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emo-batboy · 6 months

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Things Battinson Totally Did During His First Year of University

Using Unhinged or Odd Things I Also Did as a College Freshman :D

Note: for this list, let’s believe Bruce was living in an (admittedly expensive and swanky) dorm because it is required for first-years, especially those entering at a young age, and Alfred told him he needed to make friends. Also yes I did every single thing on this list. I never claimed to be a role model

Bruce, to his TA: I’m so sorry I’m late to class. I gave blood a few hours ago and almost fainted on the way here, but it won’t happen again.

Signs up for a class called “Age of Dinosaurs” despite it not being required whatsoever and proceeds to work his entire schedule around it

Bruce: Your mental health is super important. If you think you should see the on-campus therapist, go see them. Friend: Fine. I’ll sign up for therapy if you sign up for therapy too. Bruce: Hold on-

Finds a loophole in his housing contract that allows him to get a pet frog, calls him kermit :)

Gets a second frog because Kermit was lonely, names it Constantine after Muppets Most Wanted, then realizes that they’re gay for each other. Wonders if the rainbow-colored rocks he got them triggered anything

Swings dramatically between calling Alfred every single day and ghosting him for weeks, cries when he realizes what he did

“Accidentally” joins the student body council, doesn’t know what he’s doing, gets re-elected anyway

Molds a dragon out of Laffy Taffy instead of doing his work

Bruce: *joins Honors, gets all A’s, takes the max amount of classes, has several minors, overachieves* Also Bruce: I’m a failure.

Breaks into a building after hours to study because NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AT THE LIBRARY

Bruce: I will not get seasonal depression this year. Bruce: *gets real and seasonal depression that year*

Meticulously schedules his day with a color-coded planner because if he sits down for too long, the thoughts will consume him

Gives a presentation to his rhetoric class on how much he likes Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (it is 20 minutes long)

Successfully allocates funding from the student body council to pay for free feminine products in the dorms OUT OF SPITE because someone said it couldn't be done. fuck you, Andrew

Bruce: It is not an all-nighter if I go to sleep before my first class. Friend: It is 7:30am, the sun is in the sky, and your first class is at 12:30. Bruce: But I am getting sleep.

Refuses to go anywhere without his backpack because what if he needs three notebooks at once

Loses over 20 pounds because ✨stress✨ and scares the shit out of Alfred when he comes home for Thanksgiving

Argues with his TA over the one (1) question he got wrong on his Dinosaur exam

Bruce, calling Alfred: Hello father figure. How do I do taxes? Do I have to do them myself? Also, I think I’m having a panic attack.

Joins in on a charity arts-and-crafts project that gives kids books with matching activities made by volunteers, proceeds to commandeer the project because “it’s not color-blind friendly” and rewrites the instructions for everyone

Makes a murder wall

Goes to one (1) sports game and proceeds to leave in the first ten minutes because it’s way too loud wtf is wrong with people

Professor, addressing the lecture hall: I dare you to write an essay about these two sentences. Bruce: *writes an essay about six words, gets a 100, never even read the book*

Crawls into the ceiling for some alone time

Ghosts someone after a date because he’s too scared to tell them he didn’t know it was a date in the first place and now he feels bad

Classmate: How tf does he walk across campus that fast? I go in the same direction he does on my bike, and he’s always ahead of me. Bruce: *is gay sprinting to Dinosaur class*

Refuses to let others use his Favorite Pen TM

Constantly gets mistaken for a Grad Student because he is “so wise and mature” (bestie, that’s the autism)

Alfred: *casually mentions he got into a car accident through text* Bruce: *replies with a meme while hyperventilating because he doesn’t know what to do with that information??!*

Wears a suit to one of his finals

Regularly eats non-organic food for the first time in his life, proceeds to learn about several allergies Alfred forgot to mention he has

Writes “What is a Hot Pocket?” in calligraphy and proceeds to laugh his ass off alone in his dorm because he is so exhausted he’s reached the point of delusion

Locks himself out of his dorm right before class, frantically asks the floor group chat if someone can help, proceeds to tell the nice gay man on the floor who saved him “I love you” because his social skills have hit rock bottom

Makes a little music album display next to his desk for his favorite band (Nirvana) His friends call it a shrine, and they are technically correct

Has a blacklist of people he refuses to interact with because Reasons

Counselor: What do you want to do when you graduate? Bruce: *gestures vaguely*

Refuses to take the bus because there are people in there and he doesn’t like those

Loses one of his frogs, how tf did he do that, they’re fully aquatic, oh fuck, this is probably why they got rid of that loophole a year later because unbeknownst to Bruce, he accidentally started a frog revolution in the dorms, btw he SWEARS he did not mean to do that

Has two trash cans in his room: one for the Good Garbage, and one for the Bad Garbage. Only Bruce knows which is which

Bruce: *writes a creative piece about a ship’s final thoughts as it sinks, bringing its passengers down with it* TA: Absolutely lovely, Bruce, but are you okay?

Goes on Night Walks, keeps himself safe by maintaining a level 12 resting bitch face at all times

Earns the nickname “8th floor cryptid” after pacing the halls at 3am when it’s too cold for Night Walks (honestly tho how tf didn’t he get the nickname earlier?)

Bruce: Do you think a depressed person could do this? Bruce: *has a manic episode*

Okay that's all love you BYE

#cryptid Bruce Wayne #college au #does this count if op is the au #fully nocturnal unhinged madman Bruce but make him like 17 and full of crippling separation anxiety and autism #bruce would rather die than inconvenience a professor but hE KNOWS HIS DINOSAURS #Dino class was my fav one in uni hands down #yes i am insane thank you for asking #originally this was just going to be a normal list but I kept taking from my own experience then said “fuck it I'm the captain now”#one of these was a lie tho...the murder wall was third year :/#battinson #bruce wayne #batman #the batman 2022 #batman 2022 #the batman #battinson needs a hug #dc universe #gotham #autistic bruce wayne

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satoruhour · 8 months

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i need geto to grab my chin, stroke my cheek with his thumb, then spit in my mouth. maintaining eye contact the whole time? ugh. he’d de say “good girl”

ST☆RGIRL

a/n: yuuuum anon u guys r giving me the best ideas. also combining this with the geto in the brother’s bsf universe bc a lot of u have been asking for pt. 2, altho asking for a part two is pretty annoying. but i wanted to do a second one anyway lol. i made our brother gay btw + read the first part here / tagging @omgeto @papersirens @crysugu @getousex @slttygeto @kazushawty @peachsayshi

wc: 3.7k

warnings: secret relationship(?), soft dom!geto, reader is not a virgin but it’s her first time with geto, you almost get caught but it’s mild, dry humping / grinding, nipple play, spitting (in your mouth), praise, clit stimulation, oral / cunnilingus, unprotected sex, creampie / breeding kink, n*sfw under the cut

sneaking around your brother wasn’t exactly easy, given how they were almost always together by the day — if you didn’t know better, you’d think they were dating instead. the only time you had geto to yourself was in the middle of the week when your brother had gone back to pack more things and to visit his boyfriend, a sure time that you’d show up beaming and excited in front of their double dorm room while geto only gives you a lazy smile, tugging you into the room immediately.

sometimes it was the other way when your roommate went home for the weekend, geto knocking on your door in a wife beater and sweats, a small grin and reddened cheeks from running over; the prospect of hanging out with you always gets him speeding over.

his room was for wednesdays, yours for the weekend. a sweet little arrangement for the both of you.

now, geto suguru was the best boyfriend. he made sure you were always okay with his touches, his kisses. he had a silent way of caring, covering the top of your head when you reached down to pick up something under the table, refilling the trusty mug of water you brought around in the small dorm of yours, tidying up your table for the immense studying you’d be doing. it was the little things that you never noticed before you got addicted to him, but now it’s all you can think about when you gush about him to your friends.

and well, maybe, how good he was at teasing you.

no doubt suguru has had experience with other people before from how he always has you wanting more after a simple kiss, lips separating from yours to shoot you a quick smile and a gesture of manoeuvring you onto his lap. his touches are never-ending, rough, large hands spanning the beauty of your body as he names off feature after feature he’s noticed mature since you’ve both grown into adults. he makes the idea of wearing clothes abolutely offensive, grinding up into your centre and watching you fall apart, only to stop when he feels your hands tighten around his shirt.

geto knows you’re not ready, not when you’re doing some pulling away of your own as his hands creep towards your chest, fingers closing around his wrist before he can reach the buttons of your pants. all you can give him is a flustered smile, stuttering out an excuse with frantic hands. he just lets you — swallowing your apologies and tugs you into his embrace and talks about the newest tattoo he got instead — “we can just kiss and grind, baby. you tell me when you want to stop, okay?”

although you never do, makeout sessions always end with your hair in all places, your panties soaked and your lips swollen, not a single line crossed on geto’s side every time. it was an endearing trait of his; he never rushed you, never pressured you into “helping” him out, rather excusing himself to the bathroom quietly.

a smile spreads across your face when your phone lights up, the little profile picture of a sleeping suguru taking centre stage of your phone.

[11:43am, suguru (the bsf and now my BOYF???)]: hey baby, he just left. u wanna come over?

geto doesn’t even need to ask, because you’re already picking up your pre-packed bag and bid goodbye to your roommate who’s deep in her assignment, not noticing you’re gone until she’s shooting you a text after, asking you if you wanted anything for dinner. eating at the boyfriend’s place, no worries! thanks for asking :)

you’ve reached the other block in record time, amongst other many impressive timings, but while you’ve pressed the lift button and trying to catch your breath, the wind is knocked out of you again when the lift doors part and out comes your brother. you’ve never been so quick to come over before, avoiding situations just like this, but your sibling isn’t phased, simply shooting you a greeting.

“hanging with suguru?”

your breath is shaky when you exhale and you hope he doesn’t notice. “yea— yeah!”

his smile is unassuming, a hand outstretched and you barely make his high-five before he bids you goodbye with too loud of a goodbye, keeping up the clueless act until you’re stopping right in front of their door. your boyfriend doesn’t give you time to breathe, either, door swinging open to your dishevelled state and his chuckle would’ve almost buckled your knees if not for the adrenaline running through you.

“i just saw my brother in the elevator — are you insane?”

geto feigns a pout, “not even a kiss for the boyfriend?”

you roll your eyes with a smile and grab the neckline of his t-shirt, but what he says (“well, you’re the one who came running over, sweetheart.”) prompts you to grunt, shoving him away before you collapse face first into the sheets. they smell like you, you notice, but they’re mostly filled with geto’s natural scent, a calming combination of cinnamon and bergamot. there’s goosebumps on the back of your thighs — suguru runs his hand over it and up to your waist, flipping you onto your side and he coos at your annoyed face, settling into the bed with you.

“okay, no more teasing, hm?” he asks softly and you ignore the jump into your heart. you ignore how his tattoo covered arms are so gentle next to you, how his rougher finger tips brush your hair away like bees on a flower; almost ghost-like, so light, so soft, but you can’t. against your will, you huff, taking his hand silently and holding it, a small frown still present on your face and geto feels bad, now. he leans forward, taking your lips gently and you hate the way how pliantly you obey, sighing as you feel geto move against you.

your hand clutches at the pendant geto bought, a habit you’ve developed every time you feel overwhelmed. it was ironic, too, how the many times you’ve thumbed it was because of geto, and not so much of stressful exams or a weird guy at a party, but that thought’s out the window when geto pulls you onto him, moaning into your mouth when your thighs close in around him.

“you’re okay today, princess?” geto asks against your lips, and there’s no doubt lust swirling in the honey eyes of his — they’re the brightest always in the morning.

“i wanna—” you swallow, “try,” you sit up more comfortably, ignoring the tug in your core, “i don’t want to keep you waiting.”

geto’s brows furrow, “what? no— baby, you’re not making me ‘wait’, if anything i should be the one waiting for you.”

your hands are tense on his chest, he notices, bringing one to his lips before he places a kiss on your palm.

“you shouldn’t be compromising on your comfort to please me, my love,” geto mumbles into your hand, starting to kiss each finger individually until you’re closing your hand around his cheek.

“you’re so pretty,” you mutter softly and you’re jumping in celebrating in your heart when you can feel his skin heat up because your words affect him as much as it did you. you’re leaping for joy because how did you land such a caring lover that would put all your needs first? who’d tell you that you come first in everything—

geto suguru makes this so difficult always, but you’re already firm in your resolution, giving him a solid yes before a small smile spreads across his face, making the act of pulling you down by that same hand. you’re inches away, mind spiralling with how many positions he could put you in but—

there’s a jiggle of the knob on the door and you’re suddenly recoiling.

“are you expecting anyone?”

your boyfriend quickly shakes his head, but he brings you off his lap gently, setting you a safe distance from him. he arranges your hair in place and patting down the wrinkles on your shirt as the other person struggles to open the door and as always, he’s worrying about you, first — until that familiar, booming voice of your brother cuts through the tension and your disappointment is unmatched.

“hey guys!”

geto wanted to roll his eyes, as with you, but your oblivious brother doesn’t take much note of why your chests were heaving and your skin is sweaty, rather setting down his bags full of dirty laundry and the cute anniversary present he was ranting to you about — it felt like your work was undone, reversed, and you’re back to feeling intimidated, no doubt the presence of your brother making you feel like you were doing something sinful.

“so! wait, why do you look so—”

“oh, it’s nothin’, she’s just nervous for her upcoming exam,” geto answers almost immediately, removing the attention from you; it wasn’t entirely false, you realise, giving him a secret smile. “you were saying?”

“oh! yes, so, turns out…”

it’s nearing to the fifteen minute mark where your brother still continues to talk, rambling on about how his boyfriend’s moving date had been moved forward insread, so it was halfway throughout his journey that he got a text saying how it might be too chaotic for them to hang out — boxers, movers, the family dog barking at every stranger.

that heart-twisting, anticipating feeling had subsided by then, and while it was never a dull moment with the two of them, you left that dorm room feeling a little dissatisfied.

“i’m sorry, baby,” geto whispers to you later as your brother takes the chance to pee. he’d volunteer to send you back but the both of you didn’t want to risk anything more.

“next week?” geto asks, a hand to your cheek, “but of course, if you don’t feel it next week either that’s f—”

you give him a small grin, fingers covering his own shaking ones in comfort, “next week.” his lips barely leave your forehead in a peck before the toilet flushes and the door opens; geto teases your brother about not washing his hands and the two bicker just like years ago: hands flying everywhere and your giggles cutting through every insult they hurl at each other.

you can hear geto’s chuckle when you show up the next week, looking like you just ran a marathon again. this time you have no trouble avoiding your brother by hiding behind the wall beside the lift, though you hardly have any time for your boyfriend’s teasing laughter.

closing the door with your feet, you’re walking geto back into the room and his eyebrows raise at your determined face.

“are you sure you’re okay—”

without warning you’re clashing your lips into his, hands on his pecs and mewling softly when his arms naturally wrap around your middle.

“more than—” there’s a dramatic sigh when you feel hands caress your back, “okay.”

you’re just too enamoured with geto to carry on with your once self-assured actions, because you’re always like putty whenever you’re in his embrace. it happens without fail every time.

“you make me feel so,” swallowing, your eyes break contact and your head collides with his broad chest, “insane. you drive me crazy.”

you don’t miss how he winces a little, but soon he’s bringing your head off of him, biting his lip at your cute pouting face, possibly not knowing how even more obsessed he was with you.

a simple text from you has got his palms sweaty, and he goes through at least three drafted messages first before sending something, afraid he’d push over your boundaries or do something you won’t like. geto loves your smile, seeing your cheeks reach your eyes until there’s no more from a joke he made because you were talking about the cute little tattoo his little sister made him get. there wasn’t an end to suguru’s love for you; to see you, to feel you be so flustered and sheepish because of him drives him crazy — did you see the effect you had on him?

you simultaneously ruined and changed the definition of love for him; he’d never have anyone else.

you’re taken aback when geto tugs off his shirt and sitting right in the centre of his sternum is a woodcut tattoo of a halved sun, looking entirely contrasting with the traditional dragon that runs over his body and other ink-heavy pieces littered across his body. this was like a collection of ever-flowing lines that seem to bleed despite the bold lines that signify the end of the sun, it was you. your fingers trace over the tattoo under the protective film, your gasp prominent when there’s a small “to my sun” below it, paired with your initials — ambiguous enough if you were to break up, but geto hoped that would never be the case.

“got this for you last week,” suguru takes your wandering hand into his, words and actions gentle while he kisses the back of your hand, he laughs into your skin, “hurt like crap, i’m not gonna lie.”

“sugu—” your eyebrows are downturned just like your smile, “this is so pretty.” you’re in awe that he’d get something permanent for you, no doubt with such a cheesy line under the beautiful drawing.

“you’re so pretty.” geto smiles when you smile with a roll of your eyes, and you let him bring you into another kiss, softer this time as you let him lead, pulling you to his lap easily.

anyone who looked at the two of you could see the instant difference: geto with his inked arms and room oozing with posters and the gruff nature of him, and you with your bashfulness and sweet smiles and while geto is bound to be noticed first, he would rather sit in the shadows as your moon as he lets you charm everyone you come across. you’re just like that.

geto treats your body like glass, removing your top off of you gently as his hands span your torso and he sighs when he sees you aren’t wearing a bra. “look at you…” and you’re giggling, drawing a smile from the other. slowly he looks to you for reassurance and you nod, prompting him to wrap a careful mouth around your nipple. your boyfriend moans when he feels you jerk at the contact, tongue swirling around your mound as he plays with the other and that’s all it takes for your fingers to tense around his shoulder.

“f— fuck, sweetheart,” you hear him groan into your chest, moving to other nipple and suckling on it, eyes closed in bliss while your head falls back, “you’re so perfect, my love.”

“am i, now?” you mumble breathlessly, “you should look at who’s talking.”

geto nods, coming off of your tits with a pop! and the grin he gives you is shit-eating, “yeah, so goddamn perfect.”

you’re impatient now, especially when you’re in full perception, body on display just for your lover to see, and your hips move slowly whilst your skin feels like liquid fire.

“need you, suguru,” it’s a soft whine that comes out of you, and geto moans at your neediness and the rock of your pelvis because he can practically feel your cunt clench around nothing and your clit throbbing, and while you’re both no stranger to this, the idea of going further than whatever you’re used to makes geto dizzy.

“yeah— i know, baby,” you’re on your back after, gulping when you’re finally left with nothing on your body, shorts and panties taken off and the glory of your body is like oxygen to him, “i need you too.”

gently, suguru pries your legs apart and he’s hooked on your wetness, the beauty of your labia and hole, leaking so much slick his breath is shaky when he exhales. the first contact with your clit is feather-like, and it’s all he does before he leaps in and eats like a starved man. the sensations are too much that your thighs are pulled taut, feeling the flat of his tongue draw a line up your pussy.

geto slurps at your arousal, putting pressure in his mouth and sucks like his life depended on it and your sounds are music to his ears. he groans when he feels your hands pull at his hair, tugging away or towards your pussy even he didn’t know but he relishes in how he’s able to make you feel like this.

“su— suguru, s-shit! your mouth’s—” you can basically hear the smile in between the messy eating of your boyfriend, emerging from your plush thighs for a moment to show you just how soaked the bottom of his face was.

“it’s what?”

you tsk at his teasing and you shove him back, ignoring the way his chuckles send chills up your body through your core, but geto is merciful, humming and moving his face against your cunt. his tongue is relentless as well, making you so pliant with just one muscle as he flicks it against your puffy clit. it’s when your entrance starts to clench around air is when he thinks you’re going to cum.

and he stops — your whines are so cute to him.

“what’s your deal, suguru?” your frown’s adorable too, but he makes it up to you with a sweet kiss and lets you taste yourself.

“want you to cum around my cock, baby. you can do that, can’t you?”

yes, geto felt like he wanted to combust. yes, geto felt like he needed a thousand and one photos to capture how angelic you looked right, but with how he’s talking right now, you only can look up at him with excitement despite not knowing the torture you were putting him through.

and so when he first nudges his tip past your hole, that facade drops entirely, eyes fluttering close at the tightness of your cunt and the spread of your pussy lips upon his dick. you were by no means a virgin, although you disclosed that it was a shitty first time when you first lost it, but the way you feel around his cock, closing in around him you both have had to take breaths together.

“so tight…” geto’s close to bottoming out, memorising how he made you fall apart so easily: your hands clutching tightly on his wrists, making your tits pop out more, the flutter of your pussy, your cute lil mouth stretching into a delicious ‘o’. “and so pretty, just like that.”

you hum at the praise and once he’s buried, your little pants become more frequent, leaving puffs of air on his cheek.

“move?”

“are you seriously asking me that right n— oh shit…”

geto unsheathes and slams into you, and he can feel the drag of your walls along his length. a small laugh leaves him, “just takin’ care of m’pretty girl.”

he’s only had your dripping pussy once and yet he already can’t get enough of it, starting to move his hips as he impales you on his cock. it’s the only thing your mind can focus on, feeling so full and filled with him that it hazes your brain and hypnotises you almost.

“su— ohmy g-god!”

geto’s hands tighten around your thighs at that and the thrusts get sloppy so fast, rutting into you with no end goal in mind other than to feel your tight hole around his length. your lover’s eyes fall to the way his cock slips into you and you take it so well — there’s no other pussy he’d want to feel around him, truly — you take the ram of his hips so good and the gushing of your cunt is answer enough for him.

your hands grab for him, fingers fumbling with his forearms to bring him to your lips. the kiss is filled with drool, tongues slamming into each other as his hips stutter and jolt at the clamp of your pussy, and when he pulls away there’s a string of saliva connecting your lips to his.

you’ve talked about it before and it’s like he reads your mind before anything even begins; his hand grabs at your chin, so lovingly and different from how disgustingly rough he was slamming into you. his thumb goes over your supple skin, and he doesn’t need much to pry your mouth open but—

“open.” and your tongue comes out like second nature and you try not to show your excitement when geto gathers saliva, spitting the ball of liquid straight into your mouth. it hits your tongue hot. his honey eyes are darker now as he watches how obediently you swallow — he swears he can see hearts in your eyes.

“good girl.” geto smiles again, propping your legs up against your chest now in a mating press and you whine in surprise. the position gives him access to the deepest parts of you, and one hand sneakily rubs at your clit in time with his faltering thrusts and you’re cumming with a cry of his name.

“suguru— yes, yes! f-fuck— right there, baby,” you’re sobbing, seeing splotches of white in your vision as your high seem to overtake your senses. it hits you in all the right spots, giving geto his little gift of cumming around him and multiplying it tenfold by how your cum seeps into the sheets. it’s so much that all he can hear is the lewd squelch of your cunt and one more moan is enough for geto to groan into your neck.

“going to give you my cum, darling,” your “yes’” resonate in his ear and it spurs him on to finally cum, shooting his load deep into your womb and filling you with so much hotness. it’s too much but you love it and geto hisses at how your juices and his semen seem to seep out, “that’s a good fuckin’ girl.”

there’s a sly little grin when he lets down your legs gently and you’ve grasped at your pendant so hard it’s detached, and he quells all your doubts with a single kiss and the sun on his chest.

“i’ll just get you a new one, baby. you deserve that much.”

why did i write sm....

#anon #asks #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jjk smut #jjk geto #geto smut #geto x reader #geto suguru x reader #geto suguru smut #suguru geto x reader #getou suguru smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk thirsts #jjk drabbles #jujutsu kaisen geto #geto suguru

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billfarrah · 1 month

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One of my favourite things about Young Royals and its characters is how much it romanticizes being utterly ordinary.

Stories often focus on characters who are exceptionally good at something or who are more ambitious than the average person. Even in the teen shows I’ve watched, these young characters always seemed to have their dream career and dream university figured out at a young age and I could never relate to that because I had none of those things figured out as a teen. It always felt like pushing this narrative that teenagers need to have their entire lives figured out before their brains are even fully developed.

None of the characters in YR seem particularly ambitious and in fact, the main character’s journey is a story of anti-ambition. When he is introduced to Simon, it is precisely Simon’s ordinariness that draws Wille to him. Sure, Simon is a very talented singer, but it’s never indicated within the series that he has dreams of being a pop star. It’s just something he likes to do. Simon is motivated by very ordinary things - he wants to do well in school so he can have better opportunities for himself, he wants to take care of his family, he wants to hang out with his friends and play video games. He’s a dedicated student but not necessarily valedictorian. It’s not his ambition that Wille is drawn to but his integrity and kindness and warmth.

Wille had a chance to be extraordinary - to be Sweden’s first gay king - but being extraordinary has never been Wille’s ambition. Wille’s ultimate goal and dream within the series’ narrative is to be free to make his own decisions and live his life as he pleases. He just wants to kiss his boyfriend and get drunk at parties and live his life one day at a time instead of spending every moment of his life preparing for an inevitable future he doesn’t want. In the end Wille is extraordinary not for his ambition, but for his bravery to reject the expectations thrust upon him and throw himself into the unknown and see where it takes him. Wille had a whole future in front of him as crown prince and future king - he’d never have to work a day in his life and would have people advising his every move - and he rejects that. This lack of ambition is not portrayed as a moral failure, but a necessary step in Wille’s journey to personal self-discovery and fulfillment of his own desires. His desire right now is simple - be free with Simon, but that doesn’t mean his dreams end here forever. He deserves peace and tranquility after all the trauma he’s been through without having to worry about where or who he’s gonna be in a few years. He deserves time to just exist.

None of the characters know where they’re going when they drive away at the end. We as the audience don’t know what careers if any these characters will find themselves in, but that’s also not important to this story. The series is saying you don’t have to have everything figured out when you’re 17 and you don’t have to do something just because your parents think they know what’s best for you and even if you don’t know exactly what you want to do, that doesn’t mean you don’t have the agency to know what you don’t want.

It’s not a moral failing to want the simple things in life or to be ordinary, and I love that Young Royals celebrates that. It shows the beauty in simple moments that feel revolutionary to a person - touching the person you love, forgiving someone and making amends after a hardship, whooping with your friends in a car as you drive into the summer and celebrates them. Ultimately these are the moments that make life worth living.

#young royals #idk if this even makes sense but I had to get it off my chest

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variousqueerthings · 5 months

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the doctor being a part of the noble family has the energy of an addams family cousin -- imagines rose being in a school play and the doctor fixing up some gizmo to open up a tiny gap to some part of the universe where stars shine particularly brightly for midsummer night's dream, and accidentally almost levels the school by misjudging how close they are to this one very dense planet (people in the audience confusedly waving at aliens who are just as confusedly waving their tentacles back from a thousand years in the future a million light years away. everybody afterwards talks about the great special effects, but they're not sure what it has to do with the story)

people trying to figure out who this "the doctor" person is and why he's living with the nobles, and always trying to catch out that there's something going on, but the doctor's answers to all their inquiries are so lowkey bonkers as to bamboozle any further attempts (so where are you from again? oh just this place, well, I say place, planet, well, I say planet I don't actually know these days, but somewhere certainly... is Ipswich a place? how do you know mrs noble again? we travelled together for a bit, and then, well you know how it is when you get hit with a face full of radiation, ey *snort-laughs at his own joke* and what's your name again? doctor, the "the" is a pronoun, it can get confusing I know, but people on this planet choose their names all the time, you'll catch up)

just this house gremlin in a setup that nobody from the outside understands, toddling about, showing up at every event that rose has going for her, wearing little pride pins that might be partially for himself as well as for rose (gay??? one of those trans ones????), always seems to be talking about strange places that nobody has heard of but doesn't want to admit to, occasionally goes eerily still and unnerving around people who are cruel and mean, knows a lot about history, but peppers it with facts that can't possibly be true, gets on very well with shaun who always answers questions with "the doctor's part of the family, youknow?" they do not know, but at this point it's too rude to keep asking

#doctor who #dw #dw spoilers #doctor who spoilers #as someone who IS a resident house gremlin with my partner/her husband #i have had had some Reactions to our setup from places ranging from the bank to nosy neighbours #doctor who meta #the fourteenth doctor #the doctor #rose noble #donna noble #shaun noble

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cryptotheism · 1 year

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A Review of The Way Of The Shadow Wolves: The Deep State And The Hijacking Of America by Steven Segal

Alleged rapist and human trafficker, cop groupie, washed-up action movie star, and personal friend to Vladimir Putin, the paradox of Steven Segal is how he manages to stick around despite being –by damn near every account– a universally unpleasant vacuum of charisma. I could go on, but I feel that no introduction of Steven would be complete without the tale of the headlock. Legends tell of Steven’s conflict with legendary martial artist and hollywood stunt coordinator “Judo” Gene Lebell. Allegedly, the two fell into an argument on the set of the film Out For Justice. The crux being Steven’s claim that he was “immune” to being choked unconscious. Allegedly, LeBell called his bluff, and put the actor in a headlock. A headlock that resulted in Steven losing consciousness, and control of his bowels. Steven denies the story. He also wrote a book.

The book is garbage, but garbage in a way that can be easily overstated. I wanted to take a page from other reviewers of this book, and call the text what it is; a fever dream of exhausting mediocrity, swaddled in delusions of grandeur. I wanted to whale on it. I wanted to denounce it like some ridiculous fire-and-brimstone preacher of internet literary criticism. But this does not capture the core, the essence of Way of the Shadow Wolves. There is a paradox at the heart of this text, a contradiction that even now I struggle to describe. Because despite everything, despite the balls-to-the-walls premise, the disastrous prose, and the buckwild plot, this book is deeply and powerfully boring. To call it a fever dream is to imply that it might be exciting.

Some books are bad in a way that must be experienced firsthand. This is not one of those books. In a way, I feel that you’ve already read this book. You know Steven Segal. You met him in elementary school, when he told you he has “every black belt.” You met him in college when you tricked him into smoking a bag of oregano. You met him at your most recent family gathering, where you were trapped in an awkward one-sided conversation about “those people.” The bad-ness of Steven’s work is deeply familiar.

We have our boots. We have our waders. We have our shovels. But, before we wade into the shit, there is one more thing we need to get out of the way: The Shadow Wolves are real. In 1972 the United States government agreed to the Tohono O'odham Nation’s demand that border enforcement agents patrolling their land have at least one quarter native ancestry. The result being the specialized unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers known as The Shadow Wolves. In the 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog film, Dr. Eggman states that they are who trained him in the art of tracking.

WAY OF THE SHADOW WOLVES

Let us cook Way of the Shadow Wolves from scratch. Think of every dogshit C-list action movie you’ve ever seen. Ideally, you want the trash cuts of post-9/11 hysteria marbled with ex-cia heroes and vaguely arab villains. Drop it all into a stockpot. Next, roughly dice some comic books and kung-fu movies, the more racist the better. Now add some datura, it doesn't matter if it's edible or not, because you saw a native American in a movie make something like that once and you’re totally 1/64th Cherokee. Add a whole can of Qanon and a whole can of racism. Boil until you have pacing thicker than mud.

Way of the Shadow Wolves is a police procedural meets a spy thriller, a fast-paced action drama about elite agents on the fringes of the law who have the huge sweaty meaty balls to do what needs to be done for our country. It is Steven's attempt at the action schlock he embodies as an actor. Our hero is John Gode: Shadow Wolf. Reservation-born native American tracker, ICE agent, and Kung-Fu master. I believe he might have been described at one point. If he was, I do not care. Steven does not care. It does not matter. John Gode is Steven, and he’s the most badass dude to ever not be gay. He is: Special Agent Shaman Cop. He’s gonna beat up the deep state. That’s all you need to really need to know. In fact, it is shocking just how little you need to know about this book.

We begin in a movie theater, where our protagonist is alone, watching the end credits of a movie about the atrocious treatment of native Americans on behalf of the united states government. When the film finally ends, John says to himself “It’s about time.” He gets up to leave. The chapter immediately ends. My compliments to the chef. A delightfully bland apéritif of a character introduction. Steven uses the essential point of first contact with our protagonist to tell us vital information like “He doesn’t like it when movies are long.” or maybe “He didn’t like this movie about the trail of tears.” It is unclear. To quote English-Albanian philosopher Dua Lipa, “Go girl, give us nothing.”

I have been dancing around the quality of the writing. It seems impossible to approach without the footing of a new paragraph, an opponent that requires full-focus, an all-out assault. It is nigh-incomprehensible. I hate comparing bad writing to drugs. It feels too easy. But there is a specific air to Way of the Shadow Wolves. There is a distinct cadence, simultaneously manic and lethargic, that comes from attempting to write while day drunk on over-prescribed amphetamines. And make no mistake, if Steven was not entranced by the muse of Too Many Uppers And Downers At The Same Time, if he wrote this thing stone sober, that is worse. Small quotes will not do the writing style justice, you must see for yourself how sentences flow into each other:

“The desperado’s mind went back in time to a small town in Mexico twelve years before, where he first met his two cohorts when they were thrown together by a tragic set of circumstances. Their parents had been gunned down by a cartel who was at war with a competing cartel for control of the area, which was a pathway to the American border near Nogales, Arizona. All three had been shepherded to a local mission where they were being cared for by the Franciscans, who were becoming overwhelmed by the growing number of children left homeless due to the rampant killings by the warring cartels . . .”

Labyrinthine. A paragraph structure that would feel more at home with Calvino, or Garcia Marquez at his most experimental, though stripped of its deft control and musicality. Segal will regularly change temporal perspective in the middle of sentences. A single run-on sentence will begin in the past, have a middle clause in the present, and then return to the past by the end. There is a downright massive cast of characters for a 200 page book. Damn near every chapter introduces three or four more names, and we are lucky if Steven describes them before discarding them entirely. This book is a slog. I find myself losing patience with Steven.

—

Some time has passed since I began writing this review. Originally, my approach was surgical disassembly. I was going to go over the plot, summarize its anatomy, pick apart its flaws with surgical precision. But the more I cut, the more I felt as if I was the butt of a joke. I was performing an autopsy on a clown, pulling sheets of colorful rope from its gut, and the cadaver was laughing at me.

There is a moment, about halfway through. A woman approaches John at a bar. An assassin, who later attacks John in the parking lot with karate. A furious series of crescent kicks, effortlessly blocked by John Gode, who punches her in the ribs and knocks her to the ground. Realizing that her martial arts are defeated, she draws her gun, but John Gode is too fast. He fires his own weapon before she can get the shot off, killing her instantly. “Her round went upward toward the sky as she fell backward with eyes wide open, seeing nothing.”

This scene stuck with me. It illustrates one of the critical flaws at the heart of Way of the Shadow Wolves. Nothing hurts John. Nothing even gets close. He does not struggle. He does not sweat. He does not bleed. Steven clearly intends this scene to be badass, a moment where his self-insert hero defeats a dangerous enemy without trying. This book is an action movie, but John’s untouchability makes every action scene read as a moment of profound and boring cruelty. This was not a contest of master martial artists. This was an adult kicking a child in the throat.

I find myself losing patience with Steven. I am running out of humorous ways to describe this vapid tripe. This is, in my mind, the greatest condemnation of bad writing. There is no hell lower than being boring to mock. I see myself as a sort of sommelier of the awkward and disastrous. I will be the first to tell you “Wait! Don’t throw that out! There are things to be learned!” But Steven repeatedly proves himself to be a sort of Alchemist of Shit, capable of transmuting theoretically interesting bullshit into just fucking nothing. If this book deserves credit for anything, it is its miraculous ability to squander its own premise.

Why write this? Any of this? Steven clearly does not read. Or, if he does, he seems to subsist entirely on a diet of comic books about monkeys that do kung-fu. Why write this? At some level it all comes down to “because Steven wanted to” right?

Right?

But I cannot shake the feeling. To call this book masturbatory is to imply that Steven might have enjoyed it. There is a desperation to the power fantasy here. To be feared by men, desired by women, revered by all, yaddah yaddah yaddah, all the same trite excretions of blunt masculinity. But there is something else. Steven wants the same thing that every conspiracy theorist wants; a simple world. A world he can understand. Steven is exhausted, overwhelmed with a world he feels he can neither effect nor understand. I am exhausted.

I fear my earlier allusions to expressionist novels may have been more spot on than I imagined. Way of the Shadow Wolves has a plot in the sense that Sunny-D contains fruit juice. Its presence is a formality, a ceremonial hat worn for tax purposes. The plot is there, but it is unimportant. This is not a text that can be debated with. Because within the world of the text, politics is not complex. It is not actually a web of interconnected groups, each with their own interests, rivalries, alliances, and historical contexts. Behind all of it is two things: Good guys, and bad guys. The good guys are all working together, and the bad guys are all working together.

I find myself losing patience with Steven. I fear my earlier allusions to expressionist novels may have been more spot on than I imagined. Way of the Shadow Wolves has a plot.

John Gode finds a human tooth in the desert. It belongs to a body, a body of a woman described in lurid detail. Nearby, he meets a young native American man, a man who calls himself Sweet Tooth. The body is missing teeth, missing hands, missing feet. A trademark cartel killing. A young native American man. “I’m gonna be like, your assistant right?” A buddy cop dynamic. Meeting the task force. Tailing an ICE van full of cartel soldiers. A hostage situation. A shootout in the desert. Far away, faceless men in suits with masonic ranks plan a mass killing. Some sounded like they had Arabic accents. Freemasonry. Interrogation with a snake. The corpse was a woman. The woman was a reporter. She had the evidence on a flash drive, evidence that proved the existence of the deep state. What if its all connected? A sex scene, or almost a sex scene. A sex scene interrupted. A shootout in the desert. Kung Fu assassins at a bar. A cartel defector. A shootout in the desert. What if its all connected. They’re working with the Jihadists. The USA is already “half latino.” The government is paying the cartels to ship Jihadists north across the border. They’re well-trained and well armed. You can’t trust anyone. A terrorist defector who hears the voice of the prophet. The ghost of John’s grandfather. The sun sets over the Sonora. A shootout in the desert. They kidnapped John’s mother. Bring them the flash drive. They’re planning to bomb the casino. A shootout in the desert. The police chief was a traitor. The Catholics are in on it. Its all connected. A shootout in the desert. Assault by night. Rescuing the hostage. A knife dipped in pigs blood. A pit of vipers in the sonora.

Steven ends a chapter with the line. “They had functioned like a well-oiled machine that had just saved two innocent lives. All lives matter. Do they not?”

I am tired. I find myself at a neighborhood block party, trapped in a conversation I’ve had a thousand times. This time the man on the other end is a sweaty divorcee in range glasses who looks like a sunburned thumb. Last week, it was a woman with a necklace of crystals and blonde hair bleached blonder. “Haha yeah” I say, looking down at my phone. “Burgers look good this year huh?”

Thank you to my Patreon supporters who made this review possible.

#Steven Segal Review

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randombush3 · 18 days

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you're not sorry to go

ona batlle x reader

summary: ona and you are best friends, but it's a bit more complicated than that

words: 4.5k

notes: this one is based on true events x

also let's ignore the result of my poll because i want the next part to have smut and it wasn't fitting with the vibe of this part

oh and the title is a quote from 'this side of paradise' by f. scott fitzgerald

January, nine years ago.

Nothing about today has been out of the ordinary.

The weekend is starting, winter drags on, and Ona is all set to train later on in the evening, provided you confirm whether or not you are willing to accompany her to the local pitch.

Barcelona B usually allows for Fridays off, but Ona isn’t stupid. No one becomes the greatest footballer of all time by not playing more. School is beginning to bore Ona to death, and she knows that she wants what she always has: to go professional.

“I have a plan,” she tells you confidently, glad you don’t mind sitting on the uneven, grassy sideline as she sets up her cones with determination. You hold the ball between your hands, though Ona is amused by how foreign it looks to you, and you seem to be holding her prized possession hostage so that she spills. “It sounds simple and obvious out loud, but it’s that I am going to play for Barça while you go to the university. You can introduce me to your smart friends so I can meet my wife, and you’ll have all the boys after you anyway so–”

“Ona.” Her monologue has led her eyes to the ground, but your voice makes her head jerk upwards, not needing much authority to get her to look at you. “I’ve actually had a… realisation, of sorts,” you say with a bashful grin, chin jutting out the way it does when you are gearing up to tell her something that no one else will get to know. “Your cousin is really pretty.”

“I’ll tell her you said that.” It’s a nice thing to say, and you are partly aware that Ona’s cousin knows who you are because she doesn’t shut up about you ever, but you can’t help the frustration that begins to bubble up inside of you.

“No, Ona,” you try again, “she’s really pretty. Like, I would kiss her.”

Ona frowns, then. “Don’t be one of those.” She means the girls who experiment, who toe the line of liking girls but don’t, not really. She has been warned about them by her older teammates, the ones who go out for drinks and kiss girls in clubs. The budding footballer really admires them, because their advice is always good and she gets to explore her sexuality without feeling like a creep. No one in Vilassar de Mar cares much that Ona does like girls, but it doesn’t stop her from feeling judged all the same.

You are one of her best friends, but Ona isn’t sure she can forgive you if you become someone like that.

“I’m not! I wouldn’t do that.” Your offence is suspicious, and you have been so caught up in destroying her worries that the ball has been dropped and is now rolling towards Ona’s feet, where it is instinctively flicked upwards and caught. “I wouldn’t, Oni, because I know it’s unfair to you guys.”

“But you want to kiss my cousin? That makes you interested in girls in general too, you know.”

You bite your lip.

“Ona, I think I’m gay.”

The ball is dropped, along with her jaw, and you shift uncomfortably in your seated position, not enjoying how big of a deal she is making this out to be.

People realise that they’re gay all the time! Why should it be any different for you?

“Oh,” is all Ona can manage to breathe out, wondering what to do next. Although your friendship cracks the padlocks of most secrets, there is one that hasn’t ever been shared. One that now means substantially more than it did five minutes ago.

“Say something, please,” you groan in mock annoyance, moving aside your textbooks so that you can grab Ona’s hand and pull her down on top of you. She is much stronger – she trains every day – but something about your skin touching hers injects a surge of patheticness into her well-earned muscles, and she falls, of course she does, because she always falls for you.

…

A year passes.

You kiss Ona’s cousin, as intended, and Ona knows the breakup is going to be rough but nothing prepares her for when it comes.

She’s conflicted, and she’s older now. No longer left behind by her teammates, Ona gets to go out with them when they don’t have football; she gets to talk to the girls about their sex lives, she gets to be involved in it all. She has met Alexia Putellas and been treated like an equal, and she made out with her fourth ever girl last week, this time progressing past tongues and confidently letting her hands roam.

Ona would say that she has learnt a lot since you dropped your nuclear missile, and she has managed to forget the initial hope she had felt. The secret had been near-faded.

Until you are calling her, sending her a text when she doesn’t reach her phone quick enough.

‘Ona, I really need you.’

She hears nothing from her cousin – they were closer when they were younger – and that, she reasons, is why she is by your side in an instant, meeting you at the windy beach you go to when you are sad, hair damp from running and eyes a little wide as she tries to wake herself up.

“She said she can’t do it anymore,” you whisper, voice cracking under the strain your sobs had put on it. “She said that she really likes me but that it’s not enough, and she doesn’t want to break my heart but she knows she has to.”

Ona doesn’t get a chance to respond, because you have flung yourself into her chest before she can think of the right words to say.

Your shoulders shake as you cry, devastating howling joining the whistles of the wind and the thrash of the waves. The sand is unsteady beneath your feet and you stumble, but Ona holds you firmly, as though she has only ever trained to hold you up. Though you feel her biceps, hard and significantly larger than the last time she had held you this way, you are too caught up in your first heartbreak to acknowledge the tiny, tiny spark between you.

As you cry and cry and cry, Ona can’t help but feel a little bitter towards her cousin. Clearly, your affection wasn’t false and, though it was working towards the severance of your friendship, you actually cared quite a lot for her.

Ona chooses to abstain from her jealousy because she is embarrassed that it is possible.

She is there for you the next day, ensuring you have eaten and allowing you to sleep, but the sun soon sets and Ona vows one thing to herself: she will not take advantage of it.

“I’m going home,” you mumble when you wake from your restless nap, rolling over into the empty space in your best friend’s bed. The sheets there are cold and unused. Ona must not have moved a muscle since you fell asleep. “My parents must be a little confused, and we have people coming over for dinner. Thank you for looking after me.”

“No problem.” Ona nods and you awkwardly stand up. “I think I’m going out with the team tonight, but don’t hesitate to call me if… Well, if you feel sad again.”

“It’s going to feel shit with or without you.”

You are trying to distance her, to tell her that she can have fun. It might be an issue that your friendship only seems to work when the two of you discuss your recent conquests or latest flings, but it is not one that either of you wants to address for now.

“I’m just making sure you know I’m here,” she defends indignantly, rolling her eyes at the glimpse of your happier self making its return.

“Are you going to be drunk?” Your question is pointed and you should really cross your arms and tap your foot impatiently to match your tone. “Don’t you have training tomorrow?”

“Maybe, and not tomorrow, no. I’ve been asked to join the first team the day after so they’ve given me an alternative rest day.”

“Ona, if you get drunk, you won’t be there for me at all. You’ll have your tongue down some poor, poor girl’s throat and your phone will be dead.” You laugh from experience, having grown accustomed to how she behaves under the influence. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I swear that alcohol is what fuels your hormones. I’m not going to burden you with my fucking pathetic crying, and, well, you know me, I’ll just find a boy to talk to. I am going to be fine.”

No one in the room is convinced.

You swat the air between you two, telling her to get on with getting ready. “Now, enjoy your night, and tell me all about it tomorrow morning!”

Ona wonders if you are over-compensating by insisting to hear about whoever she has gotten off with, but you are practically flying out the door the minute you have said goodbye to her family and she is stumbling around her room trying to find a clean bra. Life goes on.

If time did not tick on its own, one of you would task yourselves with turning the hands of the clock manually.

You try to recover from how much it fucking kills to have a girl break your heart by reminding yourself of your worth in the best way possible: male attention. They hound you, but you enjoy it. You crave it, most of the time, even if the feelings are never quite believably reciprocated.

It annoys Ona to no end, the way you play with the boys chasing after you. She hates the push and pull, fed-up with the constant complaining from your end. Often, because Ona speaks her mind when she can, she tells you that it’s not fair on the ones who hand their hearts to you only to watch you pierce through them with sharp, I-was-never-a-lesbian nails.

You don’t talk about her cousin. At least, not to Ona because you have been informed by some other friend that blood is thicker than water.

Or maybe it’s because Ona begins to avoid you, begins to spend more time with her teammates, who don’t hide their sexuality and who like the things she likes. (Once, in a hateful frenzy, Ona thinks to herself that the only thing the two of you have in common nowadays is that she likes you and you like you too.)

“What happened to your best friend?” Laia Aleixandri asks thoughtfully once after training. Ona is helping her collect the water bottles the other girls had left lying around on the pitch. There have been more injuries than what’s comfortable within the first team, and maybe some of the reserves have forgotten that they are not yet professionals. “You’ve stopped talking about her.”

“We’ve fallen out,” Ona answers, settling on that because she doesn’t know how else to describe the shift in your relationship.

“Over what?” comes Laia’s obvious sequential question, more a due dalliance than genuine interest. Laia is one of those girls who plays to play and can sometimes be too busy to spend time with the team outside of training. Because of this, she is largely unaware of Ona’s growing reputation within the squad. As Ona has grown up, her confidence has increased. Girls like that, and they are in plentiful supply to her. She no longer needs to be drunk, but something almost certainly occurs if she is.

“She dated my cousin and, I don’t know, the way she acted in the fall-out was horrible. She likes girls, I know she likes girls, but I think she has been scarred and her ego has been bruised. No boy has ever made her cry like that, and I think she’s traumatised. And it’s valid! I understand, completely and totally, but she is acting as though she never had a thing with my cousin and it’s annoying. It’s as if being gay is a joke to her.”

Laia senses that Ona’s not done, and she is correct to think so.

The next wave is this: “Laia, I really don’t agree with it, and it is hurting me. It hurts to see my cousin be messed around by a straight girl, it hurts to see my best friend hate part of herself, and it hurts me because, well, it just– it just does! I can’t explain it.” She can; she doesn’t want to. Her secret is still heavily guarded and it is going to take more than Laia asking about you to get her to confess. “I just want peace for everyone involved,” she says after taking a deep, diplomatic breath.

“Peace,” Laia repeats with a giggle. “Ona, the things I have heard about you are the opposite of ‘peace’. Aita’s been keeping me in the loop, and she says that–”

“Okay, Laia, I don’t need a lecture.”

What probably would have been very helpful for Ona to know is lost to the devastating final blow of her eye-roll as she jogs to the water cooler to return the bottles and head home.

…

The reconciliation of a decade-old friendship is fast and natural. Things do not quite go back to normal, and the two of you are not as close as before, but your group of friends at school breathe out a collective sigh of relief when the ice thaws and Ona starts to turn up to their gatherings instead of the ones held by her beloved blaugranas.

It’s a camping trip.

Their first year of bach has ended, and someone – Ona doesn’t know who – has suggested a camping trip because her grandfather’s brother owns a farm and the farm has a field and the field is far-removed enough for the smell of cigarettes and red-label whiskey to dissolve before reaching the house.

“Are we really going?” Ona asks, making you all laugh as you haul your bags and tents along the tractor path.

“I do think we should’ve gotten in the tractor,” you agree. Ona nods at you, thanking you for your support.

Everyone else says it’s good fitness, and then hurls insults at Ona for the remainder of the trek because she should be the last to complain if she is going to become a professional athlete.

It’s not as far as it seems, and the tents are set up quickly, along with some chairs, a foldable table, and a hefty stash of various bottles of alcohol.

You start smoking the minute someone flashes their lighter, and Ona uses that as a reason to stay on the other side of the small campsite for a good hour or so.

She stays away from you no matter how much you stare, but you watch her all the same.

The boys you talk to are not satisfying. Some may have innocent intentions but the majority don’t, and you know that you are pretty but you are not shallow like that. You don’t even meet the boys half the time unless they corner you at school and demand a slot of your in-person attention.

The boys you talk to explain football and the gym and why they have to play FIFA until the sun rises because it will definitely help Barcelona win on the weekend. They take you for an idiot, and they hardly acknowledge that your best friend (sort of) plays for their darling club so of course you know the rules and the positions. You know that Ona is a defender, and that she is good at it. You don’t want to be patronised and you don’t care about this kind of thing unless it involves Ona.

Therein lies the issue, actually.

You don’t care about much unless it involves Ona. Ona, who sways to the music bursting out from the speakers just as stiffly as she always has, not exactly blessed with dancing talent but not for lack of trying. Ona, who declines alcohol tonight because she is following a summer strength and conditioning programme with the hopes of playing in the first team’s preseason matches. Ona, who looks beautiful. Always.

Smoke billows from your cigarette, right towards the point of your focus, and, suddenly, doe-like eyes are staring back at you with a small, small smirk. She waves, as if to say that she has caught you, and you lean back on the camping chair you are slouched in, pretending to laugh at whatever your friend has just said beside you.

Later, when everyone else is knocked out from the bad quality of the whiskey, snoring comfortably in the other tents, Ona and you kiss. And once you start kissing, you don’t stop.

Ona is good at this, you assume, because she knows exactly what to do. Contrary to popular belief, you are far more active in theory than in practice, and she surprises you a little bit. Or maybe she doesn’t, because it’s Ona and Ona is good at everything.

You strive to match her, and you do by the time you finish school.

Sporadic, non-committal, and in complete disregard for your friendship, the arrangement of hooking up when you feel like it sees you out of Catalonia, with Ona naturally in tow.

Madrid CFF is happy to have her, and you quite enjoy the challenge of the Spanish capital. It’s not Barcelona, it’s not ideal, but change is good and you need space to explore who you are without watchful eyes and nosy gossipers.

Homophobia isn’t quite a thing in your family. Your parents are not radically against gay people. In fact, you’d say they are relatively supportive. However, that doesn’t stop you from feeling some discomfort. You lived through Ona’s struggle to come out, and her parents are ever more care-free than yours.

Madrid is a brand-new place, and word about how you are doing is easily controlled. Updates come from either you or Ona, and that means there is a filter easily applied to all anecdotes.

Your friends know about the sex, more or less. They know, they don’t approve, but they let you guys sort it out yourselves because everyone agrees that that is just how you and Ona are. They won’t understand it and they have given up on trying to.

Both of you make half-hearted efforts to separate the arrangement from your friendship. You don’t talk much afterwards until the other has left the realm of I-am-in-love-with-you. It’s nice to be in Madrid together, but you find different social circles soon enough and then you are reaching out more for sex than friendly activities and… You stop sleeping with each other upon the footballer’s request. She wants to focus on her career, on her success. She tells you over the phone because she cannot bring herself to end whatever occurred over the last two years in person, knowing that she’d take back her decision in a heartbeat. Ona really, really likes football, and she knows that she has to become obsessed with it to get to the top; more obsessed than she is now. How can she do that if you are distracting her?

You’re disappointed, but you respect her wishes.

Girls in Madrid stop seeming as shiny. The world is a bit duller, because although there had been no exclusivity between you and your best friend, there had always been that guarantee that the other would be ready and waiting. Your growing misery makes studying boring, and you find answers for your emotions in a science textbook, desperately running away from the obvious truth. Less sex means that you are unhappier. It’s biology.

It’s not a crush.

Not on Ona.

No.

And it’s certainly not this not-realisation that flies you to Milan the minute a modelling agency inquires about whether you have ever thought of, well, modelling. They scout you someplace random, and your mother claims that she could have helped you start your career earlier if only you’d have been interested.

When you explain to your best friend what you are moving for, she is oddly unsurprised and uncaring. Her reaction is sickening, because you’d have rathered her get an ego boost from having slept with a model than be so fucking apathetic.

“I’m going to Milan, Ona,” you repeat, just in case she has not heard you. “I’m moving. We did the trial shoots last week, and they loved me. They want me to update my social media and work on building up a following, and they said that I should start learning English because I might end up in New York.”

“That’s good. I’m happy for you.” She doesn’t sound like she means it, and you grow annoyed about how she is not even trying to sound enthusiastic.

“Can’t you be happy for me? Or is it only acceptable for you to have dreams?”

“I am happy for you, I just said that.”

“The words left your mouth, but they definitely did not come from your heart.”

“You’re being dramatic.” Ona rolls her eyes and the pent-up sexual tension builds and builds until the bottle it has been shoved into can no longer withstand the pressure. You haven’t argued since you moved to Madrid, which makes no sense considering you literally broke up – even if it absolutely wasn’t dating. Neither of you has processed your broken heart, and you’re pretty sure you are still too traumatised from the first girl you fell in love with to be capable of revisiting those kinds of emotions.

Ona hasn’t had sex in weeks, and it is affecting her performance. She can’t sleep if she has the energy she does, and she can’t get through her workouts because not sleeping makes her lose her appetite and then she does not have the energy to complete them. Her coaches are worried, but they know that she is young and though almost idiotic, they mostly assume that she is repulsed by the idea of playing for a club in Madrid. They get that a lot with the Catalans that come over from La Masia, whose dreams have been delayed because the first team had thought it necessary that they gained more experience elsewhere.

Ona has wanted to shout and scream every minute of every day, and so have you. Therefore, everything explodes.

…

You inhale deeply, exhaling when it feels as though some of the stress has dissipated. This casting is one of the more important ones of the week. It’s odd to be judged on your appearance, to be paid for it, but it has been almost a year since you moved to Milan and you are enjoying yourself.

You don’t miss university, and you don’t miss your parents. Your friends visit you lots, loving the idea of your career, loving the excuse to escape their dreary weekends in where they have always been.

Milan is great. You make friends with a few other models, though they come and go depending on work, and the more experience you get, the more your following count goes up. Brands send you things, nice things, and events start extending invites to lure you into the glamour of the industry.

Milan is great, you tell yourself on repeat.

Milan is great, but it would be better if Ona were here.

Milan is great, but you regret the way you left things and want to take it all back.

Milan is great but–

“Your fitting is tomorrow,” says the assistant, reading off her iPad. You suppress your wandering thoughts, nodding. You need this job, you need the money to pay for a flight. The agency has given you some advancements – an impressive thing, apparently – but not enough to cover the cost of the ticket to New York for the start of Fashion Week. This show will fluff out your experience, and increase your chances of walking at one of the bigger shows.

You’ve been told that you are quite a good model; attractive, funny, with just the right amount of personality to be both a mannequin and an interesting figure.

The lifestyle is different but good, and you realise that you’d never wanted the mundanity of studying and then working and selling your soul to some kind of tall office building. Not everyone gets the concept of living away from home, especially not those from your tight-knit community who think the city is stretching the distance slightly (the train works, you can live with your parents and have a good job – you’ve been told that a few times), but you don’t mind. You can explain it as much as you want and they would still be confused.

You stay in touch, but you don’t stay present.

As your career snowballs over the next two years, you pull away from your home, always on a flight, always busy. You go to LA and Paris and London, and you rent your flat in Milan out as an Airbnb whenever you’re not there. You love the city, you start to think of it as yours, and slowly but surely, everything else fades into the background.

Apart from Ona, of course. Your friends still visit, or you meet up with them if you ever find yourself in Barcelona, and they continue to affirm just how proud they are of you. They talk about her a lot, too; about where she’s playing now, about injuries and fame and representing Spain. They know you are too stubborn to search it up for yourself, but these are the people who have grown up with you: they know you would like to be informed.

When you hear that Ona has moved to Manchester, you don’t quite think your actions through.

You have had enough. You miss her terribly.

Her number has changed, but someone passes it onto you.

You: I saw that you’re playing Arsenal next week. I’ll be in London then. Do you want to get a coffee?

Ona takes her time replying, but that is only because she wants to delay the inevitable.

Her eyes shine and her hair is damp, but the kick-off had been early and you don’t have anything to do today. You meet her in the carpark, picking her up in a black BMW that’s sleek and shiny and 100% not yours. Her laugh is light and free as she knocks on the driver’s window and juts her thumb out, instructing you to swap.

“I’m not getting in a car that you’re driving,” she declares seriously, though you know she has forgiven you because she would not have agreed to meet if she hadn’t. “Come on, I checked on Maps and there’s a place not too far from here that looks nice. And it’s empty, so don’t worry about the paparazzi.”

“The paparazzi are not after me,” you shut down quickly, not wanting her to think you are a bigger deal than what you are. Successful, yes. Famous? Not so much. “One day it’ll be you worrying about them, when you’re all grown up.”

“I’m twenty-one!”

It comes out so whiny and childish that you burst into a fit of giggles. Ona is proud to have made you laugh.

You don’t kiss her, but you’d like to. Then again, maybe it’s better to just be friends.

#woso x reader #woso #woso imagines #ona batlle x reader #ona batlle #barca femeni #randombush3 #pretend it's not all build up #but it is

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