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neo-culture-mafia · 4 years

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焦虑

钟辰乐 Zhong Chenle

Jaemin has removed himself from our everyday lives since we found out the news. The news that broke and separated us more than we already were. Our family has split again. This time-- we all repelled each other. Dinners were now silent when no one dared to speak into the heavy silence. Taeyong talks with no reply as if the news never affected him.

I sometimes walk past the older Junior Force's rooms to hear faint sniffles and some masked sobs. I don't blame them-- I don't even blame myself when I break down in the middle of the day.

"I'm gonna do it." Jaemin smiled as he came into the lounge. "I'm going to grow a pair and ask them to come back home." his smile lit up the room as his eyes sparkled in the early morning light.

"Can I come?" Jisung asked while his hands grasped together in front of his chest. "Not this time, Jwi. I'm going to come back with them-- then you can hug them and annoy them for the rest of eternity." Jaemin grabbed his keys and bag without another word.

Renjun sat on the middle couch cushion in a heap of blankets with a cup of tea; Jeno laid spread out next to Renjun on the pristine white sofa without a care in the world; Jisung sat next to the couch on the armchair where his legs were thrown over the armrest-- his long legs guarding a bag of candy and I laid across the loveseat. The older elites were either training or sleeping the hours away. It was a crisp morning that held so many promises and wishes.

"I'll be back," Jaemin called as we were left with his absence. "Do you think they'll come back?" Renjun called into the air as he took a sip from his cooling tea. "It's going to take a lot of convincing." Jeno sighed as his eyes shut and he stole a blanket from Renjun's stack.

"Lele." Renjun called my name lightly, "Did you talk to Kun lately?" He asked me as I tried to rake my brain for the last memory I had of a conversation with the older member. "No. I talked to him about 2 weeks ago. Something about a big mission," I trailed off and Renjun nodded, "he wanted to know when Mark and y/n would be back though so he could come back and prepare dinner." I hummed and Renjun's eyes shut softly.

"I just want them home," I whispered to myself as a shiver of loneliness ran down my spine. "We all do. Just trust Jaemin." Jisung called across the room. We all looked towards him as he tapped furiously on his screen. "You heard me?" I asked and he nodded. "You mutter rather loudly." His eyes squinted into a smile as he waved off our stares and returned to his game.

Jeno and Renjun began a conversation as I took this time to exit. I grabbed the back of the loveseat and hoisted myself over the back and onto the ground. "Where did lele go?" Renjun's voice broke the conversation as I held my breath. "Probably slithered out not too long ago." Jeno yawned. I used the blind spots and crawled out of the living room and into the kitchen where Johnny stood, eating a bowl of fruit.

"Is it yummy?" I asked as I grabbed the water container. "Delicious," Johnny interjected and sat down on a barstool. I poured myself a glass of water and began sipping leisurely. "So how's it going, little man?" Johnny questioned as his eyes trained on my figure. "Pretty good, big man." I laughed and his smile broke the tension.

"Do you think they'll come home today?" I asked and I could see him hesitate. "I hope they do." He chuckled and pushed some fruit around with his fork.

"Their rooms are still here. They have all of their stuff here...we just need them." He confirmed the current situation bluntly. Yet, the bluntness was calming coming from Johnny.

"We should clean their rooms for them. It must be dusty up there. We could make it more warm and habitable." I shrugged and finished the rest of the water in my glass.

Johnny smiled. "You, Chenle? Wanting to clean?" I watched as his shoulders shook a little with humor as he couldn't believe what he was hearing. My mouth gaped a little. "I will have you know that I can be clean when I want to be. And when I want to be-- I polish up pretty nice." I straightened my back and pointed my nose to the sky. His smile was infectious as I could feel the familial love in the air.

"I think that is an amazing idea, lele. We have the day to rearrange and clean and maybe even decorate if you wanted," Johnny said and I could feel my heart swell, "I can run to the store to get some new blankets and pillows for them while you stick back and start to move things around." This was happening. They were coming home.

"Can the others help?" I asked and he waved off to the living room where the other Junior Forces laid in male laziness. I had a running start as I dived onto the pile of blankets that shielded my older friend from the light of morning. I landed on Jeno as he groaned and tried to move me over so I was squished between his body and the back of the couch.

"Johnny-hyung and I are going to be cleaning and rearranging y/n and Mark's rooms. Do you guys want to help?" I looked at the 3 boys. Stares were exchanged amongst them. "I call y/n's room!" They shouted as they tried to fight each other off their asses and out of the living room. "We'll work on y/n's room then go onto Mark's...deal?" I asked and they all stopped mid bicker. "Deal." They all repeated and marched up the stairs and in front of the two untouched rooms that sat at the end of the hall.

We all stood in front of the plain white door with our breaths trapped in our chests. "Who's going to open it?" Jisung whispered and we all looked at each other in our peripherals. "It's locked." Jeno breathed. "I'll get Johnny." I ran to the balcony that overlooked the kitchen. "Hyung. The doors are locked." I explained and he looked around the counter for his keys. They shot up and right into my hand. "The black and white key is y/n's and the dark red one is Mark's." He explained quickly. "Thank you!" I called and ran back down the carpeted hallway. Jaehyun and Jungwoo now stood in the crowd in front of the closed door.

"I got the keys." I called and stepped around some of the bodies that were crowding. They all skeptically looked to the door as I walked to the piece of wood and shakily put the key into the lock. I turned and the door creaked.

I pulled the key out and stood staring at the piece of painted white wood in front of my face. "It's okay. Open it." Jaehyun whispered. My hand came up to the cool metal doorknob and turned it and pushed.

The light streamed through her balcony door and lit up a rainbow on her carpeted floor. Dust floated through the rays of sun and reminded us of the neglect the room had been through.

Jisung stepped up through the crowd and was the first to walk into the room.

He grabbed the stuffed koala at the end of her bed and sat in its place. The stuffed animal was smushed in his embrace as we could see the emotion flash through his eyes. "They're coming home." He whispered to himself.

We all slowly walked in and inspected a random object that caught our attention.

White walls made the room feel open yet bare. "Do you think her record player is somewhere in here?" Jungwoo called and we all were determined to find the familiar yellow suitcase that held one of her most prized possessions.

I was the first person to open the closet and was met with the yellow box on the floor. "In here." I grabbed the record player and set it on her bed. Renjun opened it up and started to set it up. Rap records laid in a box with writing all over it. I pulled the heavy box out and we all started sifting through the box.

The most worn-out record laid on the top, 'Eminem' laying in front of our eyes. "I've been looking for that record for the past 3 years." Johnny sighed as his presence was finally recognized. He snatched the vinyl and placed it onto the spoke. The hand came down and a familiar tune was projected from the speakers.

'Beautiful'. I remembered the numerous times that she would play this song in the car. The groans from the rest of the car always made her eyes sparkle with mischief. I know we all miss this song though.

"Alright let's start." Johnny clapped his hands and we all began to move around the room trying to make the room look liveable. Some of us hummed along and some of us were just so caught up in the task that we blocked each other out.

"Does anyone have anything we could hang up? Like posters or pictures?" Jeno called as he organized her cd's with care. "I do! I have a bunch of family pictures in my room." Jisung called and sprinted out of the room.

We were all prepared for some handfuls of pictures, yet, we were never prepared with 4 photo boxes that were each overflowing. We all sat down and tried to make a collage that would make the room come together.

Pictures of us as kids leading up to when we first left were cascading through the room as we began hanging the photos up. "Do you think she'll like it?" I asked and Jaehyun's hand messed up my hair. "Love it."

"Onto Mark's." Jeno rounded us all up and ushered us to the door right next to y/n's. This door was easier for us to open as we already experienced the rollercoaster of emotions once before.

"Is that my old holster?" Renjun pushed us all aside and ran into the room where indeed, his old holster laid on top of Mark's chest at the end of his bed.

"Are those my old chemistry notebooks?" Jeno gasped as he ran to the bedside table where a stack of notebooks full of Jeno's old equations laid in perfect solitude.

"Yeah. We didn't know who's was who's stuff when we moved their stuff in. We just divided it up and stored," Jaehyun said as he grabbed a chain that laid on the desk. "Sorry about that." His smile washed away any anger the other boys could've been feeling.

"You guys rearrange and I'll go shopping for new sheets and stuff like that." Johnny bid us a farewell and was on his own way.

~~~

"How did you find out?!" Renjun hollered as he finally took a rest on the couch. We had all worked for 5 hours straight on the rooms and they were pristine. We could finally sit down and rest after a hard day of homecoming preparations.

"No. Family dinner can be tomorrow. They need time to rest, Kun-" "Are you stalking us?!" Renjun called and we laughed in amusement. "Fine. Fly up tonight and prepare for tomorrow. They'll be here any minute, I have to go." And with that-- Renjun hung up his cellphone.

He threw his head onto the back of the couch and let out a long sigh.

More members came to sit in the living room, excited to see the two most missed people walk through

acting like. It was a happy-filled space, yet, something just feels off.

Taeil came in and sat down on the recliner across from my place on the loveseat. He looked at me and could sense I felt something wrong. "You feel it too?" He asked and I slowly nodded. His hands ran through his hair as he leaned back on the black leather recliner.

The front door opened and we all jumped to our feet to see a familiar set of dark brown eyes and silver hair. "Yuta?" Doyoung called out in shock. "I've come to bless you all with my presence." He smiled as some of his men followed suit. "And also to introduce to a new team member," Yuta smiled and grabbed a younger boy by the shoulder. "This is my second in command, Osaki Shotaro." Yuta's actions took us for a loop.

"I heard my brother and sister are coming back and wanted to join the rest of the family upon their return." It was as if Yuta read our minds. "And while celebrating their homecoming, I thought we could all welcome a new face around here." We were all open to the idea and Shotaro didn't seem like the problem...something was still off.

There was a bang from the front door as Yuta's guards all drew their guns and held them at their sides.

"I won, you lost, bozo." "Get off of me you numb nut!" Someone struggled. A hand gripped the floor as a more familiar face rounded the corner into the living room. "Hello!" Kun smiled with Sicheng and Xiaojun in tow.

"Gege!" Renjun shouted and bear-hugged them all at once...or...well at least he tried. Lucas, Ten, Yangyang, and Hendery were in a heap on the floor as they wrestled each other senselessly. The Chinese family members said their hello's and Kun went to tame the ones who couldn't control themselves.

"I will put you all on a plane back to China right now if you don't stop." Kun called over the group and they didn't stop. "We are here to see Mark and Y/n, not to fight on the floor." Kun tried yanking some of them off each other.

Our smiles couldn't be tamed as Johnny walked over and literally pulled the boys off of each other. "Oh hey, Johnny." Ten smiled as his feet were lifted off the ground. "Hey, dude." Johnny greeted as he tossed him over onto the carpeted living room floor. "Lucas I am not picking you up." Johnny groaned as he put his leg in between Hendery and Yangyang's bodies. "I will put you both into chokeholds." Johnny threatened and they were still going at it.

"3." Johnny started counting and they were up before he reached 2. "Hello." They bowed and walked into the warm and spacious living room.

"Any word?" Kun asked me after we exchanged greetings. I shook my head with a sigh. "What's wrong?" He asked and I just shook my head again. "Something's wrong," I whispered, "I don't know what, but, something is going on that we don't know about." I started pulling at my fingers.

"Well let's just sit down and wait for a little bit. Hopefully, once they arrive, you'll feel okay." Kun's smile calmed my fears slightly as we both sat next to each other on the love seat.

~~~

We all sat around the living room as we were waiting and ready to go out to dinner once Mark and Y/n got home and washed up.

The familiar rev of Jaemin's motorcycle could be heard in the distance. We all looked to each other in silence as our hearts were about to beat out of our chests. "Just breathe." Kun reminded everyone and it was as if a group of fish had been taken out of water. Gasps were heard around the room as we tried to stabilize our heartbeats.

The engine stopped in front of the door and the front door was opened soon after. Jaemin stormed in with anger written across his features. Blood stained his cheekbones and brow bone as a sad tone took hold of the room...no Mark or y/n followed him.

Jaemin searched the faces of the room. "Where the fuck is he?" His hand that gripped his helmet raised and was held above his head for a moment. "Where?!" Jaemin's voice broke and we all looked around at each other looking for a response. "Taeyong?" Yuta asked and with a flare of Jaemin's nostrils, we knew that Taeyong was the wanted man of the hour.

"He's in his office, Jae." Jeno called softly and Jaemin's hand threw down his helmet where it shattered into what looked like a million pieces. Jisung, who sat closest to the outburst, shielded himself from the flying glass.

We all got up to confront him as we watched him run down the hall towards the head office. We watched as he kicked the door in and ran to Taeyong who was startled from the action.

"What. Did. You. Do." Jaemin grabbed Taeyong by the collar and pulled him close to his own face. "What are you talking ab-" "I will use your head as a hood ornament-" "Excuse me?!" Taeyong shrieked. "Where are they?!" I watched from behind Hendery as we saw Jaemin completely lose it.

Taeyong became limp as his face fell. "You weren't supposed to find out like this." Taeyong sighed as he grabbed Jaemin's face lovingly.

We all looked to Taeyong. "Jaemin. What is going on?" Jaehyun asked as he stepped into the office. "They killed themselves-"

There it was...the bombshell that rocked all of our worlds.

"No. They didn't." Jaemin shook Taeyong again. "That wasn't them. They-" He threw Taeyong back into his office chair, "They wouldn't do something like that." He pointed at Taeyong. "Their tattoos. They were in different spots. The people in that apartment weren't them." Jaemin shook his head, a couple tears cascading down his cheeks. "You did something-" "They're gone, Jaemin. They're never coming back. They killed themselves and you need to deal with the fact you weren't there in time-" We were all overwhelmed with what we were experiencing. This wasn't real.

"I'm gonna-" I looked back to see Jeno start to stumble. His face was stark white and his pupils were the size of tea plates. His hand was fumbling for something to hold onto and hold himself up. "No-" I whispered as I didn't have the strength to outstretch myself and catch him.

Kun turned around at the perfect time to catch him. He plummeted in Kun's arms. "Lucas. Help me get Jeno to the living room." Yet, Lucas was spaced out too. It looked as if he was going to go down at any moment.

"No. Not you too." Kun pleaded quietly. "Lele-" but it was too late...I was on the ground.

~~~

I woke up in a frantic sweat. Masses of bodies held onto each other as the moon shone through the window. "You need to sleep." The dark voice made me jump as I snapped my head to the window where Yuta stood in silence once more.

"But-" "No. You passed out. You need to rest." "Is it true?" "That doesn't matter right now-" "Yes!" I said and some bodies turned in their sleep.

Yuta made sure the others didn't move again as his eyes locked with mine. "They're safe now. They're with Donghyuck." Yuta muttered but I started to feel lightheaded again. "My men and I will be in Japan by morning. Don't invite me to the memorial service as I've already wept my tears for their suffering." Yuta walked to the entrance where Shotaro and the other men stood in silence.

"Take care of yourself, Chenle." Yuta hummed. "My door is always open to you all," he thought for a moment, "Well...most of you." Yuta's eyes locked with someone's at the other end of the entranceway-- Taeyong.

The tension was strong as they stared each other down, "A man who cannot tolerate small misfortunes will never accomplish great things." Yuta spoke clearly. And with that-- Yuta and his men walked out of the front door in a clean formation.

Taeyong looked to me one more time before walking away in what I sensed to be shame.

Now we worked at an off base site where that day replays in my head on an endless loop. It holds me prisoner in those emotions I still feel on a daily basis. We worked on filing for Seven Stars and their local triads. Taeyong had sold the Neo Culture Family name and we were basically slaving away at the expense of our enemy.

"I know they're out there." Jeno barked quietly. "If you bring up those dead bastards one more time-- I swear to God that I'm gonna slap you." Renjun groaned as he typed furiously on the laptop he was provided. "Renjun. Stop." Kun pleaded as he popped his knuckles for what sounded like the millionth time.

"They're your family-" "They're dead, Kun. They’re our dead family." Renjun bashed and we all fell silent. Jisung walked into the room with tears in his eyes as he wiped at his mouth furiously.

We didn't dare ask what he was forced to do after he honestly told us the first time. "You okay?" I called softly and he nodded, choking back what seemed like a sob.

We all bowed our heads and didn't dare to look at one another try to break the tension. The tension hasn't been broken since we left the overrun base 5 months ago.

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hournites · 3 years

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Say that we’ll stay with each other

An aged-up Jealous!Rick hournite fic for @samarasketch

~.~

They grab coffee at the diner to catch up every week. It’s not the only time they see each other, but missions require zero personal life talk for safety, as learned very quickly into their JSA run, and their texts just aren’t sufficient enough for the way they miss each other’s company.

Beth rearranges the cutlery, waiting for Rick as he picks out two desserts from beneath the glass window by the cash. It’s late and quiet, Rick had to work overtime to finish a deadline, so she took a nap at her office until he swung by with his car to pick her up.

The steaming coffee is in front of her, untouched. It’s been a long day and she’s second guessing whether or not caffeine is actually such a good idea after all.

“Wow,” Rick greets her, sliding into the booth across from her. He’s no longer slicking his hair back with gel and the small change makes a massive difference in how he looks. His hair is thick, falling over the front of his face, long enough to frame his eyes. Those eyes are lit up now, bright hazel. They sweep over her, taking everything in like he needs the moment to process.

The silent gesture pushes Beth to look down at herself, wondering if she spilled something or was showcasing a wardrobe malfunction of some kind.

“You look amazing. I noticed before but your jacket was on.”

Beth relaxes, settling against the leather backing of her seat. He grins at her, which she returns easily. Rick is her best friend—has been for a very long time. Her lips curve around the rim of her ceramic mug. “Oh, thank you! I was on my date earlier over lunch. I didn’t want to show up in my lab coat.”

“Right,” he replies. “Dr. Leho, was it?” ” Rick twirls his fork into the perfectly cut marble cake slice on the pretty small plate. “How’d that go?”

Beth suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. “Dr. Leon.”

“Oh, was that it?” As if he hadn’t deliberately botched the name of her date in the first place. Rick has met Denny before. Beth’s mom had invited him to her surprise birthday dinner that she organized with Courtney a few weeks ago. He was nice, bought her a book of easy recipes that he swore got him well fed through night shifts that he thought she’d enjoy. The gesture was thoughtful and was what made her agree to giving him her number. Rick was there for it all, one eyebrow arched high in what she was able to tell was silent judgement as he kept sharing a look with Yolanda.

“—And it went fine.”

He raises that brow again now. “Just fine?”

Beth shrugs. She already knows how Rick feels about why she’s giving him a chance. He’s not exactly her first choice when it comes to dating—Rather, he wasn’t much of a choice at all, pestered into giving the youngest single doctor working at her mom’s floor the time of day.

Her parents are getting concerned she’s throwing herself too deep into work without any support. It’s not precisely fair—Juggling a new position at Central City emergency with spontaneous secret crime-fighting against metahuman villainous egomaniacs does not give a woman much time to find someone new to love. Long shifts end in face-planting into bed until the next one and there’s nothing more she’d rather do than shove off her work shoes to do that. Only a handful of people have enough grip on Beth’s heart for her to sacrifice her evenings—Courtney and her family, Yolanda, Jade, Wally, her parents. And while she enjoys the pretty dress and matching pair of high heels for dinner, her energy to sustain a relationship would require an extension of self that she’s not sure she has to offer.

She’s tried to explain this, cutting out the important JSA parts, which she self-admits would strengthen her argument.

“It was a nice lunch.” She’s already preferring dessert with Rick, though.

“Tell me about it.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“What, he was that boring?”

Beth sighs. She finds herself describing her entire lunch break, from waiting for Denny to scrub his hands from surgical fluids to grabbing her hand to chatter about his day without a moment of pause for her to get something into the conversation until their food had arrived. It’s because he was excited to be on the date with her. Beth’s mom was talking her up to him, no doubt, clearly that was the case by any indication of how her mother kept talking about Denny to her over the phone too. So Denny was likely nervous, he kept letting out a barking type laugh after something he thought Beth should find funny. Beth couldn’t exactly be annoyed for his rambling to no end, she was the queen of that when she was younger. Her mom probably thought it was nice they had that in common. Except, it’s not. Beth’s excited verbal amusement park went away with age. Beth learned to keep her mouth shut when she needed to, she’s hoarded too many secrets.

“There’s one thing though that bothered me a bit,” she admits finally, tapping her cut nails against the table. “He asked me what...pleased me... the most.”

Rick frowns at her. “Huh?”

She flushes, eyes flitting away as she mumbles, “In bed. What I find pleasurable in bed.”

Rick bristles, his mouth dropping open. “Did you tell him?”

“After what he told me first? I kind of had to. There was a family sitting within earshot of us, it was barely noon so I sort of said something vague, I don’t exactly remember, I think my brain is trying to block it out. It was embarrassing.”

“God, that’s tacky.”

She knew Rick would say that. “I think he was trying to assess our compatibility?”

“You make him sound like some socially inept robot.”

Beth lowers her mug, biting her tongue on calling herself a socially inept robot. She reaches over the table for the pot the waitress left for them after Rick’s second refill, instead. He lifts it for her when notices, pouring her a fresh cup and slides over the basket of sugar packets and creamers.

“Thanks,” she says, then returns to their conversation. “I think he was trying to be suave.”

“You hate that word! You’ve said so yourself!”

Had she? Beth wrinkles her nose. It’s crazy how much of their lives they’ve shared together. “In high school, maybe.”

“I vividly remember you telling me that talking about sexual preferences with acquaintances freaks you out.” That’s true. Whenever a horror story kinky sex accident patient shows up in Beth’s emergency room describing their incident in full detail, it takes all of her professionalism not to drop her clipboard and run out from second hand embarrassment.

She shifts in her seat and explains, “He was my date, Rick.”

“So that’s what, half an hour of getting to know him? You’d think someone that went to med school would have the patience to keep it in their pants.”

“Rick!” She gapes at his bluntness because he’s just flinging it out there, dragging Dr. Leon’s entire personality with barely any effort at all, what’s worse is that he’s being unintentionally funny and now she’s trying not to laugh.

“What? This man is clearly not for you. He’s not your type.”

She raises an eyebrow, crossing her arms. “Then what is?”

Rick looks down at his plate, quieting. He hasn’t really eaten yet, just danced his fork all over that cake. She’s half tempted to ask him for it if Rick’s not hungry. She finished her lemon square in four bites.

“Well...”

“Well?”

"Well... He’s not my type... for you. He’s not good enough for you. He sounds like a secret sleaze."

Beth stops trying to defend Denny after Rick says that. She’s not sure if he’s so adamant because he can tell the way she’s not really interested in him, but feels the need to make her mom happy and is trying to give her an out, or if he honestly thinks Denny is not a good person. She’s been a superhero for ten years now, Beth is pretty sure how to gauge a person’s character. There’s nothing wrong with Denny Leon the way Rick is painting him. It’s hard because she knows there’s no real spark, but she’s willing to try. Chemistry doesn’t develop like that over one day.

Beth thinks about her mom again. She just wants Beth to have a fulfilling life. And she had found Beth’s father while also steadily making a career as a respected research clinician. What’s Beth’s excuse then, to say finding someone isn’t possible?

“I don’t have a type, I’ve barely dated at all. The man I’ve spent most of my time with is you.”

Rick takes a while to respond, but his eyes are on hers like he’s waiting for an afterthought to accompany her last sentence. It’s sincere and gentle, and for the second time since they’ve met here today, she finds her heartbeat picking up because of the way she’s being seen.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s just—“

“What?”

He takes another moment before answering. “Why are you forcing something with someone you have no desire to connect to? Are you not...Happy?”

His question takes her by surprise. She stammers, feeling more heat rise to her face. “Why are you asking me this?”

Rick drags a hand over his face and leaves it there for a moment, like he’s just trying to breathe. Eventually, he sweeps his hair back up over his head, and he strikes a nostalgic resemblance to the angry boy Beth latched onto in tenth grade whose soul she watched soften over years of time. Her heart pangs at the memory of the way things were. When they spent all week side by side, and didn’t have to schedule coffee dates that inch towards midnight around saving each other in costumes with relics because of their hectic lives.

“I care about you,” he finally says. “I just don’t want to see you exhaust yourself over someone that’s not worth your time. You should be with someone who makes you feel how I feel whenever I’m with you.”

She smiles at that. “I love you too, Rick.”

His own smile falters, something dims in his expression, she’d almost call it wistful, but that’s not exactly a feeling Rick has in his emotional repertoire. He lowers his gaze to his plate again.

“Hey.” Beth places her hand over his. “Are you okay?”

In high school, Rick was on track to becoming a mechanic like Pat until the man turned him around by the shoulders and walked him through scholarship applications for college. To the surprise of practically everyone in Blue Valley except his inner circle of friends, he graduated with honours in both chemistry and physics, and is now an independent research scientist for a big pharma company. He says he likes his lab, but the regulations of being under a company contract means there’s only so much experimentation he can get by with on his own. Beth has been encouraging his recent talks of starting up his own research lab for JSA, but he seems stressed thinking of taking that beyond the realms of idealism.

His hand freezes beneath her palm. He glances up at her again without words, like he’s struggling with what to say. The creases between Beth’s brows deepen further with concern. “Rick?”

“I’m fine,” he lies. The smile is so fake it hurts that he thinks she could be fooled by it.

“Come on, it’s just us. Something’s bothering you. Is it work? Did your uncle contact you for money again?”

“No, I’m fine. I promise.”

“Rick—“

“You don’t have a type. You just have a person. I know that because you’ve been my person since I was seventeen. You don’t need your mother’s fancy surgeon prodigy to sweep you off your feet, Beth. You have me.”

“I—”

Her pulse rushes in her ears. She’s honestly speechless. Beth just sits there. Rick searches her face for some type of recognition she can’t give back because she’s just confused. She’s blinking back unexpected tears, the hand she has over his shaking, because there has to be something more to this, the gravity behind everything, but her mind keeps hitting against a blank wall. She understands what Rick is saying but not what he means.

He sees her distress and slips out of his booth, sliding into her side. “Hey,” he says, wrapping an arm around her as she presses her wet face into his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s okay.”

Her stomach drops at the horrible way his voice sounds scratchy, thick with regret. That’s when it clicks, and the tears fall for real.

Rick is in love with her.

She’s not crying because she’s upset. Blindly, she reaches up for his face to see him, those fond hazel eyes blinking back. They used to be so hardened and guarded, but it’s just openness now, with her. It’s late, the diner is almost empty, nothing but dim lights and the only waitress busy cleaning up behind the counter. It’s just them, in their special spot. And it’s just them, their solid partnership, that Beth needs in her life to carve out time and effort and feelings for. He’s been trying to articulate this over and over since the evening began. Hugging her tightly, lets out a long breath. The solace he finds in her, alone. The relief and love. How she feels it in equal measures, how it’s always been there.

“I didn’t know.”

“I never really told you.”

But he has, really. He’s shown her since they were kids.

She touches his face, guiding him down so he could kiss her the way she suddenly desperately wants.

He does, kissing Beth deeply until her head goes dizzy and the light feeling is not something she ever wants to let go of. There is no extension of self when Beth is with Rick. No room to make. He already is in her future, can have all of her time.

#stargirl #hournite #rick tyler #beth chapel #fluff #jealous!rick #hournites fic #dctv

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otonymous · 5 years

Text

Colours (MLQC Lucien - NSFW)

Description: Lucien has an obsession with photography. Warnings: NSFW/18+: Explicit/graphic language — reader discretion is advised. Very minor spoilers for the main plot only up to Chapter 5. Potential trigger warning: light bondage. Word Count: 1576 words (~8 mins of smut) AO3: read here Author’s Notes: The legendary Lucien thirst continues and is mighty hard to quench, so here’s another story from yours truly.

This particular piece was inspired by Lucien’s Archive karma card and its accompanying Moments post:

As like before, I’m currently stuck on Chapter 8, so apologies once again to the readers who have advanced further in the game if Lucien seems out of character. Happy reading!

Tagging: @kitsune-mana (because I know you feel the same way about our Shady Sweetheart™!)

All characters & Mr Love: Queen’s Choice owned by Elex

“Lucien…”

Her moan echoed still in his ears, hauntingly dulcet even as the chemicals washed over the film — particles rearranging into an image of her in black and white, legs parted and draped over the side of his bed. Beckoning.

The professor’s practiced hand moved the tongs gently though the bath, liquid chemistry swirling like memories to gradually reveal more of the woman who had become his life, each picture adding another piece to the tantalizing puzzle:

Supple flesh spilling from delicate lace cups.

Fishnets encasing the thighs he loved to lick.

Brows raised in surprise when her panties tore with a single yank of his hand.

Holding each photo aloft, Lucien added to the collection hung with care throughout his darkroom like the stills of some classic Hollywood film — the same ones he sat through in the early morning hours at the cinema, patiently waiting for day to break. And on the night that Audrey Hepburn raced through the streets of Rome with a besotted Gregory Peck across the silver screen, he found her sleeping in the second seat three rows back, hair obscuring her face then much as it did in the photo in his hand: a memento of her ecstasy…and his obsession.

For Lucien was fascinated with her, with the way hesitation had mixed with desire in her eyes the day he examined her through the aperture of his camera. His thighs had straddled her hips as she lay writhing in anticipation beneath him. A butterfly pinned.

“Lucien, what are you—“

“Didn’t you say you were interested in seeing one of the world’s few remaining film cameras? I can think of no better subject to demonstrate the beauty of the photos it can take.”

One hand reached out to cradle her face as she relented in amused exasperation, and through the lens, Lucien saw her turn to nudge towards his caress, lips parting to suck his index finger deeply into her mouth.

“Face the camera and look at me,” he commanded, his voice a low growl as he pushed another digit past her lips.

She obeyed, eyes wide as she struggled and failed to contain the saliva that trickled down her chin as Lucien slid his fingers in and out of that pretty mouth.

Snap.

The click of the shutter brought her back to her senses, and her embarrassment grew along with the blush on her cheeks. Anticipating her protests, Lucien removed his hand to slowly drag a glistening trail of spit past the soft notch of her neck and between her collarbones, descending until the tips came to rest within the warmth of her cleavage.

And with one deft movement, the front clasp of her bra came undone, the tension in the straps giving way to allow black lace to part like curtains in a theatre, unblemished skin unveiled before the eyes of a hungry audience.

Snap.

Lowering his camera, Lucien bent over and pressed his nose to the exposed flesh. And as he inhaled deeply to savour the sweet smell, the buzzing at the back of his brain grew in intensity.

Was this what it was like to feel intoxicated?

She wove her hands into his hair, gently tugging the dark strands closer to her heaving chest as his tongue drew slow circles about her nipples. He then stopped, blew softly on the dampened skin, and admired the way they puckered beautifully before pulling away.

Snap.

“Now you’re just purposely teasing me.”

There was a sharp edge to her voice that drew his attention as well as his camera. He captured the frustration written on her face, admiring the way her shapely brows furrowed in irritation. While he lived for her contentment, the devil on his shoulder constantly sought to tease her into submission.

For Lucien wanted, needed, her completely — mind, body and soul.

He kissed her deeply in apology before stopping to wind his camera, saying,

“When it comes to you, my love, I am nothing but serious.”

Snap.

Bashfulness. Wonder. His words elicited such emotions in her eyes that Lucien was momentarily relieved to have been looking at her through the viewfinder of a camera. To meet that gaze directly would have been tantamount to relinquishing all control over the beast that raged within to claim her roughly, savagely. And the professor knew it was impossible to appease such an insatiable appetite, for even in her presence, Lucien hungered for her still.

So his camera continued to pan down her body, the shutter clicking away in succession as he tried to capture her in entirety: the dips and curves of her stomach and hips, the sheen of the garter straps that lay against her skin like a bow upon a gift, the silk that gathered the moisture between her legs to cling tellingly against her folds.

“Such a good girl. You wore the fishnet stockings like I asked. Now spread yourself for me.”

Kneeling by the side of the bed, he readied his camera, feeling himself twitch as he gazed upon her gingerly parting legs, reaching out a hand to softly bat hers away when she moved to cover up the middle. Then, adjusting his lens, Lucien focused on the fine mesh laying atop her thighs.

Snap.

The shot in hand, he bent to kiss them immediately, lips picking up a subtle increase in temperature as they moved towards their insides. And when the heat became too intense, he ran his tongue along their lengths in a bid to cool them down, the tip tracing along the geometry of her stockings.

“Oh god, Lucien…”

Her voice trailed off as she gripped the sheets until her knuckles turned white, the sensation maddeningly ticklish and arousing all at once. While she couldn’t be sure if she wanted to laugh or cry, the professor read her body loud and clear by the way her hips lifted off the bed.

Relenting, Lucien reached for his collar — one hand unbuttoning his shirt as the other continued to hold the camera. His mind worked continuously, contemplating how best to set up his next shot even as his clothing slipped from broad, muscular shoulders.

“Hold still, baby. We don’t want any blurred shots, now do we?”

He watched her lips tremble at the touch of his hand between her legs, the pads of his fingers becoming increasingly damp with each languid stroke along hot silk. Heard her gasp amidst the tearing of fabric as the remnants of her underwear fell away to leave her bare. Caught the intoxicating scent of her arousal when he brought the lens up close to capture the dew that clung to blushing petals.

And when he could stand it no longer, he allowed himself a taste of her nectar.

He ignored it, that voice in the back of his mind that warned him to stay away, to remain indifferent and objective. For he was already well past the point of no return, hopelessly addicted to her flavour on his tongue. And he became a man unhinged.

“Do you trust me?”

Lucien asked, barely able to keep his voice from trembling as he rose to full height, placing the camera beside her head as he busied himself with the buckle of his belt. He smiled to see her nod, not one ounce of trepidation in her eyes as she replied,

“I do.”

“That’s my girl.”

Smoothly sliding his leather belt from his trousers, he looped it around her wrists, binding them together as he fixed the other end to his headboard. Gaze never straying from her face, the professor shed the rest of his clothing, trying to maintain some semblance of control even as he felt it spiralling away to see her bite her lip in desire as his erection sprung free.

“Come to me, Lucien.”

Her voice was soft and inviting, and the irony of the situation didn’t escape him: bound though she was, he was the one under her full control.

One stockinged leg thrown over each shoulder, Lucien filled her over and over again, his hips relentless as they pounded into her flesh so hard the bed shook. He could see that she was becoming overwhelmed, her moans giving way long ago to breathless pants in a struggle to keep up with him. But there was nothing to be done about it now, for he was completely lost in chasing the tight wet heat of her pussy.

The dim red lamp in the darkroom flickered, bringing Lucien back to the present. He looks at the photo in his hand, smiling as he savours it like a fine wine: her face contorted in pleasure as she came undone around him.

“You almost made me drop the camera,” he says to no one in particular.

Then, he sets about developing the final photo, his pièce de résistance. The image starts to appear, angled due to the way she turned the camera back on themselves, excited to be taking a selfie on film. And despite his warnings that it may not turn out, he humours her in her post-coital giddiness, pressing close enough to get into the frame, his lips upon her cheek.

And he was right, most of the photo was a blur.

But her face was in sharp focus, and her smile was bright. And for Lucien, that was enough to turn black and white into a world of colour.

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Thanks for reading! Check out more of my work here! 📚

#mlqc #mr love: queen's choice #love and producer #mlqc lucien #mlqc fanfic #mlqc fic #mlqc smut #mr love queen's choice smut #love and producer smut #fanfiction #my writing #elex

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that-writer-who-never-posts · 5 years

Text

You know what it's like

Another Jealous Tom (This time, 2k words of angst and 400 of a fluff smut.) - Special guest: Jake Gyllenhaal

This is a mix of the request by @schizophrenicstoryteller (who I can NEVER tag, thanks, tumblr...) and the beautiful idea by @elinesama (thank you so much for sending me it!❤)

Prompt: You're an actress and Tom gets jealous of your good relationship with your co-star Jake.

Warnings: there's a tiiiiny smut in the end. Couldn't help myself.

---

"Ladies and gentlemen..." The tv host announced. "Let's welcome the stars of the most awaited romcom of the year: Jake Gyllenhaal and Y/N Y/L/N!"

Everyone clapped and screamed as you and Jake entered the studio. Maybe that was the movie you loved to promote the most in your career, since you were doing it with one of your best friends ever.

Now you were sitting down for an interview on live tv, while your boyfriend, Tom, was watching it from the house you shared. When you walked in, he couldn't help but smile. He was so proud of you.

"It's so good to have you here." The interviewer said smiling as the two of you sat on the couch. "It wasn't easy."

"Yes." Jake laughed. "We've been traveling a lot."

"But we're not complaining!" You interrupted him. "We're grateful for this project."

"And you must be having a lot of fun on those travels." The host said, making the crowd giggle.

You looked around confused.

"True." You replied. "We've become great friends. The whole crew did."

"But isn't it harder having to do those make out scenes when they are with a good friend?"

"I think it's always hard." Jake admited. "Nothing personal, Y/N, you're great."

Tom was watching all that with an annoyed expression. Since the host suggested you and Jake were having fun and the crowd reacted like that, he started to feel weird. But that was... a little too much. You're great, Y/N. Great at what? Tom was an actor himself, he knew that actors don't rate their make out scenes, unless they really enjoy it. But it wouldn't be a scene if they did.

"Well... I hope I didn't suck that much." You laugh at him, and the audience goes wild.

Oh, so she's worried he didn't enjoy it?, Tom thought. Because looks like she did.

"Let's change the subject." Jake laughed too.

"Oh, no." The interviewer grabbed his water mug and pretended he was watching some great drama. "We're going to be on all gossip blogs tomorrow. Give us more information."

"What are you talking about?" You rolled your eyes.

"Yes..." Jake looked at him confused. "If they want gossip, I have a few things to say about Y/N."

You playfully punched him in the arm.

Too much. Tom stood up angrily and turned the tv off. He started to walk around the living room thinking about the last time he visited you on set. You and Jake didn't seem to have all that chemistry then. Maybe because it was in front of him. You really were a great actress.

The interview lasted a few more minutes, in which you finally got to talk about the movie, and not yourselves. The begining was a little annoying, the host probably didn't know you were engaged and kept trying to find something between you and your co-star that clearly wasn't there. But you were used to those childish things. After you were done, all you could think about was Tom... Getting home to him, getting to cuddle him a little before sleeping... It was so late, and he was probably as exhausted as you, but he always waited for you to come home.

---

You got out of the cab so quickly, you almost forgot to pay for it.

But when you opened the front door, you frowned a little. All the lights of the house were off. You walked towards your bedroom, afraid Tom would be hiding somewhere, ready to scare you. But you found him in bed, sleeping peacefully. To be honest, you felt a little disappointed... But when you saw your bed, the tiredness hit you, and you could totally understand him.

After a quick shower, you joined his side, laying down carefully to not wake him up.

Little did you know that he was awake. He wished he wasn't, because feeling your warmt close made him feel worse. But he didn't want to start a discussion that late, so he decided to pretend he wasn't laying down there overthinking for hours.

---

On the next morning, you woke up first, since you fell asleep a lot before him. So you watched him with a smile on your face, hoping he would wake up soon.

Didn't take too long for him to do so. When his eyes opened, the first thing he saw was your smile. His brain wasn't working correctly yet, so he tried to convince himself that it was nothing but a dream, that you weren't fooling him. But he eventually remembered everything.

"Good morning, babe." You said excitedly, approaching him for a kiss.

"Good morning." He replied coldly, pretending he didn't see that you tried to kiss him.

After rubbing his eyes a few times, he got up.

"Where are you going?" You asked sadly. "It's early, we can stay in a bed a little more. I missed you."

"Sorry." He didn't see you missing him while you were out there in public with your lover. "I have to solve a few things."

"Can we have breakfast together, at least?" You offer.

"Sure." He replied unamused.

---

You were sitting by the table quietly. Quietly for too long. There surely was something wrong, you thought maybe he got bad news yesterday and didn't want to tell you, but you needed to know.

"Are you okay?" You asked carefully.

"Yes." He replied almost automatically.

"Are you sure?"

He didn't even reply or look at you.

"How was your night yesterday?" You insisted.

"I don't know, how was yours?" His smile almost scared you.

"It was normal..." You were so confused. "I finished the interview and..."

"Oh, I know." He kept the weird smile on. "I watched the interview. Well, not all of it, only as far as my stomach could take."

"What?"

"The limit was when you started to get handsy." He finally looked at you. "To be more specific, cause it probably happened in many moments, it was right after he admited you shared your secrets with him."

"Stop." You couldn't believe what he was saying. "I know that host forced us into some awkward situations... But you should know how it is. You're an actor, and everyone always starts to ship you with your movie partner and..."

"The difference is that I don't play their game, like you did last night."

"I wasn't playing a game I..."

"So was it all real?" Tom raised his voice a little, making you unable to reply. "That's what I thought. But deep down, never wanted to believe."

"You're being ridiculous." You felt tears starting to form. "Jake and I are just friends. You know that. You've been around us many times, did you see anything between us?"

"Don't cry, I just..." He didn't say that in a comforting tone, it was an angry tone.

"You don't trust me." You cut him.

There was a long silence after that.

"I have to go." He said after a while.

He stood up and went to the bedroom, but you didn't move. You sat on the chair looking at nothing. At some point, he started to walk around the house looking like an absolute mess. He tried to organize his things, but his head was too far away to thing straight. He just walked in circles, buttoning his shirt up, tucking it inside his pants, looking for a jacket somewhere. Anyone who saw that would think he was on a hurry. But no, the things he had to do would start in about two hours, he was only on a hurry to get out of that house, hoping that being away from you would calm him down.

He walked towards the front door and stopped a few centimeters away from it. He took a deep breath and went back to the kitchen. When you saw him approaching you, you felt a little hope growing inside you. He seemed to be coming in slow motion. He got closer and closer and...

He kissed the top of your head, turned his back to you and left the house.

You were in shock for a moment. But the second you heard his car leaving the garage, you broke down in tears. How could he believe that you were cheating on him? How could he leave with nothing but an emotionless kiss?

That stupid interview. You wanted to sue that channel. You wanted to punch Jake, for real this time, because he played along. But you knew none of that would work... What you really needed to do was prove Tom that he was the only one for you. But how? If he wouldn't even look at you...

---

Tom was sitting alone on a bench. He was right, being away from the situation did make him see clearer. It made him see that he was clearly an idiot.

He was never a possessive person... Of course he was a little jealous of you sometimes, because he was afraid of losing you. But he never imagined one day his jealousy could be the actual guilty of a break up. Did he truly believe in what the media wanted the people to believe? Him, who was also a victim on those kind situations all the time...

He just wanted to throw everything away and run back home. He would apologize and beg you to not leave. But his watch warned him that he had 15 minutes to get in the theater for his play.

It was the hardest decision of his life. He loved his fans, he loved his job... He wouldn't want to risk his career for anything. But with you, it was different.

He got into his car and called the director. Told him he was very sick and couldn't make it. He told him to rearrange today's sessions to any other day, at any other time. The future didn't matter, you would only be part of his if he fixed the mistakes he made in the past.

---

You heard a car stopping in front of your house, but didn't pay attention. Not until you heard the door being unlocked, which made you jump from the sofa and look towards the house's entrance, to find Tom looking more like a mess than he did becore he left.

"Tom?" You said, sitting straight. "Shouldn't you be at..."

"No." He said walking towards you and kneeling in front of couch, so your eyes were on the same height. "There's nothing I should be doing right now other than apologizing. I'm so sorry, my love... Of course I trust you. I just tend to think that all this happiness I found by your side is too much for me... And I can't live without it anymore."

"Tom..." You cupped his face with your hands. "You don't have to worry about that. This is not too much for you, this is what you deserve... I was so angry because the idea of leaving you for anyone else seems ridiculous. You're the only one for me. You'll always be."

He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you into a passionate kiss. You always shared what people call "movie kisses", but that one was more than that. It was needy, it meant 'I'm sorry', it meant 'I can't afford to lose you'.

He needed to get you as close as possible, so he pulled you, making you fall on your knees in front of him, but that didn't break your kiss. Nothing in the world would break that kiss. You kept your mouths almost glued to each other's whenever you had to stop to catch a breath.

Your heavy breathing mixed to his was driving you crazy. You needed to be his in every possible way at that moment. He seemed to think the same way, because he naturally helped you to remove his shirt and did the same to yours before you could realize. Pants, underwears, all flying around the room without excitation.

When you were completely naked, Tom sat down and pulled you to sit on his lap, and you could feel his hardness against your belly. Your eyes met and you felt something knew. You didn't find lust or darkness in his eyes, neither of you looked for pleasure more than you looked for belonging to each other.

You lifted your hips so he could place himself at your entrance and, as soon as he did, you lowered your hips slowly, focused on the feeling him stretching you. At first, he kept both hands on your lower back, forcing you to move painfully slowly. But your hearts still beated fast, because of the previous rush. So as soon as Tom was sure it wouldn't hurt you, that you were ready, he removed his hands from your back, which allowed you to go harder and harder, and you started immediatly.

You began to kiss again, like your lips had missed each other for centuries. His hands traveled your entire body, caressing some spots, squeezing others, adding pressure here, barely brushing there...

While your hands never left his tense shoulders, holding to them while your hips found the perfect angle and pace. Suddently, his hands stopped, one of each of your thighs, squeezing them hard enough to leave a mark, and his moans got louder and more frequent.

When he spilled himself inside you, you moaned loudly and came too. Tom let go of your thighs and placed his hands protectively on your back, pulling you to lay on his chest, and you stood like that for a while. On the floor, him still inside you.

"Please..." You almost whispered against his chest. "Don't leave like that ever again."

"I promise." He held you tighter. "As you could see, I didn't last a few hours away from you."

---

Taglist:

@spidey-holland7

@theoneanna

@inlovewith3

@too-cold-for-youhere

@princetale

@drakesfiance

@kcd15

@hiddlestylesbaby

@yzssie

@crescent-night

@thepowerofawkwardcompelsyou

@hiddlesbitch1

@schizophrenicstoryteller

@damyzzzzz

@scorpionchild81

@purplerain85

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adhd-sorcha · 4 years

Note

Hey, i also was recently (1 year) diagnosed with ADHD. And I'm considering going back to college, considering what to study next or finish my masters degree. Started thinking maybe I'll go to med school as this pandemic has really made me reconsider things. I guess my question for you is this..what are you studying and how has the studying been for both the phd and the research master's degree you have? I have a BS in psychology (only stated this for reference) thanks in advance. Good luck!

Hello! I’m actually studying a related field to yours! My bachelors is in neuroscience (though it also involved other biological fields and some chemistry and some psychology). For my the masters, I did research into Parkinson’s disease and the PhD was in the same. (Both were pre-clinical research, so no human patients involved)

I’m going to preface this by saying that I was only diagnosed after I started my PhD (I think around December? So only a few months ago!). It would be good to keep that in mind while reading this because my experience is very much coloured by the fact that I was not receiving any accommodations and genuinely didn’t understand why I was struggling. So, this may not sound too positive, but I like to think that it’s a situation that’s fixable or avoidable, especially if, like yourself, you go into your work knowing that you have ADHD. (Also, keep in mind that I did a lab science, so some of what I say might be a bit specific to that!)

I found my research masters to be a complete slog and, if I’m honest, did not particularly enjoy it. I did a one year MSc. It was all research and no classes. At first this sounded like a great idea. I had been starting to struggle with classes and exams in my undergrad from maybe third year. I put it down to being sick of classes. I now know that’s not the case. It was because my work was moving more to self-directed learning and modules whose grades were based entirely on one big exam and so needed a lot of study instead of smaller, more manageable homework type tasks.

A research degree is very self directed. With my masters involving no classes, my getting the degree was based completely on my thesis.

It involved: 1) spending hours at a time at my computer looking through data bases and reading paper after paper. 2) organising and planning my experiments. 3) carrying out those experiments. 4) being trained in on new lab techniques/how to use new equipment. 5) analysing and interpreting my data in the context of all the reading that I had done. 6) putting it all together in a nice neat document.

In other words: time management and self-regulation are key. Not easy when you have ADHD, even worse when you don’t know you have ADHD. I really enjoy lab work and analysis, so getting myself to go do those really wasn’t that bad. I really really struggled with the reading and getting the writing done.

I struggled and I didn’t understand why I struggled. I didn’t understand how other people did multiple experiments in one day and read papers in between lab work and wrote a few thousand words over the weekend while I was lucky if it only took me one whole day to read the main points of a paper.. I didn’t understand how everyone else could rattle off information on their research topic off the top of their head, while I struggled to remember the details of a protocol I did earlier that day. I felt like I was getting through my lab work very slowly and not as efficiently. As you can imagine, I felt like I was incompetent and useless and that everyone was better than me and that I didn’t belong working with them.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t resolved before I started my PhD. And a PhD doesn’t just involve research. It involves taking classes and often it involves assisting in the teaching and supervision of the undergraduates, as well as organising training on different equipment and then the assessments for all that training... It got very busy very fast and you have to do all that work yourself. I had one class that I kept forgetting to even go to because none of my lab mates were in it to remind me to go (and it was my only class whose mark was attendance based! Why brain??? Whhhhyyyy????). And, once again, I felt like I was far more inefficient and less-abled than my lab mates. Now, everyone was very kind and supportive, but they had their own work to do too.

It was a few months into the PhD that I found out that I had ADHD and that was only because I sought treatment for pretty bad depression and anxiety. I’ve taken medical leave to try to recover from these and I may even drop out altogether. But you know what? I still think a research degree in completely doable with ADHD! And I still plan on getting a PhD at some point.

Like I said at the start, it’s important to remember that I did this without knowing that I had ADHD. I had no medication. I had no accommodations. And I didn’t know to take it easy on myself. Most importantly, I didn’t know to ask for help.

My biggest advice? Ask for help! Or at least tell someone when you’re struggling. In my experience it’s a big help

I told my MSc supervisor that I was struggling with my mental health and that it was interfering with finishing my thesis. She was so understanding and it was so helpful in getting it sent off for examination.

I told my PhD supervisor that I had just been diagnosed with ADHD and within about 5 minutes he had all my lab work rearranged and planed out for me and basically told me that he would make the start of my PhD as straightforward for me as possible while I got a handle on everything going on.

Just before I went on leave, my counselor in the university was helping me get set up with the disability support services to see what kind of accommodations I could get (they could include longer exam times, more flexible deadlines for assignments etc...).

I told my lab mates what was going on and they provided more general support just by having people to talk to.

Okay, so my experience probably doesn’t sound like the most encouraging of prospects, but take it as a more cautionary tale. This was how not to do research with ADHD! If you go into your degree already knowing you have ADHD, you’re already miles more prepared than me! Especially because I’m now learning and beginning to accept that sometimes, for us to do well, we need to do things a little differently to neurotypical students. I used to beat myself up over things that I now realise were actually coping strategies (like, I’d have to write more reminders for myself than other people would or something like that) and that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing those things if they help. The neurotypical way isn’t the only way. Sometimes I unknowingly did things in an ADHD friendly way and assumed I was doing it ‘wrong’ when what it actually was was just different.

I would definitely encourage you to go back to study if that’s what you want to do! But it will definitely be important to remember that you have a hurdle that not all the other students are going to have to jump over, so be kind to yourself, don’t be afraid to ask for help and don’t be afraid to do things differently if you need to.

#answered asks #theragingbluwaffle #adhd #neurodivergent academia #sorry this is so long!#it's quite a wide topic for me #like there's the overall experience #and then there's more specific stuff like going to classes or whatever #i went with the overall #but if you want to ask anything more specific go ahead!#i got really stuck on how to end this and ended up rambling

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bensboynton · 5 years

Text

Good Enough b.h; Part 1

Requested: no

Word Count: 3.1k

Warnings: swearing, unedited.

“Will I ever be good enough for anyone?”

“You’ve been good enough for me since the beginning.”

In which a singer tries her hand at acting, and ends up with a lot more than she bargained for.

A/N: this is my first attempt at a longer fic, forgive me if anything is inaccurate/grammar mistakes/mistakes in general it’s 1 am and i haven’t slept in the past 28 hours and i just wanted to get this up. – “You got the part.”

“What? Wait, is this a joke? Are you serious right now?” your lungs didn’t seem nearly big enough, as you desperately gasped for air. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing.

“I’m completely serious! You landed the role. You’re Mary Austin. How does it feel to be able to say that? You’re Mary fucking Austin.”

Your heart was pounding in the chest as you were on the phone with your manager, Anthony. This was it. This was your big break in the industry. You just landed the role of the woman who stole Freddie Mercury’s heart.

You had been wildly successful in the music industry for almost five years, as you were about twenty-two shows away from finishing your second world tour for your sophomore album. And while writing music, performing said music, wrapping your tongue around unfamiliar languages and your mind around foreign cultures satisfied you, you always yearned for more. And that’s what led you to acting.

At first, it was an idea you had late at night. “What if I started to act?” But you shot the idea down yourself. You convinced yourself it’d be a distraction. Your manager would never say yes, it’d be too much work for you to handle, you wouldn’t be good at it. Not to mention the extra stress that would’ve been added to your already quite strained schedule. And on top of that, most singers never made it in the acting industry. But once the seed of this idea was planted in your brain, it began to grow. It soon became all you could think about. So, after a few extremely long phone calls with your manager and a few meetings in the city, you managed to set up your first audition. And the rest is history.

At first, you did a few commercials for some popular brands. Some advertising videos, skits for Facebook and Instagram, a few small parts in tv shows and smaller movies here and there, but nothing too major. However, when you heard a murmur through the grapevine about the part of Mary Austin in a biopic about Queen? For a lack of a better way to describe your emotions, you just about shit your pants.

Queen has been one of your favorite bands your entire life(thanks to your father), and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Freddie Mercury and Queen were your heroes. Freddie was the main reason you decided to start writing music, and that beautiful man made you fall in love with the art of performance. You took inspiration from him in almost every single aspect of your life. You couldn’t just let an opportunity like this pass you by.

You had submitted an audition tape to the producers one day after a particularly tiring show in Belgium, following a two-week crash course with a dialect coach practicing your British accent. You quickly ran through a few lines of the emotionally extensive script, submitting your video a few moments later. And about four days following the submission of your video, you got a phone call from your manager telling you that you did, indeed, land the part. And you were ecstatic. You were even more elated when you received a similar phone call informing you who got the part of Freddie Mercury; one of your good friends, Rami Malek. You screeched so loud one of the people in the hotel room next to yours came over to ask if you were all right. But you were far better than just “all right.”

You had met Rami backstage before an interview you did with him on Jimmy Fallon’s show, and you two exchanged phone numbers and the rest was history. The both of you were best friends for a while; practically inseparable. The both of you were hanging out at least every other day before distance slowly caused you to drift apart. But a gap between you wouldn’t really be any interference since you’d be working on this movie together. Problem solved.

And so, after a few headaches and way, way too many phone calls(all of which were extremely unnecessary to you), you rearranged the final three shows of your tour to leave you right smack dab in the middle of London, right where you needed to be to begin filming this movie. Everything was beginning to fall into place. – You slowly stretched your arms up over your head, arching your back and cracking your neck. Today. Today was the day you finally got to begin shooting Bohemian Rhapsody.

You had been waiting for this moment for what felt like an eternity. When you heard the news of your success at landing the role as Mary, time started to pass by as if it was in slow motion, and days started to drag on as you waited for shooting to begin. You could only reread the script so many times before it became so mind-numbing it made you sick to even look at it.

Throwing on a pair of jeans and a black turtleneck, you looked at yourself in the hotel mirror. The bags under your eyes were slightly apparent, and you made a note in your head to try and cover them up before leaving your room and checking out.

You grabbed your cellphone and unplugged it from its charger, typing in your passcode and pressing your boyfriend’s contact. The phone rang for a while, but no answer. Your heart sunk slightly at the sound of his voicemail.

“Hey, Y/BF/N. Just wanted to call and say hey before I head to set. I hope your tour is going well, I love you and can’t wait to see you. Talk to you later.”

You sighed gently as you hit the circular “end call” button and set your phone down. No more time for being sad over the strange lack of contact with your significant other. You had a movie to film.

You checked over your room quickly, just to be sure you had packed everything. After all, having all of your clothes would be imperative for the lengthy stay in your new trailer.

Hearing the news that you got to live in your very own trailer while on set was weirdly exciting for you. It felt like a rite of passage, almost like it validated your acting career in an odd way.

Wheeling your two extremely full suitcases behind you, and your backpack sitting gracefully on your shoulders, you slowly but surely made your way to the lobby of the hotel you were staying in. You swiftly checked yourself out and made your way to the notably empty parking lot. Made sense that it would be empty. After all, it was almost 5 am in London.

A black SUV was awaiting you near the doors, ready to take you to your new home for the next few months. Saying you were excited was an understatement.

Making small talk with your chauffeur for the morning, Todd, you admired his thick British accent. You appreciated his unique pronunciation of the words you knew and the few pieces of British slang that were unfamiliar to your remarkably American brain. Hopefully you’d start picking up on those sooner or later. You pretended to be mildly interested in Todd’s ranting about his three children as you lazily twisted your hair around your index finger, head rested against the tinted window. But to be honest, your mind was elsewhere.

You began nervously biting at your already extremely bitten nails as you neared closer and closer to the filming location, thoughts beginning to race through your mind. What if the cast didn’t like you? What if you embarrassed yourself? What if you suddenly forgot all your lines? What if you were so bad at acting they fired you on the spot?

Your worrying was cut short as the short and stout driver with grey stubble pulls onto a gravel road, pulling up to a security gate. He rolls down the window and tells the woman standing in the tiny concrete building to the left of the car something about dropping you off, but you aren’t paying much attention. You’re too busy watching the busy hustle and bustle up ahead, of tons of people with jobs and places to be and things to do. It seems as if everyone is running out of time, due to the quick pace that they’re all walking. The driver pulls up to an average sized building with two very heavy duty black doors.

“I’ll drop you off here, and then I’ll run your bags to your trailer if that’s all right with you Miss Y/L/N.” Todd’s voice snaps you back to reality. “Yes, that sounds great. Thank you, Todd.” he nods as you slowly clamber out of the car, adjusting your purse on your shoulder and walking into the building. You can feel your heart beginning to speed up its rhythm in your chest.

You walk up to the shiny black desk in front of you, about to ask the friendly looking receptionist where you’re needed before an enthusiastic voice echoes through the lobby.

“Y/N!” you turn around to see none other than Rami Malek standing before you. You grin as you run straight into him, your chin resting on his shoulder and your arms wrapped around his neck. You pull away as he gives you a quick peck on the cheek. “Long time no see, ay?” you hum, looking at the familiar man as he grins and looks down at his shoes. You admire the small crinkles in the corners of his eyes. Oh, how you missed him.

“You know, I almost cried when I heard you got the part.” He spoke with an eloquence unmatched by anyone you had ever met before. His voice sent shivers down your spine. “And why was that?” you inquired, as he slowly brought his eyes back up to meet yours.

“Because I knew I couldn’t do it with anybody else. It needed to be you. I just had this feeling, you know? And with our friendship, I knew our chemistry would be good. I was just really excited.”

You felt heat rise to your cheeks, as you tucked a piece of your soft hair behind your ear. It was strange, with Rami. You hadn’t heard from him in months, yet the conversation flowed with ease, almost as if you last talked two days ago.

“You should’ve heard me when I found out you were Freddie.” Rami cocked an eyebrow at your statement as he offers his left arm. You accept his invitation, interlocking your right arm with his as you start walking alongside him, “I was screaming bloody murder. The hotel sent someone from the front desk up to check on me,” Rami let out a loud chuckle, shaking his head as he glanced at you, a twinkle in his bulbous orbs.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel something for Rami when you first met him. I mean, who could blame you? A fashion-conscious, well spoken, educated man? In this economy? A rare occurrence, at best. You started to fall for him when your friendship was at its peak, but it just doesn’t feel the same now. Besides, you now have a loving boyfriend, and Rami has an absolutely beautiful girlfriend. No need to “mingle” with any of your castmates.

You continued your walk down a particularly long hallway with locked arms in silence. But, it was a comfortable silence. That was your favorite thing about Rami. No matter what, he always made you feel at ease. You finally reached a certain door that Rami stopped at, taking a deep breath and looking at you.

“Ready to meet the rest of the band?” you nodded quickly, trying to gather yourself to make the best first impression you could. It was almost as if Rami could sense your nerves.

He gave your arm a comforting squeeze, a slight grin causing the left corner of his mouth to curve upwards into a smile. As you said, he was always able to calm you down. He pushed the door open, and it was almost as if the sound erupting from the tiny room slapped you across the face. Rami grinned at you sheepishly, an apology already bubbling at his lips before you walked swiftly into the room.

“Guys, can you all shut your traps for two goddamn seconds and meet Y/N?” Rami’s voice carried, and suddenly the volume level in the room decreased dramatically. Three unfamiliar eyes were suddenly trained on you, and you sent them a nervous smile, tucking your long hair behind your ear, twisting it around your index finger. This was something you tended to do when you were nervous.

A particularly tall man started walking toward you, a big smile on his elongated face. You imagined him with a mop of curly hair, and immediately knew that this must be the man playing none other than Brian May.

“You must be Gwilym, right?” you smiled, reaching out to shake his abnormally large hand, “I’m Y/N.”

“Amazing to finally meet you, Y/N. Rami has told us loads about you.” you smiled up at him, as you were about 6 inches shorter than his towering figure. He made small talk with you, asking about your flight to London and if you had any trouble arriving on set.

“Oh. My. God. It’s you. It’s really you. I’m in a room with THE Y/N. Wow. I might pass out. Am I dreaming?” a man with curly hair joked, his thick sarcasm lacing his words as he turned to the man next to him. “Pinch me. Wake me up from this dream. It’s too good to be true.” you laughed, shaking your head as you looked up to meet his eyes as he started walking towards you. You curled your finger around a strand of hair as the stranger walked towards you.

“And you must be Joe!” you held out your hand, only to be engulfed in the slightly taller man’s arms. “You’re my new best friend, and best friends don’t shake hands. We hug.”

And although Joe was joking, you clung to his words for a few seconds. It warmed your heart to think that he was already so accepting of you. “This is my other best friend, Allen. Sorry new bestie, you’re going to have to share me. I have a lot of best friends. But there’s plenty of this,” he points at himself, “to go around. I promise.” you giggled, lightly hitting his forearm with the back of your hand. It’s actually quite insane how comfortable you felt around him already, despite you knowing him personally for approximately a minute and a half. You looked up, swiftly scanning the room to look for the final member of the main cast you haven’t had a chance to meet yet. Gwil must’ve seen you look around because he did the same thing. “Has Anyone seen Ben recently? Or did he sneak off for a smoke again?”

“He left about ten minutes ago. Either taking a really, really, nice shit or went to smoke. I’ll let your beautiful minds decide what you want to believe,” Joe’s comment left the entire room laughing lightly under their breath as they returned back to whatever they were doing before you had walked in.

You had been sitting on the couch for about twenty minutes, talking to Joe and answering his many questions about your childhood, career, upcoming music, college and, strangely, what movie you would choose if you could only watch one for the rest of your life. You saw how he could potentially come off as nosy to a high-strung individual, but to you, he was just curious and always had a desire to learn more. You admired that about him, as you were very similar.

The door of the tiny room opened, and a man with fluffy, slightly untidy blonde hair briskly strolls into the room, slipping off the brown leather jacket snugly hugging his muscular shoulders. Your eyes followed him for a split second and it took everything in you to tear your eyes away from the Greek God that just waltzed into the room.

“There he is! My boyfriend. I missed you SO much.” Joe grasped his chest, motioning at the man to walk over. The mysterious man shook his head and let out a soft laugh, his head down as he typed furiously into his phone. You stood up quickly, smoothing out the front of your shirt. Joe gestured to you, and his eyes swept over you quickly, causing a small bout of butterflies to swarm through your empty stomach. You swore your heart was beating so loud, everyone in the room could hear it echoing in your chest.

“You must be Ben. It’s really nice to meet you, I’m-” you began to introduce yourself to the unreasonably attractive man, holding your hand out before he interrupts you. “Y/N.”

“Y-Yeah that’s me.”

The way your name rolled off his tongue sent shivers down your spine. It caught you off guard. His green orbs that glimmered with a tinge of blue slowly met yours, and he smiled sheepishly, before breaking the eye contact and dropping your hand. There was an awkward silence that fell between the two of you, even amidst the chatter of the room. Ben opened his mouth like he was about say something, before a familiar voice interrupted his train of thought.

“Hey hey hey, let’s not get too comfortable over there. That’s my boyfriend. Back off Y/N!” Joe spoke from across the room, sarcastic anger dripping from his mocking words. Ben rolled his eyes, mouthing a “sorry” to you before walking away from you, aimlessly making his way to the other side of the room.

You were left alone, and you rubbed the back of your neck with your right hand. It wasn’t normally like you to act so awkward and secluded around someone, especially someone you didn’t know.

But, nevertheless, you could finally check one thing off your list of worries. The cast was absolutely amazing. Now all you needed to stress about was actually filming the movie.

But little did you know, that would soon become the very least of your worries.

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tinyfelthat · 5 years

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Up to Bat: 2

Story page // My ask box

Authors Note: I was so overwhelmed with the response to chapter 1! I hope you enjoy chapter 2! Side note: Please don’t expect chapters every week. I have no idea when I’ll be able to update next. I’m hoping for next week, but we’ll see.

Chapter 2: Bottom of the First

The fact that everyone is staring at her doesn’t register with Mia immediately. She’s too busy trying not to faint after the intense eye contact she’s just had with Harry Styles. Someone clears their throat, probably Daniel or James, and it startles Mia out of the very dirty thoughts she’s having.

“Um, excuse me. Sorry,” she pauses, stumbling for an excuse, any excuse to leave the conference room, “I seem to be developing a migraine. Can someone point me in the direction of a water fountain? I have the necessary medication, I just need some water, and perhaps a moment of fresh air. Sometimes flights do that to me.” Mia realizes that everyone is still staring at her, and some of the players are even a little slack-jawed. “You know what? I’ll just find one myself. Be right back.”

She exits the conference room. What the hell just happened? She thinks about abandoning the men completely and taking a Lyft to their hotel. Maybe she should quit and find a job as a biostatistician at some pharmaceutical company. She won’t be having a sexually charged staring contest with the clients there. Or if she does, it won’t be nearly as mortifying, because she won’t have had a major crush on them from watching them play her favorite sport for the last three years. She goes to the water fountain and splashes some cold water onto her face, grateful that she hadn’t worn makeup that day due to the flight. She leans against the wall and takes some slow, deep breaths, and whips her head around when she hears the conference room door open.

Niall pokes his head out of the conference room, and sees Mia. “I’ll be right back in,” he leans back into the conference room and says, “I want to make sure Mia isn’t lost.”

He steps out into the hall and leads Mia outside. “Is everything okay?” he asks once they’re out of earshot of the others. “You seemed a little nervous before we went in, and then… well, you know what happened. What was that?”

“I’m not sure,” Mia says, “Honestly. I’ve never had anything like that happen to me in my life. It felt like Harry Styles was staring into my soul. Even my ex-boyfriend Ryan and I never had a staring contest that was quite so sexually charged and we were together for three years.”

“I don’t think Ollie and I have either.”

“Who’s Ollie? Is it short for Olivia?”

“Yeah. I told you about Olivia, didn’t I?”

“She’s your fianceé right? I seem to remember us discussing that she was upset that you had to go away for four days so close to your wedding.”

“Mhm. We’re getting married March ninth. We had this great idea that because her birthday is September fifth and mine’s September thirteenth that we should get married equidistant between our birthdays on the long side. And that’s March ninth.”

“That’s cute. I assume there’s no way I can get an invite at this point,” Mia laughs. “I’m only kidding. We’ve barely known each other a week.”

“Actually…” He pauses, uncertain. “Ollie’s single aunt broke her leg in three places last week and won’t be able to come. Her seat at the reception is already paid for because RSVPs were due a few weeks ago and we gave the caterer a number of stomachs to fill. We can just rearrange the seating chart a little and put you at the table with our other single friends.”

“Are you sure? I was kidding. I promise.”

“Seat’s already paid for. It’s a free meal and a fun time is hopefully guaranteed.”

“Yeah, okay. Why not?”

“You ready to go back in?”

“I guess. I mean, we have to, don’t we?”

***

About an hour or so later, the meeting ends, and the players go off to run fielding drills or take batting practice or do something baseball related. Mia is a little too disoriented from what happened to remember what it is the team will be doing that afternoon.

Mia breathes a sigh of relief. If she could sink into the floor and cease to exist she would. She’s still embarrassed about what happened earlier and she all she wants to do is go to her hotel room and nap. Maybe if she gets some extra sleep she’ll wake up and this will turn out to be a dream, or maybe she’ll wake up less ashamed of her behavior. She was practically drooling at the sight of Harry Styles.

Mia turns to leave the room, and she walks right into something solid that is definitely a someone rather than a something. Cursing silently, she looks up to apologize to whatever player she’s crashed into, and she sees those green eyes she’d been entranced by just that morning.

“Sorry,” Harry says. “Mia, was it?”

“Yeah.”

“I wanted to apologize for this morning. I’ve never had a connection like that with anyone before, but I think I overstepped a line and I’m sorry.”

Mia doesn’t say anything. She can’t.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She remains silent.

“Do you want to talk at all?”

She shakes her head, and swallows. “Sorry. I can’t. I have to meet my boss. I’ll see you at tomorrow’s team meeting?”

Harry nods at her. He seems confused, but Mia doesn’t have time to dwell on this, because she actually does need to meet with Andrew. And Daniel and James and Niall. But Harry Styles doesn’t need the extra information.

She walks to the offices that they’ll be using during their short stay in Florida, and she can hear the tail end of something James is shouting, even through the closed door. She knows she shouldn’t eavesdrop, but there’s one thing he says that makes her pause before she knocks.

“…Mia should be fired for that kind of behavior! She shouldn’t be ogling players like that.”

Andrew’s voice filters through the door, much quieter than James’. But she doesn’t care what he’s saying, except to note that by his tone of voice, he’s probably defending her. She can’t hear the words through the rushing in her ears. Fired?! After one week? This can’t be happening.

This is her dream job. Andrew knows this. James doesn’t. Daniel doesn’t. Based on what Mia can hear from the office, Daniel is now ranting at Andrew about her behavior, just as James was a moment ago. She knocks on the office door and then opens it, pretending as though she hasn’t been eavesdropping.

“Hi,” she begins timidly, looking around the room. “Where’s Niall? I thought we had a post-team meeting statisticians’ meeting?”

“We do,” James spits out bitterly. “Or, rather, we did, before you went googly-eyed over Styles.”

“Don’t try to deny it,” Daniel adds. “We all saw it. What did your little boyfriend think about that?”

“But--” Mia starts, then stops for a moment to refocus and realizes what Daniel has just implied. “Boyfriend? First of all, I’ve known Niall a week, and he’s getting married in less than a month to a woman who I have yet to meet named Olivia, but he’s invited me to the wedding because her aunt broke her leg and they wanted to fill her seat. I suspect that at least some of the other stats staff have also been invited.”

“Well, he was-- I just assumed--”

“Assumed what, Daniel?” Andrew interjects. “I think that you’ve made enough assumptions about Mia here. Daniel, James, I’m going to ask you to leave now. I need to talk to Mia alone.”

Mia is quaking in her heels at this point, but says nothing. Daniel and James file out of the office, fuming.

“I’m sorry, Mia. Their behavior towards you has been atrocious.”

“I appreciate the apology on their behalf, Andrew. I should also apologize. I don’t know what got into me at the meeting. Harry Styles is attractive and all but he is not worth risking my dream job.”

“What do you mean, risking your dream job?” Andrew inquires. “Oh, you must’ve overheard my previous conversation-- I’m not firing you, I promise. Your brain is too much of an asset to our stat team and I think you’ll be fun to have around the office. Don’t worry too much, Mia. Besides, staring at the team is not against company policy.” He pauses for a moment. “Dating them isn’t either, just for the record. I saw the chemistry back there, and it was undeniable. I’m not saying anything else. It isn’t my place, but I just wanted you to know.”

“Thanks, Andrew. I’m glad you’re not firing me.” Mia lets out a shaky laugh. “You really think there was chemistry?”

“It’s not my place to say anything, really,” he says, but he winks at her, and she takes that as a yes.

***

Mia and Niall go out to a late lunch after her talk with Andrew. “God,” she says, taking a huge bite of her burger, “I swore he was going to fire me when he asked them to leave. And then he apologized to me for their behavior! And then! And then he all but tells me I should ask Styles out.”

Niall laughs for a moment, and then his eyes almost pop out of his head. “He said what?!”

She swallows. “Well, he didn’t say it in so many words, but he implied it. Heavily.”

Niall shakes his head at Mia, taking a bite of his own food. “I don’t think you read him correctly.”

“He winked at me Niall! Winked!”

“Yeah, okay. Maybe. I wouldn’t say that he’s telling you to do it, but I can’t say that he’s telling you not to do it either.”

“I think I might. I just have to find the right moment. I mean, I can’t just pull him aside at any random time and say ‘let’s go on a date.’ I can’t do that! It’s not me, and I don’t want to do make him think I’m something I’m not.”

“I can see that. Maybe you can pull him aside after tomorrow’s meeting?”

Mia shakes her head at Niall. “No, that’s not right either. I was thinking something more lowkey. Like, maybe I should find him after their practice?”

“Today?” It’s Niall’s turn to shake his head. “Nah, that’s not a good idea. Wait until tomorrow at least. You don’t want to seem needy or desperate.”

“Hmm. I don’t know if I’d come off that way after that staring contest. Besides, I’ll keep it lowkey. I’m good at lowkey. I think.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You barely know me! We met a week ago.”

“I know you better than you think. Besides, I think you should just be yourself. Whether that’s lowkey or not is not the problem here. You’ll be fine.”

“If you say so, Niall. But if I’m not fine, you’ll be the first to know. I haven’t even told my sister about this, and I tell her everything. Granted, she’s on vacation in Australia with her husband right now, but I really should tell her. She’ll know what to do.”

“Leave her out of the loop for now, Mia. You can tell her all about it when she comes back. For now, focus on yourself and what you’re going to say to Harry Styles.”

“Okay,” Mia concedes. “Let’s go back to the hotel and strategize.”

***

Mia is ready to tear her hair out in frustration. She’s been sitting in her hotel room writing and rewriting and then rewriting again try to figure out her little speech to Styles, but she just can’t seem to make it work. Niall is almost as frustrated, but that’s because everything Mia writes is good. It just doesn’t seem to be good enough for her.

“Ugh, I can’t do this anymore!” she exclaims. “I’m just going to wing it. It’s what I gotta do. I’m going to be spontaneous. There’s nothing else to be done. I just-- I can’t rewrite this again.”

“Mia, I can’t help you if you don’t want my help. I’m going to FaceTime Ollie and see if she has any advice. Maybe her ‘feminine touch’ will help.”

“Yeah, okay. That might help. Let’s try that. I also would like to meet her before the day you two get married, because it’d be pretty awkward to not have met her, and-- I’m rambling. I know I am. I need to learn not to do that.”

Niall pulls out his phone and dials Ollie’s number by heart. Mia thinks it’s cute that he’s memorized her number in the age where almost no one does that anymore. It rings a couple of times, then Ollie answers.

“Hiiiiiiii Niall! And you must be Mia. I can’t wait to meet you, Niall’s told me everything he knows about you. Like, literally everything. He’s a little too excited to have someone around his own age in the office. And I heard you’ll be attending our wedding instead of my Aunt Peggy. Anyway, let’s hear some of your ideas on how to ask this ‘Styles’ guy out.”

“Wow, you’re even more overly excitable than Niall,” Mia laughs. “I love it!”

“Ideas, ideas, ideas!” Ollie chirps. “I’m here to help!”

“So I really have no idea what to open with, but the gist of what I want to say is that I’ve never had an immediate connection like that in my life, and that I want to explore what it could be. I also want to say that I’m sorry I ran away when he came back in to talk to me about it. I claimed a statisticians’ meeting, which was true but then ended up kind of being a lie.” Mia puts her head in her hands. “I just don’t know!”

“That’s all you really need to say, Mia!” Ollie says. “Something along the lines of, ‘I’m sorry I ran away before, but I think we have a real connection and I want to explore it. Please go on a date with me.’ Does that work for you?”

Mia sighs, “Yeah, I guess. Is there any kind of joke I could maybe open with to lighten the mood?”

“No not really,” Niall says. “It’d probably make things worse, in my opinion. Save the humor for on the date, after he says yes.”

“Uh huh. Okay. Yes. I can do this!” Mia says. “I’m ready. You go talk to Ollie in your room Niall. Or you can stay here or whatever. I’m going to go find Harry Styles before I run out of confidence. But if you stay in here don’t do anything gross. Got it?”

“Yep!” she hears in unison from the two, followed by some giggles.

As Mia exits the room, she hears Ollie yell, “You got this Mia! I have so much confidence in you!”

She smiles to herself and starts to order a Lyft to the sports complex on her elevator ride to the lobby. But before she can confirm the ride, she crashes right into someone as she leaves the elevator and drops her phone.

“Sorry,” Harry says. He picks up her phone and hands it to her, leading her over to some of the plush lobby chairs. “That’s the second time I’ve done that today. Um, I was looking for you actually. Your boss, Andrew, told me you were staying at this hotel. I, uh, wanted to talk to you and I hope now’s a good time.”

“Now’s a great time actually,” Mia says. “I was about to head back to look for you. I wanted to apologize for running away and I wanted to ask you out.” She whispers the last part.

“You wanted to what?”

“Apologize for running away.”

“No, the second part.”

“Oh. Uh, that. I, uh, think we have a lot of chemistry and I, um, uh, think we should go on a date?”

“Yeah, okay, that sounds good.”

Mia’s jaw drops open.

“Don’t leave your mouth open like that for too long or a bug might fly in there,” Harry laughs. “We can go out for a casual dinner. I’ll pick you up at 6:45?”

“Uh huh,” Mia says in a daze. Quickly, before she says or does anything stupid, she says, “I gotta go take a nap. I was up a little too early today. I’m in room 639. See you later!”

She waves and dashes for the elevator, leaving Harry staring at her and wondering what he’s gotten himself into.

#1dff #1dff updates #harry styles fan fiction #utb #up to bat #i'm leaving this and going to bed now #because i had a migraine most of the day and it's late #good night #i hope you like it!

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souljellied · 6 years

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(dear @floorlimes - happy christmas my dear! Sorry this is late, I somehow forgot how to write /laughs/ please enjoy this as is, and accept the polished version sometime in the new year! as I realised there was a lot more I wanted to explore with this idea. Hope it’s somewhat to your liking! Set sometime after CL, at Christmas because WHY NOT.)

i kissed a girl (and i may do it again)

When a classmate comes out, Sissi Delmas is forced to reconsider some things about herself. (Sissi/Emilie, Sissi/Yumi)

Snow is falling fast outside, past the tinsel that decorates Sissi’s bedroom window. The digital clock on her bedside table reads 00:24 AM.

They are all sprawled – Sissi, Noemie, Heidi, Anais, Emilie and Julie - across the bed and floor in Sissi’s room, with only the light of her bedroom lamp to see by. Sissi’s back is against the bed and she idly throws a piece of candy, still in its wrapper, up and down in the air. The remains of half-opened food packages extend into the shadowed corners, and several empty mugs, hot chocolate drying around their rims, are piled around them.

There is the faint hiss of air behind her, as Heidi, cross-legged on the bed, opens another bottle of soda. Sissi, noticing the time, absently reaches for her advent calendar and opens the next day’s window.

Noemie watches and grins. “It’s so close to Christmas!” There is a flurry of excited chatter as everyone discusses for the hundredth time how much they have or haven’t succeeded in completing their Christmas shopping.

“Did I tell you, I saw the funniest thing,” Heidi says, “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you! Jim was shopping in town this morning, wearing a Santa hat, but I felt kind of bad for him, you know – he had a shopping list and a whole bunch of bags and he seemed kinda stressed.”

“At least he’ll be too tired to patrol the corridors and bother us tonight,” said Julie. “And this is the first time we’ve got together in ages.”

Sissi crumples the foil window of her advent calendar into a ball. In truth, she’s only here partly because she offered to host (“I have the biggest dorm room after all”), and she still feels a little out of place in this new group of female friends.

There is something to be said for getting older, for really reaching out and making new friends. Sissi feels far removed from the events of the past few years. If she’s honest with herself, she barely really thinks about Ulrich and his friends any more; when she hangs out with them, it’s fun, but it isn’t the wild adventure she expected. When they sneak off, it’s usually into town or to play video games in Jeremie’s room. (“About exactly what everyone expected,” the other girls had told her. “It was only ever you and Jim all paranoid that they were up to something.”) Part of her still thinks that they save all the cool, exciting things for when she isn’t there.

They have been sitting here in Sissi’s room for hours, too wired on sugary snacks to sleep, watching Christmas movies with the television turned down low. Now with a lull in activity and talk of Christmas shopping finally exhausted, the conversation turns to gossip of the usual fare; schoolwork, teachers and, of course, boys.

Anais is incredibly cheerful, having recounted in great detail her latest stolen kiss with Christopher from History class, and Julie has a mysterious suitor from the boys’ school across town that she’s meeting up with this week. Anais lies prone on her stomach, chin propped up with a cushion. A thought comes to her and she pipes up with a wicked grin.

“Hey Noemie!”

Noemie looks wary. “What?”

“You know, I was just remembering that whole thing with you and Della Robbia last year. I hear he’s single again, what do you think about a little Christmas romance?”

Noemie blushes and scowls at the reminder. “All right, for the last time, that was a terrible mistake and I’d like to not think about it ever again, thanks.” She crosses her arms, hunches inwards against the good-natured teasing of the other girls.

Finally, in a last bid to deflect attention away from herself, she rounds on the nearest girl. It is Emilie, unsuspecting and picking a lose thread on the hem of her pyjama bottoms.

“What about you Emilie?” Noemie leans in, smirking, eyes shining with the promise of further gossip. “What ever happened with you and Ulrich? He seemed pretty sweet on you, I thought you actually had a chance for a minute.”

“Oh yeah!” are the various exclamations across the room, while Sissi leans back against the bed and scowls, and the other girls pretend not to notice.

“Well, go on!” Heidi says. She pokes her gently. “Did anything happen? A kiss or anything like that at all??”

Sissi steels herself for something she doesn’t want to hear. She thinks about Emilie kissing Ulrich, being invited to hang out with him and his friends, and clenches her jaw.

Emilie juts out her chin and she casts her eyes around the room. She opens her mouth, just slightly, and there is a long pause.

“Actually, I’m-“ she says, then stops. The others watch expectantly, studying the play of emotions on her face; pensiveness, defiance, and the beginnings of a slow blush creeping over her cheeks. Sissi is as confused as the rest of them and can’t help but notice the way Emilie’s fingers curl into fists against the thin carpet.

“Actually,” Emilie says again, inhales deeply, then releases the rest of her sentence in one hurried breath, “I realised I’m not really into boys. At all. As in, not like that.”

Heidi frowns. “You mean you’re…?”

“Gay?” Sissi finishes.

Emilie is staring at the floor now, drawing her knees up into herself. From beneath a curtain of dark hair, she casts her gaze up at Sissi, still with that defiance, mouth set in a firm line, pride mixed with relief.

“I mean. Uh. Yeah. That. Gay.”

Saying the word seems to instill even more confidence in her, and Emilie shrugs, straightening up. With deliberate casualness she reaches for a plastic cup and pours herself another drink.

“All right, well,” says Noemie presently. “Uh.. that’s… fine.”

“Yes,” replies Emilie. “Yes it is.”

“I mean it’s a bit... you know… unexpected?” Heidi is tying her hands into awkward knots, biting her lip as she trails off. “Not that that’s… I mean, it’s… you’re still our friend, you know, Emilie.”

“Yeah,” adds Julie. “Just with the whole thing with Ulrich… I guess we’re just a bit surprised, that’s all.”

Sissi notices the way the other girls watch with a mixture of expressions from surprised to curious.

“Yes, well,” Emilie says. The blush is still there on her cheeks and she hides behind a long sip of her drink before she speaks once more. “Sometimes you just think you want something because you don’t really understand that you actually want something else. But this is me, and if you don’t like it-“ she casts a pointed look around the room “-that’s your problem.”

“Fair enough,” says Anais, entirely unfazed. “Congrats, Emilie.” The smile she casts is so warm, and Sissi remembers why this girl is as popular as she is, and why Christopher M’Bala is always staring at her wistfully from across the room in class.

“I mean,” says Sissi, stretching out her legs. “It’s not that big of a deal. Besides-“ she wants to say, this is one less person in competition for Ulrich but whilst it is true, and she supposes she is immensely relieved at the fact, she’s mostly confused that the others have such a problem with it. “It’s fine to think girls are pretty. I mean, there are lots of pretty girls at Kadic...” A wave of something washes over her and she feels a bit faint suddenly. Like a switch has been flipped, imperceptibly, in the back of her head.

Recovering herself quickly, she coughs.

“This is dumb anyway,” Sissi says dismissively. “I’m getting bored of gossip.” She stands up and reaches for her DVD collection. “Come on, let’s watch another movie or something. This one has Pierre Perrier in it. He’s so cute,” she adds pointedly.

Everyone seems eager to change the subject and they scramble to rearrange themselves side by side on Sissi’s bed.

“Maybe there’s some cute girls in it for Emilie too,” says Julie, helpfully, and Heidi nods, Emilie beams at them gratefully, and with that the tension is broken.

The DVD is recovered and placed in the player, the movie starts. They fall asleep one by one, and Sissi wakes on Sunday morning pressed between Emilie and the wall, the others in various crumpled sleeping forms across her bedroom.

Emilie’s hair is all silky soft dark strands almost indistinguishable from her own. She smells like strawberry shampoo. There is a slight mark across the bridge of her nose from her recently-removed glasses.

She looks very pretty when she’s sleeping.

“Oh,” says Sissi, staring up at the ceiling. “Oh no.”

What was it Emilie had said?

You thought you wanted something and then realised you didn’t want it.

Sissi spends most of the next few days in a confused haze. During Chemistry on Monday first period, she doesn’t make a single note – which is not in itself unusual – but instead stares at the back two pages of her notebook wherein variations of her and Ulrich’s name are intertwined elaborately in glitter gel pen.

She blames being tired, but truthfully, staring wistfully at Ulrich and writing their names in his notebook just doesn’t feel the same, hasn’t really for some time if she’s perfectly honest with herself, but now she is thinking about it and overthinking it, and Sissi Delmas hates feeling like she’s overthinking. She tries to lose herself in festive celebrations, and to an extent it works, but still. Still.

It feels like something has been switched in her brain, and now it won’t switch off.

Finally, with a few days left until the end of the term, Sissi steels herself and seeks out Emilie across the snowy schoolyard one Wednesday afternoon.

In her head she’s rehearsed a million ways to lead into this conversation, subtle suggestions of how to ask what she wants to ask, without actually appearing so. But, Sissi being Sissi, before she knows it she is standing in front of Emilie with her hands on her hips and a defiant expression and the first words out of her mouth are-

“How did you know?”

Emilie, gloved hands wrapped around a hot chocolate from the vending machine, blinks at her from behind her large glasses.

“Hello to you too, Sissi. How did I know… what?”

“Um-“ stammers Sissi. “That you. You know. Liked girls.”

Emilie’s eyes alight in recognition. “That’s kind of a personal question, you know,” she says, but there’s something in Sissi’s expression that speaks to her, and she beckons the other girl to sit beside her on the nearby bench. They sit there like that, huddled in their winter coats, angled into each other. Emilie appears thoughtful as she mulls over Sissi’s question.

“It’s one of those things that didn’t make sense until it clicked into place, and then my whole life sort of made more sense,” she says finally. “I mean… take that whole thing with Ulrich for example. I liked Ulrich because I thought he was cool, and because he was really nice to me. When I thought about us being together, it was a nice idea to think that a cool guy like him would like someone as dorky as me.” Emilie laughs.

“Yeah but he’s cute right?” Sissi presses, insistently.

Emilie shrugs. “I guess? You don’t talk about him half as much as used to. Do you still think he’s cute?”

“Yes!” Sissi exclaims. “He’s handsome, everyone says so.”

Sissi thinks about the floppy brown hair, the brooding look, the idea of them holding hands and Sissi sitting down at the table with Ulrich and his friends. Conversation, laughter. Odd teasing her, but not in an annoying way. Jeremie helping with homework. Yumi and Aelita playing video games and shopping. The rest of the fantasy has been fulfilled, in some small ways. She’d almost forgotten the appeal of Ulrich himself.

“How strange,” she mumbles.

“What’s that?” asks Emilie, watching the emotion play out on Sissi’s face with interest.

“Nothing, nothing. I guess that I just always took Ulrich and my crush on him for granted. I still get mad when he hangs out with just Yumi, but it’s almost like habit.”

“If I might make a suggestion,” says Emilie. “What are you mad about? In those situations, who are you thinking about, really? Is it Ulrich... or Yumi?”

Sissi flinches back along the bench. She scowls, not sure if she likes what Emilie is implying or even if she quite understands, and so she does what she does best - rashly changes the subject.

“So.. did anything happen with you and Ulrich?”

Emilie raises an eyebrow. “Actually, no. Looking back I’m glad it didn’t. I didn’t really think about kissing him. I didn’t really like the idea to be honest, but I thought if we became boyfriend and girlfriend, I’d start to like it then. Like maybe I just wasn’t ready.”

Sissi blinks at her. “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?”

Emilie looks at Sissi for a long, long moment, the corner of her mouth twitching. At last, she breaks into a full on smile. Shaking her head, she places a gentle hand on Sissi’s shoulder. She opens her mouth like she wants to say something, so close to Sissi that Sissi can see the hazel flecks in her eyes, but then she just releases Sissi’s shoulder and walks away.

Sissi sits down on the steps in the courtyard, twining her hands in her scarf, and remains there lost in thought for a very long time.

It turns out Emillie isn’t actually going home for the holidays, a thing Sissi finds out when she bumps into her in the otherwise empty library a few days later after the mass exodus of students to their families. Kadic feels empty and lonely without them all there, the decorations strewn everywhere losing some of their cheer with no one to enjoy them.

“Too much family drama,” Emilie says, carefully casual. “One phone call to my mother and I remembered how stressful things can get. I told them I’ll just stay here, chill out and study.”

“You should have said sooner,” says Sissi. “We could have been hanging out. Instead I’m just getting roped into fixing Christmas lights with Jim.”

She rolls her eyes. Emilie laughs.

They take a seat with a pile of books and magazines - Sissi doesn’t mind the library so much when she doesn’t actually need to use it to study - and chat aimlessly about past holiday traditions. Emilie looks like she’s thinking about saying something, with long thoughtful pauses between conversation topics, and it’s making Sissi impatient.

“All right,” she says at last, clenched fist on the table. “Whatever you’re wanting to talk about, out with it, because you’re really winding me up.”

Emilie holds her hands up defensively. “All right, all right. I just wanted to ask how things were going, with that whole, what should I call it? That journey of self-discovery you seem to have been on lately.”

“What do you mean?” There’s a slight tremble in Sissi’s voice, even though she kind of guessed what this was about, she supposes, deep down.

“The questions you’ve been asking me. The way you’ve kind of been avoiding Ulrich and Yumi when you used to fall all over yourself to hang out with them-”

“I’m not!”

“Okay, okay. If you say so.”

“I do,” Sissi huffs indignantly. “What makes you so wise and all-knowing anyway?”

Emilie smirks a little. “I never claimed to be any such thing. I just started paying attention.”

Sissi sighs, slumps over the table and pushes the books aside so there’s room for her head to collapse into her folded arms.

“I just thought... when I was finally at a place where my life was starting to sort itself out, ever since you said you were... you know.. it got me thinking about all these stupid things, and now it’s in my head and I’m-” she slams a fist lightly into the table, groaning. “Argh, I’m just so confused about everything!”

“So what you’re saying is...” says Emilie, slowly. “That you think you’ve realised you might like girls, but you don’t know for sure.”

Sissi freezes. It’s the first time anyone’s said it out loud and it rings in her ears and makes her heart race, the words given a unique power when spoken aloud. She wants to shake her head, say this isn’t it at all and storm out of the room, but then she’ll start the new year with even more confusing problems and this was supposed to be her fresh start.

She rises her head from her arms, but can’t bear Emilie looking at her with sympathy like that, so stares down at her lap instead. Taking a slow, shaky breath, Sissi nods.

“You got it in one.”

Emilie doesn’t look smug, just nods as though confirming something she’s known all along - which, Sissi supposes, she seems to have. Somehow. Before the past few weeks, they hadn’t even spoken that much, so Sissi can’t guess how other than some weird supernatural power of perception that Emilie possesses. Some people were just observant to the point of creepy.

“So... what now?” If Emilie is so perceptive, Sissi thinks, she might have the answer to this one too.

Emilie leans back slightly in her chair, never taking her eyes off Sissi.

“Maybe if you want to try it, you should.”

Sissi scoffs. “How? It’s not like I can just go around finding girls to – Oh. Ohhhh.”

Emilie tilts her head and gives Sissi this awkward kind of grin.

“Sorry, I’m not very smooth, I know. Ideally there’d be mistletoe, or alcohol, or something, just to make this a bit less weird.”

Sissi isn’t exactly thinking about the delivery, just the words themselves.

“You thought about me… like that?”

Emilie shrugs. “You’re really pretty. And you’ve been asking a lot of questions about things lately. And you know, Sissi, when I started telling everyone this particular thing about myself, it made lots of other things seem less difficult. Like I got braver all over, just by having the courage to be myself.”

Sissi absorbs this information slowly, nodding her head.

“Right. I just… there was Ulrich, and that was what I was supposed to want, and I really thought that I did-“

Emilie waits, but Sissi just trails off, arms dangling at her sides helplessly. “It feels like a mess. Not the kind of Christmas revelation I was expecting.”

“Like I say, if you wanted to know for sure… No pressure though. It can be whatever you want it to be. Sometimes a kiss can just be a kiss. You know, just to see.”

Sissi is painfully aware of the blush on her face.

“Soooooo....” Emilie draws out the words in one long syllable. “Would you like to?”

Sissi squints at her, tilts her head. Realises how pretty she is, with her bookish look and glasses and long, dark hair and slender hands.

And she wants to.

She really, really wants to.

Just to see.

So she does.

When they pull away, Sissi has a fire in her stomach like she’s just drunk a glass of something warm and alcoholic and Christmassy; there is a trembling in her breath and her hands have somehow found their way to Emilie’s waist.

She almost laughs, because she’s never thought about Ulrich this way, not once, not ever, and her intense non-dislike towards Yumi Ishiyama also suddenly makes a lot more sense. Her head spins with the weight of everything that’s falling into place.

If the expression on Emilie’s face is anything like her own, they must look like a ridiculous pair, leaning into one another, flushed, grinning.

Emilie doesn’t say anything else except, “Merry Christmas, Sissi Delmas.”

Sissi just impatiently brushes her hair from her face, plants her hands on Emilie’s shoulders and pulls their lips together again.

#code lyoko #code ss17 #sissi delmas #emilie de luc #my writing #I'M SORRY THIS IS SO UNPOLISHED #i had this whole thing with her father and closed-off boarding-school homophobia #which got in the way of the xmas fluff bits #also emilie seemed way more of a plausible character #for sissi to have this relevation with #than Yumi??#but i got the Yumi-crush bit in there kind of #UH ANYWAY WHEN THIS IS EDITED IT'S GOING TO NOT SUCK AS MUCH #happy holidays bb #floorlimes #code lyoko secret santa

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greaterthannine-blog · 7 years

Text

th'Eclipse Adventure: Roll 1/3.

Let me backtrack a tad. My aunt, uncle and cousin had driven up to our house two days prior to this monumental natural phenomena, and extended the offer of driving to Fort Laramie to witness the eclipse with them (well, let's be real, if they hadn't extended the offer, I may or may not have been terribly confused and possibly offended, but I would love them anyway). After rearranging a meeting or two, I gladly accepted the invitation. I mean, who wouldn't want to drive two hours and seventeen minutes to the middle-of-nowhere-Wyoming to marvel at a thrice-in-a-lifetime solar event? I certainly didn't want to miss it.

Okay, first off, a solar eclipse is undeniably cool (wow, great word choice Abe; feel the imagination churning), and the fact I could witness it by just popping over the border was an added bonus (although that wasn't the case for my uncle, aunt and cousin). However, what really made my adrenaline pump was the eclipse light. Eclipse light. It would be a thrice-in-a-lifetime chance to take photographs in the wacky wonko wack-a-doodle-dandy light produced by a partial and eventually total solar eclipse. What would the light look like? How would it impact color output? Would everything appear grayer? Or pinker? I had no idea what it would look like (and I didn't want to search the internets because that would spoil the fun, and I still haven't searched and don't plan to), but I knew however the light was, it would be awesome. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Not only would the eclipse be an outstanding photographic opportunity (not necessarily taking photos of the eclipse itself, I don't have a telephoto lens, but for photographing my surroundings in the light it produced), but I would be watching the eclipse with arguably the best company I could have for such a phenomena. One, I would be watching and having a dandy day with some beloved family members. Two, my uncle is a radio astronomer. Three, not only would I be with my radio astronomer uncle, but a some of his friends (whom are also astronomers) drove up to Fort Laramie as well where we all convened to do some eclipsing. Basically, I was in the best company to see the eclipse with, and because I was the only non-science-y person in the ensemble, I could slip away and take photos of Fort Laramie while they all talked snazzy science and shit, then return and be in complete knowhow.

I highly admire their science chatter, by the way. I love science. Before it bonked me on the head that fashion, photography and art are the things I truly enjoy, I thought I would be a scientist of some sort. In elementary school I wanted to become a geologist because I've always loved rocks and minerals (when out adventuring as a kid I would always pick up pebbles and quartz to bring home). Then, in middle school I thought I would be a marine biologist with a concentration on tide pools because I've always been fascinated by the miniature ecosystems that form in each individual pool (more adventures as a kid when visiting family in NoCal) (this was also influenced by my cousin Niky, who is starting her PhD, because she wanted to be a marine biologist and I aspired to be like her). Then, as a high school sophomore, I thought I wanted to be a chemist. But then, I took AP Chemistry and IB HL Chemistry and I immediately changed my mind. It was around that time that the bonk on my head happened, and I don't know why it didn't happen sooner. In retrospect, as I grew up, the things that I truly enjoyed the most were fashion/clothes/shopping (What Not to Wear was one of my favorite TV show from ages six to ten, and I would always style my mom when we'd go shopping), food/travel (Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern was another TV favorite and still is to this day), and art. Art was especially constant, as I had/have taken arts classes (whether it be visual, photographic, performance or music arts) since when I was a lil' tot.

Holy moly am I off topic.

I should return to our regularly scheduled material. th'Eclipse Adventure: Roll 1/3. Right.

That aside, even when you're out and about skipping along taking photos of things and people just for shits and giggles, you can always create a story out of any photograph of image, whether it's intentional or not. But even so, you don't necessarily need to have die-hard intentions and painstaking plans for every photograph you shoot. Going up to Fort Laramie, I had a general goal: take photos of things in eclipse light. But besides that, I just wanted to see what was around me, enjoy the people I was with and witness a 100% totality solar eclipse.

Just go out, have a blast, and shoot some photos. In the end that's really what it boils down to.

+ + +

Hope you enjoyed the first part of this adventure.

Tune in next time, and thanks for popping by.

Toodles,

Abe

August 21st, 2017

4:32 AM

02:17:57 drive to Fort Laramie, WY

Essentially, that was how the morning of the eclipse began. Only a few hours of sleep. moderately low adrenaline levels. Groggily and hurriedly packing camera equipment, snacks, water and folding chairs. Hopping in the Volt-Mobile. Dipping in and out of sleep as the sun peeked out from the Eastern plains horizon. Gaining permanent consciousness just as we pass through a lil' town possessing many lonesome buildings with wonderful geometry and interesting dawn light. Fiddling with my Nikon F3. Loading film. Ambling into the line of vehicles entering Fort Laramie. Parking.

Arrival of a radio astronomer, an Access Consciousness practitioner, a PhD student, and a wacko photographer/artist/Pokémon/fashion-enthusiast on a gap year confirmed.

Anyways, this first installment of th'Eclipse Adventure series features photographs from the first roll of film I shot while up at Fort Laramie, WY. These photographs weren't taken during the eclipse, but were shot during the early morning hours just after we arrive at the site. Fort Laramie is quite large, so these images are of the places we padded to within the first hour of stepping out of the car. We first stood around in a large field that also happened to possess an armada of Porta Potties for the many people there (Milling Masses). The we ventured over to the Cavalry Barracks where I shot some photos of the extensive long porch as well as my cousin (Depth of Consciousness, Passive Consideration, A Different Perspective on a Singular Subject and A Man, A Dog, A Boardwalk). Shortly thereafter, Nik and I scampered over to the hospital ruins. We passed by the shambled structure when we drove in and as soon as I laid eyes on that crumbling stone I had every intent of photographing it.

Unfortunately, the universe had other ideas on how my photographs would turn out.

Turns out, that my camera shutter was sticking about 80% of the time. This means that whenever a photo was taken, the shutter would close per usual, but when it reopened, one side wouldn't open at the same time as the other. It would drag behind by just a hair and as a result would leave a dark shadow on one side of a photo. That dark shadow was larger and more pronounced in many photographs I was excited to see which was beyond a bummer.

However, on some occasions the dark mass didn't overshadow the subject and sometimes the shutter worked correctly. The ones that were salvageable are those here on this post. I actually find that the shadow even betters the photos that it appears on. For example, in Depth of Consciousness, the first photo on this post, the shadow enhances depth and angled perspective of the Cavalry Barrack porch. Because the shadow darkens the further right you go, it almost completely obscures the end of the boardwalk and fools the mind that it continues beyond the edge of the frame. It changes the image to depict an endless corridor that the subject's intense, dark, murky and consuming thoughts are siphoned into. The lighted area where the girl sits shows how she is present; she is in the here and now everyday. How you see her in the spotlight is exactly what she shows you. But beyond that, in the back of her brain, are darker and more mysterious thoughts that only she can comprehend.

I'm not implying that my cousin actually experiences this. But for the sake of creating a story for the photograph, that is what that image portrays.

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writingthingsout · 7 years

Text

Consequences, Questions, the need to be understood and most importantly of all: Freedom

27/2/17

Hmmm....

Monday morning, today I don’t feel like writing. I feel tired and a little edgy. Interestingly enough I slept a solid 8 hours or so without interruption.

Today, I’m not so comfortable with sharing thoughts online. With others. Obviously, I am by no means forced to do so but I am interested why it is the case. Maybe it has to do with my brother asking me to remove his name from a previous journal entry and warning me that future employers would not employ me. I’m not sure what he meant exactly but it triggers – for me – the question of showing oneself/myself in the way I am. Which is not a permanent state. But showing myself the way I am currently.

That raises the question for self reflection: how am I currently? How do I want to be currently? Is how I am pathological? What is my illness?

However these questions will be answered I have the freedom to explore them. Make mistakes. Make “wrong” interpretations. Correct what I said yesterday. Listen to other people’s opinions. Dismiss other people’s opinions...

That is freedom. Freedom probably is one of my highest values.

So, how am I doing currently?

In this very moment, I feel stable. Confident. Over the last months (when do such processes start and finish?) I have become less concerned with other people’s opinions of me. To be more precise: I have become less concerned with what I think other people my think of me.

That does not mean I am unaware of what consequences my behavior has. I’m just less attached to the outcome.

OK, that all sounds pretty good. Why then are a lot of people concerned (this is not me imputing anything...I know this for a fact...hi mum, hi brother)? I think, their concern is that I have a mental illness and that a mental illness is bad.

Do I have a mental illness? What is it called?

I don’t know. On my sick note it says “F.30″

F.30 stands for

- Manische EpisodeIn der Medizin bezeichnet die Manie ein psychisches Krankheitsbild, das mit einer Störung der Gefühlswelt, des Gefühlserlebens und der Gefühlsäußerungen einhergeht. Die Manie kommt fast nur als Teilerscheinung einer manisch-depressiven Erkrankung vor. Die Kranken haben grundlos eine gehobene Stimmung und gute Laune, sind besonders leistungsfähig und brauchen kaum Schlaf. Alle Lebensgefühle sind gehoben, sie fühlen sich körperlich außerordentlich wohl und haben einen krankhaften Tatendrang. Sie überschätzen ihre eigenen Fähigkeiten, finanziellen Mittel und die eigene Attraktivität deutlich. Dieser Größenwahn, also die vollkommen haltlose Überschätzung und Überbewertung der eigenen Person, kann so weit gehen, dass der Kranke glaubt er könne fliegen. Darauf folgt meist eine depressive Episode, in der sich die Stimmung und Gedankeninhalte komplett umkehren. Die Manie kann auch mit den Krankheitszeichen einer Schizophrenie kombiniert sein (schizoaffektive Psychose). (http://www.netdoktor.de/Service/ICD-Diagnose/F30-Manische-Episode-40441.html)

From reading that I can see that somethings are “true” when I refer to the phase from February the 9th to roughly February the 19th. Somethings definitely aren’t true. And no, I didn’t think I could fly.

For me, the decisive factor is S L E E P. And lack of it. Sleep deprivation adversely affects the brain and cognitive function.[2] However, in a subset of cases sleep deprivation can, paradoxically, lead to increased energy and alertness and enhanced mood; it has even been used as a treatment for depression (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation)...

...oh, and sleep deprivation may result in...drum beats...

Mania aka F.30.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania)

Now that’s some fucking “chicken or egg” conundrum.

To me personally, it’s not that relevant. ( I mean, there is a lot of potential analysis there...also, the whole additional bio-chemistry of falling in love...).

Right now, all I care is about how to manage the adverse effects.

The adverse effects that I experienced and don’t necessarily want to experience again were:

panic attacks (especially in the night)

inability to handle certain emotional stress (especially with certain people...hi mum)

(Side note: I was not violent against anyone, I did not spend shit loads of money, I did however rearrange my apartment rather nicely...).

My weird humor was there all along.

OK, back to the topic:

Managing the adverse effects.

What worked?

A combination of sleep and medicine.

The panic attacks completely subsided after the first good nights sleep (from wednesday, feb 15 to thursday feb 16...which coincided with taking the medicine for the first time and the performance of a shamanic ritual.

The ability to handle stress got better with increased sleep and when my mom left . I know that these lines may hurt her. She may feel that she did something wrong or that it’s generally deplorable that a mother-son relationship causes stress. I don’t know. I can only speak for myself and establish:

it was very helpful and necessary that my mother was there for me

it was necessary that she left again

it was necessary for my stress levels

I feel there is so much I could delve into with more depth and detail. And I may do so soon. But for now, I want to get on with my life and every day tasks and I feel stable enough to do so.

To end this entry

T H A N K you wonderful people who have supported me throughout this journey.

Thank you, mother for doing the mother’s job better than anyone could do on this planet (that sounds manic...thank you mother for being there for me in the way only mothers can be)

Thank you, father for being there with wisdom, unconditional support and a certain calm that probably comes with age.

Thank you, brothers. In the biological sense and in the emotional sense. You have been in-fucking-credible. You know who you are.

Thank you, wonderful females. For being who you are and doing what you do. You too know who you are.

and as some would say:

thanks god

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