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myloveforhergoeson · 9 months

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That's All She Wrote - Chapter 20

Chapter Index

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Chapter 20: Everybody (Backstreet's Back) (2.1) ~ 13k

There was nothing more in this world Roxy longed for than the comfort of her own bed. Her aching, toured-out body was starting to break under the pressure of sleeping on the couch for three entire months; she deserved the world’s longest nap, even if she and the band were currently barreling through the doors to the lobby of the Palm Woods.

Big Time Rush, however, did not share this sentiment, noisily cheering as they ran into the building - duffel bags flying this way and that with every step they took.

“There’s no place like home!” Cried Logan, dropping entirely to his knees and bowing his head onto the disgusting, blue-green carpet before planting a kiss on the well-traveled entryway.

The lobby, full as ever, was crowded by faces the teens didn’t recognize, but this fact didn’t bother James at all, calling out “Hey! Big Time Rush is back!”

His four friends let out their own shouts of excitement, hoping at least someone before them would remember their arrival date, but the hotel patrons just stared at them, googly-eyed, as if they had just screamed in the middle of a library before going back to their previous conversations.

Cocking his head to the side, Carlos scanned the crowd, presumably looking for one of their many friends, before confusedly asking, “Who are all these people?”

“It’s fall,” An annoyed voice, Bitters, shared as he walked by the teens on the way to the front desk, “And all the new kids with new dreams have arrived. Whoo.”

“So sad to see the hotel isn’t doing well…” Roxy trailed off, attempting to crack a sarcastic joke as she tried to find the fastest route to the elevators. There was no question: she needed a nap, then she needed to see Jo and Camille immediately afterward to break down everything that had happened to her on tour with the band.

Spotting an entrance to slip through between two new cliques, she moved to step forward before Mrs. Collins blocked her path. Their teacher wore a dazzling smile, gently peering between Roxy and her friends as she held up a mountain of paperwork.

“Welcome back! You’ve missed three weeks of school.” The woman deadpanned, going down the line of teens as she dropped a load of papers into each of their hands. “You’re behind on your book reports, all your math homework, and your science projects”

“Okay-” Logan tried before their teacher spoke again, “And they’re all due tomorrow.”

The studious boy and his assistant let out a pair of twin cries at her words, watching in horror as she made her way back to the tiny classroom at the back of the hotel.

Gripping the papers in her hand, Roxy grit her teeth, “What the hell? Gustavo said he talked to Mrs. Collins about our time off, didn’t he?”

“Guys, guys, chillax!” As he held up one of his hands, Kendall tried to calm his friends. “The tour is over. We’re back at the Palm Woods, and everything is gonna be cool.”

“If you think you can steal me from my old boyfriend, you’re right.”

Familiar sound floating down the hallway, Roxy lit up at the sound of Jo’s voice - not even taking time to process her words or take note of the beautiful boy walking beside her as the pair emerged from the elevators.

Too engrossed in whatever they were doing, Roxy watched in confusion as the boy slipped his arm around Jo’s shoulders and led her out towards the pool.

She got my letter, didn’t she? I swear I wrote our return date.

Though she felt Kendall tense up beside her, the writer was far too concerned with her own situation to even feel slightly sorry for him - even as his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he began to fall backward onto the floor with a thud.

Carlos and James were quick enough to try and help him up, allowing the girl to decide she was more interested in what was happening with Jo, but as she went to walk away, Logan caught her arm.

He opened his mouth as if he were trying to say something, but only managed to lift his widening eyes up and down from her to the massive pile of schoolwork resting in their hands.

“Oh come on!” The writer tried. “Don’t you want to go see Camille?”

By the way he began to pale, Roxy, at this point, would be a terrible friend to abandon him.

Silently, the five trudged up to their apartments, papers weighing them down with every step. The girl thumbed through them a bit, though it was quite hard to do that, and carry her suitcase and guitar up the stairs. They seemed to be mostly comprised of worksheets - easy - but the last chunk in the back was a lengthy section of project instructions.

Mrs. Collins had to be out of her mind if she thought the five of them would be able to do this much work in 24 hours.

Once they reached 2-H, the band dropped their assistant off before taking a few more steps to 2-J.

“See you soon!” Carlos called as if they hadn’t spent every waking moment of the last 90 days together.

While Roxy sure loved his optimism, she was in desperate need of some alone time. As her key turned in the door’s lock and she entered her apartment, that was exactly what she got.

Closing the front door and flipping the lights on in her dim front room, everything in her apartment had been exactly where she had left it - including the pillow she had meant to bring on tour but ended up leaving in the middle of her couch. On the way to her room, she was sure to give it a slap for good measure before picking it off the cushions and flinging it back onto her bed.

Realistically, she probably should have washed her sheets before she flopped backward onto her bed, but she left the soft, inviting mattress call out to her.

Nap first, talk to Jo and Camille second, homework third…

And that was her final decision before an unexpected knock knock rapped at the door 2-H and 2-J shared.

“Go away!” The girl called, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her voice. “I’m busy!”

“You’re not busy, Roxy.”

Voice effortlessly sliding through the door, James didn’t wait for a response before opening it and making his way into her bedroom without bothering to knock again; an action that made Roxy’s blood boil. It was bad enough she was exhausted from their travels, but she wasn’t particularly cool with her friends barging into her space without her permission - especially considering what it led to the last time they’d done that.

Not bothering to move from her comfy spot, she let James stand in the doorway, gently leaning to one side as he glanced over her room.

After their whirlwind journey from Los Angeles to Minnesota then back to Los Angeles and then on to the rest of the United States, there had been no time for her to revamp her room back to its once poster-covered glory. The bland, beige walls felt uninviting - like he hadn’t just stepped into a familiar and relaxing place.

“Now that you’ve seen I’m pretty busy, you don’t need to stick around.” Roxy sighed, closing her eyes.

Simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable, she felt his gaze shift to her and tried desperately to ignore the way his scrutinizing eyes carried themselves up and down her frame.

Roxy wasn’t stupid; Their relationship was different now, but if he thought he could just walk into her place uninvited and get a few kisses out of her, he was sorely mistaken.

Even if she did really want to make out.

Sucking in a breath, James loudly exhaled before moving to sit on the edge of her bed. “Who was the hot guy Jo was with earlier?”

That made the girl open her eyes, stealthy sneaking a peek at her crush through the layer of blankets separating them. With his eyes cast downward, twiddling his thumbs like he was in a Sunday morning cartoon, she took note of how long and dark his eyelashes were. The small bits of sunlight cascading through her half-closed blinds aided as well, lighting up the green flecks speckled inside his hazel eyes.

God, he’s just too beautiful.

“No clue… They seem pretty friendly though.”

Flashes of her friend and the boy walking together through the lobby ran across her mind. Is tall, muscular, pretty boy her type? Not that I can blame her.

“Right…”

It seems as though James had something else he wanted to say, but couldn’t figure out how.

He’s not interested… Is he?

At the thought of James seeking a romantic partnership with someone else, Roxy felt her stomach drop. While normally she’d have no problem playing wingwoman for Kendall and Logan when it came to Jo and Camille, there was no way she’d even think about helping him try and date someone else.

But, we’re not together so I can’t be mad at him… Maybe I can be annoyed?

“I’m just… Worried about Kendall, I think. He doesn’t take to break-ups all that well, not that anyone really does, but we kind of really need to establish our cred at this hotel again and I need his help. He’s no good to me if he’s wallowing over losing Jo.”

“Why don’t you go talk to her about it, then, because I doubt this new guy is any threat to Kendall.”

James blinked a few times, ducking his head down to avoid the beams of light hitting his face. “Yes, yeah, duh…”

A small chuckle escaped his lips as he moved to stand up.

“Maybe talk to Carlos and Logan, too, just in case…”

There was nothing about Jo that had her friend even entertaining the idea she had been or currently was cheating on Kendall with the newcomer, but in the event of the worst-case scenario, it sounded like Kendall would need all the support he could get from his friends.

“Oh! That’s why I came in… Logan is having, like, a category five meltdown in the kitchen right now. Think you can help him?”

Shooting up from her covers, Roxy’s eyes widened. She had seen plenty of Logan meltdowns before, but a category five? This could get very ugly, very fast. “Of course! You should’ve led with that!”

“I would’ve, but then you’d have gone running to help him… It doesn’t leave any time for me to catch you solo, right?” He said as he stood, effortlessly moving through the doorway and holding out one of his hands to beckon her into 2-J.

Though she thought about accepting his offer, she scoffed at his words and pushed past him, “I had plenty of solo time this summer.”

Stepping into the apartment next door, completely forgetting about the way James had attempted to flirt, she was met with the sweet smell of baked corndogs coming from the oven.

Despite it being so early in the morning, it was sweet to see Mrs. Knight back in the swing of things.

I hope she and Katie had a good time together.

“Well,” The woman began, noticing James and Roxy trail down the hallway. “The quiet was nice, but I did miss you kids!”

Completely bypassing Logan, who was breathing far too heavily as he dug through the mountain of homework on the kitchen table, and Katie, on the couch, Mrs. Knight pulled the tray out of the over dumped her array of corndogs into a large, clear bowl in front of Carlos.

Not even bothering to check the temperature, the boy dug both hands in, eagerly picking up two fistfuls of his favorite food, making his assistant wince a bit.

“And I missed your home cooking!” He squealed before shoving as much corndog in his mouth as humanly possible.

Shutting one of the large textbooks on the table beside him, Logan gave out a pained, “How can you be happy? Look at all the work we have to do by tomorrow!”

“I am impressed, though,” Katie piped up, motioning to the boy in front of her. “I figured you’d be all freaked out and yell-y.”

“Oh, you mean like this?”

Taking the mountain of papers off the table, Logan tossed them all into the air with a tortured scream, standing there huffing as they fluttered down around him.

It reminded Roxy of confetti as she watched the pages fall, before taking inventory of the items scattered around the room around her. After James’ dream bachelor pad remodel, she thought 2-J might never look the same, but Gustavo and Kelly had done everything in their power to return it back to its original state in their absence. Toys, video games, decorations, everything was exactly where it had been before she and James had temporarily moved in together.

By the time she had jumped back into the conversation, blinking away her diverging thoughts, James had broken away from her side and pulled off his outer layer button-up. Beneath, his black tank top stood out against his tanned skin, perfectly matching with a black headband that seemed to materialize out of nowhere around his forehead.

Completely steering the topic in a different direction, James tightened the knot holding the bandana over his forehead, showing off his toned arms.

Pretending not to notice this, Roxy took in his words.

“This time we’re gonna announce our presence with more authority…”

When the others in the room just stood there, staring at him as they tried to understand what he meant, the boy cried, “Nobody even said hi!”

Which, his assistant came to realize, was a good point. The downside of not being able to recognize anyone in the lobby was nobody in the lobby recognized them either.

“We are popular here, okay?” He continued. “Now who’s with me?”

“Not me,” Roxy crossed her arms, leaning into the table as she looked over all of their schoolwork. “I think staying in school might be more important for our careers right now… And for Logan’s mental health.”

Popping up from beside the long-haired boy, Carlos emerged, dressed in a nearly identical outfit, but holding two more corndogs in his hands. “I’m in! We need to reestablish our Palm Woods cred with the new kids.”

Sharing a fist bump, Carlos and James looked mighty pleased with themselves, as Logan threw his hands up in anger.

“We need to finish these projects! See this blank science display board right here?” Cumbersomely holding up the red tri-fold, the studious boy showed it off to his friends. “It’s blank!”

Once again, the conversation was pulled elsewhere as Katie called out, “Hey, has anyone even noticed Kendall might be dead?”

As his friends looked over to the orange couch where the girl pointed, Kendall lay there, sprawled out and staring at the ceiling. No doubt what Jo had said to her new boy-friend had gotten to him. “I’m freakin’ out!”

Would it kill him to have a little faith in her? “Go talk to Jo, you idiot!”

Wincing at her words, Mrs. Knight brushed past the assistant and pulled her son off the cushions, back into the upright sitting position. Taking a seat next to him, she pulled him into a comforting side hug. “Honey, I have always liked Jo, and this does not sound like her.”

Eyes widening, Roxy held her hands out in a “See?” motion.

“And if you want to be in a relationship with someone, trust is number one.”

“Because we have all seen how lack of trust ruins a relationship…” The writer chimed in, trying to remind her friend that making wild assumptions about his girlfriend was very dangerous. “Even if you get a really good song out of it.”

“Now go find her, be open with her, and just ask her what’s going on.” His mother picked him up off the couch and walked him to the front door, which Katie was swift to open. “And if something is going on, I always hated her.”

Just as soon as she sent him stumbling out the door, she closed it, dusting her hands off as if the task were no big deal.

Bang!

Sound ripping through the apartment, Roxy jumped as she turned her head to find the source: Camille, foot on the wooden door now laying at her feet, staring Logan down as a predator would stare down their prey.

As kooky as she was, she looked so insanely beautiful - hair crazy, shirt askew, chest heaving, as she growled, “Where is he?”

When everyone turned to face Logan, they noticed his jaw drop to the floor as he looked her up and down.

“Okay, no, Camille, please, not now- I have a lot of work to do, and I’m freaked-”

“Eeee!”

Entire demeanor changing once she heard his voice, the actress let out an excited scream and sprinted toward her crush. Once she eagerly sped past James and Carlos - not even sparing them a second glance - she tackled Logan to the ground with a loud thud, placing kisses across every inch of his face.

James’ cry of, “Finally! Someone around here that knows us!” was senselessly drowned out by the sounds of Logan and Camille making out, right there on the uncomfortable apartment floor.

“Well then…” Roxy tried to change the subject as she addressed her friends, though the noise from the floor was getting a bit irritating. “You two have fun re-establishing our cred while Logan and I play catch up.”

When she motioned to the mountain of work on the table ahead of her, Camille suddenly popped up and grabbed her hands.

“Oh, not a chance! We’ve got to see Jo, right now.”

In the most unsubtle motion possible, the actress glanced at Roxy before turning to look at James. “There’s a lot we need to talk about.”

Knowing there was no harm intended in her actions didn’t settle the sudden flip of the writer’s stomach as she let out an uncomfortable laugh. “What? I don’t- Ha!”

Before anything more embarrassing left her mouth, Camille was dragging Roxy over the wooden door she had broken minutes ago. However, as she looked back, attempting to plead to her friends not to let the girl take her, she noticed James standing with brows sky-high as he watched her leave.

There’s no way he’s… blushing?

Just the thought of it made her cheeks flush as well, a crucial detail Camille’s expert eyes noticed as the doors to the elevator slid closed, carrying them down to the first floor.

“Roxy?! You made out with him?!”

“Aw… It’s so nice to see you too, Camille.”

“Like, lips, teeth, tongue?”

“The greetings I get after three months away… Wait- Teeth? Ew!”

“Well, Logan does this thing-”

“Ew!” The writer cried again, though this time she caught a smile as the ding of the elevator let the girls know they’d arrived on the first floor. Of all the things she had missed most on tour, it had been her girlfriends.

Between the two of them, it was hard to contain their laughter as they entered the lobby - the lobby in which Jo and her mysterious new friend just happened to be hanging out.

As they sat together on one of the many orange sofas in the room, Roxy stopped dead in her tracks as she watched the boy drape his arm over the back of the cushions and lean into Jo.

“No!” The blonde called, aggressively jerking her head back, hand held between them in a “stop” motion. “I told you. It’s-It’s wrong.”

Though Roxy’s audible sigh of relief was embarrassing, she gently set one hand on Camille’s arm to steady herself, “Phew…”

In an instant, the air had been sucked from her lungs once more as the handsome stranger pulled Jo up from the couch, resting one hand on her hip as he dramatically cooed, “But it’s so right!”

The pair stood, embracing one another for a moment as they stared deep into each other's eyes.

It almost feels like Teenage Lycanthrope live… Roxy thought before she watched each of them lean in, eyes beginning to close.

“Woah!” She felt herself yell, also hearing it from somewhere else in the lobby, startling the two who were quick to snap out of their trance-like state.

Thankfully, the voice louder than hers - which she quickly learned belonged to Kendall - was the one Jo heard, causing her to whip her head around, blonde locks flying across her shoulders.

From one of the planters in the hotel lobby, her boyfriend, tree hat and all, rushed over to the pair and physically separated them as he pulled Jo to his side and stepped between her and the newcomer.

“What is this? How could you? Who’s the dude?” He asked her, pointing an accusatory finger her way.

As much as Roxy didn’t love the romantic-like interaction Jo was having with her new friend, she didn’t like Kendall yelling at her even more. Anxiously tugging on Camille’s arm to get a bit closer, the girls stepped into point of view and caught Jo’s eye in silent solidarity.

The confused look on her face, mixed with Kendall’s sudden questions didn’t make for a perfect “Hello!” after months of being apart.

Her boyfriend wasn’t doing much better, though, slurring out, “Girl, supposed to kiss me, boy!”

What does that even mean?

The other boy present raised a finger, “Uh-”

“Back off!”

Jo’s jaw was wide open, eyes flickering between Kendall, her friend, Roxy, and Camille, reaching to brush some hair out of her face with shaking hands. “I, uh… This is a scene from my script!”

On the couch beside her, Jo picked up a bright blue script book displaying the name New Town High in bold black letters. “I could, because I got a lead role in the new CW show, New Town High!”

When she passed the book off to her boyfriend, it was his turn to look back at her, mouth agape.

“The dude is my costar, Jett Stetson, who plays my love interest in the show, and I was gonna surprise you and our friends with the news when you got back, but you’re back, so…” She leaned forward to press a quick kiss on the frontman’s cheek, “Surprise!”

It took a lot for the writer not to speed in, sweep Jo up in the greatest hug known to man, and ask her a thousand questions about her new role, but she understood this was something she and Kendall needed to work on on their own.

After a moment, Kendall audibly swallowed, wringing his hands together. “Okay. That explains it.”

“Were you spying on us?” His girlfriend asked.

“No!”

In a second the tree hat was knocked from his head down to the ground with a gentle thud.

Sensing the entire ordeal with Jo and Kendall was over with, Jett - tall, brunette, and handsome - stepped forward a bit, extending his hand to the blond. “Kendall! Hi, I’m Jett.”

In an instant, Katie, who Roxy presumed had been hiding behind the planter with her brother, sprinted towards the newcomer, launching herself into his arms.

Though Jett caught her with ease, it did shock him, causing him to shuffle backward a bit.

“I’m Katie!” The young girl introduced herself, flinging her arms around the actor’s neck in a way that made her older friend chuckle. “I manage hot talent for TV and movies. I’m also a modeling agent and available for limited dating in six years. Wait for me!”

At this point, Katie had leaned in so close to Jett to gaze into his sparkling blue eyes, that she might just kiss him if he moved the wrong way.

“Oh, look at the time…” Jett joked, immediately turning to look anywhere but at the girl in his arms before dumping her onto Kendall. “Uh, Jo, we’re gonna be late for that photo shoot.”

“Damn,” Camille grumbled next to Roxy, this time pulling on her arm and leaving them over to where their other friends were standing. Just as Jo kindly asked Kendall if he wanted to come to the shoot, which was very cool of her, the new pair had joined in the conversation and her boyfriend politely declined, making off hastily with Katie.

Before Jo was able to sneak away, Roxy cleared her throat before letting out a small, “Congratulations!” as she pulled the blonde into a hug. Under her arms, the writer could feel her shaking a bit, whether it be from excitement or anxiety, she didn’t know.

“Oh, my God, I was beginning to think you’d never walk over here…” Jo sighed into her ear, squeezing her friend tight. “And thanks, I couldn’t wait to tell you!”

“We have to talk later!” Camille reminded Jo as she broke the embrace, hands on both of her friend’s shoulders.

That comment left Jo to crack a bit of a smile, looking at Roxy and wiggling her eyebrows in jest.

The sound of shuffling feet came from behind the actress, and Jett let out a small “ahem,” to grab her attention.

“Oh! Jett, this is Roxanne, remember? I told you about her letters like every day on set.”

Flashing his white teeth, the boy nodded to the writer and shot her a wink. “Right! How could I forget…”

It definitely sounds like he forgot.

Nonetheless, Roxy gave him a little wave, “It’s great to meet you, Jett! I can’t wait to see your show.”

“Of course, you can’t! I’m in it, Jo’s in it, what more could you ask for?”

A quick side glance at Camille let Roxy know she was doing her best to hold in laughter at his over-confident words.

“Yeah… Have fun at the shoot,” were her final words as Jett grabbed Jo’s hand and led them out of the lobby to their next destination.

Catching her attention again, Camille poked her friend in the side, “You’re so lucky I’m not going to interrogate you until Jo’s around.”

“There’s nothing to interrogate me about! I was pretty clear about what happened in my letter, and as you can see, nothing’s come from it.”

“So you want something to come from it?”

Blinking, the question caught the writer off guard.

“Talk to me when Logan’s officially your boyfriend.”

The sharp, offended gasp from the actress sent her friend into a fit of giggles.

As Camille opened her mouth to respond, a horde of kids ran by her as they made their way to the pool. Each one of them were dressed in the familiar red and blue Magic Middle School uniform, talking all over one another as they, Roxy presumed, practiced their lines.

“Ugh… I hate fall at the Palm Woods! Too many new faces… Too much competition…”

With a snort, Roxy covered her mouth as she laughed even harder at her friend’s words, “Those kids are your competition? You were in their place three years ago!”

“And I haven’t landed another permanent role in a show since!”

Tone of the conversation shifting, Roxy felt her smile disappear as she understood just what Camille was referring to. In just a few short months in L.A., their best friend had landed a lead role in a network show, and though the assistant knew Camille was just as excited about Jo as she was, there was a twinge of jealousy lingering in her statement.

“Aw, Camille don’t be like that. You were the star of Merteens 4! It was in movie theaters! Just because Jo found a role in TV doesn’t mean you have to as well. Or discount your impressive acting CV… I can’t think of an actor our age who’s been in more pieces of media than you.”

Silently there Roxy stood, wrapping an arm around Camille while taking in all the new faces around them.

Bitters had been correct, there were so many people crowding around the space, that she almost felt a bit strained by the sheer number of individuals in the room - which was a bit silly, considering she had been in venues housing more people all summer. By the elevators, a group of teens that looked just a bit younger than she was were carrying around heavy, chainmail shirts and swords fit for a medieval king. Stunt actors?

The couch beside them boasted a kid who couldn’t be any older than six or seven, repeating a few jokes over and over to his mother sitting next to him. Child comic?

By the door, a duo of teenagers, maybe around her age were taking their belongings off of a luggage rack, and an older woman they seemed to be with was talking to the front desk manager.

There was something familiar about them, Roxy realized, as she noticed the taller one take his guitar case and sling it around his shoulder, but with his back turned, hoodie covering every inch of him, it felt impossible to tell.

“Oh, oh, oh-oh, oh…”

The sounds of “Big Time Rush” unexpectedly playing from the pool area startled the girls out of their moment, causing them to look at each other and roll their eyes in sync. If they knew one thing about their friends, it was that they had a tendency to be a bit dramatic when they wanted attention.

When they made their way out to the pool deck to see what was up, Carlos and James were lounging at one of the small tables around a large boom box blasting their song. They must have been trying to show off the band’s first album, pretending to be nonchalantly hanging out around the pool while sipping on some lemonade they had gotten from the cafe. Still in their get-ups from earlier, the sight of the boy she liked in a tight-fitting tank top flustered the assistant a bit, causing her to grip Camille’s arm a bit too tight as she practically collapsed in the chair next to Carlos.

Choosing to stand behind James, arms crossed and peering down at him, Camille nodded her head to the music player.

“That’s your grand plan?”

A cheeky smile erupting on his face, Carlos did his best to yell over the song, “Yeah!” before turning to James and asking, “How long has it been?”

“It’s been 30 seconds and nobody has come over to say ‘Hi’ or ‘Hey’ or ‘We’re new to the Palm Woods and we heard you guys rule the pool!’”

The boy was clearly perplexed; cheeks puffed, arms crossed - giving another amazing view of his muscles - completely upset that no one was paying him any attention.

Hm. The assistant thought. Karma.

“Or,” Camille tried, “These kids have been here for weeks while you were on tour, so to them, you’re the new guys.”

As their friend pointed out some of the different cliques that had formed, Roxy stealthily reached out and stole some sips of Carlos’ lemonade.

“Yeah, see those guys over there investigating that stain? They are the new stars of Teen NCSI, and they are always in character.”

Across the water, the three teens hunched over a small spot on the pool deck, taking pictures, investigating it under a magnifying glass, talking among themselves using strange chemistry-adjacent terms Roxy wasn’t sure were all that accurate. It reminded her of the mountain of homework waiting for her back in 2-H before she joked, “Oh, I’m sure they’re real fun at parties.”

“Yeah-ah!”

On the opposite side of the deck, a young man in a long, trashy blonde wig and multi-colored and patterned leotard let out a cry reminiscent of an ‘80s rockstar as he stood upon a planter, gyrating his hips to the beat of a non-existent song. That was until he noticed two pretty girls chatting in front of him and leaped down from his spot to wrap them both up in his arms.

“And say hello to Lil’ Lee Roth. He’s single-handly bringing back their hair band!”

“Don’t you need other people for-” Roxy began before James cut her off.

“No matter how big they are, they should know us and want to hang with us! We’re Big Time Rush!”

Tossing some beautiful locks over her shoulder, Camille sighed, “Yeah, but, I mean, I didn’t hang out with you guys until I found out how crazy you are with your fire pit jams and parties and general youthful antics.”

At that, Roxy rolled her eyes. As if she didn’t do everything she could to be around Logan before that!

“That’s it!” Carlos called beside his assistant, cutting off her thoughts. Standing, he grabbed his helmet from the table and slapped it on, causing James to rise in excitement as well. “I know what to do!”

Without another word, he ran off into the lobby, leaving his three friends standing in his wake, completely confused… Until they heard his tell-tale scream from one of the balconies on the floor above the pool as he hurled himself over the railing.

Screaming continuing all the way down, it didn’t stop once he reached the water. A gigantic blue wave splashed out over the pool's residents. When he surfaced, he let out a “Whoo-hoo!”

The smile it brought to James’ face as he raced out to help pull his friend out of the pool was almost worth the water that now covered half of Roxy’s body. Had she not still been wearing her ratty travel clothes, she might not have let Carlos resurface from his little stunt.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one at the pool, standing around soaking and dreaming of hurting the boy who had ruined their day. A chorus of angry yelling was thrown his way from all sides of the deck, making one thing very clear: He had gotten their attention, just not the kind of attention he had been hoping for.

***

By the time Roxy had trudged back up to her apartment, changed, and dried off her hair, it was no surprise her phone rang, Logan’s name flashing across her screen.

“Hello?” She picked up, cradling the phone on her shoulder as she slung one of her bath towels onto the shiny golden rail in her bathroom.

“Big Time Rush is on the Rocktoberfest lineup!” His tone of voice sounded more panicked than excited, but his words resonated with the girl all the same. Rocktoberfest was one of the biggest music festivals of the year, surly Gustavo would’ve told them they were putting on a show there.

Immediately, she raced out into her bedroom and flew to her most recent copy of Pop Tiger, practically ripping the pages apart to find the festival ad she had seen while glancing through it earlier. “Logan… Are you kidding? They posted the band list ages ago and we’re not on it.”

As her eyes scanned the large list, she felt her heart drop when she read Brand New Day.

“Three words: Griffin. Rocktoberfest. Poison!”

Again with the panic, “What’s the issue then? I can hear you heaving through the receiver like you normally do before you pass out.”

“Remember when we were trying to get out of the School of Rocque and we used the big list of ASPA rules to trick Gustavo and Kelly?”

“Like it was yesterday, dude.”

As Logan formed his next thought, it set in that it hadn’t been just yesterday… It had nearly been eight entire months.

“Well, without our schoolwork in, we’re scoring F’s in every subject. One of the rules is we’re not allowed to perform unless we have a C plus average.”

Feeling a light skip of her heartbeat, she began to understand the reason for his concern. If their work wasn’t in by the show - dated tomorrow in the magazine she was gripping - they’d have to pass up the career opportunity of a lifetime.

“Okay… Okay, okay,” Roxy pushed out, hand pressing against her forehead to try and ward off the massive headache she knew she was about to receive. It was hard to keep her breathing steady, but she knew if she began to panic, it would only make Logan’s anxiety worse. “What do you need?”

“Report covers, a glue stick, a protractor, green glitter number three, 23 sharpened pencils, eight pens, 15 Monstrosity energy drinks, three plants, one watermelon, two copper wires, one battery, and, like, 40 clean towels.”

“That’s… Oddly specific, but give me 20 minutes to run to the store and I’ll meet you back at the Crib.”

A dutiful assistant she was, bouncing out of 2-H and down to the lobby with her reusable shopping bags in hand. After a quick trip to the grocery store in the strip mall next to the Palm Woods, she and the band should be well on their way to playing Rocktoberfest - assuming the supplies Logan claimed to need would help him take care of his work and the other boys’.

No way they’d manage a C-plus average alone…

She felt a bit guilty for thinking that, but everyone had their struggles. There was no doubt in her mind that completing three weeks of missed school work was currently nowhere near the top of Kendall, James, and Carlos’ list of importance, considering their minds were all far too occupied with other worries at the moment.

Wherever Kendall had run off to, Roxy didn’t know, but as she passed by the first set of large doors leading to the pool, she nearly tripped over her own feet when she noticed James - and Carlos, though it took her a few seconds to register he was there too - sunbathing shirtless on the spackled pool deck.

It wasn’t right of her to weasel her way out to one of the planters on the other side of the water, ducking down between the palm fronds and placing a tree hat on her now-dried hair, but she did it nonetheless. Even if she was a bit upset with James about their conversation earlier, she shouldn’t have to deny herself the simple pleasure of admiring her sunbathing crush for just a little while.

He’d do the same if it were me. She tried to justify to herself before blinking a few times, turning the thought over in her head.

After a few silent moments of contemplation, she watched as the Jennifers approached her friends and said something inaudible that caused the boys to hop up and put their tank tops back on.

Wait- No he wouldn’t. He didn’t even give me the time of day when we were at the beach this summer… Stupid.

In frustration, she reluctantly picked the hat up by its brim and threw it back down into the base of the planter. There was already enough relationship drama going on around her, considering Kendall and Jo were on the edge of a breakup and Camille and Logan’s will-they-won’t-they was driving her crazy, there was no need to add to the mix by trying to figure out what thoughts about her might be running through James’ mind.

He needed to tell her exactly what he wanted of her before she’d let anything happen between them again.

No more games, Roxy told herself as she entered the lobby again, making her way towards the front entrance. He said ‘You should always be with a guy who makes the first move’ so if he wanted to date me-

“God, what can a guy do to get some pool towels around here?”

An unexpected call ringing out from the lobby behind her made the assistant freeze.

“Front desk… Maybe?” Someone else added, tone halfway in between a whisper and a mumble.

The doubly unexpected reply sent the hair on the back of her neck standing up.

“Oh, yeah! Good call, Dani!”

The sound of that voice, something she had once loved enough to write plenty of songs about, now scratched at her ears like a cat running its claws down a chalkboard.

Every second they walked closer to the front desk was a second that led Mag McAllister and Dani Huron closer to spotting their ex-bandmate, numb with fear, at the next set of doors leading out toward the pool.

No time to think, or even register that Bitters would just send them out to the towel attendant by the cafe, Roxy focused all of her energy on placing one foot in front of the other before she tore out of the lobby to the last place she had seen James and Carlos.

She just needed to find them, then she’d feel better, braver even, and maybe she could even eliminate the tremor that wrecked her body at the thought of seeing the two people who had caused her the most pain and grief she had ever known standing in the lobby of her home.

There was just one issue with her plan, however, as James and Carlos were nowhere to be seen.

Panicked gaze falling over every face she could see in the pool, she checked their usual lounge chairs first only to find them occupied by the Teen NCSI cast. The firepit where the band and their assistant played their usual fireside jams was taken up by the Knights of the Round Table wannabes from earlier. Every square inch of the pool was taken up by the Magic Middle School swim team.

It was only when Roxy took a complete 180 that she noticed James had tucked himself away from the rest of the poolgoers, sipping on a tall cup of lemonade with furrowed brows as he leaned against the brick wall of the hotel’s north wing. Just her unbelievably bad luck he happened to be mere feet away from the towel station.

Even at the sight of him, she felt a bit more relieved, but at the moment, she needed something more than relief. Something she couldn’t put her finger on as she backtracked toward him.

“Thanks, Reginald!” Mag yelled over his shoulder from the lobby, voice carrying as he walked side-by-side with Dani into the pool area.

Instantly, Roxy dropped the bags she was holding and ducked her head as she quickly made her way to the wall of the hotel closest to her, hugging it as she grew closer and closer to her friend. Even the thought of seeing their faces drove a spike through her chest.

Trying to move speedily, but not so much as to draw the attention of those around her, she felt her heart skip in reprieve as the two individuals she was desperate to avoid turned their heads in the opposite direction to take in the area around them.

One good thing about new Palm Woods residents was that they’d never know the hotel as well as she and her friends would.

With their backs practically turned to her now, she finally reached James, who looked up from his drink long enough to spot her. With a smile, he set it down on a nearby table as he waved.

“Hey! R-” The boy began to call, and her stomach dropped as she saw the tight curls atop Mag’s head begin to turn in their direction.

Protection! Her brain screamed at her, finally able to place what she had been looking for, and she felt her hands reach out toward James to catch the straps of his maroon tank top.

Using all the momentum she had from her rapid movements, and using James' surprise to her advantage, she tugged at the fabric in her left hand and managed to pull the singer halfway off the wall.

In one fluid motion, she completely switched places with him, feeling her back roughly hit the brick behind where James had been leaning. Doing her best not to wince as she felt a particularly rough piece of masonry bite into her arm, her plan was executed flawlessly as James’ hands shot out in front of him to stop from colliding with the solid surface toward which he was heading, landing on either side of her head to completely obscure her from view.

The only thing her plan hadn’t accounted for was how close it would bring the boy to her, practically caging her against the wall as he let out a weak, “-Oxy”

With mere seconds to register what she’d done in panic, Roxy heard the sound of flip-flops growing nearer to where she and James were attempting to catch their breath.

A million thoughts ran through her brain at just what would happen if James ended up moving away from her in the next few seconds. All of them ending with Mag and Dani catching sight of their old writer; All of them causing the hands gripping James’ tank top to continue to shake with terror.

It was getting harder and harder for her to focus when she glanced up at him, noticing the way his eyes widened as he felt her chest rapidly fall and rise against his own.

New plan… Stick to his strengths… Keep him near you-

“Tonsil hockey!” She whisper-yelled, yanking him down to her eye level to make sure he soaked in every word. “I really, really, really need you to teach me to play.”

Roxy certainly didn’t need to ask him twice.

At her words, he moved swiftly, though incredibly deliberately, as he bridged the already minuscule gap between himself and his assistant.

Then, there were so many things happening at once Roxy could hardly reign her attention in long enough to focus on any one of them as her eyes fluttered shut.

The sensation of James’ lips moving fervently against her own, the sound of a cell phone ringing somewhere behind them, the feeling of one of his hands beginning to slide down her back, the gentleness in which her fingers ran themselves through his hair, the groan of two hotel patrons trudging back towards the lobby, the pressure from his palm on her lumbar region that pushed her closer towards the boy who drove her absolutely crazy…

Until all at once, it stopped.

No more fervor.

No more hands on her body.

No more air left in her lungs.

As Roxy felt James pull away from her, her eyes shot open to see him shaking his head back and forth, running his hands through his hair to straighten out the mess she had made of it.

“No, no…” She heard him muttering before he took a few more steps back glancing between the hotel to his right and the girl in front of him. “This isn’t right. There’s too many people here.”

There was nothing her assistant could do besides let her jaw drop as she felt a sharp pang radiate through her chest. When he continued to move away from her, jabbing two of his thumbs back toward the hotel, she felt her cheeks heat with shame.

“Yeah, I’ve gotta-”

Without even finishing his sentence, James took off toward the lobby, not even sparing his assistant a second glance.

***

K: Jo convinced me to come to the New Town High set

R: That’s nice of her!

K: Yeah, except I had to watch her and Jett almost kiss 25 times, then actually make out a 26th time

R: Well, at least you knew it was coming

R: Besides, you can’t think of it like it's Jo kissing Jett - it’s her character kissing his.

K: Easier said than done. I think she’s mad at me, anyway.

R: I’d be too if my boyfriend was acting like he didn’t trust me

“Woah, woah! Roxy, your heart rate is spiking! Keep thinking about whatever you’re thinking about!”

She had found out too little too late that going to Logan to confide in had been a massive mistake, especially when he started placing little electrodes across her forehead and hooked her up to a heart rate monitor he just seemed to have lying around.

After kicking Gustavo and Kelly out of 2-J to shop for the boy’s desired list of items, the assistant had landed herself unwittingly part of one of his science experiments.

“Yeah, I’d love to keep thinking about trust and communication issues in relationships.”

Even though his back was turned to her, hunching over one of the math worksheets Mrs. Collins had dumped on him, she knew he was rolling his eyes. “Perfect! And while you’re at it, think about how much you cared about Dak and how little he cared about you… Or you can think about James for a bit.”

The rapid beeping of the machine his assistant was hooked up to increased slightly at the thought of her ex and he tore his focus away from the math book to write something down on a spreadsheet pulled up on his laptop. For a moment, Roxy thought about tossing the book she had in her hands that she was supposed to be skimming to write a book report on right at the back of his head until she glanced out the window and noticed Carlos, James, Guitar Dude, and Camille at one of the firepits.

“See? I can tell you were thinking of him just now.” Logan mused, switching back to the math page once the beeping sound increased further. “We’re practically proving Love Science in real-time.”

“That’s rich coming from the guy who can’t even make the girl who's been throwing herself at him for eight entire months his girlfriend.”

That comment caused Logan to whip around and shake his pencil her way. “I’ll have you know I’m taking her out on a nice, romantic date on Friday to ask her just that!”

When her heart rate spiked again, the boy let out a grumble of annoyance and unplugged the machine from the wall to stop its incessant noise. Before Roxy was able to get an excited word in he shook his pencil again, “I’ll tell you about it later. Just finish skimming the book and get to the reports!”

Of course, she normally wouldn’t let him talk to her like that, but she understood that he was under an extreme amount of stress as he worked on his friends’ projects. So, for now, she let it slide and settled back into the couch to finish looking over Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

A writer herself, Roxy was quite apt at spotting different literary devices in a multitude of texts and had a better understanding than most as to why an author would choose to frame their work with these techniques. That, and he had seen the Romeo + Juliet movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes about a million times. While she eagerly stuck various sticky notes on the pages she was half skimming through to tack her thoughts on the novel, Logan promised he’d take care of the rest of the work.

Sometime around the beginning of her second essay, Gustavo and Kelly came back from the store with all of the supplies Logan had requested, and the three of them set about in a frenzy to make sure all the rest of their schoolwork was completed.

While she sat quietly on the couch, typing away on her laptop about the different motifs in the story Mrs. Collins had assigned, Logan was being wheeled around the room in his blue desk chair to different workstations he and their bosses had set up. There was some intermittent yelling in place of a kind request to be moved around the room, lots of mumbling as the studious boy worked through his math problems, and so much Monstrosity energy drink spilled over the floor that everyone’s shoes were beginning to stick to the wood at their feet.

As time sprawled on, Roxy reached her fifth and final essay while it also appeared that Logan only had a few more worksheets left in order to complete his end of the bargain. Though she felt as though her amount of work was insurmountable in comparison to his, she did feel a small sense of pride that she was able to help her friends to the best of her ability - even if she did write James’ name at the top of the paper she was currently writing, knowing it would be the worst one.

Maybe it would be easier for us if we were stuck in a fictional romance story, she thought, ignoring the ache of her fingers as she tried to reach the two-page limit Mrs. Collins wanted for each essay. Instead of all this stupid nonsense, James would have 400-something pages to tell me exactly how he feels and we’d live happily ever after.

A body collapsing onto the couch beside her, head falling down onto her shoulder, pulled her from her thoughts as she glanced at her exhausted friend. Ignoring the syrupy blue stains on the white of his lab coat from his drinks and how it was seeping into the fabric of her t-shirt, she paused for a moment and rested her head on his before closing her laptop with a soft thud.

“Kelly and Gustavo went out for coffee…” Logan slurred, eyes drifting shut as he snuggled further into Roxy’s shoulder. “Just a five-minute nap….”

With a small chuckle, his assistant reached up and gently tapped on his cheek a few times, “Not until you tell me about asking out Camille.”

“Not until you tell me about asking out James.”

While she didn’t appreciate the mocking tone in his voice, she took a deep breath and reminded herself of all the incredible work he had done for her and her band that day.

“I can’t do that,” was her poor excuse for a reply as she felt Logan smile against her sleeve.

“Then I guess I can’t tell you about me and Camille.”

Between the two, there was a brief period of silence before Roxy felt herself begin to laugh.

“It’s really stupid honestly…” A few more chuckles sent Logan’s head bobbing up and down on her shoulder. “I tried a few times while we were on tour and I just… freeze. Like full-on deer in the headlights freeze! The only reason I managed to get him to kiss me today was because I needed a distraction before he eventually said ‘This isn’t right’ and literally ran away from me… How messed up is that?”

“Ew.”

“Don’t ‘Ew,’ me! You were the one who wanted to hear about it!”

“In less graphic detail! My brain is already numb!”

Finally, her laughter caught on and Logan found himself able to let go, at least for a small moment in time, as his friend continued.

“I just don’t get it… He’s made it clear he’s all traditional and thinks the guy should make the first move but here I am, waiting, writing songs about him, putting up with whatever games he’s playing because I can’t stop thinking about him, even after I told myself I wouldn’t do that anymore-”

“His longest relationship, ever, lasted one whole month. A whirlwind kinda thing with this girl we knew on the volleyball team before he dumped her in front of her entire family at one of her games.”

That comment gave her pause, blinking a few times in order to try and understand what Logan was trying to tell her.

“What do you think a messy breakup would do to this band, Roxy?”

An incredibly fair point she had not considered at all. What would happen if one day, the relationship she so desperately wanted to find herself in with a famous pop star ended?

“You couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as Dak when we were practicing for tour…” Logan continued, bringing up a bad memory from months ago his assistant had been doing her best to repress.

There was no doubt she hadn’t acted in a professional manner that day, and everyone on Team Big Time Rush had seen the way she dragged her ex out of the studio and yelled at him before excusing herself to go hide in Gustavo’s office.

“He’s worried about dating me because… I’m a co-worker?”

With a sigh, Logan lifted his head and looked his assistant straight in the eye, “He’s worried about potentially losing one of his closest friends based on his less-than-stellar relationship track record.”

“That’s not fair!” She cried, feeling a bit like a child in the beginning stages of a tantrum. “I’m supposed to sit here and suffer because he’s scared to put some trust in me? To assume that we’d be a lost cause from the start… Asshole!”

Hands flying up in frustration, Roxy found herself at a loss for words. All she wanted was to hear the cute way one of her best friends was going to ask out another one of her best friends but had instead found herself trapped in a conversation she wished she’d never started.

“Yeah…” was all Logan managed, straightening out the wrinkles her sudden actions had placed on the lapel of his lab coat. “We’re working on it. Maybe it’d help to tell him you’re looking for a boyfriend? Like when Carlos pulled that stunt in Boston it kinda riled him up-”

Before Logan could finish whatever he was about to say, his assistant shot up from the couch and ran to the kitchen counter where she had placed her bag earlier in the day. Though it was a bit of a struggle to fish through all the items she had collected in there on tour, at the very bottom she was able to find her songbook and pen which she eagerly threw open to the first blank page.

Looking for a boyfriend?

I see that, give me time, you know that I should be that

Though you’re scared to come put your trust in me

Can’t you see all that I could ever be

As your boyfriend?

Just before she could turn around and continue her interrupted conversation with her friend, the front door slowly opened, James, Carlos, and Kendall trudging in.

Between the three of them, no usual goofy smiles or discussion of antics could be found, only shuffling feet and eyes cast downward as they drew closer inside the apartment.

Once they reached the dining table, James finally managed to push out, “I am so sad.”

Turning back into assistant mode, Roxy snapped her book shut and was just about to discover what was causing such a mighty case of the blues among her band. That was, until Logan sprung up from the couch, sprinted towards his friends, grabbed them by the shirt collars, and dragged them over to the projects he had completed for them.

First up was James, who was shown to a beautiful science fair-ready tri-fold board boasting the project “Different Types of Hair.”

“Write 25 over 63!” Logan demanded, shoving one of the many pencils he had in his coat pocket into the long-haired boy's hand and pushing his head down into the paper.

Then, Carlos’ turn, though he tried to step away from his crazed friend he ultimately wasn’t quick enough. His project was simply titled “Laser” and though Roxy had a lot of questions, she was a bit worried at the idea of getting in Logan’s way.

“Write C-A-R-L-O-S here!” The boy growled, once more handing over a pencil and shoving his friend down toward the table.

Much nicer when he held his hand out to Roxy, he led his assistant over to a beautiful pink poster board displaying an experiment titled “Love Science.”

“Write notes of the status of your last three relationships… here, please.”

Kendall looked too dejected to even care that Logan was pulling him over toward an experiment called “Does Bleach Effect Plant Growth?” where the “E” in effect had been weakly crossed out, an “A” replacing it at the top of the board.

“Pour this-” Logan handed the frontman a measuring cup full of bleach and motioned towards three living houseplants, “On that.”

Buzz buzz

Finishing writing out what Logan had asked of her, even if it was “NO COMMENT” three times in a row, Roxy pulled her phone out of her back pocket and noticed a message in the group chat she shared with Camille and Jo.

J: I just broke up with Kendall.

Not even waiting to find out what the conclusion of the experiment ended up being, Roxy didn’t think twice before rushing out of 2-J, moving as fast as her legs could carry her to Jo’s apartment.

***

Jo, Roxy, and Camille had a long night together. Ice cream, crying, pulling down Big Time Rush posters, more crying, putting everything Kendall ever gave Jo in a box to throw in the hallway, and crying some more until Jo finally managed to fall asleep.

So, when Roxy finally woke up as the soft sunlight bled through the windows of her friend’s bedroom and managed to untangle herself from the knot she had found herself in with Jo and Camille, it was no surprise she had managed to sleep in far later than she had been hoping.

It was getting a bit tiring, running from place to place around this hotel, but she managed to make her way down to her apartment, change, and grab all of her schoolwork before racing down to the Palm Woods School classroom where the rest of Team Big Time Rush were waiting for Mrs. Collins to give them their final grades.

Moment of truth, the girl thought as she handed her papers over to her teacher with a small mumbled apology.

Mrs. Collins didn’t look bothered in the slightest, in fact, all emotion was absent from her features as the seven watched her go through every paper in her large stack with a bright, red pen to grade all of the work she had assigned her students.

For one whole hour, Team Big Time Rush stood there in silence, watching as their teacher combed through each page piled high on her desk and calculated each of her student’s final scores.

When she finally stood, she collected everyone’s work into neat little blue folders and walked down the line of science fair boards that had been propped up on a few of the desks in the back of the classroom.

“Kendall Knight,” She started, placing the blue folder down on top of the plants he had wiped out with a bath of bleach, “C-plus”

There was a chorus of cheers from Kelly and Gustavo, but their celebrations were a bit premature. There were still four more students to hear about before the band was officially able to perform at Rocktoberfest that evening.

Slowly, the group took a few steps to the right as Mrs. Collins continued, “Roxanne Somerset… B-plus”

A wave of relief passed over the writer, even if most of her grade had been at Logan’s expense she was ecstatic to be allowed to play at one of the biggest festivals of the year.

“James Diamond… C-plus... Carlos Garcia…” Reaching out to touch one of the buttons on the laser Logan had constructed, the band and their assistant ducked as a bright red beam shot out of the contraption and burned a large hole in the wall behind them. “B-plus!”

“Ha! I’m smarter than you!” The helmet wearer proclaimed, poking both Kendall and James in the chest as Mrs. Collins gave out her final grade.

“Logan Mitchell… C… Plus!”

The scream of excitement Kelly let out was nearly inhuman, causing a still very tired Logan to cover his ears and fall to the floor, but it was Gustavo’s enthusiastic “Rocktoberfest, here we come!” that shocked the writer the most.

Kneeling to the floor to help Logan gently sit up, a group of people shuffling into the classroom doorway caught her attention. Lil’ Lee Roth and the Teen NCSI cast filled the back of the room, “Are you guys playing at Rocktoberfest?”

“Yeah,” James said, a hint of caution in his voice, “We’re one of the bands.”

Instantly, they and a whole horde of teen Palm Woods residents behind them flooded the small classroom, all shouting at once about how they wanted free tickets to the show. It was the most attention any of them had shown Big Time Rush over the last 48 hours.

Once Roxy was able to get Logan back on his feet, though he did have both his arms slung around her shoulders, the five of them faced the horde of people. None of them knew what to do, looking anxiously at each other as they all tried to form a plan to fend off the large mob.

“You can all watch from the V.I.P. area thanks to Big Time Rush!” Kelly declared, stepping in front of the teens and pulling out a handful of V.I.P. laminates to Rocktoberfest before tossing them into the large group.

There wasn’t much Roxy could do as Logan, Carlos, and James were pulled away from her and up onto the shoulders of many individuals in the group, chanting “Big Time Rush, Big Time Rush!” as they carried the boys through the hallways of the hotel.

When she noticed Kendall had hung back, staring at the picture on his phone’s lock screen of him and Jo, she was quick to pull out an extra pass from Kelly’s ledger and hand it off to him. Looping her arm through his, she gave him a small smile and motioned her head towards the exit, “How about we go leave this at her door? If she comes, she comes, if not…”

It wasn’t much of a pep talk, but it was all she could manage for now as Kendall nodded slowly, pulling her towards the rest of the hotel.

***

A quick stop at Rocque Records allowed time to gather everything the band would need to put on their show. Now, Team Big Time Rush and their bass player, Mick, and drummer, Austin, were waiting for their turn to take the Rocktoberfest stage.

Tensions were a bit high, considering they were to take the open-air stage right after a little band by the name of Brand New Day, and Roxy explained to her friends what she had seen of Mag and Dani the day before. But when she saw her friends side eying the duo as they played, the assistant found herself far more confident at the prospect of running into them now than she had yesterday - Big Time Rush was closing out Rocktoberfest, not Brand New Day, and that felt far better than she had ever imagined.

Though it did slightly suck to have to listen to their set from side stage, as she gripped the neck of her guitar and practiced a few chords of “The Rock Show” by blink-182 to play during her introduction, she thankfully didn’t have to listen to the end of their last song when Logan slid up next to her.

“I’m taking Camille to the observatory and setting up a nice place on their big lawn where we can star gaze together. Of course, while we’re lying down, I’ll draw her into my side and when I’m pointing out all of my favorite constellations, I’m going to show her Perseus and Andromeda and tell the story of their love… Then, I’m gonna ask her to be my girlfriend.”

Just as she opened her mouth to respond, she was cut off by Gustavo pushing the pair of them out of their seats and toward the other members of the band who were waiting for their turn to hit the stage behind a large black curtain.

For now, she bumped her hip into his, “Aw!” and joined up with the rest of their friends, stealthily peeking out at the crowd from behind the partition. In the front, standing right on the barricade were almost all their friends, old and new, from the Palm Woods, eagerly bouncing around to the music playing in between sets. Behind them, there was a sea of fans with all kinds of signs proclaiming their love for the members of Big Time Rush. Even though the change to the Rocktoberfest lineup had only been announced that morning, it looked as though the majority of the crowd couldn’t wait to see the boys.

“Oh, it really is a Rocktober miracle!” Logan practically swooned, leaning back into Carlos and James as he scanned the crowd in more detail.

Pulling the curtain back a bit further, James gushed, “The entire Palm Woods is here!” before his assistant elbowed him in the ribs, causing him to wince.

Among all their friends in the crowd, none of them were able to spot Jo.

Offering Kendall a light pat on the shoulder, Carlos sighed, “Sorry, Buddy.”

“Okay!” Gustavo called from behind them, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention and not caring in the slightest that they had been in the middle of their own conversation. “We’re going to perform the same setlist we did from tour, got it?”

“I want to do the new one.”

Kendall’s statement confused everyone, including Roxy, until she noticed that the comment was directed at her.

“What new one?” His assistant genuinely asked, worried he had broken into her songbook and seen the mess of songs she had written about his best friend.

Running a gentle hand through his hair, he glanced to the side, “You know… The one you kept singing in your sleep…”

“Oh! I know that one!” Carlos chimed in, “Dance hard, laugh more, turn the-”

“Carlos!” Roxy hissed, eyes growing wide as she noticed the other two boys bobbing their heads along to the tune he was singing. “All four of you… know it?”

“Yeah… Sound travels easily down a narrow bus hallway.” Offered Logan, her official bus mate, “I’m pretty sure we all know the words, right?”

“Mhm,” James mumbled, looking extremely interested in his shoes. She knew that he knew the words, considering he had been there when she had written most of them, but his reaction to admitting that was a bit off putting

The grip she had on the strap of her guitar grew tighter. While they hadn’t gone through her things, it still felt a bit scary to know they had learned an entire song she had written simply by sharing the same space as her for a few months.

If they know that one… Which other ones do they know?

“Roxy, let’s start with that one,” Kendall said, placing a comforting hand on her arm and drawing her gaze upward to the rest of the band. “Trust me?”

The answer that left her mouth didn’t surprise her at all.

“Always.”

There was a quick shuffle of logistics backstage, where she quickly had to describe the beat she had written to Mick and Austin who caught on just quickly enough, and when the band finally ran out on stage, the fruit of Roxy’s labor paid off with a perfect version of “Til I Forget About You.”

Not only had the musical accompaniment nailed it, but the band had perfectly dolled out the different parts of the song, obviously letting Kendall take the lead, and put together a quick portion of choreography to go with the chorus.

During this song, everyone except Kendall who was singing his sweet little heart out, noticed a mystery blonde and blank sign weasel their way to the front of the crowd to link up with Camille in the Palm Woods section of the crowd.

When the sign turned around, revealing Jo, it revealed a far more beautiful message.

I <3 Kendall

***

After the show, the band stopped by Rocque Records to drop off the equipment they had used for the show and once Roxy had finished inventory, placing everything back in the tech room where it belonged, she made her way into Studio B to try and fit in a little bit of songwriting.

The band had done phenomenal earlier, taking “Til I Forget About You” and making the song theirs just as much as it was her own, but she didn’t feel comfortable letting another incomplete song out into the world again.

Since she hadn’t had the time over the last two days to take her work in progress of “Invisible” and add the piano part she envisioned in the background, what better time than the present to give it the melody she had been hearing over and over in her head since she began to put her ideas on paper.

Sitting down at the large, grand piano Gustavo had in the studio, she slowly opened the cover to reveal the black and white keys. Gently running her fingers over the first chord, she tried to piece the correct notes together.

It was easy to compose a piece on the guitar, once she heard the note in her head, it was second nature to move her fingers along the frets and sound it out. On the piano, however, she had to take a lot of extra time to play the right chord since she wasn’t as used to this instrument as she would have liked.

To her, the guitar felt a bit like having an effortless conversation where both parties involved could talk freely and openly, but the piano was almost like an interrogation, having to focus and coax the information out of an unwilling participant.

Though piano could be a bit exhausting from time to time, she began to play out the melody she had in her head, doing her best to sing the lines she had written along with the tune to make sure nothing was out of place.

As she warbled, very much off-key, she could also hear the guitar piece she had written playing along with the piano notes she was forcing out of the instrument. That, paired with the beautiful harmony she knew the boys would have no trouble pulling off could make this an easy Big Time Rush hit.

If I ever give it to Big Time Rush… Maybe there are some things I should keep for myself, She thought until she finished up the song and heard the sound of slow clapping coming from the doorway behind her.

With a small yelp, she turned around to find Kendall making his way across the room toward her, still clapping until he drew near enough to say, “God, Roxy! That was incredible!”

Embarrassed mostly, she opened and closed her mouth a few times before she was able to spit out, “I thought everyone went home.”

“Everyone else took Logan home, so I figured we could walk back together, but when I went to the tech room to find you, you weren’t in there. Turns out you were hiding in Studio B with a beautiful song this whole time.”

“It’s… whatever.” She deflected, trying to turn the conversation back on him, “Shouldn’t you be busy making up with Jo? I had a hell of a time with her last night…”

Sitting down on the piano bench next to her, he sighed, “She had to work late tonight, so we set a date for tomorrow. Now play the song again!”

“Maybe when it’s finished-”

“Again, again!”

“Say it one more time and I’m going to force you into the booth to record ‘Til I Forget About You!’”

Threat making the blond hold his hands up in defeat, she finally got Kendall to back off. “...I just thought I should tell you I liked it.”

And now she felt bad for snapping at him, not thinking about her next words before saying, “Thanks, it fits right in with all the other shitty songs I’ve written about James.”

“That song… is about James?”

Way to go, Roxanne, the girl winced once the words left her mouth, wringing her hands together when she noticed his green eyes blow wide. No turning back now.

“Sure is, in a roundabout sort of way. More like… things I wish he’d say to me,” She paused, digging into the songbook in the bag at her feet. “Wanna hear the other ones?”

Kendall cringed, “Do I have a choice?”

“Do you want a career?” Roxy bit.

A slight nod of his head gave way to his answer.

“Great! Let me go grab my guitar. Be back in just a moment.”

Buzz buzz

When she raced out of the room, she felt her phone go off in her back pocket.

M: Loved the set tonight, Roxy. Your new band seems cool… Even for mainstream pop.

R: Sorry, I don’t recognize this number. Who is this?

There was no way Mag could possibly know she was lying as her shaking fingers sent the message.

M: Oh, don’t be like that… Can’t wait to see you around the Palm Woods.

R: The Palm Woods? I’ve never heard of it

M: Still? Our producers talked at Rocktoberfest and yours said that's where you were staying. How did you trick Gustavo Rocque into signing you and your wannabe friends?

R: Lose my number, Mag. I’m really not in the mood for this

M: All I did was compliment you on the set!

R: Lose. My. Number.

M: Whatever, Roxy. Seems like Hollywood has changed you too much for my liking anyway.

R: It’s Roxanne. Only my friends call me Roxy

M: Roxanne, Roxanne, Roxanne… Catch you later Roxanne!

As always, thanks for reading! <3 I'm so excited to share "season" two with y'all :)

#thats all she wrote fic #big time rush #btr #james diamond #james maslow #kendall knight #kendall schmidt #logan mitchell #logan henderson #carlos garcia #carlos penavega

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ghostiiiee · 3 years

Text

Just Like Me

To read at my Ao3 CLICK HERE This is the first chapter. sorry is its a little rough. :sweatdrop:

Almost forgot! Tw: i will be going heavy on quirkless discrimination and mental health issues. Theres not much in the first chapter but i do want to touch on it at some point.

School was never something he looked forward to. After all, what was there to look forward to? He was used to getting bullied, made fun of for being different, called names, shoved around. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Many years ago, maybe he would have been the normal one?

Then again, what even was normal?

It used to be normal to go to school- learn history, math, science and whatever language the school taught.

It used to be normal to not have any powers, after all - superheroes were a dream. Stories people made up to tell themselves. Heroes existed, yes, but they never had powers. Heroes were just people, average people.

Again, there's another word that's changed. Average.

Normal. Average.

Two hundred years ago, it was normal for the average person to look human.

Two hundred years ago, it was normal for the average person to have no powers.

Two hundred years ago, it was normal for superheroes to only be a thing of stories.

That was two hundred years ago. Not now.

Now it's weird to not have powers.

Now you get bullied for being regular. Quirkless.

One of 20%.

Mathematically, he thought it was stupid that so many people get treated so differently. He did remember Mr. Lancer telling him of people getting treated for less. Mr. Lancer told him two hundred years ago, 10% of the population was seen as satanic because of what hand they used to write with. A similar estimated percent was discriminated against because of who they loved, or what they identified as.

“Sadly, Mr. Fenton, the human race has a history of not tolerating those who they see as a minority.”

“I remember that from history Mr. Lancer.” Danny sighed, leaning his head on his hand. His eyes stared out the window, looking at the stormy weather. “I remember you talking about how things used to be.”

The teacher pursed his lips, staying quiet and looking at him with concern.

Lancer had asked Danny to stay after class to speak to him. He never did like how Daniel’s peers would gang up on him after school ended. The best he could usually do was this. Casper’s principal was... far too likely to be accepting of anything the more wealthy students’ parents had to say.

“Is that why you’ve been spacing out all day then, Danny?”

It was asked gently. Danny’s eyes glanced over to the balding teacher before darting back to the window. He hummed for a moment. “...Kinda. I got a lot on my mind.”

“Penny for your thoughts then?” Lancer pulled his chair next to his desk.

It was quiet for a few minutes, the sound of rain gently pattering against the classroom windows filled the room while Danny collected his thoughts. Blue eyes watched raindrops roll down the glass.

“I don’t get it, Mr. Lancer.” His voice was quiet as the floodgates opened. “Everyone in my family has quirks. Dad is strong. My mom can copy anyone’s fighting styles just by watching. Jazz can look at someone and-.... well you know.” He sank down into his chair. “Aunty A, even has a quirk. I've never seen her miss a shot. And then there's me. Daniel James Fenton. The first quirkless person in our family in a long time. Don’t get me wrong either, it doesn’t bother me too much.” Liar. “It’s just... it feels like the cherry on top of everything else.

“My parents got an invitation to teach some classes at UA in Japan. In Japan, I've never lived anywhere but here. Amity Park. It’s not like they can leave me here. PLUS, Jazz has always wanted to go there for the General studies.”

“I understand your concern, Danny. But I’ve seen your work,” There was slight amusement in Mr. Lancers voice. “Aren’t you good at building things? I know I’ve caught you tinkering with something more than once in class.”

Danny’s face flushed red. “...My parent’s usually make those. They’re old models of support gear they have made. I was seeing if I could get a glitch out.”

“And?”

“...I keep shocking myself.” He mumbled. “It hurts like hell.”

“While I can’t say I’m happy that you are getting injured. As long as you are safe, I'm glad.” Mr. Lancer offered a smile to the teen. “As for the other predicament, you are always open to contact me if you need me after you move.”

“Thank you Mr. Lancer.”

~~~~~~~

Danny was thankful that they moved over the summer and not in the middle of the year. School was already hectic enough as was. Moving in the middle of the year was not something he ever wanted to do, let alone moving across the globe in the middle of the year.

He kept to himself for the first few weeks. He liked to walk around, exploring the new area. It felt different than Amity park. More crowded. He noted early on there was definitely more hero around too. It didn’t bother him too much.

That's a lie.

More heroes means more villains.

He didn’t like villains.

He also didn’t like being a hostage.

Lucky him!

He was held hostage by a villain not even before the end of the second week. Not that this was a first time experience for him, having been a favorite target back in Amity Park. He knew all the heroes back home personally because of it. People just loved to take quirkless people hostage. One would think, with the target that seems to hang over his head, that Daniel James Fenton wouldn’t take such risks as walking around alone at night. One would think that if he did, it would be out of necessity, and he would at least have something on him to defend himself.

...yeah no that's not the case. Why in the world would that be the case?

Danny was shoved onto the ground, air leaving his lungs as he hit. He gasped for air, trying to look at who was targeting him now. He couldn’t really tell much about the person, ratty clothes and a hoodie pulled up to cover their face. Nothing could be seen under the hood, it was just shadow, pure, black shadow.

“What’s a runt like you doing out right now?” The villain crouched next to Danny. Chuckling when he tried to scoot away. They put a foot on one of Danny’s wrists, “Ah-ah. Now that’s rude. I’m talking to you punk.”

Danny didn’t respond, wincing at the pressure on his arm.

“It’s rather rude to ignore your elders.” The villain put more pressure, adjusting so they were crouched like a vulture next to prey.

“F-fuck you. I’ve seen worse.” He growled

The regret in saying that was nearly instant. In the blink of an eye, the ground next to his head - that was solid concrete what the hell- was shattered. The villain was making an inhuman noise, a low gutteral sound coming from them. “You haven’t seen my worst. I wasn’t gonna do much to ya, but I’m starting to change my mind kid.”

He knew he should do anything else - he was already on a thin line - but fuck it. He had a free hand anyways. He grabbed something from his pocket and slammed it against the villain. “As I said before. Fuck. You.” He pressed the button on the side.

The machine sparked to life. Quite literally. Danny still didn��t know what it was supposed to do, but he could make it shock things. Like a weird taser. Unlucky for Danny he was literally pinned to the ground beneath the villain getting tased. And as everyone knows. Humans are conductive. Very conductive.

Strangely the villain didn't even flinch. The growl getting louder as they grabbed the device from their shoulder and crushed it with their hand. Danny started shaking. Okay so that was a horrible idea.

The shadows of the alley gathered around the villain. Climbing up their clothing and slowly slithering along their arm. They held Danny down, forming chains around him. In the villain’s hand, a knife, absorbing all light, The villian made the move to attack, and Danny closed his eyes, waiting for the pain to come.

It never did.

It lessened.

Weight lifted from him, a weight he hadn’t realized was there besides his arm. Tentatively he opened his eyes.

The villain was on the ground a few meters away from him, knocked out and tied up to a fire exit- similar to how Batman would leave criminals for the cops. Danny blinked. He hadn’t heard anything. So what in the world happened? And how could that have happened so fast?

Standing up, he looked around for a sign of anyone being there to help him.

Oddly enough. It seemed no one had caused the villain to go down, at least not that Danny could see. Blue eyes scanned the area for a moment, looking for anything that wasn’t there before. Nothing popped out. Nothing was out of place. It looked like no one had been there.

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. The air condensed, forming mist as it left his mouth and floated away. It was like when he first stepped outside in the winter. Which was strange- it was the middle of summer. A small frown formed on his face. The nights here weren’t that cold normally.

He brushed it off, ignoring the goosebumps running along his skin as the air chilled. Perhaps whoever knocked the villain out had a rather cold quirk, he mused to himself. Heroes normally make themselves known at this point, checking to see if he was okay.

He had an inkling it wasn’t a hero. At least not a licensed one. Not that he minded. He didn’t care who it was really. They saved his life… he was grateful for that.

Danny looked up to the clear sky, moonlight peaking over the buildings enough to illuminate the alley where the street lights glowed. He smiled up to the stars. “Thank you.” He said softly. “I wasn’t paying attention tonight.”

He left the alley, starting his way back home. He never caught sight of the figure watching him.

#Danny Phantom #danny fenton #mha x dp #bnha #mha

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the-turtleduck-pond · 2 years

Text

I posted 398 times in 2021

192 posts created (48%)

206 posts reblogged (52%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 1.1 posts.

I added 760 tags in 2021

#dream smp - 209 posts

#mcyt - 116 posts

#technoblade - 108 posts

#dsmp - 108 posts

#turtleduck talks - 106 posts

#tommyinnit - 40 posts

#dsmp techno - 20 posts

#c!techno - 20 posts

#dreamwastaken - 17 posts

#philza minecraft - 16 posts

Longest Tag: 130 characters

#i hate cookie run now on the principle of how many of its fans are clearly toxic and have no clue how to look into shit themselves

My Top Posts in 2021

I finally have a semi-coherent thought about A:TLA again!

Zuko and Katara (or Sokka or whoever, it truly doesn't matter) in the crystal caverns... except they don't know he's Zuko. He's just some random -apparently- Earth Kingdom teen stuck down there with them.

They have no clue why this guy (who introduces himself as Li) is in there with them.

Then everything goes wild when Azula comes down and starts talking to them and inevitably calls him 'brother' or something.

240 notes • Posted 2021-04-13 00:00:03 GMT

So I've just been excited that c!Tubbo told c!Ranboo what happened. That he got executed because c!Quackity and c!Schlatt peer-pressured c!Techno and that he made the burns from that attack canon.

However I keep seeing people upset that c!Tubbo is not upset with c!Techno and that people are saying that the peer pressure was enough to cause him to do that.

However, I don't think any of them are actually thinking about the facts of c!Techno here because their arguments are always along the lines of "Oh, he could have fought his way out :/ He could have easily beaten them".

They're probably right, even against high odds, c!Techno could beat a lot of people. However, c!Techno isn't one to take a risk he doesn't have to and also -

The peer pressure does come into play, like it or not.

I would like to bring to the table that both cc!Techno and c!Techno have rather severe social anxiety. This is true and canon fact.

Do you know what it's like to be in a situation where everyone is staring at you when you have even normal anxiety? It's fucking terrifying. I'm saying this as a person with anxiety, both social and just plain anxiety.

So important people like c!Schlatt and c!Quackity, suddenly calling for c!Techno to execute c!Tubbo? He would be feeling all of those eyes on him in a situation where he doesn't have any authority and isn't mid-battle.

Fucking hell that sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Put me in that situation and tell me to stab someone? That knife is gonna look like a good option for getting out of an awkward and terrifying situation. Just thinking of it makes me nervous to the point of my chest getting tighter.

c!Tubbo was in no position to really call him off either, he was literally trapped and couldn't do anything. He had no power to help c!Techno escape the situation of being watched while called to do something, which meant that c!Techno also felt trapped.

Not to mention that c!Techno and c!Tubbo usually got along before that. So c!Techno didn't exactly have ill will towards him either.

Had someone he trusted and worked well with - c!Tommy and c!Wilbur come to mind - tried to call him off, he more than likely would have hesitated more and even potentially just not done it.

But I'm sure some of you would argue that just c!Schlatt and c!Quackity doing it and no one speaking out against it isn't enough.

However, it wasn't just c!Schlatt and c!Quackity was it? it's something we don't want to think of for one very simple reason.

It was us too.

Chat is canon and Techno bends to our will quite often. When it comes to violence, we're the ones who get the final say and get to call the shots.

After all, our favorite phrase is "Blood for the Blood God" and we called for it that day.

And we aren't exactly small in number.

299 notes • Posted 2021-06-18 23:41:32 GMT

Has anyone ever noticed that when people in the Dream SMP fandom go "Oh, what this character did was unforgivable", "This character is bad", "this character is flat", or "This doesn't make any sense". You can always tell whether or not they watch the person they're complaining about?

Like, c!Tubbo's execution for instance. Every time I see someone say that c!Techno didn't care at all or his character enjoyed it, I can tell they don't watch Techno or completely misunderstand his character.

c!Techno spent several minutes stalling, all while trying to find a way to free c!Tubbo.

If you watch it from c!Tubbo's POV or any other character than c!Techno, it does look like he's just lining up a shot and trying to avoid c!Tubbo's talking, but if you watch Techno all that movement makes more sense. He was looking at c!Tubbo's imprisonment for a way to release him.

He can't. He's forced to go through with it. He gets close to use a weapon he himself doesn't know is effective because he knows at close range fireworks do more damage. Then fires off multiple shots until he gets the message. He also apologized beforehand for what he's doing.

The thing about c!Techno is he doesn't apologize if he doesn't mean it. If he didn't care about killing c!Tubbo he would have fired off his shots immediately and without a word of apology because he wouldn't have a reason to even pretend. He wouldn't have bothered stalling and he wouldn't have bothered with even a half assed apology.

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

Another thing is when someone says that c!Phil's is two dimensional. They clearly aren't watching lore from his POV, only from other people while he happens to be in the room. That or they completely don't understand what's going on. cc!Phil isn't an actor or writer by any means so of course his side will seem a little flat.

If you actually pay attention from his POV and to what's happening rather than purely how he's executing it, c!Phil does have a lot of motivation.

I've also seen people say that his character half-ass tries to explain away shitty things he does, but here's the thing. From c!Phil's POV, those excuses make sense. They aren't half-assed because to him they're exactly why he did it.

Just because you don't like it or it doesn't make sense to you, doesn't mean that it doesn't in the end make sense.

There are more situations than just this too, but people need to work on stopping and thinking about things and not just jumping in on a take that doesn't really have ground to hold it.

452 notes • Posted 2021-09-03 11:46:20 GMT

I swear-

c!Techno was abundantly clear to c!Tommy from the beginning that he was going to destroy L'Manburg. He stated it several times. He made no illusions about not wanting or planning to.

c!Tommy chose to ignore every verbal statement c!Techno gave him about this however.

Yes, c!Techno stated they could talk about it at one point, but need I remind you that any chance they had to talk about it was completely disrupted by c!Tommy leaving and therefore c!Techno had no reason to even hesitate anymore.

Also, despite seeing several people who seem to think otherwise, c!Techno had no intention to force c!Tommy to help him destroy L'Manburg. He asked but he also stated that c!Tommy didn't have to help and that he should just stay out of the way. c!Techno was essentially saying, "Just stay at the cabin, you don't have to be involved" and meant it.

Not to mention c!Techno showed c!Tommy a room with HUNDREDS of wither skulls. c!Tommy isn't dumb, he knows what that would mean.

So, NO. c!Techno did not lie and hide his intent to destroy L'Manburg and NO, he wasn't going to force c!Tommy to help him.

672 notes • Posted 2021-10-04 12:10:21 GMT

Things that piss me off when people ignore them, Dream SMP edition. (Surprisingly TikTok and Tumblr are innocent today, I'm just mad.)

c!Techno did not blow up L'Manburg. c!Wilbur did. c!Techno set Withers on the already destroyed city after they set up a government in front of him while knowing he was an anarchist that they had employed partly because he was an anarchist.

c!Wilbur manipulated c!Techno by lying to him multiple times throughout Pogtopia. He claimed Pogtopia was not a country -which is directly opposing what he told c!Tommy as they made Pogtopia- then proceeded to tell him that he wouldn't be making a new government when they took back L'Manburg.

Releasing Withers on L'Manburg was not c!Techno betraying them as he had no loyalty to them in the first place. He had been hired by Pogtopia to help them train and farm. He had no ties of loyalty beyond helping them regain the country. When betrayed and finding out he was lied to, he then proceeded to set the Withers on them. You cannot betray someone who you were never loyal to in the first place and he had no loyalty to L'Manburg.

From c!Schlatt's view, executing c!Tubbo made perfect sense. He was a mole that he found, not only in the country he was in charge of, but in the actual cabinet. Even if we don't like it, it made sense from his view.

c!Techno did not enjoy executing c!Tubbo. He was forced to. He would not have apologized or stalled for time while attempting to figure out how to free him if he had wanted to do it or didn't care.

c!Tommy did not mean to burn down c!George's house, it was an accident. He had set out to steal from people that day.

c!Ranboo was as much to blame for the destruction of c!George's house as c!Tommy was.

c!Tommy took all the blame for c!George's house being burnt down despite the fact that he knew that c!Ranboo was there too and he could shift some of the blame to someone else.

c!Quackity had no right to cause the formation of the Butcher Army. He went to c!Techno's land knowing that he wasn't causing any problems right then. He knew that c!Techno had no intent to fight and used Carl against him. Even when informed that c!Techno was retired he didn't care. Also, c!Techno simply responded to c!Quackity coming after him with the same reaction as c!Quackity gave him. Violence.

c!Wilbur was manipulating c!Tommy for a long time. Even as far back as the Disc Wars. When c!Wilbur told c!Tommy to give the discs to c!Dream, seconds later he privately messaged him to tell him to run, which caused even more chaos and harm in the end.

No matter how much you head canon otherwise, Sally was just a regular salmon.

682 notes • Posted 2021-09-07 18:38:55 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #long post #turtleduck talks

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redeadepression · 3 years

Text

Never Be | John Marston Fic | Arthur’s POV

I’ve decided to make this a small series. John’s inner monologue of all his failures (set in my Modern AU) and interactions with his friends and family/their reactions to his situation. This one is different because it’s written from Arthur’s POV! Let me know if you want to hear John’s!

Jumbled timeline because I write what I feel like lately. This is the earliest story in the series so far.

Characters: Arthur Morgan, John Marston. Hosea Matthews, Dutch Van der Linde Setting: My Modern AU Words: 2849 Tags: Angst, Family, Adoption, Modern AU, Teen John No Trigger warnings Summery: Arthur returns home to visit his parents and receives some disturbing news.

The scratching sound of Arthur’s hand-brake was always a concern to him. But even at the age of twenty-eight he was still struggling to have enough money to take the concern too seriously.

Instead, he ignored it as he always did. Making sure to let it click at least three times and silently praying that his car would not roll back down the drive once he left it.

He sat back in his chair for a moment. Letting his head fall back against the rest and sighing deeply as he prepared himself for the next few hours.

He loved his parents deeply. He would be forever grateful for the way they took him in. Not just as a Foster family but for adopting him officially as well.

But hell, they were exhausting sometimes. Dutch more so than Hosea. Always wanting to talk shop and try and convince Arthur to go another way in life. Stop trying to get his art out there and take on a trade instead.

Hosea was more supportive of his life choices. But the way he fussed over Arthur’s eating and the way he lived was its own form of exhausting. Always having to assure the older man that his apartment was clean and he had eaten three meals in a day.

Instant ramen was a meal. He didn’t care how hard others argued against that.

He missed being a carefree teen like John was at the moment. Not having to worry about mundane things like bills and whether or not his car would break down on the way to work for the third time in a week.

Steeling himself against the wave of questions as to why it had been so long since he visited, he pushed open his door and exited the vehicle.

Locking his car and checking to make sure his wallet was in his back pocket. He turned, jogging up the front steps and knocking on the screen door. It rattled under his knuckles, wobbling in its frame. Arthur had always mused just how easy it would be to push it off it’s hinges and walk inside. He was always on their asses to lock the wooden door as well but they refused. The screen let in the cool breeze and stopped them from having to pay for air conditioning.

Not that the cool breeze ever did anything to alleviate how sweltering their house was in summer.

Air conditioning was something Arthur had looked forward to the most when he left home. Turning it on and letting it run 24/7.

Until he’d gotten his first power bill.

“$600 a year is a bit steep for power isn’t it?” He’d asked Hosea bitterly.

Hosea had laughed heartily at his son’s naivety.

“Electric bills are not yearly son.” He’d corrected. “Every three months.”

“Every three months?” Arthur had asked incredulously, the other man smiling to himself knowingly.

“Not so fun being an adult now is it?” He’d chuckled simply.

Arthur still bristled at the memory. They could have warned him.

Although he knew deep down there was no way he would have listened anyway.

Arthur drummed his fingers absently against his thigh as he waited to be let inside. Frowning when no one came to the door and flicking through his keys to look for his old one.

He let himself inside, closing and relocking the door behind him as he yelled out that he had entered.

He checked the time on his watch as he walked down the hallway and turned into the living room. They did say lunch was at 2pm. He was only fifteen minutes early.

No one was in the kitchen.

Placing his hands on his hips, he looked around the room, clicking his tongue as he decided they must still be on their way home.

“Alright.” He whispered under his breath, leaving the living room and continuing on down the hallway towards his old room. He had wanted to grab some of his book he’d left here years before anyway.

As he sidled down the hallway he stopped in his tracks, movement catching his eye as he backtracked a few steps and peered into John’s bedroom through the open door.

“Hey?” He asked in surprise, realising the teen was home.

John startled at Arthur’s voice. Turning to stare at the older man, equally surprised from his place atop his bed.

“Hey.” He said back croakily, arms crossed across his chest moving to rest by his side as he pushed himself up into a sitting position.

He had been staring despondently at the ceiling. Arthur wondered if he hadn’t heard him or if he was ignoring him purposefully.

“I called out.” Arthur stated simply, shrugging as he moved into the room without invitation and slumped himself down into John’s desk chair.

“Thought you were Dutch.” John said wearily, head hanging low as he sat on the edge of his bed and refused to make eye contact with the older man.

Arthur frowned, something about the teen seeming off. He was never the most enthusiastic teenager but he usually made a little more of an effort to engage with Arthur than he was at the moment. Despite his emo phase ending a few years earlier he seemed withdrawn and sullen.

Arthur took in the younger’s pale appearance. Dark circles underlining his youthful eyes and discolouration mottling his cheeks and brow.

He seemed ill or at the very least, extremely tired.

Arthur knew he had been working hard at his trade lately. He’d earned himself an apprenticeship in some form of construction work. Hosea had been fuzzy on the details. Even hazier on whether or not John actually enjoyed or wanted the job.

Deep down Arthur felt perhaps John had just bowed to the pressure of setting himself up in life that his parents had always instilled on them. He had to choose something to get them off his back.

He felt bad for the kid. He didn’t really have any ambitions. None that he ever liked to talk about anyway.

“You alright?” Arthur asked earnestly, leaning down to try and catch John’s eye as the other nodded softly.

“Yeah.” He lied, unable to truly force the deceit.

Arthur heard the statement for what it was, pursing his lips as he rested his forearms on his knees and leaned closer to the younger man.

“Wanna talk about it?” He asked, already knowing what the answer would be as John shook his head.

Arthur inhaled deeply, sitting back in his chair and wincing as he leaned forwards again to pull his wallet from his back pocket. Placing that and his keys on the desk next to him before pausing and returning for his wallet. Slipping a 20 out of it and placing it between a stack of books.

He was broke as shit but he always had money for little John. The boy never asked anyone for a Goddamn cent and Arthur knew firsthand how cruel teenage life could be growing up with no cash. Although his parents had been generous with him, they were still less than wealthy compared to a lot of other kids in Arthur’s class.

Arthur turned back to John, clasping his hands together in between his knees and thinking on something to say to try and get the kid to talk to him. He had been feeling bad for not visiting as often lately. He wondered subconsciously if John was annoyed about that. Feeling neglected.

He had been meaning to drop by. Especially as John closed in on his eighteenth birthday. Only a week away now. Arthur had wanted to have a quick chat with him about drinking responsibly.

Although he knew of course the kid would never listen to him as he had not listened in the past. He wanted him to know he could always call if he needed him. That Arthur would be his designated driver no questions asked if he needed it.

Hosea had offered that to him just shy of his own eighteenth birthday. That and adoption papers. Arthur had never been so happy in his life.

“Your birthday’s coming up.” Arthur said after another moment of silence. “Eighteen, that’s exciting.” He baited, waiting for the other to perk up at the mention. What kind of teen wasn’t excited about hitting adulthood and all the disappointing realities that came along with it?

John’s hands tightened against his mattress, frown deepening at the mention of his birthday as Arthur watched on in confusion.

“Uh…” Arthur began, unsure what exactly had upset the kid. “Not excited then?” He asked, regretting his choice of words as he caught sight of John’s eyes watering. The younger’s hand shot to his face, wiping at the wetness before it could fall. Turning his face away from Arthur and trying his hardest to hide his tears and compose himself. “John?” Arthur said softly, feeling guilt well in his chest for causing such a strong reaction in the teen. It had been a long time since he’d seen him cry.

“Don’t.” John choked, shaking his head as he silently begged the older man to leave it alone. “Just, don’t.” He repeated, voice thick with emotion as Arthur watched on sadly.

“Arthur!” Hosea called suddenly, excited voice echoing down the hall as they both heard the old screen door rattle. Arthur turned away from John, looking out the doorway as the scrape of boots on the front mat and footsteps on the floorboards could be heard. The clunking steps drawing closer as the older couple returned home. “You’re early!” Dutch chided as the footsteps took a turn and Arthur knew without having to look that they had walked through the living room and into the kitchen.

“Fifteen minutes!” He shouted back. “Ya’ll haven’t even started cooking yet.” He complained half-heartedly before turning back to John and frowning once more. The younger was wiping at his face frantically, looking panicked as he tried to usher Arthur from the room.

The older man nodded, grabbing for his wallet and keys before leaving John’s room and closing the door behind him. He stood in the hallway for a minute, reflecting on the strangeness of John’s behaviour before heading back towards the living room.

He supposed he would not have wanted them to see him crying at that age either. He still had trouble crying in front of his romantic partner, let alone his parents. He would feel like a right fool if they caught him in that state.

Arthur’s parents looked up to greet him as he entered the living room, walking through and towards the kitchen bench as they both fluffed around putting groceries away.

“And here’s one we prepared earlier.” Hosea joked as he lifted a large bag of KFC into view and dumped it onto the bench in front of Arthur. The younger man laughed. He hadn’t been sure what he was expecting but it certainly wasn’t take away food. Not that he was complaining. But he sure did miss a home cooked meal.

He didn’t let the irony fly over his head at that fact. He had complained many times as a teen that he wanted fast food instead of the roast that had been prepared. Now he would kill for a juicy roast instead of the same greasy burger over and over again.

Arthur watched as the older couple shuffled around the small kitchen, gathering the plates and utensils they would need to eat.

He took the plates as they were handed to him, moving the short walk to the dining room table and placing them down in their respective places.

He moved back towards the bench and took handful of cutlery from Hosea.

“Hey?” Arthur asked softly, grabbing the older man’s attention as he leant against the counter and chewed over his words. “Everything alright with John?” He asked after a moment, keeping his voice low as he was aware the kid could enter the room any minute.

“Is he here?” Hosea asked in surprise, making Arthur frown.

“Yeah.” Arthur replied simply. Taking a moment to let Hosea speak again before adding. “In his room.”

“Oh.” Hosea said softly, un-bagging the food and passing the items to Dutch to place onto plates. Arthur waited for one of them to speak again. Feeling impatient as they continued to ready lunch rather than answering his question.

“Is he alright?” Arthur asked again, a little firmer as Dutch finally turned his attention to the younger and Hosea ignored him, walking past with platefuls of food.

“He’ll be fine.” Dutch assured, picking up his own plates and walking towards the table as Arthur followed suspiciously.

Hosea placed his food down in the middle of the table. Turning to face Dutch with his arms across his chest and a sour face.

“Go on.” He snapped as Dutch approached. “Tell him.”

Arthur looked between them with furrowed brows as Dutch let out a long sigh. He had rarely seen them fight in his time with them and if they did it was usually Dutch that held a grudge.

Arthur felt something unsettling turn his stomach as he watched Dutch place his own plates down on the table.

He turned to Arthur, shrugging.

“We’ve decided not to adopt John.” He explained, shaking his head if he was talking about keeping a puppy or a kitten and not a human child.

Arthur felt his mouth open in shock as he looked between the two of them in disbelief.

“What?” He asked softly, eyes lingering on Hosea as he waited for the other man to argue.

“Dutch feels…” Hosea began, stopping himself quickly and correcting his words. “We feel…” He began again. “That it’s not in our best interest to take on another child permanently.” He explained eloquently as Arthur scoffed at the excuse.

He had always assumed that John would be adopted just as he had. As soon as the agency had confirmed that they had no plans to send him elsewhere, he had become a permanent fixture in their lives. Or Arthur’s life at least. He had let himself actually get to know the kid.

He loved him like a real brother. He had always thought that one day they would really be brothers, tied together by their parents.

“What about John’s best interest?” He asked flatly. Shock stopping him from expressing himself properly as he waited for a better answer than ‘it’s not in our best interests’.

That was a load of bullshit. There was something else going on and it made Arthur feel uneasy.

“We don’t have time to get into it now Arthur.” Dutch said gently, holding a hand out in front of him to signal that Arthur needed to drop the subject. The younger man glared at him, jaw clenched as he held back a rebuttal.

His parents were good people and he trusted them to make good decision for himself and the other children.

Well, John.

John had not been the last child they’d taken in. He was just the only one that didn’t have parents to go back to.

He was alone in this world, just like Arthur. John didn’t have any family and the family he did have before they passed had left him with nothing. Which is why Arthur had always assumed Dutch and Hosea would take him in too.

Give the poor kid the family he so desperately craved.

He knew deep down that they must have a good reason for what they were doing to John. But in that moment, he was blinded by a simmering rage as he remembered the boy’s tears earlier and how hard that kid had fought his whole life to feel accepted by anyone, especially their family.

Arthur turned his attention to Hosea once more, their eyes locking as Arthur registered a deep sadness in the older man. Stood a few steps behind Dutch, the older man shook his head slowly, telling Arthur to let it go before this situation turned ugly.

Arthur swallowed audibly, licking at his lips and turning to look at the dining room table full of food.

He felt sick to his stomach. His appetite gone.

“Have you told him?” He asked after a long moment, sucking on his teeth as he waited for an answer. The silence in the room deafening as the seconds ticked on without a reply.

“Not yet.” Dutch answered eventually. The scrape of a chair breaking the tension in the air as the older man pulled it out from under the table and slumped down into it.

Hosea followed suit, gesturing for Arthur to do the same.

He did as instructed, walking around the table and pulling out the chair from his favourite spot. Slinking down into it and looking to his right at the empty place he had set for John.

He supposed that they were all aware the kid would not be joining them.

“Well, he knows.” Arthur replied, venom in his tone as he snatched at the bucket of chicken in front of him and pulled it closer.

End.

~~~~~

Poor John. :( If you’ve read my other works you guys can probably see where this is heading.

I got my electric bill today.. Also had KFC for dinner because I couldn’t stop thinking about chicken after writing this.

Please let me know if you read this and liked it! I love hearing from my awesome readers! Let me know if you want more backstory and what you’re hoping to see in future stories! ❤

#arthur morgan #john marston #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 modern au #angst #fanfic #fan fiction #rdr2 fan fiction #Arthur's POV

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farzeenx234 · 3 years

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Digital life stories final

I remember it was June 12, 2012. As I got off the stairs of my plane, I knew my life would never be the same. New challenges were waiting ahead of me and I had to confront them. The difficult thing about moving to a new culture is that a lot of people would feel fear because they are so used to their own culture. So, now they leave what they are used to for a new way and it will be hard for them to adapt. Some may like the new food and the pace of life, then later on in the month people may feel like the new life and culture is unpleasant life. For instance: public hygiene, the language barriers, traffic safety, and food accessibility. Feeling lonely, hopeless or overwhelmed at such an enormous life change. People leave their home countries for various reasons, to escape as a refugee, or immigrate for a change in life. As easy as it seems to be there are so many roadblocks along the way. I was born and raised in Pakistan, my home country. Growing up I was very outgoing, confident, and had a relaxed outlook on life. I was always satisfied and content with my life. That was before my mom married my step dad, and then we were on our way to New York. I could only describe my feelings in one word -- apprehensive. A long and tedious 17-hour flight was ahead of me. I sat restlessly in my seat with a blanket on. My naivety allowed me to think that that blanket was more of a shield rather than a cloth to protect me from the cold. It was a shield that blurred my future and comforted me temporarily. I had no idea what I was going to be. The fact that moving to new country hunts me till this day. Trying to figure out who I was going to be as a person . Deep within I knew that I was scared; But I remember my mom words that we are moving for a better life. I was leaving all my friends, my family, and in a way my life behind. I had to start my life over again. Not only did I have to live a new life I had to conquer it. The moment I stepped out of my plane and into a fresh territory I transformed, mentally and emotionally. I went from being a social extrovert person to a very quiet and shy girl. I had spent 12 years of my life building my character, my personality, all of me. I did not understand why I was expected to change myself. Looking back I could blame it on the confusion, the pressure I put on myself during such a tender age. I had to learn a new language, culture and blend myself with other people, which at that moment I thought was necessary to do so. My mom admitted me into a middle school. The first day of school was the most terrifying moment of my life. I walked in with an anxious expression and for some peculiar reason was ready to be humiliated as if being from somewhere else was so bad. As I went to my first class, I vividly remember feeling like I needed to do something to gain attention and have everyone like me. Under the pressure of blending in, I became the polar opposite of who I truly am. I knew I had to start a new chapter in my life. My first year of going to school in U.S the biggest struggle I had was getting bullied. Though bullying does not seem to connect to school in a related to school and learning sense, bullying in schools causes a lot of negative body-structure-related effects that change how a student will perform in school and the opinions they will form about schools and other American institutions. Many existing school policies, like the structure of English Language Learning classes as being subtractive relating to viewing foreign languages as an interference for related to people who enter a country and related to social pressure, how people act toward each other, etc. normal behaviors and prejudiced mental pictures make schools unsafe for immigrants and children of immigrants youth. This problem comes from gener all good people in the world), instead of being a direct result of education, which makes finding appropriate ways to reduce bullying in schools or handling migrants child bullying situation complex.

hough there is the existence of being one of the most important causing people or animals to interact with others so they're more friendly institutions for youth in America, schools seem to fail at helping appreciation and acceptance of differences present in students. Research shows “ within the last decade, minority groups have surpassed the American mainstream, which has classically been considered to be American-born, White middle class, in the K-12 age bracket of the population. Currently, minority students make up more than half of the school-aged population (Calderón, Slavin and Sánchez 2011) and approximately twenty percent of the youth population are immigrants or children of immigrants (Pumariega and Rothe 2010.) Out of immigrants and children of immigrants, a majority of these students are Hispanic, specifically of Mexican descent, and of Asian descent According to another research published online on March1, 2012 in the Journal of Adolescent Health: Children born outside America, or born into immigrant families, are more likely to become victims of bullying as compared with kids born in the US.Kids born outside the US were more likely to be the victims of bullying rather than being the perpetrators. In addition, Fairfax County Youth Survey School Year 2010-11 data showed that:49% of teens reported that they were called bad names on the basis of their race and culture.Meanwhile, 43% reported that at some point they had targeted a peer on the basis of race and ethnicity.”

Bullying made me something I was not I did not know any English at all and that made me feel excluded as if I did not belong here. One day, when I was in my english class, the teacher made groups of people and had us discuss about how the story we were reading . In my group, there were three Americans and me; for a few minutes I felt I had fit in the group. But when they would not even let me talk, I realized I did not feel included and little by little they completely forgot I was part of the group. There are many children that are born in different countries or move to a different countries and have two cultures, everyday they have to live their lives feeling like they do not belong to a community or even to the only country they know. I made a ton of new friends, but with the wrong intentions. I wanted to have as many friends as I could so I would be popular, a term that I now have found a new meaning for. Making those friends still haunts to how bad I turned out to be. As I got closer to graduation, I reflected on what I had become -- a bogus, arrogant, and ignorant person. I knew that these qualities were not the ones I wanted to embrace. I knew I had to do something so there could be a little authenticity left in me. I knew I had to start a new chapter in my life. Once my high school years began, I made more friends with the same wrong intentions. As I was making more friends, I stumbled upon a girl named Sara, I watched how she handled her life. I saw how she embraced her unique self. Watching her grow into the kind of person that I wanted to be deeply influenced me. That was who I wanted to become. Once again, I transformed myself. But this time it was in a positive way, I became friends with people who liked me for who I was. I was still popular, but this time, I was popular within the small group of friends I had. This time, I had people around me that actually cared about me. This time, I had people around me that wanted the best for me. My brother sometimes asks me if I regret my days in middle school and my response is always no. My experience allowed me to become who I am today. Now that I am reflecting on what I have become: understanding, caring and once again content with my life. Also working on my passion my childhood dream.When I was 15 years old, one year before I graduated from high school, my mom talked to me about what they thought would be best for me to study. she said that good careers were Doctor or Lawyer; I did not give an answer about what I wanted to study that day. However, while I was at school the next day, I thought that maybe that becoming a doctor or lawyer was something I have to study because I did not want her to get upset Studying these types of careers would most likely take me eight to ten years, and I did not want to attend college for that long. One day talked to my mom, and I told her that I would love to become a doctor or even a lawyer, but I want to fulfill my childhood dream. Ever since I was little, I wanted to be called Ma’am or Miss. Growing up in Pakistan made me see the lack of motivation and passion people had for education. Along with that, I also saw how undermined girls were in every aspect. They were forced to stay home and deal with chores. Fortunately, I was born in a family that was open-minded. Though a single mother, my mom always allowed me to fulfill my passion to its full potential. Due to my mother’s passion for education I built a vision for my future. I had always wanted to be a teacher. Differences between how girls were subjected to be a house-wife and boys were expected to be an engineer or a doctor provoked me and made me extremely passionate about teaching.n I wanted to teach people that, though physically different, there is not much difference between how capable boys and girls are.

I still have the vivid visual in my mind: a six year old with a chalk in her hand teaching an imaginary class of 20 students. I knew each and everyone of their names, I knew their strengths, their weaknesses and how to bring out the best. One of my imaginary students was always motivated by the idea of a lavish lifestyle. I told him that he could obtain this by studying hard. In my mind, still to this day, the idea that anything can be gained by studying hard is stuck.

My younger sister would always try and copy me. She would make up her own imaginary class and teach them. We would argue about who is the better teacher and who had more students. Though, at first, watching her teach her own class angered me because it was ‘my thing’. After some time went on, I was rathered motivated by her-she made me realize that if I could ignite a passion for education in her, I could do it for others as well.

The dust that fell from the chalk in the hands of a younger, and still in progress of being Ms. Fatima, though it's gone for now, comes out in the form of motivation when I am feeling down. The remembrance of how I was needed to change the lives of 20 imaginary kids never fails to motivate me to study harder so I could help more lives.Many times parents need to understand what their adolescents want to pursue as a career. It is about what their child wants to do for the rest of her life, not about what the parents want their children to do or study. My experience allowed me to become who I am today. Now that I am reflecting on what I have become: understanding, caring and once again content with my life. Also working on my passion my childhood dream.

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chinatea · 5 years

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Personas pirates a/b/o au! headcanon.

It’s loosely inspired by Black Sails and AC4: Black Flag. Takes place in Nassau from the alternative universe populated by the Korean people apparently.

Multi-couples.

(Sajeon also posted a pirate-y HC today and I swear that’s a total coincidence. I totally have no secret backdoor into your mind, Sajeon...or have I?)

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

Who-is-who:

BG (Jiyeon, omega, 27): was seduced as a teen by a noble who lusted over him and after the said noble had enough of him, he lost BG in a game of cards to the slavers who took him all the way to the other side of the world (Nassau) and sold him to a local brothel there. Despite the tragic hand that the fate had dealt him, BG is nothing if not a master of making the best of his circumstances. If he was forced to become a whore, then he’d become the most coveted whore there is. But he became much more than that, the whole pirate’s corner of the world became his playground and he knew how to play the game better than anybody. The Queen-bee of the salty dogs, if you please.

Tattoo (Junghwan, alpha, 25): the saltiest dog there is. He is of noble origin, but found himself stifled by the life that awaited him as the oldest son, when all he wanted to do is to carouse and whore around and have mighty good time at all times, to hell with propriety. So, one day, he took off, simple as that, signing up for a buccaneer ship. Only his rebellious streak didn't end there. Tat has a real distaste for hierarchies unless he's on top of one. Barely a few months into his first voyage, he somehow managed to convince the crew to throw the current captain over the board and sail for Nassau instead for booty and...booty. (In my mind, Tat takes after Black Beard in some ways, cuz Black Beard is my fav char in AC4.) Tat is the closest with Christian, his first mate.

Christian, (Jiwon, omega, 23): comes second only to BG when it comes to a messed up past. Married against his will to an alpha twice his age, Chris failed to become a good little omega wife and silently endure his husband’s brutality as was expected of him. Once he’d had enough of beatings and rape, he slashed the fucker’s throat in his sleep and took to the streets. He cross-dressed as an alpha and ended up on the same ship Tattoo was on. The two grew close, so much so that Chris decided to confide in Tattoo and tell him the truth. Chris’s lie could stay undiscovered only for so long, especially in the open sea, so if things went south, at least Tat would have his back. And boy, did he ever. When the captain got suspicious about Chris’s status, Tattoo managed to stage a well-timed coup and turn the crew against the captain, taking his place and making Chris his first mate.

Ian (alpha, 32): The Black Hound of His Majesty. Also, the new governor of Nassau, appointed by the Queen himself (not a typo, omegas take the title of a Queen) in hopes of cleansing Nassau of all that pirate filth. Ian comes from a wealthy merchant family which allowed him to attend a prestigious state university and rub shoulders with the crème de la crème who, in turn, never failed to snidely remind Ian of his modest origins. That never stopped him, however, from graduating at the top of his year and successfully enter the Royal Navy as a captain of his own vessel and show extreme excellence at any mission he was given. For his service, he was eventually knighted and conferred a noble status at the age of 30. (There are plenty of speculations about the nature of relationship between Ian and the Queen, some saying that the only reason Ian was so quick to find himself a fiancée was to allay the uncomfortable rumors, while in reality...)

Diminie (Jisoo, omega, 21): Ian’s fiancée. Comes from an old and very noble family that could even rival the royal dynasty in the pureness of blood. Unfortunately, they have been in dire financial straits for a while now, but the solution was simple enough - find a wealthy suitor for Diminie and marry him off. Simple but not easy. There is only so many wealthy suitors available among the noble families with immaculate credentials, and most of them were either taken or not looking forward to burden themselves with the Parks debts. And this is how Ian comes into picture: filthy rich but not of noble origin, which would make the Parks scoff even at the idea of such an alliance at any other time, but being poor felt even worse, so they had to swallow down their pride and accept Ian’s offer. In some ways, Diminie is like any other omega of noble origin: sheltered and pampered and ignorant of the life at large; brought up with a single purpose of marrying and producing an heir some day, preferably an alpha. But at the same time, he’s not like many of his peers - he’s bookish, likes to spend time on his own, in nature, dreaming about great adventures and such.

SG (Jungkook, alpha, 20): Ian’s younger brother. He’s Ian’s polar opposite, almost in every single way imaginable. Where Ian had to prove himself fiercely, SG was accepted simply because he is the brother of the Black Hound. His path to success had already been trodden for him, by his brother. And as much as he loves Ian, SG oftentimes feels like he’d always be in his shadow and that saddens him: he too longs for his own adventure, for a clean start. But SG is also no Tattoo, to just up and run to another part of the world, so he does what SG does best: he escapes into his own world, filled with swashbuckling extravaganza and romance. It’s his own small way of defying Ian - while Ian despises pirates, SG adores the idea of them. To him, pirates mean freedom to do as one wills with their life and one day, he comes closer to it than he ever thought possible. Before Ian leaves for Nassau, he offers SG to join him. Ian even has a suitable task for him in mind - to help looking after his fiancée who was adamant about going as well.

(Omegas, amrite?)

***

Relationships:

Moving on to the saucy bits.

Technically any couple can happen here, although some couples are more obvious than others, like Tattoo/BG, for instance, while for Tattoo/Di, I’d have to come up with a separate plotline to bring them together. Which I can, if you want me to, but for now I’ll focus on the more obvious ones.

***

Ian/BG/Tattoo is THE big love triangle of the whole shebang. For starters, Tat’s feelings towards BG are not easy to pin down, whether it’s love or lust or something in-between, even Tat doesn’t know for sure, and he’s no soul-searching type either, so there is that. Tat’s primary rule in life is ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it’, which he applies to anything, even his relationship with people. Plus, when it came to BG, he had no real competition, yes they fuck around with people, but he’s a pirate and BG is a whore, that comes with the job, yes. Then, Ian comes into the picture. Ian with his anti-pirate agenda and immediate interest in BG who is at the epicenter of everything that happens on the island. And that lights fire under Tat’s ass, because deep down he’s afraid that BG will choose Ian over him, because why wouldn’t he. Tat had little to offer in comparison. Even if Ian would probably never marry BG because of BG’s reputation, he could still offer to take him as his mistress, and even that would mean a lot. With Ian as his lover, BG could finally go back home and re-enter the high society and have the life that was stolen from him. (Let it be known that Tat is clueless about Ian's betrothal situation. It's not like he could just look it up on the Internet, besides even if he did know, he'd just assume that Ian is like most alphas in power who had an official mate to supply heirs and a bunch of lovers on the side for fun and giggles).

Ian/Di/SG is the small love triangle of the story. Di is, of course, striving to be devoted to his future husband, that's how he was brought up in the first place. And he knows that Ian is a good man, a worthy man to be the father of his pups, but Di would be lying if he said that being betrothed to Ian is at all how he pictured it in his head. Ian treats him kindly and with respect but he's distant and oftentimes absent due to his service to the crown. And Di would loathe to see their marriage be the same way, so he follows Ian to Nassau in hopes to get closer to his fiance, but only to end up spending his days with his brother instead. At first, Di was dismayed, but it turned out that SG was not half bad a company - they had a lot in common, close in age and Di just felt less pressured to behave in a certain way around SG. And While Di doesn’t know when the tingles in his chest transformed into genuine affection towards the younger alpha, he knows from the way SG looks at him that the feeling is mutual and that can be dangerous.

Chris/Tat/BG is the merry threesome of the story. The three of them bang often and with much gusto, what else is there to say.

Chris and Tat are the best buddies in pretty much everything: in swashbuckling, drinking and fuckery. With his past, Chris has a deep-seated anger toward alphas which makes his skin crawl even at the thought of having one touch him again (Tat is the exception to the rule and even when they fuck, Tat gives him the control to make Chris comfortable). Chris also likes to seek out other omegas to fuck, because omegas are mostly submissive in bed and that works for Chris. The pairing I have in mind for him is with SG, actually. SG has the capability to help Chris work through his issues and regain a part of himself that was desecrated in his marriage - his gentler, more sensitive, kinder self. He’d still be the badass though, but with SG, he could be sweeter, more loving and open with his feelings without the fear of being hurt again.

***

There are a lot of ways this hc could go and there are plenty of loose ends to address here but that's about it for now. I'm very much amenable to writing out small stories based on this au, so if you have scenarios or couples you want me to explore, drop me a message or something. I can't write for all of them, ofc, but I promise to do at least a few of them.

Extras:

- I thought of making Diminie the Queen, but since everything happens at Nassau, there is no plausible way he’d actually be allowed to go to some PirateBayTM, so no Queen Diminie (for now?).

#personas au #multicouples #pirates au #yo ho ho

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giapism · 4 years

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January Reading Updates

Since we’ve just reached the end of the first month of 2020, I thought I’d take some time to share with you all what I’ve been reading and also write a short review about each book (else I’ll completely forget what I read by the end of the year...) The books are listed in the order that I completed them in.

(*): Read in Vietnamese

1. American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Neil is perhaps my favorite storyteller ever, and he particularly excels in building strange yet captivating worlds that do a great job of making humans seem more human than ever, despite the fact nothing remotely conforming to the human-norm happens (except marriage problems--I suppose even gods and demi-gods are dumb motherfuckers when it comes to love.)

American Gods follows Shadow, a widower freshly released from jail as he tags alongside a suspiciously rich “Mr. Wednesday” (later revealed to be an undercover God), on a quest to convince the old, forgotten Gods of America to rise up and fight the new Gods (Technology, Media etc.) The book pulls up many characters from Irish, Norse, Hindu, Slavic, African and Egyptian folklore and so on, and offers a very refreshing take on religion in modern society. Although Gaiman didn’t dive deep into any specific culture, it’s a helpful start to continue learning about religion and folklore all over the world. There is a lot of information and I can only imagine how painstaking the research process must have been.

Genre-wise, I don’t think this book fits into any at all. There’s history, fantasy, horror, maybe some thriller too. The idea of a giant war with hundreds of Gods is very ambitious, so the book does get a little messy and all-over-the-place at times. I’d call it “jigsaw-puzzling”, though, you’re given lots of information that doesn’t seem to make sense, but gradually everything comes together at the end and I absolutely love getting to the end and exclaiming “OH! So THAT’S what it was about” I find that the suspense-building in this book very well-done, too. The only criticism I have is that the ending felt a bit... lacking. You had all this build up, this gigantic feud, but everything’s resolved so simply you almost feel cheated. Or maybe I just have something against how Armageddon-type stories (where 2 sides fight to death) keep ending. Other than that, considering how hard this topic is to write about, I’m flabbergasted at how well Neil pulled it off.

Overall rating: 8/10

2. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Mark Manson

Everyone was raving about it so I had to give it a go. For those of you who don’t know, this is a self-help book aiming to show you how to re-purpose your life, communicate effectively and live productively. Surprisingly, it only took me 2 afternoons to finish (I always find self-help books are easier to read than fiction, don’t know why). It’s written very informally and feels more like a humorous conversation with a loving but foul-mouthed friend, which makes it easy to digest whether you’re a 10th grader being peer-pressured to apply to US Colleges or a 53-year old electrician just realising you actually wanted to be a novelist. The only requirement for the the advice to be useful is that you kind of need to mess up a lot.

However, I found that there weren’t that many new things in the book. Mostly, it just reminded us of the things we already knew but consciously (or subconsciously) decide to shove under the carpet, OR put into words things we kind of already think, but don’t know how to explain. There is, no doubt, lots of helpful advice but like all self-help books, I find it too much to remember (unless you’re going to re-read it 20 times), and when I finished, out of the dozens of pieces of advice I only remembered one, “People who make changes aren’t flashy and don’t about what they’re going to do a lot. They just do it.” And from then on I shut up about my plans and just worked on them. Everyone’s going to have their own takeaways relevant to their lives, and I’d encourage you to read it just to see if you can find anything interesting. If out of 20 things, you remember 2-3 things that work for you, that’s still a win.

What I enjoyed the most was actually reading the stories/examples of real people at the beginning of each chapter before getting into the “lecture” part.

Overall rating: 6.9/10

3. Dracula - Bram Stoker

A classic in gothic horror. I actually started reading this last year and the first third of the book telling Jonathan’s fearful stays at Count Dracula’s castle had me hooked - it’s written in beautiful, elegant language which we hardly ever hear anymore, and does such a wonderful job conveying the characters’ fears, thoughts and emotions. But the moment Jonathan leaves the castle and the book switches to other characters’ stories, it just got so long and boring that I stopped reading for 3 months altogether and forgot which character was which because there were so many men. The “dull chapters” stretch on for at least a quarter of the book, and things only get interesting again when Dracula returns to the story and certain characters start turning into vampires. The rest of the story follows the “heroes” as they try to defeat the Count and bring peace to his victims, and although many parts are suspenseful and very clever, the ending is also so easily achieved that it’s a bit of a downer.

The whole book is written in diary entrees, journal entrees and letters of different characters (I’ve only read single-person diaries before) which was surprisingly pleasant in that you feel like you know the characters and by the end, you grow quite fond of them. It even inspired me to start keeping a diary again. It also made me start speaking like an old Englishman for the few days after completion, because I hadn’t really shaken off the language yet. Everyone seemed to be much more caring towards each other in those days, and through the letters I picked up some romantic phrases of which my favorite has been “And so, as you love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb, I send you simply his ‘love’ instead.” Lovely, isn’t it?

Overall rating: 7/10

4. Days at Morisaki Bookstore / Những Giấc Mơ Ở Hiệu Sách Morisaki - Satoshi Yagisawa*

I’m not sure of the popularity of this book, it seems quite lowkey but has a surprising amount of reviews on Good Reads and even has a film adaptation. I happened to find it on my bookshelf and finished it in one afternoon (it was only 150-ish pages.)

Genre-wise, I’d call it Slice of Life although I don’t know if books are even allowed to be called that, or just anime. There is generally no real plot, only character development as Takako (main character) gets dumped by her cheating boyfriend and moves into her uncle’s antique bookstore to re-charge, gradually finding herself learning to appreciate books and the people around her. It’s a very simple storyline, and there’s almost nothing very special about the main character, but maybe that’s what makes it a relaxing read - because in reality, most humans aren’t the special snowflakes and oddballs we think. Admittedly, I started off finding Takako very annoying, but as she grew through the story, I found myself empathizing with her. For me, the book is a reminder to take things slower in life, remember to recharge and learn to see the beauty in simple things around you. It had a happy ending, too. Good for lazy reads, you don’t really have to think much - just sit there with a nice cup of tea and go with the flow.

Overall rating: 7/10

5. The Oldest Parents With The Youngest Child / Những Tháng Năm Rực Rỡ - Ae-ran Kim*

I. Loved. This. Even now it’s left me with a tumble of emotions that I don’t even know how to describe, and I can say for sure that it’s made it to my list of favorite books of all time.

The story recounts the life of a 17-year-old boy with progeria (a disease that makes his body age 4x as fast as a regular person, meaning he has the body of an 80-year-old) and his parents, who had him when they were 17. It talks of the struggles of teen parents learning to cope with an unintended pregnancy, their financial and mental hardships raising a child whilst also battling his illness, and also of the main character’s steel-hard resilience and love for life despite his condition. It actually made me feel ashamed of myself for being perfectly healthy, but not being as curious and hungry to learn, and most of all, to have a perfectly functioning laptop and not be writing. Other than that, it also humanizes persons with disabilities, showing that they too can fall in love, get anxious when ghosted and want to sneakily drink alcohol despite being underaged - anything a typical 17 year old might do. After this book, for the first time in a long time I felt that every aspect of life was truly wonderful and that I was lucky to be here. I also made a list of 30 challenges to do these coming months, to understand and enjoy life more and will keep you updated on my progress.

Even though the book is written from the perspective of a boy with progeria, the author herself is a perfectly healthy woman in her 40s (who did a lot of research before writing, I’m sure). Yet somehow she’s able to tell the story so vividly, convincingly and emotionally that I feel like I’m in his body, living his life and feeling his disappointment and excitement. The tone is so natural, so nonchalant it just feels like a leaf smoothly riding the breeze down the the ground. Reading this book, I’m reminded again of how powerful a tool literature is in sharing ideas, bridging humans and building empathy. I’m in awe of not just the main character for pushing through his difficulties the way he did, but also of the author for writing something so powerful it changed the way I looked at life. It makes me want to write stories like this one day, too. I just don’t know what to say about this book other than I really loved it.

Overall rating: 9/10

And that’s it for this month! I’ve only just gotten back on track with reading and remembering how fun it is. Hopefully someone will find this helpful and maybe pick up one of these books. I’ll see you guys next month!

#book review #american gods #the subtle art of not giving a f*ck #dracula #my brilliant life #kim aeran #days at morisaki bookstore #reading list #eng #books

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aweebwrites · 5 years

Text

Seven Deadly Sins

Warning: Swearing, suggestive themes because lust but no smut and uh, evil ninja.

_______________________

Glowing green eyes took in the hustle and bustle of New Ninjago City at night with a sneer. Everyone must be going on the merry way home to their perfect little families, to their cozy, lavish homes. He hated them. His family was nothing like theirs. He lived in an abandoned ship for fucks sake. And he had to share his room with the others. His life fucking sucks comparing to theirs. He spotted a group of teens from the 20 story building. He hates teens and kids the most. He wanted to grow up like they do. Not as suddenly as he had. One second he was a kid, thw other he went through a massive growth spurt and was suddenly grown up.

He rubbed his slightly throbbing horns that gree upwards, signaling him to be of royal blood. He didn't care much for that right now. Will the stupid pain of growing these things ever go away? He tsked before jumping the wide space between this and the next building, keeping his clawed hands tucked into his hoodie. He walked along the rooftop, his tail flicking irritably.

“Well well. If it isn't the prodigal son.” Lloyd sneered, looking across at his cousin.

“Shut it Morro. What the hell are you even doing here?” He grouched as he walked by him and Morro leaned off the air conditioning unit, his black upwards pointing horns gleeming in the city light as he followed after him.

“You know how the old man is. He worries.” Morro shrugged, using his wings to glide across to the next building as Lloyd jumped. “Also, he wants you home for dinner.”

“So he sent you of all people.” Lloyd says flatly, glancing back at him and Morro sneered, flashing his fangs.

“Don't fucking test me Lloyd. I'll blow you clean off this roof.” He growled at him and Lloyd looked at him unimpressed from over his shoulder.

“Right. And I'll fall and die. Like I don't have wings too.” Lloyd huffed, spreading his black wings he has he spoke.

“You little-”

“Let's go. The old man is pretty scary when he's angry.” Lloyd says, looking down at the city from under his nose before taking flight.

Morro growled but followed after him.

_______________

“For fucks sake Cole stop eating for five fucking seconds so everyone else can get some jeeze.” Nya growled, shoving him away from the table.

“Fuck you! The lamb was put in front of me so it's mine!” Cole growled then pushed her back, snatching the entire half lamb left and scurrying onto the ceiling before he continued eating.

“If you drop anything on my clothes, you're gonna be the one to wash them.” Zane commented, reading a book as he slouched in his chair.

“Hey, can I have it when you're done reading it?” Jay asked, leaning over to peer at the attractive looking book.

“Whatever.” Zane shrugged.

“Hey big boy… How about you and I have some fun after your meal?” Kai purred as he stroked at Cole's arm from on the ceiling with him.

“Hey! What about me?!” Jay pouted.

“I don't see why I can't indulge with the both of you…” Kai shrugged, looking up- or rather, down at him.

“Morro and Lloyd aren't back as yet it seems.” Wu says with a frown.

“They're on their way.” Nya says as she ate what she could salvage from Cole's never ending appetite.

“Speak of the devils.” Zane murmured before using a huff of breath to turn the page. “Shit. Wrong one. Oh well…” He sighed then read on.

“So glad you boys made it in time.” Wu says once they walked in.

“No thanks to Mr. Prince here.” Morro huffed as they took their seats.

“You speak as if you are not also a prince.” Wu says with a smile before taking his seat. “My brother should be here any moment now.” He says and there was a flash of purple.

“Son?!” Garmadon gasped once he appeared in the room and Lloyd looked at his four armed father with an unimpressed expression.

“You know, one would think you would have gotten used to Uncle Wu and his deception by now.” Lloyd ssys drily, looking down at his chicken dish with a sneer.

Somewhere out there, someone was having lobster and steak and caviar while he was eating this.

“I wouldn't be very effective at what I do if he did now would I?” Wu ssys with a smile.

Garmadon sighed.

“Honestly Lucifer, you-” He was cut off by being pinned against the wall by his throat, gold and red blended eyes glaring him down as his true, younger form surfaced.

“I told you not to call me that! It's Wu!” He snarled at his brother, long fangs flashing at him.

“Fucking fine!” Garmadon snarled back then pulled his arm away from his throat and threw him across the room, through the side of the ship. “But you know I despise choking.” He sneered.

“Look. We rebuilt the ship perfectly after your last fight and as much as I totally could all by myself if I wanted, I rather not. Could you take this to the Underworld?” Nya says with a sneer, tail flicking with her irritation as Wu hopped back into the Bounty.

“What are you talking about? We barely managed to piece it together.” Zane murmured, completely unphased as he kept reading.

"No thanks to you." Jay huffed, getting on the ceiling too.

“Look. Why did you call me here in the first place? Our father has gone who knows where to do who knows what and I have to rule the Underworld until he decides to come back.” Garmadon reminded him irritably.

“Well, Satan, we only wanted you to join us for a meal. When was the last time you've seen your son?” Wu huffed, talking the appearance of an elderly version of himself again.

“Literally a few hours ago. As prince of the Underworld, he can come and go as he pleases. Which he does.” Garmadon says, crossing his arms.

“I swear if you three start fucking on the ceiling again I will castrate all of you.” Morro growled, shooting the heavily making out three on the ceiling a glare.

“Fine.” Kai huffed as he stood on the ceiling. “Let's go boys.” He says, leading them off, Cole tagging along because of the promise of food at the end.

“I’m going out.” Lloyd huffed as he stood.

“Out? But you just came back.” Wu says, looking him over.

“So?” Lloyd huffed. “I don't want to hear them right now.” He says, gesturing to the room Kai, Cole and Jay moved into.

“Wanna spread some mayhem?” Nya asked them with a smirk.

“I don't see why not. I could use the entertainment.” Morro shrugged, getting up as well.

“I'll accompany you. I haven't caused mayhem here in some time.” Garmadon says as he straightened himself.

“Let's get going then.” Lloyd says to them, walking out.

“What about me?” Wu questioned.

“Stay here with those four. That's your punishment for calling me away from the throne.” Garmadon says as he stepped out as well. "And fix the Bounty!"

Wu pouted.

______________

All four of them walked through the city in different routes that would meet in the middle of the city. Lloyd glared as he walked along, hands in his pockets glowing green as he let off a thick green aura wherever he went, spreading his power over envy. He pulled a hand out to look at the glowing ball of green energy then smirked as he looked back at everyone he passed, watching a few steal what their eyes first catch or arguing and even better: fighting.

“You know what they say: sharing is caring.” He smirked as he walked along, his tail, his horns, his wings and even his powers invisible to mortal eyes. “Hey Leviathan, make sure to drop by downtown when you're done.” He says in the comms.

“I have something better than walking by, Lloyd.” Nya says with a smirk, gathering a glowing ball of water in her hands, filling it with just a mere percentage of her pride before shooting it up in the sky, creating rain.

She spotted someone about to duck for cover then.

“What? You afraid of a little rain?” She says aloud and the person stiffened before tilting their head up and walking in the rain still, the other people around her following suit.

“A perfect time for a bit of wind, don't you think?” Morro says with a smirk from the top of Borg tower.

He chuckled as his wrathful winds swept through the city, setting tensions on high through the entire city.

“And now that the pressure is so well set…” Garmadon says as he walked out next to them, looking at the green fog of his son's power being spread by Morro's winds and kept low by Nya's rain. “That spark to set things off.” He gathered his dark our powers before compressing it into an orb the size of a marble then dropped it on the city below.

Purple suddenly flooded the streets of the entire city and everything came to a standstill until utter chaos. Garmadon laughed as he watched people brawled in the middle of the streets, others ramming their cars into others, people breaking into buildings and stores, stealing, making it seem as if the world was about to end. Lloyd flew up a moment after then landed next to his father, looking down at the chaos without a smile but feeling smug seeing them all run wild, murdering and fighting and stealing.

Serves them all right. Everything won't always be perfect, pathetic mortals. Your turn to suffer too.

“Hey Lloyd, guess what I got.” Nya says as she flew up, holding take out from Chen's.

All four of them sat down on the roof, enjoy a meal as chaos reigned on.

_________________

(I haven't posted in forever because the world decided that putting obstacles in my way and watching me drown in anxiety is better. Anywho my other WIPs are hella long (LIKE 20K LONG!) so I whipped something up to buy more time to finish. It sucks and it's short because rush but eh... Sorreh guys.)

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axemetaphor · 6 years

Text

OC Masterpost

I need an organized place to put info about all my OCs so that’s what this post is gonna be for!

In addition to basic bios and some reference images, I’ve also got links to Spotify playlists for every character, because music is a strong association with personality for me. (If you don’t use Spotify, or if you know of a streaming platform more easily accessible than Spotify, send me an anon and I’ll duplicate the playlists to that service then add a link here!) I also have moodboards for every OC.

This post will be rather long so I’ve put in under a readmore for the sake of convenience.

It’s also important to note that my OCs exist in an AU where some things are a little different. For example, Infinite in this AU is 17 and that’s definitely not because I assumed he was an edgy teen like Shadow, and after Robotnik’s defeat in Forces, the Resistance became the Restoration. All the troops who had been battling were reassigned to rebuilding whatever town they happened to be in at the time of victory, with extra troops being redistributed as needed (leading to the formation of small roving teams traveling from place to place to help out).

It’s a little bit of an unorganized info-dump at some points, but I’ll update it to be more organized at some point.

Updated 01/20/2019

Rhys the Serval

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Rhys was designed by @creative-sanic and she also came up with most of his backstory!

Rhys is a gender-nonconforming cis gay dude. He was born to a ‘feral’ mother in the wilderness closest to Central City (between the City and Mystic Ruins, far enough away from civilization to be undetected for a majority of his early life). At age 7 or 8, a massive fire swept the forest, putting him and his mother in massive danger. Officials sent to contain the fire discovered that she and Rhys were living alone in the forest, and took the two into protective custody while working through the devastation caused by the fire. The city pressured Rhys’s mother to join civilization, but she adamantly refused, and as a consequence, Rhys was stolen from her and put up for adoption, leading to her having a violent breakdown. She was moved to a containment facility and hasn’t seen Rhys since; he has only the faintest memories of her. He was adopted at age 13 or 14 (having been shuffled around in foster care before then) by a family of bears, and went on to be a fairly average Mobian citizen, working as a waiter at Penne For Your Thoughts. That’s where he met Vitriol, who is now his boyfriend. After dating for a few months, they decided to move in together, with Vitriol moving into Rhys’s apartment, which was the larger of the two. Rhys is now roughly 19 years old (18 or 19).

Rhys and Vitriol have a steady relationship relatively devoid of problems. They love each other enough that no problem is too big for them to tackle, and when Vitriol became part of the Restoration (the collective effort to undo the damage done by Robotnik and the Resistance), Rhys moved with him all over the world, glad to have a reasonable excuse to travel. Neither wanted to attempt a longstanding long-distance relationship; their being separated briefly during the Resistance was frustrating enough for the two of them.

Rhys is unaware that he possesses Empathic abilities, and simply assumes he’s very good at figuring people out/being sympathetic, but in truth, the forest fire in his youth served as the catalyst for his abilities. Since his Empathy doesn’t require the same physical drain as, say, Vitriol’s Strength, Rhys mistakes his Chaos-Energy-related fatigue after using his powers to be emotional exhaustion. When he’s that tired is roughly the only time he can show unprovoked anger, but he’s also in-tune enough with himself to recognize when he’s being needlessly mean, and he’ll usually apologize right away. This happened most frequently during the events of the Resistance, where Rhys was tasked with helping to get survivors to safe places; he was very good at comforting those who may have lost friends/family in the attacks. From that, he’s begun to entertain the idea of becoming a therapist someday, though he’s not sure how he would afford the college degree for that.

He gets along very well with Unknown due to them both having rather upbeat personalities. Though Unknown can be a little overbearing sometimes, Rhys likes talking to them and sometimes they’ll gush about how cute Vitriol is.

As mentioned previously, Rhys doesn’t conform to typical gender norms; he’s a fashionista of sorts and doesn’t care what gender clothing is associated with. He thinks skirts are cute and feel nice, and he thinks makeup is a lot of fun, though he doesn’t do either every single day, just every now and then. For the most part, unless he’s feeling adventurous, he wears a hoodie and jeans, though his work outfit is a fancy suit. So, it’s often nice for him to just wear something low-effort. That being said, he always jumps at every opportunity to do his boyfriend’s makeup, and though Vitriol isn’t the biggest fan of it, he likes seeing Rhys smile, so he usually gives in.

Rhys often prompts Vitriol to keep up with his health, and the two go on camping trips whenever Rhys can convince Vitriol to go. He’s very good at camping; he can build a shelter easily, knows which plants are edible, etc.. Vitriol, by contrast, is pretty clueless, but Rhys is more than happy to teach him.

When speaking, Rhys normally has a somewhat-formal tone, and he uses little to no slang (usually just words like “gonna,” and he almost never drops the G’s at the end of words). He’s very polite by nature (and some of the formality was ingrained by his job), and he tends to not talk a lot. When he’s really comfortable around someone (like Vitriol), he can chatter a lot, but if he catches himself, he’ll get really embarrassed about it. He has a soft, lilting voice that many find pleasant to listen to and soothing. When he gets excited, or raises his voice, it gets slightly higher in pitch. He’s not an anxious person (as in, he doesn’t have an anxiety disorder) but he’s rather shy and awkward around new people. He’s more of a reserved person than an anxious one, and he is by no means meek; having been raised (post-adoption) by a family of bears taught him how to roughhouse and hold his own against bigger enemies.

For the most part, Rhys isn’t bothered by his past. His life in the forest is far enough away, mentally, that to him it doesn’t feel like it even happened to him. However, the fire was a traumatic event for him, and to this day he has a deep-seated fear of fire. It’s rare, but on occasion, he will have nightmares about that day, and he doesn’t handle that well when alone. Fortunately, Vitriol is fairly helpful to Rhys—his simply being there is very comforting, even though he never really knows what to say.

Toxic the Porcupine

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Note: while this character started out as a sonicsona of sorts, they’ve somewhat evolved from that and I don’t see them quite so much as “me” anymore. They do, however, share my name (or rather the name I’m using currently, as I write this). To further complicate things they also look the way I do right now and I use them for vent art lmao so, if I happen to draw myself as a mobian ever again I’ll tag it as #not oc. That way it’s clear what’s Toxic the OC and what’s Toxic the...uh, human being I guess.

Toxic is an agender porcupine who hasn’t settled on their sexuality yet--they know they’re asexual, but they haven’t thought any further into their romantic orientation. They were born in a tiny unnamed village settled in the shadow of Scrap Brain Zone, and only recently did they leave after a majority of it was burnt to the ground...by them. They showed signs of being trans at a young age, and were subsequently bullied quite harshly by both their peers and their family. They came out to their family at age 17, which only deepened the rift already forming, and subsequently Toxic ran away for a week, spending that time in Scrap Brain Zone. That was their first overnight foray into the Zone, something that would eventually become a staple of their life.

At age 19, they discovered an abandoned prototype Wispon in Scrap Brain Zone (devoid of Wisps), which they then decided to retrofit with the flaming spouts from Scrap Brain Zone to make their own strange hybrid flamethrower. A few nights later, after a particularly awful verbal spat with their family, they decided to fake their own death by setting fire to their own room. However, things quickly got out of hand, and the whole town ended up in flames. They fled, unsure if anyone made it out alive that night...and a little less than sympathetic if they didn’t. (Fortunately, a majority of the little village’s populace wound up trickling into neighboring villages and towns)

Since then, they’ve been absolutely destroying almost everything in their path. With no direction and no impulse control, they are a complete loose cannon throwing a wrench in both Eggman’s plans and Sonic’s adventures. They live by a motto of recklessness and “I’m here for a good time, not a long time.” Being an un-powered Mobian, they can’t do much of anything with the Wispon taken away, but taking that Wispon away is much easier said than done. Shortly after their ‘debut’ as a villain-of-sorts, Eggman reached out to them with a message essentially reading, “hey, do you want a direction in which to burn everything down (that is preferably not my everything)?” Since joining forces with Robotnik, though, their chaos has become much more controlled, and now incidents of mass fires can usually be linked to Eggman sending them off somewhere. They are a persistent thorn in the Freedom Fighters’ sides as they just love to fight and don’t really care who they fight.

They will not, however, attack civilians directly. Their fires might pose a threat to cities, but they don’t outright attack people unprompted--their chaos isn’t fueled of malice but rather of recklessness and an extreme lack of forethought. If harassed, however, they aren’t above punching someone in the face, and civilians are warned to just stay the hell away from Toxic. Their behavior overall is best classed as “more of a danger to themselves than others, even when provoked.”

Toxic only owns one jacket and one pair of boots, as well as no other accessories save for the spiked bracelets and collar, since everything else was burnt. One item they are occasionally pictured with, but rarely wear, is a long ankh necklace, the origins of which they refuse to elaborate on. However, it’s clearly important to them… Prior to burning everything, they often wore ripped jeans, loose half-torn-up tank-tops with a variety of detailed patterns, and lots of bracelets. They despite feminine-coded clothing and would rather die than wear it. Overall, they’re fond of clothes that look like they’re being held together by safety pins and hope.

Their speaking pattern is completely all-over-the-place. Their accent is untraceable, they mix slang from a variety of regions, and mix pidgin street-slang with oddly formal sentence structure or complicated words. They alternate between dropped G’s at the end of words and dropped H’s at the beginning, but inconsistently; rather than being a sign that this accent is faked, it’s more a reflection of how scrambled they are on the inside. Toxic’s voice is prone to cracking, especially when they yell (which is very often), and it has a certain hoarse quality to it most of the time. It rests in a midrange between stereotypically “male” and “female” voices, and can be mistaken for a young boy or slightly-older girl interchangeably. This irritates them to no end—they’re no stranger to yelling in demand for their proper pronouns to be used.

Toxic has frequent nightmares, but never speaks of them. They often suffer from broken sleep, only getting a few hours at a time, and on occasion are struck with insomnia. During that time, they doodle or write, dealing with rather dark subjects, but never share this willingly. Oddly enough, they have a rather intense fear of fire (ironic given their Wispon) and of heights. Strangely they seem to use their fear as an adrenaline boost of sorts, embracing it to use as a motivation. (It’s somewhat similar to how Batman uses bats as his main motif, despite having been traumatized by an experience with bats in his childhood.)

They cannot be swayed to being “good,” because they truly believe they are an awful person who could never be good even if they tried. So, they just do what they want out of a very specific, Nihilistic worldview, and truth be told they’re simply a chaotic being who’s in way over their head. Despite being a villain, however, they are a big fan of Sonic and his friends, and they consider it a huge honor to be able to fight him. They’ve created an odd sort of parent-child bond between themselves and Robotnik, adopting him as their dad (he didn’t really get a say). Robotnik isn’t exactly doting but he does view them as his child in a sense, and often makes them new weapons to use alongside their Wispon (which they refuse to part with; he repairs it fro them as-needed).

Vex the Cat/Fox Cross

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Vex is a bigender aroace genetic experiment who most closely resembles a fusion of a fox and a cat. (Any pronouns are applicable to them, but I use she/her most, because I have a lot of “he” and “they” OCs already) She has lived roughly 17 years, the first 14 of which were spent in the facility that created them. Partway through what would have been the 15th year, a catastrophe occurred at the facility, giving Vex, Vitriol and Unknown a window to escape. During this process, Vex and Unknown became separated from Vitriol, escaping the facility and winding up on their own. They traveled in a world absolutely foreign to them for months, eventually, through a strange turn of events, joining a thieves’ guild in an attempt to forge new identities. They had great success as a thieving duo up until the unfortunate disappearance of Unknown, after which Vex abandoned the guild to search for them. Instead of Unknown, however, Vex ended up reconnecting with Vitriol in Central City, after which the two worked together to find Unknown, eventually finding their sibling in the Resistance. Since finding each other, the three have not been separated, and now form Team Motley.

Vex is generally regarded as the smartest of the trio, having a sharp wit and capacity both to plan ahead and think on their feet. Her Manipulation ability makes negotiations and covert ops very easy for them, with its one flaw being that it doesn’t work on others with similar abilities, such as Empathy. All three experiments possess low natural levels of Chaos Energy, below what is healthy, and their bodies cannot contain it well, so their abilities rely on the Energy around them, both in the environment and other people. Mobians often report “a strange sort of tiredness” after being Manipulated by Vex, as her power functions by draining a bit of Chaos Energy from the target and matching its wavelength.

Due to her affinity for making others do as she says, Vex is the leader of Team Motley, and, despite being the ‘middle child,’ the other two often go to her for advice. She is the organizational backbone to the team, a natural leader with a kind heart hidden behind a few layers of selfishness. Vex values family and friends above all else, and has a keen sense of right and wrong, even if she doesn’t always do what she knows to be right.

Vex is aware of her Manipulation ability, and does her best to curb its effects when she isn’t intending to use it, but given that it’s activated by her voice, sometimes she can’t control it very well. In addition to that, Vex is more than a little greedy; coming from a background where she didn’t even own her own life, Vex fell in love with her life in the thieves’ guild, mainly for the riches they earned and the thrill of the escape.

She’s a fan of loud, gaudy jewelry, luxurious metals, and other frivolous high-class things, though she doesn’t wear them in public. During their time in the thieves’ guild, Unknown and Vex lived in a network of caves, where many of the things they stole during their heyday are still hidden. While she misses those days, she doesn’t regret leaving them behind, and rather considers it an... option for future employment, once the Restoration is all said and done.

Despite her love of jewelry, Vex prefers not to wear clothes at all. They’ll wear their binder or a sports bra, and that’s about all; if necessary, they’ll wear baggy army-pattern pants or a baggy jacket. They don’t like the feeling of most fabrics on their fur, and don’t care a lot about fashion, but they tend towards more masculine clothing, often for its less-skin-tight properties. They also don’t mind skirts, but only wear them casually, as sometimes the extra fabric can get caught on things or be uncomfortable for them to sit on.

All three experiments tend towards more formal speech, but of the three, Vex has been trained out of that habit the most. She’s a real smooth-talker who adapts her speech patterns to mirror those of the person she’s talking to. When speaking casually, Vex is fairly neutral and doesn’t have any specific quirks to their speech pattern. When she’s comfortable around someone, she speaks in a rather husky voice, but not a very deep or gruff sound. It’s more of what would be described as “butch,” because their voice is closer to the stereotypically “feminine” sound than the stereotypically “masculine” sound.

Vex’s main phobia is having their mouth covered by something—anything from someone’s hands to fabric to a muzzle. This is because when her Manipulation was discovered by the scientists who created her, they immediately recognized it as a threat and she was kept muzzled for extended periods of time. The muzzle had supposedly been ‘humanely designed,’ but if at any point she frustrated her keepers, they were no strangers to shutting or covering the air-intake of it until she cooperated. Of the three, Vex has dealt with her trauma the least, and her sleeping pattern is just as broken as if not more broken than Toxic’s, and she tends to grind her teeth when she sleeps as well. She doesn’t speak of it much, but she and Vitriol have really bonded the most over their shared trauma. He is, essentially, the only person remaining who knows what they went through.

Because they’re aroace, they have little concept of how flirting works other than when they’re using their Manipulation ability (which isn’t really calculated, more an instinctive knowledge that saying or doing certain things will achieve the effect they want). In other words, they’re extremely oblivious. The only thing they really care about is family, and they will do anything to protect them--when fighting they have no qualms about “fighting dirty” and will use anything to their advantage. Unusually, Vex has the ability to climb along walls quite easily using their claws, practically like a lizard. This combined with their night vision makes them quite formidable to fight in the dark.

Vitriol the Ferret/Porcupine Cross

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Vitriol is a gay cis guy who most closely resembles a fusion of a porcupine and a ferret. He has lived roughly 18 years, the first 15 of which spent in the facility that created him. During the calamity leading to his escape, Vitriol separated from Unknown and Vex in order to give them a chance to get out, taking on the officials sent to stop them. He ended up leaving via a different route, resulting in him coming into this world in a completely different place from Vex and Unknown. Vitriol spent the next half-year wandering across Spagonia’s countryside, often stopping to spend a night or two on a farm in exchange for helping its owners, who never questioned why a mysteriously-strong stranger would be wandering the wilderness. Many took him to be some kind of nature spirit, and treated him kindly; he realized through this little pilgrimage that he quite liked helping people out, though he never stayed more than a week in one place. Searching for his siblings was his main priority.

Eventually Vitriol came across a little town, the port of which was a dock for ferries to and from Central City (primarily used by high-end citygoers for transportation to their summer homes). He was told that Central City was a place many people lived and an even larger number of people visited; Vitriol resolved that, if Vex and Unknown were to wind up anywhere, it was likely a place like that--a place people are expected to wind up at. Not understanding the concept of having to pay for things, Vitriol snuck aboard, and managed to go undetected for the entirety of the trip by packing himself nicely into a tiny corner belowdecks. The night before the trip was to end, he snuck off the boat and swam to shore in Central City. Immediately enraptured by the city’s many brilliant lights, Vitriol decided to stay there and do his best to keep an eye out for his siblings.

He spent his first two weeks sleeping on the streets and wandering through the city, until one evening, allured by the glowing neon signs on the inside, he found himself inside a rather lively nightclub/bar. One thing led to another and Vitriol ended up breaking up a fight, catching the attention of the bar’s owner (who was, at the time, half of the staff, as well). Vitriol was offered the job of security officer, no questions asked, and, having begun to come to terms with the fact that money wasn’t just something that one town invented, Vitriol accepted. For the beginning of his ‘career’ he still lived on the streets, but eventually he saved up enough for a tiny postage-stamp of an apartment. It’s only enough space for him to just exist, but that was plenty of space for him. Over time he earned enough money to live comfortably—comfortably enough to get gauges and a septum piercing, both of which helped him in his line of work immensely (as most of his ‘security’ work was simply to look scary enough to keep people from misbehaving).

Vitriol worked there for roughly the same amount of time that Vex and Unknown “worked” as thieves, and it was during this time that he met and started dating Rhys, moving in with him after roughly three months together. He only reunited with Vex upon happening to run into her when wandering the town one weekend night. The next day he quit his job and left to travel with her, searching for their last remaining sibling. Now that the three are reunited, Vitriol serves as the muscle of the team, doing all the heavy lifting and door-kicking necessary. While he vastly prefers sitting on the couch and watching TV with plentiful snacks nearby (preferably cookies), he’s not the type to shirk responsibilities. He’s just looking forward to going back to relaxing in Central City with Rhys when the Restoration is over (and, though he won’t admit it, he does miss when his only job was looking mean).

Vitriol doesn’t have a lot in his wardrobe. His usual staples are a crop top and leather pants, though he also wears skinny jeans and ripped t-shirts. Sometimes he wears pants without a shirt, and, overall, he doesn’t care a lot about fashion. He just picks up what he thinks is cool, which is usually a t-shirt or crop top with a few words on it (his favorites are “BORN FOR HELL” and “LIFE RUINER”). From there, he’ll often tear off the sleeves of the t-shirt, or cut holes and slits into the body of it. The only thing he always wears are the red fingerless gloves with lightweight chains dangling off the backs.

He tends to mumble the most when he speaks, unless he’s angry or using his “Work Voice.” His “work voice” is the particular loud, gruff tone he takes that he picked up from his job; an intimidating deeper and more snarling version of his voice, often accompanied by a very stern or frightfully blank expression. This is made more intimidating by the fact that all 3 of the genetic experiment characters have a habit of needing to initiate conversation through eye contact, much in the same way that a small child might gently rest their hand on the arm of an adult whose attention they want, albeit much more unsettling. So often if one of the three wants to speak to someone, they’ll stare very intently at the person’s face until acknowledged (Vex has adapted the most of the three and therefore only does it to the other two and Rhys). When not using his “work voice,” Vitriol has a rough undertone to his voice, not necessarily a snarl so much as a growl. His voice is naturally deep, and lends itself well to singing his favorite music—rock music.

Vitriol often suffers night terrors and nightmares* linked to his trauma. When living alone, after waking from a nightmare, Vitriol would pace his apartment or wander around Central City to cool off, but after moving in with Rhys, he’s processing his trauma a bit more as opposed to just avoiding it. He hasn’t told Rhys much, just that he came from “a horrible place, where [he] was trapped,” and Rhys doesn’t pry; oftentimes it’s enough to just be reminded that he’s free for Vitriol to calm back down.

Despite his prickly exterior (both literally and figuratively), Vitriol is much more cuddly than Rhys is. Perhaps it’s from being touch-starved in the facility for so long or perhaps it’s just part of his nature, but either way, Vitriol is no stranger to snuggling up against Rhys (most often) or his siblings (slightly less often as Vex is somewhat touch-averse). Rhys isn’t exactly annoyed by this, and often finds it endearing, but on occasion Vitriol has been known to act like a housecat--flopping down right in Rhys’s way to get his attention. He’s also a bit of a jokester, but only around Rhys and his family.

His deepest fear is of being helpless. He doesn’t tend to show much external emotion besides smiling at Rhys or his siblings, or glaring if he’s annoyed by something, but if he’s being dragged along the floor—especially if he’s being dragged by his underarms, as was his keepers’ favorite way of moving him from place to place—he will absolutely lose his mind in a panic. He also panics if cornered, lashing out with uncontrolled strength to get away, which usually doesn’t end well for his captors.

*Nightmares are your standard bad dreams that occur during REM sleep. Usually when waking from a nightmare, the person remembers what they were dreaming about. Often someone suffering from a nightmare will toss and turn, and maybe sleep-talk. Night terrors, however, are somewhere between dreaming and being awake; someone suffering a night terror might yell, thrash, kick or scream, or sit upright in bed with eyes wide open. They cannot, however, see or be woken from the night terror, and will flop back down anywhere from ten minutes to a half-hour after initial panic. They can often be confusing to the person suffering them, and only a vague recollection of what was going on remains when the person wakes up.

Unknown the Raccoon/Hedgehog Cross

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Unknown is an agender bisexual polyamorous genetic experiment most resembling a fusion of a hedgehog and a raccoon. They have lived roughly 16 years, only four of which have been spent outside. When Vex and Unknown ended up on their own, Unknown took on a role of the silent intimidator between the two. Vex’s Manipulation came in handy most times, but when necessary, Unknown could provide some intimidation.

Unknown was a vastly different person then from who they are now. They were far more focused, and taught themself parkour, as well as having put themself through rigorous training to maintain a good physical health. They rarely spoke, and refused to give themself a new name, unlike Vex and Vitriol. They weren’t interested in the riches, though they did suffer from a bit of a hoarding impulse, enjoying the feeling of owning something. They didn’t care for jewels or finer things, unlike Vex; they were more participating for the adrenaline rush. At that point in time, they fully understood the brevity of their power, and it was imperative for them to keep a calm demeanor at all times; they were far less animated than they are now.

Then, about a year and a half after they’d escaped, Unknown abruptly went missing. A heist went sideways, the two became separated, and suddenly Vex couldn’t find them. A few months after that, Robotnik began taking over the world, and shortly after that, Unknown awoke in a dumpster somewhere in Park Avenue, with no memory of any life prior to that. They gathered all the information about themself from this police flyer:

From there, Unknown wandered the city amidst the chaos, confused and curious. Through that, they met Sonic when they helped him fight off a few robots. Impressed with their skills, he asked them to join the Resistance, which they cluelessly agreed to, definitely not because a cute boy was offering it to them. Unknown ended up being quite helpful to the Resistance, despite presumably having no Chaos Powers. They got along well with virtually everyone save for Omega and Vector, as they have a slight fear of people taller than them.

After being reunited with Vex and Vitriol, Unknown has stayed relatively close to them; the three are inseparable, traveling in a group for the Restoration. Shortly after the final battle, as the Resistance members were celebrating for the night, Unknown stumbled across Infinite while walking home. Unsure whether to turn him in or not, they decided to take him home and let him heal from his wounds first, then figure out who to turn him in to. In the end, after two weeks of Infinite recuperating (during which he revealed his name to be Zero), Unknown decided instead to keep Infinite in their home, unsure what would happen to him otherwise. For a short while, they didn’t tell anyone else, but once they told Vex and Vitriol, they were urged to tell the Resistance as well. It wasn’t taken well at first, but eventually the issue was settled—Unknown would take care of and reform Infinite, because having him close by and watched over is better than having him roam around unsupervised. Despite that, Unknown doesn’t treat Infinite like a child or prisoner but rather a friend. Currently, Infinite resides in the home Unknown was occupying during the Resistance, which was rather close to the site of the final battle.

Unknown’s usual ‘work clothes’ are a leather bodysuit of sorts with buckles similar to an airplane seatbelt’s buckles (and a hole for their tail) and combat boots as well as padded gloves that help absorb shocks), but in the past, they would wear a large cloak. It’s not clear where this went during their disappearance. In their free time, they prefer to wear clothes with deep v-necks to let their neck/chest fluff breathe, and they often wear ripped clothing like Vitriol. Unknown’s thick fur makes them more prone to overheating, but despite that, they enjoy running as a hobby and a way to stay fit. They often wear fitness clothes (a tank top and gym shorts) when they’re in an urban area, though if in the wilderness, they’ll just wear running shoes.

Typically, their voice has a bright and happy tone to it, all the time, and they’re very good at faking it when they’re actually not okay. Vex and Vitriol can usually pick up on when they’re lying, but most others can’t, something Unknown is actually very happy about. When it comes to negative feelings, Unknown is very secretive, but with positive feelings, they love to share—and overshare. (The only exception to their secrecy is anger; an angry Unknown is frightfully quiet and cold, and painfully obvious.) Oftentimes they don’t realize they’re oversharing, but Vex (or Sonic, if present) is more than willing to quickly interrupt and divert the conversation. Unknown tends to use overly-familiar language with just about everyone, especially words like “buddy” or “pal.” It’s unclear if they’ve picked this up from Sonic.

They often suffer from night terrors, similar to Vitriol, but they claim it has no effect on them, as they don’t remember the trauma giving them nightmares. In the beginning, this was the truth; however, they refuse to open up to anyone, even their siblings, about what’s going on in their head. They’re well aware that they’re the most positive of the trio, and part of them doesn’t want to ruin that idea. Another thing they never tell anyone is that they often suffer from sleep paralysis*, wherein they often see strange things from their past, but existing still in the present. They don’t really know how to verbalize the experience to anyone else.

Unknown doesn’t have many fears, but they are downright petrified of needles and electricity—not in the sense where they’re scared of electronics, but they’re more frightened of visible electricity, like a fizzing outlet, lightning, or the Electric Wispons.

That being said, they do have a few insecurities, namely their sharp teeth. They’ve accidentally frightened people with them in the past, so when they first meet people nowadays, they try to smile with their mouth closed only. The anxiety dissipates eventually, as they’re more concerned about first impressions.

*Sleep paralysis is an event where a person is mentally ‘there’ but unable to move or speak at all. It occurs when they are falling asleep or just waking up, and episodes usually last less than a few minutes, but can occur multiple times, not just once. It’s thought to be linked to a dysfunction in REM sleep, and is caused by sleep deprivation, psychological stress, or a poor sleep schedule.

Extra stuff:

Files from the experimentation: Basic knowledge on Vex, Vitriol and Unknown, as they would’ve been presented to their guards.

Scrap Brain Zone (writing from Toxic’s perspective)

Unknown meets Infinite (Comic) Part 1 | Part 2

Experiment origins (Flipnote) [old] (Flashing light warning)

Unknown waking up (writing from Unknown’s perspective) [old]

OC Voiceclaims (video)

Chaos Vision (superemeralds’ idea) doodles | Click bold text to see his post on his blog.

Chips Ahoy (goofy non-canon animatic that im just really happy with)

Test animation for Toxic (Flicker warning)

Pride (doodles of 4/5 OCs for pride [toxic didn’t exist yet])

Moebius AU (Drawings with short description) | Moebius!Unknown video (Flash warning)

First Punch (Animated comic feat. @creative-sanic ‘s Aurora) | Still version

Rough concept writing - Toxic’s powers [will be removed when I decide on their abilities and how they get them in canon] (Writing)

Character Turn-Arounds (Comic/Animation ref) (Includes colour hex keys!)

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hypomanicsatanicpanic · 6 years

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saw a 15 year old lesbian comment on reddit that “most” lesbians realize they are gay earlier than 15.... LOL.

For what it’s worth, I really hope that most gay and bi femmes are realizing who they are attracted to earlier than I did: hopefully, the prevailing culture is less toxic/homophobic/biphobic, there are more accessible resources to learn about diverse sexuality, there’s more representation in the media.

But I also think a lot of us "older" folx ended up repressing/ not recognizing our attraction to women until somewhat later in life than 15.

I didn't actually realize that until I was attracted to women until 23/24. I was just starting to question a bit at 20, but I wasn’t sure about it until a few years after that. I’ve only ever had sex with one woman, one time. A majority of my life past the age of consent (which was 16 in my state) has been spent in a monogamous sexual relationship of some sort with a cis-het man- and being the Type of Person who is in that kind of relationship really enforced this sense of being A Straight Type of Person. That, along with a whole truckload of internalized biphobia (You’re not a Real Bi if you’ve never been in a relationship with a woman! You’re not a Real Bi, because Bi Women Do Not Exist- you’re Clearly A Poser Who Gets The Attention Of Men By Pretending To Be Interested In Women, Even If You’ve Told Zero People You’re Interested In Women! You’re Obviously Going Through A Phase. You Can’t Be A Bi Woman While Being In A Relationship With a Cis Het Guy). I still struggle with that sometimes, being in an open/ poly relationship with a cis guy is different, and I’m dating women and NB folx, but the persistent, shitty, biphobic question is still there, bouncing around- can you actually be a real WLW if you have any ongoing sexual or romantic relationship with a man?

I think part of the reason it took so long for me to figure out what attractions I have was that there was no WLW frame of reference for the first ~18 years of my life. In high school, there were no "out" lesbians, bi people, NBs, or transpeople; only one very flamboyant gay dude (who was bullied by pretty much everyone), and one very not-flamboyant but not closeted gay teacher (who was bullied by the administration, by students, and by homophobic parents). There was certainly no sex ed to speak of (yeah, we did sit in a room while we were shown drawings of reproductive organs, and told that condoms were not 100% effective and that the pill was risky and that having sex would definitely make you Teen Pregnant). Being bi or gay was so far out of the parameters of possible Things You Could Be presented to my peer group that I literally didn’t recognize feelings of attraction when I had them...which in turn led to a whole lot of unfulfilling and shitty sexual experiences later on. It’s like when you consistently are forced to eat more food after you are full- you lose touch with your appetite, and that fucks up your eating habits.

Even people in cis-het relationships were not really much help in explaining attraction. The straight girls I knew were dating people because they thought they were a "cute couple" or because there was social pressure to do so- nobody openly talked about attraction or sexual feelings they were having beyond- "He's soooooo cuuuuute!" or “he’s got GREAT eyes!” or “He’s sooooo hot!”. Nobody talked about what cute or hot actually meant, it was just assumed you’d know what that meant, because you thought so too. I actually thought that the reason I never agreed that boys were cute is because I just didn't find the right one that I was attracted to-- that the people my friends were into were not my type, not that the men who are “my type” are very much more an exception to a rule that excludes most men than a rule to which there are exceptions. I regret that I was never confident enough to tell the girls who’d make that kind of comment that I didn’t get it. At least in my experience, teenage gay and bi femmes really didn't have any kind of open existence in the early 2000s and 1990s, especially not in the conservative place I grew up. I suspect this is also true of the rest of the US--If you think of Mean Girls as an (exaggerated) portrait of what was going on in high schools at the time, you can clearly see why being a big-L Lesbian like Janis (who also fulfilled nearly every goth/art-kid/non-conforming asshole stereotype) was not something that a lot of young people in my community (pretty affluent, very academic and preppy, pretty rural, a lot of South- and East Asian -immigrants) could relate to. There was no real sex ed, definitely not sex ed that even mentioned lesbians (!), or sex that was done for reasons other than procreation. Actually, the Mean Girls representation of sex ed was pretty spot-on.

Also, Janis's character didn't go very far to actually talk about her attraction to women, or what that was, or how she experienced it... there were just rumors flying around that she was lesbian, which everyone seemed to think of as a bad thing, for reasons that were never explained. I don’t think I saw another representation of lesbians in the movies (and can’t recall any in books, with the possible exception of Tamora Pierce books, where I think it was subtle enough I mostly didn’t pick up on representation that did exist). Sure, I conceptually knew that Ellen was a lesbian, but had no idea what the fuck that actually meant, other than that she was Different, and in the abstract Liked Women. I don’t think I saw a picture of her holding hands or hugging Portia until I was 20 or so.

Anyway, in my circle of (mid-to-late-twentysomething) friends we joke that L/B femmes goes through delayed adolescence because everyone is still trying to figure out how to talk to women and ask people out on dates into their mid-20s. Or, you know, they’re already married. Not sure how to end this post, but 1) representation is REALLY important in children and YA works as well as in adult works 2) bi femmes exist, and shouldn’t have to prove shit to anyone 3) queer discourse is fucking important. 4) a lot of us are late bloomers, and that’s ok. sometimes it’s not safe to bloom early. 5) hopefully not everyone in the future will have to be a late bloomer 6) inclusive sex ed is important 7) lots of love for my fellow midwestern queers

#personal post #lgbtq #lesbian #bisexual #wlw #mean girls #ellen #tamora pierce #representation #growing up #teen years #sexuality #delayed adolescence #late bloomer

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psychiccupid · 6 years

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All the asks.

YES!!!! THANK YOU!!!!

ALL 45 FROM HERE UNDER THE CUT!!!

0: Height? I’m 5′3″ last I checked!! (which was a while ago >w1: Virgin? Helllll no2: Shoe size? 8 1/2!3: Do you smoke? I vape ‘cause I’m cool but I’ve never had a cigarette and I’ve only smoked weed three? times and each time I did it out of a pen and felt nothing lol 4: Do you drink? Occasionally! I love me some rum and vodka! But it’s been a while... mostly a social drinker...5: Do you take drugs? Nope6: Age you get mistaken for? I passed as a teen until college now I just look lie a perpetual 20+ year old lol7: Have tattoos? NO BUT I WANT 5!!!!8: Want any tattoos? OH WHOOPS... I WANT 5!!!!9: Got any piercings? Just my ears! But when my stomach reaches a personal goal size I’m gonna pierce it as a reward! 10: Want any piercings? God dammit... lol... I want a belly button piercing :D11: Best friend? I HAVE LOTS OF BEST FRIENDS!!! @hatgh0st @nicecreamdeer @teslagannon @mentalserendipity AND @puggger BEIN’ MY CLOSEST FRIENDS :’)))))12: Relationship status? I’m dating @puggger but it’s open and poly! 13: Biggest turn ons? Bite. My. Ear! Breathe. On. My. Neck! Shower me with constant adoration and momentarily cure my ever looming existential crisis :> 14: Biggest turn offs? Bigots. Toxic Masculinity. Insulting me or the things I love. 15: Favorite movie? Tie between Tangled and Kimi no Na Wa!16: I’ll love you if? *Coughs* YOU SHOWER ME WITH CONSTANT ADORATION AND MOMENTARILY CURE MY EVER LOOMING EXISTENTIAL CRISIS! And talk to me about Pokemon and Anime ^-^17: Someone you miss? @hatgh0st DDD’‘‘‘: 18: Most traumatic experience? Yo I’m not going into that lololol19: A fact about your personality? I will /always/ act happier than I am so if I’m upset I’m about to lose it.20: What I hate most about myself? “Now, we don’t have time to unpack all of that...” I’m not a huge fan of how I look physically - but absolutely my face and stomach overall. 21: What I love most about myself? I love my personality and how I don’t really give in to society or peer pressure. I love how I refuse to give up my passions and do not really care about material possessions. Not that that’s bad!22: What I want to be when I get older? Anything creative!! But especially a voice actor or a professional cosplayer!!23: My relationship with my sibling(s)? Eh... 24: My relationship with my parent(s)? EH... Like I love both of my parents and my sister... but I need like four months away from them for every week I spend with them y’know?25: My idea of a perfect date? FIRST We go to an aquarium! We spend hours and we both get excited reading about all the different fish!! SECOND we have lunch/dinner by the beach. It’s sushi. We inadvertently hold hands and then dip our toes in the ocean while you compliment my bonnet and matching swim suit. Walking along said beach is a must if there’s time! FINALLY we go to a dive-in movie. Ideally, they’re playing Kimi no Na Wa so I may cry into the pool. You, without really thinking about it, say, under your breath “You are the Takeshi to my Mitsuha” (though if you reverse the names I won’t be upset). We get spontaneous Safeway cheesecake on the way home! (You give me your raspberry piece in exchange for my double chocolate piece). We fuck. Afterwards, I get to sleep as the Big Spoon. I get to wake up and cuddle you.... you said perfect not financially acceptable lolol26: My biggest pet peeves? INDECISIVE PEOPLE. Especially negative people (like, people who know how to make it better but keep complaining... this is mostly about me lol). Boys who don’t know how to play the Question Game. 27: A description of the girl/boy I like? Cares about absolutely everyone. Has the voice of an angel! Wears pigtails and likes dying her hair! Likes to dance and play dress up and dreams of performing for crowds... uh duh... of course I’m talking about Hatsune Miku 28: A description of the person I dislike the most? UhhhhhHHHHH like... I could go broad here and just put Trump but like... I’m trying to think more personal?? Hmm... like I could put my mom too but I don’t dislike her the most? UHHH @ my own anxiety: Tells me the world is a lie and that we’re in a simulation and that I need to wake up. Makes talking to bosses/people above me impossible. Tells me no matter what that I’m doing something wrong and that I’m not good enough. 29: A reason I’ve lied to a friend? Didn’t wanna hurt their feelings? The truth was worse than a lie?30: What I hate the most about work/school? Going. Capitalism. I have a degree. 4_ years of retail/food service work under my belt AND I’ve worked at Disney and I still can’t get more than minimum wage. 31: What your last text message says? “Nah I’m ok I just feel bad” yup.32: What words upset me the most? “How can you be gay if you’re dating a boy?” “Ok sure you’re Enby. But why do you still relate to women?” “This is my daughter, Jessica” 33: What words make me feel the best about myself? “Wow! You could make a career out of this!” “This is really good!” “You’re working really hard aren’t you?” “You are smart.” 34: What I find attractive in women? Absolutely everything. I’ve never met a woman who didn’t blow me away. All women are so pretty and talented and so strong and I love them all!35: What I find attractive in men? Anytime they have feminine hair/features I lose my goddamn mind. When they’ve come to accept every part of themselves and are super confident not because that’s what they’re used to but because they really worked for something! When they’re genuine and they get that sparkle in their eye!! 36: Where I would like to live? Anywhere I can be me and creative! Right now it’s looking like Austin, Texas... but LA or Tokyo... LA ‘cause that’s where I feel like I have to go... Tokyo ‘cause that’s where I’ve wanted to go since I was 7 but I don’t know if I could live there...37: One of my insecurities? Everything??? But I’m very insecure about how I look. I have a mighty fear that I do not get far in life because I’m ugly as sin (I’m not but god I think so). 38: My childhood career choice? In order from age: 4: Vet, 11: Lawyer, 14: Software Designer, 16: Gene Specialist/Splicer, 18: Calculus Teacher, 19: Script Writer, 19: Stage Actor, 20: Costumer/Cosplayer/Voice Actor (Not that I haven’t been doing these since I was 16, but I didn’t decide they could be career choices until college) 39: My favorite ice cream flavor? Phish Food, Cookies N Cream, Cookie Dough, Raspberry!40: Who wish I could be? SOMEONE HAPPY. A professional voice actor!41: Where I want to be right now? Hmmm... probably Tokyo? The Pokemon theme park that existed in 2002ish! In a line about to meet Arin Hanson? Back in bed lol? ON THAT DATE I MADE EARLIER!!42: The last thing I ate? Leftover gluten-free pumpkin spice & blueberry pancakes ^w^43: Sexiest person that comes to my mind immediately? HALEY FROM STARDEW VALLEY! ... Audrey from Huniepop... 44: A random fact about anything? I can name 21 digits of pie from memory and I am very talented knowing what a pokemon’s national pokedex number is :’D

#about me #me #WOOOOOO #guys please read 25 #Anonymous

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sophieebdaily · 3 years

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Sophie gave a really strong and powerful interview for today’s edition of ‘You Magazine’ talking about her book ‘Spinning Plates’, out on October 7th. She looked back in her old days and there are some deep relevation she’s never talked about before and personally it shocked me a lot. Read the article below, written by Hattie Crisell:

With six albums, five children, a podcast and her fabulous lockdown kitchen discos, SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR appears to lead a perfect charmed life. But as she tells Hattie Crisell, writing her new memoir took her back to much darker days.

This is the second time I have interviewed singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and she is exactly as I remember her. I’m not referring to her appearance, although of course she’s memorably striking – tall, green-eyed and beautiful, and today wearing a typically colourful floral jumpsuit that she picked up for £20 at a festival.

But there’s also something distinctive about her manner, which I admired last time, and even find myself envying. Sophie puts it best in her new memoir, Spinning Plates: Music, Men, Motherhood and Me. ‘It’s been my goal to be unapologetic. Kind, considerate, but clear with my boundaries.’ And that’s exactly how she comes across.

It’s not always easy for women to maintain those boundaries, and I include myself among them – traditionally, we’ve been encouraged to ease social encounters by being obliging. But while Sophie is polite, friendly, and prone to bursts of raucous laughter, she also projects a steady, low-key faith in who she is and what she thinks. Interviewing her is straightforward precisely because her boundaries are clear: I know that if she objects to a topic, she will say so. Yet when I warn her that I have questions about the more difficult parts of her book, she assures me that she feels fine talking about any of it.

Because the thing is, the 42-year-old woman I’m having lunch with today – an artist who has released six studio albums, produced five children and entertained the nation through lockdown with her famous kitchen discos – is in a much happier place than the girl I’ve been reading about in her memoir, who perhaps didn’t have that confidence. While Sophie always felt she was destined to be famous (‘Cringy to write but also true,’ as it says in the book), she went through a number of deeply unpleasant experiences in her late teens and early 20s that have shaped who she is today.

It started, she explains, with the ladette culture at the end of the 1990s, just as she was emerging from adolescence. The ladette ‘drank pints and had one-night stands, she could talk the talk and walk the walk, she wore a Wonderbra and could banter with the boys. She was ‘who I was supposed to be,’ writes Sophie. It was all about showing bravado when it came to sex and booze; but there wasn’t space to let on if you were uncomfortable or felt vulnerable. ‘It was intimidating and I felt way out of my league.’

Sophie joined her first band, Theaudience, aged 17, and soon started to be interviewed by male journalists, all of whom were older. They asked questions about her favourite sexual positions and commented on her breasts. During an early appearance on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, she was mocked humiliatingly for being the daughter of a Blue Peter presenter (Janet Ellis), and told ‘You’re not cool.’

And then there was her image, which was treated just as brutally. One photographer took an upskirt photo of her without her knowledge and sold it to the papers. Later, when Theaudience’s second album had faltered, she took work as a model. During a photo shoot to promote a hair salon, she was pressured into posing semi-topless, despite this being against the terms she’d agreed with her agency. Those photos – ‘me with sequins barely covering my modesty and the saddest eyes ever’, she writes – were eventually sold to Heat magazine.

None of this seedy treatment should be surprising to anyone who remembers the late 90s, yet two particularly damaging experiences stand out. At 17, Sophie met a man in a club and went back to his flat. They started kissing, but when she told him to stop, he didn’t. This rape – a term she took a while to recognise, because consent wasn’t such a hot topic at the time – is how she lost her virginity.

The second experience began shortly afterwards, when Sophie was studying for her A-levels: it was a relationship with an older man that lasted for several years and was increasingly abusive. ‘Teeny tiny, almost imperceptible shifts that make you think it’s normal to be routinely humiliated in public, or to be told you’re an idiot when you make a mistake, or that you’re past it and wrinkly. Before you know it you’re being threatened if you try to show independence,’ she writes. At its worst, her boyfriend wouldn’t allow her to walk down the street alone or look out of the car window. During one argument, he twisted her wrist so hard that the next day it was too swollen for her to put on a watch. She’s opened up about this now simply because a publisher approached her about writing a book, and lockdown seemed as good a time as any. Still, there was plenty to fill her autobiography, including tales of teenage rebellion, a rise to major pop success, an unexpected baby in her mid-20s, and life with a large family – so why did she choose to include these very personal traumas?

‘I think firstly, those things are really quite common,’ she says, as we dig in to lunch at a restaurant near her home in West London – a tiny eaterie where Sophie is such a regular the waitress already knows her order. ‘I think a lot of people have those experiences, and I’m hoping they resonate and reassure them a bit. I remember, in the midst of writing, I read Candice Brathwaite’s book I Am Not Your Baby Mother, and she talks about a similar experience for her. I thought, “Wow – actually seeing it written down by someone else, I find that reassuring.”’

Part of the reason the abuse was so insidious was that her ex’s constant criticisms and put-downs were so casually delivered. ‘You just think, “Oh, this must be what a grown-up relationship is like, this must be how people talk, this must be normal,”’ she says. ‘So much so that with my husband Richard [Jones, bass player in The Feeling], I almost thought, if I did something silly, “Why are you not calling me an idiot? Oh, OK, is that still passionate, then?” And actually yeah, you don’t have to go around punching people to be an amazingly strong person.’

What she went through, she thinks, has helped her to call out abusive behaviour in other situations. ‘Certainly, I’ve been straight-talking with girlfriends about things I think aren’t very healthy. Hopefully, I’ve done it in a way that’s tactful, but sometimes you just have to say to people, “You don’t seem very happy, and I’m just going to repeat back to you the things that you’re telling me,” and hold a mirror up to it, really. Then people make their own decisions.’

Though most of the book is more lighthearted, these two painful events were the chapters she wrote first. ‘I thought, I really want to tell those stories now. It was going back to give myself a voice, the times when I didn’t say something. And also I thought, if you’re going to write a book, what’s the point? To me being brave and bold and honest is all part of it.’ She’s keen to show her fans that an abusive relationship doesn’t have to dictate your future. ‘You can still end up somewhere happy and not be defined by things that weren’t great. Plus, I suppose it was a way of coming to terms with it myself, because you contextualise it in a different way than you did at the time – particularly the dynamic of how women were being written about back then, and what was seen as the goal of how to be a successful young woman. I think that was quite damaging for my generation.’ The ladette stuff? ‘Yeah. I think among my peers, we’re probably all able to say, “What was that about? Thank goodness we don’t have to think about that any more.”’

Though she’s been married for 16 years to Richard and seems to live a largely happy life, what she went through left its mark. She writes in the book that she recently went to a boxing class with her husband, and when the instructor suggested they spar and Richard raised his fists in preparation, she burst into tears: ‘It took me completely by surprise. The sparring had reminded me of something I’d put in a hidden corner of my memory.’

Her ex sounds vile, I say, and she nods. ‘You do crazy things, don’t you? You give so much of yourself. I tried so hard to turn it into something it was never ever going to be. But I did get out. I did change it.’

She talked the book over with her husband before she started it. ‘Richard was incredibly encouraging,’ she says. ‘And we’ve been together a long time now, so there were no surprises. I think he understood the reason why I was motivated to write it; to maybe reach other people in similar situations. He thought it was important for me to do that.’ Her parents, Janet Ellis and the film-maker Robin Bextor, have both read it. ‘Most people that know me, of course, they know bits anyway,’ she says, then laughs, ‘and they also focus on all the stuff that involves them.’

Her kids – Sonny, 17, Kit, 12, Ray, nine, Jesse, five, and Mickey, two – were another reason for writing it. ‘They can start thinking about how they feel about those sorts of things as they get older,’ she says. The book explains that she taught them about consent early on: ‘When they play we use the words, “Stop” and “No”, and they are powerful. No matter how much fun they’ve been having up to that point, if one of them – even laughing – says “No” or “Stop”, then they must stop whatever they are doing. I want to raise considerate, kind people who can take other people’s feelings into account.’

None of them has read her memoir, but Sophie has already told her eldest son what she went through. ‘You gauge it on each child. It might be that it’s not right to talk about it at the same stage with the next child down, but certainly with Sonny I felt like he could understand. I did it in a way that was appropriate – I just told him, “I spent a lot of my time in something that wasn’t great, and you don’t have to do the same.” I’m selective, but I try to give them the insight of whatever I’ve learnt – it’s part of raising someone.’

Beyond that, she’s not worried about their reactions to the book. ‘I don’t think there’s anything that I would struggle to talk to them about. In fact, if I’m perfectly honest, I think they’re going to be pretty uninterested in the whole thing!’ She laughs. ‘My mum’s quite an open person. I’ve learnt things about her from what she’s said on the radio. That’s how she’s comfortable talking about herself, and it’s never bothered me, so my kids have just got to deal with it. They can cope with knowing I’m a whole adult person who lived a life before I was with their dad.’

Her life involved a lot more than the bruising experiences mentioned above. Sophie writes about her parents’ split when she was four, but also about the playground kudos that came with her mother’s presenter role on Blue Peter. Sophie talks fondly of the step-parents she acquired as a child – her mother’s husband John Leach (who died last summer) and her father’s wife Polly Mockford. And she charts the arrival over the years of her younger siblings: Jackson Ellis Leach, 34, who is a drummer in Sophie’s band, Martha Ellis Leach, 30, Dulce Bextor, 24, and 23-year-old twins Bertie and Maisy Bextor.

But perhaps the most heartwarming section of the book is devoted to her husband. It’s a love letter of sorts, that details the kindness and respect he has always shown her, and the easy friendship that evolved into more. She met Richard towards the end of her relationship with the abusive ex, when he auditioned to join her band. She recalls that the first thing she ever said to him was, ‘Nice amp,’ which was surprising, she writes, because ‘it is the only time in my life I’ve either a) really looked at an amp or b) complimented anyone on one.’ At home, they now have a neon sign bearing the words ‘nice amp’.

Things moved fast. She found out she was pregnant six weeks into their relationship, when they hadn’t even yet exchanged ‘I love you’. Shocked, Sophie considered terminating the pregnancy – ‘but I couldn’t get to that headspace,’ she writes. ‘As my tummy grew, so did the love that Richard and I felt for each other.’ Then, nine months after Sonny was born, Richard proposed to her – though she blurted out ‘Yes!’ before he’d even asked the question.

When I bring up this high romance, she becomes a bit awkward. The chapter on Richard was the hardest to write, she admits. ‘I’m not very good at that kind of thing. But I was much better at writing it down than I am at talking about it.’ She knows he liked it, but he didn’t say much, which she seems relieved about. ‘He’s much more likely to be romantic than I am, so he probably didn’t want to embarrass me.’

Whether or not she can say it out loud, her book suggests they are very well suited and deeply devoted to each other – but that’s not to say they haven’t been through some tough times. During Sophie’s pregnancy with Sonny, and even while she was still in hospital after his birth, she was trying to untangle her finances from those of her ex. Despite being given her home studio equipment and a brand-new car in the split, he felt he was entitled to more. Her pregnancy was also mysteriously leaked to the press, leading her to worry about who she could trust with personal information; it later emerged that her phone, as well as her mother’s and Richard’s, had been hacked.

Then at 28 weeks pregnant she was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, a condition which causes high blood pressure and meant that Sonny needed to be delivered by caesarean two months early. Sonny stayed in hospital for six weeks, with Sophie and Richard visiting twice a day. But it’s what happened a couple of months after he returned home, when the new family had settled into a happy routine, that makes for the most alarming reading. Sophie woke to find that Sonny had slept through his usual feeding time, and had a temperature of over 41C. He had meningitis.

Thankfully, the doctors were able to treat him quickly and his temperature was back under control later that day – ‘but I think the jolt of fear and adrenaline took a while to process,’ writes Sophie. ‘For years after I would freak out if any of the kids had a high fever.’

She’s typically philosophical now when she reflects on the stress of that period. ‘The main thing was, we didn’t know any different, and I’m quite an optimistic person anyway so I didn’t go through it all in a state of panic,’ she tells me. ‘It’s more that I look back and think of it as quite an intense period of our lives. Richard and I deal with quite a lot all the time and I think that was what forged our ability to cope – because there was not any let-up.’

Perhaps it also primed them to cope with the wobble in their marriage that was to come nine years later – during Sophie’s 2013 stint on Strictly Come Dancing, in which she was a finalist. She doesn’t mince her words about this experience in the book: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’ she writes.

Her opinion of the show is based on that series, so it’s hard to know whether it would resonate with more recent participants – but I suspect much of it would. She believes pastoral care is lacking, and that there should be a counsellor on board to make sure everyone’s coping. ‘Everybody’s dealing with really big, real-life things, and it takes over probably like nothing else you’ve ever done,’ she says. ‘So much of it is ridiculously wonderful – the sets, the lighting, the music, the costumes, the make-up. I just think if there was a bit more emotional support for the people in the midst of it, it would at least be a nod to the fact that they’re thinking about it.’

She points out how demanding the schedule is, with rehearsals or recording six days a week for up to 13 weeks. The professional dancers, she believes, shoulder more strain than they should: ‘I think I was very unusual in that I never cried in front of Brendan [Cole, her dance partner]. But they’re like counsellors as well. I heard stories about previous contestants. You know, imagine the confessional at the hairdressers, and then pretend you’re doing a paso doble with your hairdresser.’

Richard (who gave his blessing for her to write about this) struggled with her involvement in the show. ‘At the TV studio everything was adrenaline-fuelled and exciting but at home things were strained and I was finding it hard to give Richard the reassurance and support he needed,’ she writes. It took a while after the show finished for their marriage to recover.

She also found the judges’ emphasis on sexual chemistry deeply uncomfortable. ‘When we did the Argentine tango, all the comments were about whether it came across as a man having an affair with his other woman, because that’s apparently what that dance is about,’ she says, still a little incredulous. ‘And I’m like, “I’m not sure I want an extra couple of points for looking like I’m having an affair, because my grandpa’s watching, and my husband’s in the audience.”’

Did she expect Strictly to have an impact on her marriage? ‘God no! I had no bloody idea. I’d never seen it.’ Though she doesn’t name names, it’s well documented that two celebrities’ marriages ended during that series. ‘That’s not a small-fry thing,’ she says. ‘If I go on tour and there’s 15 of us in a crew bus, I don’t have two of them leave their partners at the end of the tour.’

Speaking of tours, her next one as a headliner – the Kitchen Disco Tour – has been pushed back to March next year. In the meantime, she’s promoting the appropriately titled Spinning Plates in between recording episodes of her podcast of the same name, performing at festivals, gearing up to support Steps on tour, and dealing with her toddler’s nocturnal wanderings (the week I meet Sophie, she and Mickey had spent a night sleeping on the floor outside her bedroom). She likes to be busy, but is glad the book allowed her a moment to stop and think.

‘My 40s are a good time to reflect on where I’m at,’ she says. ‘I’m clear in my mind about what I want, but also a lot more open, and more aware of where I’ve been in the past. For me the book is all part of taking stock, and thinking actually, I’m quite a happy person.’ She does seem happy – and refreshingly unapologetic, too.

Photos: Laura Lewis

#you magazine #photos #sophie ellis bextor #spinning plates

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 7 years

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Life Story Part 60

Sarah ended up staying a month longer than she thought she was going to. I guess she didn't feel like she had given a proper goodbye to her mother, and needed to pack more. In any case, it was nice to see her a few more times, without Alex around. Is it wrong that I prefer to hang out with my friends when their boyfriends aren't present? Even if I like their boyfriend overall? I remember playing the racing game for Nintendo with her. We listened to Mark Lanegan's early solo album The Winding Sheet on repeat. I remember Sarah getting in one fight with her mom, but I don't remember what it was about. I think Sarah got upset because her mom passive aggressively demanded something indirectly, but didn't explain herself as to why. She had a way of being intentionally obtuse in order to avoid intimate conversations. So there were some things that Sarah's mom would never talk about, sides of herself she didn't let anyone see. At times she seemed rather cluelessly cold. It eventually could hurt people's feelings. Though I don't think she ever intended it. Her mother never did end up explaining herself. She ended up sort of chastising Sarah for her outrage. Sarah's reaction was oddly childlike. I wouldn't say childish in that her objection and frustrations were sound and valid, though her approach to getting upset seemed to close the opportunity to challenge her mother in a more clever way. I sided with Sarah in the sense that I thought her mom had these moments where she didn't like questioning anything. She sort of sidestepped certain aspects of people, and might low key shame you if you took a step out of her safety zone. She seemed to be very caring and impersonal at the same time. Like, she was sensitive and really wanted good in the world. But at the same time she seemed set to be disappointed and it sort of went in this loop. In some ways, she was altogether unreachable. You realize these flaws about your parents in your mid to late teens most of the time, and it's completely normal.

We ended up going to this all girl ACDC cover band that came to town, called Hell's Bells. I hesitate to criticize ACDC. I have learned to appreciate them and what they stand for. They were a top notch rock band. I realize the more I get older though that I don't really like hard rock all that much. I am not opposed, but it doesn't resonate with me. I prefer folk, artsy stuff, synth pop, experimental, and garage bands. The all girl ACDC cover band did alright – though I respect it now more so than I did back then. This was also the first time I realized my father was drinking again. He had stopped drinking after going to AA. I had suspected it a few times but I couldn't be sure, but here he was doing it openly. I guess it made perfect sense. You would have to be inebriated to really want to hang around Billy all day. And that John guy – the musician my father was hanging around probably drank a lot. Peer pressure got the best of him, and it was a way of coping with the death of both his mother and his ex girlfriend.

There would be some difficulty with getting me to school each day. At first, my father bought this strange looking green car from the 70's on a whim, since one of my father's brother's had it. But it was a terrible gas hog, and while we were driving on a farmer's road shortcut we accidentally didn't take a correct turn and ended up crashing the car into a ditch. It wasn't broken or anything. It just felt like an unfeasible vehicle. Which left my father with this old pick up we had – very reliable in a way but an even worse gas hog. It took thirty dollars just to drive me to school and back. I kind of knew based on these things that going to school wasn't going to last.

But I didn't know what else to do anymore. Sarah was well on her way to being gone, and I didn't have anywhere else to go. I really didn't look forward to the prospect of being home with my parents all day. I thought momentarily at times about going to college, but the idea of going seemed a bit like an admittance of failure on my own part. I felt like I was throwing away time I could spend honing my skills as an artist. I was too proud to admit that going to college might have been worth my time. In any case, my choices were incredibly limited, and I had no idea what I was doing with myself.

Going to school without Sarah present was kind of a trip for me. I felt sort of lost not having someone else there. I walked into class always a little unsure of myself, my head down. I tried not to have conversations with anyone. I think at first Mike felt defensive towards me, but he quickly grew to feel genuinely sorry for me. I have always been an introvert with random outbursts of impassioned outspoken moments or moments where I was feeling rather humorous or jolly, but I had never felt this introverted before. I didn't smile very much. I didn't get that sad anymore either. I just felt locked in myself. When someone addressed me with even a simple question about my day or what I was reading – I sometimes couldn't even answer. What people seemed to expect of me out in the external world was very hard for me to immediately grasp, and when someone asked me incredibly simple questions, it felt like they were presenting me with a puzzle to solve. Everyone else seemed to be able to solve each other's puzzles, and I was left stupefied.

I was having troubles focusing. I felt myself drifting off in class quite often. Not to mention, my father couldn't take me to school about 10-20% of the days – and this was going to make it impossible for me to get any credits whatsoever. Furthermore, the class in second hour was a Mythology class. Mike wanted us to draw out a family tree of the Roman Gods. I didn't get the point of studying Mythology in school at all, but the idea of creating a family tree was incredibly intriguing to me, but the project ended up bogging me down when I found over 5000 deities and demigods and even real actual people that I had to somehow display on this tree. There wasn't a piece of paper big enough for me to draw this out. Not to mention that different stories had differing ideas about who had fathered whom. Zeus couldn't ever keep his pants on it seemed, which made things even more confusing. And then there was the fact that many of the Greek Gods sort of got passed down and renamed as Roman ones. I think there were even a few areas where you might have been able to connect some of the Norse Gods if you went back far enough and you were looking at the beginning time lines. I ended up having something I could not possibly turn in. I found Mythology tedious, and I didn't feel like I was learning anything by knowing about ever poor water nymph (that was probably also his daughter) that Zeus had taken a fancy to on a whim. I wanted to know about true things. I wanted to learn about facts – not stories. I didn't see the value in these stories.

So I went to Mike and told him I was going to leave that class and I needed to talk to Jenni. He didn't look particularly surprised, but he seemed annoyed momentarily, as he seemed to think that I was somehow trying to meekly make him do something for me. He looked at me and told me that I needed to talk to Jenni myself. I looked at him in the face calmly – in a way I don't think I would have the year before – and I just said, 'I know, that's what I am intending. I just don't know her schedule and I assumed you probably do'. And he suddenly sort of softened up. He looked at me quizzically, hesitated, and then said 'You've changed.' And after that, he wasn't rude towards me anymore. If he looked at me at all, his expression mostly conveyed sadness. I think he was in someway pleased with my personality. He felt that I was more 'mature' in my approach towards people – far more direct than I had ever been and with an absence of fragile egotism, but at the same time, what had to die in my eyeballs for me to suddenly grow up like this was almost not worth it – and the grim prospects of my future that I am sure he was all too aware of made him feel rather sorry for me.

Mike ended up meeting my father in person one day. My father came to the school to pick me up, and he wanted to meet Mike. I had said enough about the alternative school to where my dad started saying things like, he thought Mike was probably hitting on the teenage girls. I felt that was incredibly insulting as Mike was probably one of the most appropriate men I had ever met in my entire life, and it was obvious to anyone who knew him that Jenni, the overall quest for knowledge, and snowboarding – but mostly Jenni was his focus point on life. He put a great amount of effort to make everyone at the school feel extremely comfortable. My father sort of cornered Mike. Mike didn't seem particularly pleased, and I just sat there in shock, as they both represented two different worlds, and their two heads both being in the periphery of my vision at the same time was sort of mind boggling. I remember Mike being kind of short with my father. I've never seen anyone so passive aggressive towards my father. It was a strange occurrence.

The next day, Mike pointed out to me in passing that he was surprised by my father. He had been working under the impression that my dad was an old drunk hippie that couldn't speak well. He was sort of taken aback that my father was right wing, was rather muscular and big, talked well and extremely assertively and was the sort of person who sort of moved in on what he wanted very openly and seemed to grasp some psychological conversation, as in the conversation, he was able to carefully craft compliments and mix them with questions that seemed harmless, but were mildly intrusive. My father is a smart guy, and he behaves far more like something between a salesman and a cop than he does an old stoned hippie. If you know him, you know he is also incredibly gullible in certain ways, and is very much a one trick pony who's suspicions eventually lead him into being weirdly isolated and crazy. Also, he was about as unreliable and emotionally unstable as your typical good for nothing barfly type can be at times – so there was that. But on the surface, my father is pretty much a salesman who uses friendliness and openness to push people into corners. It's a skill – you have to acknowledge it for what it is. It's gotten him through life. I certainly don't have it. And I think Mike had been working with the assumption that I had been reacting to a different sort of homelife than he was. I could tell it sort of blew theories Mike might have had about me out of the water a bit. Plus, he just couldn't get my father's overall forward conversation out of his mind since he is a very unusual character. Mike was not used to having to pry control out of someone else's hands in social conversation.

I grew to resent waiting for my father to arrive to pick me up. It caused me to feel stressed as the clock came to that time again. He forgot about me twice, and was always extremely late, like five or six hours late a few times. Moscow, even in the fall, gets really windy and cold. I had no jacket. I would curl up into myself the best I could as the wind pelted me. I would sit outside the school on the bench and watch everyone else drive away or put their headphones on and stroll to wherever they were going. Twenty or thirty minutes later, the teachers would leave the school. Mike felt badly, and he might stay a few extra minutes, but I would always kindly assure him that my father would eventually come to pick me up, though as time went on, I would grow more and more uncertain. I knew there was nothing he could really do for me, and I didn't want to cut into his homelife. So eventually I would be alone. The school was closed, and everyone was gone in the small parking lot but me. I'd get this weird dull anxiety of feeling alone. I felt like I was caught in the echo of the world, and not in the world itself. I would watch the 5 O'clock traffic roll by and wonder who all these people were who seemed to have lives. It felt very real to me that the world was spitting me out. I was never actually going to get the chance to become a person like them.

One of the times that my father didn't come and get me, it was due to him forgetting. He tried to assure me he had not forgotten to get me, but my little brother David later clarified that he had. My father had been too busy hanging out with Billy and the local guys – basically trying to be a cool loser like them. Billy and my dad eventually showed up in Billy's beat up car with duck tape and such. I crammed into the back of the car with Billy's girlfriend and a bunch of other people. It seemed profoundly silly to me that my dad wanted to hang out with these people. They were bad news. Billy's claim to fame other than sleeping with all the girls in town was his infamously terrible driving. He liked to speed, and play racing games with other vehicles. I remember sitting in that car having to hold something to keep my position as he hollered and screamed at other vehicles. I took a look at the speedometer and it said 85mph, and I knew we were on a 40. It was insane. He was swerving around to pass vehicles on solid yellow lines. My father looked nervous – but he also looked like he didn't want to seem uncool. He tried to softly say 'Hey now..' but Billy of course didn't respect that kind of authority, and didn't care. I eventually just closed my eyes and hoped for the best. I knew Billy and Zack were best friends. I tried to understand why that was.

Sitting outside after school, I remember Mike coming out, seeing me huddled up and feeling badly on particular time. He hung out with me for about ten minutes. He explained to me that he didn't think it was right that I didn't have a coat. It was kind of an awkward conversation. I was trying to play it like I wasn't that cold, though it was most likely obvious that I was freezing. He just started letting me know that he felt I was being neglected, and that it was a parents duty to buy their children coats. My father had a job, he clearly wasn't physically incapable of getting me a coat. And yet, I hadn't owned a real coat since 7th grade. In passing he asked me why I had decided to leave Mythology. I explained that I felt it was not worth studying unless you were for whatever reason a very strange sort of nerd who was into such things. This ended up being one of the most important conversations of my entire life.

Mike didn't really reprimand me for my negativity as I had expected, but he asked me why I believed that was true. I sighted the Norse myth of Skoll and Heti, two wolves that chase the moon and sun in hopes of catching them and eating them. I scoffed at the whole thing, and I basically felt they must have been very stupid back in those times. Ancient people truly believed that was what was going on in the sky everyday – and that seemed unacceptable. It was part of their perspective of life, deeply ingrained into their thinking. I wish I could remember the precise conversation, but Mike essentially got me to admit that I didn't feel like ancient people were as 'real' as people of today. I think this was my way of passing off their experiences, and therefore deeming humanity's momentary position as the right one – my own position in particular. There are elements of studying the perspectives of ancient people that can really unwind how you think the world of today is sociologically, philosophically and even scientifically.

As soon as I admitted that I didn't see their perspective as equal, Mike took apart my assumption piece by piece before me. My arguments didn't hold up. It was suddenly and quietly dawning on me that I had based my entire ego and belief system on a certainty with no basis. In conjunction with this, I also stated that reality was real – as I experienced it and saw it. I believed my brain alone was not incapable of any mistakes. I believed my perceptions were perfect in all ways in representing the truth. And I guess you couldn't blame me. I had only ever been around people who were incredibly certain of their own perspective. I had never seen anyone logically question themselves. Mike turned this around on me big time, not too much with info, but by asking a series of questions that lead me to realizing my incredible shortcomings in my belief system and my biases. It had never occurred to me once that people were hindered by their biases, or that you couldn't actually prove anything truly. I had never entertained Cartesian logic. Solipsism had never once occurred to me.

In the end, I was asking questions on what Mike thought. Because I had just found a glaring blindspot in my entire perspective. Mike explained that science was a means of us manipulating our surroundings to acquire information about it, but you couldn't prove it was real per say. It proved itself. This wasn't a reason to dismiss science in any way, but it left you feeling rather confused about reality, or your place in it. There could theoretically be places where the laws of physics are contradicted. Even in our own solar system there are things that have been observed at great galactic distances that prove that even in our own observable universe, the law of physics didn't seem to apply. Our understanding of the world was limited, and real wisdom couldn't simply be acquired by taking for granted what you see as being all there was. Compared to the vast expanse of reality – whatever reality even is, what were our little finite minds? Was the ideas that I held about my own place in the world that much different than believing in Skoll and Heti?

Nobody had ever pointed any of this out to me before. And it meant everything to me. It meant that I didn't truly know anything. And before I could know anything, I would have to know how I could know anything. Otherwise, I had no premise to believe in anything. And in connection with this, language itself was quite limited. How could human language even scrape the surface of our existences. We formed most of our biological traits and even our concepts of the world from a very base place of eating, forming healthy tribal groups, fucking and raising our young. Our thoughts will always be hindered by the basic human needs. I could not prove, outside of my own interpretation of what science meant to me, and what could actually be said about time, reality or the meaning of our existences because all of it was limited by my own humanness. My Objectivism was completely crushed in that moment. It was almost exciting in a way, to be shed of my limited scope. I was cold, and Mike ended up going home. But I felt like an animal that had escaped from some kind of small terrible cage. I realize that these days every other successful podcast breeches these deep topics, but it had seriously never once been proposed to me. I have been surrounded by egomaniacs that thought they knew everything, and I had seamlessly become one of them.

This dawning realization also had it' toll on how I saw my own existence in the universe, and how I should forge and create my life. How I judged other people in the grocery store. Instead of my ordinary black and white do or die mentality, I fell into this gray uncertainty, somewhere between a grand and opened mind and a contrary yet equal dose of skepticism. Everything in the world was no longer one dimensional. Even the most simple of subjects could be broken down and understood in a way that connected with everything else. Everything in this weird way was connected, and it was exhilarating for me to think about why that was. I realized that with my own mind, I could strip away aspects of falsehoods. I could find answers to questions. And still more questions would always blossom from that particular answer. I wanted to sort it all out.

What if we were all so small and our lives so minute in the grand scheme of things, or lives so fleeting that I could look at everyone around me and realize that we were all going to die. I never really made it known to a lot of people, but I used to adore the front cover of Hole's 'Live Through This'. I hung it on my wall as a reminder when I got up each morning that I had to fight till I got what was owed me. And I had to earn it. It helped suppress the sad nerdy child in me that was dopey and uncertain of herself. Say what you will about Courtney Love (privately I don't think she's a nice a person), but she really hit some kind of nail on the head for us strange looking girls and that album. The cover, if you don't know, shows this crying woman who looks like she has won the pageant of all pageants. It embodies this extreme western ideal of winning, and at the same time has this disturbing gritty element to it. It's these two contrary realities working together in that picture that I think makes it very genius. She was won the fight to be loved and adored and admired as a woman finally. I had up to that point wanted whatever it was that was being conveyed in the picture. It fed my ego. It made my awkward ugly girl teen years far more bearable to know that if I wanted something badly enough I could transform myself and change my brand.

But I never really thought about that being some manifestation from an unhealthy ego that was merely trying to compensate from a wounded and broken self esteem. A self esteem that would soon be dead, just like every other great human being in history. Forget the woman on the cover of Live Through This. Think about the glory and success of someone like Alexander the Great. It was all temporary. That glory lives and dies, and I was coming to realize that even though a part of me would always crave attention, and beauty – it would never be enough. Think of all the stars who lived and died in our culture, momentarily worshiped and then forgotten about. In the end they were as revered and remembered as the smelly homeless woman who nobody wanted to touch. They both lived and died. And even a woman say like Marilyn Monroe who was sensationalized by her death and reached a place of fame where she would always be remembered. I imagine it's very lonely at the top. She's an icon, not a human being to most of us. Is it any wonder that so many CEO's commit suicide? I think that when you base your life on these arbitrary standards of achievement, it makes everyone at the top and the bottom and in between completely miserable. But it's those at the top and those at the bottom who can see it the clearest.

It's not that my ego went away. My ego has never gone away, and I feed it what it wants from time to time. But I was now aware of my own ego. It's healthy to remember how brief and sometimes pointless life can be. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't have goals, but the way I was seeing my place in the world and my personal goals was totally destructive to me. And was it what I really wanted? At one point I wanted to be some kind of punk rock queen. But was that really who I even was? Didn't I just want to be a punk as a backlash against having been rejected by Kyle all those years back? The boy next door turned jock turned me down. I think at that early age, it really represented to me that the 'normal world' was never going to accept me. And Sarah seemed to be able to fit in wherever she went. Granted, the strong rednecks didn't want to have much to do with her, but I was always comparing myself to Sarah. And the funny thing is was that it didn't matter to Sarah if she fit in with anyone or not. She couldn't help who she was – or that she was pretty, or slender. I think privately, she suffered from depression regardless. She wanted to be connected with in a real way just like me. She was just as insecure as me, and maybe more so in some ways. I was attributing my failures onto what I perceived to be her successes, which was just about every conversation she had with anyone that went well, or made the other person think well of her. To her, these were friendly exchanges, nothing more nothing less. But to me, I saw every conversation I had as a competition. Life had up to that point become this competition for me, and when I lost I felt like a failure. And that was wrong. I had projecting my insecurities into the friendship, and it had lent it's hand in nearly ruining our friendship. This wasn't to say that it was all me, but it was a good part of it. It was I think the most immediate and obvious problem.

I now wanted to be the kind of person who, rather than define myself by everything I hated, defined myself by what I did and what I loved. I went over the things in my life that I had always bashed on a daily basis, and when I really observed them objectively, and studied my feelings for what they really were, I found that I didn't dislike half as many things as I thought I did. I still had things I disliked, but far less than before. I didn't want to embody some kind of superficial genre anymore. I didn't even like the idea of that kind of categorization. Because isn't everything made out of everything else to some degree? I wanted to be my true self and reach my full potential. I actually wanted to know myself.

My father ended up being even later that day. It was freezing cold – and I was near tears and it was almost ten o'clock at night. He ended up picking me up with that guitarist he was hanging out with and lending his amps to – John. John seemed kind of messed up. He had just broken up with some woman. My father was all about talking badly about women with John. Their was always a sort of competition of stories about women – or they would take turn listening to rock songs on the radio and making fun of the ones that incorporated synthesizers. I remember feeling really annoyed at my father for acting like a jerk, picking me up five hours after school had closed and not even saying sorry. I had been close to panicking when he finally came by. Of course, my father was notoriously late. He was late to his wedding with my mother back in '91.

For the few weeks that Sarah lingered around, I would try to rush to see her when I could. We drove around a little bit. Thom Yorke had come out with his amazing solo album, and we would listen to it on repeat. She had a somewhat new look about her. She seemed more grown up, a little more reserved. I tried to explain to her what I had come to realize about life, and I do believe she tried to listen. She and I were just in very different places at the time. It was dawning on her I think that she was leaving the world she knew behind. She was leaving me behind, and her mom. Sarah didn't have to deal with some of the problems I had. Sarah – for all her problems was a much calmer and more courteous human being by nature. Her ego rarely got her into issues that manifested themselves out into the open. We didn't have the same chips on our shoulders. She didn't react like me to the world. Life just wasn't so immediate and hostile. So what I was saying didn't really apply to her then. We tried to make the best of it all.

There was a time a few days before she finally tried to leave where I asked my dad if I could travel up to her house to see her. It ended up being this really strange altercation – and it made me realize just how done I was with being a legal child. Normally, my father was pretty lenient about me going up to Sarah's. I wouldn't actually say he ever gave me too much of a problem, at least not in the last few years of my later teens. But when I asked him if I could go up there, he got red in the face and sort of had this attitude in his voice and he said 'NO'. I asked him why. I might have let it go ordinarily, but I wasn't going to be seeing a lot of Sarah. She had to also say goodbye to other people in her family, and I wanted to get as much time in as possible. His answer to my question was this surprising and loud 'BECAUSE I'M AN ASSHOLE!!!' I was shocked and upset. He then started walked towards me as if I was some drunk at the bar who had challenged him to a fight. I looked at him then, with his hat turned backwards all stupid – him trying to pretend he was nineteen again I guess. And I just decided to disregard his insane demands. If he had had any reason that even remotely made sense I would have listened, but this was bordering on mentally unstable. I felt shaken and upset, but I was also so disgusted by this that I held my own at least till I could get a ways up the street where I knew he couldn't see me.

I have this suspicion that Mike and Jenni asked this girl named Tatianna to try to be my friend. I was really closed off. I didn't talk to anyone, and she kept offering to hang out with me – volunteering to be my school work buddy. Tatianna was kind of a brilliant human being. She was gorgeous for one with black curly hair. Her parents were a mix of Chinese, Mexican, Brazilian and Russian. She knew all these languages fluently as well as English. With the knowledge she already possessed, she could easily become a translator. I definitely felt outclassed by Tatianna and was sort of short and nervous behaving when she did talk to me. She talked to the teachers and Jenni quite a lot. I have a feeling they told her to befriend me, for whatever reason – because I was lonely and they might have been worried about me. Don't get me wrong. I think she was a nice person – I don't fault her for taking recommendations from Mike and Jenni and I actually think she was all the more kindhearted for considering talking to people who needed it, and she didn't at all mind reaching out to people like me. I don't think she was getting paid or anything ridiculous. I feel like Mike had pointed me out, and asked her if she could get me to open up a bit. So she really tried. But it was of no use. I got so nervous when she talked to me, that I could barely understand a word she was saying. When I tried to respond, sometimes I just couldn't speak. I felt confused and incredibly panicked when she talked to me – and whenever she would say something I came to associate it negatively with feeling vulnerable and dimwitted.

Billy's girlfriend for a short time started going up to the alternative school. Because of this, I was able to get rides in the morning from Kendrick to Moscow – which saved my father part of a trip. This didn't last too long. Both of us were very quiet. Her name was Casey. She was the girl I went to The Children of Divorce Club with back when I was in 4th grade. She was not especially bright – though she wasn't that dull either, she was extremely pretty, and overall a doormat to Billy who was never remotely respectful towards her and treated her like a lamp when he was around his buddies. Both of us said very little as we drove to school in the morning. One morning as she was driving us to school that late September morning, she in passing told me something that completely cracked my head open and caused me to reevaluate my entire existence. We had been driving in silence for twenty minutes or so. Then she suddenly after this long period of silence, she spoke up as she had finally remembered something she was supposed to say to me. She explained how she had told Zack as he came over to visit Billy, that she had been driving me to school. She told me that he had lit up when he heard that. He had gotten extremely excited. She said she had never seen him light up like that before. She then proceeded to explain that Zack really missed me and wanted to get in touch with me. He would be writing me a letter in a few days. He was sorry we hadn't stayed in touch, and he wanted to get in touch with me and hang out with me again. And he had told Casey that he loved me.

Ladies and gentleman, my heart dropped in my chest. I felt literal year of emotional weight fall off me. I felt as in love as the day we had hugged one another in the gym as the school bell rang and my friends looked on semi jealously in '03. It confirmed something my heart always told me, but I had begun to stop believing. Whenever I had been alone or lost in those years, Zack had thought of me too. He had cared about me. I felt like he was looking in my eyes. He loved me. He loved me. He loved me. That is all my mind kept saying all day. My soul felt vibrant. I felt like I suddenly had a purpose again. I was shaking. I felt light. I couldn't wait to get his letter. I knew I would not put off writing him back this time. I had spent literally years of my life going over and over what I had done wrong. I was older now, and I would not make those same mistakes. I would give to the conversations. I would always right back. I would tell Zack the truth. I almost thought this had to be some kind of miracle.

That evening when my father came to pick me up though, he explained to me that he was having no luck being able to afford coming and getting me after school. He didn't want to tell me I had to leave school. He never told me to quit. But I knew it had been coming. I volunteered to drop out. I didn't want to anymore, at least not really, but I just imagined that there wasn't much of a choice. My father could literally not get me on days he worked until much later. It was going to cost him a fortune to drive from Kendrick to Lewiston, up to Moscow and then all the way back to Kendrick again each day. What's more, I wasn't doing well in school anymore. This was technically my twelfth grade, but if I did the math, I would be twenty-one by the time I graduated, and that would only be if I got perfect grades. Despite having a good year the previous year, I would never be able to undo the several years where I had gotten zero credits. This whole thing wasn't working out.

A part of me was hopeful too, that if I could get in touch with Zack and plan to meet him, that this would give me the time I needed to be around him and hopefully we could form a long overdue relationship. I wanted to start my own studying into philosophy as well. As much as I loved what I was learning in the alternative school, I wanted to take what I had learned and apply it to what I was interested in. I didn't know anything about philosophy, other than that it pertained to what I had been thinking about – but what little exposure I had was enough to completely reshape my entire reality. I wanted more of that. I also wanted to start painting again. I was tired of drawing cartoons. I wanted to be a professional painter. I wanted to learn the harmonica. I felt like school was sort of wasting my time. On the other hand, I didn't want to be stuck at home with my parents. That prospect frightened me. Had there been an easier way to get to school – I would have stayed, but it felt like all of this was sort of falling into place. So I conceded with my father, and explained I would drop out. I could tell he felt weird about being relieved to hear his daughter would be dropping out. I could have quit then and there, but I told him I wanted to stay till the end of the week. He was fine with that. I felt that would give Zack enough time to write me.

That night I forgot to eat dinner. I was too wrapped up in this new phase of my life that was coming to pass. I got in the car with Casey the next morning as soon as I could. Casey ten minutes into the drive suddenly said 'Oh Shoot. Zack wrote you a letter, but I forgot to grab it off the coffee table.' My heart sort of sunk and lifted. I wanted that letter. That letter was the key to everything I had suffered for up to that point. This gave her till the next day. During class, Mike had regretfully informed us that we would have to pay for free food. It was an order from above his head. So I didn't have any money of course for food. I was getting pretty hungry. I explained to Mike that I was leaving school. He said he was sorry, and told me I would have to sign out properly the next day with Jenni. He would be sure to tell her. He was very nice about it. Staving off hunger, I was reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It was one of Mike's favorites, and he always told me he thought I would really get into that novel, since it sort of pertained to a lot of the psychological things I noticed about the way power manifests itself. I was anxious about that letter. I was a little misty eyed, looking around at that school. I had really grown as a person since having been there. I would miss the computer room, even mundane places like the hallway to the bathroom meant a lot to me. It had sentimental value to me.

I was very hungry by the time I got home, having missed dinner the night before. I sat upstairs for some time, just sitting on my bed and waiting for dinner to be done cooking. I was busy daydreaming. Eventually I went downstairs to see if dinner was done. Everyone was sitting around the couch. I asked where dinner was, and they all three looked up at me guiltily. They had eaten it all. They forgot about me. My heart sank. In most households, there is always something else to eat. In bigger towns and cities, there is usually at least one grocery story that stays open all night. But in small rural places, that's not the case. My father didn't keep food. He brought food for dinner each night. This actually caused extreme food insecurity in Allison and David. They never got enough, and what there was leftover often times I ate up – not realizing they were that hungry, and eating to suppress my emotional instability. So there was no option for me but to go to bed the next morning.

The next day, I was feeling dizzy. I really was crazed hoping for that letter. This was the day. After this, I wouldn't be going to school anymore, and Zack wouldn't really find a way to get the letter to me. I actually got up the courage to ask Casey finally about the letter as she didn't mention it at first. She looked confused when I asked her. I think she was most likely always stoned. That had to be why she was that way. She said 'Oh damn! Did I leave it in the car? Is it down by your feet?' I looked around, pretending not to be desperate. Eventually she looked distant and forlorn. 'I must have lost it.' My heart sank. I didn't feel like it was the end of the world. I felt like after the ear infection, I had already met with the end of the world. I was just incredibly disappointed. I had to hide it though. I guess Casey had tried her best. And at least now I knew – which was the most important thing – that Zack still loved me. It was disappointing that I would never be able to read that letter he wrote me that he intended for me. It was some kind of terrible coincidence that this was all happening on the last days of school. I tried not to compare it to the ending of Romeo and Juliet. We just missed one another. It was all coincidence. O happy dagger. This is thy sheath.

I was dizzy from hunger and disappointment. I went into Jenni's office for our last meeting. She seemed disappointed that I would be leaving. She tried to talk me out of it, but I explained to her in plain terms that staying in school was now officially impossible. She tried to give me some advice. One thing she told me was that being seventeen was going to be difficult, she said, because your parents still have the rights to control you like you are a youth, but you are technically thinking like an adult, and they will also expect you to live up to adulthood. I took that into consideration. She sort of bantered with me about not wasting my time. I assured her that I would not waste my time. She wanted me to go to college still, which I shrugged off. She said she knew a lot of students that, when they lived with their parents they ended up stuck where they were and they spent all day watching Opera on the couch. I scoffed, as I wasn't a daytime television fan – kind of sidestepping the point she was making. She didn't want to support me on leaving like I was, but she knew that it was out of both her and my hands. I also made the mathematical assessment known that I wouldn't be graduating till I was 21 and only then if my grades were perfect, which I knew they would not be. She had to agree. I remember I was looking at this stack of hearts that said 'Don't Break My Heart By Doing Drugs' on them. I think they were meant for taking notes on. I asked if I could keep one of them as a remembrance item. She let me have one happily. She looked me in the eye, and said 'Go Get Your GED Renee'. I nodded to that.

I wanted to say goodbye to Mike more formally, but hunger had completely taken over all thought by the end of the day. I had never gone without food that long before. It was two and a half days now. I had managed to scrounge up ninety cents on my bedroom floor that morning. Nothing in the gas station across the street from the school was that cheap. I knew I had to do something. I snuck in the kitchen, found a bag of bagels, and I stuffed one in my mouth and devoured it as fast as I could. I then grabbed another one, and ran to the front door. I knew I was supposed to pay for them but I didn't have the money, and I didn't want to be caught stealing. I was just so hungry I couldn't think anymore. Had Mike truly known just how starved I was I am sure he would have let me eat these, but I didn't know. Also, as I grabbed the second bagel, the bag fell off the counter, and I just ran anxiously out the door.

In the gas station, I found the cheapest thing I could afford. It was this package of fig newtons. To back up, I don't enjoy fig newtons at all, but I was so hungry that I crushed these guys in my mouth and I never tasted anything so delightful in my life. I was still shaky, but it was alright. I had gotten my father to agree that I would wait in the gas station rather than outside. I finished reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. That book was so intense and real to me. I was keen on ever subtle thing in the book and what it meant. I felt like it was the perfect novel. I was slightly crying at the end. I was still hungry. I was feeling twelve feelings all at once. It was a lot to look at the big picture and fully come to terms with the reality that school was over. I had made it through twelve years of hell. I had been all these different people, I have loved and lost, and found new reasons to be alive again. I had gone from a good student to a terrible student to a fantastic student. I had made friends and then lost of all of them. And now it was just me against the world. I no longer had to get up and do school work anymore. It felt surreal. I couldn't believe my life was what it was. I felt happy about Zack, sad about Zack. Happy to be out of school, sad to be out. I was still starving. I sat there in a daze. I am sure I looked strange to the other customers in the A&W. Then my dad came and waved me into the truck, and that was my last day of high school.

PART 59 - https://tinyurl.com/yd79nbcs

PART 58 - https://tinyurl.com/yc3zzr5k PART 57 - https://tinyurl.com/y9slhq2w PART 56 - http://tinyurl.com/y7v9kbn2 PART 55 - http://tinyurl.com/y8fy3uew PART 54 - http://tinyurl.com/yb8nlwvh PART 53 - http://tinyurl.com/yae9wgbj PART 52 - http://tinyurl.com/ybwft2g6 PART 51 - http://tinyurl.com/y9gsjg4j PART 50 - http://tinyurl.com/y7729d45 Part 49 - http://tinyurl.com/ydbpgkqw PART 48 - http://tinyurl.com/ydcn5uuu PART 47 - http://tinyurl.com/y8xyogl9 PART 46 - http://tinyurl.com/ybqoxned PART 45 - http://tinyurl.com/y94784tz PART 44 - http://tinyurl.com/ydfpbzxt PART 43 - http://tinyurl.com/yckvswd7 PART 42 - http://tinyurl.com/ycnng83q PART 41 - http://tinyurl.com/y84kmttv PART 40 - http://tinyurl.com/y8aj6kmq PART 39 - http://tinyurl.com/y97vprft PART 38 - http://tinyurl.com/ycr7la8q PART 37 - http://tinyurl.com/y8trssqd PART 36 - http://tinyurl.com/y9ygq9q8 PART 35 - http://tinyurl.com/ya5xhe2f PART 34 - http://tinyurl.com/yc6y4p69 PART 33 - http://tinyurl.com/y87449dz PART 32 - http://tinyurl.com/ycetanep PART 31 - http://tinyurl.com/yae3o4rd PART 30 - http://tinyurl.com/ybht9aul PART 29 - http://tinyurl.com/ybfcr9j2 PART 28 - http://tinyurl.com/yagdlo47 PART 27 - http://tinyurl.com/ydcj5fgf PART 26 - http://tinyurl.com/y73nvl73 PART 25 - http://tinyurl.com/y6v6pgoj PART 24 - http://tinyurl.com/ycak5d8r PART 23 - http://tinyurl.com/yac6sk3g PART 22 - http://tinyurl.com/yat6cfnw PART 21 - http://tinyurl.com/y783egno PART 20 - http://tinyurl.com/y8jskymt PART 19 - http://tinyurl.com/rfhbms8 PART 18 - http://tinyurl.com/ycrznrwk PART 17 - http://tinyurl.com/y77unlng PART 16 - http://tinyurl.com/yadpsv8c PART 15 - http://tinyurl.com/yb3lt6k5 PART 14 - http://tinyurl.com/yb4cfedq PART 13 - http://tinyurl.com/yalanq9s PART 12 - http://tinyurl.com/yc79mw94 PART 11 - http://tinyurl.com/yc9qhj84 PART 10 - http://tinyurl.com/yb734w24 PART 9 - http://tinyurl.com/yc2t6vfw PART 8 - http://tinyurl.com/ybl37utq PART 7 - http://tinyurl.com/ybvo283g PART 6 - http://tinyurl.com/kbc9dwu PART 5 - http://tinyurl.com/msnz4am PART 4 - http://tinyurl.com/k9x8esg PART 3 - http://tinyurl.com/mwp9atx PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2 PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8

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