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#Nicole writes stuff
sabermoonlight1616 · 8 months
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Hamefura plot bunnies I'll probably never get the motivation to write
#1: In which Geoffrey is jealous of sharing the "big brother of Geordo and Alan" status with Nicol, thinking that the guy is going to take his beloved baby brothers away from him. In reality though, the real threat is Sophia, who's plotting to get two more big brothers under everyone's noses.
#2: Alan succumbed to his illness when he was very young, maybe around five or six years old. Geordo often sees the small ghost of the twin he never met wandering the halls, or playing that old piano stored in one of the castle towers.
#3: Several instances in which Alan acts a lot like a classic (Disney) princess, from singing to animals to being rescued by his knight in shining armor (either Mary or Katarina).
#4: Either Alan or Maria gets reversed isekai'd to Bakarina's previous world after a suspicious incident caused them to flatline. Could be crack or angst or both.
#5: Alan or Geordo as reincarnators who didn't come from Bakarina's previous world. (Honestly, so many possibilities, but my favorite one is a bit of a crossover with Fire Emblem Fates. In which the previous lives of the twins are two of the many children of the King of Nohr, Garon, to various women. They'd obviously be among the 99% who got offed during the infighting between siblings before the main story of the game takes place.)
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gottagobackintime · 1 year
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The fact that Zava didn’t apologise for mispronouncing Zoreaux’s name is pissing me off. Probably more than it should, but whatever.
As someone who has their first and last name misspelled and mispronounced a lot, it’s annoying. I had a substitute teacher when I was like 8, who called out our names in the morning and he said “my name” but he pronounced it “Nick-olé” kind of. And I didn’t understand that he meant me, because that’s not how to say my name. And then he asked if he missed someone and I said he missed me. He asked for my name, I pronounced it CORRECTLY, and he goes “but that’s what I said”. Like??? No, it’s not even close to what you said. Just apologise and say it correctly, that goes for you too Zava!
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beomgyutruther · 9 months
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underbelly, nicole homer / all about lily chou chou (2001) dir. shunji iwai / pith, rhiannon mcgavin / stay soft, mitski / prayer for the newly damned, ocean vuong / little beast, richard siken
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silentium-symphony · 4 months
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YOU GUYSSSSS I’M SO EXCITED FOR THAT UPCOMING FIC I GOT COOKIN FOR YOU 😩😩 i’m just so giddy to be writing again after how many weeks and THE FACT THAT IT’S SO SPICY???? STAY TUNED BC I WANNA GET THIS OUT SOON
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theredhobbit · 7 months
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bribes · 1 year
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therapist asked if i’ve ever considered doing a podcast
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sspaz1000 · 1 year
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I wrote something longer than 100 words! Big thanks to @elifisher96 and @coeurire for the beta’s.
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angededesespoir · 1 year
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I swear I gotta notice typos right after people have begun interacting with a piece. 😩😔✌️
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blvvming-a · 2 years
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hit the heart for a starter from nicole or dawson <3
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acecademia · 1 year
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Y’know I’m not NaNoing this year, but god am I so fucking glad I did for years. It, more than anything, prepared me to write these long-ass academic papers. Because my bachelor’s and master’s degrees sure didn’t!
My MLIS gets a pass because it’s a professional degree, and its point isn’t to prep you for scholarly research and academic writing. My bachelor’s degree on the other hand...
Y’all I have a BA in literary studies. Fuckin literature. You know what the longest paper I had to write for that degree? Like 11 pages. Did I also do an honors thesis? Yes, but it was optional. It was like 26 pages, and I didn’t write a paper anywhere near that length until my PhD. 
Most of my undergrad classes capped papers at 3-5 pages. Yes, double spaced. One professor said we couldn’t write more than 2 (TWO!!!) double-spaced pages per essay. We were a very tiny program, and what few grad students we had within the school of arts & humanities ended up TAing for the gen ed classes that every student at the university had to take. 
To put it in perspective of how tiny we were, the semester I graduated, my university awarded 2,400 degrees from bachelor’s to PhDs & MFAs. Of those, 66 were from my school. SIXTY-SIX. And that includes not just my literature degree but historical studies (aka history) and art & performance (basically anything else from creative writing to dance to art history). It also includes students graduating with any degree from our school, including master’s and PhD students. I think in the entire time I was there, I met like 6 grad students in my school. 
So, basically, the professors didn’t have grad students to grade for them, so they just cut down writing to pretty much the bare minimum. When I tell people I have a literature degree, they assume I did a lot of writing. I did not. I struggled to put together applications for grad school because I just didn’t have writing samples long enough aside from my honors thesis (which I was still working on at the time I applied).
Anyway, all this to say, thank fucking god I did NaNoWriMo off and on for the last 11 years because otherwise, I would not have been able to write over 2400 words in under 36 hours this weekend 😅
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tatoda · 9 months
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Mine || conrad fisher x fem!reader
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!!MINORS DNI!!
masterlist
request
summary: attending the same college as your best friend has its highs and lows, but conrad sees you flirting with another dude he finally does something about his feelings
pairing: conrad fisher x fem!reader
warning: slight angst, male receive, jealous conrad CHARACTERS ARE 18
wc: 1.1k
im a little rusty on my smut writing I apologize I'm trying to get back into it still. edited but I may have missed stuff
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You and conrad grew up together as the oldest siblings, you to your brother and sister, steven and belly, and conrad to his brother jeremiah. Your birthdays was just a day apart from conrad’s. To say that your mothers were so excited to have babies around the same time was an understatement. They were best friends and it was their dream to have kids at the same time. Also as mothers, they knew you were both meant for each other. To be the first two little kids to run around the beach house, to attending your dream college together.
At the end of the summer before college started in the fall is when conrad broke your heart. It was the 4th of july and Jeremiah dragged everyone out of the house to go to nicole’s party. You hung out with Belly most of the night not trusting the drunk guys around her. With your mind occupied with her most of the night, you never got to talk to conrad. You wanted to watch the fireworks with him and not come to this lame party, you wanted to kiss him and tell him how you felt about him after all these years. Belly took off with nicole letting you have your fun. Who knew that fun could be ruined in 2.5 seconds? You walked into the living room looking for the brown-haired boy only spotting him with a girl on his lap and her eating his face out with him doing the same thing.
You ended up leaving the party and cousins that night. Telling your mom that you needed to finish a ton of college stuff before moving in at the end of the month. She didn’t push to ask you what happened and let you leave knowing you would call if it was anything serious. When everyone arrived back home that night conrad looked for you. He wanted to talk to you about your midnight plans to go watch the fireworks, but everywhere he looked you were gone. He looked in your bedroom seeing the nicely made bed and your bags gone. He sat on the edge of the mattress looking around softly.
“she left.” laurel walked into the room slowly
“where did she go? everything was fine before the party.” he stood up walking around your room and to the picture of you and him as babies. laurel walked behind him placing her hands on each side of his arms
“two peas in a pod, you two are inseparable.” laurel paused “she went home to finish college stuff.”
“and she didn’t ask me to go with her?” he brought a hand to rub over his face and sighed in defeat.
You didn’t talk to conrad the rest of the summer. He texted you, but you decided you better not get your heart broken again.
It was a few weeks into the school year. Your roommate dragged you out to another party that you didn’t want to attend, only because conrad would be there and almost every time he didn’t see you but you saw him. And you saw the girls he would leave with. And it just broke your heart more. So here you were trying to distract yourself with Josh— a boy from your math class— as he talked to you about his frat. You acted as if you cared only trying to hook up with him in the end.
“yeah my dad wanted me to follow him in his footsteps so he decided to pay for my school year.” he bragged taking a sip of his drink
“wow.” you acted interested
“if you want, one day i can take you for a ride on my boat back home?” he leaned towards you as if it was a secret
“i’d love that, yeah.” you put a hand on his arm rubbing it a little before a shadow crept over the both of you, it was conrad.
“sorry to bother, i need to talk to her,” he grumbled in josh’s face
“can it wait? i’m talking to her?” he tried to protest and you didn’t look at conrad, it would only make you fall and say you’re sorry for everything
“no it can’t.” he grabbed your hand off the dudes arm and walked you to an empty room before shutting the door “what the hell are you thinking!” he moved around you and away from the door
“i don’t know.” you shrugged slowly lifting your gaze to him, he was wearing a white shirt, plaid pullover, and jeans, you had never seen the boys other than in the summer and it was nice to see conrad dressed in jeans
“he was practically fucking you with his eyes!” he stood in front of you now
“grow up conrad, we’re in college now.” you scoffed. putting your drink down on a nearby dresser
“yeah, and it’s my job you don’t get an std from a frat boy like him.”
“oh and you’re any different?” it slipped out of your mouth
“what’s that supposed to mean?” he was taken back by your comment
“i’ve seen the girls you take back to your dorm. how do you know they aren’t carrying anything harmful when you stick your dick inside of them!”
“y/n what the fuck are you talking about?” his eyebrows furrowed
“the girls.”
“what girls! not one has stepped into my dorm other than our damn family when we moved in!”
“b-but you take girls home.” you tried to make yourself believe it
“i walk them back to their dorm. they are a drunk mess and my mom raised me that way, you should know.” his voice softly said
“i-“
“i’ve only had my eyes set on you since we were kids.” he blurted
“w-what?”
“yeah but i wanted to give you space to figure out your college life, but not get dicked down by a frat boy at one party.” he smiled to himself
“i’m sorry, okay? i’m sorry i didn’t see it earlier.”
“i tried for years, for you to see how i feel.”
“i felt the same way, i was going to tell you at cousin’s, but then i saw you with this girl at nicole’s party and she was all over you so i just left.”
“the party? is that why you left cousins early?” you nodded looking back down at the floor
“i was heartbroken con. you were making out with her what was i supposed to feel?”
“i don’t know you should have talked to me.”
“i talked to jere and he said that it wasn’t worth it, so i just left to get a head start to move in.”
“that’s why you were so distant when college started? we were so excited to be going to the same place, my mom was excited!”
“i felt heartbroken and i didn’t know what to do you’re the only boy i’ve ever loved, i didn’t know how to work around it!”
“i kissed the girl at nicole’s party because jeremiah told me you went on a date,” he whispered
“i-i hung out with a dude at the arcade for 10 minutes trying to help in figuring out a game. jeremiah was there!” you tan your fingers through your hair
“well, how was i supposed to know!”
“it seems like jere is just against us.” conrad laughed softly
“he’s always had something for you, you know.” you nodded knowing how the other fisher boy liked you, but you only had eyes for conrad
“he doesn’t matter. i’ve only seen him as a friend.” conrad let out a soft breath
“come here.” he gestured at you and you walked towards him as he opened his arms for you. the comfort of his arms secured you leaned against his chest hearing the raging of his heartbeat
“your heart is going crazy.” you twisted your head to look up at him with your chin on his chest and conrad looking down at you
“because of you.” he brought a hand to the side of your face and leaned in to kiss you, for the first time. conrad fisher was kissing you, it felt like a dream
He held your face so softy. He didn’t wanna break you, not again. His arms tightened around you pulling him closer to you. The kiss became deeper and stronger than you have ever had before with anyone. That’s when you felt the effect you had on him, he was hard, from you. You didn’t know you could do that to anyone ever but it felt amazing and an accomplishment.
“sorry.” he smiled against your lips as you both slowly separated lips turning red
“don’t be.” bringing one of your hands to his hair moving a few pieces away from his eyes the other hand you had slowly descended towards his pants
“y/n” a warning tone came out of his mouth
“hm?” you looked at him innocence in your eyes as if your hand wasn’t messing with the button of his jeans before moving to the zipper
“no one’s ever-“ his breath hitched as your hand cupped his erection “no one ever touched me down there.” you looked at him confused
“you’ve had sex though?” he nodded
“that doesn’t mean foreplay was involved, they just skip to the sex.” you kissed his lips
“don’t worry, just sit down and relax.” you pushed him to sit on the bed
Dragging down his jeans he lifted your hips to help get the fabrics down to his calf’s. He looked scared and nervous. You were touching him, the girl he’s been in love with forever, finally seeing the effect she has on him. You slowly swiped to get some pre cum off of the head and conrad shuttered under your touch.
“like that?”
“fuck, you have no idea.”
You coated the sides of his dick before slowly moving up and down at the right movement. He looked down at you breathing hard and deadly to your touch. A loud clatter came from outside the room and his eyes turned to worry.
“y/n, i don’t think this is such a good place to do thi-“ you cut him off licking the side of his shaft shutting him up immediately and the sounds from outside passed “fuck” he brought a hand to your head holding it as you bobbed up and down on him “keep going.” you didn’t plan on stopping, you hollowed your cheeks taking him in deeper and his groans filled the room
The way you moved made him jealous of the guys who have seen this image before. You on your knees sucking him off like no tomorrow. But the thought disappeared as soon as it came because he realized that this will be his view for the rest of his life. You looked up at him making eye contact and he felt the warm build but he didn’t wanna release just yet.
“just a few more, yeah.” he started to take control by moving your head with his hips as they came up off of the bed making you gag “just-“ he moved faster feeling the edge start. he pumped all the way into your mouth and let his release into your mouth as he groaned into the air
“fuck.” you pulled off of him and swallows the salty taste “did you just-“ he couldn’t believe you were real
“is that bad?”
“no, no, god no.” he moved your hair from your face. “all i know is no man is ever touching you again, you’re mine.”
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hunnylagoon · 3 months
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Take Me to War
PT1 Friendly Fire
Streamer! Ellie Williams x reader
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A writer, I think is someone who pays attention to the world. We are observers, it is in our nature to be off-putting and turn shallow things deep.
Premise: Your neighbour is becoming increasingly loud and you decide to do something about it.
PT 2 Here!
Two things I hate the most?
My neighbour and New York City.
They shared something in common, they never rest. I liked my quiet life in my small town until I was convinced that all of the greatest writers lived in the city, what a joke. I sold my virtue to move to New York and now my body burned with the shame of not belonging.
I worked as a journalist and in advertisement but it didn't fill the gaping mass that consumed me, I felt like a sellout so I quit to do freelance, and now I feel like even more of a sellout. Freelance is making me think that I hate ghostwriting more than I hate my neighbour and New York City.
It's like you do all of the work and get zero reward but I'm desperate to pay the bills and all that stuff I've been telling myself all my life 'I may never be a rich man but the rich man will never have me' well, the rich man most certainly had me. I was paid an almost criminal amount of money to pour my soul into art just for it to get stamped beneath a new name and make a gross income six times the size of what I sold it for.
I look for happiness everywhere but I do not find it. I search for it in things everyone seems to pry joy from; I go clubbing, walk in Central Park, and date around, but happiness doesn't seem to exist there for me.
I plead for it in my morning cups of tea with a spoonful of honey, the sunshine glittering in a puddle after a rainstorm, for a brief moment, it flickers in the light of my cinnamon-scented candle. The truth is I am almost comforted by my sadness and it is in my lowest moments that my creations are the most beautiful, it is like I am dead and I despise those who aren't for I enjoy the company of my silence more than anyone I have ever met.
It was my dream for my name to be above 'New York Times Best Selling Author' but instead, it is just my work beneath it and maybe that's why I'm so bitter.
Right now as I am trying to salvage the bits and pieces I was given by a washed-up pop star for her memoir my neighbour is screaming and laughing incoherently in their apartment, it makes me miss living in an actual house.
The noise usually started up when I would finish up my writing and get ready for bed, then it would go all the way through the night. The dumb fucker probably threw parties every single night; my roommate never faced an issue with this as she worked at a club and was usually working when the deafening noises would begin.
I on the other hand who lived in that apartment and worked from that apartment was always cursed to listen to the random thumps and spats of laughter that sounded all through the night. At least once a night when I'm sound asleep, I hear a bang against the wall and each time without fail, I'm brought awake with my heart thumping.
Trust me, I have retaliated.
On occasion when I'm sleep-deprived and at my absolute limit I'll bang on the walls, that only stops the noise for a minute. I've even complained to my landlord and that one week was heaven until it eased back to the clamour that I've almost grown used to.
Almost.
I still hate it.
I'm broken from my thoughts when my phone rings, it vibrates till it's almost at the edge of my desk and I feel for it; don't worry buddy, I wanna jump too. I read the caller ID and I almost wanted to gag, it was a woman from the publishing company who reached out to me and asked me to write Nicole Elliot's novel. Despite wanting to throw my phone against the wall to stop Noemi's constant checkups and get back at my neighbour while I'm at it, I answer the phone "Hey, Noemi!" I glance out the window where the winter sun has long set, leaving nothing but billboards, street lamps and neon signs to light up the New York night. Under the unforgiving lights I can barely make out the gentle snowfall.
"Hey," She draws it out and I can hear in her voice that she is smiling "I know it's a little late, just checking in, how is the draft coming along?" A loud thump sounds against my wall along with intolerant cackling "What's that?"
"Just some street noise," I dismiss "Anyways, the draft is coming along great, I'm a couple thousand words away from finishing it. I will of course send it to you and I would really love it if you could reach out to Nicole and ask for her opinion on it before I carry on with the final copy," I give a middle finger to my wall, even if my neighbour can't see me, it makes me feel a little bit more formidable "I did follow her outline, which was difficult but I think I salvaged it pretty well."
This time there is a yelp from my neighbour and what sounds like someone slamming their hands down onto a table, Noemi thankfully ignores it "You haven't been in touch with Nicole?"
My eyebrows furrow "She hasn't responded to any of my emails and she's been turning down all of our scheduled Zoom calls, so no, I have not been in touch with her."
"Weird," Noemi comments and there is a brief break of silence between us "She's been M.I.A on our end too," I could hear her scribble something down. "So can you get the draft to me by Friday?"
Two days? If I lock myself inside and don't see the sun then I totally can "Absolutely!" I do work better under a deadline.
"Great," She sounds almost relieved "We will hunt down Nicole, it would be nice to get her greenlight with this but whether or not she approves it, she has already signed off and it will be going to print."
"Okay," I fight the urge to respond with 'sick' or 'aight' because I'm an adult now and someone who is masquerading as a professional.
"Sorry, what was that you mentioned about an outline?" Noemi asks, she sounds more confused with each word "I wasn't aware Nicole made any-
She is swiftly cut off by a crash from the other side of my wall, when I say crash I mean it. It sounded like someone just bodied their car into drywall. My eyes went wide as I saw a crack splitting up my once pristine white wall. I hold my phone against my collarbone as I get up and pound my fist against the wall, giving it a kick for extra measure.
"Is everything alright?"
"Certainly," The nice thing about phone calls is that the person on the other end can't see your awkward habits or subtle outbursts (Or neighbours breaking through your shared wall). After I hit the wall, everything went silent for just a second before laughter sounded heavily from multiple people. "Noemi, thank you for sourcing me out to write this, I am really grateful for this opportunity I will send you that draft on Friday." I try to wrap up the call but she speaks up.
"Well, I've read your work and I was very impressed, I trust you will do well with this. Sorry to have called you so late-
"Thanks, have a nice night now!" I'm talking faster than I can even think, the only thing in my head is the fact that my neighbour is slowly deteriorating my wall.
"Wait-
Before Noemi can finish her sentence, I've hung up the phone. I'm leaning back in my cushy office chair, hands gripping my hair as I stare down the newly formed crack in the wall. I don't entirely like to be confrontational, even in school I hated drama, but I was beginning to think it was necessary.
I saved the progress I had made on the memoir and pushed myself up from my desk. I was clad in nothing more than a t-shirt and some plaid pants, it was my writing attire and in the moment I didn't care much to make a good first impression. It was fucking freezing the second I got up from my desk.
The moulding on my bedroom window was broken which allowed the frigid New York air to slip into my room and make me shiver with each breath. At my desk, I would usually have a throw blanket to shroud my freezing body but the moment I discarded it, I felt regret. I almost wanted to wrap myself in it to confront my neighbour but the pyjamas alone didn't help me look tough.
I did however shove my feet into some cow slippers and march right up to their apartment.
Apartment 2D stood in front of me, the pastel blue door making me angrier with every second that I looked at it. I rapped my knuckles on the wood and crossed my arms to stop me from shuddering.
My nerves built up as I slowly heard a door within the apartment shut followed by footsteps leading to the door. I would just ask them politely to quiet down and calmly work on a way to fix the shared wall that they are slowly ruining.
The door opens and staring me down is a woman. I had expected it to be a man to be truthful. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, the colour teetered on the verge of auburn and brown. The woman is clad in a black tank top and grey sweatpants, it's almost parallel to my outfit.
"You need to be quiet," I say the first words that come to mind "And stop assaulting my fucking wall."
She sucks a sharp breath through her teeth "Are you apartment 3D?" She asks to which I nod "I knew you would be stopping by soon." She has this sheepish and almost sardonic smile on her face and despite the amusement she's portraying I can see sadness brewing in her green eyes like a storm.
"I don't know what you're doing in there where you are up all night, I don't even have a clue how you sleep and work with all this time to spare to be a nuisance." I say and then swiftly feel the urge to backtrack "I'm sorry, that was a little rude, but mate, I can't sleep or work when you're being loud doing whatever you do."
"Fuck," She mutters looking back into her apartment and then at me "I'm sorry, I'll keep it down."
"What about the wall?"
Her eyes look me up and down, settling on my cow slippers "I'll find someone to fix the wall."
I press my lips tight together, looking dead into her eyes, scraping my brain for something else to say. It was almost like I wanted to fight. I had expected this to be a full-out conversation that ended in yelling but god she was pretty and she was telling me just what I wanted. "Okay."
"Okay?"
I regard her once more with what I assume is a cold glare before ushering back into my apartment and slamming the door behind me, the whole time, my neighbour watches me from her doorway.
That was the first night of uninterrupted sleep I'd had in a month.
-
I woke up earlier than I would've liked when my roommate Margot came home from work at 4:56 on the dot. She made sure to slam every single door and cupboard before throwing herself onto her bed in all of her makeup and musty clothes that had to endure whatever happens at a nightclub between the hours of 8 pm and 4 am, which I can't imagine is very clean.
Still, even though I was a little ahead of schedule I fell into my morning routine. It started with ignoring my phone, this was followed by a mug of Bengal spice tea with a teaspoon of honey and a splash of cream.
Sometimes I would curl up on the couch, though it snowed last night and I loved fresh snow. Freshly fallen snow absorbed sound, it was like soundproofing for the earth. There wasn't anything like the rare peace you could find in New York. I figured I would have my morning tea on the fire escape.
My peaceful image was destroyed the second I pried my window open and crawled through I was hit with the intense smell of pot. "Shit," I mutter, instinctively wafting the scent away from my nose.
"Sorry, man," I see my neighbour leaning against the railing of the fire escape, nursing a joint. It hadn't crossed my mind that I shared a level of the fire escape with her, I had never seen her out here but now the smell of weed that drifted through the damaged moulding on my window made sense, I had always assumed it to be Margot.
"Joint for breakfast?" I ask, half-joking. A dusting of powdery snow adorns each step and railing, creating a delicate layer of white that contrasts with the industrial gray of the metal though it looks like my neighbour has pushed all of the snow off the platform.
"Nah, for dinner I guess, it helps me sleep," She's in the same outfit from last night, except her hair is now loose around her face and she threw a hoodie over her tanktop.
I furrow my eyebrows "You've been up all night?" The slight tension from the previous night has dissolved completely.
"Yeah," She says it like it was a stupid question and it partially was but I hadn't stayed up that late since New Year only because I was the designated driver and was in charge of getting everyone home safe. "I don't sleep much, that's probably why I keep you up all night."
I mean, I'd let her keep me up in other ways "Honestly, I've gotten used to it, it's almost like white noise." I try to sympathize even if it isn’t necessarily true.
"Next time I'm loud, you have every right to bang on my door and chew me out." She takes a drag from her joint and I watch as the smoke escapes her lips, her cheeks tinted pink from the cold.
"Good to know," I glance behind her at the open window and all I see are purple LED lights cutting through the darkness of her apartment. "Now I know that we share a fire escape I'll just crawl through your window and yell at you that way," I joke, taking a sip from my snoopy mug.
This makes her laugh in the slightest, she crushes what remains of her joint on the cold railing and tosses the bud into the pot of a dead plant that's covered in snow and has lived on this fire escape long before I moved in; one time I just about removed it but I felt bad, it's like I was evicting it from its rightful home "Feel free."
"Am I allowed to ask why you're up all night breaking the sound barriers?" I ask, pulling my fuzzy robe tighter around my body to fight the bitter air. "Are you the leader of a cult? Would it be better for the world in the long run if I push you right now?"
The corners of her lips curl up into a smile once again "You've figured me out, just know I've got some big plans with Koolaid," She plays into my teasing.
"It was flavour-aid, actually." I don't know why I said that.
"What the fuck is flavour-aid?"
"Koolaid basically," Silence stretches between us "So what do you actually do all night?"
"It's a bit complicated," She says, of course, it was complicated. "I work from home," She couldn't do something normal, she probably did voice acting or ran a podcast or some weird shit like that.
"Sick," Don't worry, I made myself cringe when I said that too "I work from home too."
"Yeah, you said something about work last night, are you in marketing?"
I shake my head "I'm a writer," every time I tell someone that, I feel a twinge of embarrassment. I know it wasn't a noble career like my parents had hounded me over, but it felt noble to me. I had two absent parents and was raised by a pack of wolves, I would devour as much food as fast as I could because I didn't know when I would be eating next. I was far too emotional to be around all of the narcissists who preferred their own faces to my company, the only friend I had was the written word.
Since then I have been serving my soul up to strangers through word documents.
The thought makes me homesick for the arms that did not hold me and I truly expect my neighbour to make a mockery of me, the way others have. The way they've told me 'It's a tough industry but hang in there!' and pat me on the back like I'm a hopeful child clinging to her mother's skirts.
"That's really cool," She smiles while she gazes out to the skyline, I can see her perfect side profile and ski-slope nose "I wanted to be a writer, I thought myself to be a poet, and then I thought myself to be a scientist and wanted to be an astronaut. Now, I'm here."
"Where's here exactly?"
"Working things out, figure it out as I go," She shrugs like she is unsure of her answer.
I think it's beautiful how everything around me has been touched by human hands and carries so much history. For a quick moment, my mind wonders to those who built this building, the calloused hands that crafted the iron railing and now my neighbour who was leaning against it. "What's the end goal with this whole freefall thing?"
"To make it out alive."
"And your name?"
"It's Ellie."
-
That night Ellie stuck to being quiet as she promised. The next night was a different story. I was so close to finishing the draft of Nicole Elliot's memoir and was praying that the deadline would pass with no issue.
However, the noise began again. I was coming around to like Ellie and I didn't want to go yell at her again so I shoved my headphones in and turned up my playlist as loud as I could. There is no song I can blast in my headphones to drown it out.
She did say that the next time I was loud I could come and chew her out, I wouldn't do that; I would just knock on her door and quickly tell her that she was being too loud, and then we would both carry on with our respective work.
I stopped in front of the smooth door and raised my hand to knock. Ellie slips the door open just a crack, when she sees that it's me she opens the door. "Hey, Ellie."
"Hello," She smiles "To what do I owe the pleasure?" She had a very nice smile.
We both know the circumstances of my visit but I spell it out anyway "Dude, you're way too loud, it's disruptive and I'm working under a deadline."
"I know, I'm sorry." She looks genuinely apologetic.
"I don't know any office job that needs you to scream for hours on end," Alright, that blows what could've been a simple visit where she apologizes and I leave, I always had to add on.
"Right, sorry," She carries herself with so much confidence that it is like she is wearing armour made of gold though she has these subtle awkward tendencies of someone who has never been loved and was forced to improvise. "It's hard to explain,"
"Yeah, you've said-
"Do you wanna come and see?"
I'm taken a little aback and for a minute I think this is all a ploy for Ellie to lock me in her her apartment and kill me because she is sick of her neighbour banging on her door "What?"
"Well, you've asked a couple of times and if you have a minute I can show you."
I pause, mauling over her proposal. I think of my laptop on my spruce desk, open to the final pages of the memoir and I make up my mind "Alright, just not too long."
"If you say so," Ellie opens the door wider for me to move past her and then shuts it behind us.
Ellie's apartment is what I had expected from her even though it is surprisingly nice. She has a large L-shaped sofa in the living room adorned with throw blankets and pillows and a huge flatscreen with a coffee table in front of it. The layout is exactly like mine but inverted, her open kitchen has some odd knick-knacks that looked like they belonged on an Amazon must-haves list.
I don't go into her bathroom and the door leading to one of the rooms (What is equivalent to Margot's bedroom) is shut. The apartment itself is pretty sparse aside from little bits and pieces as she only moved in a month prior.
On the left side, I see that purple LED spilling out of what I assume to be her bedroom.
She walks in ahead of me and the second I follow in after her there is one question I have to ask "Ellie, are you a porn-star?" There are entirely too many computers in here. Her desk is set up with one of those fancy triple-screen PCs and she has a laptop placed seemingly randomly on a white loveseat that's pressed against the right wall.
There is one of those galaxy lamps that projects that trippy shit onto your walls and ceiling. The screen of her PC is facing our shared wall and I can see a huge hole where I assume that a loud crash from the other night occurred. Plastered all over the walls are posters from video games and movies, many of which I hadn't seen.
"What?" She sounds nearly offended "No," she grabs a folding chair from the corner of the room and unfolds it beside her black florid office chair. She sits on the folding chair and motions for me to sit in the office chair. "Come, sit."
I hesitantly sit in the chair "Are you going to attack me now?" I ask, getting defensive for no particular reason other than it was in my nature "Because I've read The Outsiders and I'm pretty sure I can fight."
She chuckles "I'm not gonna fight you."
"Because I'd win?"
She furrows her eyebrows but has this look of amusement on her face "Yeah, definitely."
"So what is this?" I motion around at all of her equipment.
Ellie puts one earbud in then hand me the other "Chat," She says, looking dead at the camera clipped onto her PC "This is my neighbour who came to yell at me for being annoying, she has every right."
"Who are you talking to?"
"I'm streaming," She said, clicking something on the screen so it changed, instead showing Ellie and I in front of the camera, I looked absolutely lost next to a rolling chat bar full of jokes that I didn't understand and people saying hello to me.
"So I was right," I turn my attention to Ellie "You are an internet person."
"Yeah, I'm an internet person but you weren't right, I don't do porn."
"Not yet," I shrug "Times are desperate," To this, the chats come in even faster than before. "So do you just sit here all night and scream at people?"
"I play video games and do challenges, sometimes I do just sit here and scream at them."
"That makes so much sense," I say "If there's any job that needs you to be obnoxiously loud and annoying, it's a youtube personality."
"Okay, well-
"So you're like Logan Paul?"
Her eyes go wide "No-
"What explains why your eyes are so bloodshot."
"You are a writer," She says it like it's a fact I wasn't aware of "You are in no place to judge, you probably spend as much time in front of a screen as me."
I nod "I hate to say you're right," My attention shifts to the hole behind me "Can you explain how playing video games put a hole through the wall?"
Ellie looks almost embarrassed, she doesn't say anything in response, instead, she just clicks something to screen share with us in a little box in the corner and then goes into YouTube. She types in 'Ellie Williams falls through wall' My eyebrows furrow as I read it, and she clicks the first video that pops up.
The video starts off strong; Ellie is cackling at something that her friend off-camera is saying, her friend then makes a comment that makes her laugh even harder and she throws herself back in her chair. This act breaks it, you can hear the chair snap beneath the pressure and Ellie just lets it happen as the chair crashes against the wall. Her eyes go wide when she realizes she's just put a massive hole into the wall and seconds later you can hear me on the other side banging my hands on the wall. Her eyes go wide and she stares at her friend off-camera, all of the laughter stops abruptly before her friend can't hold it in anymore and erupts in chortles, and the video cuts off.
My hand flies over my mouth to fight back the laughter I so badly want to let out. Ellie and I sit wordlessly, the only sound being donations on the screen and my giggles slipping through. Eventually, I manage to compose myself and look to Ellie, I don't have much to say except for "Oh my god."
A/N: Streamer! Ellie won the poll so here we are. As I was drafting out the other chapters for When I Was Your Girl, I decided that it is most likely to be discontinued unless I do a rewrite which will not be in the near future. I’m not rocking with the plot and there was a lot of mixed feedback, sorry if you were invested I guess, but you have this series to be invested in now!
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gottagobackintime · 1 year
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Did I freak out when I saw Trent in Rebecca’s office even if I already knew he would be there? Yes. Did I pause the episode and rewind because I was so excited that I couldn’t hear what they were saying? Yes. Did I almost cry when everyone stopped talking as soon as Trent showed up? Yes. Did I laugh far too loud when Roy shouted “CRIMM” and Trent jumped? Yes. Did I almost cry when we found out why he hates Trent? Yes. And don’t get me started on the final scene with Trent, Ted and Roy. Because that scene had me feeling a lot of things.
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thankskenpenders · 5 months
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Help me out here: Why is there so much Ian Flynn hate going around lately? I thought everyone loved that he was contributing to the games. Now suddenly they aren't. I guess that's par for the course for this series but I don't get it. He isn't perfect but I like what he's done. Am I a weirdo?
Ian Flynn has always had a lot of fans, but any creator putting their work out there is going to have detractors as well. That's just the nature of being an artist. To some extent, it's no big deal. He's not a perfect writer. Nobody is! I consider myself a fan of his work, but I've criticized plenty of individual writing decisions from him on here.
But Ian doesn't just have critics. He has his own obsessive hatedom. And the specific nature of Ian's hatedom is... interesting.
A decade ago, Ian was only the guy writing for Archie Sonic, meaning any debates over his work were quarantined within that tiny niche of the larger Sonic fandom. Only people who kept up with the comics month to month had any real reason to have an opinion on the guy, which means we're talking about merely thousands of fans as opposed to millions.
Within that group, he had some haters. You had the people who were mad about story changes made during his run, particularly things like ancillary characters getting killed off (although over the years we've learned that most of those were editorial mandates from Mike Pellerito). You had the people mad that Ian didn't push their favorite ship, with feuding SonAmy and Sonally fans claiming that he was CLEARLY biased towards one or the other. You had the people who just really, really liked one of the previous writers way more - usually Penders, as hard as that may be to believe today. That sort of thing. Pretty normal comic fandom type stuff. Again, it comes with the territory.
Unfortunately, many of those haters only got worse over time, morphing into reactionaries who constantly try to incite Comicsgate type culture war bullshit.
There are people still mad at Ian for making Sally bi and pairing her with Nicole instead of Sonic in the later Archie comics. There have been elaborate MS Paint red string conspiracy boards explaining how people like Ian and Jon Gray have apparently been destroying the franchise from the inside for years by Making Sonic Woke. (Jon gets dragged into this because people are still mad about him drawing The Slap 20 years later. Yes, really!!) There was an unhinged change.org petition trying to get Ian fired, specifically from people who were mad that the Freedom Fighters aren't in the IDW comics. There was even a very sad little fan campaign from these people trying to get Sega to move the Sonic comic license away from IDW and over to Udon, because they thought Udon would bring Sally and Bunnie back and also make them sexy again. There's a lot of this.
(Unfortunately, Penders has also exacerbated this by gossiping about Ian on Twitter and giving these fans ammo, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)
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The thing is, for years, people who only played the games or watched the cartoons had no reason to pay attention to any of this. Now, though, Ian isn't just writing for some weird spinoff comics that only the super nerds read. Now he's writing comics that are canon to the games, and ALSO some of the games themselves, and ALSO consulting on other tie-in media like Sonic Prime, and ALSO writing the official Sonic encyclopedia, and ALSO serving as part of the new Sonic Lore Team at Sega. And on top of all this, he's got an increasingly popular podcast where he fields questions about his work on all of these things, which serves as one of the fandom's main windows into creative decisions being made behind the scenes.
As a fan of Ian's work, it's been really cool to see him rise in prominence. But the dark side of this is that his obsessive haters from the Archie days now have WAY more of a potential audience of their own. Now, every Sonic fan has to have an opinion on Ian. What this frequently means is that you'll have the Comicsgate types taking things Ian writes or says out of context, attempting to get more of the general fandom to yell at the guy.
Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of Sonic fans who take the bait:
You've got hardcore fans who disliked basically any recent piece of Sonic media and are looking for someone to blame.
You've got the people who are concerned about the sanctity of Sonic's canon, who shoot the messenger any time Ian mentions a new retcon from Sonic Team on the podcast - or any time he even mentions the THOUGHT of changing anything about the canon, as we saw recently with the Sol Dimension nonsense.
You've got people who romanticize some sort of mythical artistic vision that Sega of Japan supposedly has (or had) for the franchise. To many of these fans, American contributors like Ian just don't "get" the heart of the series and are trying to turn Sonic into something different. (This "heart of the series" tends to be some mix of Japanese instruction manual lore, the cinematics from Sonic CD, the OVA, and/or the games written by Shiro Maekawa, depending on what Sonic media the fan in question grew up with.)
You've got fans of specific characters or ships who pin the blame for how their faves are depicted entirely on Ian - most vocally fans of Shadow, even though the root problem is that Sonic Team hasn't known what to do with Shadow since 2006. At best this stops at regular old criticism, but at its worst this devolves into claims that Ian has an agenda against certain characters.
You've got fans annoyed by a perceived over-emphasis on comic-original characters in the IDW comics, ignoring the obvious facts that these characters exist because the game cast is so tightly controlled by Sega, and also, you know, that people just like the IDW characters and want more stories about them.
You've got a LOT of discourse over IDW's Sonic being a hero who tries to give his enemies second chances, as if half of Sonic's closest friends aren't already former villains and rivals. Honestly this is very transparently just reheated Steven Universe discourse lmao
You'll also see people who just think they could do Ian's job better. They can't believe that THIS GUY is the American fan working on all these Sonic projects, when clearly THEY understand the characters and lore and themes SO much better than this charlatan.
All it takes is for someone in one of these categories to be unhappy about some recent piece of Sonic media, and for them to come across an out of context quote or comic panel that rubs them the wrong way, and suddenly the leftist Zoomer Sonic fans will join the latest dogpile on Ian alongside the reactionary Comicsgate types who are mad at him for Making Sonic Woke.
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In general, when fandoms get upset, they tend to want a scapegoat. A person or two to point a finger at and go "THAT's who ruined the thing I love!" This tends to be based less on reality and more on which contributors are the most visible online. You'll sometimes see teenage and adult fans of children's cartoons single out a storyboarder who's particularly vocal on Twitter, blame them for every story decision they don't like, and harass them off the platform out of a sense of retribution for their favorite ship or whatever. Failing that, fans might choose to blame every nitpick, down to individual lines of dialogue and frames of animation, on a showrunner, just because that's the name they associate with the show. And unfortunately, when it comes to Sonic, Ian is now arguably the most prolific and outspoken contributor on the English speaking internet, and therefore a common scapegoat.
Some of the things I've seen Ian blamed for are truly wild. A lot of people have claimed for YEARS that he's just lying about the existence of creative guidelines and restrictions from Sega - or, as fans call them, The Mandates - even though they're just an inherent aspect of working on a licensed property. Others claim that The Mandates are real, but somehow Ian's fault. A vocal minority of fans have convinced themselves that Ian is the sole reason the Freedom Fighters don't exist in the IDW comics, even though Ian says he's been pushing to bring them back since day one.
Sometimes you'll see people say he ruined shit he didn't even work on. A few weeks ago on Twitter I saw someone claim that Ian had written a rejected script for Sonic Forces in which Tails died. I could not find a source for this for the life of me. As far as I can tell, the rumor seems to have been born from an alleged leaked script for Forces with margin notes from Aaron Webber that criticized the way Tails was written, and also an old tweet where Aaron joked that Tails would die in an upcoming episode of Sonic Mania Adventures. These merged into "Aaron Webber criticized a draft of the Forces script in which Tails died." How'd Ian get dragged into this? Who fucking knows!
It's all just a big game of telephone. All it takes is some asshole to make something up about Ian on Twitter or YouTube or a DeviantArt journal or some forum, and at least a couple people will believe it, and then it gets repeated as fact. Again, this used to be contained by the niche nature of the Archie Sonic fandom, but now there are WAY more people who are receptive to this shit.
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It's just sad to me that Ian tries to be so open and honest about his work, to try to explain the rationale for certain things, to keep fans looped in on the direction the franchise is headed, and this just gives the Flynnspiracy types more quotes to take out of context and try to paint him as the devil. If it sounds like I'm being overly defensive and dismissing his critics, man... some of the things I've seen people say directly to him are just unbelievable. People will send paragraphs-long angry screeds in to his podcast that completely tear him apart, and he has to sit there and be like "Well, that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it." People literally pay for special guest interview episodes where they just rapid fire complaints about his writing at him directly to his face. I don't know how he does it. I would snap.
All of this over Sonic the fucking Hedgehog of all things.
I don't know how to wrap this up. Engaging with fandoms online is very tiring, which is why I tend not to do it. Things like this are too common. I guess, just... remember that making art collaboratively is a complicated thing. The people involved are generally trying their best given the circumstances, but they're only human. They make mistakes. But please treat them like humans. Criticism and dogpiling are not the same thing.
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powderblueblood · 5 months
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HELLFIRE & ICE masterlist
life in hawkins, indiana is bittersweet for an eighteen year old like you. up to this point you've enjoyed your reign as the resident rich bitch ice queen of hawkins high. you glide above the student body with an impenetrable grace— until the IRS comes knocking and your family loses everything that makes you you; the money, the super-trendy clothes, the people you called friends. you're forced to trade your plush suburban life for a double wide in forest hills trailer park— directly across the lot from resident hellfire king and noted freak, eddie munson. you've got plenty of reasons to hate him, but number one with a bullet? his daddy put your daddy in jail.
pairing: eddie munson x f!oc, mentions of unrequited steve harrington x f!oc and unrequited jonathan byers x f!oc, platonic!nancy wheeler x f!oc, platonic!ronnie ecker x f!oc
tags: NSFW / MINORS TURN BACK NOW! f!oc is written in the immersive second person; she does have a name and a background, but no physical description is mentioned in the text. enemies to star-crossed lovers on a slow burn setting, angst, misunderstanding, yearning, swearing, smoking, drinking, era-typical classism/sexism/homophobia/sexual harassment, smut including but not limited to voyeurism, masturbation, public sex, discussion of crime that i pull out of my ass kind of, really mean jokes, eventual fluff (i promise). extremely canon divergent with references to flight of icarus.
ready to light this place up?
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❦ - SERIES
❦ - chapter one: THE POISE, LUCK and INTEGRITY OF A KENNEDY
❦ - chapter two: VIOLENT DELIGHTS at HARRINGTON'S HOUSE
❦ - chapter three: EDDIE MUNSON COMMITS TREASON (BREAKS UP a CAT FIGHT)
❦ - chapter four: HOT SKIN and a HALL PASS
❦ - chapter five: CHEERLEADERS MAKE BAD NEIGHBORS
❦ - chapter six: IN MY ORBIT
❦ - chapter seven: WELCOME to the REAL WORLD, JACKASS
❦ - chapter eight: SEWN UP
❦ - chapter nine: EDDIE the OBVIOUS and the LADY SPHINX
❦ - chapter ten: THE NEW FACE OF FAILURE
❦ - chapter eleven:
❦ - chapter twelve:
❦ - chapter thirteen:
❦ - epilogue
❦ - BLURBS N SHIT
in-universe requests are open for business
flashback - LACY'S DAD GETS ARRESTED
flashback - EDDIE MUNSON STAMPS NICOLE SUMMERS' V-CARD (NOT A BOARD WAXER, NOT IN MAUI)
what if - EDDIE FOUND LACY'S JOURNAL
what if - LACY FOUND EDDIE'S WEIRD SERIAL KILLER WRITING SCRAPS
lore - ALL ABOUT THE BOOKSTORE
blurb - EDDIE HEARS LACY HAVING A SEX DREAM AND...
blurb - EDDIE TELLS LACY HOW HIS PARENTS MET
blurb - LACY VISITS HER DAD IN PRISON
blurb - FOUR TIMES YOU WERE STRUCK INCAPABLE OF IMAGINING YOUR LIFE WITHOUT EDDIE MUNSON
blurb - YES, NURSE RATCHED
blurb - THE BANDANA
blurb - EDDIE FS CASS FINNIGAN IN THE A
blurb - THE LACY AND JONATHAN OF IT ALL
❦ - FUN STUFF
soundtrack - VOLUME ONE
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probably-writing-x · 8 months
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Questioning.
Summary: Hi!Love love love your writing🫶🏻🫶🏻Could you write some angst?Like where reader and Conrad argue maybe? Have a good day❣️
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You weren’t sure when the irritation had started today. It was just… one of those days. You’d woken up and there was no milk left for your coffee, and the last slice of bread had been eaten. The toothpaste was running low, too, and you had to squeeze the last remains out of it. Nobody had bothered to go to the store yet and your car was blocked in by Jere on the driveway. Someone else had already put their clothes into the laundry but hadn’t bothered to turn the machine on, and you were certain not a single person in this house would ever decide to empty the dishwasher. It was just the little things, and they were irritating when you were living in a house of this many people.
Perhaps it wasn’t any of those things causing the issue. They were just ways of you avoiding what was really stressing you. Last night, Conrad, you and the others had been at a party. You’d left early with Belly when she’d had too much to drink and the boys had stayed. It was just a party at the beach, nothing crazy, but you’d woken up to a text this morning that had turned your stomach sick.
Hey girl! Feel like I need to be honest with you, Conrad was all over Nicole last night. I’d want to know if I were you.
I’m pretty sure I saw them kiss.
Even thinking of the words again made you nauseous, they were rotating over and over in your head. All over her.
“Hey babe,” Conrad speaks softly as he comes downstairs, swinging an arm around the bannister as he turns into the kitchen.
“Hey,” You glance up, trying to scrub a stain out of the countertop.
You couldn’t look at him, too fearful that you’d break down into tears right then and there.
He comes behind you and wraps his arms around your torso. You force yourself to not tense up under his touch, letting out a shaky breath before you say;
“I need you to go to the store,” You comment.
You feel his arms slip from you, “What?”
“Jere’s boxed my car in so I can’t go but we need a whole bunch of stuff. I’ve made a list so I’ll send it to you and-“
“Good morning to you too,” Conrad practically grimaces, stepping back to lean against the counter.
“Sorry, Con, but we’ve got stuff to do today. Susannah and Laurel will be back tomorrow and you know they’ll hate it if the house is in a state.”
“I think they’ll just be glad we didn’t burn the place down,” He scoffs, crossing his arms over his torso.
You turn around and set down the cloth in your hand, wiping your hands. He raises his eyebrows at you like he’s waiting for something so you step forward and stretch up to press a kiss to his lips.
“Please,” You smile.
He narrows his eyes, a smile tugging at his lips, so you kiss him again. This was normal. This was him. The boy that would never hurt you.
“Alright fine,” He agrees, opening up his arms to place them around your waist, “If you insist, your royal highness.”
“Thank you,” You force yourself to smile again, “I’ll send you the list, I’m going to clean the bathroom whilst you’re gone and then-“
“And then when I’m back we can actually enjoy our day? No more stress cleaning,” He encourages, brushing a lock of hair away from your face.
“Okay.”
He leans down and kisses your jaw, once twice three times before stepping away from you to grab his keys. He’d never hurt you. This boy would never hurt you.
“Send me that list!” He calls back to you, disappearing around the corner.
It was all fine, right?
———
Conrad gets back an hour later, carrying in bags and bags of groceries all exactly from your list. You help him put them away and then start busying yourself with tidying up the lounge.
“(Y/n) come on, we’re going surfing,” Conrad encourages, reaching out his hand to you from where he was laying on the couch.
“I don’t-“ You clear your throat, looking away from him, “I don’t really feel like it today.”
He pushes himself up onto his elbows, “Come on, you agreed you’d be done after I got back. The other three are capable of helping too, you know? Just tell Jere to clean.”
You glance at him and quickly glance away. You couldn’t get the words out of your head, as much as you’d tried to avoid them. Everything felt so normal this morning, but it was becoming impossible to convince yourself that it couldn’t be true.
“I-“ You shake your head, tears brimming at your eyes when you look at him, “I can’t today.”
“Woah, woah, woah,” He sits up fully, “What’s going on?”
You let out a shaky breath and shake your head again, “Sorry I just… um… I think there’s dust in my eye or something.”
You hurry off into the nearest bathroom and lock the door behind you, leaning back against the locked door. You can’t fight off the tears at your eyes anymore as they start to trickle down at the corners. In the moment, you catch sight of yourself in the mirror, your eyes glazed over and your lip quivering with each exhale.
When you and Conrad first got together, you’d always thought he was too good for you. You knew who he’d been with before you, and you didn’t feel anything like them. You weren’t one of the country club girls, not one of the girls who’d throw themselves at him if he gave them the chance. You just fell in love and he did too. And, as much as he reassured you that you were blind to think he was too good for you, there was always just this little piece biting at you every time you thought about it for too long. Would you ever think you were good enough for him?
You walk over to the sink and look closer at yourself in the mirror, dragging your fingers under both of your eyes to wipe away the remaining tears. Your eyes looked a little red now and your cheeks felt puffy but you ignore it, drawing your shoulders back before walking back out of the bathroom.
Your steps come to a halt when you almost bump into Conrad, stood only a metre from the door.
“(Y/n) why has Shayla just texted you?” He holds your phone out towards you, “And why does it-“
“You looked through my phone?” You question, snatching it back from him.
He scoffs, “It came up on your lockscreen, okay? I didn’t think anything of it. Until I see that it’s Shayla and she’s telling you ‘Id be worried if I were you’.”
You look down at the screen and see the message still sitting there waiting to be read. She’d be worried. Should you be?
You look back up at him, “Well, should I be?”
“Should you what?”
“Should I be worried, Con?” You return, trying to avoid the tremor in your words.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what, forget it, I shouldn’t have said anything,” You shake your head, pushing past him to walk down the corridor.
He hurries after you and his hand reaches out to grab your arm, turning you around, “No, talk to me (y/n). Why did Shayla text you that?”
As you turn around, it doesn’t feel like the same Conrad looking back at you, but it only lasts for a second. His face is so full of worry you’re sure he could break there and then.
“Wh-“ You stop yourself, “What happened after I left last night? At the party, what happened?”
He frowns, his eyes looking between each of yours, “What are you talking about?”
“Tell me what happened.”
He blinks like he’s completely lost but continues, “Okay, you left with Belly. We got a few more drinks, Steven rang Taylor, Jere saw this guy he hooked up with last summer, the keg ran out and it got cold, we walked home.”
You purse your lips together, “Nothing else?”
“(Y/n) if you think something happened I’d rather you just say it because I can’t think of a-“
“Were you with Nicole?”
He raises his brows, “Nicole?” He practically scoffs over her name, “You can’t be serious.”
“Answer the question, Conrad.”
“Okay, yes, I saw her there,” He shrugs, “I didn’t realise that was an important part of the story, I saw her, we said hello, I didn’t see her for the rest of the night.”
You swallow the lump in your throat and pull out your phone with shaking hands, unlocking it and pushing it into his hands, “That’s not what it seemed like to Shayla.”
His eyes scan quickly to read the message and you watch his shoulders drop.
“Is it true?” You ask shakily, tears brewing once again.
“(Y/n)…”
For a second, you’re convinced he’s going to admit to everything and you’re going to feel your heart break beyond words.
“Is this really what you think of me?”
You stop before speaking again, “Conrad I woke up this morning to that text and I-“
“And you believed it?” He half laughs over the word.
“Why wouldn’t I believe it Conrad?” You exclaim, your words catching in your throat.
Conrad pauses.
“I know how things were when you were with Nicole. They were easy and fun and you didn’t have to think about anything. I’m not like that,” You shake your head, biting your lip to stop it from trembling, “I know I’m not who people expect you to be with and I know this isn’t… I just know that people see you with Nicole and they think that’s who it should be, not me.”
“(Y/n),” He looks at you so strongly you’re sure you could crumble, “I chose you. I chose this. And I still choose this. Every single fucking day I choose this. Why can’t you see that?”
“I just… I can’t get the thought of you and her out of my head.”
He laughs, “There is no me and her! There was no me and her last night! But if this is what you think of me (Y/n) then this is a really sad conversation.”
Before you can speak, he swallows the lump in his throat and walks past you, his shoulder bumping yours. You listen to his footsteps receding until the door slams and he’s gone.
Without another thought, every emotion spills from you, dropping to the floor as you sob.
In seconds, the bedroom door opens and Jere and Belly step out, both of them crouching down to wrap you in their arms, holding onto you as much as they were holding you up.
———
You leave the house almost an hour later, forcing yourself out of bed and down towards the short walk to the beach. On your way, you’re already certain that that’s where he’ll be. The place that made him think more clearly. The place where he’d first kissed you.
As you expect, Conrad’s sat just a little way down on the sand, his knees at his chest and his arms draped over them, a burgundy hoodie wrapped around him.
You sit down without a word and his eyes look up from the sea to watch as you do so, following you down until you’re beside him.
Both of you are silent, neither of you willing to break that just yet.
“I’m sorry Con,” You exhale, “I shouldn’t have just jumped to conclusions.”
He shakes his head, looking out at the moving sea, “I should be apologising.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?” You feel the lump form in your throat, as if part of you is so sure he’s about to admit to your worst nightmare.
“I would never cheat on you (Y/n). I’d never even think about looking at another girl like that,” He explains, “But if I’ve made you feel like there’s even the slightest possibility that that’s something I’m capable of, then I’m doing something wrong. Because you shouldn’t feel like that. And you shouldn’t have felt like that today.”
“Con it’s not your fault.”
“It is my fault,” He returns, “Why do you think I would cheat on you?”
You take a deep breath, reaching out to take his hand into yours, watching him visibly relax at the contact, “I love you Connie, and I always have, and you’ve made me feel loved since the first day you kissed me and every day since. But, even with us together, there’s always this part of me that’s so sure I’m just… not enough. And that one day you’ll realise that too. And that’s not you, or Shayla or Nicole or anyone that’s causing that, it’s just me.”
“But (Y/n) I-“
“I know,” You squeeze his hands, “I know you might think it’s stupid and you might think you need to be doing more but it’s just… sometimes it’s hard to believe that you feel that way about me.”
He shifts in his spot so that he’s facing you, reaching both of his hands out to cup your face, “I love you, (Y/n) (Y/l/n). And I don’t care how long it takes, I’ll spend the rest of my life if it takes that long for you to be sure of that. Do you understand me?”
You let out a laugh and tears prick at the sides of your eyes, his thumbs shifting instantly to catch the tears as they fall.
“Now how could I not love you?” He grins, leaning in until his forehead presses against yours.
You rest there for a while, as if you’re breathing in every ounce of love he can offer you, letting out an exhale of every worry of the day.
“Do I love you?” Conrad raises his eyebrows.
You giggle, “You love me.”
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