countless tears. endless nights spent with your head down. days where you’ve been unable to acknowledge the sun. it’s been months, you know it has, and you’re finally able to admit it to yourself. it’s over now, though. it’s done. you’re done.
“i’m done.” you say out loud, triumphantly brandishing your laptop in the air, though not in a manner too spirited. dropping $2000 worth of technology would put a damper on your rare good mood. “the chapter that had me stumped, i’m finally finished.”
“that’s great, baby!” jeno’s exclamation is muffled from under the throw blanket that’s eternally on your shared couch. it’d been yours before you’d moved in together, but now it fell comfortably in the shared asset category. you hear your boyfriend shed the blanket, groaning softly as he sits up and stretches before allowing his feet to settle on solid ground. his footsteps are subdued by his socks, the navy blue ones he only wears at home.
jeno drapes himself over the back of your chair, resting his chin lightly on top of your head. he radiates warmth. you allow yourself to sink back into him, just a little.
“what’s it about?” he murmurs into your hair. you steel yourself.
you breathe.
you speak.
“this chapter's about how you said there was nobody else, and then you got up and went to her house. over and over again, night after night.” jeno’s breath hitches, and the hands resting against your shoulders stiffen. you keep going. he doesn’t deserve the chance to pause and process everything: god knows he’d never extended you that courtesy.
“somebody saw you with her last night and sent me photos, so you can’t even deny it. you gave me your word, said stupid shit like ‘oh, don't worry about her,’ but i guess it’s my fault for even listening, huh?” the question is rhetorical, and you push on as you shift so jeno isn’t touching you anymore. you turn to face him.
“you’ve been reckless with me,” there is a tremor in your voice, backed by pure anger. “i hope she isn’t worth it in the slightest. i hope the two of you are perfect for each other in that you ruin each other, and i hope you both go to hell.”
you don’t give him a chance to respond, slamming your laptop shut before standing up from your place at the dining table. a friend of yours has been kind enough to sublet her place until your lease period ends as she’s out of the country for work, and you’ve been slowly but surely moving your essentials over to her place all this time. you’ve already signed your lease for a studio apartment for the upcoming year as well. the only duck you’d had left to get in a row had been the matter of dumping jeno, but as you hear a quiet, choked sob come from behind you, you can’t help but feel that you’re finally free.
What is with the manga writers lately and killing off characters…seriously, what is the point besides disappointing your fanbase?? Sometimes it does nothing for plot development or anything, they just do it just bc 😐 I’m getting tired of it lol first JJK, then TokRev, and now BNHA…what is going on 🙃 another one of my favorites just down the drain 😭
I lost my fave in the first five minutes of Tokyo Revengers so🤷🏻♀️😂
I wouldn’t even be as upset if he died if it wasn’t the fucking way that they’re trying to make it seem like he’s dying? It’s such a cheap fucking shot and fucking pisses all over his character development.
pairing: fem!reader x haechan (feat. bestfriends!nctdream)
genres: college!au, bf2l, romance, fluff, slight angst, crack, comedy
format + projected length: group chat format with projected length of 7k.
projected date: august 7th, 2020.
special thanks: special thanks to my discord bubs esp. @bumblebeenct @yayhei and @dreamzenct for teaching me how to be funny, much love.
send an ask to be added to the tag list!
teaser below the cut.
dudes and dudette group chat—august 14, 2:13PM
[ injun ] : y/n, why are you friends with us ??
[ you ] : i ask myself that literally every single day
[ hyuckie ] : wow
[ nana ] : sigh
[ you ] : i’m kidding i love you guys
[ injun ] : don’t you want girls to hang out with
[ you ] : maybe you guys should get girlfriends then.
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : oooo she got y’all there
[ you ] : that includes you
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : im literally gay
[ you ] : oh yeah
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : CLOWN
[ jenojelly ] : you know
[ jenojelly ] : i kinda want a girlfriend too
[ nana ] : same
[ jisung pork ] : sadly……………….. same
[ you ] : then get girlfriends
[ jisung pork ] : it’s not that easy
[ you ] : yes. it is
[ jenojelly ] : easy for you to say
[ jenojelly ] : you already have like at least two guys who would want to go out with you
[ you ] : wdym
[ jenojelly ] : … i’ve said too much
[ injun ] : choose your next words very carefully, jeno
[ jenojelly ] : i’ll just back away for now
[ you ] : LEE JENO
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : n e ways
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : let’s make it a bet
[ injun ] : oh no
[ hyuckie ] : i’m intrigued
[ jenojelly ] : me too
[ you ] : of course you are, you competitive freaks
[ hyuckie ] : that hurts
[ hyuckie ] : that truly hurts
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : we start school on monday
[ jenojelly ] : great observation
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : starting on monday until the end of the school year, how about the last person to get a girlfriend has to do a punishment
[ jenojelly ] : that’s not fair, what about you and y/n ??
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : fine we’ll do it too
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : *the last person to get cuffed
[ injun ] : more important question
[ injun ] : what does the loser have to do
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : loser pays 50 bucks to everyone
[ injun ] : with our broke asses?
[ nana ] : ^
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : true
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : how about loser drinks toilet water
[ jenojelly ] : too easy
[ you ] : UM ????
[ hyuckie ] : been there, done that
[ you ] : HYUCK ??? EW ???
[ jenojelly ] : it needs to be something big
[ hyuckie ] : read “public”
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : wait what’s our school mascot again
[ nana ] : a cow
[ jisung pork ] : chenle you don’t even know the university’s mascot?
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : i couldn’t care less about cowtrina the cow
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : loser has to wear a cow suit and go around campus mooing for a whole day
[ you ] : …
[ hyuckie ] : ITS PERFECT
[ nana ] : chenle your mind… it’s immaculate
[ jisung pork ] : uhh
[ you ] : how did this go from a conversation about me wanting girl friends to a bet
[ hyuckie ] : this is way more interesting than you
[ you ] : thanks
[ hyuckie ] : *kissing emoji*
[ *insert dolphin noises* ] : alright let’s make it official. all those participating say deal
[ jenojelly ] : deal
[ hyuckie ] : deal deal deal
[ nana ] : deal. someone’s about to get some nana lovin
[ jisung pork ] : i mean i guess … deal
[ you ] : y’all are we really doing this
[ jenojelly ] : yes
[ hyuckie ] : YES !!
[ you ] : fine. deal.
[ injun ] : oh dear here we go
[ injun ] : deal.
idk if you're still reading softdom hyuk asks, but i imagined that you're having an intense fuck session until you lean up and give a little peck on his nose and his hard dom persona just crumbles then starts smiling and giggling with you as it turns into a soft and loving kinda session 😔 👉👈
i am ALWAYS down to discuss softdomhyuck but :(( that’s so fuckin cute he’d probably break demeanor and press kisses all over your face while holding you as close to him as possible because he just wants to cuddle you for forever
Hi! I really enjoy your posts and I was wondering if you already did one on Len’s sexuality? I’m kind of afraid to ask this question because I really really don’t want to come off as ignorant or homophobic but I don’t really understand how Len manages to act on his feelings about men. I think that Lewis would hate to have a gay son and would make Len know it early on, wouldn’t Len associate his feelings for men to danger? Idk how to explain but could you please help me understand better?
I think I know what you’re getting at, Anon.
It’s a tough question to answer though? In part because there’s sort of two different pieces to it, or at least I think there is, from the way you’re asking it. One is his internal feelings and one is the external world.
And I’m maybe not the best person to answer. I’m queer, but not gay, and not a man, and not one who grew up in the era that Len did. But I can try to provide a bit of perspective, at least.
So on the internal side, we’re talking about internalized homophobia. I write Len(ny) as struggling a decent amount with it in Melancholic Temperament because I think that you’re right that Lewis would have been a homophobic asshole and Len would’ve internalized some shit and struggled with that.
But it’s not just because of Lewis. We live in a homophobic and queerphobic society and Len came of age in the 1980s and that was the height of the AIDS crisis and there is a lot of mess that goes along with struggling to figure out your sexuality on the backdrop of a generation of gay men dying and thus having no one to turn to, and a horrific amount of public discourse surrounding sexuality and sexual orientation. That societal hate can make a person really engage in a lot of self-hatred related to same-sex attraction.
And then there’s the external side - it’s dangerous in his life, his line of work. There’s a very real danger associated with pursuing attraction to other men, because there’s Lewis, there’s the criminal underworld, there’s this misunderstood (at the time, I mean in the late 80s and early 90s) disease that’s killing a lot of gay men, and there’s just all of society - ready to do a person harm.
But none of that is in any way new or specific to Len. Take this post for example, an example of the fact that there was, not long ago at all in America, people who’s job it was to entrap gay men and send them to jail, and there was a very real fear among people in certain careers that they would be caught and imprisoned if they flirted with the wrong person (by the way, that’s not specific to gay men, these are things pretty much every queer and LGBTQA+ person was facing and which many still do). The association between danger and expressing same-sex attraction is something that almost every person who experiences same-sex attraction has to navigate at some point, in some way.
So your question isn’t about Len so much as it is - how does any queer person brought up in a hateful society or by hateful people manage to overcome those associations of hate and danger forced on them by society, how do they navigate the very real dangers and pitfalls surrounding them or the feelings of fear of being caught, and how do they unlearn the evil put on them by that hate?
And there’s no easy answer to that. They find courage. They overcome, and learn through a variety of ways to accept themselves. They find like-minded individuals (other queer people, other LGBTQ+ people) and learn new associations to overwrite the original ones. They find community and love. Sometimes they find allies. And a lot of the time their feelings or love for a particular individual can help too.
People have been doing this in every country in the world, and for all of time. There’s a billion ways they do it. There’s millions of people doing it now. And people being persecuted too, and a lot of danger facing them - from society, and sometimes from family too.
Don’t underestimate the power of knowing yourself authentically, I suppose. Of standing up for who you know you are. Of wanting to discover and explore who you are, and wanting to say ‘fuck you’ to society and all the people who try to force that hate on you. People can unlearn hate and relearn love regardless of what society says and regardless of the people who teach that hate.
Now - of course it’s not easy. It fucks a lot of people up. LGBTQ+ people have higher rates of mental illness, more anxiety and depression and struggle a lot, because yeah - danger, fear, emotional exhaustion, hyper-vigilance, abuse, the list goes on. It’s getting better in a lot of places around the world, and that’s great, but yeah - of course it has its effects. Not everyone is in a position to navigate it as safely as others, or is given the same amount of resources (social support, financial support, etc) to be themselves. Some people spend their whole lives denying who they are because of the danger around them, or sometimes because of the internalized hatred pushing them into denial.
But many people do find a way to pursue their same-sex attraction - to find love, or partnership, or even just sex. Over time, over the globe, millions of people have been in really similar situations to what Len would be facing in relation to this, and yet found it in themselves to overcome some of that social programming and seek out love.
And Len might have a harder time than a lot of people. The era he grew up in, the hate from his father, the danger from his social circles, the danger of being read as queer in juvie and any other incarceration - the list goes on. So I don’t have an easy answer for how he’d do it.
But I hope I’ve given some perspective on the fact that he could. And it’s a lot more than just “doing this = danger” and the associations there are a lot broader and more divergent than just that, they’re also “doing this = feels good, feels right, makes me happy, makes me feel true to myself, etc etc”. And that helps too.
Anyway, I don’t have any neat way to wrap this up, but that’s about all I can think of to say.
