#look at what he's doing with mid to even horrendous clubs

[doux-amer]

Look at Leo singlehandedly (or nearly singlehandedly. Busquets is there too and it's hilarious seeing how unaccustomed he is to how low the bar is in the MLS and Miami just signed Jordi) take the worst club in the league—the one that's literally dead last—to first place. It's going to be hilarious.

And the petty vindication I'll feel when that happens will be great. People can finally shut the hell up about how Leo's brilliance will fade/has faded when he's out of a system that was essentially constructed around him and for him to win. I'm sure the argument has shifted to "Well, the MLS sucks so of course he'll look amazing and in fact look even better than usual," but it doesn't hold any water because many former greats have tried to make a big splash in the MLS and none actually succeeded to the degree that Leo's already changing things.

#people really thought they had a point when he went to psg as if he even wanted to go there and there weren't other external factors at play #and as if he still didn't play well even if it wasn't to the standard we expect of him #and as if he still wasn't breaking records over there #where are all the 'but could he do it on a cold rainy night in stoke' people now #look at what he's doing with mid to even horrendous clubs #and teams (sorry to argentina but we know that this era isn't exactly the strongest of squads we've ever seen) #your favorite can genuinely never (they can score a lot of goals sure but not control the game #or they can control the tempo and passing or defend but they won't score the crucial goals needed to save the team) #FINALLY won the world cup which was the only thing that eluded him and kept those ridiculous people from calling him a GOAT #and i wouldn't be surprised if he shattered 9823738279832 records and massively changed things for the MLS #i talked about potentially dragging inter miami to the upper rankings on the table if not the league title itself #but on a game level....there's no way that clubs can stand by and let leo destroy their defense like paper every match #they're going to have to level up if they don't want to be mauled #so it'll be interesting to see the ripple effects of his stay here

[mizunetzu]

iwaizumi finding out hes gay and having an extreme gay panic when they get their new manager in aoba johsai and the team teases him to hell and back for it (iwaizumi x male manager!)

Nice to see you again, boke saiikai~~ also look at iwa freak out in this gif AHAHAHA

——————

Iwaizumi x reader - Iwa-chan, Panic!

⚠️warnings - none

Pronouns - male, he/him

——————

Iwaizumi lazily scratched the itch on his stomach, not caring that his shirt was slightly lifted up and people could see his stomach if they looked. Eh, it’s not like people were around anyways.

He was already running late to practice, so he might as well reserve his energy and take a detour to the gym. It’s not like anything important was happening anyways.

“Yo.” Iwaizumi yawned, pushing the door to the gymnasium open. He slipped through, only now realizing that no one answered his greeting. He also noticed everyone was gathered into a loose semi-circle, apparently looking at something Iwaizumi couldn’t quite make out.

“What's...goin’ on guys?” Iwaizumi neared the huddle of Seijoh volleyball players. Matsukawa turned around, seemingly the only one who heard Iwaizumi in the first place. Mattsun nudged his head towards the middle of the circle, the clearing, where someone was standing.

“New manager.”

Iwaizumi’s ears perked up. Oikawa was complaining about ‘having at least one manager before he graduates’ but also ‘one that’s not one of my fangirls, because they wouldn’t take good care of the team.’ As insensitive as it sounded, having a manager drool and follow Oikawa for the majority of practice instead of doing their job does sound pretty frustrating. Iwaizumi scratched his head.

“Don’t tell me Shittykawa finally found a girl who doesn’t fawn over him.”

Matsukawa shook his head.

“Not girl.” He pointed to the boy standing there awkwardly, moving out of the way slightly so Iwaizumi could see. “It’s a boy.”

Iwaizumi’s eyes trailed from his feet, up to his firm-looking torso, and trailing around his nice-looking arms and hands. He couldn’t help himself from checking this dude out. Maybe he was just curious as to why this boy joined as a manager and not a player-

Iwaizumi’s eyes finally met the boy's glass-like (e/c) ones. He realized now that as he stared at this boy's mesmerizing eyes, his own (e/c) eyes began to stare back at him. Stare with his eyes growing wide, a cute doe-like expression on his face. But all he could see was his breathtaking, iridescent eyes.

“Uh, earth-to-(L/n)-chan?” Oikawa, who was standing next to ‘(L/n)’, waved his hand in front of his deer-in-the-headlights-face. He visibly jumped, blinking a bit, and turned his head quickly, pretending he was staring at Oikawa the whole time.

However, it wasn’t the same for Iwaizumi. He continued to stare with his mouth parted slightly, absolutely mesmerized by this guy’s handsome face. It seemed so...holdable. Like he wanted to walk up to him and hold his face in his callused hands and just...stand there. Forever. Squishing his cute face in his hands.

Cute? Cute? No. No. No. Not cute. Iwaizumi Hajime was not finding a man cute. No, not in a million years.

So why was his heart pounding in his ears so much?

His heart wouldn’t calm down. His everything wouldn’t calm down. He couldn’t tear his eyes off the new manager boy in front of him, immersing himself in conversation with a blush to shake off the fact he was totally staring back. He couldn’t help but feel confused. For once, he felt jealous of Oikawa. Not because he wanted to be popular or stalked by fangirls or anything, but because this boy’s full attention would be on him, and not Shitty-Crappy-Stupidkawa.

Matsukawa snapped his fingers in front of Iwaizumi’s face, smirking when he threw his head back in surprise with the reddest face he’s ever seen him with. Iwaizumi blinked, blankly, trying to process what just happened, before somehow exploding into a deeper shade of red.

“Are you sick or something?” Matsukawa placed the back of his hand on Iwaizumi’s forehead jokingly. “Oh. Nevermind.”

“Wh...I-I...huh..?”

“You’re just gay.” Matsukawa wiped his hand on his practice shirt. “Super gay. Super highschool level gay. You were totally checking out Manager-kun there.”

Iwaizumi grabbed Matsukawa by the collar, shaking him around in hopes of shaking the truth out of him.

“I-I’m not!”

“First symptom: denial.”

“Shut up-!”

“E-excuse me…?” Iwaizumi stopped dead in his tracks. Matsukawa was one second away from bursting out into cackles at Iwaizumi’s impossibly pale face. They both slowly craned their necks towards the foreign voice. Iwaizumi suddenly forgot how to breathe.

He, ‘Manager-kun’, seemed more utterly breathtaking up close. He was standing right infront of Iwaizumi, looking directly at him with his attractive (e/c) eyes. He didn’t even realize when Matsukawa wormed out of his grasp.

“(L/n)-san, good afternoon.” Matsukawa bowed slightly. “My name’s Matsukawa Issei, by the way. Thank you again for being our manager. We look forward to working with you.”

“Ah...thank you.”

When Matsukawa looked back at Iwaizumi, expecting him to introduce himself, he caught Iwaizumi staring at him with goo-goo eyes and an equally confused, frozen-stiff expression from Manager-kun himself. They stared at each other, one from awkward silence and the other from pure, unadulterated gayness. Matsukawa rolled his eyes.

“Dude!” Matsukawa jabbed Iwaizumi in the side, making him snap out of his trance with a grunt. “Don’t be rude, introduce yourself to Manager-kun!”

Iwaizumi broke into a cold sweat. He turned back to ‘Manager-kun’, attempting to look as cool as possible.

“Y-yo...the name’s Iwaizumi HaJIMe-” Iwaizumi’s voice did not want to be on his side today. The betrayers that were his vocal cords cracked mid sentence, making Iwaizumi cough horrendously in hopes of covering it up. Mattsun looked like he was going to die holding in his laughter.

“Nice to meet you, Iwaizumi-kun,” Manager-kun grasped his hand in his own, and held it for a moment. “My name’s (L/n) (Y/n).”

He, (Y/n), flashed a small, friendly smile, and Iwaizumi was taken. With the way (Y/n) held his hand so tenderly, he could probably faint. He’d rather die than let go. It was so warm, his hands were so warm. God, he felt so soft inside.

“...Y’know, if you aren't feeling well, I can take you to the nurse’s office-”

“No-! It’s-it’s fine! I’m fine!” Iwaizumi sputtered, and he silently whined when (Y/n) pulled his hand back. He stepped back, and gave a small wave.

“That’s good, Iwaizumi-kun. Well, I just wanted to introduce myself to everyone. See you later, Matsukawa-kun. Iwaizumi-kun.” (Y/n) smiled again, and left to introduce himself to another teammate. Once (Y/n) was out of earshot, Matsukawa erupted into a fit of cackles.

“Pfft-ahahahahaha! Dude! Y-you-! Ahahahaha! You need to chill man! At this point everyone’s gonna know you went all-“ Mattsun mimicked Iwaizumi’s wide-eyed expression, bringing his hands together and pretending he was a moe schoolgirl. “Kyaaah! (L/n)-senpai is soooo handsome!”

“SHUUUUUT UPPPPPP!” Iwaizumi started kicking at Matsukawa’s shins and hitting his back, trying to silence his cackles and hope (Y/n) didn’t hear that. Or see the huge red blush on his cheeks.

Oikawa side-eyed Iwaizumi and Matsukawa from the net pole. His hands were still moving on setting up the net for practice, but his eyes were examining the two fellow third years roughhousing with each other. More specifically, the red that engulfed Iwaizumi’s face. Oikawa turned his attention back to the pole.

——

‘Just do it!’

Those three words played on repeat in Iwaizumi’s mind for the past 2 weeks. And they seemed to get louder when Iwaizumi arrived to practice.

‘Just do it, Hajime!’

‘No!’ Iwaizumi thought back to himself, watching as (Y/n) greeted everyone who came through the club room door. He was standing outside, holding a box with supplies stuffed in it. Iwaizumi dreadfully neared the club room.

‘Do it! Now!’

‘No! Fuck no!’

“Ah! Hello again, Iwaizumi-kun-“

“No!” Iwaizumi blurted out. He was quick to cover his mouth, but the look of confusion that knitted (Y/n’s) face was enough to tell he had heard Iwaizumi loud and clear.

“Uh. I mean. Good mor-uh good afternoon, (L/n). Sorry bout’ that.” Iwaizumi trudged into the club room as nonchalantly as he could. But once the door closed, he slumped down to his knees.

“Something wrong, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa mused, slipping on his blue practice shirt over his head. “You look like shit.”

“Y-you’re one to talk, Shittykawa! Go die!”

“Uuu! How mean! Mean Iwa-chan!”

“Yeah yeah.” Iwaizumi hastily slipped into his practice clothes. Oikawa watched his face closely. It was redder than usual.

“Hey, Iwa-chan?”

Iwaizumi looked up from his knee pads, halting temporarily as he threaded them through his leg. “Mm?”

Oikawa opened his mouth, then glanced to the door where (Y/n) was standing outside of. Not yet. He didn’t have enough evidence yet.

“Never mind.” Oikawa rubbed the back of his head cutely.

——

Iwaizumi slumped down on the steps of the gym, heaving like he ran 13 miles. Well, he did. He watched as everyone came trickling back, Oikawa yelling praise as they all collapsed in front of the gym. Training runs across the block were tough. Especially after an exhausting practice match against each other.

“Good job, everyone!” Oikawa clasped his hands together. “Get some water, go rest, do whatever! We’re gonna do some serving and receiving practices, then we can take a break!”

The tuckered-out team choursed out a “Yessir!” before scattering about and doing their own things. Iwaizumi let his head loll back onto the concrete steps he was sitting on, closing his eyes and catching his unsteady breath.

“Iwaizumi-kun!”

Iwaizumi jolted up harshly, a blush adorning his features as his eyes snapped open. (Y/n) looked down at him with a small white towel in his hand and a water bottle in the other.

“I figured you needed some water or something so-I got you some stuff-!” (Y/n) promptly set the things down on Iwaizumi’s lap, though he’s not sure he noticed with the way he was staring at him so...strangely. Huh, that’s been happening for a while now.

Iwaizumi’s dazed look suddenly dissipated, his consciousness coming back to his eyes as he fumbled for the items slipping from his lap.

“Oh! Thank you...dude…! You’re…you’re...cool...f-for that…!”

Iwaizumi shot finger guns at his (Y/n). His crush. Fucking finger guns. He wouldn’t mind if he took his finger guns and shoved it so far up his a-

“It’s no problem!” (Y/n) shot finger guns back, before flexing an arm and patting his bicep. “It’s what a manager is for! Makin’ sure you boys are alright.”

“I’m gonna go fill up some more water bottles...l stopped and filled one up for you first because you looked thirsty…”

(Y/n) ran off. “See you!” He called from a distance, before disappearing from sight. Iwaizumi waved back with a blank expression on his face.

His legs felt like jelly. Not only because he ran 13 miles non-stop, but because of how whipped he became for manager-kun (Y/n) in the span of only a week or two.

Oikawa hummed to himself knowingly, watching Iwaizumi slump back onto the concrete steps with a hand in his heart.

——

“Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan!”

“No! No! No!”

“But why?!” Oikawa exasperatedly yelled, dramatically blocking the door leading outside the club room. It was just him, Iwa-chan, Mattsun, and Makki. Makki and Mattsun sat on the floor of the club room like they were expecting Iwaizumi to come in, and from the way they didn’t try to stop Oikawa from blocking the door, they knew the same things he did.

“Let me out shithead!” Iwaizumi clawed at Oikawa’s arms. Oikawa, as twinkish and childish as he seems, was actually stronger than he looked.

Eventually, Iwaizumi stepped back to take a breather. Matsukawa and Hanamaki took that as their chance to secure him, as Hanamaki grabbed Iwaizumi by the torso and wrapped his whole body around him.

He held him as secure as he could while he thrashed around, waiting till Matsukawa hurriedly set up a foldable chair and brought out some rope. Hanamaki dragged Iwaizumi to the chair, ignoring his pleads of “Let me go!” or “Y’all will pay for this-I swear!” As he forcefully sat him down.

He held his hands to the back of the chair as Matsukawa tied him up as quick as he could.

“Oi! What the fuck!” Iwaizumi kicked at Matsukawa as he circled him with the rope.

“It’s for your own good, Iwa-chan.” Oikawa piped up from his spot blocking the door. He didn’t want to move from the door until Iwaizumi was fully immobilized, just in case he tried to run for it.

“Like hell it is-ack!” Matsukawa tightened the rope. “Ease up, will you! God damn!”

“Sorry, sorry.” Matsukawa, in fact, did not ease up. He tied the rope into multiple tight knots, making it virtually impossible to somehow slip out of them. Iwaizumi squirmed around in his restraints as the chair was rotated facing away from the door, and towards Hanamaki and Matsukawa.

Oikawa sighed triumphantly, and backed away from the door. He clasped his hands together.

“So nice of you to finally join our discussion, Iwa-chan.”

“Literally suck my dick then go practice receives on a nearby building and fall to your death.”

Oikawa feigned offense to Iwaizumi’s words. Hanamaki chuckled, while Matsukawa shut Iwaizumi up by tugging at the rope’s end he was holding in his hands.

“Isn’t this illegal? Like-somewhere in the world?”

“It isn’t right now~” Oikawa sung, before becoming laughably serious. “Now! We need some answers!”

“More like you couldn’t contain your curiosity or ask Iwaizumi like a normal person.”

“Makki! You’re supposed to be on my side!” Oikawa blurbed, before coughing and regaining his cool integrator vibe. “Anyways!” Oikawa snapped harshly at Iwaizumi.

“You! Have a! Crush! On Manager-chan!”

Iwaizumi choked on his own spit. He turned away dumbly, with a coy look on his face.

“Dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb! We all see the looks you give him! ‘Fess up, Iwa-chan! You’re absolutely totally whipped for (Y/n)-chan!”

Iwaizumi stiffened. “Since when were you two on a first name basis-!”

“See?! You got mad when I called (L/n)-kun by his first name!”

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Iwaizumi barked. He was starting to sweat now. Were these restraints always so stuffy? “I was just wondering why you called him that!”

Oikawa stuck his tongue out. “Just say you like him we’ll let you go~!”

“Never! No way in hell!”

Oikawa gasped. He pointed dramatically at Iwaizumi. “So you do admit it! You’re totally in love with Manager-kun but you don’t wanna say it!”

“Wh-?!” Iwaizumi sputtered. He kicked around in his restraints, making Matsukawa tug at the rope again. He was thrashing around so much he didn’t hear the door open. “When did I-“

“When did I ever say I had a big ass fuckin’ crush on (L/n) that it made me question my whole sexuality?! But that I couldn’t care less since he’s so...so nice and cute and-fuck!”

Matsukawa and Hanamaki paled. They seemed to be looking at something behind Iwaizumi. Oikawa was still listening intently to Iwaizumi’s confession, not noticing whatever it was those two were staring at.

“Fuck! Fuck! I wanna grab his stupid face and kiss him all over! Fuck! Why is (Y/n) so cute! I wanna call him by his first name too! I wanna hug him and do things boyfriends do too! Fuck! I’m so-“

Oikawa’s eye eventually trailed up from Iwaizumi. He locked eyes with whatever was there, then immediately copied the same panicked ‘we’re dead’ look Hanamaki and Matsukawa had. He looked back at Iwaizumi with a sweaty, pale face.

“H-hey, Iwa-chan, that’s enough-you proved your point-“

“-I’M SO FUCKING GAY FOR (Y/N) IT HURTS!”

The three boys flinched, looking behind Iwaizumi with the same look you’d give when you got caught doing something bad. Iwaizumi was breathing heavily, slouched on his chair after his whole explosion of a confession. He looked at the three third years, who weren’t even looking back at him.

“...what? This is what you guys wanted right? To admit that I like (L/n-“

“I-Iwaizumi, you might wanna shut up…” Hanamaki said, his voice trembly. Matsukawa and Oikawa nodded.

“No! Why are y’all acting so weird! You guys were all up my ass about it, and now you’re telling me to shut up?!”

Matsukawa silently spun his chair around slowly, towards the door so he could see what they were all staring at.

“Honestly, if y’all weren’t expecting me to actually…confess…t-to…yooouuu…”

Iwaizumi’s voice progressively died down as he locked eyes with (Y/n), standing by the door with the reddest shocked face he’d ever seen. It was Iwaizumi’s turn to go pale.

“Uh...I-I heard...screaming...f-from the club room and...and I wanted to see if you guys were ok...um.” (Y/n) awkwardly swung his hands around, before letting them rest behind his back. “So…”

“Do you...really wanna ‘kiss me all over’ and do boyfriend-y stuff together…? With me…?”

Iwaizumi said nothing. He started squirming madly in his binds, trying to look anywhere else but (Y/n).

“Let me out let me out let me out let me out-!“

Iwaizumi only wriggled and kicked harder when (Y/n) started approaching him.

“LETMEOUTLETMEOUTLETME-uu-?”

(Y/n) balled up his fists, resting them rigidly on Iwaizumi’s lap as he clumsily pressed a kiss to his lips. His eyes were clamped shut, unlike Iwaizumi’s, who were wide open. He felt (Y/n) push closer, to which he let his body give in and relax, closing his eyes and tilting his head to deepen the kiss.

Matsukawa wolf-whistled, while Hanamaki yelled things like ‘Get it, Iwaizumi!’. Oikawa smiled triumphantly once more, clapping quietly. “Bravo! Yay Iwa-chan!”

Iwaizumi’s eyes were half-lidded as began to pull away. He let out a shaky sigh, watching Iwaizumi take breathless breaths in. Oikawa was still clapping in the background.

“Yay! Yaaaay Iwa-chan! Iwa-chan is happy and I fulfilled my promise! (L/n) will be Manager-kun for forever!”

Iwaizumi snapped out of his dazed trance to glare at Oikawa in confusion. “Huh?”

“Ara?” Oikawa tilted his head. (Y/n) caught on, and started violently shaking his head ‘no’, as well as flailing his arms around trying to shut him up.

“You don’t know why (L/n)-kun decided to join the club?”

Iwaizumi shook his head. (Y/n) whimpered slightly and covered his face in his hands.

“I told (L/n)-kun that if he became our manager, I’d find a way to get you to fall in looove with him. But it looks like I didn’t need to do anything~”

Oikawa chuckled. “He really only joined for you, y’know. When I went up to talk to him about being a manager, his eyes lit up and he said, and I quote: ‘I’ll do it if you set me up with your friend Iwaizumi-kun and get him to fall for me-! Kyaaa! Iwaizumi-kun is so tall dark and handsom-ow!”

Oikawa was abruptly cut off when Iwaizumi kicked him in the leg, as it was the only thing he could reach while he was still tied up. Iwaizumi turned to the side with a blushy pout.

“Y-you’re embarrassing him, idiot.”

“Aww look. He’s enjoying this.” Matsukawa snickered. Hanamaki chuckled as quietly as he could, both trying not to get kicked in the leg like Oikawa did. (Y/n) sank to the floor, defeated.

“Why did you tell Iwaizumi-kun...that’s so embarrassing…” (Y/n) groaned from the ground. He was still covering his face, so he didn’t notice when Matsukawa started untying Iwaizumi, or when Iwaizumi squatted down and placed his hand on top of (Y/n’s) head.

(Y/n) made a noise of surprise as Iwaizumi patted his head with a blushy scowl.

“S’ only fair that I know… I was pretty embarrassed too when you heard all those things I said about you... Eye for an eye and shit…”

(Y/n) said nothing as Iwaizumi continued to pat his head. They said nothing for a while, before Matsukawa silently whispered to Oikawa.

“Wait, if you knew that (L/n)-kun liked Iwaizumi, why did you look so scared when he walked in? You knew they liked each other.”

“Ah.” Oikawa rubbed the back of his head, watching as Iwaizumi and (Y/n) shyly exchanged phone numbers.

“I was scared that Iwa-chan was going to murder me.”

——————

Wanna know what makes my day? When people comment on my fics 💖 especially when they reblog and go crazy in the tags or even say something IN the reblog itself 💖💖💖 makes me feel all warm inside ✨

-Mr. Mizunetzu

#haikyuu x male reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fic #haikyuu iwaizumi #iwazumi x male reader #hajime iwaizumi #iwaizumi fluff #iwaizumi x male reader #hajime iwaizumi x reader #iwa chan #iwa chan x male reader #iwa chan x reader #seijoh #aoba johsai #seijoh 3rd years #aoba johsai 3rd years #iwaizumi x you #hq iwaizumi #hq x male reader

[mycupoffanfiction]

The One

Coco Cruz x Reader

Summary: Coco turns you in a clumsy, shy mess every time he’s around and you just can’t quite find the courage to tell him how you feel, that is until your Mayan brothers drag you both to a funfair.

Warnings: Fluff, lots of shyness, Angel and Gilly trying to be wingmen, a brief mention of public sex acts.

Word count: Approx 2600

Masterlist

A/N: Hi loves, I’ve been working on this fic for months, but it was never quite right, but I loved it too much to scrap it, so I’m super happy to finally be able to share it with you! I did struggle with this a bit, so I apologise if it’s not super smooth, but hey 🤷🏻‍♀️ This is just the first part, the second part will be with you soon. Enjoy! 💖

“How the fuck are you winning again?” Gilly groaned, slouching in his chair opposite you as you placed down a card on the table, effectively winning the round of the card game you were playing. Giggling, you shrugged and crossed one leg over the other, looking rather smug with yourself. “You challenged me, remember?” You giggled, all too happy that you’d won another round. Gilly sighed and tilted his head back before gathering up the cards. “One more round?” He asked, handing you the cards to shuffle and you nodded, taking them from him.

Shuffling the cards, you were mid conversation with Gilly about how you wanted to go to the fair that had been set up just outside of town, when Angel and Coco entered the clubhouse. “It’ll be great, also, I don’t believe him, but Coco said he’d never had cotton candy before and-.” “He’s never what?” Gilly replied, incredulous, if not a little over dramatic and you giggled, shaking your head. “There’s your chance for a date, hermana, take ‘im to get cotton candy.” Gilly chuckled, nudging your hand with his, to which you protested with a drawn out, hushed ‘noooo Gilly’.

You were a dear friend to the club and all of its members, so much so that you were often titled ‘hermana’ since you had become a sister to most members, though some of them, notably Bishop had taken to calling you mija. But really, you kept everyone in the club grounded and you were greatly appreciated for your loving, sweet nature, despite the fact that you were horrendously clumsy and on more than one occasion had managed to run into people, drop everything and break things, not that anyone minded. But it always seemed to happen more prominently around Coco and the boys were beginning to notice it happen more frequently when you were around him.

“What are you two up to?” Angel asked, interrupting your thoughts as you shuffled the cards. “Just having a game.” Gilly replied, going on to tell Angel about how he’d totally won the last three rounds, to which Angel snorted in disbelief. It was another moment before you even realised that Coco was there, he’d not said a word, but you looked up to deal the cards between you, only to see him eyeing you over Gilly’s shoulder and you fumbled with the cards, some of the deck falling from your hands and spilling over the table and scattering everywhere while you attempted to keep them together.

“Oh jesus- fucking- hi Coco.” You managed to squeak out, Gilly trying so hard to contain his laughter as Angel gathered up the cards that had dropped to the floor and you felt the heat of embarrassment surge through you as you shuffled the cards back into a stack. “Hey corazón.” Coco responded with a light chuckle at your sudden bout of clumsiness and you felt yourself melt at the name he used for you, hoping it wasn’t too obvious how shy and embarrassed you were.

“I’ll get some beer.” Coco announced, throwing you a smile as he walked away. “How long is this gonna go on for? I can’t deal with you goin’ all butter fingers whenever you just fucking look at him.” Angel hissed, though he was far too amused by it all to actually be annoyed and you desperately wanted the ground to swallow you whole. “Everyone knows you love him.” Angel told you and your eyes went wide. “I’m pretty sure even Coco knows.” He chuckled and you felt even more nervous about saying anything. “Shut the fuck up, man. Don’t listen to Angel, hermana.” Gilly said, lightly whacking him on the arm. “You gotta tell Coco-.” “Tell me what?” Coco cut in as he came back with some bottles and you slid down a little in your seat. “Oh, our little hermana here-.” “Thinks it’s ridiculous that you’ve never had cotton candy before.” Gilly interrupted Angel, kicking him under the table and you gave him a thankful smile before shooting daggers at Angel who looked far too pleased with himself. “What?” Angel asked, giving you a mischievous grin.

Coco just looked at you with a raised brow, evidently not believing it one bit and you quickly reached for your drink, hoping at the very least that occupying yourself with the bottle would distract you a bit. Coco lit himself a cigarette and toked it a couple of times before taking a full draw of his smoke, reaching for his beer.

“So what about that fair outside of town this weekend?” Gilly asked. “I’m down, I need a change of fucking scenery.” Angel nodded. “Coco?” Gilly asked as you took a sip from your bottle. He shrugged, looking at the two men with indifference. “Hey, c’mon man, remember last time with the photobooth?” Angel nudged him, winking. “Shut up, carnal.” Coco rolled his eyes, taking a puff from his cigarette as Gilly snorted. “The fabled tale of Coco gettin’ loco with not one, but two girls in a fuckin’ photobooth.” Angel said, speaking as if it was some kind of epic tale, when really, it was more of a half drunk escapade that Coco barely remembered a wink of, apart from maybe the tale end of a two girl blowjob.

“You comin’ hermana?” Gilly asked, completely changing the subject and you looked between the three men, giving them a look of uncertainty. “I don’t know guys, you’re just gonna abandon me in the teacups again.” You pouted, Gilly and Angel immediately erupting into laughter at the memory from last year.

Coco huffed as he listened to the conversation. He didn’t care about finding girls to have a little fun with at the fair, if anything, he was more interested in something else, not that he was going to make that known, especially not with Angel and Gilly around.

Coco leaned over, draping his arm around the back of your chair. “I’ll go if you go, corazón.” He whispered in your ear and you instantly felt yourself burn up from his close proximity and the way he said those words, deep, enticing, but somehow still sweet and soft. Angel and Gilly too were far too wrapped up in retelling stories of their last trip to a fair to pay any attention to Coco’s actions and you swallowed heavily, glancing shyly across at him, the Mayan much closer than you had anticipated and as you faced him, eyes almost too timid to meet his, your breaths mingled for a moment with how closely he had leaned in.

“I’ll go.” You responded quietly, voice barely audible, but Coco heard you just fine and your response prompted a big, lopsided smile on his lips and you wondered how you’d even mustered the courage to respond.

“See you there, corazón.” He smirked, leaning back to take the last sip of his beer before he stood up from the table abruptly enough to get the attention of Angel and Gilly.

“Gotta go, got shit to do with Letty.” He said, putting his bottle down on the table. “See you later ‘mano.” Angel waved him off, Gilly eyeing your flustered state and giving you a questioning look as you attempted to pull yourself together.

“You alright hermana?” He asked. “Probably.” You nodded, clearing your throat a little and shifting in your seat, uncomfortable under the questioning looks you were getting from both men before you finally decided to awkwardly say goodbye to your brothers and excuse yourself from the table.

“Tell me I wasn’t the only one who saw that?” Gilly hissed at Angel. “Nah man, I saw the way he looked at her, the way he spoke to her.”

The next day was far too quick to come around and by the time you’d rocked up to the fun fair on the back of Gilly’s bike, you felt like the last day had slipped away from you far faster than you would have liked. It wasn’t that you weren’t looking forward to spending the day with your boys, you were so excited to spend some time with them away from the MC. But your apprehension came more from being afraid that you might fuck things up with Coco. What if you told him how you felt and he rejected you? What if he avoided you? That would crush you, but while you had been nervous about admitting feelings to Coco, all of your brothers knew that the two of you would be perfect together, which was why they were adamant on pushing you both together despite your often silent panic when they did so.

It was early evening as you walked with Gilly over to where Angel was standing in the parking lot, leaning against his bike, waiting impatiently for you both.

“You’re gonna tell Coco today, right?” Angel asked before he even greeted you, pushing away from his bike before approaching you and Gilly. “Oh yeah, it’s real nice to see you too Angel.” Gilly replied in a sarcastic tone, making the taller of the two snort in response. “But you’re gonna, right?” Gilly joined in, turning to look at you as you glanced at the two bikers who stared at you expectantly. “I mean… Maybe?” You answered, hoping it was enough to get them off your back about Coco, but it only seemed to make it worse because Angel was adamant a plan he’d come up with for how you should tell Coco was ‘fool proof’, whatever that implied.

“We’re meeting Coco in the fair, he’s late.” Angel informed you both as Gilly began to lead the group of you across the parking lot towards the entrance booth. “Club shit?” Gilly asked. “Nah, somethin’ to do with Letty.” He shrugged.

You stood with a grin on your lips as you watched Gilly and Angel playfully banter between them as they waited to have a go at winning something at a booth with water pistols and targets.

As you watched, you almost jumped out of your skin when you felt two hands gently grip your shoulders and you barely had time to react before you heard his deep, low voice, quickly relaxing you. “Whoa, relax corizon, s’just me.” Coco spoke softly in your ear. “Coco,” You looked over your shoulder at him with an uncontrollable smile, the biker coming round to your side, his arm staying around your shoulders.

“Sorry I’m late, was making cake with Letty.” Coco told you with a smile. “Don’t tell Angel that.” He added, making you giggle and shake your head. “I won’t, your secret is safe with me.” You replied, voice quiet and soft. Coco looked over at you, his grip on your arm tightening slightly as he caught your gaze, noting how relaxed you looked, how relaxed you felt against him and it brought a warmth to his heart to see you that way.

Angel glanced over his shoulder at Coco and the pair nodded at each other in a silent greeting, Angel smirking as soon as he saw you tucked against Coco’s side with his arm around you before he turned his attention back to the game when it was his and Gilly’s turn.

“Wanna go do shit without those two?” Coco asked. “Gonna have another headache if I gotta babysit them.” He rolled his eyes playfully. “Yeah, I’d like that.” You nodded, letting Coco tug you along with him.

Coco walked you through the fairground, stopping by stalls and booths along the way to play a few games, his smile always doubling in size whenever he heard you giggle, noticing you enjoying yourself in his company. Coco had wanted to spend time with you and talk to you for a while, but no matter how hard he tried, one of the Mayans always seemed to drop themselves into the conversation before he even had a chance to try and ease you out of your shell and give you his full, undivided attention.

And now, as you both found yourself on the furthest side of the fairground, overlooking a beautiful sunset in the distance with a bag of candy floss in Coco’s hand that he shared with you.

It was such a sweet moment, calm and dreamy, the ambience of funfair was soft in the background, the soft, golden glow of the sunset gently casting over the desert horizon.

Coco looked over at you, bathed in golden light, gorgeous with a soft smile on your lips. He felt himself smile uncontrollably as you leaned against his side, his hand finding yours, fingers slowly and gently intertwining.

It felt right, it felt like it was meant to be in the sweet, serene moment you shared together and Coco knew right then and there that he’d found the one for him. You were the one.

“Coco,” It came out as a whisper, warmth filling you when you realised how naturally your hand had fit in his, how wonderful his touch felt against yours. “Yeah, corazón?” He asked, barely above a whisper, his voice low and warm against your ear as he leaned against you.

“I… I’m-.” You cut yourself off with a sigh, eyes cast down at your feet, trying to hide yourself, the feeling of shyness overcame you.

“Hey, take your time, mi estrellita.” Coco hummed softly to you, his voice soothing as you drew in a deep, slow breath. But when you became too shy to respond, he smiled, bringing your hand up to his chest, prompting you to look at him, a bit too timid to hold his gaze fully. “Look at me, mi corazón.” Coco whispered, reaching over to lift your chin with his fingers.

You shared a comfortable moment of silence together, your hand resting against his chest, the background chatter and laughter of the fair adding to the ambience, the sun slowly lowering just enough to leave you bathed in a soft, hazy twilight.

“I know, I know that every time you look at me, you get shy.” Coco said, watching as you tore your gaze away from him quickly. “Hey hey, wait, hold on corazón.” He urged, tugging you back to him gently. “But I get butterflies every time I look at you, I get this fuckin’ uncontrollable smile whenever I see you lookin’ at me ‘cause fuck, ma, you drive me crazy.” He smiled to himself, his eyes lighting up as he spoke openly about how he felt.

“It drives me fuckin’ crazy whenever I think about you, I think ‘bout all this shit I wanna do with you, shit I’ve never wanted to do with anyone before.” He confessed, both of his hands holding yours to his chest as he spoke and you couldn’t help but look at him and wonder if you weren’t just dreaming. “Really?” You managed to get out. “Yeah, I can’t get’chu outta my mind.” Coco grinned, leaning down to press a kiss to the back of your hands.

“I wanna take you on a date, wanna make you happy in every way I can, in every way possible ‘cause you deserve nothin’ less.” He paused, drawing in a deep breath before his eyes met yours. “Will you let me do that? Will you let me make you my girl?” He asked softly, watching as you smiled, shyly nodding, a little taken aback by his sweet words.

“I’d love that, Coco.” You said, almost in a whisper, but Coco met you with a bright grin before he leaned in and gently pressed a kiss to your cheek.

“Mi estrellita.” He whispered, pulling you against his chest and holding you close, embracing you gently, his heart fluttering, feeling on top of the world, because Coco got his girl.

He found the one.

Mayans/SOA Taglist (OPEN):

@everyhowlmarksthedead​ @woahitslucyylu​ @trulysuccubus​ @iambabyharry​ @starrynite7114​ @ifoundmyhappythought @peaches007​ @angelreyesgirl​ @thesandbeneathmytoes​ @plentyoffandoms​ @lovebennycolon​ @chibsytelford​ @mayans-sauce​

Permanent Taglist (OPEN):

@scuzmunkie​ @megantje123​ @sideeffectsofyou​ @loving-life-my-way​ @searching-for-neverland​ @kitkatd7​ @psychiccreationtaco​ @damienwitcher​ @thesewaywardskies​ @abbiesthings​ @marquelapage​ @noz4a2​ @queenbeered​

#coco cruz x reader #coco x reader #johnny coco cruz x reader #coco cruz x you #coco x you #coco x y/n #coco #coco cruz x y/n #coco cruz #johnny coco cruz #mayans mc #mayans fic #mayans

[1zashreena1]

Emotional Spanking -8

18+, m/f, technically OCxDiego Jimenez [Power]

Summary: Princess has an emotional epiphany, a panic attack, a visitor, and a pleasant disciplinary action. In that order. 

WARNINGS: Ridiculous descriptions and ‘the code is more like guidelines’ outlook on grammar. Is it OOC if the character was given essentially zero development in canon???

SMUT. SPANKING. FEELS. the L word, previously completed kink negotiations, plus size woman+fit man, soft!Diego, immediately followed by hard!Diego, overwhelmed Princess, He Licks Everything, is a relationship happening??, literally no one knows, not even them

A/N:  Princess took on a life of her own and has essentially become an OC. There are infrequent mentions of her description (specifically as plus size) and her actual name in later pieces (its Bicki). She started as self-insert so she looks like me (plus size, white, short, blue eyes, curly hair). If that is not your thing, I totally understand. And do not feel obligated to read this, I will not be offended!

I’m not a fan of “plot” so be aware that most of this series is just meandering through their relationship, angst-fluff-smut whiplash style. But with dick jokes.

This piece is my baby.  My heart is in this one.  You have been warned.

TAGLIST: @chelsfic​​​ @symbiont13​​​ @nicke0115​​​ @bunnykjm​​​ @rosee-sensuelle​​​ @girlpornparadise​​​ @mandoplease​​​ @heresathreebee​​​ @xxsteph-enrixx​​​ @jetiikad​​​ @joalsglasses​​​ @mutantcookiesecrets​​​ @demoncatstone​​​ @squidlywiddly87​​​ @lockedoutofmyotherblog​​ @poeedamerons​

Whoever is banging on your door at 6:45 on a Monday morning is relentless. You know it's not your downstairs neighbors; the second floor apartment is still empty because your landlord is actually very sweet and doesn't just screen future tenants for ability to pay the rent, he tries to make sure they'll fit in with the current tenants too. And the little family on the first floor has that loud-ass two year old. There's no blabbery baby talk and the sound of the impact is damn near at the top of the door. So it's definitely Stranger Danger.

You're just going to wait it out. They have to give up at some point. And you've just spent three days ignoring literally everything in the universe, so really,  the odds are in your favor here.

Except… you live in a tiny little town. The population on the sign says 570, but they were being generous in counting all the farms within a 10 mile radius. No one comes to your door accidentally. People don't wander up three flights of exterior stairs on an old farmhouse in the middle of Pennsylvania Dutch Country while it's barely above freezing and still dark out. So there are two options:

Serial Killer.

Or, ugh, someone who knows you.

They're not stopping and it's starting to piss you off.

 "This better be a fucking murderer!" You mutter as you stomp to the door.  Impressive really, considering your pajama pants are over a foot too long and the apartment is carpeted. You reach the door and turn the deadbolt (banging still going on), unlock the doorknob (really, this is just excessive), and yank the door open with a war cry. 

"WHAT THE FUCK!"

Its Diego.

Its Diego looking... odd? You take a split second to catalogue his appearance, it's like a reflex at this point because you can't not ogle him every time his existence is within your range of sight. He's not wearing a belt?? His shirt is half untucked and his jacket extremely wrinkled. One side of his hair is completely flat, as if he slept on it, and his squinted eyes are very, very red. Like he just came off a three day bender. Or he's been crying, your traitorous brain oh so helpfully supplies.

Diego, frozen mid-bang, also takes this time to look you up and down. His eyebrows raise and his brow furrows, clearly not impressed. You're wearing the same pair of pajamas as the last three days. Mismatched socks (one is orange, the other neon green), the overly long drawstring punjammy pants with one cuff rolled up from your stomping, a shelf bra camisole that lost its ability to function as a bra sometime in the last decade, no make up, and your somehow greasy yet simultaneously frizzy floop of curls.

Softly, but with great feeling, he rasps, "What the fuck, Princess?"

Oh no, this is Not Good. This is so, very, incredibly, horrendously bad. Your right arm tenses in preparation to slam the door in his face. His left hand shoots out to land on the door, his arm taut to hold it motionless. He's keeping the door pinned to the wall so he can continue taking up all of the open space of the doorway with his massive body. You snarl silently at him but let go of the door because you know this is the one man who actually can physically overpower you. And you don't need a shattered door to match your shattered pride.

You aim for unbothered dismissive bitch when you ask, "What are you doing here?" 

You fail spectacularly when it comes out in a tremulous whisper. 

Instead of waiting for an answer you spin around and go left into the living/dining/kitchen largest-space-in-the-apartment all-purpose room. You collapse on your tiny sectional and tuck your feet up under you to sit cross legged. You can hear Diego slam the door and follow after you.  As he comes around the chaise of the sectional you reach behind yourself and grab the crocheted blanket your mom made off the back of the couch and desperately try to hide in it. All you want is to become invisible. Diego, of course, is not going to allow that. Asshole.

"What am I doing here? You have not answered anyone for three days! Not your normal phone, not the phone I gave you, not even a Facebook message from your mother! Your sister told Lisa that no one can reach you. Lisa called Julio! What have you been doing?? Clearly you have... gone nowhere…?"  His speech started off barking but had shrunk to down to a horrified whisper as he took in the state of your apartment.  Everything is everywhere.  There are dirty dishes on the breakfast bar. Hair bands scattered across every horizontal surface. A lone lip balm is abandoned on the floor among a sea of used tissues. 

--------

This is so not the woman he knows. There's no sarcastic snark of an answer. That woman would never leave something as important as a lip balm on the floor. Shit, she uses packing cubes for fuck's sake. As he kneels down to retrieve the tube of mint goop he hears it. The one sound that always makes him freeze up and opens a sinkhole in his belly: She's crying.

This unflappable woman who makes eye contact with all of his men, who never hesitates to lecture him on 'feminist theory', who gleefully stuffs an entire slice of pizza into her face while sitting in the VIP booth at the club with skinny models looking on in horror, and once called his bluff about putting on a show in the back of a limo by winking and telling Julio to watch them as she pushed him to his knees in front of her while simultaneously yanking up her miniskirt… is crying.

 And it's probably my fault. He's almost certain this is his fault. Who else could make her emotional like this? Is someone else important enough to be worth her tears? It had better be my fault. If it's someone else I will kill them.

He looks up to see she has wrapped herself entirely in that weird fuzzy blanket her mother somehow made. The whole blanket creation process had been a mystery to him despite listening to her mother explain it step by step. She even has it over her head like a hood. Which would be adorably hilarious if she weren't ugly crying. Ew, please stop.

It only takes two shuffling steps on his knees to reach her, the living room is so small. He wraps his hands entirely around her forearms and pulls her own hands from her face. How is she beautiful with snot running from her nose? Only for her to flinch backwards. Okay, ouch. 

"Look at me." He demands. She just scrunches her face harder. He tries a softer tone, "Please?"  That does it. Those bottomless eyes come up and they are so, so lagoon green rather than the normal deepest blue of the open sea. How does she do that?

"Tell me. Talk to me, Princess. Let me in." 

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

How does he do that? This large, intimidating, powerful, volatile man should not be able to make you feel safe of all things.  Blurting out your feelings to Lisa had been terrifying. Realizing what had just come out of your mouth had brought on a sense of fear so acute it was nauseating. But here you are, staring into that pleading chocolate gaze and wanting nothing more than to answer him. 

You can vividly remember the conversation that triggered this entire mess:

You came home from another insane weekend in New York and desperately needed to ruin your best friend's day with extremely detailed descriptions of your depravity. Lisa being Lisa, acted exaggeratedly horrified to hear that you demanded he fuck Franchesca in the bathroom so you could go down on her after to lick out his come while he then fingered you. Okay, maybe she wasn't  exaggerating… much. But she knows you. She was not surprised that you wanted to watch him rail Franchesca over a bathroom sink but he insisted on trying to choke you with his tongue while he did it. And she is not shocked that you licked Franchesca off in under two minutes-- or came for him just after. Lisa is still laughing about the finality of Diego's abrupt dismissal of Franchesca the second you come all over his hand when she tells you, "That asshole is a full on freak, girl. Perfect for you!" 

And the moment of your damnation, a soft sigh of an admission, "Yeah. I love him."

And you had removed yourself from all human contact for 3 days immediately following that. No social media, no phones, no internet. Nothing.

...so here you are.

His gigantic hands are wrapped around your forearms, fingers so long they overlap his thumbs. You're not afraid of those hands or their assumed capacity for violence. You should be; you know that, you're not stupid. Or maybe you are. After all, you trust this man who runs the most powerful fucking drug cartel in the western hemisphere and you've never even gotten a speeding ticket. While you've been lost in your musings, he released your forearms only to cup your face in those ridiculous hands. Those hands you love, you fucking dumbass. 

No other man has ever touched you like this. Never touched your face with reverence,  handled your body with an almost jealous possession, or ripped your heart open ever so gently with an earnest expression. He listens, enthralled, when you go off on a rant. He watches where you look while you're out and about. Like a hawk, he notices every shiny little thing you linger on, only for you to find it hidden in your luggage on the way home, wrapped neatly in a tiny box. You once told him that you don't like your elbows touched, it produces some weird overload sensation in your nervous system. And he never took your elbow in hand again, shifted to a hand on your lower back (or your ass, of course. Always a classic). He never seems to care what size is on the tag of the clothes he gets you, only that you like them and you like the way you look in them. He throws his head back with booming laughter when you scream obscenities at traffic. He always thanks you when you make food. Even if he does have to peel the cheese off… he just gives it back to you.

You may have gotten used to the private jet, the SUVs that cost more than your parent's house, the way every restaurant where he takes you has no prices, hell sometimes there isn't even a menu. You've even grown accustomed to the jarring dichotomy of coming home to an apartment the size of his penthouse bedroom while still dripping in precious stones and stuffing your new Louboutins in your purse for the three story climb.

But you're almost certain you will never be over the way your cardiovascular system seizes up when he captures you with a single look, or the functional failure of your lungs when his eyes crinkle with laugh lines, the complete implosion of your stomach when those damn dimples appear, or how your entire reproductive tract clenches with need when he licks his lips, and when your brain stutters to a halt because he lays those hands on your shoulders and swipes his thumbs up your jawline to stroke the pulse point under your ears while leaning his forehead on yours.

You realize you've just been staring at him like a moron for what must be for-fucking-ever. You can tell it's been a while because his eyebrows have lowered and he's starting to look a little defeated. You can feel the weight of his hands easing from your cheeks as he begins to pull back from you. Oh no you don't, you gorgeous fucking asshole.

You slap your hands down on his shoulders with entirely too much force and fling yourself off the couch directly into his lap with a level of violence usually reserved for people who won't put their phones away in a movie theater. He grunts with the sudden addition of your weight and teeters backwards for a second before smashing you into his body via the vise of his arms. You bury your face in his neck, where his stubbly beard catches on your stupid frizz, card your fingers through his amazingly soft hair, and start a whole new round of bawling. 

He's kissing the side of your neck, nuzzling into you like he wants to be inside your skin with you. His fingers are spread wide across your back, he's trying to touch as much of you as possible all at once. You can hear a soft, keening whine but you have no idea which one of you is making it. Does it even matter? 

The noise stops when you feel his teeth gently sink into the join of your neck and right shoulder. Oh. Guess it was him. His right hand dips low to palm your ass cheek and flatten you further against him. You automatically squeeze your legs around his hips in response.

You realize he's not hard. The shock of this revelation further delays you in understanding that someone is talking. And that someone is you. 

"Please please, I'm sorry, please." Hiccup. "Its never- I've never been. I'm scared. It's too much and I'm scared." Another sob. "You keep leaving and it's just. What i-i-i-if you don't come back?" A stuttering inhaled gasp. "Who am I w-w-w-without you? What do I do?" A coughing sob. "You m-m-m-make me weak like this and I fucking h-h-hate it!" And you dissolve into another round of wailing sobs. You know you're practically screaming but you can't seem to stop. Your left hand is clawed into his hair and your right is fisted in the collar of his jacket, ruining the Armani. You're fairly certain the mess of snot and drool leaking out of your face isn't doing any favors for his shirt either.

He's just… letting you. Just letting you ruin his stupid expensive clothes and have a meltdown all over him. Like this is okay. Like it's no big deal. His left hand is rubbing circles over your ribcage while you howl. He releases your neck to raise his chin and tuck you up underneath it. Rubbing his goatee over your hair, then kissing the top of your head so incredibly gently. That can't smell good, you think hysterically.

Your sobs are finally starting to ease but he hasn't made a move to let go yet. You start to wonder how long he's going to kneel here holding you. Can it be forever?

It finally registers that his breathing is rough, labored. His shoulders are shaking under you. Now you're legitimately frightened. 

"Diego?" You finally work up the nerve to speak. You hate the way your voice sounds like a small child. "...baby?"  He is slowly stiffening under you and not in the fun way. You start to pull your face back from his neck only for his left hand to shoot up into your hair and hold you in place. It's not painful but it's definitely not soft either. Your breathing is starting to speed up. You instinctively know something important is about to happen. And it terrifies you.

He is holding you so tight its bordering on painful when he finally speaks into your hair.

"Why. Tell me why you fear that I never return. You are not weak. And this is not hate." He uses the hand in your hair to pull your head back. You fight it at first, it's just your nature. Then you squeeze your eyes shut and let him move you like a ragdoll. With no vision you don't know what he's doing until you feel the press of his forehead against your own. He bumps his nose against yours then rubs his bristled cheek against your soft one. You realize he's rubbing you like a cat and it makes you smile ruefully. My Murder Panther.

With his lips pressed right to your ear, he rumbles ever so softly, "Tell Diego, Princess."

Your whole body seizes up with the sensation. Oh, you fucking bastard. You would say it aloud except the undercurrent of fear in his voice gives you pause. He's afraid. He's afraid of you. Of the possibility of your rejection. Just like in the kitchen when he blurted out that he wanted to keep you. The way he froze, paralyzed in fear, after he whispered that he loved you. It's the same soft, lost little boy voice, the slight tremble in tone, the uncertainty. 

And this time...this time, you can't take it. Tears slowly slip down your cheeks as you squeeze your eyes shut even tighter. You remember the night you met. His breathtaking smile when you turned the tables on him. Those damn dimples. When you felt the gun in the back of his pants. The moment you decided to do what you wanted and not what you should. Fuck it.

You press your own lips to his ear, his grip in your hair pliant enough to allow it. He's shaking under you. The fingers of his right hand are digging into your hip like claws, you find the pain grounding. Knowing that you're in control of this entire moment is both thrilling and terrifying. You could break him, right here and now. Fuck it.

And he would let you. This rich, powerful, enigmatic man who has already confessed his love to you. Fuck it.

"Diego.." You breathe into his cheek. He shudders under you and sighs out in a broken whimper. 

Fuck it.

"Diego… I love you."

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

There's a long moment that nothing happens. Everything is frozen in place. He doesn't even breathe for fear that he'll wake up from this, just like the dream from a few weeks ago.  When he does remember to inhale it's a raspy choke of a gasp. It hurts, he realizes. Is it supposed to hurt? 

His eyes are burning. Taking an immediate red eye flight from LA and then driving three hours to her place was probably not his best plan, but he had been terrified. He had needed to have her exactly where she is right now.

He loosens the grip in her hair and turns his face into hers to rub his wet lashes on her cheek. Her hands are coming forward to frame his jaw, hands so tiny and soft. He has refrained from saying it himself for fear of scaring her off. He knows its selfish and he doesn't care, he wants to hear it again. Over and over. Until it stops hurting.

"Diego?" Her voice is so soft, harsh from crying yet still so high. He opens his eyes to see that she still has hers closed. He slides his goatee over her skin until his lips hover over hers.

"Again." He murmurs, "Please, my princess. Tell me you will let me keep you."

‐-------------------------

This couldn't hurt more if he'd reached into your chest and snatched your heart with his bare hands. He sounds so small and hopeful, so vulnerable. Am I his first? The first person to love him?

You can't stand this man begging for your affection. You find yourself wanting to give him everything.  Your secret is already out; in for a penny in for a pound, right?

You take a deep breath and dive in head first because you're a fucking Scorpio, damnit.

"Diego, baby." You stroke his cheeks, petting down his stubble with the direction of the growth. Just like you would pet any other cat, you find yourself grinning. You open your eyes to see him so close its dizzying. His are shut but his expression is pure yearning, eyebrows drawn down and brow furrowed, jaw tensely solid, wet lashes stuck together in spiky pieces. "I love you." 

He chokes and his eyes snap open to meet yours. Now it's your turn to muck up the basic process of breathing. There's so much everything in his eyes you feel like you're drowning. Every fucking romance novel cliche was right.

"Again." He demands. In typical Diego fashion, he wants it and he wants it now. You can't help your smile growing wide. There's my Murder Panther.

"I love you." You maintain eye contact while leaning your forehead against his. "I love you." Its like you can't stop yourself. You brush your lips over his goatee, he chases you back to ghost a kiss on your lips. "I love you." Its just pouring out of you now.

"I-" Kiss.

"Love-" Kiss.

"You." Kiss. 

You expect him to keep kissing you. To slide that perfectly wicked tongue between your lips and drive you even further insane. But he doesn't. He pulls back to pant in your face, then closes his eyes and whimpers. You watch the play of emotions across his features, so quick you can't identify a single one. He finally gathers himself into some cohesive comprehensible thought and speaks:

"I dont. I have never. You have to, to do the...uhh… help?"

Or not.

You can hear so much in that soft rumble. Fear, relief, uncertainty, pleasure, hunger, but most of all, trust. He's trusting you. Trusting that you know what to do. Trusting that you can lead him on this new path. Trusting that you'll take care of him. This man who leads the largest criminal outfit on the continent and is intimidated by nothing, entrusts his being to you. It's like being stabbed in the heart, a searing pain that brings tears to your eyes and a painfully wide smile to your lips.

You slide the thumb of your right hand forward to swipe over his cheekbone. Your left hand goes back to stroke his hair. He nuzzles into your right hand, beard both soft and scratchy. Just like him, all contradictions.  You can see his lashes flutter and you open your mouth to speak but…

Wait a minute.

Seriously???

"Diego… Are you staring at my tits?"

He's not even remotely repentant. "They are just. Right There! And no bra!"

You throw your head back and laugh. You laugh so loud it hurts your throat and brings tears to your eyes. You laugh until you're gasping for air. When you finally open your eyes and look at him your heart tries to crawl up and out of you just to get to him. 

He's staring up at you, eyes wide with adoration and jaw hanging open in wonder. You bend forward to rest your forehead on his again. "You soft little Murder Panther." You don't even bother trying to hide your ridiculously pleased smirk.

His right hand slides up your hip to your lower back while the left lowers slowly from your hair to the back of your neck. His lips curl up at the corners. His gaze is still soft as he murmurs, "Only for you, my princess."

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

She's so soft in his arms. Relaxed and loose, trusting that he'll take her weight without buckling and keep her safe from falling. It makes his chest ache and his eyes burn. He raises his chin, bringing his lips to her, only she dives down for him at the same moment, colliding together just this side of too much, too fast. Always so eager, the thought makes him groan deeply. She shivers in response and whines, so high pitched it makes his ears ring.

She's curling her fingers in his hair, using the leverage to tilt his head to the angle she wants while he kisses her. He's rubbing his lips over hers, making sure to apply enough pressure that her fair skin will show the beard burn later. When he feels her left arm begin to tense he goes to draw back to look at her… only for her to yank on his hair. He yelps, and she seizes the opportunity to delve her tongue into his mouth. Holy fuck, she is perfect.

And then she's abruptly pulling back. No no no no no no! 

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

Like a slap upside the head, you suddenly remember that you haven't showered...for three days. Fuuuuuuuck.

"Wait, wait Diego, hold on-" In the time it takes you to whine those five words he's already moved on to your neck. His left hand is threaded back into your hair and holds tight close to your scalp to gently but steadily pull. Just how you like it.

"Uhhhhhhhhh wuhhh…" Oh yes, so eloquent. He's rubbing that fucking goatee everywhere and you're about fourteen seconds away from passing out. You put your hands on his shoulders and start to push him backwards. He growls in displeasure and you whimper. Okay, maybe a little more, your traitorous brain isn't even helping here. You try again, "Baby, baby. I haven't. Oh god, yes. Uhh huh. Wait, just, can you pause? Mmmmmm… Oh my god, Diego stop!" Apparently barking works.

He growls again but manages to disengage from tormenting your neck with one last long lick. Do not think about that tongue! 

"Fucking what?" He mutters, breathing hard. "I cannot have you? Now?" How very Diego. He's blinking at you in agitated confusion, pupils blown wide and flushed lips parted. His hand in your hair is shaking, the other has sunk back down to grip your ass very, very securely.

You can feel your face flushing with embarrassment. Your gaze darts off to the left, this is mortifying.  "I haven't showered in three days. I smell." When you finally manage to make eye contact again he's grinning. Oh no.

"Oh si, Princess. I can smell you." His tone is arrogant, but the thickening of his accent betrays just how aroused he really is. His left hand slides down to your butt, too. That grin is all teeth, Pure apex predator. 

"Yeah, that's what I me-yeeeeen!" He doesn't let you finish. Instead he slides both hands under you, where ass meets thigh, and picks you up to deposit you back onto the couch. You always squeal in delight when he picks you up, That is never gonna get old. The moment your weight is on the cushion he brings his hands forward and then around your inner thighs to spread your legs wide. Before you can even register what is happening he dives down into your lap, burying his face in your crotch and inhaling deeply. 

While your brain has stalled in shock (because Are you fucking serious?) your hips have decided this is a great idea and lurched forward to practically hump his face. His exhale is the longest, loudest, sexiest groan you have ever heard. Your hands fly to his hair, but instead of pushing away they are definitely holding him in place. He's rubbing his face against you, turning his head from side to side, moaning endlessly like he can't get enough. 

Your brain finally catches up and you abruptly cut off the whine that's been pouring out of you. You just have to open your mouth, "Are you fucking serious right now? You like that?!?" 

With one last hard rub of his face against you, (FUCK YES, rub that bearded chin on my clit) he pulls back to look up at you. And if you thought he looked aroused before, he is positively wrecked now. His eyes are slitted in pleasure, brows drawn together with need, jaw slack, mouth open and panting. He doesn't keep you waiting for an answer. "Well, not your normal sexy bakery scent. You smell like you but just, more. Damn delicious." He growls. 

Okay, two things: 

You file 'sexy bakery' away for later discussion because wtf, lol.

And. And he really means that. He's dead serious. He has a death grip on your inner thighs, his hands are like steel. As if he's afraid you'll try to push him away, to stop him. Fat fucking chance, babe.

You cup his face with both hands and smile softly down at him. In wondrous amazement you whisper, "Holy fuck, I love you." The transformation of his expression from blissfully needy to Horny Murder Panther is damn near instantaneous.

"Good. Now gimme this pussy!" He orders. 

You laugh, but your hands fly to the drawstring of your pants in obedience. He erupts into a flurry of actions, pulling his jacket off to dump it on the floor behind him. He only gets as far as unbuttoning the cuffs on his sleeves before giving up and just ripping the shirt up and over his head to join his jacket. The sight of solidly muscled chest rippling like that short circuits your brain. What were you even doing? Was it drooling? Its definitely drooling now. 

His hands come back to your thighs, fingers digging deep into your soft flesh. He yanks you forward until your ass is hanging off the couch. You snap back to awareness and start frantically pushing your pants down. He grabs the waistbands of both your pants and underwear and hauls the whole mess down your legs at what has to be record speed. Before you have a chance to do anything else he's burying his face into your pussy like a starving man. 

He uses his flattened tongue to give you a long, slow, torturous lick from the bottom of your entrance to your clit. Your back arches to mirror his movements while you sob in pleasure. Then he does it again. And again. Over and over in an endless loop of wet decadent friction. He grips the backs of your thighs, the heels of his palms brushing your ass while his thumbs are buried in the creases where leg becomes hip. He pushes your legs back more yet, widening you further and practically folding you in half. You can't even bring yourself to be worried about how your squishy stomach compresses into rolls. Diego certainly doesn't care.

He changes tactics to latch onto your clit. Sealing his lips around you, he alternates between hard suction and softly sliding his tongue up under your hood to drive you mad. The direct pressure is almost too much, you whimper and squirm after only a few rounds of this. He leaves off and you think you're catching a break to breathe. You are so, so wrong.

He goes lower to literally lick you from bottom to top.

With a shriek, both of your hands fly to his head. "Holy fuck. Oh my god, oh my god. Baby. You. Oh god. Baby, fuck yessss… " What started out as some kind of blasphemous incantation ends in you hissing with unadulterated sin. He moans against you in response but doesn't stop. The incessant long strokes of his tongue have you closer to orgasm faster than you can ever remember it happening before. Your legs are shaking and tears are pouring from your eyes. You reach your right hand down to touch his left where he's holding your thigh, needing something, anything, to ground you. And he laces his fingers with yours. 

Your heart clenches. "Diego…" you whisper for him, sobbing from the intensity of everything. With a choppy groan he refocuses on your clit, ferociously determined. Your entire abdomen is tense, you're wound too tight. He presses his flattened tongue against you even harder, shortening his strokes just to cover your clit. It feels infinite, you can't tell where one lick ends and the next begins. Just constant, unyielding pleasure. It's too much, holy fuck it's too much, never stop.

Everything clicks into clear focus. Your pussy compresses tight on nothing, and then you snap. Your whole body seizes up with your orgasm. For one long, terrifying moment your heart pauses and your breathing stops. It all comes crashing back together and you suck in a lungful of air with a choking sob. Waves of agonizing pleasure wash over you, your body shuddering with each one. He's still pressing that incredible, miraculous, entirely evil tongue to your clit. Holding fast and drawing your climax out as long as possible. Growling against you with heavenly vibration. As the rounds of your clenching cunt ease in both intensity and frequency he slowly slides up and off of you. 

He rests his sweaty forehead against the inside of your right thigh, panting so hard his breath is hitting you with almost physical force. You pry your right hand off your own thigh, keep your fingers laced together, and bring his hand up to your chest where you lay it over your heart.

You keep your eyes closed while you brokenly cry. "I love you, Diego."

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

His right hand snakes up your body to slide around the back of your neck. He's pulling you forward, sitting you upright. His left hand slides back down to your hip where he grips you tightly and pulls toward him simultaneously. Your eyes pop open when you feel like you're going to fall off the couch. 

Diego scoops you back into his lap with your momentum and proceeds to just stand up. You yelp in surprise as your arms shoot around his neck to hold on. It takes a second to realize that you're essentially just sitting on his left forearm, his right hand is still gripping the back of your neck tightly. You moan in pure arousal, hiding your face against his shoulder. The fact that he just tosses you around like a ragdoll is so mind-meltingly hot. The sheer bulk and breadth of him never ceases to render you speechless. There's just so much Diego that he blocks out everything else. Its overwhelming in every sense. Let me just drown in Diego.

By the time you've contemplated your fate, bodice-ripper romance novel style, he's made it halfway down the hall to your bedroom. You tuck your legs tighter around his torso, the hallways in an old farmhouse aren't exactly spacious, and he purrs against you in response. Your body's physical reaction is so strong that you choke. Is there anything about this man that does not turn me on? 

He makes it to your bedroom without incident (a miracle, really, considering it looks like a bomb went off in your apartment) and deposits you on the bed. He's been so incredibly gentle with those huge hands that it takes you by surprise when he firmly grasps your jaw and growls at you. "Look at me."

You swallow, hard, and open your eyes. He's staring at you so intensely, his gaze unreadable. He uses his grip on you to slowly push you down onto your back. You don't even try to fight it. You're not sure what he's doing but it's very clear that he needs to do it. He squeezes your jaw with purpose and you blink up at him in confusion. He cocks his head and regards you like… well, like prey.

It's been a long time since he has made you nervous like this.

He finally releases your jaw to slide his hand down your throat and rest it over your pounding heart. He pulls the neckline of your camisole away from your body then allows it to softly snap back against you. "Take this off." His growl is quiet, but it still sets off alarm bells in some primal part of your brain. He sees the hesitation in your eyes and barks out, "Now!"

You whip the top off over your head before he loses any more patience and rips it off of you in shreds. His hand is back on your jaw, ensuring you look nowhere but at him. His breathing is harsh, you can see a muscle tic in his left cheek, and his eyes are wild. Feral, you shiver with the thought. "Stay, Princess." He orders softly and releases his hold on you. 

You don't dare move.

He straightens back upright and his hands go to his pants. You have a brief moment of hysteria, Have fun getting those impeccably tailored pants over that massive cock, but you manage to stifle the thought and keep your expression steady. He's toeing off his shoes while undoing the button, then pulling the zipper down. You watch his hands in fascination. It's an obsession you have no plans of shaking. He manages to get the pants over his hips with no problems, a complete lack of underwear always expedites the process. 

He moves to climb on the bed and you spread your legs for him like a reflex. This man has had a profound effect on you. Before you get too far he throws his left leg over both of yours, straddling you and effectively immobilizing you. You reach up for him as he plants his elbows just outside of yours and cups your face in those hands you so adore. Your own hands land on his shoulders and he allows it, for now. You try to urge him down on top of you, but he's not budging. You want to touch more, feel all of him, but he's just looming over you to block out the rest of existence.

His hands are like iron, caging you in to bend you to his will. His eyes search your face, you have no idea what he's seeking. Finally, he rumbles down at you, "Do you know what you did?"

The question is soft, dangerously so. You can feel yourself starting to shake. You have a sneaking suspicion that there is no right answer so you just shake your head in a 'no'. He cocks his head again and you find yourself blinking rapidly. His eye twitches when he finally answers, "You scared me."

You're shocked. Never in a million years would you have expected this man to straightforwardly admit fear. He leans in close to your face and your breathing hitches. "I'm sorry." You whimper. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I never meant to scare you." You don't even recognize your own voice. Its small, plaintive and timid. 

He moves back upright and kneels over you. His expression is only becoming more fierce. You start to draw your legs out from under him, curling up some, instinctively seeking to protect yourself. "You didn't mean to?" He rumbles incredulously. His eyebrows are rising and you can feel actual anger radiating off of him. 

He snaps, "You didn't mean for me to drop everything I was doing?" And faster than you can comprehend his right hand comes down on the outside of your left thigh. The sharp sound of the slap echoes in your tiny room. Your jaw drops in shock, then the pain blooms out from the point of impact. You look from his face to his hand, then back again. "Diego, I--"

"You didn't mean for me to cancel two drop receivements and a business meeting?" His hand comes down again, but you're already moving. You try to turn away, rolling your legs to the right. His hand lands on your left hip, fingers long enough to catch the outside of your cheek. You shriek and start trying to escape in earnest. His left hand shoots down and grabs both of your wrists, stopping you from pulling yourself away from him. "Diego! Wait, I don't--" 

He clamps his legs around yours and uses your momentum against you to turn your hips entirely to the side. He has both your wrists pinned down in a bruising grip. Your shoulders are flat on the bed, there's nowhere you can hide your face. "No! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause--"

"You didn't mean for me to take an immediate flight across the entire country?" This time the slap lands fully on your ass. And it hurts. You yelp as tears spill over your cheeks. "No! I'm sorry! Please--"

"You didn't mean for me to drive two hours from the airport after I've been awake for almost two days?" His volume has risen, he's practically yelling. His hand comes down again, lower this time to catch the bottom of your cheek, where it becomes the tender skin of thigh. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! No I didn't--"

"You didn't mean for me to find you here like this? Having some sort of tantrum like a child?" He roars. This time there are three slaps, one right after the next, all landing in the same spot. Your shrieks are coming out in stutters, interspersed with gasping inhalations. "No! No no no! I'm sorry! I'm sorry Diego! I'm sorry!" You're sobbing with it, choking on humiliation. You can't hide your face, there's nowhere to run from this.

"Or you didn't mean for me to find out that you cared? Huh? That you love me!" His voice cracks over the sound of his near constant strikes. You're wailing in tears, "Yes! Yes! Okay! Damnit Diego, I'm sorry! I was afraid! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry…" you dissolve into incoherence. 

He releases your wrists and grabs your face again. You try to push him away, but you're too weak. "Look at me! Look at me, Bicki!" he hisses. You shake your head no. "Mirame, Princesa! Please, please." His voice is hoarse, dripping with fear and desperation. You open your eyes to find him right in your face. His expression is twisted up with pain and desire. "You cannot do this! I have to know you are safe! Protected! Let me keep you!" 

It suddenly dawns on you what he means with 'keep'. He wants to protect you yes, but what he really means is 'have' you. Present in his life. At his side. Your heart in his keeping.

His hands are stroking you, over your hair, down your arms. He grips your hands tightly, bringing them up to his face. You hold onto him, your only constant in this. "Diego.." you hiccup. Then, with no warning and no conscious command on your part, you slap him. Hard. 

You're both frozen in place, equally shocked. Staring at each other in escalating tension. You sniffle and it launches him into action.

He grabs your left hip in a bruising grip, pushing your leg to your chest, pulling it out from under him so he can get between your thighs. You frantically claw at his shoulders, his biceps, anything to pull him closer. You need him. Right now. You need him so deep inside you that you don't know where he ends and you begin. 

He slides home in one powerful thrust. Your whole back arches and you grimace in excruciating ecstasy. The stretch of it burns, it hurts so perfectly. His left hand is wrapped around your left thigh, holding you open for him, his right on your left shoulder, keeping you steady and still for him to bottom out. He stays there, grinding his cock into you as far as possible. Still trying to push the last few inches into you. Your vision blacks out and you scream yourself hoarse with your orgasm. 

When you come back to awareness he's kissing all over your face, murmuring your name. You turn your face to his, seeking. He fits his lips over yours and you both moan. You pet over his shoulders, reach back up to tug on his hair.

He starts a steady rhythm of long, slow strokes. You can feel every damn inch of him and it's so incredibly, deliriously good. You open your mouth to him and he deepens the kiss, tongue moving to match his hips. He tastes like you. All you can smell is his cologne, underscored by pure lustful male. This is indescribable. Each and every one of your senses is nothing but Diego.

His right hand glides down to cup your breast, hefting the weight of it and rubbing his thumb over your nipple. You break off the kiss to throw your head back, whining in pleasure. His lips trail down your neck, beard leaving fire in his wake. He laves his tongue over your nipple before latching on and suckling. You can feel another orgasm approaching, and so can he.

"That's it, Princess. Come for me. Show Diego what a good girl you are." His hoarse voice and soft commands push you right over the edge. You're rippling down around him, sobbing and nodding. Yes, yes, your perfect little princess. 

He picks up the pace, the force of his thrusts rocking the bed into the wall with a steady banging. You can't seem to care. You're whining and pleading, "I'm sorry, please please. Yes baby, yesyesyesyesss…" 

"I know," he coos softly to you. "You are so very sorry, aren't you?" You're nodding desperately in agreement. "Will you do this again? Huh?" You shake your head 'no' so fast it makes you dizzy. His words would be condescending if his tone wasn't so very emotional. It's okay. You need him to vocalize what you can't. And he knows it. He knows you.

He pushes your left leg out to the side, sliding his right hand up your thigh to grip your hip. His left hand travels down your back between you and the bed. Through nothing but raw power he lifts your wide hips and rotates you so you're flat on your back and fully open to him. You keen at the show of strength, just like he knew you would. 

"Are you going to be a good little Princess for Diego?"  When you don't answer he pulls back and stops. Your eyes snap open and you whimper in desperation. He's watching you, waiting. His brows are drawn together in concentration and his jaw is set tight. Those beautiful brown eyes are nearly black with hunger. He digs his nails into your hips while he waits. 

You struggle with gathering enough oxygen before you can answer, "Yes, yes I'll be good. Be good for you, I promise!" You aren't sure who is in control of your mouth right now. You don't feel like you have any control. He rewards you by filling you up completely. Your eyes roll back into your head, taking all of him at once always steals your breath. 

He stays fully sheathed and leans over you. Bringing your knees up to your shoulders and his face to yours, he takes your lips under his. You sob into his mouth, you can feel the head of him pressing against your cervix. He nips your bottom lip then swipes his tongue over the sting. "Does my princess want this? Does she want Diego to keep her?" 

You cling to his shoulders. Closing your eyes in chagrin, you nod. He keeps his face pressed to yours. "Tell Diego. I need to hear it!" He hisses. 

"Yes. Want you to keep me. Please." you whisper, broken and needing.  He rears back and starts a frantic pace. His thrusts are short and brutal, stabbing directly into the core of you. You can do nothing but howl in pleasure and take it. Your spasms around him are nearly constant, one after another you come in rolling waves. You're begging, or cursing, hell, you have no idea what's coming out of your mouth at this point. 

He brings the weight of his torso down on you, crushing you into the bed. "Come! Come now! Come, my princess, come for your Diego!" His words are a command, but his voice is begging.

You're bawling again. "Yes, yesyesyes. Diego, Diego pleeeeease!" You have no idea if he can understand you. You're pretty sure only dogs could hear that. "Please Please please please please, baby. Please. Need you. I love you!"

He buries his face in your hair and drops your legs in favor of engulfing your shoulders in his embrace. You wrap your legs around his hips, you have to keep him as close to you as possible. Your arms snake around his torso, squeezing tight to bring your chest up against his. He's grunting, his thrusts becoming erratic. 

Then you hear him. His voice is quiet, words pleading, "Come. Let me keep you. Please, please. C-come. Princess, need you. Come home with me!" You nod tightly, sobbing silently as he freezes up in orgasm. He chokes out a groan, then collapses on top of you. You welcome the weight of him. He nuzzles into your neck, tickling you with beard and a big sigh. "Love you."

It hurts. It hurts deep in your chest. You hope it never stops hurting like this.

He retreats out of you, faster than you would like. You're pretty sure he forgets just how large he is. You feel wrung out, stretched out of shape and hollow. He pulls his right arm out from under you and rolls off to flop face-up on your right side. His left arm is still trapped under your back. Do you care that it's lumpy and uncomfortable? Nah. You unearth your right leg from under both of his and he makes a whiny huff about it.

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

He's struggling to catch his breath. He didn't mean for things to get so… out of hand. So to speak. She always does this to him. She withholds her more serious emotions and it drives him crazy. She never makes a fuss about his responses, never freaks out when he shows her affection, never gasps in shock when he gives her his ultimate deference. She acts like she has no deep feelings for him and it makes him want to beat it out of her. Apparently that is the correct method.

Her body is relaxed and casual on his arm. But he's greedy and doesn't want her to seal off all those delectably vulnerable emotions she just displayed. Soft, pliant, obedient, needy Princess is his new favorite.

He rolls her into his side with his trapped left hand while rumbling softly, "Come here." And she does. She snuggles into his side willingly and it makes him feel so soft that it's disgusting. Or maybe that's the guilt. She didn't agree to the spanking before hand. She didn't even know it was coming. Honestly, neither had he. His next thought feels like a stab to the lungs. What if she is afraid of me now? Did I hurt her? This is disgustingly emotional.

"Princess?" She sighs a soft 'Mmmm' in answer. She burrows into the coarse hair and soft skin of his underarm. Is, is she sniffing me?? He decides that ignoring her utterly adorable weirdness and addressing the ceiling is his safest option at this point. "Are… are you hurt? Did I hurt you?" 

Her left hand freezes on his chest. Her face slowly creeps into his field of vision from the bottom left corner. Her expression is… mystifying. He keeps his head still but moves his eyes to his peripheral vision to squint at her in concerned concentration.

Slowly, ever so slowly, her lips curve up in an absolutely evil grin. That damn left eyebrow arches imperiously and he is completely certain that she will be the death of him.

"Did you hear me use the safeword?"

#Damnit Diego #murder panther #rough me up then dick me down #24 fucking 7 hours in this house #soft kitty #zash writes #all the feels #this is gross #love confessions

[stranger-writer]

A Bowers’ Bet (Part 3)

Sorry for the long wait on this one! I hope you enjoy!

Summary: When Henry and Patrick make a twisted pact on who can steal Derry High’s most inexperienced student’s virginity first, they think it will be their most exciting game yet. But what happens when one starts to develop feelings, while the other is determined as ever to win, no matter what or who is standing in their way? A Bowers Bet (Part 2)

On Saturday morning, Juliet’s parents left for an overnight for one of her father’s business trips. Her mom typically went along with him, but only if it consisted of a night or two and if Jennifer’s mother was going along as well. Juliet met her close friend Jennifer through their dads since they both worked for the same company. Their families were persistent in upholding their respectable, high status in Derry. Jennifer’s mom, Theresa, was a lawyer, a very dignified woman that Juliet quite admired. However in Jennifer’s case, having two successful parents who were hardly ever home meant coping with her loneliness by excessively and maybe even purposely, using her parent’s credit card when they were gone. 

Juliet knew a shopping trip was in order, Jennifer always planned one whenever both parents were out of town. Even though the two girls have been best friends for years, their personalities couldn’t be any more polar opposite. Jennifer’s track record of guys is impressive while Juliet’s is clean, Jennifer cheerleads while Juliet is in literary club, Jennifer is the life of the party while Juliet has only been to two in her lifetime. But that’s kind of what makes their friendship work. They each have a tendency of balancing each other out and sometimes bringing out different side to them that no one would expect.

Juliet has the devil on her right shoulder and the angel on her left as she sat in the car with Jennifer, deciding if she should tell her about Henry or just keep her mouth shut. Deep down she knew what her reaction would be, but maybe if she explained everything from the poem and how wonderful last night went, she’d understand. Although at the moment, Jennifer was much too preoccupied with going on and on about how Gretta was sabotaging her by making the cheer team wear their hair entirely up instead of having the option to do half up, half down.

“The whole school is going to see my huge fucking dumbo ears because she needs the attention taken off of her horrendous overbite,” Jennifer hisses before changing the radio station. Juliet quietly chuckles at her as the only sound between them is the low hum of Mick Jagger and the harsh wind from the windows being slightly open.

 “You’re quiet,” Jennifer states in her typical blunt manner, eyes on the road, being able to read Juliet without even having to look at her. 

“No I’m not,” Juliet defends, staring out the window, knowing if she as much glances towards her direction she’ll crack.

“Juliet we have known each other since we were eight. At this point, I know you almost better than I know myself. Tell.” 

Juliet slowly turns her head towards her while biting down on her lip, trying to hide her immense blushing and smirk just from the thought of Henry before letting out a soft giggle. Jennifer begins to gasp, knowing the look on Juliet’s face means only one thing. “Stop it right now! Who’s the guy?!” Jennifer rushes, her eyes widening with pure anticipation.

“Well...,” Juliet hums smiling, causing Jennifer to slightly swerve the car a little too far to the right.  

“Juliet,” Jennifer warns in her typical voice that means “stop beating around the bush and say it.” 

“W-well it’s just like, Ugh-I don’t know, i-it’s nothing serious yet, but-”

“For fucks sake Juliet, I hate when you stutter like that kid Bill Denbrough, just spit it out,” Jennifer demands, her patience running thin.

“I went on a date last night with Henry Bowers,” Juliet responds, causing Jennifer to slam on her brakes in the middle of the neighborhood, causing Juliet’s body to be yanked to the point where she almost got rammed into the glove compartment. “Jesus Jennifer,” Juliet scolds, rubbing the back of her neck from the sudden jolt she experienced from the abrupt stop of the car.

“Henry Bowers?” Jennifer pronounces the name slowly, her tone in disbelief mixed with a whole lot of judgement and well, repugnance. “Have you lost your mind? You were too scared to ask the waiter for ketchup last week, but you went on a date with Henry fucking Bowers? Please tell me you only went because he had you held up at gunpoint.”

Juliet knew how unbelievable it sounded coming out of her mouth, but how could she convince her that it was one of the best times out she’s ever had?

“I get it. I know his reputation, but he’s-he’s different, I swear, he-”

“God Juliet, don’t be so naive,” Jennifer interrupts, rolling her eyes. “Henry is known as Derry’s scum for a reason. He’s dirty. He’s gross. And even worse,” Jennifer pauses, her nose scrunching in disgust, “He’s poor.”

Juliet’s fingers begin to rub her temples in distress, immediately regretting her decision of even mentioning Henry to her in the first place. Jennifer finally takes her foot off the brakes and continues driving, but her rant was far from over. “I mean come on Jules, you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. That whole gang is fucked up. They only flirt with girls like you for one reason.” Jennifer states, having a hard time deciphering how she should choose her words without being a little too brutally honest.

Juliet snaps her eyes away from the passing houses from the window and swung her head to face her. “And what’s that?” Juliet persists defensively, her eyes piercing at Jennifer.

Jennifer huffs, her stare intent while looking out onto the road contemplating what to say next. “Because you’re an easy target,” Jennifer murmurs, her voice low, but more calm. “You have never been seen at school with a boyfriend or really any guy for that matter and they can smell your inexperience from a mile away. He’s using you. I’m sorry, but guys like Henry don’t fall for girls like you.”

Juliet could feel some tears begging to break loose, but she pushes the feeling aside. “You mean girls who are at the bottom of the school’s hierarchy?”

“You know that’s not what I mean. You’re beautiful and smart and kind and deserve somebody better than Bowers. I’m just telling you his intentions can’t be good. Him and the other ones hit on every girl that has a pulse,” Jennifer responds, sticking an unlit cigarette in her mouth before she continues on and says, “They see someone shy and untouched like you giving them a chance and go fucking ecstatic.”

“That’s not true,” Juliet mutters, shaking her head in defense while staring down at her hands nestled on top of her lap. “Henry told me he would never hurt me and that I was safe with him.” There was a part of Juliet that could feel herself sounding like one of those girls she would roll her eyes at in a cheesy romance movie. Was it honestly too good to be true?

“I know you try to live your life trying not to be noticed, but guess what? You are. People see you. Henry sees you. He sees someone fragile, someone who he thinks he can easily control and manipulate.” Jennifer responds before taking a puff of her cigarette.

“You are always telling me how I should loosen up and try to put myself out there more, and now you’re giving me shit for finally going out with someone?” Juliet chides, her voice slightly raising. Juliet could tell she was getting irritated because she started talking not only loudly, but with her hands.

“Yeah Juliet, but that wasn’t secret code for me telling you to go out with the school’s biggest psychopath and not even tell me about it beforehand. What the fuck were you thinking?” Jennifer scolds, her tone harsh, making Juliet recoil in her seat. An awkward and tension-filled silence immerses in the car, causing the two close friends to suddenly feel distant.

Jennifer finally breaks the stillness and says, “Look. We’re going to the mall. Let’s get you a cute outfit for Gretta’s party tonight and you can come with me and you’ll see that you’re more than capable of meeting someone who isn’t a total delinquent.”

Juliet wanted nothing more than to decline her offer that sounded like a demand than an option, but it’s bad enough she had to keep Henry from her mother, she didn’t need Jennifer added onto the list and on her case about it as well. She thought maybe if she just went for a bit and pretended for Jennifer’s sake, she’d make everyone happy.

“Fine,” Juliet huffs, slouching back in her seat while crossing her arms.

Juliet is used to having to deal with what life throws at her alone. Between having a mother and best friend who shares similar traits of being dismissive and controlling, she felt like she was always more worried about pleasing other people instead of worrying about what actually made her happy. Henry gave Juliet a certain kind of attention that she wasn’t used to receiving from anyone. He made her feel understood, special, pretty enough, smart enough, but most importantly, Henry made Juliet feel like being herself was good enough. Juliet wasn’t going to let anybody get in the way of that. Not this time.

………………………………………………………………………………………

The last party Juliet attempted going to was last December. Similar to now, Jennifer begged and convinced her how much of a good time it’d be until it resulted in Tyler Brian barfing all over Juliet’s lap mid-conversation. She can only hope that history won’t repeat itself.

The black dress Jennifer picked for her was slightly sexy, but not too much to where it strayed far from Juliet’s character. The sweetheart neckline was cute with a very tiny black bow that was attached right in the middle. It was also a quarter sleeve and babydoll style. Jennifer pleaded that she wear heels, however, Juliet absolutely refused because she didn’t want to meet anyone new in the first place and her leather black booties would go just fine with it. To no surprise, Jennifer handled not only her wardrobe, but makeup too. She blushed and hollowed out her cheekbones, glossed her lips, and applied some cat eyeliner to enhance her eye shape, which surprisingly Juliet liked, even if she did still have to wear her glasses over them. 

Juliet’s knee was uncontrollably bouncing up and down the whole ride there. She could already hear the music blaring from outside before they even drove up to the house. Her heart almost jumped in her throat though when she saw the infamous Trans Am parked in the sea of cars that were in Gretta’s driveway, causing her leg to stop shaking. Oh no. As soon as Jennifer parked along the sidewalk, she turned the ignition off and began clapping her hands fast in an excited way. “We’re here! You ready?”

No.

“Yeah!” Juliet exclaims in her best, fake eager voice she could muster.

When they walked inside the large, red brick house, Juliet immediately sees a staircase decorated with people from school either talking, smoking, or making out. Her eyes shift to the left where it was the Keene’s living room, but was currently being occupied as a dance floor flooded with sweat, alcohol, and hormones.

Juliet didn’t want to admit to herself that she couldn’t help but feel somewhat paranoid Henry was here. Would he be happy to see her? Confused? Angry? “Let’s go grab a drink,” Jennifer yells in Juliet’s ear because of the blaring music, interrupting her thoughts. Juliet nods as they walk down the hall to where more couples were lingering on the sides of the wall, kissing.  

When Jennifer walked into the kitchen, she was immediately greeted by Gretta and a few other girls as well as a group of boys who hollered at her as soon as she stepped in. Juliet lingered by her side.

It wasn’t hard for Juliet to not feel Gretta’s typical judgemental stare as she eyed her up and down. Moments like this was the reason why Juliet would never want to be able to read minds. “Interesting seeing you here Juliet,” Gretta sneers in a tone that could only be described as condescending and then says, “Nice dress. For once it doesn’t look like something your grandmother picked out.” This causes a fit of giggles from her posse that are attached at her hip.

“Nice frizzy ponytail that you wear every single day,” Jennifer quickly intervenes before grabbing Juliet’s hand to lead her near the sink where all the glass bottles of drinks were laid out. “Your ability to be quick on the spot never fails to impress me,” Juliet smirks while nudging her shoulder with hers, earning a wink from Jennifer.

“Here,” Jennifer offers, handing Juliet a red solo cup. “It’ll ease the nerves,” she grins with a mischievous glint in her eyes before taking a sip. Juliet gave her a small smile, deciding it would be best to at least try it. Her eyebrows raise immediately at the strong concoction Jennifer mixed together, deciding it would be best to not finish this unless she wants to be found blacked out on the front lawn.

“Shots time!” Peter Macintosh shouted, his cheeks flushed from what was most likely the high amount of alcohol he has already consumed. He was a heavy set guy, who for some reason always looked sweaty and wore his jersey pretty much everyday. He was only useful on the team for his size since he could tackle just about anyone. This was Juliet’s que to relocate elsewhere for a few minutes.

“I’m going to run to the bathroom real quick,” Juliet says while lightly grasping Jennifer’s arm.

“Use the one upstairs. The bathroom that’s down the hall is always where Tommy Johnson and Pam Kirkland are fucking each other’s brains out,”Jennifer informs, physically shuddering at the thought of when she had accidentally interupted one of their sessions last time.

“Good to know,” Juliet chuckles, shaking the vivid thought away before nudging her way through the intoxicated crowd that was beginning to form. Once she reached the staircase and begins walking up them, she couldn’t help the strange feeling like someone had their eyes on her.

…………………………………………………………………………………

“Any fucking time now Criss,” Henry huffs, waiting for Vic to hand him a cigarette while he was pulling one out of his pack. He was in his usual, typical annoyed stance with his arms crossed while leaning against the house, impatient as ever. Him, Patrick, Vic, and Belch were huddled outside on the back patio smoking, each with a beer bottle in their hands. 

Casey Fletcher walked by them and Belch couldn’t help but turn around to get another last glance at her ass before turning back around to face his friends. “Is it just me or is there a lot of hot chicks here tonight?” Belch asks, swigging his beer back.

Vic nodded, seeming to still be mesmerized at Casey’s backside as Henry only shrugged. Belch and Patrick give each other a knowing look, seeing how that reaction wasn’t a normal one for Henry. This would be the part where he agreed and told them what he’d like to do with a girl who had an ass like that. But tonight he was off and they could all tell.

“What’s the matter Bowers, don’t see a bitch here we can share like last week?” Patrick taunts. Henry rolls his eyes, remembering the dumb blonde girl whose name he didn’t even know because well, he didn’t even ask. She wanted to take turns which resulted in Patrick having his first go and once he was finished he tossed her right over to Henry.

“All I see are a bunch of easy sluts who try too hard,” Henry utters under his breath, checking briefly over the girls who are standing on the other side of the pool who were unshamefully giving, as the gang would call it, their best “fuck me” eyes. 

Vic snickers before he mumbles, “Somebody’s whipped,” causing a breathy chuckle from Belch and Patrick.

“The fuck you say?” Henry asked, but it was in fact a warning.

“He said your whipped man,” Patrick responds for Vic before he continues and says, “Pretty little Juliet most have swept ole Henry here off his feet. Awh, how sweet is that?” This causes an amused reaction out of the boys. Patrick knew what he was doing. He wanted to get a rise out of Henry. He wanted to edge him on. Rile him up. Make him do something that could work out in his favor. 

“I ain’t fucking whipped alright. Has anyone forgotten that she’s just a fuckin’ bet? All I got from last night is that she’s just another needy bitch with mommy issues who’ll jump at the chance to spread her legs if it means adding some excitement to her boring life,” Henry responds, the words tasting disgusting coming out of his own mouth. He didn’t mean what he said, but he refuses to have his friends, especially Patrick, thinking she has even in the slightest, meddled her way into his stone cold heart.

Patrick however, knows his bluff. He hid in the woods and eavesdropped last night when Juliet and him were in the treehouse. He knew that she in fact wasn’t exactly easy considering she freaked the minute Bowers touched the waistband of her panties, but secondly, he knew Henry opened up a bit about his dad to her. Patrick couldn’t tell if that was a ploy to get her to feel bad for him or if he was being genuine. However his lack of eagerness to get any action tonight is evident that Henry might in fact be developing the worst F word in his book. Feelings. 

“Sounding a little cocky there Bowers,” Patrick responds, crossing his arms over his chest.

Henry laughs before saying, “Says you. At this point you should honestly just call the fucking bet off. She was all over me last night and I think she's made it clear that she wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole. Face it Hockstetter, I’ll have her underneath me by next week.”

If Patrick wasn’t certain before, he is definitely certain now. He could see what Henry was trying to do. Persuading him to call the bet off so he can walk away hands clean with the girl who he thought was just another mediocre virgin to fuck in Derry. No. As far as Patrick is concerned, Juliet belongs to him. Henry can try to convince Patrick all he wants that he has no chance, but he remembers that look Juliet gave him in the movie theater. He sees how she’s into Henry regardless of his well known, fucked up reputation. Henry and him were one in the same. Patrick knows the kind of girl Juliet is. She’s attracted to people who are broken, people who need to be fixed. That’s the only reason why she instantly fell for Henry first, because she thinks there’s hope for him. Patrick has no problem playing his part until she sees the truth.

“If you think she’ll easily fuck you first then why call the bet off early? Isn’t that the whole point why we made it in the first place?” Patrick retorted, his cheshire grin growing from ear to ear. Henry could hear the teasingness in his tone and realized that Patrick could sense what he was trying to get at, so Henry attempted to play it off the best way he could. “I’m just sayin.’ You got a lot of catching up to do Hockstetter. Thought I’d be nice and give you a little warning to save you from the embarrassment later,” Henry smirks while patting him on the back.

“I appreciate that,” Patrick responds, reciprocating the action by giving Henry’s shoulder a friendly pat, but instead he doesn’t release his shoulder and pulls him in closer, his mouth inches away from his ear. “But the only one who’s going to be embarrassed here is you when I’m balls deep inside your little girlfriend’s tight virgin pussy, wrecking her fucking insides.”

Henry has to physically bite his tongue on the right side of his mouth to prevent from attacking him on the spot. At the end of the day, Juliet is technically a bet that Henry conjured up in the first place. Henry couldn’t show any possession over her, no matter how much he likes her, no matter how crazy it drove him. He releases an amused huff, wishing he could actually drown him in the pool.

“But for now,” Patricks states, his tone a lot more uplifting as he wipes the shoulders of Henry’s jacket, “Let’s play with what we’ve got right here.” He grins, referring to one of the girls that was staring at them earlier with his pointer and middle finger.

Henry knew if he turned down the offer, he’d look like the biggest bitch of all time. What guy says no to pretty girls practically yearning to get any sort of attention from them? But the thing was that these girls weren’t Juliet. They didn’t look like her, act like her, or even laugh like her, but all Henry could do is play along and keep the twisted mentality that whatever Juliet doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

The brunette Patrick beckoned over, whose name was apparently Tracy, seemed to be the most interested in Henry, however, she was quite the talkative one. She wasn’t getting Henry’s not so subtle signs of disinterest in conversation as he responded to everything with a monotone one worded answer and the habitual way he continuously kept flicking his pocket knife in and out. Patrick and Vic actually got so bored they ended up ditching Henry and thought walking over to the other side of the lawn to watch a drunk Peter barbecue Doritos was a much better source of entertainment.

Patrick and Vic started to make their way back to Henry, Tracy, and Belch, passing the patio’s white french doors again until Vic’s clunky, black combat boots come to a stop. 

“Oh shit!” Vic busts out laughing, which causes Patrick to turn around and see what the hell was so funny. Patrick stalks slowly towards him and mimiks his stance. “Look who showed up,” Vic smirks right as Patrick sees Juliet on the other side of the clear glass door. He licks his lips, taking in her appearance. Her all black, short dress is enough for him to already feel a slight hard on in his jeans. Her hair was down and loose like usual, with her petite glasses still adorning her face, but the fact that she was wearing clothes that actually fit her and the more heavily applied makeup made the two boys have no choice but to gawk at her for a minute. 

“Damn. She looks hot,” Vic observed, crouching behind a bush so the two could have a closer look without their ogling being too obvious. “But I wonder what she’s doing here. I’ve never seen her at parties and I know Henry didn’t invite her.”

“I don’t know why the hell she’s here either Vic, but it must be my lucky fucking day,” Patrick mutters, staring at her intently. He could tell that regardless of how good she looked, she was uncomfortable. The way she kept glancing at the ground and the nervous way she was toying with her necklace was a clear sign that she didn’t wake up this morning and say “there’s nothing more I’d love to do today than go to a wild high school party.” Patrick felt sort of jealous, hating how he wasn’t behind the cause of her anxiety at the moment. Soon though.

“I gotta go tell Henry, he’s going to absolutely lose his shit,” Vic chuckles all giddy, getting ready to stand up before Patrick grabs him by the collar, yanking him harshly back down.

“Don’t say a word to him that she’s here or I’ll fucking cut your tongue out and make you wipe my ass with it. I want to see the look on that fucker’s face when he sees her here himself,” Patrick sternly warns, not wanting to tell Vic exactly what he has planned.

“Alright, Jesus I won’t. Let go of me dick bag,” Vic shrugs, nudging Patrick’s grip off him. Vic brushes the knees of his camo pants and starts to walk back towards Henry again. He couldn’t feel Patrick’s presence near him and his senses were proven right when he turns around and sees Patrick stepping into the house, closing the door behind him. Vic quietly snickered to himself, knowing it was only a matter of time before shit was about to hit the fan.  

When Patrick enters the house, he spots Juliet down the hall. He watches and follows behind her closely before she reaches the steps and carefully walks up the stairs while holding the banister. As soon as she gets to the top, that’s Patrick’s que to begin heading up there as well.

……………………………………………………………………………

Juliet started analyzing the Keene’s bathroom decorations, realizing exactly what she was starting to do. Quit stalling, she thought to herself before shaking her head and giving herself one last glance over in the mirror before opening the door.

As she was walking she heard what sounded like a muffled scream coming from one of the rooms on the right hand side. She stopped and slowly tiptoed her way closer to the door until Juliet heard a girl’s moaning and then it all clicked. Oh.

“Sounds like fun,” a voice says, making Juliet frantically spin around to see none other than Patrick Hockstetter.

“Patrick, hey! I didn’t see you there,” Juliet smiles nervously, having no clue how someone with his height can have this special talent to pop up out of nowhere.

“Listening in?” he questions with a smirk, the sound of the headboard banging into the wall now apparent.

“No! Oh, god no,” Juliet laughs, running a hand through her hair. “I was using the bathroom and came out and heard a girl screaming and got nervous for a sec, but uhm- yeah I, uhh, thinks she alright,” she chuckles, making Patrick simper from her innocent response.

“So what brings you here?” Patricks asks.

“I just told y-”

“No, I mean like the party. I’ve never seen you at any before,” Patricks states, leaning on the side of his shoulder and resting his head against the wall.

“Jennifer wanted me to go with her so I thought I’d just come for a little while,” Juliet explained, not wanting to get into detail as to why Jennifer insisted on her being here tonight.

“Henry didn’t invite you?” Patrick asks, his eyebrows knitted together in curiosity. Juliet shakes her head, feeling stupid that the boy she just went on a date with last night was at the same party, but she was trying to almost avoid him for reasons she didnt know why. 

“Huh. Weird,” Patrick quietly mutters under his breath. sliding his shoulder alongside the wall to inch closer to her. His response suddenly made Juliet feel self conscious. How come he didn’t ask her to go to Gretta’s party? Was he embarrassed of her? Maybe he knew she didn’t go to parties and thought it’d be stupid to even ask?

“You’re not having fun are you?” Patrick observes, a sly smile forming on his lips.

“I mean I’ve only been here for about fifteen minutes, 7 of those minutes I’ve spent in the bathroom so…” Jennifer bites down on her lip, suppressing a shy smirk which made it extremely difficult for Patrick to restrain himself from pushing her into one of the empty bedrooms. 

“Does Henry even know you’re here?” Patrick asks, and it’s like Juliet can feel he already knows the answer.

“No I haven’t seen him yet. Like I said, I really haven’t been here very long,” Juliet explains, twirling her necklace between her fingers. Patrick notices the nervous habit and begins to feel exhilarated.

“Well he’s right downstairs. Let’s go surprise him, he’ll be thrilled to see that you’re here, especially since I heard you two uhh...really kicked it off last night,” Patrick winks, grabbing her wrist and leading her down the rest of the hallway. Juliet felt confused in the way Patrick said that, but she couldn’t even think clearly with Patrick practically dragging her so fast that she almost tripped going down the staircase. Once they reached the bottom he motions for her to take the lead as he stands directly behind her. 

“Do you know where he is?”Juliet turns her head to ask him.

“Last I saw he was talking outside to some girl named Tracy,” Patrick responds casually, pretending to search for him in the living room, knowing exactly what he was doing. Juliet couldn’t help but feel the tiny pit in her stomach grow in size. She didn’t know if she was being completely played or acting totally crazy over a boy she has gone out with only one time. 

“C’mon. Maybe he’s still out back,” Patrick says in her ear before walking in front of her as she follows close behind. He opens one of the french doors and she takes in how there’s quite a lot of people out here as well. Between the ones hanging around the perimeter of the pool, or the guys to the far right playing some sort of drunk version of football, Juliet briefly glances around the area. That is, until her eyes suddenly land on Henry’s back. His arm is wrapped around some girl’s waist. She’s whispering something in his ear, causing Henry to smirk as he pulls her in closer, his mouth inches from hers as he says something Juliet can’t hear, but it causes her to start kissing down Henry’s neck.

Patrick notices Juliet has spotted them because of her obvious stare and her face that portrayed nothing but disappointment. “Well that’s not Tracy,” Patrick clears his throat as if what he’s witnessing is awkward, even though he’s the one who perfectly managed to make Juliet catch Henry in the act. 

Suddenly, Belch and Vic walk up to them, the look on their faces completely different. Vic’s was more friendly while Belch’s was full of concern.

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun,” Vic mocks in his best shakespearean voice he can summon while giving a bow.

Juliet swallows her utter dismay and smiles at Vic. “Impressive,” she smirks, causing Vic to grin back at her. Belch interjects when he says, “Hey Juliet, Henry would be so happy to see you here. Let me go get him, I know he’s around here somewhere.” This was his poor attempt to try and cover Henry’s ass, but he knew in that moment it was most likely too late.

“No.” Juliet demands, her voice so stern that it almost surprises herself. The three boys gaze at her in a bit of a shock. “Let’s go say hi to him together,” Juliet offers, putting on a brave face. As much as Juliet just wanted to go home and cry in her room, she realized she was over everyone thinking she was like some china doll that’s could break easily. Her heart may feel broken but it was her mission in that moment to make sure no one saw the cracks.

“O-Okay,” Belch stutters, watching in bewilderment as Juliet takes heading towards Henry. The unknown girl is still draped all over him, but Juliet wasn’t annoyed at the poor girl having a good time. 

Once the three of them approach him, Juliet gently taps him on the shoulder, causing Henry to turn around. His initial face was of pure annoyance until he realizes who’s standing behind him. He quickly yanked his hand away from the blonde’s side and his mouth opened slightly, but no words were coming out.

“Juliet,” Henry observes, taking in her appearance while also in complete shock that’s she even standing in front of him in the first place. A million thoughts and questions were racing through his head, making for once, Henry Bowers actually speechless.

“Hi,” Juliet responds, her voice soft, deliberately acting like she was unfazed. There was a few seconds of awkward silence before the unknown girl helps breaks the ever present tension when she says to Juliet, “I love your dress! I almost bought the same one at the mall, but they didn’t have my size.”

“Thank you! My friend actually picked it out. You see, she wanted me to come to this party to meet someone because I went out with this guy last night who she thinks is a total waste of time. Told me I could do so much better,” Juliet looks so her eyes are now instead staring right into Henry’s. “Turns out she was right.” 

This results in a fit of breathy chuckles coming from Patrick and Vic while Juliet maintains her cool. Henry’s piercing blue eyes were like daggers into hers, but she never once glances down at the ground. Juliet gives him one last glare before turning swiftly around and walks straight back to the house. The most horrible and pathetic part of this whole situation was that there was a part of Juliet that wanted Henry to chase after her. Unfortunately, he never did. Juliet didn’t know why her heart was beating out of her chest or why the back of her neck felt slightly sticky or why she was breathing so hard, but she knew that she could not stay at this party for another second.

Patrick jogs after her, not wanting to lose her in the crazy crowds of people inside. When he steps into the kitchen, he quickly catches her wrist.

“Where ya goin’?” Patrick asks.

“I’m going home,” Juliet states, tucking some hair behind her ear.

“Didn’t you come with Jennifer?”

“Yeah, but I actually live close by so I’m just going to walk,” Juliet responds while her eyes casually search the area for any signs of her best friend. Things were bad enough with Henry, the last thing she needed right now was for Jennifer to see her talking to Patrick Hockstetter of all people. 

“I’ll walk you home,” Patrick demands.

“You don’t need to do that Patrick, I’ll be okay,” Juliet tries to convince him.

“Sorry princess but I’m not taking no for an answer. Your face is too pretty to be on a missing person's poster downtown,” Patrick places his hand at the small of her back, using that as an advantage to guide her through the small crowd of people so they can reach the front door to leave. Juliet didn’t particularly want Patrick’s company, especially now, but he did have a decent point. 

“Okay, just let me find Jen to let her know I’m going,” Juliet explains before Patrick gives her a nod. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

Juliet scouted through the living room first and luckily spots Jennifer on the couch, sitting on Ryan Novack’s lap. “I’m leaving,” Juliet states, making Jennifer get off the jock’s lap, analyzing her intently.

“What do you mean you’re leaving, we just got here.”

“I just don’t really feel that great and I think it’d be best if I went home,” Juliet lied, hoping Jennifer would be easy going. Hoping.

“First about Bowers and now this. Catching your little lying habit from your hillbilly boyfriend?” Jennifer hisses, crossing her tan arms over her chest. Juliet stares at her offensively before Jennifer continues on and says, “Although I guess I shouldn’t talk since I forgot to mention how the Bowers Gang are notorious for getting laid at parties.”

Suddenly, the light bulb goes off in Juliet’s head as she connects all the pieces together. “You brought me here on purpose,” Juliet utters, almost as if she’s saying it aloud to herself.

“Don’t give me that look. I mean how else would you be able to see what a pig he is? You should be thanking me.” 

 “I should be thanking you?” Juliet chuckles in disbelief. “Okay then, thank you for dressing me up and bringing me here to only make me look like a total ass. Congratulations, you proved me wrong. Henry is a total jerk and you’re a complete bitch.” 

Juliet has never spoken to Jennifer like this before in her life, but Juliet’s blood has been boiling since her encounter with Henry and Jennifer wasn’t helping simmer down the heat. Juliet shook her head at Jennifer and darted out of the living room as fast as she could, leaving Jennifer quite dumbstruck. For some strange reason, Juliet didn’t feel bad for saying exactly what was on her mind, even if it hurts her. The only thing that made her heart feel heavy is that the two people she cared about deceived and lied to her in just one single night. And unfortunately, the lanky boy waiting for her outside wasn’t any different.

……………………………………………………………………………

The night air was a little chillier than usual, making Juliet cross her arms over her chest to warm up her hands. Patrick notices the small sign and takes off his leather jacket and drapes it over her shoulders.

“Oh. Thanks,” she smiles at him before slipping her arms through the sleeves. A small smirk plays at her lips when she says, “It’s a perfect fit.” It was comical how huge the jacket was on Juliet. The sleeves were so long that you couldn’t even see her hands.

“It looks good on you. Ya know I’m really digging this whole look you got goin’ on. It’s sexy,” Patrick smirks, tugging slightly at the bottom of her dress.

“It’s definitely different, but I think you pull it off a lot better than me,” Juliet teases, referring to his similar all black ensemble of boots, jeans, and a thin long sleeved shirt. 

“Are you saying I’m sexy Jules?” Patrick smirks while throwing his arm over her shoulder. As shocked as she was, Juliet started to feel a sense of comfortability with him. Nobody besides her family or Jennifer called her Jules, and for some reason hearing Patrick use the nickname gave Juliet a sense of warmth that she didn’t think Patrick was capable of. Juliet thought to herself that Patrick could have easily let her leave the party alone, but he wanted to make sure she was safe whereas Henry let her walk away, not caring whatsoever about where she went or how she felt.

“Patrick?”

“Princess?”

“I want to apologize,” Juliet states, keeping her eyes straight forward as they walked while Patrick looks at her slightly confused. “I just feel like I’ve been rude to you lately and that I was quick to judge you before even actually getting the chance to know you.”

Patrick was beaming with pure ecstasy. He had her right where he wanted her. 

“Don’t sweat it sweetheart,” Patrick responds, petting her head. “If it makes you feel any better, I seriously underestimated you. I didn’t think you had it in ya to tell Bowers off like that.”

“Neither did I,” Juliet chuckles before she says, “But you were right and tried to warn me and I didn’t listen. I’m sorry.” 

Juliet suddenly feels tiny droplets of water speckle across her nose before she realizes that it’s starting to lightly drizzle. In a literal instant, the light drizzle turns into harsh, downpour rain.

“Shit,” Juliet hisses before Patrick grabs her hand and they both begin to run down the sidewalk. They sprint for a few blocks, each step like walking into a giant puddle until Juliet steers Patrick towards the white house that’s hers at the end of the cul-de-sac. They race across Juliet’s soggy lawn and up her creaky wooden porch steps when they finally make it to the front stain glass door.

They both stood there, catching their breaths while taking in each others sopping wet appearances. “This is the second dress in a row Hockstetter. I’m starting to think you’re some kind of bad luck charm to my nice clothes,” Juliet jokes, referring to when he spilled soda on her just last night and now this. Patrick leers at her, his eyes studying her face to her wet hair to the droplets of water on her exposed skin to the way her makeup is slightly smudged. She looked messy and it made Patrick’s appetite for her all the more unbearable. Juliet feels his thumb graze over her knuckles and that’s when she glances down and realizes her hand is still interlocked with his. 

“I’m sorry,” Juliet awkwardly apologizes, slipping her grasp from his and instead placing her hand on the door knob before she rambles on and says, “Please, come in so you can get dried off and wait until this rain passes. It’s the least I can do.”

“If you insist,” Patricks smirks, gesturing his hand out for Juliet to walk first. She obliges and he follows, making sure to lock the door behind him. 

@kola95

#Henry Bowers #patrick hockstetter #bowers gang #it 2017 #it imagine #henry bowers x reader #patrick hocksetter x reader #patrick hocksetter imagine #it fanfiction #the bowers gang

[angelinwhy]

Kiwi

Description: Harry had a one night stand with Y/N, and after he thought he was done with her, she comes back a few months later as says ‘I’m having your baby.’

“So what you’re meaning to tell me, is that you’re pregnant, with Harry’s baby?”

Y/N Y/LN was a university student, studying English Language and spent most of her time reading. Her life was quiet as most of her precious time was spent in her dorm room with her roommate, who she didn’t really get along with. The 21 year old wished for a more fun filled life.

You have to be careful what you wish for.

One night when she decided to go out in London on her own, as her work was becoming a bit much for her and she needed a break from it all, the last thing she expected was to meet someone at a club. And not just anyone, the person she met just happened to be ex-boy band member, Harry Styles. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing - Harry needed a break from his work too, and it just so happened that they took their break on the same night. She was so drunk, dancing on the dance floor and moving her body to the music like she was the only person there. And Harry picked her out straight away. Well, it wasn’t exactly hard too. She was dancing the way that most girls were afraid to dance. But that drawn Harry to her. How outgoing and carefree she was.

He has staggered to the dance floor, half cut but had in mind exactly what he wanted.

Her.

She wasn’t a big music listener, but she wasn’t dumb and she knew who One Direction was and Y/N had noticed him right away. But, was too drunk to even comprehend that he was in front of her.

There had been sweet introductions, and a handshake. Harry wasn’t about to just jump on a girl without finding out her name first, or even introducing himself. She had smiled at him softly as he shook her hand, his grip firm, and tight, yet soft at the same time.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Harry,” she had spoke to him.

Harry had just chuckled. “And you, Y/N.”

“What brings you out to the this club tonight?!” Harry had yelled over the loud music, that had hindered them from even having a proper conversation.

“Taking a break,” she told him. “For once,” she added.

“Same!”

In that beautiful accent of his, he charmingly asked her if she would like to dance with him, and who was she to turn a man that stunning down? He wasn’t big on dancing himself, so instead he just held her and kind of copied what she was doing. She was being so carefree as this was the high she had been waiting for since joining university. She didn’t even join in on any of the freshers nights, where the new students go and get absolutely hammered. It wasn’t her cup of tea to get that drunk all the time, so a night out every once every few months would suffice. Harry had felt his need for her grow stronger as the night grew to a close as most of the people left the club. Normally he wouldn’t find himself inviting girls back to his as he was always so busy, but Y/N was an exception.

That night was possibly one of the best, although she was too drunk to remember it after it happened.

But there was one thing that she did seem to forget - and that was that her and Harry never used a condom.

All of that had came back to bite in her the arse a few months later, when she started becoming sick more often, and feeling tired. Y/N hadn’t really thought anything of it, as there had been a bug going round prior and she thought maybe she had caught the last of it. But, your boobs don’t get bigger and neither does your stomach if you have a sickness bug.

Y/N didn’t want to do it, but when she picked up that pregnancy test, her worst nightmare became a reality. She had the smallest feeling that she was carrying, and she didn’t want that to be true. She was 21 for Christ’s sake. She was in university trying to get her degree. Being pregnant would change everything for her and she didn’t want that. So, when she went home and sat on the edge of her bathtub, waiting for those horrendous minutes to pass, only one question came to her mind - if what is going on is true, whose the dad? It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out. Before Harry, she hadn’t been with anyone in a good year, and that’s what scared her. She didn’t want to be pregnant. She wasn’t ready. Not only would it ruin her life, she couldn’t imagine what it would do to Harry’s. And she didn’t want that.

When she picked up that test, and saw that it read ‘positive’, she collapsed to the ground in fits of sobs.

She had sat against the wall with her head in her hands as her breaths came out laboured, and her hands trembled madly. The reality that she was going to have a baby had settled in quite quickly, and it consumed her thoughts. Y/N was on the verge of a panic attack, she couldn’t breath and she was shaking so much. That was until her roommate came in and helped her, they did breathing excersises to calm Y/N down, and once she was able to breath a bit better, her and her roommate discussed what was going to happen next.

A few days after that, she had went to the scan on her own where they told her how many months along she was. And the gender of her unborn baby. It was all a bit overwhelming, and she felt like crying all over again. But, she sucked it up and got the scan photos, knowing what she had to do next.

And that was talk to Harry.

So here she sits now with Mitch, who had took a trip to London to visit Harry.

The rental car he had hired was the space where they sat to have their conversation, and Y/N could tell that Mitch was genuinely confused by all of this. He knew that some people were crazy when it came to Harry, so that was his first thought about Y/N. That was until she asked him if Harry had ever told him stuff about a girl he had hooked up with on a night out. It all started making sense when Mitch remembered all the things Harry had told him about the last girl he had hooked up with. And the description matched her perfectly. He saw the scan results, and was very shocked to say the least. He couldn’t quite believe it.

“So what you’re meaning to tell me, is that you’re pregnant with Harry’s baby?”

She sighs, “yes.”

Mitch was silent, as he really didn’t know what else to say. Like anyone would, at first he thought this was all one big joke for a fan girl to try and get closer to Harry. Until he realised that Y/N is being deadly serious, and she’s carrying Harry Styles’ baby.

What made him realise that she was being serious, was that kind of hazed look in her eyes. Like when he sat to think, he’d glance at her and see that she’s staring into mid air with a sad expression on her face. Of course the bump was noticeable too, but Y/N was hiding it with a huge hoodie just in case. But, every time he got the chance, Mitch would look into her eyes, and all he’d see is dispair and sadness. It was like a legitimate cry for help.

And Mitch knew that he needed to be the one to help her through this.

“Wow,” he mutters as he turns to look at her. “I can’t believe it. Honestly I thought you were just trying to get closer to him, and then it all started making sense. And now I’m gobsmacked. Does Harry know about it?” He asks as he rests one of his hands on the steering wheel, and from the look on Y/N’s face, he could tell that she hadn’t told Harry. And that she was nervous about doing so. He did truly feel bad for her. Being pregnant wasn’t easy he guessed, but he guessed that it would be even harder when it’s from a one night stand and you don’t even know the person. There was one thing that Mitch wants to do but was wondering if it was a bad idea or not. “I want to take you to Harry’s, so you can speak to him Y/N.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t do it.”

“Y/N,” Mitch sighs softly. “You’re pregnant with his baby. He’s the father to your child. I know it’s hard because you don’t know him, at all, but he deserves to know.”

“I know, that, trust me. But I’m just worried about how it’s all gonna go down, Mitch. Like, me and him had a one night stand and that’s the only interaction I’ve had with him. Now four months later, I’m going back to him, given he may not even remember me, to tell him that I’m carrying his child. He’s got so much ahead of him because of his career, and I don’t want this to hold him back. I don’t want to scare him off with this news,” she spills out her thoughts as she looks out of the window. She watches people walk past the car, as they were parked outside a small cafe where she had managed to find Mitch.

“He needs to know. Otherwise you’ll end up coming back in five months with a baby in your arms. And you can’t tell him after you’ve had the baby. You need to tell him now, okay?” He speaks in a soft tone.

Y/N looks at him, and again he sees the sadness in her eyes.

But, this time, she nods her head at him.

Mitch smiles lightly, before pulling out of the parking space to start driving to Harry’s house. He knew that this was going to be hard, for both of them. Harry was coming close to releasing his first song in over two years, and Y/N was coming close to graduating. It wasn’t a good time for either of them, but, things happen sometimes and they can’t be prevented or forced to wait. And this pregnancy was one of those things. But, Mitch was going to be there for them both, no matter if things go completely wrong.

As they drove down the road, Y/N rests her head on the window and sighs gently. One of her hands rests on her bump gently, feeling the nerves settle in. Was Harry going to take the news in a good way? Was he going to turn her away the second he finds out that she’s carrying his child? Would Harry even remember her after the night at the club? Y/N’s mind was going a million miles because of all of these thoughts in her head, and it was restless. To make matters worse, she has lost countless hours of sleep because of all the overthinking. She spent many a nights awake, all alone in her bed as she thought about how her life had changed so drastically in such a short amount of time. Her roommate had been more than helpful, as she was always helping Y/N with her work, cooking for her and doing all of the loads of washing too.

“Harry’s a good guy y’know,” Mitch puts in a good word for his friend. “I know this is big, but I don’t see him being really angry about it, Y/N.”

Y/N smiles a little. “Thanks Mitch. I’m just worried about what’s going to come after this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, Harry’s famous, Mitch. This is going to get out to the press somehow, and after that his career will change. As you’ve already told me, he’s getting close to the release of his new song and then his album. It’s all happening so fast, and I don’t want the news of this baby to make him feel like he has to drop it all and stop because he’s now a father. And me too. I am close to graduating and I don’t want this to stop it. But honestly, since finding out that I’m pregnant, I’ve seriously been thinking about dropping out of uni. It has just become so stressful, and I can’t be in education full time with a child. I know Harry will be there, but he will be busy doing other things. I’m just scared about my life after the baby’s going to be born, y’know?” She tells Mitch, and he nods at her.

He understood. Mitch got what she was saying, and he knew that it was going to have a huge impact on both of their lives.

“It’ll be alright, yeah? I’m here to help you, and Harry will be too.”

Before Y/N could even comprehend it, they’re pulling up to Harry’s lavish house in North London. She was too drunk to remember what it looked like (plus it was really dark too), but from the outside it looked so amazing. Mitch parks the car, getting out and going around to the other side to help Y/N out.

She thanks him softly, and he closes the door behind her before resting his hand on the small of her back. The two of them walk up to Harry’s gate, that was clearly there for security reasons. Y/N watches as Mitch presses down on the buzzer, and the intercom rings for a few seconds, before a deep voice says “it’s open, Mitch.” A couple of seconds later, Mitch opens the small door next to the gate, and that lead into the front garden. He let Y/N go through first, and she thanks him in a small voice. Christ, it was only front garden and she was already in awe of his residence. “You ready for this?” Mitch asks as he walks slightly in front of her, and Y/N responds by shaking her head and laughing softly. This makes Mitch smile. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be there the whole time too, just in case things are to go wrong, okay?” He then assures her.

Mitch opens the front door, and steps inside, with Y/N following in behind him.

“In the living room, Mitch!” Harry yells.

As Mitch is taking off his jacket, Y/N slides off her boots, and places them next to the door before going up behind Mitch, and following him.

She felt the nerves grow stronger with every step they took towards the living room. Was this a bad idea? That was her main thought, as she wondered if she had made the wrong decision by coming to his house. Y/N wanted to just turn around, put her boots back on and go back to her dorm room. But, by the time she had formed a plan, they were already next to the living room. She mentally curses herself for not running sooner, as Mitch pushes the door open.

Y/N stops for a second, feeling paralysed by fear as Mitch goes in to greet his friend. It was like her feet had been superglued to the spot, and she felt herself get hot with nerves, and she fleecy hoodie she has on wasn’t making matters any worse. She felt like throwing up everywhere. It was like the night she found out that she pregnant, that feeling of dread in her stomach as she felt like having a panic attack. But, she looks up when she hears Mitch gently call her by her name. He’s looking right at her with soft eyes that are sending the message ‘please come in, it’s gonna be alright.’ Harry couldn’t see her, but she assumes that he’s standing right in front of Mitch.

Swallowing her pride, she rolls her neck before going into the living room to stand next to Mitch.

Harry recognises her almost instantly.

“I can tell by your face, H, that you remember her. And I brought her here so she can tell you something, alright?” Mitch speaks, as Harry stares at Y/N, but her eyes do anything to avoid his.

He looks at his friend briefly. “Yeah mate, that’s fine.”

“I think we should sit down for this,” Mitch then tells the pair.

All three of them sit down - Mitch and Y/N sit on the same couch together, and Harry takes his place in the loveseat, which was across from them. He could not take her eyes off her, or the bump which was his main focus. He was dumb, and knew straight away that it was a baby bump. But the thought of it being his child never crosses Harry’s mind. Y/N looks to Mitch for comfort, and he just nods at her, mentally telling her that it was okay and that she could go at her own speed. But honestly, Y/N didn’t know where to start. Would she explain that they never used a condom? Or would she just jump straight to the point and not leave him guessing? She had no clue what to do. She rubs her hands together in nerves as she avoids Harry’s stare, that’s making her nervous.

“Um,” she splutters anxiously. “I-I don’t really know where to start with this,” she trembles.

Mitch gives her arm a reassuring squeeze.

“You’re alright, take all the time you need.”

This voice didn’t belong to Mitch, it was Harry. Y/N finds the strength to look at him, and he oddly looked different from when they last met. He was a little bit bulkier, like he had been working out. She tugs the corners of her lips up to smile at him, and he nods as he runs a hand through his brown hair.

“So, well. Um, you know the night we met at the club, and you brought me back here, and we, you know,” she says, feeling like a little school girl for not being able to say the words ‘had sex.’ Or maybe it was due to Mitch being there, and him feeling more like a dad whose about to speak to Harry about getting his daughter pregnant. But, Harry understood what she was getting at, and how uncomfortable she was, so he nods his head with a reassuring smile. “I don’t think we used protection that night,” she tells him in the strongest voice she could muster up, and Harry just nods as he clasps his hands in his lap, his face remaining passive. He knew what she was going to say, and quite frankly, he was really scared to hear it.

She sighs. “Because of that, I’m now having your baby.”

Harry didn’t even let his emotions control his facial expression.

“Are you sure it’s mine?”

“Yeah,” she nods, “before you I hadn’t been with anyone else in way over a year. And I wouldn’t just get pregnant randomly either. But yeah, it’s your child Harry.”

There was silence for a moment, as Harry leant back in his chair and sighs lightly. He didn’t know the right words to say to his friend, and the young woman who was now carrying his child. It had hit him all at once, like a bloody train crashing into him. Y/N watches him with pain in her eyes, as she notices the stress settle on his beautiful face. Mitch then watches the two of them, gauging reactions from both of them. Clearly Harry was stressed and a little bit shocked, and Y/N was sad, and in dispair. And all four of them weren’t the best mix. He could also tell that the two of them didn’t have the right words to say to each other. Harry sirs back up and stares at Mitch with cold eyes.

“What the fuck, am I supposed to do about this?! I have so much planned at the moment,” he almost seethes, and Mitch is slightly taken aback at his tone.

Though, Y/N had suspected that he wouldn’t take it very well.

Mitch gives him a stern look, “oi, cool it Styles.”

“Come on Mitch!” Harry groans loudly.

Harry’s friend then turns to Y/N with a warm smile. “We’ll be back in a minute, okay?”

She nods, and watches as Mitch stands from his seat as he motions for Harry to step outside with him. Like a child, Harry rolls his eyes and gets up from the seat, before walking out of the room as Mitch follows behind him and closes the living room door. She sinks back her seat and lets her emotions fill her up. She curses the pregnancy for making her more emotional than usual, as the corners of her eyes fill up with salty tears. Mitch had assured Y/N in the car that Harry was going to be fine about this, but he had got that wrong unfortunately. A tear rolls down her cheek, and she swipes it away from her thumb. It was not going great so far, and she felt like shit. Why did this have to be so goodman confusing and hard?

Outside of the living room, Harry was pouring out his second shot in the kitchen as Mitch watches him intently.

“Fucking pregnant,” Harry scoffs like it was some kind of sick joke.

“Harry, come on man. This isn’t easy for her.”

After he downs the shot, he turns around and leans against the counter, hands crossed over his chest. “I get that it’s not easy for her Mitch, trust me I do. But she isn’t in the spotlight 24/7, she doesn’t have a load of fans hanging on to every bit of content they can get from her. I barely even know her, and now she’s coming back here to tell me that she’s pregnant?! It’s like someone’s pulling a terrible joke on me, and I honestly, I don’t know if I should believe it or not. With my career, a baby is going to make it super difficult. How am I supposed to balance this new song, and travelling and finishing off the release off the album if I’m now a father? It’s going to be so fucking crazy, Mitch. Absolutely mayhem, y’know. I honestly don’t know if I’m ready for all of this, mate.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re ready, H,” Mitch informs his best friend gently. “Because it’s already happening, and there’s nothing that Y/N, me or you can do to stop it. Let me tell you, when she came to me today, I was just as shocked as you are. Hand on heart, I thought she was some crazy fan who wanted to get closer to you. That’s until she shown me all of the scan photos, and told me about the night out she had with you - her story matched up to yours. I didn’t want to believe her, even when I knew she was telling the truth, but when I saw the look of dispair in her eyes. I knew it was serious and I knew it was a cry for help, and I just couldn’t turn her away from me.”

Harry’s face softens. “She has the scan photos?”

Mitch feels his heart warm a little when Harry’s voice softens, and so does his facial expressions. He knew he was getting somewhere with him, it was just going to take a little bit of time before he was fully okay with him beinf a dad.

“Yeah,” Mitch chuckles softly, remembering back to when Y/N had shown them to him, and the small smile on her face when she looked at the photos of her baby. “She told me that a couple of days after she had found out that she was pregnant, she went to the scan alone to have a checkup. Just to see how many months along she is, and all of that. And if I remember correctly, she also found out the gender of the baby too. So she knows that as well.”

Harry felt completely overwhelmed with what Mitch had just told him.

Scan results and the gender of his baby.

A silence fell over the two friends as Harry goes into the fridge and getting out two bottles of water. He offers one up to Mitch (as the other one was for Y/N) but he politely declines as he shakes his head. Harry takes his place against the counter again and taps against it with his fingers. He was grateful that Mitch had decided to take her in and bring her here, as although Harry was scared for his life, he couldn’t begin to imagine how Y/N was feeling. After all, she was the one who had found out about the pregnancy alone, went to the scan alone, spent the last few months alone. Although he didn’t know he then, he had wished he did so he could’ve been there to help her. Christ, he didn’t even know her last name, and now he’s the father to their child. He laughs slightly.

Life does work in mysterious ways sometimes.

“I’m scared,” Harry admits.

Mitch looks at him with a gentle expression. “I know you are, H. But, I’m here for you. When you feel most comfortable we can tell your parents, and Gemma. Soon enough your team will have to know, and we will have to work out schedules for you, but, we can do it. Trust me, Harry. It may seem like your whole world is collapsing around you right now, but there are solutions and things we can do to make this time for you and Y/N much easier, okay?” He reassures him.

Harry nods. “God, a girl I don’t even know is carrying my child. What has my life come to?” He laughs.

“I don’t know man,” Mitch slightly chuckles. “But, speaking of Y/N, I think it’s time we went back into the living room to sort everything out. As she has got the biggest job here - carrying the baby.”

The two of them head back through the house and to the living room.

When they step inside, they see that Y/N has taken off her hoodie and placed it next to her, and put her hair up into a messy bun at the back of her head. The next thing they notice is her tear stained cheeks, and Harry frowns slightly as he kneels down in front of her. “You alright?” He asks softly as he hands her the bottle of water, and she thanks him before nodding her head, with a slight smile. He nods back at her, before standing up and going back over to his seat. Mitch sits back down with Y/N and she turns to him with a smile, thanking him gently. He just offers her a generous smile back, which she takes gratefully. He then looks between the pair.

“Right, what’s next?” Mitch asks.

Before Harry can put a word in, Y/N speaks up. “I’ve decided that I’m going to drop out of university, and start looking for a job where I can work from home. I can’t be in education if I’m pregnant, and because I am carrying, I’m gonna need money to support the baby,” she tells Mitch, and he nods his head at her.

“I’ll support the baby, and you too.”

Both Mitch and Y/N’s head whip towards Harry as he speaks up, and she shakes her head as she tries to protest against his offer, but he cuts her off softly.

“Look,” he begins, using a sweet and gentle tone with her to show that he’s not angry about this. That it’s just going to take some time to get used to. “I know you feel like you need to work so you can get money for the child, but you don’t need to. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m trying to flaunt it, but I have way more money than I need and I don’t have anything to do with it. So I’d feel more comfortable if that money went on you and the baby, because I don’t want you stressing yourself out by working all the time, especially when you are pregnant. I just don’t think it’s fair, especially when I just have money in my bank account that is just sitting there. I know it may seem like I’m taking the weight of this, but trust me, I don’t mind doing this for you, alright?”

She tries to protest again, but Harry just shakes his head. “I feel really bad, but if it’s what you insist, then okay,” she nods.

“I also want you to come and live here with me.”

Mitch gives Harry a look as if to say ‘you’re doing all the rights things.’

“I-I can’t Harry.”

“Yes you can,” he reassures her. “Look, because you won’t go to university anymore, you won’t be granted access is staying in your dorm, so where will you go if you aren’t allowed to stay there? Plus, I’d feel more comfortable if you stayed here because then I can keep an eye on you and look after the two of you. It may seem scary because we don’t know each other, but I have a few spare rooms and you can take your pick from any of them. You don’t have to move in right away, but I want you to know that it would help me sleep better at night knowing that you and our baby are under this roof. I havw security too, Y/N, so the two of you will always be in safe hands with me.” Mitch felt his heart grow a little heavy, but in a good way.

Y/N then turns to Mitch with a worried look on her faces. She shakes her head, trying to get words out. But he knew what she was trying to say. “You can do this, okay? Harry means well, and trust me, it will be safer for you and the baby to come and stay here. It’s got 24 hour security, and Harry will take good care of you,” he offers up, trying to get her on board.

“I’ll take really good care of you. The two of you. I can promise you that, Y/N.”

She looks at Harry. “Can I have some time to think?”

He nods, “of course, love.”

“What will you do, about your family?”

Harry smiles a little when she mentions about his family. “I will probably end up telling them in the next few days. Knowing my mum, she’ll be over the moon like she always is about everything, and my sister will probably be the same too. As for my step-dad, he won’t mind, he probably just won’t be as bothered as my mum and sister will be. And then, my team too because they need to know about all of this - they’ll end up knowing in about maybe two weeks. I want you to be able to get used to me and my lifestyle before I go and tell the people who are in charge of me, okay? It’s all going to be alright though, no one will be angry. We can change what’s happening, and as frightening as it is, we’ll get through it together. What about your family though? Will you tell them?”

“I actually already have,” Y/N smiles at the mentioning of her family. “My mum and dad were a bit shocked at first, but they were fine once I had told them what happened. And my two brothers were just so unphased - they both younger than me, so both of them just grunted a ‘congratulations’ because going back to their Xboxes,” she laughs at the thought.

Mitch smiles.

They’re starting to get along.

He then claps his hands together, “right. I will need to be off for a bit as I have a meeting. Y/N do you want me to drop you home?” Mitch asks.

She nods with a smile. “That would be great, thanks. I’m gonna ring my mum and ask her to come help me pack up my dorm, so I can go back home for a while and just have a think about things. I’ll be back to you about your offer about staying here too,” she then says, looking at Harry. He nods at her as he moves the strings of his hoodie. “Thank you again though, it’s really generous of you to do something like that for me.”

“No problem, Y/N.”

After bidding her goodbyes to Harry, Mitch and Y/N leave the living room. She felt so much better after this chat with Harry, as a huge weight had been taken off her shoulders, as now she had explained it all and they had finally started to make arrangements. “Well, that better than I had thought it would,” Mitch tells Y/N jokingly as he helps her put on her boots. It was getting harder for her to do things along, day by day. She smiles and agrees with him. Once her boots were on, the two new friends step over the threshold until they were back in the front garden. She takes a sip from the water that he had given her as they walk down the path, and Mitch walks next to her silently. The two of them hadn’t of thought that today would go in the way that it did.

But, just before Y/N and Mitch were about to walk out the gates, they heard the front door open. Both of them turn on their heels, and they see Harry there.

“Wait! Y/N, Mitch said that you found out the gender of the baby today. Are we having a girl or a boy?”

She smiles at him softly. “We’re having a little girl.”

#WELL THAT WAS AN EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER #i spent all night on this #im really proud of how it came out #im thinking of making this into a mini series to show their progress and the birth and whatnot #harry styles fic #harry fic #harry edward styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles writing #harry styles x y/n #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry styles blurb #harry styles

[strawbrymilkshake]

i just watched the first six episodes of the mp100 netflix show for no good reason other than that i apparently hate myself, so to not put my pain to waste here’s a half-review half-rant thing

i guess ill start with the good and make my way to the shit i hated about this show, but as you can probably guess there’s hardly any good

tome was fun, i guess. she’s got that same chaotic™ energy and had some of the only lines i genuinely laughed at, but also she’s the only member of the telepathy club for some reason? and they merged her character with mezato’s, so i guess she’s got more to do. but judging by the sfx i doubt they had the budget for even one (1) more actor, so ig i can forgive them for that. overall probably the only adaptation that both wasn’t painful to watch and actually warranted the changes they made

teru (from the little i saw of him) was also pretty good. the fight had some....changes, but on his own i thought he was fine, pretty harmless adaptation overall. i stopped watching once i realised that they weren’t gonna go all in and give him the cactus hair so points deducted for that

and the last thing i liked about this show: ritsu! they got a young actor who was good and i didn’t have many issues with him. there was one interaction he had with tome that i liked when she introduced herself and he said ‘oh! tome’s my grandma’s name!’ and tome was like ‘...yeah you and mob are definitely brothers.’ the reason why he’s lower than tome and teru is because. for whatever fucking reason. he is in every. goddamn. scene. like even when it doesn’t make any sense. when mob joins the body improvement club? he’s there. when mob is taking down the lol cult? he’s there. the teru fight? he’s there. i lost count of how many times i was asking myself ‘why the fuck is ritsu here?’ he was inescapable. his presence in those scenes didn’t even add anything to the story. also he’s friends with tsubomi for some reason....i guess to give him more things that mob can be envious of?

speaking of tsubomi.....god. not to be like ‘they didn’t understand the source material!!1!!11!1!!!’ but like. please. it hurt. i get that they were probably trying to lean into the ‘guy gets the girl/high school romance’ type show more but uhh....way to horribly misunderstand the source material, guys. the problem with her is that she is in it so much that it almost entirely defeats the point of her character & what she’s supposed to mean to mob. they interact like every other scene! she’s a pretty close friend to ritsu, so that means they interact even more! she’s their next door neighbour ffs! i only watched the first six episodes and i think i still saw more of her than her entire screen time in the anime put together

and apart from her being so close to mob that it completely destroys the point of him idolising her, it also meant that the writers had to come up with a full personality for her and an actual dynamic for her and mob. and hoo boy they really went and decided that the two of them would have the most awkward, unappealing dynamic ever, huh. like there’s this running gag where she always messes up the words to common phrases, and mob has to correct her, and it’s painful every time. which, i guess (????) makes sense for what their relationship is in the manga & anime, where they’re not close anymore and mob doesn’t even know what she’s like/what he likes about her, but in this show, they were trying to push them together to lean into the romance tropes, so their uncomfortable dynamic doesn’t make sense anyway??

the stageplay got it fuckin RIGHT when they went and cast NO ONE for tsubomi. like. the legend jumped out. they got mob pining for a silhouette. chef’s kiss

holy shit this got long fast. ok the rest is under the cut

i guess im just going character by character now so: dimple. weird guy. the cgi was awful, but you knew that already. but he was just....so weird. and by that i mean he was awkwardly,, never there? when teru exorcises him it’s supposed have at least some impact, but in this show he had like three (3) scenes before it (rather than a couple episodes leading up to it) (and also they cut a shit ton out of the middle of the lol cult arc for...whatever reason) so when he gets exorcised here it’s like...oh no.....that guy...........did mob even speak to him more than once.....

speaking of the pacing of this show: it’s horrendous!! good lord i hate it!! the pacing is shit awful, and it feels like they’re just throwing in ‘’’’’’’’interesting’’’’’’’’ scenes that should take place later in the story bc they know that the audience isn’t going to want to stay around for the atrocious writing! case in point: we see the flashback of mob and reigen meeting in the second episode. the second fucking episode. the reason why it’s delayed so much in the anime (and even more in the manga) has a lot to do with the unfolding of reigen’s character depth and they just?? throw it in so early?? it feels like they’re just going ‘oh by the way, he’s good, or whatever. yeah, he’s totally complex and interesting. just trust us, okay, keep watching the show’ and the pacing of that completely throws off reigen’s character arc

i can’t really remember which episode(s) this was in but they also have this weird subplot with reigen going to the bar alone (yknow..like....s2 scenes...) and lowkey being friends with the bartender guy?? i gotta be honest i wasn’t paying much attention during these scenes but suffice it to say: god i hated reigen. like sure, he’s a sleazy character, but they just made him disgusting. netflix reigen does not drink his respect women juice, and that’s all i wanna say about that

also why is he like 40 years old

anyways back to the pacing, apart from throwing in scenes from wayyy later in the plot, this show also tried to have like four or five plot threads going at once. the place that this hurt the most was probably the teru fight, where the anime spends like two episodes entirely on it and nothing else, but in this show it keeps cutting to the start of the big clean up arc (probably just so they could keep showing ritsu) and reigen’s weird subplot 

and there’s other stuff like that, where they kept cutting to the awakening lab & the scars doing psychic stuff or whatever, i guess trying to entice the audience like ‘we swear there’s plot stuff!! it’s not just slice of life!! there’s evil™ people!!’ and i guess they were gonna pull the ol’ switcheroo™ where the audience thinks the awakening lab and the scars are working together but oh no!! only the scars are evil!! the awakening lab was actually on our side!! but i can’t be bothered to watch that far

also in the teru fight, they got most of the message across (don’t use your psychic powers against other people....mob and teru are the same...) but because they kept cutting away from it they lost the dramatic impact of all of it. the choreography and sfx weren’t as bad as they could have been i guess, but they definitely showed the budget. it also didn’t take place in a school (which...fine, whatever) but it led to something i actually did like: teru attacked mob with glass shards instead of knives, and although i do like the knife metaphor + imagery, you could also argue something about the destructive nature of his power use coming back to hurt him in the shards of glass, and also something about reflections or...something. i just thought it was neat, although i don’t know why they changed the setting from the school in the first place

also in the teru fight: it was raining and ???% stopped the rain katara-style mid air, and even though the cgi still wasn’t all that good, i thought that was a rad concept. but then he just made a tornado instead of ripping buildings apart and you get the idea not a lot of it was good

back to things i hate because i don’t have a good segue!! the writing!! bad!!

i see the writers of this show engaged in the age old storytelling practice of ‘tell, don���t show’

when reigen tells mob to be a good person: “ok, i won’t show off my powers or use them against other people. i’ll become a good person”

when mob loses control of his powers and hurts ritsu as a kid: “these powers are awful and cause nothing but trouble. i’m not going to be using them again”

god i wish i was exaggerating

and, going back to the lol cult, for whatever fucking reason they decided to have that latter line of dialogue to be the full explanation of mob’s complex. like i get that there’s a time for exposition and a time for subtly, but take some cues from the original author and maybe fucking explain the main plot device of the show and not the protagonist’s sad vague backstory rather than the other way around. want to confuse and alienate your audience? good fucking job!! you’ve done it!!

and just because this was my favourite episode in the anime and im fucking bitter!! they cut out so much of dimple’s monologue and just had mob get to 100% pretty much after all dimple says is ‘get a clue.’ like. he puts the mask on, it doesn’t work, ‘get a clue,’ 100%. yeah im totally gonna care when this character comes back to try and manipulate mob later.

also....mob...........

i havent talked about him that much here, have i?

okay specifically w the lol cult first, the whole thing where they put the mask on and he’s not smiling is completely devoid of any impact because!! he’s full on emoting throughout the rest of the show!! like he’ll look worried, embarrassed, he’ll cringe or smile or whatever, and the most it looks like is that he’s just slightly uninterested, but otherwise has a pretty good grip on his emotions. unlike the anime + stageplay where it’s clear that he’s (seemingly) completely unemotional. the reason why i bring up the stageplay is bc, while i know that setsuo ito is 10ish years older than the guy that plays mob in the netflix show, i kinda wish that they just....cast him anyway.....bc they clearly didn’t have any hangups on casting adults for all the other middle schoolers, and ito did such a good job in the stageplay. he’s the only guy who is mob to me lmao (kyle mccarley is on thin ice but he can stay)

i mean mob just straight up showing emotions through the show could have been down to the directing as well. also i’m pretty sure a majority of it is bc he’s constantly around tsubomi, so. stupid decisions lead to stupid outcomes!

and that’s basically it for my weird review/rant on this show. the writing’s bad, the pacing’s bad, they didn’t care at all about the source material, i’m not entirely sure if they cared about the audience either, there was maybe two (2) changes i liked, if that, and everyone should go watch the stageplay. there were probably way more points that i wanted to bring up but i think my brain is already repressing the memory of it for my own safety

if i ever try to watch the rest of this show, shoot me

#not to bring up the netflix adaptation of mp100 on main but #also as the episodes went on it kind of just went from bad in an infuriating way to bad in a boring way #mp100 #gonna be honest idk who i was aiming this at

[askmeforafic]

Not My Fathers Son

Arthur wasn’t sure why he was currently standing in front of the mirror in his room checking his hair and outfit one last time before he left to go to London Pride. It may have been that he was now more comfortable in his skin after what felt like eons of being uncomfortable, it may have been anger after his fathers’ latest attempt at setting him up with a business colleagues daughter or it may have been the copious amount of alcohol Morgana bought him last weekend.  If he was honest he may say all three but at least to his friends he would say it was Morgana’s fault. Either way he took a once over of his outfit, black Nikes, light washed skinny jeans and a rainbow v neck and ran his hand through his hair  before moving away. He needed to get a move on if he was going to meet Leon and Morgana before the parade, grabbing his keys he left the flat and hoped that his friends had already arrived because he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t disappear if they weren’t there already.

Arthur was a respectable person; he went to Eton and Cambridge and definitely didn’t do things like get horrendously drunk at 12pm in public. No, that wasn’t something someone of his caliber did, day drinking yes but they didn’t show it. Yet, here Arthur was standing between Leon and Morgana swaying and smiling so hard his cheeks hurt.  When they started walking Arthur had, for a moment, forgotten where they were so lost in his head thinking about how maybe taking shots with Percy had been a bad thing.

He was slightly more sober by the end but when pressed would have to admit that no, he didn’t remember meeting the two lovely drag queens (one of whom was aptly named Lola given her bright red thigh highs), them putting what they assured him was a shade of red that would make his lips look even more kissable or posing for the selfies which he had immediately uploaded to Instagram along with a shot of him and Morgana. She had been caught mid-laugh, her eyes closed and entire body radiating joy while she tried to hold on to her flower crown as Arthur posed dramatically pouting his lips and looking off to the left. This would be his most liked picture on the site and go on to be featured in a Buzzfeed article about Pride which his father would be furious about as soon as someone told him what Buzzfeed was.

He does have a vague recollection of them inviting Arthur and his group to come to a club where they were performing and him agreeing. He remembers Morgana asking to stop at a chippy on the way because by this point everyone was hungry and having what at the time tasted like the best chips of his life on what was one of the best days of his life.

When he looks back Arthur will regret this, not coming to Pride or the club with Lola and Rosie but that he doesn’t remember more of it. He wishes he does, could tell you about all the people he met during the walk, how open and happy they were or nervous like him about his first Pride. He wishes he could tell you about Larry, the bouncer at the club they went to and how fiercely protective he was of his girls and how he spoke of his son who meant the world to him. He wishes he remembered Lola’s show and the sheer freedom he felt dancing with everyone, how he never wanted to leave the club.

Instead, Arthur wakes up in the morning with his head pounding a beat that a pipe band would be envious of with a horrible taste in his mouth and holding onto someone as if they’re the last bit of his sanity. In that moment he will see the paracetamol on his night stand, take it and roll back over to sleep until it doesn’t hurt.

Later still, he’ll wake up to someone humming in his kitchen (dancing as well as he finds out) while cooking him breakfast in a pair of boxers and a t-shirt which asks “Why be racist, sexist or homophobic when you could just be quiet?”.  He’ll be greeted with a comment which he won’t remember that ends by calling him Princess. He will sit down and have the most surreal breakfast of his life with the man from the kitchen who introduces himself as Merlin and acts like Arthur told him all his secrets last night. (He did). He will look back on that breakfast as a turning point in his life, when he met and actually remembers the man who will become so important to him. He will be so thankful that he convinced Merlin to give him a chance to reintroduce himself in the morning when he would remember, will never know how he manged to find Merlin at all let alone while so drunk that he isn’t sure how he remembered his own address.

He may later on in their relationship after they told each other they love each other, moved in and were preparing to go to their first Pride as a couple turn to Merlin and ask a question.

“Merlin, when we met did I tell you that you needed to stay with me until I would remember because how could I unite Albian without my sorcerer?”.

Merlin’s laughter would be the only answer given to that question, luckily he had another one planned later in the same club they met at last year.

#fics #my fics #bbc merlin #merlin #merlin emrys #Arthur Pendragon #king arthur #once and future king #pride #london pride #modern au #First Meeting #merthur #Arlin #Arthur getting too drunk #babys first pride

[talesandfluff]

Gelphie 15?

you are literally the sweetest for indulging me and being an actual angel all the time and I am so thankful!!!!!

prompt is: Loud, so everyone can hear

and it has been filled HERE

You can also read it under the line because it seriously got out of hand it’s like over 2k words 

just so everyone knows this is like, lowkey bookverse. more like modern AU bookverse-inspired but I don’t think anything definitely proves it CAN’T be Shiz in this particular fic. 

The fight sticks out between them for days.

Glinda's heart feels heavy day and night, carrying with her the weight of the argument. She's been near enough bedridden for the past few days, only getting out for her classes. Elphaba, the infamously infuriating Elphaba Thropp, does as she does and pretends nothing happened. The sight of it makes Glinda ache all the more. Elphie − no, Elphaba jokes around with Boq, making him the butt of her remarks, studies with Fiyero, argues with Nessa as if nothing could get to her, not even the knowledge that Glinda was suffering.

She is almost glad for the hints of prickliness and frustration Elphaba fails to hide here and there. They're the faintest proof that perhaps she is not the single one affected by their outburst. But these secret glances are only for when she's home home and she has not been home much at all. Elphaba pretends better with an audience, audience that she steals from Glinda, who was always the one who made friends who then were only obliged to take the both of them as a package deal. This week, she has been lonely, laying in bed all alone with her hermit of a roommate roaming Oz knows where. Anything to avoid the narrow room they have shared for two years now − though sometimes it feels to Glinda they have known each other since birth. She should certainly feel used to Elphaba's antics by now, and yet.

"Avaric is taking us out," Elphaba lets Glinda know the evening of the fourth day. "Tonight. Not at that horrendous club," she hastily adds, mistaking the wary look Glinda gives her. "Just at the bar."

Glinda cannot help the blank stare. Half a week with barely a few sentences between them and this is what Elphaba chooses to break the silence with. Not that silence is not what she gets still. Even as Glinda reluctantly gets up to get ready, she finds nothing to ask beyond the occasion (Avaric's promotion his father unlocked him) and the time (he's there already with Shenshen and Milla so any time is fine), and Elphaba certainly finds nothing to mention on her own.

They used to talk so much. Only up to a few days ago, before that terrible talk that turned sour, Elphaba and Glinda could converse for hours at a time and lose track of everything else. And not just converse. They were close as can be, made to be in each other's presence, to be together.

Glinda, out of spite, out of a desperate attempt to entice Elphaba's attention, doesn't pull her curtain to get changed into something nice, doesn't leave the room. Elphaba can stare at her back if she wants as she undresses down to her panties, grabbing some summer dress from her closet. Her closet. She wants to scoff. Just where Elphaba would want her. She realizes she's picked the wrong outfit as soon as she's pulled it on. Or the exact perfect one.

"I can't zip it," she sighs.

Soft, softer than anyone else seems to notice, Elphaba's hand is at her shoulder, the other slowly zipping her back. Glinda closes her eyes, basking into the touch. She missed it. She missed her so much. Elphaba's hands linger on her for longer than strictly necessary but not enough for comfort, not enough for Glinda's hopes of reconciling. Elphaba doesn't move away from behind her, not immediately, and Glinda almost wants to lean into her, wondering if Elphaba would embrace her as she always does. She opens her eyes.

"What are we going to do?" She sighs.

There is no sound, but then she feels the hint of a kiss against her shoulder, lips hardly brushing, and Elphaba is gone like the wind, already by the door by the time Glinda turns around.

"We're going to celebrate Avaric's promotion," Elphaba replies.

The bar is surprisingly empty as they arrive. Avaric needlessly hollers them over, already tipsy with what must be half a dozen expensive sugary cocktails. Shenshen and Pfannee are glued at his sides, Milla sipping on a glass of coke, smiling politely as Boq tries to make good conversation.

"Here comes the elf!" He shouts. "No, wait, wait, I'm kidding, come sit, both of you."

Glinda scans the table and takes a seat next to Milla. She has never been anything less than perfectly courteous to Avaric, but would not jump on any occasion to be overly familiar with him either. Out of habit, she turns around to smile at Elphaba, only to find empty air behind her. The little demon of emotional constipation has sat herself next to Boq, who seems just as befuddled with her decision as he is annoyed with it, surely having hoped for a better conversation partner than a sulking green bean.

Glinda orders herself a glass of wine and resolves herself to exchanging smiles and courtesies with Milla when Crope and Tibbett do decide to bless them with their presence. Hand in hand, they walk into the bar, Crope whispering something into Tibbett's ear who laughs out loud, pressing an embarrassingly long kiss on Crope's cheek in answer. Glinda's stomach knots.

"Hey, guys, too busy shagging to get a minute for your old pal?"

The good thing about Avaric being insufferably loud and obnoxious is that no one really expects conversation from her. Glinda nurses her glass, silently staring at the others who all seem to be having a good time − and although she knows for certain that Elphaba must be faking it, she is a master of pretense tonight. Deep into some conversation about classes with Milla and Boq, she is being her smartass self, charming everyone with her wits and clever remarks, leaving Glinda for the boring one. All the better. Glinda would not find it in herself to participate, not when opposite her are Crope and Tibbett, animatedly talking to a late arrived Fiyero.

Her heart is racing, her stomach churning. Glinda tells herself she should have stayed home, but her bed is starting to become shaped to her form these days and besides, she's not even sure she can call that place home as she used to. But then, without going out, she would have missed out on this, wouldn't she? Impossibly affectionate, Crope and Tibbett enjoy their freshly out relationship to the fullest. Jealousy is clinging to her as she watches them share the same beer, Crope playing with Tibbett's hair, their hands fiddling together. Their love is for everyone to see. Why only theirs?

This was the bulk of it, really. Glinda never thought this would be an object of disagreement, not that way around. Elphaba and her were friends in private, then in the open, then more than friends, and the whole time Elphaba was unapologetically herself, impossibly smart and on the verge of bullying often as not, and also proudly out with the occasional array of pride shirts. Glinda was the one who was afraid to admit, first to herself then to the world, that her affections for Elphaba were romantic in nature. She was too scared to be honest, but bit by bit, kiss after kiss, after months of being Elphaba's girlfriend in all but official label, the fear gave way to a deep desire to proclaim their love. And it was Elphaba who refused.

"Toasts!" Pfannee purrs. "Let's do toasts!"

Glinda could not be less interested in whatever people have to say to butter up to Avaric. She often wonders how she ever thought there was a handsomeness to him, to anyone other than Elphaba. He's not a horribly bad person, she's sure, but she wouldn't describe him as a good one either. She's still not sure why they stick around. Most likely because he is one of the people who can take on Elphaba when she's in an argumentative mood. Lord knows Glinda struggles to. Has struggled to.

She doesn't really listen to the others, just smiles and nods when appropriate. Boq's toast is extremely short, Tibbett and Crope's much longer and intercut with bawdy jokes, Shenshen's is likely the most flattering of all. The bar has started to fill up and there is a lot of noise and she is finding it harder and harder to focus. The touch of Elphaba's hand on her shoulder only an hour prior…

"Glinda?" She blinks. Tibbett is smiling at her and everyone is looking. "Do you have anything to say?"

She gulps. Across the table, Elphaba is staring down at her drink − what looks like whiskey, for some reason, but she could always bear alcohol much better than the rest of them, something about her mother. You deserve better than me, Glinda remembers the words from the other day that cut her like a knife. Don't corner yourself into coming out just for me. You'll find someone better. Of all people, Elphaba cared more about Glinda's reputation than the very person concerned.

"I… erm…"

Tibbett's hands in Crope's, head against his shoulder. How easy they make it seem, though she knows it must have been everything but.

"I do have something to say." She breathes. "I'm in love with Elphaba. We've been dating for five months and they've been the happiest of my life."

Her audience falls silent and it seems to her that even the rest of the bar is less animated than a few seconds ago, but she doesn't let it bother her. Four days of silence was enough and she won't let Elphaba's stubborn hate of herself get in the way of their happiness. A few pairs of eyes are bulging around the table, though none very much and certainly none as much as Elphaba's, whose mouth is gaping, her glass still mid-air. After the shock has passed, she squints in suspicion and Glinda wonders if this was a good idea after all.

"I think he meant about Avaric's promotion," Shenshen whispers loudly to Glinda.

"I was afraid to tell you before," she goes on, finding the braveness in her. "I don't even remember why… But I'll tell you now, I'll tell everyone the truth because I think I'll die if I keep it any longer: I love her." Staring into Elphaba's frowning eyes, she gets a rush to the head and louder, she adds, "I love you."

Fiyero looks at her dumbfounded, the only one. Shenshen and Pfanee are whispering behind Avaric's back, who is grinning naughtily. Milla's smile is much tamer, as is Boq's as he stares, waiting for Elphaba's reaction. A reaction which never comes. The silence drags on and on. Glinda looks, begs, but Elphaba's gaze is impenetrable.

"So…" Avaric tries. "Is anybody else gonna…"

"I have to go," Elphaba says and jumps to her feet.

Glinda's heart free falls in her chest as she watches Elphaba circle round the table to the exit. She feels everybody's eyes on her and the blood rushes to her cheeks but just as she was about to excuse herself, she hears Elphaba's voice call back.

"Well, are you coming?"

She bites her lips and doesn't even meet the gaze of anyone as she pushes back her chair. The devil. The horrible leprechaun of a woman she has found herself. Why such drama?

"Excuse me just a…"

Elphaba's hand grabs her elbow as soon as she gets a foot out of the bar, pulls her so very close, wrapping an arm around her waist and before Glinda has any time to give an explanation, Elphaba's lips are on hers, the taste of whiskey in her mouth, though not nearly as inebriating as the embrace. Her back gets pushed against a wall and she clings to Elphie for purchase, for safety, crumbling under the so very desired assault. She registers people passing them by in the background, one or two shouts, but nothing matters outside the feel of Elphaba's arms circling her, of her chest pressed up against her breasts, their bodies melting into one another.

"Elphie…" She breathes when Elphaba leans back, her forehead against Glinda's, long nose bumping into hers playfully.

"This," Elphaba says, pressing another quick peck at Glinda's lips before pulling back, taking Glinda's hands with her and swirling her into a side hug, arm around her shoulders "Was for the kind words you didn't have to say back there."

"I did," Glinda says, squeezing Elphaba's waist where her arm is wrapped. "And I meant everything."

Elphaba kisses her hair as they make their way back home.

"You're a stubborn one, Miss Glinda," she says after a moment of comfortable silence. "I don't know what I did to deserve you."

"And I you," Glinda replies, "But you don't see me making a dramatic fuss about it begging you to leave me."

She feels Elphaba's chuckle resonate against her and fill her with warmth.

"I suppose I'll have to make it up to you."

Glinda smiles. They're almost back to their dorm room. It's not even dark yet.

"Yes," she says, kissing Elphaba's shoulder where she can reach, "I suppose you will."

#wicked #fanfiction #gelphie #elphaba thropp #glinda upland #tacticalgrandma

[devinlucas]

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[d--t]

so anyway I just spent like an hour waybacking into 2014 to get one third of an article about some vans.

wayback link ‘original’ redirect hell link

Meet the Nomads, a black hippie gearhead van club trucking all over the Mid-Atlantic

Edward Ericson Jr.

3:13 p.m. EDT, June 11, 2014

Caption:  David "Carpetbagger" Jones, left, and Willie "Swat" Godfrey of the Nomad Van Club in front of Jones' van at their West Baltimore clubhouse. (J.M. GIORDANO / June 11, 2014)

It was thirty years ago, more or less, on a balmy evening not unlike this one, when a group of men—six to 10 of them, witnesses recall—were gathered in the Crown fuel station parking lot near Mondawmin Mall. Just the men and their custom vans.

They were coming up with a name for their club.

“I remember the meeting,” says David Jones, aka “Carpet Bagger.” “We were sitting around talkin’, people kicking out different names and what-not. I said, ‘Let’s name the club “Nomads.”’ I kind of explained it. You are a wanderer. You don’t belong to anyone.”

And so it was that the legend, which lives to this day in camping trips up and down the East Coast, was born. The Nomads, all African-American, mostly men (“Ramblin’ Rose” Pryor Trusty was a member too) formed part of a custom brotherhood animated by beer and music, crazy paint schemes, wild wheels, CB radios and gratuitous nudity.

They’re still truckin’ today, in the midst of what might be a vanning comeback.

Custom vans were the new thing in the late ’60s and early ’70s. The VW microbus—cheap, roomy, often fit-out for camping, and horrendously under-powered—inspired legions of others to grab at bigger, more muscular American-made vans and fit them out likewise.

“Back then the van, you know, it was a thing for work,” Jones says. “But you know a conversion van, the kind you can get today? That’s what we were trying to do back then.”

The men installed plush carpeting, trick lighting, cookstoves, sinks—and, of course, beds. Captain’s chairs and bubble windows, mega-stereos, TVs, bad-ass paint jobs, fender flares . . . some vanners—among them Willie “SWAT” Godfrey, the club’s current president—even put extra axles and wheels on their vans, stretching the boxes three feet and giving them a semi-truck look.

It was something like Monster Garage meets Woodstock. “We elevated what the hippies done,” Jones says.

The Nomads were a black hippie gearhead nudist club, trucking all over the Mid-Atlantic and deep into redneck white-folk territory. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

“The important thing at the meeting was, people wanted to use CB handles instead of names, because we knew each other by those CB names,” Jones says, recalling one of the most important rule-setting arguments in the club’s history. “But I wanted to use real names. And I won that argument. I wanted to use our real names because if something happened to a club member, if they got in an accident or they were on the news, people in the club needed to know that ‘Carpet Bagger’ was Davy Jones.

“For the longest kind of time we didn’t know his name,” Jones says, nodding to SWAT, whose shop, Godfrey Auto Works, at 3605 Woodland Ave., the Nomads are gathered in. It’s a spare space with a desk and a small table, and a shelf of van-topped trophies lining one wall. Through a swinging door is a vast garage housing a half-dozen cars, including an old Cadillac with new gold paint, a ’72 Ford Maverick with a race motor in it, a classic Mustang, and some other customers’ cars. Godfrey still bashes panels, sands, and sculpts with metal and filler back there.

Eric Nelson walks in. He’s got a leather vest on with the name “Nasty Man” stitched on the breast.

He says he joined the club in the mid-’70s after seeing dudes roll through his neighborhoods in these tricked-out vans. “I had a car,” he says. “I always wanted a van.”

Nelson went to Lester Parker at Monument Ford and got a new car in 1975 that he needed his father to co-sign for. By ’76 he was trading it in for a Ford van. He was 25 years old at the time. “When I got it there was nothing in it but carpet. I put a sofa bed in there. I already had an ice box,” he says.“SWAT painted it for me a couple of times.”

SWAT left the fine work—the pinstripes, the murals, the flames and the wings—to others, he says.

“There was a guy back in the old times, his name was Butch; we called him Wandering Art,” SWAT says. “He’d do your bug deflector or your tire cover. He had a school bus he used to ride around in.”

SWAT’s got a box out now with Nomads meeting minutes going back 30 years or more—and a bunch of old photos. There’s a picture of one of the six-wheel vans he made. “It had four captain’s chairs, a sofa bed, TV, everything,” he says.

There’s a photo of the club circa 1975—a band of young, black men looking like they had the world by the short and curlies. “Only trouble with that picture—most of them are dead,” he says.

Lee Coleman—“Angel Wings”—is one who didn’t make it. He was president of the club in ’77. He had wings painted on his van. “He died a year after that,” SWAT says.

#op where's the rest #van life #tbs hellblogging

[thisaintascenereviews]

Album Review by Bradley Christensen The Maine – Can’t Stop Won’t Stop Record Label: Fearless Release Date: July 8 2008

Bands change over time, that’s just how it goes, but one of the most interesting changes is what The Maine has gone through over the last eleven years. I’ve been a fan of them since the very beginning, back when they released their debut EP, The Way We Talk, back in 2007. A lot of fans only probably know their last couple of albums, because that’s when they got bigger in the alternative scene, but I wouldn’t hold that against anyone, since it makes sense. 2015’s American Candy is when the band started to get more of a following (well, more of a following again, anyway, as they were pretty huge in the “neon” era during the mid-00s) within the emo / pop-punk communities. Anyway, I was very into their debut album, 2008’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, but I never had a copy of it, for whatever reason. I think I just couldn’t find the CD in stores, but I remember I had it on iTunes way back in the day. Afterwards, that’s when my relationship with this band got a bit shakier. 2010’s Black & White was a good album, but they went into a much more “commercial” direction with it, and 15-year-old me wasn’t too impressed by it. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop had just the right amount of alternative cred to it, where I could forgive its catchier and slicker sound, but they went full radio-pop-rock with Black & White, and its lyrics got less interesting, so I just didn’t care about it whatsoever. Pioneer, however, their 2011 follow-up was even more interesting, because it was a really exhausting and longwinded alt-rock album that tried to be more “serious” and “mature,” but I really didn’t buy it, so I never got into it. I even bought the album twice, once when it came out and another time a couple of years ago, but I just never got into it. 2013’s Forever Halloween is the album that made me go, “Wow, this is a mature album,” because that was the one that showed people that this band had a lot to offer. That’s a really solid album, too, as it had the band go into a more indie-rock, alt-rock, and even  a 90s-influenced direction.

When it comes to 2015’s American Candy, however, that’s when my relationship with The Maine sours. I didn’t like that album. Hell, I’ve grown to dislike it more over time, because it’s not a good album. I mean, parts of it are good, as I love its sound, but even then, it’s a very blatant and disappointing regression from Forever Halloween. Its overall idea is good, being an updated version of their first album, but the vocals weren’t very good, the lyrics were horrendous, and the overall sound was generic and lifeless, so I didn’t like it whatsoever. I haven’t even bothered to listen to their last album, because they didn’t even release it to digital outlets or streaming services until much later, so I haven’t bothered to care whatsoever. It’s not even like American Candy was disappointing, either. It was bad. It was a genuinely ugly record that sounded sweet on the surface, but when you really dug into the lyrics, they were garbage. I thought the lyrics on their debut album were cringing, but going back to Can’t Stop Won’t Stop now, they’ve aged quite well, and the lyrics from an album released ten years are somehow better than from an album only released a few years ago. Because of American Candy, I don’t really care about The Maine, but I wanted to finally get a copy of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, and I feel like that’s their most underrated album, because it seems like they don’t really talk about that record or that “era,” anyway. Most people associate them with their last two albums, anyway, but listening to Can’t Stop Won’t Stop again after ten years, give or take, it’s a great album. I forgot how much I love it. It’s one of those albums that’s very nostalgic to me, so I have an attachment to it, but going back to it, it’s a very damn good album, regardless. It’s easily their best, too, especially compared to their other albums.

Hate me for that, but this and Forever Halloween are their best albums. I don’t follow the fandom at all anymore, so I have no idea what the consensus is, but those are their best two albums, and the only albums worth caring about, honestly. Like Every Avenue’s debut album, 2008’s Shh, Just Go With It, which I just talked about, this album is a bit generic. It’s not the most unique album, but what I like about this album more than that one, even though that album is fantastic, is that it’s actually quite diverse. This band was more or less in the “neon” scene that was within pop-punk during the mid-00s, where bands had a lot of synth in their sound, the members had swoopy hair, they wore deep v-neck shirts, and they talked about very similar things that emo and pop-punk did beforehand, but they did it with a neon sheen, I guess you could say. This album has a lot of diversity, though, because every track sounds different. You have songs that are more straightforward power-pop / pop-punk, such as “Everything I Ask For,” “I Must Be Dreaming,” and “Girls Do What They Want,” but you have songs that have more of an indie feel to them, such as “This Is The End,” “Into Your Arms,” and “We’ll All Be,” whereas some songs are more acoustically based (“Whoever She Is”), or having that typical “neon” sound (“You Left Me”). The diversity on the album is very good, and every song has its own feel, so it never gets boring or monotonous to listen to. I personally very much enjoy this record, but it’s not just for its sound. Vocalist John O’Callaghan has a very unique voice, even if it’s not the best, technically speaking, but he uses it well. The lyrics are surprisingly interesting, too, but some of the songs can be a bit silly, over the top, and stupid. “Everything I Ask For” is a good example, just from how juvenile the lyrics are, but it’s sweet, catchy, and fun, so I don’t mind it.

When I said that the song “Everything I Ask For” is a catchy, sweet, and fun song, that’s how I feel about the whole album, really. It’s a diverse, fun, catchy, and interesting “neon” record from 2008 that’s held up quite well, especially coming from a band that I don’t care for anymore. If you only can listen to one album from The Maine, and you’ve never listened to anything else they’ve put out, this is a good one to check out. It’s a good introduction to them. I don’t care a lot of their stuff, especially since they changed their sound over time, or they’re just not that good, but this album will always have a place in my heart. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop came out at a great time for pop-punk, because it really embraced the “poppier” side of pop-punk. The mid-00s, too, was a really weird time for pop, hip-hop, and the more “mainstream” styles of music, especially with the “club boom” of the mid-00s. There was a specific sound in pop music for that era, and a lot of these “neon” bands took that pop sound for themselves. I wish pop-punk went in this direction still, and the only band we really got that combines outright pop music with pop-punk is Waterparks, and I’m not sold on them just yet. I gave their debut a listen awhile back, and it just didn’t do much for me, but if they balanced both sounds better, I feel like they could lead a “revival.” I’m almost shocked we haven’t gotten one yet, considering there’s been an emo revival. The Maine didn’t totally go full neon, as they only had one song that was really like that, but similarly to Every Avenue, they had the look, as well as the lyrics, down pat, so they fit well into the scene, regardless. They were associated with a lot of bands in that scene, and toured with a bunch of bands in that scene, too, so they had ties to it. Alternative Press was my Bible back in 2007 / 2008, and that’s how I came across plenty of these bands, but out of everything that I’ve been into, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop is one of my favorites.

#the maine #can't stop won't stop #everything i ask for #american candy #black & white #pioneer #the way we talk #fearless records #every avenue #mercy mercedes #mayday parade #forever the sickest kids #neon pop-punk #neon #emo #pop-rock #pop-punk #pop #rock #alternative

[vivi-tran]

Problematic Disclaimers

I am incredibly biased towards David Fincher’s work, and that in itself comes with a few other more specific disclaimers we’ll get into later on in this review.

This is a largely historical piece, taking place during the 1970s-80s. If you’re looking for groundbreaking representation for POC/LGBT+/female characters, you may be disappointed.

This show famously deals with the analyses of behavioral science, specifically in dealing with serial killers. This kind of subject matter can be tricky: it’s one thing to be intellectually fascinated by the psychological aspects of these cases, and another thing entirely to sympathize or rationalize these murderers. Mindhunter, of course, makes this type of tightrope act the centerpiece of their story. However, real life serial killers are depicted and dramatized in the show. This could ultimately play into the kind of dangerous romanticizations the show attempts to subvert.

I encourage audiences who correctly assess the character of Holden (Jonathon Groff) as a pretentious shithead to watch till the end.

You could probably make the argument that this series is riddled with ableism. Given, again, the historical background of these analyses, however, mental illness is not something assumed to be well understood in this context. But how we should approach mental illness in storytelling such as this is not my area of expertise, and I am open to anyone bridging that gap for me if I’m being too tone deaf in that respect.

Trigger Warnings

The only instance of gore that you see actually happen in real time is in the first scene of the first episode.

This show is about researching serial killers. There is blunt and often irreverent discussion about murder, gore, torture, masturbation, incest, pedophilia, and sexual violence. 

Even protagonists who are regarded as the “good guys” in this show are expected to put on a front in order to coax information out of their serial killer interviewees. Lewd, inappropriate, and disrespectful language is used in these contexts.

Some nudity and sex scenes. 

Drawings and photography of violent images from serial killers’ case files are shown.

Final Verdict: I loved this show.

As to be expected with a story of this subject matter, there’s a lot of ground to cover with disclaimers and triggers. This is exactly the kind of taboo audiences love to indulge in at a distance, telling each other that it’s the psychology of examining a serial murderer that makes these sorts of films and shows so exciting. But these dark and horrendous accounts, interesting as they may be to so many viewers, have to come with a certain amount of responsibility.

This is something I realized with a cold flush while in vacation in Los Angeles, perusing the Museum of Death. I examined a series of figurines modeled after a number of real life serial killers such as Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy. I tried to imagine what kind of mindset drives a person to buy these kinds of collectibles, much less manufacture them for purchase. 

Putting such a far distance from these murderers and placing our attractions in the same realm as a hobby takes away from the true horror of what these criminals have done. There’s a line between wanting to learn more and becoming part of a subculture that turns monsters into celebrities. 

Luckily for us, that is exactly what Mindhunter addresses.

The story begins with bright-eyed bushy-tailed young FBI agent, Holden Ford. Ford, initially specializing in hostage negotiation, is discouraged by a recent failed case. Behavioral science calls to him, and in pursuing this trade he joins forces with FBI agent Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv). Together they pioneer a new wave of behavioral science methods in order to better understand the way these murderers think, and, ideally, find them before they can take any more victims.

As I said before, engrossment in this field of study is, as I have come to recognize it, not uncommon. The rise of a show like Criminal Minds, a prime time television series dedicated to the analysis and capture of fictional serial killers, is a strong indication of this. Most of us would find it difficult to wrap our heads around the idea of somebody with such perverse and twisted desires to be as mundane as you or me. We form this distance maybe to avoid the other side of this obsession that the living can afford: that it could have been us. Because it is far easier to gawk at a monstrous form of evil, than to imagine ourselves as their victim.

Mindhunter attacks this line of thinking at its origins and its source. Based on a book by the same name that details the true events of real FBI investigations, the show uses fictional stand-ins to perhaps convey more dramatic representation of these ideas. But I haven’t read the book, so this is just speculation. 

I mentioned in the disclaimers that our supposed hero of this tale, Holden Ford, explicitly presents himself as an utter jackass. Nothing drives the point home harder than Ford’s development which sees his confident rise and his perplexing downfall. Like many rookies in your stereotypical crime story, Ford wants results. He wants to make a difference, and he wants to see the fruits of his efforts now. He thinks that by acting on instinct and asserting himself, he can change everything around him to his favor. This kind of brazen naivety is nothing new and also not inherently wrong. It’s Ford’s intentions, however, that complicate things.

“Why are you here, Holden?” “I don’t know.”

What starts out as a justified practice meant to stop serial killers in their tracks becomes a battle of the minds where Holden Ford manages to put himself on top time and time again. And yet, even after outmaneuvering and coercing valuable information out of several different murderers, Ford’s life crumbles around him. His long-term girlfriend leaves him, he is formally reprimanded by his superiors for his actions, he confronts the consequences to his impulsiveness, and a tell-tale press release puts an almost complete halt to his investigations. 

The first season ends as Holden Ford hits rock bottom. We realize, seeing him fall this far from grace, that by jumping through all these intellectual hoops in order to get the information he so desperately craves, Ford has played right into the hands of some of the most notorious serial killers in history. He’s in too deep. In his hubris, he placed himself so far above these murderers in his own mind because he believes what he is doing is for the sake of justice, that he actually sunk down to their level.

It probably isn’t too difficult to see this progression throughout the first season. We, as the audience, start out rooting for Ford. Yes! We should study these serial killers and put clearer terms to their behavior in order to catch these criminals early on in the game. Horrid as their crimes are, they are actual human beings and as such we need to understand what went wrong as well as when and where. And then Ford’s behavior becomes deplorable, cringey both in and out of interviews. The show poses the question: is it worth it to stoop so low so as to gather this information?

And in reverberating response, the show also answers in the same breath: no.

In some instances, we are drawn to resent characters like Tench and Carr when their bureaucracy stands in the way of Ford’s justice. But, ultimately, Ford becomes unhinged as he learns that by trying to locomotive his way into success, he has shrunk that distance I had previously stressed and learns he has never been fully in control. 

The moral comes effortlessly enough. And while he isn’t the sole director or writer for Mindhunter, we see this kind of thing a lot in David Fincher’s work: well-intentioned men being crushed by a weight they did not take the time to fully grasp in scope, all under the guise of something thrilling and grisly. Fincher’s most famous work, Fight Club, is perhaps one of the most widely misinterpreted pieces of film in cinematic history thanks to every knee-jerk reaction-having male who came out of those theaters wanting to start their own fight club or project mayhem. Fincher himself has advised his own daughter from associating with young men who romanticize the movie. Fincher takes on these topics all the time. I’m having trouble finding the interview that cites this, and I’ll update this post if I find it, but there has been a point in his career where Fincher has been accused of producing torture porn. But this brings me to the meat of what I love about this series.

Mindhunter is told masterfully. The most disturbing and action-packed part of the show is at the very beginning of the first episode when Holden Ford is trying to talk down a man at the forefront of a hostage situation. But, even then, the way the situation is presented is crude and somewhat sad - you immediately understand there is an inherent problem with how criminals with complex mental faculties are treated and handled from this opening scene. After that? The most unnerving images are shown in photographs and drawings, but never played out for the audience. In fact, when was the last time you saw Fincher play out half the gore he alludes to in his films aside from Fight Club? And thus we can be certain this show was not made for the serial killers, but for us. This is a cautionary tale. There’s no reason to show the whole terrible ordeal - just the effects.

At no point did I feel this series was dragging on either. You forget that what you’re watching is mostly comprised of dialogue. There’s no compulsion to show exploitive material. The characters and their responses compel the story forward. You don’t need a SWAT team to break down an unsub’s door and catch the perpetrator mid-dynamic-action. You’re already amongst some of the most ruthless real-life villains in our country’s history. Anything more than that would be jarring. This is not a show for the serial killers. This is a show for how we react to such a tragic brand of evil, or how we should react. It needs to be said because it’s important that we tell the difference.

In the disclaimers, I also mentioned there being little to no ample representation for POC/LGBT+/female characters. While I don’t necessarily retract that statement, I do need to point out that we are given two supporting female characters in the series who play a significant role in both the story and Holden Ford’s life. The first we see is Debbie (Hannah Gross), Ford’s long term girlfriend. Debbie is a smart, independent woman who is able to banter intellectually with Ford and initially finds his thirst for knowledge to be charming. Gross does a wonderful job with this character, but I felt she wasn’t fully done the justice she deserved, especially when she abruptly displayed disloyalty that was never actually addressed in one of the episodes. Had it not been for this scene, it wouldn’t be as obvious that she was probably just a placeholder made to show all the aspects in which Ford’s life was falling apart. 

More prominent than Debbie is Wendy Carr, a well-established psychologist as well as a lesbian. Carr is perhaps the better-written of the two female figures, being decisively driven by her own moral compass and toting the kind of calculating patience that Ford could have afforded to learn from. Torv plays the kind of character we never question, that we trust, that we know is making the most diplomatic calls possible. And even here, I am left wanting more out of her story, out of where she found herself towards the end of the first season other than just a ghost of Ford’s consequences.

Maybe it is for personal reasons that I felt the need to praise this show for distinguishing the difference between feeding a killer’s ego and not losing sight of what is truly important under these investigations. Maybe I am just a fanatic for whatever Fincher touches. And to be sure, it certainly does have his trademark cinematic touch - from seamless and compelling editing to the intense portraits of its characters. But, in any case, this show far exceeded my expectations in its mindful storytelling and is an important piece in a society obsessed with the grotesque.

#reviews #mindhunter #mindhunter review #tv reviews #review #david fincher #film #tv

[teddyylou]

Kuroken Week: Day 1 - Varsity Blues

College AU to kick off the week!!!!!

Ao3 xx

Kuroo is finding it hard to settle into his new university after the first semester and is finding it hard to make new friends and balance school, training and sleep. 

Kenma worries about his boyfriend and visits to make make sure he is staying alive. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 

____________________

Kuroo could barely lift his feet of the worn floorboards of his dorm room as he trudged through the threshold, essentially letting everything from his hands drop unceremoniously to the ground. He shut his eyes, no longer able to avoid them drooping closed as he kicked off his shoes, adding them to the pile of things by the door. He swayed blindly as he dragged his way over to his bed, momentarily cracking one eyelid open enough to check that it was his bedspread that he was falling onto and not his roommates before eventually dropping onto it akin to how his book bag and volleyball bag had been discarded.

The tall athlete buried his face impossibly further into the depths of his soft covers, relishing in how much more comfortable they were then the ones he had originally been given by the school. They were insufferable which is why he had taken his current ones from his bed at home on his last visit. He could barely breathe as he prayed for his warm haven to swallow him whole and spit him out back in his old bedroom at his parents house; never to be seen again by anyone at the university.

It wasn’t that he regretted his choice of schools, or even going to university in the first place. He knew he was working towards his life ambitions and he was slowly achieving them; to Kuroo, it had always been perfect in theory. However the unfortunate reality was not all it cracked out to be in his mind. Balancing school, volleyball and a social life was harder than he thought. He never ran out of time or didn’t finish a task, and he certainly wasn’t failing. He had just severely underestimated how much of his energy it used, which has never once been an apprehension of his when going to the school as he had always had enough for himself and then some to spare for Kenma.

He was now constantly running low and living off coffees and energy drinks, which had previously been self forbidden in high school. Kuroo worked hard during the day, trained harder in the afternoon and evening and studied really hard after waking up early to do so. In actual fact, that had never been his gameplan and sleep was always a priority to Kuroo, but coming home this exhausted every night meant crashing as soon as he hit the pillow and studying in the morning over breakfast was the way to go.

Begrudgingly, Kuroo rolled out of his bed to pull off his shirt and pants before finding some presumably clean sweats of his on the floor that he pulled on before climbing back under his red duvet. He sighed as he shut his eyes again, retracing everything that had happened throughout the semester to figure out what had gone so wrong. He knew university would be a change from high school but he was barely passing these days and he needed to do well to stay there; Lord knows he could only get there on a scholarship and 60% won’t cut it. Everything was just so different and harder to adjust to than the boy had imagined. New classmates and professors, new timetable, new teammates and more importantly a new setter to sync with.

Kuroo quickly decided that not having Kenma around 24/7 was the thing that threw him off the most. The couple would hang out from dawn to dusk, not even having to talk sometimes. Kuroo had the best friend group last year, ones he still talked to over text often but the people here were different. He was less used to them and they were most definitely less used to him. On top of that they all seemed to know one other person there.

Kuroo’s train of thought was cut short by a blinding light shining into the dark room as the door opened, revealing his roommate who had just come home from a dinner he had briefly mentioned to him that morning. They made awkward eye contact as the other male waddled tipsily to their shared bathroom, mumbling a good night and closing the door. Kuroo rolled over to face the brick wall his bed was against. Photos of his friends hung up from the roof right down to the bricks inches from his face. He really did have a lot of friends; why had it been so hard to make new ones then? He pondered the subject before analyzing a conversation he had had with his lab partner a few days earlier.

She had asked if he was going to a dinner that night for a classmates birthday, to which he replied saying that he had no idea it was even on and he wasn’t that close with them or anyone going anyway. Actually, that must have been where his roommate had been, thought Kuroo. She had brought to his attention something that his roommate had also brushed on after a week of meeting.

Kuroo had been really excited to go to university, so he was really outgoing when introducing himself. He made a lot of good first impressions and was invited to all the right parties. It wasn’t until the semester had actually started and everyone settled that the parties dwindled and one night a few people that were in the same hall as him were round and everyone was chilling and drinking when his roommate returned and Kuroo welcomed him with a hug; something he had always done with his teammates at home.

His partner had been there that night too and she brought up that he was very open and casual with hugs and stuff like that which put a few people off. This didn’t offend Kuroo at all, only shock him. He was so used to greeting friends like that he must have not even noticed. Kuroo could only sigh again as he silently wished for things to become easier, and as he watched the shadow of his chest rising up and down on the wall from the moonlight, his prayers were seemingly answered when a notification on his phone pulled him from his trance.

He squinted from the light projecting from his phone but subconsciously smiled upon seeing it was a text message from the one person he needed to be with the most in that moment.

_____________

Kenma <3: hey, sorry it’s late but are you up.

            all good if your are studying.

_____________

Kuroo knew it was important as his smaller boyfriend was actually writing full words instead of replacing them with letters, emojis or including horrendous intentional spelling errors.

_____________

Kuroo: of course kitten. What’s up?

Kenma <3: can’t sleep, miss you

Kuroo: Kitten…

           I miss u too

Kenma <3: Do you any free time coming up where I can visit?

_____________

Kuroo struggled to form a reply. He wanted to see his boyfriend more then anything but between class, study and volleyball, he didn’t even had time to look after himself let alone accommodate for kenma and spend any quality time with him. He had been to a few of the school advisors about this, all of which would say the same thing.

‘School is a priority, Tetsurou-kun, you may need to cut out extra activities like volleyball club.’ They’d all recite as if reading off a script. Although he was still adjusting to the other teammates he still enjoyed playing alongside them and still loved volleyball. He never wanted to give it up, even if it wasn’t at Nekoma.

He realised that he hadn’t responded in five minutes to Kenma and began to get worked up. He could feel tears burning at the corners of his eyes, mind fuzzy with stress. He heard the shower in the bathroom turn off so he got up from his bed, clutching his phone so tight he was losing colour around his knuckles. He needed to see Kenma’s face, talk to him properly without being heard by anyone else. He grabbed his nekoma tracksuit jacket and almost ran down the hall into the cold night air. He was breathing heavily, pulling his mind away from the dangerously high pile of work on his desk that stood out teasingly as he had left.

_____________

Kuroo: I’m gonna ft u okay.

_____________

He sent the text quickly not even waiting for a response. Everything was building up inside him and he was itching to take off his jacket again as he felt too hot and annoyed in his own skin. He knew better than to catch a chill this close to mid terms but as soon as the phone against his chest stopped ringing and he brought it up to eye level to see Kenma’s face illuminated by whatever game his was playing on his Xbox it was if the world washed away and all the weight that was crushing him into the ground was lifted. He sat on a park bench and sighed, beaming at Kenma’s worried little expression.

“Are you okay?” He whispered into the phone.

Kuroo shook his head as the first tears spilt down his cheeks and over his still upturned lips. Kuroo let everything that had happened spill, from the gathering to volleyball, to classes to his lab partner. He spoke about the energy drinks that would probably give him a heart attack or a disease and how he sometimes wished they would.

The small teen sat and listened, pay attention to every word and detail, letting his boyfriend vent, trying to fathom a reasonable reply or justify for him how this could even happen. I mean, he liked Kuroo and everyone else liked Kuroo, he understood why these people were so different just as much as the other boy did. Sure he was used to Kuroo’s affectionate tendencies; even though he liked space and Kuroo resected that, Kenma was also used to everyone else being used to it even if they were on a different volleyball team. Maybe it was an athlete thing. Kenma listened to Kuroo for at least half an hour hopelessly trying to give advice. In the end Kenma just wanted to give him all of the hugs and touches that he had been deprived of recently and make sure he was eating and sleeping and acing tests, even if he spent less time on his own work, he was fine anyway, he just wanted to be able to fix everything, even if that was impossible.

“Kuroo, you need to take a break, you are going to burn out.” He regretted his words sounding so harsh but the statement was truthful and necessary. Kuroo just bowed his head.

“I can’t” he spoke defeated into the phone.

“I have lectures and classes to go to and on weekends there is left over work to get through. After midterms I’ll come home though, for a while too.”

Kenma had to refrain from getting frustrated at his response, he had to be the strong one at the moment. After composing himself and his thoughts he spoke calmer but still firm into the phone.

“No, you will hurt yourself by doing this, Okay. I finish early on Friday and I will take the train right up to you.” He promised.

“You have practice.”

“You are more important to me then a practice. I can skip it once and will still live… So should you or you might actually not.” He didn’t even left Kuroo finish.

“You not exactly changing my mind.” He retorted deadpanned.

“Kuroo, I’m worried about you. I’ll stay with you, you can take the weekend off from, sport and work too, I know you can catch up. It is important to relax and be healthy too, okay. I’ll leave Sunday night and we can just hang out for two days.”

Kenma was giddy at the thought. He hadn’t been to Kuroo’s uni yet. He was delighted to see a small smile return to his face for the first time since he broke down. He didn’t look like him when he wasn’t smiling. He was the most motivated he had ever been in his life to help Kuroo and was actually extremely excited about going. It was the first time he had felt extremely about anything.  

Kuroo pulled a reluctant expression, leaning his head back and groaning before leaning it on his shoulder and sighing. He mumbled a fine and Kenma almost leapt in his spot on his floor; almost.

So as promised , Friday afternoon just as Kuroo had finished his last class of the day, Kenma was there waiting for him shyly outside the front of the dorm quadrangle. He avoided eye contact with everyone who passed him, eying their feet as they entered their block. He looked so tiny compared to all of them even though he was only one year younger then most of them and it made the older boy’s heart swell. Contrary to what the third year had hoped, a growth spurt never really came in abundance for him and he only barely reached over 172cm. Kuroo found his height compared to the others hopelessly adorable and almost broke into a run as he rushed to meet his boyfriend.

“Kenma!” Kuroo chirped as he engulfed him into a bone crushing hug, lifting Kenma’s small frame completely off the ground; evidently already in a better mood at the mere presence of the highschooler.

“Kuroo, put me down!” Kenma whined into his shoulder, still taking in the scent that he had missed so much. They stood there beside the doorway to Kuroo’s dorm block for what seemed like an age, trapped in their embrace, unable to leave the instant feeling of safety and comfort they had felt through every fibre of their bodies the moment they touched.

Kuroo kissed Kenma on the top of his head to finally break the reunion. They took in each others features that had only been pixels on a screen for two months, not even speaking for a further protracted amount of time before Kenma broke the silence.

“How are you feeling? Was school good today?” He asked sweetly, genuine concern dripping in his tone.

“For some reason that I can’t quite pinpoint, today just got 1000 times better.” He smirked, laughing at Kenma hitting his chest lightly in retaliation.

“It was alright. No homework to take home so all I’ve got is the stuff on my desk.” He smiled down at his boyfriend.

“Good, so you can do that on Monday.” Kenma replied stubbornly, Kuroo just rolled his eyes before leaning their foreheads together.

Most people had cleared the area by now, only the occasional people left to make quick and curious glances towards the couple. Kuroo hadn’t exactly mentioned that he was in a relationship to anyone here and he didn’t expect that others would make that assumption either; but he brushed their stares off and took Kenma’s dainty hand, leading him out of the cold and wrapping his oversized hoodie-clad arms around his waist right up until they were at his door. He let them into the empty room and let go of his boyfriend so that he could get an impression of the room. He went over to his desk pushing away a fast food wrapper from his neat pile of paper as Kenma scanned the photo wall.

“Messy ass hell, so nothing really has changed.” He said bluntly.

“Hey!” Kuroo laughed throwing the wrapper at him, which he dodged effortlessly.

“Ok first we clean so you aren’t trying to learn in a dumpster-”

“Says you and your video game hoard.” Kuro cut him off.

“Archive.” Kenma corrected quietly, smoothing out some wrinkles in Kuroo’s duvet.

“Whatever.” Kuroo joked, feeling at ease in a conversation for the first time in forever.

“Then, we can cook the pasta I brought because you need to learn how,” Kenam continued, vaguely gesturing to a green reusable grocery bag he had dropped of by the door, “and then…”

“We sleep?” Kurro finished.

“We sleep.” Kenma smiled at his shoes, excited for the domestic evening they had planned.

They speedily cleaned Kuroo’s half of the room, changing sheets, dusting, throwing out civilisations of take away containers and making a pile of dirty clothes to put in Kuroo’s hamper only to find that it was full to the brim. Kenma had just rolled his eyes and shoved the pile into Kuroo’s hands while he picked up the hamper and nonchalantly walking out into the hall.

The pair spent the next hour and a half sitting on the floor of the blocks laundry room opposite each other playing a half hearted game of foot wrestles while catching up properly, talking about everything and nothing while they waited for the machine to finish.

“I don’t see how you guys aren’t better friends, you are both equally disgusting.” Kenma commented on his roommate judging him by the state of his side of the room.

“He is pretty chill and I wouldn’t mind hanging out, he just doesn’t think that…” Kuroo trailed off.

“I’m sure that’s not it. Yeah you hug, so what? That’s all! You are still a nice person.” Keman ranted.

“Thankyou.”

“If it helps, I think you are very funny.”

“It does.”

“Good.”

The two boys broke into a dumb laughter after that, enjoying their limited time together.

Later that night, Kuroo’s roommate came home with a few mates to find Kenma and Kuroo opening windows and fanning the smoke alarm with a tea towel.

“ I said to put water in it Kuroo, how do you not know that!” Kenma shouted over the alarm before realising that it had stopped right before he has spoken and that they were in fact not alone anymore. He fell silent instantly.

“Hey guys.” Kuroo said happily to the trio that had just entered. It turned out that they were there to figure out a plan for dinner. Kuroo was the one to point out that even with the burnt pasta out of the equation there would still be enough for everyone, and everyone appreciated the lesson.

The night turned into the five of the teens, even though Kenma didn’t say all too much, talking about professors and campus legends and actually bonding for the first time. There was another boy and girl alongside Akira, Kuroo’s roommate who were both in their first year Kenma eventually felt comfortable enough with the situation, him leaning into Kuroo on his bed while Akira sat on the floor and the others on his bed, to comment on how none of them knew how to cook something as simple as pasta.

He was surprised when they others actually found it funny and said that he should ‘so come to this uni next year and they can hang out heaps’.

The rest of the week was spent doing the exact one thing that Kuroo and Kenma had left on their list, sleep.

They woke up late Saturday morning to an empty room, tangled in each others limbs. They rolled around for the most part of the day before going to a cinema that night to see a new horror movie, an abandoned tradition since Kuroo had gone to university. They hung out with the others for a while on Sunday, escaping shortly after as they had less than a day left together and they did some more cuddling in Kuroo’s bed, making up for lost time.

Soft kisses to skin and lips still felt so familiar and good and it was as if this weekend was the energy drink that Kuroo had really needed. He needed his boyfriend as a sense of familiarity to settle properly and even as they kissed goodbye at the train station and as Kuroo walked back to his dorm alone, he didn’t even feel remotely tired. He didn’t know how long this would last so he rolled with it, going against kenma’s wishes and got a stack of work done Sunday night. Akira was long asleep before Kuroo hit lights out and he felt good about the rest of the semester to come.

Kenma continued to visit every so often and they put their lives on hold for a night to just refresh themselves. Life had finally fallen into a healthy rhythm for Kuroo and he was forever grateful to have Kenma by his side to swoop in and save the day.

#kurokenweek #kuroken #haikyuu #haikyuu!! #kenma x kuroo #kozume kenma #kuroo tetsurou #my writing #fluff #angst #college au #school au #kenma #kuroo #au #day 1 #yayayayay #teddywrites

[brandxspandex]

How and when did you get into Transformers? What are your favorite characters and pairings so far?

I was always vaguely aware that Transformers existed viacultural osmosis; I saw the toys and car decals and the like around the placeoften enough. When I was a teen I had some friends who were getting into G1,Beast Wars and Armada at the time, and would tell me stuff about it that got meintrigued. The information I got about Armada Starscream was particularlyinteresting to me because this was at the point where I had started to developa fascination with redeemable villains. I saw the first couple of episodes ofG1 with these friends when their older sister took us to her university towatch a screening by the sci-fi club there. It was fricking hilarious; by thescene where some Autobot was rubbing a guy’s back, looking like he was drillinghim from behind, everyone had lost it. I had already lost it by the bit where twoasteroids improbably crashed into each other right near the beginning; for some reason thatwas really funny to me at the time. This was all shortly before the firstBayformers film came out, so I was getting pretty pumped to see it and get aproper introduction to the modern franchise. I went to see the film with the aforementionedfriends, pretty excited to see interesting robot characters embedded infascinating sci-fi space fantasy lore. Then I left having more or less lost myinterest in the franchise.

Seven years later I had another good friend who was gettinginto Transformers who told me some stuff about Transformers Prime and the IDWcomics here and there. It occasionally sounded vaguely interesting but notenough to make me want to investigate it any further. Then that friend hosted amovie night where they insisted on showing the G1 Transformers film, which Iwas actually pretty pumped for because I was keen to relive thatmagical night watching G1 with a bunch of rowdy uni students from all those years ago. Ohboy, the G1 movie did not disappoint on that front. Everything about it wasjust a glorious succession of 80s-flavoured wut.My favourite part was how the 80s power ballads were absolutely non-stopthroughout the entire damn thing. Just…glorious.

My friend took my enthusiasm over the utter ridiculousness ofthe film to be enthusiasm for the franchise itself, so they decided to make mewatch Transformers Prime, which I was initially kinda grumpy about because Iwanted to keep watching Space Dandy, but then that first Vechicon appeared and Iwas just “oh well hello there 👀”.Then Starscream showed up with that voice, and those legs, and heels,and claws, and that scene where he transforms mid swan dive, and thoseexpressive animations (which only got better when they started making his wingsemote), and his general ridiculousness interspersed with moments of genuinely cool/terrifyingbadassery and hints of character depth. I loved him. I think I was somewhatpredisposed towards being interested in Starscream from the get go because of theseeds of intrigue that were planted when I was a teen, but even though myfriend told me that this version of Starscream didn’t go through the redemptionarc of his Armada counterpart, he happened to hit pretty much every other villaintrope I loved anyway. Also, he may have remained a villain, but he did havesome interesting moments that suggested that there was more to his character.

Starscream is definitely my favourite character in TFP but Ilove pretty much all the Decepticons. The Autobots are good too, but man, Ilove me dem ‘cons; they look evilly gorgeous, all have magnificent voices, andare all their own special flavour of ridiculous. My favourite stories are usuallythose with complex characters and plots, that stray far away from black andwhite portrayals of morality, but I’ve gotta be honest, sometimes I just reallywant a completely ridiculous, over-the-top tale featuring utterly absurd andnutty villains, and that’s the main button TFP hit for me (that and thosegorgeous robot designs). That being said, like TFP Starscream, TFP itselfshowed a lot of hints at a potential to be more complex and interesting than itwas, which was both super intriguing and super frustrating. Ultimately there area lot of things I loved about TFP, but I could never bring myself to call it a great show overall, because it wastedway too many great opportunities in terms of both plot and character development.If it had taken half of those chances it could have been amazing.

My favourite ship in TFP is Megatron/Starscream, initiallyfor the same primary reason I enjoyed the TFP Decepticons in general - just theridiculous, campy, over-the-top villainy of their dynamic. If you view theirrelationship through a lens of realism, then yeah, it’s absolutely horrendousrather than entertaining, but if you view them as villainous archetypesinhabiting crazy vaudevilleland rather than realistic people, then it takes ona very different flavour. That being said, again there were suggestions of amore complex element to their relationship that once more got me more deeply intriguedwhilst leaving me frustrated at canon’s failure to plumb these depths. I alsoreally enjoyed Knock Out and Starscream’s relationship, although I think I’multimately more interested in it as it as was portrayed in canon, rather thanas a ship. The show itself laid groundwork between Megatron and Optimus that Ibecame interested in when it was explored in fanfic, and I gotta admit thatAirachnid and Arcee’s relationship intrigued me if only for how thoroughlyfucked up it was and how pretty they both were. But honestly, if there’s a TFP shipthat involves Decepticons being ridiculous then I’d probably be somewhatinterested in it.

After I finished TFP I was hungry for more Transformerscontent, which I went looking for on tumblr, and I think that’s how I ended up comingacross panels from the IDW comics. My reaction was pretty much, “Wait, these are the comics? They’re modern?And that’s not edited? That’s actuallyhappening??? What the hell I gotta readthe shit outta these!!!” So I did, and suddenly everything I’d wantedfrom the Transformers franchise since I’d developed my first preconceptions asa teenager was mine. The complex characters, the trippy space fantasy, the deepworldbuilding and lore, it was everything I could have hoped for. What asatisfying experience, my god.

My favourite character in IDW is Starscream, who is also myfavourite Transformer overall now, and with his recent development thatassociation that was implanted in my teenage brain between Starscream andredemption arcs is finally paying off (to some extent anyway). Megatron is alsoespecially interesting to me in IDW since he’s such a multilayered character(even if those layers don’t always synergise as well as I feel they could).Starscream and Megatron’s relationship is again deeply fascinating to me in IDW,although since they’re in what to me feels like a more serious setting I can’tenjoy it so much on the “haha campy villains” level, rather it’s much more about how darkly complex their dynamic is. Megatron’s relationship with Optimusis also especially engrossing to me in this setting since they’re very much anexample of really intense and obsessive arch-nemeses. Speaking of Optimus,whilst I wouldn’t go quite so far to call him a favourite of mine at thispoint, I do like the direction he’s being taken in the comics at the moment, where he’s making really contentious decisions for the greater good.

I would go so far to call Thundercracker a favourite of minethough; not only was he a villain with a redemption arc, but he became anendearing dork with a comical misunderstanding of humanity. I love everythingabout all of those things. I also love his relationship with Marissa; I wouldwatch the hell out a sitcom featuring such an odd couple. I also really lovethe IDW take on Shockwave; most Shockwaves are pretty great, but this one’s reallymessed up backstory, together with his batshit insane plan in Dark Cybertron,made him amazing. Arcee became an unexpected favourite of mine after she calmedthe hell down to become hilariously awkward and matter-of-fact under the pen ofJohn Barber.

Bumblebee and Windblade have also really been growing on melately, largely through their association with Starscream, which has broughtout more and more interesting aspects of their characters. For instance, I lovethe snarky smugness Bee has around Starscream, but I love the fact that he hascome to feel seemingly genuine affection for someone he hated for so long evenmore. As for Windblade, I love how her increasing ruthlessness culminated inthat smirk of approval from Starscream as she laid out her plan to seize Carcer;I can’t get enough of utterly opposed characters who grow increasingly similar(and increasingly close) as they’re forced to work together. Honestly I ship Starscreamwith each of them more and more every time they interact.

So anyway, this has been my backstory episode.

#Transformers #Maccadam #Transformers Prime #Transformers IDW #Starscream #MEGATRON #OPTIMUS PRIME #Knock Out #Arcee #Airachnid #Decepticons #Thundercracker #Marissa Faireborn #Shockwave #Bumblebee #Windblade #asks #Anonymous

[andranikolayi]

Gxrls Can’t Mix - misogyny and discrimination in the electronic music world

originally appeared online in Romanian for Revista Cutra

A brief note about this translation

I initially wrote this text in July for Romanian intersectional feminist mag CUTRA and they published it mid September. The focus was supposed to be on events that did take place locally, however, this summer there’s been a constant stream of tweets from female-identified and enby djs/producers about their horrendous Boiler Room experiences.

I wanted to shine a light on that and the endemic kind of sexism that boiler room is constantly facilitating and refuses to take any responsibility towards, as well as share some of the horrors from the Romania scene that nobody wants to talk about because we still live in a very homophobic, racist and sexist environment. As a local queer artist myself, I do believe it is our duty to speak up on these issues even if it may negatively affect our social/professional life. The local community leaders do know what they need to do in order to create safer, more inclusive spaces yet prefer to use a superficially woke discourse that looks good online, yet they would never take direct action or present an unpopular opinion.

Having spoken to Ceci after their Boiler Room and their scary bad experience (including receiving multiple death threats), it became increasingly clear that this text needed to exist in the world. Also running into Lakuti last week in Berlin and hearing how traumatized she still is after her experience playing in Romania, I was all the more motivated to translate it into English and make this available for everyone.

It may be sprawling at times, but I think it’s important to present a translation of the original published material, as it appears on the CUTRA website. Please keep in mind that CUTRA is not a music/dj-specific publication so certain aspects of the industry come with very ELI5 explanations.

First I thought she was just messing with us, but now i m starting to think that this girl doesn’t know what she’s doing

This is boring room not boiler room

Are they trying to put us to bed and broadcasting Schumann resonances?

She would have been better at spinning pizzas than records

Go back to the kitchen!

 These are just a select few from the over 2000 comments of the very first Boiler Room live stream taking place in Romania. Said comments appeared on the initial Facebook live post. The event took place in July 2016. At the time of writing this article [na – july 2019], all the comments are still publicly visible on their page.

I could probably write a thesis on misogyny in electronic music, but for this particular piece I’d like to focus on the following question: why do we saying that gxrls can’t mix?

I would also like to ask the follow up questions: should we be surprised that colleagues from the Romanian club industry would say that a female-identified person is a sick DJ but „a little too homely” to play a certain club? Or that another person I used to consider a close friend would tell me during a b2b set that because he just took some MDMA I looked like „a juicy piece of meat” to him? Or how when Electronic Beats Romania did their first feature on local producer Admina and they didn’t even know who to contact from the magazine to moderate the deluge of hateful comments? Or how nobody even bats an eye at the way industry men here always tend to grab you by the lower waist when talking to you in the club as if it were the most natural thing in the world? Try to explicitly say something and you would be instantly labelled an „unchill bitch”.

The answer is a resounding yes. We should be surprised, as well as angry and concerned enough to start actively doing something about this.

Miss I’s Boiler Room

 On July 6th, 2016, the promoters behind the Interval event and festival series put together the very first Boiler Room in Romania. For those of you less familiar with the club world, Boiler Room is a platform that organizes events specifically designed to broadcast a live video stream of the club experience. Think DJs mixing or musicians doing live sets, while also making a point in filming the audience and their reactions to the music. Since its inception in 2010, Boiler Room has become a global phenomenon, with immense pull in the industry. The project is equally revered and reviled to the point that there are parody YouTube channels (see People of Boiler Room). For most artists, being on Boiler Room is a make or break moment, sort of like a calling card highlighting your skill as a DJ.

Promoters, fellow DJs, agents and ravers all follow Boiler Room religiously. The platform’s increased popularity and growing volume of videos produced per week may have slightly decreased its influence due to sheer oversaturation, being on BR is still the highlight of many up-and-coming artists’ career. Unlike a mix, the BR videos don’t just physically show off your mixing skills, but they also document the audience’s reaction in real time. Oh, and as a DJ you only get 60 minutes to give it your best. Or, as with Miss I in the following example, you’ve just been asked to open the very first BR broadcast ever from your country. Miss I is one of the most beloved local female DJs, also responsible for opening the first vinyl only record store in Romania and highly appreciated in the minimal/deep house scene, so you know there’s gonna be eyeballs. But no pressure, u do u grrrrl.

For every Boiler Room event, the broadcast is livestreaming on their website and Facebook page. Reading the live reactions on the chatroom and Facebook comments is intricately related to the experience. On that humid summer afternoon in a rooftop garden in Rahova, the comments that started pouring just a few minutes into her set were absolutely shocking. The level and volume of vitriol had greatly surpassed the BR staff’s expectations. About 40 minutes in, the host publicly posted a call out comment.

However, while researching this article, I was surprised to discover that most of said harmful and sexist comments were still up online. There were no attempts on behalf of the BR team to warn or ban users. Hell, there was no moderation. But maybe there should have been.

The Boiler Room Effect

Part I - San Francisco Pride, 2019

This story took place in 2016. We could easily justify what had happened by claiming we don’t like to talk about gender politics at the club or how, generally speaking, the Eurominimal/tech-house scene the event was catering to is notoriously populated by aggro cishet bros who worship Villalobos. Unfortunately (surprise surprise!), this has not been the first, nor the last online scandal Boiler Room has been responsible for.

During the writing process for this material, initially meant to focus mainly on Romanian issues, I started paying attention to the comments on recent BR livestreams. This process, coupled with the increased number of artist friends talking about the backlash in the comments following their BR streams I was seeing on Twitter lead me to believe in the dire necessity of live moderators for the entire BR social media. These comments are not just mean spirited or unfunny trolling, they can be incredibly harmful and have a lasting negative effect.

On June 1st 2019, Boiler Room organized a Pride-related event in San Francisco where an artist I not only appreciate but happen to occasionally work with made their debut. Ceci aka CCL is a DJ, producer, co-founder of queer collective TUF and [at the time of publishing] agent working for Discwoman, an NYC-based talent agency created to boost womxn and non-binary artists. CCL identifies as non-binary and uses only they/them pronouns. Being AFAB and feminine presenting, they are often misgendered due to their presentation, even after clearly stating their preferences.

In the beginning of the video, the host does use their correct pronouns, but most people in the comments were still referring to them by using she/her pronouns. This might seem like a minor inconvenience compared to the bulk of the discourse happening below the stream, mostly comprised of people complaining about the music, ranging from how weird the selection is, whether or not that sound is a faulty cable and how bad their technical skills were. Later Ceci confessed they even received actual death threats. All this was happening at a Pride-related event in one of the gayest cities in the world and with a line-up specifically tailored for the occasion.

Being misgendered is always a bad experience, but when it happens during what is supposed to be a career-defining moment, the effect is even more traumatic. Besides, a torrent of sexist and negative comments cannot have a positive effect on anyone, regardless of their gender or sexual identity. Especially with BR, this only seems to happen when female-identified or non-binary artists are concerned. In CCL’s case, the misgendering may have not been the most atrocious part of the online response, however we do need to start implementing such habits as not assuming one’s gender or choice of pronouns. It may seem like a small step, but it does make a world of difference.

What Boiler Room continuously refuse to do is acknowledge the influence it carries in the industry and the responsibility that comes with that. BR could have avoided causing a lot of damage by simply adding a little blurb about the artist’s preferred pronouns in the description of the Facebook live video, for the users tuning in later or not familiar with their work.

It’s this kind of thoughtfulness and concern for the actual scenes they feature that is consistently lacking from their approach.

Part II - The Sherelle Incident

 In March 2019, a different incident took over both the online and offline music discourse – for approximately two whole weeks, all you could see on Techno Twitter were reactions to Sherelle’s Boiler Room. In short, there was clip of a POC female-identified DJ from the UK playing bass and jungle to a packed room going totally berserk until someone from the audience touches the CDJs and the music stops. This unwanted intervention coming from an unidentified hand created a meme-worthy WTF reaction. To nobody’s surprise, this snipped was the one Boiler Room chose to use as their preview advertising her set online. All of a sudden, her startled face in the clip was all anyone could think of, not the incredible atmosphere she created. Yewande Adeniran  wrote a thoughtful piece on the implications and how said “accident” took the discourse away from a moment that was supposed to be just about Sherelle and her skills as a DJ.

Following the incident, the Twitter community managed to ID the person who caused the hubbub, who turned out to be infamous UK DJ Riz la Teef, who was also playing the event. Online, he’s been bombarded with accusations of racism and misogyny to the point of having to delete his account. However, a wave of reputed DJs and producers jumped to his defense and justified his action. Keeping in mind that most of what we call Techno Twitter is comprised of people from/who live in North American, their argument was that his unwarranted intrusion was in fact a very common practice from the UK grime/bass culture. 

Known as a wheel up or to turn up, it consists on moving the jog (the little CDJ wheelie thingie) to rewind the track playing and increase the hype. It’s traditionally considered a sign of appreciation and supposed to be very flattering when your friends/fellow DJs perform it. Think of it as a hands-on rewind. Only in this case his attempt failed and the only thing he managed to accomplish was create a whole lot of confusion. Plus, they were friends and earlier in the clip you can see him come say hi and hug her. In true Internet fashion, think pieces from major publications followed, educating the poor American kids on the wheel up, as well as photos with the two hugging and making peace, telling everyone it’s time to chill out. As for Sherelle’s part, I’m actually curious what else was she supposed to do than say something along the lines of “OK, fine, let’s move on”? It’s already hard enough to break through in the industry as a queer black woman, the last thing you want to do is be that unchill bitch who can’t take a joke.

Our Daily Misogyny

Going back the shitty things that happened in Romania chapter, I want to talk about an incident that happened in October 2016 at a Queer Night party in Guesthouse. To give you a little context, Queer Night is a series of queer parties, the first of its kind, co-run by local choreographer/dancer Paul Dunca and DJ/singer Cosima von Bulowe for over a decade. Guesthouse is a club mainly associated with the Rominimal/tech-house cult, with a pretty cishet, homophobic audience. However, they occasionally host the odd underground event, like DJ Stingray or Lena Willikens. This particular event was a collaborative effort between Queer Night and the Interval (the people responsible for the Romanian Boiler Rooms – na) curatorial teams, who invited queer womxn DJ couple Lakuti and Tama Sumo to do an extended back to back set. Lerato Khathi aka Lakuti is an incredibly talented DJ from South Africa, who also runs the label and talent agency Uzuri and Tama Sumo has an extensive DJ career and also books for Panoramabar.

As Lerato was mixing, a guy standing in front of the booth reaches towards the turntables and touches the record that was playing and the music glitches. Lerato simply froze for a second but continues to carry on mixing. A few minutes later, said guy suddenly appears behind the booth (access to the booth and the backstage area requires a separate bracelet) and tries to get her attention and starts touching her. In that moment, Tama rushes in and extracts the person from the booth. In spite of his highly inappropriate conduct at event that promotes safe spaces, the security staff refused to kick him out of the club for a fuzzy array of reasons – friends with the owner, being a “house regulars” and my favorite “he didn’t beat up anyone” line. Considering the organizers’ credo and position as community leaders, they could have done more than simply trying to minimize the incident.

The rest of the night went well and their set was lovely, but talking to them the next morning, the entire experience didn’t sound like just a minor incident of a someone being an asshole: Lerato confessed that even though she traveled and played all across the globe, she’s never experienced anything remotely similar.

I’d love to be able to say that these stories are just rare occurrences. Unfortunately, being in the music industry reflects a much more grim reality of endemic sexism. Let me suggest a little exercise – take for example any Boiler Room video on Youtube where there are female-identified performers and within the first dozen comments you might something along the lines of “she can’t mix”, “great selection but her technique is lacking” or “X guy did this so much better in the ‘90s”.

Perhaps we all know by now that commenting on a womxn’s appearance is a no-no. Yet I still constantly hear various industry men making comments that womxn like Peggy Gou or Jayda G only got where they are now just because they’re hot. (How come nobody calls out Marcel Dettman for looking like a model I ask you?). Unlike jabs at someone’s looks which are easy to dismiss as harmful, commenting on someone’s “skill” and “technique” are seemly OK because they refer to an objective (they say) variable, easy to judge and quantify. I ask you this – doesn’t this all sound terribly familiar? Perhaps using the same arguments as those right wing Youtube personalities that post videos with titles such as „X DESTROYS feminists with FACTS and LOGIC”?

Consequences of the systemic sexism are starting to pop up everywhere, from Resident Advisor closing down their comments section due to the amount of harassment related to their recent focus on female artists to the petition against Giegling’s Konstantin. For a quick reminder, German DJ Konstantin used a bunch of “biological determinism” arguments in an interview trying to explain why he believes women don’t have the right kind of brain for mixing. In 2018, Konstantin was booked to perform at three major parties during Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), a key annual gathering for the electronic music industry. A petition signed by thousands of fellow DJs, music journalists and electronic music artists circulated online to have him blackballed due to his comments and half-assed apology that followed. Unfortunately, the only result was the ADE organizers offering him even more exposure by inviting him to talk about his actions on a live panel.

This kind of discourse is very dangerous, as by accepting and normalizing it we’re offering it unwarranted legitimacy to the point that opinions such as Konstantin’s start being reiterated by the press. After this year’s Movement festival in Detroit (the birthplace of techno), a journalist in a local newspaper writing a piece on the women’s rising visibility in electronic music, cited a “veteran DJ” who claimed women lack the technical capabilities to mix and rely on laptops and software in order to do their job. Despite this not being the author’s argument, he chose to offer a platform to a blatantly misogynistic opinion. These positions are not just wrong and should be called out for their obvious sexism, but perpetuating them in the press further increases their destructive power. The more we will continue to validate them, the more present they will become.

And still, why do we keep saying gxrls can’t mix?

Are girls really all lacking in the rhythm department? Commenting on one’s ability to mix is still one of the most widespread forms of criticism that AFAB and female-identified persons get. Why is it so widespread?

Through mixing, the art that defines the modern dance music DJ, most people understand creating a story through a continuous body of variegated music but particularly having no pause between the tracks. When industry people talk about mixing, they usually refer to beatmatching, which is usually means blending two or more tracks, often of different tempos or keys. The overall tempo of the DJ’s mix can remain constant or experience subtle increases across their set. This style of mixing, using long transitions, no tempo changes and working within the same musical subgenre throughout is particularly appreciated in Eurominimal and tech-house, which is also the most lucrative part of the industry in places like France, Germany and Romania. As many talented DJs have proven over the years, from legends like Larry Lavan or David Mancuso and their cosmic or loft deeply personal, eclectic styles, the perfect blends same tempo school is by no means the only “right” way to think about a dancefloor.

At a time when dance music has exploded into a multi-billion dollar industry, the “perfect mix” paradigm became the dominant style. In this climate, to be a DJ is synonymous with knowing how to mix, otherwise you don’t exist. Or at least that’s the androcentric perspective. And once you frame things like this, the comments on womxn’s “technical skills” stem from the same sexist pool as saying womxn are not good at math/science/driving or other “men’s” activities. After all, they’re just being objective, right? “Oh my god it’s not like I said she was fat or something!”

Mixing is a learned skill that requires practice to be perfected. The portion of the population who is encouraged to learn skills that involve music and technology, who is not discriminated against and has access to often costly equipment (be it controllers, CDJs or turntables) is overwhelmingly cis, straight and male. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the “I don’t have a mix online/nowhere to practice because my ex bf had all the equipment” story. Or gxrls saying they never learned how to mix because they didn’t have access to equipment. Or the supportive “nice guy” story who invites you over to “teach you how to mix” but quickly loses his interest once you reject his sexual advances.

It’s refreshing to see groups like Room 4 Resistance, No Shade or Discwoman not only organizing events, but also putting together free mixing workshops for womxn and non-binary people. People are also trying to change things in Romania, with groups like Corp. or Queer Night trying to tilt the gender imbalance locally, only unfortunately their efforts are lacking the infrastructure, institutional support and ideological consistency.

 Where to Now?

 We’re in 2019. DJs like The Black Madona, Josey Rebelle or Octo Octa and Eris Drew are some of the most in-demand people in the circuit. They all approach the dancefloor differently and bring unique views of what a DJ set can be. Yet straight white boys are feeling threatened by their success and are constantly looking for arguments to delegitimize their success. “Yeah, but this person is getting booked everywhere just because it’s cool to be trans now” – as if anyone would go through the intense process of forever altering your body just because queer is “in”! “Oh if I had tits I would get more gigs” – another male DJ I used to call a friend told me when I started playing more in Bucharest. I’ve heard phrases like “but why do women only book other women?” or “how can the super talented boys ever breakthrough in this environment if women are getting all the attention?” more times than I can recount.

Straight white boys need to shut the fuck up! For decades, the vast majority of people in charge of running/booking clubs were straight white men who would only book other straight white men. Yes, there we certainly do see more womxn in line ups, but just as female:pressure cares to remind us periodically, the percentage is still predominantly male. The healthiest path towards building a more diverse and inclusive music world is not having the old gatekeepers trying to educate themselves and perform acts of tokenism, but make space for marginalized people in decision-making positions, because nobody could make more informed, coherent and inspired choices than a person who is deeply involved in the community. Just see Discwoman’s Frankie miracle work over at Bossa Nova Civic in NYC. And it is very likely that with the right people running the show, incidents of abuse and harassment will diminish as well.

Womxn have been so used to be touched without consent and constantly harassed that we’ve been programmed to dismiss such indiscretions as minor inconveniences, something that “comes with the territory”. In order to see an improvement of this state of affairs we have to become more radical in our attitudes against sexism and discrimination. We absolutely need to learn to speak up whenever we encounter misogyny, racism, homo and transphobia and, most importantly, believe womxn when they come forward with a story of abuse of boundaries crossing because whenever we brush it off with things like “he was drunk”, “it was just a joke” or “there are two sides to every story”, we become complicit and contribute to this toxic culture.

The good news is that we can all contribute to changing things. And no, you don’t have to go to a march or join an organization if you want to help out. Change starts in your own immediate community by simply calling out your friends when they say something sexist, not supporting the known abusers and problematic people in the industry and just coming out to see one of the local womxn artists.

We will continue to play, to defend the DJ booth as sometimes the only safe space we might have at the club, to record our music however we can and become ten times better than all male DJs who told us we don’t know, we can’t or we “don’t have the necessary biological conformation”. But, most importantly, we’ll keep making people dance.

images, in order of appearance

queer night at apollo 111, 2017

miss i boiler room, 2016

edited screengrab from comments in the miss i boiler room facebook stream

crowd at miss i boiler room, 2016

ccl at rewire, 2019

all photos courtesy of the author

#gxrls cant mix #cutra #boiler room #sexism