#i admittedly spent time in the 'I will shit poetry all over you and it will be terrible' school

[pillage-and-lute]

Prompt: Either out of embarrassment or being a little shit, Jaskier lies outrageously to Geralt about humans (on the level of “I’m molting” or “These? They’re rocks, to snack on.”) and might get away with it?

Hi Dahliavandare! I always love seeing you in my inbox. I changed this just a *teeny* bit. WARNING: VERY SLIGHTLY HORNY (it’s Jaskier, duh) There is also a little bit of angst because Jaskier gets sick.

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“Jaskier,” Geralt growled.

“What?” The young bard yelped. “I wasn’t even singing that time.”

“No, you just--hmmm.”

“I just hmmm what?” Jaskier asked, pausing in his near-constant strumming.

“You smell like...hmm.”

“I smell?” Jaskier said, both hands planted on his hips. “That’s pretty rich coming from you, my friend--”

“Not friends.”

“You smell like a barn. Anyway-”

“No, Jaskier,” Geralt said, running one, gloved hand through his hair. “Witchers can sort of smell emotions, right?”

Jaskier looked up at him, a sudden hint of anxiety in his scent. “I thought that was a myth.”

“Not entirely.” Geralt shook his head as if clearing a thought from it. “We can’t smell complex things, but joy, fear, anger...desire.”

Jaskier, for once, didn’t look at Geralt, studying instead the flowers at the side of the road. “Desire?”

“I-yes.” Geralt said. “And I wanted to know if all humans smell like...”

“Desire?” Jaskier said, then began talking fast. “Oh yes, of course, most humans, especially my age, well, they smell like this all the time. All the time. Naturally.”

It sort of checked out, at least to Geralt’s thinking. Young humans were horny, and although the overriding scent when Geralt was around was fear, he remembered being a teenager, with all the baggage that entailed at Kaer Morhen, and yes, constantly horny was among those memories. Jaskier himself was definitely still young by human standards, perhaps twenty or so from his youthful features. 

Geralt chalked the horniness up to humanity and hormones and left it at that. 

--- 

Later on, Geralt had other questions related to humanity, more specifically that part of humanity that included Jaskier. 

“I thought humans couldn’t eat those?” Geralt couldn’t, he’d eaten one during training on a dare and spent the next day with his head in the privy.

Jaskier looked down at the mushroom in his hand. It was a beautiful, bright red, with little white spots. He’d been snacking on similar ones for the last mile or so. 

“Of course we can,” he said. “Humans eat these all the time.” There was a rising tone in his voice that indicated something, but as Geralt had mentioned before, witchers couldn’t actually smell the more complicated emotions. 

“They, um,” Jaskier said. “They just can’t be eaten by humans during-er- during summer. It’s fall now, so it’s okay.”

Geralt shrugged. What did he know of human biology? He wouldn’t be eating another of them ever, at any time. His stomach lurched a little just at the thought.

---

“You didn’t buy the ring.”

Jaskier looked up at Geralt, eyes bright in the sunshine. The bustle of the market around them pushed against him like a tide, but a little patch of space was left around Geralt. Jaskier stepped into the space. “The ring?”

“You liked it,” Geralt grunted. “I could tell.” It had been a little thing, cheaply made of poor materials, but the bard’s eyes had lit up upon seeing the little buttercup detailing, and he’d admired for several minutes, although without touching. 

Jaskier shrugged. “It was made of iron.”

“And?”

“Human’s can’t wear iron, Geralt.”

“Then why did the man sell it?” 

“Well some humans can wear it of course, those with very tough skin, but I’m delicate.” Jaskier sniffed. 

“Humans...can’t wear iron?” It didn’t sound right.

“Not right up close to their skin,” Jaskier said. “It turns us, um, purple.”

Geralt shrugged it off. He’d once been called to a castle where a baron had believed himself cursed because his finger was turning green, but he’d simply been wearing a cheap brass ring.

---

After the first winter they met again in the spring something was definitely different.

“Your freckles,” Geralt said.

“What about them?” Jaskier said, looking away.

What about them indeed. They glimmered like chips of mica. At first Geralt had thought it a trick of the light, but no, there was a definite glitter to Jaskier’s skin.

“They’re...shining?”

Jaskier cocked his head at Geralt, cheeks shimmering. “Geralt,” he said slowly. “You know humans shimmer in the spring...right?” 

Shimmer?

“I’d never noticed,” Geralt said. Admittedly he paid a little more attention to Jaskier than perhaps he ought, but still, one would think he’d have seen this before.

“It’s part of the growing process,” Jaskier said. 

---

“Jaskier, your cheeks are red,” Geralt said, stepping out of the small bathtub the inkeeper had brought up. He stepped closer to the bard, still naked and dripping water, and pressed the back of his hand to Jaskier’s forehead.

“Nnhgh,” Jaskier said.

“Are you well?” Geralt asked, cupping Jaskier’s flushed face with his other hand. It didn’t feel like he had a fever.

Jaskier pushed his hands away, face even redder than before.

“I’m perfectly fine, Geralt,” he said, higher pitched than usual. “Human faces get red for no reason now...put on some pants.”

---

“Jaskier you’re drunk,” Geralt said. It was a pretty obvious statement, considering he had his bard draped over him like a shawl.

“Hehe, yep,” Jaskier said, reaching up with one, long finger and tracing Geralt’s jawline with it. 

“You didn’t have any alcohol, I’m sure of it.” Jaskier normally had an extremely high alcohol tolerance in any case.

“‘O course not,” Jaskier said, leaning even more fully into Geralt’s hold. “Had milk.”

“Milk can’t get people drunk.”

“Milk can’t get witchers drunk,” Jaskier slurred. “Get’s humans drunk though, dunnit?”

“Can it?”

“Yeah, definitely, not the kids, but like, how often do you see, like adult humans drinkin’ milk?”

Not often, Geralt thought. He put Jaskier to bed in the inn and it was like pouring an octopus into a bucket. One loose yet gripping arm pulled Geralt closer to Jaskier, the bard leaned in and brushed soft lips to Geralt’s cheekbone.

Geralt wondered if it was another mystery of humans that the spot seemed to tingle all night and he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it.

---

Geralt clutched Jaskier as the bard fell to his knees, groaning. His face was sickly in it’s palor and he was trembling. He’d just lurched up from the table at the inn and stumbled to the door. Geralt had followed him and the young bard had just collapsed like this.

“Jaskier,” he said, clutching a chilled cheek, his other hand seeking one of Jaskier’s. “Jaskier what’s wrong.”

“Lemon,” Jaskier whispered, lacing shaking finger’s with Geralt’s. “In the fish, there was lemon.”

“Lemon’s fine, isn’t it?” Geralt asked, slow heart racing as he looked into eyes that were becoming glassy and clouded.

Jaskier shook his head and it seemed to exhaust him.

“’S fine for humans.” He said. “Not fae.”

“Fae,” Geralt said, cradling his friend. “Jaskier you’re not making sense.” 

“Mmh,” Jaskier said, smiling sadly. His face changed, his eyes going glow bright and his ears lengthening a little. His skin took on a slightly green tint. 

Geralt looked into the face of his fae bard, rubbing a thumb over his cheekbone and the shimmering freckles there. “How do I heal you, you have to tell me.”

Jaskier blinked slowly, eyes dimming further.

Geralt shook him, desperation taking over.

“Jaskier what heals a fairy?”

What heals a fairy? He’d learned that at some point hadn’t he? Long ago. They were rare, and most witchers never saw one in their whole lives but if you could help one they’d grant you one wish, not tricks. 

Poetry. 

Fuck.

“Jaskier,” Geralt rasped, throat feeling dry. Those beautiful eyes blinked at him, slowly. 

“I...I think you have pretty eyes,” Geralt said. “And I like when they, um, match the skies.”

Jaskier blinked at him in confusion, brow wrinkling slightly.

“You look pretty in blue,” Geralt managed, inventing wildly. “And look pretty in green. You look lovely in about every shade in between.”

Some of the deathly palor was fading from Jaskier’s face now and Geralt sought more words. “I thought you were pretty that day you wore purple,” he said. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, idiot he was an idiot, nothing rhymes with purple. 

“I like your spirit, your moxy, your...your yurple.”

Jaskier was indeed looking better now, and he was smiling.

“I like the way you talk to me, and how you’re always there,” Geralt whispered. “I like the way you hum to me when you help me brush my hair.”

Jaskier sat up slowly, blinking in the dim light.

“I like the way you give treats to Roach, um, and I like the way you smile,” Geralt gulped at the look on Jaskier’s face. “But most of all I like how much I love you, so I want you to promise to, uh, stay? For a while?”

“Oh Geralt,” Jaskier said, cupping his cheek. “That was bad.” Then he kissed him and Geralt’s brain went very very fuzzy.

A little later, in their room in the inn, where Geralt was finishing the fish and Jaskier was having stew avec no-lemon-at-all, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jaskier tilted his head thoughtfully as he chewed a piece of potato. “Well, at first I wasn’t sure how you’d take it,” he said. 

Geralt nodded. Fae were a feared and reverred group amongst humans, so caution was reasonable.

“Then it became a sort of game,” Jaskier said shrugging. “I couldn’t resist. So I left you little hints. I thought you’d figure it out for sure with the freckles or the milk.”

Geralt huffed a little sheepishly.

“I don’t care that you’re fae,” he said after a moment.

“I know,” Jaskier said. “And I don’t care that you’re an awful poet.”

“It worked, didn’t it.”

“It did, and now you get a wish, no tricks,” Jaskier held up his hand as if taking an oath. “I promise.”

Geralt thought for a moment. A wish from a fae was no small thing. It should be something powerful, something earth shattering and precious and rare.

“I wish you would kiss me again.”

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

Oop, here it is (after quite the wait, sorry about that) I’m actually so proud of this and it’s super sweet and fluffy.

#geraskier #fluff #creature Jaskier #fae jaskier #Roach borrowed the braincell and she isn't giving it back #the witcher #geralt of rivia

[greenishbucket]

good vibez only

Perhaps it’s not in like, the festive spirit or whatever, but Dex refuses to feel shame in reactivating and skimming through his array of dating apps the second his flight gets delayed.

nursey/dex, tindering in an airport au, 1.6k. For @ellienchanted! thanks for the help with this and happy new year :D on ao3

Perhaps it’s not in like, the festive spirit or whatever, but Dex refuses to feel shame in reactivating and skimming through his array of dating apps the second his flight back to New York gets delayed. What else is he going to do? Read a book? Talk to the people around him? Not likely.

And like, he’s just maybe been feeling slightly more desperately alone than usual, after the holiday period spent with family. His parents were his parents and even his shithead brother had been lovey-dovey with his admittedly very nice girlfriend, not to even mention the bloodbath that was social media.

It’s only midday on New Year’s Eve, but Dex can sense in his old-man bones that it’s already ramping back up again after a few days of quiet after Christmas. Picturesque, loving content as far as a guy can scroll, most likely.

Not that Dex is bitter. He has friends, has love in his life and shit. He’s on his way home to show his face at Ford's party, after all. Except the plan is to prove he didn’t die en route, get smashed as efficiently as possible, then probably get kissed platonically by six people at midnight because his friends are like that, before ultimately heading home alone and passing out alone.

Dex is, in short, just acutely fucking aware of his singleness right now.

In the heart sense and in the dick sense, unfortunately. Whatever. He’s got a few boring hours stretching ahead of him; even if he doesn’t match with or message any of the many dudes he can swipe through, at least a good twenty percent of them are hot enough to pause for a whole second.

One guy, after some fifteen minutes of mindless, semi-horny swiping, warrants more time than that.

He has a tattoo. It wraps around his very nice bicep and Dex’s mouth goes dry. His name is Derek, and he has a couple shirtless pics, a hockey one, a few ones Dex figures are trying to convey culture – museums and art and like, sweeping landscapes – and ends it with a meme.

Which is like. It’s kind of funny, and this dude is super hot, but really? But also he is so, so hot. In like, a hot way, and in a beautiful way, so Dex can at least entertain the idea of their boning. Then Dex reads Derek’s bio:

‘what i want is what i’ve always wanted. what i want is to be changed.’ im pretty and my meat is huge. good vibez only, no haters ✌️

Dex doesn’t smile a little. He doesn’t. He definitely just rolls his eyes hard and swipes left. That quote. He doesn’t have the patience, not even for someone that looks like that.

“Ouch,” says a voice from over his shoulder. “Hard no for that one?”

Because of course, because his flight is delayed and the drive to the airport had been shit anyway, because of course – it’s the dude. He’s not just nearby, he’s literally right there. Derek. Sitting in the row of seats backed up against Dex’s, twisted round to watch over Dex’s shoulder in a flagrant disregard of like, normal fucking behaviour, and somehow even hotter in the gross airport lighting. He’s doing some kind of smirk thing that Dex isn’t into at all.

His voice is like– It’s nice. Dude has a nice voice.

And of course, instinctively, result of being a grumpy fuck since birth and years in the big city, Dex’s immediate response is, “Fuck off, asshole.” Then, back up instinct, result of his mom’s loving care and years in a small town, he adds, “Shit, sorry, that was- I didn’t mean- um.”

Derek’s smirk solidifies. Something natural rather than an expression he’s holding there, not that Dex would’ve recognised it wasn’t completely assured and legit until then. “No worries, man. It’s chill. Sexy pic with the lobster, though.”

-

Nursey absolutely, completely, fucking two thousand percent should not have said anything. He’d almost be surprised at himself, watching this whole thing happen out of body, except this is the least surprising behaviour from him ever. Like he’s ever been able to let a minor hurt pass without poking at it until it’s something unbearable and he has to nope out like that’d been his plan all along.

Whatever. It’s chill. He’s got this. They’re in an airport, so Nursey can nope out whenever he likes, and more effectively than usual. It’s going to be fun.

“Excuse me?” says Will.

Will, who Nursey had first noticed for his massive ears and exhausted vibes, then absently clocked as attractive, and then clocked some minutes later as the same dude whose profile he’d just come across. Will who Nursey had just swiped right on, though not before screencapping his profile and sending it to Chowder, captioned ‘a straight???’

Like. Okay. Nursey doesn’t want to stereotype, or whatever, tries really hard not to, but when a dude sees a bio like I'm Will. I like hockey and lobster-fishing and good beer. We should get to know each other? He's not proud of it but questions start arising.

“Sexy pic with the lobster,” Nursey repeats. It had been, honestly, in a kind of weird display-of-masculinity way that Nursey doesn’t want to unpack right then but definitely would with some weed.

“Thank you?” says Will. A pause. “Are you making fun of me?”

“No,” Nursey replies honestly. But that feels like some kind of defeat, because this guy is cute and freckly and like, certainly has hands, but he also just dismissed Nursey’s careful construction of self while Nursey watched, so he continues, “I mean, I’m a vegetarian? So I kind of do disagree with the concept of trapping and killing an innocent animal for your own consumption, or whatever.”

Will snorts. “Of course.”

Nursey’s stomach sinks. He should’ve known. Pretty eyes or not, it wasn’t going to be fun with a guy who is a self-proclaimed hockey and good beer fan. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” says Will.

Nursey doesn’t want to get into a full-blown argument in the middle of an airport, so he lets it drop. But he also doesn’t want to sit here in awkward silence or have to get up and haul all his shit over to somewhere else. “So, while we're both sitting here, any pointers for improvement?” he asks instead.

“What?”

“For my profile, dude. Gotta up my game, clearly.”

"Why?"

"Self-improvement is my new year's resolution," Nursey replies easily, only half-lying; it's been his new year's resolution for like, five years straight, whatever. "I'll start: you need a better bio, or just scrap the whole thing. You're just about cute enough to pull it off, but it does you zero favours, dude. Bland as fuck."

Will goes pale, then red, then says, "What the fuck? Who asked?" Nursey waits, unsure if he should keep pushing or if he's maybe crossed a line, and after a long moment or two Will sighs. “Okay, fine, I hate doing description things and I'm shit at it. But yours also sucks. You could try with less of the pretentious quote shit, for one thing.”

“Less Mary Szybist?” Nursey asks, only having to up his aghastness a little. “Mine does not suck. I’m trying to convey an inner sensitivity, bro. Poetry is a window to the soul.”

Will frowns. “I thought that was eyes.”

His frown is cute. Shit. “First, a little thing called poetic license? Second, you said I was pretentious.”

“It’s Shakespeare,” Will says, unimpressed. “You didn’t do Shakespeare in high school?”

“Sure,” Nursey agrees, “but clearly it didn’t stick,” which is a lie. “Haiku, though. That’s the good shit.”

“What?”

“In my bio. It’s a haiku, five-seven-five syllables?”

Will visibly goes through Nursey’s bio, mouthing out the words, which, hey. It left an impression, at least. “That’s not five-seven-five,” he says.

“I’m pretty and my / meat is huge. Chill vibez only / no haters. Peace sign,” Nursey recites easily, clapping the syllables out like they taught in elementary school.

Will snorts out a laugh and can’t quite seem to reign his face back into looking unimpressed. Nursey smiles back and can’t quite reign that in either. The bitterness from watching Will swipe past him seeps almost entirely away at last, Nursey finally able to unfold his arm from around his stomach; Will’s shoulders come down from around his ears, too.

“Um. I did actually like your photos,” he says after a moment, almost hesitant, those same ears flaming. “Like, a lot."

"Ditto," says Nursey, as casual as he can. Will is pretty great in pics, if unfortunately blind to his angles, and even better plus assholeish irl, which is a beauty of a combination.

"But you’re cheating your syllables with that peace sign bit, pretty sure,” Will adds.

Nursey rolls his eyes, ignores the warm glow. Not a straight, definitely. And Will thinks his pics are good, at least, which is a success of sorts. He doesn't know what flight Will is getting, but his own back to NYC has been delayed by a few hours, so maybe he should try and shoot his shot one last time.

He chucks his stuff over to Will's side of the chair-row, then hauls himself over. Pulls his sweater back down. Fuck this twisting around in his seat nonsense.

Will blinks, face pink. "Hi," he says, a little hoarse.

“I think you mean bye. I said no haters, didn't I?”

Will laughs again, full and warm this time. “Fuck off, asshole,” he says, and this time Nursey laughs with him.

#my writing #omgcp fic #nurseydex

[ijustreallylovezebras]

The Selection - One

Pairing: Tom Holland x Royal!Reader

Summary: It wasn’t her selection, not her choice, and yet when she saw him she couldn’t help herself, she fell in love

Chapter Warnings: Swearing

A/N: So this is the first real part of this series! I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it - this one is kinda just to give you a feel of some of the characters and give a kind of understanding of the way in which this is going to pan out if you get me?? Please remember to like, reblog and comment, send in some asks to let me know what you think of it! If you want to be tagged please send an ASK into my INBOX, comments and reblogs asking to be tagged will not be acknowledged other than to refer you to do so so please just send an ask in initially :) Hope you guys are all well!!!

DISCLAIMER - THIS IS BASED OFF OF THE SELECTION SERIES BY KIERA KASS

Y/N felt she was melting under the stage lights that were on her. Not that they were actually on her, so much. More like on Allison and her parents. Y/N sat in between her two brothers, in her rightful place - third in line for the throne.

None of the attention was on her. Just as she was used to. Allison was there for that. All she had to do was look pretty and feign interest - it was a task that became easier the older she became.

After all, the older she got, the more books she had read. And the more books she read, the more easily she could distract herself from The Report.

Not that she disliked The Report - not by any stretch of the imagination. On the contrary, she adored the now somewhat elderly interviewer, Stanley, who had been present for her whole life, and her brothers and her always found ways of entertaining themselves as they blended into the background. That was all they were there for after all - background colour.

Today, however, was a day that she was genuinely interested in. The Selection. It was an event that had been being planned for almost as long as she could remember. Her elder brother, Jason, had told Y/N that Allison had been educated on the system ever since she was born so it was no surprise that all of their earliest memories included planning for the event.

It was surreal to think it was finally actually here. In only a few days time, the empty, lonely palace would be filled with the laughter and chatter of thirty five men. Jason and Lucas couldn’t wait.

Y/N, on the other hand, could. Thirty five men just meant more time for her to spend acting as prim and proper as possible - putting on an act that she had grown up to despise. When she was younger, it hadn’t been such an issue that she would rather hide away than socialise - it was even seen as endearing - yet now it was improper and impolite for her to do so, as a Princess her role was to be as sweet and welcoming as possible.

Lucas’ leg was bouncing up and down excitedly and Y/N placed a hand on it gently to pause it’s movements, giving her younger brother a look of mixed amusement and exasperation.

“Sorry,” he whispered. Y/N shook her head affectionately. Y/N’s mother turned around and gave them a warning look, though there was a slight smile on her lips.

“Whenever you’re ready Allison,” Stanley said with the warm smile Y/N and her siblings had all grown so used to over the years. Y/N’s father placed a hand on Allison’s shoulder as though to squeeze some comfort into his eldest daughter as her fingertips hovered over the glass bowls in front of her.

Allison plucked one from the bowl and held it carefully between her finger tips, unwrapping it slowly as though it was made from the most precious material known to man. She cleared her throat as daintily as she could.

“Elliott Class,” she read. Y/N shifted a little closer to Jason, feeling Lucas do the same to her to take a better look at the screen showing the photo and profile of her new housemate. Blond hair and blue eyes met her gaze and Y/N couldn’t help the little sigh that fell from her lips. Jason and Lucas stifled their laughter at the reaction.

The names flew over her head one after the other and she tried desperately to keep up as best she could.

Timberlake Talley.

Nicholas Ellis.

Matthew McGuire.

Their faces met her eyes in a blur and Y/N knew almost immediately that she would never get the men straight in her mind. She was already so lost and they were only about half way through the procedure.

“And finally,” Allison said, her smile wide and unyielding towards the camera, just the way all four of them had been taught when they were younger (though Allison had, admittedly, always struggled the most with that part of the top) as she plucked up a final application from the final bowl.  “From the South-West of London - Thomas Holland!” A final cheer erupted through the room and Y/N followed Jason’s lead, standing up to applaud her sister.

Applaud her for opening thirty five pieces of paper.

“Are we expected to learn all of their names?” Y/N murmured to Jason, who laughed quietly, both of them maintaining their wide smiles.

Y/N wondered if they looked as fake as they felt.

///

Only a day had passed and already the Palace was beginning to fill with the men prepared for Allison’s Selection. It had been decided over the final family dinner the previous evening that Y/N and her brothers were not to meet the men immediately for fear of overwhelming them too much.

They were to meet Allison almost as soon as they arrived in the Palace and, once all thirty five of them had been welcomed into the glamour of the building, they would meet the King and Queen.

It was fair for them to postpone meeting Jason, Y/N and Lucas. Despite being Royals, they were a family like any other and took great pleasure in annoying their sister.

So Y/N crept around the Palace, eager to catch a sight of some of the bachellors but, at the same time, shitting herself over the prospect. From what she had heard from the maid’s gossiping with her, over half of them had already arrived and settled into their rooms on the floor below herself and her family.

What was infuriating for Y/N was that by having the men here and her having to avoid them until she was formally introduced to them the following day was that it meant she was virtually sectioned off of the majority of the ground floor of the Palace as the men got their bearings - the last thing the King and Queen and Allison wanted was to have any of the thirty five randomly running into Y/N as she wandered about the halls aimlessly.

And the library was on the ground floor - her place of refuge. Her hiding spot. And she couldn’t reach it.

Y/N paced back and forth along the corridor on the third floor until Jason popped his head out of his room and gave her a glare.

“You’ll burn a hole in the carpet,” he huffed. Y/N rolled her head back and groaned.

“I’m bored, Jase,” she declared.

“I can tell,” Jason deadpanned and Y/N sighed loudly.

“I just want to go downstairs,” she whined.

“Can’t you go to the Women’s Room?” Jason asked. Y/N shook her head, rolling her eyes.

“Ally’s worried about me running into one of them on my way down,” she explained and Jason nodded.

“I don’t know any of their names,” Jason admitted. Y/N shrugged in response.

“I spent last night desperately trying to learn them,” she informed him. “But I wouldn’t worry too much - most of them you’ll only see a few times,”

“I guess you’re right,” Jason nodded. He paused and looked at her unsurely. “Are you going to be okay… you know, with all of them around all the time?” He inquired. Y/N huffed a laugh, leaning against the hallway wall opposite Jason’s room.

“It’s like Mum said - I’ve gotta grow out of it sometime, right?” Jason shrugged.

“Well if any of them bother me, let me know?” Y/N rolled her eyes a little at her brother.

“I get the feeling that’s what we have guards for,” she teased and Jason chuckled.

“If you really want to go to the library just sneak down - this is your home, not theirs,” Jason suggested. Y/N hummed, thinking over the idea.

“I’m just annoyed because I left a couple of poetry anthologies that I was studying down there,” she admitted wistfully thinking of the well-loved pages of Eliot and Keats she had left downstairs when she had been in the library until late the previous night - worrying over the very thing that was preventing her from going downstairs now.

“Just go,” Jason shrugged. Y/N nodded, running a hand through her hair distractedly.

“I think I will…”

///

Of course, Allison’s fear had to come true. Of course it did. Allison was right about everything - she always was, that was her place as the eldest sibling and future queen. But this was the first time Y/N had found herself bring properly aggravated by her sister’s seemingly improbable talent for predicting the future.

“Your Highness!” Y/N had to suppress her audible groan upon hearing the title. She forced the polite smile onto her face and turned to the man.

“Good evening,” she said, trying not to let her annoyance show.

“I wasn’t aware we’d be meeting you tonight,” Y/N’s smile widened a little as she took in both the man’s nerves and features.

He was one of the more handsome candidates, that was for sure, with unruly, curly brown hair that lay in an almost messy mop on the top of his head, though it was clear he had tried hard to give it some sort of order, he had a sharp jawline and bright brown eyes that held a certain softness in them that Y/N had never really seen before. He had the aura of someone who was normally cocky and self-assured and yet now, being presented with a princess, he shifted nervously from foot to foot, eyes flitting every which way in an attempt to avoid eye contact.

Y/N decided that she liked him - something about the way he held himself and his open expression made her immediately comfortable around him.

“Yes, you’re not meant to,” she agreed, letting her dainty ‘Princess’ laugh fall from her lips. “I just meant to sneak down to the library - I wasn’t meant to be found,” she admitted. The man laughed along with her, clearly feeling a little more at ease. “My parents and Al-” she caught herself just in time - “Princess Allison,” she corrected, “will not be please to hear of me leaving the second floor,” she confided, the grin on her face assuring the man that it was okay to laugh.

“Your secret is safe with me, Your Highness,” he promised, bowing a little awkwardly, as though unsure of the appropriate behaviour to show around royalty - to be fair, before today he never would have needed to.

“Much appreciated, Mr…” Y/N trailed off, racking her brain for the images of the profiles she had studied last night. “Holland?” She questioned uncertainly. The man beamed, proud to have had his name memorised.

“Tom Holland, Your Highness,” the brunet confirmed.

“Well thank you, Sir Thomas,” Y/N bowed her head towards him, not missing the grin widening on his face.

“It was nice to meet you, Your Highness.”

“You too, Sir Thomas. I shall see you at breakfast,” Y/N agreed, turning away from the Selected man and walking towards the library with careful, measured steps in order to avoid allowing Tom to see just how nervous she really was.

#The Selection series #marvel #marvel fanfiction #tom holland #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fan #tom holland fic #tom holland fluff #tom holland imagine #tom holland imagines #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x royal!reader #tom holland series #Not a request

[hookedontaronfics]

Aber Girl series - Friday

Title: Aber Girl - Friday Part 1 of 3 Rating: T Pairing: Taron x OC Warnings: Cursing and alcohol use A/N: Could one weekend really change a heart? A Triple Shot [3-part] series. Plenty of cute fluffy Taron to come in Parts 2 and 3. I hope you enjoy! x

“Morgan!” I jumped at the sound of my name being yelled across the bookstore, nearly dropping the book I had in my hand. I quickly put it on the shelf where it belonged before clambering down the stepladder I’d been standing on.

“Yeah, what do you need?” I asked a bit tersely as I crossed the shop floor, picking up a couple books customers had abandoned. Really, why couldn’t my boss walk across the store and speak to me in a normal voice? It irritated me to no end.

“Oh, there you are,” she said, looking a bit frazzled behind the boxes she was unloading. Fridays were our normal shipment days, and we’d been bombarded with merchandise for the holidays, which were fast approaching.

“I was just in the poetry department, you know, getting lit,” I replied. Okay, maybe I should have been slightly less sarcastic to my boss, but she didn’t even seem to notice or appreciate my amazingly witty pun. I made a mental note to Tweet that out later.

“When you’re done with that, I could really use your help upstairs in secondhand,” she said, brushing her hair out of her face. “And don’t forget I’m leaving early, so you’ll be closing up shop by yourself tonight.”

“Yeah, no skin off my elbow,” I said cheekily. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t done before. I returned to my work, shelving, organizing and straightening books, trying to make the store look as welcoming and shoppable as possible. Despite the busy-work nature of the job, I actually did enjoy being surrounded by books all day. I helped the few customers that filtered in, mostly college kids and families, find what they were looking for, and once my boss left I had the place to myself.

The last two hours of my shift dragged on a bit, and I ended up spending some time just surfing the internet, daydreaming about moving to Cardiff. Or London. Or even further away. Don’t get me wrong, growing up in Aberystwyth had its perks. Sure, the town was small, but it was also pretty. We had the mountains to our north and the coast right in front of us. You could take the Cliff Railway all the way up the hillside and it gave the best views of the area. I’d spent many a summer evening there with my mates and a 6-pack. I loved the place, but I saw very little opportunity here. Even after I’d enrolled in classes at the uni and earned my degree, I felt stuck in a way that made me feel sick to my stomach. Working at Ystywth Books for the rest of my life wasn’t the plan I had in mind.

About 10 minutes before close, I was finishing my duties since no one else was in the store when the bell above the door dinged. A blast of cold air blew in, making me instantly shiver despite the sweater I was wearing over my jumper and winter tights. I only saw the back of the person who walked in, as they disappeared around a bookshelf corner quickly. “I’m closing in a few minutes!” I hollered out, hoping they wouldn’t be obnoxious about it. I’d already had plans to meet up with some mates at the pub just after my shift.

“I’ll only be a minute,” the voice called back, cheerily enough. Hmmm, mostly British, slightly Welsh. Likely someone who used to live here and was visiting, I thought to myself. We had a lot of international students at the university, so I always tried to make it a game of guessing their nationality based on their accent.

I grabbed a stack of books off the counter to reshelve, since I now had to occupy my time for a couple more minutes, popping into different sections and moving about the store with ease. I could have probably walked this floor blindfolded, and in an admittedly stupid effort to prove it to myself, I closed my eyes and swung around a corner, running smack into the customer, who shouted “Hey!” and then “Are you alright?” after I’d tripped and then tumbled unceremoniously to the ground, my books flying every which way.

“Yeah,” I grunted, wincing slightly as there was a sharp pain in my arm. “Shit,” I breathed out, gripping my arm to my chest and only noticing the customer’s nice shoes and tight jeans. To my credit, I was in a lot of pain.

“That… doesn’t look like okay,” he said, crouching down to eye level with me. I nearly laughed as I wondered how he hadn’t split his pants just now, but then I had to squeeze my eyes shut as a groan of pain escaped my lungs. My arm was already throbbing, and I was trying to ignore the tears that had sprung into the corners of my eyes.

“Fuck, you’re hurt. I’ll call the medics,” he said, pulling out his phone to do so.

“I can’t bloody afford that,” I cursed, finally looking up at him and sucking in my breath sharply. My customer was none other than Taron Egerton, the so-called town “hero.” I was a couple of years younger, but my brother had been in Taron’s class and all I’d heard my whole entire life was how amazing he was, how he was “going places.” He’d managed to get out of Aber and build a successful career for himself and left the rest of us behind, and it annoyed me to no end that everyone constantly fell all over themselves for him. He was decent-looking enough, but I’d seen better. Not only that, he hadn’t made a name for himself in Aber, or for that matter stayed here and tried to help anyone else. How honestly special could you be if you’d fled to the big city and not ever looked back?

“I’ve still got two legs that work. I’ll just walk,” I said pragmatically, dropping my eyes back to his shoelaces in case he got the wrong idea.

“Are you kidding me? You’re clearly hurt, it’s feezing and snowing out, and I can’t in good conscience let you do that,” he replied, a bit self-righteously if you ask me. What was he trying to do, be my hero? As if it wasn’t good enough to be the town’s? I didn’t need one, thank you very much, and if he hadn’t walked in 10 minutes before close this whole situation probably wouldn’t even be happening. I was hurting, annoyed and still needing to close the store.

“Fine then, call me a cab,” I said, awkwardly pushing myself up to my feet with my good hand and steadying myself against the bookshelf, ignoring the hand he offered to help. I tugged my sleeve up a bit and my eyes watered some more as I noticed the bruising already starting to show. I hastily wiped at my face and sniffed. I was not about the cry in front of this guy.

“I’ll drive you myself,” he replied, concern written all over his stupid face. I groaned inwardly at that, but I knew I couldn’t ignore my arm. I needed a doctor, and I didn’t have a car myself, usually just borrowing my parents’ when I needed to go somewhere long-distance.

“Fine, but you’ll have to wait a moment while I close the store,” I conceded, whatever he’d come in to get clearly forgotten. He annoyingly tailed me around the store, trying to help and mostly getting in my way. I counted out the drawer money as best I could, closed the accounting books, and made sure all the lights were off and the place secured.

I had to drape my winter coat around my shoulder, as my arm was too hurt to try and wrangle it into the sleeve, and after trying to one-handedly zip it up around myself, I finally acquiesced to Taron’s help, standing there awkwardly as he carefully zipped my coat up to my neck. I followed him out into the swirling night, locking the door behind me as snowflakes landed on my eyelashes and cheeks. It was a bitterly cold evening as we crunched across the parking lot to his car. At least it was still warm inside as I awkwardly fell into the seat. I didn’t bother with the seatbelt, as we weren’t actually going that far.

He drove me over to Bronglais General, being careful as the roads were already coated. I noted that he’d been listening to Bowie, and at least I could appreciate his musical taste. But that was only one point toward his favor in a long list against. He parked and we hustled inside, shaking the snow from our hair and clothes. I got checked in and had a small wait, so I took a seat in the lobby, and much to my chagrin, Taron sat down next to me.

“You don’t need to stay here with me. I’m sure you’ve better things to do,” I said, as I slowly tapped out a text to my friends that I was going to be a bit late to the pub.

“I remember you,” he said quietly, and I didn’t respond for a moment. If that was supposed to impress me, well, it really didn’t. “You’re Declan’s younger sister,” he pressed on. Dammit if he wasn’t persistent, but that still didn’t earn him any points.

“Yeah, it’s Morgan, and what you and your mates did to my brother, it’s not been forgotten, okay?” I replied angrily, not even sure where the sudden heat in my face had come from. “And I don’t need your help.”

He hung his head a bit, but I had zero sympathy. “That was a long time ago. And I’ve apologized to him, a lot,” he replied, his ears growing a bit red.

“You may have the whole world eating out of the palm of your hand, but I’m not one of them,” I said in a huff. Thankfully, my name was called just then. I stood up abruptly and turned to him. “Please don’t be here when I come back,” I added before stalking off after the nurse, ignoring the pained look on his face. Thinking about Taron as anyone other than the person who had helped bully my brother out of the theater would get me into nothing but a world of hurt.

The hospital staff was nothing but kind as they took my vitals, ushered me through X-rays and did their best to not keep me waiting unnecessarily. I had indeed broken my arm, although it was a clean break and I was relieved that I wouldn’t need surgery, as this visit alone was going to drain the meager savings I had in my bank account. Once my arm was bound in the cast and a sling, the nurse helped me back into my coat [believe me, this was an embarrassing thing] and I returned to the lobby. 

I was half-worried Taron would still be waiting there, his puppy-dog eyes trying to draw sympathy from me, but the lobby was empty of his presence. That somehow didn’t actually make me feel any better, and I worried for a moment that I had been a complete arse to him when all he’d done was try to help me earlier, but I quickly shoved that feeling down deep.

I called myself a cab and waited impatiently, hopping from one foot to the next in an attempt to distract myself from both the dull ache in my arm and the pain in my chest that running into Taron had reawakened. It was possible, in that moment, that maybe I even hated him a little bit. A little sister shouldn’t have to be the one consoling her older brother or reminding him that there was more to the world than Penglais. My phone dinged to let me know my cab had arrived, and I rushed back out into the cold, ready to get to the pub and drown my sorrows with my friends and a hefty draught.

The snow had let up a bit, and I had to admit it was actually quite pretty out, the light cast from the streetlamps making the untouched snow glitter. I never said Aber didn’t have its moments. I paid my fare and hustled inside when the taxi pulled up outside Kanes, happily taking the seat my mates had saved for me. The table was already littered with half-gone appetizers, and I helped myself to them after ordering a beer.

“I see your klutz streak strikes again,” Andreyah teased me as I shed my coat. We’d known each other since we were both in nappies, and had lived on the same block most of our lives. In fact, Andreyah had gotten me through most of the scrapes - physical and otherwise - in my life, and there had been many. Everyone else at the table, Cliff, June, Rosie and Ace, had come into my life at various points and for various reasons, but we’d all ended up at uni together and were inseparable now.

“What even happened?” Rosie asked curiously.

“I haven’t had enough alcohol for this one yet,” I laughed, taking a long and impressive draft of my beer, Cliff whistling in admiration until I flipped him off.

“Always classy,” June grinned as I slammed my half-empty glass on the table, the beer sloshing against the sides.

I took a deep breath, gathered up the edges of my courage, and blurted out “I ran into Taron,” not even needing to say his last name for my mates to know exactly who I was talking about. Two of them sighed adoringly (much to my annoyance), three of them sounded indignant on my behalf. “Like, quite literally. He came into the store and I tripped over his stupid feet,” I explained, leaving out the part where I’d been doing something incredibly dumb in the process. “It’s been a shitty night so far.”

“I’d expect no less from him,” Ace said, nearly spitting out the last word. He had known my brother well too. In fact, most of the families in Aber knew each other or were at least friendly in passing.

“But I’m sure it was just an accident,” Rosie replied, being both more logical and also more sympathetic to Taron’s cause. We’d long ago agreed to disagree on that one.

“Oh of course, but he tried to help me by mostly getting in my way and even acted like it was a big deal that he remembered who I was,” I said, rolling my eyes and feeling the alcohol start to hit me, lowering my inhibitions. “What a serious wanker.”

My mates started to debate this, offering both their support of me [that’s true friendship, right there] or their insistence that Taron wasn’t as awful as I believed him to be. Eventually the conversation drifted to other topics, and we ate and drank more and I ended up having a great time. Nothing a little group therapy couldn’t fix, I thought. It helped take the edge off my emotions over the evening, but eventually I had to call it a night, as I had an early bookstore shift the next morning.

Hugs ensued, Andreyah helped me back into my winter coat [seriously, this was beginning to make me feel like a toddler], and then offered to drive me home. I could have walked from there and had plenty of times before, but it had gotten even colder while we were in the pub so I didn’t turn her down.

“So really, tell me what actually happened,” she said as soon as we were safely tucked into her little Fiesta.

“That was mostly the truth!” I laughed indignantly, but filled her in on other details I hadn’t shared with the group. She listened quietly, letting me rant a bit.

“Aren’t you being a little ... unfair?” she asked as she pulled into the driveway.

“Are you kidding me?” I scoffed, but she fixed me with that trademark pout she used when I was being unreasonable.

“He was 15, Mori,” she said, using the nickname she’d given to me when we could barely even put three words together. “People change. You have to allow them that.” I snorted, but she continued talking. “From what you said, it sounds like he’s been trying to make amends. Maybe you should talk to your brother. Maybe you’re holding onto anger Declan’s long already let go of.”

“You know, sometimes you make way too much sense and it really pisses me off,” I huffed, just making her laugh.

“Oh Mori. I love you, but you’re stubborn as hell. Maybe let it go a little, yeah? What would be the harm?” she asked, watching me as I pressed my fingers against my temple and then rubbed them over my eyes.

“Yeah I’ll think about it,” I said, fully intending to not give Taron a second more of my time.

“Hey, get some sleep, alright? I’ll bring you a coffee tomorrow while you’re at work,” she grinned.

“You are a saint and a scholar,” I grinned back. We gave each other an awkward car hug before I got out, shut the door and waved to her obnoxiously until I got to the front door. I let myself in and found my mom and dad had already gone to sleep, which was just fine with me. I was too tired and sore to try and explain everything that night. I went to my room and got myself ready for bed before crawling in under the covers.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but my brain kept insisting that I run over the events of the day. I tossed and turned a bit, but every time I opened my eyes, I could see Taron’s wounded expression in the shadows. Try as I might to avoid it, he’d gotten under my skin again, and I was confused by the emotions I was feeling. I hated admitting maybe Andreyah was right. I’d been so young back then, we all had been, and I had only ever gotten Declan’s version of events. The truth of that made my face flush with shame, but old grudges tend to die hard. Finally exhausted by my work shift, my injury and my upsetting emotions, I drifted off into a fitful, uneasy sleep.

Aber Girl continues on Saturday! Coming Soon

#taron egerton #taron x reader #taron imagine #taron egerton imagine #taron egerton fanfiction

[afewmarvelousthoughts]

Only For A Moment Ch. 13

Master List | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Pairing: Bucky X Reader

Summary: For most of your life you’d been able to keep your abilities a secret, that is until Hydra got wind of you. After years of being in their clutches, you break out when The Avengers expose SHIELD/Hydra. Since then, you’ve been on the run. Things are going as well as you could hope when you see a familiar face… Could the Winter Soldier really be in Bucharest too?

Warnings: PTSD but not intense.

A/N: This one is short and kind of sweet. PTSD is a bitch and comfort food cures all. 

Tags are open!

@bluegirlusa1 @l0kisbitch @tazzi-baby @disagreetoagree@woodyandbuzz20-01 @mooniightbucky  @soulless-and-sarcastic  @saundrasays @breezy1415

You both assure Mr. Goldstein you’ll be back on Monday and leave with one book each even though he insists you take more. Bucky chose the Romanian poetry book he’d put aside earlier and you pick some random sci-fi paperback. Books tucked into your thrift store bags you head out.

“I need a few other things,” you say as you step out. “A pillow,” what you’d been sleeping on… should just be burned and you couldn’t keep stealing his, “some basic tees, stuff like that. I can find them solo and meet back at your place?” Way to make some assumptions Y/N. “That is… if you… if its ok.”

He looks affronted, “Of course it’s ok. You staying. But… if it’s, all the same, I’d like to go with you.” He gives the street a once over and you have a suspicion that part of his desire to accompany you is to make sure no one follows you back.

You shrug, “Sure, the company is… a nice change of pace.”

“There’s a place not too far from here that should have everything you need.”

“Lead on,” you gesture forward and he takes the roadside and does.

Admittedly the walk is a touch farther than you thought it would be but it was a pleasant afternoon and though he was quiet, you weren’t lying earlier, the company was nice.

You’re pretty surprised when you come up to a busy Marks & Spencer. Bucky is decidedly tenser in the well-lit store. His left-hand flexing and relaxing, the subtle sounds of metal.

“Hey,” you lay a hand on his left arm he flinches, “you ok.”

He nods one hard nod, “Just not a fan of places like this, well lit, a lot of people.”

“I really can take care of this by myself. You can just wait outside or I can meet you-“

“No, it’s fine.”

“Ok, but if you need to go, that’s also fine.” He nods and you set off. He may be tense but you hadn’t been into a store like this in… years. It was kind of nice, normal feeling.

Five minutes in and you’re feeling like he may be onto something. You note a small black dome on the ceiling, Cameras, there are cameras everywhere here. Your anxiety ticks up a notch. A baby starts screeching and your teeth begin to grind. No easy exit. Finally, you locate the pack of basic tees you want and grab two and some more boxer briefs.

You head for the registers until you notice he’s not with you, you turn, “Pillow?” he says cocking his head toward the other side of the store.

“Right.”

After escaping you walked for four days, damn near non-stop, in muggy April weather. This trek across a store on a busy Saturday afternoon? Is about a hundred times worse. Your anxiety rises higher and higher with every step. A child barrels into your legs and you almost snap. The burning in your restricted chest feels worse with every pained breath. When you see an end cap with pillows you think it’s the most beautiful store display ever made.

“This is good let’s get the fuck out of here.” Bucky nods, a vein in his throat throbbing.

Purchase made you both practically bolt for the door. People seem to clear a path and you’re pretty sure you’re both sporting faces that scream: WE HAVE MURDERED PEOPLE AND YOU WILL BE NEXT IF YOU DON’T MOVE. You make it about half a block before you veer off into an alley and rest your hands on your knees. Anxiety breaking laughter bubbles out of you.

Bucky stares at you, “Did I miss something?”

You wave him off, “I ca-“ a laugh cuts you off. You’re crying, hysterical. “It’s just,” he can’t help but smile now, “Fuuuuck,” you breathe out, massage your chest, try to get enough air in before another giggle hits.

“What the hell?” A laugh breaking through.

“We are fucking useless,” you finally get out. You wipe your eyes. “You’re well, you know, and I was,” a laugh, “fucking world class murder machines and we can’t go into a normal ass store without having a breakdown.” He shakes his head, seeing the ridiculousness of it. “Espionage, hacking, hell I don’t even know how many languages I speak. Send me to buy a t-shirt, have a five-year-old run into me, and I’m spent.” This makes his face collapse into a laugh, it’s rich and full and heart lifting.

He giggles, “Millions of dollars worth of investment,” he holds up his left hand.

“To make absolutely useless humans.”

“No wonder they were doomed to fail.”

“Put out shit product. Terrible business model.” He’s leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, staring at you and smiling. You inhale as deeply as you can, “Woo. Sorry, that just got me.”

He waves you off, “Gallows humor is still humor.”

You back off the wall and give a cheesy grin and thumbs up, “Thank’s crippling anxiety, you’re good for something after all.”

He playfully slaps at your raised thumb, “Let’s head back. It’s a good ways to go.”

You realize walks with him are quiet because he’s always looking, eyes moving methodically, constantly absorbing information about your surroundings, the information you’d never think to look for. Senses on high alert.

A little more than halfway back to his apartment your own senses pick something up. Shaorma*. Your stomach growls and your eyes locate the offending shaormerie. Not too much of a line and good god it smells like magic.

“Hey,” you slow and he glances back, “Since you treated me to breakfast how about I get us an early dinner?” You nod in the direction of the shaormerie. You can see him calculating, there’s a short line but the tables are packed save for some out on the sidewalk and, just like you, he’s likely done with people. “To-go.”

He stares at the storefront a second longer, “That sounds great, actually.”

Large quantities of grease-laden comfort food in hand you finally make it back to the apartment.

*So, because I like to research shit that I write I found out that shaorma is the Romanian version of shawarma and it’s like one of the most popular forms of “fast”/street food. Obviously I also loved this since it’s a nice Avengers nod. 

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky feels #bucky imagine

[haljathefangirlcat]

still thinking about that “we Have To Talk about how quips are ruining fandom by destroying meta and turning all fic into shitposts” post @ms-demeanor wrote a great rebuttal to, and about the other posts she wrote about it and about the You’re Doing Fandom Wrong attitude in it, and about the notes on those posts. not gonna reblog or reply to any of those because my thoughts are admittedly kind of random and jumping from place to place and probably OT to the point of the discussion, but you know. still thinking.

so, uh. not trying to start wank or anything but enjoy the ranting that got way out of hand under the cut.

so, like... that one “we can’t just block everyone who quips and shitposts because some of these people also write actual meta but then they unfortunately go back to Not Engaging With Canon by writing quippy shitpost-y stuff” line, or however it was actually phrased? besides the blatant entitlement with the “you have to fandom ONLY in ways I like, I can’t just engage with the part of the content you create that I’m interested in and scroll past the rest” thing (which kinda reminds me of the whole “you can’t CNTW on some of your fics, I should be able to read ALL of your fics” thing, in a way) and the ”I refuse to curate my fandom experience and I’ll make it some stranger’s problem” thing (which... reminds me of a few other things, but tbf it has probably been around since the very first days of fandom), what if someone doesn’t even see meta and quips/shitposts as fundamentally different and mutually exclusive approaches to fandom? what if they see them as just two ways to be interested in a specific fandom and interact with it, and maybe even closely linked together, so going from one to another is actually very, very easy for them? hell, what if they (gasp!) even mix quips and meta together sometimes?

I have a few posts about what I think Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese might have been doing with mythological references and themes in Dark, and about what I got from the series finale. some are meme-like, phrased in a joking tone, probably even shitpost-y? another one is literally just a gifset plus me having intense Feels in the tags, and the last one is an edit of the kind I’ve seen people complain about as “those cringey unoriginal tumblr aesthetics that all look the same” in at least a couple of occasions. does that automatically mean I only wanted to “win” at fandom (with my hard-earned prize being... a handful of notes in a fandom that’s not even that big compared to others) and that I haven’t actually spent probably way too much time thinking about the significance of Martha’s Ariadne play as a commentary on character interactions/plot/narrative themes (and honestly still do from time to time), or that I don’t occasionally read the captions under other people’s gifsets and suddenly feel very much enlightened about why the Ariadne play mentions the myth of the Flood of all things? that I didn’t start reading posts and comments and reviews and theories about the series finale as soon as I finished watching it? that, just because I didn’t write 10K+ words of Perfectly Serious Seriousness about all that stuff, I simply refused to Engage With The Text? 

... and if I said that I feel a little irrationally self-conscious at the idea of writing down all of my (often rambling, sometimes jumbled) thoughts about a series that to me actually does feel very deep and complex, so adding memes and humor to that or finding different means to put my ideas out there makes me feel more comfortable expressing myself while also taking off the (admittedly made-up) pressure of having to write a whole coherent essay where I have to find a clear and explicit way to explain where every single thought comes from and how it leads to the next like I’m gonna get graded on it? or that a lot of those thoughts stem from memories of spending five years of high school translating and analysing ancient Greek poetry and reading and watching and discussing every available interpretation and reinterpretation of it from Nietzsche to Vernant to Dürrenmatt to Christa Wolf to Pasolini to a lot of others and from certain things in Dark violently hurtling me back to those times without even asking for permission, so a part of my self-consciousness is actually “I probably don’t actually know/remember enough about this to base a whole in-depth analysis on it even though I do think there’s something there” and another part is “shit I’m too lazy to dig through all of my old textbooks and homework and additional readings to hunt for the thing I feel the desperate need to reference or figure out who might have said it, so no extended explanation here either”? I guess in the end it would all boil down to “there’s an amount of effort and physical and mental energy I’m willing to put into fandom but I also have limits to stop something that makes me feel happy from becoming a chore”, which. considering the whole “you have to put all your resources into constantly pouring out 100% serious meta and nothing else because that’s what I like, no deviations allowed” thing? yeah, I can see saying stuff like that would still make me a blight upon fandom. and/or Not Engaging.

which, I realize, it’s a thing I keep coming back to. but that’s because I really, really, really hate it? seriously, what even counts as Engaging With The Text correctly? not shitposts, and not quips either, apparently. Regardless of the fact that humor and crack have existed in fandom since forever and that it’s actually not uncommon AT ALL for them to be born out of looking at canon from different angles, pointing out whatever the fan in question finds surreal/strange/implausible/convoluted/awkward/just kinda funny about it. 

also, not canon divergence/what if fics motivated not by a desire to “fix” something that made us feel bad when it happened in canon but by a desire to actually fix what we felt was objectively a poor writing choice from the author, because we shouldn’t Engage by analysing the text to criticize it or to think over how and why certain aspects of it don’t work for us or how we think the structure of the text itself could be modified or even improved, we should Engage by... writing meta and/or writing canon-compliant fics with perhaps a little allowance for slightly-to-the-left-of-canon-compliant missing moments fics, I guess? 

from what I’ve gathered from reading other fandom discussion some time ago, AUs are also out, especially Modern/No Powers AUs, because those are always just an excuse to slap your fave’s name on your OC/disguise your original fiction as fanfic to get comments/ignore all that’s interesting about canon to write yet another dumb syrupy high school or coffee shop AU, even if I’m honestly not sure what kind of AUs people are even reading to never get to the “there’s no supernatural threat so let’s focus entirely on the fucked-up family dynamics and blatant mental issues in a world where you can’t just ignore them by marrying off your daughter or sending your son to be someone’s squire” AUs or the “this is pretty much what happens in canon but adding new dimensions and different outlooks on the themes by moving everything to a new context” AUs. seriously, I could rec you a pretty great “this guy would be a horrible father and treat his children horribly in any world, it’s not just the feudal society around him, it’s him as a person” AU and that’s literally just the first thing that came to my mind. but, hey, maybe Engaging is only engaging with the canon plot and setting and nothing else, what do I know.

... fuck, thinking about it, I’m not even sure if by “not shitpost and not quips” I should even mean humor/crack? because it’s not like the OP was clear about it in any way? maybe it’s just all that’s weird and tropey and not-canon-compliant? I can see the “everybody gathers in the main character’s stuff to smoke weed and weird shit happens” fic I got a chuckle out of some time ago being one of the dreaded tumblr-born shitpost fics that are supposedly ruining fandom by ensuring that fans stop thinking (?), but what about the “everything is the same but this one character is a catboy, not for any particular reason but just because” fic I’m currently following and loving? people have been joking and shitposting about catboys a lot on tumblr lately (I distinctly remember that the last catboy joke to pop up on my dash was the “I’m your catboy gf and I’m stuck in a wall” one...) and finding an always-a-catboy!AU initially got an amused smile out of me, so is the mere premise enough to make the fic just a joke/just taking a trope and running off with it/just part of a shallow trend? even when the author literally goes “oh shit just realized this is all a metaphor for neuodivergence and masking” in the story notes? unless writing a character who’s never explicitly stated to be neurodivergent in canon as a being literally or metaphorically neurodivergent in your fic is always shallow projecting or posturing issuefic... instead of, y’know, looking closely at the text and Engaging with it by interpreting it that way....

I feel all this ranting/venting might end up plunging into Why We Slash discussion territory now, so I better stop here.

anyway, in short, good to know I’ve been in fandom for years yet I’ve always been just a Fake Fan who Can’t Think and is constantly Doing It Wrong (by Not Being Transformative Enough, possibly). gonna do my best to stay exactly like that in the future <3

#... see THIS is why i don't write meta #fic is so much easier be it crack or not #ugh i feel i should probably delete this to avoid a giant headache but let's give it a try

[tea-books-rain]

Book Review: A Beautiful Composition of Broken by R.H. Sin

Warning: I hated this book. I go after it really hard Inserting a read-more just for length.

I’m going to start this review with an excerpt. Two excerpts, actually. I couldn't decide which was more... erm... appropriate. You'll see.

From page 77:

The Tights You Wear.

wrapped around both thighs black hues and heather grays beginning at the waist ending just at the ankles forcing me to pay homage to your curves

From page 299:

6:16p.m.:

utilizing my tongue as a stress reliever pressing pressure points creating a climax provoking pleasure with ease opening you right up because my tongue is the key

-- This was, without a doubt, the worst collection of poetry I have ever beheld in my entire life. I feel like I could exfoliate with steel wool in the shower and I still wouldn't be rid of the absolute creepiness I've been exposed to within these pages. It is vile. It is demeaning. It is derogatory. It is falsely feminizing, toxicly masculine, and the attention-mongering is real. I have a lot to say about it.

A single moment of disclosure, I didn't actually finish this book. It's 461 pages long. I threw up the white flag of surrender on page 300. I couldn't take another page. I'll explain more in a bit.

Before I get into my full lambasting, however, I do want to say something nice about this book. I genuinely appreciate seeing a male poet so ready to embrace the idea of writing about love and about how it's OK to want love and to want a relationship, instead of just an OKCupid hookup or whatever. That was a nice, refreshing sentiment. If you aren't super-rooted in third-wave feminism (which I admittedly am, and which we'll also get into), you'll probably think this book is amazing. It offers just enough love, enough longing for respect, etc, to be good.

Another positive I want to say about this book is that some of the poems are legitimately good. There are plenty of redeemable poems that have nothing wrong, weird, or unhealthy in them. I'd say 25% of them are fantastic, normal, solid poems with good ideas and thoughts. I was drawing little hearts next to them. In fact, this book is so long enough that if they were collected up and all of the crappy, chauvinistic, toxic poems were removed, he still would have been able to publish a book, it'd just be more like a regularly sized poetry book instead of this insane tome.

That said, the good poems in this book are surrounded by so many poems that are - for lack of better phrasing - complete and utter bullshit, I couldn't take the good poems seriously. For example, there was a very nice poem about how R.H. Sin likes to get to know a girl's mind before he touches her body. This is well and good. It's a valid sentiment. However, it comes in at about page 250. The leggings poem listed above is on page 77. If what you're wearing to walk down the street means he can whistle at you, then what really comes first? What does he really care about?

So for me, the positive sides weren't enough to redeem this collection. I don't even know where to start with my issues regarding this work. I think I'm going to list them out and then elaborate one by one, just so I personally don't get lost ranting. I highly disliked how Sin paraded around like he was one of the feminists but he clearly isn't, I didn't like the whiplash from one poem to the next, the sheer amount of contradictions within the messages he's trying to bring forward, the toxic masculinity so clearly made evident, and the way he views love in general.

I think I'm going to tackle the love issue first, actually. This might have been what bothered me the most. R.H. Sin's idea of how love works, according to this book, is that it only has to do with being earned. If you just work hard enough, if you throw enough flowers at a pretty-lookin girl, if you just say the right words and put in the elbow grease, everything will be dandy. Then, when that's not how love works, he gets incredibly frustrated and blames it on the girl who left him. He sulks like a 5 year old who had a toy taken away, bemoaning that he loved her so hard and she didn't care about him at all and she never deserved him and blahblahblah. It eventually devolves into saying "well I don't care about anyone" (which we'll get into under the toxic masculinity section), before the entire process repeats itself again and again and again. About every 10-15 pages, it repeats. By page 300, he still hadn't learned what was going wrong here.

And I'm not saying that love doesn't require work, ok? It does. Being in a relationship means making decisions for 2, taking another person into account, worrying about them, checking in with them, etc. But being in love is also something relatively mundane. It's thinking someone is cute. It's having similar interests, a general respect for them, a general attraction. Within the poems presented here, I highly doubt R.H. Sin understands that. He genuinely seems confused that a woman might arbitrarily not be into him simply because she's not into him. He writes about women is like they're just prizes to be won over.

I think this ties into the toxic masculinity theme, so I'm going to dive into that next. This part isn't so obvious. R.H. Sin is definitely pretending like he's third-wave. He says all the magic words: he uses "women" and "warrior" in the same sentence multiple times, he has a whole poem using the word independence, he says women are strong, he even has a poem that says, "I hate this idea of a woman being silent."

But don't be fooled by the catch-phrases, kiddos! He's faking. If you read the excerpt at the beginning of this review, by page 77 you're already gonna know he clearly thinks that the decision to wear leggings is an open invitation for him to check you out on the sidewalk. If you choose not to like him, then you're just not good enough for him anyway and you never deserved his love. By the 200s, he's going to admit flat-out he knows women are silent because they're done with your shit--but he already said he hates it when women were quiet.

As if that's not contradictory enough, he starts gaslighting with his poems. He says he doesn't like silent women, but then he writes a poem "you don't have to explain why you left to the person who made you leave." He says you're allowed to leave anyone, but if you leave him, then you never meant anything. It's nonsense. It's infantile.

And that brings me to my main point of the toxic masculinity: R.H. Sin didn't admit a single fault about himself in all of the 300 pages I slogged through. Every. Single. Time. something went wrong, the finger was pointed at someone else. It was always that someone didn't love him enough, that they didn't understand him, that they wanted to leave, that they decided to choose Mr. Wrong over him, etc. Even people who had criticized his poetry meant nothing to him and were just jealous. He was completely and utterly incapable of sitting back, critically thinking through a situation, and admitting that he had any sort of flaw in his behavior or his logic.

As another example, there's a poem on page 160 that says, "I've come to the realization that loving a woman means making an effort to make her smile at all times." This is a terrible, terrible idea. Love is so much more than smiles. Trying to make someone happy 24/7 is the perfect basis for a mentally and emotionally abusive relationship. Does he get this? No. By page 219 he's saying "trying and trying is something that i'll no longer do. loving you until i realize that it'll change nothing. these things take time and i'm patient." No, you literally just don't understand what love is and you're glamorizing an unhealthy relationship dynamic, then having the audacity to turn around and behave like this act of self-sacrifice somehow earns you brownie points. It doesn't.

Anyway, I think that covers all of my major points. As a final note, I do have to say I thoroughly enjoyed ripping this book to pieces. I'm a firm believer in annotations and dog ears. This book looks more loved than my copy of Milk and Honey, which I've read... six times, I believe? Which is not bad considering I literally didn't even finish this book. My Snapchat story is littered with sassy annotations I added to the pages. My love interest, who doesn't even believe in annotations, was begging me to add further commentary and thoroughly joining in on the rampage against the godawful poetry and the godawful ideas R.H. Sin presents in this book. It was decidedly much more fun that if I'd actually spent the day reading a poetry book I enjoyed. In fact, if you want to get some thorough stress-relief by way of ranting about bad ideas of love, I'd solidly recommend this book. It's great for that.

Other than that, yeah, it's a really crappy book. My sincere apologies for whoever gets my copy after I get rid of it, both because the book sucks and my annotations surely do not improve on the theme. Yeah.

#book review #rhsin #a beautiful composition of broken #rh sin #poetry #booklr #bookblr

[louisives]

Stanlon, Day 6: Drawing

'I was sort of the artist in our group. My friends were always excited to see my art, especially Beverly. Really, Beverly and Richie were the ones that tended to go through my sketchbooks and tell me all about how much they liked it. Most of the others in our group were more quiet, (except for Eddie, but he was usually arguing with something Richie said), and just told me that my art looks nice, to which I'd reply with a 'th-thanks' and a smile.

As far as I know, the others didn't really partake in art. None of them. Ben wrote poetry, I think, and would sometimes sketch out something he wanted to build, but not even he really drew like I do.

So, my surprise was within reason when one of my closest friends, Stan, came to my room one day, asking for drawing lessons.

He'd already even bought a sketchbook of his own, and was clutching it to his chest. A pencil balanced precariously on his ear, and I wondered if it was stuck through one of his curls.

He sat on my bed, "Bill, can you do something for me?"

I nodded, eyebrows furrowed as I tried to figure out why he was acting so nervous and odd, "Wh-What's wrong, St-Stan?"

He looked at me, a hint of ambition in his eyes, "Can you teach me how to draw, Bill?"

I gave him a confused expression, frowning a bit, "Wh-Why?"

Stan's face turned lightly pink. He froze as he reached for his pencil, and stuttered out, "I... It's for someone."

I could see right through him, despite his efforts to maintain stoic. I pushed his shoulder lightly, "S-S-Someone y-you like?"

He gave me a deadpan expression, one which read, 'Don't push it.' I put up my hands slightly in a bit of mock surrender, "Okay. Well, I-I'll he-help you. I-I'll try, a-anyway."

I got up and went to my desk, shuffling around to find some paper and a few drawing pencils for myself and for Stan. I gave him the pencils, and briefly instructed him to draw something he liked, "A-A bird. Y-You like birds, s-so start w-with that. P-Passion br-brings out creativity."

Stan nodded, and fumbled as he held the pencil to paper. He was focusing perhaps too hard, so I told him to try and loosen up.

Stan took a while-I produced three portraits by the time he was finished-but he ended up with a fairly good looking bird. It was light and carefully drawn. There was a couple of issues with the claws, but otherwise, it was nice.

I smiled, "G-Great job, St-Stan. W-Want to try another?"

He tapped his foot on the floor anxiously, but nodded again, "What do you want me to draw now?"

I considered the question, then prompted him with another, "W-Well, wh-who exactly is th-this for, and f-for what oc-occa-occasion?"

The very tip of Stan's nose began to turn bright red; his cheeks and forehead were pink, contrasting against the purple circles under his eyes, "It's for this stupid class project. Mrs. Jones said we had to do some art thing about someone that means a lot to us, and-" his eyes were focused on the ground, "-I kinda thought I'd do it for Mike." He twiddled his thumbs. There was a thought he was holding back, and it'd take some coaxing for me to be able to bring it out of him.

I just gave him a smile, "O-Okay, well what a-are you dr-drawing for the project?"

Stan's shoulders tensed up, "That's the thing. I don't know. I'm not exactly creative with this kind of shit."

I shrugged, "C-Calm down. Y-You'll fi-figure it out. Wh-Why not just d-draw...L-Like, I draw B-Buh-Bev because I like her, s-so why not try and dr-draw him? I-I could help you."

Stan's eyes lit up a bit, and he lifted his chin, "You'd do that?"

My smile grew, "Y-Yeah, of course. Wh-When's it d-due?"

Stan's bit of snarkiness came back, and he said with a hint of nervousness, "Tomorrow."

I sighed. Of course. Pride would've had him do everything he could to avoid asking me for help with it, until the very last minute. "O-Okay. G-Get me a canvas."

The night was filled with me guiding Stan's hand to try and shape Mike's features, and after a few tries, it ended up pretty good looking. I then gave him some paints and gave him some time to paint the portrait. He needed to be able to do it, after all.

Stan turned to me when it was finished, a nervous wreck, "Is it good enough? I'm really not good at this."

I reassured him, "I-I'm sure it'll get y-you an A." I set aside the painting and sat beside him on the floor, my back leaning against my bed, "S-So," I threw him a slight smirk, "A-Are you g-going t-to show Mike, o-or an-anyone else, f-for that matter?"

Stan glanced back at his painting, and then to me, "I don't know. I still don't think I'm-i-it's good enough."

My eyes went wide, but I decided to not press the issue that just presented itself, "O-Okay. Hey, wanna st-stay the night? S-Since we a-already w-went past c-curfew."

Stan nodded, "Sure."

...

The next day, Stan carried the portrait under his arm. I heard him muttering under his breath, something about hoping noone saw him.

I gave him a pat on the back, and he sent a forced smile my way, then nodded to me and my mother as we stepped out of her car and went to out separate first hours.

He told me he was going to drop off his painting before he went to his first class, and that was the end of it.

I wasn't sure whether or not he'd share what he'd done with any of the others, and I suppose that's his business. But it didn't look bad, and I know Mike would love i-

"Denbrough, are you paying attention?" My teacher caught me day dreaming, and I nodded, "Y-yes, m-m-m..." The words got stuck in my throat, and so I just quit talking.

The day was a short one; each hour was spent in my own daydreams and curiosities. Lunch came and went. I love spending lunch with my friends, though it's admittedly gotten a bit more melancholy over the past years. We always tried to keep it lighthearted, especially Richie, who was always running his hands through Eddie's hair and cracking jokes.

Stan was always quiet, occasionally shooting back a funny comment at one of Richie's jokes, to which Richie would proclaim, "Stanley Uris Gets Out A Good One!"

Today he was especially quiet, though. He seemed to be contemplating something. I nudged him, "Wh-What's up, S-Stan?"

He sighed, "So, I, um, in my presentation for third hour, I sort of..." Stan's cheeks went back to that rosy red, "I might've shared too much."

I raised my brows, "You didn't t-tell them you w-were...with h-him?"

A smile, one that seemed pure and totally un-Stan like swept across his face, "Yeah, I did. And Hockstetter was in my class, and I'm sure he's making plans to chase after me with Bowers, but holy shit, Bill, it felt kind of nice."

Stan's bit of happiness was a disease that spread through our table like the black plague, "Th-That's great, St-Stan."

Stan nodded, "I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm fucking terrified, and I don't want Mike to get targeted by them any more than he is, but..." Stan stopped tapping his foot, "I'm going to tell him about it after school." The bell that signals the end of lunch rang, and Stan left with a, "Thanks for the lessons, Bill."

...

I've never had a phone call from Stan that lasted more than a few minutes, but I guess this last couple of days have been full of surprises, because he called my house phone and talked to me for almost an hour on how it went telling Mike about his project.

I've also never heard him so happy. He reminded me of the first time I saw Beverly, and then later, when I first met Audra. (She'd been auditioning for a school play, but that's a story for another time.)

He said he was calling from the Hanlon farm, which made sense-his parents never let him stay on the phone for this long, nor did they let him use it for anything but school related calls.

He said he had to go, as his parents wanted him back by seven, but he thanked me again.

I bid him a quick goodbye. Stan was an enigma, but he was also one of my beat friends. I looked around at my paints and other assorted art supplies, then smiled. I made my friend happy, and that's what I cared about. That's what filled my chest with pride.'

Bill took off his glasses, and set them on top of his head. He'd written that short story as a filler in between a couple of chapters of the book he was writing. He couldn't quite figure out where the inspiration for that came from, but it gave him a nice, somehow nostalgic feeling.

Bill rubbed his eyes, then went back to bed, where his wife, Audra, had already fallen asleep. He brushed a few strands of hair out of her face, and planted a kiss to her forehead, warm with a fever that she'd caught.

Bill drifted to sleep soon after, his last conscious thought being that the characters he just wrote about seemed all too real-perhaps people from long ago in a childhood memory that'd been suppressed-and he hoped if they were, they were happy, maybe even happy together.

The thought pulled Bill into a light, dreamless sleep.

#stanley uris #stan x mike #mike hanlon #stanlon #bill denbrough #30 day challenge

[docholligay]

A Ghost Story

HOLD ONTO YOUR ASS @maskedtranslatinganon this was going to be a short thing but now its nearly 2000 words about this movie. Nonspoilery above the cut, spoilery below

I turned to my wife as soon as the movie was over. “That movie was written by a man.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It loves its concept so much it forgets to make you care. I’ve seen it a million times.”

The writing credit came up, and I was not wrong. I’ve seen it a million times. Not all men write stories like this, but pretty much everyone who writes these kind of stories are men.

Ultimately A Ghost Story failed where a lot of science fiction and horror can--wrapped up in the assured genius of its high concept, A Ghost Story forgets to make you want to care about its characters, or give you the space to develop that care for yourself. Admittedly, the concept is amazing, and I was surprised by how much I found myself touched by the trailer for the movie. I simply wish the movie had followed through on the level of pathos given by the short. I think, ultimately, the problem was, the writer had a great idea for a story, but not a great idea for characters to inhabit the story, and so the world ultimately felt empty.

That is not to say the movie is not without poignant moments, simply that we are never allowed to linger in a space that might make us delve into a character’s emotions or ideas. This is actually a story which might be very well carried out in the context of a novel, with a deft hand, a medium where we are allowed to see the inner workings of the characters, and how they tick. Within the highly visual medium of a movie, however, it simply falls flat, and regrettably so, the premise being so strong.

(I am not rating this on spooky-scariness. It’s not a spooky-scary kind of film)

Part of the difficulty with the story is it has little idea where it should linger and where it should not. The movie is not very long, clocking in at an hour and a half, and I feel like we could have spent that time getting to know the ghost and his wife, even in small moments, but instead we linger on the two of them lying in bed, in the beginning of the story that will also be the end of the story, and we’re never given any reason to believe in his desire to reconnect with her. We get the tidbit that she hides notes wherever she’s been, cryptically noted as things she wanted to remember, but otherwise she has little characterization. (In fairness, so does he)

They fight about the house, because she doesn’t like it, most of which only really becomes clear on the second go around. She wants to leave. He wants to stay, but does not say why

(Or even that he doesn’t know why, which could have been a beautifully compelling moment for the story. At the beginning, we could see them actually fighting about the house, and him saying he loves it and doesn’t want to leave it, and her asking why, but he doesn’t know, and he is forced to say so, forced to say he feels a connection to the house, that he needs to be here. Then the reveal at the end that he has already been here might have had more weight, more resonance)

Instead we are treated to whatever kind of music happens when the Fireflies guy is having an off day and moody about cheerios not being on sale or something, which we are, I assume, meant to take as a meaningful expression of his deepest emotions but just comes off as flat, Rooney Mara having the same kind of dispassionate nodding at his work as I might have reading my coworker’s Christian unicorn poetry. Her mouth says, “that’s nice,” but her eyes say “please get hit by a car already so we can move this along”

And that is the extent of what we get about their relationship. Mara actually shines more when she is alone--one of my favorite scenes, which will doubtless be disliked by many people, is the lingering pie scene. I thought it spoke so deeply to the strange and quiet stillness of grief, her desperately eating the entire pie, sitting on the floor of the kitchen, with no backing soundtrack, no odd moments, no nothing. Just her, eating this grief pie, alone, until she throws it up, unable to handle the enormity of it all. I thought it was one of the few times the camera’s lingering gaze actually served the characters.

We never know the people he haunts either, or why. It’s easy enough, I suppose, when his wife brings a man home and he makes the lights flicker, The Latino family is handled so bogglingly within the context of the story that my wife leaned over and asked me, “so is the ghost a racist or what?” On the walk home, I explained that the ghost was frustrated by his inability to communicate with the outside world, and destruction is the only way he knows how to communicate, as it’s only the little boy that can see him. I then realized I had been writing motivation into the work--it's never stated, even indirectly, that this is the source of his frustration, and I can’t recall that he realistically tried in any other way. He simply watches a young family enjoy their lives, and then destroys their fine china.

There’s also a side ghost, who exists mainly to explain to us that a ghost can vanish when they have decided to move on, essentially.

One of the “families” the house hosts is essentially the writer’s bloviating soliloquy on the unimportance of man, which, generally, I can get into. (I leaned over to my wife at this part and said “me at parties”) But it’s another part of the movie wherein we spend too much time on a detail of no emotional consequence. The speech drags on and on about how we try to make a mark but ultimately everything fades, and all we create for is to in some small way be remembered, but its still for nothing. Our ghost makes the lights flicker, because apparently reminding him no one remembers anything he did now is less offensive than simply celebrating Christmas and eating beans, which deserves dish destruction, I don’t know.

Finally the house gets knocked down, which is another affecting scene, and you really get a sense of the way everything he knew about himself is crumbling down around him, just as he was about to get her note out of the doorframe, where she painted it before she left. It’s beautifully timed, the feel of it is crushing. I just wish I cared at all about him, so I could feel sorrow at this moment.

Anyway, the house gets covered with a high rise, which he jumps off of, but gives him no escape. Ghosts don’t fly, it seems, which works for me.

So then we get into the whole idea of time being a circle, as he gets sent back to the settlement of the american west, and gets to witness a pioneer family that we also don’t get to know in any way. The little girl sticks a piece of paper under a rock, which is supposed to be an emotionally affecting callback I am sure, and I’m over here like. “Okay but what year is this? I am thinking 1830s? Earlier? Where did she get paper? It’s expensive. How can she write well enough so young to write a note, when many early settlers were illiterate or poorly literate?”

Lest you think I am being annoying about westerns, I can be, a little, but I can totally let it slide when I give a tinker’s damn about what’s going on. At this point, I am fucking crying out for a character. Not just one I like! Just a fully realized character. That’s it. That’s all.

Anyway, the entire family gets murdered by Natives like a minute and a half after we meet them, so again I am thwarted. We watch her body decompose into the bones, because something something the enormity of time. (About that: My wife was shocked she didn’t cry, because the enormity of time always gets to her, but she was never even remotely moved to tears, which should tell you something about how this whole thing is handled)

Anyway, we’re back at the house, with he and his wife, and I know, AS A WRITER, this is where he wants to bring the hammer down. This is where, as a writer, you want to whip back the curtain and go, “BEHOLD!” But there’s nothing to behold. We finally get confirmation they were fighting about the house, and it might have had some emotional resonance that he was in the house already, that what he was really feeling was a draw to himself, if we had known they were fighting about the house and if we were allowed to see his ridiculous nonsensical attachment. When we came back to the house, we could have said, “OH SHIT HE WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME THAT’S WHY” but since we don’t lean on his attachment early, the whole thing just seems dumb.

Anyway, he’s the one who scares them where the movie opens, they spoon while a camera looks on too long, and he finally gets the note out of the doorframe, before she ever painted it in.

(I have some questions that might be interesting that I’ve been pondering.. So why settlement? Is it a house? Is a home on the residence what draws him into the circle? Is that why he didn’t go back to the primordial ooze? IS the high rise being commercial the reason he was able to throw himself off and begin again?)

He decides to move on, having read the note she painted into the house, which I can only assume says “I realize the narrative has given me no reason to miss my husband this much” and disappears.

(I do actually like that we never find out what her note said, and I think that is real and correct and if everything else in the story had been handled with more emotion and depth, it might have been lovely.

If I sound bitter, it’s mostly because the concept is so beautiful, and the epic of it could be so sweeping, if we were allowed the two seconds of emotional space to care about the characters. I actually think this could be a beautiful novel. (And you wouldn’t even have to make it gay!! (I would make it gay)) I think the general concepts of why we’re attracted to a place could be chilling if we were given that. But we aren’t. The story is so married to “Time...just epic, dude.” that it forgets that the whole reason the enormity of time scares us is that depersonalization, and if we had gotten to know our ghost at all, seeing him more and more removed from his humanity might have been amazing. But they never GIVE us that, and so I ultimately found the story very wanting, while thinking it could be a brilliant concept to use, with appropriately rich characters.

[yay855]

I’ve heard people argue that Borderlands 1 is superior to 2 in every way.

Those people are blinded by nostalgia.

To address this, I will go over each and every point to prove, once and for all, that Borderlands 2 is superior to the first game.

* Story

Some people argue that Borderlands 1′s serious story fits the themes of the series better (there are no heroes). I say, what story?

Borderlands 1 has a plot. That much is true. You, the mighty Vault Hunter, must track down the pieces of the Vault Key and open the Vault. Except that’s it. Everything else is filler! Half of the game is spent doing pointless crap that has nothing to do with anything. You hunt down random bandits and animals for no real reason!

The biggest thing to point to for this is the Rakk Hive. The Rakk Hive is supposedly the mid-boss. Except it has literally nothing to do with the story. You kill it because it’s there, because the AI told you to.

Borderlands 2, on the other hand, has an actual story. Handsome Jack is trying to control Pandora once and for all, and it’s your job to stop him, mostly out of revenge for trying to kill you. There are twists and turns and reveals, all of which hinted at by Handsome Jack but in a way that shows he knows something but you don’t know what he’s planning. The Power Core from Wilhelm? Angel? Roland? The Warrior? It all weaves together to make a true story.

* Gameplay

Borderlands 1′s gameplay was, quite frankly, complete shit compared to the sequel. You know why?

In the original Borderlands, your aim with weapons was determined by your skill with that weapon, and using it successfully made your skill go up. While this was good for automatic weapons, the fact remained that a good number of the weapons ingame were semi-auto. And slow to shoot, at that.

Now, this, in and of itself, is not a huge problem. The problem was that your accuracy and your weapon sway did not match. You could shoot along the sights and your bullets would still go flying every which way if you didn’t have max skill with that weapon.

The result is that characters meant to use high-power, low-fire-rate weapons were completely useless. Because you could aim your sniper rifle at someone ten feet away from you, directly at their chest, and it would go flying off to the side unless you already had skill with that weapon. Given that each character starts out with minimum skill with each weapon, and that you have two characters meant to use low-fire-rate weapons, including a sniper, that was a problem.

Revolvers, assault rifles, and especially sniper rifles were 100% useless unless you repeatedly hit people with them point-blank. That is the opposite of how good gunplay works!

Meanwhile, Borderlands 2 throws out that frustrating weapon skill mechanic, and also makes your gun always shoot at where your iron sights/crosshair are pointing. Even sniper rifles with low accuracy can headshot your target, it just takes longer to line up the reticle.

Furthermore, the skills are just plain better. Instead of pure passive bonuses that have very little effect on gameplay that were in 1, 2 gives you unique abilities that change how your character plays. Zero, for example, has a skill at the very end of one of his trees that refreshes his stealth timer if he kills someone while stealthed, allowing him to take out entire bandit camps without being spotted. While Lilith’s final skill in her stealth tree just gives her more melee damage while stealthed.

* Guns and Manufacturers

This is admittedly a rather good point- in Borderlands 1, each weapon manufacturer had a different bonus, such as Dahl, which has higher recoil reduction but lower accuracy. Meanwhile, in 2, many weapon manufacturers have something more unique to them- like Hyperion, which previously increased recoil reduction and accuracy, but now has reverse-recoil, causing your guns to become more accurate the more you fire them. Borderlands 2 also removed the Atlas manufacturer (without replacing it, unlike S&S and Bandit manufacturers), which was known for having better damage and magazine capacity.

I’d argue that, although Hyperion’s quirk is hard to use for most weapons, and Dahl’s quirk makes their sniper rifles useless, the manufacturers are far more distinct than before. A Hyperion shotgun (that doesn’t use up all its ammo in three shots) can be used at mid range if it has fast enough reload, and the rest can be used fairly easily (again, aside from Dahl sniper rifles, which are useless due to the recoil causing every shot but the first to miss unless you’re already super close to the target). In fact, I’d argue that Jakobs and Torque are far better than before- Jakobs is one of the only manufacturers that makes semi-automatic weapons (Dahl and Maliwan make semi-auto pistols, but no one else does), and their weapons are always guaranteed to have very high stats in everything but ammo capacity. Jakobs revolvers and sniper rifles are some of the best weapons in the game, while Torque weapons chew through everything in sight.

And the best part is that, unlike in the first game, where every weapon looked the damn same, Borderlands 2′s weapons have designs fitting their manufacturer. Bandit weapons are painted with intimidating designs and colors and made of random parts strapped together, Dahl weapons are camo green and use military designs, Hyperion uses bright yellow and black, Jakobs has intricately-tooled patterns at higher ranks and is designed after old-west guns, Maliwan uses smooth and rounded parts distinct from all other manufacturers, Tediore uses plaids and other interesting patterns to convey a cheap look, Torque is painted with racing stripes and bright colors and often resembles car parts, and Vladof uses wood and the communist symbol. You can immediately tell what manufacturer a weapon is by examining the colors and parts, even without examining its stats. There is far more pride in owning a weapon with a unique design than just unique stats.

* Characters

One argument against Borderlands 2 is its emphasis on humor. The characters are always joking around and goofing off, and talking at length about why they want you to do their task. That detracts from the greater themes of the series, some say.

I argue otherwise. Borderlands 1 was a very bleak game, both in terms of its nonexistent story, and its characters. Everyone was either upset or apathetic.

Borderlands 2 truly drives home the theme of the series (there are no heroes) with its emphasis on humor and explanations.

See, Borderlands 1 doesn’t really give us characters- they’re more bundles of traits than anything. They have no real life to them. Borderlands 2 makes them people, with goals, likes, etc.

However, Borderlands 2 also makes it extremely clear that they are, and always have been, only slightly less evil than everyone else. Or in some cases, more evil.

Take, for example, Marcus. He’s always been a greedy fellow, but now he’s friendly and cheerful. And he also uses competitors, shoplifters, and other people who upset him as targets in his practice range.

Or Doctor Zed. Yes, he’s helpful, and a dedicated practitioner of medicine, but he’s also completely broken his Hippocratic oath many times over without a care. He harms, kills, and butchers with not a care in the world.

Or Scooter. In Borderlands 1, we only knew he had a bizarre obsession with his mother’s vagina. In 2, we learn that his mother belonged to a very redneck bandit clan who are idiot savants when it comes to vehicles, and (considering she’s still very young despite having two full-grown children and they all have a very passionate hatred for her clan) was likely raped by a family member multiple times at a young age. Oh, and Scooter is just as incestuous as his potential father, but also does not force himself onto others (he instead refuses to accept a no, but he also doesn’t force them to do anything, he just keeps sending them flowers and shitty poetry).

These dichotomies, characters who are friendly and helpful but still very much bad people, is exactly what the games are going for. You are not the hero, you are not a good guy, and neither is anyone you befriend. You are just one more bad person on the planet of Pandora. The only ones who aren’t truly bad people are either insane, or killed off.

And that, my friends, is why Borderlands 2 is superior in every way to Borderlands 1.

#borderlands

[violetsystems]

#personal

These days I can’t leave my house too late on a Friday night.  If I do I always end up having an escort.   Some kid from the neighborhood in a spider-man hoodie watching my back.  Mostly to the gas station and back.  People keep close tabs on me regardless.  More so these days than ever.  These days are admittedly kind of weird and confusing for everybody.  I was reading about the outcome of the Mueller investigation and it is plausible there was no collusion.  We’ll never know really.  But ultimately, Trump isn’t a person who particularly cares all that much about America.  He represents something very real that gurgles and spurts out of swamps and cesspools.  He and his followers unabashedly admit it.  Some people even seem to have grown to accept the turbulence.  Others like myself have realized the other glaringly obvious fact.  These people aren’t particularly smart.  The Bannon article in Vogue taught me one other thing.  When confronted and put on the spot, most of these people would rather feign ignorance and run away.  They’re slippery like that.  But ultimately they are guided and fueled by finite resources and unsustainable behaviors on the world stage.  And the obvious churn of the global economy has something to answer to for our bad leadership no doubt.  Some might argue this was all very necessary.  To demean and attack women.  To promote xenophobia and stoke division.  About the only two people I really pay attention to in politics are Ilhan and AOC.  There are often times I disagree but feel engaged in a common dialogue.  I see women in power representing very diverse views on a world stage.  Everyone is watching us.  I was reading about Iran’s “resistance” to current trends in American politics.  I took to the tone of it very immediately.  It felt measured.  I’ve been thinking about Iran a lot in terms of cinema.  Cinema has always been the most honest eye into culture for me.  Chan Wook Park and Bong Joon Ho were the first people to introduce me to Korea cinema.  I learned the basics of a language completely alien to me through their aid.  In China exactly one province over from my favorite city in the universe, Jia Zhangke’s “The Platform” introduced me to forbidden cinema.  His films were banned.  He was a breakdancer at some point I’ve read.  Banned films are always sort of an oddity.  In America, it seems we are only attracted to the most shocking of things.  Nuances and tenderness are always lost in a sea of words.  Although Mandy was pretty fucking good for the record.

I watched the first part of into the spider-verse on the couch last week.  I needed to be in the right state of mind to finish it.  Truthfully, a lot of things have been asked of me over the course of I don’t know how long.  Here it’s been a running record.  A tally for the right people to understand where I’m coming from.  And largely it’s been the only place these days where I feel like I have a voice.  Voting aside.  I started reading the Auge book on the super modern and non-spaces.  Whereas years ago, tribes of people were more focused on creating TAZ’s (temporary autonomous zones) Auge says solitude has evolved into an important archeological fact.  I’ve been alone for a really long time.  It’s a dull ache at times and other times it’s directly in my face.  The reality of it all.  For better or for worse.  It’s all backwards at this point.  I’ve been thinking a lot about fog of war.  People seem to think I act in tandem with some group.  Like I’m some sort of movement.  People exaggerate and project their fears all too often.  All too often we react.  Give up valuable information.  One of the most amazing talents to me about models on the runaway is their ability to visually display a sort of poetry of form.  That there is no real differentiation between the outfit and the wearer.  There’s a performance in that.  One displayed most eloquently between a collaboration by Merce Cunningham and Rei Kawakubo.  An intersect of movement, design and the celebration of the human form.  Becoming something else or becoming more at peace with the moment.  Fashion and grace are linked together in our minds.  Men’s street wear notwithstanding.  Undercover introduced me to Nike through their running gear years ago.  Before that Jun’s aesthetic spoke to me as a sort of disruption.  A return to punk but not in the burn all your record collection and start up a label.  I bought this sweatshirt in the madstore once in parco that said “we make noise not clothes.”  Ironically years later, nobody remembers a thing I did musically.  A friend from Korea in town only jogged my memory about a show I did for Seoul Community Radio.  I remember recording it before they ever set up the video stream.  They were friends of some people from Cakeshop.  I had visited Seoul a total of fourteen times.  Next week will be my third trip to New York this year.  The streets are a runway out there.  And the streets are always watching.  And somehow I seem to remain free to roam about the cabin.  Effortlessly draped in the same old shit with maybe a bagel from Katz and a trip to the Rick Owens showroom on a whim.

I’ve been running to podcasts a lot more lately.  The last one I did was a five mile.  At the end, the coach asks you to run for someone who really inspires you.  It’s at the end of the fourth mile.  It hurts.  You push through and you think of that person.  The other day I was skating near the train yards.  Somebody ran right through.  Kept pushing through unfamiliar terrain.  Me deadass in their face with not much patience left in the world.  And somehow I know when it’s ok and when it’s complete bullshit.  Because I care enough to pay attention.  If America in this cycle of politics teaches anyone anything, people will say anything to get elected.  People make promises to everyone.  But people always end up watching from behind the scenes.  And you can’t hide anywhere.  I guess the real question is what are you actually hiding from?  The old “what is it where is it how will it affect me?”  The first question people want to know is “why should I care?”  Sell me on this empathy thing.  You have thirty seconds.  Shoot.  Nobody has the luxury of time.  Nobody seems to have an endgame.  Nobody talks to each other and everybody is afraid.  Which is why people need inspiration sometimes.  Being a hero is something I read all too much about.  I grew up on comics.  It was only maybe last April that my dad sent me home with my entire collection.  I think they were getting ready to sell that house.  Either way I’ve spent a lot of my time revisiting and reorganizing the things I’ve been inspired by over the years.  They always come back to haunt me.  These days I can’t shake the things that inspire me.  There’s too much love there.  It seems to affect things around me lately.  For awhile I think people couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t react.  Why I was so secretive.  Why I said things without really saying them.  Why I choose my words wisely.  Why I focused so intently on the things that meant so much to me without even questioning.  I questioned a lot of myself in my back room for months.  What it was that I was doing.  The truth was I was sharing power.  Because I care about the future of America.  The only person I colluded with was someone I love very dearly.  Because I care about her too.  If she doesn’t know by now I figure the best way to show it is by saying absolutely nothing at all.  Isn’t that how it works in movies.  Then I pop out of the void of La Guardia and say some dumb shit like “i love you babe” vanishing off into the night in my dilapidated tech wear.  I’ll leave the spider-man costumes to the pros.  <3 Tim

[mandysimo13]

Yay I love these!!! For the prompt #3 post, Hannigram #18, and #22!!! In that order! 💜💜💜

Hello, @theycantstopthesignal​ my lovely! Thank you for being so patient and waiting on this! Hopefully it was worth the wait!

#18. “I have a child?”#22. “I panicked, okay?!”

Will picked up his phone, unsurprised to see Hannibal’s name glowing on the screen. He answered and was greeted with Hannibal’s rich voice.

“Good afternoon, Will. Have I caught you at a bad time?”

“No,” Will told him. “I was just coming in with the dogs. What’s going on?”

“It seems you’ve become familiar with one of my patients. A Miss Margot Verger.”

Will swallowed. It wasn’t exactly a secret but he didn’t want to talk to Hannibal Lecter about what he got up to with other consenting adults. “I did. We’ve had a few drinks. Talked.”

“Did more than that, it seems.”

Will frowned, unsure of why Hannibal was calling him about Margot. “I don’t see how that’s your concern. Why? Has something happened to Margot?”

“In a manner of speaking. Please, come into my office during her session today. I think it would be more appropriate for her to tell you why she’s coming in today.”

That can’t be a good sign, Will thought with dread filling his veins. He cleared his throat, “yeah, sure. I’ll be there. What time?”

Details settled, Will spent the rest of his morning trying to clear the sense of impending doom from his mind. He worked in his shop until his focus was beyond helping. Then he forced himself to eat a lunch before taking the dogs out for another walk. By the time he had rolled into a parking space at Hannibal’s office, nerves had settled under his skin like acid, making him jittery. He took a deep breath, steeling himself before going to meet Hannibal and Margot. 

Hannibal greeted him and let him step into his office where Margot was already present and seated. 

“Hello, Margot,” he said. 

“Hey, Will.” She smiled mirthlessly. “Long time, no see.”

“Margot,” Hannibal prompted. “Why don’t you tell Will why we’re all here today?”

She sighed deeply, looking slightly ashamed. Will felt panic claw at his throat. Clearly, whatever was coming next was not going to be pleasant for any of them. 

Finally, she looked up at him. “Will, I’m pregnant.”

The air left his lungs quickly, deflating and leaving him slightly dizzy. “Uh,” he gaped, uncomprehending. “How?”

Margot smirked. “Well, when two people really like-”

“I know how, Margot,” Will snapped. “What I really want to know is how? I thought-”

“I lied,” she said simply. 

Will sank onto the couch, processing. He whispered, more to himself than anything else, “I have a child?” He was still coming to terms with the idea of fatherhood while Margot went on talking about her plan, blue strips, and her own special brand of buyer’s remorse. 

“What do you want from me,” he asked finally.

“Nothing,” she told him honestly. “Or as much as you’re willing to give.”

Will huffed. I can work with that, he thought silently. Might be shit at it but…it could work.

                                   ~*~*~*~Almost 4 years later~*~*~*~

Hannibal’s eyes were planted firmly on the road while they made their way to his safe house. While they both knew it would never be truly safe, not with Jack and the Red Dragon coming down on them fast, it would be stocked with what they needed to wait everything out comfortably. Will knew Hannibal had no intentions of going back to his cell at the institution. And, truth be told, he didn’t want him to. He was just as conflicted about his feelings for Hannibal right then as he was almost four years prior. 

He had been ready to throw it all away. Ready to throw Jack, Alana, the dogs, his career, his life, all of it away to give Hannibal a chance. He had wanted to go with him. He had wanted to find a place for them both to exist. He would have found a way to catch up. If only Hannibal hadn’t been so goddamn selfish. 

If only he hadn’t needed to be so goddamn dramatic. 

The sting of Abigail’s loss was still fresh, even after all this time. As did the loss of his and Margot’s child, though that ache was admittedly less sharp. It was a soft melancholy of “what could have been”, springing to life and ending too quickly to really grasp the concept of having become a parent. And he had never really asked Hannibal why he had shattered his magically repaired teacup. Or why he had ripped Margot’s insides apart by proxy. The question had gnawed at him during their time apart and yet…he had never asked.

Well, no time like the present, he thought.

“Why did you do it,” he asked Hannibal.

“Do what, Will? You’re going to have to be a touch more specific.”

“Why did you shatter the teacup? Why did you snuff out a life that meant nothing to you?”

“You are speaking of your brief stint as a father with Margot. And of Abigail.”

Will swallowed thickly. “Yes.”

“To be honest,” Hannibal said with a sigh, “I am not proud of either.”

“Then why did you do it? Why did you sic Mason on Margot? Why did you kill Abigail,” he asked, anger flaring in him.

Hannibal, without taking his eyes off the road, “I panicked.”

“You…you panicked?!”

“Yes, I panicked, okay?!”

“You couldn’t panic like a normal person and go on a drinking binge?! You couldn’t write some angsty poetry or go see Bedelia before you went and took our children from us!”

“Our children,” Hannibal said with surprise.

“Yes! Our children!” Will’s anger left him as suddenly as it came on. “You had as much a hand in creating them, putting them in our life as I did. You said as much yourself with Abigail. “We are her fathers now”. You said that.”

Hannibal was silent for a moment before asking, “and with Margot?”

“It was through you that we had met. It was through you that we bonded. Before we “bonded”. You touch everything I do without even realizing it, you know. Even when I was holding her, drunkenly rutting into her, you were in my head speaking to me.” He sighed, crossed his arms, and moved to stare out his window. “You were there, maybe not in body but certainly in mind.”

Silence enveloped them once more, stretching long between them. Then, unexpectedly, Hannibal pulled to the side of the road. He put the car in park and put a hand on Will’s thigh. Surprised by the movement, Will turned to look at the man who had run him through every emotion a person could have, the one who tortured him endlessly with all manner of sweet temptations and wicked acts. And once more, he felt trepidation settle over him as he looked on the face of Hannibal Lecter.

“Will, I can honestly say that I am sorry. For every hurt that I have caused you. For denying you parenthood, affection, and clarity. I have impossibly stained your trust in me, if you had any to begin with. For that, I am truly sorry.” 

Will nodded. “How does one go about forgiving such a laundry list of grievances?”

“One doesn’t. One settles the score. Equalizes. Only then, can one move on.”

Will hummed in acceptance. “There’s no way to take from you what you took from me.”

“Not now,” Hannibal agreed. “But I’m sure, resourceful as you are, that you will find a way to repay me in kind.”

“Then you know that, from now until I’ve scarred you as deeply as you’ve scarred me, that you will not be safe with me.”

Hannibal nodded. “But then, I’ve always known you were not safe, Will. Not for me.” With that, he put the car back in gear and continued down the road to the safe house. 

After all, there was still much left to say and do before the night was out. 

#hannibal #theycantstopthesignal #fic #ficlet #tumblr prompt #writing #my writing

[uro-boros]

sidequests

Missed connection:

You, with the bloody knuckles, angry and wound up like you were set to burst.

Me, blue balls, and bluer, hypothermic, balls.

–

It’s Marco who leans over to whisper conspiratorially in his ear, “That’s Eren, you should talk to him.” He says it with a smile that dimples both cheeks, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he’d funneled vodka down Jean’s throat like it was going out of style, he could be mistaken for the picture of angelic innocence. 

As it is, he’s funneled vodka down Jean’s throat. As it is, Jean’s spent the better part of two and a half years in love with him, wasting his lit major on truly terrible poetry about longing and unrequited love. Not that he thought it was terrible. His professor told him that.

“Nah,” he says instead, glancing quickly over at Eren – eyebrows knitted, frowning, fingers clasped around a dart – “I’m here for you, babe,” he winks, and it feels less stupid than it is because Marco laughs and because he has half a bottle of hard liquor sloshing around in his stomach.

Regrets, like hangovers, are saved for morning afters.

–

When he’s eighteen, he’s in love with Maxim models and busty Asian beauties that live on seedy websites. Nineteen comes with the shock of Marco who is neither a Maxim model nor a busty Asian beauty, but who Jean’s dick is definitely, definitely interested in.

It’s not what he’s expecting, but he likes to think he’s a liberal guy, so it’s fine. It’s cool. Marco’s hot. Marco’s nice and easy to talk to, and seems to think Jean is better than Jean actually is. He hasn’t really tried hard to dissuade Marco of that notion just yet.

“Well,” he says to himself, laying in his dorm bed after the first jerk-off session that features Marco prominently. “Well.”

His breathing feels ragged, like he’s just run a marathon. He thinks of Marco’s smile, and his dick gives a hopeful, pathetic twitch.

“Well, fuck,” he says, and rolls over to try to sleep.

–

“Fuck you, fuck you!” Jean hears shouted from across the street, a door slamming to accompany it. “God, you’re such a fucking asshole, I never should have–!”

Whatever comes next gets lost in the rain, but it sounds a lot like a fist hitting a wall, a yell strangled halfway through.

He doesn’t mean to look. It’s policy number one to let people deal with their own shit.

But maybe he’s feeling particularly maudlin tonight or maybe particularly lonely. Marco’s girlfriend moved in, and Jean smiled and toasted them and wished them all the best, and now he’s here, in the rain and fucking drenched without an umbrella, watching someone pace and shiver under a streetlight.

“Hey,” he calls, “you okay?”

The figure under the light stops.

“Are you talking to me?” It says. It’s hard to hear over the rain. 

This is weird, Jean thinks. He’s weird for doing this. Why is he doing this?

“I – I just heard,” his mouth forms before he can stop it. He hates vodka, and loves Marco. He can already feel a headache forming. “It just didn’t sound good,” he says.

The figure doesn’t move or answer.

Jean waits.

And waits.

And waits. Until he’s officially soaked and done with this, and the only sound is the sound of the rain, hitting the ground hard. 

And in the darkness, between the roars of the deluge, he hears: “Have you ever loved someone you really, really shouldn’t?”

Which yeah, is pretty much his fucking existence at this point.

“Yeah,” he says back. “Shit fucking sucks.”

There’s a startled laugh and the figure shifts, maybe like it’s turning away. “Yeah,” it agrees, “shit really fucking sucks.”

–

“I think you’d like Eren,” says Marco the next day, way too brightly for someone who passed out in the bathroom next to his girlfriend the night before. “And you should really get out and date more.”

“You my mom?” Jean asks him, eyebrow arching. “Also, why Eren? I like women.”

“And guys,” Marco grins. Jean regrets telling him that. He continues, a little more delicately than the bulldozing he’s been pulling on Jean: “And I think you two would be good together. Eren needs someone…a little sweeter.”

“I’m sweet?” he asks, shaking his head. “Nah, Marco, I’m good.” Quieter, he goes on, “I met someone last night anyway.”

The professor comes in and lecture starts before Marco can press, though he clearly wants to. 

There are small mercies and miracles in the world. Sometimes, they even deign to save Jean.

–

Who did you meet, his phone buzzes in class, are they nice? are they cute? what’s their name? how did you meet? at my party? You have to tell me!

Jean ignores it because it feels stupid to type back, I found them crying outside in the rain after getting kicked out of someone’s place. It feels dumber to say that he has no idea who they are or if that even counts as a meeting.

Five minutes in the rain and shared heartbreak. A missed connection for something that never existed. A point of time that only existed on the edge of something else – of other relationships and other people.

Talk about romantic.

Instead, he thumbs his phone off and ducks out of class right as the professor finishes up. Marco pouts at him from the seats, but waves back when Jean waves at him.

–

Of course, his fingers are stupid.

Missed connection, he writes, on the stupid forum he signed up for as a freshman and then promptly never used.

You, crying, doesn’t sound fair. Me, pining for someone else, isn’t either.

He writes something dumb.

Hits enter.

Later, this will be a grave mistake, and also something brilliant. The universe has a weigh of balancing.

–

His inbox blows up with precisely four messages in the first two hours. By hour six, he’s at ten – a dozen or so likes, more laughing emojis. A few comments on his balls, which he deserves, admittedly.

Then, this:

Missed Connection:

Me, breaking up with my boyfriend.

You, shouting at me from across the street like some freak, who the fuck does that? 

But also me: love is kind of shitty, let’s get a drink. I never learn from my mistakes, so why start now? ;)

The profile associated with it is newly made – there’s no picture, just a silhouette of a head and shoulders, and the profile name only reads E.

How am I supposed to do that, he writes back with shaky hands.

Figure it out, says E. Which – isn’t helpful in the slightest.

Jean feels himself grinning in spite of it.

–

That’s when shit goes down, predictably. It takes off like a wildfire – missed connections and blue balls, the mysterious E, and a drink on the line. Jean gets hundreds and hundreds of messages with suggestions that turn into thousands. 

Marco texts him in all caps and half emojis, and calls him three times in the span of twenty minutes, breathless and laughing.

The reporters bite next.

Modern day Cinderella, goes up an article on the school’s news site the next morning. His name is in it, and his school picture, his major and even his fucking favorite movie (Marco), and it spells out the details of Marco’s party – at a bar, not a ball, though the way it’s spun in the report paints it in a lot more grand of detail than the reality of the dingy student bar – and Jean leaving at midnight.

“I went home at two,” he points out to Marco, “after puking in the bathroom.” Marco waves a hand.

“Details,” he says, dismissive.

It’s ridiculous.

“Everyone’s really into this,” Marco tells him earnestly. He’s smiling; a soft blush has spread across his cheeks and his hair, unruly, keeps falling into his eyes. Jean wants to push it away. 

“Yeah, well,” he says, looking away and clearing his throat, “I have three thousand emails from people saying they’re E, and another ten thousand of people telling me who they think E is. So. I don’t exactly see anything happening from this.”

“Come on, don’t be like that,” says Marco. “It’s romantic. You never know what could happen.”

“They deleted their profile,” Jean tells him. The initial rush has died down. He still wants Marco, and swallows it the thought down the back of his throat like a bitter drink. “And the school is huge.”

“You’re such a defeatist,” Marco sighs. “I could always text Eren if you want a date." 

Before Jean can say no, Marco sighs again, his eyes gentle and his lips curving into a slightly sad smile. "But that's a no, isn't it?" 

Jean rubs his hand on the back of his neck and shrugs. "You know me," he trails. "Well, you know me."

--

It takes him approximately twenty minutes to walk from campus to his apartment, depending on weather and other things, like blood alcohol content.

But mid-afternoon on a spring Tuesday is a quiet type of day, and Jean doesn't day drink as a rule (an easily broken one, but still, a rule). He gets out of his last class of the day at about thirty minutes past one. His papers are written, and possible tests are a distant problem for future Jean. He's bored and vaguely lonely, a tiny itching sensation under his skin. He's also resolutely ignoring his phone, which has more texts on it than he's ever received in his life. 

He tugs the beanie on his head a little further down around his ears. Combined with his glasses, it's proven an effective disguise for navigating the worst of campus busy spots despite his new and unexpected popularity. 

It's not quite effective enough to stop Eren Jaeger. 

"Hey!" Comes a shout from behind him. "Hey, hey, hold up." Jean keeps walking. Maybe even at a slightly faster pace. 

"Don't be a dick! I said hold up!" The voice shouts again. There's a distinct huff and then the sound of feet hitting the pavement hard. Then, a distinct presence beside him. 

"Hey," says the presence. 

Jean turns his head and says, "If you're here about that post online, I don't want to talk about it." 

Then he sees who's next to him. 

"What?" Says Eren, blinking at him. His brow furrows. "Uh, no, whatever, you're Marco's friend, right? John?" 

"Uh," Jean says smartly. Which isn't fair to him. He actually is pretty smart. 

Eren waits. His arms are wrapped around a big duffle, nearly half his size. He's a little smaller than Jean, in all, and takes a half step more for every one Jean takes. Slowing his pace is an unconscious action. 

"John," repeats Eren slowly, "Marco's friend?" 

"It's actually Jean," he finally manages at a point long enough after Eren’s question for Eren’s expectant waiting to go from exasperated to oh, he’s slow.

“Jean,” Eren corrects himself. “Marco’s friend.”

“Yeah,” says Jean, “Marco’s friend.” He wonders when German lost so many words -- maybe the dictionary shit itself at some point in the last ten minutes, reducing its contents to Jean, John, Marco, and friend. With the way his life has been going, he wouldn’t be surprised. 

Eren smiles. His cheeks don’t dimple with it, the way Marco’s do, but the curve of his lips is plush and mischievous. “Let’s get a drink.”

-- That’s how, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, Jean gets disgustingly drunk. 

Eren’s preferred drink of choice is Fireball, which is disgusting; his second choice is whiskey-coke, which is marginally better. “Everyone always thinks it’s going to be Jägermeister, because my last name is Jaeger, so fucking funny, ha ha,” he tells Jean sometime during the first round. 

“So, Fireball is your teenage rebellion?” Jean asks him and gets a cackle in response.

“Something like that,” Eren acknowledges, and folds his arms across the table, laying his head down on them. His eyes are green and intense; Jean feels caught under them, pierced and pieced out. He seems to be waiting for something, but what, Jean doesn’t know. 

He orders a second round as an escape, and a third round to forget.

The fourth round is so that Eren doesn’t go home, and the fifth so Jean goes back with him when he does.

--

The stripping and sex is furious and fast. Jean’s too drunk to slow either of them down.

He thinks it hurts Eren, at some point, maybe in the middle of it. There’s a part where Eren’s expression screws up tight and he gasps a noise that sounds wrenched from him, but when Jean goes to stop, he can’t, urged on by Eren’s grip around his shoulders and his slurred come on, come on, harder. He thinks, maybe the pain is deeper than where he can reach, and it’s an unfair thought. He’s drunk. He bites Eren’s shoulder and fucks him hard like Eren begs him to.

He’ll be nicer in the morning. It’s always easier in the morning.

--

It’s never easier in the morning, especially when you wake up hungover in a bed that isn’t your own, covered in purpling bites and reddened welts from blunt nails.

Jean wakes up with a hangover, aching, and in an empty bed. He isn’t particularly surprised by any of that 

There’s a yellow sticky note on the nightstand, next to some Advil, a bottle of water, and his clothes, folded in meticulous, military-neat folds underneath.

He takes his time waking up, blinking blearily at the popcorn ceiling, stretching his shoulders and feeling them pop with a satisfying burst of pain. When he feels ready, he rolls over and grabs at the note.

Thanks for getting a drink with me, it says in slanted, loping cursive. I have class, but there’s some leftover pizza in the fridge if you wake up and you’re hungry. I’m out at 2.   

It’s a pretty polite way to let someone down after a one-stand, in all, and even gives a helpful time to be out by. Jean scans it a few times before the words connect to any sort of meaning in his head; then he stands, pops the Advil, and dresses. 

He fishes his phone out of his pocket -- and winces when the screen comes on at full brightness. Dozens of voice mails, hundreds of texts, all some variation of asks about E. He doesn’t know; hungover, he doesn’t particularly fucking care about E. It was a throwaway post, because Jean felt sappy and sad, and someone else had also been sad, and now it defines him.

It makes his hackles raise for a brief second, but his head hurts and the effort that anger takes isn’t worth sustaining. He presses delete on the voice mails and delete on the texts.

There are five from Marco. His heart hurts more than his head.

Jean hits delete on those too.

--

Sometime on the way home, his phone dies. He lets it stay off, pulling his blinds shut and crawling into bed.

You’re such a defeatist, Marco had chided him. But it was easier, wasn’t it, to always expect failure and not victory.

--

He wakes up to a banging on his door that he can’t ignore like he can his phone.

“What, Marco, I don’t feel like talking --“ he starts before cutting himself off. In front of him, with a plastic bag of Chinese takeout, is Eren Jaeger. 

“Um,” says Jean, realizing he’s standing in his doorway in boxers.

“I saw it all last night,” Eren says cheerfully, pushing his way past Jean’s arm and to the shitty, wobbly table in Jean’s living room. “Come on, come on, I brought lunch.”

He’s already unloading noodles onto plates, handing one over to Jean as soon as Jean, a little blown away, sits down. “You know,” Eren says, pointing the prongs of his fork at Jean before biting into a piece of broccoli, “I said I’d be back at two. And you didn’t give me your number? I had to ask Marco, and then you didn’t pick up your phone, so then I had to ask Marco for where you lived, and it was an entire thing, so don’t do that again.” 

“My phone died,” Jean says lamely.

Eren nods. “Yeah, I figured.” And he smiles, and it’s a nice smile, even if it’s not Marco’s smile, thinks Jean. It’s nice because it’s Eren’s smile. 

He may be a little overwhelmed. 

“This is probably a lot,” continues Eren, with a hand wave at the Chinese food and himself. “But you know, I’m batting three out of three right now, what with finding you, getting the drink, and fixing the blue balls, so I thought I could push my luck a little. If this isn’t cool, though, I get it.”

“It’s cool,” Jean says reflexively. Then, “Three out of three?”

“Yeah?” Eren quirks an eyebrow. “I mean, technically, I told you to figure it out, but whatever. Worked out in the end.”

Jean swallows. It feels weirdly hard to do.

“You’re E. Because E stands for Eren. You’re Eren.”

“Yeah,” Eren says encouragingly. “Me, Eren. You, Jean.” There is a pregnant pause, as gears begin to turn and the pieces begin to click.

“Oh god,” Eren says, his gentle mocking tone from earlier fraying at the ends and bleeding into panic, “you didn’t know it was me, did you?”

Jean swallows again; this time, it’s like swallowing sand. “No,” he teases out from his suddenly uncooperative tongue.

Eren’s expression is caught between various shades of horror. Jean forces himself to swallow for a third time.

“Did you know,” he says, nearly strangling himself to get it out, “that Marco and like, half of the student population, wants us to date? It’s going to be a little disappointing for them if all we did was bang.”

The horrified cast of Eren’s expression eases just a little. “Yeah,” he says, “guess we can’t do that.”

“No,” Jean agrees, “I guess we’ll just have to go on a date after all.”

The smile he gets is worth it.

#eren jaeger #jean kirschstein #erejean #snk #attack on titan #ficlet thingy majiger

[bubble-tea-bunny]

Got This Sin in Her Brain [Jerome Valeska x Reader]

Author’s Note: I would greet y’all a Happy Valentine’s Day since this is a Valentine’s Day fic, but… it’s not Valentine’s Day anymore lol. I did start writing it the day of, to be fair, but it took a while since I haven’t written prose lately (more poetry, for class) and by the time I finished it was past 1! Hope this is okay. I was liking it when I first started but as I gradually got more tired I wasn’t sure if what I wrote was even good haha.

Word Count: 2,417

It’s a special day.

What do they call this type of thing? A “red-letter day”? The idiom makes you smile slightly to yourself. The color is especially fitting for this day in particular. And as you stand now before the full-length mirror, surveying your form, you realize that yeah, it is fitting, and you’re milking it for all its worth.

The deep red of your dress complements your skin tone, giving it a sort of glow. This is certainly a step away from your normal attire, but you’d been told to dress nicely, and luckily it only took searching through a few boutiques in the city to find the perfect mid-thigh length ensemble, with its sweetheart neckline and soft fabric that clung to your curves.

You take a step closer to the mirror and press your lips together to check if the lipstick has dried. You’re satisfied to find that it has, and you tilt your head in thought, index finger resting gently on your bottom lip. Perhaps the red lipstick had been too much? But as you continue to study your figure in the mirror, you decide the bold choice of red on red should stay. It’s only for a day that comes once a year after all, and really, when else would you dress like this?

Your hand drops back down to your side and you nod resolutely. It feels… unusual, to don such a different style, but it doesn’t look bad. Your eyes drop down to your collarbones and the expanse of skin left exposed by the lower neckline, and as if on cue you feel a rush of air pass over them. You exhale slowly to prevent shuddering from the coolness and brush some hair over your shoulders. When you’re content with how you look, you twirl around and rush over to the bed to grab your clutch—which isn’t red, surprise surprise. It’s black.

Jerome waits at the base of the stairs, gradually growing more impatient with every second and eager to start the events of the evening. When he hears the click of your heels along the second floor landing, he twists around, smirks, tucks his hands into the pockets of his slacks. There’s a combination of things swirling behind those dark orbs of his. Pride, for one. A carnal hunger second. You can’t see any of these from the top of the stairs.

In a manner considered to be quite cliché, that you won’t deny, you slowly make your way down each step, hand sliding along the railing for support. The metal is cold in your palm, a contrast to the rest of your body which feels quite warm beneath Jerome’s gaze. It reminds you of a lion stalking its prey, bracing itself to pounce and go in for the kill. It’s not an intentional dynamic. It just plays out that way almost naturally, for Jerome does have the air of an apex predator, confident and precise and deadly. No one could match that, much less you. And it’s not as if you have a desire to. Jerome is the best at what he does.

When you reach the first floor, your hand slides off the railing and you grip at your clutch with both hands, and you’re thankful you have it to hold. Had it not been here, you would instead be wrenching your hands together in nervousness. This is the first time Jerome is seeing the outfit you had chosen. He had left it up to you to decide, and you didn’t want him to see any part of it until the day of.

Jerome is glad he waited.

“You look…” he trails off, trying to find the perfect word. “ravishing.” In a show of satisfaction of his choice of word, he grins widely, teeth showing, and it is not an expression at all reminiscent of innocence or sheepishness. You say that because you remember reading that as the definition of grin… somewhere… A broad smile conveying innocence, sheepishness, embarrassment, or happiness. Jerome’s trademark Cheshire cat simper fits none of those. Well, maybe except happiness, though not of the innocent kind.

“Thank you.” You accept the praise gladly, smiling slightly. Once upon a time you might have shied away, blushed, waved it off as no big deal. But you’ve learned many things from time spent with your beloved boyfriend, and one is that you take all compliments in stride, allow it to empower you. Monkey see, monkey do. Isn’t that right?

Jerome takes the few steps toward you, eyes sliding down from yours to survey the neckline, which emphasizes your chest. His eyes are glued to the curve of your breasts, watches the way your chest rises gently and then falls, only to repeat as you breathe steadily. You straighten your back beneath his scrutinizing gaze, which only serves to push your breasts out more. Jerome squashes down a groan. He takes a hand out of his pocket and reaches up, pushing your hair away and back over your shoulder, effectively undoing the work you’d done less than five minutes ago. Cool air passes over your exposed skin again, but this time you can’t suppress the slight shudder despite exhaling slowly. It could be the unexpectedness of the cold. It could be the lasciviousness with which Jerome’s gaze roves over you.

“I almost want to cancel those dinner plans,” Jerome admits, eyes finding yours again. Even without further explanation it’s easy to understand why he might want to stay in instead. You wouldn’t mind, because it’s still time spent with him, but you were rather excited to wear your little number tonight. So you voice that to him.

“But I was excited to wear this out.” You motion to your dress. “I doubt I’ll wear it any other day.”

Jerome hums. “Then the events of tonight proceed! Wouldn’t want to disappoint the missus.” He holds an arm out for you to take, wide grin back on his face. “Shall we?”

As per usual, the drive to the restaurant on the other side of town is about fifteen minutes shorter than it logistically should be due to Jerome’s driving tendencies. There was a point where his risky maneuvers may have worried you, the way he squeezes into tiny spaces to change lanes and pass cars, his almost instantaneous accelerations the moment the light turns green, tires screeching with the harsh push. And on late nights there’s the swerving back and forth through all the lanes because there’s no one there anyway.

But now his pushing what must be ninety an hour—you don’t know for sure, you didn’t lean over to check the speedometer—feels like a comfortable cruising speed to you. You could probably fall asleep. But you’re not tired. The clicking of the turn signal is the perfect, out of time metronome to the music playing on the radio.

The lights in the restaurant are dimmed, emanating a romantic mood. Admittedly it’s a little difficult to see, so you don’t really like it. You’re ten minutes early for your reservation. But the host sits you anyway, because they already have the table prepared. As you walk along the aisle to your spot, you can’t help but notice how Jerome is almost camouflaged in this dim lighting due to his black suit. The only pop of color is his red hair, styled back neatly (though one strand escapes, resting on his forehead, which always seems to happen). And, well, you—dazzling red dime piece at his side.

Dinner is a blur of bordeaux glasses filled with bottomless Amarone (“Where there is no wine, there is no love,” Jerome recites as he picks up his glass by the stem and surveys the dark liquid) and a fancy dish you’re much too embarrassed to try and pronounce. High-end establishments always seem to have the most complicated-sounding dishes. Perhaps that lends itself to the fanciness?

You feel filled by the end of it. Not stuffed, for that’s a thing you’ve sworn off long ago. Always better to stop when simply not hungry as opposed to eating until you feel as though you’ll vomit. You sigh in contentment as you finish off the last of your current glass of wine and set your hand over the opening when the waiter comes by to inquire if you’d like a refill. You smile and shake your head, but Jerome takes one more as he pays for the bill. He doesn’t let you look at the check.

The cool night air greets you when you step out of the restaurant. Gotham’s lights are a telltale sign of its life and vitality that will continue even into the late hours of the night, when the less savory crowds come out to play. But if you don’t think about the people, just think about the lights, the skyscrapers… It’s a beautiful place. And it complements the almost perfect night. You can’t help but feel as though this date is missing… something. By the look Jerome is giving you, you know that “something” will come to pass once you two arrive home. Maybe he’ll reach one hundred an hour on the drive back.

As you approach your car, there’s a whistle, a catcall for your attention. You and Jerome twist around, though your expressions are vastly different. Yours is one of confusion, trying to pinpoint the location of the whistle, while Jerome’s is hard, menacing, already intent on showing whoever dared to pull that shit on his girl a lesson.

It’s over by an alley do you see the perpetrator, leaning against the dingy brick wall. His smile is leering, illuminated by the street lamps. “Hey, baby,” he starts. His voice is gravelly. Is he drunk? “Come ditch pretty boy. I can show you a real good time.” He laughs to himself, as though he’s told a really good joke.

Or perhaps this is another something that would be the icing to your date night, and one that’s not any less stimulating.

Jerome grits his teeth, glances down at you. You meet his gaze for a split second—you didn’t even have to do that to know what he was asking for. Wordlessly you open your clutch and the lamps catch the gleam of metal.

The redhead smiles dangerously. “That’s my girl.” He takes the knife, holds it close to his side. You don’t hold up a hand to stop him as he walks over to the man. He doesn’t stick around long enough to see you smile as well, one sickeningly sweet, a stark contrast to the situation at hand.

When the man sees Jerome coming at him, steps resolute, he stands up straight. “What the fuck’s your problem—” He doesn’t get any further than that because Jerome’s fist has found a home in his face. When he staggers, your boyfriend grabs him and shoves him into the alley, away from the lights and prying eyes.

You don’t feel much like waiting here alone. After all, who’s to say another just like that man won’t come walking on by? Jerome took the only knife between the two of you, and it’s not like your fists are any good. So you follow, heels clicking on the concrete, ticking away a beat that seems to be on time with the sound of the knife digging into flesh, stab after stab.

Jerome pauses to rest his arms, panting steadily, chest heaving from adrenaline. His sinister grin is back in all its glory, his face stained with crimson. You’re sure he’s gotten some on his suit, but it would only show up as a dark stain. He holds the knife out to you. The silver metal is red now. He doesn’t speak, but his excited eyes are enough to convey his desire for you to snatch it out of his hand and participate.

You don’t take the knife right away, instead glancing at the heap of a man on the ground. You tilt your head, listening, and then hear his faint, pained groan. He’s still alive—though probably just barely. 

Well, Jerome has always said to take compliments in stride, right? Let them give you power. And this man had just whistled after you, and in a way that’s a compliment. You looked nice, and he seemed to think so, although his way of communicating it was… less than appropriate.

But it’s good enough for you.

And thus empowered, you take the few steps to Jerome and grab the knife, the blood on the handle immediately transferring to your once clean hand, and you dig it into the drunk cat-caller. Gladly. Excitedly. There’s a smile that finds its way to your face, one that this time Jerome sees.

He glances back out at the main street: no one is there. He takes a moment to survey the immediate surrounding buildings, the sound of metal digging into flesh a background noise—he scans the fire escapes and any other small place where people could be hiding. There probably are witnesses up there, but they’re the delinquents, the criminals, the misfits. No one will rat you out. In a city so crime-ridden, what’s one more murder? And he’s sure there’s bound to be those that recognize him. It would be foolish to rat on him.

So Jerome turns his attention back to you, smiles proudly, not unlike the way you had smiled at him, watching him make his way over to this drunkard in the first place.

There is blood on your dress but it’s hard to see on the red fabric. You’re sure there’s some on your face, to match your boyfriend’s. To check, your tongue snakes out, slides along your bottom lip, where you’re sure your lipstick is still painted on immaculately. You taste iron, and it is strong. 

Jerome has taught you a great many things, most unintentional. You caught on from watching, observing. Itching to try things yourself. Get your hands dirty. See how it feels. And it feels good. It feels great.

You don’t even remember the first time Jerome offered you the knife, gave you the opportunity to sate your curiosity despite the fact you’d never asked but he’s Jerome Valeska and he recognizes the bloodthirsty gazes in everyone.

You wonder if this is always the way you were meant to be, or if it was Jerome’s influence. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Monkey see, monkey do. Isn’t that right?

#gotham #gotham imagine #jerome valeska #jerome valeska imagine #bubble-tea-bunny

[ghcstwriting]

five times watched. (( that sounds super creepy but we all know that we end up watching our crushes bc !!! sO ???? i'm trying to be creative here and i'm not good at it ))

i.

it starts innocuously enough, all things considered. it’s a poetry slam— you’re supposed to be paying attention to the speaker. it’d be rude not to. so sif doesn’t feel bad for staring, raises a dam inside of herself so that no guilt is able to drip into her and weigh her down as she watches how his lips shape the words he speaks. he controls the room without even seemingly being aware of his ability to do so; when he pauses, the entire room freezes, everyone holds their breath, going still, waiting. watching. watching him. see? she’s just like everyone else. even if her eyes trace over the shape of his lips, slow, careful, like she’s trying to teach herself patience. maybe she is, if the way her hand curls around her mug so rigidly is to serve as evidence against her plea of innocence. ( and, to be perfectly clear, there is nothing innocent in the shape of his mouth and there is nothing innocent in the way she watches him like a hawk. ) he pauses again and sif looks up, pulling her gaze away from his mouth to catch his eyes. she almost wants to jump back as if she’s been burned when she finds his eyes locking with her own. she’s been caught red handed. and yet, she can’t even muster the decency to look away— and when she doesn’t, he smiles.

ii.

if sif were a smarter girl, maybe she wouldn’t be sitting here. again. watching as he walks to the mic, easy, like there’s all the time in the world. like they’d sit here for hours just to hear him speak— and sif is sure, from looking at him at least, that his thought process probably doesn’t sound quite as pompous as she’s making him seem. it’s not her intention to. there is nothing imperious in the lazy smile he wears, in the old, worn denim jeans he’s got on. paired with a lisa frank tank top, like they’re taking a trip back to the mid nineties, and it’s glorious in the worst of ways because god, who the fuck wants to go back to the mid nineties? but the obscurity pairs well with him because he wears it as though it isn’t obscure at all, and it isn’t. not really. endearing. that’s what it is. regardless— it is maybe not the smartest decision to be here again, tonight, to hear him speak. to her, she thinks, and then, no, to everyone. to no one. to the moon and stars? maybe. after she’d been caught last week, she’d spent the rest of the slam pointedly trying to not stare at him, rushing out of the dimly lit cafe the minute everything was over. and yet here she was, moth to flame. he reached the mic and sif made it a point to take a long, slow drink from her mug as he started. she wasn’t going to be a fuckin’ creep. she wasn’t. the bottom of the mug touched her table, and she lasted what could have possibly been thirty seconds before she sought him out, only to find he’d found her first. she’d changed the table she’d sat at in the hopes of not being found. and yet here she was, and there he was, and neither of them were looking away from one another. to me, she thinks, fondly.

iii.

she’s almost too late, trying to quietly rush inside the cafe before she misses anything— and do you know how hard it is to quietly rush? it’s certainly not a cake walk, but she manages not to be incredibly disruptive, holding her breath so her panting doesn’t cloud the atmosphere and make things weird. sif always makes it a priority to take keir and visenya out for a quick walk before she leaves, and of course, visenya just had to choose today to slip out of her collar. the good news: visenya wasn’t hurt, and sif managed to get both dogs home safely. the bad news: she’s standing around awkwardly, lungs burning as she tries to quiet herself, and people are looking. it’s not the people looking she cares about, so much as it is the fact that she might’ve ruined the experience they’d been having up until that point. she offers a weak smile to anyone who shoots her a glare as she treks over to the counter, and takes comfort in the fact that at least the barista shoots her an understanding look. he’s a nice guy. she doesn’t recognize whoever is currently at the mic and wonders, with an odd spike of panic, if she’s missed ben. she picks something random off the menu, but granted, it’s always something random because she’s made it her goal to try everything on the menu. sif sulks as she waits for her drink, picking at her shirt. it’s the joy division shirt that everyone owns, paired with some old shorts that are maybe just a little bit too short, but fuck it. who cares, right? she’s comfortable. 

the drink is cold in her hands, and topped with extra whip, because sif guesses that’s the barista’s way of trying to cheer her up. her fear that she missed ben only intensifies and she drops into a plush chair and pushes her messy hair behind her burning ears. her phone slips out of her pocket easily, and she turns her brightness all the way down, scrolling through facebook idly. why does she still have a facebook? facebook is what you use to keep in touch with family and to see who from your graduating class is married, or pregnant, or in rehab. she doesn’t keep up with any of those people. lost in her own grumbling thoughts, she doesn’t notice when the person speaking finishes. doesn’t register the footsteps that near the mic. she just squints at her phone as she scrolls through her meager friends list. and when ben speaks, lower than usual, she startles and nearly drops her phone, almost giving herself whiplash with how fast she turns her head. shit. sif watches him scan the audience and is quick to nearly slam her phone down on the arm of her chair, screen facing downwards, and waits for him to find her. she counts, and it takes him about twenty five seconds to pinpoint her. he seems pleased to see her, and she tries not to look so flushed, so caught off guard. does it work? of course not. her lips twitch upwards all the same.

she settles into the chair, which is actually pretty comfortable, now that she’s not hunched over her phone, and listens with rapt attention as he speaks. and it’s.. different, compared to his usual pieces. not that she’s complaining, of course, but— the way he’s speaking now is like he’s making her a promise, the words rolling off of his tongue considerably more.. provocative. oh. oh. he doesn’t look away from her, and her teeth notch into her lower lip, and his eyes only seem to glow with the action.

iv.

it is a very lazy sunday, and even though the sun is out and a nice breeze is keeping the day just cool enough to not be sweltering, sif finds that she doesn’t want to do much. she dresses lazily, aiming for comfort instead of style. the joggers she throws on are obnoxiously bright and obnoxiously patterned, but they’re soft and light. her tanktop scrunches up a bit so her navel is just peeking out from under the fabric, and she jams her wallet, phone, and apartment keys into her pockets, leaving her apartment to seek out the thrift store. it’s nice, run by a sweet old couple, and it’s cheap, and she always finds something. the store is pretty much empty, and she takes her time wandering about in a daze, fingers tracing along shelves. she picks out some old books, the spines worn, and finds her way to the register. just as she’s being rung up, the bell on the door jingles, and sif blinks, glancing over to the door. in walks ben. because, of course, who else would it be? she forgets where she is as he makes his way into the store, the sun catching in his hair, not realizing at first that the kind old man ringing up her books has asked her how she’s been.

“oh, y’know. still settling in, sort of.” sif answers with a smile, trying to remind herself to make eye contact with the person she’s speaking to. she doesn’t want to be rude. she glances over at ben, again, anyways. he’s closer, looking at the small jewelry stand on the counter. she wonders if something caught his eye, or if maybe he’s just trying to be close to her. her head shakes slightly, and her attention is drawn back to the current transaction as she’s told her price, and she gives the man more than he’d asked for and tells him to keep the change. as she takes her bag, she makes a split second decision: she’s going to talk to him.

and just like that, as she takes a step forward, her phone rings. she wants to groan and stomp her feet like a child, whine that of fucking course, someone would choose now to call her. but she certainly can’t let the phone continue to ring, and so sif yanks it from her pocket like she’s got some serious beef with her phone, and answers it with a huffy “yeah?”. she passes ben on her way out of the store, still holding her phone to her ear, but just before the door closes behind her, she looks over her shoulder at him and finds him staring back at her.

v.

sif waits. and waits. and waits. and ben still doesn’t stand to take the mic. she doesn’t remember anything that’s been read so far. she’s too busy trying to sneak glances at him. he’s sitting a few seats away and to her side, just at the angle that keeps him right out of her peripheral, so of course, if she really wants to look at him, she has to turn. why isn’t he reading anything tonight? she’s worried, admittedly, and maybe it’s stupid of her to be worried because obviously artists don’t always have muse. maybe he just wants to sit and listen tonight. it shouldn’t be a big deal. she’s going to worry, anyways. he hasn’t caught her eye yet, even though sif knows he knows she’s looking.

so she turns, fully, effectively saying ‘fuck it’ to trying to be sneaky about it. what was the point? wasn’t like he didn’t know she’d be staring. wasn’t like he didn’t stare back. when he looks back at her, his eyes are glassy and far away. shit. he’s high. he’s high as fuck, and sif doubts pot played any part in it. they stay like that for the better part of a minute, just staring.

as the speaker finishes up,sif wonders what ben sees when he looks at her.

and then she gets up, and makes her way to his table, and makes herself right at home in the seat across from his. no use wondering what he sees, if she can just ask him.

“i’m sif.”

#tiewriter #sORRY FOR THE PRESENT TENSE LMFAO #(— SHIP: you have me until every last star in the galaxy ᴰ ᴵ ᴱ ˢ; ) #poetry slam au #answered memes #i know this kind of doesnt fully tie in with the rps we've done with it i aPOLOGIZE

[baskny-blog]

NOLA's Grosser Gets Personal; Raps, Relationships, and Reality on His New Project "PONY"

Photography: Connor Crawford

Rarely does a project from an underground artist manage to strike the intricate three-way balance between raw emotional content, well executed and thoughtful rhyming finesse, and most importantly, organized packaging that is clear and concise. New Orleans based artist Grosser manages to check off all three of these boxes on his second project “Pony,” released January 21st

Production wise, “Pony” is a refreshing menagerie of booming, lo-fi production that thumps with percussive fury. Stylistic tropes of the quintessential southern sound are blended effortlessly with rugged lyricism and delivery that seems to be clearly rooted in the east coast sonic movement. This pleasantly unconventional stylistic pairing is in many ways a metaphor for Grosser himself as an artist; a VA born and raised emcee transplanted to New Orleans, a city rich with hip hop history.  

“Pony” as a project functions almost like a Pandora’s box of emotion; once you open the lid the emotion literally flies out. Grosser seems to share his deepest self with his listeners; with depression leading to despair, and finally manifesting in the cold, steeled sense of determination present throughout the entire project. This honest and thoughtful display of emotion makes “Pony” as relatable as it is inspiring; it’s the story of an emcee passionately battling his own depression. The star studded features on “Pony”, including Chicago based artist LUCKI (f.k.a. Lucki Eck$) serve to further strengthen the ability of “Pony” to stand alone as a complete project. Raw talent, thoughtful honesty, and a focused aesthetic make “Pony” a must listen and confirm Grosser as an underground emcee that deserves close attention.

  Photography: Ben Davis

I had a chance to chat with Grosser about himself as an artist, “Pony” as a project, his creative process, and the next steps for him and his sound.  

B: Let's start basic: where are you from, what’s your background, and when did you start rapping? Grosser: I was born and raised in Virginia, and then moved to New Orleans for college. I graduated from Tulane with a degree in philosophy and political science, and couldn't even come close to bringing myself to leave NOLA after I graduated. As far as rapping, I was freestyling with homies a bit at the end of high school and a lot in college, and then started writing stuff down when I was about 19. I've always been playing music though. I've played drums for over a decade and played other instruments throughout my childhood and adulthood. Rapping became my outlet as I grew older and my life circumstances began to drastically change. B: What would you say your biggest sonic influences are in general, including music outside of hip hop? G: This is a question I take very seriously I'd say the first band to really influence me deeply was Rage Against the Machine, who I probably still consider to be my favorite band. I was influenced by politically driven hip hop at first, like Immortal Technique and shit. Now a days I'm genuinely influenced by the whole spectrum, from popular top 40 to very lo-fi indie music. Obviously I'm drawn to Atlanta, Chicago, LA, New York, you know, cities with hip hop strongholds, but I'm also influenced by all the various niche movements - like what's happening in Broward county, FL right now, and all the infinitely deep corners of soundcloud in general.  I have a bunch of friends in bands here in New Orleans so I have a decent pulse on the general indie band scene. Finding new music and new influences is what gets me up in the AM.  

B: Wordup, what would you say your biggest hip hop influences have been? G: Yeesh - at the start it was just the 90s and the greats -  Nas, ‘pac, Zack de la Rocha, Immortal Technique, Tribe, Eminem, Kanye, Wayne, Company Flow, Dilla, MF DOOM, stuff like that. Then I became obsessed with Earl, still am, and now find myself influenced by a ton of different modern hip hop shit - Travis Scott, all of OF, Thug, Future, Carti, A$AP. The list is low key endless because I can be influenced not only by someone's sound but also their place in the culture/the fabric of the genre. I don't rap like Uzi but I'm definitely enamored by his and someone like Yachty's aesthetic. However, if I had to pick one rapper that I was straight taking notes from, teaching myself how to rap, it’s definitely Earl back when I was in college. Earl is a fucking mastermind - raps wise and production. B: As a white rapper, what do you feel your role is in hip hop right now, given both the tumultuous situation the country is in right now, and the revolutionary origins of the genre itself? G:  I think it's massively important for white people to be doing a lot more listening than talking, so that's what I'm focusing on. Listening to the POC and women in my community and those affected by all this madness more so than I. I'm very attracted to and identify with the revolutionary roots of hip hop.

B: If you could sum up “Pony” in three thematic concepts what would they be?  

G: I'd say the three most prevalent themes of “Pony” are the idea of self concept, battling w and understanding mental health, and relationships. B: What did this project mean to you? What do you want this project to mean for the listeners? G: First and foremost, I'm always trying to grow with each new project, even every new song I write, so that was my primary goal. I wanted to sound of “Pony” to impact the listener in a personal way, really invade the listeners brain and shit, both sonically and lyrically. But, I also see great benefit from being able to play something in public and have it be enjoyable to a general mass of people, so I try to maintain some form of radio-esque sensibility in what I'm writing these days. For the listener, I wanted “Pony” to be somewhat of a self-exposure; I find that that's generally why I make music period. I tend to feel, as many do, wholly unknown by everyone around me, and music is a way to show someone what's really going on in a matter-of-fact way. B: Talk about the influences of New Orleans and NY on your sound, as well as the ways in which these cities are different and/or the same. G: What I'll say is you just have to come here. New Orleans got me as a young kid and has turned me into an adult real fast. It's not America here, more like the northern Caribbean. The general swagger and demeanor the people is what I feed off of the most - it's pretty much impossible for one's surroundings to not bleed into their art. NY is a city that I personally have less experience in, but have spent time there and have immersed myself in the culture via art - mainly music but also visual art and poetry. I always feel like I have much less privacy in NY than in NOLA - just by nature of the design and population. New York artists were obviously the first to teach me about rap, and invented the genre itself, so I obviously owe a lot to the culture and people of NY. B: What do you think of the direction of hip hop currently, mainstream and underground? G: Shit, I think it's a goddamn renaissance. I do however think that the rapping ability of these modern guys gets overlooked and misjudged pretty immediately for a myriad of reasons; addiction to the culture over content, media representation, vocal inflection, the list goes on.  Admittedly, some of these 'rappers' aren't rapping, they are more after a pop music icon mold. That being said, the same judgements of inability were bestowed on to Young Thug until everyone looked up the lyrics to 'Halftime' on genius and tried to rap along with him, immediately realizing how fucking money he is...point being, a lot of these guys can flat out spit.

Grosser: To Me, It has some similarities to the abstract expressionist movement in the 60's and 70's. Artists were ridiculed for their lack of precision, style, ease of making work, abundance of work, perceived difficulty of work, etc etc. Just because someone closed their eyes while splattering a canvas with one color of paint doesn't remove it from genius. A similar mindset and ear; understanding this music as a 'avant-garde' movement, while treading lightly on classic examples of excellence is much needed for understanding/enjoying the raw talent of a lot of these guys. Don't get me wrong, there are a million wack rappers out there who I don't fuck with, but I just don't think that if someone doesn't bring a classically fire 16 then that removes them from the upper crust of hip hop. It’s all cyclical though, I wouldn’t be surprised if hyper-lyrical rap takes the main-stage in the coming years.

B: Art is often a reflection of life. Talk about the process; the feelings, events, passions, and people that went into the creation of “Pony”. G: I mean, for sake of not getting overly dark I won't get too deep into the details, but I had a woman in my life, and, for a thousand and one reasons, but largely due to my own deteriorating mental health at the time, it wasn't a safe or healthy relationship. All of those emotions, my battle with clinical depression, and the realities of living with all the other fun disease titles doctors want to assign are embedded into “Pony”, and pretty much all the art I do in general. Apart from my past relationship and personal battles with mental health, the concepts of truly knowing oneself (very difficult), and truly knowing other people (more difficult, probably impossible), drive a lot of my lyrical content. B: As an artist, if you could tell yourself one thing two years ago what would it be? What would you say to yourself two years from now? Where do you hope to be? G: If I could give myself a piece of advice two years ago I would say to put a chokehold on every penny you have an only spend money collabing with people that you really trust and you know you can benefit from. In two years I hope to have a big Internet following based off my music, you know, lots of Twitter and Soundcloud followers and all that, in addition to making records that people truly respect as great art. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t dream about fame, but my most important goal is to make music that leaves an impact with each listener, every single time.

Photography: Erica Lipoff

#Raps #New Orleans #Pony #Grosser #Boombap #HipHop #East Coast #NOLA #Chicago #Lucki