Personally I Love That Xiao Xingchen Looks Like Such An Angel And Then There's His Two Judgemental, Disgusted

the choi twins don't need V's "saving"

he is ALMOST just as responsible for the choi twin's awful fate as rika🤷🏻im tired of him being coddled like he did nothing wrong or him being characterized as this noble savior of saeran and saeyoung when he absolutely is not lol

its also telling that in the good endings of the twins' routes v is either dead or in jail. either way, out of their lives . which is how it should be . i do believe v is a good person but his decisions regarding the twins are astronomically stupid and it makes me viscerally mad because. it could have been so easily avoided . saeyoung and saeran wouldn't be separated if it weren't for rika AND him

i DO want him to have sweet moments with them and i enjoy seeing them get along but because he's so self-sacrificing and apologetic it doesn't give the twins room to actually be mad cuz "poor v". it feels like "oh they should be grateful that he is changing" when they don't have to be at peace with jihyun at all . the way he hurt saeyoung is especially overlooked which makes me even more upset

and keep in mind i still do feel bad for him, i don't blame him for the stuff rika specifically did and it's important to acknowledge that he is a victim of domestic abuse. my criticisms of him are not of that regard, i am annoyed at his relationship with the twins outside of rika, his own independent actions that happen to be, again, very stupid

MAKING FRIENDS ♡

Friends add so much value to your life. Especially ones that you like, and there is a positive healthy exchange of support and love in between. However, some of us do struggle to create meaningful friendships that last. To start this post, I will start by talking about how friendships are essential to becoming the best versions of ourselves. 

Friends help us in many ways, even if they don’t even do it directly. We discover new things about ourselves just by talking to them, we have a sense of belonging and build our self-esteem. It’s not impossible to have these things and be alone, though being alone for extended periods can fester feelings of social isolation & loneliness. 

As someone who’s experienced both, usually, these feelings can make us spiral deeper as it is just the tip of the iceberg. Humans need daily communication to feel sane, which has been proven again and again. 

If you decide to invest a lot more time, effort, and energy in friends, there’s bound to be an overflowing amount of rewards. Hanging around the right people can open up new opportunities for yourself drive you closer to achieving your goals and help advance your skills. 

This being said, if you invest in the wrong people or neglect your friends, the opposite will more than likely happen. Remember that the people you allow in your life can influence you, whether for better or worse. 

REDEFINING YOUR MINDSET TOWARDS MAKING FRIENDS 

Your mindset is so crucial to making friends. It can either help you or not. Another thing is that your mindset towards life, in general, can either repel or attract people to be around you. 

Firstly and importantly, do not get attached to people you barely know. Don’t overthink about them, change yourself for them or get anxious waiting for a reply. Seriously, detach. Little things like replies or if they’ll like you, should not bother you. The concept of it bothering you should not even exist in your mind. 

Secondly, do not think of humans as assets to support your growth. This is just so icky and once you get that materialistic perspective on friendships, it just becomes harder to create meaningful ones. While friends can help you grow and achieve your goals, they will drop you once they realise they’re being taken advantage of. 

Thirdly, stay true to yourself. A bit of common advice, yet not widely followed. Never, ever, make the effort to change yourself for someone to like you a bit better. If someone doesn’t like you for just who you are, they’re not meant to be in your life, forcing it causes unnecessary & avoidable circumstances.

Fourthly, quality over quantity always. When you get older especially, it shouldn’t be your priority to gain masses of friends. Most likely, not all of your friends like you because it’s harder to invest in all of them and causes you to neglect them. 

However, having quality friends who help you grow and succeed will never stop serving you in life even if that friendship falls out. Plus, you are too busy achieving your goals every day to entertain everyone you know. 

Lastly, do not allow disrespect just because you’re friends. They will test the waters to see how much you can tolerate, then you allow them to, they’re just going to get more extreme with it. Identify disrespect in ‘jokes’ or casual conservation and call it out. These people are praying for your downfall. 

That being said, just because it is not happening to you, don’t allow it. Once you establish yourself as only wanting respect, you’re going to get treated like it. 

DEFINING YOUR INNER AND OUTER CIRCLE 

Your inner circle consists of people whom you are close to, and have healthy and positive relations with them. These are the kind of people who you’d go to for emotional support or to celebrate great successes in your life. 

Then, you have your outer circle. These can be people who you’re close to, but they’re not the closest. It consists of people who you talk to regularly, but there’s still that distance. Distance is not a bad thing at all in friendships, not everyone is meant to be your closest friend.

Now those two terms are established, I want you to visualise how you want those two circles to look. These can be people who you want to be friends with, wanting to cut anyone off or just people who you hope to meet one day. 

Then define how you want to feel with those two circles, like a loving or caring circle, or a growth and learning circle. This is completely up to you, about how those circles feel and look like as it is for you. 

I recommend writing your visualisations down and putting them somewhere you can see regularly. This is just to help us get into the energy of making meaningful friendships every day.

STANDARDS + CRITERIA IN FRIENDS 

The heading is a little bit off-putting, I understand. However, it is essential to establish a set of standards once you start making friends. This is to make sure you’re making quality friendships, and not attaching to just anyone. 

This is a bit of individual advice, you have to curate your standards by yourself. A personal example is that I’m Christian myself, I believe in God and I’m devoted to him. 

So, in that case, I won’t allow other religions or non-religious people into my inner circle. While they can be in my outer circle, I would prefer having most of my friends believe in God and uphold his values. 

Standards and criteria in friends can either be a must quality (they must have this quality) or a preferred quality (I prefer if they did, don’t mind if they don’t). You decide which qualities are which, and if they apply to your inner or outer circle. 

Can’t say much, but to help you, I advise looking into yourself internally and once again, visualising what those friendships look like daily. To help, I’ve gathered a few journaling prompts!

 What do you think are the responsibilities of friendship?

What is the nicest thing a friend could ever do for you? 

What do you think friendship is?

How do you expect the aftermath to be after an argument with a friend?

How can someone become a part of your inner circle? 

What behaviour makes you want to cut someone off?

Who were your favourite friends in the past? What did they do to become your favourite?

How would you like to be shown appreciation daily? 

Do you like banter or prefer showering each other with compliments? 

Then, extract from your responses to these prompts, some characteristics or traits that you look for in friendships. 

BECOMING SOCIALLY ELOQUENT The first tip i’m going to give to you is to read. Not just in your head, but out loud reading. Read, and see if you’re going too fast or too slow, you’re pronouncing words clearly and know when to pause. Bonus points if you record yourself reading, then rewatch it to see your progress. 

Search up any words you don’t know and how to pronounce them, and to test yourself, think of a way to use those words in an everyday sentence. 

While this helps to expand your vocabulary as well, really keep in mind the setting of the conservation. If you’re at a science and math invention fair, more advanced language is suited. However, you wouldn’t use that same way of speaking casually at a party. 

The second tip is to get rid of all filler words in your vocabulary. 

Like

Um

Uh

so

Unnecessary when speaking and it can make you an unengaging conservationist. Just take a pause when thinking, and if you forget what you were talking about, tell your listener or just change the topic. Sometimes, these words are needed when speaking, but not all the time. 

The third tip is just to do everything slower, while speaking. Move your hands slower, don’t dart your eyes around and take deep breaths before speaking. If not, you seem anxious and jittery, in which your words will not be clear. 

The fourth tip is to pay attention to the listener. Make eye contact with them and ask questions about them too. This makes it a lot more engaging and therefore, easier for the listener to listen. 

My fifth tip, and the most important, is to practice speaking. Whether it is in front of a mirror or with a partner. Use notes as reminders while practising to help you remember what to do. There are even videos on YouTube where you can pretend you’re having a conversation with someone, or you could just make your own. 

However, practice yourself to speak without preparation. Like for example, you strike up a conservation with your classmate and apply the things you’ve learnt. 

Bear in mind, that the whole point of becoming socially eloquent isn’t to make people listen to you, but to make it easier for people to listen to you. 

MAKING FRIENDS + KEEPING THEM

Now everything else is out of the way, let’s talk about what you probably came here for. How to make friends and keep them. Better said than done. 

The settings where you meet someone are important. It allows you to easily connect with people who are similar to you in any way, without actually having to state it. Here are a few places to meet people.

Church/any religious site (same beliefs)

Sports club (like that sport/exercise) 

Any classes (people who like learning/that hobby) 

School or university (you’ve got something to connect over) 

These are just a few examples of where to meet people, however, you do not have to go somewhere else just to meet someone. Sometimes, I go to my nearest shopping mall or supermarket either after school or on the weekend and talk to any girls who look around my age, with whom I’ve gained so many friends. 

While going to a particular setting helps to find people with similarities, it’s not the essential piece to meet people. 

If you struggle to make friends just by striking up a conversation, just make yourself known to others first. Help them when needed, compliment them or greet them daily. They will most likely approach you first and talk to you first as you’ve deemed yourself approachable. Do not rely on this method though, not everyone is willing to approach you. 

Once you find a potential friend and you’re talking to them, make sure it’s an engaging conversation. First, ask open-ended questions. Open-ended questions are ones that someone can expand on, basically not yes or no answers. 

Do you own any cats? -> What’s your favourite cat breed? 

Do you enjoy *activity*? -> What’s your favourite thing to do after school? 

When can we hang out? -> Where’s your favourite place to hang out?

These are the kinds of questions that you get to know someone and are engaging. Remember, do not be overbearing with questions, it can come off as kinda odd. 

Secondly, find any similarities and talk about them. For example, a sport, a favourite book, a hobby, religion. It is so easy for people to connect over their favourite things. 

Thirdly, have open and friendly body language. Smile when they’re talking, maintain eye contact, avoid crossing your arms and legs, and lean in to show you’re listening. People love love, good listeners. 

My fourth point which refers back to being good listeners, is remembering what they say. If they said, oh I love going to the beach, maybe suggest going to the beach together. Or, they said, I hate studying, then the next time they have a test, help them study. 

Lastly, avoid small talk. It becomes awkward and the answers are always the same. If you must, ask them about things that happened in their life. Like, how’s that boy you’re talking to or did you do well on that test? 

Most people also hate small talk. So, if every single conservation is just small talk, they would not want to talk to you. 

These little things that you remember can make people like you and therefore, want to be your friend. I remember stuff about people by just writing it down and occasionally referring back to it. 

Now, let’s say you’ve got your friend now. However, you don’t have a way of talking to them every day. They don’t live close by nor do they attend your school/uni/any place. So, how do we keep them?

Easy, invest in those friendships. Talk to them via messages or phone, schedule days to hang out, check up on them to make sure they’re doing well, be honest with them, remember important dates of their lives etc. 

Keeping friends is just about being a good friend to them. Just think about how you would like to get treated by your friends and treat them like that. Even if they don’t reciprocate, putting out those positive actions, will come back to you one day. 

Sayaka Murata and Autism

Recently I read both Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, and from my perspective, I see these books as two sides of the same coin. CSW is My Neighbour Totoro as Earthlings is Grave of the Fireflies in the way that they’re twin media, with one being exponentially darker than the other.

Reading from an autistic lens, I see CSW as being from the perspective of an autistic person that easily masks and wants to fit into allistic society (or “The Factory” as they call it in Earthlings); the convenience store is a representation of larger society with the main character having found her role in it, a role that she loves despite the shit she gets for not having a “real job” in her mid-30s. She grew up with a loving family that albeit saw her as odd, she has perfectly catered her very being to please others, using scripts and practised expressions and emotional responses to fit in with others and maintain her position as a convenience store worker, aka, her place as a highly masked autistic in society.

In comparison, in Earthlings, our main character is deeply traumatised, and abused by her family. Similarly to CSW, she is seen as odd, but is treated worse since she struggles to mask and fit in according to society’s standards. The fact that she, her cousin, and her partner see themselves as belonging to another extraterrestrial race is an act of literal and metaphorical alienation by perceiving themselves as aliens for being autistic and unable to gel with allistic society — and this isn’t an uncommon occurrence for autistic people, seeing yourself as non-human! And when she grows up and we learn that her cousin “stopped believing” in being an alien, it’s not because he’s matured, but because he’s learnt to mask.

While the cannibalism and incest in Earthlings is shocking at first, especially in comparison to CSW, I see it as symbolic of them accepting who they are by fully unmasking. Since they’ve been treated as grotesque monsters their whole life for being autistic, it would only make sense to me that by fully committing to the depravity depicted in the book that it’s supposed to be representative of them embracing themselves wholly.

Something something marginalised groups treated like filth will embrace filth and find beauty in it something something

That Anon made me go back and glance at Saeyoung’s After Ending since I don’t really go there that much. Most of the time, i just head into the Secret Ending to replay that content, but I had to do a double-take because I forgot about this detail. Apparently, his dream Toy Shop is unbelievable to look at… This isn’t located near his bunker, but it might as well be according to Jumin. What the hell does this Toy Shop look like, Saeyoung?

I don’t even think I could draw a model of this! Hey, Saeyoung MCs, do you have an idea what this man would create this building to look like?

I see you like to write as well! How sweet.

May I ask for something about SE Saeran? He's my favorite little bean.

Whatever comes to your mind is fine^^

you may!! i love writing for all saerans <33

this is set if saeyoungs route happened but was platonic,, flower meanings courtesy of rays guide

- mod kokichi

[se] saeran x reader

-> flower language

cws : none

you closed the door behind you, stepping into the silence.

“hi.” your voices echoes, for a moment you feel consciously aware of it all, of the silence that deafened you, of the sound of your clothes rustling as you moved. you hoped you weren't alone.

“hello.” – this was your only reply. the only proof someone was actually here. you imagined Saeyoung was out somewhere, you remember him mentioning going shopping or something, perhaps Vanderwood had come along as well (he always said Saeyoung was clueless when it came to shopping for cleaning supplies. you didn’t think that was true, but you let him have his excuse.) your heart fluttered regardless, the silence had been shattered, broken, gone. and it had been him who'd ended it.

you placed your shoes and coat aside, stepping towards the location of the voice. Despite Saeyoung having seemingly insane amounts of items – it always felt empty. maybe that’s why had so many. but, it was nice to see it filled slightly. keys in a bowl on a table, coats hung up, a vase of flowers. daffodils. “new beginning” – that was one of their meanings, and you spoke it aloud, throwing it into the silence without expecting a reply.

“Yes.” you turned in surprise, jumping slightly, and meeting his curious gaze. “you remember?”

“of course. don’t they also have other meanings? self-love was one.”

he nodded, “yeah. ironic, because they also mean unrequited love.”

“and... 'you’re the only one'. perhaps they mean finding a new start in loving yourself, finding comfort and joy with yourself, even if the one you love doesn’t feel the same. but... not forgetting them. ‘the sun shines when i’m with you' – you still stay with them. because you ... care for them.” you spoke softly, staring at the bright petals. you quickly turned to him again, and his gaze was soft, maybe bittersweet. “ah, sorry, i didn’t mean to ramble.” yeah, indirectly ramble about your own feelings to the man, you hoped he didn’t pick up on it. you didn’t expect him to return those feelings, and he was still recovering anyways. you didn't want to bring it up now, not now. possible never.

“it’s fine. i’m pleased you like them and remember the meanings. you’re correct by the way, it holds a very deep meaning.” he thought for a moment, and then gestured for you to follow him. “come. i was watering a new one.”

“the chrysanthemums?”

“yes!” his eyes shone when he looked at you, and you couldn’t hold back your bright smile at the sight. he was pretty. and he was so much more lively than before, his hair dyed back to that akin to his brother's , beautiful and vibrant. it was amusing that you were thinking of his hair, considering the flowers he showed you were the same colour.

"they're beautiful..." you mused, leaning down to stare properly. "what do these ones mean?" each flower he had planted held a different meaning, they were all so colourful, yet they stood out from the other, while also blending together nicely. it gave the place so much life. and he looked so peaceful when he talked about them. "these mean...'you're a wonderful friend'. i..." he hesitated, glancing over at you.

"...you?"

"nothing, never mind."

"ah." comfortable silence fell over you both. "the colour."

"hm?"

"does the colour of the flower mean anything?"

"it means... 'I love'"

"thats nice. i like that."

"it's for you. the flower, i mean."

he wasn't looking at you. you knew exactly what he mean. "you...?"

"you don't need to say anything. it has two meanings, take it as either."

"can i take it as both?" his eyes snapped to you, brilliant mint staring directly at you. "saeran, i love you, as well."

"you...do..?"

"i love you." he blinked for a second, and then smiled. he smiled, and it was so pretty you couldn't help but lean forward towards him, pressing a light kiss to his cheek, his cheeks turning almost the same colour as the flowers in the pot, or the new colour of his hair.

"the daffodils," he whispered. "they were a reminder of you as well. i didn't know if you felt the same, i didn't intend to tell you at first. but now... i thought that if you didn't, at least i'd have confirmation." his voice was so quiet, something low, barely there, as though this was a dream and he'd wake up soon. quiet enough, that only you heard him.

i went there

Normal Basil conversation

(No dialogue ver. and og meme below)