So, having the police involved ensures your safety -- if you open a case. You can report it to the police, and they'll ask: do you want to press charges (because it could be considered a form of child endangerment). If you say no, then that guarantees if you are kidnapped, that person would be the first they'd look to as a suspect. But to avoid that kidnapping risk at all, you'd have to say yes. And you're a kid that's now having to get involved in court just to avoid any risk to your safety because a pedophile may or may not have your address and may or may not be someone that would abduct their target, and so even if they didn't have your address and wouldn't kidnap you, you are now in a legal situation, which is. extremely. stressful. As someone's who's dealt with the court system a lot it's stressful no matter what.

And sure, you could omit the last step. But then you'll have that looming anxiety for as long as you're a minor that there is a possibility this person may show up at your house at some point. And that anxiety is fucking torture. I know it firsthand, I know all of this up to the legal portion firsthand, because this is exactly how I got tangled up with a pedophile in high school. That anxiety can make you paranoid. It impacts your sleep, which impacts your emotional tolerance and your concentration. It looms and there's nothing you can do to get rid of it other than convince yourself "they probably don't have my address; they probably won't find me". And that logic becomes sounder as time passes. But it requires time to pass, and in the meantime, you sit in constant suffering suspense.

It's just not fucking worth it, okay? You might think "this would never happen to me" but like. I was the fat emo weirdo in high school, literally considered attractive by no one and told so by peers and I still had it happen to me. So don't think "I'm not appealing enough" or whatever. Put self-esteem issues aside here, because to them, you're underage and at a power dynamic disadvantage not just physically, but most likely emotionally too. They care that you're a certain (under)age and can be manipulated into sexual acts. They will target you no matter how ugly you think you are or how unattractive your peers have convinced you.

So please. As an adult, that went through this situation (and could've had it turn out a lot worse tbh) -- do not disclose your real name (especially last names), location more specific than country, phone number, or school publicly online or to anyone you cannot 100% trust. I practice half of these in adulthood just to err on the side of caution since a full name and phone number alone could be used to find my address, and there are some preeeeetty unstable people out there. As a minor, absolutely no one needs any information unless you plan on meeting them in person, which should only be done after you've gotten to know them extremely well and both parties' parents know and are involved. It doesn't need to be on your public profile, and it shouldn't be on your public profile. I want your social media experience to be as enjoyable as possible, I don't want you feeling like you have to constantly keep an eye out for predators. But to keep yourself as safe as possible, don't purposefully make that information public. It's simple, but it’ll help you avoid so much potential stress.

Please stay safe.

#safety #internet safety #minor safety

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class1akids · 3 years

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I really don’t understand why people say Shouto keeps blaming himself for the abuse. I didn’t read his lines at all like that.

When he talks about losing sight of his origin, he’s talking about the public perception and why there may be among the civilians people concerned about him.

And if we go back to his “he is me” moment - it is the Sport Festival. Shouto compares his own behaviour there, the fact that he didn’t care at all how he hurt people, because he was fixated on his own goal of spiting Endeavor.

Now it can be of course debated that Shouto’s version of “rage” was kiddy-stuff compared to the rampage Touya went on, but nevertheless it made Shouto feel a kinship, and considering it was a public event, he probably thinks that other may see too the parallels that he himself sees.

A lot of Shouto’s arc was about showing how being an abuse victim does not give anyone a free pass to be an asshole. His Earlyroki days kept coming back to bite him in the ass, whether in the form of not having the mastery over his fire that he should, or failing his provisional licensing exam over how he treated people in the past. And that’s not to say that being a victim is his fault. It’s to show that his rage fuelled actions still have consequences, because being hurt is never a justification for hurting others.

Saying that none of it was his fault or that it was all fine would also invalidate Shouto’s tremendous growth and the effort he put into healing and changing.

And it’s also not true that his classmates are not responding to him. Maybe up until now they were mostly giving him space, instead of nosy questions, but they were the ones there with him as soon as he woke up in the hospital, even before his blood family got there, trying to comfort him, despite themselves being traumatized too.

They were the ones showing him little signs of support...

and not once blaming him for his father, who dragged all heroes down with himself into the mud, or his brother who literally attacked them... Both Jirou and Kirishima are responding to Shouto with support, and they both faced Dabi’s flames - Jirou even carrying a scar from it. Not to mention the attack on the training camp.

I’m not saying the Shouto-side of the aftermath was well-written. In fact, other than Deku, everyone’s aftermath was kind of skipped over.

But this is the chapter where it starts to feel like that maybe, just maybe we will see some of it. Maybe we will see a bit of that public reaction Shouto is worried about, and from the glimpses we have been shown, his classmates not only believe Shouto can overcome that, but are willing to back him up and try to rebuild the trust all together.

The fact that they haven’t tried to comfort Shouto about the past child abuse is the same how they are treating Deku’s past as a bullying victim. They are not bringing it up actively, they are not offering pity - they are trying to act normal, but available to listen.

So I’m hoping that the focus will shift a little now to the rest of the kids, and we will get to see that the support and concern they had for Deku wasn’t just for Deku, but it’s something they extend to each of their classmates.

I get a tremendous feeling of “we are in this together” from the class every time they appear. And I think they are doing a great job of holding each other up even though they are all hurting, the situation is unfair to all of them. I think they deserve credit for being there for each other - for bringing Deku back, for giving Shouto that safe place where he can weather the shitstorm of his family nightmare, for supporting Bakugou’s atonement and treating him normal after his grand apology, for noticing each other’s distress, like Mina did with Tokoyami.

The fact that they haven’t fallen apart, I’m sure is partly because they had each other to rely on. And yes, I wish we’d seen a little more of it. But from the glimpses we were shown, it is clear that they give each other strength.

#bnha 327 #bnha meta #todoroki shouto #i'm still going on about this #but I feel like people are misreading shouto's words #he's not blaming himself for being an abuse victim #he is blaming himself for the choices he made out of rage #nobody says his rage is not justified #but it still doesn't give him a free pass to hurt others #and this is what shouto has come to realize #and what makes him a hero is that even though he's a victim himself #he still tries to look at the things he can do for others #and let's not forget that in a way the whole class got hurt by the todoroki drama #dabi attacked their summer camp #kidnapped bakugou #attacked them at the mansion #gave scars to tokoyami and jirou #attacked again at the hospital

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