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celestial-fucking-weeb · 4 years

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Anonymity be Damned

Hi, everyone! This is my first ever fic, and it’s a part of the Citrus Server collab! I’m so excited about it, and I know it’s super self indulgent, but I worked really hard on it and I hope you like it. Please give me feedback and tell me what you like and what I can improve on; also, please be nice to me, I’m a baby.

MASTER LIST IS HERE Go check out everyone’s hard work!

Warnings: 18+ minors do not interact, AGED UP (mid twenties), fluff, brief angst, insecurities, smut, body worship, chubby kink, marking (hickies), Papi kink

Pairing: Sero Hanta x chubby!female reader

Taglist: @reinawritesbnha

Prompt: "Masquerade balls were something you’d only ever heard about in movies. You couldn’t deny the prospect was intriguing; donning your most elegant attire, confidence boosted by your anonymity and the intoxication brought on by such a magical atmosphere. You and your fellow partygoers were almost doomed to desire, inhibitions washed away long before the wine and spirits started to flow.

The mystery, majesty, and potential for mischief were far too enticing to resist.

So, when you received an invitation to Midnight’s Masquerade, you didn’t think twice about accepting…"

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Of course, not thinking twice about accepting came back to bite you as soon as the realization set in that you would, in fact, have to go. Suddenly hyper-aware of your need to buy a dress, and knowing how little you enjoy shopping, you call your best girls for the job. A quick text to the groupchat had Mina and Yaomomo screaming with excitement that you were actually asking to go shopping. Jirou and Ochako sharing your apprehension, and Hagakure and Froppy bowing out due to their schedules, but wishing you luck with sweet emojis.

Yaomomo chose the dress shop, under the enthusiastic offer that she’d pay to ensure everyone would receive something from her favorite designers. You knew this was a place only Yaomomo could frequent- beautiful gowns lined every wall, display mannequins donning the most gorgeous dresses, made of the best fabrics with jewels perfectly beaded in, none of which had price tags so as to not “ruin the material” as she had told all of you. Whisking you all into dressing rooms bigger than your entire apartment, the staff practically fawned over each of you, offering assistance, refreshments, recommendations, and- oh fuck- measurements. Nerves shot through your entire body and made you nauseous, ready to make a stupid excuse to leave before your insecurities were announced to your girlfriends. You’ve always been...bigger.

The word tasted bitter on your tongue. The consultant made barely a sound as she pulled out her tape, but you heard it. That little “hm” noise, indicating judgement, knowing that most of their stock isn’t going to fit you properly, what with your plump thighs, soft tummy, squishy arms, the rolls that seemed to stay no matter how many workouts you do..

“We don’t carry plus size gowns, but I’m sure I can find something for you.”

All is confirmed when she says those stupid fucking words with that Joker-esqe smile and that hint of disgust in her tone. ‘I shouldn’t be here, I never should’ve accepted that invitation, why did I even think this was a good idea, the whole thing is for beautiful skinny girls like your friends, this is all a mistake,’ you think to yourself, insecurities and anxiety flooding your brain. Mina’s voice snaps you out of your spiral.

“Excuse me, I don’t believe we asked for your personal opinion on her body. In fact, I believe we only asked for you to do your job, but if you can’t complete such a daunting task, I’m sure there are 20 other people who’d love to take your place.” she grinned, in a tone too perky for her threatening choice of words.

“Also, as I happen to frequent this shop, I know your entire inventory. As such, I know that you do, in fact, carry gowns for each of our sizes. If you can find one to fit my chest, I know you have a variety of gowns to fit my beautiful friend, y/n. I suggest you begin pulling them, as I’m sure you’ve gotten the measurements you need. Now.” This time it’s Yaomomo, handling the situation with dignitary-level finality, before gracefully walking to you with a comforting smile. Ochako wipes a tear you weren’t aware had fallen, attempting to comfort you with false empathy, saying how you two are “practically the same size”, but you know you’re not. It’s comforting nonetheless, having the support of your friend group. Jirou cracks self deprecating jokes to lighten the mood, complaining, “If I have to wear a frilly gown to this bullshit, so do you, y/n. You’re not getting out of this that easy,” and you absolutely know she means it.

With your spirit slightly renewed and the consultants carrying in a multitude of dresses, you all end up having a blast laughing about how the pink ballgown does not fit Jirou’s aesthetic and the skintight green satin number Ochako tried on would quite literally have Deku passed out on the floor. You giggled with Yaomomo about how certain dresses looked risqué and nearly pornographic on your respective figures. Mina whined about how each dress didn’t have enough glitter, her complaints falling on deaf ears. Over the course of two and a half hours, each of the girls had secured a dress. Mina, in a teal mermaid-style dress with enough sparkle woven into the tulle to blind. Jirou, in a simple deep purple velvet gown that gracefully fell off her shoulders. Ochako, deciding, after much peer pressure, to opt for the green satin to make Deku drool. Yaomomo, in a red gown with beautiful beading, and a deep V neckline. You, on the other hand, were struggling to find something that doesn’t have you hyperfixating on one aspect of your body or another, limiting your breathing and movement so as to not further sink into the mean thoughts swirling around inside your head. The girls have gone into full support staff-mode, bringing you dresses of every cut known to man, offering more champagne to dull the anxieties, Yaomomo even offering to make you a custom dress with her quirk. Jirou sheepishly comes into the room, head down, hoping no one brings attention to the fact that she just sifted through dresses for a good 15 minutes and didn’t hate it, before nudging your soft side. You turn to her, defeated, and ready to give up, when you realize what she’s holding. She’s picked a dress for you, even though she hates shopping anywhere that isn’t blaring music through the speakers and dimly lit. You smile sweetly at her shy offering, reaching out to take it before she pulls back.

“No, I have an idea… I know it’s easy to look at your insecurities before the dress is all the way on, and I think you should let us help you into it with your eyes closed… Then, when you turn around to the mirror, you can see all the beautiful parts, like we do!” She looks down at the floor as she mutters the words, as though she’s embarrassed to be so soft and sweet.

“THAT’S A GREAT IDEA, JIROU! OH MY GOD, Y/N, YOU HAVE TO LET US DRESS YOU, IT’LL BE JUST LIKE CINDERELLA WITH THE BIRDS AND THE MICE, COME ONNN…” Mina bounces up and down, grabbing your hands and pleading, knowing you never say no when she gives you such excited eyes.

“Uh… fine… Yeah, I guess it couldn’t hurt. It’s not like I have anything to lose.” You shyly whisper, looking away.

If it were anyone else, you’d never want them to see you getting dressed, soft tummy and extra squish uncovered, leaving you vulnerable to their judgement. But these are your best friends, you’d known them for years. They’d held your hair on your 21st birthday, and cuddled into bed with you when you were crying over unrequited love. They’ve had your back, they’d never make fun of you, and Jirou chose this dress all special for you, you couldn’t say no. With that, you turned around and closed your eyes, arms out and waiting for them to help you into whatever Jirou had deemed right for you.

“Okay, y/n, almost done, just have to zip this last part up and… DONE!” Mina and Yaomomo stepped back from their positions holding the sides and pulling the zipper, respectively. Finally admiring the you in the dress, there was a moment of absolute silence. You started shifting uncomfortably, wondering just how horrible you looked if they didn’t even have words to describe it. Ochako was the first to break the quiet and a teary-sounding “You’re so beautiful, y/n.”, followed by Mina’s signature squeals of excitement. Yaomomo clasped her hands together and began ranting about “how gorgeous you looked” and “how perfect the dress was” and “how she didn’t even know they had this one yet”. Jirou, sensing your anxious shifting, finally told you to open your eyes and turn around with a hand on your shoulder, the satisfied smirk on her face audible in her now assured voice.

“Oh… wow…” was all you could manage to say, eyes wide as you saw yourself in the full length mirror. This was, in all honesty, the first time you felt beautiful in years. The dress did nothing to hide your body- no- it somehow managed to accentuate every single curve in the most beautiful way possible. The gown was black, made from silk and taffeta, with some built in structure, and oh so soft. Simultaneously comfortable, secure, and elegant, the strapless gown mimicked a one shoulder, right side jutting up in an asymmetrical style and the left dipping just low enough to show your cleavage before cascading down your curves, hugging each roll of your body gently, showing off your figure and flowing down to the floor with a slit up your thigh, only visible when you walked and showing the ample flesh of your hip and thigh. God, it was perfect. You felt strong and classy and sexy and beautiful. Turning to Jirou, you pull her into your chest and hug her, thanking her a thousand times for finding it.

“Whoa, hey, okay… I’m glad you like it, you look absolutely beautiful. But- um- hey, can you let go? I’m suffocating in titties here.” Jirou laughed, genuinely struggling to breathe in your embrace.

“Oh shit, sorry, Jirou! I’m just so happy, I love it so much! I kinda forgot you can’t breathe when I do that…” You chuckle nervously, releasing her from your embrace.

“Yay! Okay, now that everyone has a dress, let’s go purchase them and get some food. I’m starving!” Yaomomo pitches the idea, and everyone agrees, excited to hurry out of the shop for a meal.

_____________________________________________________________

The day had finally come, and your nerves felt fried. The other girls all had dates; Momo and Jirou deciding to go together, Ochako with Deku, even Mina was going with Kaminari. But here you were, riding in the car service alone, makeup absolutely flawless, complete with falsies and red lipstick that was the perfect shade to stand out against your skin. Such a shame no one was going to be benefiting from your efforts tonight, although the thought that your longtime crush, Sero Hanta, would be in attendance was enough to urge you to adjust your carefully placed mask, ensuring your anonymity and polishing your confidence. Sero had been in your friend group since high school, and was the first person you truly warmed up to upon your acceptance into the group. You quickly became the “shy little sister” to the loud ones in the group: Bakugou, Kaminari, Kirishima, and Mina. Jirou and Sero were more your speed; quieter, more laid back and chill, with great senses of humor that not everyone was privy to. With Jirou as your designated best friend, Sero was proclaimed the unrequited love interest. You friendzoned yourself almost immediately, assuming Sero wouldn’t go for a girl like you, not when he was tall, dark, handsome, and muscular. A budding pro hero wouldn’t want you, not with your shy insecurities and soft body…

Little did you know, Sero had been pining after you since the beginning, flirting with you subtly in hopes that you’d express your interest. Eyes wandering down your curves during movie nights, taking in your too-small shorts and how your oversized shirt would raise just enough to see your little tummy pouch, wishing his face was buried between your plump thighs, praying he would be able to leave hickeys on every delicious roll, pleading he could see those cute chubby cheeks covered with tears while your plush lips wrapped around his cock… No- he couldn’t think of you like that. After all, you never returned his flirting, and there’s no way you’d like him when you could crush on manlier guys like Kirishima and Bakugou. ‘He was just a “dollar store Spiderman”, as Bakugou liked to call him, just a guy… Nothing special…’ he thought to himself as he adjusted his own mask in the bathroom mirror at the gala. His friends had all confirmed that you were coming, and that you were coming alone (said by Kaminari while wiggling his eyebrows). Every other person in the group had a date, including Bakugou and Kirishima, who had to practically drag the former to the event in the first place. He was the only one “stagging it”, aside from you, who would no doubt attract attention and end up going home with some flashy hero higher ranked than he was. He sighed, adjusting his tux jacket and cufflinks, and exited into the main ballroom to get a drink.

You walked into the venue, checked in, and stood frozen outside the ballroom entrance. You adjusted your mask, steeled your nerves, and squared your shoulders, reminding yourself how absolutely gorgeous you looked and donning your best “bad bitch” aura. You strut into the place like you own it, suddenly very aware of how many people there are, scanning for familiar faces as you sway your luscious hips to maintain your balance in your heels.

“Holy fuck... “ Sero utters, jaw slack and eyes locked on you. You’re so perfect, breasts bouncing with every step, thighs and tummy jiggling, soft smile gracing your face. He’s staring, and Kaminari has to elbow him to wipe the drool from the side of his mouth before you get there. You’re equally as enchanted, seeing Sero in his black fitted tuxedo, crushed velvet lapels, tapered pants making his quads look positively biteable, crisp white shirt tailored over his pecs, black bowtie (slightly crooked, very fitting of his personality) and mask obscuring his face, leaving him as nothing more than a handsome stranger. A yellow pocket square catches your attention, reminding you of your favorite hero in his costume. You smirk to yourself, knowing you chose yellow gold heels specifically because they reminded you of him.

“See something you like, Sero-buddy? You’re staring so hard, you’d think she was God.” Kaminari punches Sero in the ribs, trying to break the spell. “Maybe you should talk to her, finally get over your crush on y/n by getting under someone else.” he winks, completely unaware that he’s talking about you in both respects.

“Uh… I don’t know, man. I think I’ll give it a minute, maybe grab another drink and enjoy the party for a while. I’m not trying to start hitting on some random chick just yet, though hot she may be.” Sero laughs, rubbing the back of his neck like he always does when he’s nervous. He diverts his eyes down to his drink, downs the rest of the liquid, then focuses back on you. You wait at the bar for your drink of choice, aware of that beautiful stranger still staring and leaning against the counter just enough to push your ass out. You hear him nearly choke on his drink, and move around the party satisfied with yourself.

A few drinks later, you find yourself on the dance floor, watching from the edge and lightly swaying to the music. A masked man with shaggy black hair, who you can only assume to be pro hero Grand, given his mask barely covered a fourth of his face probably only worn to fit the theme, approached you for a dance, hand extended and bowing at the waist.

“A lady as beautiful as yourself shouldn’t be a wallflower. Care to dance?” he asks, voice low and alluring, looking down at you with a mischievous glint in his deep brown eyes.

“I might…” you smile shyly, taking his hand and letting him lead you.

Once out on the dance floor, he pulls you into his chest with a hand on your lower back. It’s nice to be wanted, to dance so close to a man who finds you beautiful, especially one as chiseled as Grand. ‘Wait- is he…? Are you fucking kidding?’ Your fight or flight response kicks in as soon as you feel his hand drift lower and lower onto your ass. You pull away, ready to ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing, but before you can get a word out, he puts a hand over your jaw, fingers tightly snapping your mouth closed. Unable to speak and too shocked to move, you feel helpless as he whispers in your ear.

“God, I love fat girls. Your self esteem is so low, I can do whatever I want and you’ll fall for it. So stupid, so fun.” His laugh is so dark, and you start to panic before a large, strong hand reaches between the two of you and wraps around Grand’s throat, yanking him back and off of you.

“Listen, this is a classy place, so I’ll give you a choice. Either you apologize to this absolutely gorgeous woman and get the fuck out of here, or I beat you to a bloody pulp right here and ruin both your suit and your face.” The handsome stranger who had originally caught your eye growls, voice so low and intimidating you didn’t doubt for a second he meant every word. ‘His voice sounds so familiar, but I can’t quite place it. He’s so angry, and he’s speaking so low, I can’t figure out where I’ve heard that before.’ Thankful for his saving assistance, and trying to calm yourself from hyperventilating, you watch Grand’s retreating form before turning to the man who is quite literally your Prince Charming of the evening.

Voice still low and angry, “Listen, I need you to distract me. Calm me down so I don’t turn around and kill that guy.” he seethes. “You are stunning, absolutely gorgeous. He was so wrong. He’s an asshole, absolutely vile, and he never should’ve even had the nerve to approach you, much less touch you. God fucking damn it, I should-”

You cut him off by pulling him close, placing your hands on his chest and letting them roam up to fix his still crooked bowtie.

“Thank you…” you whisper, tearing up as you put your head on his chest. His cologne is so calming, his scent enveloping you as his arms instinctively wrap around you and his hand finds the back of your head, holding you to his chest.

The two of you slow dance in silence, his head resting on top of yours, the scent of your shampoo and hairspray comforting him and taking him to a dream where he was dancing with the y/n he knew, feeling your soft body pressed against him, imagining how you’d look in the dress on the girl he was actually dancing with. ‘Oh fuck, y/n would look so fucking perfect in this. Her curves- fuck, this dress is soft- I would absolutely love to run my hands along her body in this dress, press her up against me like this, fuck her thighs- wait… SHIT-FUCK-NO’ Snapped out of his thoughts by the increasing tightness of his tux pants, he prays to god the sexy girl pressed against him doesn’t notice.

You notice something nudging against your thigh, breaking you out of your daydreams about the mystery man being Sero Hanta, opening your eyes before you realize exactly what you’re feeling. ‘Oh… OH. Holy fuck, did I make him hard just dancing? He- uh- feels… big… Maybe if I just-’ you subtly shift your hips, thigh brushing up against him and slotting between his legs just enough. A deep groan rises from his chest, and he leans down to your ear.

“Babygirl, if you keep doing what I think you’re doing, I’m going to have to return the favor~” His voice sounds so familiar, but the lust clouding the low rumble has it taking on an entirely new timbre. You lean in, feeling emboldened by his words, swiping your tongue along the shell of his ear with a simple “Oh really?~ And what if that’s the goal?”

With that, he crooks his finger under your chin and presses his lips to yours. What starts as a sweet and simple kiss quickly evolves into a deep, passionate kiss that left you breathless. His fingers gently resting on your neck, just above your collarbone, and tongue swiping at your bottom lip. You sigh into him, granting him access and letting his tongue explore your mouth, relishing in his deep rumbles and pressing impossibly closer, hoping he’d get the message and take you somewhere more private. Luckily, it seems he seems to read your body language and leads you to a side hallway by pressing his hand on the small of your back, possessively guiding you. Pushing you up against the wall, he leans back in to resume kissing you, with an arm steadying himself above your head. In a simply embarrassing display of clumsiness, your hand reaching for his cheek goes slightly off course, accidentally knocking off his mask and causing you to fumble to the floor to retrieve it. Upon looking up, you see Sero standing with a flushed face and his hand reaching up to the back of his neck, the endearing nervous tic you’d learned from him over the years. Oh God, if your heart wasn’t beating fast enough before, it sure as fuck was now… The man you had yearned after for years not only swooping in to save you from some low-life creep, but also having you in a kabedon against the wall of the fanciest place you’ve ever been in. He laughs, nervous now without his anonymity, and reaches down to help you up.

“I- uh- sorry, I might’ve gotten carried away. I hope you’re okay, I know I’m probably not the hero you wanted. I really do think you’re beautiful, you actually remind me of someone I know and- wow- I’m rambling…” He goes on like this, panicking that he’s somehow ruined your fantasy and disappointed you by existing. He only shuts up when you stand back upright and kiss him softly.

“You’re exactly the hero I want… The hero I’ve always wanted.” You blush, staring up at him with the most loving doe eyes you can manage.

‘Wait… Her voice… Is that- ?’ Sero came to quite possibly the best and utterly terrifying realization; that the girl he’d been lusting after all night and the girl he’d been wanting for years could be the same girl. He hesitantly brought a hand to your face, lightly grazing your mask as though asking for permission. You nod, never breaking your gaze on his concentrated expression, and parted your lips. He gingerly lifts the mask from your features, damning your anonymity, and each of you hold your breath in anticipation. The way he looks at you is like something out of a movie, or one of those shōjo manga you love to obsess over: pure relief, adoration, lust, love. Oh, you want him to look at you like that forever.

“Y/n, I-... You have no idea how happy I am that it’s you. I have been wanting to kiss you for years, and to finally do it, and with you looking… Wow- you are so fucking stunning, I have never seen anything as beautiful in my life. Fuck, I just- I wish I could tell you how perfect you are, express in words how flawless I’ve always thought you were- still do… “ Sero breathed all of this as though he had to get every word out before you disappeared. He held your face in both hands, lightly squishing your cheeks and stroking his thumb over your lips, taking in your hopelessly enthralled expression. “You know what? Fuck this. No- I mean- not ‘fuck this’, I just… I want to do this right. I want you, I need you. I want to express how important you are, I need to show you that you’re everything to me. I want to worship you, kiss every inch of your body and make you feel so incredibly complete and full and whole and appreciated. Do you understand?”

“Hanta… I- Yes. Yes. Please take me home, I need you. I want you. You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted.” You lean into his touch, wanting to be ever closer to his warmth.

You yelp as he suddenly picks you up, bridal style, as though you don’t even provide a struggle.

“HANTA, you can’t be carrying me, I weigh more than you, no no no, I’m too heavy, you can’t-”

“Y/n. I’m a pro hero, are you seriously telling me I can’t carry you? I can carry 3 people at once while hanging from a strip of tape in midair. I’ll hold you up forever if you’d let me.” He squeezes you in his hold, emphasizing his point.

His cocky attitude was majorly driven by how good you felt, soft tummy and jiggling tits against his torso, the perfect squish of your thighs in his powerful arms, chubby hands and cheeks tucked into his chest and the crook of his neck. He swore he could die happy right there. In the elevator, he took a moment to take in your entire figure, but upon reaching your feet, something turned him absolutely feral. Your shoes. You were wearing his colors. Every single piece of clothing matched his hero costume. ‘Holy shit… You knew. You wanted him before this even happened. You were his.’ The possessive growl that tore from his chest startled you as he adjusted you in his hold. He had your legs wrapped around his waist, hands unapologetically on the ample crux of your thighs and ass, lips on yours in a desperate kiss that was all tongue and teeth, grinding his hard cock against you. You whimpered against his lips, shocked by his sudden change of demeanor.

“Fuck, you’re wearing my colors, aren’t you? You want me to claim you? You want to be mine? I’ll give you anything you want, babygirl. I just need you to ask for it.~” He growled against your neck, nose tracing the column of your throat.

“Hanta, please, yes- ah~. I want to be yours. I only want to be yours. I need you. Please, please, please.” Normally, you’d be way too shy to beg this much, embarrassed about how desperate you sound, but fuck he’s making you so needy. The gasp that escapes you when Sero licks a stripe up your neck turns into a moan when he starts sucking a hickey over your pulsepoint. He feels so good, the heat between your thighs steadily building with every nip of his teeth and roll of his hips. You thread your fingers through the hair on the back of his neck and pull gently, earning a groan and a buck of his hips. He works his way up to your jaw, leaving pretty little marks in his wake, and returns to your lips like a safe haven. He strokes your tongue with his own, committing your taste to memory. He never wants to forget this moment, especially not when you lightly suck his tongue and pull him in further with those perfect fucking thighs. You’re so soft, being wrapped in your plushness with his fingers digging into the pliable flesh of your ass is too much. Sero’s sinful thoughts are interrupted by your fucked-out voice, so small and innocent, as though you’re afraid of his answer.

“Um… Can I- can I touch you? I mean- I- can I mark you, too?” You sound so unsure, not used to someone wanting to show you off. You’re so breathless, and he’d be lying if the pleading in your voice didn’t make his dick twitch in his pants.

“Awwww~ is my babygirl shy now? You want to mark me, too? Go ahead, mi amor, sí se puede. I’m all yours, just like you’re mine.” Sero cranes his head to the side, baring his neck to you, waiting for you to bless him with those full lips, waiting for you to make a show of him finally having the most perfect girl he’s ever known.

If he could’ve taken a picture of your face in that moment, he’d look at it every day. Squishy cheeks blushing, eyes wide with surprise and excitement, gaze clouded with lust. You were so pretty, he couldn’t wait to ruin you. Sero moaned as you sucked a small dark mark onto his skin and happily carried you from the elevator to his room. You tighten your arms around him when he reaches for his key card, involuntarily pushing your chest together and pressing up into him.

“Oh, mi corazón, if you keep pressing into me like that, voy a tener que lamer cada parte de ti y puede que no te deje ir…” His threats sound more like promises when he’s carrying you through the threshold and placing you down gently, though his hands never leave your body. Tracing your sides, memorizing your curves, squeezing any part he can get his hands on. His right hand inches down your torso, resting on the pouch of your tummy and making you flinch. Sero notices and worries he’s hurt you, or that you don’t want him to touch you. The hurt in his eyes is obvious when he takes in your tense muscles and eyes squeezed shut, realizing it’s your own insecurities holding you back. He wishes you could see how beautiful you are, see yourself through his eyes. He was going to make you feel so fucking loved, he just had to show you what he couldn’t express in words. You stripped him of his jacket as he unknotted his tie. With nervous hands, you unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it past his broad shoulders, fingers trailing down his sculpted chest and lean abs, admiring the enticing adonis belt and pretty trail of coarse black hair disappearing into his pants. Sero, with his ego now boosted by the lustful look in your eyes as you took him in, returned your gaze to his face with an intensity that made you shiver. He kept eye contact while sweeping your hair to one side, and slowly unzipping your gown. Your breath hitches in your throat as he leans down to place open mouthed kisses along your shoulders as he pushes your dress down your body, kissing down your arms as it falls, and places a sweet kiss to your hands. Pushing you onto the bed with a soft thud and climbing over top of you, he moves the hands that raise to cover yourself , grasping your wrists in one hand and cupping your cheek with the other, as he softly reassures you.

“Princesa, please don’t hide from me. I’ve waited for you for so long, and I want to worship every inch of you. I’m going to make you cry out my name, and show you just how perfect you are while you cum on my tongue. You will not say a single bad thing about mi amor, you understand?” he says lowly, so loving yet commanding.

“Yes, Hanta… I- I’ll be good for you, I promise.” you whine, praying your submission would please him.

The sound of his given name in that pleading tone has him painfully hard, but he’s too focused on hearing his name from your sweet lips again to care. You pull him down into a passionate kiss and roll your hips against his clothed cock when he laves down your neck and leaves love bites across your chest. He sucks your nipple into his warm mouth and rolls the other between his forefinger and thumb, earning a high pitched keen from you. He switches to give the same attention to the other side, tongue swirling around the peaked bud and relishing the way your chest heaves just from his mouth on your tits. ‘So needy… Fuck, how did I ever wait this long to see y/n like this and hear her sounds?’ Sero thinks to himself, so ready to watch your eyes roll back in your skull the minute you feel his cock fill you. The thought of you bouncing on his dick, watching you jiggle with his thrusts, letting him grip the fat on your hips and help you fuck yourself on him, feeling your lovely thighs straddle him, has him impatiently rutting into the mattress. He needs to taste you, leave marks all over your delicious tummy and thighs, and feel you coming undone beneath him. His large hands slide down your sides, rubbing back up under your breasts, gripping the extra flesh over your ribcage, the soft love handles on your sides, caressing the perfect pouch of your belly and settling on your hips. His mouth follows the path of his hands, kissing and licking every place you had deemed undesirable like they were the sexiest pieces of you, leaving dark hickeys on the front of your hips to remind you that all of these parts were now his to love.

“Lo siento, babygirl, pero no puedo esperar más, necesito mi lengua en ese bonita coño jodidamente ahora. Estas necesitan estar en el suelo ahora.” If his panting growl of Spanish didn’t already have your pussy gushing, his strong fingers ripping your panties and hoes off your body had you dripping onto the bed. Your shocked squeak turning into a moan when he parted your legs and nipped at the soft skin of your inner thigh, Sero is beyond delighted by feeling your beautiful thighs squishing against his face. If he could choose his end, it would undoubtedly be suffocating between this plush heaven. He snaked his arms under your parted thighs to hold your hips, squeezing and marveling at the feeling of your warm body protruding between his spread fingers, trying to fit as much of you in his grasp as he could and never getting enough. You’re just about to plead for him to touch you where you need him most when you lock eyes and hear the teasing lilt in his voice when he groans “Itadakimasu~” and flattens his tongue, licking a long, slow stripe up your slit.

“So wet for me, princesa, is this all for me? You’re so thoughtful to give me a meal so sweet.”

“Hantaaa, please. I want you, please don’t tease me, please touch me. I need- ah~”

Your begging is interrupted by his tongue diving into your sex, lapping at your slick like a man starved. The moans coming from the man between your thighs were sinful; in this moment, Sero Hanta was no longer the friend you’d watched superhero movies with and silently crushed on for years- he was a man, a lover, all you’d ever wanted. Wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking the sensitive pearl into his mouth, he pulled one hand from your hip and slowly slipped two long fingers into your sopping heat. The callused pads from years of hero training now rubbing perfectly against your walls have you crying out for him and grasping his hair, begging him to go faster. He suddenly props himself up, bringing his palm up to grind against your clit and slowing his thrusts, wanting to hear you beg for him and watch your desperate facial expression.

“What is it you want, babygirl? C’mon, you’re going to have to use that pretty little mouth of yours. Tell me what you want, baby, use your words. I wanna hear you beg for me.” That normally dopey smile was replaced with a lewd smirk, hungry and covered in your juices.

“H-Hanta, please please please. I need you, need your mouth. Please I wanna cum, please let me cum, I want you to fuck me! Please please pleaseeeee~” Hips bucking forward, sweat lightly covering your skin, hair splayed out, body covered in his marks, begging for him… Shit, he’d give you anything you asked for. Oh, he’ll give you what you need- don’t you worry.

“Good girl, such a good girl for me. I’ll make this pretty pussy cum. Hold onto me and just relax, princess.”

His lips returned to your clit, flicking his tongue and sucking lightly, and increased his pace. He curled his fingers just right, finding the spongy underside of your clit and he chuckles darkly to himself when your back arches, head falling back onto the pillows.

“There it is~, there we go, babygirl. Cum for me, just like this. I’ve got you, let go, cum on my fingers.”

It doesn’t take long after his mouth goes back to nursing on your clit and his fingers continuously hitting your g-spot for the coil in your belly to finally snap. You climax hard, eyes screwed shut and screaming out his name as his tongue works you through your high. Once you’ve come down, you open your eyes and see Sero sucking his fingers clean of your release and unbuckling his belt with the other hand. You sit up to kiss him, tasting yourself on his tongue, and unbuttoning his pants. He grows impatient with your pace, shoving his pants and tight boxers down at once. ‘Fuck, his dick is pretty’ you think to yourself, marveling at the masterpiece before you. He’s long, maybe 8.5-9 inches, thick enough to stretch your walls so deliciously but not too thick to fit in your mouth, prominent vein running along the underside and leading from the neat crop of black hair to the leaking tip, begging for your tongue. You start to rise to your knees before being pushed back into the duvet, looking up at him in confusion.

“No, no, mi amor. As much as I want to see your beautiful lips wrapped around my cock, that’s gonna have to wait. I want to be inside you, I need to fuck you until all you can think about is me and how fucking beautiful I think you are.” His eyes are so sincere. He looks down at you with the most loving stare you’ve ever felt, so calm and safe in his presence. You’re lulled into submission, every doubtful argument you had died on your tongue, and a soft moan escaped your lips. He leans over you, bracing himself on an elbow with his hand on your jaw to keep your eyes fixated on him. The other hand wraps around the base of his cock and teases the head along your slit, pressing on your clit just enough to have you squirming, trying to impale yourself.

“So needy for me, so wet. You’re so perfect, babygirl, I wouldn’t want to go too fast now. I want to savor every inch, feel you stretch around me while I watch those e/c eyes roll back in pleasure.” He holds back from thrusting into you when you whine in response, breathing heavy and struggling to get him inside. “Damn, baby, if you’re that desperate, why don’t you tell me exactly what you want? Beg for my cock, mi amor.”

“PLEASE, I need you inside me, please! I need your cock. Please fuck me, Papi~” You gasp out in succession, trying out the name you had once heard Kaminari teasing him about. It was a desperate attempt to get him to move, one your fucked-out brain decided was your best shot at getting him feral. And holy shit were you right. Sero fills you in an instant, hard length thrust to the hilt in your tight hole, causing you to cry out, eyes rolling back just as he promised.

“FUCK!” He’s losing restraint, driven mad by the filthy name coming from your angelic lips. The squeezing and fluttering of your walls is the only thing grounding him to Earth as he smirks down at you, baring his teeth while his other hand comes to wrap around your throat and apply light pressure to the sides. “Oh you know what you’re doing, don’t you? You have no idea how many times I imagined you calling me like that with these soft thighs wrapped around me; trust me, it’s nothing close to how sexy the real thing is. If you want to play dirty, princesa, don’t blame me when you can’t walk tomorrow.”

He backed up his statement with a few deep strokes that had your mouth falling open and eyes unfocusing, still unable to look away from the man about to wreck you. In a weak attempt to ground yourself, you reach up and place your hands on his back to feel the flexing of his muscles as he gave you slow, deep thrusts. Running your hands along his shoulders had your pussy clenching, and the groan pulled from his chest accompanying a harsh increase in his pace had your nails clawing at the corded muscles, causing him to put more force into fucking you into the mattress. A cycle of reactions, spurring the other on to continue and escalate.

“You feel so good, babygirl. S-So tight, you feel like you’re fucking made for me. I love you so much. I love everything about you. God, I fucking love your body- I love your curves, I love your legs wrapped around me, I love your sexy fucking thighs, I love your cute tummy- love how you feel pressed against me, I love running my fingers up your arms and kissing back down, I love gripping your hips when I hold you, I love watching you jiggle when you walk and bounce when I fuck you like this. You’re so fucking beautiful, so perfect for me.” Sero babbles out praises like he’ll die if he doesn’t get them out. You’re a blushing mess, knowing these words are completely true, tumbling out of his mouth unconsciously as he thinks them. “I love that expression, angel. Still so shy at my praises, even though I can feel you trying to milk my cock at every word. Such a good girl for me. Why don’t you tell me who makes this pretty pussy feel so good, huh? Say it, angel.”

“Hantaaa~ you feel so good. Please don’t stop!! I’m so close, please. I wanna cum, I wanna cum on your cock, please Papiiii~. You make me feel so good. I love you, I love you, I’m all yours. Please, I’m yours-ah~, I wanna be yours. I need you, I love you so much. Only you could make me feel like this-fuck- it’s only you. Please make me cum, Papi~” Your moans and pleas are getting louder and louder, chasing your impending climax. Every emotion flowing out of you, combined with the wonderful overstimulation, had tears rolling down your pudgy cheeks. You hadn’t yet realized you were crying when Sero leaned down to kiss and lick away the salty streams.

“Okay, princesa, I’ll give you what you need. How can I say no when you're being so good for me? Such a beautiful mess, all for me. So perfect. My good girl~” His right hand smoothes down your torso and settles between your thighs, rubbing tight circles on your clit. “Come on, babygirl. Papi’s got you, I’ll take good care of you. Cum for Papi. Cum on my cock.”

Your final orgasm has your back arched off the bed, eyes crossed, tongue lolling out, screaming out a string of “Hanta”, “Papi”, and “I love you”. Sero keeps his pace steady, fucking you through your climax and trying to prolong it as long as he can. The feeling of your doughy pussy clamping down around his cock like a vice, the gloriously wrecked ahegao face, and the sound of your cries as you creamed on his dick had him right on the edge of his own high. He started to pull out, not wanting to cross any boundaries, when he felt your legs pull him in even further. He looks back to your face; hazy, loving eyes drawing him in with that innocent look.

“Please cum inside me Papi, I want it! I’m yours, I want you. I want you to fill me up.” The permission to claim his longtime love and the aftershocks of your orgasm having you still pulsing around him finally push him over the edge. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, sucking and biting in a feeble attempt to muffle his moans of your name as his hips stuttered, thick ropes of cum warming your insides and painting your walls white. You feel so full and so content. Staying inside you, Sero rolls the two of you over to lay on his back, still holding your sweaty bodies together as he kisses your forehead and strokes your hair, telling you how good you did, how happy he was, how proud he was of you.

No one has ever made you feel so good, so wanted. Normally, your post-sex thoughts are plagued with insecurities, but instead all yoou can think about is Sero and how perfect this was. How beautiful he made you feel… and how you didn’t want it to end.

“H-Hey… Um… Sero?” you timidly get his attention.

“Y/n, I’m gonna need you to start calling me Hanta if we’re gonna be together. It’s a little weird to call your boyfriend by their family name, isn’t it?… Unless you wanna call me Papi, of course~” He says, his normal goofy grin and teasing tone returned.

“Wait… You- you really want to be with me? You don’t want me to keep it a secret? I will if you tell me to… I don’t want to embarrass you, I know I’m not exactly the ‘trophy wife’ the other heroes go for… I just really like you- um- actually, I’ve been in love with you for years now, and I just got really excited that you wanted me and-” Your nervous muttering is cut off with his lips softly pressed against yours, his hand moving to intertwine your fingers with his.

“Mi amor, I’ve been in love with you for just as long. You are my trophy, the greatest part of me. Every single thing I said is true, and I’ve thought those things for our entire friendship. If you think for a second that I won’t be walking around shirtless, showing off all of these marks to Kirishima and Kaminari, you don’t know me at all.” He winks at you and brings your hand to his lips, placing a gentle kiss there. “Princesa, babygirl, mi corazón… Nunca te dejaré, yo nunca te dejaré salir, yo prometo. I am yours, and you are mine.”

“I love you, Hanta.”

“I love you, too, y/n.”

You fall asleep on his chest to the calming rhythm of his heartbeat and steady breathing. Upon waking up, you assume you had just dreamed the entire affair, chalking it up to your vivid imagination and drinks at the ball. That is, until you realize you’re trapped in a tangle of limbs with Hanta, leg hiked over his body and arms encompassing each other. You try to shift slightly to see his sleeping face, but he stirs and rolls over on top of you with a groan. The jolt of his muscles jerking awake told you he also thought he had dreamed the entire thing, believing that the prospect of your mutual pining actually coming to fruition was too good to be true.

“Good morning, angel. I’m so glad you’re real… And that you’re all mine.” Sero softly sighs, voice rough from sleep, nuzzling his face into your chest and squeezing your soft midsection to hold you closer.

“Good morning, love. I’m so so happy, but there’s one thing…” You say, trying to hold back your giggles.

“What is it, baby? Is something wrong? What did I do?” Sero starts thinking of every possible scenario as you soothe his thoughts with a cheeky smile.

“I- um… I think I need you to carry me to the shower, you weren’t lying when you said I wouldn’t be able to walk in the morning.” Both of you erupt in a fit of laughter. He scoops you up in his arms and carries you to the shower, so content in finally having his girl.

___________________________________________________________

A/N: WHEW okay… I’m actually really proud of this, and I hope you guys like it. The Latin Sero headcanon hits me so hard and I just absolutely simp for this sweet tape boy. Huge thank you to @reinawritesbnha for inspiring me to write this matchup, @lemonlordleah-shinzawa-kitten for encouraging me and giving me the courage to post, and my dear, sweet Sage for reading it to make sure I don’t embarrass myself and inspiring me to write in the first place. <3

#sero x reader #sero hanta #hanta sero #sero hanta smut #bnha #mha #mha sero

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rosaliepostsstuff · 3 years

Text

Little steps (George Weasley x reader) | pt 4 - Attention

Pairing: George Weasley x reader, OC x reader

Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3

Summary: Y/N and George try to figure out what the Yule Ball changed in their relationship; life gets back to normal and goes on, Y/N is a confused teenager™ and has a hard time sorting her shit out

Word count: 6897

warnings: cursing, mentions of sexual themes, mentions of alcohol, canon character death

a/n: It’s a wild ride and honestly I don’t know what else to say about it. I hope I left as little mistakes as possible, it’s long. The next part will be the last, my dears. Also, I’m not sure if drinking lemon balm tea is a thing outside of where I’m from so I’m sorry if you got confused 😅 - I drink it and I like it.

Walking up the curved steps you felt his tingling gaze, you held your breath in, until you were out of sight, and you seemed to shake more with each step you took. The door handle to your room felt colder than ever. You stepped into the room where Hermione was getting ready for a shower, picking up her cosmetics, you felt dazed as if you just stepped out of a fairy tale and you didn’t know how to function in the normal world anymore. So you closed the door behind you, your friend stopping in her tracks, trying to read you. You took a deep breath, leaning your back against the door and looked into her eyes – and that anchored you. Tonight really did happen, in the real world. Your face broke into a huge smile and you didn’t have to say anything, you just squealed and charged at her – both of you jumping grinning like fools, squeezing each other tight.

“I need to calm down, take a shower and just lay down” you started rambling after you let go of her “otherwise I’ll never fall asleep. Oh, I hope I can fall asleep normally, we both know I’m as good as dead if I don’t get enough sleep- “ you went on as you started picking up your own toiletries, kicking off your shoes in the meantime, while Hermione waited for you, chuckling at how dramatic you were. She was glad to be distracted from her own whirlwind of thoughts after that evening.

The following morning you woke up, debating whether getting up at all, was a good idea. But your rumbling stomach won. You washed up and stood in front of the mirror in your room, wondering what to wear. Why would choosing an outfit be too difficult? It was a normal morning after all. – a skirt with a button-up? no, that’s trying hard… - I mean, you never cared about how you looked- or wait, scratch that. You never questioned your judgement or had much trouble with it – maybe just some sweats? ugh, but then people would start assuming you’re in a bad mood, or hungover… - looking good just came naturally to you and you weren’t a try-hard, as you kept telling yourself. So you put on a pair of fitting jeans with a sweater and put your hair up in a high ponytail. It’s just a normal morning.

You knew Hermione left before you and you didn’t see Harry or Ron in the common room, so you stepped through the heavy wooden door leading to the great hall, alone. If your wardrobe this morning didn’t confuse you enough, now you faced another dilemma. How did you usually choose a place to sit? Why was existing and decision making so difficult that morning? Surely, you didn’t get enough sleep. That was it.

Still deep in your thoughts, your feet were awkwardly following along the Gryffindor table. I mean, normally, when you weren’t already with your friends, you would just take any empty spot. Today should be the same. Your seat at the breakfast table shouldn’t be a statement, yeah?

“Hey, Y/N,” said Hermione, shifting a bit closer to Harry, so you could sit by her other side. You didn’t realize you had walked up to them. “Hi,” you said, slowly taking your spot and unsuspiciously scanning the perimeter. “-everyone..” you added when you met George’s eyes as he was bringing a coffee mug up to his lips, smiling to you. You broke the eye contact to pick some food and get on with your breakfast and just missed how he hit his teeth with the mug, spilling a bit of the liquid and earning a snort from Fred.

——————⁛⁙⁘◊⁘⁙⁛—————— January, 1995

“-have you ever noticed that?” said George staring dreamily at your confident smirk after you probably made some cheeky comment, sitting with your friends by the fire on the other side of the common room. “No, can’t say I have,” answered Fred in a bored tone with his cheek resting on his palm and elbows on the table, until he got a punch to the side. “Ugh, what do you want me to do?” he said wincing a bit and rubbing the sore spot as his twin glared at him, feeling betrayed. “-you’re absolutely smitten with her since the ball and it’s getting boring. Get over yourself!” “Could you be any louder?!” George whisper-yelled “ -wait no, don’t answer that” he quickly followed, holding his hands up as he knew the look in his brother’s eye well. “Look, all I’m saying is – that’s still Y/N we’re talking about. And this- “ Fred gestured widely at George’s position “-isn’t helping you.”

——————⁛⁙⁘◊⁘⁙⁛——————

Much too soon for most of the students, the new term came along. You fell into a routine, very similar to the one from the previous term, only with a few slight changes. You had calmed down a bit when it came to George, who would now, along with Fred, hang out with you from time to time. He also got back to his confident self around you. His new approach was hard to get used to at first, cause it meant frequent compliments, winks, attempts to show off, distracting you when you tried to study in the common room and those damned, so hard to resist smiles you always had to return.

January was coming to an end and you were eating lunch with Hermione, boys not with you, brainstorming about the clue Harry got after opening his egg. As you stopped reaching new conclusions, the conversation topic shifted and you recalled how you got involved in one of the twins’ pranks. “-then I just told him how I was going to tutor George and Fred that afternoon and threw in a couple of insults, saying how insufferably dull they are etc, to appeal to him and avoid further questioning,” you explained how you covered for them with Snape. You were one of few if not the only, non-Slytherin student he respected didn’t despise. It was probably thanks to a mix of your character and having two older brothers that you knew where to pick your fights and weren’t afraid to swallow your pride if it ultimately meant benefits. It came very useful with Snape.

“-all that was left was for George and Fred to put some finishing touches and voila.” You said munching proudly. “George and Fred?..” asked Ginny, confused, leaning out from behind Hermione, reminding you she was there the whole time. “Yeah, I mean, it was their plan, so-“ “No, no- George and Fred?” she continued and looked at Hermione who was just as confused as you. “I mean- it’s always Fred and George.” she said looking between you two “it sounds weird the other way around” she got back to her food, “no one says that..” but she didn’t push further as Hermione was biting onto her bottom lip trying to keep a straight face and you put your fork down, suddenly not hungry anymore and -so- weirdly warm.

——————⁛⁙⁘◊⁘⁙⁛——————

February, 1995

You’ve been distracted from worrying about your schoolwork and figuring out how to help Harry with his second task, by the arrival of Valentine’s Day. After putting a bit more effort into your appearance you headed to the Great Hall for breakfast feeling excited, although just a tiny bit conflicted. You were on your way to your friends, walking between the tables of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, where your eyes found Matt who shot you a sly wink that made you bite your lip before he turned back to his friends. You never got to really celebrate Valentine’s before, but now you were sure he had something prepared for you. Your mind was taken off of it as you chattered with your friends over breakfast and then headed to your morning classes. As your Transfiguration class was about to start, you opened your bag to reach for your books, but you were surprised. On top of your books was a note, tied to a colourful box you knew well. You looked around the class and took your spot, taking out your things to avoid McGonagall’s attention. Trying to keep a poker face you opened the note:

You look beautiful, as always. Got your favourite Fizzing Whizbees because you ate like a ton at the ball, Secret Admirer

You read and in your attempts to stay quiet you made a tiny squeal mixed with a giggle, which caused confused Ron to turn around and you tried to mask it with a cough. You repeated the words a few times in your head. George thought you were beautiful.

——————⁛⁙⁘◊⁘⁙⁛——————

About a week later, it was a fine afternoon for Fred and George. They sweet-talked their way out of detention with Professor Sprout after borrowing an ingredient from one of the greenhouses and were currently on a quest for dinner, walking through one of the quiet corridors surrounding the courtyard near Transfiguration.

George thought the day was going brilliantly and his mood was great until he saw something in the corner of his eye and subconsciously turned his head slightly in that direction. Some couple snogging against a wall, not an extraordinary sight in an otherwise empty corridor. He was about to shrug it off, but then it hit him like a train – his feet got nailed to the ground, blood was draining his body and his smile quickly fell. You were the girl. Fred noticed him stop and followed his gaze. “Who’s the git?” He said with a disgusted expression. George didn’t know, but he recognised him as the Hufflepuff you danced with at the ball, whose hands were now roaming all over your body. “Come on, now.” Fred didn’t know what to say to his brother but he knew watching wouldn’t do him much good, so he grabbed his shoulder and headed to the Great Hall once more. Approaching Ron, Harry and Hermione, Fred tried to think of a way to loosen their tongues about the Hufflepuff git without showing that he or George cared. “-that’s why we’ll ask Y/N what she thinks, you know she’s better at it..” said Hermione and Fred’s opportunity came “Just saw her with her boyfriend, she looked busy..” he said lazily flipping his legs over the bench and George followed. “Boyfriend?” Harry questioned as all three of them looked over confused “Nearly sucked his face off-“ he said earning a kick in the shin under the table from George. “Who is he anyway?” “Hufflepuff, tall, dark hair..?” asked Hermione and Fred nodded still determined not to show too much emotion. “Aah, Matt?” said Ron with his mouth full and a bit of his food fell out, earning Fred’s disgusted look. “Matthew Aston. He’s in our year. But they’re not dating. He’s not her boyfriend.” said Hermione shortly, looking down at her plate. “So keeping it casual then, huh..?” Fred raised his eyebrows slightly and slowly nodded. “It started around the start of the semester, weird you haven’t noticed.” said Harry shrugging slightly “Yeah, he hangs out with us sometimes, he’s alright.” added Ron. When you arrived at the table you decided not to ask about everybody being weirdly quiet but made a mental note to bring it up later.

That evening, after they told you, you took a long bath in an attempt to sort out your thoughts. It was all true. Matt didn’t like seeing you with George at the ball (or at all, frankly), so not long after, he made a move you couldn’t resist. And being with him was comfortable. He knew you well, was attractive and so very into you, eager to please. And it was all good, but not enough for you to commit. You kept thinking that maybe one day you will, but you refused to call him your boyfriend. If that wasn’t confusing enough, then there was George. He felt right, and he felt real in a way you couldn’t describe. That only made you all the more careful with him. You’ve never felt that way towards anyone so you preferred to sit back and wait where it takes you. But you couldn’t help but feel guilty. While you felt a bit stiffer around George in the next few days, he slowly came around. He still didn’t like the idea of anybody else being close to you in that way, even if not officially in a relationship, but from his interactions with you, he concluded all was not yet lost. And for now, he found an outlet for his negative emotions in subtle glares whenever he saw Matt around the school.

——————⁛⁙⁘◊⁘⁙⁛——————

As the second task of the Tournament was getting closer, it occupied your mind. Lunchtimes, afternoons and evenings spent in the library to no avail, you were getting more desperate in finding a solution for surviving an hour underwater. You had less and less time, and now you found yourself watching the last sunset through the library window, before the day of the task. You had secretly given up on finding anything in those books, Ron did not hide it anymore and Hermione felt insulted as the library had never failed her before. “Oh this is no use,” Hermione said, snapping shut Weird Wizarding Dilemmas. “Who on earth wants to make their nose hair grow into ringlets?” “I wouldn’t mind,” said Fred Weasley’s voice. “Be a talking point, wouldn’t it?” The four of you looked up. Fred and George had just emerged from behind some bookshelves. “What’re you two doing here?” Ron asked. “Looking for you,” said George, which perked up your curiosity “McGonagall wants you, Ron. And you, Hermione.” “Why?” said Hermione, looking surprised. “Hang on, why those two?” You narrowed your eyes. You got why she could’ve excluded Harry, but if she took Hermione and Ron, you’d expect her to ask for you too. “Dunno… she was looking a bit grim, though,” said Fred. “We’re supposed to take you down to her office,” said George. Ron and Hermione stared at Harry, and you shared a concerned look with him. “We’ll meet you back in the common room,” Hermione told you two as she got up to go with Ron — both of them looked very anxious. “Bring as many of these books as you can, okay?” “Right,” said harry uneasily and you just nodded. You and Harry stayed in the library a bit longer, until Madam Pince kicked you out, then made your way to the Gryffindor tower with a stack of tomes each. You waited and waited, but Ron and Hermione never came back, and so around midnight, you excused yourself to go to bed, advising Harry to do the same. The next morning you missed Harry at breakfast and headed out with the crowd to watch the second task, hoping he was already getting ready. It felt weird not having Hermione or Ron beside you on the way to the lake. By the boats, you were looking for any familiar faces to group with, when you heard two well-known voices behind you, taking bets. You walked in their direction waving, hoping they’d notice your small figure amongst the crowd. “Hello, sunshine!” George beamed at you, slamming the suitcase shut. “A beautiful morning, innit?” added Fred, as you scooted closer to them and away from the moving crowd. “The sky is literally grey,” you said looking up but he just waved his hand and rolled his eyes, mouthing ‘details’. “Shall we get a boat?” you looked at the water and back at them “or are you staying here?” “Yeah we’re coming,” said George before Fred could speak up. After George helped you out of the boat the three of you headed towards the seats higher up, where you spotted Lee. You walked up the stairs to see a few black-and-yellow scarves in the seats towards the back. “Hi, Y/N/N,” said Matt with a single wave, making Eric’s head shot up with a grin “Heey, Y/N!” Out of the corner of your eye, you saw that George’s head was still turned towards you when Fred took his seat next to Lee. “Hi,” you said with a smile and a little wave, then turned to Fred and Lee and took a seat with George. After the had jumped into the water and out of sight, you decided to make yourself comfortable – you took out a blanket and some snacks you prepared in the morning. The boys had noticed as you picked up the blanket to unfold it and laughed a little “Getting cosy, huh?” Fred said with an amused grin. “We’re gonna be here for an hour and it’s not like there’s anything to watch, really” you pointed at the water surface “might as well.” You brought your legs up and sat cross-legged and given how close you were sat, your knee rested on one of George’s legs. “does that bother you?” “No, it’s alright,” George thought it was cute, really, how you were getting comfy and covered your legs, but above all, he didn’t mind that bit of physical contact. “What- you’re not gonna share?” he acted appalled and looked at your blanket, then back at you. You rolled your eyes, suppressing a smile, then unfolded the blanket fully, covered his legs, earning a grin, and even threw it over Fred and Lee’s too. You picked up a bag of snacks and the four of you spent the remaining time chatting, playing some exploding snap, and you even managed to pull them into exchanging some gossip.

——————⁛⁙⁘◊⁘⁙⁛—————— March, 1995

After the second task, the three of your friends were in the spotlight, which sort of affected your life, too. But the real problem was the pile of work you ignored while helping Harry prepare. That’s how you found yourself, early Saturday afternoon, at one of the smaller tables in the common room with your notes and various books in front of you as the sun rays were shyly poking through the window, asking for attention before spring officially started.

You had been sitting there for some time now and felt like you should probably take a break as the information was becoming harder to understand and took longer to assimilate. But you also couldn’t bring yourself to pause, with still so much to go over and you tried not to panic each time you glanced at the ‘to-do’ pile.

You were leaning on the table and nervously fixed your ponytail, when a mug with steaming, familiar liquid was placed in front of you. You looked up to see George as he leaned back against the table.

“Lemon balm. You drink it often in the evenings.. helps with anxiety, right?” he said with a small smile as you stared at him in shock. “Yeah- yeah I do..” You looked down at the tea again. “Is that for me?” you asked, just to make sure, but George just shook his head in disbelief and laughed softly, which you took as a yes. “thank you, then” you took a sip. “Can I join you?” “Yeah, sure, of course”

He mentally high-fived himself. He saw you earlier, slouching over the books with a worried expression and realized he wouldn’t be able to just enjoy the rest of his Saturday if he didn’t do anything about it. Tearing you away from your work was out of the question – you were no Hermione but you had a sense of responsibility, so if you had to study, you would study.

His best bet was to make it easier for you. You were often found doing homework in study groups and you found working around others to be motivating, even if you were doing completely separate things. He had a bit of trouble deciding if revealing he knows your favourite herbal tea was cute or creepy but he took his chances. When you thought about it that evening in the shower you didn’t believe he was actually studying, but he pretended to, and it worked.

It made your heart flutter, thinking of how caring George was. He seemed to genuinely care, and you couldn’t help but want more of it. You loved the idea of him caring about you. Over the last few months you were almost positive he had -some- feelings for you, and you did too. But after that act, you realized, you started falling. Seriously.

——————⁛⁙⁘◊⁘⁙⁛——————

A week later, you stepped out of the great hall after lunch, headed to the dungeons with Matt, wrapped up in a conversation. “Ugh, he just doesn’t know when to shut up..” he said with hands in his pockets and you chuckled lightly “but I guess quidditch boys just can’t help themselves” he paused, his gaze straight ahead “like the Weasleys.” Oh-ho, if he said that name then he’s definitely in a bad mood. Your expression fell a bit. “They’re just obnoxious, I really don’t know why you keep hanging out with them.” “They’re not always that obnoxious, I know them well. They’re alright” He scoffed. “Alright… but they’re not like us.” You furrowed your eyebrows. Matt has been subtly hinting dislike towards the twins, or George in particular, and suggested you didn’t spend so much time with them before, but it was unlike him to act like an elitist shit. You stopped. “I like them.” “Yeah, that’s the problem, isn’t it? I think you got a bit confused. One of them might be thinking you like him a little too much.” He fake-smiled. You didn’t know what to say, and he looked you straight in the eye now “Cut it out Y/N, I mean it this time. I don’t want you hanging with them anymore.” “Well you don’t have a say in that, do you?!” You knew you hit a weak point. “You know what?! This whole thing was getting boring anyway.” You kept your voice even, as you were fuming inside. “We should end it before you think I like you a little too much. You can go fuck yourself, friend.” You turned around and with shoulders straight and you walked away in quick, long steps. He didn’t go after you.

It wasn’t until you reached the grand staircase that you slowed down a bit and allowed yourself to calm down. With each step, you were more glad you did what you did. When you stepped through the portrait you immediately realized Merlin still had your back. Fred and George, right there at the table. With your mind set, you walked up.

“Hi boys. You busy?” You sat down and they turned their attention to you. “Not really, what is it?” “I just wanted to hang out, I’m in need of a good time.” You said smiling at them both and they shared a look. “Flatterer,” said Fred, flicking his hair. “D’you wanna go outside?” asked George It was quite warm, so you nodded. “I’ll just run up to my room and grab a few things.”

When you came back George was waiting, lounging on the couch and Fred nowhere in sight. When he noticed you he jumped up and beamed at you “After me.”

You walked in comfortable silence for a bit, which you broke only after you left the castle. “Fred not coming with us?” you asked in a non-suspicious tone “Not this time, had something to take care of. Why, disappointed?” he teased you and you bumped his side earning a small laugh. “So, why were you in such a desperate need of a good time?” he tried to start a conversation. You were silent for a bit, thinking things over. “Matt and I had a fight.” you opted for honesty “Oh,” he tried not to sound hopeful. “I ended things with him. “ George raised his eyebrows “Did he do something? I thought you liked him.” “He didn’t do anything. He was okay, but that was it, really. And then he liked me too much.. and that was his problem.” you said looking down at the ground.

George tried not to be selfish, he was happy you came to him at that moment. He wanted to be there for you and not think too far ahead about how that would benefit him. But something about you saying Matt liked you too much was worrying.

“Not to whine, but I came to you hoping I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore” you looked up at him and brought him out of his thoughts. “Ugh- of course, erm..” he scratched the back of his head “There’s something I wanted to show you.”

You walked along the shore of the lake for a bit and took a turn to walk between some trees and found a steep pathway leading up a bit and back towards the lake. In the end, you found an opening between the thick trees and bushes, its edge a few meters above the edge of the lake. You took in your surroundings and found the spot cosy, you could also see the castle in the distance, though you could’ve sworn you had never seen this place from there.

“Like it?” George asked from behind you, standing with his hands in his pockets and shoulders slouched a bit. You turned around and met his warm eyes, your amazement etched into your expression. “Love it,” you said and immediately cringed a bit. But it warmed his heart to hear that, he hadn’t brought anyone there before.

“Yeah, I like it here.” He said walking up to the edge to look over it. “I don’t think many people know about this place, which makes it even better.” he turned back to you making the butterflies in your stomach go crazy. He took a seat on the ground near the edge and patted the spot next to him, which you took.

“Soo.. what do you wanna do?” He asked leaning back on his arms. Your mind went to a few possible options, none of them appropriate. “or we could just talk” he tried to take some pressure off of you. At that moment you remembered something and started looking through your bag. You took a deck of cards out and held them up

“You ever played ‘treachery’?” you smirked and wiggled your eyebrows a bit and he shook his head after a bit of thought. “We face away from each other,” you said as you shifted in your spot and he reluctantly followed. “Lean back.” “Like that?” he said pushing his back onto yours and in result folding you in half, earning half-groan half-laugh from you, before he sat normally. Feeling the warmth of his back on yours and the vibration of his voice made the experience surprisingly intimate. You were so close, but you didn’t see each other’s faces, which made both of you feel a little less self-conscious. You explained the rules of the game to him. He caught up pretty quickly and you played a few rounds before getting bored with it. Then you talked, about everything, and nothing really.

You sat on the edge with one of your legs dangling over, a wide smile plastered on your face. The early spring sun was slowly setting and your stomach started to remind you it was almost dinner time. Just a few more minutes, you thought to yourself.

On your way back, the steep path proved more difficult and you gladly accepted when George offered you his hand to take. However, when you reached the bottom, neither one of you let go. He slowly intertwined your fingers and the two of you continued to walk in silence along the lake. You had done things that would seem much more intimate before, but nothing felt quite like it. It was exciting and calming at the same time, it felt completely new but so natural and right.

As you approached the castle, the clocktower courtyard in sight and you could see other students walking about, you both, mutually, loosened the grip until you let go.

——————⁛⁙⁘◊⁘⁙⁛——————

April, 1995

Ever since George took you to your spot by the lake, you spent more time with him. He always took a moment to ask about your day and little things when he saw you around the school, and you felt more comfortable to just walk up to him to chat.

April Fools’ or twins’ birthday came on Saturday. You didn’t see them at breakfast and they sat far away during lunch. You still haven’t got the chance to wish him a happy birthday – a simple act you were quite looking forward to, to show that you cared and see his reaction. Mother Nature was being very generous with the weather, the early afternoon was quite warm and sunny and you took that opportunity to set up a blanket for yourself under one of the trees near the training grounds and read a bit.

You don’t turn seventeen every day and Fred and George took it very seriously. That’s why they had just stashed with Lee all the necessary party supplies in the boathouse to celebrate that night and were now headed back to the castle. George saw you lounging on the blanket, he noticed you from afar as if it became his seventh sense. He gazed at you for just a moment, his hands in the pockets of his shorts and felt a jab at his side.

“The fuck was that for?!” he grimaced at his snickering twin. “If you ask me, she looks as if she’s about to run away. You’d better catch her before she realizes you’re coming.” Fred said with fake seriousness, earning an eye-roll. However, George’s mind was too preoccupied for a witty comeback. “I’ll see you.. later.” “Just don’t embarrass me even more!” Fred shouted after him. When he walked up you closed the book on your finger and seeing his bright smile, you couldn’t not smile back.

“Hello,” you said enthusiastically. “Hi” he did a little wave, standing on the edge of your blanket. “Happy birthday” “Thank you,” you put a bookmark in your book and put it away, then sat up. You were silent for a bit and George shifted on his feet. “You’re just gonna stand there?” George’s mind went blank and you saw his shocked face as he opened and closed his mouth a few times “I mean that you can sit down if you want.” “Ooh,” he replied with a slight relief and quickly made himself comfortable on the soft blanket, the two of you now sat cross-legged, facing each other.

“So how is it being a responsible adult?” you asked making him snort “That’s likely.” You giggled, biting on your bottom lip, something George has grown to love. “What’re you reading?” he asked nudging your thigh with his foot lightly. “You really wanna know?” you asked, with a slight doubt, but you were excited to tell him a little bit about your interests. “I really wanna know.” He said, lying down on the blanket and looking up at the tree above. You started with telling him about the book you were currently reading, then you talked about what the two of you generally enjoy reading and then it just continued like it always did with him.

You quickly found yourself on the blanket next to him, looking up at the leaves swaying with the gentle wind and eventually his hand found yours, tracing patterns on your palm and playing with your fingers absentmindedly.

——————⁛⁙⁘◊⁘⁙⁛—————— May, 1995

You and the three of your friends crept out of your dormitories at daybreak near the end of May. It was really important for you to send an owl to Sirius. You were still debating the events of the previous night, what happened with Victor Krum and Mr Crouch when Hermione shushed you all. You heard footsteps going up to the owlery and two arguing voices.

The Owlery door banged open. Fred and George came over the threshold, then froze at the sight of you, Harry, Ron, and Hermione. “What’re you doing here?” Ron and Fred said at the same time. “Sending a letter,” said Harry and George in unison. “What, at this time?” said Hermione and Fred. At this point, you were looking all over everyone with narrowed eyes. Fred grinned. “Fine — we won’t ask you what you’re doing if you don’t ask us,” he said. He was holding a sealed envelope in his hands. Harry glanced at it, but Fred, whether accidentally or on purpose, shifted his hand so that the name on it was covered. “Well, don’t let us hold you up,” Fred said, making a mock bow and pointing at the door. Ron didn’t move. “Who’re you blackmailing?” he said. The grin vanished from Fred’s face. Harry saw George half glance at Fred, before smiling at Ron. “Don’t be stupid, I was only joking,” he said easily. You furrowed your eyebrows and kept listening. “Didn’t sound like that,” said Ron. Fred and George looked at each other. Then Fred said abruptly, “I’ve told you before, Ron, keep your nose out if you like it the shape it is. Can’t see why you would, but —” “It’s my business if you’re blackmailing someone,” said Ron. “George’s right, you could end up in serious trouble for that.” You agreed with it and was concerned about what they got themselves into. “Told you, I was joking,” said George. You felt disappointed. He walked over to Fred, pulled the letter out of his hands, and began attaching it to the leg of the nearest barn owl. “You’re starting to sound a bit like our dear older brother, you are, Ron. Carry on like this and you’ll be made a prefect.” “No, I won’t!” said Ron hotly. George carried the barn owl over to the window and it took off. George turned around and grinned at Ron “Well, stop telling people what to do then. See you later.”

You took one last look at him and it was like looking at a stranger, you’ve never seen his eyes this cold, then he and Fred left the Owlery. Harry, Ron, you and Hermione stared at one another.

“You don’t think they know something about all this, do you?” Hermione whispered. “About Crouch and everything?” “No,” said Harry. “If it was something that serious, they’d tell someone. They’d tell Dumbledore.” Ron, however, was looking uncomfortable. “What’s the matter?” Hermione asked him. “Well…” said Ron slowly, “I dunno if they would. They’re… they’re obsessed with making money lately, I noticed it when I was hanging around with them — when — you know —” “We weren’t talking.” Harry finished the sentence for him. “Yeah, but blackmail…” “It’s this joke shop idea they’ve got,” said Ron. “I thought they were only saying it to annoy Mum, but they really mean it, they want to start one. They’ve only got a year left at Hogwarts, they keep going on about how it’s time to think about their future, and Dad can’t help them, and they need gold to get started.” You and Hermione were looking uncomfortable now. “Yes, but… they wouldn’t do anything against the law to get gold.” “Wouldn’t they?” said Ron, looking sceptical. “I dunno… they don’t exactly mind breaking rules, do they?” You felt slightly sick. “Yeah but not that kind of rules.” “This is the law,” said Hermione, looking scared. “This isn’t some silly school rule… They’ll get a lot more than detention for blackmail! Ron… maybe you’d better tell Percy…” “And what would that change?” you said. “Are you mad?” said Ron. “Tell Percy? He’d probably do a Crouch and turn them in.” He stared at the window through which Fred and George’s owl had departed, then said, “Come on, let’s get some breakfast.”

——————⁛⁙⁘◊⁘⁙⁛—————— June, 1995

After the encounter in the owlery, you barely saw George or talked to him. It was the day of the third task. When you saw that the empty spot left for you was next to George you panicked a bit and felt stiff at first.

When Harry came out of the labyrinth with the Cup, the orchestra started playing and people cheered. But you felt something was wrong and felt a chill down your back – you noticed Harry’s face first and leaned forward to see what was on the ground next to him.

You felt faint and all the noise around you was muted. You stepped back without looking and stumbled a bit but George grabbed you. “He-he's dead…” you whispered still looking at Cedric’s body.

“What?..” George’s expression fell immediately as he brought you a bit closer and looked over the crowd to see for himself. “Ced’s dead..” said facing George. He took you in his arms and you hid your face in his chest, your hands clinging to his shirt tightly. He couldn’t get a word out, just held you tight and placed his chin on top of your head. The moment was interrupted as all the Weasleys started ushering out of the stands, Y/N and Hermione with them.

The next few days weren’t easy but you came to terms with the reality – Voldemort was back, he killed Cedric Diggory and you were certain the future of you and your friends would be challenging.

——————⁛⁙⁘◊⁘⁙⁛——————

With a few days left before you’d all leave for the summer, you and Hermione decided to enjoy the warm, sunny afternoon and lounged on the grass in one of the courtyards. The exams were done with and you forgot about all the danger for just a day.

You were soaking in the sun, your eyes closed, when suddenly you felt a shadow cast over your face. You opened your eyes to see George crouching beside you.

“Fancy taking a walk?” “Oooh but Hermione and I were having our gal pal time. Weren’t we, Miney?” You said with an exaggerated pout. She chuckled at you. “I think we went over every boy in the school,” she started getting up, “I’ll see you later.” “Bye, bye, girlfriend!” you waved to her and George helped you get off the ground.

“Was there something, in particular, you wanted to talk about?” you asked after you started walking. George bit his lip and looked straight ahead, “There is, but let’s go to the lake.” “Ok,” you said with a small voice, wondering where this was going.

“Were you avoiding me?” He asked once you got to the lake and kept walking along the shore. Were you? – you thought. “Something changed. You didn’t talk to me, you wouldn’t smile like you did before.” He said with genuine hurt in his voice. “I missed that.” he paused for a bit, “was it about the blackmail thing?”

You didn’t know what to say.

“because I didn’t tell you anything?” “Look, I know it was kinda stupid of me. You don’t owe me anything and you don’t have to tell me anything. And I didn’t avoid you.. on purpose.” you stopped and faced the lake, “I guess I just- I kinda hoped you would want to tell me, you know..?”

A few seconds passed and you turned back to see him looking at you. He looked at his shoes and took a deep breath, then held out his hand with a serious expression. You took the few steps towards him and took the hand you missed so much. You started slowly walking again. “Remember when we went to the World Cup?” he started. “Of course.” “And how Fred and I placed that bet?” You hopped up and walked along one of the larger rocks “…Ireland wins but the Bulgarians get the snitch – I remember. Brilliant by the way, I still can’t believe you got it.” you hopped down. George smirked for a second. “Brilliant indeed. You may or may not remember that we asked for our money right after the match ended. Old Ludo wasn’t happy with it, but eventually, he paid up.” you nodded “The catch is, he gave us leprechaun gold.” “Noo... What a dick!” you said in genuine disbelief. “I know,” he replied grimly. “Bagman seemed fishy, I think I heard my dad rant about him once, but that… “ “Yup. We tried getting him to pay up multiple times – nice at first, but he wouldn’t. And now he apparently up and vanished, so it’s over - a lost cause.” You were speechless for a second. “George, I’m so sorry. You gave him all your savings..” you moved even closer to him. “It’s alright.” He let go of your hand to wrap an arm around your shoulder, “we’ll just have to work even harder. But we’ll get there. Still got a year left in here.” “That’s right… You know I forget you’re older sometimes. But I’ll still be here for 2 more years after you graduate.” You looked up at the castle across the lake, in the distance. “It’s gonna be weird.” “How? Boring?” he asked, expecting a snarky response. “Yeah” you gave him an honest one instead. “Don’t worry, love, we’ve still got a year.” he squeezed you closer, making you chuckle. “Will you write to me this summer?” He asked. “Only if you write first.” “Have you got any parchment on you?”

With your moods significantly better, you headed to the Great Hall for dinner, the future suddenly not so scary anymore.

Part 5

#george weasley #george weasley x reader #george weasley fanfiction #george weasley imagine #harry potter imagine #x reader

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itsonlystrange · 3 years

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It’s late and I feel like talking about ST characters trauma

I feel like most people only focus on Will’s or El’s (which both are very valid ! ) but I think we both need to remember that:

1: characters exist outside of their trauma. If you believe that all a single character is is their trauma, and that they deserve no further character depth, you’re psycho

And 2: all characters in this fking show are traumatized. All. Of. Them. At this rate, I think Lucas is the most unscathed mentally, yet he ALSO has so much trauma! Which nobody ever talks about!

I love Will and El, however I feel like other characters (especially the females) deserve more expansion on the sh!t they’ve been through.

I WANT TO ALSO SAY:

This isn’t me narrowing down characters with the “most trauma” as I simply cannot put every character in this post and go on a full analysis rn as its 4:00 am. And also, trauma isn’t a competition. I am sick of people saying “so and so is more traumatized than so and so.” Or “so and so is the most/less traumatized.”

All trauma is valid.

People will trauma of any kind know that it doesn’t matter if someone lost 2 legs and half their brain, but you only broke your foot. That’s still gonna be painful! Mentally and physically! It isn’t a race. I don’t want to see ANY of that anymore. It’s disgusting and undermining other characters traumas to benefit others. All characters trauma is V A L I D. It all is! There is no “well so and so is the most traumatized so the others don’t get to complain.” NO! NO NO NO! That’s not how it works! This isn’t a game!! And don’t ever feel bad about not having gone through as much as your friend, your trauma is yours and all experiences are valid.

ALSO REMINDER: characters exist outside of their trauma and ab*se and I know that! This isn’t me belittling or shrinking down people to only a component to their trauma. It’s me pointing out their trauma rather than having their trauma he their whole character. I just think we need more people to talk about other ST characters, especially right now.

Now, without further a do:

MAX:

Max’s dad left fairly early on from what we’ve seen, however she still had some contact with him for at least a few more years as she seems to remember him and miss him quite a lot. We don’t know much about Mr. Mayfield, but we do know Max mises him a great deal. We also know that she has most likely witnessed a lot of physical and verbal ab*se from her stepfather. It’s never stated if Max is a handle to this ab*se either, but she’s definitely witnessed it. Which is why I believe she pushes people away, she’s afraid to get latched on. Because If she does she’ll start to care, and then they’ll just leave like almost everyone else, like her old friends and her father. She puts up walls and feign strength and a somewhat high ego to keep up the hallucination that she doesn’t care about what others think, when she really does. Not to mention she literally witnessed Billy die right before her eyes. Do you know how traumatizing that is? She’s also seen multiple others die aswell, making it worse. Now with Billy gone, Max will most likely be the center of Neil’s ab*se, and Will distance herself from everyone, and will probably spiral into a severe depression. She acts all tough on the outside when in reality she just wants to be loved and accepted, by her friends and family. She gets critiqued quite a lot, especially for being a girl, and you can tell she definitely has gotten the short end of the stick most her life.

KALI:

Do I even need to explain this one? She was literally ABDUCTED AS A CHILD, then adopted, then her adoptive family DITCHED HER, she was forced to see others get hurt or to hurt others for experiments, she’s seen multiple people d!e, and she feels like the only way for life to get better is by k!lling people. Although she’ll never show it, she feels so alone in the world. With no real family, and only her friends, she has nobody to turn to. Kali was so hated upon, which in a way, I understand. I don’t entirely agree with her morally but I do see where her intentions lay and I don’t think she’s as bad as a person as everyone says she is. She’s just a broken girl that deserves to be loved. And she’s so distant from love because she’s afraid of getting hurt. But she deserves happiness, and I wish the Duffers would allow her that happiness, too.

JOYCE:

Nobody EVER talks about Joyce’s trauma as much as they talk about Will’s or El’s (which I’m not invalidating either of theirs I’m just pointing out Joyce’s)

Joyce is said to deal with frequent panic attacks and anxiety. She was verbally and probably physically ab*see by her husband leaving her with severe trust issues. For awhile the whole town thought she was crazy, and we’ve seen her be treated like an outcast. She doesn’t fit in. Back in the 80’s, single moms were looke down upon. Will is constantly referred to as “Lonnie’s Boy”, because that’s what people see him as, even when Lonnie ditched Will and hurt him more than Joyce ever could. Joyce works/worked multiple jobs, and had to keep up her family of two boys. It got so bad even Jonathan had to get one or two jobs just to keep a roof over their heads.

Joyce really deserves happiness. She’s always alert now and her anxiety has only gotten worse. She’s constantly looking for things that aren’t there and although she may have been right about the magnets, it’s worrying that she saw a pattern there, anyways. Her life has given her the short end of the stick multiple times. She’s seen multiple people d!e, her son get possessed, her son get exorcised and be in so much pain, the love of her life (Bob) die right in front of her, the other love of her life (Hopper) die right infront of her, she’s been losing herself since season one, and knowing it’ll only get worse in season 4 scares me so much. She deserves to settle down and find a happy family. She deserves love and support and therapy. And she deserves support system that will listen to her and be there for her. Joyce is so strong in so many ways, she has always percerviered through the thick and thin, and life has ever gone in her direction yet she stays there, for her boys, and doesn’t give up. She is so kind and loyal, she took El under her wing, she was there countless nights when Lonnie was screaming, protecting Will. She was there, staying up all night to make sure Will went to bed safely. She worked two jobs and has tried to get enough money for Jonathan to go to college, and yet life has never given her anything back. This woman has been through hell, she deserves to be loved with no consequences. She deserves to be happy without it backfiring. Joyce is such a dimensional character. She’s had her ups and downs, and she’s somehow always found ways to keep on pushing forward past where most people would break. THATS Queen shit

NANCY:

Now, it looks like Nancy had a fairly peaceful upbringing. While I don’t think she has as much trauma as Mike, I feel like a lot of people over look her and her existence and immediately write her off as “selfish” or a “brat”. And while I do agree that she does have some selfish or self centered moments, she’s always grown from those. Character development, people!

Nancy, the oldest of 3, definitely got the most love from her mother. I don’t think her home life has ever been bad. Although Karen and Ted aren’t the perfect happy couple, they don’t seem to fight much, and they seem pretty peaceful. So I don’t think Nancy’s home life is bad necessarily, and from the outside it could almost be described as “perfect”.

However, there is so much beneath that.

Nancy was stuck in a loveless relationship for about a year. She did the best she could at school to fit in or “be popular”. She wanted to stay with Steve because that seemed like the most logical option. He was popular, rich, he’d be the perfect guy to settle down with. But her heart was telling her to go else where. Jonathan was poor, unpopular, and isn’t necessarily the perfect guy to settle down with financially. Her parents put pressure on her to be the perfect housewife (more so her dad, I don’t think karen did as much.) so when Nancy falls for someone the exact opposite of what she should be going for, she’s in denial. She’s torn between the two. She had a perfect life ahead of her. Great friends, popularity, a loving boyfriend, but she didn’t want that. She didn’t want to settle down and living a boring life just like her parents.

Besides all that, she’s been pulled into an alternate dimension, she’s seen multiple people d!e, she’s nearly been k!led MULTIPLE times. She’s had to k!ll people for her own safety. She’s had to watch her boyfriends brother get excorcised, and also stab her boyfriends brother with a flaming hot rod. She’s had to live with the guilt of Barbara, her best friend, dying while she was sleeping with Steve. She feels so much guilt, survivors guilt, for not doing anything that night. She’s had to live with the fact that her bestfriend since she was little passed on right outside where Nancy was, and Nancy could’ve done something about it, which is the worse part. She’s been harassed by misogynistic coworkers for the fact that she’s a female, lowering her self esteem. And it seems that whenever she does something good in the world it always backfires. She feels like an outcast even though she has so many “friends”, or so it seems. She has the perfect house at the end of a culdesac. What can she possibly be sad over? Her life seems seamless. Yet there is a lot buried under there. She seems like she’s in denial over a lot of things, and constantly in a stage of grief. Nancy deserves to not feel ridiculed. She deserves to be a winner, and to prove those misogynistic @ssholes wrong. She shouldn’t have to fit this cookie cutter ideal. She’s a badass. She’s experienced way more than I feel like most people realize, and has been put in the center of absolute insanity yet still was able to come out of it intact. She deserves to live the life she wants to live, without Survivors Guilt, without the feeling of being an outcast, without low self esteem. Nancy is such a strong young woman in more ways than one, and I feel like so many people hate on her solely because she isn’t doing what most of these girl next door characters usually do. She subverted her own trope. And most people are angry that she isn’t this cookie cutter girl the way she’s “supposed to be”. She gets overlooked, and most people prefer the men of the cast, over her. And yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion, however I’ve seen people hate on Nancy for stupid misogynistic things, which isn’t a valid reason to dislike a character. And most people assume she’s just a spoiled, self obsorbed, ditzie girl, but she really is just someone trapped inside a box trying to get out. Nancy is a baddie. She’s always defended her friends. She’s always defended her brother, and has fought interdimensonal demons before. SHE IS SUCH A BADASS! She learned how to use a gun at the age of 16, despite most woman in the 80’s not even slowing themselves to touch a gun. She grew independent and learned to work for herself and not for others. She cracked a major story at the Hawkins Post, and even when people didn’t believe her, she still pursued it, and was right! She doesn’t give up, and people should be looking up to her and aspiring to be her. She literally beat up someone with a fire hydrant while playing a game of Marco Polo. Why does nobody talk about that! She will kick your ass into the next dimension. THATS Queen shit.

That’s all for now. I will touch back up on this later with some more characters traumas (probably Mike’s, Dustin’s, Lucas’s, and more.) but this is it for now. I really think we should pay more attention to the woman in the ST cast and their characters. A lot of focus is usually on the boys, which is understandable, but I wanted to point out how strong all these girls are and how much I admire them. I love Will and el as well, but I’ve already made several posts talking about them and how badass they are, lol. I wanted to shine light on more people that usually don’t take the spotlight very often. I’ll be back with more, later! As I said above, I’ll totally touch on some more people’s trauma as well, as there’s a lot beneath the surface I feel like most people don’t pay attention to.

SORRY FOR SUPER LONG POST

PS: I began writing that at 4:44am, then fell asleep. It’s 11:45 am now.

#stranger things #stranger things 4 #st4 #nancy wheeler #joyce byers #kali prasad #max mayfield

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misterbitches · 3 years

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hi @yeedak thank you so m uch for replying with what you did. YAY ADHD!!!!! ur partner sounds like she rocks >:) as do u

i found it really illuminating and i agree with all of it. and god as much as i understand reticence when black people are interracially dating (it is so hard) i also hate it when people dictate it and also to a degree that it makes it extremely uncomfortable for the person themselves. to me it really is about a sense of control particularly if you are a woman. constantly trying to pick someone’s life partner for them instead of letting them find out if it’s a) something they want or even want to do b) something they can handle and c) their experience. it can purely cultural as well. my mom is a black american but my father is nigerian and that was basically a sin. however my father’s siblings? the women who had to marry extremely quickly and had to be with nigerian men or at the very least african? divorced. because they had to clamor for love for approval, pop out babies, and look what that got them. i totally understand you and your mother. and you’re right about all of it.

the idea of a man whore is so funny to me too because it’s not about sexual liberation it’s literally about them wanting to use people as disposable which is why sexual liberation for women as well can be confusing. but all of this isn’t so we can develop our own imaginations and find out our own inhibitions. like you said in all of it and i found this part very very interesting and true, “youth is for sex and no mention of asexuality.” when you get older you are not sexual, when you are a child you are unsure about it, but there’s a time in our lives where we shouldn’t waste it, where it’s only acceptable in that window, where it’s dictated. tangentially i think it’s very funny that the people we sleep with also become a point of pride. let’s say if he is a man (as a bisexual~**~ gorl) but he’s ugly, i should be ashamed, too?

so much boxing in and pushing and dictating. they really are here to spread a message. and i know things ar ehard. i can believe people ask you that but it’s still so.....weird? i remember saying something about my sexuality once and it’s not like i knew the people but then they started asking me questions and i honestly felt embarrassed and like an outsider. i dunno.

and your analogy of a mirror was perfect woaaaaaaah that’s what im gonna say now thank you so much credit to you. gENIUS!!! as real life changes, what we see changes. but media doesnt come first.

also totally agree about watching what people consume and not falling into those patterns. and when “bad” things are shown i do not understand why shows are so scared to show them as they are or not romanticize. a real issue to introduce when it comes to age gaps would be why it is frequent in the lgbtq+ community. that is a real thing because when you have to hide yourself of course you can be stuck in a state of arrested development and trying to re-establish times you may never have. that’s a geniuine fear and concern, it’s understandable even if i don’t particularly care for it, but it’s like for these writeres there’s no reason to look deeply or put that into their story. so why are they doing it? and what is the message here? uGH. and what ur mother said makes so much sense we are just constantly absorbing all these messages and culture absolutely aids to it and you’re right about the generations. and sometimes things stop and start but i genuinely think (and know) that for us to continue forward and not have the constant backwards taht means we have to push to get there and demand and that also means we have to make an effort to end the harm we then see on screen. rape culture dictates these shows. it relies on it. it is disgusting but rape culture is the norm, the norm is the oppression so we have to attack it otherwise it sticks and htat’s exactly why we see what we see.

and the unacceptability of gender fluidity is what keeps the genre SO INFLEXIBLE sincerely. it honestly just pulls so heavily from patriarchy and the roles in which we have to follow to uphold that structure.

it’s really just not enough to show us things any more wihtout taking it into consideration. and like ive mentioned there’s soooooooooo much media that has a lot to say that embeds itself. there’s this thing my friend linked me to on re-examining queerness in korean cinema (much like my dad’s country; patriarchal, more “conservative, anti lgbtq+, reliant on capital. africa is different because of the blackness component but the structures aided by colonialism absolutely remain and continue and that’s how we see such similarities. thse countries are more “overt” in this output but still you know. america. sucks) because we are trying to re-evaluate what it means to be heard and seen. the different ways and sort of the message that a lot of us as lgbtq+ can feel. you know, how we can get a feeling on if a person has our same experience, how we kind of have to learn to identify that. not sure if this makes sense...

your mom sounds really cool. and i’m fucking sorry. so many men do that. i live with both my parents but even then i see this power imbalance i can’t stand and you know i would have believed it was normal if i wasnt able to learn aand had to build up thinking skills. there was one day that it hit me that there are parts of my parents relationship i abhor, that are imbalanced, that make me find my father disgusting and make me ashamed of my mother. i don’t want that to happen to me or my potential children. if i have a male partner for life, which i am sure i will because offffffff heteronormativity and homophobia and being half black american half nigerian, he cannot recreate that. i am optimistic on what people can do without needing such grand structures or the support of the elite etc you know? that’s how we know there’s good work that exists and people we can find that arent with the status quou!!!

and who want a better world. we have to know we can rally that together. i think part of that is constant demanding of things to do better. there’s a rage against the machine song called settle for nothing and it’s about 0 compromise. there’s a famous quote i dont remember by who that’s basically like there’s an idea that there’s a limit to asking for dignity and what you deserve because when people realize they can live better lives they want to cultivate that more and more but that means a loss of control and a sharing of power from the top. nothing is ever enough if it can be better and we are allowed to demand it (or take it.) we deserve the world, we are being told that we’re asking fo rtoo much. are we? really?

i was thinking about the children thing as well bc...lmao i was so tightly contorlled as a child and it really messed me up but at the same time, like you, i honestly do not want my children watching drivel. like even with youtube. a friend of mine said that what she thinks she will do is try and hammer home how fantastical these things are, they do not reflect reality, and to get them to understand the spectacle. at the same time i’m like does a child really need to watch these dumb tiktok stars or jake paul? but then im like i really dont want to control them. but like what if ur kid asks u to go to some like fucking BL concert or some shit like what do you say to that?!??! I DONT WANNA SAY NO BUT AT THE SAME TIME UHHHHlmao but at the same time we have to give them tools to analyze and do the right things and follow their hearts

however,

as you know

LOL

tysm for responding, lovely talking to you and hearing your thoughts!!!

oh btw so u r from kashmar? that is very cool......VERY COOL

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teamseaslug · 3 years

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My review of Vanitas episode three (and a blurb about episode two) under the cut.

I didn’t write a proper review for episode two as I had found it a bit underwhelming with not much to comment on. The combining of the chapters didn’t bother me too much as I didn’t think too much significant was cut out, but I did have a few pointers that I had typed out after watching the second episode. They were as follows:

-the Louis scene felt completely off. The tone was different, and I think Noé's expression was off entirely and it felt not at all the same. It was also WAY too long. They cut small details out of this episode but made this scene unbelievably long. -They cut out Luca implying that Vanitas is being controlled by the book, which I think was strange. I know it's fluff but I think there might be a nugget of significance in that later. - why was Riche just STANDING THERE!!!!!!! I know I complained about characters not fucking moving with the first episode but it’s going to drive me insane. -They removed Riche’s dialogue :( -Jeanne was lovely. I understand them cutting out the scene with the muggers, that’s not important at all, but I always thought it was a cool scene. I’m content to part with it, though. -Noé nonchalantly knocking Vanitas back when Jeanne was attacking fucking killed both my SO and I, I wasn't expecting that at all and my SO seems to like watching Vanitas ragdoll -SLOW MOVEMENT STRIKES AGAIN the scene of Vanitas flinging open the doors and then being threatened. He literally stood there for 2 seconds before they attacked. Why was there a pause. Please. -They also cut out Vanitas using the flashbang that the Paladins use which, of all of my “they cut this out” nickpicks this is probably the most important, as this hints at the past of Vanitas- and is relevant if this anime will go to the Catacombs arc.

Those were my notes of the second episode, everything else will be about the third.

The third episode by far has been my least favorite episode, and let me initiate this by saying I *do* like Vanitas as a series and I’m not just here whining about it not being absolutely perfect. However, I am still going to engage with the adaptation of something that I like with a critical viewpoint that isn’t “well it’s better than the ph anime”. I should also mention that I watched this with my SO who has never read Vanitas and is sort of acting as a fresh take on things, an outsiders opinion.

The episode was about three chapters long and it noticeably felt a little choppy, as even the person I was watching the episode with mentioned that if there were just more details it could have been two episodes instead of one. It feels like the anime is rushing a bit, while at the same time the animation for the fight scenes or physicality is incredibly lacking and really distracting.

Jeanne, by far, was my favorite part. I think she was done pretty well and I don’t have much else to comment on it. Her voice acting was good, she looks good, I like the gauntlet. The scene between her and Vanitas gave me the same reaction as when I read the manga, which was the intent. I liked that they didn’t change the tone of that scene too much.

I had felt that in the manga Amelia felt more like a plot device and less like a character and in the anime it feels like she has that stamped all over her. She has no sort of individuality to her and might as well not exist, and I felt that way even more so when watching the charlatan scene.

The charlatan scene I think was probably the biggest disappointment, I was not fond of how it was handled at all. It was very lame, not at all creepy or eerie, and I think that adding to it more or making the animation more fluid instead of just a flat scene would’ve really heightened the experience because this is the first time the main character comes into some contact with one of the most important antagonists currently. I felt like more of an effort could have been made to make it feel impactful but it came across as still and flat, like the Junji Ito anthology adaptation anime. Yes it’s *correct* to the manga, but it’s not good to look at in an anime.

That’s one of my biggest complaints- it feels like the anime is trying to be almost too accurate to certain scenes but it isn’t utilizing any tools that make anime adaptations good and thus comes across as incredibly flat and still. It’s focusing so much on getting it frame perfect but it loses all of the charm and fun.

Dominique is another disappointment that I am hoping very desperately gets fixed. I’m obviously not the first person to point out that she looks very low quality. I had joked before that “Domi in the anime feels like she was made by people who don’t like Domi” but that almost feels true here. She was completely rushed, chopped up, never shown with any amount of detail despite being a frequent character. The :3 face she made was cute but they cut out her flirting, any of her charm seemed to be washed away.

I’m not gonna whine about how the women should be cuter in the anime but I do think they should be more charming? Domi is a flirt who flirts with women but that wasn’t included, Amelia’s cleavage was removed in ep1, Jeanne’s appearance is inconsistent with the manga in ep2, but we get plenty of shots of Vanitas looking cool or whatever and Noé being a bit sexualized. I’m not saying go full ecchi with fucking panty shots or whatever but it feels weirdly sexless in a way that’s completely lopsided, no girls allowed. The two male characters can be as much eyecandy as they want but by GOD none of the women. I like women! Are you going to cut out Naenia kissing Chloe, too?

At the rate this is going I’m concerned the entire masquerade will be a single episode, lmao.

I enjoyed the scene of Noé submerging to read Amelia’s thoughts, though the blood splatter was.... weird. Where did it go? Where was it... supposed to be?

The music still holds up, Altus looked good. I liked the detail of all of the bats. I was massively disappointed of Domi’s “I came because I was worried about you” was just an aside piece of dialogue but again, that can go with my complaint about how Dominique was handled. The anime took Vanitas’ “you’re just a convenient female” to heart, it feels like....

Also, the OP is now on Spotify and I like listening to it still. My SO, as a newcomer to the series, pointed out the pacing felt a bit rushed, all scenes with Murr were VERY cute, the gauntlet was incredibly cool, and they enjoyed the scene of Noé going into Amelia’s memories. They reacted with pretty big disgust to Vanitas which was expected in this episode and called him a bastard. It’s nice that’s still the same lmao

#the case study of vanitas #long post #sydney talking

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floralguccistyles · 3 years

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Long time no post! Things in my life have been crazy, from health problems with both myself and family members, to the deaths of both my grandpa and my cat, and work/school has been insane. I hope y’all forgive me and I hope this makes up for it. Let me know what you think!

wildflower :: chapter three

...and brings you flowers

Considering my morning started with having to deal with a customer whose key card didn’t work to get into their room, I could assume today was going to be a rough day.

Things only continued to spiral downhill when I had finished getting the key card situation handled only to walk into the kitchen and find the coffee machine was broken. One of the chefs jokingly told me to make myself a cup of tea, but I think he got a little scared when my lower lip jutted out and started wobbling in frustration. I wasn’t going to cry, but that didn’t mean the tears wouldn’t stubbornly well up behind my eyes.

If that wasn’t enough, on my break I had stubbed my toe on the corner coming around from checking up on one of the rooms. I had sworn very, very loudly in front of a family of four with two kids under twelve and the parents had glared at me. I hoped they had the decency to see that I was having a bad day and wouldn’t tell my supervisor.

All I wanted to do was curl up in bed with a good book, a rom-com playing in the background, and maybe some soup.

My day was only made worse when I saw Violet walking through the lobby doors as I was leaving.

“Great,” I muttered under my breath, letting out a huff of irritated breath. She had her book bag thrown over her shoulder, holding onto the strap on her shoulder so tightly it was a wonder it didn’t break. “What’re you doing here?” I asked in a whisper, not wanting my boss to hear me talking to anyone the way I was talking to Violet. Unfortunately, my boss Clara was an only child and wouldn’t understand the sister love-hate bond Violet and I had.

“Nice to see you too.” Violet looked frustratingly put together, as she always did. She had definitely sucked up the good looks that had obviously skipped the poor middle child (me). Her long hair was curled delicately and though she didn’t wear much makeup, she had never needed it. She had eyelashes models would kill for. “I was wondering if we could go get coffee or something.”

“Coffee? We don’t do coffee.”

“Christ, Rose, is it really that much of an inconvenience to hang out with your sister?” she asked incredulously, rolling her eyes at my reluctance. “I thought we could talk, hang out, get some coffee out of it. It’s not the end of the world.”

I had obviously done something to piss off whatever higher being existed because the icing on the cake to my terrible day was dealing with Violet’s snark. To simply stop her from complaining (because she was world-class at it), I sighed. “Fine. But you’re buying.”

“You’re the one with the full-time job!”

“Do you want to get coffee or not?”

“I’m regretting my choice now,” Violet said simply, but gestured towards the door of the building. She had an old car Niall had actually helped her find when she had started college, so we piled into it. I didn’t know what coffee place she was taking us to, but I decided I didn’t care. I hadn’t had any coffee this morning, and I was in desperate need. Plus, if Violet had a hundred dollars to make on the bet with Lily and Niall, she had enough money to buy me a four dollar cup of coffee.

She pulled into a little coffee house that was close to the campus Niall worked at. I wondered briefly if he frequented it when he worked. When we walked in, the smell of coffee beans hit my nose and gave me a small reprieve from the terrible day. “What do you want? Their caramel stuff is really good.”

“Whatever you get is fine.” Though Violet had questionable taste in most things, her taste in coffee was impeccable. She nodded and walked to the bar to order while I found us a place to sit, close to the window in case I needed to zone out and have something pretty to look at if Violet got too annoying. When she returned, she set my coffee in front of me and took a seat, her chair scraping loudly against the floor and making the both of us wince. I took a small sip of the coffee (something caramel, as she had suggested) and instantly felt ten times better. “This is the only good thing to happen to me all day.”

Violet rolled her eyes, mumbled something about me being overdramatic underneath her breath. “Lily thinks I need to apologize.”

“I think so too.”

“I don’t.”

I gestured to the coffee shop. “Then what’s the point of this?”

“You bit my head off when I was trying to explain last time. I was hoping you’d sit and actually have a civil conversation with me about things.” When I didn’t respond, just gestured for her to continue, she did. “I didn’t get you the psychologist’s number because I think you’re pathetic or that you can’t handle shit. I got it for you because no woman should ever be propositioned for sex and it’s absolutely disgusting that the prick tried to do some sort of quid-pro-quo and got nothing more than a slap on the wrist. And if I’m feeling that, as a third party, I can’t imagine how you’re feeling about it. So I got you her number in case you wanted to talk.”

“But you didn’t ask me beforehand. You went behind my back.”

“Because that’s what people do when they care about you, Rose!” Violet exclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Christ, if I thought it would be this much work, I would have just saved myself the trouble. I just think it’s shitty he’s getting away with it, so I thought maybe you’d want to talk to someone. It’s not a problem that you can’t sleep without someone there, but don’t you think you need to analyze why? Especially because you never had a problem with it before. And you’re still paying too much money for rent in a flat you don’t even live in anymore.”

There was no point in arguing with her because she, frustratingly, wasn’t wrong. It was shitty that Kent was getting away with it and I probably was stupid for paying money for an apartment I wasn’t staying in. But I had gotten that trademark Fairbrough stubbornness, and I wanted to handle things my own way, as I had always done in my life.

“I appreciate it and can understand where you were coming from.” The words felt like lead on my tongue because I was a prideful person. “But I honestly don’t think I need to talk to someone. If I do think I need help, you’ll be the first person I’ll call.”

“We both know that’s a lie. You’d sooner call Lily or Niall before you’d call me,” she replied in a snarky voice, taking a sip of her latte and staring out the window.

I didn’t bother correcting her.

“Look,” she said after a couple of moments, all of which were spent sipping at our drinks and not talking to one another, “will you just take the card? You don’t have to do anything with it, but it’ll make me feel better if you just take it.”

“Fine. But only because you bought me coffee.”

When I returned home to Lily’s flat, the psychologist’s number in my bag, I toed off my shoes and flung myself onto the couch. I wouldn’t nap because then sleeping tonight would be even more difficult, but I did just close my eyes and rest there for several moments while the bad day crashed over me. Distantly, I heard the sound of Lily’s front door swinging open and groaned out to her, letting her know I was on the couch.

“Rosebud, you okay?”

I turned my body around at Niall’s voice, nodding my head slightly. “Hi, Niall. Where’s Lily?”

“One of her clients called. They’ve got to meet her at the prison.” He moved my feet, sliding his body underneath before he deposited them back on his lap.

“I had the worst day,” I answered his question a little late, sighing out as he gave me sympathetic eyes. “I think I might meet with my landlord next week. My lease is up next month and...I mean, I’m basically living here. I just don’t know if I want to let it go yet. It was the first apartment I rented on my own. And I don’t know if Lily wants me around forever…”

“Lily will let you stay with her as long as you need, you know that.” He reached forward and started massaging my calf, causing me to close my eyes sleepily underneath his touch. “Why was your day bad?”

“People at work. Then the coffee machine was broken. Then Violet came in.”

He laughed, but it was faraway. I was slipping into unconsciousness, and I knew if Niall didn’t stop massaging my leg, I was going to drift off. “You’ve got to stop,” I told him, pulling one of my legs away to poke him with my toe.

His hands hesitantly left my other leg. “Why? Uncomfortable?”

“Too comfortable,” I corrected, shaking my head. “I don’t want to nap and have a shitty night of sleep tonight.

“Just nap, Rosebud. You look like you need it. Do you work tomorrow?”

I shook my head, because thankfully I had tomorrow off.

“Then, c’mon.” He moved my feet again and stood up, holding out a hand for me to take. I groggily grabbed it in my own, allowing him to pull me to my feet and lead me to my room. I flopped myself onto my bed and smiled as he tucked me in, patting down the blankets so they would stay put. It was only when I was underneath my covers that I realized how much the day had taken out of me. Any morning without coffee always exhausted me, but meeting with Violet had just done me in.

“How was your day?” I asked sleepily, reaching out and lacing our fingers together. He squeezed my fingers. “Are you feeling a little better from the sexual assault situation?”

He sighed. “I’m never going to feel good about it, Rosebud. The fact that any of my athletes could do that to someone...it tore me up inside.”

I decided Niall needed a nap almost as much as I did. I patted the spot next to me, inviting him to rest with me on the other side of my bed. He sent me a small smile, pushing off his shoes from his feet and lowering himself onto my bed, over the covers since he didn’t get nearly as cold as I did.

“Rest with me,” I requested softly. “We could both use the sleep.”

He stared at me for a few seconds. “You’re one of a kind, Rosebud.”

I smiled, snuggling closer to him. His arm came around to rest on my waist, pulling me closer to him until my skin was pressed against his skin.

We must have only napped for an hour or so, but I woke up before Niall did. He was knocked out onto my lavender pillow, a tiny bit of drool sneaking out of his open mouth. At least he didn’t snore as much as I apparently did. His entire body was curled, crunched up like even in sleep, his tension wouldn’t leave him. I realized when I stretched that our legs were slightly tangled together, his hand still on my waist. My skin was warm where his fingers touched.

Niall was truly, unfairly attractive. Now that I could look at him without the awkwardness of him realizing I was staring, I could easily admit that to myself. I had always known Niall was a handsome guy, but he was always unattainable. He was Lily’s. I had no business thinking he was attractive.

But his brown hair was fluffed on the right side where it pressed against my pillow, and he had an adorable sleeping face and I admitted to myself right then and there that Niall Horan was beautiful. The fact that he basically belonged to Lily didn’t change that, and it probably never would.

“Stop staring at me,” he said softly, his lips curling up at the corners.

I jumped, not expecting his voice since I still believed he was in the middle of sleeping. “Jesus, don’t scare me like that. How’d you know I was staring?”

“I felt in my soul that there was a pair of beautiful big brown eyes on me, and look at that,” he said, opening his own beautiful big eyes and grinning, “I was right.”

“You’re full of shit, is what you are.” But I found myself leaning back down on my bed and quietly taking in the silence with him. Silence was never uncomfortable with Niall like it was with other people. “Thanks for napping with me.”

“Hopefully it made your bad day a little better.”

“It did.”

My phone buzzed on the nightstand and I sleepily reached for it, reading the text from Lily.

Getting dinner with Carmen. We’ve both had a shitty day and have to discuss some things about the case. Feel free to use anything in the fridge for dinner tonight!

“Want to go get some food?” I asked Niall, showing him the text from Lily.

“Sure. I can go pick up some Nando’s, if you want.”

I groaned, leaning my head into his shoulder. “You are my knight in shining armor. The wind beneath my wings. An angel among us mere mortals.”

“You’re more dramatic than usual today. The chicken pita like usual?” He stood from the bed, readjusting his shirt that had been slightly wrinkled in our nap. As he ran his hands through his hair, I found myself distracted by his forearms, which were showcased by the rolled-up sleeves he was sporting. I’d never really noticed Niall’s arms before, but they were as gorgeous as the rest of him.

Had I mentioned how unfairly beautiful he was?

“Yes, please. I think I have some soda and ice cream. I can make us some floats?”

“You’ve got root beer?”

I wrinkled my nose. “I think so?”

He laughed at my uncertainty, leaning down and pressing a quick kiss to the top of my head. “Alright. I’ll call in and go grab it really quick. See you in about thirty.”

“Thanks, Niall!”

“Anything for my Rosebud.”

I took the time he was gone to tidy up around the apartment a little. I wasn’t a messy person by any means, but with my bad day, I had left a little trail of Rose-messes on the couch and in the foyer, where I had deposited my shoes without a care in the world. The last thing I wanted was for Lily to come home and see my mess and decide she didn’t want me living with her. It was bad enough I still hadn’t found the necklace she had given me. Niall had scoured his place trying to find it, so I wondered if I had drunkenly taken it off at the bar that night with Niamh and Pat. Leaving her apartment a mess just felt like another strike against me.

Niall returned about forty minutes later, ringing the doorbell because his hands were full of food. He grinned as I opened the door, reaching out his arm to hand me the food in the Nando’s bags. It was only after I had the food in my arms that I realized he was carrying another bag.

“What’d you get?” I asked, kicking the door shut with my foot as soon as he walked into the apartment. I set the food on the counter and got my phone out. “How much do I owe you? I can Venmo.”

“Put your fucking phone away,” he said, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. “I got you something.”

His hand dipped into the bag at his side and pulled out something green and leafy. It looked like flowers, but I couldn’t see any blooms. However, when he handed them to me, I could suddenly see the tiny little buds at the end of some of the stems. “Rose buds for my Rosebud!” he exclaimed happily. “I know you were having a bad day, so I thought—oof!”

His breath left his body when I crashed into him, hugging him around the waist so tightly I thought I might pop him like a balloon. I was embarrassed to feel tears well up in my eyes at the sweet gesture, but the truth was, he had already made my day ten times better just by hanging around. And no boy had ever bought me flowers before.

“Don’t cry,” he said when he pulled away, giving me a smile and wiping underneath my eye with his thumb. “They were supposed to make you smile.”

“You’re just…” I trailed off, unable to find the words to perfectly describe the boy in front of me. “You are everything,” I decided, pulling him back into my arms, content to just hold him there for a little longer.

He chuckled, his breath stirring the hairs on my head. I felt him squeeze my shoulders, reminding me that this was real and he was here. “Not everything,” he argued softly, “just someone who cares about you.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

I nodded towards Niamh, who was currently freezing her ass off outside of my apartment. We had met up with my landlord to discuss me not living there when my lease was up. However, every time I thought about giving up my own little apartment, the first big purchase I had made as a working adult...it filled me with dread.

“You know you’re welcome to stay with me for free, Rose,” Lily added. She had found out Niamh planned to accompany me and had invited herself. It wasn’t a problem, since Niamh and Lily got along fairly well, but after Lily’s recent schemes with Violet to get me in to see a counselor, I was a little wary of going through with this while Lily was here. Mostly, I didn’t want her to see me burst into tears and then turn around and make a plan with Violet to kidnap me and take me to the therapist. “You don’t have to give up your place.”

But I did. I hated staying there at night, because I felt an uncomfortable crawling on my skin, like Kent was watching me somewhere. It was irrational of me to feel that way, but it didn’t stop the fear when I was alone at night. “It’s a waste of money,” I replied, and wondered if Lily and Niamh could hear the reluctance in my voice. “Giving it up is smart.”

“You want to at least go inside and start packing some things up?” Niamh asked. I could hear her teeth chattering. It wasn’t particularly cold outside, but Niamh always ran a little chillier than the average person.

I probably should. While most of my stuff was at Lily’s now, it would still be nice to go in and see what things I still had in my apartment. The pretty jewelry holder my grandmother had given me was there, along with some shoes that I didn’t wear everyday. The orange lamp my mom had given me for my college dorm was sitting on my nightstand, with the cute little pink mosaics on it that I loved. But seeing that stuff would make me sad, especially because I didn’t want to give up that little space yet.

Just because something was smart and right didn’t mean it was easy.

“No, I’m fine. Let’s just go to lunch.”

They shared a look with each other, but luckily didn’t push. Niamh because she wasn’t that kind of person, and Lily because she still felt bad about the whole Violet thing.

Niall and Pat were meeting us for lunch, effectively making me the fifth wheel. However, if it meant I got my money, Niall could join us for every meal he wanted to; Pat was fun to have around. Niamh called an Uber to the little deli she often frequented when she was done with work and when the driver pulled up to the restaurant, Niall and Pat were already sitting outside.

“Morning ladies,” Pat said happily, pulling out the chair next to him for Niamh to sit. She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. Niall had two open seats on either side of him, so I slid into one. “We already ordered your food.”

“You know my order?” I asked Pat, raising my brow.

“No, but Niall does.”

I gave Niall a surprised look. Sure, he knew my Nando’s order because he usually picked it up for Lily and I, but I assumed he had only committed Lily’s order for the deli to memory. “Thanks, Ni. Did you get your usual roast beef?”

“You know me well,” he said, smiling. “I also got you some orange juice.”

Orange juice was my comfort drink. I liked having it when I was sad or nostalgic. When I gave him another surprised look, he shrugged.

“I know seeing your flat probably made you upset, so I figured you’d want some orange juice.”

Smiling softly, I reached over to give him a one-armed hug. I caught the tail end of a look that Niamh and Pat gave one another, their eyebrows furrowed as if they were trying to figure something out. They did this often; I joked that they were so in-tune with one another that they were of one mind. Before I could ask them what their looks meant, however, the server was setting down our drinks and food. Niall had been correct in my favorite sandwich, a turkey with Swiss cheese and extra oil and vinegar. He had also switched out my fries (or as he called them “chips” and playfully rolled his eyes when I said it wrong) for sweet potato fries, which were another weakness.

“Thanks, Ni,” Lily said when her own food arrived. She gave him a small peck on the cheek and I swore I saw dollar signs flash before my eyes.

There was something else, though. Something ugly that clawed at the front of my chest. I didn’t know what it was, but I’d never felt that way before, especially around Lily and Niall. I took a bite of my sandwich to distract me from it.

“How was the flat?” Niall asked.

I tried not to flinch at the thought of it, but a sour expression must have taken over my face. “It’s fine.”

“Sorry, Rosebud. I know you’re sad about leaving it.”

It was stupid to be getting so worked up over nothing but brick and wood, but I had put my all into making that little apartment feel like home. The canvas art that I had purchased at a little family-owned gallery hung perfectly above the tiny little fire place. Lily’s apartment didn’t have a fireplace for me to hang them over. Then there was the macrame plant holder that I had bought on Etsy that made me smile whenever I woke up to it because the sun from my window was always shining on it when my alarm went off.

It was the first place that had been all mine. I didn’t mind sharing things with Lily, and I didn’t even mind sharing places with Violet. But that apartment had been Rose Fairbrough’s and no one else’s.

It felt like I was losing a part of myself.

Niamh seemed to notice the expression on my face and quickly changed the subject, prattling on about something else to keep the group occupied. I shot her a grateful smile. Freshman-year-me sure got lucky with Niamh as a roommate, and twenty-four-year-old-me was lucky that Niamh still wanted to be my friend. And through Niamh, I had met Pat, who never made me feel like a third-wheel when we all hung out. Though Niall and Lily were my people, Lily was my sister and Niall had been Lily’s best friend first. Niamh and Pat were, like my apartment, my own friends that I had made myself.

“I promised Violet I’d take her home from school and go shopping with her,” Lily said, looking at her phone after we had all finished eating. Her eyes caught mine. “I’m assuming you don’t want to come.”

I think I would rather have thrown myself off a bridge, but I didn’t tell Lily that. “I actually went to coffee with Violet earlier this week, so I’ve filled my quota.”

I felt better about denying this outing with them when Lily’s eyes lit up. “You guys got coffee this week? That’s wonderful!”

“It was fine. No big deal.” I had gotten free coffee out of it and Violet had only talked about the therapist for the first five minutes, so the trip actually hadn’t been as terrible as I had expected.

“That’s a huge deal,” Lily said, smiling widely. “We’ll have to do another sister night soon.”

Niall covered his laugh with a cough when he caught the look on my face.

Lily said her goodbyes, kissing both mine and Niall’s cheeks before she was off. Niamh and Pat only stayed a couple more minutes before they followed behind Lily. That left Niall and I at the table by ourselves, finishing up our lunches.

“What’s on your agenda for the rest of the day?” he asked, giving me a charming smile. He collected our trash and deposited them into the bin, and I strangely watched his legs move as he did so.

“Just hanging at the house. You?”

“Meeting with one of my athletes. He’s got an idea for eco-friendly sport equipment and he wants to run it by me.”

My eyebrows raised. “Wow. That’s incredible.”

“Yeah, I’m excited to hear about it. You need a ride home?”

I nodded and he led me to his car, a modest Toyota that he had bought as soon as he got the job at the college. When I slid into the passenger seat, I noticed something hanging from his rearview mirror.

“Hey! You found it!” I said excitedly, leaning forward and touching the tiny butterfly charm.

“Oh yeah, I did. I put it up there this morning to remind me to give it back to you. I like having it there. Makes me feel like you’re watching out for me when I’m driving.” He gently removed it from his rearview and handed it to me with a smile.

“Thanks. Help me put it on?” I unhooked the clasp and wrapped the two sides around my neck. His fingers on my skin made me shiver, but I filed the reaction away for a time where I could dissect it later.

He didn’t pull his hands away for several moments. I felt his breath on the back of my neck as one of his fingers softly poked at a spot on my flesh. “Hey,” he said softly, “you have a birthmark here. It’s shaped like a tree.”

“You’ve never noticed?” I asked, trying my best to clear my throat. My voice sounded suddenly throaty, like I had something caught in it.

He chuckled, pulling away enough to have me feeling like I could breathe again. “I think I learn something new about you every time I see you, Rosebud. It’s impossible to know all of you.” I felt the car engine rumble as he started the car and pulled away from the curb.

“You know me better than most people do.”

“Yeah?” he asked, reaching out and tapping my knee. I found myself smiling at the gesture. It was so...Niall.

“Yeah.”

And it was true. Niall knew me better than nearly everyone in my life, except Lily. The fact that he knew me better than Violet and my parents was something I held dear to my heart. It was just impossible to not unveil your soul to Niall. He was open and honest and caring. The world needed more people like him.

Too quickly, we were pulling up to the apartment. I wasn’t quite ready to leave, but I knew he had the meeting with his athlete and probably had to get going. “Thanks for finding my necklace.”

“Of course, Rosebud. I know how much it means to you.”

I thought about what he said, about feeling like I was with him when he was driving. Without another second to think about it, I unhooked the rose necklace I had worn to lunch today in my other necklace’s absence. “Here,” I said softly, leaning forward and wrapping it around his rearview mirror. “So I’ll always be with you when you’re driving.”

His finger gently touched the charm, and a slow smile spread across his face. “A rose to help me think of my Rosebud?”

“Always.”

He chuckled, and in a move that surprised me, pulled me over towards him so he could press a kiss to my forehead. “One problem, Rose. I’m always thinking about you. A necklace doesn’t change that.”

#wildflower #wf #niall horan fanfiction #niall horan au #1dff

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freddiesaysalright · 4 years

Text

Just Like a Woman - Part 1

A Roger Taylor x Reader Fic

Summary: You and Roger were once in love when you were young. Only, he went on to be a rock star, and you went on to be a lawyer. Now, quite against your will, you’re representing him in his divorce.

Word Count: 3.5k

Tag List: @psychosupernatural, @someone-get-a-medic, @bensrhapsody, @deakyclicks, @crazylittlethingcalledobsession, @minigranger, @crazyweirdocalledfriday, @the-moving-finger-writes, @assembledherethevolunteers, @rose-writes-prose, @queenlover05, @26-7-49, @drowsebaby, @moon-stars-soul, @im-an-adult-ish, @ixchel-9275, @jennyggggrrr, @zyanmaik, @mypassionfortrash, @a19103, @madeinheavxn, @beepbeephardy, @lizawritesthings, @qweenly, @blisshemmings If you’d like to be added, let me know!

A/N: Here we are! The full first part of my new fic is here! Thanks for all the great feedback on the preview, and I hope you all enjoy this :D

Warning(s): None :)

Part 1 here we go!!!

“You want to sue him?”

“Yes.”

“For his thoughts?”

“Yes.”

You sighed and pinched the bridge of your nose.

“Look, I don’t know how exactly things work in America, Miss Thomas, but in England, you can’t sue someone just for thinking about you,” you said as calmly as you could manage.

“It’s not just that he was thinking about me, it’s what he was thinking,” Miss Thomas argued flatly. “I’m penile psychic. I know he was thinking about making love to me, which I find absolutely disgusting and inappropriate. It severely distressed me.”

Her inexpressive face told you she felt nothing, least of all distress.

“I don’t understand what you’re going for here,” you said. “Emotional distress or sexual harassment?”

“Both,” she said.

“Sexual harassment won’t make it,” you explained. “You’re his boss, it’s not designed that way. And let’s say it was, has he actually said anything to you that was inappropriate?”

“No, how many times do I have to say this?” she complained, rolling her eyes. “It was in his thoughts, I know it.”

You sighed. “On both these counts we would need some sort of action. Your supernatural penis abilities won’t hold up in court as proof, it’s that simple.”

“Look, I have money, you’re an attorney, do your job,” she snapped.

“I can’t if I -” you began, but your boss interrupted with three quick raps on your office door.

“Bill, I’m in the middle of a meeting with a client,” you told him.

“Ditch it, that case is rubbish anyway, I’ve got something better for you,” he said.

“Excuse me!” Miss Thomas protested, turning to face him.

“You’re the one who told me to take it!” you argued. “I told you it was rubbish from the start!”

“Hey!” Miss Thomas cried, only to continue being ignored.

“What’s this new case, then?” you asked.

“Believe me, you want it,” Bill continued. “It’s a divorce case, but you’re going to piss yourself when you see who it is.”

“I’m a paying client, you know!” Miss Thomas interjected.

Finally, you looked at her again.

“I’m sorry, Miss Thomas, but we’re just not prepared to take on your case,” you said. “It will be thrown out and frankly, we’d charge you just for wasting our time. Have a good day, now.”

With that, you rose from your seat, walked around your desk, and crossed the room to Bill. Together, you left Miss Thomas in your office. She huffed and stormed after you.

“So, who’s getting divorced and why is it a big deal?” you demanded as you walked with your boss to the conference room.

“This is perhaps the most famous client we’ve ever had,” he said, stopping just outside the door. “Go in.”

Brow furrowed, but excited by the mystery, you reached out a hand to open the door. You pulled it toward you and stepped through. Three people sat at the table, but your eyes were immediately fixed on the one. The blonde man who sat alone. He was reclined, with his feet on the table. He sat up and removed his sunglasses when he saw you. His mouth fell just slightly open.

Yes, you knew who it was. You just wished you didn’t.

Bill blew by you and went to shake the man’s hand.

“Mr. Taylor, this is Y/N Y/L/N, and she’ll be representing you,” he said.

You met Roger Taylor’s gaze for the first time in years. Those blue eyes brought back all of the love you’d once felt. But there was even more pain.

“They’ve slept together.”

You screamed and jumped away from the source of the voice you hadn’t even realized was in the room. You whipped around and saw Miss Thomas behind you.

“I - wh - oh - what are you still doing here?!” you demanded.

“I still want my case covered!” she cried, stamping her foot.

“Hold on, how do you know we’ve slept together?” wondered Roger.

“Like I said,” she returned with a shrug. “I’m penile psychic.”

“Get out!” you shouted.

She eyed you up and down like a hungry tiger before turning on her heel and sweeping out to the lobby. You looked at Bill.

“Sorry, I’m not taking the case,” you said, then you too left the room, only you were heading for your office.

Roger looked at Bill. Bill had a thousand questions, but first, he had to get you back in the room.

“Just a moment, Mr. Taylor,” he said, and jogged after you.

You were just about to close the door, when Bill slapped his hand on it to stop you.

“You have to take the case, Y/N,” he said.

“Why does it have to be me?” you wondered.

“You’re the best divorce attorney in the firm,” he reminded you. “That’s always been your specialty. I understand maybe there’s some history there, but can’t you get past that? He’s...he’s so rich, Y/N.”

“So?”

“So?! We want his money, that’s the reason I started a law firm! If I’m not making money, then what’s the point, really?”

You groaned. “You don’t understand, Bill. This is going to be extremely uncomfortable. Roger and I were in a relationship. For years.”

“Well, time moves on, that’s all over, time to be adults,” Bill said. “You’re doing this.”

You glowered at him. “Fine. But I’m going to complain the whole time.”

“Like that’s any different from normal?” he retorted. “Get in there and get to work.”

Your scowl deepened. Alone this time, you went to the conference room. Roger had resumed his seat at the table and was chewing at his thumb nail. You sighed and entered, notepad and pen in hand.

“Sorry about that,” you said. “We can start the meeting now.”

“No, we can’t,” said Roger. “Y/N, can we talk?”

“No, we can’t,” you replied sharply. “Let’s just begin.”

“Miss Y/L/N, I’m not comfortable with this going forward, knowing that counsel has slept with the client,” the wife’s lawyer said.

His name was Tim Hooper, and he frequently made comments like these.

“Counsel’s discomfort is noted,” you snapped, taking your seat next to Roger.

“Y/N, I really think we should talk,” Roger said.

“No!” you cried, then stopped yourself and cleared your throat. “We need to start this meeting, your wife has waited long enough.”

“Honestly,” the wife said. “It doesn’t matter. We’d have a hard time finding a woman in London Roger hasn’t shagged.”

“Hey!” Roger started, jumping to his feet, but you grabbed his arm and returned him swiftly to his chair.

“There’s no need to get personal, Mrs. Taylor,” you said.

“Dominique,” she corrected. “Or Mrs. Beyrand, if you please.”

“Mrs. Beyrand, I’m grateful that my history with Mr. Taylor is of no consequence to you, but again, we should all be civil to one another,” you said. “Let’s get to the papers, shall we?”

“Yes, let’s,” she agreed.

“So, you’re filing for divorce because Mr. Taylor was unfaithful to you, am I reading this right?” you asked, holding out the paper.

“Yes,” she replied. “While touring, he slept with countless other women.”

“Big surprise there,” you muttered under your breath as you made a note.

Roger’s glare told you that he heard you.

You and Roger ended before you could prove that he cheated on you, though you always suspected it. He had just changed so much.

You continued through the paperwork, since there was some dispute over the house. Dominique wanted to keep living there, but Roger wanted it for himself.

“I bought that house before we were married,” he said. “With money I earned from Queen. Why should you get to keep it?”

“Because you’re never even there!” she insisted. “You’re always in the studio or touring, I’m the one who lives in it!”

“It’s my house!” he argued.

“That you don’t even use!” she shot back. “Why should I uproot the kids when -”

“I didn’t say the kids had to leave, just you,” he cut across her.

“You can’t separate me from the kids, Rog,” she snapped.

“They’re my children too, Dom, and if you think -”

“Okay!” you interrupted. “Okay, everyone settle down. I’m going to do some research and figure out what the law entitles each of you to.”

“I’m not comfortable with the implication that you’ll be taking care of my client’s needs, Miss Y/L/N,” said Tim.

“Then do your job,” you returned. “But I think we need to take a break from this and meet again later this week. How’s Wednesday morning at ten sound? Comfortable enough?”

“That’s fine with me, Tim,” said Dominique.

“We’ll see you Wednesday, then,” he said.

You shook hands with both Tim and Dominique before they left the conference room. Then, it was just you and Roger alone. You looked at the ground, shifting your weight between your feet as you thought of some reason to escape being in his company.

“Look, Y/N, you don’t have to take my case if you don’t want to,” he finally said.

You looked up. “I do actually have to take it. Did you have a problem with the way I handled it?”

“No, you were brilliant, it’s just -”

“Then we’ll continue,” you cut across him.

A beat passed. He bit his lip and looked around the room before finding his way back to you.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

“Now’s not a good time,” you said. “I’m at work.”

“Can we get a drink then?” he wondered. “I feel like we need to clear the air.”

“Roger, we haven’t spoken in years,” you reminded him. “The time for air clearing has long since passed.”

“We’ve known each other since we were six,” he said. “Can’t we be friends again?”

“I dunno…” you trailed off. “You really hurt me, Rog.”

“I know,” he said softly. “I hope you know how sorry I am.”

“Being sorry doesn’t change anything,” you said. “I think it’s best to leave the past where it is. I am your lawyer and you are my client and that’s it.”

“Y/N -” he began, reaching for you.

“Don’t!” you cried, springing away.

His eyes searched yours, and he found you unrelenting.

“Don’t,” you repeated, quietly this time. “I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

Knowing himself to be dismissed, Roger turned and left the room. You let out a slow breath, relief washing over you. There was so much between you and Roger, but you had no desire to air it all out. You were perfectly happy to keep it inside and never deal with it.

“Y/N,” said your assistant, Jane. “Miss Thomas is here again. She’s demanding you take her case.”

Your shoulders slumped as you groaned. “Fuck it, might as well.”

You walked back to your office.

Roger arrived at the studio in a stormy mood. His bandmates knew he and Dominique were splitting, but they had never seen Roger like this. The three of them exchanged worried glances as the drummer started angrily adjusting his set.

“Rog?” questioned John. “How’d it go with the lawyers today?”

“She wouldn’t even talk to me!” Roger exclaimed. “It was ridiculous!”

Brian’s brow furrowed. “I thought Dominique wanted to talk. That was the whole point of getting representation.”

Roger sighed and let his drumstick slip between his fingers and clatter to the floor.

“No, not Dom,” he said. “My lawyer. It’s Y/N Y/L/N.”

The band all raised their eyebrows at that.

“Rog, darling, why on Earth would you choose her?” Freddie questioned.

“I didn’t,” Roger returned. “I chose the firm because they’re reputation is amazing. I didn’t know she was working there, but her boss assigned her to my case because she’s got the most experience in divorce.”

The band was aware of Roger’s history with you because they had been there for the end of it. They also knew that Roger had never really forgotten you. Even though he never talked about you, if they recalled their uni days, he got this warm, fond little smile on his face. They knew his mind was on you because it was the same expression he used to wear each time you entered the room. Then his face would shift into that same, deep hurt he felt because you were no longer in his life.

“So when you say she wouldn’t talk to you,” John said. “You mean about anything other than your divorce.”

“Yeah,” Roger said. “I thought that if we’re going to be working together on this, we should settle things between us, but….”

“Surely, you understand,” Brian said. “You both went through a tough time after you split, and maybe it’s been long enough now that she feels like it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, it matters,” Roger argued. “That’s why she won’t talk. It matters too much.”

Brian looked desperately at Freddie and John for something else to say, but they also had nothing. Up until now, they had thought there was no way you would ever see Roger again. The two of you lived in completely different worlds. But now, here you both were, colliding.

“Alright, mate,” John said. “Let’s forget about all that and just play, yeah?”

“Yeah, that sounds perfect,” Roger agreed, snatching his stick up. “Let’s just fucking play.”

They continued setting up in silence before beginning their session.

At your office, you spent much of your morning trying to dissuade Miss Thomas from her ridiculous case against her employee, but you were unsuccessful. She was determined to sue him for thinking about having sex with her, so you were just going to have to take the case as far as you could. You consoled yourself that at least that meant it wouldn’t be long. Your afternoon was more open than usual, so you found your mind wandering back to Roger.

It had been nearly ten years since you had seen him. Since college. Before Queen was Queen. Seeing the success of the band had brought with it so many conflicting emotions. You didn’t hate Roger, so seeing him live out his dream made you so proud of him. But the constant reminder of the man who had broken your heart was a struggle. So, you stayed out of the music scene and avoided the topic in the news.

You didn’t even know that he had gotten married. That stung. You didn’t know why it stung, but probably because you had always thought you and he would….you shook your head.

“Y/N?” said Jane, knocking gently on your office door as she entered. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” you said, voice cracking. You cleared your throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Well, I was just wondering because the day is over and you’re just sitting here staring at your desk,” she said. “We’re all going down to the bar. Wanna join?”

“Sure,” you replied.

You got to your feet and grabbed your coat and briefcase before following her to the elevator.

Next door to your office building was a bar where you and your coworkers went to drink after the long hours of the day. It was a good way to unwind, since the singer and pianist who performed there regularly was very good. She usually performed covers and got people to dance, though that could also be alcohol induced. Anyway, it was always fun.

You came to the bar and joined Bill and the other lawyers who were already sitting at a table. You shot Bill another glare just to remind him you were angry.

“Relax, Y/N, I’ve made it up to you,” he said. “Already ordered your favorite, gin and tonic.”

“I hope this is the first of a multi-step apology,” you returned, taking your seat and sipping the drink.

“God, you’re demanding,” he teased. “How does Mark put up with you?”

Mark was your boyfriend. He was a sweet guy who loved his job as a doctor in a children’s ward at one of the larger London hospitals. He somehow stayed cheerful despite seeing some of what you considered the most depressing part of medicine. Children being ill.

“I’m just incredible in bed,” you shot back.

You and Bill laughed and you were one step closer to forgiving him.

“Might the second part of my apology be a dance?” he asked, offering his hand.

“Sure,” you conceded, setting your drink down and taking it.

He led you onto the dance floor as the song was changing. You nearly let out a groan when she began to play “Tears on My Pillow.”

“You don’t remember me, but I remember you,” she began to sing. “Twas not so long ago, you broke my heart in two. Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, caused by you, you.”

“Look, Y/N, I don’t know the details of you and Roger Taylor’s relationship, and I don’t care to know them,” Bill said, distracting you from the music. “But I put you on that case because you’re not just the best at divorce. You’re the best associate attorney in that whole damn office, and I need you to do it.”

You held his gaze as you swayed to the music, shocked at this burst of earnest praise.

“I...yes, alright,” you said. “I’ll try not to let you down.”

“Good,” he replied. “Because nothing makes me angrier than wasted talent.”

“Except losing money,” you reminded him playfully.

“Oh, you know me better than I know myself,” he returned.

You continued to dance until the end of the song. On your way back to your table, a woman at the bar caught your eye. It was Dominique. There was a man beside her who was clearly unwelcome, and when she had your attention, she sent you a pleading expression. Without hesitating, you walked over.

“Dom!” you cried excitedly. “Oh my goodness, how are you?!”

“Hi, Y/N!” she replied. “It’s been ages!”

“I know,” you sighed dramatically. “Tell me what’s going on, love.”

“Um, excuse me,” the man interrupted. “I was speaking to Dominique.”

You shot him a nasty smile. “Yes, well, now I’m speaking to her.”

He looked to her and she shrugged.

“Sorry,” she said in a way that was not at all apologetic. “But we need to catch up. Have a good night.”

With an annoyed huff, he left. You started to leave too, but she grabbed your hand.

“No, not yet,” she said. “Otherwise he’ll know we’re faking.”

“Oh, right, sorry,” you said. “Although, I’m not sure Tim would be comfortable knowing we were speaking without him.”

You both giggled.

“God, he’s ridiculous, isn’t he?” she remarked.

“So ridiculous,” you agreed. “Why’d you hire him?”

“Because he’s effective,” she told you. “Even if he is absurd.”

A beat passed as the subject of Roger hovered between you like a dark cloud.

“Dom, I feel like I should explain -” you began but she cut you off.

“You don’t have to explain,” she said. “I know about you and Roger. He’s told me the stories. How you were childhood sweethearts and dated through college before he ended things.”

“I see,” you said, shifting uncomfortably. “I just hope it really is okay with you that I’m representing him.”

“Believe me, it’s fine,” she said. “I’ve been competing with you our entire marriage. Why should the divorce be any different?”

Your eyes widened as you gaped at her.

“I know he ended it, Y/N, but Roger has never stopped loving you,” she went on.

“Well - that’s - I - Dominique, that’s just not true,” you said. “If he loved me, he -” you stopped yourself, swallowing a lump in your throat. “He wouldn’t have done...well, everything he’s done.”

“Believe it or don’t, Y/N,” she said with a sigh. “But what you two had is what most people wait a lifetime for. And he’s never forgotten.”

Another beat of silence passed. You had no idea how to even answer her.

“I’m gonna go,” she said. “It’s getting late and I’ve got to put the kids to bed. See you Wednesday.”

She gathered her things, left some money on the counter, and slid out of the chair. You watched her go until she disappeared down the street.

You left about an hour later when you and your co-workers were ready. Dominique’s words were stuck in your mind all the way home. Each step you took reinforced what you had heard. But it confused you. Roger couldn’t love you. There was no way. She had to be wrong.

You were just settling into your decision as you opened the door to your flat. Only, it wasn’t empty. Mark sat at your kitchen table, a cold dinner in front of him, a candle out of wax in the center of it, and another untouched plate across from him. A bottle of wine was out with two glasses served. Flowers that were already wilting were in his hand. He looked at you sourly.

“Hey, Y/N,” he said bitterly. “Happy fucking anniversary.”

#roger taylor #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor x you #roger taylor imagine #Queen #queen imagine #queen x reader #queen x you #BoRhap #borhap imagine #bohemian rhapsody #bohemian rhapsody imagine #ben hardy #ben hardy imagine #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy x you #just like a woman series

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amphtaminedreams · 3 years

Text

COVID-19, Negligent Manslaughter, and a Timeline of Tory Indifference

“I feel sorry for Boris Johnson. He is doing the best he can in the situation and I don’t think anybody else could have done a better job.”

[exhibit A: a gem somebody that I’m Facebook friends with reposted earlier]

It’s a sentiment that I cannot quite wrap my head around. I sit here hopeless and furious and trying to hold back tears because it’s been almost a year since England first went into lockdown and yet here we are, almost 100,000 dead, in an even worse position than we were before whilst other countries begin to slowly return to normality. It is clear to me who is to blame for this, however there are a large proportion of people who don’t want to “politicise” the actions of the PRIME MINISTER with regards to his approach towards handling a virus sweeping the country he GOVERNS.

Typically, these kind of posts making the rounds on social media will be accompanied by some kind of photo of Boris Johnson looking somber as if to suggest that the way things have played out were beyond his control and that he is some kind of broken man beleaguered by the suffering he has, despite good intentions, inadvertently caused.

This one in particular of Johnson with his head in his hands is a staple. In reality, this is a photo taken back in 2018 whilst he was receiving flack from party members for comparing Theresa May to a suicide bomber (for her handling of Brexit, ironically) as well as from the papers due to his rumoured (now also proven, in a completely non-surprising turn of events, to be true) affair with his former aide, Carrie Symonds.

So let’s shut this narrative-where we should feel for Boris because he’s doing his best, and apparently a better job than anybody else could’ve done in his situation- down right here. In a supposedly developed country with one of the world’s largest economies, if we’re talking by proportion, our COVID-19 death toll is up there with the worst of them. It seems that every other state figurehead (bar a small handful), and I mean almost every single one of them, is doing a better job. People love to throw figures out there about how densely populated we are to combat damning statistics as if we haven’t got just as many factors playing to our advantage, as if it’s unfair to compare our response to Germany’s or Japan’s or Singapore’s (both of which are far more densely populated) or New Zealand’s or Vietnam’s, but we are an ISLAND with world-leading technology and infrastructure and healthcare equipment and professionals and a relatively high standard of living. In what world is almost 70,000 dead in a country with abundant time and means to prepare a response reflective of said country’s leaders doing a good job?

Apparently we’re supposed to believe that Johnson feels some sense of moral responsibility for this astronomical failure. A man who refuses to acknowledge the multiple children he has fathered outside of his marriages and who has had repeatedly engaged in affairs and one-night stands throughout said marriages. A man who continued to cheat whilst his most recent wife was receiving treatment for cervical cancer, for fuck’s sake. Yep, a real stand-up guy.

So where does this idea that Johnson must feel remorseful for this catastrophe come from? We haven’t seen a second of remorse or a hint of accountability for the lives lost from him nor any members of his cabinet. That much is really no surprise; I have this hypothesis, and it’s not a stretch, that these people do not have an ounce of empathy in their bodies. These ridiculously privileged, privately-educated individuals who have had everything handed to them their entire lives simply cannot put themselves in the shoes of the average working person and that is the problem. Unable to recognise that what distinguishes them from most others is little more than the luck of being born into wealth and the abundance of recourses and connections that has entailed throughout their lives, they see us as beneath them-as less intelligent, less driven, and thus less deserving of the status and respect they enjoy. They see us as a bunch of whining, unmotivated idiots who do not recognise the chokehold they have over our media nor the fact that everything they do is a desperate grab to keep money and power within the hands of a select group of people, an exclusive members club from which most of us are barred (just take a simple Google search and watch Jacob Rees-Mogg’s opinion of the Grenfell victims or the buried Johnson speech where he talks about how inequality is essential). They know that we will squabble amongst ourselves about who is to blame rather than wising up to the truth which is that every decision they make is fuelled by cronyism and the inability to make and follow through with difficult choices, the pandemic being no exception. The supposedly self-made elite see the life of the average working class person as having far less value than their own, and their parties actions over the last 10 years have made that very clear.

It was in December 2019 that the first case of COVID-19 was declared to the World Health Organisation and on March the 11th that they announced they considered it as a pandemic. In Wuhan, people were dying of pneumonia in their clusters. And what was Boris Johnson doing in this time? Well for starters, here in the UK we didn’t even have a pandemic committee-Johnson had scrapped it six months before. If years of benefits cuts and defunding of the NHS in favour of funding nuclear weapon programs, keeping British troops on other people’s lands, and tax breaks for the mega corporations that donate to their party didn’t convince you that the Conservatives have little regard for human life, them getting rid of this committee-whilst a pandemic has been declared year after year as the greatest threat to mankind-should have been the first sign of trouble. As if that wasn’t enough, he also skipped five of the COBRA (meetings are made up of a cross-departmental committee put together to respond to national emergencies and PMs routinely attend those pertaining to crises on the scale of COVID-19) meetings addressing the situation. Whilst other countries were closing their borders and stocking up on PPE, Johnson and his ministers were selling PPE abroad and simply telling people to wash their hands to the length of the tune of happy birthday. Their only policy was one of “herd immunity”, which was in fact not a policy but just an abandonment of their party’s public duty disguised as one, intentionally obfuscated with pseudoscientific jargon.

Even thinking the absolute worst of politicians you would hope that when it came to the point where the UK’s non-response to COVID-19 was becoming an international disgrace, Johnson and his ministers would take proper protective measures if only to save face. But when they eventually seemed to do so, it became clear that the priority was not the safety of the ordinary people affected by the virus. Outsourcing their test and traces system to companies such as Serco, Sitel, Deloitte and G4S rather than public health services, Conservative ministers could not resist attempting to line the pockets of their friends and benefactors in the process. According to the Guardian, instead of reaching out to the experts or using publicly funded services to handle COVID containment measures, the Conservative party has awarded a disgusting £1.5 BILLION WORTH of contracts to businesses with explicit connections to its MPs and donors, the majority of which lack any relative experience of the tasks they’ve been trusted to carry out. Unsurprisingly, the National Audit office found that when awarding contracts relating to the production of COVID-19 protection measures and treatment needs, there was a “high-priority lane” for suppliers referred by senior politicians and officials; companies with a political referral were 10 times more likely to end up winning a government contract than those without. On top of this, it is not hard to draw a link between the late initiation of lockdown measures and preemptive openings of pubs and restaurants against scientific advice to the interests of frequent donors such as Wetherspoons owner Tim Martin. Even if one chooses to ignore the blatantly obvious correlation between the owners of the businesses whose profits were prioritised over safety concerns and the number of those owners who donate to the Conservatives, party officials at the very least were reluctant to follow the lead of many other countries in financing furlough schemes themselves and instead avoided this responsibility by using loose lockdown measures to leave it down to the discretion of small business owners, who couldn’t themselves afford to furlough staff, whether or not to stay open.

Time and time again, as the government flounder and fuck about, favouring personal desires to keep their powerful, high-paying jobs and to satisfy the corporate allies who make this possible, blame has been shifted from the public to care homes to NHS workers and back again whilst we, the public, make the biggest sacrifices of all under the illusion that we were being guided out of this pandemic rather than lied to and thrown under the bus. Whilst the elite continue to pick and choose what rules apply to them, it’s students and the elderly and the vulnerable paying the fines and scrabbling to afford basic living costs and hoping that they don’t lose someone dear to them.

Don’t get me wrong, a large proportion of the public have contributed to the spread too with their selfishness and entitlement and the arrogance it takes to develop a sudden refusal to acknowledge basic science from experts who have studied in the field their whole lives so that they can justify their need to go to the pub (speaking of, it’s absolutely HILARIOUS how many “mental health advocates” are suddenly coming out of the woodworks on football avi Twitter after they’ve spent years calling people on mental health Twitter attention seekers). And don't get me wrong, there were inevitably going to be casualties of this pandemic. But it didn't have to spread to this many people, and there didn’t have to be so many deaths due to a lack of preparation, and this wouldn’t have been the case if it weren’t for the inherent apathy of the Conservative party towards the lives of people of lesser status than them, the reluctance to put those lives before party interests. I wish I felt like there was an end in sight, I wish there was some positive takeaway from all of this, but even now, we continue to see corners being cut with the vaccine lauded as our saving grace and anti-maskers gathering outside hospitals to chant about how “oppressive” it is to be urged to wear a bit of cloth over their faces for the short periods of time in which they leave their houses and all I can think of is the selfishness that runs like poison through our country. It makes me sick and leaves me to question desperately where we go from here. I don’t like unanswered questions, I don’t like feeling politically directionless, and I don’t like the growing fear I have about the state of the world which seems to intensify every single day. In the UK at least, it’s starting to feel like nothing will ever change-we’re told we live in a democracy and yet mainstream media is owned by the people whose interest is to keep their Conservative friends in power. The stronghold they have over print media in particular allows them to continually get away with smearing and defaming every person who comes along and seems to want to actually help ordinary people, without being challenged, to the point where the only kind of “opposition” we’re left with promises nothing but a big boss approved tactical reshuffling of the status quo (which they call “electability”); it doesn’t feel like democracy when the majority of the country are being fed misleading information and convinced against voting in their best interests.

This is the result of that. The state we find ourselves in is the inevitable result of being manipulated into helping the elite build their protective wall whilst the rest of us scrabble to get in and step on each others heads along the way, the people inside shouting over that it’s those even more vulnerable than ourselves that are taking our places. Outside the wall, the earth is falling from beneath our feet, and instead of throwing over the ropes to help us out, the people inside are stockpiling them so they can secure their firm place above ground and then later flog the rest. How many more people have to die before we reach some kind of widespread realisation of that? Where do we go from here and what do we do? Well for one, we can stop spreading those god-fucking-awful textposts on Facebook and get our heads out of our arses. Wear our masks over and wear them over our fucking noses. Have some fucking consideration for others. Don’t wait til an issue affects you personally to give a fuck about it. AND START HOLDING THE FUCKING PRIME MINISTER AND HIS MINISTERS AND HIS ENTIRE PARTY AS WELL AS THE OPPOSITION MPS THAT HAVE SAT BY THE SIDELINES AND ALLOWED THIS TO GO ON WITHOUT PROTEST ACCOUNTABLE. That would be a good start.

I’m so tired. Things didn’t need to be this way, and yet because of the selfishness of the few, thousands upon thousands are dead. It’s not about “throwing around blame”, it’s not about “throwing around” anything, it’s about expecting a leader to do his best to protect lives. If that is “throwing blame”, let’s get things clear, I have no issue with hurtling it torpedo style at those who handed out a death sentence to so many in this country rather than do anything that might compromise their own privilege. Honestly, pass me the shovel after and I’ll happily bury the wreckage in the ground. Who wants to join?:-)

#rant #politics #anti capitalism #anticapitalist #covid-19 #covid #england #labour #socialism #fuck the tories #fuck the torys #fuck boris #rant post

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truerescreatuconfessions · 3 years

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The past few days have been like a slap in the face so I'm sorry but I'm have to say this. I apologize to everyone but this is going to be long. I am aware that Pat will probably never see this post so it's pointless, but I have to say it anyway.

First, I'm going to start with a positive. Thank you to Lilith for being brave enough to pass on that anon message to Pat. Thank you also to Burrito for giving us a place to voice our concerns where they can't be shut down, whether Pat chooses to listen or not.

Now to business. I'll start with you Pat, on the off chance that you'll someday read this somehow. As people have said, no one is complaining about your recolor OAK. Please stop trying to turn it to that because it's not that. What we are complaining about is the absolute silence with which Dan received not one but 6 OAKs. The fact that many people on staff had no idea this was an option while Rumor, who I'll get to in a bit, also got one. I have spoken to many staff and ex-staff and not a single one of them knew that OAKs were ever part of staff pay or rewards. The ones I've spoken to also hadn't ever heard of this OAK test in any way. The way it was handled with Dan covering it up and saying "we were testing to see if there was interest" was clearly him backpedaling and now it just sounds like people are just rushing around to cover his ass. I don't have to repeat what at least a dozen people have said on this blog but I will. You don't gauge interest by quietly adding a dozen OAKs to the site and saying "oh, if someone finds them completely by accident then people are interested, otherwise no one cares." You gauge interest by posting a poll, by asking people in a place where everyone can voice it, and by making it front-and-center. I know you said you aren't talking about the subject anymore, but you skirted around the sheer number of OAKs Dan got by pretending we didn't say anything about them.

About the bans you claim "never happened." There is screenshot evidence from Kina, dozens and dozens of them, that Dan cheated for her and others. Ok, screenshots can be doctored, what about the video she sent in? Was that also doctored? If those right there aren't compelling enough evidence to ban Dan, why were four people banned for screenshots? Hell, Zuzu, Shinigami, and Shinohara were all banned for speculating that Dan was cheating during the name clearing. Zuzu was allowed to return, the other three were not. What rules did they break? Did they cheat? No, they talked, exactly like you constantly encourage us to do, about how they felt and what they thought was going on. They were banned. So please Pat, never tell us that "no one is banned for voicing an opinion" because that is categorically untrue.

You might tell us there are other reasons behind the scenes. Ok, let's say that's true. Why were they banned within a day or so of those screenshots coming to light? Why was that the catalyst moment? No one else was banned and unless they had a secret cheating ring with exactly 0 other people involved it sure sounds like those screenshots were the reason.

Also please never say Dan doesn't give special treatment to people. Rumor has been banned multiple times for cheating and abusing staff tools. He still gets an OAK. Omni is a known hacker, still enjoying the site like nothing ever happened. Juke was literally banned for running a hate blog, which is still active when anyone is brave enough to post on it, currently not only back but on staff.

When Rumor was banned, he got to move all his pets to Dan's account and they were kindly returned when he was allowed back on the site. Kina also moved all her pets before she was banned but that was determined to be "unfair" and "not allowed" so they were all returned to her account. Then a conveniently-timed name clearing happened.

Let's look at that name clearing for a second. Dan repeatedly and constantly told us that he was busy and didn't have time to refresh on the site all day for the clearing. Amazingly, he was online for every single clearing. Every last one of them. The odds of that are astronomical when you consider he claims he sleeps, eats, goes out with friends, and works 8 hours a day. He also got tons of incredible, high-value names. These facts are the reason Hell and the rest suspected him of cheating in the first place and honestly that seems like a fair assumption.

You say we need to speak up, but we did. Half a dozen people on that discord said they felt horrible about something and you basically swept it under the rug by saying "oh, it took longer than planned and we didn't say anything publicly but it'll be there soon I promise. Now never speak to me about this again and I refuse to respond anymore." There's been no information anywhere on Res about anything regarding this other than a quick post Dan made only after he was called out multiple times for the number of OAKs he suddenly had.

A minor complaint that I've seen a dozen times on the SB is that new items keep getting quietly released so anyone that does quests suddenly finds themselves failing them because they don't have the items stocked up. Honestly makes me happy I don't waste time with quests. Maybe one or two items doesn't warrant a full update, but isn't that exactly what the changelog is for? For minor additions, fixes, updates, etc?

Another minor complaint I've heard from a few sources is that people continue to spam the SB with copy paste from the site. There was even a forum post about it that no staff addressed, unless that's changed since I last checked. I've seen it happen constantly while staff are on the SB with no policing of it. Why should users listen to this rule, which was added because enough people complained about it happening, when staff don't bother to uphold it?

Now to Rumor. His latest blog honestly boils my blood in so many ways. If his real information was given out and doxxed then that is absolutely disgusting and I do not stand for that. No one deserves it. I am starting this section by saying that because I want to make it clear that it's not ok that that happened, if it did. That doesn't mean I like him or agree with any other part of that blog.

Yes, I'm sure he worked long hours as a CM. You know who else did? Gunmetal, Dess, a bunch of other CMs. Someone else? All the artists, all the support and mods, all the writers. His blog makes it sound like it was just him putting in the hours and that it was purely his idea about all those events. Remember, before we got to a point where staff didn't know what was going on with events because no staff talk, staff used to all contribute together to events. Or maybe they didn't, I don't know, but they at least knew what was going on so I assume they had some input. I remember a time when asking on the SB about an event with staff around, regardless of their position, meant you could get an answer. Nowadays we have staff that have less idea than the users what's going on with an event. Staff like development, who you would assume would know everything about the event that they helped create, or mods, who should probably at least get an overview of the event if they're going to be able to help users.

Speaking of other staff helping with events. Is Rumor pretending he wrote every piece of those events on his own? Why are no writers mentioned anywhere in his list of people that spent many long hours working? He obviously can't pretend he drew everything for the event, but is he implying he wrote everything?

You say people on that list are "deserving" of OAKs Rumor. Schemes has been staff for almost no time compared to some of the old staff that you decided didn't deserve listing. Juke was banned and then unbanned, obviously more deserving than the ex-staff that still frequent the site and have never been in trouble.

Now let's turn to the thing that made me want to scream. You say to "just speak up" more. I've seen at least 8 different people, off the top of my head, told to "stop talking about it" in the SB when they voice a concern and it goes on longer than one or two sentences. Not a single one of the people I'm thinking of was being rude or starting something, they were trying to express themselves and basically being told to shut up. Often they're told to "take it to the forums" which works about as well as just saying it out loud in a room alone. No one reads the forums. Or at least very few people. Staff never responds to suggestions, not staff that can make those changes anyway, mods do sometimes and rarely an artist. Posting in the suggestions forum is like yelling into the void and hoping the void yells back. The absolute only way to be heard in the suggestion forum is advertising it nonstop on the SB and even that barely gets any staff looking.

You say this lack of communication is the reason many people have quit? Yes, that's very true, the exact opposite way you imply. People have left the site often because their feelings are silenced and their opinions completely ignored. No one reads their posts, staff don't respond to them except to tell them they're wrong or to tell them to stop talking about things, and their friends get banned for nothing while staff are allowed to continue cheating with no consequences. So you're right about that, people do leave over the lack of communication, but it's the lack of communication and understanding from staff that drives them away.

I know Pat will probably never see this, but if he does, or if someone is brave enough to link it, maybe he'll hear it. At this point considering his reactions to the people that are trying so very hard to make their voices heard on the Discord I doubt it but I can always hope.

#Rescon #RescreatuConfessions #TrueRescreatuConfessions #patrick #lilith #burrito #dan #rumor #kina #hell #zuzu #shinigami #shinohara #omni #juke #gunmetal #dess #schemes

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anastasiyaigorevnadobrodevskaya · 3 years

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Pride and prejudice - Vasiliy Alexandrovich Podkolzin

AN: There is way too little content for this Russian boy. Enjoy. (:

Word count: 5 023

A day like any other. Boredom, annoying questions by teachers, who think we have actually studied for their classes. The classes, which are according to my humble opinion, completely useless. Don’t let me forget to mention the stupid jokes during breaks and also classes. Hyperactive freaks, who had way too many cokes or cups of coffee for breakfast are dashing around bored students, who are dragging their feet behind them as if they were useless pylons in the narrow halls. Professors, who strode along the hallways give off the feeling of having all the time in the world. You know, the school classic.

I’ve just changed after my PE class and am currently waiting for my classmate Terka. There are two Tereza’s in our class so she’s Terka and I am Tete. But we both turn around when someone calls Terka, anyway.

I am leaning on the wall with my arms crossed, waiting for her to pick up her belongings. When she’s done we leave the locker room. I tap my pocket and realize that, in fact what I am looking for is not there. “Give me a second, I left my phone in there,” I say and jog back in to the locker room.

“Psh,” she sighs with a smile. At first I was the one waiting and now the tables have turned.

I find it in the same spot where I’ve left it. On a bench in the corner of the locker room. I grasp it a little bit more swiftly than I intended to. I shake my head at myself when I almost drop it. The second I exit the locker room I am met with a not so pleasant sight.

Standing right across from Terka is a tall brown-haired imbecile.

He has clearly said something that made her uncomfortable. I figure that out by her defensive posture and desperate glance in my direction. Her action alerts the idiot and his gaze falls upon me.

“Ah, there she is,” he turns towards me with his smirk and accent, which is much more beautiful than he actually deserves. He’s probably the most egoistic and annoying hockey player I know (and I know quite a few). Vasiliy Podkolzin. Never have I minded his existence. Well, until he decided to annoy me with it. I don’t get what is his deal, but not once in his life did he say a nice word about me. Since the beginning of school he’s had some kind of a problem with me, but to this day I have no idea what it is. To hell with that! But he is not going to jibe at my friend.

“Leave her alone,” I furrow my eyebrows at him and slide my phone in the pocket of my jeans. Exactly where it should’ve been before.

He snorts and slides his hands in the pockets of his grey sweatpants. Wow. Sweatpants in the school. Nice. A hockey player no doubt. I roll my eyes at the choice of his attire. “What exactly have I done?” he raises his eyebrow challengingly and tilts his head.

“I get that you have nothing better to do and are desperately trying to attract some kind of attention,” I start to which he merely raises his eyebrows again. “But leave her,” I gesture towards Terka, “alone.” I cross my arms over my chest. She just keeps switching her look between the two of us. Slight panic growing in her eyes. Poor thing, she is an introvert.

“Or what?” he shrugs and leans on a wall with a smirk I would more than like to wipe of his face with a hard slap.

I roll my eyes again. Seems it is a frequent reaction of mine to his presence. “Because by a conversation with intelligent people you could actually learn something,” I sass him and a smirk finds its way on my lips.

“Lucky me for talking to you then,” his smirk grows even wider and he acts like he’s the absolute winner.

And he is, I have no reply to that. Unless.. “Shouldn’t you be watching the game clips and learning that one does not deke on the blue line?” I smile kindly. I attend the U20 games regularly and unfortunately for him I remember his mistake in the weekend game very well. Which led to the odd man rush and a goal afterwards

I am pretty sure my remark hit a nerve. His smirk falters and he presses his pink lips to a thin line. No one enjoys getting their mistake rubbed in their face. Especially if it’s something you more than care about. “You won,” he rises his hands in surrender.

What? I recoil. I don’t remember this happening before. I look at him dumbfounded, but he just shrugs and seems genuine. I raise my brows and turn towards Terka. She is just as confused as I am. I tip my head in the direction of the classrooms. She nods and heads that direction. I follow her suit. While I am passing him he grabs my wrist and says quietly: “by the way. Nice article.”

I turn to look at him and see the vicious grimace on his face again. I scowl and try to look as disgusted as possible. I free myself from his grip on my wrist and say smugly: “so it actually can read.” How on Earth did he get to that?

His smirk grows even wider, content with my reaction to his comment. “But I am glad you can appreciate my individual puck handling skills marked by Russian school,” he mocks the exact words from my article. I swallow the lump in my throat. How did he know I wrote that? And why the hell could he quote my article!

“Play well or don’t play at all,” I put together a coherent sentence and say it in the most convincing tone I can muster at the moment. “Alexandrovich,” I add with disgust lacing my tone and resist the urge to spit in his face. I bump his shoulder instead. Which I actually fail and hurt myself rather than intimidating him.

“Can’t wait to read another article,” he states from behind me. I just throw him a stern look and flip him off. When we get out of his line of sight I rub my shoulder with a painful grimace and walk eagerly towards my homeroom.

▪

I place my belongings in my homeroom and mumble about using the restroom to Terka. I don’t miss the strange looks sent my way by my classmates, who have probably overheard the bickering with the stupid Russian in the hall. I walk over to the other side of the school, because almost no one uses these bathrooms.

With quick strides I make my way through the almost empty hall with my gaze fixed on the ground. I successfully manage to dodge the little to no students shuffling outside of their homerooms. Just before I reach the staircase I lift my gaze. Mistake. My eyes meet the stupid stare of the narcissist. He looks at me with that cocky smirk of his and continues an undoubtedly life-changing conversation with one of his classmates. I startle and flinch slightly, for not more than a millisecond and then I take off down the stairs.

I burst the bathroom door open and let them close with a loud bang. I lean on a wall and look up at the ceiling, his words playing over and over in my mind. That was a cheap shot. I shake my head and push myself of the wall. I walk in one of the stalls and take out my headphones and phone. I start the music and breathe out with my eyes closed.

That was shitty. I know it wasn’t fair throwing at him his Sunday’s mistake. But I didn’t expect that. How the hell did he know? How did he get to the article? No one was supposed to know it was me writing them. I know he’s noticed me at his games, but there’s no way he could’ve gotten to that. No one knows! Well, at least I thought so.

I emerge from the stall and lean on the sink. I wash my hands and splash my face with water. I take a look at my reflection in the mirror. Is seriously some hockey player full of himself going to throw you off? Absolutely not. I dry myself off and head back to the classroom.

„You okay? “ Terka asks.

„Of course, “I reply and take stuff for my next class out of my bag. „Listen, “I grab her attention after a moment of silence. „Does anyone know about my articles? “I ask with a small voice.

„I don’t think so. Why? “

„Just asking. “

▪

One week later.

Pushing your way through a bus in the morning is pretty interesting. Pushing your way through a bus with crutches and a backpack on your back is pretty funny. Please note the sarcasm, thank you. I almost fell flat on my face while exiting the bus. Keyword: almost.

What happened to me? I’ll answer this question with a different question. What is the probability of one falling on the ice and breaking their leg? Big enough to have a cast on mine.

I wait until most of the people pass and at an agonizingly slow pace I make my way to the school entrance. I have a bit of trouble with opening the sturdy door, but with the help of a couple of passing students I make my way inside. The bigger problem is the staircase leading to the second floor, where my classroom is located. I sigh and reach the first step. With one hand I grab the crutches and with the other I grip the railing. I walk three steps and come to a stop.

God this is torment. Well whatever. I hop to the next step. My small fingers barely get a grip on the crutches and I struggle to keep a hold on them. Just don’t drop them. Just don’t drop them. That’s the last thing I need right now.

„Need a hand with that? “A familiar voice tinted with Russian accent asks above me. I mentally curse and reluctantly look up.

Of course there’s standing Vasiliy. So it really can get worse? I ask myself. I look around. The poor amount of people present would rather get the ground to swallow them than help someone. Yes, it can. I sigh and nod.

He descends the stairs and takes the crutches out of my hands and carefully slides the bag of my shoulders. He dashes up, sets my belongings on the landing and comes back. I place my hand on his shoulder and give my things and then him a skeptical look. He doesn’t seem like he’s up to some dirty shit, but one does never know.

He adjusts my hand so it’s around his neck and wraps his big fingers around my slim wrist. He wraps his other hand around my waist and looks at me with the question written all over his (unfortunately handsome) face.

„If you take me up two steps, then walk away and leave my stuff there,“ I tilt my head in the direction of the landing, „I swear I’ll kick your ass.“ Slowly we start to take up the stairs and I am trying to keep my balance so both of us don’t roll down to the entrance.

He laughs and shakes his head: „I am not that big of an asshole. “

„I wouldn’t be too sure about that, “I point out honestly and glance at him out of the corner of my eye. He presses his (for a guy too red) lips in a firm line.

„What even happened to you? “He changes the topic and his grip on my wrist tightens slightly.

„Broken leg, “by a dumb answer I try to avoid the explanation.

„I can see that, “he roll his eyes.

„I fell on the ice, “I answer shortly. „I played hockey, “I add quietly after a while and wait for his witless remark or an insult.

„The shin? “He asks instead of mockery. Surprised I raise my eyebrows, but nod nevertheless.

We reach the upper floor and I lean on a wall by my arm. He jogs down to gather my stuff and hands me the crutches. „Thanks, “I smile weakly. He throws my bag over his shoulder and I look at him confused. „I can possibly manage the couple of meters there. “

„Are you implying that I can’t, “and the smirk is back. I’d rather take that than a kind smile. His friendliness frightens me. I mean, when it’s aimed at me. You get the point.

I roll my eyes, but against my better judgement a small smile finds its way onto my lips. He won’t give me the bag any time soon. Hence I follow him towards, the classroom.

„Where’s your spot? “ He asks when he walks into the classroom. I point at the desk right next to the door and he sets down my backpack on the desk. I don’t miss the weird looks of some of my classmates. The two of us fighting or not talking at all is the general knowledge. To be honest I am just as confused as they are. For the first time in three years we’re not getting at each other’s throat. What a rare moment.

„Bye, “he turns around and walks away.

„Hey Vasya, “he turns around with eyebrows raised in obvious surprise at the nickname. „Спасибо (Spasiba),“ I lift the corner of my lips. He nods and leaves quickly.

„What was that Tete? “One of my classmates asks.

„I have no idea, “I shake my head.

▪

Finally Friday. With my leg propped on a huge couch a game of hockey playing on the TV and a can of beer in my hand. Really an amazing Friday. Would be better without the cast, but I cannot change certain things.

Since I’ve been hobbling with the crutches it is as if I started to exist for the others. It attracts attention and I am not the ghost of our school anymore. People notice me and get out of my way in the halls. I wouldn’t complain if they weren’t looking at me as if I had the plague. But what’s weird is that Vasya is being nice to me. The worst thing is, that I absolutely don’t understand why.

After a while my phone lights up with a new message and I reluctantly reach for it. Right after I take a sip from my beer and criticise the hockey players on the TV for a mistake in the defensive zone. Dumbasses.

Василий(Vasiliy)

>Hi

I furrow my brows surprised, but reply nevertheless.

>Hi?

Василий

>You won’t be writing articles much now huh?

I roll my eyes at the question. Since when do I even have him on snap? Better question. Why do I even have him on snap?

>Eh, well I won’t be going to the games now.. Why are you interested?

Василий

>Aha

>Won’t you lose the readers?

And what is this question supposed to mean now? I frown.

>Vasya what is your point?

Василий

>Come to the game

>Do you even know how many steps are in the arena?

Василий

>I’ll help you

>You are beginning to scare me.

>What is up with you?

>Why am I supposed to go there?

Isn’t he supposed to be happy to get rid of me at least in the arena?

Василий

>I want to talk to you but not on the phone

>Ok?

Although, I have no idea what he wants from me, but the worst case scenario is me going for a walk and punching him in the face tomorrow.

Василий

>Are you coming?

>Yeah.

May I add that in the past three years he has texted me three times, at most? And I am pretty sure I didn’t add him on snapchat. If him helping me with my broken leg in the past week wasn’t weird, then this definitely is. What is going on here? At first he is helping me and now he is texting me to come to his game? If I recall correctly at his latest game he fought with me and tried to embarrass me in front of his teammates. What a douchebag.

▪

When I get to the arena guys are already warming up outside. I sigh and head for the entrance. The moment I get closer they notice me. Vasiliy runs up to me with a surprising smile on his features.

I let my gaze wander over his figure. Muscular tights poking out of dark shorts, a black t-shirt covering a toned chest and abdomen. Can’t miss the – probably – team cap worn backwards. He might be a narcissistic idiot, but he looks good. You have to give him that. When I look him up and down I clear my throat and wait for what he has to say.

“You came,” he says as if I weren’t standing right in front of him.

“Yeah. I said I would,” I shrug.

“Yeah,” he nods and throws his hand in the direction of the entrance. “Um, you can go and take a seat, but won’t you be cold?” he looks at me sceptical.

I am currently wearing black jeans and a short sleeved t-shirt decorated with a huge team logo. “Will you hold this for a second?” I hand him the crutches and he takes them with no hesitation. I lift my brow, but choose to not comment on it. I take the drawstring bag of my shoulders and pull out a dark hoodie. I show it to him with a smirk on my face and he looks at me impressed.

“You are going to be cold anyway if you’re going to sit there for two hours,” he points out.

I roll my eyes. “What do you even want from me?”

“Come inside, I’ll get you something,” he takes the hoodie out of my hands and hands me back the crutches, absolutely ignoring my previous question.

“Vasya stop.” He turns back around. “What is going on? Why am I here?” I ask exasperated.

He takes off his cap, runs his fingers over his hair and puts it back. An incredibly inappropriate comment and thought, but that was hot. “Can we talk after the game?”

“No,” I shake my head. You’re not getting out of this that easily. “We have been fighting since the first grade and you’ve never said a nice thing about me. I break my leg and you are a different person. You’re helping me and inviting me to your game. The least I deserve is an explanation,” I breathe out, desperate for an answer. “By the way, guys are missing you,” I tip my head in the direction of a circle of boys kicking a ball. A couple of them is looking in our direction.

He glances at them with a raised middle finger of his hand and trains his attention at me again. “Since the first moment I met you – three years ago – I have hated you,” he starts with a heavy sight.

“That is one way how to start a story,” I point out sarcastically and roll my eyes.

“Shut up,” he says and quickly continues and doesn’t give me the chance to add anything. “But when I saw you helplessly climbing up the stairs,” after his words I furrow my brows, “It was as if something flipped in me.”

“You mean someone flipped you off,” I correct him with a satisfied smirk.

“This is exactly why I hate you,” he looks at me with his characteristic stern look and I roll my eyes once again.

“Then why are you talking to me?”

He ignores my question – again – and continues. “I knew about you only the things I’d heard from someone and I assumed the rest. Call it prejudice if you want to,” he waves his hand, which is holding my hoodie.

I adjust my crutches and tilt my head to the side. I am listening to him with interest and amazement, that his chicken brain can produce so complicated sentences. “The problem is that the more I learned about you the more my illusion about you crumbled,” I look him up and down again and try to process what he is so determinedly explaining. Prejudice and a spoiled illusion? “I am trying to say that I’ve been an asshole and for absolutely no reason, it wasn’t fair. I am sorry Tete.”

Did he just call me Tete? Not once in my life did he call me that. It was whether Tereza or my last name. I look at him intensely for a second and wonder if he is saying the truth. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” he nods.

“Okay,” I nod. “Apology accepted,” it is only fair to accept it. I’ve done exactly the same what he did.

“You addressed me as Tete. You’ve never done that before,” I point out after a while and he laughs. I swear his cheeks just got red!

“Yeah. And you called me Vasya,” he rubs the nape of his neck. “Almost no one calls me that here in Slovakia. Well, besides them,” he jabs his thumb in the direction of his teammates. That is probably true. Not many people know nicknames of Russian names. When I realize that my cheeks get pink and I train my gaze on his blue sneakers.

“Go out with me,” he throws in as if he wasn’t talking to a person, he just told that he hates them in their eyes.

“What?” my head snaps up and my eyes go wide.

He sighs and waves his hands dramatically. “Tete I like you if you didn’t get it already.”

I open my mouth to say something, but I can’t get out a single sound. I just stare at him dumbfounded. Suddenly I recover and shake my head. “You act like the biggest asshole around and just because you assumed?” I almost yell at him. He flinches and looks unhappy. “Do you realize how stupid you sound right now?”

“I am quite aware,” he nods. He is unbelievable! “Look. I get that you are angry, but give me a chance to fix it,” he looks at me hopeful. “Please.”

“Would you hold this please?” I hand him my crutch. He takes it willingly and I – with now a free hand – slap him with as much strength I can muster. My hand stings from the contact. But it was worth it! A strangled laugh comes from his teammates. I look over at the idiots.

“Shut the fuck up,” one smacks the head of the other one.

“Ouch! Are you fucking nuts? Why did you do that?” with every cell in my body I try not to laugh when the two of them start to bicker.

I look back at the Russian in front of me and furrow my brows. I snatch the crutch out of his hand and lean on it. He turns to look at me and rubs his reddening cheek.

“I admit,” he holds his hand to his cheek. “I deserved that.”

“Damn, you did,” I snarl. I turn around and head to the bus stop.

“Tete wait!” he runs up in front of me and tries to stop me with his raised hands.

I snatch the hoodie out of his hands and side-step him. I hear him sigh and out of the corner of my eye I see his defeated posture. I stop and train my attention at the sky. Please don’t make me regret this. I close my eyes and sigh heavily. “Fine,” I turn to look at him. He looks at me like a deer caught in the headlights.

“I also hated you only because of prejudice and stereotypes. To be honest you didn’t help it much,” I admit and he nods. “The stupidest out of all of this mess is that I like you too,” I roll my eyes, but can’t help the slight blush on my cheeks.

“Excuse me?” his eyes go wide.

“And what did you think? I don’t believe a guy with your ego hasn’t taken the notice of his looks. If only for a second you didn’t have your head up your ass, you would notice that we have a lot more in common than I am comfortable with.” He opens his mouth to protest, but he immediately closes them. He is probably thinking over my words.

“Apparently the both of us have made a mistake,” I state loudly. “Let’s try to bury the war axe,” I raise my eyebrows and outstretch my right hand.

He looks at my hand and then at me. Eventually he puts his large hand in mine and shakes it.

“So…” he starts and I raise my eyebrows expectantly. “Ah, сука(suka),” he says and grabs my small face in his hands. My eyes go wide and my heart starts to pound as if I just ran a mile. “Actually I’ve liked you for a long time,” he whispers. “I refused to admit it myself. It was easier to keep the hatred rather than try to make you mine,” he shakes his head. “The pride made me hate you,” he snorts at his own words.

I place my hand on his wrist and offer him a weak smile trying to slow down my heartrate again. “I think I know what you are talking about.” His proximity and touch is not helping my nervousness at all.

“Dear Lord, how much longer will I be there for?” comes from behind him.

“Kiss her already!” one of his teammates yells at him.

That finally sets him in motion and he presses his lips to mine. Not before he sends the finger his way. I hear clapping, shouting and wolf-whistling. Hockey players. He places his hand – the one used to respond to his teammate in sign language – on my waist and brings me closer. The action makes my crutch fall and it lands on the ground with a loud bang. He pulls back all smiley like a kid in a candy store.

“I should’ve done that a long time ago,” he moves the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip.

“Don’t be so full of yourself and go get ready for the game,” I roll my eyes, but with a smile on my face, which I am not trying to hide – this time.

“I’ll score for you,” he smirks with a wink.

“What if you don’t?” I tease and slip my hand down on his strong forearm.

“Are you doubting me?” he raises his eyebrows.

Instead of a verbal response I just shrug with a not interested purse of my lips.

He leans in and whispers to my ear. “Watch and learn.” I get goose bumps from his voice being so close.

He picks up the crutch from the ground and hands it to me with a quick wink. He takes off towards his teammates, all smiles. They greet him with an applause and couple of slaps on the back. I laugh and shake my head. Hockey players.

▪

In reality, he scored just like he had said he would.

A pass in front of the net and a he tipped it in. Right after the goal he looked at me and pointed in my direction. I couldn’t, but laugh at his childish romance.

“A goal scored by number 11. Vasiliy Podkolzin,” echoed in the almost empty arena. Let’s face it. A ridiculously small amount of people attends the junior games.

Vasya took the puck and set it aside. I didn’t get it. It wasn’t his milestone goal or anything. Or was it?

▪

“I told you,” is the first thing he says, the moment he emerges from the locker room.

I roll my eyes at his words.

“Not even a hug?” he looks at me offended with a pout. Like a kid.

I laugh and motion for him to come closer. My leg didn’t heal magically. I lean the crutches on the wall and wrap my arms around him, when he gets closer.

“It’s hard to believe that I hated you just a couple of hours ago,” I state and wrap my hands around his neck. “But now that I think about it. Shut up, don’t say whatever you wanted to say,” I silence him before he has the chance to doubt my ability to think. He just rolls his eyes, but lets me continue nonetheless. “One would expect, that people like us are best friends or something. We have in common quite a lot,” I shrug.

He laughs and brushes a strand of my hair behind my ear. “It was mutual,” he shrugs. I want to scold him, but I don’t have the chance because he kisses me. If we hadn’t been fighting we could’ve spent the past three years kissing. Why are people so stupid? “I’ve got you something,” he mumbles against my lips.

“And what is it?” I raise my brows and pull back.

He pulls a puck out of the pocket of his trademark sweatpants and places it in my hand. I look at him expectantly, but he doesn’t say anything. He just smiles. I examine the black piece of rubber in my small hand and break into the laughter. I look at him and hug him tightly.

“Are you going to write another article about me?” he couldn’t help himself, but chirp me.

“Shut up you idiot,” I mumble against his chest.

“And we are back to the insults,” he shakes his head. “But I am your idiot from now on,” he presses a kiss to my hair and brings me closer, if that is even possible.

On a white tape stuck around the puck is next to today’s date with a black sharpie written – probably by the coach – in a nasty handwriting “1ST GOAL IN RELATIONSHIP”.

#hockey imagine #hockey imagines #hockey fanfiction #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #nhl fanfiction #vancouver canucks imagine #vasiliy podkolzin imagine #vasili podkolzin imagine #vasili podkolzin #vasiliy podkolzin #slovakia #hockey #nhl #vanocuver canucks

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iwachans-beefyarms · 4 years

Text

Hey everyone! Ok so first off, I’m really sorry for being hella inactive, it’s been a rough few months with exams and stress and seasonal depression HAHA but i’m better now! Unfortunately tumblr decided to delete a lot of my requests so I’m opening requests up again, so please feel free to drop by!!! This was a fun story to write, and I personally really love Sakusa’s character. I was heavily motivated by @sachiwrites‘s take on his character so hope I did u proud >.< I was also gong through a really stressful time while writing this so I thought it would be interesting to see how the reader’s own stress and depression would affect her relationship with Sakusa, someone who already had his own setoff problems. Anyway, hope y’all enjoy!

Original request: Hiiii ! lately, sakusa stole my heart >< so iy would be nice of you to write something about him !! Like something angtsy but with a fluffy end please, love me some emotional rollercoaster ride ^^

Truthfully, Sakusa Kiyoomi was indebted to you. He was acutely aware of how difficult he could be to handle. In fact, he had fully prepared himself for a life of solitude by the time he graduated from middle school. Who would want to spend the rest of their life with a person as complicated and fastidious as him? More so than that, Sakusa could not fathom having to care for another person so intimately. While he would like to pretend that his reasons for never taking interest in the pursuit for a lover were entirely born out of his insecurities about himself, the truth was that he was honestly just entirely too selfish to bother with a committed, loving relationship. He was not prepared to nurse any potential lover if they ever fell sick, or to have to go on spontaneous and wild dates just to please them. There were too many compromises that made a healthy relationship and Sakusa was not interested in making any of them. Life was too much of a burden as it already was; there was no need to worsen the weight of it.

Which is why he was so surprised when you whisked into his life, dancing up a storm in his heart. When he had first met you, he was utterly and completely blown away. He had been alone at the back of his school’s building trying distressingly hard to slow his breathing. He was panting-- no, hyperventilating. It was a panic attack of course, something he had gone through many times in his life, and something he thought he should be used to. However, the frequent occurrences of this attack on his lungs did not prevent him from feeling like he was on the edge of death everytime they came. This is it, this is really it. He heard himself think, his inner voice booming against the walls of his skull. In his crouched position, he saw the movement of feet through his peripheral vision. Too preoccupied to care, he ignored the actions of this unknown person and continued to focus on getting his breathing back on track. He noticed them, a girl maybe, reaching into her bag and pulling out a small bottle. It looked like… sanitiser maybe?

“Hey, eyes on me okay?” She spoke, her voice coming out muffled and soft against the loudness of his own heartbeat. Stressed and confused, he looked up at her as she carefully applied the liquid on her hands. Her thorough and smooth movements somehow helped him as he realised his vision had started becoming a lot less blurry. She came down to his level, and gently took his hands into hers.

“Breathe, 1, 2, 3. Exhale, 1, 2, 3. Come on, I’ll do it with you,” She spoke again, her voice confident and commanding, as she rubbed small and firm circles around his hands with the bud of her thumb. They stayed that way for nearly twenty minutes before Sakusa’s breathing finally came down from being erratic to somewhat normal. He was still panting, but he could think clearly now and he no longer heard his own heart beating in his head. She had stopped holding him by then, thank God. When he finally mustered up the effort to speak, all he could say was, “Who?”

With a small smile you replied, “Y/n! I’m in the class next to yours and we’ve never really met but I remember seeing you around quite often, Saskusa.” He was quite surprised when he realised you remembered his name. In all honesty, he had never seen you before. Maybe he had but he normally couldn't care less about other people. He didn’t even remember the names of some of his own classmates so why would he bother with a stranger next door? Still, she had been kind enough to help him. Not only that, she seemed to be aware of his phobia and had accommodated to it, which was incredibly moving for him. In that moment he felt the rare feeling of gratitude grow in his chest.

“Thank you, you must be really attentive to have known to be so careful,” he whispered, voice still raspy.

“Not really, it’s kind of obvious,” she laughed nervously, as if she was trying not to offend. He wasn’t offended.

“Anyway, see you around!” She said cheerfully, after a couple of awkward minutes. “Don’t be a stranger,” she added while walking away. He didn’t bother gracing that with a response.

Your persistent personality was a catalyst for your friendship. The daily greetings and small-talk had forced him to get to know you better and, interestingly enough, he was not repulsed. He found out about that new book you were reading, and actually enjoyed it when he decided to give it a read. Also, it was a pleasant surprise when you told him that you used to play volleyball. So, your conversations grew longer and meetings became more frequent. Soon, he was meeting you after school on days he didn’t have practice and even spending his lunch breaks with you. You started to inch closer to him and began leaving soft, subtle touches on his skin. You were obviously trying to be discreet, but he was a person who was so painfully aware of everyone around him that of course he noticed. The surprising thing was that he didn’t mind. He knew you were hygienic enough for him to be comfortable so he began to let himself enjoy your affections.

When you confessed your feelings for him, he was not surprised. He knew from the beginning that you had a little crush on him and he even found it quite adorable. Had you asked him out a few weeks earlier, his answer would have been a hard no. However, getting to know you over the past few weeks had really changed his entire mindset about relationships. For the first time in his life, Sakusa felt like he could open himself up to someone. You had been kind enough to cater to his obsessive and exhausting personality. You were also completely comfortable with taking things slow. Above all that, you had an absolutely endearing personality. It was as if fate had intentionally sent you his way after torturing him for the past years, and he wasn’t one to let blessings like this slip away. So, when you confessed your feelings for him, he was not surprised. But you were, when he said yes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dating Sakusa was going to be hard and you knew that from the very start. You weren’t naive, despite what your boyfriend might have thought. You paid him a lot of attention during the earlier stages of your friendship. You knew what he liked, what ticked him off, his pet peeves and at that point you could even tell his emotional state just by looking at the way his eyebrows moved when the rest of his face was covered by a mask. You also knew that the effort Sakusa put into your relationship was unparalleled to everything you had done for him. But, that was what you had signed up for. He had enough problems on his own trying to deal with the world with his own personal struggles so you strived to make life just a little bit easier for him.

However, after a certain point, you had to come to terms with the fact that you were your own person too. You were human too. It was easy to forget about yourself when you had been so invested in another person. The most difficult part of it all was being unable to see the fruition of all your efforts. You knew deep in your heart that Sakusa loved you. He let you kiss him, touch him and even let you sleep in the same bed as him at times. Despite that, you felt incredibly lonely in your relationship. Interacting with Sakusa started feeling almost burdensome. While your relationship had been quite a ride, built by reckless passions with bursts of feelings like joy, anger and love, you couldn’t help but feel a sense of staleness develop after a while.

It started very slowly. School had been getting ridiculously hard and Sakusa’s practices had been getting more frequent. Engulfed by the stresses of school, the two of you had gone nearly two weeks without properly speaking to each other. While Sakusa had seemingly remained unbothered, the realisation of that had completely shocked you. How could you go two weeks without any interaction with the person you loved, and not even notice it? The thing you felt most guilty about was actually the sense of peace you had experienced over those two weeks. Blindsided by your adoration for Sakusa, you hadn’t realised how draining it was being around him. When the two of you would spend time, you rarely ever took care of yourself. You’d clean the table for him when eating lunch at school because he absolutely refused to eat at those disgusting cafeteria tables, and would rather die than clean it himself. Hell, you’d even do a thorough cleaning of your own house just so Sakusa could come over and spend time with you. That, coupled with the natural angst that grows in you as a hormonal teenager, had caused you to grow more and more irritated with him.

Things you had previously found endearing about Sakusa now made your skin crawl. Even as your interactions grew less, you found yourself wanting to cry out in anger everytime he asked you to wash your hands before touching him. It was incredibly frustrating because all you wanted was some affection, and your boyfriend, of all people, couldn’t give that to you. It hurt because you had foolishly believed that if you could convince him that he was capable of being loved, he’d grow to be able to reciprocate those affections. But you were starting to feel scammed.

“Sakusa, do you want to go to that cafe I’ve been talking about?” You had asked one day, hoping to salvage your sinking relationship. He had to have noticed the drift, right? He’d want to fix it too, right?

“Huh? I don’t really feel like it…” He shuts you down just like that. Your hands are intertwined, as they usually were when you went home together, but for the first time, you untangle your fingers from his.

In hindsight, you realised that not all your feelings had been caused by your dysfunctional relationship. You had suspected that you were depressed months ago, but the problem had never been serious enough to warrant any major action so you ignored it. At least, that was what you told yourself. As time went by, it became nearly impossible to ignore. You couldn’t do your homework, you couldn’t sleep and eventually your appetite began to vanish. The rejection you felt from Sakusa had further sent you down a spiral of self-doubt. You hated yourself for being so selfish and you figured that maybe the reason Sakusa was drifting away from you was because it was you who wasn’t enough, not him.

It didn’t take long for your guilt to morph into anger once again. You had made no mention of your fractured state of mind to Sakusa, but it would not have taken a genius to figure out that you were not okay. Friends and teachers had approached you to check on you but the man you loved with every fibre of your being had never once mentioned anything to you. The two of you went about your days as you normally would. Little kisses hello and goodbye had become almost mechanical, and you cried yourself to sleep every night. You knew you should seek help soon, before it became even worse but you couldn’t bring yourself to overlook Sakusa’s indifference towards you.

You couldn’t brush your teeth. You stood in front of your bathroom mirror and furrowed your eyebrows at your reflection, toothbrush in hand. Why…? It’s just… move your hand…? It had been two days since you last showered. It physically hurt you to move and all you wanted to do was go back to bed. Still, being the responsible student you were, you went to school. You were late, none of your homework had been done but hey, at least you showed up. You knew your boyfriend was disgusted by your appearance because he had been avoiding you like a plague. You didn’t blame him, you looked as hideous as you felt. It felt like the end of your relationship was nearing and you shocked yourself with how relieving that felt. Maybe if you stopped seeing each other you could start feeling at least a little less miserable. Again, at least that was what you told yourself when you messaged him about wanting to talk.

When the two of you met at the rooftop where you had so often shared meals, the atmosphere was tense. It didn’t help that the afternoon sun was unforgiving and the air was humid. Your disheveled state in the heat made you want to claw your own skin out but you settled for subtly digging your nails into the palms of your hands. You had planned the conversation out thoroughly; first ask him how his day was, then let him down easy. The last thing you wanted to do was hurt him. You knew how difficult getting into a relationship was for him and you didn’t want to completely turn him off from ever dating again.

Yet, when you saw the unreadable expression on his face with his fingers impatiently tapping the sides of his legs, your anger triumphed any semblance of civility you had planned.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Your words come out much softer than you anticipated but your voice shook. You could tell he was surprised by the way his eyebrows shot up.

“What do you mean I --”

“Shut up and listen, where have you been? I needed you, do you even care?” You were obviously crying at this point but Sakusa remained stunned to silence. “Screw you, Sakusa. Seriously, screw you,” you interrupt, your emotions clearly messing with your vocabulary.

“I’m your girlfriend, not your maid. I’m not just there to clean up shit for you! I have a life, I have feelings and I have been so miserable and you haven’t said anything,” You’re rambling but it was hard to stop once it started. You felt your vision blut from the tears and felt the snot running down your chin but you didn’t care. If Sakusa couldn't handle you at your worst then he sure as hell didn’t deserve you at your best. You continued your rant and poured your heart out to him. Unwittingly, you express your grievances about your own state of mind to him. You had wanted to keep your condition to him a secret for so long but there was no turning back now. He deserved to feel guilty, to hate himself for being such a terrible friend.

“I warned you about setting expectations. I told you that I’m not that guy. Why are you surprised now?”

His words seemed sarcastic but the genuinity in his voice as he responded triggered you. He wasn’t even trying to be hurtful, you knew that much. It was the fact that he hadn’t even tried to change for you that really broke your heart. Even though you had told yourself that you didn’t feel anything anymore, that the break up would be a relief, nothing in your nearly two decades of living could have ever prepared you for the heartbreak you felt in that moment. Seriously, it felt like your heart was about to fall from your chest, and you had to physically clench your fist against your chest to keep yourself from falling apart. You weren’t crying anymore, and there was nothing left to say. So, you walked away, and Sakusa didn’t bother stopping you.

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Sakusa Kiyoomi was indebted to you, this he knew for a fact. You had forced him out of his shell and had inspired him to be better. He never knew he was capable of doing something even as trivial as kissing, but with you he had been able to open himself up to so much more. Hell, he had had sex for the first time with you, something he had previously been unable to even fathom. It wasn’t just his comfort zone that you had expanded, you changed him for better. He was less cold towards others and he learned to appreciate the little things.

He remembered going to the beach once while you were on a date. He hated the sand in his shoes and he didn’t even want to think about stepping into the ocean. But, you had begged and begged for weeks and he eventually had to give in to you because, although he would never admit to it, seeing you smile made his heart flutter. You had forced him to take his shoes off and stand in the sand with you. With your eyes closed and hands raised, he watched you smile radiantly at the sky. He was transfixed, staring at you because how could someone be so beautiful and full of life?

“I love the feeling of the sun on my skin, it’s like being kissed by the sky don’t you think?” You had turned to face him, hands still in the air. Your words took him by surprise because Sakusa had never really seen the sun as anything but a source of humidity and a catalyst for disease. But the way you looked at him, the way your eyes sparkled; he couldn’t help but love the sun a little more from that day.

He really did love you, even if he wasn’t the best at showing it. So when you started getting dull, he noticed it immediately. He probably noticed it even before you had. The problem lay in the fact that he had no idea what to do. He figured, if you really needed help you would ask. But he knew that was just a pathetic excuse to avoid any kind of confrontation. Sakusa, for all his self-confidence, was incredibly insecure about his relationship with you. He never expected to cultivate such intense devotion towards you, but he did. And his biggest fear was that one day, you’d realise you were worth so much more than Sakusa could have ever hoped to offer. You were perfect and ethereal. Everybody loved you and it was almost like the sky became brighter when you were around. As the days went by, he found himself becoming more and more blinded by you. You had inspired him to get help, but he held himself back because of the fear that if you ever did grow wiser and left him, all his efforts would have been for naught. Truly, Sakusa believed that he would never love anyone the way he loved you, ever. The fear of losing you frightened him more than anything and he was too afraid to change any aspect of your relationship in case it ever disrupted the balance the two of you had created.

Things had started to change when you grew darker over time. He saw you deteriorate with his own eyes, but he couldn’t do anything. He didn’t want to do anything. He told himself it was because he was afraid of hurting you even more, but Sakusa felt deep down that it was his selfishness once again preventing him from ever going out of his way to care for someone. He reasoned that you were smart enough to have no expectation for him, that you knew he was a self-centred prick. But seeing you cry in front of him had really sobered him up. He hadn’t expected it to hurt so much when he saw you clutch your shirt as you fought back tears. When you walked away, he tried so hard to move towards you, to stop you, touch you-- anything, really. But his feet were grounded and all he could do was watch. Sakusa was nothing if not proactive, and he knew he had to do something quick, before the damage done was irreversible. With a quiet sigh muffled by his mask, he leaned his head back, face tilted toward the sky and let himself get lost in his thoughts.

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It had been two weeks since you spoke to Sakusa. You knew it was over but there had been a small part of you that had hoped he would approach you and you would both talk things out until everything went back to normal. Of course, that did not happen, and you were not surprised either. As much as you would like to believe in the romance of life that the media often tried to feed you, you were a realistic person who knew better than to have faith in some fantasy that only existed in your mind. At the same time, you were also, unfortunately, just a teenage girl whose heart refused to listen to her brain. Which was why, when your doorbell rang at 10pm that night, your heart skipped a beat in hopes that perhaps Sakusa had finally come to his senses and came to sweep you away.

What was more surprising than the fact that even after two weeks you still held some lingering hope that your ex-lover would come back to you was the fact that, indeed, it was him who stood at your front door. For a solid few seconds you could not move or say anything, as you took time to process the vision that was presented before you. Sakusa was wearing casual clothes and he sported his usual mask. However, it had been pushed down to collect at his neck, and you were gifted with the image of his whole face. His dark curls fell gracefully over his forehead and you noticed a slight sheen of sweat. Had he run here? What could he possibly want from you that was so urgent?

“Hello? Anyone home?” He asked. It took you a moment to realise he had just cracked a joke. Regaining your composure, you retort, “What the fuck do you want?” If he was hurt by your outburst, it certainly didn’t show.

“Look, before you say anything, please hear me out, okay?” He asked softly, taking a step towards you. Instinctively, you backed away. There was something different about him but you couldn’t place a finger on what it was exactly. His gaze on you felt stronger than ever, and he had a determined glint in his eyes that you had never seen before. You also noticed his posture. His shoulders were rolled back and he stood tall and proud, like he was so sure of himself. Whatever the source of his newfound confidence was, it made your heart hurt a little bit. You had been an absolute mess after the break up, while he had clearly been thriving.

“Sure. Whatever. Spit it out.”

“I love you, and I’m sorry for being such a jerk. I know I should have said this much earlier but I didn’t want you to think I was being insincere. I had to do something to prove to you how serious I was being,” He started, a small smile creeping on his face. You stared at him blankly, not understanding where this was going.

“Are you proposing…? Because I will say no!” You blurt out, panicking slightly. He blinked at you a couple times, obviously puzzled by your outburst. Then, he laughed. A full blown chortle. It was a rare Sakusa laugh that you had only witnessed a couple times before. With a big, bright smile, he shook his head and responded, “No, dumbass. I’ve been seeing a therapist.” The revelation was shocking, to say the least. But, before you could interrupt, he continued.

“When you left after our argument I realised how much I had been taking you for granted. I’m not good with expressing myself but I knew enough to realise that you’re the best damn thing that could have ever happened to me. You see, I knew this for a long time, I just don't know how to tell you. I don’t like people and I find relationships exhausting but with you, for the first time in my life, I want to try harder. I didn’t want to lose you. I spoke to my mother and she offered to take me to see a therapist. She had asked me before but I never felt the need to see one. But after our fight, I realised I had to grow up. I still generally hate people and I still don’t know how to say what I’m feeling. And I sure as hell still hate germs but, I’m willing to work towards getting better. For you. You deserve at least that. If you’re willing to take me back, I’d be lucky to have you with me while I do this.”

He ends his speech with his eyes still looking into yours, as if he was analysing your reaction. He had clearly rehearsed this, you could just tell. It was honestly quite cute and heartwarming because you couldn’t think of any other time Sakusa had tried this hard with you. Your chest swells with affection you had been repressing for the past couple of weeks as you grabbed his shirt and yanked him down to your lips. The kiss was sweet, and a little salty from the tears that escaped your eyes after his little speech. Sakusa wasted no time wrapping his arms around you as he pressed your body closer to him. You had become an expert at reading him since the start of your relationship and you could feel just how much he had missed you from the way he held you during that kiss. Pulling away, he let his hands slide up your arms and cup your face.

“Does this mean you forgive me?” He asks, breathless.

You weren’t an idiot. You knew things were going to be far from peachy. But for him, you were willing to risk the sun and the moon. You tell him this by taking his hands into yours and leaning up for another kiss.

#haikyuu x reader #sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa x reader #female reader #angst #fluff #haiku angst

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thistangledbrain · 3 years

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Day 19 & 20!

Day 19 - “I hate it when...”

As you’ve gleaned from prior posts, I hate it when you forget autism is a developmental disorder and not an intellectual one. We are so. Fucking. Tired. Of being treated as lesser, or like we don’t understand what you’re saying to us.

Outside of the reactions to others’ behavior, though, I have some personal “I hate it when”...I’ve let you into my mind and told you what I appreciate about how my brain works, but there are things I don’t like, for sure.

I hate that personal stressor things trigger a toddler-like need to SHUT DOWN. Like writing this blog, for example...the vulnerability I feel usually leads to a need to go to sleep for a long time, once I’m finished. Or after a long day socializing. I don’t want to talk to anyone, I don’t want to engage my brain anymore, I just need to shut all systems down and sleep. Especially if there’s been a meltdown (meltdown—->shutdown)...and oh boy do I hate meltdowns. They’re really rare, thank dog.

I hate that my executive function is an absolute bag of ass. This is probably the biggest thing I would change. It got infinitely worse when my disability got bad (EDS), for some reason. And it drives me up the damn wall.

I hate my low function days/moments. It’s like my brain just won’t kick into gear, or the gears and wheels are rusty and grinding, & it’s rather anxiety inducing. I usually “hide” on my low days, sometimes in my darkened bedroom, and watch favorite shows or movies, or get lost in a good book - if I can. On low days I find myself re-reading crap constantly because it’s not making any sense, so I’ll even avoid complicated recipes...I have no idea why these days/moments happen, but boy do they piss me off/make me anxious (that’s kind of the same thing for me. My anxiety nearly always manifests as anger). On my low days, you’ll see (if you were a fly on the wall, because I suppress this even around my own family), me walking in tight, anxious figure 8’s and flapping my hands in a distressed way, as I anxiously try to mentally kick my brain into gear. (It doesn’t work, but it IS a little soothing. And my dogs are SO sweet...they gather around me tightly and just seem to know I need them.)

🤷🏻‍♀️ There’s probably more I could expound on that I don’t like, but writing this one has been pretty distasteful. I try not to dwell on things I hate anymore, so I’ve put this entry down multiple times and come back to it when I’m in a decent frame of mind. I think I’m tired of talking about it now, so I’m gonna just stop talking.....

Which is a good segue into Day 20 -

————————————-

“Communication”

Ahh communication. This entry will be long, because I have a lot to communicate LOL....

Personally, I write far more coherently and eloquently than I speak. My brain goes too fast...I often trip over words; my brain’s three steps ahead of what’s coming out of my mouth and I get scrambled sometimes. I can also take the time to think about what I want to say/HOW I want to say it. Like many autistics, I’m a blurter. LOL...I am constantly trying to remind myself, just because I think it, doesn’t mean I have to say it. This gets a LOT of us in trouble...one of my most memorable examples is, I *loudly* blurted “that’s BULLSHIT!!” in a church one time. (I was speaking on how my devout Methodist grandmother, who regularly takes communion at her church, was not permitted to receive communion in a Catholic church, merely because she isn’t Catholic, despite the fact that this woman is all about some Jesus & a devoted churchgoer - not just on Easter and Christmas.) In my defense, it WAS (IS) bullshit. I just didn’t need to practically yell that in church. As you can imagine, it was like a needle scratching across a record & everyone turned to stare. (My poor husband rescued me.) 🤦🏻‍♀️ Sigh. It’s a good idea to keep me out of most church services.

I am rather famous (infamous?) for calling bullshit straight to someone’s face, BLUNTLY. It’s out of my mouth before my brain’s “tact gatekeeper” I’ve spent over a decade trying to train is even half awake at his post (it’s a him because my husband is the one who taught me how to use tact in the first place. And it’s a him because said “gatekeeper” is lazy and falls asleep on the job all the time 😆). Have you ever just blurted your honest thoughts and heard shocked gasps or someone just busts out laughing? Yeah. That happens to me regularly. Or uncomfortable chuckles and someone will blink a few times and say, “oohhhkay, well, you could said that a different way.” (My old response to that was, I’m not responsible for what your reaction is to what I say...you’re in charge of your own feelings. I *understand* now how irresponsible and unfeeling that is, and I try to keep that in the front of my mind, even when I’m frustrated and nearly burning up with the desire to speak my thoughts in their raw form, but this is routinely an area I struggle to adapt to...and I am very sorry when I hurt someone I care about.)

On the other side of this same coin though, this is a trait my friends respect deeply, because I’m not cruel hearted or anything. You always know where you stand with me, and I’m the last person to try and lie to you. I SUUUUUCK at lying. And on the rare times when I do, I usually end up eventually telling on myself (this drove my older stepsister NUTS when we were kids, because she liked to do lots of sneaky things, and I don’t have an inherently sneaky nature LOL...so “DO NOT tell momma” was a *serious* risk for her, if she let me tag along 😂). Lying to someone just feels disgusting. Oily. Shameful. I hate lying. Plus, my short term memory is a grabasstic bag of CRAP, so there’s a good chance I won’t remember the lie and get caught anyway. 🤷🏻‍♀️ My boys also suck at lying or hiding stuff, and generally prefer not to...but I also give them a safe forum to be honest. (I’m sure there’s LOTS of crap I don’t know, but you’d be surprised how much they DO tell me.)

Another thing with me personally is that I go mute sometimes. I’m not being deliberately obstinate. I’m not REFUSING to speak in those moments...sometimes I literally can’t, and the effort of doing so will make me gag, or even projectile vomit. Sounds very dramatic, doesn’t it? It is. (And it annoys the SHIT out of me.) There’s not a fucking thing i can do about it. The movement of my tongue in my mouth will literally begin to trigger my gag reflex, and if I try to power through it, I’m rewarded with my lunch returning to the surface anyway, regardless of my desires, and sometimes rather unexpectedly & violently. USUALLY this happens when I’m uber stressed, but sometimes it seems kind of out of the blue & catches even me off guard. If this happens but I still have something to say, I start texting instead, and explain. Most people - especially my hubby - are very kind when this happens. (I don’t want your pity, I just want you to switch to written communication for a minute until I can figuratively kick the fuck out of the engine in my “speaking center” and get it to work again.) Other times, I will literally get tired of talking. Like my mouth and tongue - and somehow, the “word forming” part of my brain feels physically exhausted (weird, I know, but I also spend the vast majority of my life silent - I am home alone all day, hate talking on the phone, and simply don’t speak much, by choice. So maybe it is actual “mouth fatigue” 😂😂😂 - I’ve stopped eating before because I just got tired of chewing, too, even though I’m still somewhat hungry. 🙄) I am usually *perfectly* happy to keep listening! And I’ll stay engaged in the conversation usually. I am just...done audibly talking. I’ll literally say “my mouth is tired of making the sounds now, but please keep going”...but I think my husband is the only one who doesn’t find this unusual, and rolls with it. It usually happens after a long, animated conversation...instead of winding down, though, it just..stops. If I try to keep going, cue the gagging. I can stay engaged in the conversation if you let me start writing/typing instead of speaking, for my responses. So that’s a “fun” little trait of mine that many neurotypicals find unsettling. Please don’t take it personally. My mouth just doesn’t want to make the words anymore - and I’m probably mostly done adding what I needed to add to the conversation anyway. I’m a great listener when this happens, though. 😆

Communication is a really interesting thing with all of us, because it’s a struggle on one level or another. I will tell you, it’s a frequent topic in my groups. “WHY CAN’T NEUROTYPICALS JUST SAY WHAT THE FUCK THEY MEAN?!?! 😩😩😩” I’m dead serious - you might think, because we’re sensitive (generally), we can’t “handle” it? You’d be so very wrong. What we can’t handle is when you dance around a subject or we have to try and translate what you just said to us (which most of us are not that good at). Just fucking say it! Nine times out of ten, you’ll just get a look of dawning realization and a “oh, shit, okay” response. We can handle it. Just. Say. It. We’ll respect you a lot more in the morning, LOL 😆

I think every autistic has some sort of beef with neurotypicals when it comes to communication (as I’m sure you have yours with us, obviously).

You guys operate under some weird ass rules that we simply don’t understand - especially if you don’t tell us those rules & just expect us to know. Like, if my husband hadn’t patiently taken years to show/teach me how the way I said certain things were hurtful, I would still be in the “yeah she’s cool but she’s kind of an asshole” territory. (I still struggle to grasp this, or at least it still frustrates me....truth is truth, whether it’s an ironclad general fact or your own personal truth - and yes sometimes the truth hurts, but like...I don’t pin any responsibly for that on the truth teller, if that makes sense?)

Working in rescue also helped hone my ability to speak “neurotypically” to others - I work with a LOT of women, and boy do a lot of them NOT appreciate when you bluntly tell them what you think. Men on the other hand....

I know *lots* of autistic women who prefer friendships with men, largely centering around this communication thing. We hurt men’s feelings a little less regularly than other women’s. I know I was like that, until I got a little more used to how I have to modify my communication with most women (but that annoys me, I’m gonna be honest - it annoys my Autie friends, too). The only time I am as starkly blunt as I used to be, is when speaking to my female Autie friends (because they can handle it), or most of the dudes I’m friends with. But if my message is getting “lost in the sauce” and you’re not getting my point, I usually give a frustrated sigh, WARN you that I’m about to tell you flatly what I need to say, because we aren’t getting anywhere, and just say it.

Yes I am the friend who, when you gush on and on about your new back yard bred puppy, talking all about how you’re gonna breed him when he grows up, is gonna flatly say “he’s not breeding quality”, if they’re not. Then I’m gonna ask you why you want to do such a thing, given that you’re aware of the massive load of rescue dogs (PARTICULARLY Great Danes and Cane Corsos) - and probably beat your argument down every step of the way. That doesn’t always go badly though - one of my closest friends was considering breeding their dog, and while it was a beautiful dog, it was not one that should reproduce (from an “improve the breed” perspective). We barely knew each other, but I gained a reputation for being kind but starkly honest...and I knew what I was talking about...and now I have this person’s deep respect, and they have mine (because they listened and did the research I asked them to - and did not add to the breed population). So it’s not *always* a trainwreck, because the people who end up respecting how I communicate, usually end up VERY close friends. AND I WANT THAT IN RETURN, which is refreshing for a LOT of people. I want your dead honesty in return - PLEASE. It’s so much easier for me to process and accept. For example, my house is almost constantly in some sort of disarray. I have one friend who will come in and go, “girl. I almost can’t breathe in here - this clutter is too much”(and then she offers to help me tackle it!!).

Or, fairly recently, “oh my god those curtains are so horrible, I hope you’re getting rid of those when you redo this room.”

“But I MADE those curtains! I love that print!”

“Ugh. No. They’re terrible. Get rid of them.”

My feelings were not hurt in the LEAST (I of course had a flash of “you bitch, I was so excited to find that print and I MADE THOSE, ya jerk” 😂). At first I said, “well you’re just gonna have to suck it up and deal with my shitty curtains, because I like them” 😂, but then as I was redoing the room, I took them down...and it DID look a lot better, so I left them down 😂😂😂....

So I guess my point with all this is: every autie I know deeply wishes you’d just fucking spit it out. We WILL often miss or misinterpret the point if you “fluff” it too much (around my neck of the woods, we call it putting too much gild on the lily, though I’ve never understood that one. Idk if a “gilded lily” is/was ever a thing, why anyone would gild a lily in the first place...LOTS of us struggle with colloquialisms that don’t make literal sense. 😆 Recently a friend was baffled over “shit in one hand and wish in the other and see which fills up faster”, and fully half of the respondents to her post were people baffled by why anyone would shit in their hand - I and a couple others had to explain, and it just ended with them going “well that’s a fucking stupid saying anyway, and wishes aren’t things you can put in your hands, either” 😂😂😂...but I’m from the south, and these things are just part of our vocab. MOST of them are easy to grasp for me, like “nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs”, because I immediately picture it and can grasp the meaning. But others I don’t get - the gilded lily is one LOL)...

We are LITERAL AS FUCK. It’s why we ruin lots of jokes, too. My poor husband is the dad joke king - and I ruin fully 1/3 or more of his jokes by being too literal (which he also finds amusing, so that’s good). Sometimes we realize we’re ruining the joke but we don’t care, because it’s dumb, or we just .... can’t....HELP IT. 😩😂

Jeez, I could almost write all day about autistics and communication LOL!!

But to summarize (and not succinctly, sorry), I guess, for me and many many others...we are often blunt, direct, almost painfully honest, and very, very literal. Your unspoken rules of communication absolutely go over our heads, unless you - yannow - *communicate* and explain them. We’ll probably tell you those rules are stupid and exhausting, but we will TRY and stick to it as best we can. But see, we literally have to think about every single word that comes out of our mouths, because we communicate far more directly than you weird fuckers do. And it is literally actually exhausting. It’s not an easily natural thing for us to adapt to, your weird way of saying things but not saying what you really mean. You’re wasting a LOT of words there, sir, and we are now getting obsessively confused over why you would do such a thing. 😂 It’s also why I keep getting banned from Facebook. My recent one was because I said - in one of my Autie “safe” groups, where I should be able to just say what I mean - that I tend to punch or want to punch people who deliberately startle the shit out of me. We were talking about how stupid April Fool’s Day was, and how we hate pranks. Three of us got banned for 30 days for just...well. Facebook called it “incitement of violence”. 🙄🥺🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼

But I haven’t met - yet, maybe? - an autistic person who is cruel natured - not one of us gets any joy from being a bully type. WE feel everything on a higher level, so we kind of assume you do, too...you might think, “then why are you such an asshole?!”, but it’s simply that we - or every Autie I know, anyway - struggle to grasp how directly communicating your feelings is so fuckin hard or hurtful for y’all. I think anyone struggles to grasp something they themselves don’t experience. All you have to do is explain, though, and keep guiding us towards communicating in ways that we both find acceptable. I mean we’re champs at accepting all manner of different human - regardless of race, sexuality, and so on - but the communication is one area that frustrates the ever loving SHIT out of most of us, because it makes so little logical sense why anyone would say a bunch of useless words that muddy up their intent.

My closing advice? Help Your Pet Autie ™️ (this is absolutely a tongue in cheek term btw) understand how you’d like to be communicated with, and guide us. BE SPECIFIC for fucks sake - we suck at guessing what you might want, and it’s so frustrating that we’ll often just stop communicating at all. Instead of saying “it hurts me when you say this”, try saying “the WAY you said this hurt my feelings because of ____. Maybe you could put it like this instead” (or, “you know, you should really just keep shit like that to yourself”) and *give examples*. Don’t expect us to come up with different ways of saying shit, because we don’t understand what it is specifically you want, and it’s not very logical, therefore it’s not “natural” for us. Plus, everyone is different. I can’t talk to one of my sons the same way I can talk to the other, without certain negative reactions. Give us a chance to know your needs - we DO CARE!!! - but be CLEAR. I know in your world, tact is a big deal, but MOST of us will miss the fucking point if you’re too tactful (and when we misinterpret, we always err on the side of worst case scenario, and make the issue wayyyyy bigger than it should be. Being clear is soooo important).

And hey. Maybe it’ll help clear up some communication in other areas of your life. Being clear isn’t a license to be a fucking asshole; nobody’s giving you a license to unleash on everyone about how much you can’t stand humans...if WE hafta be quiet about that, so do you lmao...fair’s fair. 😆 But quit hedging and hinting and hoping we will pick up on the whatever your grievance is - because we won’t. We’ll just know you’re unhappy, and start panicking over guessing what we did wrong, and just shut down, because we have no idea.

Just. Fucking. Say it. 😘

#asd #autism #autistic #acceptance #awareness #actuallyautistic

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