The urge to play so much Minecraft vs the desperate state of my grades

okay my turn. little post 5.09 snippet

It’s 2 am by the time Buck’s sure that Taylor’s fallen asleep. Her face has gone soft and slack against the pillow, unguarded and vulnerable. Buck’s heart clenches at the sight—like one wrong move could break it.

He slides out of the bed carefully, treading across the room to grab a hoodie from the closet, before slipping down the stairs.

It’s familiar, this walking on eggshells in your own home feeling. He remembers being a kid and memorizing the steps in his house that would creak when you stepped on them a certain way, remembers how he perfected turning the lock just so—so that it would make the softest click possible, the way he had to hold his breath every time he closed the door with practiced ease—all so he could escape the suffocating atmosphere of his parents' house.

That’s what his apartment has turned into—a trap that sucks all of the air out the second you close the door behind you.

Buck feels like he can’t breathe, not even in his own apartment, so he escapes out the glass door onto his balcony.

It’s not exactly cold. Buck remembers northeast winters enough to remember what actual cold feels like. But he’s been in LA long enough now that the dark November air still bites at his bare legs.

He shoves his hands in the pocket of his hoodie and pads over to the garish red chairs on his balcony. They’d been Ali’s choice—along with most of the furniture in Buck’s apartment. He had trusted her to help him move into this new place and make it feel like a real home—that was the thing she was good at. And maybe a part of him thought that the more his apartment looked like her home, the more likely she was to stay.

Six months ago Buck had stood in his doorway and told Taylor that he was done chasing people—but time has only proven him a liar. It’s all Buck knows how to do, really. Chase after things that don’t want him. To shift and change the parts of himself that make others twist their faces up in disdain—or worse, pity—to shed the skins of his past selves and let them trail behind him like spirits he can’t exorcise no matter how hard he tries, in hopes that someone will finally one day turn around and see him and want him.

All this time he thought he’d been moving forward but the longer he sits with it all—the moment Taylor showed up at his doorstep that night, the way his hands were shaking as he clicked purchase on a last-minute plane ticket to Oklahoma, when he had to set the wine bottle and glass he’d been holding down on the counter with the softest touch, wary of shattering them, like Taylor’s words had shattered the veil around him—the more he realizes that he’s been doing nothing but going in circles, chasing the same thing that’s been just out of reach for years.

Now, he guesses, he finally got it. Or—he got something. It feels like he reached out his hand and grabbed hold of what was in front of him only to pull his hand back and stretch out his fingers to find the palm of his hand empty.

That’s how he feels. Empty.

Once the bucket of ice water had washed over him—he was pretty sure being told I love you wasn’t supposed to feel like fear—all that was left was emptiness. It was easy to slap on a smile and go through the motions, to slide his hands around Taylor’s waist, follow her up the stairs, use his body for the one thing it’s ever been good for, give her everything that she wanted—when there wasn’t anything inside of him telling him to do otherwise. There wasn’t anything inside of him at all.

But now, as he sits on the red metal chairs his ex-girlfriend bought, the cold air seeping through his clothes and creeping along his skin, he feels it—that familiar dread that settles somewhere in his chest and expands until it presses against his lungs, making it hard to breathe. It’s the same feeling he had when he noticed Abby’s luggage tucked away in her apartment, when Ali sat him down on the couch and held his face in her hand and told him she didn’t know if she could do this. But—Taylor’s not leaving. She loves him. And he—well. She’s not leaving. So, why does everything feel wrong?

He glances down and pulls a hand out of his pocket, phone clutched in his fingers. He runs through the list of people he could call in his head—Maddie won’t pick up. He’s pretty sure Bobby will just tell him to talk to Taylor again—which is how he got into this mess in the first place—and he doesn’t even want to think about how that conversation would go.

Hey, you know how you said you love me earlier and I said it back? Well now I kind of feel like I want to throw up when I think about it and—

He doesn’t realize he’s dialed Eddie’s number until he hears the dial tone.

It’s 2 am and he shouldn’t be calling Eddie at this hour and he should really just hang up but then—

“Buck?” Eddie’s muffled, sleep-tired, and low voice comes through the speaker, and Buck hates the way it instantly soothes him.

“Eddie,” He starts, wincing at how ragged his voice sounds. He doesn’t even know what to say or why he called Eddie, of all people. “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have called. I know it’s late and—”

“Buck,” Eddie repeats, his voice firmer and clearer this time. Buck hears the sheets rustle in the background, imagines Eddie sitting up in bed, flicking the light on.

He bets it’s warm there. In Eddie’s bed.

“What’s going on?” Eddie asks. “Are you okay?”

Buck wants to say yes, it’s on the tip of his tongue, and when he opens his mouth that’s what he’s expecting to come out.

Instead, he says, “Taylor told me she loves me.”

And Eddie doesn’t say anything for a moment which makes Buck want to take it back, to grab the words, and shove them back in his mouth, and go back to that thing they were doing where Buck never mentions Taylor to Eddie and Eddie never asks about her and they never talk about it—because they’re really good at that. Not talking about things.

Not talking about things like your blood in my mouth, your skin scraping against asphalt as you tried to reach me, a bullet in your shoulder, your hand pressed against my chest, mud caked under my fingernails and your screams 30 feet underground, my name written in your will for a whole year.

But now they have to talk about this.

“She did,” Eddie says, and it’s not a question and it’s not really a statement. Buck flounders.

“I said it back,” He pushes the words against the back of his teeth and they tumble out in one breath, squished together, and rushed.

If he could go back in time he’d go back to the day Eddie got shot. He’d walk them further along between the ambulances, safer and out of the line of fire. They’d both make it out of that day unscathed and unmarred and Taylor wouldn’t pull his mouth down to hers while standing in his kitchen because she’s not afraid that he’ll walk out the door any second and end up with a bullet in his chest.

Eventually, Taylor would find her way to Oklahoma and Buck wouldn’t follow her there because there’d be no ties between them. And when she came back she wouldn’t stand in Buck’s kitchen once again, tearing the ends off of string beans and she would never tell him that she loves him. Because she wouldn’t.

Eddie would’ve broken up with Ana before the panic attacks ever started and right now at this very moment, Buck could be safe and warm in the one place he still feels like he can breathe easily—the Diaz house.

“Do you?” Eddie’s voice cuts through the silence and Buck stills, his brain still six months back and miles away, in a space in time that doesn’t exist anymore—that can’t exist anymore.

Do I?

Do I wish that I could go back in time and stop that bullet from breaking your skin?

Do I wish that I had stayed in your house instead of leaving that day in August when you told me I should get back to my own apartment and life and stop fussing over you?

Do I wish that I was there now—safe and warm and breathing and alive and well and not here in my cold apartment with this stranger asleep in my bed next to me?

“Do you love her?” Eddie repeats when Buck doesn’t say anything.

“I’m supposed to,” Buck says finally, his voice small. He hears Eddie’s sigh over the phone, soft and quiet. There’s a pang in his chest.

“You don’t have to do this, Buck.”

“She said she loves me, Eddie,” Buck repeats, voice teetering on the edge of pleading. “No one’s ever said that to me before. I’ve never said it to anyone before—I just—I don’t...I don’t think it’s supposed to feel this way?”

“How does it feel?” Eddie asks gently. Buck realizes that he’s crying.

“Cold,” He gasps out. “And lonely, I feel so lonely, Eddie. She’s right upstairs asleep in my bed and I’ve never felt so fucking alone.”

Now that Buck’s started, he can’t stop, the words flowing from that space in his chest and out of his mouth into the LA night sky where it's dark and it feels safe. He wipes at his face harshly.

“She told me she loves me and I said it back but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything. I kissed her and I went up the stairs with her and I had sex with her but I didn’t feel anything the whole time. What kind of person does that make me, Eddie? She loves me and I don’t—“

“Buck,” Eddie cuts him off again. He takes a deep, shaky breath, and feels that space in his chest start to shrink. “I don’t…you have to break up with her.”

“What,” Buck blinks.

“It’s not—love doesn’t feel this way. It’s not supposed to. Nobody’s supposed to make you feel this way,” Eddie says.

“But she loves me,” Buck says plainly.

Eddie doesn’t say anything for a second and then quietly, “Is that enough?”

Buck’s breath stutters in his chest again and for a moment he thinks he’ll never breathe again, his own words repeated back to him and hitting him square in the sternum, knocking all of the air out of him. He opens his mouth to respond but then closes it again when he realizes he doesn’t actually know what to say.

“What if—what if this is my last chance, Eddie?” Buck asks quietly.

“For what, Evan?”

And—Buck hears it then, hidden in the softness of Eddie’s voice.

It’s love.

It’s the same tone Eddie’s been using for years, carefully tending to every part of Buck that’s ever been broken and shattered, gently helping him put himself back together piece by piece—he’s heard it a million times.

But something about hearing it now, something about hearing the name that had been used as a weapon against him for so long come out of Eddie’s mouth for the second time with nothing but gentle reassurance and understanding—Buck finally gets it.

“What if,” Buck starts, his voice small and wobbly still. “What if no one ever loves me like this again?”

“Well, I hope no one ever loves you like that again,” Eddie says honestly. “But…the—the thing you’re looking for? It’s—you’ll find it. It just…it won’t be from Taylor Kelly. And it won't feel...cold.”

“How do you know?” Buck asks—even though he knows now. He knows.

He hears Eddie’s breath on the line and can imagine the soft smile that goes with it, the shy one where just one of the corners curls up slightly. The one that always feels like it's just for him.

“Do you trust me?” Eddie asks, voice warm and sweet like honey over Buck’s frozen frame.

“Always,” Buck answers easily.

“I know,” Eddie says and Buck wants to cry again.

“I should,” Buck starts, twisting to glance behind him and up at the loft. “I should go, um. I’ll uh—I’ll talk to Taylor in the morning. This probably isn’t right…for either one of us.”

“I’m proud of you, Buck,” Eddie says quietly and then Buck really does cry.

“Yeah—thanks, Eds.”

He stands and wipes a hand over his face again, gentler this time. He stares up at the sky and even though he can’t see them, he knows there are millions of stars out there twinkling over him. One day he wants to take Eddie and Christopher up north, somewhere where there aren’t as many cars and lights, and they’ll pile up in the back of Eddie’s truck and look up and see every star winking back at them.

Maybe they’ll even do that someday soon.

“Hey, what if I…could I come over tomorrow? Or—today, I guess? I’ll make pancakes and we can just…have a day?”

“Buck,” Eddie laughs softly into the phone and it’s the best sound Buck’s ever heard. “You know you’re always welcome.”

“Yeah,” Buck nods, smiling a real smile for the first time in days. “Yeah, I know.”

Alvin Lucier, I Am Sitting in a Room, Lovely Records, 1981

RIP

Leonard Fink (deceased)

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Gay

DOB: Born 1930

DOD: Died 1992

Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish

Nationality: American

Occupation: Photographer, lawyer, veteran

Note 1: He photographed the gay culture of Greenwich Village in the 70′s and 80′s. Fink neither published nor exhibited his photographs in his lifetime, sharing them only with close friends. At the time of his death he had over 5,000 prints and around 25,000 negatives.

Note 2: Had HIV

For @pastelpaperplanes 7.5k DTIYS challenge

kaeya can be quite the handful, but he’s good to keep around. that said, you do need to keep a few things in mind when you’re in a team with him! so, together with my teammates, we listed down three ways in which we take care of him. don’t worry, it’s nothing too heavy! if anything, these are all just the best ways to show him we love him. but don’t tell him that! - yanfei

happy birthday to my favorite genshin boy, kaeya alberich! here’s my team showering him with love for his special day (transcript below the cut). pls join me in crying over him if u want, ty

(transcript)

image 1: “captain alberich tends to get carried away during battle and ends up taking more hits than he will ever care to admit. we’ve done what we can to minimize the damage, but a battle is a battle, after all. always see to it that he is in good shape afterwards. a good set of bandages, a pack of gauze, and medicinal potions are essential when it comes to traveling with him. ah, and a great deal of patience; that man just doesn’t know how to stay still when we tend to him.

i do worry about him constantly. make sure he is well. - sara”

image 2: “kaeya doesn't get that much sleep, but when he does, he always wakes up looking exhausted! i wasn’t really sure how to cheer him up in the morning when we first started working together, so i tried giving him the one thing that always gets me up and running every day: a nice, warm cup of coffee. black, no sugar, no additives. and it worked!!!

maybe some day we'll get him to actually go to bed at a reasonable hour, but for now, this is the best we can do. and it puts a smile on his face, so that's always worth it, right? - yanfei”

image 3: “yan-nee was right when she said that kae-nii doesn’t sleep on time, he’s always up so late, it’s like he never sleeps. whenever we camp out, he always volunteers to take watch instead of sara-nee, and when we wake up, he’s already dressed and ready to head out--he always says it doesn’t bother him, but i see him getting sleepy all the time...and whenever we tell him to sleep, he says he doesn’t need to. but if he doesn’t get enough sleep, he won’t have enough energy to keep going on adventures with us!

so whenever it’s time for me to take a nap, i always ask him to join me; he can’t say no to me! all i have to do is pretend to sleep for a few minutes and poof! he’s already snoring. dumb kae-nii, he’s sleepier than me, but he just won’t admit it... - sayu”

[ID: Digital fan art of the planar tree from Rusty Quill Gaming episode 218. It is a large iridescent blue tree with bright greenish white leaves. A long dark blue root extends towards the bottom of the frame. The branches of the tree and a dark starry sky are reflected in the water to either side of the root. At the base of the tree, an entirely white figure is sitting cross-legged. End ID]

the imagery in this ep was beautiful and i had to draw it right away immediately

Statuesque Series | C. 2016

I want to join more discord servers but I know I won’t be super active if I do

“Virgil was here”

Sheila Shulman (deceased)

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Lesbian

DOB: 18 October 1936  

DOD: 25 October 2014

Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish

Nationality: American

Occupation: Rabbi, activist, teacher

Note: Was one of the first openly lesbian graduates of the Leo Baeck College.

8 Years without him 😔🕊

#PaulWalker

Virgil Abloh 

(September 30, 1980 -  November 28, 2021)

“Figures of Speech, “ is the concept that anyone is capable of anything so long as they don’t hinder their own flexibility by subscribing to one point of view, one career path, or one idea.

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Designed by Samir Batal

Rest in Power, Virgil 

Artwork by Nettrice Gaskins

I’m trans so I’m allowed to admit I thought the ‘down with cis bus’ was real at 16

RIP Kentaro Miura

I can’t believe it was kept in the wraps for 2 weeks... but I’m a bit flabbergasted and still processing that Kentaro Miura has passed away.

It’s pretty easy to understate how big his influence is in art. Without him, we wouldn’t get Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and the animators and artists of Castlevania explicitly said he was in an influence in their work.

Miura, in my opinion, had one of the greatest eyes for detail and some STRONG, STRONG, STRONG visual imagery almost untouched by... well a lot of people really.

He pushed the visual imagery of fantasy and horror in new and exciting ways, and it’s a test to his timeless writing that we’re still invested in Berserk for decades.

RIP Mr. Miura.

Kentaro Miura-san has passed away ~

Mr. Kentaro Miura, the creator of "Berserk", passed away on May 6, 2021 due to an acute aortic dissection. We would like to express our utmost respect and gratitude to Mr. Miura for his art work, and we sincerely pray for his soul to rest in peace.

*May 20, 2021 Hakusensha Co., Ltd. Young Animal Editorial Department