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cas-writes-stuff-ig · 4 months

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Cheering Her Up

f!/nb! reader x regina george (you love to make Regina feel better)

She calls you "duck" (ITS FUNNY/CUTE I PROMISE)

closeted bi Regina, and openly enby/lesbian reader

reader binds their chest with transtape/kt tape

secret relationship

cheering her up

Regina is taller than you

CONTENT: SO SO SO SORRY I KNOW IM WEIRD

Word Count: 1853

(Originally supposed to be a one shot)

kind of alludes to sex but not explicitly

Regina lets you write your own diss in her Burn Book, so Gretchen and Karen don't get suspicious as to why you're not in it. (a bit of transphobia and homophobia, t-slur/d-slur)

Past bullying and some self-deprication

Reader is a weirdo but Regina likes it

Reader likes classic rock and old hits, Regina pretends to despise it

She lashes out at you but its all good in the end :)

Reader likes to sing

Part 2 of Cheering Her Up (A Party)

a/n: this is a huge self-insert for me, I was really vibing to Bob Seger earlier (btw this is the second thing ive written in like 5 years spare me)

ALSO feel free to message or comment any feedback is appreciated 🙏

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Before the sophomore year, you were sure Regina totally despised you. She openly criticized any gay person she came across. Sophomore year, you were seated next to her in math and history, and you felt like you were going to be destroyed.

But when you came over to her house for a project, she asked "You have your first kiss yet?"

It caught you off guard. "Uh, no. Why?" your voice squeaked, although you knew she was a bitch. You were attracted to her.

She got close to your face and smirked, you could feel her breath on yours. "No reason," She grabbed the back of your head and kissed you. You didn't kiss back out of shock and Regina pulled away and went red, she opened her mouth to say something to excuse her actions, but you leaned in and kissed her again. That moment opened a whole new door for both of you.

After that, you and Regina got really close. Outside of the school halls, and in the comfort of Regina's mansion, you were secretly her best friend but also her friend with benefits. She isn't out yet either, she still has too much pride to be seen with a loser, but you don't mind waiting for her.

She was slightly nicer to you than others at school. She was actually pretty kind to you behind closed doors. She cared about you even if she never said it out loud. So about a month after you started hooking up, you were at her house and she handed you her Burn Book which was open to a blank page with only your picture on it. "I don't want Karen and Gretchen to get suspicious as to why you're not in it."

You could deal with the insults and the taunts, it never bothered you that much, so you wrote something that used to bother you 'Y/N L/N is a tranny dyke'.

The thing that did get to you was in 8th grade when you confessed to a girl, and she told everyone in your PE class that you watched girls change in the locker room. Everyone shunned you after that, but you grew thick skin. In freshman year you found your place amongst the loners and the nerds. You were content with it.

"Are you sure you want that in there?" Regina asked, what you wrote about yourself was harsh.

You nodded "Regina, I'm out of the closet already. It's a secret everybody already knows" You closed the book and handed it back to Regina and she tucked it away. "If I walk like a duck, swim like a duck, and quack like a duck, I'm probably a duck" She laughed at your joke, and you corrected yourself smiling "I mean dyke"

"You're so stupid" Regina replied, but it wasn't mean or full of scorn, she just shoved your shoulder. She changed your name to "Duck" in her contacts.

A week later you found out what your contact name was, you laughed at her a little and she got defensive "I'll change it then" and you quickly stopped laughing and took her phone.

"No no, keep it, please Regina it's cute" You yanked her phone out of her hand and tried to keep it away from her. You laughed again and ran around her room holding her phone, but she cornered you, pushing your chest, then your back hit the wall. You were breathless from running and grinned, though her face was stern. "I'm sorry, Gina. Please keep it, it's fine really"

The look on her face made you lose your confidence and you backed down, and handed her phone back, "Thanks loser" She tucked it back in her pocket, and she had a smug smile. "You're lucky I'm in a forgiving mood today" and tilted your chin up and kissed your lips.

After that day, it became one of your inside jokes, and "Duck" became one of your nicknames.

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That summer she invited you over to swim at her pool for the first time. "Hey loser, hurry up" she opened the door and led you to her pool.

You brought your only swim trunks and taped your breasts back to go swimming. She was in a tight bikini and she slipped in the pool, you took your shirt off, and she was staring at your body.

You weren't sporty, but you went to the gym, it's not like you had rock-hard abs, but you were toned and Regina hadn't seen you like that in the sunlight before, you beamed as you basked in the warm sun.

"Hey Duck, get in here" she beckoned you, you seized an opportunity to make a joke.

You bent your knees and flapped your arms a little walking back and forth at the edge of the pool "Quack quack" You giggled out. Regina cracked out a smile that evolved into laughter, her laugh warmed you more than the sunlight.

When you slipped into the pool, she was still laughing at you. "You're such a dumbass"

She splashed water at you when you tried to come and hug her in the pool. "Hey!" you yelped as the water got in your face and you splashed back.

After you just relaxed in the pool, you floated on your back, eyes closed, and sun-kissed skin. You didn't notice how Regina looked at you, but you heard water swish as she walked toward your floating body. You cracked an eye open, the sun was behind her making her look ethereal. Regina's blonde hair glowed, she looked like an angel, not the bitchy Queen Bee at school.

"Hey," you tried opening your eyes but just squinted.

She leaned down and said "Hey" back in her sweet voice and kissed you gently.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The summer pushed you closer together, of course, she had her fair share of parties she went to with the Plastics. You were there at parties too, but you both only shot each other glances. The days she hung out with the Plastics, you missed her company.

You got your license over the summer and when you got the message that she was back home, you hopped in your Mini Cooper and drove to her house and picked her up. Though she usually drove you around in her Jeep.

"Where we heading today?" you asked as she hopped in the car

She ignored your question and her attention was on your music "Earth, Wind & Fire's 'September'? Really?" she criticized your music taste.

She buckled in and you said, "What's wrong with my music taste Regina?"

"God you really are a loser" she insulted, you could tell she was in a mood today. You were a little hurt but tried not to take it personally. "7-11 can you grab me a Diet Coke?" you nodded and started driving.

You skipped to the next song and what played was Bee Gee's "More Than A Woman" You smiled and sang along to it. Hoping Regina would get the hint you were singing it to her.

"Suddenly you're in my life, A part of everything I do. You got me workin' day and night. Just tryin' to keep a hold on you..." Your fingers tapped against the steering wheel and you moved your shoulders to the beat of the song.

She just groaned and pressed her temples, you thought she really hated it but from the corner of your eye, you saw a corner of her lip lift slightly. After seeing that you sang your heart out a little more at a red light you turned to her momentarily "More than a woman. More than a woman to me" and grinned wide.

"Hey! Keep your eyes on the road!" she pushed your head to look back at the road.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

At school when Junior year started, Regina and you acted like you two were nothing, you both devised a facade as to why you interacted at all. It was a half-truth, everyone at school thought Regina paid y/n to do their math homework. But you only did that sometimes, and usually just helped her.

Today when you met at her house she was upset about something. "Regina, what's wrong?" you asked worriedly.

"Nothing, stay out of it" she snapped at you and she stomped up the stairs to her room.

You followed her "Regina come on," she turned on her heel and looked at you angrily and lashed out.

"Why are you even here? You're not dating me, stop acting like it" She yelled at you.

You paused and your heart faltered "Regina..." you said quietly. She turned back around and she slammed her bedroom door. Regina crawled in the sheets and just went to sleep. You didn't follow her in. But you walked downstairs to her kitchen and opened her fridge.

When Regina woke up she smelled some kind of pastry downstairs and light music. She opened her door and crept down the stairs, as she approached the kitchen, she heard your humming.

The next song started to play, your back was turned and you were using her mom's apron and mittens, pulling out a batch of brownies from the oven. When you sang alone, you were cheesier and poured your heart into each song, then you placed the brownies onto a cooling rack on the island counter and pretended to hold a mic.

"Still like that old-time rock and roll. That kind of music just soothes the soul" You closed your eyes and turned around still pretending to hold a microphone "I reminisce about the days of old, with that old-time rock and roll" Regina just smiled stifling laughter.

But when you started playing air guitar, at the part with no lyrics. You heard her giggle and your eyes shot open, face reddening "Regina! You're up!" she just laughed at your incredible dorkiness and walked up to you, this was the highlight of her day.

You brushed off your embarrassment from getting caught when you saw how happy it made her. And you walked closer to her and continued to mouth the song and dance around her. Still wearing her mom's frilly apron. You took her hand and spun her around and she still laughed at your silliness.

You stopped and walked back to the counter where she followed, "Brownies?" you smiled.

"Yeah, sure" She sat down at the table and you cut two pieces out.

When you handed her a plate, she looked up at you and spoke softly "Sorry about earlier..."

You smiled softly and took her hand as you sat next to her "Its okay, don't worry about it" You let go of her hand and then asked, "You feeling better now?"

"Yeah, thanks duck" She leaned towards you and kissed your lips. "You're so fucking corny" Regina pulled away.

You smirked "You secretly love it"

"I do" She responded, you almost choked on your own spit at her admission. She reveled in your panic and took a bite of the brownie you made her.

Only you could make her smile like this, and laugh like this, you knew that, and you had your silent victory.

Part 2 of Cheering Her Up (A Party)

#regina george x reader #fluff #renee rapp #regina george #mean girls #renee rapp x reader

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v-arbellanaris · 2 days

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i feel like some of you are really shooting yourselves in the foot. i get it! trust me, i get it! i, well known dai hater, also have my anxieties abt da4 - and yes, even expectations abt things like where the plot is going to etc - but the teaser is TWO MINUTES LONG and i've been ripping it to shreds to get SOMETHING out of it, but the truth is that it's just not going to be indicative of the full game

the teaser trailers for dao imply that the sacred ashes quest is gonna be the huge memorable quest - and for me, they simply weren't? and how different did the actual game look to the teasers like let's be sooo real. da2 teasers hinged on the qunari invasion which was like... just one of many, many events in da2. and hawke and isabela didnt even look like that. i cant even remember seeing solas in the inquisition trailers?

the teasers aren't even for the plot, is the thing. these teasers are literally companion reveals, of course it's aimed to make the characters look cool and interesting, rather than really foreshadowing anything deep about the storylines - that's for things like tevinter nights, and the comics, and even absolution. it just feels really weird to use the thing they're using to advertise the companions for this game as a metric for the entire game plot and vibes. dao and da2 trailers were SO FUCKING INTENSE and then you get iconic lines like swooping is bad and hawke stepped in the poopy like...............

like da4 is not going to be dao. it's not going to be da2. it's not going to be dai either. all three of these games were tonally totally different from each other, and idk where the expectation is coming from that da4 will be like the other games. especially when the writing direction, as i've talked abt on this blog a few times already, is definitely changing and evolving. whether or not i personally like that direction is irrelevant to the fact it's happening.

i support the haterisms - god knows ive got my issues with it - but sometimes i just think you guys are unnecessarily hostile for weird reasons and i dont get it. "people who hate dragon age the most are people who love it" i dont think you guys like dragon age anymore, is the thing. which is fine, but i'm not obliged to tolerate it, or you. like you can just say: you liked dragon age origins. you liked dragon age 2. you maybe even like dai. and you're not interested in da4. that's fine. because da4 is not those games. i dont really care to hear abt the whinging abt how da's ruined or whatever - da hasn't been the same literally since da2, which was already a tonal shift from dao. da has been changing, and i have opinions abt the changes, but fundamentally, i am - cautiously, warily, anxiously - excited about a new game. new content. new companions. new maps. new knowledge. new narratives to chew on. aren't you?

if you're not, have you considered that you just don't like dragon age anymore? and that's fine? and you can just move on?

and idk why are you acting like a 2 min teaser is gospel for how the entire game is going to anyway? we know practically nothing, and at least try to keep that in mind when you're drawing firm conclusions abt the wholeass game based on the trailers because you literally WILL NOT KNOW. the teaser literally means nothing except: here are your companions. this is what they look like and where they're from. everything else based off the trailers is wild conjecture

#idk you guys are starting to piss me off.#da4 spoilers #davg spoilers #fandom critical

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whatsk-poppinhomies · 11 months

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Pairing : Seo Changbin x F!Reader & Yang Jeongin x F!Reader TW : For Changbins : reader has type 2 diabetes ; ketoacidosis (is that a TW? Well it is now, it seems like it should be a warning) ; vomiting ; hospitals ; Changbin is still just a big sweetheart that cares too much ; IV's ; reader in a coma ; For Jeongins : reader has arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) ; and potentially undiagnosed type 2 diabetes ; Jeongin has no clue so is therefore seemingly insensitive ; reader fainting ; Jeongin ending redemption ; Word Count : For Changbins : 4.6k For Jeongins : 4.1k (in total : 8.7k) Request : @maruskz @slayhyunjin & 4 other anons, the reader doesn't feel well!! A/N : THIS ONE IS FOR YOU ALL!! IT'S THE LAST ONE IN THE LINEUP!! I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT!! Thank you to the person in my comments who let me know I (and google) goofed up. I will try to be as accurate as possible when writing about any type of disease, so please let me know in the comments if I'm wrong.

Changbin

“I'm gonna go to the gym with Chan after work, but I should be back home before dinner time.” Changbin said as he pulled his t-shirt on over his head, smiling at you as you laid in the bed still, your eyes still heavy although he chalked it up to you tossing and turning all night and having to get out of bed every couple hours to use the bathroom. “Do you have enough medicine to get you through the day? I can stop at the pharmacy before I go to the gym and drop it off to you.”

Your head shook in response as you let out a long yawn, sitting up in bed but immediately falling back as your vision momentarily went hazy, which you attributed to sitting up too fast. “I have enough… Thank you Binnie. I gotta work today anyway, so if I need my medicine I can stop by the pharmacy on the way home.” You murmured and he sighed softly, dropping down onto the bed beside you, his hand brushing lightly over your cheeks before leaning in to kiss you.

“You know I don’t like you walking to the store by yourself…” He reminded you, his bottom lip jutting out into a little pout and you playfully swiped your finger over it causing him to chuckle softly. “Plus you said that you weren’t feeling well… you shouldn’t be going to work like that. You can just stay home and rest… You need to rest, babe.” Bin had been your biggest caregiver since he found out you had diabetes, but not only was he the best caregiver, but supported you through it all, changing his diet as much as he could so that you didn’t feel like you were missing out on good meals, texting you every hour on the hour to check how you were feeling and to make sure you were taking your medicine. He was just as good as any doctor, and you felt safe knowing that you had him.

“Bin, I’m fine.” You reassured him, grabbing his hand and locking your fingers with his. “I need to go to work… I called out yesterday. I’m not trying to lose my job.” You explained, sitting up more slowly this time and then immediately resting your head against his shoulder.

“When was the last time you threw up?” He questioned, and you knew that his reasoning for questioning you was valid and it all came from his genuine care for you, it made you feel bad in a way, knowing that he probably spent more time worrying about you than about himself. “I feel like I heard you get sick in the middle of the night…”

“And you did… But that was the last time I got sick.” You said as cheerfully as you could. “It was probably just some 24 hour stomach bug, I’m totally okay. Now go to work before Chan calls me up and yells at me for making you late.” You kissed along his shoulder, giggling softly at the way he’d purposely flex his muscles whenever you did. “I love you Bin…”

“I love you too…” He whispered, tilting your head up so he could kiss you correctly, his lips held against yours just a little bit longer than usual as his eyes closed. You could tell that he was worried, but you were adamant, and he knew the one thing you hated was to be coddled because of your disease… But he couldn’t help it, although he tried his best. “Call me if you need anything… Or if you start feeling sick. I’ll rush home… I love you so much, babe.”

Going to work really was on your agenda for the day, you had even texted your boss to let her know you were coming. Sure, you felt a little tired still, but you attributed that to the fact that you had woken up in the middle of the night to throw up a couple times and it just took a toll on you. You truly thought that you were better, that is, until Changbin was gone and you got up to make yourself breakfast, everything was laid out perfectly on the counter, you were about to start cooking, but, without warning, your body had different ideas and you ended up doubled over the sink, throwing up the lack of contents in your empty stomach.

You couldn’t seem to catch your breath which put you into panic mode which inevitably made you hyperventilate even more. The entire room seemed to go hazy, or maybe it was just your vision, and it sucked that by the time you came to realize what was going on, you were too late.

It was hard enough as it was to try to think, it was like every single thought that you once had in your mind was gone, the only thing you felt or could think about was panicking. Your legs gave out and you fell to the floor, and it was like falling against the hard tile had shaken you enough to have you pulling out your phone and dialing the police. Before it could even finish getting through the first ring though, your vision went blank, your thoughts were gone, everything went black…

“I’m just gonna go home and check on her, she hasn’t answered any of my texts.” Changbin informed Chan as they walked down the hall together. It’s not that it was unlike you to be so busy at work that you were late to respond, it’s just that with the way you were feeling the night before, he just wanted to make sure you were okay. “I’ll meet you at the gym.”

“Nah, I’ll go with you, just in case you need me.” And it’s not that anything in Changbins words had made the oldest feel that way, he just felt like he should be there. “Plus I haven’t seen her in a while, you never bring her into the studio anymore.”

“Well she has her doctor's appointments and then she has to work…” He explained as he climbed into the elevator, holding it open for Chan before pressing the button to go down to the main floor. “I always tell her that she doesn’t have to work… I think she just feels like that’s the one thing in her life that she has control of… I don’t want to take that away from her.”

Chan nodded understandingly, he knew all about your conditions, all of the guys did. Changbin was very upfront about it, letting them all know that there would be days that he wouldn’t make it into work on time so he could go to appointments with you, and there would also be days that he wouldn’t come in at all because you needed him more than the group did. You were always and would always be Changbins top priority, and everyone was well aware of that. They didn’t mind, they saw how happy you made him, and they knew that if anything would ever happen to you, they’d end up losing him anyway.

“I thought she was going to the gym with you on her days off… Did she stop?” Chan posed the question as he pushed through the front doors to the building, holding it open for Changbin and then following him down to the car. “We could have a gym double date or something?”

Changbins nose crinkled at the thought, and then he chuckled lightly, shaking his head. “Y/Ns just been feeling tired lately. I don’t want to push her. We take morning walks together and the doctor said that was enough until her energy comes back. They did switch her medicine recently, so that might be it.” He climbed into the drivers side and waited for Chan to get in before starting up the car. “I hope she packed herself a lunch, she shouldn’t be eating the junk they sell near her work… I should have packed her a lunch before I left.”

“You think too much, too pessimistic…” Chan mused, leaning back in the seat and glancing over at Changbin who seemed too lost in his thoughts right now. “You do a lot for her, not because you have to, but because you want to, because you love her… There’s not a lot of men who wouldn’t do that…”

“Well those men are assholes.” Changbin stated matter-of-factly, stopping at the red light that would have him turning down the street to home. “She deserves all the love in the world, maybe more… I wish I could give her every ounce of my love… I’d give her my entire heart…”

Chan pursed his lips, nodding along to what he was saying as he watched the familiar houses scroll past the window until he pulled into the driveway. “When does she usually go to work? She might already be there…” Chan mused when he saw that there was a package on the front step.

“Maybe they called her in early?” Changbin mumbled as he climbed out of the car, running up to the front porch and picking up the box before letting himself in. It wasn’t rare, in actuality it was quite annoyingly frequent that you were called in at a moments notice, usually going into work with an empty stomach, leaving Changbin to panic the entire time you were gone. “I hate when they do that to her…”

“It looks like she was in the middle of cooking something… or about to cook something at least.” Chan commented as he followed Changbin into the house, noticing the ingredients that were scattered around the counter, the sink not exactly running, but it was still dripping. “Looks like she left in a hurry.”

Changbin groaned loudly, pulling out the trash bin and dumping everything that littered the counter into it before slamming his hand down against the sink faucet to stop the incessant dripping. “I don’t care how much of a hurry she’s in… She shouldn’t leave the house like this.” He grumbled, looking around at the knives and the cutting board that were partially used. “It’s that damn job… She’s so scared of losing it… And they know that. They hold it above her head… And she won’t listen to me… It’s ridiculous. But to leave the kitchen looking like this!” His hands flew up in the air in disbelief before coming back down, slapping against the counter top. “You know what… I’m going to her work. I need to talk to someone… They’re completely taking advantage of her.”

Chan awkwardly chewed on his bottom lip, partially regretting coming along for the little journey that Changbin was now taking him on, but he hoped that being there himself would at least help him to be level headed enough to be as calm as possible. “Just… Don’t make a scene… And don’t try to jump across the counter, okay? We can talk about things like adults… Can’t we?”

Changbin rolled his eyes, not even answering the question as he walked out the door and climbed back in the car. The kitchen was disgusting, but he could never actually be mad at you, not at all… You were too innocent, and you’d never think that your work was doing exactly what Changbin knew they were doing. That’s why he wanted to talk to them specifically, whoever had called you in… “Oh I’m gonna talk about things… It’s up to them whether we keep things cordial though. Taking advantage of my girl like that? Not gonna happen! Not anymore!”

Chan knew that Changbin was an excellent driver, he was safe, he followed all the traffic rules, he’d drive with him whenever he felt he needed to… But not today. Changbin was pissed, and a driving, pissed off Changbin threw all of his cares to the wind. Traffic rules did not exist, and the other drivers abided by whatever rules Changbin came up with on the spot. “You know, if you get pulled over… You won’t be able to talk to anyone except the police.” Chan tried to remind her, but Changbin wasn’t listening to anything but the sound of the engine revving as he whipped around a couple other cars before pulling-very badly-into a parking spot right in front of your work. “There are going to be so many cops around your car when you get out of the store, oh my god.”

“As long as I get to finish with this conversation before they pull me out of the store, then fine.” Changbin said as he climbed out, his muscles tensed, the irritation just radiating around him. Chan was hesitant, but he knew that following him into the store would be the best course of action, so he did, but he did stay a little further behind, watching from a distance as Changbin walked up to the counter. “Alright… Where is she!? I know she had to work today and to be honest, she might say it, but I’m getting real fucking sick and tired of you taking advantage of her niceness and her willingness to work.”

The man at the counter was visibly confused as he looked around himself and then back at Changbin. “Uhm… dude… I don’t know what… Or who you’re talking about…” He mumbled, peering around Changbin to see the person waiting behind him. “But if you’re not buying anything… Can you get out of the line?”

Changbin turned around, smiling kindly to the stranger behind him, but the smile fell just as quickly when he turned back around to face the man at the register. “I know you called Y/N in today! Where is she, huh? You got her doing some backroom stocking shit right now?! You know she can’t do that! She didn’t even get to finish making her meal because you guys always call her in! It’s bullshit! Why have a damn schedule if you’re just gonna text her and tell her you need her earlier?”

“What are you talking about?” The man, now having harvested a little bit of sass to stand up to Changbin, who was still much bigger than the guy. “Y/N isn’t even here right now. She totally flaked on her hours, and the manager has been trying to get a hold of her but she hasn’t answered. How about you try calling her instead of coming in here and causing a scene and scaring away our customers.” The guy impatiently tapped his fingers against the counter before motioning with his head for Changbin to move. “Can you go now?”

If you weren’t at work… And you weren’t at home… Where the hell were you? His anger dissipated and quickly turned to worry. Your medicine was running out, but you had told him that you had enough to get you through the day. You were feeling sick the night before, but you claimed it was just a stomach bug and that you were feeling fine now. It’s not like you would leave him… He never gave you any reason to do something like that… Right?

“Maybe you should call the neighbors… See if they know anything?” Chan suggested as he and Changbin sat in the car, still parked in front of the store, and shockingly enough, there wasn’t a single officer in sight to get on Changbin about his reckless driving. That was a good thing though, clearly Changbin wasn’t in the mood or in the right state of mind to handle that kind of interaction. “Or maybe the police station or the hospital… See if any calls came in from your address?”

Changbin nodded, the movement kind of stiff as he pulled out his phone. He didn’t know where to start, but he also didn’t know the neighbors number, not by heart, and most of them had work today and they weren’t home. He didn’t want to have to call the hospital because that was the last place he wanted you to be, but it was the only option he had, the only line he had to hold on to right now.

The call was short, and for the first time the entire day, Changbin had been almost completely silent, only giving out the address and then a series of mumbled out acknowledgements were heard before the silence that followed once the call was ended. It was a scary silence though, one that held far too much emotion, and although Changbin hadn’t said anything, Chan could feel it. “So… What did they-”

There wasn’t a chance to finish as Changbins fists came down on the steering wheel, punching against it repeatedly as tears began to trickle down his cheeks, his screams cut off by his sobs. Chan didn’t know what to do, but he felt like he should try to stop him, mainly because the steering wheel looked like it would break off and neither of them needed that to happen. “Don’t touch me! Don’t!” Changbin shouted when Chan tried to grab his arms, but it had stopped his assault on the wheel momentarily, his head falling forward as his body shook.

“Changbin…” Chan said breathlessly, falling back against the seat and staring up at the roof of the car. “I don’t know what the hell is going on… But you can’t just beat up the car. If you want me to take you to the hospital, I will, because based on your reaction I’m just feeling like that’s where she is. Or I can take you home. Either way, you’re not driving, not like this. You’ll get in an accident and nobody wants that.”

He sniffled softly, nodding his head as he lifted it from the wheel, opening the door slowly and climbing out, walking around to the passenger side of the car. “They said… She was there…” He muttered, watching Chan climb over to the drivers side and then quickly getting in and putting on his seatbelt. “They said that she…. She can’t talk right now…” His head shook and his shakily sniffled, his entire body trembling as he practically gasped for air. “I knew there was something wrong… She wasn’t feeling good and… And I was worried but I didn’t do anything. I didn’t stay with her… I should have taken her to the hospital… I didn’t… I failed her…”

Chan knew that the guilt would be there, but it didn’t make it any less heartbreaking to see his friend, his brother like this. He didn’t even know what to do, because he knew that if the shoe was on the other foot, he’d be feeling the same way. “You didn’t fail her… You believed her because she said that she was okay… That’s not your fault. Plus, you said it yourself, she likes feeling like she has some sort of control over her life… Maybe she thought she’d be able to get better herself…”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I left… She’s supposed to trust me and… how can she trust me now… when I left her… Like that…” He was stumbling over his words as his tears continued to fall down his cheeks, his hands quickly swiping across his face to wipe them away. “She was… She was in the middle of making her lunch… She didn’t even get to eat…”

There was nothing that Chan could say to get Changbin out of his own head, so he just listened, completely understanding where he was coming from, but he wished that Changbin would understand that it wasn’t his fault. “She’s sick Changbin… These things happen… You’ve done a lot of research on it, you know these things can happen. But you can’t protect her all the time… You just can’t.”

Changbin was silent for a moment, his thumb coming up to his mouth as he chewed on his nail. “I want to… I want to protect her… I researched things and… And I knew that things like this could happen and I still left her. I knew the symptoms that were bad… and she had all of them… Why did I leave?” He was breathing heavily, it almost sounded like he was about to throw up himself. “If I was there..-“

“It still would have happened because she was sick, Changbin…” Chan said sternly, trying to snap Changbin out of this self deprecating spiral he was in. “You can’t be with her every second of every day, and I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to be like that anyway. This would have happened whether you were home with her or not. Beating yourself over it won’t change things.”

The hospital towered over the car, shadowing him and Chan when they stepped out, like a giant dark cloud and Changbin hated it. He hated hospitals anyway, and the only reason he was going in was because you were in there. “You don’t have to follow me in…” He mumbled when Chan climbed out of the car as well. “She wouldn’t want to be crowded.”

“I’ll wait in the waiting room, I’ll wait for you. You can’t stay here all night and someone needs to drive you home.” Chan said and Changbin just nodded, he didn’t have the energy to go against what he said. “Do you need me to go up to the front desk and ask f-“

“I’m not an infant.” Changbin snapped before taking a deep breath and running his hands over his face. “Sorry… I just… I’m scared, hyung. I can do it though… thank you.” Chan pursed his lips as he patted Changbins back, holding the door open for him and then following behind.

It was hard to ask the lady at the front desk about you, mainly because it made it more real that you were truly there. His voice cracked and his vision became blurry as he started to cry again just from simply asking what room you were in.

“The treatment is going well, sir. It’s-”

“Is it?” Changbin cut the doctor off as he stood at the end of your bed, the IV’s poking out of your arm looked painful, and the tubes that were in your nose and your mouth to help you breathe surely weren’t reassuring. “Is it really going well, because if it were, she’d be awake right now. She’d be happy to see me… But she’s sleeping… She’s still sleeping… So tell me how this is supposed to show me that the treatment is going well.”

His fingers were wrapped tightly around the footboard of the bed, and his head slowly turned to look at the doctor who was, rightfully, quite scared of Changbin. His temperament was nothing short of seemingly hostile, and it seemed like anything could make him snap in an instant. “Sir… We truly are trying to get her to rise as soon as possible, and I assure you, she will be okay… She will wake up… But this rest, it’s, in a sense… It’s kind of helpful… Her body has surely been through a lot.” The word helpful in this setting was definitely not something that Changbin wanted to hear, and his teeth gritted together as he narrowed his eyes at the doctor. “Wh-What I meant to say is… She was sick… For a while. Maybe she knew, maybe she didn’t, we’re unsure… But her body just wasn’t able to produce enough insulin and… Well I’m sure that you know what ketoacidosis is-”

“Yes I know what that is.” Changbin snapped, his breaths becoming more harsh as he glared at the doctor. “I’ve done everything to protect her… To make sure she’s healthy and well… So why did this happen?!” He knew that shouting at the doctor wouldn’t give him the answers that he wanted so badly, but he needed to get it all out, he needed to let go of the anger that he was holding in towards himself, and sadly for the doctor, he was the only one in the room right now.

“We all want to protect the people that we love, and I tell you, it is crystal clear that you love her… But you can’t always protect them, you can’t always protect her, and you can’t protect her from herself. She’s got a disease, and with this disease comes moments like this… And that’s just something that you either get used to… Or-”

“I’m not leaving her.” Her hissed, finally turning back to look at you. “You hear that, babe. I’m not leaving you… You’re stuck with me. I’m gonna sit right here beside you until your beautiful eyes open and you look up at me and I can tell you how much I love you…”

“Well…” The doctor whispered sheepishly, his hands clapping together as he looked nervously as Changbin, slowly backing away in the process. “There are visiting hours and… Everyone kind of has to abide by those hours. You won’t really be able to stay in here… Or sit beside her… As sweet as the sentiment is…”

Changbin chuckled, although there was nothing funny about what was going on, and the sound was more snarky than anything as he grabbed the chair from the corner of the room and sat it down next to your bed, dropping down into it and crossing his arms over his chest. “I said I’m not leaving… And you can try to drag me out of here, but I’ll come back. I’ll always come back because I’m not leaving her here with you guys all by herself. So you can either cause a bigger problem… Or you can just let me sit here.”

The doctor relented, shaking his head as he walked out of the room. Changbin wasn’t sure whether he should prepare himself for security to come in and try to get him out, or maybe the doctor was just letting the other doctors and the nurses know about the way that he was. Whatever the reason, no one had come in the room for the past five minutes, and he felt like he was in the clear, so he let himself finally look at you, really look at you.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling bad?” He murmured, grabbing your hand and holding it tightly, wishing for the feeling of your fingers slipping between his own, but there was no movement, there was nothing. Your hands felt so cold in his and he quickly placed a kiss to the back of it before sliding it underneath the blanket to try to keep you warm. “I think I made you lose your job… But it’s okay… I’ll take care of us, I promise I will… I can even find you a job in the office if you really want to work… I just want you close to me.” Your heart rate started to climb the more he spoke, and that in itself had a solemn smile gracing his saddened features. “You hear me… I know you do. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere. I love you… And I’d do anything to hear you say it back right now… I just need you to wake up.” His sniffles were loud as his head fell forward against the bed, his entire body shaking and his fingers gripping onto the blankets. He had never felt so helpless when it came to you, but the doctor was right… He couldn’t protect you from yourself… That didn’t mean that he wouldn’t try though. In fact, he’d try harder now… He needed you to wake up though… That’s all he needed.

Jeongin

Jeongin didn’t exactly live with you, although the guys often joked that he might as well considering he was over your house more than anything else. It’s not even that he didn’t want to live with you, to be completely honest, he just liked the way you sounded in the morning when he rolled out of bed, the way you’d so cutely ask him if he was coming back over when he got off work. Of course he was, there was nowhere else he’d rather fall asleep than beside you, but he loved teasing you, and you’d pout up at him making it almost impossible to resist kissing your perfect lips.

From a technical standpoint, he had been living with you for three months now… and Jeongin was not only an amazing person to live with, but he was also an amazing boyfriend. Not for the typical reasons though, actually, it was quite the opposite. Your condition wasn’t too bad, it definitely wasn’t the best medical ailment to have, but… When life gives you lemons… You make what you can with those lemons.

In the duration of your relationship, you had become somewhat of a master at both treating your condition and hiding it from Jeongin. Now, you may be asking… Why hide it from him? And, the reason was quite simple. You loved him, and the last thing you needed him to do was worry about you when he had so much to worry about himself. He was a jokester, he was a smartass, but he had a heart twice the size of the moon it seemed sometimes, and if he knew that there was something wrong with you he’d worry too much.

It also made it easier to relax, to be able to somewhat make light of the situation, which of course shouldn’t be made light of, but sometimes you just got tired of the seriousness from the doctors and your family, you got tired of being constantly told to watch for your blood pressure, to listen to your heartbeat, to take your medicines. You just wanted to be able to joke around sometimes.

“Damn sweetcheeks!” Jeongin teased as he laid his head on your chest, your fingers brushing lightly through his hair as you both watched tv. “I really do make your heart go boom boom crazy.” And you couldn’t help but snort loudly at the comment because, while he wasn’t exactly wrong, your heart already beat like crazy, he just made it even crazier. “It’s cause I’m cute, isn’t it?”

You rolled your eyes at him, teasingly pushing him away. “Oh yeah, you’re totally cute.” You said mockingly, watching his eyes go wide at the very obvious sarcasm. “You’re the cutest, Innie. You already know that though.” You leaned in to press a kiss to his forehead before sitting up and taking a deep breath, winded just from goofing up.

“Ooh, looks like I take your breath away too. Even after two whole years, I’ve got the same effect on you.” He sat up, kissing your forehead before getting up off the couch. “As much as I’d love to stay here with you for the rest of the morning, I have to go to work.” He pouted, as if you would somehow be able to bribe Chan into letting Jeongin stay home. “I guess I’ll just… walk out the door now… be gone for almost ten hours… that’s how long you won’t see me…”

He was always so dramatic, sometimes it seemed like Hyunjin had really rubbed off on him, not that you minded though. At the beginning of the relationship he had been so shy, it was like he avoided your touch and your affection, but now he was as clingy as you thought you were in the beginning. “The door will be unlocked when you get off, pooh bear.” You reassured him and he pouted even more now, causing you to, foolishly, jump off the couch, your head spinning and your vision going partially blank as your balance wobbled.

“Woah… you good there, sweets?” He asked, his usually cheerful voice masked with his worry as he placed his hands on your shoulders to hold you steady. “You coulda just told me to come over to give you the hug. Try not to get up so fast.” His hands slid down to your hips and he pulled you closer, leaning in to kiss you softly. “I’ll let you know when I get off and if you need anything from the store I’ll get it on my way back… I mean… If you want me to come over.”

“Oh shush…” You pressed your finger against his lips with a smile, still breathing quite heavily as you leaned your head against his chest, your hands falling to your side. “You can come over whenever because it’s your house too… It’s our house.” You kissed his chest and then backed up, falling back onto the couch. “Don’t work too hard… I’ll miss you.”

His lips drew into a thin line as he looked you over, trying not to think so hard about the way your head fell back against the couch and your eyes closed, your chest rising and falling heavily. If there was something wrong, you’d surely tell him… Of course you would. He was your boyfriend, you could tell him anything, he wanted you to tell him everything. “I’ll miss you too… I’ll be home in a couple hours… Love you.”

You hummed in response, listening for the door to shut before getting up and sprinting to your room, which in itself was a bad idea, falling to the floor and pulling out the shoebox full of medicine out from under the bed and taking one of the pills, laying your head against the edge of the bed as you tried to relax. You weren’t sure how much longer you could hide this from him, and you could see that he was already picking up on something being wrong, he just wasn’t questioning it verbally. It was just a matter of time now.

“Y/N’s been acting really weird lately…” Jeongin mused as he and the guys took a small break during practice, leaning against the wall and taking a sip of his drink, his mind reeling with far too many things right now. “I don’t know, maybe I’m just overthinking things… I do that sometimes…” He basically talked to himself now even though the rest of the guys were listening.

“Depends on what kind of weird it is.” Minho posed, and whether it was done on purpose or simply to try to help Jeongin get to the bottom of the way that he was feeling, it wasn’t helping at all. “Is it like a sneaky weird, like… Like does she have a secret side boyfriend? Is she gonna break up with you?” The questions were both terrifying and gut wrenching at the same time, Jeongins eyes widened at the possibility, but you would never do something like that… Not without talking to him first.

“N-No… It’s… It’s like a sick… Like she’s sick or something.” He quickly explained what had happened this morning, the way that you acted. He was worried sick, but he felt like if it truly was nothing then you’d think he was silly for being so scared. Then again, it came along with being your boyfriend… He was supposed to worry about you, right? That’s the way it seemed when he watched the other guys with their partners.

Minho hummed, nodding his head as he snorted softly, placing a gentle hand on Jeongins shoulder to try to calm the obviously worried boy. “She’s on her period. That’s what’s going on… And I promise you… She’ll be totally fine. She’ll just bleed for a couple days, she’ll probably cramp up so bring her lots of her favorite snacks and heating pads to help her… But other than that… There’s not really much that you can do. Best of luck.”

Your period, of course! Why hadn’t he thought of that?! He had been with you for a quite a while now, and he knew that your body wasn’t the kindest to you when it was that time of the month. “Right… Maybe I can get her some… Some ibuprofen or something too… To help with the cramps… Shouldn’t I?” He asked, looking to all of his hyungs for answers to this current situation that none of them knew about, but they had partners that suffered the same monthly fate that you did, so they at least knew enough.

“That’s good… That’s a good idea. Look at you! So smart.” Jisung ruffled Jeongins hair as he walked by, earning himself a grimace from Jeongin who took the comment as sarcasm, but he felt like he was a good boyfriend… A really good boyfriend for thinking of the medicine. He didn’t like seeing you in pain, and while he was rarely ever around for your times of the month because of work… He remembered the one time he came home when you were having really bad cramps and it broke his heart to see you hurting so badly.

“I’m the best boyfriend here. I’m gonna go home and take care of my girl.” Jeongin boasted quite proudly, and no one in the room disagreed. They were proud of him, they were happy for him. He had finally found someone to share his life with, he had grown and matured so much in the process too… They couldn’t feel anything but pride for having him as their little brother.

You laid across the couch, trying your best to relax, but it didn’t seem to be working, not the way it usually would. The last time you had felt this bad was so long ago, it had been your parents who had rushed you to the hospital, your feet not even touching the floor of the car yet as your mom sat in the backseat with you to try to help you breathe through it. The medicine was supposed to keep this from happening, or at least from happening as bad as it was right now. For the longest time it had helped, maybe you had just waited too long before taking it today.

“I’m home, sweets!” Jeongin announced as he walked through the front door, the sudden entrance startling you and saving you from slipping into unconsciousness yet again. “I know you’ve been feeling bad lately… So I got you some stuff.” He held the bags with a wide smile, and you didn’t know how he found out, but somehow he did. At least he wasn’t mad or upset with you for hiding it for so long.

“What’s in the bags, Innie?” You quizzed when he set them down on the floor next to the couch and then walked into the kitchen. “It looks like a lot.” It was about four bags, but they all seemed to be stuffed with a bunch of different things.

“Yah! Don’t go looking through the bags yet! I want to sit with you and watch your face when you see everything I got!” He called out, and you felt so warm, and your heart that was already beating erratically, fluttered even more. He had found out about your condition, and instead of coming straight home and trying to talk to you about it, he had gone and gotten you treats… He was the sweetest, kindest- “Damn, you really have been on that couch all day.”

Your soft thoughts practically record scratched at his words, and usually you’d be able to hear the teasing tone or the sarcasticness in his voice when he said something like that… But not this time. “What are you talking about? I have gotten up off the couch…” You defended yourself, because you really have been up on your feet, it just wasn’t the best thing for you to do right now so you were trying to keep yourself safe, that’s what your doctor had advised you to do when you felt this way.

The sink started running and you could hear the trash can lid being opened, slapping against the counter before being closed again. “Well not to do anything productive.” He countered, and you swore it was like a complete 180 with him. How could he just come home and seem so understanding and then get like this in a matter of seconds? “You left everything from breakfast all over the counters… Do you even know how long it’s been since I made you breakfast? That’s slob behavior!” He was clearly annoyed, and every time something was slammed down or thrown into the sink to be washed, your heart would skip a couple more beats and your chest would tighten up even more. “I know you’ve got your period and all… But damn, you couldn’t even clean off the counter or run some water over the plates? That’s just lazy.”

Period? You didn’t have your period… But now it was making sense. He thought he knew what was going on… He thought it was your period… That’s why he had bought so many things to try to make you feel better. He must have noticed you acting strange this morning and tried his best to figure it out, and obviously he wasn’t going to jump immediately to what your real condition was, there was no reason for him to even think that’s what was wrong. “I don’t have my period…” You retorted breathlessly, two fingers pressing against your neck as your eyes closed to focus on the rather quick, maybe far too quick, beating of your heart. “You don’t… You don’t know what’s wrong…”

“Oh clearly I do! You don’t have your period, there’s nothing actually keeping you from being even slightly clean. You’re just lazy.” He said as he turned off the sink in the kitchen and walked past you behind the couch. “I should have just stayed at the dorms tonight, at least they know how to clean up after themselves.”

You didn’t know where this was coming from, why he was being like this, but you were quickly moving on from being upset, to thoroughly pissed, and neither of those were good for your blood pressure right now. “Yeah… You should have… Because you’re not really helping me out here at all. You don’t fucking listen!”

Jeongin laughed sarcastically as he rolled his eyes. “I don’t help!? I just cleaned the whole fucking kitchen because you didn’t, but I’m not helping you out. Okay. Yeah… Yeah okay, we’ll go with that.” He scoffed loudly, shaking his head as he went to the front door. “You know what, next time you want to lay around on the couch all day, at least have the common decency to clean up a bit so I don’t have to do it when I get home from work.”

God, he was absolutely infuriating. This was a side of him that you had never seen before, and while he didn’t know what was wrong, it didn’t give him any right to talk to you like that. “Just get out… Get the fuck out!” You gasped out the demand, going light headed from the stress of it all.

“Gladly!” He shouted, throwing up his arms before yanking open the door and walking out. He always had to have the last word, and that in itself was the final straw, the breaking point for you. It was an awful idea, but your anger momentarily fueled you, pushing yourself up off the couch and grabbing one of the bags off the floor, beaming it at the door that he had just walked out of.

Sure, he had walked out, but he wasn’t actually planning on leaving. After a couple minutes he planned on going back in and shamefully apologizing for what he said. He was leaning against the front door when he heard the loud bang against it and a bunch of items falling to the floor, and he knew without a doubt that it had been one of the bags, it was the closest thing to you right now. What he didn’t know though, was the sound that followed after. A loud thud and glass shattering, and he knew for a fact that it came from inside the apartment, and he couldn’t seem to get inside fast enough.

From the sound of it, it just seemed like you had tripped over the coffee table and maybe knocked over one of the glasses that were sitting on it. Upon further inspection and actually seeing it, he could tell that it was way worse. The coffee table, which was glass as well, was now shattered completely underneath you, which in itself was scary considering how dangerous it was, but the scariest part was the fact that you weren’t moving, you weren’t making any sounds at all.

“Y/N!” He rushed over to your side, the sound of glass crunching beneath his feet as he got closer was stomach turning, knowing that a majority of it was beneath you. “Hey… Hey come on… Get up now… This isn’t funny…” He rushed out the words as he kneeled down beside you, hoping that you’d open your eyes and laugh at how worried he is right now and it would be the perfect get back for what he had just done… Although there was no way that you would have been able to plan for this to happen… No… Something was actually wrong. “Fuck… Come on, sweets… Y-You know I love you… S-So much… You’re scaring me real bad right now…” He rambled, his hands shaking as he tried to move you off the pile of glass, feeling the slight warmth against your back when he got his hands under you.

“Sh-Shoe… Box…” Your voice was weak as you wheezed out the word that only had him more dumbfounded. The hell did a shoebox have to do with it? Did you trip over one of his shoe boxes? “Under… Th-The bed…” You continued, your eyes opening momentarily, only for them to roll to the back of your head, your neck going limp once more as your breaths became even faster as more labored. The bedroom was so far away, and that meant that he’d have to leave you alone to get it… And even if it was just for a moment, he didn’t want to leave you like this.

“Shit… What… What do I do?” He whimpered, looking between your body that lay in his arms and the bedroom door that was cracked open. “I’ll… I’ll be right back… I’ll get it… I will…” He whispered, and he carefully laid you back down on the floor, feeling bad enough as it is, but leaving you there only made him feel worse. He didn’t even know that there was a shoebox under the bed, he had never seen it, and part of him thought that you were just hallucinating… But he still ran to the room, basically diving onto the floor and reaching underneath. Lo and behold, there was a box, one that he had never seen before, and when he opened it up, he saw a vast assortment of medications, a blood pressure cuff, a stethoscope, and the phone number for your doctor. “What… What the fuck?”

It wasn’t the right time for questioning things, not yet, and he ran back out into the living room with the box, lowering himself to the floor beside you. Your eyes were beginning to flutter once again beneath your lids, and then they slowly opened, looking up at him in a sort of daze. “Shoe… Box… Under the-”

“Under the bed… I got it…” He finished your sentence, pulling out the multiple bottles of medication and holding them up. “Wh-What do you need? Which… Which one?” Your hand was shaking and you could barely lift your arm up to point at the bottle, but he moved them closer and your pointer finger slid across one of them, and he hoped to god that you were paying attention, that you knew what you had picked because he didn’t know a damn thing about any of them.

His own hands were shaking as he popped off the lid of the bottle and poured one of the pills into the palm of his hand, grabbing one of the bottles of soda from out of the bag that was still on the floor and then gently lifted your head up. Your lips parted just enough for him to slip the pill into your mouth, and he ever so carefully brought the bottle of soda to your lips, tilting it so you’d get just enough to swallow the medicine without any trouble.

How long would it take to work though? Had he given you the right one? His nerves were absolutely shot right now, his mind was in a frenzy, and it felt like it took forever for you to finally seem stable enough to actually talk. “The cuff… Pen… Paper… Number…” You muttered, and he didn’t know what the hell you were talking about, but you seemed to know, and you seemed to have done it enough to be able to do these things on your own even when you were still partially out of it.

“How long…?” He whispered, and you quickly shushed him, your eyes shut as the hum of the blood pressure machine filled the room that was otherwise silent apart from your still shallow breaths. Once it had finished, you wrote the numbers on a tiny slip of paper and then slipped them back into the box.

“I’m okay… Gonna have to sweep this up…” You said as you looked around yourself, shaking your head as you slowly got to your feet, but you stumbled once again once you were on them, causing Jeongins panic to only worsen as he wrapped his arms around your waist, his eyes glossy as he stared at you and held you steady.

“No… We’re talking… We… We need to talk…” He stammered, moving you to the couch and sitting you down, standing in front of you so he could really see you, so you could see him. “Y-You hid this from me… I… I still don’t know what’s going on… I’m scared… I’m worried… I’m fucking traumatized!” Your head once again rolled back against the back cushion and he rushed to grab your hand, his own heart racing. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“This… This is why I hid it…” You mumbled, your eyes still shut as you spoke. “It’s too much for you… It’s too much for anyone… I didn’t want to put you through this…”

“What are you talking about?!” He screeched, and while he thought it had been devastating to know that there was something like this going on without his knowledge, he was even more devastated to know that you had purposely kept it from him because you thought he couldn’t handle it. “I’m your boyfriend! I want to know these things! I want to be able to help you! If it’s about you… If it’s for you… Nothing is too much.”

“Jeongin… I didn’t do it to hurt you… Or to upset you… I did it because I care… I care about you. I didn’t want you… Worrying about me… You wouldn’t be able to focus on work… You’d constantly be wondering if I’m… If I’m having another episode… I just… I didn’t want this to ruin things for you…” You were breathing heavily again, your fingers wrapping around your wrist as you silently mouthed numbers. Did you have to do this every day? He had never seen you do this, and there were many times he had days off and things weren’t this bad. “We should just… Break up… So you don’t-”

“What?! Absolutely fucking not!” He screamed, kneeling on the floor in front of you and grabbing your hands, waiting for you to look at him before speaking. “You think breaking up will help? You think just ending this will make me forget about everything? You think it’ll immediately change the way I feel about you? I fucking love you, Y/N! And you’re goddamn right I’m worried about you… I’m gonna worry about you every single day for the rest of my life whether you were sick or not because I care about you.” Your eyes shut once more, but now shiny tears danced along your cheeks before hanging onto your chin, refusing to fall. “I may be young… And I’m dumb as shit sometimes… But I’m not a fucking idiot, I’m not gonna let you go, I’m not… I love you too damn much… I’m gonna take care of you… I will… You’re gonna be stuck with me the rest of your life, and I hope that I’m lucky enough to be stuck with you for the rest of mine.”

453 notes · View notes

sevcasejay1chicago · 6 months

Note

This is probably going to sound weird, but if you’re still looking for requests, I have an idea since I’m currently sick.

Jay, Matt and Kelly x emetophobic reader who wakes in the night anxious because her post nasal drip makes her feel like throwing up.

If this is too weird, feel free to pass by.

Babe. I totally get it cause IVE BEEN THERE.

Here’s a little short blurb to get you through! ❤️ Feel better soon my love!

Everything’s gonna be alright- Matt, Jay, and Kelly

Warnings: cold/flu symptoms described, anxiety attacks, alludes to vomiting (includes gagging and the feeling if vomiting) but not actual puking.

———————

The boys have been nothing but patient and loving since you have been home. You attempted to make it through the work day, but ended up having to call Jay for a ride home. He purposely stayed near or at the station, having seen this coming, but knowing you wouldn’t back down without a fight.

Matt met you and Jay at the door. You had finally been overcome by your fever and could not take a step without feeling like you would pass out. Matt immediately gave you orange juice and some flu medicine in hopes that you would feel a bit better soon. Kelly waved from the kitchen where he was making April Sexton’s mom’s famous chicken noodle soup. Kelly let out a little chuckle as Jay walked up the stairs, you waving pitifully over his shoulder like Nana from Peter Pan.

After Jay got you changed into Matt’s sweats and his army hoodie, he carried you back down the stairs and plopped you down on the middle of the pullout couch, which was now holding at least 8 pillows and 10 blankets. Matt handed you the remote, which then started a (favorite genre, movie series) marathon. You slept through most of it, but nobody bothered changing the channel.

At some point, Kelly woke you up to eat dinner and take more meds as Jay and Matt snoozed beside you. You briefly noticed it was dark outside before you broke into a coughing fit, effectively waking Matt and Jay from their slumber. Matt’s arm thwacked Jay in the chest as he reached over him to get to you. Jay placed a hand on your leg, not able to sit up as Matt practically pined him to the mattress.

“Okay baby. There you go. Cough all that stuff up.” Kelly encouraged, handing you a wad of tissues as he patiently waited for the fit to die down, rubbing your back.

You nodded, coughing into the tissues. Nothing seemed to want to come up. Eventually, the coughing died down and you were left with tears rolling down your face from the effort and the chest pain. You blew your nose before tossing the tissues in the trash can Kelly offered. Matt reached over and handed you your inhaler, encouraging you to use it. You hardly ever use it anymore, but you need it the most when you’re sick.

After that episode, you were left exhausted and told the boys you were ready for bed. Kelly carried you upstairs to bed while Jay and Matt cleaned up downstairs. By the time they got into bed, you were snoring on Kelly’s chest.

Around 2 am, you woke up shaking violently. You were freezing. You couldn’t breathe and you were honestly starting to freak out. It took you a moment to realize that you felt nauseous on top of it all and you immediately shook the person closest to you.

Kelly groaned as he felt someone shaking him. “Wha?” Kelly mumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

You whimpered, folding in on yourself to try and stop the shaking. You could swear that your bones were literally rattling. You swallowed convulsively as you tried to keep your stomach at bay.

Kelly quickly sat up when he finally processed what was going on. He flicked on the light as he reached over the bed for the trash can he left there for your tissues. Once he had that emptied onto the floor, he reached over you to shaking Matt awake. “Shhh baby. It’s okay.” Kelly soothed, rubbing your back as Matt got his bearings and then woke up Jay.

“Whats going on?” Jay groaned, flipping over and observing the situation.

“She on fire.” Kelly said, hand to the back of your neck. “Baby? You feeling sick?” Kelly asked, pushing the covers away from you as he slid behind you.

You nodded, clutching his legs once they were around you in an attempt to ground yourself.

“It’s probably the phlegm.” Matt stated, rubbing your back. “If you gotta be sick, it’s okay. Everything’s gonna be alright Angel.” Matt cooed, kissing your shoulder blade.

Jay, who had gone to the bathroom for the thermometer and a washcloth, stuck the thermometer in your ear. When it beeped, he whistled lowly. “103.4” he quietly announced before placing the cloth on the back of your neck.

“Call Will. Ask when would be the time to take her to Med.” Matt instructed. He wanted to take you now, but he didn’t want to scare you further.

You jolted slightly, gagging into your hand. You allowed Kelly to place the trash can in front of you, though you tilted your head back against his shoulder. You had tears streaming down your face as one hand stayed planted over your mouth and the other rested on your chest.

“Baby girl. Just let it happen.” Kelly said, holding the trash can closer and pulling your ponytail back.

You worked to steady your breathing, swallowing against the feeling of snot running down the back of your throat. You were not going to throw up. You just weren’t. You kept up with your breathing exercises, barely containing a few gags as Matt patted you down with another damp cloth that Jay had brought in. Eventually, you calmed enough to risk a few sips of water and a couple NyQuil.

“Will said to bring her in if she hits 104 or can’t keep anything down.” Jay informed, gently sitting back down on his side of the mattress.

“She’s cooling down some.” Kelly said, reaching for the thermometer. “Yep. 102.7.” Kelly announced, gently pulling you to recline back on him.

“Wanna sleep.” You whispered, finally calming down as the nausea began to settle.

All three boys hummed and laid down. Kelly made sure that you were propped up in between his legs and on his chest before closing his eyes. Everyone whispered their good nights as Jay set his alarm for your next dose of medicine and Matt settled in to watch over you for a while longer before he allowed sleep to overtake him.

(This was not edited)

Tag list:

@treehouse-mouse

@shadowmeadowsworld

@sorry-i-spaced

@zephyrmonkey

@allisonargent144

@amie134

@lane-rodgers-barnes

@pensfan5871

@dumb-fawkin-bitch

@marvel-and-chicago-fan

@daggersquadphantom

@stellakiddsblog

@100yroldteenagers

@senjoritanana

@celtic-shadow-wolf

#one chicago #one chicago x reader #matt casey #kelly severide #jay halstead #fluff #matt casey x reader #comfort #jay halstead x reader #kelly severide x reader #nausea #flu

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 2 months

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AITA for giving away my sisters fish?

This is a dumb and very long story (i could probably shorten it somehow but I don't know how) and I know the title makes me look bad.

Ok so, one evening my mom and my little sister(let's call her Jess) brought home a container of four fish that mum said she saw a guy selling on the road for about 2 dollars (I'm not american so I just calculated and it comes out to around 2 dollars)

This was during the end of year break when Jess was home (usually we all go to boarding school) None of us had ever had pet fish before and we didn't know what kind of fish they were, they looked different from each other and their size difference was pretty big too(the largest was about the size of three nail clippers stacked on top of each other and the smallest was about the size of 1/2 of a car key). So we weren't sure of the species of any and bought the most nondescript pack of fish food we could find, they ate it so we thought things were ok.

About 1 month into the break though (the end of year break where I am is 2 months), 1 of the fish died for reasons we still don't know (we changed the water every 3 days) and two weeks later a second one just disappeared, it wasn't in the bowl, and no one knew what happened. So by the time school started there were 2 fish left (Jess was sad but we also have dogs so she wasn't too sad)

All of us go to different boarding schools but ive been going to a day-school this past year because I'm scheduled for a surgery, so when everyone went back it was just me with the fish.

My elder sister (let's call her Kat) came home from university for a while and she thought the fish were cool so she asked my mom if she could tell her where she got them so she could get some for her dorm. My mom told her she just got them from some guy on the road who didn't have a stall and probably wouldn't be there if she drove to the place she found him. So she went back to uni without any fish

Flash forward, 4 weeks into the term, my mom comes to get me from school and she says was passing the area she saw the guy and he was there with another container of fish this time with about 10 fish also of various muddy and sandy colours, about length of the diameter of a soda-bottle cap (my mom said they also cost her about 2 dollars). I said we could split the fish in half, keep 6 and give Kat 6 for her dorm.

So I'm sitting in the car, holding the container of fish my laps and my mom suddenly stops the car because a person walking on the sidewalks falls into the trenches on the sides of the road. The person is ok but the car stops so suddenly and I'm not holding the container securely so it falls from my laps.

The container has a lid so the car is ok but the guy added some small rocks and a fake plant to the container so they kind of bury the some of fish and 6 of them die. I look on like an idiot while mom tries to settle the rocks but another fish is buried when the rocks are settled.

By the time we get home and transfer all the living fish into the bowl we already have, we have 5 fish in total. We move them to a new, slightly bigger bowl and feed them but by the next morning when I'm going to school i see 3 fish left.

When I get home, I tell my mom that maybe we aren't ready for fish and we should give them to Kat whose dorm may be less of a safety hazard (during the end of year break we used to play with the fish a lot, trying to touch their tails etc so we're definitely the reason the first batch died anyway. We're also 8 kids and there are kids older and younger than me so it would be hard to stop EVERYONE from being rough with the fish). I also had exams coming up and I was starting to put of changing the water and cleaning bowl until i saw algae growing on sides.

Kat has a roommate who thinks the fish are cool too so incase one of them forgets maintaining the fish the other can do it. (I also kind of secretly hoped the all fish would just die a week or two into being with them so it wouldn't bother them anymore I feel bad about it)

Anyway, 3 weeks later when Kat came home she took the fish with her. It's around the middle of the first term so it was Visitation Day at Jess's school yesterday (I think the name is self explanatory) and the first thing she asked about was the fish. I didn't know what to say so I told her the truth and she was so SAD!!(I mean obviously she'd be sad but visitation day is supposed to be a good day) because we named the fish and everything(the first batch, not the second) . I tried to tell her how Kat and her roommate were nice and would give the new fish good name but she said that was dumb I knew that was dumb and I wish had just lied about the whole thing and asked my mom to buy new fish but I feel like Jess would know so said nothing else

My mom kind of cheered her up by saying that during the holidays they could go get a good tank and actual goldfish from a better place but she was mad at me because I suggested that the fish be given to Kat and I feel like she's right because it would be stupid to ask Kat to bring the fish wish her the next time she came home.

All my other siblings not just Jess also got attached to the fish so I'll just be breaking the news to everyone for the next three weeks (because all schools where I am schedule visitation day in the same month) and just generally ruining the mood.

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole #pet death cw

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acotarfrustrations · 6 months

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An ongoing list of ACOWAR grievances I'm keeping track of while I read (because there's too many to make a post about all of them) pt. 2

I'm on chapter 15 now and feeling the urge to complain again so here we go

1) the writing is way too overdramaticized. Like every other paragraph is some remixed version of feyre going "I wondered whether it would be eggs or bacon for breakfast. But when I looked at Rhys I realized that he was giving me my own choice. My mate, my high lord. In our home. With our family. Every thing was always my choice" and its CONSTANT, LIKE OH MY GOD GIRL SHUT UP

2) every thing about Lucien's plotlineand the elain mating thing. I HATE this subplot with a PASSION

3) feyre immediately fucking rhys when she got back instead of going to see her sisters

4) feyre and rhysand acting like they've ben separated for forty centuries instead of a month

5) the contradictions about how the high lord thing works. Like it was established that its a government position given to you through basically fate and being chosen by the cauldron or whatever which is why siblings kill each other for a chance for the throne and yet they just went to a priestess and swore feyre in as high lady?? It makes her title not feel real like it's purely ceremonial. It doesn't even make sense that she would be able to be HL of the night court as she has no more ties to that court than she does any other court. Is it because she's mated to Rhys? I don't understand the HL lord at all, it just keeps changing

6) the fact that Feyre, Rhys, and Cassian tell Lucien about their tragic backstories and everything that's happened to feyre at the NC and he just immediately does a Feyre™️. Like he's suddenly "Oh yeah you had a horrible childhood and took feyre into your found family without letting her explore relationships outside of the IC, that totally makes up for all the evil shit THAT IVE SEEN YOU DO WITH MY OWN 2 EYES. wow i cant believe youre not evil even though you killed 50 winter court children and sexually assaulted your mate and mind raped her constantly to get her to like you"

7) the way they're treating Nesta. It has been a MONTH since she was stolen from her home, brought amongst a race that she is terrified of and THAT ENSLAVED HER PEOPLE, and was forcefully turned into ONE OF THEM and the IC is acting like she's being unreasonable for not wanting to talk to them or to mate with Cassian. WHY THE HELL WOULD SHE EVEN BE THINKING ABOUT CASSIAN RIGHT NOW?? WHY THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO FEEL BAD FOR HIM? Instead of him worrying about how his mate is doing regardless of his own comfort he's like WOE IS ME, SHE DOESNT WANT TO FUCK ME?????? GET OVER IT ASSHOLE?? WHY IS FEYRE EVEN LETTING CASSIAN COME NEAR HER AND ANTAGONIZE HER?? DOESNT SHE LOVE TO FLAUNT HER HL STATUS AROUND?? THIS IS THE TIME TO USE IT, PROTECT YOUR GODDAMN SISTER FROM HIM? ITS SO OBVIOUS THAT SHE DOESNT GIVE NEARLY AS MUCH OF A SHIT ABOUT NESTA AS SHE DOES ELAIN!!

8) the fact that sjm didn't keep cassian's wings shredded. Him learning to live with that would have been a badass character development but now sjm doesn't want me to have good things

9) the mating bond in general. I think it could be a potentially good plot device but no one ever employs it well and sjm is definitely the most egregious with it

10) the fact that the ic never gave consequences for their fucking actions. Feyre dies in acotar? Turn her into a fey and give her ALL of their powers. Stealing a precious artifact that they didn't even end up needing and getting a bounty on their head in the summer court and then getting that court invaded? That's fine because feyre is SOOO brave and says things that are common fucking sense which makes her SOOOO smart so we obviously need her as an ally so we'll just rescind the blood rubies. Getting the spring court sacked? That's fine we didn't like them anyway. Rhys and feyre's bond gets snapped? Well they didn't know about our super secret mating bond that is actually the only thing that gives our characters chemistry so we still like each other. Rhys causes irreparable damage to every court for 50 years and kills 50 kids? Well that's fine he was being held hostage and hey! We don't know he actually killed those kids 😡 Feyre, a 20 year old girl who's been fae for like 6 months and training for even less goes up against thousands of years old beings? She beats them effortlesslessly! Rhys gets sexually assaulted for 50 years! Well he planned all of it so it has no negative consequences on him. Cassian gets his wings shredded? Well he worked really hard and they're fixed now 🥰. Rhys FUCKING DIES?? Well that's no problem, tamlin can just resurrect him, nvm the fact that there's no reason why he WOULD. like no harrowing situation is ever interesting cause we all know sjm isn't actually going to do anything to the ic

11) "my mate" STOP SAYING IT PLS IM BEGGING

12) "males and females" STOP SAYING IT PLS IM BEGGING pt. 2

#anti acowar #anti sjm #anti acotar #anti rhysand #anti feysand #anti sarah j maas #anti ic #anti acomaf #anti inner circle

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cupcakeslushie · 8 months

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Okay. I've been tip-toeing around this AU for a while now, but I just got caught up, and now I think I have a (decent) grasp on what's going on. So I wanna go over everything I know so far to see if I'm right or wrong on anything. Don't know if you'd be willing to correct me or not. Either way, I hope my mistakes can help you understand what to clarify to other fans like me. But, I also have some questions. You probably won't be able to answer most of them, but it's at least worth a shot.

First, where's Venus? Like, why is she not in your comics that are (sort of) separate frome the canon now story. The ones that skip to the future way after all the turtles reunite. Did she die? Did she escape? Is it because she wasn't introduced yet when you made those comics?

Two, why do you keep on making references to the future timeline? I know you're planning on possibly making your own stuff leading up to the events of the movie. It just gives me a jumpscare when I see certain...imagery in those comics. I guess you're hinting at what your version of the future apocalypse would look like, but it just hurts to see. Specifically in the comic explaining both the events and aftermath of the movie and the bad future timeline. It's starting to really confuse my brain as to where this story is headed. What's meant to be the main focus? The Hamto's reuniting? The aftermath? Or the future?

Third, did you make all those min-comics before you started the actual AU? Or did you do them during?

Fourth, are any of those mini-comics relevant to the actual story now? Or have you changed your mind on a few things? It's just that everything is so all over the place, I don't really know whether to trust if they're accurate. I know most of them are just there for funzies, but the longer ones concern me. I guess I'm just not used to the storyteller doing sequel, start, prequel, start, sequel, prequel, prequel, sequel, and then end. Or maybe it's just me, and I'm sleep deprived.

My little observation speech is gonna take a while for me to get out in your asks because when I get theoretical, my speech gets long, and my proper English goes down the drain. So I'll be back. I appreciate your work very much. Despite the pain it causes me, it's still amazing.

I’ll try my best to clear up what confusion I can!

1. As far as Venus. The answer is kind of a mix of, I was still figuring out her design and backstory while coming out with some of those early comics, and then, once I had that down, I wanted the boys to grow strong bonds as a main cast. That’s why a lot of the side characters are only making small appearances in the Sep!AU Life stories, as those are mainly for the boys reconnecting. (Usagi shows up the most because I love him and am totally biased towards him).

This maybe hasn’t been stated outright, but I wasn’t really expecting so many ppl to like Vee as much as they do, and now im trying not to spoil too much of her story. It’ll unfortunately just take us a while to get to the meat of it. Since the boys reconnecting takes up a lot of the early s1s2 story, Im trying to follow the familiar Rise blueprint of Draxum, Shredder, Krang, and then in s3 we’ll have crazy fun new stories with the extra characters.

Ive also decided to take this little nugget from one of the Q&As, and use it for Venus instead of Jennika. It was a much needed bit of inspiration to explain why Venus sorta disappears for a while and will go through some major physical changes (not yet revealed) before the family can figure out a way to reach her.

2. I’m not sure if you mean jump scared in a bad/triggering or neutral way, but if you need me to tag anything on those posts please let me know!

The glimpses of the future timeline, are being scattered throughout wherever they parallel the present story in little ways, but that’s only for now. As we get closer to the movie plot, bigger chunks of the future will be revealed, because the future versions of the boys will have a larger role to play in the present timeline. So we will need more backstory than what the canon got. And also I just enjoy drawing my future versions so sometimes I don’t think too hard on a reason. I just like throwing them at ppl with no warning or reason.

When s2 ends, I plan on collecting all the future related stuff that’s been released, and recapping it for easier reading. Right now, it’s just little sprinkles of foreshadowing to give ppl an idea that, ‘oh crap. The doomed timeline is a bummer’. In my mind, I guess i thought it’d be kinda like a fun scavenger hunt for clues, but maybe ppl don’t like that 😅

3. All of the side-stories were written as the main comic was/is being released. A lot of them resulted from asks that just spawned the need to expand on certain ideas, or a desire to give all the turtles their time to shine.

For instance, when I was doing Donnie’s section of the main comic, it was a good few months where we hardly saw anyone but him and Venus. I wanted to just mix it up, and give Raph some love with his ‘Raph Time’ short. When Leo was front and center in the main, we hardly saw the others, so Mikey and Donnie got their little ‘Secrets’ short (and it was also I fun thank you for EW making it so far in the tmnt sep competition).

4. Anything that has been reworked/revised or just plain dropped should have an ‘Edit’ note because yes—I have gone back and changed some things, but more so from the asks i got in the early days, and some movie idea drafts.

All the short comics done in the last year, especially the ones that are listed in my pinned post, are canon and fall somewhere in the timeline. They’re like supplemental reading though—extra meat to give the world and the characters more personality. They do have particular backstory plot and important info in them, but nothing that shouldn’t eventually be re-visited/repeated in the main story.

um I hope that cleared up some things! I know it’s kind of a crazy amount of lore. I’ve tried my best to organize it in the pinned post, huge timeline, and search bar tags, but I know it’s getting harder and harder for newer ppl to jump in as it just get bigger. Thanks for reading regardless!

#rottmnt #tmnt #ask slushie #separated au #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt separated au #sep!au infodump #ew au #Empyrean Weeping Au

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these-posts-arent-real · 7 days

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Woah... something different?

What if. And hear me out. Lions had Tumblr...

#do you see the vision.?? #got a bit tired of clanblr #shall return to it shortly once I get this out of my system #also #i really just feel like i need to remind myself that i'm allowed to make shorter dash sims #y'know?? #ive been pushing myself to use all available space when like... #i don't have to do that. lmao #forgot i was doing this for fun

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🔥 lesbian-lioness Follow

I love my big lesbian pride... we are 7 lionesses and we are happy <3

🔥 lesbian-lioness Follow

Everyone who said "wait aren't you technically just a big polycule since you aren't an official pride without a male and aren't having cubs" stfu we call ourselves a pride.

🔥 lesbian-lioness Follow

Also yes we are a big polycule but we are ALSO a pride. We reeeally need to change everyone's opinion on what "technically" constitutes a pride. Yes 1 male, 3+ females and their cubs is the typical pride structure, but it isn't the only valid one (and the idea that it is can be very harmful to gay & trans lions).

There are endless ways to have a pride and thinking the typical structure is the only "correct" one is trying to label others' relationships for them.

☀️ sunnfire Follow

Yeah! As long as you have more than 3 lions (gender neutral) total and at least one lioness it's a pride!

🔥 lesbian-lioness Follow

Did you even read my post 😐

It's a pride because the lions in it say it's a pride... not because they checked some imaginary boxes such as "correct number of lionesses" or "having cubs" or "having at least one male" (all examples of things I have been told are required for a pride). Prides don't even have to have romance or sex at all, and I feel like lions forget that...

#relationship anarchy #pride anarchy #all prides are valid #prides ≠ romance #queerplatonic prides are valid

3,057 notes

💛 0trad-lioness0 Follow

The bond of sisterhood I feel with the other lionesses in my pride is unmatched. It truly disturbs me that there are some lionesses who are attracted to the others in their pride...

#a pride is a male and his lionesses #trad lioness #traditional pride #traditional beliefs #anti-woke

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☁️ clouu-maned Follow

I think we need to be normal about trans lionesses who like their manes please.

If you're a trans lioness you are allowed to love having a mane. You are allowed to love the way it makes you feel. You do not have to go through the process of removing your mane to make others more comfortable with your existence.

Sincerely, a maned trans lioness <3

#trans #transgender #trans lioness #transfem #maned lioness #maned trans lioness

730 notes

🔆 these-posts-arent-real

Hope you enjoy the slight change from usual content. Warriors sim will be back shortly!

#dashboard simulator #fake dashboard #fakeposting #dash sim #dash simulator #fake dash #dashboard sim #lion #lions #ocs #lion oc #lion ocs #notreal posts #unreality #prideblr

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barbatusart · 11 days

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how do you make your art so expressive and fluid-looking? do you have a technique or is it just how you've trained your hand? I try to get my figures more fluid but they always look so stiff! even practicing figure drawings...maybe because you draw so fast that helps? idk man...any advice? thank you!

thank you first off for such a compliment!!! fluidity & shape are the things i prize most in visual art to the point where ive given up gunning for "correctness" in favor of chasing the preservation of motion lol. gonna put my response and my Full Visual Art Journey to where i am now under the cut as it's an image-heavy one and a bit long winded (shocking for me to be long winded i know LOL)

so i absolutely used to have the exact same problem many years ago of my stuff being too stiff, ie my sketch would be loose and fun but my inks would be nervous & tight & not as fun to look at as the sketch

this is a super old thing from 2011 when i was still on my anatomy journey (you can tell cus the sternum and nose are, uh, interesting LOL) but you can kinda see what i mean - the sketch underneath is fun & has movement as sketches do, but these little fineliner inks are so visually Nervous. the issue for me at the time was that i was subconsciously exactly that: nervous of messing the picture up, and that fear of making a mistake telegraphed loud & clear to my inks. using fineliner tools 100% did not help me either, as microns & the like have little to no "give" to them; you put the pen to paper and you get what you get, and you have to sit there & meticulously build the line up to get any kind of lineweight.

i was ultra dissatisfied with my output so i made 2 changes a few years after this: i stopped doing pencil sketches and started just doing straight inks, and i swapped to a brushpen

these are from 2012 or so & some of the first things i did in straight brushpen inks with no pencil, and theyre a total mess but they are LOOSE AND FUN! i had 100% no idea what i was doing with the brushpen and had no control over it because i was so used to the thin lines pencil & microns gave me, so everything i made was sloppy & out of control as i was struggling to keep control of the tool, but honestly it was absolutely freeing for me. now i had the looseness of the sketch right there at the forefront. the issue was though, how could i get enough control of the brushpen to make something that wasnt so messy? even if i had freedom, if i got too wacky with it, itd just turn into a black ink mess. i was completely done with pencils at this point and didn't want to go back & risk losing this looseness & freedom, and then i realized like - what if i just do my straight ink sketch like this & then figure out a way to go back in & "carve" into it to clean it?

enter the next tool in the arsenal, the white gel pen. this was my first experiment with it & it was legitimately a complete game changer, because now i could slop on my inks as much as i wanted & go right back in with the gel pen & literally carve out the black lines to as crisp as i pleased while still preserving the motion & energy of the ink sketch. i noticed even with tons of layers of gel too there was no way to fully get rid of the ghost outline of my corrections, so at this stage i leaned into that quality even harder & changed from white paper to exclusively brown

at this point i wanted to showcase loud & clear to myself exactly what i was cleaning up, i LOVED how this looked. i even went a step further & got some really translucent red ink for a second brush pen (had to fill the cartridges with the red ink manually in the sink lol) so i could do an even sloppier red sketch underneath, half precise slop on black ink on top of it, clean it up with the gel, go back in with the black, forever and ever and ever

and like this was an absolute physical mess of material but it was beyond fun. id completely given up on anything being clean or correct, because i could always clean it & correct it & have a blast showcasing the journey of start to finish as preserved in the materials. i basically gave myself permission to like, be imperfect, treat inks like clay, & draw with complete abandon like a kid again

eventually utrecht stopped making the kind of brown paper i loved (these brown paper books were HEAVY DUTY & could take so much punishment, when i was done with a book id legit flip it over & start drawing on the backs of the pages) & then all the available material physically couldnt handle the amount of medium i was putting on my pages, like legit the paper itself was just ripping & dissolving lmao. so at this stage i got an ipad (i could never wrap my head around a tablet & not looking at my hand and the tool touching the artwork) & pivoted from trad to digital in like uhhhh 2018ish & just did the exact same techniques of slopping inks down, carving with the eraser, going back in with the inks, carving more with the eraser, and so on. and now since it was digital & i never had to worry about my paper literally melting underneath my brushes LOL i could just go forever on one thing

early attempts while learning the new medium in my fury road era

tail end of the SAD SACK roughs in like 2019ish (SAD SACK really was what got me locked in with my digital technique & how i wanted to attack it)

tail end of the SORTIE roughs from like 2021, at this stage i think my style got so fuckin crazy because i wasnt worried about my pages getting destroyed anymore so im like Violent with the ipad lmao, that & it got Really fast bcus since i wasnt bothering with correct anymore & had no medium-being-destroyed barrier i could just gunshot-speed get these down

and then most recently DE RERUM NATURA from like january of this year which i think showcases what im currently doing pretty accurately

this got long whoops lol POINT IS: i dont worry about being correct (because i can fix it later), i dont worry about being neat (because i can clean it later), and i skip the sketch stage entirely by slop-inking & eraser-carving interchangeably, which lets me fix and clean all i want while preserving the energy & action of the first marks. plus, going straight inks all the time i think trained my hand & eye to A. put down the marks i want correctly in the General Space of where i want them, and B. do it faster & faster lol

after all this my advice to you is this: swap to a new tool! try a brush, try paint, try a medium you have no control over but something that forces you to improvise and remember whats so fun in the first place about making a mess on your canvas of choice. remember that any mark you make, you can tweak, fix, carve, shove around, whatever. i think a lot of people get stuck in the rules they have set for themselves with art (i know i did!) and we tend to forget that there are no rules. try & remember that feeling of being little & just going wild on paper without any care whatsoever about being Right. go for it, because you can always tweak it - even inks arent permanent 🤓

#q&a

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dimension20pcbracket · 4 months

Text

round 1 statistics

hi, gamers! while we wait for the round 2 polls to close, here are some interesting stats and tidbits from round 1 that I noticed :)

total votes: added up, the 52 polls in round 1 had a total of 28,221 votes. holy shit!

largest percentage of votes: sometimes the polls were tight, and other times they were... not. the top 5 most decisive winners were:

Fig Faeth (93.6%)

Kingston Brown (93.2%)

Sofia Lee (90.3%)

Chirp Featherfowl (89.7%)

Pete Conlan (88.8%)

the thinnest margin of victory to eke out a win went to Rue, who beat Amethar Rocks with a slender 52.2% of votes. notably, Rue kept up the trend in round 2, with their even slimmer 50.2% defeat of Gerard of Greenleigh, so it will be interesting to see if they're able to keep clinging on through round 3.

polls with the most votes: some polls really got you fired up, and brought Dimension 20 fans running in droves to vote for their faves...

Lapin Cadbury v Pinocchio with an unparalleled 1,636 votes

Squak Airavis v Kristen Applebees (838 votes)

Sam Nightingale v Colin Provolone (818 votes)

Katja Cleaver v Prince Andhera (767 votes)

Kingston Brown v Gangie Green (718 votes)

... while other polls had less fanfare. polls with the least votes:

Tuti IV v Maggie (347 votes)

Vicar Ian Prescott v Bob (388 votes)

Saccharina Frostwhip v Megan Mirror // Twyla v Marcid the Typhoon (392 votes each)

Bean v Amangeaux Epicée du Peche (409 votes)

Sunny Biscotto v Binx Choppley (416 votes)

it may not surprise anyone to know that it looks like none of the winners of these least-voted-on polls will be advancing to round 3; it seems the passion isn't there for these particular PCs :/

winning PCs with the most individual votes:

Lapin Cadbury (851 votes)

Kingston Brown (669 votes)

Fig Faeth (573 votes)

Evan Kelmp (509 votes)

Kristen Applebees (487 votes)

winning PCs with the least individual votes:

Maggie (255 votes)

Bob (260 votes)

Sam Black (269 votes)

Cody Walsh (274 votes)

Gunnie Miggles-Rashbax (285)

evidently, individual votes accrued in round 1 aren't a great basis for predicting future success - Kelmp was the fourth most-voted for PC in round 1 but won't be making it to round3, and Gunnie was the fifth least-voted for character in round 1 but on track to head into round 3 by a pretty decent margin.

campaign stats:

the most to least successful campaigns, by % of characters that won their round 1 polls:

Fantasy High: 100% (6/6)

Misfits and Magic: 100% (4/4)

A Starstruck Odyssey: 83.3% (5/6)

A Court of Fey and Flowers: 83.3% (5/6)

The Unsleeping City: 77.8% (7/9)

A Crown of Candy: 75% (6/8)*

The Seven: 66.7% (4/6)

Neverafter: 66.7% (4/6)

Mentopolis: 66.7% (4/6)

Burrow's End: 66.7% (4/6)

Coffin Run: 25% (1/4)

Dungeons and Drag Queens: 25% (1/4)

The Ravening War: 20% (1/5)

Escape from the Bloodkeep: 16.7% (1/6)

Pirates of Leviathan: 16.7% (1/6)

Tiny Heist: 0% (0/6)

Mice and Murder: 0% (0/6)

Shriek Week: 0% (0/4)

*ACOC: while Amethar was passes on to round 2 to compete against Pinocchio, he did lose his initial poll against Rue. if we included Amethar as a winner, ACOC would have a considerably higher 87.5% success rate, making it the third most successful campaign overall.

it's definitely interesting to see how the success of various campaigns has changed over round 2! Fantasy High stays strong, while the MisMag crew has been wiped out, and several campaigns have lost all of their remaining PCs. it'll be exciting to see how the numbers look when all of the final votes for round 2 are in.

thank you all so much for playing along with this bracket! I hope you're all still having fun and are getting hype for round three :)

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knightobreath · 3 months

Note

Ok I gotta know

What’s your thoughts on that one anon (🐝)’s takes

context 1 and context 2

ohohohohhohohoohohohoh. ohohohoh. Well. Basically they're wrong about what headcanons ARE and how they work as a fan created thing. They also definitely need to examine why they feel the way they do about headcanoning characters as having marginalized identities. I wrote a whole essay on trans headcanons specifically under a similar ask and what I said can be easily applied to other aspects of headcanoning characters as minorities (i actually got a lot of the ideology for that essay from discussions of "blackwashing" in fandom)

some other things on what they said (warning: LONG)

My major issues with their thoughts on headcanons can be summed up with the essay i linked. im not going to be going into that stuff as deeply again because we would be here all day, so the rest is just specifics

"but i really hate it when people change pronouns of characters (IVE SEEN PEOPLE USE SHE/HER WHEN REFERING TO SILVER SPOON. LET THE MAN BE A MAN IF HE WANTS TO BE A MAN.)"

Silver Spoon, and other characters for that matter, are quite frankly not real and do not have actual desires or feelings that you can hurt. Also see my essay on trans headcanons.

"but what makes me the most furious is... people making characters autistic. nothing against autism, i understand that, but do you really need to make paper, fan, silver spoon, pen, etc. autistic just because they have specific interests or act... idk, just the way they act?! its just. it doesnt make sense to me."

Bee needs to examine why they feel the way they do about autistic headcanons. A majority of the times characters are being headcanoned as autistic, they're being headcanoned as that be actual neurodivergent people who seem themselves or their autistic friends in these characters or traits.

There are certainly some issues with certain aspects of autistic (or any other disability) headcanons, like infantilization, but Bee's issue seems to be the fact that there are a lot of characters being headcanoned. Which is just not a problem.

"hc's that dont affect story are fine, but ones that completely flip the story or ignore anything confirmed by the employees."

Headcanons are personal thoughts on the story and do not have any bearing on the story or how you interpret the characters. They are a fan creation like fanart or fanfiction.

"EX: "i headcanon that mic and knife are in a relationship!" that completely ignores the fact that some of the pride month art shows that knife is gay. Cakebrunch (official II storyboarder) confirmed that soap and mic are in a relationship."

Cakebrunch is not a writer and does not have any bearing on the written canon of the characters. Just because he works on the show does not mean his headcanons have any bearing on the canon.

"make as many autistic characters you want, yeah! its great to support autism! but you dont have to make every character autistic, okay? (directed towards people that hc lots of characters as autistic)"

Again, the people who are doing this are mostly autistic or otherwise neurodivergent. And they aren't "making" the characters autistic, they're depicting them as such. No harm in that.

Now for the ships ask.

This is less of my domain, as I'm not really a shipper and don't know much about romance and relationship dynamics but I will try.

Also like nothing against people who don't like shipping as a whole, I totally get it. I was in your boat before.

"i absolutely HATE osc ships. half of them are either "oh these characters dislike each other/disliked each other at one point" and the other half is "these two friends should date because theyre friends.""

and that leaves..... characters who haven't interacted?

honestly, if this was between real people that would be really disrespectful.

Except they're not, so it's completely fine. I have a feeling Bee was in an RPF heavy fandom before this one, this and the previous take about pronouns are common discourse points in those.

EX: Fantube. yeah, they tried to raise shimmer together and built bot, but platonic parents exist and CAN THEY JUST BE FRIENDS?! PLEASE?

Like headcanons, ships have no bearing on the canon and in canon they are just friends.

EX: Nickloon. ok, nickels trying to make up for being rude to balloon all throughout season two. but really? they dont have to date just because theyre friends, yknow. imagine someone saying "oh you and your best friend who you only platonicallly love- you should date!" to you. that'd honestly be rude.

They're not real so they can't experience this. Problem solved.

yeah, some ships are confirmed but thats different. EX: Knickle. offical II storyboarder Cakebrunch CONFIRMED theyre in a relationship. thats an official employee of the series saying that a ship is real. not some random person on TikTok saying that TennisGolf is canon because TB is GB's closest ally.

Again with citing Cakebrunch's fan stuff as canon. Interesting how they cited a storyboarder's fan works twice but failed to mention Balloon being arospec as said by a show creator in the nickloon section. While I have my thoughts on word-of-god confirmation, which I will not be getting into here, it is far more canon than any fanwork.

A lot of the rest of this is just confusion about why people ship things. This is different for each ship and each shipper, and if you're ever confused about where a ship came from you can just ask the shipper. There's usually a reason (and depending on who you ask, a whole essay) as to why a ship came about or how it would work. Sometimes though it is just for fun or comedy, and that's not really a bad thing. We're here to enjoy ourselves, after all.

One last thing though,

and dont get me started on those ships that throw certain characters in canon ships (looking at you, metallic salad/metallic salad + mephone shippers.) because like. why? certain characters have established relationships with others, and your just like "ohh well those two are in a relationship, but mic and knife are a cute ship so how about mic + knife + pickle? makes sense!" like. please.

I don't know much on dynamics and specifics (see: not much of a shipper) but from what I have seen of multiships and polyships, all the dynamics and how the characters would all work together is very much thought about.

Also knickle isn't canon and the people shipping knife x mic x pickle are also aware knickle isn't canon. Nobody is thinking of it like that.

Anyways, time for the conclusion.

Bee anon is fundamentally wrong about how fandom works. Headcanons and ships hold no baring on the canon or your interpretation of the canon. Fandom is a place where canon is transformed in fan works for the fan's enjoyment, it is not a place where canon is determined or changed. You can interpret a work however you please, you can even divorce it from fan works entirely if you wish. Bee also has some things they need to think about in regards to why they feel the way they do about queer and autistic headcanons.

Thanks for reading.

#GOD was that long.#knightext #asks #fandom is like my no.1 interest and you can't ask me for my opinions on fandom discourse without getting an essay sorry

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weirdmageddon · 8 months

Text

long meditation on jade and dave's relationship - part 1

here's a three-part heavy homestuck meta. took me about 3 days to scrobble together and format and everything

part 2 part 3 cooking

i apologize in advance for the disorganization of my thoughts. after writing it i realized this is probably one of the clearest glances into how my mind thinks associatively so everything relates in some way to something else in here. the foundations for my thoughts might be invisible to others because they can’t see the connections ive built upon but you can probably see them here, and that strong foundation is also why i care so much about them and why i chose to lay it all out. sometimes i feel like i have Got to get this tangled associative web out of my head and into some form of writing so other people can be like, “oh so This is why you have so much to say” and can just. see into my head and where it all comes from for me. people have expressed interest and the general opinion tends to be that people like hearing my thoughts a lot so yeah. pov you are in my brainwebs. seatbelts everyone get on the magic school bus in that bitch

some time ago i saw this post i saw as i was going through florals jade tag again. my homestuck hyperfixation flared up again and ive been hyperfocused on dave and jade and particular just absolutely entering these monotropic black holes over them and turning them around at different angles and looking at discussions and what people thought both now and in the past and now that im older i can appreciate them even more. ive always been a fan of dave and jade both, but i cant even lie dave has my whole heart so maybe im biased as well. but i like to believe that regardless of my liking for dave and interest in not even x-ray scanning him just straight up 3D mri scanning him and rotating him in my head that my argument is still very reasonable. i just understand his psychology a lot

i want to preface this by saying i absolutely love floral and im so glad she’s on the hsbc team because i know she can do jade harley justice. one of the best jadesters fr. we all come into media analysis with different personal experiences and perspectives, and i understand this was from her perspective as someone who had run ins with dumb boys and relates a lot to jade which is why she can put so much love into her <3 i just found myself disagreeing with some of the arguments that she presented in that post just as a peer who also read the comic from my own perspective. keep in mind i also love jade to bits and want the best for her

so yea this isn’t a targeted post at all. it just got the juices flowing and inspired me to actually write my pre-existing thoughts down and i used it as a springboard for them

i think it ended up being pretty insightful overall especially because i was stoned as fuck writing it and ive come to realize being stoned amplifies and improves the output of my deeply inwardly associative thought processes tenfold. or maybe weed just changes how significant it feels. maybe a little of both

part 1: on using davesprite as a basis for interpreting jade's relationship with all daves

i love what hussie does with alternate versions of characters and. it’s one of the coolest things about homestuck’s characterization. like floral quoted:

… we see that Jack is a simple man, no matter what name he goes by. He is, if not much else (and he’s not), impatient and violent. We only got the briefest glimpse into these qualities when we were first introduced to him on Derse. But now we get to spend much more time with him, albeit in the form of a completely different character. This is another bit of sneaky utility provided by this intermission tangent. It serves as an arc to help indirectly characterize the villain of the early acts. Having multiple copies of a character operating in totally different circumstances turns out to be a great stealth characterization tactic, and it gets used much more aggressively later in the story. In fact, it proves to be inseparable from one of the story’s most essential themes. (Hussie’s Intermission commentary)

so i agree in principle and think the alt self thing is fucking brilliant

however, i disagree with the argument it’s supporting.

So, not the same character, but if switched, I would go out on a limb and say that Dave would experience all the same issues as Davesprite did, but without the “bird” part acting as an easy explanation. That doesn’t make Dave responsible but it does speak volumes to how their personalities respond to each other, insinuates that a relationship involving any Dave would end badly for Jade and that “Real” Dave indeed has Some Issues To Deal With.

i don't agree that dave and davesprite should be compared in this context. yes they are splinters of the same character and floral is right on the money in that canon deflecting the relationship failing on "bird issues" doesn't really explain anything meaningful, but i do not think its the case that all of jade’s relationships with dave are doomed to fail because of what we saw with jade and davesprite.

yes, if switched, dave strider would be practically identical to davesprite since they were the same exact person until a branch in the timeline

however, it's the unique things davesprite has been through that made him like this. davesprite has baggage that dave doesn't. a timeline where john was tricked into fighting his denizen early and died and jade couldn't get in on time and was presumably wiped out dinosaur style on earth. with alt future dave's year-worth of knowledge, gear, loot, and experience, he rescinded his player status and "realness" as a human person to be a game guide for his naive past self right before the timeline split in order for himself and his friends to continue existing.

that would mess anyone up mentally. it's no wonder he's jaded, no pun intended. he's depressed as shit and bitter and probably has trauma issues unrelated to his bro, though they do compound on it. yes they both experienced bro's abuse but i'm talking about the differences between alpha timeline dave and davesprite; right now im not going to talk about things that are the same about them prior to the timeline split because it applies to them both so it's redundant.

essentially what's setting them apart is their experiences playing sburb, their chronological age (alt future dave/davesprite had been making timeloops over a span of four months and he says that in total the time from his chronological perspective is close to a YEAR in sburb grinding shit out before he goes back), their relationship to their friends and how their friends see them and how they see themselves, their ontological natures as beings, what their purposes are.

davesprite had his ontological status as a person and purpose changed. he assumed he'd be the one playing and doing important main shit in the alpha timeline with all his friends but then it turns out that wasn't the case due to the events that went down in his timeline. and becoming a sprite solidly changed his degree of existence. davesprite's best friend john asking if he can talk to "the real dave" is when i think he realized just how fucked up his existence as a person has become despite him doing pretty much everything for everyone for nearly a YEAR before the alpha timeline was even able to get properly started. if davesprite didn’t exist, nobody would have (john needed to live to do ectobiology). davesprite knew this and weaponized it against john who john treated as a secondary, lesser dave. so of course he’s kind of an asshole. it’s like his efforts and sacrifices meant squat to the people he considered his best friends because they didn’t experience it. to john he just suddenly appeared from the future and became a sprite.

this is heavy shit for davesprite that alpha timeline dave does NOT have to go through and it did change him in ways that cannot be said about alpha timeline dave. this is not a universal dave experience. so while it’s true that dave has the capacity of act like davesprite under those exact circumstances, alpha timeline dave didn’t undergo those that led to davesprite’s more miserable traits. therefore i don’t think it’s fair to conflate jade’s failed relationship with davesprite in particular as informing of how most of jade and dave’s relationships would unfold, because davesprite has been in exceptionally tragic circumstances, coming to terms with the state of his own existence. the last thing davesprite needs is romance. alpha timeline dave does not carry this burden.

Everyone believed that what was creating the dissonance wasn’t a central part to Dave’s character but an aftereffect of Bird Syndrome. Which you can’t blame them for because there’s nothing that would lead them to think differently. Every character besides Dirk is completely in the dark about Bro’s abuse and Dave stated he’d probably never tell any of the Betas. Which is fine, no one’s owed to know somebody’s baggage. But when you don’t give people a means to understand what you’re going through, especially when it leads you to hurt them, its only inevitable everyone’s going to be confused and going to come to conclusions using what they do know.

rebuttal to this: as i said earlier i don’t buy the whole bird issues thing and i get the handwaviness about being fused with a bird being john’s explanation for davesprite’s bullshittery. however i think it’s important to mention that john and jade both question if becoming a sprite might have had something to do with his change.

being fused with a bird never bothered him, as jade says. it was all the other baggage that came with the prototyping.

this includes playing the game for way longer than anyone else and mindlessly grinding from the ground up for about a year, then turning himself into a game construct and having his ontological level of existence as the platonic ideal form of dave strider lowered in the eyes of his friends.

JOHN: like what? JADE: its hard to explain JADE: just some slight differences in personality i guess JOHN: he still raps sometimes. JADE: yes... JADE: so? JOHN: i just thought i would mention that. JADE: ok i will admit i cant really tell if his rapping style has changed JOHN: trust me, it hasn't. JADE: i dont know if the differences are because he is a sprite JADE: or because he lived for a while in a different timeline... (p.4733)

JOHN: why is he such a basket case? he's like regular dave, but like, aloof enigma edition. JOHN: maybe it's because he's part bird? i think becoming a bird and a sprite did something weird to him. JADE: i dont think being a bird ever bothered him JADE: like i said... its all more complicated than that JOHN: normal dave was so much more level headed. JOHN: i have to admit, i spend a lot of time wondering what he and rose are up to. JADE: me too JOHN: ehh... JOHN: maybe it's for the best he broke up with you. JADE: why? JOHN: well, what kind of future do you think you would have with him? JOHN: he's a sprite. like really, what even is a sprite? how long do they live? will he still be around if we win the new game we are allegedly trying to get to? JADE: i dont know (p.5294)

as for the bro abuse thing, i can’t tell if floral’s position here is that davesprite is fucked up and had a failed relationship with jade because of bro’s abuse, and that dave would also necessarily have failed relationships with jade because he had the same experiences and also doesn’t tell anybody? the wording there is kind of vague and can be interpreted in different ways but that’s how i interpreted it.

they are right that bro’s abuse is something dave keeps to himself. but remember that dave has also deluded himself about it to cope. he doesn’t know what to think of it himself. both alpha timeline dave and davesprite have this baggage, but we explore it more with alpha timeline dave.

i know dave said in the post-retcon timeline when having a conversation with dirk that he could never tell karkat all of this or any of the betas about his abuse. but i still find this pesterlog interesting and i want to put a spotlight on it. even while dave was still chugging that copium, jade was the person he was closest to opening up about the nature of his relationship to his bro at this point. remember this is quite early on in the comic and he didn’t have 3 years on the meteor to contemplate it yet when he said this to her, his bro had just died at this point

GG: anyway dave im really sorry about your bro/dad GG: you were pretty close with him right? TG: meh it was a pretty bizarre relationship by any standard TG: fightin off wave after wave of face pumicing puppet ass every day TG: always being on guard for stealth attacks in the middle of the night while getting up to go to the fucking bathroom GG: heheh TG: but i guess it all sorta amounted to some vague unspoken semblance of kinship TG: if thats a thing TG: like if honor among thieves is something then lets call it camaraderie among ironic rapping roof ninjas TG: but thanks GG: sure TG: i thought about taking his sword TG: when i was there TG: but i couldnt TG: couldnt really bring myself to try to pull it out it was too weird GG: dave we have to stop him!!!!! TG: what GG: jack! GG: he shouldnt get away with this TG: you think (p.3204)

even if he’s in denial about it, deciding to point out the positivity he can rationalize about it to avoid spending too much time thinking deeply about it (it makes him uncomfortable), he’s getting closer to acknowledging the truth here that shit wasn’t normal, about it being “bizarre” and you can tell hes being genuine here when he thanks jade for her concern about his loss

dave then continues talking about his thoughts/feelings on the situation after jade says “sure”, as if he took her concern as an invite to open up about his thoughts even when it’s something vulnerable for him that he tried putting on false bravado in front of terezi about. jade then abruptly changes topic to what’s to be practically done about these tragedies—dave was still on the topic of his bro and she changed the topic to jack noir without clarifying, hence he goes “what”

this is interesting because terezi tried to get something out of him about this and was met by riddly puzzlecock and false bravado but he’s pretty straight up about his current feelings with jade. basically it really depends on the person dave is talking to.

in this specific argument, floral approaches grimbark jade solely from the position of her being uninhibited which is true in many ways, but grimbark jade is also quite nefarious and not in her right mind. i think that even if jade were unihibited and spoke her mind, she wouldn’t have it in her push the mayor into lava to get dave to fight her. thats the evil. floral does acknowledge this in a separate post though, but it’s not really touched on in her argument im discussing. i also want to reiterate that even though it might seem like im violently ripping this post limb from limb its really just something to bounce my pre-existing thoughts off of. this is all written with civility towards and respect for floral

even roxy says something about this—that the schtick doesnt suit her. like it doesnt feel like something she’d have the natural capacity to really be without some external influence

ROXY: so alt grannydaughter english ROXY: whyre u part dog + evil lookin JADE: DO NOT CALL ME THAT!!! ROXY: what JADE: my surname is harley not english JADE: but you may refer to me as jade, or ma'am if you are feeling especially nervous and deferential JADE: which as it turns out is the way you should be feeling about me, ALWAYS >:B ROXY: LOL!!! JADE: lol WHAT ROXY: jade i am in no way buying that ur normally this pompous and tyrannical ROXY: the shtick rly doesnt suit you its so obvious (p.6291)

so i don’t think everything jade says here should be taken to heart about her real feelings or how she would express them if she was being genuine as her normal self. we know jade can get mad but i think we’re giving her evil possession a little too much credit

that’s why i was personally disappointed in grimbark jade when homestuck was ongoing, is it felt like it didnt really give us anything? it was like empty calories while just waiting for the regular jade to come back which she never did. it is interesting to look at in retrospect to see if there’s anything there but…grimbark jade isn't exactly a reliable narrator. i guess none of them are but like, especially not grimbark jade. if i can’t separate what’s genuinely jade under this mess from what isn’t then what’s the point?

like for example this was left out of floral’s argument when showing this part, but in the comic grimbark jade tells dave that he’s “more messed up inside than davesprite” …. right after dave wouldnt comply with her demands to fight her and doesnt want to fight lord english. that’s…not really telling about anything at all for either of them. jade is evil and if things dont go the way she’s programmed to get them to go she’s gonna flip her lid. this is what i mean about her not being in her right mind

JADE: the fact is youre going to have to rely on those powers if you want to stand any chance against a lord of time JADE: it is safe to expect he can only be challenged by someone with a similar command over the aspect DAVE: why is that safe to expect DAVE: where are all these presumptions coming from DAVE: if you can use swords why dont you take the welsh cueball sword and fight him yourself DAVE: i bet you could fuck him up DAVE: youre probably even more extra strong now that youve succumbed to the bark side DAVE: did you ever think about that JADE: dave i am perfectly aware of the awesome powers granted to me by the bark side JADE: it does not matter JADE: i cant be the one to wield your sword against english JADE: it has to be you JADE: it is the will of the empress, and thats final DAVE: the empress can suck it DAVE: i have no intention of fighting him DAVE: and this isnt even me pulling more lame self aware reluctant hero junk DAVE: i am just straight up not going to do it DAVE: see thats not reluctance its just petulant refusal on my part DAVE: reluctant hero shit is when the guys like aw shucks i dunno if i wanna but deep down we all know he really does DAVE: but i really dont DAVE: why should i DAVE: i dont give a damn about lord english or his nebulous atrocities out in nowherespace DAVE: what kind of villain is someone you never met who hardly did anything evil to you or your friends directly DAVE: or even to anyone in your universe for that matter other than through some vague insidious influence DAVE: who even is this guy and why should i hate him DAVE: am i really supposed to be pissed off at a green muscle monster i never met DAVE: cause i aint pissed off at no muscle monster DAVE: hell wasnt he in some ass backwards way responsible for us existing in the first place? DAVE: or all of humanity for that matter?? DAVE: maybe i should thank him before chopping him up via welshscalibur JADE: jeez you sure have some issues JADE: honestly it has become very tiresome listening to this sort of thing JADE: i thought davesprite had problems JADE: his issues i could kind of understand JADE: i thought you might be different, being the alpha dave and all JADE: but no JADE: you might be even more messed up inside than he was! DAVE: what DAVE: why are you dragging that guy into this (p.6385 / 6386)

part 2

#homestuck #homestuck meta #dave strider #jade harley #davejade #davesprite #hs #homestuck analysis

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suffarustuffaru · 9 days

Note

Scrolling through your blog is such a fun experience, you bring an absolutely great vibe to this fandom and I love it SO MUCH. Could even say you restored my hope in it, since there has been some aspects that made me force myself to leave it, and I hope me bringing one of them up here won't upset anyone.

Now I completely understand if you wish to not answer my ask, but I figured it's worth a shot. So, one of said aspects was a controversy regarding one of the rezero characters that made me feel like you can't mention them without being called names (mostly on tiktok, but other social media also, tho not as much).

Yeah I'm talking about Felix. I'm not transphobic by any means, and I'm fine with people headcannoning whatever they want, but seeing thousands of people calling others transphobic for calling Felix a 'he' made me so unsafe I forced myself to look for other interest. Which is funny since most of the people saying this weren't even part of the fandom. I was wondering if anyone else here had similar situations and just.. how do you deal with it? It seems silly, I know, but feeling like I can't speak about a rather important character from a media I love made me so upset.

No matter how much I tried explaining it, they either dismiss it or say Tappei made him a trans girl without knowing.

Now, if you do decide to answer this and say that Felix indeed may have been 'trans coded' a little bit (Did I used that term correcly? Idk) I'll understand (hell, I would probably agree, you character analysis are great), I'm just upset at the absolute lack of respect for any other way of referring to Felix other then she/her.

(Also in case people don't know, their proof of Felix being a trans girl is the scene from EX1, with the whole calling himself a girl in front of a mirror thing)

Sorry for this is being long and probably messy I just had to get this off my chest.. also I hope I didn't came of as offensive in any way, if I did I'm really sorry.

hi there anon! first of all - aw thank you for your compliments about me and my blog. im super passionate about rezero (though thats probably super clear to anyone whos seen any content i make for a while aljsdlkf) and well. ive been lurking about in this fandom since summer 2020 so i definitely understand having to leave/distance yourself from this fandom because outside of tumblr, the rezero fandom is kind of . well. to put it simply, theres a lot of metaphorical landmines unfortunately!! T^T and admittedly i wouldve left this fandom a lot sooner if i didnt stick to my own corner and curate spaces with other people who were super chill (like lots of people lurking about here on tumblr + rz tumblr in general!!). so i totally understand how you feel anon (and youre not silly for being upset, i promise!), though admittedly im not super super familiar with some rezero spaces (such as rz twitter) bc i 1. dont speak japanese and 2. i try very hard to avoid the negativity whenever possible!! T^T

and also i apologize for taking a while to answer your ask!! you're one of my older asks that kinda got lost in my drafts hah but i also just wanted to like. take extra care with your ask bc its a super important topic. like not just to me (though its definitely important to me) but its important in general. and i really like felix so. <3

a quick disclaimer is that i myself am not transfem. i am however afab and most likely genderqueer!! (im winging it as i go hah.) felix is also not a character id say im as well-versed in yet, but i do like felix a lot and ex1 changed my entire brain chemistry. and ill also be defaulting to he/him pronouns in this post because thats what he uses in canon.

felix is - at the end of the day - a fictional character, and tappei is a cis man who doesnt Entirely write characters like felix through a queer lens. arguably tappei is Self-Aware when he writes characters who are into other characters of the same sex (though the Representation is arguably a little bit questionable at times depending on how you look at it), but when it comes to characters like felix or subaru who have some Gender Stuff going on, it's more nebulous there. i dont know if tappei 100% realizes he's made characters that could be read as Trans/Genderqueer (emphasis on "read as", because i support different interpretations of these characters), but tappei Definitely Is Very Aware that gender and gender presentation and gender roles are super important when it comes to characters like felix, subaru, and crusch.

i think tappeis own perceptions of gender and gender roles do bleed a bit into the text as much as tappei is pretty purposeful with themes surrounding gender in rezero, but rezero itself still has all sorts of identity issues to explore with a lot of its characters and gender is a big part of that!!

so first and foremost im gonna be examining felix the best i can Purely Off Of The Canon Text, though i do like viewing rezero from a queer lens myself (and it is arguably very queer). im gonna talk first about felix and then ill move onto talking about my personal feelings on rezero fandom stuff :o !!

so felix's relationship with his gender is complicated and he Absolutely does not fit into traditional gender roles or gender presentation right now. these are undeniable. and if people headcanon felix as transfem thats totally understandable and valid!! but to say a headcanon is 100% canon and that other interpretations of a character as complex as felix are invalid isnt exactly it. for sure. i mean i myself interpret him as nonbinary haah. but felix's relationship with gender is so so so So complicated that i dont think you could just say hes transfem and then Not Elaborate More.

but regardless of how Exactly you label felix, i think you could possibly say that hes trans coded. tappei, even if he probably doesnt entirely know hes made pretty genderqueer characters, is Aware and Purposeful of how gender affects felix and his perception of himself and his identity and other peoples perception of him and this is brought up Over and Over Again in canon—felix’s gender identity, at the moment, aligns more with femininity in his presentation in every way, though he still perceives himself as masculine. felix’s case is complicated, and while im not entirely sure on this i think you could argue that hes trans coded—“coding” suggests a level of intent when making these characters, and i think that intent is present in some way with tappei. because tappei Knows just how important gender is with felix’s character and you can tell with how often and how Integral it is to felix’s entire character.

(more under the cut) (i do have a habit of being rambley/wordy sometimes if. if you couldnt tell already. but i hope this response is up to your standards!!)

these three analysis posts on felix's relationship with gender have all discussed this topic in-depth before i have, and i 1. really like the rezero content i see from all three of these people and 2. they All have slightly different takes based on the canon we have but also some similar points. because felix is complicated!! of course our takes are probably gonna be a bit different - he's a multifaceted character with such a complex relationship with his gender that it's hard to tell what every single one of his personal feelings on it is (especially when at the moment he hasnt appeared in the main story since arc 5 and he still has a Lot of character development to do). and of course fiction is fiction, we can all take away any sort of meaning from a story like this.

but you know. this is my post so im gonna try to analyze felix right now and say my two cents on what i think of his relationship with gender.

so im gonna try not to retread too much on what liquidstar, sufferu, and gourmet of gluttony have already said about felix (and i think theyre all very smart people with interesting analysis posts and theyve all explained their thoughts pretty well) and instead add on with my own thoughts - theres this felix excerpt from arc 4 wn that i think about sometimes. im gonna put it down here!!

and also important to note—like other people have mentioned, crusch and felix made a “deal” of sorts in the past where crusch takes on felix’s masculinity and felix takes on crusch’s femininity. and also like other people have said—and i myself have said in the past—i do have some mixed feelings on this wkdndn and as i said before also i do wish tappeis feelings on gender bled a little less when theyre Not Integral To The Story. bc i dont think tappei 100% knows hes made trans coded characters, but. anyway yeah so thats the whole deal with crusch felix. and in its own right i think it has So Many Interesting Implications!!

i think when it comes down to it, gender presentation IS a bit of a performance, isn't it? like i love to wear dressses and skirts and i love to keep my hair short and wear suits, but you know - these sorts of things tend to be gendered. our gender is often perceived through how we present ourselves, but in recent years gender roles being attached to clothing has gotten a bit less Rigid. but these rigid roles associated with presentation are even more dialed up to Eleven in a medieval world like the rezero fantasy world. and i dont use the word "performance" in a negative way -

what i mean is that when it comes to felix's character, does felix think he's a boy because that's what he's been told? does he think he's a boy because he TRULY sees himself that way, or does he THINK he has to see himself as one? does felix try to present and perform femininity, ie as or like a traditionally feminine girl, purely ONLY for crusch's sake, or is it because felix ALSO WANTS to? what does felix think of gender outside of crusch? who is felix outside of crusch? who is felix outside of tying his entire personality to other people? does felix’s femininity show the “radiance of ferris’ soul” bc of the deal he made with crusch or bc this truly is felix’s soul? these are like the big questions behind his entire character and character arc that would determine in the end how felix identifies in both his gender and In General.

so what is felix's identity at the moment? bc right now, felix is stuck between his feminine self, tied to crusch, a symbol of crusch, tied to his own reliance on crusch and worship of her—and his masculine self, someone broken off from crusch. felix is tied to crusch right now to worrying extents with his obsessive devotion to the point of changing himself to mold into her image, and beyond that, hes still tied to guilt surrounding fourier’s death. gourmet of gluttony puts all of this way way more intelligently than i ever could, but at the end of the day, i think the best narrative decision here would be for felix to accept himself in ALL of his entirety.

healing in rezero is noted to be a kind power, specifically by fourier and fourier saying this right to felix when hes the most talented healer in lugunica, and healing itself is often stereotypically feminine activity. knighthood is stereotypically masculine, and on top of all this, we see in ex1 that biehn argyle twists the power of healing into something grotesque—trying to bring back the dead and revive what cant be revived, which is once again another reoccurring theme in rezero.

how far can “from zero” go? what HAS to stay dead and what can be revived? who is allowed to live? HOW do you live freely? felix is someone born from a horribly abusive and neglectful family who twisted healing magic’s kindness into cruelty, felix is someone who was taken into a family that showed him kindness and now hes desperate to pay them back with everything he has and everything he is, felix is a healer who lashes out when hes cornered and a healer who treasures life and a knight who cant physically fight like the others, felix is someone stuck with the horrible knowledge that he cant save everyone—that some things just Couldnt end better no matter how much he wished for it to.

felix is stuck between all kinds of worlds, and in terms of gender, hes quite literally still stuck between boyhood and manhood in the biological sense—hes purposefully made it so that he hasnt hit puberty yet so he can better pass as feminine. he hasnt Physically Grown past puberty—which is the mark of becoming an adult. and he hates himself in a number of ways, but he also hates himself for failing to be traditionally masculine. his abusive family stole ten years of his life and the torture left him physically weaker, so he cant be strong physically, which is something associated with traditional masculinity. felix is the best healer, a traditionally feminine job and skill, but he cant save everyone. felix becomes more feminine as part of his deal with crusch, but while crusch accepts her femininity and masculinity readily, and while crusch’s memory is erased by gluttony—felix is left behind, alone, still holding onto femininity while not entirely being able to hold onto it while he also cant entirely hold onto the traditional masculinity he expects out of himself. and with arc 3 on, felix feels hes failed both fourier and crusch. the two most important male and female figures in his life.

felix is basically stuck in this liminal space where hes not Enough for himself in literally every direction, and the only way out is to accept every part of himself and move forward by trying to define who he is without other people—his birth family and his found family dont define him. they can shape him, sure, but he has to stop shaping himself to meet them and figure out how to let himself just. Be. and take up a space thats firmly his. from a queer lens, this kind of thing is pretty queer—because to stop being in between worlds, you have to accept everything instead of splitting yourself into halves over and over again. killing or maiming yourself or parts of yourself is no way to live, and felix is Life itself.

and i think regardless of the Exact Labels you could give felix, i think his arc—which is perfectly in line with all of rezeros themes—is inherently about self acceptance and the bridging of the gap and combination of femininity and masculinity. felix is both and identifies, in one way or another, with both, similar to how he loves someone who identifies with both (crusch) and just as hes loved her and fourier. imo it wouldnt be right for felix to choose one or the other in terms of feminine vs masculine—he needs to be the one learning and navigating his honest feelings on both sides bc i think he Yearns to be both. hes a boy who dresses like a girl and its up to him to know if he wants to be a man and/or a woman due to his own internal desire or if parts of that is Only due to external pressures.

and alright now that ive said all my thoughts on felix atm im gonna address the other questions you had in your ask!! note that this is just my opinions and thoughts regarding my own experience in the english fandom, you dont have to agree or anything 👍

but i AM very sorry about your negative experiences in this fandom. T^T people calling other transphobic for using he/him for felix (and also people being transphobic about characters like felix or subaru/natsumi in general) is something ive seen as well. the rezero fandom is sadly very often toxic and Bigoted in a lot of ways (with the exception of rezero tumblr and certain segments of rezero ao3, from what ive seen), which is Ironic for a story thats so clearly about love and self-acceptance, which is also ironic because arguably tappei and otsuka and the rezero marketing team (i Love the female characters in rezero but theres just so much sexualized or vaguely sexist merch/moments that dont add to the story, you know? kind of just. misses the point of their characters sometimes.) sort of contribute to it a little bit as much as tappei does do some really great things with his writing.

rezero is the first fandom ive been active in but its definitely not the first ive ever been in, and ive been in some insane fandoms before. like i said earlier though, i think i just cope by curating my experience to what i like, yknow? liking posts i enjoy, looking at stuff i enjoy, etc :O !! fandom is a hobby so i try not to look at negative stuff when i can help it wkdnd. which im sure youre aware about already but i always have to keep reminding myself of this bc places like rezero reddit or twitter get pretty rough!! but its really helped me just following artists and creators i like, enjoying their content, chatting with cool people i vibe with, rezero tumblr being the chillest rezero space in the whole fandom, and its also helped me a lot making rezero content of my own—like this whole blog!! its really shocked me how much people seem to value my thoughts enough to ask me things frequently but i appreciate it pfft. and i hope you guys like reading my posts!!

but yeah like. curate, curate, curate. it helps a LOT and it gets me excited to experience rezero not only by myself you know? not that i didnt have fun by myself but its its own level of fun finally finding spaces to have fun with others!! and i LOVE finding beautiful fanart!! chef’s kiss. and trying to be the change i want to see is satisfying on its own :,) i want to post random shit about rezero, so i post it. i want to make fanart for fun and share it. i want to brute force people into loving otto more so i ottopost (dont worry, i still hate him bc true otto fans also hate him at the same time <3 /lh). i want more queer rezero content so i try to make some more!! brings more personal power i think and its very fun!! and it helps with lessening the quiet despair of fandom toxicity ;-;; (which is something ive done many times and will continue to do sometimes so i feel your pain 🫂) and i promise theres cool people in the fandom 👍 i may reply late to asks or dms but im ALWAYS down to talk about rezero things its so fun 👍👍

and its really really hard sometimes to deal with fandom toxicity especially if its forcefully knocking at your door—definitely dont force yourself to stay or look at things if you cant, bc thats totally understandable!! and i myself have been harassed a little in the past. but definitely having some sort of coping—the block button, backing out of things you dont agree with or like, lots and lots of curating, etc—helps me a lot. and i think mental health wise i feel much better trying to look on the bright side of things!! its MY hobby goddammit!! ill fight people subaru-style if they try to poison it!! and however long anyone reading this decides to spend with rezero and rezero tumblr—you are welcome here 👍

but yes my very Long rambling aside - i hope this post somewhat helped you!! felix is a very important character that i like very much and need to learn more about and i have Many Feelings on the english side of this fandom, but im very grateful to all the cool people ive met over the years here for sure!! :o

also ill probably post the finished version soon but if youve read this far here is a sneak peak of felix art i did recently (just as a reward for once again reading all of my Endless Yapping)👍👍

#rezero #re:zero #felix argyle #ferris argyle #ask #once again gonna say that im not transfem so im not exactly 100% leading authority on this probably but these were just my two cents yeah!!#hope you have a good day/evening/night anon :3 ty for the ask! sorry i took a while to answer but i hope this made sense :D #felix <3 the character of all time fr i love him #my art

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