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peter-parcoeur · 3 years

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Good girl gone bad | (frat!tom)

request: How about frat cocky Tom at a Christmas party, wearing something that shows off his muscles, and he keeps flirting with y/n, who hates him. Throughout the night, he slowly wins her over, and once he has her in the palm of his hand, he makes her compliment him and then worship his muscles and then get on her knees and suck on him through his boxer briefs and then finally he f*cks her face and he's dirty talking and boasting all the way through :)

disclaimer: Hiii, so this was a request (sadly anonymous but if you’re out there reading this, I hope you enjoy and this lives up to your expectations...) this is my first attempt at fratboy!tom so I apologize in advance if that’s not exactly what you expected from it or whatever. Also I’m french so, some unfortunate spelling mistakes may occur and for this I apologize too! (damn I do really know how to sell myself, don’t I?) Anyway, enjoy your reading and please give it a ♥ if you liked it and a comment if you either really liked or hated it. Annnnd I’m talking too much.

warnings: smut smut smutty smut is to be expected, obviously. includes: brat!tom, braggy!tom, boasting!tom and some serious potty mouth / enemies to lovers (well, more like enemies to fuckbuddies idk) / oral-sex / face-fuck / dirtyDIRTY talk/ fingering / brief mentions of self luuuuvin (that’s masturbation, for you) / dom!tom + sub!reader / I guess a little bit of humiliation and praise kink idk if that’s triggering so just in case... / roughness... I guess that’s it? probably enough already.

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« Come on, it’ll be fun! God knows you could really use some fun… » your friend’s voice almost begged over the phone as you safely locked it between your cheek and your shoulder to open the door to your dorm room, your keyrings grazing the piece of metal surrounding the lock with a soft, clicking noise.

“Yeah cause hanging out with complete morons as they get shit-faced on cheap vodka is totally my idea of a good night...”

“ Urghhhh, Y/N please, are you really gonna be a Grinch about it?”

“ Well, it’s a Christmas party so I guess that’s convenient?”

You could tell your friend was getting frustrated by now, the slight change of tone in her voice making her sound desperate. Kicking off your shoes and dropping your books above the mess on your desk, you immediately crashed onto your bed with a loud, exhausted groan as this never-ending day had managed to push every single one of your buttons. You felt completely drained and yet, your best-friend wanted you to join her to some frat-house where, apparently, the “most incredible” Christmas party was about to be held? Uh-uh. No way. Your actual plan for a Friday night (= eating take-out food in front of some true crime documentary on Netflix) seemed much more appealing than the effort your friend seemed to require from you.

“You’re really gonna bail on me? What if something happens to me?”

“Now this is guilt pressure and you’re so much better than this! “ You laughed, “plus… I know you wanna go just so you can make out with Harrison… You really don’t need me for this and truth be told, I really don’t need to see that guy shove his tongue down your throat!”

“Maybe YOU need someone to shove his tongue down your throat “

“I’ll pass, thanks “

“Come on, how long has it been since you’ve got laid? “

“That’s… way beside the point?””

Still, you thought about it.

How long has it been, really?

Well. As far as you could remember, there were a couple (disastrous) tinder dates at the beginning of the semester. Nothing major even though the sex was still okay. Then you had decided to delete the app so you could focus on your studies, thinking that, eventually, life would grant you with an actual IRL, cute boy who could actually work a little harder to get into your pants whereas it had taken a single swipe on a screen for the previous contestants.

But for now, as the semester had come to an end and Christmas break was around the corner, it only occurred to you just how busy you had been, studying all night long and running on fumes and gallons of coffee. Maybe your friend was right. Maybe you truly needed to blow off some steam. Sometimes you wished you were more like her, carefree and less picky when it came to boys and random flings. Like her current crush, Harrison.

Harrison was a typical heartthrob with the face of a Greek God, so it was only natural for him to act like a brat and play with girls as he wished. With his piercing blue eyes and dreamy smile, girls could only wish he would look at them twice. But still, he wasn’t the worst part of Team Jackass, as you liked to call them. Their captain was actually Tom Holland. Football Quarterback, Tom collected girls’ hearts like trophies and held his pride within his questionable reputation. Party animal, heavy drinker and confirmed exhibitionist since he’d been caught fucking a cheerleader in the middle of the football field right after a game, his name was on everyone’s lips, whether they whispered gossips down the faculty’s corridor or muffled into a pillow as he dived into another naïve, besotted girl with the promise of an encore. To this day, all of the girls he had laid his eyes on were still waiting for a call-back.

You pulled a disgusted face at the thought of witnessing his little hunting game one more time. Tom was actually one of the main reasons why you usually skipped any frat party now. There were just so much time you could waste, sipping on some funky tasting “home-made” punch as “Football superstar” Tom Holland bragged about his athletic skills or how many girls he had fucked over the last couple days. Sometimes, it felt like a competition between him and his brain-dead friends. Somehow, you just knew he kept score of his one-night stands. Maybe he’d give you five stars for trying anal, a deep throat would give you another six and god forbid if you flattered his enormous, gigantic cock, well then, by all means, the throne would be yours. There was just something about him that screamed and irradiated praise kink.

“Y/N? Have I lost you?”

Your friend’s voice brought you back to reality as you seemed to have blacked out for a while.

Then, out of nowhere and unexpectedly, the words came out of your mouth.

“What time is the party then?”

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For every party, there’s a dress code.

Surely, a “Christmas” party just couldn’t be, without a fair splash of colorful jumpers or any subtle hints at Santa Clause as an excuse for a last-minute theme. Still, standing in front of what could only be Wednesday Addams’ wardrobe, you were suddenly hit by your lack of interest for any piece of clothes that wasn’t a shade between black and white. Was beige even a color anyway?

For a brief second, you considered wearing your infamous Christmas onesie, basically a fluffy one piece with a zipper, an oversized hood and covered with snowflakes and candy canes. The jokes would never end but no one could blame you for being ‘off theme’, then.

In the end, you settled for a rare “colorful” top which, luckily, happened to be whatever shade of green Christmas trees actually were. It was also skin tight and you knew for a fact it made your chest looks twice its size because of the way the velvet fabric enhanced your waistline. It was nowhere near provocative with its long sleeves and turtle-neck so you figured you could be a little bit more risky with the bottom part of your outfit, grabbing the black mini-skirt you’d bought a week before on a splurge, even though you didn’t know if you’d ever find the confidence to pull it off. It was short, there was no denying that as you turned around in the shop’s fitting room to catch a glimpse at your backside, knowing your whole ass would be exposed if you ever dared to bend down even so slightly.

Still, you felt sexy in it and as a girl who happily traded a sexy dress for yoga pants and an oversized hoodie, any piece of clothes that made you feel good about yourself was an instant buy.

Looking down at your final outfit as it laid down on your bed, a pair of nice ankle boots at the bottom of it, you patted yourself on the back for making the extra effort and walked to the bathroom for a well-deserved boiling shower. Staring at your reflection in the mirror above the sink, you sighed to yourself as the aftermath of a sleep deprived week and lack of skin care routine or basic maintenance whatsoever hit you like a truck on the highway. Your hair had been wrapped into the same messy bun for days and it would definitely take some professional skills to cover up the bags under your eyes.

Maybe this party was the wake-up call you needed, the equivalent of a Judging look from your mother every time you visited her after a while. You could almost hear her complain about how unhealthy you looked and how you should wear more “flattering” clothes. Ironically, you also knew she would never approve the skirt you intended to wear that night. You remembered just too well that frown she’d given you at your father’s 60th birthday and how you had to gulp an entire bottle of red wine to forget about the fact the woman who gave birth to you had called you a prostitute for wearing a dress above the knees. Sometimes it’d be like that. Family gathering were like a plague, somehow, you just couldn’t escape it and it would either scar you for life or make you wish you were dead.

As you entered the cubicle, the coldness of the tiles hit you, covering your skin with goosebumps and sending shivers down your spine. It took you a couple minutes to adjust as you waited for the water to turn hot enough to coat the mirror with a thick foggy layer. Only then did you relax, letting go of this week’s emotionally charged weight upon your shoulders and focusing on yourself, at last.

It was a fairly long shower as you decided to go through your entire haircare routine instead of a brief, one minute shampoo. Not to mention the fact you also had to shave entirely as it felt like it would be a good way to get rid of this nightmare of a semester, like stepping out of your old skin and into a new one. Usually, body hair was probably too far down the list of your preoccupations to even be noticed but you figured, as you felt surprisingly motivated, now was the right time to make your body smooth as a baby. You actually loved the feeling of a soft, freshly shaved skin.

As you rinsed off the soap, your hands fondling the body parts water failed to reach, your mind unexpectedly wandered through some steamy thoughts as soon as your fingertips grazed your slit, taking some shy dip between your folds. It was no surprise that a simple, barely there stroke would instantly strike your arousal, after all, it had been a while. You shamelessly admitted that your studies had taken over your life, up to the point you’d even find yourself too exhausted for some self-love. Somewhere in your chest of drawers, the small collection of adult toys you owned were probably collecting dust in the middle of your socks and panties, wondering when they’d get to take a swim and make you squirm into your sheets as you hold on to the headboard, biting your lip until it turns white so you don’t scream through climax.

What struck you the most was the fact TomfuckingHolland came to your mind the very second your middle finger met your clit, circling it softly as you felt electricity spark through your legs, making it jolt. Why the hell was his stupid smug splattered all over your unspeakable thoughts when he was, by far, the last man on Earth you’d let come close to your naked self? Let alone in a shower cubicle the size of a shoe-box where you’d have no space whatsoever to escape his heavy, muscular chest.

His body looked ridiculously built for a man with the face of a 13 year-old. Sometimes you’d catch him randomly flex throughout the day, showing off his enormous biceps to anyone willing to praise his impeccable shape. There would be no room for these guns in there, you thought as a brief image of these massive arms shielding you from both side, fists tight against the tiles, came immediately to your mind. What took you by surprise wasn’t to actually picture Tom standing in there with you, naked and definitely willing to make that room a lot steamier, but the fact you slipped a finger into your surprisingly dripping core as soon as you imagined him stepping closer so your bare, sticky chests would meet, his obvious arousal poking at your inner thigh, begging to make an entrance.

You stopped before you inevitably came, even though your body craved for that well-deserved relief. You may have been hornier than you thought, but not nearly horny enough to hand your first orgasm in months on a silver plate to a boy who probably stroked himself in front of a mirror on a daily basis. Your thighs squeezed together where your fingers had left a desperate void, rinsing your entire body with a much colder water, hoping it would bring your sanity back.

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You looked incredible.

It wasn’t just you boosting your ego through a pep talk in front of your mirror back in your dorm this time, and even if you loved to give yourself an encouraging speech, praising whatever features you thought made the cut in the top three of your best assets as you gathered the strength to go out in public in an outfit pretty far from your comfort zone, nothing could ever beat the look people gave you as you walked into the frat house looking like a three courses meal. There was just something about that short time slot where you caught a gaze and knew what that look was all about.

You knew Liza, the head student with a soft spot for athletes so obvious she probably had the entire football team’s handprints tattooed on her skin, just hated to see you get the attention she usually caught. Athletes loved nerdy, smart-ass girls like her, but to her own despair, you actually happened to be one of those, only with a shorter skirt and thicker thighs.

You knew half of Team Jackass was already staring at you, wishing they’d catch a glimpse of whatever you had to offer underneath that impeccable outfit as the soft fabric of your skirt kept rising up, every step bringing you closer to an unfortunate peek at the plain, white cotton undies you had chosen to wear that night.

But above anything, you could most definitely feel someone’s gaze upon you, burning up your skin like lasers trying to scan through your clothes. Suddenly, you felt exposed and with a simple smirk, Tom-Holland came out, strong as ever, just so he could pop out the comforting bubble you had built around you. Of course, he had chosen to wear the tightest white tee-shirt so everyone could distinctively see each of his six, rock-hard abs. Of course, his sleeves were slightly rolled up to enhance his biceps and if you weren’t familiar with his despicable behavior, seeing him flex just so he could kiss the pumped-up mount irrupting from his upper arm like a fresh batch of popcorn on a stove, you could have barfed immediately at the disgusting sight of a man with an ego the size of a fucking comet.

For now, you simply rolled your eyes all the way to the back of your head and watched as he smiled cockily, his hand reaching out for a redhead girl’s cheek even though his eyes were most definitely undressing you from afar. You could tell the girl had dressed to impress as she was tightly wrapped into the just-slutty-enough version of Santa’s outfit. Basically a velvet red dress with a fluffy white strap on top of her bustier. The way she laughed and twirled her long curly strand of hair as she gazed lovingly at Tom was enough for you to know she would soon join the never-ending list of names on his score board.

Shaking your head at how easy it seemed for him to get laid within the first hour of a party, you made your way to the kitchen where the alcohol seemed to be. As expected, most students were already sipping at some questionable cocktail right from the bowl with a straw and since you didn’t feel like going straight for the strong stuff, you settled for a beer, fiddling with the bottle cap for a solid minute before you heard a voice coming from behind your back.

“Need some hand with that, sweetheart?”

The cocky tone and thick accent immediately sent you off as a long, single shiver ran down your spine from the disgusting thoughts it brought along. It had come to the point you couldn’t even stand his stupid voice.

“I’m fine, thanks” you lied, your first still tightly gripped on your sealed beverage.

“You look like you could use some strength…”

Of course, he had to bring up his impressive, spectacular strength within seconds. Maybe he expected you to slow clap, bow down or throw confetti’s all over him for being strong enough to open a beer bottle. What on Earth would you do without his strong, manly hands?

Grinding your teeth as your tongue clicked against your palate out of pure annoyance, you gave him the most unimpressed look as he grabbed the bottle from your hand, popping out the cap hard enough to make it fly off and hit the table with a soft, metallic thump. Smirking to himself, Tom handed you the bottle back, tilting his head as he obviously expected some enthusiastic reaction.

“Do you want a medal or something?”

“A simple ‘thank you’ would be a good start? “He mocked, raising his eyebrows in a way that made your consider throwing the entire bottle at his face to wash away his stupid cockiness.

“Thanks” you simply blurted out, raising your beer slightly before walking away as you took a couple sips. It wasn’t even that cold or remotely good.

Tom watched as you walked away in silence, his eyes inevitably drawn to the way your hips and that glorious ass of yours seemed to wiggle into that daunting skirt. Grazing his thumb over his bottom lip with a smirk, the eager flame in his eyes made his will to take you to a quiet place grow bigger with each step you took.

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The music was getting considerably louder as people were now dancing all over the place, from the staircase to whatever was left of furniture after too many parties hosted in this house. The constant buzzing sound of chit-chats and laughter was slowly making your head spin as you gulped on your third (or was it the fourth?) Shot of tequila. As expected, Y/BFF/N had wasted no time as she was already clinging to Harrison’s neck, feasting on his mouth like an open buffet. His hands were on her bum, holding on to it for dear life with a strong grip. At least, she was having fun.

Out of boredom and to your own surprise, you had agreed on doing shots with a couple people you knew from class. Not technically what you’d call reliable friends but you always bumped into them at parties where you’d basically chat, and drink. From afar, you could see some people had gathered around a table where Team Jackass had started the inevitable beer pong contest. Nibbling at a piece of lime, hoping it would wash away the burning haze of the tequila, you winced at the sourness as your eyes suddenly locked with Tom’s. He was now holding his arms up on both side, raising one fist through the air as he had clearly won that first round. There was something pathetic about a man in his twenties begging for attention and acting like he was about to claim the gold medal at the Olympics when all he did was throw a feather-weighted plastic ball into a red cup.

All the alcohol in the world would never get you drunk enough to tolerate this guy.

Sometimes, you couldn’t help but think it was a shame to see him act so pitiful when he face was actually okay. Well. He was definitely cute as long as his mouth was shut and his stupid, pretentious smug out of the way. With his soft, chocolate brown eyes, his tousled eyebrows and thin pink lips, he could’ve been a guy you’d be interested in. His brown hair was somehow, always tucked into a snapback or a beanie but you had caught a glimpse of his natural curls once and though it killed you on the inside to admit it, he did look great when he didn’t try too hard to be a complete asshole.

Lost in your thoughts, you didn’t see him walk towards you.

“We’re doing shots now? “

“Impressive” you frowned, “did you figure it out all by yourself?” you chuckled, swallowing what’s left of lime, basically pulp, in one soft gulp.

“You like to act all smart ass around me, don’t you?”

“Correction: I am, in fact, smart… Not that it’s something you’re familiar with so, pardon me if it’s all too confusing for you… “

“Are you calling me dumb, then?” he was frowning now, his enormous self-centered head deflating under the unexpected pressure of your witty come-back.

“Did you hear the word ‘dumb’ coming out of my mouth?”

“No – but I sure know what I would like to see come in that sweet mouth of yours, darling”

The fact he had the nerves to say that kind of stuff right to your face was enough to piss you off but what caught you off guard was his hand reaching for your face as his thumb delicately grazed your bottom lip, pulling at it just enough for you to taste his fingertip.

“Surely, lime isn’t the only thing you like to suck on?” he smiled, cocky as ever as you could feel actual rage building up from your core and all the way to the back of your throat.

“I suggest you keep your hands off me” you snapped, pushing his hand off your face as he laughed to himself, the raspy sound caught in his throat making you throb against all odds.

“Or what? What you gonna do about it, uh?” he teased, confident as ever, his words coming out of his mouth halfway between a threat and a challenge. His arms were crossed against his chest now, making every inch of muscle he owned just pop out. There was nothing sweet about the way his body was built, and was he ever given the occasion, you knew he could break your spine in half with his one hand. You just wished you’d never thought about it as the filthiest images came to your mind, starting with Tom spinning you around over the sink in the bathroom and pinning you down with his palm pressed between your shoulder blades as he pounded hard and fast into you.

Maybe Tequila had gotten to your head faster than you expected.

“I know girls like you” he started, walking backwards until your back hit the wall and you were completely trapped between his arms, one of his leg parting yours so his knee would slowly graze that spot where your thighs met, claiming his access to that precious part of your body you could definitely feel getting damper against your will.

“What about it?” you asked, slightly more provocative than you had intended.

“You like to act all innocent, pretending you have higher standards…” His breath was warm, wrapped into the thickness of alcohol, curving a ball at the back of his throat so his voice would come out raspier and lower than usual, “… but secretly you just want guys like me to fuck the back of your throat until you choke”.

You felt it. Your pussy throb at the single thought of it. You didn’t want to physically react to these obscene images, words coming out of his mouth filthier than anything you’d ever heard, but still, as hard as you wanted to remain cold and unbothered, there was no denying for the dampness between your thighs. You just hoped he wouldn’t get a chance to notice it.

“You disgust me” it took you all the strength you had to spat back at him, and even then, all he did was smile then chuckle softly to himself as his hand slid up your throat, wrapping it slowly until his thumb pressed itself into the crook under your chin, nesting as it was made to be there.

“Please—are you really going to pretend you’ve never thought about my cock filling up your pretty mouth?” his fingers found your lips again, tracing it slowly as your heartbeat increased with each word, “like you’ve never thought about me when you finger yourself at night” he paused, pinching his bottom lip between his teeth as he tilted his head, his mouth coming closer to your hear with a dark whisper “I know you do, baby… I know you touch yourself thinking of me, wishing those fingers were mine, diving into your dripping cunt… Touching spots you could only wish you’d reach… how I would spread those lips open and run my tongue all over your slit….” A warm breeze brushed your neck as a cursed laugh escaped his lips, making you squirm unexpectedly, “I bet you taste so sweet, I would never get enough of that glorious pussy…”

By now, you were wrapped into the intoxicating scent of his cologne. It was strong and manly as expected, yet comforting in a way you didn’t want to think about. You didn’t want to picture yourself wearing that grey hoodie he loved to wear after a game, his perfume raining over your bare chest as you’d lazily ride him on his dorm bed after you’d get bored of whatever movie you’d settled for, pushing your panties to the side as he couldn’t be bothered taking it off completely. You didn’t want to picture him unzipping that same hoodie, palming your boob with one of his strong hands as his mouth sucked on your nipple until your soft, delicate skin turned red from all the biting marks. You didn’t want to feel yourself stretch around his rock-hard cock as he’d lift your legs up to wrap it around his neck, because he’s that kind of jerk who likes to show off even when he’s completely buried inside of you, that kind of complete asshole who loves to remind you just how deep he can go, smirking to himself as he hits your special spot over and over and over…. until you beg for him to stop. That kind of utterly disgusting dickhead who’d never stop, because he knows that, deep down, you just want him to keep going.

“Now you can tell me you’re not already wet… But we both know that’s a lie” he smiled again and as you felt his hand going down, palming you through your top and all the way down to the front of your skirt, you finally decided to come to your senses and grabbed his wrist into your tight fist, stopping him just in time before he’s reached the only approval he truly needed.

“Go to hell, Holland” you snapped, using all of your strength to push him off and walk away.

You didn’t turn back to see him chuckle at the sight of your flushed face.

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The coldness of water came as a shock as you bent over the sink in the bathroom, splashing your face until it didn’t feel like your skin was on fire. Grabbing a towel, you patted your cheeks and forehead, staring at the reflection in front of you. You definitely looked flustered, like you had just run a marathon when all you really did was to suffer through your archenemy’s evil little game.

Usually, you would have just brushed it off and that’d be it. But tonight, for some reason, you just couldn’t seem to shake him off your thoughts, his voice still echoing through your head like a curse without a cure. Outside the bathroom, you could hear the muffled sound of music and screams coming from the living room as beer-pong had turned into strip-pong with everyone removing a piece of clothes every time the ball missed the cup. Typical, drunken behavior. Soon enough these parties would turn into a massive orgy and it wouldn’t even come out as a big surprise.

Freshen up a little had helped you settle your thoughts back into place but still, your body didn’t seem to catch a break as the build-up tension and frustration Tom had caused within your core was yet to be released. There was no denying that your toys would have come handy if you were back to your dorm room as it felt like your pussy kept clenching for no reason, like the gaping mouth of the thirstiest man in the middle of a drought. You knew how bad you needed to put it out of its misery but if you thought undressing for a ping pong game was bad, what would happen if anyone walked on you literally fingering yourself in the bathroom of a frat-house? No one would shut up about it.

Tom would certainly not. Shut. Up. About. It. Ever.

You pressed your thighs together, hoping for some sort of relief as his words came back haunting you, thinking about how your hand had found its way between your legs earlier in the shower, the very second you had thought about his body pushing you up against the tiles. Is that what he was to you, now? A fantasy? Would you become another disgusting cliché of a girl begging for the typical frat boy to fuck her at a party because she couldn’t handle his dirty mouth?

Then you thought about your best-friend and how the last time you’d seen her, she was heading upstairs with Harrison, giggling, her lipstick smudged all over her chin after making out heavily on the couch up to the point everyone was starting to wonder whether they should be charged for that kind of peep-show or just roll with it. How she was probably getting fucked in his bedroom while you were standing alone in a bathroom, dripping wet for a man you hated down to the very bottom of your guts.

The door swung open abruptly, making you jump.

“So that’s where you’ve been hiding!” Tom smiled, walking in.

“Can’t a girl have some privacy?”

“I need to take a piss, you’re the one standing out there doing nothing” he joked, walking to the toilets with his hands already fiddling with the zipper of his pants.

“Hum, excuse me?” you spat, widening your eyes as you realized he was genuinely about to use the toilets with you still standing a few meters away.

“I said I needed to take a piss… So either you just stand there watching, which I don’t mind really… or you can get out?” he pointed his chin towards the door, unbothered as he casually pulled his dick out of his boxers.

Both infuriated and shocked, you turned around as there was no point leaving the room now that his whole junk was out and already halfway through it.

“Do you have to be that disgusting? Really you’re such a pig!” you complained as you heard him sigh with relief before the toilet flush broke the most awkward silence of your entire existence.

“Don’t worry darling, I’ll clean it up real nice just for you…” he smiled even though you still had your back turned to him. You heard him use the tap, washing his hands for a considerably long amount of time. At least he wasn’t one of those filthy rats who thought basic hygiene was optional.

“What were you doing by the way?” he finally asked, grabbing the towel to your left, “touching yourself thinking about me?”

You turned around to face his cocky face once more, this time with a furious need to slap it. Hard.

“You know I’ve seen you walking around campus a couple times, Y/N… Those big jumpers and yoga pants you like to wear don’t do that body any justice, but this?” he circled his finger in the air, pointing out her entire outfit “this, I like to see… and if you weren’t being a little brat I would gladly pull up that skirt up to your waist and have you there, above the sink…”

“I’m being a brat?” you scoffed. That was rich, coming from the ultimate king of bratty assholes.

“Well you call it whatever you like but denying yourself something you truly need just to prove a point seems a little childish…” he shrugged, shoving his hands into this jeans pocket and giving you a perfect glimpse at the veins running up his arms and disappearing underneath his rolled up sleeves.

“You think all girls are begging for you to fuck them? Really?”

“Probably, yeah, and who could blame them really? I have a great cock and I’ve never had a single bad review about the way I use it…” he smiled, with the arrogance of a king sitting on a throne of indecency.

“You’re so full of yourself… it’s insane” you shook your head with pure disgust.

“Then go ahead and prove it”

“Prove what, exactly?”

“That you’re not dripping wet as we speak…”

Point taken.

You were, indeed, dripping wet and soon enough, you’d have some serious explaining to do as the thin cotton fabric of your underwear was now soaked with your unsolicited arousal. Even though your head was filled with hateful thoughts and resentment for Tom, it felt like your body would not stop begging for his touch, dragging him closer like two pieces of magnets on a fridge. Unconsciously, you were now standing a couple inch away from his face, so close you could actually smell the soft mixt of menthol and alcohol from his breath. There was no point denying the obvious tension between you two as you looked like you were about to break into a passionate kiss but now it was just a fight between your will for self-preservation and your body, aching to be touched.

And so you heard yourself say these words you never thought you’d say, like you were standing in the audience as your other self was performing on stage, making some questionable decisions you weren’t 100% okay with.

“Which one’s your bedroom?”

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You could have fought longer, for the sake of your personal values, but as your feet were swiped off the ground, your back hitting the door as it closed behind you with a loud slam, all of your good sense and respectable choices just vanished as much filthier thoughts buried them for good.

Your legs were wrapped around his waist as his hands had wasted no time and found their way under your top, fondling your breast with the hunger of a wolf. Your lips attached to his, you moaned louder than expected as he pushed himself a little harder against you, the obvious stiffness of his crotch pressing against your aching core. Your skirt had risen up to your waist from spreading your legs a little too wide, flashing your white panties as it was now so soaked you could definitely see the outline of your lips, the thin fabric sticking to your slit. Catching your breath, heavy pants breaking your kiss, you looked into Tom’s eyes only to see nothing but pure, absolute lust in them. As you tugged at his brown locks, a couple strand curling slightly at the back of his neck, you watched as his snapback fell to the floor with a thump, unleashing his brown untamed mane.

Suddenly, he didn’t seem so bad, groaning slightly as your fingers scrapped the back of his neck, your lips sucking on his throat for good measures. With his head tilted back slightly, it felt like Tom was getting soft for a while, caving in so you could take control over him. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long as he suddenly traced a hand all the way down to your inner thigh, immediately pushing your panties to the side with his middle finger.

“I knew it…” he smiled, sliding his finger along your slit as you wrapped it up with a glistening coat of arousal. You knew he had won the minute he felt just how wet you were for him, but when it should have been upsetting, you just didn’t care. All you needed now was to feel his cock filling you up in any way he wanted, “who made you this wet, darling?” he smiled, pulling at your bottom lip with his teeth.

“Don’t be a brat…” you complained as you could see some mischief in the way he looked at you.

“Just say it” he insisted “I want to hear you say out loud just how wet I make you” this wasn��t a request, but an order. And for some obscure reason you didn’t want to figure out, it somehow turned you on even more.

“You…” you started, biting your lip out of nerves, or out of excitement, you weren’t sure quite yet. “You make me so wet, Tom” you almost moaned, pushing yourself a little harder against his hand when he failed to give you exactly what you needed. His fingers. Buried deep inside of you.

“Hmm” Tom groaned, two of his digits spreading your lips apart at a torturing slow pace, “I like the sound of that…” his knuckles were barely halfway when you buckled your hips off the door, begging for more, “what’s that darling? Tell me what you want…” he was whispering by now, slowly pushing his fingers into your desperate slit, “I want to hear you beg for it…”

You felt him push deeper, curving his fingers into a hook every time he reached your g-spot. By now you were so aroused you just knew it would take you more than a couple stroke to cum heavily into his awaiting palm. You could hear the sloppy sound of your own wetness every time he slammed his slick, extremely skilled digits back into your throbbing pussy. His lips curved into a hasty smile as he could feel you literally drip all over his palm and wrist.

“I want you… I want you so much” you barely managed to whimper as he increased the pace, his wrist working its magic between your thighs.

“Hmm hmm? I’m gonna need you to be more specific baby… what exactly do you want?” his thumb grazed your clit for a brief second and that was enough for you to squeal under his touch, making you clench suddenly around his fingers, “say you want my cock” he almost growled as you felt his hard-on twitch against your thigh, begging to be freed.

“I want your cock” you immediately wimped, your own words sending shivers down your spine as you twitched with anticipation, “I want it so, so bad…”

“Good girl…” he hummed, slowing down the pace so he could add a third finger, stretching you out slightly this time, “d’you think you can take it though? It’s pretty big…” he smiled, twisting his hand just enough so he could dig himself a path.

You simply nodded, unable to speak anymore, but as you were about to beg for more, Tom removed his hand, leaving you frustrated and hornier than ever. His face changed suddenly as he watched you pout, his hand reaching up for your lips.

“What about that pretty mouth, then? You think it may fit?” he smiled, spreading your lips apart so you could taste yourself on his soaked fingers. You immediately obliged, sucking at it, one by one, never keeping your eyes off him. When he shoved three of his digits, watching as your tongue twirled around it, cleaning it off completely, you could definitely tell his eyes had gotten darker, filled with unspeakable thoughts you would be begging to hear soon.

“You’re gonna let me fuck that pretty face?” he added, removing his fingers from your mouth so he could give you a soft, cheeky slap on the cheek. You nodded, obedient as ever. “Say it” he commanded, louder this time, “say you want my cock inside your mouth”.

“I want it… I want your cock inside my mouth” you pouted, only because you knew he loved to see you beg like a spoiled little princess. You’d seen it in his eyes, the way he looked at you every time you tilted your head to fake an innocence that was long gone.

Tom stepped back, walking away slowly as he watched you standing there, flustered, your hair all over the place, panting out of lust and frustration. Pulling his shirt off, you watched as his impressive chest unveiled in front of you. Abs like rocks, a thin strand of hair tracing a path from his navel to his crotch, disappearing under his jeans, his impeccable V-line bringing images you never thought you had within yourself. As he pushed his hair back, daunting you with his a look half way between arrogance and disdain, it felt like all signs of dignity had left your brain as all you could think about was to crawl to the floor and beg for his cock.

“What you’re waiting for then, Darling?” he smiled, unzipping his flies as he watched you walk towards him and get on your knees within seconds.

Your hands pulled at his jeans until it finally pooled around his ankles. Looking up to stare into his eyes, you felt both small and powerful, submissive but in control as you were now responsible for this man pleasure. It was up to you whether he’ll get to cum or not. But as you considered edging him as an option, Tom wasted no time in remembering you who was actually in charge.

“Are you gonna be a good girl for me?” he sighed, grabbing your hair into a fist as his other hand stroked his cock through the cotton fabric of his boxers. You could tell he was just horny as you were as a couple pre-cum had already stained his briefs, turning it into a darker shade of grey.

Again, you nodded, removing his hand so you could replace it with yours, palming him through his briefs as he growled against your touch. He was big. Actually much bigger than you expected but somehow, you were up for a challenge. Tracing the outline of his cock with your fingers tips, you felt him push his hands on the back of your head, forcing you to come closer to his crotch.

“I want to fuck your pretty little mouth so, so bad” he groaned as you unexpectedly ran your tongue all over his stiff through the fabric, feeling it twitch as you palmed his balls. By now he was so hard you could feel the veins tracing a dirty road up to his leaking head as Tom started grinding slowly against your mouth, messing up your hair with his desperate fists.

When you pulled down his boxers, you took a couple seconds to stare at his glorious manhood, hard and pressed against his abdomen where it curved slightly, your mouth watering with a thirst you could have never pictured, especially when standing in Tom Holland’s bedroom. And yet, you couldn’t wait to have this magnificent piece of flesh filling up your mouth.

“Like what you see?” Tom smirked, boasting as ever but immediately squinting his eyes with a deep growl the minute he felt your tongue licking at the base, slowly going up until you finally bobbed on his creaming head.

You had always been good at this, giving head. Not that all of your partners would give you a proper review in the morning, pointing out your highs and lows, but there were just things men couldn’t do, like hiding the fact they were just having the time of their lives. And right now, Tom actually looked like there was nowhere else in the world he would rather be than standing here, with his cock in your mouth.

Twirling your hand at the base where you mouth couldn’t go just yet, you started bobbing up and down his shaft, sucking your cheeks in so your mouth would pop every time his dick came out. You had quickly figured out a couple things about Tom, including the fact he just seemed to love it dirty and noisy. You could actually hear him growl louder, his fist tightening its grip into your hair every time he slipped off your lips, only for him to shove it back a little harder and definitely deeper with each thrust.

“That’s it baby… Just like that… you’re such a good girl…”

You were a good girl, indeed. Always had been. Straight-A’s student from day one, the pride and joy of your parents, spending most of your week-ends doing some volunteer work whenever it was needed while being a caring, polite girl who never did anything wrong. Right choices only.

Or so you thought. Obviously, tonight would be always marked as the only questionable decision on your impeccable path to perfection. But still, as Tom grabbed your face with both hands to push himself deeper and all the way down your throat, making you gasp for air slightly, you had no regrets.

You stayed still for as long as your lungs could handle it, holding on to his firm, muscular buttocks as you swallowed him all. Looking down on you, Tom was left speechless as his cock stretched your cheeks out, his balls resting into your palm as you twitched them slowly, making it jolt with both pain and pleasure. When you felt like you were about to gag, you pushed yourself back, gasping for air as you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. Your cheeks felt numb and yet it missed the feeling of being stretched out already.

“Hmmm baby look at you…. you think you’re ready for it?”

“Yeah” was all you could blurt out. Yes to anything he wanted. You were prepared. You longed for it.

Looking around as Tom started pumping himself, getting ready for you, spitting into his palm to lube himself up so your lips wouldn’t drag along his shaft too much, you just couldn’t believe you were there, kneeling on the navy carpet of Tom Holland’s bedroom, the epitome of the ultimate frat boy. A huge flag from his favorite sports team was hanging above his bed, his never-ending hats collection sitting on wooden shelves by the wall like it was some kind of “frat boy starter pack” Art exhibition. In the corner of the room, you caught an unexpected glimpse at a guitar. It looked fairly new, but never in a million years would you have pictured Tom playing guitar. On his desk, his laptop was still open on a Spotify tab where you’d probably find a playlist based on some typical white boy rap music but against all odds, the room looked neat compared to what you had in mind.

“You look so beautiful” he sighed, out of nowhere, and to be completely honest, had your mouth not been filled with his dick, you would have probably picked up your jaw from the floor. Taking him all in once more, you just pretended you couldn’t hear, sparing you some awkward misunderstanding. Maybe those words were actually directed to his dick. After all, the boy loved himself just that much.

His hands were all over your face, wiping tears from your eyes every time he hit the back of your throat a little too hard, stroking your cheeks, massaging the back of your neck, roaming through your tangled hair as your kept up with his reckless pace, his hips swinging back and forth while you remained completely still so you could take him like a champ.

“God, I love to see you choke on my cock….” He gritted through his teeth “so…so hot…” you could tell he was getting sloppier now, pumping in and out of your mouth abruptly then a lot more slower as a couple twitch from his cock gave you a hint of his upcoming grand finale.

By now, you were a slippery mess, the taste of pre-cum hitting your throat as you dribbled all over his shaft, obscene sounds of suction coming out of your mouth every time he pushed himself out and back in all over again.

“F----uuuuck….fuck baby I’m gonna come!” he grunted, the sudden high-pitch of his broken voice driving you insane as you pushed yourself up a little so you could open your mouth wider, expecting him to fill it up soon enough. “D’you want me to cum in your mouth? Uh?” again, he gave you a little slap on the cheek, not quite hard enough for you to feel any pain. You nodded, moaning whatever came close to a “yes” as every single inch of your mouth was filled with Tom.

You heard him whimper, twitching a couple times, harder with his thrust as his hand fisted into your hair abruptly throughout his climax. Looking up to see his face, your eyes locked with his as he came all over your tongue, raining down your throat with a couple last, sloppy thrusts.

“Oh fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuuu------“

Your eyes immediately teared up as you tried your best to swallow every drop of cum he had to give, the corner of your lips dripping like an overflowing sink.

Then there was a complete silence.

As you wiped your mouth off the thick, warmness of his cum, you felt him kneel to your side, then sit. Both of you looked completely exhausted, drained from every ounce of energy you had left.

“Well, that wasn’t half bad… for a little brat” he spoke again, and you just couldn’t believe he had gathered the energy to say this when he could have chosen silence.

Laughing quietly to yourself so you wouldn’t slap him across the face, you decided not to fuel him up and remained quiet instead. His hair had gone curlier than heaver, his glistening red face making him look like any cute boy you could easily fall for.

“I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna see a lot more of you at frat parties now?” he spoke again, and though it truly pissed you off to admit it, you just knew this wasn’t a one-time thing. For all you knew, this, was barely a prequel to a long, bumpy story of a good girl gone bad.

All because of Tom-fucking-Holland.

#tom holland #tom holland smut #frat boy tom holland #frat!tom #enemies to lover #tom holland x reader

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chronicallylatetotheparty · 3 years

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Watching (the Adventures of) Merlin season one on Netflix

Episode One: The Dragon's Call

. . . I feel like going to the capital of the kingdom indiscriminately slaughtering magic users wasn't the best idea.

Why? Well, that guy did just get executed.

And now his mom is mad. You tell that sorry excuse for a king, witch lady.

I don't like Uther, in case it was unclear.

Wait... if you could teleport why not just grab your son and ditch before he loses his head? Literally.

Oh, wow. Arthur is a dick.

Morgana. We have no choice but to stan tbh.

Dragon, you're really rubbing me the wrong way.

That's right Merlin! We need more than Because Destiny Says So!

Where did the spiderwebs come from? That sleeping spell gives me Sleeping Beauty vibes.

Ah, yes. The old drop-the- chandelier-on-the-villain trick. :(

If she went after Uther instead of Arthur I would have no complaints.

Manservant? You call that a reward for saving your son?

Episode Two: Valiant

Snake!Shield

Oh, he's gonna- Yup, dead. That's what happens when you deal with knights who cheat.

Where did that guy even get a magic shield in the first place?

Is there a thriving magic black market or something?

I love Guin.

. . . I feel like Sir Valiant didn't think this through. If bite marks are visible.

Ugh, you're the worst Uther.

It's only the second episode! Did you forget who saved your son already?

Stop being a jerk Arthur.

Lol. Merlin bringing a dog statue to life in order to practice for the Snake!Shield.

Bye Valiant!

Episode Three: The Mark of Nimueh

Whatcha up to with that egg, new witch lady?

You gonna poison the water of all of Camelot? Seems like a jerk move.

Dang that's a lot of dead bodies...

No, I like Guin's dad!

Yes! Cure him Merlin!

No! Stop arresting Guin, Uther!

You tell him, Morgana!

That plague monster that hatched from witch lady's egg is creepy.

Dead monster!

Arthur is kinda oblivious to Merlin's magic ngl.

Yay! Guin's free!

What do you know about witch lady Nimueh, Uther? Hmm? Why she want you dead? Besides the obvious reasons.

Episode Four: The Poisoned Chalice

Wow, Nimueh really doesn't like Merlin saving the day.

Wow, Nimueh really orchestrated an entire diplomatic incident in order to kill Merlin while also ensuring Camelot is destroyed by its neighbor. Impressive.

I really like Merlin and Guin's friendship.

Dang. Merlin really drank poison in order to save Arthur.

Merlin saved Arthur's life, Uther! Let him return the favor!

Oh, wow. Arthur really disobeyed his father in order to save Merlin's life.

I didn't know Merlin could cast spells while deathly delirious. And several miles away from him too.

Uther you b****! The antidote is right there! Let Arthur save his friend!

Putting your own son in a cell is such a jerk move.

At least Arthur and Guin manage to sneak the antidote to Merlin.

Quick aside: Internet spoilers say Uther needs to die for Arthur to complete his himbofication- I mean character development. So, if you could get on with that? Thanks!

Episode Five: Lancelot

Wow, that's a very CGI griffin.

Lancelot is so precious- Uh, I mean effective! Saving Merlin and all.

I know, Guin. I know.

Always thought it was a stupid rule to only let nobles be knights.

You're really going to commit magical forgery for someone you just met, Merlin?

I mean, Lancelot is earnest, hardworking, modest, kind despite his tragic backstory and it's his childhood dream to be a knight...

Yeah, I'd commit magical forgery too.

Lol, knocked you on your ass didn't he Arthur? (The second time at least)

I don't remember griffins being man-eaters!

Uther stop arresting people! Ugh, you're such a classist.

Let Lancelot help fight the griffin, Arthur! You need all the help you can get!

Well okay letting him go was nice of you.

Lancelot-Merlin tag team!

Wow. Lancelot really strode in with Camelot's singular braincell by figuring out Merlin has magic.

(The bar is low, okay.)

No, don't take away the braincell! Stay! The griffin was a team effort!

Okay, Lancelot's lawful good tendencies are a little annoying but, hey, nobody's perfect.

Episode Six: A Remedy to Cure All Ills

Edwin, no. Leave Morgana alone.

Oh, beetles! Curse beetles! That's not creepy at all.

Gaius how do you know Edwin?

What diabolical plot are you hatching Edwin? Oh, you're replacing Gaius in the royal court. That's kinda rude.

Merlin's so happy meeting another magic user that isn't trying to kill him (yet).

Le gasp! Uther's purge killed Edwin's parents? WhO cOuLd HaVe fOreSeEn tHis!?

But seriously. No wonder Edwin wants Uther dead.

I know Edwin blackmailed Gaius with exposing Merlin but he also wants to kill Uther!

That gives him a pass in my book.

Gaius no. Let Uther die.

Edwin stop trying to kill Gaius! You're going to-

Yup, here comes Merlin and-

Edwin's dead :(

Well he was trying to overthrow the kingdom. That's... bad... I guess.

Episode Seven: The Gates of Avalon

That title is misleading. It's more of a natural portal/magic lake type thing.

Arthur saves a father and daughter from bandits (Which they hired but shhh)

And they immediately try to put a love spell on Arthur

For human sacrifice purposes of course

Idk why the Sidhe want a human prince's soul -look at him, you don't know where he's been- but that's the price for readmission

I wonder how the dad killed one of his own kind? Was it an accident or...?

Exiling the daughter too makes me suspicious of Avalon's justice system

Evil laugh is a bit out of place for someone who is trying to restore his daughter's immortality

(They are so whiny about being mortal. Hey, we put up with it all the time!)

The fairy-like Sidhe moving in accelerated time so they just look like tiny orbs of light was an interesting touch. The blue faces and razor sharp teeth is not a good look for them, lol

They make Arthur ask to be married ('cause it takes a while for the love spell to go into full blown mind control or something)

Prompting Uther to threaten to kill both of them

(I feel like they didn't think this through)

Morgana admonishes Uther for being the worst

He replies that first love rarely lasts and that Arthur is inexperienced in such things. Plus that Arthur only met the girl yesterday

... I can't believe Uther is the voice of reason this episode

He doesn't get any points though. Due to the whole "threatening to execution his son's 'crush' " thing

The daughter is having second thoughts about using Arthur as a human sacrifice

Dear old dad puts those to rest and they try drowning Arthur in the lake that is/is the portal to, Avalon

Merlin's really leaning into the whole "Cool motive. Still murder.", thing huh?

Like, he did NOT hesitate to blow up both of them

Episode Eight: The Beginning of the End

Why do magic users keep going to Camelot!? The king is trying to KILL YOU!

Wow, this grown ass man is threatened by a literal child... I hate Uther so much

Morgana is the MVP of this episode. I love her

Protect that druid kid!

I feel like you're being paranoid Uther

You tell him Morgana!

Dragon, no. Stop prophesying death and destruction.

Wow, this grown ass dragon is threatened by a literal child...

Aaaand Morgana got caught sneaking the kid out of the city :(

Uther she is your adopted daughter! Stop putting people in cells!

Arthur is gonna sneak him out now?

While Morgana distracts the king?

Yes, excellent. What could possibly-

Merlin stop listening to that destiny dragon! Hearing his voice in your head is no basis for trust!

Cutting it close... Yay! They made it!

Mordred!? MORDRED!?

THAT little boy is Mordred!?

... Okay, I'm more inclined to believe the destiny dragon now

Still think letting him die would be a dick move

Episode Nine: Excalibur

What're you up to with that tomb Nimueh?

Oh! It's some kind of undead knight. Yes.

Throwing down the gauntlet. Pfft! Always thought that was a stupid idea.

Also: that Black Knight literally crashed your party!

Ugh, knights.

Nimueh if you can just teleport into the heart of Camelot while Uther is alone why don't you just stab him? Grab one of those pointy things he likes so much and stab him in the back. Easy peasy!

Stealing this joke but Don't do evil magic kids. It fries your brain cells.

Wait, the Black Knight is Uther's brother-in-law!?

Arthur's mother died in childbirth!?

Uther asked Nimueh to use her magic so he could have Arthur!?

Equivalent Exchange!?

Uther went on a genocidal rampage because he didn't bother with the instruction manual of ancient and powerful magic!?

Actually, that last one is not surprising at all.

I can't believe they're using the Wife in the Fridge trope. That appliance hasn't even been invented yet!

Ooh, Merlin's going to use his magic to destroy the Black Knight so Arthur doesn't have to fight him

As he's killed two knights already

Aaaaand, yup, he's still there. His cloak didn't even catch fire...

Arthur stop being a bastard. It doesn't suit you

Dragon forged sword! DRAGON FORGED SWORD!

Only Arthur can wield it. Yup, got it. How could this possibly go wrong?

Uther drugged Arthur and took his place in the fight... I have mixed feelings about this.

Wait, the dragon was very specific about only Arthur using that super special sword! Oh, snap.

Well at least the Black Knight is dead. Again.

Oh, dragon is not happy.

I know the dragon said "where no mortal soul could find it" but are you sure you wanna throw it into Avalon, Merlin?

Those people were gonna suck Arthur's soul out of his body

Episode Ten: The Moment of Truth

The way this episode title just lies to your face like that...

Oh, you're Merlin's mother! Thought we had an anime protagonists type thing going on

I... would like to say Uther is being unreasonable when he decides not to cross borders to get rid of some bandits. But I can totally see everyone hating him so that's a no go.

Lady, you were in a whole different kingdom. Why for the love of Merlin did you send him to Camelot!?

We're off to save the village! Morgana and Guin are coming too!

A wild Arthur appears!

Morgana better at swordplay than Arthur confirmed!

Merlin! I didn't know you had friends!

Granted he's a bit rough around the edges but

Okay. If it were literally anyone else besides Arthur. I'd say he was right about lords and knights being useless snobs.

Actually. He's right about lords and knights being useless snobs. Ah, that felt great.

Wow, the homosexual subtext is strong with this one.

The girls can tell Arthur came for Merlin.

But get your foot out of his face! I don't care how royal it is!

Look at Guin over here calling out Arthur for being a dick

And talking him into letting the women fight. She's on a roll

Aw, Merlin's friend died. :(

And he took credit for Merlin's tornado (so Arthur wouldn't find out about Merlin's magic)

Episode Eleven: The Labyrinth of Gedref

Lol, that unicorn could use a haircut.

No, Arthur. I said a haircut not an arrow to the chest!

Bad things? What kind of bad things Gaius?

Uther what's the point of having an expert in magical lore if you're not going to listen to him!

And all the crops are dead. Fantastic.

I know it's a magic thing but stating outright that the blight only targets edible plants is still really unsettling.

And the water's turned to sand. Great.

Who're you and how come Merlin is the only magic user that can't teleport?

What kind of tests mister Keeper of the Unicorns, sir?

Arthur I know you don't want to believe it's your fault... But it's totally your fault.

Uther no. People are starving.

You tell him Arthur.

Oh, the "theif" was a test!

Aaaaand he failed the second one. :(

Merlin's got a lot of faith in Arthur.

It's interesting how the Keeper can only direct the curse caused by the unicorn's death. Or rather the trials surrounding the curse, but can't break it himself.

Unicorns have some powerful magic.

The Labyrinth was barely on screen for five minutes! Surely something with Unicorn in the title would be more appropriate?

Arthur drinking a poisoned cup so Merlin could live?

That's some strong parallels right there.

The Keeper of the Unicorns is such a troll! Sleeping potion, hah!

The day is saved, Arthur lies to Uther's face about killing the Keeper and the unicorn resurrects itself.

Still needs a haircut though.

Episode Twelve: To Kill the King

Whatcha up to Guin's dad?

Oh that guy isn't suspicious at all.

You didn't think it was shady when he asked to meet in the middle of the night!?

Philosopher's Stone!?

Wow, the guards found him quickly.

What- No! Don't arrest Guin's dad!

Uther, he's a blacksmith! Stop being paranoid!

Will you stop executing people!? That inn keeper didn't know that guy was a dangerous sorcerer!

No, nononononono! He surrendered! Why did you do that!? Guin's father was important to Morgana!

That's why she gave him the key!

Dragon has his priorities straight.

Shut up, Merlin. You literally blew up a father and daughter for trying to kill one(1) person. (No really, you could see their hands flying off.)

Morgana deserves a little murder. As a treat.

Yes! Get him! Kill the bastard!

No! Why would you make GUIN say that!? Who are you and what have you done with Guin!?🔪🔪

UGH, he literally committed genocide!

The "that would make me as bad as he is" DOES NOT APPLY!

What- Oh, he still has the fairy's staff.

No. Stop it! Let Uther die!

Oh, God, Uther is such an abusive piece of GARBAGE!

Stop! Don't fall for it Morgana!

*sees dagger being pushed closer to Uther's "heart"* Yes! Yes! YES!

*Morgana saves him* NO!

NO!

NOOOOOO!

*inarticulate ranting in the background*

Episode Thirteen:

Okay, the cgi might be getting a little better 'cause the Questing Beast is freaky

Old religion? What is that? And how come it's conveniently absent from the previous episodes?

Dang, they really here just casually gaslighting Morgana like that 😡

Merlin you know Morgana has visions! You couldn't have been a little more careful? She warned you. Now look at Arthur, he's got the heroic death disease

Granted that thing does seem like a handful

Why do you only act like a father when it's a matter of life and death? Why can't you be a father literally any other time!?

"The old religion is the magic of the Earth itself."

Well that sounds fascinating, dragon. Are you going to elaborate? No? Later then?

Soooooo, is the old religion actually a religion or is it a magic? It's really unclear...

"You will be a better king than your father could ever hope to be." Guin, you're back!

I expected a place called the Isle of the Blessed to be less... creepy

Nimueh! Whatcha up to girl? Plotting the demise of a kingdom? Not today it seems

Oh there some Equivalent Exchange type nonsense going on is there?

Arthur you were supposed to be in a coma not listening to Guin!

Oh. Oh, no.

Merlin saying goodbye as he prepares to trade his life for his mother's is 😢😭

Wow, that dragon really knew Nimueh would give Merlin's mother the curse and didn't say anything. The little b*****!

No wonder Merlin's mad at him. Stop breathing fire at him! It's your own fault!

Gaius, no! Not the dead mentor trope!

"You stood by and watched as our friends died." Damn, Nimueh isn't pulling her punches.

Merlin vs Nimueh! Ready? Fight!

Anime protagonist power up! Dang, Nimueh's dead... I feel like that wasn't supposed to happen.

At least no one else is dying. Since Nimueh's death appeased the Equivalent Exchange laws of the old religion.

#bbc merlin #bbc arthur #bbc uther #bbc morgana #bbc's merlin

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sope-and-shine · 4 years

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Pregnancy Problems

-> Pairings: Hoseok x Reader -> domestic fluff // minor angst -> Word Count: 2.3k -> Summary: Don’t ask Hoseok if you need pregnancy advice. He’s still working on it. -> Warnings: mild language // pregnancy talk // talk about poop

A/N: I’m so happy to post this one!

Hoseok didn’t understand a lot of things about pregnancy. He didn’t understand how a person could go from absolutely despising snap peas to wanting to eat them all day everyday. He didn’t understand how cooking one piece of bacon is enough to make your stomach flop and send you waddling for the bathroom. He didn’t understand how your body was able to just make room for another human being and still have enough room for everything else you’re holding inside of it. And he definitely didn’t understand how you were able to go from happy-go-lucky love of his life to a sobbing pterodactyl in .03 seconds. But what really caught him off guard was you staring at the wall in front of you doing nothing for the past 45 minutes.

Now, he was no stranger to watching others space out. He’d watched his members stop and stare off into space plenty of times - he’d even witnessed Jimin fall off of his chair after spacing out for 10 minutes - but this was a little extreme. He’d called your name a few times, waved a hand in front of your face, and he’d even turned on your favorite playlist and started dancing. Whatever was plaguing your mind, it had you in your own little world where you honestly didn’t know he even existed.

It was kinda freaking him out.

Hoseok sits himself next to you, taking one of your hands in his to rub soothing circles into them, “Baby…? Are you okay?” It seems to be enough to knock you out of whatever you were in, but you’re still down about something. You don’t smile at him when your eyes land on him, and you look away almost as fast as you had laid eyes on him.

“I’m fine.” You mutter. The hand he holds is limp, but the hand still placed on your lap is balled into a tight fist. Whatever it was that’s bothering you must be serious if you’re really not going to tell him.

He hoped it wasn’t another fan trying to yell at you again, like when your pregnancy was announced to the world. Plenty of ARMY were so happy for the first BTS baby, but there were plenty that raged for weeks on end until he himself made a statement on the matter. He never intended to scold anyone - he wanted to leave it to BigHit - but when you were trying to hide that you’d been crying from him on multiple occasions, he refused to sit back and watch anymore. His statement in your defense was a huge deal on social media for weeks, and it even made headlines in international news! He’d felt bad about it after he’d posted it, wondering if he’d been too harsh or said something that shouldn’t have been said. But the hug that you gave him after coming to your defense, the joy on your face after reading the long note he’d prepared, and the kisses that you continued to plant all over his face was proof enough that he’d made the best decision for his family. If he had to do that all over again, then he was prepared to if it meant you’d be happy.

“Baby...are you being bothered by fans again?” He asks. It wasn’t like he didn’t know you still receive hate from time to time. He knew for a fact that you did, but you’d limited your social media habits to binging dramas on Netflix and Kocowa TV instead. He moves a hand to your hair and runs his fingers through it as a way to soothe the possible anxiety you may be feeling from it, “Just tell me. Whoever they are, they won’t get to keep saying things like that about you. I promise.”

“No, Hobi, i-” You try to defend them, the familiar protest right on the tip of your tongue. However, Hoseok wasn’t prepared to let you push the matter away. He wouldn’t let you fester in your insecurities because of others. Especially people that supposedly claimed to love him. He already had someone that loved him unconditionally; You. You were first and foremost his number one concern.

“-Baby, no. You don’t have to defend them just because they’re my fans. I won’t encourage their bad behavior.” He goes to take your hands in his own as a way to comfort you, but you turn the tables around and grab his instead. You squeeze his hands and give a small, forced smile in an attempt to comfort him. “Okay, but Hobi, it’s not about the fans.”

“It’s not?” Hoseok could feel the tension physically leave his body. He hated scolding his fans. He firmly believed that Namjoon and Taehyung were better suited for it and tried to let things slide when he could - save for the obvious. However, that didn’t take away from the fact that he still didn’t know what was bothering you so much. He was still in the dark about whatever had turned you into a wall of secrecy and solitude that wasn’t even penetrable to him. You were still hiding something from him.

“Then what’s wrong?” He asks.

You cast your eyes down, once again refusing to look at him with your hands losing their grip on his. You shake your head, “I don’t want to talk about it…”

“You’re worrying me, (Y/n). Please, tell me what’s wrong!” His right hand moves from yours to gently cup the right side of your face, his thumb gently caressing your cheek. Hoseok has always made a point to be gentle with you - even when you aren’t in the most gentle of situations - because he’s always wanted you to feel cared for and cherished. It’s how he hopes his sister is treated, and if you’re to have a daughter, that’s how he expects her to be treated as well. But right now, you need his gentle touch the most. “This type of stress isn’t good for the baby.”

You know he’s right. He’s always right. Even when he agrees that he’s wrong he’s usually right! That’s what you love most about him is his willingness to please you and make you feel validated. Of course, he’ll pull you back to where you need to be if you go off the deep end - what he happens to be doing now - but he knows you’ll always do the same for him when work gets complicated. He’s always loving and understanding and altogether the best boyfriend around, and you know he’ll be the best dad around when your baby is born. But it’s the uncertainty of the birthing process that’s getting to you, and thinking about it again just makes you melt into tears.

Hoseok is surprised, “No...No, baby, come here.” He stands up from his crouched position to sit next to you on the couch and pull you into his arms. He wraps you in his warm embrace and guides your head to rest on his chest so you can hear his breathing as a way to help you come back down, knowing you like to hear him when you get stressed like this. It’s not often, but it’s definitely not his first rodeo. “Sh, you don’t have to cry. I’m right here. Tell me what’s wrong and I can help you.”

Even as he begins to rock you back and forth, humming a tune just for you to feel resonate within his chest, you can’t stop the tears that continue to pour down your cheeks and onto his shirt. “You can’t help me with this Hobi. There’s no way you could possibly help me with this!”

“Are you sure?” He pauses for a moment, feeling the way your head bobs as a ‘yes’ rather than answering him through shallow, broken sobs. He shakes his head, distracting himself from talking too soon by drawing circles into your back. His mother had told him several tips over the years of dealing with his sister that she claimed his father always forgot, and like father; like son he had too.

“Sometimes it’s best to just shut up and listen than to continue talking to a closed door.”

So he waits, drawing his lazy circles and other various shapes into your back while your sobs slowly begin to shrink into hiccups. He lets you calm down again before he continues your conversation where it had left off, “You won’t know if I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

“I do know.” You huff, a cute little whine that makes him smile. You; however, are not as amused as he is, “You’re gonna hate me and the doctors are going to hate me and everyone is going to make fun of me-!”

Hoseok pulls away, both hands rest on your shoulders and his mouth and eyes are wide open in shock and mock anger as they look into your own. He shakes his head in disbelief, “Nobody will be making fun of my beautiful baby mama on my watch! There is absolutely nothing you could do that would have anyone make fun of you.”

And he firmly believed that. Anybody that even dared to make fun of the love of his life while she was trying to push out their love child that they were going to love and raise together for the rest of their lives was going to meet his fists! There was no way in hell anyone would be cracking jokes about her, not even Seokjin.

But even with his declaration to protect your honor, your pregnancy brain didn’t give two shits. The thought in your head had plagued you for days, and there was no way he’d ever understand how you felt. But still, you could no longer hold it in.

“UNLESS I POOP ON THE TABLE!”

. . .

Hoseok must’ve looked like a deer in headlights compared to how anxious you looked. Unless you what? Why would you poop on the table? Why would you get up there anyway? That could hurt the baby!

“-I don’t want to be there trying to push a baby out of me with people standing in between my legs, and then I suddenly poop because I can’t help it!”

Delivery table.

That table.

That makes more sense. However, he really didn’t see the problem with the whole ‘pooping on the table’ thing. The midwife and the nurses were trained to deliver babies, they’ve already delivered babies, there was no way that if you pooped on the table you’d be the first one - or that they’d hate you for it. He thought that made sense. The hands that he’d left on your shoulders move to cup your face again, a tender look in his eyes. He wanted you to feel his love, and his eyes reflected what he had in his heart.

“Baby, it won’t matter to anyone if you poop on the table, I’m sure you wouldn’t be the only one.”

He meant well. He truly meant well. But anyone that has ever talked to or seen anyone talk to a pregnant woman would know that trying to reason the way he just did was a mistake. A big mistake.

“I don’t want to be one at all!” You pull his hands away from your face. The tears that had stopped are already threatening to come back again. There was no way that you were going to poop on the table, no matter how many women had done it before you! You refused! You’d never be able to live it down. “I don’t want to poop in front of everyone, Hobi! They’ll hate me, and then I’ll hate me, and then the baby will hate me because their Momma pooped on the table!”

Your stress was too much for him. If you started crying again, then he was going to start crying himself. Pooping on the table wasn’t a bad thing, but he obviously couldn’t tell you that or you’d actually break down in front of him! How was he supposed to just to convince you that no one was going to hate you for a normal bodily function?

With a leap of faith - and high hopes to whoever is listening to him - Hoseok takes what he hopes isn’t his last breath, “Baby, our baby is still going to love you if you poop on the table.” Your eyes bore into him with vigor, one that makes him want to move away but he knows the conversation will still need to be had even if he chickens out now. “They don’t need to know, so we don’t have to tell them.”

“Really…?” The way your eyes go from glaring daggers to softening like you’re looking at a puppy makes him take a deep, much needed breath. “Really. And the doctor’s won’t hate you because they’ve seen everything! You pooping on the table will be the last thing on their mind, because they’ll be taking care of our baby.”

You look away, suddenly becoming shy after your tantrum. You hated acting this way, especially when Hoseok did his best to assure you everything was fine when you thought it was the end of the world. “I guess you’re right…”

“And even if you do poop on the table, I’ll still love you.” He pulls you back into his arms once more, only now he’s much more relaxed whilst holding you against him. Pressing a kiss to your temple he asks, “Do you know why I’ll still love you?”

“Why?” You mumble against his chest, pressing yourself as close to him as you can get to hide from the embarrassment you felt. Your hands grip his shirt tight, and he chuckles to himself that you’re so flustered in front of him. “Because you’re carrying our baby and making sure they’re ready to come and meet us, and I couldn’t throw away a love like yours over one measly poop.”

You may be emotional and unreasonable at times with the amount of hormones you’re dealing with, but he’ll be damned if he lets you go through it alone.

#fae fic #fae writes #sope-and-shine #bts #bts x reader #jhope x reader #hoseok x reader #jung hoseok x reader #fan fiction #bts fan fiction #domestic au #fluff #pregnancy au #family au #idol au

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scretladyspider · 4 years

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Do you have any tips on how to stop dissociating? It's gotten to the point that for every two days, I lose roughly twelve hours of time. It's kind of driving me insane? I'm always in a state of dissociation nowadays and no matter what I do, it constantly bites me in the butt. Also how are you? I hope you're doing well!

Stopping it altogether isn’t something I’m particularly good at. But I’ll tell you what’s helping me right now. I am far from perfect at these things. They take continued practice and effort, and they aren’t easy. But they help a little. And that adds up, I think.

Be gentle with yourself.

I think that’s most important, and probably most difficult. We’re going through something unprecedented in our lives. Reading about things like a plague and living through it are totally different things.

With everything on standstill, our brains don’t really know what to do. Dissociating isn’t an uncommon reaction to extreme stress or trauma; you are not alone in experiencing it, or in it getting worse.

So the real question then is how do you be gentle with yourself in a way that helps you with dissociation?

Figure out your limits and stick within them.

This is different for everyone. For me, it meant muting everything related to COVID that I can on Twitter and only watching the news at the end of the day. Why? Because if I watch it at the beginning of the day, my brain just zaps out and I’m stuck in a dissociated, executive dysfunction depression fog that just lasts for hours. It can go on for the whole day.

Once I started muting things that I do care about but just can’t read an excessive amount about without shutting down. This is a limit within my self-care I have to stick within. It’s one of many, and they are personal to me - just as yours would be personal to you.

It means you need to figure out what sets things off - if anything in particular does. You might be surprised by what you find. If you notice something is bothering you, write it down. Take note. Try and distance yourself from it, if you can, at least a little.

Find ways to connect with people.

A virtual connection is still a connection. It isn’t quite the same, but it is something.

Virtual movie nights are good. You can call someone, or get a chat going, where you hit play at the same time on Netflix or Hulu. There’s a chrome extension called Netflix Party where you can screen share and watch a movie with a party. There’s a YouTuber who does a video series called “Bad Movies and a Beat” who posts a link to her Netflix parties when she watches bad movies. She puts on makeup while reacting to or doing commentary on a bad movie. It’s pretty funny - here’s a link to her playlist.

The best ways to connect are going to be more than typing or sending videos. Those are good, but, it’s good also to find people to call and video chat live with. Something where you’re interacting with that person in real-time. Zoom and Skype can be good platforms for this (though if you’re on Zoom I’d recommend using a VPN, and their privacy policies are a bit sketch).

Do you have a pet? If not, can you adopt? I have two cats and they greatly help me stay connected. I don’t necessarily speak to a person every day, but I can talk to my cats, and that does help. A person’s bond with their pet can be very special, and shelters are still looking to give pets new homes, even in these times.

Find good distractions.

What is something you enjoy laughing at? What is a TV show or YouTube channel you find funny? Laughter, even if you aren’t laughing out loud, can help. Dissociation feeds on the attention we give it. While it can be vital to talk about it, it is also essential to make sure it doesn’t take over your entire day, if you can help it. It can still be going on without it taking over every thought. This takes practice. I was getting better at it before everything happened, but, well... I feel like I’m starting over.

This brings me to my next thing - resources for dissociation help.

Swarmy G, or A Coach Called Life - A YouTuber and DPRD expert who has recovered himself. What I like about Swarmy’s videos is he doesn’t talk down to you for experiencing it, or say that it’s just anxiety - he understands that dissociation and anxiety are linked, but are not the same thing. He also sends out emails about different things that dissociation can cause struggles with and advice on how to handle it. I’ve found his stuff very helpful.

DP Diaries - A YouTuber in the U.K. who has DPRD himself and vlogs about what works for him, what doesn’t, and his experiences. It helps me feel less alone. His most recent vlog is about dealing with DPRD during the pandemic.

Here is a vlog about what helped on YouTuber when she was struggling with severe depersonalization.

There are a lot more on YouTube out there, but those are some starters.

If you can, it may be good to look into online or remote counseling. There are some therapists doing virtual counseling right now and there are also services like BetterHelp (though I do not have personal experience with them, I hear they aren’t bad).

I hope this helps, at least a little. I don’t know when things will be okay again. We’re going to have to take some deep breaths and practice patience and safe social distancing. One thing I do know is you aren’t at all alone in experiencing this. I hope you’re okay, and that this helps at least a little.

#answers #dissociation #depersonalization #derealization #I hope it helps

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amvhel · 5 years

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hello hello,

I have tried to do this like 3 times but tumblr has made it so incredibly difficult after deleting it the first time round but here we go again.

Anyhoo, I was inspired a few weeks back by the stardust prompt on one of the Dicckory or Robstar weeks. I haven’t seen anything other than the Titans on Netflix nor have I read any of the comics so I based the characters off that and that alone.

This is also my first fanfic I’ve ever written and my first time writing at all in well over a year so please bare with me, I’ve tried to do the best I can aha

Please enjoy and let me know if you do! Thanks!

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Kory stared absentmindedly at her remarkably strong sangria, observing as the legs slowly tumbled down the glass, mimicking the atmosphere. Slow and lackadaisical. With arms crossed on the table and her head laid atop them, she looked on as the rooftop terrace lights reflected in the glass, creating a second moon which rippled in the scarlet liquid. The sounds of the live band playing in the downstairs bar drifted up and saturated the air around her.

Unsurprisingly, the alcohol had begun to take effect which meant that her usually adept responses were failing her and the only things permeating her concentration were the flat notes of the tune. So when the song transitioned into an acoustic rendition of a Frankie Valli song that Gar had shown her previously, she felt a spark of irritation. Feeling as if it were a mocking mirror to her melancholic mood. She listened on as the tenor voice sang of yearning and amorous desire and felt her annoyance rise with each following lyric.

Despite everything around her imploring her to relax, Kory could find no such relief. The events of the past few weeks constantly running a relay in her mind. Black shadows passing one worrying thought to another, again and again. The events with Rachel and her family, dealing with her absent identity and processing a myriad of emotions, some of which were only being made worse by the current love song. Safe to say that her sanity was being stretched relatively thin.

She had previously been grateful for her inhumanely high internal temperature which meant that she was alone in this open space (thanks to the frosty Chicago weather). However, now she could do nothing but hyperfixate on each and every one of her issues with nothing to distract her. With each tendril of anxiety expanding, she felt her heartbeat thud twice as hard in her chest coupled with the crippling swell of fear. Struggling to slow her rapidly rising panic, she lifted her head and took a deep breath in an effort to calm down and all she saw was sky.

And the sky stared back.

Filled with gleaming stars reflecting against each other, it oddly gave her a sense of comfort. As if they were calling to her, a connection she requited but couldn’t quite explain why. She took another breath and mulled over whatever lay in the vast expanse that was space. The wonder coating her mind like stardust.

‘You’ve been gone for a while.’

Dick’s voice pierced through the heady cloud currently enveloping her, his surprise entrance causing her head to snap towards him, spiking up her heart rate.

She surveyed him through hooded eyes as his silhouette became illuminated by the overhead lights, the glare of the bulbs causing the honey highlights to dance through the dark waves in his hair.

He slumped into the seat across from her with a deflated sigh and flashed her a tentative smile. She already knew the question he was going to pose by the change on his face and knew she absolutely was not ready to answer it. Not honestly at least.

‘Are you okay?’ His smile had faded and he looked at her with intense and anxious eyes.

‘I-’ She faltered with a sharp exhale. She wanted to answer honestly but not really knowing how to balance her feelings with her pride. ‘I don’t know.’

He stared at her for a moment longer, his brows furrowing together. ‘What do you mean you don’t know?’

‘I mean just that. I don’t know.’ She replied. ‘All of this- it’s so much. I want to enjoy this time, you know? We’re all okay, I s-should be happy. But everything we’ve been through and everything we’ve still got to...it’s s-so much to think about. It’s too much to think about.’ She winced when she heard the slight slur in her voice. Irked that her altered state was betraying her desire to conceal her vulnerability, and was instead throwing any glimpse of pride to the wind.

Dick’s face had morphed into a full on frown at this point, scanning her face with impotent concern. ‘Look, I-I know this is tough but we’ll figure it out. We’re in this together.’

His words were met with an indignant snort before Kory turned her head away from him to stare at the glimmering skyline of the Chicago night. ‘I wonder if you realise how ironic that sounds.’

Dick felt a flash of irritation then, one he knew he had no right to feel. But it was promptly followed a deep shame, shame that he wished he would have felt earlier and maybe if he had, he would have been too ashamed of these exact consequences to leave in the first place. He knew she had every right to call him out on his bullshit but it didn’t hurt any less to have her do it; especially when he felt he was doing the best he could.

He swallowed the negative emotions and tried instead to focus on how she might be feeling. It was made easier to know that most her issues mirrored his own internal turmoil. Trying to process a missing identity, the trauma of what they’d been through, along with many other things. Only her identity issues were so much deeper, so deep that they were literally out of this world. He got that it was all relative but with how much she’d been there for him in the past few weeks, it was up to him to finally step up.

‘Hey.’ He whispered gently, placing a hand placed on top of hers, causing her to turn back to him. ‘I know I’ve let you down before. I’m sorry. It’s stupid of me at this point to try and deny that I care about you. I do care about you. All of you. It just- it took me a while to get to the conclusion that I could care about you and be around you at the same time.’ He admitted.

‘Now it’s time to tell me what you mean.’ Kory responded pointedly, assessing him to such an extent that he’d never felt a stronger urge to scuffle out of the situation as quick as he could. He couldn’t remember a time he felt more uncomfortable, even with all the difficult situations he’d found himself in with Bruce Wayne as a guardian.

‘It’s just that I never thought I would be in a position that I would - that I even could - care about the people around me the way that I do about you guys. It just, I don’t know, startled me is all. I was scared that I would mess it up. It was easier to disappoint you guys once rather than to stick around and keep disappointing you.’ He admitted, feeling oddly emotionally lighter despite his trepidation.

Kory shifted her eyes to the table and stared at it so long that Dick thought she wasn’t going to answer. But then she moved her view back to his pensive, brown orbs before gripping the hand on top of hers with a squeeze then swiftly letting go. The small but tender gesture caused his heart to go into overdrive which was only made worse by her following words.

‘Thank you for being honest with me.’ She finally acknowledged, lifting her head backwards once more to gaze at the stars. ‘I care about you too. More than you know.’

‘More than I know?’ He repeated incredulously, completely caught off guard by her reply. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

Kory did not respond and despite her common sense being compromised by the pools of alcohol that were still swimming through her system, she knew that it was not time to let the depth of her feelings be known. Especially with someone who seemed unlikely to be explicit with their own emotions.

So, instead of replying, Kory stood and purposefully made her way to the edge of the terrace, leaning over the railings and peering at the busy street below.

Dick was hot on her heels, the irrational fear of her stumbling over the edge plaguing his thoughts in spite of his knowledge of her expert agility. He caught up quickly and stood facing her, still reeling from her semi-confession but alert, in case she really did go over the railings.

‘Kory, what do you mean?’ He asked touching her arm, the urgency for her response seeped through his voice against his own wishes.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does matter. Please.’

There is such a prolonged silence that Dick thought she wouldn’t give him an answer and he feared she would walk out of here, forget about this and he would never hear what she had say.

Eventually, Kory turned, parallel to him and stepped closer, the aura around them changed completely thanks to the spark in her eye.

Shifting to something electric and magnetic.

Dick swallowed the boulder in his throat, suddenly feeling like he was the one who was intoxicated after only 2 beers. Completely inebriated by her.

Kory leaned forward, enthralling him by the swipe of her tongue on her bottom lip. The craving to capture it between his own lips engulfed Dick and he fought to shake it off.

‘What do you think it means, Dick?’ Her voice had dropped an octave, sending prickles of heat rippling across his skin.

He attempted to clear his throat before answering, redundantly hoping it would also clear his head. ‘I’m sure I asked you first, Kory.’

But Kory moved closer, muddling his brain even further, with their chests now touching, his heart was beating so fast he was positive he would go into cardiac arrest very soon.

‘This is your MO, isn’t it? Avoid talking about your emotions by deflecting then bridging the distraction with…’ Again, she moved closer. Lifting her hands to slide across his shoulders and sift through his hair.

It took a colossal amount of strength for Dick to hold his eyelids back from fluttering closed, her fingers doing things to the back of his neck that had him wishing they were alone in a hotel room, not with his surrogate sister and 2 teens downstairs. His hands lifted to her waist in an attempt to achor himself but the feel of her under his hands only made things worse.

Flashbacks to the last time they were alone in a motel room flooded his mind. The feel of her skin on his, his weight crushing her on the soft surface of the mattress, her weight on top of him sliding across his lap. Dick tried desperately to filter through his thoughts to get back to the coherent part of his cognition and found she was right.

Anytime they had been intimate, he’d been too scared to process the fear he felt from their connection and instead used sex as a way out or had, as per the last time, literally run away. This time it was his responsibility to lead by way of example in order to get what he wanted.

‘Now I’m not trying to say that you’re wrong but you did just thank me for being open and honest so how right can you be? Maybe I’ve changed.’ Dick attempted to be lighthearted, despite not feeling that way whatsoever. ‘Don’t you think I deserve some honesty from you?’

Much to his delight, Kory leaned her head on his shoulder and let out a breathy chuckle. Though the intensity of the situation hadn’t necessarily lessened, the tension had somewhat depreciated.

‘I guess you’re right, as much as I don’t want to admit it.’ Kory relented, pulling back so she could look him in the eye. ‘I feel something here, Dick. Something deep between us but I want to know I’m not the only one who feels it, that I’m not crazy and imagining things.’ The shimmer in her eyes validating her confession, leaving Dick breathless with shock.

The idea of Kory feeling a fraction of what he felt for her sent his heart melting and his soul soaring out of his body. As short as the time was that he’d known her, Kory had turned him upside down and inside out. She had made him deal with things he didn’t even know he needed to deal with. Her light had been so exuberant that it had reflected on him, allowing him to exist as the moon to her sun. It was no wonder that he fell so hard so quickly.

As she spoke, it was clear that Dick had hidden this well. Unsure as to why really. Fear of hurting her, of her hurting him, of them hurting each other. Who knew what excuse his brain had rationalised his emotional constipation with this time.

However, with Kory here now, vulnerable and honest, he felt every emotion he’d tried to repress flood to the surface, completely overwhelming him and terrifying him at the same time. His hands tightened on her waist pulling her closer to him so he could rest his forehead on hers, the action causing her breath to hitch in her throat.

‘Kory I- of course you’re not imagining things.’ He spoke through his fear, determined to be as bare with her as she had been with him. ‘How could I not feel it? You push me to be better, being with you gives me a sense of peace that no one else ever has. I’m in awe of you every single moment of every day. I’m sorry that I’ve made you doubt it but it’s all new and honestly terrifying. But I do feel this Kory, whatever it is and I want to see where it goes.’

Kory’s eyes had softened considerably by the end of his declaration, completely moved by his words. Catching them both off guard she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his as if her body responded to the words before her brain did. Both of their arms tightening around each other in an effort to get as close as possible.

‘Hey you guys are missing it, Gar and Donna are going to do Kara-oh! Whoops.’

Dick and Kory immediately broke apart to see a very nonplussed and very discomforted Rachel.

‘Nevermind, you guys are clearly busy,’ She muttered before scuttling her way back down the stairs.

The two adults shared a glance, smiling with slight embarrassment before Dick held out a hand. ‘Shall we?’

Kory responded by slipping her hand into his, threading her fingers through his own before pulling him in the direction of the stairs.

Both of their hearts fuller than when they’d come up there.

#titans 2018 #dc titans #dickkory #Dick Grayson #koriand'r #kory anders #robin #nightwing #starfire #rachel roth #raven #gar logan #beast boy #donna troy #wonder girl #idk i think thats all i can tag #???#fanfic #fanfiction

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daresplaining · 6 years

Text

Daredevil Countdown: 5 Days

“I’m Daredevil”: A Brief Discussion of Identity

This post is probably going to be somewhat disorganized, and may not actually be brief, because I’m going to be covering a major Daredevil-- and superhero in general-- theme: identity. We know that Matt will be having various identity issues this season, both in how he sees himself, and in the dangerous nature of having two identities. Is Matt’s civilian life at risk from Wilson Fisk if he has already rejected it? What does it mean to just be Daredevil? How will he react to Bullseye also being Daredevil? Will he finally get a costume with the dang double-Ds on it? How brief will this post actually be?

Let’s discuss...

In the comics, Matt has had one or two identity issues over the years...

Matt: “I’ve had it! It’s over! I’m giving up the role of Daredevil-- forever!”

Matt: “My problem isn’t Daredevil-- never was! It was always Matt-- the blind lawyer-- the hapless, helpless invalid! He’s been my plague... since the day I first donned a costume! Then, let Matt Murdock no longer exist!!”

Matt: “From this moment on-- Daredevil’s fighting days are over! And that means-- forever!”

Matt: “This is a funeral. [...] I’m cremating my remains.”

Matt: “Ol’ Matt’s the one with the brains-- but I’m the family pussycat! The name’s Mike, gang-- and try not to applaud-- I’m almost as shy as I am glamorous!”

Matt: “Jack Murdock. Jack Murdock. Jack Murdock. Sounds right. Yeah, that’s my name. My name is Jack Murdock.”

Matt: “Daredevil for the defense!”

...and while he hasn’t had it quite this bad in the show (yet?) it has remained a major part of his story-- as it is for many superheroes. Early in the comics, Matt was made to question multiple times the life he was leading and the reasons he was leading it. On some level, he was aware that swinging from high buildings and punching supervillains filled a personal need for freedom and adventure, rather than being a purely a selfless choice. And initially, becoming Daredevil was a coping mechanism-- a necessary fracturing of his identity to let himself feel comfortable breaking the promise of non-violence he made to his father.

Matt: “I can’t break that promise I made! And yet, with my agility, my extra-sharp senses, there is so much I could do! I can’t let all my powers go to waste! Wait! I have it! I’ll see to it that Matt Murdock never does resort to force... but somebody else will...! Somebody totally different from Matt Murdock...”

Daredevil vol. 1 #1 by Stan Lee and Bill Everett

Generally, Matt is confident in his superhero career. He sees how much good he is able to do as Daredevil, and feels strongly about continuing to keep that opportunity open for himself. But he considered quitting being Daredevil a number of times during his early career (see above). He also considered quitting being Matt Murdock (an identity that, at that early point, outwardly, was even more of a facade than DD). He has had a number of civilian identities over the years, most notably his “twin brother” Mike Murdock and confidence trickster Jack Batlin. He has retooled his Daredevil identity several times based on changes in his attitude toward crime-fighting, convincing the world at large of the existence of a Daredevil legacy. He had a public identity for a little while. And he has, on occasion, tried being exclusively one-or-the-other-- just Matt Murdock or just Daredevil.

As Matt, he is able to make a difference as a lawyer, without any ethics violations, within the confines of the law. But Daredevil is a source of freedom for him. It gives him agency and power-- both as someone who sees where the law fails and longs to pick up the slack, and also as someone confined in his civilian life by society’s expectations of him as a blind person. His few experiments with a single identity have generally been stifling experiences for him, and have not lasted long. He is passionate about being a lawyer. He is passionate about being a superhero. And his career has been a quest of personal discovery through which he must constantly reevaluate these two parts of himself and how to simultaneously be the best Matt Murdock and best Daredevil that he can. Of course, there’s no definitive formula for this, so the process will be a never-ending evolution, a continuous shuffling of identities in response to changes in his life and the world around him.

In the MCU, the situation has one important extra element: it’s really freaking bloody. This gritty approach to the character results in an extremely violent image of Daredevil, darker motivations, and thus extra ethics issues. In the comics, mostly the art downplays the violence, since that is the nature of the medium. His actions are only shown as a brutal when it’s a plot point, generally when he is in a really dark mental space and his life is falling apart. But the Netflix show gleefully leans into the violence, and it is depicted as Matt’s normal modus operandi. Thus, he has to explain to himself and others (and thus the viewer) his motivations behind that brutality. And he can’t always do it. The horror he and others experience at his behavior leads him to question himself again and again. He goes out and fights crime because he can’t help hearing it. It isn’t a reclaiming of power and act of standing up to metaphorical bullies like it is in the comics-- he doesn’t even choose his own superhero name in this universe (which I hate, see this post). It’s not even a response to his father’s death-- at least, not directly. He becomes Daredevil out of a sense of responsibility, a feeling of ownership of his neighborhood, and a compulsion he struggles to understand that sends him out night after night to stop injustice. He battles with the temptation to commit murder. He wonders if there is something wrong with him. But his quest and behavior are finally legitimized at the end of Season 1 when he combines his two identities-- Matt Murdock’s (and Foggy and Karen’s) legal work, and Daredevil’s butt-kicking-- to take down Wilson Fisk. He puts on a real costume. He achieves a sense of comfort in his superhero career, now that he has proof that it can have positive results.

In Season 2, these questions return, but in a different form. Matt feels good-- or, at least, not entirely bad-- about being Daredevil. And then Elektra and Stick arrive to enforce his belief in the important of that side of his life, as well as-- and this is important-- his enjoyment of it. When his actions as Daredevil impact his legal career and threaten his relationship with Foggy, and when his secret-keeping sabotages his romance with Karen, he is forced to choose between his two identities. He learns throughout the season that he does not know how to be effective in both areas of his life at the same time. And ultimately, he chooses Daredevil, turning away from his civilian life to devote more focus to his superheroing. After all of the moral back-and-forth in Season 1, he finally sees that he cannot live without being Daredevil. That his crime-fighting alter ego is an integral part of his identity, something he can’t give up.

And then he experiences his first major Daredevil-related tragedy: Elektra is killed. Any confidence in the positive influence of his superheroing is shattered. Matt blames himself, he blames his actions as Daredevil, and in his grief, he rejects that identity entirely. But we see throughout The Defenders that-- just as Matt realized in the previous season-- this is easier said than done. As much as he claims to be finished with DD for good, as much as he buries himself in his work and enlists Foggy and Karen’s help to distract him, he cannot resist the call. He can’t stand by when people are suffering and he has the chance to stop it. And so The Defenders enforces his discoveries from Season 2, proving that even when he chooses to not be Daredevil, even when he stops prioritizing that side of his life, he cannot give it up for good.

And then he gets hit in the head with a skyscraper, which leaves him seriously injured, believing (hopefully incorrectly!) that Elektra is dead again, and seemingly with a conviction to just be Daredevil and reject his civilian identity entirely. The source of his motivations for this decision remain to be seen, but part of this may be tied into this new version of Daredevil. Matt seems to be reinventing that identity, returning to the extra brutal version of Daredevil first seen in Season 1, because he believes that is the only way to get things done. His rejection of his Matt Murdock identity may be tied up in his original feelings of guilt and conflict regarding this level of violence. By distancing himself from that side of himself, he may be attempting to cut off that avenue of self-reflection to avoid actually analyzing the moral iffiness of his behavior. If we look back at that panel from DD #1 earlier in the post, this may be something similar: Matt becoming “someone totally different from Matt Murdock” to escape an ethical dilemma. Having redefined his image in this way, it will be fascinating to see how he responds to Bullseye’s even more brutal version of Daredevil...

Which brings us to Matt’s other big identity issue: the dangers of having a secret identity. He has also struggled with this a few times in the comics...

Karen: “It’s from Spider-Man-- he says he knows that Matt is-- Daredevil!”

Saxon: “And now, I’d better say it out loud-- before the proverbial house falls on me! Matthew Murdock is Daredevil!”

Ben: “It’s the story of a lonely little boy blinded by a freak accident. And it’s the story of how he overcame his handicap to become a successful lawyer and a Man Without Fear. It’s your story, Matthew Murdock, and I can prove it!”

Brown: “Heather... let me be certain I understand you. You’re saying that Matthew Murdock is Daredevil?”

Fisk: “Daredevil is Matthew Murdock-- and more--”

Matt: “Under oath and with God and the media as my witness, I’m telling you that I am Daredevil. Always have been, always will be.”

This age-old superhero concern always brings out the best/worst in Matt, and he has gone to extreme lengths-- creating new identities, faking his death, lying under oath, literally agreeing to sue himself-- to protect his delicate balance of identities. He does it to protect his loved ones, who are put in danger every time someone new finds out who he really is. He does it to protect his legal career-- and he has, in fact, been disbarred several times. And he does it to allow himself to continue living his double life, as unruly as it is, because he needs that option.

There hasn’t been actual confirmation that this part of Matt’s life will be explored in Season 3, but it should be-- not just because it’s within the DD tradition, but because Matt has been really sloppy with his secrets and needs a wake-up call. Foggy found out on his own. Approximately half the planet found out in The Defenders. And Wilson Fisk has been digging into both Matt and Daredevil, and is smart enough to put it all together if the right clues become available. To Matt’s credit, he may also be scrapping his civilian identity as a precaution. It will be a little harder for people to connect Matt Murdock with Daredevil if Daredevil is active and Matt Murdock is missing. It’s not a great defense, but he’s still new at this. And hey-- Fisk can’t tear down his civilian life like he did in the comics if Matt tears it down first! Good plan, Matt.

#Daredevil #Matt Murdock #Netflix Daredevil #Adventures in Continuity #Commentary #DD Countdown #'Brief'...

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hiyo-silver · 5 years

Text

Untouchable - Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Summary: The school holds a vigil for Eddie Kaspbrak despite most people having hardly knowing him. Patrick and Henry arrive only with ulterior motives, Bill Denbrough. Richie doesn't take kindly to the assault, it's their turn to go.

Chapters 1 2 3 4 + AO3

Taglist: @fuckboykaspbrak @thesquidliesthuman @rachi0964 @beepbeep-losers @bigbilliamdenbro @jalenrose1122 @sleepygaybrough @itandstrangerthingsfanfic @boopboopbichie @peachywyatt @aizeninlefox @sockwantstodie @ahoybyeler @abbeyglover @w-billiam

By the time that Bill makes it to math class, his last hour in school before he gets to escape to the comfort of his own home. No more time to sit here sweating and trying to hide his guilt. He sneaks a look at his phone from inside his sweatshirt pocket. The first thing that catches his eye is that Stan sent him a text relatively ten minutes ago. “Hang out tonight?” he’d asks. Bill chews his lip, he doesn’t know if he could stomach that. Hanging out for a night with someone who genuinely liked Eddie, at least it seemed so. They were close, and Bill would be lying if he said he hadn’t seen them get cozy, and even kiss on occasion. They were a couple, Bill doesn’t know if he can keep his mouth long enough with Stan.

He sighs and looks at his calculus worksheet, chewing his lip for a moment before looking back at the lit screen, pressing the home button with his thumb to unlock it. His thumbs dance anxiously over his keyboard on the conversation. He finally lets out another sigh and types out simply. “Sure, I’ll meet you at my locker after the final bell.” he presses send and swallows thickly before picking up his blue pen once again to finish the problem he was working on before. He finishes before everyone else, there’s a reason he’d almost skipped a grade. Maybe he should have. He could have narrowly missed the year of the undoing of Derry high school that is soon to come, it’s already starting to unravel like a ball of twine. Red twine. Like the kind they use on tv in detective shows to show evidence- fuck, Bill tells himself yet again. He doesn’t know how to stop the thoughts, he didn’t even do anything, only witnessed.

Time seems to move like molasses, more though Bill feels as if moving through life is like swimming through molasses. He has to push and push to keep going, he feels like he’s been holding his breath. He just wants to finally let go but he fears the entire story will come tumbling out with as simple as a sigh. The bell rings, cutting through his hazy mind and signalling his reaction by reflex to put away his things and sling his backpack of his shoulder. He has to provide himself with his next mission. Meet Stan at his locker, make it through an evening with Stan. Then, he can spill everything to his diary that he’s held in since the weekend. It feels as though it’s been weeks, he doesn’t know how killers do this, he doesn't understand how Richie can do this.

Richie. He’d almost forgotten. Richie is so tender with him, treating him lovingly as if he’s made of glass, that he must be protected. He wracks his brain for any answer to how Richie could do this at all. He said he’s never been caught, which means he’s done this before. The confusion leaves Bill near tears as he navigates the hallway. He knows well enough how much it hurts to lose someone to murder, Georgie. The young boy comes to mind, he’s surprised he hasn’t already. He can’t believe he’s been involved in this, causing this kind of mess to someone. He hates himself. He can almost hear Richie’s voice in his head though, “C’mon, Billy, you wouldn’t want to get caught, would you?” the voice whispers as he finds himself right up to Stan’s locker. He sucks in a fresh breath of air and smiles weakly for Stan.

“Hey, how are you holding up?” Bill asks quietly, reaching his hand to rub Stan’s arm comfortingly. New mission, ignore his own feelings to help Stan, the other boy had obviously reached out to him for a reason. Of course he’s hurting, Bill is only being selfish. Bill Denbrough has a habit of ignoring his own problems, he probably will never admit out loud that he’s truly been traumatized. He didn’t instigate the murder, he never told Richie to do it, he didn’t want to be involved even after it happened. Everything he’d done there had been completely for the sake of covering their tracks.

Stan stays quiet, his eyes trained on the floor, his face pale but calm. He seems to still be in shock, he’s not feeling it completely yet, it’s truly a blessing to not be any further through the stages of grief. Soon he’ll be crying and falling apart and blaming others and then blaming himself. Bill can’t imagine how hard it will be for Stan. From what he knows, not only were Stan and Eddie secretly together, but Stan has never lost someone this way. He’s never been to a funeral of someone he’d actually known, only random second cousins and distant relatives several times removed. It may have been easier if Eddie hadn’t always been so tender with him. The way Richie is so tender with Bill. Richie is no saint, it’s coming to view finally now that Bill lets it sink it, Eddie wasn’t either. At least Eddie hadn’t been a killer.

“I’m- alright,” Stan says softly, holding his books closer to his chest, adjusting them so he can keep them up in his arms as they’d been slipping. “It’s just so sudden. I didn’t know he’d been so sad, I wish he would have let me help,” Stan says, still keeping his eyes aimed at the tile of the hallway, licking his lips compulsively. He’d obviously been crying the night before, his lips were more chapped than Bill has ever seen them, Stan is a religious moisturizer and keeps himself hydrated. The normal Stan wouldn’t dare stand to be in this state, especially in public.

“You wanna go to your house? Or mine? Or anywhere, I really don’t mind,” Bill offers, his voice soft and soothing as usual when he talks to people he wants to comfort. He’s always been really good at that. It’s one of the reasons he and Ben had gotten along so well. Ben, oh how Bill longs to go back to him, back to normal. He wants to rewind the world he’s living in back to September first of 2018 and sit down at the lunch table and joke about the new romantic comedies on Netflix despite the fact that they would watch these later that night and cry and laugh openly.

“There’s actually going to be a candlelight vigil tonight at the park, for Eds y’know,” Stan says in his normal mumbling tone, seeming even more bittersweet. It’s even more a wake up call that Eddie is really gone for him. “I was thinking you would go with me, I’m not sure if Bev is going, and us two are friends, y’know?” Stan goes on, not finding the courage for his hazel eyes to meet Bill’s concerned blue ones yet.

“Yeah, of course we can go, I’ll drive.” Eddie always drove. Eddie had a hotter car than Bill had, it was safer and cleaner and flashier, one of Eddie’s prized possessions. It feels almost wrong of Bill to offer to, but he knows that Stan doesn’t drive and doesn’t have a car of his own. Stan simply nods, “We can hang out at my house until the sun goes down when it’s time to go, I won’t let us be late,” Bill promises, reaching to link his arm with Stan’s.

“Thank you, Bill,” Stan says with a sure nod, finally letting his eyes meet Bill’s. He finally seems to be calming, his shoulders relaxing and his face staying soothed. They walk outside to Bill’s car, dropping their bags in the back seat and sitting up in the front, chuckling slightly as the car groans and wheezes to a slow start. It’s always a gamble of it the car will work again this time, but they get lucky enough to pull out of the parking spot and out onto the road on the way to the Denbrough residence.

The two plop themselves on the couch in the living room, watching various cartoons on the television. It was a measured plan on Bill’s part, watching tv meant he wouldn’t have to talk, knowing how little Stan talks unprompted, and Bill knows he wouldn’t know what to talk about, the death still plaguing his mind in a thick black fog that leaves him unable to do anything else. He wants nothing but to forget completely.

Finally, the time comes when the sun has gone down and it’s time to go back to the car and drive down to the park for the vigil. Bill eyes the clock and looks back at Stan before picking up the remote and shutting the tv off, “Hey, we should probably get going,” he says in a hushed voice to Stan. “Eddie always liked being on time,” he says with a weak smile, wanting to help lighten the situation.

“Yeah, he’d kill us if we were late to this,” Stan says with a small grin of his own, sitting up before pushing himself all the way to his feet. Bill mirrors the same, the two of them linking their arms together again, locking the front door behind them. The drive to the park is uncomfortably quiet. Stan has known Eddie as long as he can remember, Bill has only come into their lives this year.

As they step out of the car, the air is as cold and unforgiving as the cup of poisoned gatorade Eddie had downed merely days ago. Eddie may not have been the best person, but it almost seems that the weather dropped nearer to winter temperatures since he’s been gone. Bill and Stan huddle deeper into their coats, pulling their arms over their chests to hold their warmth in. They join the small group in the grass, being offered the most pitiful expressions they have to date. At least Stan, Bill knows those looks. The same from the funeral of one Georgie Denbrough.

They’re handed small tea candles, having them lit by a match. They’re surprised to find that this has all been organized by Mike Hanlon. Mike never knew Eddie well, but at least Eddie’s taunts for him never included his skin color. Eddie believed in equality, he’s treat almost everyone as bad as everyone else, simply a complex of feeling more important. His mindset stemmed from traumatic experiences, not much different than Richie’s mindset, but Richie is far too gone. Eddie would never get worse, or better. His potential for improvement was robbed from him. Mike put this together because he knew nobody else would. Not many people were fond enough of Eddie, and the few who are were too close to him to be in the right mind to do this for him.

“Thank you,” Bill says as Mike lights the candle cupped in between his hands. He holds it gently and looks at the flickering flame. He’s never noticed before that the fire can be a metaphor for life. It can flicker and die out with a simple breeze, or it can roar with a violent passion, destroying everything that comes in it’s past. Eddie’s flame had been blown out, and Richie’s was thriving under the exact circumstances.

Stan looks down at his own candle, maybe thinking the same, of course without the metaphor to Richie, or even knowing that Eddie’s death was any more than a suicide. Bill can’t get over the fact, Eddie Kaspbrak has been murdered, and the sole part he had in the murder was making everyone believe it wasn’t a murder. It’s nothing less than an offense on the life Eddie had lived.

A few people step up and speak sweet words, Bill can debunk every one of them. None of these people really liked Eddie personally or otherwise. It’s all bullshit, they’re making grieving trendy, something they all need to do to continue to fit in to any status quo and not be seen as a monster simply for resenting someone who treated them badly. Everyone is so insincere. He doesn’t hear a testimony true to how someone actually saw the popular boy. That was when Stanley Uris pulled out enough courage to stand in front of the crowd and speak in a shaking voice.

“I’m Stan, as you guys know, Eddie and I were close,” he says before taking a gasping breath between statements. “He and I were together, I never knew he wasn’t happy, I didn’t know how much he was hurting. And I do blame myself for that,” he continues with a sniffle. “When I heard the news I cried because the description of the scene sounded like one from a horror movie, like how you feel when you see something like that on the news but someone telling you in real life. I was numb after that, it doesn’t feel real. Until I was here now,” he says with a near silent sob, “With all these people listening, it just felt like he was staying home from school. I know he wasn’t always kind to you guys and-” he takes another breath, “I want to apologize on his behalf, he didn’t mean it, truly, I promise that,” Stan finishes, deciding he can’t go on any more with how much his voice quivers with the tears he’s holding back.

Stan finally stands down from the spot, dispersing back to his spot with Bill among the others. He hopes he made the right choice, he doesn’t want backlash, and he doesn’t want to hear anything more negative about his late boyfriend, it’s disrespect for the dead which is just as bad as the fact they speak badly of the one he loved. He knows Eddie was no saint, but the boy wasn’t evil either, and he didn’t deserve the fate that came to him. Nobody deserve to be so trapped in their own mind that they take their own life, nobody deserves to scream so fucking loudly that nobody can hear them. He’d probably been screaming so long that he lost his voice, couldn’t keep it up.

Bill feels someone bump their arm against his and stay there, trying to lace their fingers with his. He half expects to turn around and see Richie Tozier also at the vigil for the boy they killed, but it ends up being someone who makes Bill do a double take, pulling away quickly. Patrick Hocksetter, probably one of his least favorite people. The kid has bullied him since kindergarten and only tolerates him now because of who he hangs out with, it’s gross.

“Got an issue, William? Your little boyfriend isn’t here, pretty boy,” the other man teases, trying to grab for Bill’s hand like the sleazy asshole he is. Bill yanks his hand back again, more force this time now that Richie is brought up. Richie may not be the best or the best influence, but Bill Denbrough has no interest in being unfaithful to him.

“I’m not a cheater,” Bill says assuredly to the bully, his eyebrows set in a position of dominance, as if he’s taller and more powerful than the kid he hears walks around with a makeshift flamethrower, a lighter and hairspray. Bill will have to remember that. He doesn’t know how to keep himself civil, murder on his mind and pulling his strings until he’s on edge enough to snap.

“C’mon, buddy, he doesn’t need to know, a good guy is only a bad guy who hasn’t been caught,” Patrick purrs, pushing them out of the circle and closer to the forest. Bill doesn’t know how everyone else doesn’t notice, he feels vulnerable. The scene he sees over Patrick’s shoulder just looks like fire, not candles, not people, only golden flames that leave an awful burning smell with the floating embers.

That all is, until a groan escapes his harasser, a shove had come to him at the hands of none other than Richie, the “boyfriend who wouldn’t have to know.” “Tell me why your grubby hands were on my boyfriend’s waist?” Richie asks in a tone that just begs Patrick to test him.

“What about it, psycho?” Patrick hisses, stepping back swiftly to escape any other attacks from the infatuated man. Infatuated, that’s the word to describe it. Richie can’t take his eyes off of Bill half the time, he can’t bear to be apart from him. He needs him, he’ll simply die without him right there next to him.

“Keep your hands off of him if you know what’s good for you, Cocksetter,” Richie says, his tone one that nobody in their right mind would want to reckon with. Bill, however, isn’t in his right mind, though he wants only to do positive things with this man, wanting to just go back to Richie’s and make him his again.

Patrick finally backs away, going back to the crowd only to escape Richie, obviously not in his right mind himself, but he knows well enough to stay away.

After the vigil, Bill and Richie end up in Bill’s car, Stan had gotten a ride with someone else, realizing how shaken Bill is from what happened with Patrick, and Stan knows well enough how it feels, the Bowers gang has always been pretty awful to him, but Henry and Patrick are the worst.

Richie sits in the passenger side, his cigarette smoke floating off the tip out the window in curling ribbons as the nicotine calms him. Bill can’t resist the look on Richie’s face, he can’t resist Richie’s face, period. He climbs over the space between their seats, settling in Richie’s lap, straddling his legs over his thighs, dipping his body down to meet his lips to Richie’s. He can taste the smoke in lips and lingering on his tongue.

Richie catches Bill’s lips in his own hungrily, his hands gripping tightly at Bill’s sides, he’s always in the mood for a good makeout session. Suddenly his eyes pop open, his lips cease to keep moving, Bill pulling away sensually with a doe look in his eyes, wanting to go right back to what he was doing.

“I have an idea, lovely,” Richie purrs, running his hands up and down Bill’s sides in a way that makes the boy shiver with pleasure, “For us to get back at Patrick and Henry,” Richie adds, seeing Bill’s expression shift to one of interest, listening closely. “We can prank them, expose them for how they really are,” Richie smirks, pulling the idea together in his head, compiling how he will have to describe it to Bill, he’s unsure if Bill will trust him anymore.

The night comes and goes, the boys had returned to their acts in the car. Bill can says he’s really broken in his car now, and he’d say it with a smirk and then an awkward laugh. “They’re called que no es de fiar aparentar bullets, got them at a prank store,” Richie says, hiding his lie smoothly behind a buttery false Spanish accent.

“So they’re fake?” Bill asks, a confused expression on his face, his big blue puppy dog eyes bringing Richie in further to him until they are touching again.

“Completely false, gonna knock the boys unconscious, we’ll just leave them naked for the police to find before they come to, they’ll be the laugh of the school now,” Richie smiles. “They deserve it,” he reminds him softly, brushing his thumb against Bill’s cheek.

Bill nods back hesitantly. He’s always been one for revenge, but he doesn’t know about this. Patrick and Henry have always terrorized him, he’s still scared of them. He almost feels like this will make him feel like he has too much power. He knows what power does to people, it’s almost never a good result. He takes the loaded gun from Richie’s hand, letting his finger run over the trigger, a shiver running down his spine. He doesn’t know if this feels extremely right or extremely wrong, but it feels like something that threatens to take him over. “They should be here soon, I called them a bit ago,” he says solemnly.

Richie nods back, taking his own identical weapon in his hands, holding it like he has before, the adrenaline is always the same. He almost craves it, but he’s learned to control it more when he’s on his own, but around Bill, oh he feels powerful. It’s his duty now, he has to protect this man. Even if that means bloodshed, the world is too full of corrupt people anyways, he justifies to himself as he starts to walk away. Orange leaves crunch beneath his shoes as he walks through the woods, fidgeting from all his restless energy.

He watches as the two boys approach Bill with their usual confident gait. It only makes him smirk to himself, they wouldn’t be so confident for so long. He watches Bill in his acting, flirting with them and then having them strip down, standing apart, then he watches Bill’s gaze flicker to his direction and he knows it’s go time.

He aims the weapon, he pulls the trigger. It hits Henry as he expected it to, he watches the bullet leave Bill’s gun and narrowly miss Patrick. Shit. he takes it upon himself immediately to take over that job too, getting Patrick just as he tries to get away. He feels the same adrenaline as he had with Eddie before but softens when he hears a scream come from no other than Bill.

“Richie- are they supposed to bleed this much? Are they- are they dead?” Bill asks, looking and sounding on the verge of tears as his voice wavers, wrapping his arms around Richie as soon as he approaches him, hiding his face in Richie’s chest.

“Calm down, baby, just another evil defeated,” Richie purrs, running his hands through Bill’s hair tenderly, “We should get going, don’t wanna get caught, do we?” he says, pulling away and grabbing Bill’s cold hand in his own.

It’s only now that Bill realizes exactly how crazy Richie might be, tears streaming down his own face, he can’t do this any longer. He can’t keep being so violent. He can’t mess up himself and his future so badly. He’s only hardly grown up, freshly eighteen and with so much ahead of him. He needs to put an end to this.

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vesperlionheart · 6 years

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Pompeii 47

Sakura realized, in a strange mix of pride and dread, that Netflix was actually sending her automated messages asking her if she was alright based on the logged hours of activity in recent weeks. She logged out of her account and decided she should probably cool it when it came to the Korean dramas.

“Damn those cliffhangers,” Sakura muttered under her breath. It had been so much easier to get lost in a few television shows and tune out the rest of the world’s happenings than the research and reading she had promised herself she would get to.

Also the headaches.

Sakura pushed her laptop away from her and checked the clock from the stove for the time. She had slept in again and was neglecting the rituals and routines that once kept her so faithfully on track. She hadn’t made a breakfast for hersef or taken a shower.

She sought out the bathroom first and stripped to stand in the shower. Fifteen minutes later she was padding barefoot across the floor with her hair in a towel, reading the directions on her phone for the location of her first on site interview. She had passed the phone call interview earlier that week and tomorrow was the first they could see her. Sakura thought she had a good feeling about her chances, but didn’t want to be overconfident.

“Do you need to?”

Sakura almost dropped her phone as she jumped, turning to find Sai sulking on her couch with his knees drawn up in front of his chin. He glared at her mournfully over the edge of his knees.

“Sai, we talked about this. It’s better than relocating. If I commute I can still live here with you and Yamato and I won’t have to worry about risking my life every time I open the clinic.”

He lifted his head a little. “Why do you need to work? I make money. I can buy you anything you want.”

“I’m not taking your money from you. It’s yours. You should be able to do what you want with it.”

“I want to give it to you.”

“Th-that’s not what I meant, Sai.” Sakura couldn’t help but laugh. He made things sound so simple.

“I don’t need money like you do. I never needed money or wanted it. I have everything I want right here, and she has to go away all day because of something stupid like money. What good is it to have money if it makes you sad?”

“Some of us have debts and bills and financial needs that can’t be so easily bartered,” Sakura explained, while reminiscing on how countercultural Pompeii was with its way of doing business. It was like a place out of time. Money changed hands, yes, but so did promises, wishes, tokens, and favors. Pompeii was unique but Pompeii was also dangerous for her.

“I told you we could help you with those. You don’t want our help.” Sai’s head shot up and the glare was back. “Why do you have to be like this? All you need is us.”

Sakura saw his chin tremble. It was only a little, and anyone who didn’t know Sai nearly as well as she did would have missed it. Anyone else would have see his glare and not the brokenness. Anyone else would have missed it, but not Sakura.

She crossed to room, dropping her phone onto the table and reaching for his face. He pulled away at first but when she made an effort to follow with her hands he didn’t resist. Sakura held his face and ran her thumbs up over his cheeks, under his eyes. Her contact made his glare melt and his gaze go hazy. Holding his head she could feel how soft his skin was and all the micro tremors that shook him with each shaky breath.

“Never,” she began in a low whispering tone, “doubt that I love you, Sai.” She bent over and kissed the crown of his skull and she felt his arms reach out to pull her closer as the tremors intensified.

A year ago he was a boy with half baked emotions. Now he didn’t know what to do with all the pain he felt because of them.

Sakura ran her fingers through his hair, petting it back like he was a scared animal that needed the contact. He leaned into her touch and his arms encircled her higher up on her waist, tugging her closer still. His face was buried in her stomach and she could feel that part of her shirt growing damp, but she didn’t remark on it.

“Can I make you breakfast?” she finally asked.

“It’s one in the afternoon,” came the muffled reply.

“Oh, you’re right. I guess that makes it lunch.”

Sai inhaled deeply and rubbed his face in the fabric before pulling away slightly. Sakura could see his pout but little else of his expression stood out.

“Fine,” he muttered.

It had been a while since he made a scene for attention, but Sakura wouldn’t complain. Sai was still learning how to express his emotions and deal with his feelings. Some things like anger and frustration came easier than others. He was like a child in some regards, learning and growing like any young kid would. Sakura didn’t hate it, she couldn’t. She felt proud to see him grow.

Sakura smiled wide and clapped to get his attention. “Alright. How about something sweet like waffles and strawberries? I have whipped cream I think.”

“What about chocolate sprinkles?” Sai reached up to flatten the upturned parts of his hair and then glanced up at Sakura. “I could go out and buy some if you don’t have any.”

Sakura remembered the list of things she needed and turned to grab it off the side of her fridge. “If you don’t mind, while you’re out there getting sprinkles can you grab these few things too. I’m a bit low on groceries.”

Sai took the list, glanced at it only once before stuffing it in his pocket and standing. Sakura was reaching for her purse to fish out money but Sai was already waving his hand and protesting.

“Put that away, this is stuff I’ll eat anyway! Geez.” Sai backed up towards the door, watching Sakura the whole time. “I’m going out but I’ll be back soon. Don’t eat all the waffles without me. I’ll be right back.”

“I believe you,” Sakura laughed.

The door closed behind him and Sakura heard Sai’s footsteps skip stairs in his descent.

Cute

The room spun for a heartbeat and Sakura had to reach for something to stay upright. It was a jerkish reaction, but as soon as it came it passed, leaving a splitting headache in its wake. Sakura had to bite her knuckles as the worst throbs of pain washed over her and then abated. It took a minute more before she could stand and reach for water. The pills to kill her pain shook in her palm but she managed to swallow them down.

“Please stop,” Sakura prayed in some form of blind desperation, not knowing who was listing. For that matter, she didn’t even know who was hurting her in the first place, but there was a voice that crippled her to hear. Something in her head echoed like a blood sore.

Sakura leaned against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor, holding a fistful of hair by its roots. She could feel the tears and knew she needed to gather herself if she wanted to look okay by the time Sai, or worse Yamato, walked in on her. They’d both freak out if they knew about the voice she kept hearing.

It had started a few days ago, and the first time was more odd than painful, but after that first time the voice came back with maybe a single word or phrase to tear a bloody path through her brain. The pain was so bad it was hard to remember what the voice sounded like or what it was even trying to say. Sometimes she thought they were words in a different language and then other times she thought they were words that she could understand, just not remember because of the pain.

This time the comment had been about Sai. Something called Sai the same time Sakura thought the same exact thing. Her Sai was cute and honest and she adored him. Someone or something else seemed to think so too.

Sakura didn’t know if it was a psychic in Pompeii or someone else paying off a curse to plague her in retribution for the sickness that had grown so severe it even claimed Hashirama-a man who was famous for never falling ill for all the centuries he had been alive.

‘The Good Neighbors don’t get sick!’

More and more people in Pompeii were freaking out and growing more vocal about their suspicions. Even her friends...or the people she thought of as friends, were joining the mobs. There was talk about her seducing Sarutobi and tricking others to make it seem like Pompeii was protecting her.

‘Cute’ had been what the voice said. And it meant Sai. Her Sai.

Sakura’s fingers tugged at the clump of hair and she seethed as one of the last rolls of pain swept through her.

“Don’t you dare look at him,” she seethed to the emptiness of her room.

For the first time she addressed the voice in her head. Maybe it was someone from Ino’s family or a witch from the Uzumaki clan, but it didn’t matter if that person was trying to hurt her through her precious people. She might not have many of them left, but she was fierce with the ones she called family.

“Leave….Sai alone!”

For a moment there was nothing, not even pain, and then, like a cloud passing over the sun unexpectedly, the voice was back in her head louder and more clear than ever before.

“You consider this one important to you. What a shame it would be if your family broke up… because of you.”

Sakura couldn’t breath the pain was running down her spine and threatening to make her head explode. She felt like what she was hearing wasn’t meant for her brain the handle. She wasn’t supposed to be comprehending something so big.

She hadn’t felt anything like this and never expected to feel anything like this in the safety of her home with all the wards and charms and protection from Pompeii itself. She wasn’t supposed to be hurting she wasn’t-

“Get out!” Sakura snapped, suddenly full of something that burned in her. “Get out of my head-out!”

No one could harm her. No one could hurt her. No one would touch her inside her own home. She believed Pompeii wouldn’t allow it in the same way she believed there was a sun underneath the shade of a passing cloud.

Her brain burned with pain that shot to every part of her but it was a swansong and as soon as it passed there was an unexpected emptiness. The voice was gone and there was a hole left behind.

Something had left her and something in her gut told her it slithered back to the forest. She didn’t know why, or where the feeling came from, just that it was there.

Sakura let go of her hair and stood up. She brushed the dust off her pants and turned to the kitchen where her waffle iron was already out. She plugged it in and began mixing the batter mix together with the last of her wet ingredients. By the time Sai came back she would be fine. He had a long shift at the tattoo parlor in a few hours so once he set out she could do her own sort of investigation.

The forest was like she remembered it, until it wasn’t. There were so many flowering trees that it was hard to remember what the wooded lands looked like without them. Some of the trees looked distressed too. Someone had hacked a few down to wood chips and there were signs of burns on the ground, but the trees seemed to be fire retardant.

She remember when the mob tried to burn the effigy of her made out of twigs. That hadn’t worked as well as they had hoped. Maybe some of those same people had split up to swarm the woods in search of some way to destroy what they didn’t understand.

She didn’t understand why they didn’t seek out the library. Sure, she had been having only a little luck with her own search, but she didn’t have the background some of these other citizens have! She started from nothing and at least she had some clues.

She saw something silver and turned to see the gleaming head of an ax stuck in the body of a tree that had since swelled up around the metal. Tearing it out to strike at the tree looked impossible with the edge that deeply wedged in.

Sasori

The redhead had been absent from the scene and Sakura had at first assumed it was because of whatever he felt about the whole situation, be it shame or remorse she didn’t care. Yamato had been the one to tell her about the strange ailment that rendered his body immobile. He wasn’t sick, but he was afflicted a new and unique way...something Chiyo still hadn’t forgiven Sakura for.

Sakura inspected one of the trees that looked as if it had been splashed in acid. Pockmarks scarred the bark and the flowers were stripped in places.

Sakura thought she smelled peaches but couldn’t see any when she turned.

“Hello?” she called.

There was no answer.

She then thought better about calling out into the forest without knowing if there was someone about who still wanted to burn her at the stake.

Sakura found her way deeper into the forest until she came to the place where she would normally meet with the knight brothers in all their blooming glory. Today they were out and about and that was fine. They would come back in an instant if they needed to. They were like that.

The shrine to the maiden sat alone and unprotected but not entirely defenseless. It hadn’t escaped her notice how the blooms and petals from the flowering trees seemed to avoid the shrine. There was no unnatural wind to account for it, but something kept those sort of trees and blossoms away from the shrine.

Sakura likely hadn’t noticed it last time because the amount of blossoms had gone from impressive to near overwhelming. It was nearing the spring season, after all.

“Has it been a year since this all started?” Sakura asked the shrine, knowing it wouldn’t respond.

It was still a little early for the yearly anniversary of the event she suspected to be the catalyst for all their troubles, and so much had happened. She had seen highs and she had seen lows. She hoped soon things would change for the better, but doubted it.

“I have an interview tomorrow,” Sakura said. “I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, but I don’t feel like I have much of an option anymore.”

Like before, there was only silence.

Sakura chuckled and stuffed her hands back into the pockets of her sweatshirt. She shook her head ruefully and looked up at the sky. It was getting late and she had better get back if she wanted a good enough sleep to sustain her throughout the next day.

“Maybe the next time I come back here things will be different,” Sakura said in parting.

No one answered, but she waved back over her shoulder, suspecting someone or something could see her as she left. Maybe they would make her words a prophecy. Maybe.

It was less an interview and more of an introduction to the clinic where they wanted Sakura to start working. She had showed up in her nice suit with another copy of everything they asked for the first time, and had been swiftly swept up into a flurry of introductions that seemed too warm for what she had come to anticipate.

“So you’re the new transfer?”

Sakura turned at the sound of the voice and saw a young man in scrubs. She remembered seeing him in between the hallways but hadn’t been introduced yet. He looked young, but not so young that he seemed out of place. Maybe he was a year or few older than her, but he still had a boyish smile that likely helped his bedside manner.

Sakura remembered to smile wide. “Yeah, that would be me. I heard you were all looking for another MD to add to your staff. You already have so many here though, so I was a bit surprised.” She extended her hand for a shake and added, “I’m Sakura.”

He took her hand and shook it firmly, the boyish smile staying in place. “Keith, another MD just like you. I’m glad you could make it out here. We had been considering expanding since the facility hasn’t reached peak capacity yet and so many of the older members on staff want to start phasing out.”

“Busy is good,” Sakura laughed, looking back. “Where I was previously, it was the total opposite.”

“Oh really? You were overstaffed for the patients?”he asked, sounding like he hadn’t heard of such a thing happening.

Sakura forced herself to laugh again. “What can you do when they just stop walking in? The town was small and they really didn’t need me.”

“That’s so unusual.” He shook his head as if to clear the thought and the boyish smile was back. “Well, I’m sorry it didn’t work out with the last place, but change doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. ”

“Sakura felt a weight slide off her heart and she breathed a little easier. The smile was easier to keep up as she responded. “You’re right. I’m sorry to be leaving friends and family, but I’m excited to experience a change in pace with my work life.”

“I’m glad,” he laughed along with her. “It’d be nice to have a new face around here.” He ended with a wink and the promise that they would see each other some other time.

Sakura felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see the woman in charge of hiring. The name escaped her and she mentally panicked behind the mask of a perfect smile. The older woman nodded at the male doctor’s back and chuckled. “Don't mind him, he’s such a flirt. A good doctor, but he is a terrible flirt with all the available staff.”

“Oh no, I have no experience with that at all, ever,” Sakura said in fake monotone until both women were snickering together.

“Oh you’re such a sweet thing. You’ll fit right in!”

Sakura laughed, but couldn’t help but feel something like unease grow in her heart as she climbed back into the borrowed car and turned it towards the road that would lead to Pompeii.

Once people weren't watching her Sakura allowed her expressions to fall apart on their own. Her chest was tight in a way that couldn’t be explained away with anything other than anxiety. She had left Pompeii for a single, simple interview, but something was seriously wrong about that.

Wrong, wrong, wrong

There was no voice this time, but Sakura felt it in her heart that something was wrong before she even got to the borderline. For over an hour she stewed in those feelings and it showed on the speedometer as she pushed the needle further across the warning numbers.

In record time she was over that invisible line and de-accelerating to coast into the downtown where no one and nothing seemed active. That wasn’t anything new, but once she she came close enough to see the clinic she knew better.

She parked the car haphazardly half on the sidewalk half off, scrambling out without regard for stupid things like closing the door or grabbing her purse behind her.

The clinic was split open like a ripe fruit with sprawling branches and swollen trunks splitting the space apart. She had always been safe inside the clinic, but for some reason now it wasn’t as impervious to harm as she first believed it to be. The smell of peaches was almost overwhelming.

“Sai, Yamato!”

Sakura screamed, tearing off and darting into the mess that used to be a clinic. Parts of the outside were inside and furniture from inside was skewered through and hanging out on spear shaped branches.

Inside was more of the same dark mess and Sakura was frantic, trying to climb her way up to the second floor, only to fall through the gaps and brittle parts of the trees. She felt her clothes tear and her nicely styled hair come undone but she didn’t care as she scrambled with bloody fingers and bare feet through the mess.

“SAI! YAMATO!”

She didn’t care who heard her anymore. She knew that Sai should have been home at this time at least. His shift ended a little after she took off for her interview. He would have been at home.

Something moved and Sakura saw a pale hand with bloody fingers grabbing weakly at the thin branches folded over each other. Sakura withdrew her knife and cut the dying branches away and reached into the hole to grab at Sai’s arm. She felt a cold wetness instantly and the dread magnified in her chest.

“Shizune, Yamato!” Sakura screamed as she hacked away more of the branches.

No one was answering after she screamed again, but she didn’t stop, Sakura stabbed at the trunks and they collapsed as if they had been old and dead for centuries.

Sakura felt her face dirty and wet with tears as she finally was able to open up a hole big enough to lift Sai up out of. He shouldn’t have been so easy to lift, but she didn’t know if that was because of her strength or his lack of weight.

Wet sobs wracked her as she pulled Sai to her and turned him around. He was hurt in too many places and bleeding everywhere.

“Sa-Sakura.”

“Shut up,” Sakura wetly interrupted, carrying him bridal style down the way she had come.

It was easier to make it back down to the ground and even with him in her arms, Sakura was able to kick her way into one of the old service rooms. It was a mess, but she turned over a table to lay him down on and then raced for her tools.

She was frantic but oddly focused like it was her life that hung in the balance as she cleaned and stitched Sai up. She had to remove shards of tree from his side and cursed every fragment she extracted.

Sai was quiet as she worked, being barely conscious, but Sakura wouldn’t let him fall asleep on her just yet. He had hit his head and lost too much blood for that.

She was a universal donor. It would be okay.

“Sai, what happened?” Sakura gasped, staring down at him as the red fluids moved from her to him. He looked terrible, but she swore he would make it through. He would heal from this.

“Don’t know, it happened too fast and there was no one we could see, just the trees and then-then-”

His words were lost in a hiss as it became painful to breath, but a moment later it passed and he stared up at her, eyes wet with his own sorrow. He had always been pale but now he looked more like a ghost than ever.

“Then it took Yamato.”

#Pompeii #eat your heart out #Sai is never safe #Weird Wednesdays #Our fic

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binsofchaos · 4 years

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‘I Believe in Love’: Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Final Year, In Her Own Words

Introduction by Garance Franke-Ruta. Jump to the start of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s essay here.

The late Elizabeth Wurtzel was best known for her memoirs and essays, especially Prozac Nation and Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, but after attending Yale Law School in her late 30s she also enjoyed having a voice in the political arena. She was as much an original there as everywhere else, and between 2010 and 2012 she wrote a series of pieces for me at The Atlantic.

A feminist and a New Yorker who had really lived, she looked at the world in a different way from all the boys on the bus in Washington. And she was funny. She would send long text messages written on her smartphone while she was walking through Washington Square Park, an emissary from a more vivid and creative world than the boxy K Street buildings I would pass en route to my office in the Watergate. Sometimes her stories would come in like that too, texted in graf by graf, and I’d knit the passages together in what seemed like the right order and ask for some connective language. The thoughts were always razor-sharp; the understanding of human nature acute.

Over time our editing relationship moved into a long-distance friendship. We met for dinner at a restaurant in Chelsea, outside of course so her dog could be nestled at her feet. She had somehow managed to find a lipstick with my name on it — Guerlain’s Garance — and purchased us two tubes encased in elegant silver that sat heavy in the hand. She wore hers to dinner, and when I went to the restroom, I changed my color too, making us lipstick twins. It was how she was and in many ways the secret to her success: In addition to being wildly talented, she overcompensated for being so difficult and never totally in control by being astonishingly thoughtful, and kind, and, well, seductive. She was a seductive personality; hard not to love even as she could be hard to be close to.

When I started working at GEN this fall and living in New York full time, I reached out to her. “I’m in remission!” she’d said brightly when we first reconnected, three years after last seeing each other and nearly five years after she first learned she had the BRCA gene and breast cancer. We drank red wine on her balcony overlooking a giant earthen pit in the ground: The future NY offices of Netflix. We went to dinner at Il Buco on Bond Street (her suggestion); I could feel she was lonely. She and her husband Jim Freed had separated and were in the process of divorcing, a not so happy ending to the happily ever after story she had been astonished to stumble into in 2015, and something she was still figuring out how to write about. She started sending me things she had written as we talked about her writing a piece about Gen X politics and the 2020 race.

“I am intimate with the dirt,” she wrote of the Netflix pit. “It has infiltrated everything. It is all over me and under me. It is Love Canal, sewage from the Mississippi, cigarette butts, marijuana ash, slave remains, rats, mice, Three Mile Island, Mount Etna, Mount Saint Helen, Dust Bowl, Adam, Eve, serpent, Satan, Chernobyl, Berlin Wall, acid rain, asbestos, uranium, geraniums, 9/11, 7/11, Donner Party, bird beaks, pigeon claws, squirrel tails, gerbil puke, hamster wheels, insulation, Saran Wrap, Mason Pearson bristles, dental floss, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Mafia hits washed up from the East River, syringes, works, the residue at the bottom of the empty bag of dope, coal waste, cookie crumbs, broken bottles, rusty nails, Bataan Death March, Manila massacre, Boston Tea Party, frog legs, goldfish, mutant ninja turtles, alligators from Florida, red algae, yellow fever, Agent Orange, bubonic plague, gold teeth, silver spoons, copper wires, iron ore, Crest with fluoride, whitening strips, stripper tips, dollar bills, twenties laced with cocaine, subway tokens, expired MetroCards with unused fare, tickets to see Star Wars in 1976, bicentennial souvenirs, gutta-percha, cat guts, doll parts, golf balls, tennis racket strings, cashmere socks, polyester, rayon, pylon, nylon, Mylar, warped vinyl, scratched CDs, crispy leaves, shredded lettuce, tarnished keys, queen bees, xerox paper, pepper spray, Prozac pills, poppers, pooper scoopers, hula hoops, leis, fecal matter, aborted fetuses, snot, rot, cots, bots, shot glass shards, broken windows, chimney smoke, dice, playing cards, poker chips, lollipop sticks, toothpicks, used tissues, dirty handkerchiefs, bandanna threads, kite pine needles, kite strings, toilet water, wolf fangs, sunburn peel, hangnails, cavities, skin, scabs, split ends, fur balls, chicken bones, dissected cadavers, wisdom teeth, crash test dummies, Big Bang, Little Miss Muffet, Humpty Dumpty, Rip Van Winkle, bog wood, petrified forest, oyster shells, freshwater pearls, blood diamonds, Star rubies, asteroids, primordial ooze, love letters, promises kept and broken.”

Very soon the piece she’d wanted to write about Gen X politics started to slip. The cancer was back. There were so many tests and scans to undergo. I told her not to worry about writing it and was surprised when she filed. She said it was a good distraction from having cancer. She badly wanted to interview Beto O’Rourke, but by the time he arrived in New York City where they might have had a face-to-face — the Gen X skate-punk candidate and the Gen X icon — he was already getting ready to drop out of the race.

She sent me a long piece about her past year, about her impending divorce and her marriage and her mother and Donald Trump. It was from something longer she was working on, she said.

We talked about her writing an additional passage when she recovered from brain surgery and running the piece on Medium. “I suppose I have to add something about this, since so much of the piece is about cancer,” she texted. “You know, of all my failures of imagination, I never wondered what a brain tumor is like. So I could not have guessed it was this atrocious, the dizziness and the pain.”

Her recoveries from the relentless march of the disease during her final, dreadful month would prove to be brief.

After her first brain surgery — she had two to cope with her metastatic breast cancer and subsequent complications — which she described as a “brain resection,” she was astonishingly herself. She was funny and poetic and articulate and in good spirits. Still dizzy and unstable — the tumor had impacted her balance center and left her clutching the furniture as she walked during her last night in her own home — but also still herself. She laughed with her mother, who took video and pictures of her in the hospital and helped coordinate, along with Jim and some of her oldest friends from college, a parade of sun-up to way past winter sundown visitors so that she would never feel alone.

And the night before the surgery, Jim was the one she stayed with. He was the one who took care of Alistair, her dog, and her black cat, Arabella. When I saw him in the hospital, he was entirely attuned to her and what she might need so that she could recover and have, in the unspoken best-case scenario, another year.

“I can’t get over how great my husband has been with this. He has made it possible for me to get better and not worry about anything,” she wrote in mid-December, after the surgery. “He loves you so much it’s clear,” I texted back, thinking of how attentive he had been, how he was arranging visits with so many people, that look on his face that you cannot fake. “I think so,” she texted back. “It’s good you see. I love him so much.”

But the past year had been a hard one. This is what she had written about it. She had shown it to Jim too, and he agreed, as did a number of her oldest friends, that she’d want it published. She loved to be published.

I Believe in Love

By Elizabeth Wurtzel

Greetings from the chaotic land of marriage come undone.

The caravansary is dismantling, toothpicks flying everywhere, the bubblegum that held it together is unstuck.

Everything is falling.

My husband moved out at the end of December [2018], as the calendar flipped from last year to this [2019], while I was in Miami Beach, strolling the walkways in the shocking morning sun and under the nighttime Van Gogh sky, away from it all.

I knew he was moving out, but still: I was surprised.

I did not see that the game was over. I did not know the clock was running. I never lose, but I do run out of time. It turns out this was basketball and not baseball.

While I looked away, my marriage fell apart.

I fell off my keel. I lost my kilter. I was a kite without a string.

Maybe it’s better.

It is a peaceful purple without him here. But psychedelic with disarray.

Marriage is an organizing principle. It is flow. It is coffee in the morning. It is who walks the dog. It is HBO at night.

And love. Don’t forget that.

Now I am an ombré mess of a person. I am missed appointments and canceled meetings. I am the thing I forgot to do. I am hanging on by a strand of Drybar dry-shampooed hair.

All day long I have to ask people to forgive me, I am flailing and failing at it all. Forgive me, I beg, as I hope my untweezed eyebrows will. Maybe soon, I will even tug at a few strays.

Or maybe wild is the way.

🖤🖤🖤

I still think of Jim as this sweet person I married. He is my trust fall. He is my emergency contact. He is my next of kin. He is my valentine. He is my birthday dinner. He is my secret sharer. He is my husband.

I do not know him anymore so I do not know myself. Who are my friends? Where is my family? I have fallen into a crevasse of nobody nowhere.

I am estranged and strange, strangled up in blue.

I do not want to feel this way. I am going through the five stages of grief all at once, which Reddit strings have no doubt turned into 523. They are a collision course, a Robert Moses plan, a metropolitan traffic system of figuring it out.

I feel bad and mad and sad.

Is this a festival of insight or a clusterfuck of stupid? I change my mind all the time about this and about everything else.

I got married because I was done with crazy. But here it is, back again, the revenant I cannot shake. I feel like it’s 1993, when my heart had a black eye all the time.

26 is a boxing match of the soul.

I did not expect bruises at 52.

🖤🖤🖤

I have blamed myself. I have blamed my husband. I have blamed cancer. I have blamed marijuana. I have blamed sexism. I have blamed Charlottesville. I have blamed my in-laws. I have blamed several men named David. I have blamed my mother who lied to me my whole life about who my father is.

Who would I be if I did not blame Donald Trump?

I am angry all the time since the election of 2016, like it happened to me, like I was gang-raped by Michigan. I don’t want to be angry, but so there, I am.

Who don’t I hate?

Who won’t I blame?

If you are standing there, I blame you.

It is not conservative against liberal.

It is everybody against everyone. Here we are, in it together, alone.

The problem is not arguments I have with people who voted for Trump, who I don’t know anyway. The trouble is the way all of us who agree about everything are bickering. Oh, the narcissism of small differences.

I remember not that long ago when the world was not political. I was part of landmark litigation that was all about a team of Republicans and Democrats working together. I loved everybody. We were all on the same side.

What Alamo did I not forgive? What Masada did I not get over?

Now there is no microaggression too small for me to scream about so the next four neighborhoods can hear.

My husband does something and I am affronted like it matters.

I am sure he does not know how I feel.

And maybe he doesn’t.

But what does any of this have to do with why we got married? We got married to be in it together. Polarization has even invaded love.

I have anger fatigue. I am sick of sick. Like everyone.

The emotional toll of the world we live in is going to do all of us in.

But politics is not about conflict.

Politics is about making the world a better place.

🖤🖤🖤

How could my mother keep a secret for 50 years? What makes someone do that?

She buried herself in it. She grew a wild Victorian garden with thorny bushes of rose and purple larkspur and red snapdragon. There was a lush meadow of lavender that gave a whiff of Aix-en-Provence en été. The dandelions ran rampant and the daffodils glowed yellow like Big Bird.

But underneath it all, beneath the lilies of the valley and the rows of geranium, there is dirt.

There is a secret.

I am a bastard. I am her bastard daughter.

There are things that come along that are a shock.

I believed something for nearly half a century. It was a lie.

I was conned.

I was wrong about myself.

I did not know who I am.

My mother told no one.

It was a lie she told for so long it became true and the secret faded to no-memory. She misremembered who my father was. She did not think it mattered.

When it all came out in 2016, not long after I got married, just after my real father died, my mother could not see what my hysteria was about. She did not understand why I was stunned.

All the while I was trying not to feel the worst way ever, trying not to be overwhelmed by the explosion, my mother could not figure out what was bothering me.

After all, she is the nuclear physicist.

My mother is like everyone else. She thinks she is normal. She is sure her behavior makes sense. She believes she does the right thing. Since she cannot imagine that this is not the case, she is surprised to find out that, yes, she makes bombs.

I scream at my mother, “What’s wrong with you?!”

I do that and she does not know what I mean.

She says, “Oh get over it.”

Her eyes widen until they look like goggles on an herbivore. She is put upon. She cannot believe we have to discuss this yet again.

“Omigod yet again!”

When will I quit badgering her?

I say, “You lied to me.”

She says, “It wasn’t a lie.”

“Then what?”

“It was a decision!”

Any relationship founded on a lie is doomed. Or not a lie, according to her, which is another lie, a lie about a lie.

That is how it is between us. We are living in the doom.

And yet, we are still at it. My mother and I refuse to give up. She is my only parent. She is all I have.

She made sure of that.

This is the most painful thing ever.

She has made so many inexplicable decisions over the years that I know about, and now I see the ones I did not know.

And yet I love her more than anyone else in the world.

She is it for me. She is in the way of everything. I should be interested in my husband, but how can he compete with how much I want to figure out the Once that started all that is upon a time?

🖤🖤🖤

I was a welter of emotions.

I was so emotional.

When I found out that my father is not my father, that my mother lied to me my whole life, that there was so much I did not know, a bomb dropped in my life. Bombs, really, aerial bombardment. It was the Battle of Manila: bazookas, flamethrowers, grenades, tanks, cannons, howitzers, banzai charges, kamikaze tactics, I was shocked and stunned with feeling.

I did not know what to do.

I became a raging lunatic.

I was a mettle of rage.

My rage is my retinue. My rage is a filthy velveteen train I drag around with me, carelessly. It is my ruby tiara. It is my rainbow and my pot of gold.

My rage is cream. It makes Chock Full O’ Nuts coffee that my grandmother brewed in a percolator on the breakfront in the dining room taste not half bad.

It is the coloratura harmony to my singsong days.

My rage is my conscience. I insist on my right to feel.

But I got caught in a Möbius strip of emotion. I was gone round the bend of scream.

It was stuplimity.

🖤🖤🖤

My marriage is crushed beneath the weight of so much. It is delicate, like all relationships. It is not one of those fine elms that blows with the gusts and does not snap.

We are a scattering of branches on the lawn. We are deadwood.

Oh, there is a lot that holds us together, the love and the hours. We got married during chemotherapy. We are bound.

But my husband is not who he was.

Yes, I know: It is always like that. The sorrow of unraveling is the stranger you are facing. What happened? I want to scream. Where did you go?

My husband had a softness. I will not compare it to the feel of cotton balls or the touch of silk charmeuse, because it is better. He was new to love. I could tell. I could see. He was surprised. He did not see me coming. He did not know I was interested. He was alone in a room. His life was small. He had the same six friends he always had. He was shy. He was not brave. He had no expectations.

He was lovely.

The beginning is always like honey, liquid and sweet.

But he was open.

He was not wounded by a million heartaches.

He had not been through it all.

He did not have a wretched past.

He was 34, which is not young. Younger than I was, but a lot could have happened by then.

It had not.

He was fresh.

There was nothing I would not do for him.

There was nothing I did not want for him.

We met in October and got engaged in May.

We knew.

And now he knows he has had enough.

It has been too much.

🖤🖤🖤

Most of all, it is not easy to be married to someone with cancer.

I feel for my husband.

Cancer is so big. Everyone is prostrate before its deadly enormity. It is the answer to every question. It is the reason why. Is it an excuse or is it real? Who is anyone to argue? Cancer is a bully. It is an elephantine disease of body, mind, soul. My husband moved a half a mile away from it. I would love to do the same.

I am stuck until the end.

I do not know what he expected when he married me when I was ill. I am sorry that it has not been what he wanted. I am sorry that I hurt him.

After I got cancer, I was not the same.

I wanted to be.

I wanted my life to go back to what it was.

I was so lively. I was so lovely.

I was so busy. I was so social.

But I could not do it.

No surprise, I changed.

I was withdrawn during chemotherapy and my world became small. It contracted like starvation. It is hard to get back what is lost. It is more difficult still to begin anew.

I tried. So hard. I called. I emailed. I texted. I showed up.

But there was a diminishment.

Cancer is an ecosystem. It is a crime spree.

Things broke. My radius. My fibula. My tibia. My spirit.

My cancer came back a year after it went away.

You think people are nice about it? No.

Cancer is misunderstood.

Everyone says the wrong thing. Which is what they do so much anyway.

Then I say the wrong thing back.

There we are, bumper cars of mismatched words.

I can’t believe the stupid things people tell me in an effort to be kind, about something hard they had to deal with that is not the same as having cancer.

The worst thing anyone can do is tell me they are sorry about my cancer.

I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me. About anything. Don’t apologize unless you have done something wrong. It is nasty to feel sorry for anyone for any reason because it pushes her away.

Mostly sorry is just a thing to say. Anything else would be better, including I don’t know what to say.

It is always people who are the problem. What else? Our suffering is small compared to our misunderstandings with others, how they fail to give us a break, know what it’s like, judge us fairly, see the world the way we do. It is not even cancer or especially cancer. It is especially this and even that. If you are looking for absolution, you are going to have to forgive yourself.

I have chainmail from years of frustrating conversations, of people who think something bad has happened to me.

I don’t see it that way.

You could tell me everything that’s bad about cancer, like that it’s cancer, but you could not convince me that cancer has been bad for me.

Cancer has made me optimistic.

These are the days of miracles and wonders, of biopharma fireworks, of immunotherapy wow.

I have been saved.

I am miraculous me.

I will skate figure eights into infinity.

I am all claws I am all fangs.

I am not afraid of cancer. I think cancer should be afraid of me.

This past October [2018], I had a tumor in my shoulder bone that was 5 inches: big! It was threatening to break it.

And worse.

My cancer antigens were at 205, when 25 is as high as the level can go.

I had meetings in the World Trade Center while all this was going on. I hate it down there. Skyscrapers as grave markers. It is an ominous place.

When I went for help in Philadelphia at the Basser Center for BRCA at the University of Pennsylvania, only Alistair, my service dog, was with me.

My husband said he had to work.

My marriage had already come undone.

I had stereotactic radiation at Memorial Sloan Kettering. It took only three sessions to zap the tumor away. The treatment saved me, but I have a five-inch hole in my bone that looks like a cave in the Thai jungle.

When my husband moved out, I was still healing. I have a rotator cuff tear and pain from the long way home.

🖤🖤🖤

This is a love story.

Every marriage is a love story.

People who run off to Vegas after knowing each other for 10 days and find a drunk outside the Sands casino to be their witness — they really mean it. Marriage is a big gesture. There is no reason to do it except: love.

It is effusive.

I am sorry I failed.

I am sorry for this confederacy of catastrophe.

I am sorry for it all.

I think that my husband can’t believe I hurt. I know what I’m like: I have a powerful personality, it’s true. But he got me.

He made a vow to love me in sickness and in health.

There was great love between us.

And love is hard to stop.

We made a commitment for when we could not remember why we did.

He decided enough.

I am a monotheist. I am in it for life. I am in everything for life. If you don’t stop me, I will not stop myself. I have the kind of faith that you can only have if you have talked your way out of trouble all along.

I feel so much and too much. Deep in my radiated bones.

I cannot believe it is like this with my husband and not like it was that long ago on Halloween, our first date, which he did not know was a date, maybe it was maybe it wasn’t, he showed up at my door not knowing anything at all.

We were resting on our future arms, we were like people who have never read The Unbearable Lightness of Being, have never seen City of God, have never heard Exile In Guyville, oh what lay ahead.

I remember my husband in the beginning, I know the man I married, I insist he is still there somewhere.

I keep peeling for the pentimento.

Or has this all been a fraud?

Love gone wrong feels like a confidence crime.

That is the worst of it.

Do I have an electron microscope or am I blinded? Do I see more clearly now or is this a distortion? I could ask that about the whole wide world.

Sex and race look different since Trump was elected. We know all the things that we never knew. We were living in a world of trust, we believed we were on a righteous path, that things were incrementally improving, so we did not look so hard into sunlight.

All anything ever is is another way of seeing.

I thought my husband was on my side.

I thought I knew him.

I did.

I don’t.

He changed.

I do not know how to help him.

I do not know how to reach him.

Anything is possible.

I believe in so much.

I am just that way.

I believe in love.

What matters more in this crazy world?

Shame on Casablanca’s ending! I will take the hill of beans.

(This is Garance again.)

Love. Sometimes in our lives when we feel most bereft it turns out that we are not alone at all. It is the kind of cloying Disney sentiment Lizzie might have scoffed at, but it was also the truth with her. She affected a toughness that was both real and a coping mechanism, but which also led her to downplay how sick she was. Even as she was telling me she was in remission in September, spots of cancer had already returned, I have since learned.

“The people who know us when we are not our best selves — what would we do without them? I am so grateful right now for even my mother coming through for me,” she wrote after her first surgery in December. Her mother Lynne Winters and she had a famously complicated relationship, but it was Lynne who took her home to recover both times she was released from the hospital, and who had the difficult burden of having to bring her back, and who sobbed in the sparkling clean MSKCC neuro ward hallway where other parents of too-young-to-die adult children paced forlornly.

“Jim has been the best,” Lizzie texted after the surgery. “I wish you a great first husband. That might be all you need.”

They had, in fact, not divorced. The papers were signed, but not filed. He was her husband until the end, during the final days after it was clear no further interventions would work, when she lay still in bed in what was by then her at least fifth different hospital room, for all the world the image of a big-eyed Renaissance pieta looking heavenward.

“Neurology takes a positive view toward god and prayer,” she had texted after the first surgery. “And relinquishing, which is what god and prayer is about. It is always turning your will over to a higher power and letting the will of the world and not your extraordinary manipulations lead you to your desired result. I always say that, it is my constant prayer: god, if you are out there, watch over me and your will, not mine, be done. That is what will happen anyway, but I pray for release from the dreadful fight.”

She spent her whole life fighting — fighting her parents, society, the patriarchy, social conventions, addiction, depression. But man, did she live big. She had a gift for building love into her life and at the end, her friends built a cocoon of love around her.

And on the morning of January 7, 2020, she was, as she had prayed, released.

#Elizabeth Wurtzel #i believe in love #love #garance franke-ruta #medium #writing

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hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat · 7 years

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My Top 5 Anticipated Anime Spring 2017

After a pretty dismal season for new anime, with only the good Tanya the Evil and the great Classicaloid for me to really look forward to each week, it seems like we’re finally getting underway with the good stuff for next season. And it’s here where we first get our really big name sequels, coming straight out of the gate on the 1st of April . But I’m always up for something new, and we have some interesting original stuff and new manga adaptations coming out as well.

I’ve frankly not been looking forward to a season since…well, I started watching current stuff. A year ago. Let’s just get on with the list.

5) Alice & Zouroku

Between things like new DanMachi, and new Berserk and next-gen Naruto, as well as new series such as Clockwork Planet and Armed Girl’s Machiavellianism, this appears to be a very action heavy season. Which is all well and good, but I do like something each season that is slightly away from the norm. Thankfully this caught my eye; it appears to be a nice, quiet series about a little girl with reality-warping powers who escaped from a test lab and is now living with a grouchy old man.

I know that might not seem like the nicest of synopses but frankly that is exactly my jam; supernatural mystery, character drama and a lot of opportunity for really cute and really heartwarming scenes; think something along the lines of Gunslinger Girl or Rozen Maiden. It looks really pretty as well, although I swear the art style is exactly the same as the one used for the Alien 9 OVA. I mean yeah, the studio is the same, but the mangakas and the stories in general seem completely different.

Ah well, it looks cute nonetheless. I don’t know enough about the original story or any of the other pedigree to be more excited for this, but on premise alone, this looks like a nice breath of fresh air at the very least.

4) Anonymous Noise

One thing I’ve never really watched in my few years of anime is a proper music show, which frankly I think is a major bad on my part. I’m not talking about things like K-On or Love Live, but I mean proper music shows like Kids on the Slope, Your Lie in April or Sound of the Sky (all of which have gone on my list very quickly). This will be my first one, although there are romance and high-school elements mixed in.

Normally I wouldn’t have given it a second glance, but the PV and the art style caught my attention. This looks nothing like Alice & Zouroku; it’s pure teenage emotion, screaming into the microphone; really raw, powerful looking stuff. The show itself is by Brain’s Base (who were behind Baccano!) but the art style is like something completely out of Clamp; harsh angles and lanky character designs which I actually sorta love. Again, I don’t know how good the people working on this are, but certainly for the series compositor I’ve heard great things about Arakawa Under the Bridge, Flying Witch and Noragami, so I’m cautiously optimistic. As slice of life romances go, it should be a darn sight better than Orange turned out to be.

3) Re:Creators

Now this is something I’ve been looking forward to since it was announced. From the striking poster to the fact that the creator of Black Lagoon is heavily involved, I thought it sounded absolutely awesome. There’s one problem at the moment…

…I have absolutely no idea what it’s about. I’m serious, this is the synopsis:

“Humans have created many stories. Joy, sadness, anger, deep emotion. Stories shake our emotions, and fascinate us. However, these are only the thoughts of bystanders. But what if the characters in the story have "intentions"? To them, are we god-like existences for bringing their story into the world? Our world is changed. Mete out punishment upon the realm of the gods. In Re:CREATORS, everyone becomes a Hand Shaker…I mean, Creator.”

See what I mean? Okay in all honesty, the creators look competent, the animation is by Troyca who made Aldnoah.Zero look far better than it deserved, and from what I can glean from the PV it looks like a really interesting premise; basically a battle royale between all sorts of different genres, from mecha and high fantasy to neo-samurai, magical girl and sci-fi dystopia. Even if it is bad or trashy, it should still be immensely entertaining, but given what an utter travesty Hand Shakers has been, I’m just the tiniest bit wary.

2) Attack on Titan: Season 2

It’s been four years…but we’re so close to seeing it again.

If Sword Art Online was the show that properly introduced the ‘blockbuster anime’ we see every year, then Attack on Titan was the show that cemented it. If you’re any kind of an anime fan you’ve almost certainly watched it, and love it or hate it, it’s certainly been immensely influential to the fandom. I’m in the former category; the original series had its flaws in characterization and the general blockbustery traits that plague most modern media (see one of my other rants) but it was a phenomenally thrilling ride from start to finish and the story’s only just getting started. I’ve thankfully managed to avoid most of the story spoilers up to this point so I’m thoroughly looking forward to where the show’s going to go from here.

But as much as I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, it’s not my number one.

1) My Hero Academia: Season 2

My Hero Academia may not have been the most popular show last Spring, and it was largely overshadowed by shows such as Re:Zero, but honestly it was a fantastic introduction to a unique world with colourful characters and a lot of room for development. It remains one of the few shounen shows I really enjoy (in fact I think only Seven Deadly Sins surpasses it), and with the introduction out of the way, it’s time to get stuck in with some proper plot. More specifically, a tournament arc!

‘waves hand excitedly’

Like with AoT, I haven’t been following the manga, but the more I’ve heard of this story in general, the more I like the sound of it. It is the MCU to Attack on Titan’s X-Men; it may not have the depth or seinen factor which I absolutely love when done right, but there is absolutely no argument to be made against pure, unadulterated fun when it’s done as amazingly right as this is. It’s an incredibly tough call, but my most anticipated anime of the coming season has to be My Hero Academia Season 2.

Let’s just hope that I’ll actually be able to WATCH my most anticipated this time.

‘sends accusatory glares at Netflix, who is still withholding Little Witch Academia’

Other Potentially Interesting Shows

Berserk (2017) – Due to the fact that it’s a strong season and the fact that the 2016 version was merely ‘okay’, I won’t be following this live, although I will check it out again at a later point.

Zero Kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho – High fantasy by White Fox. If you liked Re:Zero, you’ll probably like this. Frankly I’ve had enough high fantasy for the moment after Chain Chronicle

Clockwork Planet – I was so tempted; I love clockwork/steampunk scifi stuff, but with everything else and the fact that the plot was a bit too vague, I’m giving it a miss. Hand Shakers has really shaken my risk-taking ability.

Love Tyrant, The Very Lovely Tyrant of Love – Angels have Kiss Notes which cause people to fall in love. One such angel messes up and a guy will end up dying if he doesn’t kiss someone. Looks utterly insane.

Natsume’s Book of Friends Season 6 – Apparently a really popular show. I should probably watch this at some point.

Sakurada Reset – An interesting idea about a town full of people with supernatural powers, including resetting the world. Seems like Charlotte in premise which honestly is a good thing; lots of room for character growth and drama, as well as David Production (from Jojo) doing the series. My worry is the backlog; looking into the creators, they’ve done things such as .hack…and Future Diary…and Aldnoah.Zero…and…Boku no Pico OVAs…yeah, uh, nope.

The Eccentric Family Season 2 – A show about the lives of a family of tanuki living in the suburbs which was supposedly really good, and another one which I haven’t seen.

SukaSuka, What are you doing at the end? Are you busy? Can you save me? – ‘Leprechauns’ fight ‘Beasts’ or something like that; I don’t know, and again, I’ve learnt my lesson after Hand Shakers.

#anime 2017 #spring 2017 #alice & zouroku #jc staff #alice to zouroku #anonymous noise #fukumenkei noise #brain's base #re:creators #troyca #attack on titan #shinjeki no kyojin #studio wit #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #studio bones #bones baby

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feminizm-by-zo · 7 years

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When Your B.S. Feels Like BS...

Homework is all done, tests are done, no more lectures, what do I do… Do i regret anything? Here’s your simple answer, no. I do not resent my college experience. I actively try to live with the choices I make and the paths I choose to take along the way. Overall, despite inevitable bumps in the road that is college and my young adult years 18-21, I had a wonderful time. I made lifelong friends, joined clubs, found my voice, learned about who I am and learned about things in class (because school…) There are so many amazing parts of college and there are a great number of awesome things about being all done with it but something just doesn’t feel right.

I’m having a hard time coming up with the right word to explain my experience, but in my LONG (lol just kidding) 3 months since graduation I have struggled with some things that I feel college failed to not only prepare me for, but even mention..

This isn’t organized because I did my college homework and got the degree already so I’m freeeeeee BUT, here’s some genuine (please do better than me at life) advice and just stuff for your brain:

1. GO to the career center starting from freshmen year–> brainstorm ways to make your resume not just be great but STAND OUT, complete at least TWO internships (different cities and roles is ideal), talk about your future OPTIONS (grad school, work, parent, military, etc.)

2. Do NOT let any one or group of people pressure you into a future “plan” that your heart isn’t fully committed to–> I had the most wonderful professors that I trusted and admired but they never discussed options about my future OTHER THAN graduate school and for that matter it HAD TO BE right away and it HAD TO BE a PhD program. Not until I left did I realize, uh do I want to do this? and in fact I felt inferior for considering a masters program or no program at all (COME ON, all of those options are great ones)

3. I saw this today and I loved it, “sleep more than you study, study more than you party, and party as much as you can” –> please make your silly mistakes in college because there are so many people to catch you when you fall and/or get drunk and THEN fall. Take risks now, please. I didn’t and I’m still working on how to truly LIVE, but college would have been the time

4. Go outside your damn campus –> I don’t care what city or town your school is in, literally go outside of your school (buddy system…) My school wasn’t in a great area but one of my fondest memories was volunteering with such wonderful women outside of my campus. Plus, even if your campus food is good (???? where do you go), try out some restaurants yum yum

5. Make a NEW friend –> nah girl, I’m not talking about a mutual friend that you see and hang out with through association with someone else, I’m talking go big and talk to someone in class or literally walk up to someone and say be my friend. Not everyone is as inclined or comfortable being awkward as I am but if they’re weird about it they aren’t worth your time

6. Join a club you know nothing about –> for the love of G-d go learn something new in college. I almost could have tried to thought about (lol) joined the rowing team. My excuse was that they wake up early but to hell with that because those guys were awesome and I would have had a great time learning something new!

7. Take that nap –> Okay a lot of people would disagree with me here because “you never remember the nights you went to sleep” but trust me, sometimes waking up from a mid day coma can cure the oncoming college plague going around or will make you feel a bit better about the 249745 assignments you have due tomorrow (i do NOT miss that). Do it, take care of yourself

8. Make pals with your professors –> well duh, keep the professional-ness a thing but they are such cool actual PEOPLE. they don’t spend their WHOLE lives talking at you. They have pets, and hobbies and they know a lot of really cool stuff. Find a professor you heard about being cool or one that you know specializes in some sweet stuff and make an appointment with them. I met one of my mentors by literally emailing her and saying “hi i dont know you can i talk to you” (again with the awkwardness)

9. Erase that intimidation of “higher ups” thing you have in your noggin –> I became close with the president of my school through just making myself known in small, weird ways. Emailing him to ask his opinion on something, asking him to attend club events, literally stopping him to tell him something I want to see happen on campus. Those dudes and dudets “upstairs” are there to help you so make them dooo itt.

10. Just because you are qualified for a job or praised for your skills in one city/town/place does NOT mean it will be the same elsewhere –> here comes the tough love… I am definitely feeling like a pile of poo here wandering around DC with my resume because everyone wants the same thing, everyone is qualified, and everyone FOR SOME DAMN REASON has like 24 olympic gold medals BEFORE AN ENTRY LEVEL JOB. don’t give up, that’s my point.

11. Yes your mom is right that you’re special but I’m sorry, you are not one of a kind –> More tough love because I suck… okay so I am a recent college graduate in D.C., a feminist, liberal, jewish woman, “passionate”, “hard working”, “detail oriented” HAHAHAHA so is everyone else. Please please spend time in college finding a passion or niche that makes you at least .06% different than the masses because I blend right in and… hire me.

12. I guess I knew this but I didn’t realllllly know this, THE GYM AND THE HEALTHY FOOD IS FREE IN COLLEGE do it, eat it, idk beeee it –> gym memberships are mucho expensivo from $60-$329587970 per month in the real world so maybe take advantage of that gym now while you got it. AND damn, if i could buy some pomegranate seeds for less than $4 in this city i would love it but NOPE. Healthy food is so expensive, eat it now, save me some, send it to me.

13. Get a hobby –> that sounded rude but really, I need one. As much as I try yoga I don’t like it, it doesn’t relax me. Is netflix a hobby? I have an adult coloring book, does that count? NO. Just like in college there are clubs and groups in the real world that people are involved in like book clubs and women’s groups and political shin digs, JOIN SOME! Get passionate about somethin and do it in your free time.

14. College will tell you or at least it told me that there is ONE definition of success –> get a job before graduation, graduate, live in a fancy apartment, get a trophy wife (lol no thank you) and live happily ever after on a golf course. errrrrrr wrong, I’m really struggling with this but in college they tell you that you can do anything, and that’s true but at that same token YOU CAN DO ANYTHING. You can graduate and get married, go in the military, sit on the couch for a bit, live with your parents, take care of your mental health, etc. Do NOT do NOT let your college define what success is for you. Only you can do that and it will take some time. I’m not sure yet what mine is and i’m getting impatient but I’ll get there someday.

15. Pretend to be your own mother –> tell yourself to take care of yourself. physically, mentally, spiritually. Take that nap, take the medicine your doctor prescribed, cancel something with a friend if you need to, Be healthy.

16. Find your spirituality –> Sure I know my religion, I have ideas about my life and the “something bigger” but no one really lays it out for you that in college there are clubs and events (i.e. Hillel and Hanukkah dinners) but when you leave college you either have to seek out others who will join you in the creation of a club or organization OR (more likely) you have to figure out (probably by trial and error) what pieces of your religion and your upbringing you want to keep in your own adult life and maintain. It’s important, whatever it may be, remembering there is something bigger is helpful when you’re “on your own”

17. This will depend on the person you are but remember, be wise BUT money is just paper –> health and happiness are the most important parts of your life and after college (which you and I were so lucky to have the opportunity to attend) you need to remember that money will come, but health is of the utmost importance. Of course there will be times that money is a priority cause well, girl’s gotta live and eat but remember that it is not the end all be all of your life.

18. (if you’re still in college) pick a major that you LOVE and a minor that is MARKETABLE –> thanks to my daddio for this tip and not thanks for me for not doing this but out here in the cold lonely real world (lol), most entry level jobs have administrative, communications and marketing tasks. Do ya know how to do that? Get on it. Sometimes I feel like my degree only prepared me to play a very narrow focused game of jeopardy………

19. I don’t know if this is actually true but somewhere I saw that you have the most friends and biggest (real life) social network at 25 years old, embrace it –> mhmm all your pals in college are wonderful and there are many you will keep and maintain relationships with but some, I’m sorry this is harsh, are because of convenience and proximity. Outside of college you will have to work harder to cultivate relationships and friendships by truly being there for one another. You will find your circle just reach out!

20. Keep learning –> again I feel like i got this jeopardy game thing down but when it comes to having intellectual conversations at times I feel lost (and I hate myself for it) because I studied something pretty narrow. Read the classics, watch the news, LEAN INTO THE CONVERSATION (literally and figuratively), attend events, see plays, i don’t know just learn random important things about this world we live in and what it has to offer. There is so much out there so go get it.

21. Know your worth –> In every way possible but since you might be in the position looking for work, know your worth in regards to salary. Not only should you negotiate your salary (no matter how scary that sounds) but you should also research it in your area that you have chosen to look for work. I’m embarrassed to say that before moving to D.C. I underestimated a good salary for myself by about $15k......uncomfortable. You are worth it, fight for it.

22. You can live wherever you want! –> This is the fun part, we are so used to being “stuck” in one location for college or family but you can literally pick anywhere in the world to live and thrive as a young adult. I chose D.C. for professional opportunities but I could have picked China?? No one is stopping you so go big, the older you get, the more responsibilities will hold you back from going somewhere outrageous. Do it, I dare you.

Oy vey, well… that’s all I got for now but I’m sure I’ll learn something new tomorrow or be annoyed/feel helpless about something else I don’t feel prepared for this week but for now, be grateful for where you are and take advantage of it. You can do it (that was also me trying to convince myself)… it’s hard… keep going… and/or napping

ZG. 3/1/17/

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