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bradshawssugarbaby · 2 months

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Neon Moon - Bradley Bradshaw x Reader

summary: You're drowning your sorrows after calling off your engagement on Valentine's Day in a Mexican restaurant in San Diego. Alongside you, Bradley Bradshaw sits at the bar, going through a similar situation.

A/N: my first attempt at writing something a little angsty, I’m not overly confident in it but I was drunk on strawberry margaritas in San Diego last night after spending the day in Coronado so here we are. Also definitely inspired by my own past relationship 🌚 And inspired by Neon Moon by Brooks and Dunn. Also sorry for the whacky spacing because I’m posting from my phone! - not beta read or proofread bc I live life in the danger zone.

pairing: Bradley Bradshaw x f!reader

warnings/content: cheating (not Bradley or reader), failed engagements/breakups, mentions of divorce, drinking, angsty-ish with a happier ending.

word count: 3.5K

read the rest of my What’s Your Country Song mixtape series! 🩷

if you lose your one and only, there’s always room here for the lonely, so watch your broken dreams dance in and out of the beams of a neon moon.

You sat at the bar, sighing heavily as you snacked on the free, fresh tortilla chips and salsa, nursing your pink margarita, the notes of strawberry and tequila doing everything in its power to alleviate the pain of your latest breakup. You know alcohol isn’t a miracle worker, but by God, at this point you’re beginning to wonder. Your ex-fiancé just called off your wedding, and left you wondering why on earth you ever agreed to move thousands of miles from home to San Diego for a man who barely had his shit together.

You fiddled with the straw in your glass, sipping the strawberry-laden drink back, the tequila burning your throat slightly as it went down. It was getting late in the evening, but you were willing to stay here a couple more hours until closing just to get the most amount of time away from your apartment as you could. You knew you’d have to face the inevitable, but you dreaded it. How could you not? How could anyone in their right mind choose to haul their ass back to the apartment their ex just called off their wedding ceremony in, where the person they’d loved just confessed they didn’t share that feeling that was supposedly mutual, that they’d grown weary of the marriage ideal that they’d proposed to you.

Your bartender shot you a sympathetic look when you walked in that night, sensing that you weren’t here celebrating Valentine’s Day like most of the patrons around you. He slid you a basket of fresh, warm, homemade tortilla chips and a cup of the restaurant’s in-house salsa, alongside a drink menu with an encouraging nod. You appreciated the kindness towards you, even if it was just out of pity. As the bar side became less busy as the night went on, he asked how you were doing, if you needed anything else, if you wanted to order a meal. You hemmed and hawed over whether or not authentic Mexicali food was the solution to all of your problems when the seat to your right suddenly gained a patron - a single patron who looked just as downtrodden, if not more so, than you.

“Bradley!” The bartender said cheerfully, a hearty smile on the man’s face as he grabbed a pint glass, “Your usual, my friend?”

“Please, and just keep ‘em comin’, man,” said the voice beside you.

Bradley was a tall man, with a neatly trimmed mass of warm, golden-brown waves on top of his head, sun kissed skin and a pair of aviator sunglasses resting on the collar of his white t-shirt. Over the white undershirt, sat the loudest printed Hawaiian shirt you’d ever laid your eyes on - a bubblegum pink coloured background with an assortment of bright white, black and deep orangey-red palm leaves adorning it. A few faded scars scattered the side of his face, barely noticeable unless he tilted his head just so in the warm yellow-hued lights overhead. His fuller lips were resting in an emotionless line, a trimmed and styled mustache, straight out of an 80’s movie resting over the top of his lip.

As Bradley and the bartender, whose name you’d now forgotten after your second margarita, not that it was ever going to stick in your mind in the first place - you were stressing over how to tell 150 guests that a wedding was no longer taking place simply because the man who asked you had decided he no longer loved you, and despite having felt that way for quite some time, opted to tell you three months before your big day, after a majority of things were paid for, almost all of which non-refundable, meaning you’d be enjoying a wedding cake for 150 people at a venue by yourself, celebrating some other occasion in a couple of months.

You couldn’t help but overhear the bartender give Bradley the same words of encouragement as he’d given you - reminding you both that “que sera sera, whatever will be will be”, a direct quote from an old Doris Day song that you recognized from the times your grandmother made you watch her collection of Alfred Hitchcock VHS tapes, along with all the other classic movies you were subjected to. Bradley offered a weak smile, nodding his head along to the advice.

“I don’t know, man, she definitely isn’t coming back. I don’t think I want her to either. Came home from three months away to get told she was off base and in Coronado for the day, I decided to surprise her and find her having a lunch date with some lower-ranking officer.”

“That’s harsh, brother,” the bartender nods sympathetically before his brown eyes light up, as if Bradley’s cheating significant other has inspired him in some way.

“Actually, my friend, the lovely senorita on your left side has something in common with you,” he explained as he shot you a grin before nodding his head, “My friend Bradley here was married. You both are nursing the same pain tonight. Might not be a bad idea for you two to nurse that pain together, especially since we close in an hour.”

Bradley’s face flushed to a pinkish hue as he shot his friend a glare before turning to you with an apologetic, half-hearted smile.

“No offense, I’m sure you’re great, I just…caught my wife out with another officer over the bridge at Coronado and I really don’t know if drinking with another girl is the right thing to do.”

“Understood, my fiancé just called off our wedding because he decided three months before was a good time to tell me he’d fallen out of love with me nine months ago and no longer wanted to go through with it.”

“Ah, maybe Angel over here is on to something then,” Bradley let out a melancholic chuckle as he took a sip of his beer, the amber coloured liquid sliding past his lips, the froth at the top brushing against the edge of his mustache.

“I’m, uh, I’m sorry to hear about your wife,” you nodded, suddenly thankful as you realized if your ex hadn’t broken things off now, you could have easily wound up in the same position as Bradley is now in a few years.

“It’s alright, had a feelin’ she wasn’t really loving the military spouse life as much as she let on, but didn’t think that meant she’d find a different serviceman to try it on with while I was gone and stationed in the middle of the Pacific.”

“Jesus, that’s rough, I’m sorry.”

“Eh, not your fault. I’m Bradley, by the way. Normally I’d do the whole formal military introduction but…just Bradley is fine tonight. I kinda need a break from that for a minute.”

“Understood.”

You nodded again before giving him your name. An awkward silence fell over you both before you looked out towards the patio, the lights along the pier illuminating the San Diego Bay as you looked across to Coronado.

“That’s where I’m stationed,” Bradley nodded his head towards the island across the bay as he took another sip of his beer, “North Island.”

“You’re an aviator?”

“TOPGUN graduated, been flyin’ for just over 20 years now.”

“20 years?”

“Yeah,” Bradley blushed, nodding his head, “I’m 40 in June. I get told I look about 10 years younger than that. A lot. Especially by other guys over there. The one guy in my detachment’s about 5 years younger than me and everyone says he looks closer to my age than I do. Not as a dig to Hangman or nothin’, just as an observation that I kinda look fresh to the Navy, you know?”

“Hangman…?” You raised your eyebrow quizzically at the name he just called his friend, almost concerned about his parents' life choices.

“Real name’s Jake. Everyone calls us using callsigns over there - his is Hangman, but if we wanna piss him off, he’s Bagman. I’m Rooster. One guy’s just Bob, one girl’s Phoenix, another girl’s Halo, then there’s Payback, Fanboy, Coyote, Harvard and Yale, Fritz, my dad’s Navy buddy is Maverick, our Air Boss is Cyclone, it goes on.”

“Why is your callsign Rooster?”

“Eh, my dad’s sign was Goose. They asked me to pick one and I wanted to honor him, but I couldn't use the same one I figured, so I went for the first bird I could think of. They were gonna call me Boomer because I’m loud as fuck half the time, but I guess I have a bit of a reputation for waiting until the moment’s right to take action. One guy said that I sorta sit perched like a rooster waiting for the sun to rise, and it stuck more than Boomer did.”

“Gotcha. Are you from San Diego?”

“Sorta. I was born here, my dad was stationed up at Miramar which is on the other side from Coronado, but then he died when I was two in a training accident, my mom moved me back to where she was from in Virginia, it’s where she met my dad, actually. He was from Virginia but like, closer to the D.C. area, my mom was from Richmond. Then I grew up there, went to UVA, and got stationed at Virginia Beach, went to TOPGUN in Nevada and then got sent back to Virginia, then from there got called to North Island.”

“So you’ve lived in a few states then. I moved out here from New York a couple years ago. My ex is from La Jolla, came to New York for university, met me, got a job in the city, then got an offer to work here, and came back, took me with him.”

“So your family’s all back in New York?”

“Yeah, bit far, like a 6 hour flight home.”

“Jesus, I may not have much for family, but at least I know I’ve got my squad to kinda support me. And I’ve got Maverick, who’s like a second dad to me.”

“I’m still debating what to do - do I stay in San Diego and just make this my home now, or do I go back to Manhattan with my tail between my legs so to speak and move back in with my parents?”

Bradley nodded his head solemnly before letting out a sharp exhale, a smile forming on his face as he looked out at the bay and then back at you.

“Whatdya say we go for a walk? Catch some fresh air? Maybe we can help each other figure out our next moves so poor Angel here can close up for the night.”

Bradley must have sensed some apprehension in your gaze, because almost seconds after speaking, he held his hands up innocently and laughed.

“I promise I’m not suggesting this out of an ulterior motive. Just suggesting it as a guy who’s sorta in the same boat as you and could use some company.”

You looked at your watch and shrugged your shoulders. You certainly didn’t want to head home any time soon, and Bradley seemed genuine enough, plus, it was nice having someone who understood what you were going through, even if it meant both of you now had to completely reevaluate your lives. You set your credit card down on the table for Angel to ring up your bill, but before he could take it, Bradley shook his head and handed it back to you.

“It’s on me.”

“I can’t let you pay for my drinks, but thank you.”

“Listen, it was money that was gonna be spent on my wife for a Valentine’s Day dinner anyway. Least I can do is pay for your two…pink…whatever those are.”

“Strawberry margaritas.”

“Right, yeah, those. Pink tequila with fruit.”

He smirked as he closed out the tab for both of you before hopping off his barstool. He politely offered his arm out to you as you stood to your feet. Angel shot you both a knowing grin, waving you and his friend off as you headed out. The air on the pier was mild, a soft breeze blowing in off the water of the bay. As you headed down the street together, chatting about life and what you did for a living, Bradley’s rank in the Navy, his favorite sports, your favorite movies, you almost forgot about your ex and the breakup you’d been trying to numb with fruity heartache medication moments ago.

As it turned out, you and Bradley shared a fond love of baseball and romantic comedies, you’d both grown up watching classic movies with your grandmothers, both had a fondness for old music - Elvis, The Beach Boys, Jerry Lee Lewis, Neil Sedaka - it turned out that for two strangers with a 12 year age gap, you had much more in common than you could have expected. In fact, you’d actually argue that you and Bradley had more shared interests than you and your ex had.

As you both wandered up the street towards Seaport Village, the bayside shopping district set up alongside one of the piers, you basked in the glow of the streetlights over head, taking the time to appreciate the calmness of the bay, the sights and sounds of the water as it took your focus off the happy, lovestruck couples that walked around past you all.

The moon hung low in the sky overhead, glowing against the deep blackish-blue backdrop of the night sky, appearing to have a neon glow behind it. Bradley looked up at the sky, letting out a loud, exhaled breath as he shook his head.

“I don’t wanna head back to base and deal with the mess waiting for me there. Never thought I’d be filing divorce papers on Valentine’s Day, you know?”

“I have to call 150 guests and tell them that the wedding scheduled for May isn’t taking place but they can still come eat the cake that we paid for at the venue that I can’t get the 50% deposit back for.”

Bradley laughed softly, although the laugh wasn’t one of happiness - more one of pity for the two of you over your situations, and how neither of you wanted to go home because it would mean taking action with the hands you were dealt, no matter how unfair they were.

“Fuck, how’d we end up in this mess? I guess I should be thankful that she and I never had kids then, right?”

He laughed again, a dry, hollow laugh at his situation. “I wanted them, she didn’t. I just figured in my late thirties that it wasn’t really an issue worth pushing and it was probably best if I didn’t.”

“My dad was 44 when I was born, I never thought it was weird, if that helps.”

“Hey, means I’ve got 4 years, right? Can’t really adopt a kid when you’re in the Navy though, with not being home a lot and all that, and I don’t know if I see myself remarrying or anything. Besides, I feel like it’s asking a lot of a woman to settle down with me then have her waiting at home alone most of the time, or alone with our kids, if we have ‘em. Seems a bit unfair. I guess I could retire but, I don’t know if I’m ready for that either, you know?”

“You just have to find someone who wants to wait for you. You know, someone who doesn’t mind being a military spouse.”

“Good luck with that,” He said with a dry chuckle again, “I wouldn’t wanna be one if the shoe was on the other foot, it’s a lot of me to ask someone else to do it.”

“Well, I’m not suggesting you ask a random girl on the street to marry you, Bradley, I meant like, date, get to know the woman, find out from there if she’s cool with it.”

“I guess so,” He sighed heavily as he looked up at the moon, “You know, always thought I’d have a marriage like my parents did. I know my dad died before I was really old enough to remember, but I see pictures and you just…you knew they were crazy about each other. Maverick always said they flirted like they were a couple’a teenagers on their first date all the time.”

“Bradley, do you wanna come grab a coffee with me?”

“Coffee? It’s like nine at night.”

“Yeah, I could use some sobering up though.”

“Ah, what the hell. I don’t have to be anywhere.”

Bradley gestured in front of him, allowing you to lead the way. As you began to walk on the outside of the sidewalk, he shook his head and gently placed his hand on your shoulder to guide you to the inside.

“Sorry, force of habit. My mom always said not to let a lady walk on the outside of the sidewalk. She said my dad never let her risk getting splashed by a puddle when they walked down the street. Sorta trained it into me by the time I was 10. Maverick and my grandma both agreed. Think it’s an old Southern thing.”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind it,” you smiled softly at him, rolling your shoulders into a subtle shrug.

Bradley smiled at you, a genuine, proper smile. His previously stoic and reserved look had melted away momentarily, deep dimples forming either side of his mouth. Bradley’s caramel coloured eyes seemed to glisten as the moonlight caught them, amber flecks sparkling before he shook his head, an awkward chuckle escaping his parted lips.

“You know, I gotta thank you.”

“Why’s that?”

“You helped me forget temporarily about what I have to do tonight when I get home.”

“I guess I should thank you for the same thing.”

“I haven’t felt this at ease in…a really long time. I guess I always kinda suspected she was cheating, but I didn’t want to believe it. I mean, no one wants to think that way about someone they love, right?”

“No, no, I get it. I sorta knew my ex wasn’t feeling the same way. I just told myself I was overthinking it. He never said anything until today.”

“He told you today that he didn’t love you anymore? Today of all the days?!”

“Yeah, came home from a half day at work to spend the afternoon with him, just to come home to him doing the classic “We need to talk” line.”

Bradley hummed slowly and shook his head. He ran a finger through his caramel toned waves and sighed, trying to think of what the right thing to say in response would be.

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

Bradley silently opens the door to the coffee shop for you, once again gesturing for you to go first. You can’t help but admire the way everything he does seems like something out of a movie set in the 1950s - his mannerisms, the slight lilt to his voice, the way he holds doors open, offers you his arm, insists on walking on the outside of the sidewalk - all for a woman he’s only just met. It’s likely sympathetic actions towards you - feeling bad that you’re in a situation similar to his own, at least, that’s what you’re going to tell yourself.

“Pick your poison, I owe you one for the margaritas.”

“Nah, I’ll pick up this one. Like I said, it was set aside for a nice romantic Valentine’s dinner. I got it.”

“You know, under any other circumstances, this would have made for a cute date spot.”

“Margaritas and coffee?”

“I meant a nighttime stroll along the pier to a coffee shop, but now that you mention it, margaritas and coffee are one way to do it.”

“Hey, I mean, maybe this isn’t a date, I don’t think either of us are ready for that, but, it’s a nice first time hanging out.”

“Maybe the next time we hangout we can do it under less…distressing circumstances?”

“Maybe next time we hangout I can take you out for that nice dinner you and I both were expecting to have tonight,” Bradley shrugged as he sipped his coffee. “You know, as friends, or whatever.”

“You know what, I may take you up on that. You know, as friends…or whatever.”

Bradley slid his phone across the table to you, having opened it to the new contact screen. You quickly typed in your contact details, smiling fondly as you handed it back to him, along with your own phone.

“Next time you venture across the bridge, maybe text me? We can go for a coffee or something, or catch a ball game when the season starts.”

“I’d like that,” Bradley said with a satisfied smile as he sipped his drink.

“But this time, I’m buying.”

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dracolucius-abraxusmalfoy · 5 years

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Drarry and flower crownsssss

Harry watches as Draco twists flowers through one another. Over, under, around, again and again. He has a chain going, several completed circlets lay on the ground around them, in the back yard of Grimmauld place.

He wonders if Neville will be upset that Draco has picked all their flowers to do this, but then he remembers that Neville is married to Luna who is, unquestionably, the reason Draco is doing this at all.

She had taught him years ago, right after he and Harry had started seeing each other. Sat him down right there on the damp grass on the edge of the great lake, transfigured flowers out blades of grass and fallen twigs and pieces of seaweed, and very precisely taught him how to make flower crowns.

It had been one of the most bizarre interactions Harry had ever seen, but he realized, slowly, exactly what she was doing. Realized as the shaking of Draco’s hands slowed, as the hunted slouch of his shoulders straightened, his breathing evened from ragged to smooth, measured breaths. He hadn’t known what to do when it had started, and here Luna was. When he’d asked later how she’d know what to do she’d only smiled, shrugging, and told him quite plainly that her father had taught her when she was eleven how to make flower crowns. It had been years before he realized that it was because she got them too.

“There,” Draco whispers to himself, placing a finished crown, crafted from bright yellow daffodils and irises, on the ground in front of him.

Harry stretches out a hand to rub circles on the sun-warmed jean that cover Draco knee.

“Are you all done?” he asks, because he knows if he asks if Draco is feeling better it will just make things worse.

Draco turns to face him, dislodging Harry’s hand when he uncrosses his legs and picking it again in his own. It’s a little damp, cool compared to the air, and there is dirt under his nails, cheeks too pink, ears red in the sun. He doesn’t mention it, makes a note to pick up some aloe vera.

“Yes, Harry.” Draco leans down, just a little, and Harry sits up to meet him, doesn’t kiss him, just presses his cheek against Draco own, knows this will be more welcomed in this moment.

Draco sigh and leans into it, bringing his hand to Harry’s neck, letting his fingers run over the shorn hair at the base of Harry’s skull, familiar, comforting. It reminds Harry, let’s him know everything is alright now.

He’s too warm, in the August sun, and he can smell Draco’s sweat, can feel Draco’s own heat against his cheek and through his clothes. It isn’t unpleasant, only familiar in the way everything about Draco is. It makes him think of love, of family, home. He presses a kiss to the side of his husbands face, closer, really, to his ear.

“I love you” he hums into his neck, feels Dracos smile against his own.

“I love you too, Harry.”

They’ll be alright. Even if they have to keep making flower crowns for the rest of their lives.

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achillieus · 3 years

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let you down. (sebastian stan x reader)

summary: it's a universal truth but it's worth repeating; feelings eat us raw. or just an actor and a girl falling in and out of love over the course of three months.

(this was inspired by sebastian's visit to greece for his movie, monday, and is based on that, so that means in the story we’re in 2018. also i have this posted on ao3 too but while i’m writing the last parts i thought of posting it here too)

pairing: sebastian stan x reader

warnings: alcohol, sexual references, implied depression, sebastian desperately needs to hug the reader, it's kinda slowburn because i love the yearning

(pinterest inspired board)

part: 1/6

(other parts) (masterlist)

The day it happened, it wasn't a significant meeting at all, you barely even talked. In fact, when he opened the door of your neighbor’s flat that day with a beer in his right hand and his hair messy, he didn't have any effect on you. You always knew that living next to a director meant that sooner or later you’d bump into the pretty faces of well-known people. Sure, you didn’t expect them to be Hollywood actors like him, but to say you were starstruck by the man, would be the overstatement of the year.

The building you’ve lived in for the last three years has five floors; you live in the 4th, he lives in the 5th. He’s a quiet person, usually spending his evenings out of his apartment. You’ve talked sometimes, about the weather and the weird lady that lives in the 1st floor. You’ve never told him you find his directing style a little pretentious.

You’ve never been to his place until that annoyingly warm August evening, when you find a white button up shirt on your balcony. You can clearly see more clothing when you look up and you’re certain the item you’re holding belongs to him.

He’s not there though. Instead you find a different face behind the door. Lighter eyes and darker hair. The man in front of you is definitely younger than the director. You don’t bother to notice what he’s wearing.

“Can I help you?” His voice is deeper than you expected. Stronger, with a touch of European accent. The sound of English surprises you at first but soon you realize he must be another foreign coworker that came to visit your neighbor

“No, I just think Argyris dropped this and it ended up on my floor.”

He looks at you and then at the shirt, in your hands.

Then he says “Sure, I’ll take it.”

“Okay.”

Then it ends. He doesn’t even ask your name. You don’t have to ask his. You figure out, as soon as you walk down the stairs, that it’s Sebastian Stan that you just talked to.

And while being a big fan of marvel movies, you think nothing special of him at first. You just wonder how a mostly unknown director from Greece got an actor like Sebastian to come here so they can work together. It makes no sense to you, but you forget it when your phone starts ringing.

It would’ve been easier if you never saw him again, yet you do. You see him trying to understand what the old lady from the first floor is trying to tell him. You already know. The elevator is not working. The next day you see him walking up the stairs.

You exchange a quick hello, how are you and then off you both go.

The same night Argyris invites you to have a drink with them in the terrace. Part of you wants to just stay in bed and binge watch some Sherlock episodes. Part of you already thinks of what to wear.

There are around ten people there when you show up. They’re all sitting down in huge pillows drinking and talking loudly. You don’t know most of them.

You sit next to a blonde girl, across from Sebastian. This time you notice he’s wearing a plain black shirt and holds a glass of whiskey.

You don’t share any direct conversations but you learn that he’s afraid of growing old and that he thinks Taxi Driver is one fucking masterpiece, as he says.

When you mention that you’re probably the least artistic person in the room right now, you hear him laugh.

A curly haired woman starts dancing with him at some point. You decide he’s not a good dancer.

He leaves the same time you do, following you down the stairs.

“I thought you live here.” You say when he doesn’t stop at the floor you expect him to.

“Ah no, I stay at a hotel near the centre.”

He keeps talking about his suite until you reach your door.

You part in a blur, with a short goodbye.

He still doesn’t ask for your name.

It makes you feel genuinely offended.

Two days after, he is the farthest thing from your mind, until you find him sitting in front of your door, his eyes roaming the place with despair. And then he sees you.

“Ah finally you are here.” He starts casually. “Thank god.”

You just nod.

“Argyris told me to wait for him with you. We had a meeting but he got stuck in traffic.”

You give him a look.

“He said you’re always at home so you won’t mind.”

Ouch. Yeah sure, your social life wasn’t something to brag about but for some reason the way Sebastian said it, it sounded like an insult.

“Okay, come in.” You shrug, clearly not feeling comfortable and turn around to unlock the door.

You hear him call your name. You thought he didn’t know.

“Yes?”

He offers you an easy smile. “Thank you.”

Sitting in your couch he’s eyeing the entire room, while you put some groceries in the fridge.

“Argyris says you’re a great girl.” He clears his throat. “But he thinks you’re too quiet for your own good.”

You look at him, your eyes flicking up and down his face.

“And from what I can tell, he’s right.” You hear him laugh.

It felt weird to see him laugh while he was leaning back at your cozy pillow. He had entered your life so suddenly you didn’t even have time to react to it.

“I’m sorry but I barely know you.” Your words are sharp. He sits up.

“Okay then let’s get to know each other, what’s your favorite Disney princess?”

Defeated, you laugh. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, this is an important question.”

You wait for him to crack up but then you remember he’s an actor.

“I don’t know.” You think for a second. “Mulan?”

“Oh my god. Mulan is amazing.” You smile at him. “My favorite is Jasmine, she’s just so badass.”

You share your favorites that day, having almost nothing in common rather than your everlast love for animated movies and buttered popcorn.

When it’s time for him to leave, he stops and looks at you in the eye.

“You should talk more often.”

You stare at him with confusion. “I talk,” you raise your eyebrows. “When I have something to say.”

“Good.” he says, still looking.

Later in the evening, you’re eating some yoghurt when he comes knocking on your door.

He’s different. The white tank top he was wearing this morning is replaced with a dark shirt and his face looks tired. You assume they’ve been working since he went upstairs.

“Hiii”, he says dragging the i, “Am I interrupting anything?”

You desperately want to nod. You want to tell him that you were doing the most exciting thing in the world, before he came but you were never a good liar.

So you just tilt your head and take a step back.

That’s when he enters and is met with some loud rock music blaring from your laptop.

“You like AC/DC?” he asks, almost wide-eyed.

“Well, I can tell it’s them when I hear their stuff.” For the first time that day, he seems to be in loss of words. “Why are you so surprised?”

He sits in the same spot in the couch as earlier and laughs.

“I just didn’t take you for the kind of girl who likes this music.” It’s your turn to laugh.

“Why?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Quiet girl who loves animated films and eats kids’ yoghurt” he looks at the carton in your kitchen table, “and also likes metal music? Doesn’t add up.”

“We’ve basically just met; you shouldn’t make assumptions about me.”

“Fair enough.” He sits back, fidgeting with his fingers.

You take some time just looking at him

There was a certain vibe about that man that made you wonder how it’d feel to cruise down a dessert highway in a convertible mustang with him. In the summer. With him wearing that white tank top.

The color of strawberries emerges at your cheeks just at the thought of it.

You wish he doesn’t notice.

You’re glad to find him looking the other way, before he speaks up.

“We’re going out tonight.” His voice is warm now. “Argyris says you should come along, even though I’m quite sure there’s no hardcore music where we’re going.” He laughs again.

I can’t. You almost say. But then anxiety slips away from you and out of sudden you want him to stop being so freaking arrogant, going around and acting like he knows exactly what kind of person you are.

He thinks you’ll say no. You can see it in his eyes.

“Sure, when should I be ready?” you say, surprising both of you.

He looks at you for some time and then trying to hide whatever he was thinking he says the first thing on his mind.

“How old are you?” He sounds pitiful. He knows. He wishes he could hit a wall; with his head.

“Twenty-one.” His eyes scan yours, unsure of what they’re looking for. “Why?”

“No reason.”

He inhales deep.

You try to blink. You’re at a party in a little bar you’ve never been before and a lot of people are wearing black. Alcohol. You can still taste it on the back of your tongue. You don’t remember how you end up pressed against a dark skinned man, but you can tell he smells of cigarettes and despair.

You sway your body to the beat, close your eyes. Breath in. And out. You think the music deafens you for a second but you open your lids and see Sebastian and he’s watching you, unashamed.

He’s not that far, though it feels like it with countless bodies in the way. The music melts. His gaze is almost angelic. Or devious. You can’t really tell.

He’s dancing with that curly haired woman again. You wonder how intimate their relationship is.

The red neon lights make his skin glisten. His muscles move divinely. It makes you think there’s an entire world inside him, his flesh barely keeping it hidden. Out of sudden you get the urge to walk towards him. You want to see him up close under this dim lighting. But you don’t move.

The man that’s groping your waist asks for your name. You tell him you need to flee. He doesn’t understand.

You sit outside with the sweet summer breeze touching your bare arms. The bass of the music in the background syncs with the beating of your heart. You can feel your ribs grow with every breath you take. Until you stop breathing because the door opens and his eyes suffocate you.

You can’t fathom the effect he has on you. He was a pretty face on screen some days ago. But right now he steals distance and stays near you.

You don’t look his way. He doesn’t say a word. Nicotine and smoke surround you as he exhales. His fingers hold the cigarette butt with care.

“Do you want some?”

You turn to look at him.

“I don’t smoke.” He laughs.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t want some.”

You want to know if his breath has the taste of sulfur. You want to pretend it’s the alcohol or the loud music that makes your head hurt.

“What’s the best part of being an actor?” The blue in his eyes glows.

There’s silence but he seems to be thinking about it.

“Do you ever feel things too much?” He says, his voice hoarse. “I mean, when you feel something so intensely it becomes a part of who you are.”

You nod. You understand.

“Acting allows you to let go of these feelings,” he starts. “You share the burden with the audience until it becomes light and you can hold it again.”

You look at him, shaking your head.

“I don’t think I could that,” you close your eyes. “I don’t think I could share what I feel so easily.”

He stands up. The wind hits you again.

“A lot people can’t. That’s why everyone is heartbroken,” he takes a breath, “Feelings eat us raw.”

You both go to bed alone that night. Tomorrow there is a hole next to you.

the morning after, search history

(02:45 PM) hangover recovery

(03:00 PM) best food after a hangover

(03:10 PM) sebastian stan

(03:30 PM) sebastian stan girlfriend

(06:00 PM) xanax side effects

You follow him on Instagram. He doesn’t follow you back. You remember he probably gets tons of followers every day and decide not to let it bother you. Instead you study for the exams of the following month.

The subject of your studies doesn’t interest you. Another poor decision you made under pressure. Sometimes you feel as if your life is borrowed from someone else. Sometimes you feel as if you haven’t found your home yet.

Feelings eat us raw.

His girlfriend looks beautiful in the pictures you find online. The media isn’t certain if they’re still together but you like to think so. It makes it easier to avoid him.

But the universe seems to be oblivious to your thoughts and you see him that same day. You’re taking the garbage out and he’s coming down from the top floor. You meet in the elevator.

“I’m glad to see you’re still alive,” his eyes are smiling as he talks “you looked kinda drunk last night.”

You fidget with the hem of the bag you’re holding.

“I wasn’t drunk.” You notice he’s growing some stubble. You’re not sure you like it.

“Whatever you say, doll.” You bite your cheek trying to devour any sign that might give away how his words make you flinch.

He turns his body a little so now you’re facing each other. He’s so pretty. He’s so pretty in a way that doesn’t hurt. You try not to stare at him, but you fail sometimes. You’ve never noticed how slow the elevator moves until you want to get out. You can’t stand being so close to him for much longer.

He’s an arrogant rich actor who loves Disney and smokes a lot, you think. I have no reason to be affected by him.

“Ah! Argyris said we’re leaving for the weekend.” You eye him curiously. “He wants to show us some small villages in the south. He thinks we should get to know the country a little more before we start.”

You’re stunned by your neighbor’s dedication to his work. Sometimes you wish you had something you could be passionate about too. Sometimes you think you’re never going to find it.

“That’s great. I’m sure you’ll like it.” You give him a smile.

He leans his back at the wall. The elevator stops. Finally.

“I like your eyes.” You grab tight onto the bag. “But they don’t smile when you do.”

He opens the door and he’s gone.

They tell you that it’s fun to meet a famous person. They tell you, you can ask for a photo and a hug. They tell you celebrities don’t talk a lot but that doesn’t mean they’re rude.

But he’s not like that.

He’s fire. He’s burning heat and scorching flames. His words are his thoughts; raw. You don’t like it.

late night search history

(00:38 AM) blue valentine movie soundtrack

(01:15 AM) is sebastian stan a bad person

(01:30 AM) acting classes for amateurs

(01:50 AM) cheap leather boots

(02:10 AM) sebastian stan eyes

You find it annoying; how he’s present even when you’re alone.

Thankfully he’s leaving for the weekend, you think.

The weekend, however, is two days away.

You think you can get away without seeing him. And you do. Until it’s late at night again. And they’re all upstairs with music so loud you’re certain the lady on the first floor is going to be rude about it in the morning.

The music tempo has you unaffected. All you think about is if he’s dancing with that woman again.

He’s such a bad dancer, he should not be dancing.

There’s a subtle knock on your door. You know it’s him. You hope you’re wrong.

“Do you feel like dancing?” His face is all flustered. It’s a good look on him.

“You can’t come knocking on my door at 2 AM and ask me to dance.” His gaze is filled with confusion.

“So you don’t feel like dancing?” You roll your eyes. He notices.

“That’s not the point Sebastian.” It’s the first time you call him by his name. You let it slip away slowly, testing the way it sounds coming out of your mouth.

He takes a step closer. You are suddenly aware of your pyjama shorts and your exposed skin.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to irritate you.” His eyes are the cliché blue of the sky. “I just thought you might want to dance, that’s all.”

Suddenly you feel guilty and embarrassed. He’s oblivious to it.

For a moment you feel his eyes linger on you. It feels surreal.

You nod at him.

He’s ready to say something when Argyris comes down the stairs, his shirt slightly unbuttoned.

“Ah man, I thought you got lost or something.” You lower your eyes. “Stop messing with the poor girl. People are looking for you.”

He throws a smile at you and Sebastian takes a quick breath.

“People are always looking for me.”

He gives away that he’s carrying a burden. Your expression softens. But then you look at Argyris and you see he doesn’t really pay attention to these words.

You share a quick look before you’re there standing alone at your doorstep, trying to grasp the idea of him.

When you wake up you feel like running. You can’t fathom where the feeling comes from but it starts like a liquid running down your veins and soon you can’t stay in bed even for a second.

Feelings eat us raw. Only if you let them.

i really appreciate feedback, it motivates me tons and also tell me if you’d like to be tagged in this six part story :)

#sebastian stan #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan imagine #monday the movie #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #letyoudown

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timextoxhajima · 3 years

Text

The Boyz as things and feelings (just cause)

this is a small thing @haechanhues needed help with so i decided to make it an actual post uwu [this is gonna be pretty long cause i might write little scenarios]

[THE BOYZ AS THINGS AND FEELINGS]

SANGYEON - MIRRORS AND PILLOWS

mirrors make a place look bigger than it really is - i feel like sangyeon has that ability to make you feel like you’re more important on your worst days

the things he’ll do just to make sure you’re alright, even when he knows you’re not

he also has the ability to reflect what you need: sad? he’ll come and hug you and let you cry or talk about your shitty day. happy? he’ll joke about the way you snort while laughing then he’d probably do something dumb to keep the energy up there

mirrors also feel very private and at-home, and that exactly how i feel he curates an environment

pillows are self-explanatory ig, smth to cry into, smth to fall asleep with while hugging, has the best homely scents ever, very comfortable

i imagine going home after a long day and finding your partner also tired, but he’s cooking or like in the couch watching tv and he just invites you into his arms uwu

“tell me about everything! whatever that makes you happy or sad and i’ll try my best to be who you need at that point of time!”

JACOB - FLOWERS AND MUSIC

ok like jacob with a guitar is just a stellar sight to behold, he looks like he was born to hold one, and his vocals are super underrated imo, most of tbz’s discography doesnt really suit his voice - i really wish he had a chance to have more lines in more ballads or maybe even a solo thing

he would drag you out to go on walks after he knows you’ve buried yourself in your work the whole day, and he’d be the kind to stop at a pretty flower and contemplate plucking it but he wouldn’t cause he’s a fairy and wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less a pretty flower

would probably play a piece in the background while you’re stressed w work and hum a tune so the singing wouldn’t distract you

would stop when he notices you stopped working and your sad ass is probably crying lmao

he’s a very soft and gentle man imo

he’s the innocent daisy amidst other bright colored, flamboyant flowers but he still stands out

“i’ll grow you a rose bush in the yard so i don’t have to be sad about plucking flowers next time.”

YOUNGHOON - WINTER COATS AND COFFEE AND PASTRIES

he definitely radiates tsundere vibes on first sight, but when you get to know him, he’s obviously the opposite: a crybaby

but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t keep up his model-like appearances when he’s outside - in fact, he’d be the one to influence you into caring more about how you look (of course not materialistically, but more into actually caring about making yourself feel good with your fashion and appearance)

i chose winter coats as a symbol of coverage - he doesn’t show much of himself unless he’s close to you (like when you wear winter coats to keep warm, he’s a burrito because he doesn’t bother too much about sharing his feelings), but when he does, it feels like he has the ability to keep you warm and comfortable, even on the coldest days, even if his inner savage comes out

it’ll be like he scooped you into his coat and has you warm in one of this inner breast pockets

i see him as the kind to get regular coffee and like, a tart or something, at a cafe. it adds on to the warmth, when he remembers what you like. the details. maybe you like your coffee with cinnamon or less sugar or something, but then he tops it up with a muffin and he knows you like it heated up so he specifically asks for them to do so

ok but he’s defo the kind of guy that catches people’s attention at public spaces so every now and then when he’s laughing or smiling, some girl would gawk at him and he would be embarrassed about it, but lucky for you, you’re already wearing matching coats so they know the man’s taken uwu

“if only they knew how long it took to convince you to wear that coat.”

HYUNJAE - CONCERTS AND CONVENIENCE STORE DATES

classy but calm. dream-like but realistic.

i say concerts as in the instrumental, ballad kinds. he loves it and he knows you probably need the sleep where you have that kind of background white noise/music that provides you the best quality of sleep there is. but when you’re not dosing off, he’s admiring how much time you’re willing to invest into being at something he loves

of course, in turn, he doesn’t complain much when you’re hungry and you meet him down the street at the nearest convenience store for some instant noodles and potato chips with a coke and he lets you ramble about your day

he would probably buy you an ice cream just so you’d feel better, then regret it when you get a stomachache later cause it was like 2am in the morning

you probably have like 5 of his hoodies at home that you refuse to wash cause his scent is tainted all over it and the only time he gets to take them home is when he stays over or visits and he sneaks one into his bag when you’re in the kitchen making tea or a bowl of noodles

then you’ll get it back without even knowing it was gone

the kind that would probably surprise you after a day of work with a casual date idea to the movies, and i mean showing up at your place, impromptu, after he knows you’re home with two tickets

“act like my girlfriend for once and go on a date with me, would you? your work isn’t going to be there with you when you die at 90.”

JUYEON - STARGAZING AND VR GAMES

as dumb and sometimes bimbotic as he seems he is, he’s gotten most of the visible constellations memorised and he would not hesitate from telling you all about his childhood with his family when they would travel and try to spot every single constellation they can remember

which brings me to the point where he remembers what you like, but... backhandedly. he doesn’t remember what you like but he remembers what you hate instead, so you don’t ever have to worry about getting that licorice flavoured jelly bean

he would offer a midnight walk to help you relieve your stress, cause he knows you just like seeing the nightsky amidst the peace and quiet while he rambles on for his own satisfaction. not everything has to be so emotionally attached and shared. you can share blissful moments without being the reason for each other’s and that’s totally fine.

juyeon is kind of a scaredy cat in the sense that he isn’t really into horror movies or games but he’s always had that dream to become a pilot and so for his birthday, you brought him to a vr game arcade where he played some plane simulator and ever since, you’ve been taking turns to surprise each other with a new vr arcade spot or adding on to the vr game console set you have at home

“maybe i should digitalise you so i can see you in the vr game”

KEVIN - KARAOKE SESSIONS AND NEON LIGHTS

the best-friend kind of partner you would come across once in a lifetime

a billion film shots of you after he drags you to the karaoke and he beats you at super intense songs like the bohemian rhapsody just cause he can hit those high notes and solely because he was screaming on the floor when he did it

almost left his film camera behind

absolutely LOVES those walks along streets where there are a million neon lights

would come across that one sus neon light signs that indicate a sex toy store and he would give you that sly smile and probably joke for you to go in

kevin has a moon neon light in his room and you have a star or something (whatever you want)

corrects your grammar and pronunciation, only for you two to bicker about it even more when you use google translation and there are different pronunciations depending on where/what accent you’re using

he really is your light in the dark, even if he’s known to be introverted. once he’s comfortable enough with you, he makes you feel like the most important person in the world

has one of those portable speaker microphones at home and he drones on and on and on with some billie eilish song until you hurl a pillow at him

“so you’re the tough girl, like it really rough girl, justcan’tgetenoughofkevingirl, chest always so puffed girl”

CHANHEE - DUETS AND STRAWBERRY PICKING

(i could not find a more candid, softer aesthetic pic for chanhee rip)

his entire wardrobe fits you - the only problem is that he’ll never let you wear it in fear that you’d stain or tear something

shared playlists because that’s how similar your taste in music is, and so sometimes when you have your earpiece in and you’re humming the melody of that song, chanhee picks it up immediately despite not hearing that song, and ends up harmonising with you

got kicked out of the library once or twice because it was exam period and the two of you won’t shut up

ironically doesn’t sing that much if you’re not around

chanhee is a true blue introvert - which is a miracle that you’ve managed to tear through that barrier of his and find out that he giggles at every stupid thing you do: he’s having a bad day? trip over the pavement. he’ll laugh. it works

dragging him out to go strawberry picking was so difficult - but of course chanhee isn’t safe from how beautiful and enticing the fresh fruits were.

didn’t touch anything strawberry flavoured OR any strawberries for the next month or so

his straightforwardness comes with the breakdown of his barrier - but that’s what brings you comfort. he will never lie, he will only be sarcastic and even then, you’d know it’s true

i used duets as a symbol of harmony and being in-sync, though never really exactly the same, and that’s how it is with chanhee. your thoughts are very similar even though he’s much more introverted than you, but that’s what binds you

“i’m gonna tell the librarian i don’t know you if we get kicked out again.”

CHANGMIN - CITY TOURS AND MATCHING OUTFITS

city tours - the kind that you already know inside out and yet you STILL travel the area as if you were a tourist

that’s exactly how it is with changmin: you know him inside out, after being friends for so long, but it never gets old

you’re used to him biting your hand out of nowhere and yet it startles you all the time. that stupid chucky doll in his living room? old, but it never fails to scare you

he doesn’t ever talk about it that much, but he loves it when you co-ordinate outfits

no, it doesn’t mean you wear couple tees, but it’s aesthetically pleasing to changmin that if he wears cool tones, you would too

he’d be reserved about his thoughts and feelings sometimes but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think or feel them

there’s a strange sense of familiarity with changmin, because you kind of know what to expect but then you’re never disappointed, you know?

“i got you this white pigeon cause it looks like the one i already got... you can give it back to me if you don’t like it though-” /he takes it before you can accept it/

HAKNYEON - STAND UP COMEDY SHOWS AND RUNNING ALONG THE BEACH

there’s something about ju that makes it very casual and easy-going

he hates horror genred themes so fuck that, he would queue online just for the latest ali wong comedy show, even if it’s an online show, and he would laugh until he cried

sometimes he’s a drama queen but that makes it alot easier for you to know what he’s thinking or feeling - it makes communication alot easier

that means a lack of arguments

he’s also very empathetic but straightforward, exactly like how comedy shows are - because they are relatable, they are funny because they bring out the irony and sarcasm and all the dumb things in life that people are sometimes afraid of talking about and hak just says whatever he wants to say, even if he knows it might be hurtful or upsetting

he prioritises truth and honesty over anything else

it makes you a better person, honestly

beach walks - very calming, very liberating. he lets you yell and scream and kick sand back into the water because you can, and he does it with you

tries to teach you how to skip rocks but you suck and you can’t so he just pulls you away from the pile of rocks you amassed

“flick your wrist like that, not like you’re meowing!”

SUNWOO - SOCCER FRIENDLIES AND STUDIO SESSIONS

he will NOT go easy on you in a friendly match: you might be one of the fastest players of the female team but he’s ruthless in his ball-stealing, so even if you were fast enough to keep the ball out of his reach, he’d still be able to snatch it right out between your feet

very, very competitive and does not like to lose

you would always play the ‘ladies first’ card but then he’d throw the ‘feminism’ card back at you

sometimes you act more like siblings than anything else

the only time when he isn’t fuming with competition is if you’re injured because he accidentally tackled you - he’ll gracefully give himself a yellow card before absolutely trashing you in the next match

has one foot into the production game recently - likes to play with the beat board and mixing tunes, and since you’ve had your hand in doing music remixes for a deejay job before, you’re there to identify which songs have the same bass line or beat counts for easier mixing

would make you a playlist of remixes but wouldn’t admit that he spent a whole day in the studio without you just so it would be a surprise

a soft boy stuck in the wraps of an egoistic man

“a day? please. i illegally downloaded half these remixes off the internet cause i’d think you’re too internet-dumb to find them.”

ERIC - BAKING AND SKATEBOARDING

full of impromptu, casual ideas to hang out

baking is a fucking mess - why did he suggest it when he doesn’t even have the right ingredients?

wanted to replace eggs with water - like ok thats supposedly healthier, but why????????????

he likes cleaning so that was the only fucking bonus in baking - had to call his mom for help halfway through because the cookies looked more like goop than playdough

gave up in the end and he repaid his debt by helping clean your kitchen

tried to teach you how to skateboard, but he ended up falling off his own in the process and now he’s got a grazed knee

the kind of person you’d have so much chaotic fun with, he’s that friend your mom told you to NOT hang out with that much if not you’d get run down by a car

has the most fucking random pieces of clothing in his wardrobe, like where did he even get that pink coat from?

“no you have to do this and like lift up your leg and then kinda rest your weight on it before flicking your ankle and like- whOA- OH OW OHNO OHOHOH OW”

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depressedacadamia · 3 years

Text

I couldn’t tell!

Word count: 2.1K

Summary: Solangelo one-shot! It started when a Will bought Nico the wrong coloured clothes.

Warnings: Nothing much, just some kissing at the end and solangelo being dorks.

A/N: okay, so this picture does not make sense now but once you finish reading this, it will. This was based off of this post so thanks for @didnt-want-to-be-a-halfblood for the inspiration. I meant to say that Will has tritanomaly not tritanopia- tritanomaly is a kind of blue/yellow colour blindness. I hope yall enjoy and make sure you comment, like, reblog and all that jazz. <3 from moi!

“Uh, Will- I asked for navy, not… camo green?” Nico raised the t-shirt in front of him, his nose wrinkled as if the colour offended him in any way. Now that Nico thought about it, most of the clothes in the shopping bag were a similar colour, looking as if Will was trying to send him off to the army.

“What are you talking about?” Will whipped his head towards Nico, his blond hair following him. Nico pointed to the vast sea of green covering his bed- almost all the clothes were green and there were even some yellow ones in there.

“The clothes, they’re all the wrong colour?” Nico repeated. Cabin 13, for once, was brightly lit, so Nico could prove his point that his clothes were the wrong colour. Camo green jackets, yellow bracelets and nail polishes and only a few navy t-shirts.

“You asked me for some navy stuff,” Will spoke slowly before picking the camo green jacket. “This is navy, just like you asked.”

Nico couldn’t tell if he was meant to laugh or scoff at the statement. Was this a prank? Surely Travis and Conner were right around the corner with a camera filming the entire thing. Perhaps Will was working alone and this was supposed to be some initiation for his birthday- after all, it was right around the corner.

“Will, everything here is green…” Nico picked up the yellow bracelet. “And this is yellow.”

Will’s face bore true and utter confusion. The jacket was navy, just like Nico wanted. He had bought the red bracelet and nail polish for Nico because he thought he could do with some colour and since he refused to wear any clothing of colour, he thought perhaps some red nails would give him a fun look. Will couldn’t see Nico’s problem- it wasn’t like he had bought neon green eyeliner.

“No. It’s not. That’s red,” Will said, his voice on the verge of confusion.

“This is yellow,” Nico’s voice wobbled, also on the verge of laughter. He shook the bracelet in Will’s face. “Will, you dork, stop it with the jokes. It’s yellow.”

Will frowned, his eyebrows creasing and eyes quinting hard at the object. He looked at the clothes strewn across Nico’s bed. What was Nico talking about?

“Nico, I’m not joking- are you sure your lack of sleep hasn’t finally caught up to you?”

“Are you insinuating that my lack of sleep will one day catch up to me?”

“I’m insinuating that your lack of sleep may have altered the way you see things.”

“Are you calling me blind?” Nico’s voice echoed with mock outrage.

“I’m calling you colour blind,” Will pointed to the masses of clothes, accessories and makeup across Nico’s room. Nico raised his eyebrow at the statement. His room was quite monotonous- black covering almost every inch of the walls- the only streams of colour peeking through being the white duvet sheets, the mirror hanging on his wall and Will’s terrible fashion sense. Will may have been cute but boy did he not know how to dress. From his bright orange Camp Half Blood t-shirt to his green zip up hoodie he was wearing. But Nico didn’t care- Nico thought Will looked cute in his clothes.

On the Night of Halloween.

“Will, where is the hair dye you were talking about?” Piper yelled as she went through his belongings, trying to find the box of platinum blond hair dye that Will had been telling her about earlier. He was planning on being Draco Malfoy, because Nico told he couldn’t pull it off, besides- Will had always appreciated snakes; something about the elegant way snakes would move always captured his eye.

“Uh, it should be in the shopping bag!” He called out as he scrambled about to check the time. Piper shoved her hand in the bag, rummaging around until her fingers glided across a box like shape. She pulled it out and immediately frowned at the box.

“Uh.. Will, this is strawberry blonde?” Piper asked questiongly as she looked at the colour of the hair dye label.

“What! No, no, I could have sworn I got platinum blond, I even looked at the little box which shows the hair colour!” Will began to panic as he turned towards Piper.

“Sorry Will, but this is definitely strawberry blonde. Kinda looks red-ish to me.”

Will reached his hand out to Piper, indicating he wanted to check the box. Shrugging her shoulders, Piper handed it over. Surely, Piper was joking? This would be some funny and long elaborate prank that she was playing on him. As he looked at the colour of the label, he sighed in relief- he was right; he had gotten platinum blond.

“Ha ha Piper, very funny,” Will’s sarcastic drawl took her by surprise and just as she was going to point out that she wasn’t joking, the door clicked open and Nico walked in.

“Where have you two been all day?” Nico asked, his voice suspicious- he was not about to dress up for halloween.

“Preparing.” Will stated bluntly. He took a look at Nico’s confused face before adding. “For the Halloween party.”

Nico groaned and threw his head back. “Of course you were, dorks.”

“Says you,” Will muttered as he started unboxing the hair dye in his hands.

“You’re dying your hair?” Nico said, his voice shocked and slightly bewildered. Will knew how much Nico loved his hair. Nico always compared his blond curls to the sun. How whenever Will would glow, Nico would enjoy basking in the warmth his curls provided as well as his golden skin; the freckles on his skin would stand out and make Nico want to kiss his face even more.

“It’s only temporary and it’s just platinum blond.” Will shrugged as he eyed the contents.

“Will, you’re going to look like Octavian if you dye your hair platinum blond,” Nico complained slightly. Piper nodded with her eyes slightly widening. Will stopped, confused and turned around.

“What do you mean I will look like Octavian if I dye my hair platinum? Octavian had red hair,” Will said incredulously as if it were the most obvious thing ever. Piper and Nico froze, their eyes almost bulging out of their heads as they struggled to contain their laughter. While Nico and Piper obviously respected the dead (Well Nico didn’t always respect them but he fed them happy meals and that's what truly mattered), the idea of Octavian sporting red hair was enough to make them crack up.

“What?” Will asked, his voice innocent and his nose scrunching up.

“Octavian had blond hair- Like Jason’s blond hair!” Piper cried.

“No. Octavian’s hair was red. Jason’s hair is red!”

“Will, what colour do you think your hair is?” Nico asked, his face suddenly very serious.

Will struggled on that question. “Uh.. it’s strawberry. It’s strawberry blonde, kinda ginger sometimes, right?”

Nico lost his composure and fell back, laughing so hard, he could have sworn his ribs were breaking. Will was colour blind and he had no idea as well!

“Sunshine, have you ever considered that you’re colour blind?

“Nico what are you on about?”

“Remember when you bought me green clothes instead of navy? And you said you bought me red nail polish but it was actually yellow?” Nico recalled, his hands resting on his hips, making contact with the sword that was practically glued to his side.

Will did indeed remember these circumstances as it wasn’t the first time someone had called out his lack of knowledge when it came to colours. He had always suspected something to be up with his sight but he would forget to book an appointment and other times, he just was not bothered enough. He had never thought his colour issue had been a big problem.

“I guess that’s happened more than once… anyway, I don’t see why you’re complaining. You’re wearing the bracelet and nail polish right now!” Will argued.

Nico snatched his hands away from view. “Those are not for your eyes, Piper,” he snapped as she turned her eyes to Nico’s hands where the sunflower yellow nail polish along with the yellow bracelet (that indeed had sunflower and sun beads on it) resided.

After plenty of arguing, trick or treating and continuous laughing at the fact that Will thought his hair was red (Nico refused to get over it as he believed Will’s blond hair to be his most prominent feature and the very idea of it being red was ridiculous to him), Will and Nico were resting in Cabin 13, where several candy wrappers were strewn across the room.

Will was sitting on Nico’s bed while Nico sat on the floor below him, in between the gap in his legs. Will was leaning over Nico’s shoulder as he showed him more mythomagic cards. Out of nowhere, Nico reached his arm up, weaved his fingers into Will’s golden locks and pulled. Hard.

“Ouch, jee- no need to pull so hard,” Will tutted as he started to glow. The tug on his head started out as a little joke- Nico had once called Will his personal night light and Will, in return, had said that Nico could tug on his head and he would turn on like a lamp. Will never thought that Nico would actually take him seriously.

Will’s skin was gorgeous, warm and glowy. He remembered once when Will had asked him ‘Why does everyone want to be compared to the sun? People should compare others to the moon because all I do is squint at the sun angrily’ .

At the time, Nico had found it funny- considering Will was a child of Apollo. But as time grew, Nico kept on thinking about the statement and he decided that the beauty of the sun sometimes is overwhelming and yet when it is missing, the entire world falls to despair and depression. It glows and basks everyone in their light and when they’re away people complain. That is what Nico would see about Will- why Will was his personal little sun.

“Wait, Will- does that mean when you glow, you think you’re red?” Nico asked all of a sudden, the intonation in his voice raising like a child.

Will groaned and nodded, embarrassed and annoyed.

“I’m sorry, okay! I couldn’t tell!”

Nico turned his face so he could see Will and sat up on his knees so their heads were at the same level. His lips were so close that his breath tickled Will’s lips and he could practically smell the caramel on his breath. Their lips closed together softly and Will sighed into the kiss, one of his hands moving to cup Nico’s cheek and the other to support his back. He pulled Nico deeper into the kiss, their lips moving passionately against one another. Will’s lips were warm, comforting and tasted like the caramel apple he had eaten earlier. Nico’s hands moved against Will’s face and Nico slowly pulled away from the kiss and started planting small butterfly kisses across Will’s face.

Every freckle, every feature, every inch of skin was blessed under Nico’s soft lips, muttering italian words that Will could only imagine the meaning of. Nico’s touch had no possible words to describe it because Will knew no words in english that could describe the magnitude, beauty and divine power his kisses held. No angel could resist the temptation of sin when Nico was the sinner- his onyx eyes so terrifying and yet so beautiful- he felt like he was looking at shattered glass, glass that had cut oneself over and over again; but the way Nico kissed Will made him believe that even if the glass cut him a thousand times, the way Nico kissed him would heal every wound.

The soft hands that cradled Will’s face now were the hands that had caused the death of too many to name. The fingers that grasped the sword and directed such a powerful force of rage now stroked Will’s face softly, holding him. Nico’s aura of pure terror and fear held a bewitching aura- an alluring aura- completely irresistible and filled with desire. He wore the scent of blood and death as if it were his perfume and his eyes so heavenly and yet so shattered, it made Will wonder how anything good can exist without being broken.

“You know I still love you..” Nico muttered. Somehow during the kiss, Nico had climbed up and was now straddling his boyfriend. Will looked up at him in awe. He had no words. He had nothing to say, he was too stunned by the divinity of Nico. So all he did was nod.

“...Even if you do think your hair is red,” Nico added, his lips curling into a smirk. Will threw his head back and groaned. The rest of the night was filled with the echoes of Nico’s laughter.

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born-to-lose · 3 years

Text

Tagged by @six-shot-heart-attack 💖

1. Why did you choose your url?

The song is my brand

2. Any side blogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them

I made a langblr for Finnish (and some French), but it's still in the works so there's nothing to see yet. I'll link it as soon as I have an actual concept

3. How long have you been on Tumblr?

Since early 2017

4. Do you have a queue tag?

I don't always use it for queued posts but #sweet queue o' mine

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

I was a theater kid back then and nobody irl wanted to hear about my obscure interests

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

I love Mike and Stiv and the vibes of this photo

7. Why did you choose your header?

Because I finally have a theme now and neon + black = chef's kiss

8. What's your post with the most notes?

Probably that David Bowie/Jesus meme, but I don't really keep track

9. How many mutuals do you have?

Quite a few and I love you all

10. How many followers do you have?

2250

11. How many people do you follow?

584

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

Everything in the #mel talks is a shitpost, just with different intensity

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day?

Way too much. I wake up, send my best friend a short text and it only goes downhill from there. Except when I'm at school, but even then I pop in during breaks

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? Who won?

I don't think so. It was more of a personal thing that led to both of us talking shit about the other on our blogs. I stopped at some point but idk about him and idc (post-breakup beef y'know)

15. How do you feel about 'you need to reblog this' posts?

I only reblog them when it's actually important like that suicide hotline post or things like that potato dog or the elephant strawberry, but then it's only because of the picture itself

16. Do you like tag games?

Yeah but I'm really lazy and slow at doing them, so I still have a bunch from last year, but I'm trying to catch up asap

17. Do you like ask games?

YES

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

@tuffduff @six-shot-heart-attack and @smokeandmirrorz because y'all have those cool vibes 🥺👉👈

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

Lmao obviously and you know it

20. Tags:

@thespacecowboyyy @polka-dot-duff @smokeandmirrorz @izzys-nose-ring @slashxrose no pressure tho!

#tag game

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ask-iamnotanalicorn · 3 years

Photo

The Crystal War Timeline

Equestria had already been stunned by the return of Nightmare Moon - learning that one character of myth and legend was real, was the sister of Celestia herself, proved a powerful blow to the nation. Their princess was in a period of mourning after the re-banishment of her sister, and uncertainty crept across the land.

When the Crystal Empire returned, bringing with it living shadows and mind-controlled armies, that shock was compounded twofold.

But shock gave way to determination. Princess Celestia rose from her grief. The ponies of Equestria rallied. Peaceful ways of life had to give way to sacrifice for the good of the nation.

At first, there was concern among the alicornis imitato; where could they serve? A few felt capable of joining the call for volunteer fighters, but found themselves rejected. Too handicapped magically. Too great a distraction. Too high a personal risk if they were targeted for their alicorn appearance; too great a chance the few with cult followings would accidentally cause dissension and disobedience in the ranks.

Then Celestia called them in. Each one of the twelve, and their families, escorted to the castle in Canterlot under guard. For their safety, she assured them. They would bear no suspicion, they would not be harmed, and their loved ones were welcome to the same protection unless they wished to help the cause in some other capacity. And the AIs trusted her, for hadn’t Princess Celestia always made an effort to get to know each AI, to befriend them, to demonstrate to them her friendship and wish for their good?

None were aware of the ulterior motive behind this special consideration. True, keeping them safe, keeping them under a watchful eye, was a wise tactical move. But in truth, Princess Celestia had need of something else they had power over - power none of them realized was theirs:

The Guardians.

With each AI safely protected in the castle, the Guardians were now available. Twelve of the most skilled, elite agents in Her Royal Service. Twelve ponies picked for their patience, their decision-making, their stealth, and their fighting skills. Twelve ponies who had proven themselves not only strong and capable, but compassionate and rational - ponies with the rare skillset required for competently watching over, protecting - and, if need be, stopping - another pony in secret, for decades on end. And never once be found out, or require gratitude, for their service.

She had a special mission for them, if they agreed. They did. And so the Guardians gathered, trusting their charges, their foremost responsibility, to the Princess’s care.

There had been a Crystal Heart once, she told them in the secret meeting chamber. The Crystal Ponies had once powered and protected their city with its strong enchantment - an enchantment fueled by their love for one another. It had been a beacon of hope and light, a physical manifestation of the King’s love for his creatures. And Sombra had stolen it from them, filling the void left behind with his malice and lust for power.

He could not have broken it, she was certain. It must be hidden in the castle. And if they could find it... reactivate it... free the crystal ponies from their enslavement... the war would end, and no more innocent lives, lives utterly overshadowed by Sombra’s wicked hubris or laid down to defend Equestria’s freedom, would be lost.

The plan might not work. It might be too dangerous. It might be a fool’s errand.

But there was no group of ponies, Celestia felt sure, who could be more well entrusted to such a task.

-----

Welcome, one and all, to this special What If? series of “I Am Not An Alicorn!”

This has been a LONG time in the works. I initially started brainstorming this project back in January with Reversalmushroom, as his Patreon reward for supporting me under the Resplendent Royalty tier. He asked if his comic reward could be used to give a glimpse of what life would have been like for Salespitch & Co in the seven alternate timelines created by Starlight Glimmer in the Season 5 Finale, The Cutie Re-Mark. As you can tell from the time gap, it took me quite a while to get it done, and now I’m very excited to show you all the result!

I am quite pleased Reversal wanted this for his reward, and also for his commissioning of Panel 7 - as you may or may not know, there were seven timelines, but the Patreon reward only allows for up to two pages of comic, and I could only satisfactorily fit six of these panels onto those pages. So he commissioned the seventh one out of his own pocket (and lemme tell ya, I REALLY like that one :D) Thank you again for your patronage, Reversal, and I’m glad you have been happy with the results so far!

The descriptions I’ve added are not part of the original reward; I just really like adding lore, and thought ya’ll would enjoy some further elaboration of what’s going on in each timeline. It’s not a full story, but hopefully gives you enough fun details to imagine how things might have gone. I know I have fun with that kind of thing. :D

There will be a long post at the end with all of the timeline art cards together and links back to these description posts, but I hope you will enjoy the next seven weeks with me as we explore these different What Ifs! Also, feel free to send additional questions in about each timeline; I might answer a few of them during the week.

(And remember: no matter how dark or catastrophic things may seem... there is always hope.)

Some Fun Facts About The Crystal War Timeline/Art:

- All of Sales’ family is safe and well in this timeline. Pitch Black is the only one going into danger (and I assure you, he doesn’t die; the mission, while not without some serious roadblocks, is successful.)

- Sales feels a little cooped up at the castle, but Celestia has people who try to give all the AIs ways to put their talents to good use, and he ends up making some solid connections with the ponies of the Department of Equestrian Commerce. He actually has some suggestions that help streamline the war effort supply lines.

- All of the AIs in the upper half have appeared in the comic before! Some are from the MLP show, others (like the little red foal) are made up by me, and Willow Resin (the blue and blonde mare talking to Sales) was the winning entry for my Alicornis Imitato contest, created by @johndoestudios!

- The yellow AI is based off the show glitch of Lemon Hearts that made her into an alicorn, and the sunglasses guy is obviously Neon Lights, but while this is NOT Lemon Hearts and I made a new cutie mark for her lookalike, Neon Lights is still Neon Lights. I figure he just hides his wings under his vest when he’s working with Coluratura’s shows. Also, that purple tail is one of the VERY obvious on-screen “alicorns” in the episode where Rainbow Dash goes to Las Pegasus (named Purple Rain by me).

- The ponies with Pitch Black and Celestia aren’t all named yet, but I like them all, and I named the green guy Strawberry Spice.

- The blue pegasus Guardian ended up looking so much like Agent Windigo that I decided he is her twin brother. Their real names are Storm Front and Spring Frost. I haven’t decided a codename for Frost yet, but all the top-level special agents have codenames based on dangerous creatures or constructs (i.e. Black Knight, Windigo, Phoenix, Golem, Manticore, Hydra, Chimera, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, Siren, etc.) Kinda too bad his sister stole the ice monster already, I bet she ribs him about that. XD

Hope you’re all well and taking time to relax and appreciate the little joys in life! They’re still out there, I promise. :) And let me know if anyone has any prayer requests! Jesus is still Lord, and He’s never surprised no matter what craziness we run into!

~River Babble

Next Week: Changeling Times

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ravenadottir · 3 years

Text

personal

anon, so sorry! i lost your ask somewhere, and i tried finding it, but i think it’s gone :/

anyway, post form, since i copied the template from @ariendiel

Okay everyone, what is your:

— Favorite music genre

i love all genres, pretty much. it depends on my humor and i can dance and sing along to anything. but my top two are any rock genre, especially hard rock and metal, and hip hop. lo-fi (i didn’t know the name of the genre until ellinor posted it lol) to sleep and strecth, or to read something i need full focus.

— Primary love language

definitely acts of service. i think that’s how i show love the most, and prefer to have it coming from the other end.

— Favorite endgame love interest from each season (or any of the seasons)?

s1 jake, s2 it always boils down to gary and lucas, s3 tai

— Bonus #1: A favorite non-endgame love interest? (Tim, Lottie, etc.) (You can list an "un-romanceable" here too, like Nicky)

rohan and priya. not much to say here, i love them both and still hope to see them again on a new season.

— Bonus #2: Any random everyday thing(s) that always remind you of this/these favorite(s)?

when i started playing the game i had a strawberry and champagne candle burning. every time that scent is in the air it reminds me of those first few weeks, where everything was new.

i associated that scent with the game, and now i use it to write.

also, whenever i see these things, they come to my mind.

muscle cars, beers and burgers - gary. (so pretty much anytime i watch supernatural lol)

jeeps, rain and mudd - henrik

korean barbecue, men’s cologne and shirts with sleeves up - lucas

anything frosting and blush/pastel - bobby

neon signs and blue eyes - kassam

tan couches and ANY PLANT - are noah

anything start trek - has carl all over it.

i’m sure this ask game wasn’t about as many details, i just like rambling about them at all times lol

#personal

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hawkinshellfire · 3 years

Text

Right Where You Left Me

Chapter 7 - White Horse

Stupid girl, I should’ve known

That I’m not a princess, this ain’t a fairytale

I’m not the one you’ll sweep off her feet

When Hopper and Chrissy arrive at the diner, the post-game celebration is already in full swing. Every booth in the small neon-lit establishment is packed with students from Hawkins High and a few of them rise to pat Hopper on the back as he and Chrissy work their way to a table full of his teammates in the far corner.

Going to the diner after the game was a long-standing tradition that Hopper adored. There was always such a positive vibe in the atmosphere and everyone, from the jocks to the nerds participated in the festivities. He settles into a plush leather booth between Benny and Chrissy and orders himself a Coke and a plate of fries.

“Good game man!” a senior student smiles at Hopper from across the table.

“Thanks.”

“That last catch, phew, I don’t know how you do it.”

“It’s because he has me to make him look good,” Benny brags.

“Always so humble,” Hopper laughs in Benny’s direction.

The waitress returns and passes Hopper his drink and that’s when he sees her, cuddled up in the corner booth with Lonnie. She has her body angled towards the other man and she's laughing. Genuinely laughing. It bothers him. He wants to be the one making her laugh.

He’s drawn back into the conversation at his table when Chrissy links her arm through his and lays her palm over his hand. She leans into his shoulder and flirtily flits her eyelashes at him. Smiling at her, he tunes back into what’s being said, but every once and a while he finds himself looking over at the corner table.

He zones out when Benny starts rambling about his favourite plays of the game, instead opting to focus on Joyce. She was drinking a chocolate milkshake, her favourite, and twirling a strand of her hair around her finger. She wasn’t wearing the red lipstick he’d seen her wear recently, and it reminded him of how naturally beautiful she really was. He thinks that maybe, before everything fell apart, he should have told her how breathtaking she was. She deserved to know.

He watches with envy as her arm brushes against Lonnie’s and the hand located beneath Chrissy’s clenches instinctually.

He vaguely registers that Chrissy is telling a story, but he has no idea what she’s talking about. It was likely about something he’d done. He’d discovered that Chrissy loved to tell their friends about the quirky things he did when they were alone; he didn’t love that she shared intimate details of their personal life and recognized that she did it as a means of boasting about their relationship status. He’d never said anything to her about it, but he found it unnecessary and cringe-worthy.

Chrissy turns and notices that Hopper is staring across the room and tightens her grip on his arm.

“ James, ” she hisses, “are you even listening to me?”

“Of course I’m listening,” he lies.

As Chrissy continues her story, Hopper grows restless and pulls his hand from beneath hers. He stretches his arms up over his head and excuses himself to use the restroom. Alone, he makes his way down the aisle, past Joyce’s table and to the restroom. He can feel Chrissy glaring at him as he passes Joyce, but he doesn’t linger nor does he make eye contact. In the restroom, he groans and splashes himself in the face with cold water. When the water does nothing to aid his anxiety, he decides he needs a cigarette.

Hopper goes back to the table and retrieves his jacket while telling Chrissy he would be back after his smoke. She nods and continues on with her conversation with Karen Wheeler, who had joined the group and claimed Hopper's seat while he was gone.

On his way out he watches as his peers laugh and celebrate and he feels incredibly disconnected. Everyone at their table was hollering and engaged in exciting conversations but all Hopper wanted to do was head home and crawl into bed. He should be in the mood to celebrate. He should be thrilled to have Chrissy here with him, bragging about what an incredible boyfriend he was, yet, he was pouting because his best friend was here with someone else.

Pushing through the door to the diner, Hopper whips out a cigarette and lights it, allowing the immediate rush on his first inhalation to numb the way he feels.

Typical. It was absolutely typical of Hopper to order a plate of fries while everyone else ordered only soda. Not that she was watching him, she just happened to notice while she was looking around to see if she recognized any of her classmates who were at the diner to celebrate the football team's win. Only, that was a lie because she didn’t know any of these people and she’d been keeping an eye on Hopper since he and Chrissy strolled in.

She and Lonnie were sitting in the far corner of the establishment giving her a perfect vantage point and view of Hopper and his pals. Her intention was to have Lonnie drop her off at home but she felt unsettled after her conversation with Hopper and wasn’t ready to head home just yet. So, when Lonnie asked if she wanted to join him, she accepted his offer and here they were, tucked away in a small two-person booth watching as their classmates celebrated. She’s trying to focus on the story she’s being told, something about the latest car Lonnie and his father were working on restoring; she’d recently learned that he spent nearly every weekend with his father, working on restoring cars, but her attention is split between the words he’s saying and the way Chrissy has her arm linked through Hoppers.

More than anything, she wants to give Lonnie her undivided attention. He was nice enough to offer her a ride and she felt like she owed him; seeing as she was stringing him along (though he wasn’t aware of that fact). But she’s preoccupied with the words left unsaid on the field and she needs to know what Hopper’s next move will be. She felt as though she’d made it clear that the ball was in his court. The note was the first step to mending their friendship and rather than accept her offer to forget and move forward, he just had to go and complicate things, therefore, it was on him to uncomplicate them.

Lucky for Joyce, the waitress drops off the milkshakes they ordered just as Lonnie asks her a question that she only hears the second half off. She thanks the waitress and immediately takes a large gulp of her chocolate shake.

“Chocolate, huh?” Lonnie remarks. He takes a sip of his own vanilla milkshake and smiles.

“The best kind,” she states.

“Okay, don’t find this weird, but I’ve never tried a chocolate milkshake.”

“What?! You have to try,” she insists, sliding her milkshake towards him.

He takes a sip and pauses before his lips settle into a smile and he pushes the glass back towards her. “Alright. I see what all the hype is about.”

“I can’t believe you never had a chocolate milkshake,” she scoffs. She plays around with the straw in her drink and grins, caught up in the memory of one of the first times she discovered that chocolate was the best kind of milkshake.

“Why on earth did you get the strawberry?” Hopper asks.

He leans back against the booth and scolds Joyce for her milkshake selection. It was freshman year and he and Joyce had decided to check out the diner that all of the senior students went to before it got too busy with the evening crowd. The pair were sitting across from each other in a booth lining the front window. Joyce was pleasantly surprised with the homey feeling in the diner and commented several times on how much she loved the neon lights on the edges of the window.

“I don’t know, it looked good.”

“You always get the chocolate, it’s an unwritten rule of ordering a milkshake.”

“You can just share yours with me,” she suggests. With a smirk, she leans over the table and clasps his straw between her lips before he has the chance to slide the glass out of her reach.

“Hey!” he protests. “Get your own!”

“Will it really kill you to share? I’ll share mine and we can have one of each,” Joyce beams.

“Excuse me,” Hopper calls out to the waitress. “Could we get two more straws?”

“More straws?” Joyce whispers.

“If I’m sharing my milkshake with you, we’re getting two straws so that you can’t hog the entire thing.”

“I’m not going to hog the entire thing!”

“Oh really, because it’s already on your side of the table,” he raises an eyebrow and looks at where the two milkshakes are positioned in front of her.

“You put that there!” she giggles as she pushes it back to the center.

“Why would I put my milkshake there?” he teases her.

“To bother me.”

“I would never,” he laughs.

“Oh please Hop. Your favourite pastime is bothering me.”

“You secretly love it,” he winks.

The waitress returns and hands Hopper two straws then smiles between him and Joyce. “It’s so nice to see a young couple so in love,” the older lady remarks before walking away.

“Oh we’re not…” Joyce attempts to correct her, but it’s no use, she’s already back at the counter.

An awkward silence falls between them and Joyce fiddles with her thumbs while she waits for Hopper to add the new straws to the drinks.

“Can you believe that she thought-” he begins with a forced chuckle.

“Gosh no. How crazy would that be?”

“Totally crazy,” he sighs. They each sip a milkshake and eventually the awkwardness falls away and Hopper is once again teasing Joyce about hogging the chocolate milkshake.

Lonnie resumes telling his story and Joyce continues to pretend to listen, but she isn’t. She notices Chrissy place her hand over Hopper’s and feels queasy. A strange realization overcomes her and she suddenly panics. The fate of their relationship was in Hopper’s hands but she would never be like Chrissy and she worries that maybe she’s allowed herself to become disillusioned with what could be.

It was stupid of her to assume that Hopper would ever choose what he didn’t have with her over what he did have with Chrissy. They were perfect. The cheerleader and the jock. Everyone said so. Perhaps she was stupid and naive for believing that she was the type of girl that Hopper would want to sweep off her feet. They may live in a small town, but there were plenty of girls that were better suited for Hopper than she was and he had to see that. She never should have let herself realize she had feelings for him. That was her first mistake.

Before then, she was fine to live in her oblivious bubble. Obliviousness, though not ideal, meant that she wasn’t at risk of getting hurt. Now that she was standing here, in the crosshairs of what could have been and what could be, she would give anything to go back and remove the possibility of getting hurt.

It was too late now. Too much had happened and she knew it was foolish to think that they could forget everything and move past it but if that meant they could save some of their friendship, she was still willing to give it a shot.

Lonnie is still talking though all Joyce hears is white noise. She excuses herself and heads to the ladies' room where she splashes her face with cold water. When the water does nothing to calm her, she reaches for the pack of cigarettes in her pocket and returns to the table where she informs Lonnie that she’ll be back in a few moments. He nods and tells her he’ll be at the table waiting.

She doesn’t notice that Hopper is no longer sitting at his own table.

With Hopper gone, Chrissy begins talking to Karen Wheeler, a fellow senior member of the cheerleading squad. The girls are giggling about a mishap that one of the younger members of the squad had during the on-field performance when Benny asks Chrissy where Hopper ran off to.

“He went out for a smoke,” she informs him. “Or maybe he went to go make eyes at a certain brunette where I can’t see him doing it.”

Her second statement has some bite but Benny ignores the maliciousness in her tone and nods.

“Their friendship is strange, isn’t it?” Karen remarks obliviously.

“I don’t understand why he wastes his time with her,” Chrissy huffs.

Benny, who’s listening in on them, just rolls his eyes and sits silently. He knew exactly why Hopper “wasted” so much time with Joyce and he had an odd feeling it was only a matter of time before his friend and Joyce discovered that reason for themselves.

“Wait,” a younger boy Chrissy doesn’t recognize interjects, “are you talking about the guy that just left here?”

The guy was in a few of Benny’s classes and was a member of the junior class, but Chrissy can’t be bothered to ask his name. He seemed like a total stoner and if she was being honest, she was already bored of this conversation.

“Yeah, why?” Karen answers.

“Oh man, I feel so bad for that guy's girlfriend. I saw him totally making out with the girl that threw that party last week.”

“ I’m his girlfriend.” Chrissy hisses.

“Oh shit . My bad.”

Chrissy looks across the table at Benny, who seems amused by what he’s just been told and she scowls.

“You must be thinking of someone else,” she fake smiles at the kid.

Chrissy doesn’t give the kid a chance to refute her remark and instead whips around to look at where Joyce was previously sitting with some punk rock-looking loner from school when she and Hopper came into the diner. She is irritated to find the male sitting at their booth alone. Joyce, and her boyfriend nowhere to be seen.

Angry, Chrissy gets up and smooths down the edge of her skirt. She gestures for Karen to follow her and marches over to the table where Lonnie Byers is sitting alone.

“Can I help you?” Lonnie asks as the two cheerleaders approach his table.

“Hi,” Chrissy smiles down at him. “I’m Chrissy, this is Karen.”

Following Chrissy’s lead, Karen waves at Lonnie and half-heartedly twirls one of her curls through her fingers.

“Lonnie,” he says skeptically.

“That’s a nice shirt,” Chrissy says, referring to his beaten-up band tee.

“Thanks?”

“How’s your night going?” Chrissy pries.

“Fine. Is there a reason you came over here?”

“I just wanted to see how things were going with you and Joyce.”

“I didn’t realize you two even knew each other,” Lonnie says.

“Hop introduced us.”

“ Right ,” Lonnie says dryly.

“So your date is going well?”

“Who said it was a date?”

“Isn’t it?”

“What do you want Chrissy?”

“It’s too bad really, that Joyce will never actually date you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I just think it’s a little pathetic. And too bad really.”

“What’s pathetic?”

“How obsessed she is with Hopper. It’s getting ridiculous, she practically follows him around and stalks him.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, you didn’t know? She has a total stalker-like crush on him. It’s actually a bit sad. He only hangs out with her because he feels bad for her. Anyways, I just thought you should know.”

Giggling, she links her arm through Karen’s and the two girls head back to their table. Lonnie states after Chrissy and Karen in a daze. He thinks over what he’s been told and glances towards the diner door, where he catches sight of Hopper following Joyce to the side of the building.

He knew Joyce and Hopper had a complicated relationship, but maybe it was far more complicated than he initially thought.

Joyce exits the diner in a hurry, swinging the glass door open and stepping out into the cool evening air with a large sigh. She’s too preoccupied with fishing her pack of smokes out of her bag to notice that Hopper is leaning up against the wall next to the door, watching her.

He stares down at her, one foot anchoring him to the wall, cigarette loosely dangling between his chapped lips.

Upon spotting him, Joyce quickly swivels on her heel and marches away from the front of the diner, rounding the building and choosing instead to stand in the alley between the building and the parking lot.

“Joyce,” he calls after her. She can hear the crunch of the gravel beneath his boots and knows that he’s following her but she doesn’t slow down.

“Joyce! Please stop,” he yells. He sounds defeated and it tugs on something within her and forces her to stop stalking away. Standing rooted in her spot in the alley, she whips around to face him, messy hair falling across her face as she spins around. “What?!” she snaps.

“Can we finish our conversation from earlier?” he asks sheepishly.

“I think it’s best we don’t.”

“Look, I’m sorry that we were interrupted. But don’t shut me out.”

“Don’t be sorry. After all, she’s your girlfriend , she had every right to interrupt the conversation we were having.”

“Joyce,” he sighs. “Can we not talk about her right now? This is about you and I.”

Hopper takes a step towards her but Joyce stubbornly holds her ground and squares her shoulders to show that she isn’t affected by their close proximity. It’s an act, she’s insanely affected, but she refuses to show him what he does to her.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she shrugs, doing her best to act neutral.

“There’s plenty to talk about.”

Another step. She’s standing between him and the wall of the diner, and though they’re outside it’s suddenly hard to breathe.

“You want to talk? Alright, fine. Why? Why can’t we just forget about everything that’s happened and move on?” she demands to know. Her eyes scan his but she finds no sign that he’s going to shy away from answering her.

“Why?” he growls. He leans towards her and forces her back to collide with the brick while he leans down and allows his nose to hover near hers. Their breath mingles and they both gasp before he speaks in a hushed, tortured tone, “Because it’s taking everything in me not to kiss you again right now.”

He leans in and allows his lips to hover near her ear, sending a shiver rippling through her body.

“Joyce, I want-”

“You think you want,” she corrects his unfinished statement. Finding her strength, she snaps out of her Hopper-infused haze and decides she can’t lose herself to lust when they needed to talk this out.

“What?” he blinks. He leans away from her and stares down at her with confusion.

“You think you want me Hopper. You like the idea because you can’t have me. But you don’t actually want me. Not like that .”

“I-” he stutters, “I’ll prove that that’s not true.”

“How?” she whispers. She knows what she’s asking of him is impossible but her guard is up and she needs him to help her tear it down.

“What if Chrissy and I were to break up? Would that fix things between us? Then will you believe me when I tell you that I care about you and that I don’t want to forget about what happened in the garden.”

“Leaving her won’t fix anything!” she yells in his face. With a sad sigh, she looks up at him with tear-filled eyes and continues in a lower, calmer voice, “I don’t even know who you are anymore Hop. You bail on our plans, you care about what other people think…”

“I’m still me Joyce. Can’t you see how I feel about you?”

She needs him to say it, to break down the wall she’d so delicately built by telling her she mattered to him, but he stands, inches from her face with his mouth hung open, unable to tell her what she needs to hear.

He wants to, desperately. But something prevents him from telling her his feelings for her are far from platonic. He’s afraid. Afraid she won’t feel the same way, though he’s almost certain she does. Afraid that things will change between them and worst of all, he’s scared to screw up and lose her.

“I know that you know. You know me, Joyce. You know me.” His eyes are pleading, but ever the stubborn one, Joyce pushes against his chest and frees herself from the man-made compound between him and the wall, and she begins her walk home, leaving a stunned and confused Hopper alone with his unsaid feelings.

This is a big world, that was a small town

There in my rear-view mirror disappearing now

Now it's too late for you and your white horse

To catch me now

#stranger things #jopper #au #Multichapter #high school au #joyce byers #jim hopper

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amusement-spark · 3 years

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Busch Gardens Tampa part 5: miscellaneous!

On my most recent visit to BG, I did not ride any rides. I just used the opportunity to enjoy the Florida air, and experience a lot of what BG has to offer besides thrills. I will make a separate post about all the animals. This post will be dedicated to all the random other stuff that doesn't fit neatly another category, as well as some other thoughts I had on this recent trip.

Currently Busch Gardens has three performances throughout the day. I have only had the chance to experience one, Cirque Electric. This dance/stunt show is in the Stanleyville theater over by Tigris and runs every couple hours starting at 3.

The first thing I noticed about the show was it's unique aesthetic. The stage is decorated with gears and other items to build a fun neon steampunk look to the show. The costumes also carry this feel, somewhere between burlesque and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Be aware, there is use of intense lighting effects as well as smoke machines. All the technical aspects of the show, lighting, costuming, sound, etc, are really fun. Arguably it doesn't go with the aesthetic of the park itself, but works as a change of pace from the sometimes generic ruins and buildings of the rest of the park.

The performance itself is a series of circus type stunt acts with dances in between as the transitions. The dances were quick routines, never more than 1 or 2 minutes, but nevertheless had unique costumes for each one, as well as the occasional extra showpiece. The dancers kept the energy going while the stunt performers were setting up for their next thing. You have roller skating, intense balancing, some chair based acrobatics, and a couple other surprises. Sometimes it felt like a mid-tier circus, other times I felt like I was at a particularly nice Ren faire. The final stunt act in particular. Anyone who has been to the Bay Area Ren Fair will likely know what I mean. The performers themselves were all great at managing the crowd and getting well earned applause. It really felt like they were having a lot of fun, even though a couple of the stunts felt just a tad under rehearsed. Possibly part of the showmanship. Still, Cirque Electric is a lot of fun, and a great excuse to get out of the sun for half an hour. If you're wandering Busch Gardens after lunch and need time to digest before your next thrill, check them out. Cirque Electric gets 4/5.

One major aspect of the park that I had not experienced until this most recent trip is the train ride, the Serengeti Express. Currently they only have two of the four train stations open, and since the Skyride is closed, the train is your only way to get around the park while resting your feet. Quick tip, pay attention to the signs that tell you when the next train is arriving. It can hold quite a few passengers, so you don't need to worry about getting there particularly early to ensure a spot on the next train.

The two stations currently operating are Stanleyville, right beside SheiKra, and Nairobi, near the Myobi Reserve and the penguins. Both trips take out around the inside of the park as well as out into the Serengeti area. If you want to spend a but more time out with the animals, I suggest taking the Nairobi station train. However, at least for the time being, you can always get on at one station and ride it until you get back to where you started if you want to see everything.

I'm not gonna lie, the train is kinda magical. The stations themselves have plenty of decorations to evoke an early 20th century adventure, and the train itself is outfitted with old fashioned lanterns. When you're far into the Serengeti, for a moment you can easily forget Tampa, Florida and experience the Safari for what it is. I'm not sure if it's the real train whistle and railroad crossing signs or the fact that that the employees have to wave you off as you embark, but the Stanleyville express is just wonderful. Seeing the rides and everything from a different angle really helps me appreciate all the effort that goes into designing a park like this. Trying to maintain a single theme throughout an entire park is difficult, and the train ride is the perfect way to experience some of the little touches. I'll touch more on the animals themselves in my next post but rest assured, seeing the antelopes and giraffes from the train is one of the best experiences in the park that comes with the price of admission. The Serengeti Express gets a 5/5. I guess I just like trains

The final thing I'm going to touch on here is the Giraffe Bar. Located right beside Cheetah Hunt, and up a whole lotta stairs, you will find, for the time being, the classiest eatery in Busch Gardens. In the same lobby as the Giraffe Bar is the Oasis Pizza, which looks decent, though I haven’t been hungry enough to try it yet. Coming soon they also have the Treetop Kitchen The ambiance of this area is a welcome change of pace. Even the long line felt surprisingly calm.

The Giraffe Bar was quite a few specialty alcohol options. Three frozen cocktails, three on tap, and two curated beer flights. Prices are what you would expect from amusement park alcohol, but on a hot day, a frozen cocktail is more than welcome. I personally tried to Serengeti Sunrise, a fruity rum drink with a orange wedge and strawberry for garnish. As far as ten dollar cocktails go, I've had worse. It was certainly refreshing. Next time I visit I am tempted to try the Thorn & Berry, a whiskey cocktail on tap. A couple of the spirits they use here are from conservation efforts, and presumably these drinks help support those funds. They all sound pretty tasty as well, and a step above the frozen strawberry daiquiri and margaritas you can find at other locations in the park. Bonus note: in order to cut down on single use plastics, the straws for the frozen cocktails are edible. Imagine sucking down rum with a long hollowed Smartie. Pretty dang tasty if you have a sweet tooth like me.

The Giraffe Bar also has three food options meant as small snacks, and not a meal. These were the Giraffe shaped pretzel with beer cheese, a brisket truffle Mac and cheese, and hummus with pita. I tried to pretzel. It's not much to write home about. I was especially disappointed with the beer cheese. Like, you're owned by Budweiser, Busch Gardens. Up your beer game. If you need some carbs, go for it. As expected, a bit pricey but if you're sharing (and have that sweet pass holders discount) not a bad option for an afternoon munch.

The outdoor seating is nice. The Serengeti isnt quite as visible as I would like, but maybe I was just at a bad table. I'll have to go back some time and try different drinks. Oh no, what a travesty. Giraffe Bar gets a 3.5/5. That extra half point was because some birds were chilling on the terrace looking for food and one of them almost went inside. What a cutie. I love birds.

Side note mini review: as part of the Summer Nights event, some of the vendors have new desserts and drink specials. I tried to beignets, nice and soft, and am dying to try the “Churro Explosion” that comes with a bunch of different flavored sauces. Fried pastry gets a 5/5 any day of the week.

Just in 2021, I have already visited Busch Gardens Tampa 4 times. I am still finding new things to experience and enjoy, all included with the price of my annual pass (except for food, obvi). It seems to me that they are always trying to shake things up, especially with drinks and snacks. I just think it’s a really nice park. Later this week I will have my review of the various animal enclosures and experiences. Happy Summer!

#amusement park #busch gardens #tampa #florida #summer #cocktails #trains #roller coasters #circus #acrobats #review

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twstedgrils · 4 years

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Oc Master Post

Alright! I finally have all my ocs designed and written down! This is the official debut post for this oc blog! It’s really long (gotta go through 10 ocs lmao) so I’ll put a read more so it’s easier to scroll past. If your interested, please read and even ask me questions! I really want to interact with this fandom since everyone seems so nice and funny!

And yes, I did put grils instead of girls on purpose...I’m funny I swear

So I first want to say that my ocs are in an au, one which has NRC have female students (but still in low numbers) and an 8th dorm based on Captain Hook (making Ramshackle the 9th). Also Crowley is a tiny bit nicer to our mc in this au, mostly cause he’s basically her weird dad lol

There’s another addition to this au, but that’ll be addressed in my MC insert’s bio.

I’ll also list additional info that the text in the refs don’t address, including body types because I wanted my ocs to be diverse in that aspect.

Another thing, shipping. Oh great seven, shipping will be a free for all for me. I really like shipping. So any ship and every ship will be possible (as long as it’s not with Cheka or Ortho, cause no. Human Grim is fine, but he has to be in human form). With that in mind this blog will be very self-indulgent when it comes to shipping and such.

I’ll come back to this to edit when I develop these girls more.

So first off we’ll start with my MC!self-insert!

I didn’t know what outfit to put her in, since Ramshackle doesn’t have a dorm uniform, so I just put her in her pjs (which were provided by Crowley).

Birthday: Feb 4 (my b-day lolol)

Best Subject: Math

Worst Subject: PE (for valid medical reasons)

Hobby: Drawing

Homeland: Not of TW

Body Type: Average

Charlotte (or Charlie as people call her) is usually quiet, especially when she first arrives in TW. But the more she’s comfortable around the people, the more she reveals her inner sass. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she’s as much as a dumbass as the ADeuce duo.

She’s also has albinism, but she used to constantly dye her hair into a more strawberry blonde so she wouldn’t get picked on by other kids. This condition also leads to her having to take many breaks during PE so she won’t burn.

She may like cats, but Grim really tests her fondness for them. But once it’s found out he can take a human form (and becomes more chill due to the amount of energy it takes to maintain said form) the two actually become the best of friends, which shocks the first year gang.

Design Inspiration: White Rabbit and March Hare

Birthday: Feb 29

Best Subject: History

Unique Magic: Golden Doorknob (Summons a golden doorknob on any surface, making it a door to anywhere the user thinks of. Example, placing the knob on Ramshackle's walls and walks into NRC's Cafeteria via the door)

Worst Subject: Chemistry

Hobby: Track

Homeland: Afterglow

Body Type: Pear shape

Whitney is what you expect from a rabbit, timid, nervous, shy, anxiety filled, and easily intimidated. At first. If you manage it anger her, suddenly you’ll be hit by both a Scottish war cry and a rabbit kick. When she’s angry, she’s a rage filled bunny who throws the most foul of curses. Her switches are rivaled to Deuce’s bad boy switch. And just like the boy, when she calms down she get’s very flustered.

She doesn’t talk to many people, as she hates attention. But after some she does become acquainted with the boys, almost on the line of friendship with each.

Design Inspiration: Shere Kahn and Tigger

Birthday: Set 28

Unique Magic: Fun! Fun! Fun! (turns any part of their body into a bouncy spring. Often the tail is used)

Best Subject: PE

Worst Subject: Chemistry

Hobby: Basket Weaving and making jewelry

Homeland: Land of Pyroxene

Body Type: Apple shape (broad shoulders)

Kaya is seen as a tough no bs girl, many females admire how she can go woman-to-man with the Savanaclaw males. But actually she’s nothing but a goofball that loves to tend to baby animals and make cute things. She has a talent for making beautiful woven baskets and earrings. She helps Ruggie a lot whenever she sees him overun by errands.

She does have a tendency to nap anywhere and everywhere like Leona and Silver, but she apologizes sheepishly when woken up. Because of her napping habit, she tends to stay up late into the night.

Design Inspiration: None

Birthday: May 24

Unique Magic: Second Chance (let’s the user go back to a certain point to try again. Only activated when close to death)

Best Subject: Chemistry

Worst Subject: History

Hobby: Singing and baking

Homeland: Coral Sea

Body Type: Petite

Wendy is a very small moon jellyfish mermaid. She was home-schooled by her mother under the sea, while her father ran a business on land. She visited land often to see her father, fascinated by all neon lights shining in the city.

She’s very quiet, like she’s actually a selective mute. She doesn’t tend to hangout with people because she fears most don’t like her because of her selective muteness. Oddly enough though, she’s always seen with Floyd, to the bafflement of everyone. She finds the eels mannerisms amusing.

She loves to sing, but doesn’t want anyone but her secret singing buddy (Daria) to listen to her. Her voice is very high pitched, but soft that it’s almost hard to hear. She also loves baking, often seen helping Jade and Floyd with preparing the sugary foods and drinks Monstro Lounge offers.

Design Inspiration: Iago and Jasmine’s red outfit

Birthday: Aug 5

Unique Magic: Dancer’s Delight (charms anyone who sees her dancing, perfect for distraction)

Best Subject: None

Worst Subject: None

Hobby: Dancing

Homeland: Land of Hot Sands

Body Type: Hourglass

Layla is like that one person who teases everyone and sees most as her friend. She uses both her height and pretty features to get a rise and fluster anyone. Her main victim is Jamil, much to his displeasure. She gets along great with Kalim, fueling his antics of carpet riding and shenanigans. But she does help Jamil in taking care of Kalim, often seeing the snake whisperer overworked.

She’s usually seen hanging out with Kaya and Whitney (with the rabbit being flustered by both of the taller females). She’s drawn to most in the Savanaclaw dorm, as she has the urge to pet their ears. She and Kaya are in the same class, so the two always buddy together, helping each other if needed.

Back home she comes from a line of exotic dancers, always entertaining other for money. With this in mind, she practices her dancing everyday. She hopes she can live up to the expectations her family has put on her. She’s not wealthy, but she’s not poor, so she doesn’t get too surpised over Kalim’s wealth. But she still does, especially when Kalim once offered to get her a tiger cub (she refused though).

Design Inspiration: Myself and Medusa (Hercules tv show)

Birthday: Mar 27

Unique Magic: Snake Eyes (paralyzes anyone with her stare if activated, even herself if she looks in the mirror)

Best Subject: History

Worst Subject: Math

Hobby: Painting and singing

Homeland: Isle of Lamentation

Body Type: Chubby

Daria is another quiet and reserved girl, she’s not shy per say but she prefers people to approach her than the other way. She doesn’t particularly like that she was sorted into Pomefiore, cause all she wants to do is paint and sing. This leads her to grow close to Epel and anger Vil. She purposefully doesn’t do anything to her appearance, only brushing her hair as she hates tangles.

She tends to stay in a secret area with Wendy, singing with the fellow quiet girl. If not that then she’s doing artwork in her dorm room, ignoring anyone who dares to pull her away from her work. Often times this leads to both her and Vil having a glaring contest cause she didn’t sleep (”Too busy painting” she says.) or forgot to do her morning skincare routine.

Design Inspiration: Phosphora (Kid Icarus) and Electra (backstory)

Birthday: Jul 16

Unique Magic: Sparks Fly (allows the user to transfer any electricity from any device around her into her prosthetics)

Best Subject: Math

Worst Subject: None

Hobby: Modifying her prosthetic limbs

Homeland: Rose Kingdom

Body Type: Top heavy

Elina is the mom friend, always giving others affection and helping them when she can. Because of her affectionate self, she treats Ortho like her little brother. You’ll often see her playing with the boy, or in her room working on her prosthetics (with Idia helping). She loves making her limbs look non-human, but she has more human structure legs for school (as to not weird out her classmates too much). She’s made them since young, always improving and modernizing her limbs.

Because of a tragic accident, she has prosthetics for both legs and her left arm. And has trauma over car races or cars going over the speed limit. She never mentions her family around others, but it shows how much she cares for them. The same could be said for her friends.

Design Inspiration: Chernabog

Birthday: Jun 6

Unique Magic: ???

Best Subject: History

Worst Subject: Chem

Hobby: Making Clothes

Homeland: Valley of Thorns

Body Type: Shortstack

Maria is basically the opposite of Lilia, while he looks young but acts maturely she looks mature but acts like a complete child. Most believe she’s staff before she has to explain that she’s a student. She’s not a brat (thank sevens) but she is very naive and innocent. This causes for her dorm mates to become somewhat protective if someone makes a pass on her (she never notices cause she thinks they’re just being nice).

She has a talent with designing clothes, no one can explain why. Many have approached her to pay for her designs, but she refuses. She says she much prefers to just make and gift her designs to anyone. When she’s working, it’s the most mature you’ll see her. Everyone she’s interacted with has at least one thing she’s made, whether they wanted it or not.

Design Inspiration: Hook and Scarlet (the female animatronic from the pirate ride)

Birthday: Dec 25

Unique Magic: The Sea’s Rage (a passive ability that allows the user to access inhuman strength, allowing her to lift even Jack or Malleus)

Best Subject: None

Worst Subject: All

Hobby: Pick-pocketing

Homeland: The Savage Seas

Body Type: Flat (Looks average thanks to her corset)

Jessie is the dorm leader of Bonäuber, a dorm based upon The Captain of the Seas, who is held almost as high regards as the Great Seven. She’s a very childish and extremely cocky girl. She always praises herself for being the best out of everyone, when in actuality she’s not the brightest. The only thing she is good at she is shooting a gun, loving a good hunt. She also has a child fascination for board games, so she often plays (and loses) with Azul and Idia.

Most don’t like her because she has a bad habit of stealing from anyone and everyone. This is because of her hard childhood, having to steal to survive with no family. The Savage Seas, and the isles among it, were tough on those with no wealth. It wasn’t until a kind pirate gifted saved her from a beating and gifted her a gold coin, her first coin. She now wears the coin on her neck and vows to become a pirate as great as The Captain, using her loot to make others who were in her shoes to have a good life. Because of her ambitions, she always goes for the rich when looting, Kalim being her main target. But because of how nice and generous he is, she gets flustered and runs away without a single coin. (It’s really cute ngl)

As a dorm leader she’s overly not strict, the most she can be is over how clean the dormitory is. Uniform isn’t strict as well, only forcing those in the dorm to wear the striped shirt, vest, belt, bandanna, and boots. Bottoms can be anything, and the corsets were optional. Most dorm members were interestingly mostly females, which confused many.

Their dorm building is a functioning pirate ship, usually docked on a deserted island. Occasionally the dorm will go on an adventure, since most are those who love the sea and can’t stay in one place.

Design Inspiration: Smee and Tick Tock Croc (and maybe Louis from the princess and the frog)

Birthday: Oct 3

Unique Magic: When I’m Human (let’s the user take a human form with little drawback, like Kalim’s Oasis Maker. This slowly wears off if the user is over emotional, most commonly anger.)

Best Subjects: All

Worst Subjects: None

Hobby: Making tea and treats for Jessie

Homeland: The Savage Seas

Body Type: Hourglass (looks more exaggerated thanks to her corset)

Sammy (what Jessie calls her) is the vice dorm leader of Bonauber, she’s very mysterious and weird to most in the school. She’s always by the shorter girl’s side, and always takes care of her. She is a big enabler, sharing her ambitions with the leader. She’s very humble about her intelligence and abilities, often only giving praise to Jessie. She’s almost like a mother for the leader.

She’s secretly a crocodile that saved (and traumatized) Jessie when they were younger. As she saw the little girl run from an adult, causing the reptile to attack the adult. She didn’t know why, but at the time a sudden feeling of protecting for the girl took over. Ever since then the reptile was drawn towards the girl, almost obsessive. It wasn’t until she developed her unique magic that she stuck with the girl from childhood. Jessie never realized, as Sam is very keen on keeping the object of her affections(?) in the dark. If anyone threatens the two, Sam will open her eyes and glare with her slit pupils as scales appear faintly.

And that’s all of them! After posting this I’ll start working on two things.

1: cards, I want to draw cards for them as if they are canon characters. I’ll work on the school uniform cards first!

2: Grim’s human design, this one will be easier as he’ll just be a sketch.

Again, feel free to ask any questions! I’ll answer with in character sketches! (with more elaborating in artist’s text) I’ll try my best to answer as many of them as I can! You can also dm me if you wish to just talk about twst with me!

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst oc #twst self insert #twst ocs #twisted wonderland oc #twisted wonderland self insert

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this-is-a-podcast-fanblog · 5 years

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I wasn’t gonna just find out about Cecil’s engagement ring and not do anything with that information.

Here’s the post if anyone’s not sure what I’m talking about. Fanfic under the cut.

Carlos isn’t sure what engagement customs are like in Night Vale, so he asks Janice on one of the weekends while she’s over at their house.

“Oh, it’s just like everywhere else, I think, just a ring, and you go down on one knee, and - OH MY GOD UNCLE CARLOS ARE YOU GOING TO PROPOSE TO UNCLE CECIL?”

“Shh!” Carlos exclaims, glancing back through the screen door from the porch. Cecil is in the kitchen, making dinner, with his cat-ear headphones on; judging from how he’s dancing, his music is probably turned up too loud to hear. He’s so cute.

“Sorry!” Janice leans closer, conspiratorially. Her eyes glitter. “But wait, are you? Are you going to propose to Uncle Cecil?!”

“Yes.”

Janice shrieks, wheels her chair forward to where he’s sitting, and throws her arms around his waist. “Oh my god! Oh my god, Uncle Carlos!!!! I’m so excited! Have you bought a ring yet? Have you decided when you’re gonna ask him?”

“Not yet.” Carlos glances back into the house. Cecil is spinning around to whatever music it is he’s got on; his pink fishnet skirt swishes over distressed neon yellow tights. When he sees Carlos he grins and then goes back to dancing. “I want everything to be perfect, you know? And I know, scientifically speaking, nothing can ever be perfect, because life has so many variables, and so by that logic no engagement ring can be perfect, because engagement rings are made out of metal and minerals and honestly? Minerals are very unpredictable, as elements go. But I would like it to be almost perfect.”

Janice nods understandingly. “Well, maybe I could help you. He’s covering the morning show tomorrow, right? We can tell him you’re taking the day off work to bring me to the mall. We can say I need new sports gear”

“You didn’t mention that you wanted new sports gear.”

“No, I’m sorry. That would be our ruse. We’d really be going to buy a ring.”

“Oh!” Carlos nods. “Yes, okay, that makes sense.”

And they do their niece/uncle secret handshake, the one they’ve been perfecting for months now, even though, scientifically speaking, nothing can ever be perfect.

The Night Vale Mall has three fine jewelry shops: Jared’s, Kay’s, and Renaldo’s. The owner of Jared’s, who is named Yuzuki, shows them fifteen different rings, but Janice shakes her head at all of them. “These are too plain,” she says as she wheels aggressively through the aisles of display cases. “Uncle Cecil is not plain.”

“He’s really not,” Carlos agrees. Just this morning Cecil left for work in a black jumpsuit, white pinstripe pattern belt, and matching green beret and combat boots, with rainbow lipstick. “This is fashion, honey,” he’d said.

The owner of Kay’s, who is named Paul, offers Janice and Carlos a suspicious looking red drink from a vial. It turns out that the Kay’s had been renovated so that it was now a meeting place for a new blood cult.

They finally find a ring at Renaldo’s, where the owner, Katherine, suggests a specialty cut diamond shaped like a beaker. “Because that’s your thing, right?” they smiles. “You’re a scientist? I listen to your boyfriend’s show every day. This one is somewhat expensive, though.”

“That’s okay,” says Carlos.

“Money is no object,” adds Janice.

“Well, technically, money is an object, because in its physical form money is formed out of matter, and matter is -”

“Do you want to add engraving, Uncle Carlos?” Janice suggests, throwing him off of his scientific explanation. He decided that yes, he did want engraving.

Katherine designs a prototype on their computer and shows it to the two, saying that the ring would be ready to pick up in two weeks. Carlos watches nervously as Janice snaps a picture. “Doesn’t Cecil follow your Instagram?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m posting this on my Finsta.”

“Your what?”

“My Finsta. You know, you have your Rinsta, which is your normal account, and then you have your Finsta, which is your more secret one for friends, and then you have your Ginsta, where you post visual sacrifices to the various gods.”

“Oh.” He’s still not sure, but she assures him that Cecil won’t see the picture. She captions it, “Took my uncle shopping”, with the wedding ring emoji, the winky face emoji, and then the radio star emoji, which is a gravestone that reads “killed by video”.

Cecil may not have seen the picture, but by the end of the week it seems like everyone else in town has. When he buys coffee in the morning, the barista winks and asks, “Sooo, any updates yet?” and pumps her eyebrows in rhythm with pumping syrup into his latte. When they go for walks, he notices people concealed in the bushes with binoculars looking at Cecil’s left hand. In the middle of the night when he gets up to go to the bathroom, there’s a note taped to the front of his shower curtain written in blood that reads, “Hey, if you’re looking for a romantic place to propose, I’ll give you a 15% discount. -Gino.”

As always, though, Cecil seems totally oblivious. “Hey, look at that!” he says, pointing to the sky where a secret police plane has written, “PROPOSE TO HIM ALREADY”. “Sheriff Sam is trying to help someone propose! Aw, that’s so sweet. Sam always has our town’s best interests at heart, huh?”

“They sure do,” says Carlos, sweating.

The town continues to drop hints - dropping them on his front lawn, out of the sky when he goes outside, and one day one falls from the ceiling and lands on his head while he’s braiding his hair. “I get it, Faceless Old Woman,” Carlos grumbles. “The ring hasn’t come in yet.”

“I am eager to attend your wedding,” hisses a voice from the shadows. “I will steal an exceptional bottle of wine for you as a gift.”

Finally, finally, he gets a text that the ring has come in to Renaldo’s for him to pick up. He’s not quite sure how he’s going to propose, but he thinks that once he has the ring, some inspiration might strike him.

Cecil’s show starts at four o’clock. He’s anxious about the broadcast today, since developments with the most recent town-threatening entity have been escalating. “It’s important that I update the town,” he says.

“It’s also important that you keep yourself safe,” Carlos tells him as he fixes the crooked bow tie around Cecil’s neck. It has a pattern of slices of pizza dancing with french fries. “I want you home tonight. Please don’t get hurt.”

“I’ll be careful, bunny. I always am.”

You never are, Carlos thinks, but he just says, “Okay, babe. I love you.” He kisses Cecil’s forehead.

He drives over to pick up the ring. It comes in a little velvet box that fits perfectly into the pocket of his labcoat. He chooses purple for the box color - it’s Cecil’s favorite. The ring looks even better in person than it did on the model, with the fractal diamonds glinting in light. He admires it for a moment before snapping the box shut and sliding it into his pocket. “It’s perfect,” he tells Katharine. “Thanks so much.”

“Best of luck!” they exclaim.

He doesn’t think he’s going to propose tonight, but just in case, he goes home early and makes a nice dinner. Time passes as time always passes in Night Vale - slowly and quickly and strangely. He finishes dinner, but since he’s not sure when Cecil’s going to be home, he turns on the radio to see where he is in the broadcast.

There’s nothing. Just static.

Panic wells in his throat. He rushes to the counter and yanks his phone off the charger, goes to his contacts list with trembling fingers. Cecil’s number goes straight to voicemail. He tries the radio station’s phone number, and that goes through, but all he hears on the other side are dull crashes and distant roaring.

“Cecil? Cecil, are you there? Cecil!”

Nothing.

He’s shaking now, trembling from head to foot, and he knows he can’t drive in this state, but he’s rushing to the door anyway, grabbing his labcoat off the back of the chair. Cecil has to be okay, he has to be, he -

The door flies open from the other side and Cecil stumbles in. He’s covered in dust, his bowtie is askew, and there’s a reddish-brown stain along his bare side under his crop top. Which is soaked in that same color.

“Sweetie!” Carlos shrieks. He grabs Cecil in his arms fretting over the injury. “How are you hurt? Oh no, where did I put the rubbing alcohol? Are you hurt somewhere else?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Cecil catches Carlos’s face. “Honey. Carlos. Breathe, you’re hyperventilating.”

“I was - I was so worried about you -” Carlos sobs and hugs Cecil tight. “Fuck, Cece, don’t ever do that again!”

“I’m sorry!” Cecil hugs him back. “This isn’t blood. We had a false alarm on that recent threat and Station Management came out of their office. I spilled my strawberry-banana-spinach-passionfruit-cherry smoothie in fear, though.”

“Oh my god.” Carlos buries his face in Cecil’s neck. “What would I do without you?” Many people, in this case, would say “What am I going to do with you?” and say this in a subtle way of not communicating what they are actually trying to communicate - which is that they do not want to be without the other person. Carlos doesn’t like indirect communication, so he says, “What would I do without you?”

“Well, you’ll never have to be without me! Oh, and Carlos?” Cecil pulls back from the hug a little. “Do you think we can get the smoothie out of my crop top?”

Carlos laughs. A small sob comes out, too, one that was in the back of his throat. “Yes, baby, I think we can get the smoothie out of your crop top.”

Those first few words stick in his head, though. You’ll never have to be without me.

He can feel the weight of engagement ring in his pocket. He thinks he might be taking it out of that pocket soon.

#i've wanted to write a fic about carlos's proposal for SO LONG #i really hope you liked it #welcome to night vale #carlos the scientist #cecil palmer #cecilos #janice palmer #podcasts #fanfiction

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Transcript Episode 37: Smell words, both real and invented

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 37: Smell words, both real and invented. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 37 show notes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch.

Lauren: I’m Lauren Gawne. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about language and smell. But first, we’re heading into our November anniversary!

Gretchen: Yay! Three whole years of Lingthusiasm. In celebration of that we are – as we have done for all our anniversaries – we are trying to help more people than ever find the linguistics enthusiasm that we know and love. Most people still find podcasts through word of mouth. This year, we’ve thought of something to help talk about it.

Lauren: We want to help people find Lingthusiasm by sharing with them what makes linguistics so great. We’re asking you to share a thing that you’ve learnt from Lingthusiasm over the first three years of episodes.

Gretchen: If there’s a fun fact, or a story, or an anecdote that you find yourself retelling or mentioning to people, that would be a great thing to post on social media or to tell someone about, “Hey, there’s this podcast that’s cool! Here’s something I learned from it.” It’s also really helpful to us because, Lauren, you and I have been doing linguistics for quite a while and we sometimes forget which things aren’t new to us but are actually new and exciting to other people. Help us remember which things are new and exciting for you to learn about!

Lauren: If you can’t think of one in particular, because there’re so many great things that you’ve learnt on the show, stay tuned to our social media. We’ll be retweeting and sharing other people’s facts so you can get some ling-spiration.

Gretchen: You can also reshare anybody else’s facts that you would like to co-sign. We’ve noticed that some of our biggest growths in listenerships have been from other people pointing out interesting things that they’ve learned recently. We thought we’d try to do that more formally for the anniversary. Share something interesting you’ve learned, something you find yourself retelling to other people, and other people will realise this is where they can get more stuff like that.

Lauren: I love every anniversary we come back and encourage people to share their lingthusiasm, because every year we have been growing. We have been reaching new ears. Maybe you are new ears since our last anniversary. Maybe you have been with us since Episode 1. We’re always excited to encourage new people to discover that linguistics is fun and interesting and relevant to their everyday life.

Gretchen: We also have another new Patreon bonus episode. This one is about surnames. Listen to this and support the show on Patreon. You can also share your stories about where your surname comes from and any linguistically interesting things that happened to you because of your surname.

Lauren: We talk about the origins of “McCulloch” and “Gawne” in that episode. We also have over 30 bonus episodes for you to listen to. That’s almost half the number of shows. If you’ve listened to the whole main episode back catalogue, there’s almost as many episodes again waiting for you over at the Patreon.

Gretchen: There’s your solution for “Oh, no! I’ve listened to all the Lingthusiasm episodes. What do I do now?” The answer is – go listen on Patreon. There’re lots of things for you still to listen to. Thank you if you’ve been supporting us on Patreon already.

Lauren: You help us keep the show ad-free and ticking along. We also have exciting new Lingthusiasm merch for you.

Gretchen: By popular demand, you can now get lingthusiastic socks!

Lauren: I’m very excited about the socks.

Gretchen: All three of our prints – the International Phonetic Alphabet, the tree structure diagrams, and the esoteric Unicode symbols – are now also available on socks, in addition to the scarves, and ties, and mugs that they were previously available on.

Lauren: We have multiple patterns. We have multiple colours. You can buy them along with all of our existing merchandise. We also have greeting cards that say “thanks” and “congrats” in IPA as well as some other greetings.

Gretchen: If there’re any linguists that you need to thank or congratulate as the year winds to a close, that is something you can now do. Plus, and get this – I’m really excited about this – we have water bottles that have the glottal symbols from the IPA on them. They are glottal bottles. I’m so pleased.

Lauren: You can get your nice glottal bottles for your water. Or it’s even more satisfying if you’re the kind of the person who says “water” with a glottal stop in the middle of “water.”

Gretchen: Or “bottle” with a glottal stop there too. They have the glottal stop, the glottal fricative, and the voiced glottal fricative. People won’t know that’s what they are until you tell them. I’m so pleased!

Lauren: Finally, we have new T-shirts and mugs that say, “Linguistic correctness is just a lie by big grammar to sell you more grammars.”

Gretchen: To check out the full set of Lingthusiasm merch, which there’s quite a lot of at this point, go to lingthusiasm.com/merch. It makes a great gift for the linguist or linguistics enthusiast in your life.

[Music]

Lauren: Gretchen, what is your favourite smell?

Gretchen: Ooh, there are so many good smells. I really like the smell of rose. I also really like the smell of almond. It depends on whether you’re talking about to wear or to eat. I also really like spicy scents.

Lauren: Almonds as in fresh almonds or almond blossoms?

Gretchen: No, almond extract that you bake with.

Lauren: Okay.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: Like marzipan.

Gretchen: Well, yeah. Or like amaretto, or vanilla extract but almond. It’s so good. I could eat/smell that forever. What’s your favourite smell?

Lauren: This one always slightly startles people in the northern hemisphere, but I love the smell of freshly cut grass because it reminds me of Christmas, which I think says a lot about how frequently my family ever got around to mowing the lawn.

Gretchen: I mean, I agree. The smell of freshly cut grass is really good. I didn’t think of that one. There’s also the smell of the earth when it rains. But it doesn’t really remind me of Christmas. The smell of new-fallen snow reminds me of Christmas – also a great smell.

Lauren: Hmm, not a smell that I know or identify as readily.

Gretchen: Oh, it’s a very distinct smell. The smell of crisping leaves in the fall – also very good smell.

Lauren: We have not as many of them, but we have a particular kind of lemon gum tree in Australia that always smells really amazing on campus just before the academic year starts in February/March. Whenever I smell that smell, I get really excited because it means classes are gonna start soon, we’re gonna have students back on campus, and it reminds me of undergrad days and starting university. For me, smells are often really linked – I mean, clearly, if two of my smells are really linked to particular times and places for me.

Gretchen: Yeah. I was just kind of looking around my house thinking, “What smells good around here?” Then, when you start getting the time and place, I’m like, “Oh, yeah. That leaf smell in the fall is also very back to school for me,” or the distinct smell of each season, like the spring smell, when everything is melting – also a nice smell.

Lauren: It says a lot about English that we have to be like “the smell of spring” or “the smell of freshly mown grass” or “freshly fallen snow.” We kind of just don’t have the best vocabulary for talking about smells – other than referring to the thing that they relate to.

Gretchen: Yeah, and I’m thinking of this because when you asked me, “What’s your favourite smell?” I was like “Oh!” I have a ready answer to what’s my favourite colour, but I don’t have a ready answer to what’s my favourite smell because it’s not something that we think about in terms of the abstract smell-ness of it. I’m not like, “Oh, my favourite colour is the colour of pomegranates” or something because I can actually just name that colour.

Lauren: It would be funny, though, if you’re like, “My favourite colour is the red of strawberries and not the red of cherries.”

Gretchen: Exactly! Or, “The orange-y red of a sunset, but not a neon light, but like the sunset.” We do that for smell. That’s how we talk about smell.

Lauren: There’s a long literature on the way that we talk about smell and that smell is maybe not as complicated as the other senses. But in a lot of ways, that’s a very culturally driven thing. In fact, as we’ll talk about in this episode, there are other cultures where scent is a lot more a part of the language and it makes it a lot easier to talk about it.

Gretchen: Is this an English thing, or a European languages thing, or what’s the...?

Lauren: It seems to be one of those weird European things where, if we actually look at a wider diversity of the world’s languages, things are a lot more interesting. When I say “we,” I mean a group of linguists, and particularly Asifa Majid, who works on the relationship between language and smell.

Gretchen: We’re gonna be citing Asifa Majid a lot in this episode. Go follow her on Twitter.

Lauren: All of her work is really great. I mean, there were some broad studies around smell, so we know that experts tend to be better than novices at smelling smells.

Gretchen: How does one become a smell expert? Is this a thing I can do?

Lauren: If you are a perfumer, or if you work with wine. Although, apparently, if you work in a particular industry, you might be very good at smelling wine, but it doesn’t make your ability to smell flowers necessarily any better.

Gretchen: Oh, really? This is very domain-specific smell expertise – “smexpertise"?

Lauren: “Smellspertise.”

Gretchen: “Smellspertise.”

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: I would sign up for this job. Like, “Oh, I get to drink a lot of wine and smell it. I get to eat a lot of chocolate and smell it.”

Lauren: I think it’s one of those jobs that’s great in theory and then when you’ve smelled 500 chocolates...

Gretchen: That’s true. It’s probably like video game tester, where you’re like, “Actually, this is not as fun as what I signed up for.”

Lauren: I think being a linguist is as fun as I signed up for, so maybe there’s some people who are super enthusiastic about smelling chocolate.

Gretchen: I’ll stay being a linguist and just eat chocolate in my spare time. Experts are better than novices, and pollution can affect the way we perceive smells.

Lauren: Yeah. Maybe part of why you’re not as sensitive to smell as – if you’re in an olfactorily noisy environment. However, there was a study that looked at perfumers who work in perfume shops – you know how you walk into a perfume store or a cosmetics store and it’s like –

Gretchen: This wall of perfume smell.

Lauren: Yeah. That doesn’t seem to affect people in that workplace. They can kind of deal with that.

Gretchen: Oh, so it becomes the kind of white noise of smell in their background, and then they can distinguish between perfume smell still.

Lauren: Yeah. Which makes you realise just how clever human brains are.

Gretchen: That’s good! Because if I make cookies or something, first, my apartment just smells like cookies, but then afterwards, if I leave and come back, I’m like, “Oh, it still smells like cookies here.” But if I stay in there, I stop noticing it.

Lauren: Then, of course, there are another group of people who are relatively good compared to the population at discerning smells and they are people who have odour- colour synaesthesia.

Gretchen: Ooh! I have other synaesthesias but not odour-colour.

Lauren: Yeah, we’ve talked about synaesthesia a bit in other episodes. At its most basic it’s where your brain takes in one sensory bit of information but also processes it as though it’s another bit of sensory information. There are people who, when they smell things, register it as a particular colour.

Gretchen: Right. I guess this kind of makes sense to me because I have grapheme-colour synaesthesia, so when I see particular letters or numbers, I also see colours associated with them. I can see how one could have smells associated with colours, but I think for me it would just be like, “I’m picturing the thing that it smells like,” and that’s probably not actually what the synaesthesia is involved.

Lauren: They studied people who have this synaesthesia compared to regular old sniffers like me and found that they were more consistent and accurate at naming odours.

Gretchen: Interesting! Okay. Cool. Let’s talk about some of these languages that actually do have more odour terms than English does.

Lauren: Yeah. Obviously, synaesthesia is something that affects people randomly in the population. Then, there are these cultures in which there are far more words and terms for talking about smell. That seems to have implications as well for how smell is used in these languages.

Gretchen: Right. One of these languages is Tepehua. Specifically, Huehuetla Tepehua, which I hope I’m pronouncing right but I’m not completely sure. This is a language spoken in the state Hidalgo in the eastern Sierra Madre in the central Gulf Coast region of Mexico – named after the town where it’s spoken. It’s related to some other languages that are spoken around there. This is a really interesting paper with Asifa Majid and some people who work on this language in particular. They did an elicitation study on particular scents. They found 23 specific groups of scent words in this language. They catalogued them according to what types of things they correspond to. They’re often smells you can kinda recognise but that in English we don’t have specific names for those specific smells.

Lauren: Awesome. Can we hear some of these smell groups?

Gretchen: Yeah. It’s a really interesting list because some of them are really delightful and some of them are really bad, and there’s really not much in between. Group Number 1, which is /ʔuli/ or /k’uli/ or /sk’uli/ – there’re all various different versions of that sound – which is a delicious smell like flowers, or perfume, or floral, citrus. It isn’t just specifically a floral scent. It has this sort of positive connotation and this sort of rich, beautiful odour. But in contrast, there’s another smell group, which is Number 6, which is a different kind of delicious odour, and this is /kan/ or /kani/ or /kanini/. This is the delicious and beautiful odour which might smell like clove, or might be kind of fruity, or might be describing the delicious odour of a free-range chicken that eats corn instead of chicken feed.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: I think this one may be a little bit more food-like.

Lauren: Bit more savoury.

Gretchen: Yeah! They’re both really good. There’s another one, /k’us/, which is also a beautiful odour, but a slightly different beautiful odour. Again, English just doesn’t have the vocabulary for this. In contrast, there’s this Group 10, which is /ɬkih/, or /sʔeh/, or /ʃʔeh/, which is a delicious savoury odour like when shrimp or mushrooms are boiling, the smell of coffee or recently wet earth, incense, food, honey or sugar cooking, frying meat, beans, but sometimes also used for an unpleasant smell like skunk, human farts, burning plastic, or burning garbage. This one is a little bit more controversial.

Lauren: Hmm, wow. That one definitely covers a gamut.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: Asifa also did some work with researchers who work on Cha’palaa, which is a language of Ecuador in the Barbacoan family. Similarly, they found these smell terms that kind of have a meaning that we know immediately as a group – and some similar ones. There’s one for things that are sweet-smelling or perfume, which is “pindyu,” and then “andyu” is for fragrant and good food – and like another positive term. The one that really caught me is the smell “chijdyu,” which is the smell of burning hair.

Gretchen: Oh, wow. That was what this /ʃʔeh/ smell can also be burning plastic or burning hair, burning feathers, burning bones.

Lauren: It’s one of those smells that as soon as you smell it you just know if you’ve ever accidentally put your hair too close to a hair dryer or near a fire. We don’t have a good word for it. We have the word “the smell of burning hair.” It’s not that we can’t smell it and we can’t describe it. It’s just that we literally use the word “hair” and “burning” to describe it. Whereas, these words don’t necessarily directly relate to those words.

Gretchen: It’s like the difference between saying “the colour of strawberries” and “red.” You can still talk about the colour of strawberries but you don’t have a specific cover term that covers strawberries, and tomatoes, and apples, and fire engines, and these kinds of things.

Lauren: The really nifty thing about this is that they not only recorded the specific smell vocabulary items – there’s about 14 so far recorded for Cha’palaa – but they also turn up more frequently in narratives than descriptions of smells in English in similar narratives.

Gretchen: Oh, that’s really neat. I also really enjoyed how sometimes they draw connections between smells that I wouldn’t have thought of as related. Then, when you say that, I’m like, “Oh, yeah. These are related.” This kind of aromatic smell or also painful smell, which is /ɬkak/ or /ɬkakak/ in Tepehua, is a spicy or strong smell like peppermint, eucalyptus, lime – like calcium hydroxide, not like a lime citrus. One of the descriptions is it’s so spicy or strong that it’ll make you sneeze. It’s kind of grouping together something that I wouldn’t necessarily have immediately grouped together. This is something else that I really enjoyed about this Tepehua paper is that they also describe the methodology for how they went about getting this list of smells. Because, of course, “Can you translate these English words?” is not necessarily a good way of doing smells in particular because English doesn’t have the word to translate necessarily. Instead, they used these tools called “Sniffin’ Sticks.” There’s no G there. It’s “Sniffin’ Sticks.”

Lauren: The apostrophe there is very important.

Gretchen: Of course, when I looked it up on the website, like, “What are Sniffin’ Sticks?”

Lauren: I mean, we got really excited. We were like, “Should we have practiced this methodology ourselves? Should we get some of these and smell them?”

Gretchen: Yeah! Sniffin’ Sticks, apparently, are these little plastic tubes that look kind of like a marker, and you think maybe of those scented markers that maybe you had when you were a kid. Did you have those?

Lauren: We had those. But this is like those but more science.

Gretchen: Those but science, because they don’t smell like artificial cherry. They smell like real smells – high quality smells – and not always pleasant smells because you don’t just want a whole bunch of fake fruits. You want a bigger range.

Lauren: They also smell really consistently across all of the sticks and they have the same intensity of smell.

Gretchen: Yeah. Because I was thinking, well, maybe instead of buying the Sniffin’ Sticks for €200 from this website, maybe I could just make my own.

Lauren: This is where the plan came to a quick end.

Gretchen: It was like, “Maybe we should get some Sniffin’ Sticks, Lauren.” And then it was €200. Later, “Maybe we’re not gonna get Sniffin’ Sticks.” They have very specific flavours. Instead of buying some essential oils and dabbing them on a bit of cloth or something, these are all very controlled. They’re for things sometimes that don’t necessarily have an essential oil associated with them. Some of the flavours include – would you like a list of flavours?

Lauren: Sure.

Gretchen: Okay. Orange.

Lauren: Yum.

Gretchen: Leather.

Lauren: Hmm.

Gretchen: Cinnamon.

Lauren: Hmm.

Gretchen: Peppermint.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Gretchen: Banana.

Lauren: Hmm.

Gretchen: Lemon.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Liquorice.

Lauren: Okay.

Gretchen: Turpentine.

Lauren: Ooh... Actually, no. My mom used to do oil painting, so I’m very weirdly nostalgic about turpentine.

Gretchen: Okay. Garlic.

Lauren: Mm-hmm.

Gretchen: Coffee.

Lauren: Lovely.

Gretchen: Apple.

Lauren: Great.

Gretchen: Clove, pineapple, rose, fish.

Lauren: Gahhh.

Gretchen: This is the lunchroom smell. Flower in general. Like, I don’t know what the difference is between that and these specific flowers but, okay. Pear, like the fruit.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Cola. I guess like Coca-Cola or something? Lilac, /lɑɪlɑk/ – how do people say this word? I’ve been corrected on this word before.

Lauren: I say /lɑɪlæk/.

Gretchen: I say /lɑɪlɑk/. It’s okay. Grapefruit, grass – there’s our freshly cut grass smell – raspberry, honey, ginger, coconut, lavender, melon, peach, mushrooms, smoked meat.

Lauren: Mmm.

Gretchen: There’s your savoury smells. Chocolate, onion, menthol, soy sauce, sesame oil, caramel –

Lauren: Yum.

Gretchen: – and eucalyptus.

Lauren: What an emotional rollercoaster.

Gretchen: Yeah. It’s a really interesting list. They’re fairly pleasant smells. Some of the smells that I was seeing in the list of smells from different languages were things like the odour of sweat, or fermentation, or disgusting odour like rotting meat. They don’t seem to be forcing people in the lab to smell skunk or rotting meat, which I think is very nice of them.

Lauren: Very kind.

Gretchen: There are some more savoury smells like smoked meat, and leather, and sesame oil, and stuff like that.

Lauren: Obviously, the Sniffin’ Sticks have a lot of advantages in terms of the consistency, and they’re portable and can be shared very easily. Apparently, they last for at least a year, according to the manufacturer.

Gretchen: So, it’s more efficient than just getting a slice of lemon and putting it in a jar.

Lauren: Well, you say that, but there’s another smell research paper that I read – and I have a summary of it on my blog from a few years ago, I’ll link to it – but they were looking at whether people had an association between particular odours and colours, even if they weren’t people who had synaesthesia. To do this, they looked at English speakers and they looked at speakers of Jahai, which is a language on the Malaysian peninsula that does have a really rich smell lexicon, to do this study, because they were looking at things like coffee and banana and coconut that both groups might recognise, but they were also looking at smells that only each group might recognise. They had peanut butter for the English speakers and galangal, which is a really nice aromatic that would be familiar to the Jahai speakers but not the English speakers. They put them in plastic bottles with little spray things on top, like you use for cleaning, and would just kind of spray the air from the bottle at people.

Gretchen: Waft some smell. I mean, okay. I guess this works if you don’t have €200 to buy some Sniffin’ Sticks, you can get a lemon and put it in an empty spray bottle and spritz it.

Lauren: They did this to look at whether people associated particular colours with smells. When they recognised it, they would if it was – like for the smell of coffee, they would think of brown and for the smell of banana, they would think of yellow. Again, kind of showing that our ability to think about smells is tied to the objects that we’re smelling more than the smells independently. Whereas, Jahai speakers were much better at identifying smells. They use smell a lot. They’re hunter- gatherers. It’s much more part of their daily life skill set.

Gretchen: Have a very rich smell vocabulary.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: I noticed on the Sniffin’ Sticks website, which again I can’t quite get over, but they actually have a smell training kit.

Lauren: Oh, excellent!

Gretchen: Which contains four vials smelling like lemon, rose, eucalyptus, and clove. I don’t know why they picked those particular ones. I just wanna read you this description because it’s really good. “The different sticks contain odorants from everyday life, which can enlarge your sense of smell. Will be delivered in a box with cotton hand gloves. The idea that our sense of smell can be improved via training might at first seem strange, but the more you think about it the more it makes sense. Going to the gym and lifting weights can improve muscle mass and tone and practicing the guitar regularly will hopefully improve proficiency, so will spending time sniffing odours. Estimated results starting after six to nine months.” Of regularly sniffing these plastic vials.

Lauren: What? I mean, in that time you could just learn to speak Jahai.

Gretchen: You know, that one’s only €49. I’m tempted, but I think maybe I’ll pass. If anyone has given yourself a course in smell training, please let us know how it goes. You can enrol in a wine tasting course for a similar amount of price, I feel like. Lauren, you’re the one that suggested that we do an episode about smell. How did you get into smell?

Lauren: I mean, I’m always been a fan of our sniffers’ work – I think is probably the very first reason that I get really excited about language and smell. I got an opportunity to apply all the feelings that I have about scent in language when I wrote a constructed language for P. M. Freestone’s Shadowscent fantasy series, which has been so much fun.

Gretchen: So, there’s a book that has a conlang in it, and you made the conlang?

Lauren: Correct.

Gretchen: Like, a smell conlang.

Lauren: Shadowscent is set in a world that has a lot more focus on scent. P. M. Freestone is one of those people that has, I think, a very acute sense of smell. I think because smell has been so central for her life, a lot of this story is set around scent. Even when the story is not set around it, the writing is so beautifully evocative of smell in a way that a lot of English language writing isn’t.

Gretchen: She came calling and said, “Hey, can you help me with the language aspects of this book”?

Lauren: Yes. I got involved early enough that I also got to make sure that all the characters and the place names were internally consistent with the language.

Gretchen: Oh, yeah!

Lauren: Once you start doing linguistics, it can sometimes be – I refer to this as the “Khaleesi” problem. When George R.R. Martin wrote Game of Thrones, the word “Khaleesi” – it’s spelt K-H-A-L-E-E-S-I. But the problem is, English speakers say E-E and I the same way. If you actually listen to Dothraki, the language from Game of Thrones, it’s pronounced /xəlɛɪsi/. But no English speaker pronounces it that way.

Gretchen: Right. English speakers who give their kids the name “Khaleesi,” they don’t call them /xəlɛɪsi/.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: You end up having to kind of reverse engineer a weird system for the language if you have somebody get involved for the conlang too late. Whereas, if you do it really early, then you can make sure that all the character names are internally consistent.

Lauren: Yeah. David J. Peterson talks about the challenges of – and the complexity of – working with a series that was already multiple books in. I’ll link to some of that. I had the luxury of coming in early and creating the language so that it fit the place names and the people names that also could be involved in creating the full language as well.

Gretchen: I’ve read this book because it’s available in the UK now. Even though it isn’t out in North America, you were able to send me a copy because it’s coming out this month – next month?

Lauren: In November.

Gretchen: Because it’s coming out in November. I read it and I was expecting – because you were talking about the language, like, “Oh, every other page is gonna have full paragraphs of this language! I’m gonna have to do a lot of decoding in order to do this," which I was excited about, but also a bit nervous about.

Lauren: I feel like I would say I’m sorry to disappoint you, but actually, the book is such a great romp that we didn’t need to be held down with linguistic puzzles on every other page.

Gretchen: I mean, I enjoyed the story a lot. Clearly, there’s gotta be a lot of work that you put in behind the scenes that you don’t actually get to see in the pages of the book.

Lauren: The glacier is always a good metaphor for this kind of work where there’s an incredibly large amount of figuring out the mechanics of the language that happen behind the scenes. We have a dictionary. I have the basics of the grammar. Then, you have this tiny bit at the top that you actually see come through in the book.

Gretchen: Can you tell us – because I think I speak for everybody here that your average Lingthusiasm listener is also gonna be more interested in the language aspects than the average reader might be – can you tell us more about what’s actually in this language that doesn’t necessarily appear in the pages?

Lauren: Sure. There’s a couple of translational tidbits in Volume 1 of Shadowscent. But I was interested in creating a language that was really true to the world that it was spoken in. Knowing about this work with Cha’palaa and Jahai, and these languages that have much more of a focus on scent than English does, I wanted to do justice to it. There are two schools of thought when you create a language. There’s the people who try and strive for natural languages that make as much sense within what we know about what human languages do. Then, there are people who make artificial languages that deliberately go against what we know human languages can do. For a lot of what I did with the language of Aramteskan, which is the language in the books, is a lot of it fits with what we know about human languages. It has a set of sounds that you would expect to see in a possible human language. It has a lot of grammatical features that are very exciting because I want it to be a bit more playful and create a language that doesn’t really exist when we look at what happens with smell in the world’s languages.

Gretchen: Oh, that’s so interesting! The sounds are pretty vanilla, to use a scent metaphor, but the words for smell – like when we talked about these other languages that have these rich inventories of words for smell – it’s got a lot of these. It also does some stuff that natural languages, as far as we know, don’t do?

Lauren: Yes. One thing is I just made sure that there were lots of verbs for “to smell.” Because in English was have – you can “smell,” you can “sniff,” but there’s not a really rich vocabulary.

Gretchen: You can “olfact.”

Lauren: “To olfact.” I created a whole bunch of different verbs. There’s only one verb for “to move.” You don’t “run.” You don’t “walk.” You don’t “stroll.” You just move. That’s not very exciting. But I have verbs for “to smell something slowly for a long time,” “to smell something by wafting it,” “to accidentally smell something and then discover that it’s disgusting and it’s too late,” which I feel like is a feeling we’ve all had before, “to smell something that you can remember but you can’t immediately place.”

Gretchen: Ooh! Like the tip of tongue phenomenon, but the tip of the nose phenomenon.

Lauren: Yeah. “To smell something with great enthusiasm.”

Gretchen: This is delightful.

Lauren: I’m always expanding. If there is any form of “to smell,” I can create a word for it.

Gretchen: Hmm, okay. I’ll have to put my thinking cap on.

Lauren: If you have any particular forms of smelling, I’m always – it’s one of those areas of vocabulary that I’m just adding to all the time.

Gretchen: What about “to smell something and you’re not sure if it’s disgusting or not”? You’re like, “Maybe that’s a good smell. Maybe that’s a bad smell.” You’re just kind of smelling it experimentally.

Lauren: Hmm, yeah. You know what? I’m gonna add that.

Gretchen: Because I was thinking about this from our list when we were looking through the things from other languages and some of the words really kind of bordered on “is this disgusting or not?”

Lauren: It’s one of those things where some people find the smell of durian or other really pungent fruit really pleasant and other people don’t. Some people have this moment of like, “Ugh! I don’t know!” That’s a really great one. I’m gonna add that to the language.

Gretchen: Excellent. I feel so proud I had a contribution.

Lauren: Then, one of the other things that I did is we talked a lot about how all of our words for smells are like, “It smells like burned hair,” or “It smells like an orange.” As many of the vocabulary items as I could in the language are “the smell.” The basic vocabulary item is “the smell of oranges.” Then, you have to change that word to come up with “the thing that smells like oranges.”

Gretchen: Oh, wow! Okay. That’s really interesting. If you wanna talk about actual oranges, you have to say, “the thing that smells like oranges.”

Lauren: Yes. Flipping the whole thing on its head.

Gretchen: That’s great! It’s like how some languages, their adjectives have the shapes of verbs. Whereas, in other languages their adjectives are a little more like nouns or something. This is like everything is scent-derived as much as possible. Do you want to talk about the scent evidential? In a previous episode, we talked about how languages have different strategies for introducing sources of knowledge. You can say, “I witnessed this myself,” “I heard it second-hand,” “I deduced it from the available evidence.” This seems like a really good place to introduce some sort of smell thing, right?

Lauren: You will be unsurprised to know, given that evidentiality is something I have worked on for a long time and thought about for a long time, I couldn’t resist putting grammatical evidentiality into this language.

Gretchen: For smell.

Lauren: But Aramteskan has an evidential system that does not exist, that we know of, in any human language.

Gretchen: Yes! Thank you for not disappointing me.

Lauren: A lot of human languages will have like, “I know because I sense this using any of my senses,” or “I know this because I saw it,” and then they might have another form that is used for all the other senses. In Aramteskan, we have “I know this because I smelt it,” or “I know this because I used one of my other senses, which aren’t as important or interesting.” This divide is definitely not – I mean, I don’t think there’s any language we’ve come across so far that has a specific grammatical evidential just for smell, let alone one that has one for smell and prioritises it over all the other senses.

Gretchen: This is delightful. Even though this is not actually in the pages of the book, you can kind of feel this additional attention to sense and smell kind of permeating the manuscript – or wafting from it.

Lauren: Yes. As well as the lovely wafting scent of printed books, if you buy the paper version.

Gretchen: That’s true. There is that smell. Maybe there’s a language that has a better word for that. Maybe they could print it with those smell marker Sniffin’ Sticks and then you could scratch and sniff the entire book. Have you thought about suggesting this to P. M. Freestone?

Lauren: Ah, it would be so amazing.

Gretchen: It would be really expensive, I’m sure. Pay €200, get this scratch-and-sniff version of Shadowscent. This is not available. I’m making this up. But maybe this is something you could get.

Lauren: It would be so lovely. Even if you have to DIY the smell environment, Shadowscent: The Darkest Bloom, as it’s known in the UK, is out there now. Shadowscent, as it’s known in the US, is out November 5. It has a lovely hardback and a map in it in the US edition. That’s gonna be super fancy. Book 2 will be out in 2020, I believe.

Gretchen: Cool. I’m looking forward to Book 2. Yeah, maybe I’ll just have to kind of DIY my own scent experience for the book.

[Music]

Lauren: For more Lingthusiasm, and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, or wherever else you get your podcasts, and you can follow @Lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. You can get IPA scarves, IPA ties, and other Lingthusiasm merch at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I tweet and blog as Superlinguo.

Gretchen: I can be found as @GretchenAMcC on Twitter, my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com. My book is called Because Internet. It makes a great gift for anybody who might be interested in internet language in your life. To listen to bonus episodes and help keep the show ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Recent bonus topics include surnames, metaphors, and a Q&A with me about Because Internet, if you wanna know behind the scenes how it was to write. Can’t afford to pledge? That’s okay, too. We also really appreciate it if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone who needs a little more linguistics in their life – especially this month, if you want to say something interesting that you enjoy sharing from a Lingthusiasm episode, and then we can share it with other people, and people can discover the podcast that way.

Lauren: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our audio producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producer is Sarah Dopierala, and our editorial manager is Emily Gref, our theme music is “Ancient Cities” by The Triangles.

Gretchen: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

#linguistics #language #lingthusiasm #transcripts #smell #scent #senses #conlang #shadowscent #aramteskan #typology #experimental linguistics #linguistic fieldwork #field linguistics #episode 37

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dcmiiniic · 5 years

Text

wuddup, is mini ! again so dom needed a revamp since some people left and now some things don’t make sense. also i know jackshit about sports unless it’s soccer or basketball. i have bamboozled myself, so i switched things around to fit connections better and just how dom is. :)

❛ new york’s very own Dominic Parker was spotted on broadway street in Off-White White 3.0 Off-Court Sneakers. your resemblance to Reece King is unreal. according to tmz, you just had your twenty third birthday bash. while living in new york, you’ve been labeled as being impatient, but also idealistic. i guess being a sagittarius explains that. three things that would paint a better picture of you would be reading a book by the beach, torn up runners, and neon highlighters & ( cismale & he/him )

LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANNA KEEP CONNECTIONS, OR FIGURE OUT NEW ONES. LIKE THIS AND I’LL IM YOU 🖤

(if not imma just assume)

Basic Information

Full Name: Dominic Omar Parker

Nickname(s): d, dom

Age: 23

Date of Birth: December 20th 1995

Zodiac sign: sagittarius

Hogwarts house: ravenclaw

Ethnicity: african-american/white

Nationality: american

Gender: cis male

Pronouns: he/him

Orientation: bisexual

Religion: agnostic

Language(s) Spoken: english

Accent: american

Favourites

Weather: summer

Colour: orange

Music: logic, big sean, etc.

Movies: the lion king

Sport: track + field

Beverage: hennessy or red label

Food: oxtail soup

Animal: sea lions + turtles

Family

Father: henderson parker

Mother: cassandra parker

Sibling(s): 3 siblings ( 1 sister, 2 brothers WC? )

Children: aaliyah strawberry parker, 1 yr. (stormi webster fc)

Pet(s): a turtle named franklin

BIOGRAPHY

The Parkers are a family known for their businesses worldwide through import + exports - of what ? we don’t ask. It’s more or less legit, but there’s some shady stuff under it all that no one really talks about. So, Dom’s mom is from the Bronx, and his dad is from Brooklynn, the two met at a house party, and were street pharmacists for awhile, just to get things started. They invested the money they made from their business into a consumer goods company that arose in mid 90′s, it becoming known worldwide.

Dominic was raised with his siblings, him being the middle child and they were primarily raised by his grandmother in The Bronxx.

At 10 years old, The Parker’s moved from NYC to California for a few years, and in Cali, Dom mainly studied since that’s really all he could do.

He was really into books, music, and going for runs a lot. Studying came easy to him.

Out of all his siblings, Dom got the higher grades without even trying, and that’s why his dad had super high hopes for him. There was a lot of pressure on him once his dad saw he was able to get straight A’s without having to stress very easily.

Dominic never rlly saw himself as anything besides average - he knows he’s smart, and he can get away with a lot, but he really never cared, but seeing his dad be happy just from his accomplishments made him want to please him more.

@ 15 years old, The Parker’s moved back to NYC bc Dom’s dad wanted his kids to go to Uni back in NYC. While Dom wasn’t responsible with studying, he did well, and he got a lot of beatings from his grandmother when he didn’t study, or stayed out late a lot before an exam.

It was a wild ride but at 18, he got into Columbia University for Law, and did 4 years to get his degree. As easy as it was for him to get that piece of paper and please his dad - and Dom was being groomed for the business - It was something Dominic didn’t want. He didn’t even like his degree at all if he was being honest.

After getting his degree, and during the first year of his Master’s program, Dominic dropped out to pursue other interests.

Dropping out of school caused a strain in his relationship with both his parents. For awhile Dominic was cut off and had to make way for himself. Good thing his name was already floating between bigger collaborations.

He was a socialite for awhile, attending parties, going to fashion week, being sponsored by brands. His whole life was kinda to just show up, and be this influencer.

He’s opened up Youth programs in different parts of New York city to help kids become dreamers for a better future.

On top of being a program co-ordinator, he’s diving his hands on creative/artistic directing for different brands. Right now it’s with Louis Vuitton, Balmain ( So think of Olivier Rousteing or Virgil Abloh ) AND Nike.

He did this in 2 years, mf is poroductive af ok

A year and a half ago, Dom had a one night stand with some girl, and that wasn’t serious except for the fact that she got pregnant. That’s when Aaliyah Strawberry Parker was born! There’s no bad blood between dom and his baby mama (npc), except maybe that they don’t agree on things but it’s fine, it’s cool. Dom still does his best to be a dad, and he doesn’t really talk about his daughter in public cos he’s the type to keep that part as protective as possible, y’know?

And you know, he’s still a mfng fuckboy, out here doing dumb isht.

PERSONALITY + HOW HE IS

Throwback Dom and present Dom are two different people. When he was younger, he took things a lot more seriously, mainly because he was oppressed to do the things he actually wanted to.

Now, he’s pretty laid back, but he has really good resting bitch face, most people will probably think he’s serious since he doesn’t smile too much.

He’s kind of always analyzing things inside his head. He loves a good book, puzzle, challenge.

Really, once you know him, he’s a goofball, pretty dumb. Loves his face masks and old books bc he likes the relaxing life too.

Take him to a party or anywhere really and he knows how to work a room. his smile is infectious and once you get him in a meeting, interview, etc, it’s like game time.

He’s pretty honest and blunt, and cares a little too much without wanting to care but acts like he doesnt care which he can pull off. Feelings man, they do these things to you. fkdfghdfsjkg

He’ll go for 10k runs just to let out steam, or just find some kind of work to do. so yes, he still loves track + field.

Sometimes too chill for his own good wELP

CONNECTIONS (i took from my old intro, but these can spark other connections. )

some connections based off of muse posts :)

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

besides that, i’m down for anything !

unrequited connections

toxic relationship/friendship

brotps

give me a SQUAD

first loves

childhood friendships

sibling type friendships

exes on good and bad terms

all the fwb~

creative type friends

enemies plots pls

crossword puzzle friends pls

#this feels more dom now dfkjghdfks #wealthyhq:intro #IMMA GET TO MY STARTERS TMRW #SO I CAN FIX SOME CONNECTIONS AND ISH OK #FDKGHKDFSJHG #BUT HI LOVE MEE THIS TOOK ME A BIT DFKJHGDFS

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blueboycal · 5 years

Text

Number One - Ashton Irwin

REQUEST: A jealous ashton request when he gets really jealous/ possessive because of one of the other 5sos boys being too handsy + An insecure ashton request where he thinks he isn't good enough for you

AUTHORS NOTE: shoutout to @flannelpunkcalum for editing this and helping me in general.

PAIRING: Ashton x Black!Reader

WARNINGS: mentions of racism, self harm

WORD COUNT: 1,912

She followed closely behind the boys as they entered the bar. She held on tightly to Ashton’s hand. They’d gotten off stage about an hour ago and were going to celebrate their third record debuting at number one. Ashton found a booth for them and they sat down while the others were at the bar ordering drinks. She checked her phone to pass the time before the other boys sauntered back to the table carrying drinks in each of their hands. Soon glasses were passed around the table and she picked hers up.

“We’re number one in the U.S baby!” Michael shouted. He lifted his in the air and brought it to his lips, downing the shot. Cheers erupted around the table. Everyone echoed Michael’s actions.

“You guys earned this. I’m so proud.” She beamed looking around at the boys. They’d worked so hard to get where they are now, and their hard work was paying off.

Ashton slipped an muscular arm around her bare shoulders attached his lips to her pink plump ones. He could taste the strawberry gloss that coated her lips. He broke the kiss satisfied that he left her breathless.

“Get a room!” Calum hollered in disgust, while Michael made a gagging gesture from the other side of the table.

“Oh, we will.” Ashton fired back.

She felt her cheeks burn at her boyfriends cheeky remark, she took another sip of her drink as her eyes wandered around the club. The boys began to strike up a conversation about how excited they were to play shows. She continued to sip on her drink and half listen. She slid out of the booth and began to head towards the dance floor when a hand tugged on her arm.

“Where you going?” Ashton asked.

“To dance.” She nodded her head in the other direction. “You coming?” She asked, hoping he’d join her on the floor. He may not be the best dancer in the world, but she loved his energy.

“No, I think I’ll sit this one out.”

She giggled. “Haven’t you been sitting all night?”

“I’ll have you know drumming isn’t just sitting.” He retorted.

She rolled her eyes at him. She knew a lot of physical exertion went into drumming, she just liked to give him a hard time.

“I’ll dance with you. I feel like I’m gonna explode if I don’t move around.” Luke said, getting up from his spot at the table.

With a flick of her red box braids, she led the way to the dance floor with Luke trailing behind her still wearing his stage outfit from earlier. As soon as she stepped on the neon tile her body was swaying to the beat of the music that blared from the speakers. He grabbed her hand twirling her in a circle and pulling her close to him. Back at the booth Ashton occupied, he watched as Calum left to join the others. Michael had stepped outside to call his girlfriend.

He was left alone at the table with his thoughts.

He watched as Luke danced with his girlfriend, he felt a tinge of jealousy within. His green eyes followed their every move. Deep down he knew he had nothing to worry about; Luke was one of his closest friends and wouldn’t try to steal his girlfriend. There was something in they way he held her that bugged him to no end. The way he rested his hands on her waist and brushed her braids out of her face that made his fists clench. Ashton forced himself to look away and take a few deep breaths.

“There’s nothing going on between them.” He whispered to himself. He was acting jealous over nothing. It was just his overactive imagination making him see things where they aren’t. He had been sneaking glances at the two of them while scrolling through his social media.

Several derogatory comments caught his attention as he scrolled through the You section on Instagram. He clicked on the photo he posted days ago, it was taken before he’d gone onstage. He had his arms wrapped around her while she planted a kiss on his lips, she had her back to the camera so no one could see her face. In the photo she wore the white Youngblood hoodie which was a stark contrast against her dark skin and braids. Andy had taken the photo without either of them noticing and then sent it to him after the show was over. Ashton asked for her approval to post the photo and she agreed.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen the photos of her receive hate but it was the first time he posted a photo that confirmed their relationship. She made a point to ask him to keep her face out of the photos he posted online of her. He fought tooth and nail to keep her out of the spotlight when they first got together. They’d take separate cars and enter restaurants separately. If management wanted paparazzi to follow him around he’d make sure to tell her ahead of time. The two of them kept a low profile by going out at night in places where they wouldn’t be spotted. He’d even entertain wearing disguises so he could hold her hand out in public. The hiding in plain sight was thrilling at first but he soon tired of the charade and wanted to be a bit more open about the relationship. In interviews he’d mention he was seeing someone or he’d mention her discreetly in tweets.

He was several beers in when she had come back over to the table. “I’m ready to go, are you?” Ashton asked standing up from the table, her jacket and purse in his hands.

“Yeah.” She took her jacket and slipped it on and put her purse over her shoulder. The two of them gathered their belongings and said goodbye to the other boys. Ashton couldn’t help but feel like she took too long saying goodbye to Luke.

Ashton rushed up the steps to his house after getting out of the Uber. He unlocked the door and headed inside without bothering to see if she was even behind him. She closed the door and took off her heels and jacket. She set her heels by the door and went over to the hall closet to hang up her jacket. She observed her boyfriend unsure of what to say. The sound of his boots stomping around the house made her jump.

She didn’t understand why Ashton’s mood had soured. He was all smiles before they had gotten to the club. The screeching of the dining room chair being dragged across the floor sent chills up her spine.

She went upstairs and changed into one of his t shirts and a pair of shorts before she crept into the kitchen. Ashton was sitting at the table with his back to her. He held his head in his hands, lost in thought.

“Did I do something wrong?” She asked breaking the suffocating silence that had hung in the air ever since they left the club. Her brown hand clung to the door frame. Tucking a loose braid behind her ear she walked over to him and pulled out the chair closest to him and took a seat. Her brown arms sneaked around her sides as she tilted her head to look at him.

Ashton slowly lifted his head up at the sound of her voice. Guilt spread through him; he didn’t mean to make her think that he was upset because of something she did.

“No.” He said softly, meeting her worried brown eyes.

“What’s wrong then?” Her eyes darted back and forth trying to get a read of his facial expression, but she couldn’t figure out what he was thinking no matter how hard she tried.

Ashton ran a hand through his brown locks and let out a sigh. “I don’t feel good enough… for you.”

“Good enough how?” She gently pried.

“I don’t deserve you. There’s plenty of other guys who could make you happy. I’m not good enough to be your boyfriend.”

“That’s not true.” She reached across the table and put her hand over top his, lightly rubbing it with her thumb.

“Yes it is! Look how you are with Luke.”

She furrowed her brows in confusion. “What about Luke? We’re just friends.” Ever since she met Luke they’d gotten along very well and although she found him attractive, she was never interested in him in a romantic way.

Ashton scoffed. “He seemed a bit too friendly when you were dancing together.”

She pulled her hand back and began twirling her hair. “Okay first, there’s nothing going on with me and Luke. And second, you are literally the best boyfriend I could ask for.”

“All I do is bring negative attention into your life and I hate it.” He frowned.

She shook her head. “People on the internet are assholes and they always will be. Nothing can change that. It’s better to ignore it.” She learned a long time ago that you couldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

“But-”

“Ashton you bring me so much joy and laughter in my life. You have a way of making me smile on my worst days, and you listen and try to understand the things I go through. You see me as person, and that’s all I could ask for.” She placed her fingers underneath his chin and titled his head upward so they were eye level.

“You’ve gone out of your way to defend me to your fans when you didn’t have to.” When they first started dating, Ashton wanted to show her off to the world and would constantly post pictures off her on his Instagram stories. It sparked an awful amount of hate from ‘fans’ who couldn’t understand why he’d choose to date someone who looked nothing like his last girlfriend.

It got so bad she deleted her Instagram. Her account had always been set to private but she had hundreds of message requests that contained nasty and hurtful words. Some ranging from racial slurs to strangers telling her to hurt herself or bleach her skin because she was 'too dark’.

She stayed off the internet for three months and eventually decided to create a new account because she didn’t want to let internet trolls take away one of social media platforms that brought her happiness. The hate she was getting resulted in Ashton having to write a series of tweets condemning the fans who wrote awful things about her, and him asking them to be more mindful of people’s feelings. It broke his heart to see how racist people were towards his girlfriend. He had to set the record straight. He was in love with her and no amount of hateful comments could change that.

“I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me about serious things,” She paused. “When you’re feeling insecure I want to know. Communication is the only way I’ll know what’s going on in that head of yours.”

Ashton was speechless, he didn’t realize he had such a profound impact on her. He nodded in agreement. "Okay, I’ll try to be more open about how I’m feeling.” She got up from the chair and pulled his head against her chest. She ran her fingers through his brown locks while his arms wrapped around her waist. She pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.

“You’re my number one.” She whispered.

#ashton irwin imagine #ashton irwin fanfiction #ashton irwin angst #ashton x reader #ashton x black!reader #5sos fanfiction #5sos fanfic

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