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tlouxobsessed · 11 months

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Let me down

Synopsis - Ellie and y/n were best friends until they began to drift, y/n hates Ellie now. At least up until your mother invites Ellie over for dinner.......

Characters - Switch/mean!Ellie x Y/N!reader

I do not own The last of us, Y/N is afab therefore female body parts will be mentioned. Below there is a warning of what will contain this story.

Warnings - Lesbian sex, , cunnilingus, fingering (r!receiving) spanking, abandonment, afab (female parts) , Mentions of murder.

~ Four years earlier ~

"Okay so Truth or Dare" the green eyed girl said to y/n.

"Hmm-"

"Hurry Y/N!!!"

"Ellie!! calm down I need to think" Y/n said laughing at the girls lack of patiences.

"Okay...truth"

"Lameeee" Ellie said, rolling her forest green eyes towards y/n.

"Fine....dare"

Ellie smirked knowing now she could make y/n do the stupidest thing ever. Ellie sat there pondering on what she should make y/n do, she wanted her to do something risky. Y/n stared at Ellie waiting for her to decide, she admired Ellie's features. The way her jawline was perfectly chiseled. Her green eyes sparkling in the low light from the lamp. The auburn hair landing right above her breasts.

"y/n?" Ellie asked.

"Oh shit- sorry uh?" Y/N said her pinks turning a bright shade of pink.

~ Present day ~

"holy shit-" you said bursting up after the dream. You didn't think about Ellie much...but when you did it was like swallowing nails. It pained you so much but there wasn't anything you could do. Your friendship with her was over. Anywho you weren’t really the type that sat and dwelled over stuff out of your control, you enjoyed the present not the past. Sure you’d see Ellie around Jackson but you never paid much mind to so, the two of you never had to speak so why’d bother dwelling?

You glanced over at your clock, the red numbers exclaiming ‘5:47’ realizing you sat there for two extra minutes overthinking your dream. 'fucking shit I need to get up' you stood up staring into the mirror by your bed, wondering why you'd get up so early anyways? you had been training your body for years to get up at this time, but no patrol today, no plans....so why be up so early.

"Baby are you up?" you glanced behind you seeing your mother come into your room. Her hand wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee. Your mother had always been your best friend, after your father passed away she was all you had. You adored her and she adored you, it was always that way.

"Oh Hi mom, are we doing anything today?" You asked slipping some jeans on along with a crewneck. "Well Hun I was thinking...and before you say no- hear me out, I invited Ellie over-" You quickly looked up, your heart dropping hearing that familiar name once again. You hadn't spoken to her in years, after Joel died she became even more distant.

You knew she lived on a farm a few miles out from Jackson, with Dina and their child. But that was short lived....

~ Two years prior ~

"It's Dina!!! she's back!" Your mother said running towards Maria's house pulling you with her. You two wandered into the house seeing a distraught Dina and a sleeping JJ. "Ellie left...Tommy came and started rambling about finding Abby, she went to go find her three months ago. I've decided to come back and live with Jesse's parents. I am done with Ellie...if she even makes it back."

' If she even makes it back '

You felt your heart skip a beat with that sentence. Even though Ellie and you had a falling out...you still wouldn't be able to live without knowing she was safe.

"Excuse me" You said heading back towards your house, you spent the next few weeks crying to yourself and wearing Ellie's old shirt she had left there.

~ Back to present day ~

"Mom!! seriously?? Why?" your mother glanced down swirling the drink with her finger then taking another swig. "Because Y/n she doesn't have anybody anymore...she's been alone. You still never told me what happened between you two.." You didn't know how to tell your mom, she didn't know you liked girls. She had no idea that night by the fire, the dare was to kiss Ellie, she didn't know that Ellie and you ended up half naked, bodies intertwined that night...hair a mess...sweat pouring. She had no idea...Ellie's long term girlfriend, Cat walked in on the two of you intertwined, lips parted with one another's...bodies drenched...room filled with tension.

Yet you still never got what you wanted...you never got Ellie completely. Even when the two of you were best friends, there was always someone stopping you from having one another completely. And when the two of you were about to make love, somebody once again stopped that. This made you despise Ellie, Cat made you despise Ellie...then Dina...They all prevented you from having what was yours. Ellie.

"She is coming over for dinner, you do not have to tell me what happened between you two...but y/n please be nice." You nodded sitting down on your bed and pulling out your journel.

You began writing in this when Ellie had given you it. For your fifteenth birthday...she gave you a notebook with doodles in it. Pictures of you, her and some pages dated with days Ellie had written about you. You cherished the notebook like a child, writing in it everyday for hours.

Entry #1,990

Today mom told me Ellie is coming to dinner...which means she is staying with us. I had a feeling something was coming, my mom had been acting too nice recently. Cleaning my room, trading her favorite stuff for new dresses, shoes and books for me. I should've known.

I haven't spoken to Ellie in forever...I'm pretty nervous but we will see how it goes. I dunno how I feel about Ellie anymore...I know she loved Dina so much so I am a lil' nervous but we'll see ya'know?

"Y/N!! please come down here please!!" You heard your mother say. Your stomach felt full, your throat felt dry and your head felt heavy. God what were you going to do. You made you way down the creaky stairs revealing a tired looking Ellie. She was wearing a dark green button up, the sleeves rolled up revaling that same tattoo she's had since seventeen. Some black skinny jeans hugging her figure. And her usual converse still on ever since you were teens. You didn't know what to say. She didn't look up at you, her eyes kept locked to the ground.

"hi" you choked out, the smell of dinner hitting your nose as you made your way further down into the living room. "Hey" Ellie said looking up at you, her greens meeting your e/c.

"Listen dinner is ready! I hate to do this but I have to head out....Maria and Tommy invited me for a drink at their house to discuss some town issues. I love you" Your mom said to you guys, walking over and placing a kiss on your forehead. She hugged Ellie, "great to see you Ellie" then made her way out.

The two of you just stared at one another..."You hungry" you asked the awkward girl.

"Uh a litle" Ellie replied. You nodded placing some of the chicken and potatoes on her plate.

The two of you sat in silence until you knew you had to break the thick tension.

"Ellie...We left off on a really bad term when we had last spoken."

"Yeah we did" Ellie said mouth full with bread.

"I'm sorry" You were surprised to hear Ellie say that. You never expected her to actually take ownership for her actions. "I really am y/n, It wasn't right of me for what I did....I really....really wanted you...I always have" Ellie put down her fork making her way over to you. Placing her warm, rough hands onto your shoulders rubbing them. You didn't even know how to respond. You melted into her touch feeling her thumbs go right into the soft spots of your weak shoulders.

"Let me clean this up for us" Ellie picked up the dishes, washing them while you sat there stunned. This all felt too familiar....too comfortable, almost too good to be true. Ellie walked back over to you, reaching out waiting for you to interlock hands. "C'mon y/n let me show you how sorry I am." You agreed lining up your fingers with hers, she followed behind you, walking into your once pink room. The walls now grey, your black sheets and black curtains surprised Ellie.

You and her sat down onto the bed, the once full sized mattress now a queen. It was all so different, you weren't the same girl Ellie had let down one too many times. Ellie looked over at you, flashbacks from that hot July night coming in way too fast. The feeling of her warm, plump, chapped lips against yours all too similar. Her hand made its way up to your right breast, cupping it and massaging through the thin purple tank you had on. She reached behind unclipping the bra, cool air turning your nipple rock hard. She caressed your erect nipples, your moans into her mouth turning her eager to feel you.

"Take these off" Ellie said gesturing towards your grey sweats, her fingers playing with the band of the pants. You complied, pulling them down revealing your lace, black panties. "fuck Ellie" You gasped as she rubbed her calloused palm over the small wet patch. Ellie slipped your panties to the side, rubbing her index finger between your dripping folds. You couldn't help but twitch with each light tap on your clit. "You like that y/n? Show me how bad you want me" Ellie's words felt like drugs in your bloodstream, her mouth parting once again between yours. Her tongue fumbling against the inside of your mouth, licking your bottom lips just as she sticks her pointer inside you.

She strums pushing it up on your spongey part, you tighten around her as she pulls out then adds another. Her two fingers pumping in and out, your moans getting louder, gripping the back of her neck. She pulls out unbuttoning her sweat drenched shirt revealing a black sports bra, she takes off her black jeans adjusting her soaked boxers. Ellie pushes you down back onto the bed, making her way up sucking and kissing on your inner thighs, she leaves her signature purple and red marks.

"Oh my-" You manage to spat out as she plunges her tongue against your soaking wet cunt. "Take it" she says shoving two fingers in immediately...feeling you clench around her. She sighs out feeling you tense up every time you speed up against her swollen clit. The throbbing part of you begins to feel heavy, your stomach feels tight, that all too familiar knot forming. Ellie watches as you unclench releasing your hot, juices all down her hand.

She pulls her hand out, licking your juices off consuming it like she's been starved. "You did so good" Ellie says watching your red face become a shade darker from the praise.

Ellie lays next to you, rubbing your temples and handed you the glass of water near your bed...all you can manage to say while laying against her chest.....

"Please don't let me down again..."

I hope you guys enjoyed :0 I love writing one shot smuts, but I always need sooooo much detail that it could become an actual story LOL.

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lynxgirlpaws · 5 months

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Probably the less pressing of the two brainworms but the most concerning from an outside view probably. This is kinda two sub things actually. Uhh. Self harm chat below the cut. Sorry.

So like. As y'all may know, I . Cut . Well, not really anymore. It's been like a few weeks. But I've got a few (a lot) scars. I personally don't really care. Like, oh no there's some lines on my thighs noooo :/

My issue is... The opposite. While it's weirdly comforting seeing others with scars (even if it's a horny post, I'll stop being horny and. Just wanna give op a hug) I. Have noticed the stupidest thing. Whenever I see... Deeper cuts? I feel like shit. Like I'm somehow a faker. There were times when I was cutting where I seriously started doing it more just because I thought I wasn't doing enough to. Deserve... To self harm? It's like how I can't take punching or biting my tongue or scratching my neck seriously either, like. Those don't count c'mon. Except. Much worse.

I dunno. It's just something that worries me when I rember it. Thought I'd get it out

I. I feel so bad for this one dude I. Okay so, I had a class last year right? It was like a weight lifting class. We'd just go to the weights room and fuck around. But it was mostly the super athletic sporty type. Except for like. Me and one freshman. I mean there was one other dude but he was in football or something so he's basically sporty. Anyways me and this guy would chit chat. He's cool as hell . I think the poor bastard looked up to me, like "woaaah the smart upperclassman" when really I was a fuckin mess. I wouldn't call him a friend since we didn't talk outside of that class. But. Whatever. I think he looked up to me. Ig I was kinda like "hey. Dumbass nerds can make it too lol". I remember him talking about how he liked to play Minecraft & thought it wasn't cool and I was like "dude. I know this dude doing internships with NASA and studying architecture and stuff. Guess what his favorite game is? Minecraft lol" (shoutout dako) like. "Hey lil dude you can make it and keep doing what you enjoy". Anyways... One day we're sitting on the bench y'know. Waiting for class to start... And. Some of my cuts show. I. Like he asks if I'm alright, and I laugh it off and cover my legs you know. But. Looking back on it... That's so fucked. Like, imagine you have a role model. Who's managing themselves and not getting involved in bullshit and smart and funny and. One day you get a peak into the fact that they're a complete fuckign mess. I. I dunno I. Feel bad. Also last night remembering that genuine "are you okay?" Had me fucked up. I. There's not really a point to this just. On my head. In my mind

Anyways that's the self harm part of tonight's rants done. I'm alright tonight to my knowledge, so. Don't worry about me !!!

#avierant #avierants #sorry btw if i havent been chatty lately #I've been trying but #deadass will have like hours and hours in a day where i don't wanna talk to anyone... especially high energy people #like i still will but!!! it will be! a struggle! lol

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ybcpatrick · 11 months

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hi we don’t know each other! but i have a picture of johnny knoxville wearing a shirt with one of your guys on it!! so funny that i can now recognize a couple of wrestlers in the wild despite not caring abt it at all. worlds colliding etc etc anyway cheers!

oh my GOD i'm so excited i get to tell you about this. you will regret this /j

since you happen to just Have a photo of johnny knoxville on hand, i'm guessing he's a special guy of yours, and in that case i've got great fucking news: back in late 2021/early 2022, jackass actually partnered with wwe to promote jackass forever. johnny knoxville ended up having a legitimate storyline feud with sami zayn.

so, the royal rumble is an event held every year in january. the draw of the show is the titular royal rumble match, wherein thirty competitors battle for the opportunity to main-event wrestlemania in april for a championship of their choosing. two people start in the ring, and then every ninety seconds, another competitor is added. to eliminate someone, you have to throw them over the top rope, and both of their feet must touch the ground.

now, i say "competitors" and not "wrestlers", because you don't actually have to be a wwe superstar to be in it. case in point: johnny knoxville announced on january 7th that he was gonna be in the rumble. sami (who, i should note, was a crazy bad guy at this time) was PISSED that a celebrity like knoxville could just show up and take spotlight away from real wrestlers. so when the rumble rolled around on january 29th, sami made sure to personally eliminate johnny.

johnny took that poorly. presidential alert, the girls are fighting.

on february 2nd, sami crashed the red carpet of the jackass forever premiere and johnny had security forcibly remove him from the premises

on february 18th, sami won the intercontinental championship off of shinsuke nakamura (hence johnny's shirt in the pic djekfhskfh). then, sami lost the title to ricochet thirteen days later, on march 4th, due to interference in the match by johnny knoxville

sami challenged johnny to an anything goes match at wrestlemania 38, johnny accepted

the match at WM38 is the stupidest shit in the world, and it's fucking AWESOME. it's goofy wrestling at its best, and sami's gone on record saying it's one of his favourite things he's ever done. it's got all the jackass shenaniganning you could want. if you've got twenty minutes, i highly recommend watching it, because the whole thing is on youtube.

and bonus points, even though sami's a good guy now and it's been over a year since it went down, johnny still "hates" sami's fucking guts and takes every possible opportunity to dunk on him. it's so good it's so fuckin good man. johnny knoxville is like a blorbo-in-law. to Me.

#shut up kell #ask #sadizmas #SORRY THIS IS LIKELY WAY LONGER A RESPONSE THAN YOU EXPECTED BUT LIKE. THIS IS REAL AND THIS HAPPENED. SO I THOUGHT U WOULD LIKE TO KNOW

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monkeymindscream · 1 year

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6, 8, 10, 12, 16, and 23. SALT FOR SALT, UNLEASH THE BEAST.

YES. YES. THE BEAST IS OUT!

6. Which ship fans are the most annoying?

Overall, I pray every night that I will never again be placed within the vicinity of more shippers who are anything like Starco shippers. Skin me with a cheese grater over that.

But that's not especially topical for me at the moment (and anyway, I've barely touched the Star vs. fandom since its finale, so for all I know they've calmed down since then). So in terms of a group I've encountered more recently that's gotten my nerves:

Lunter shippers.

I've been dipping my toe into the "toh critical" tag lately, for my own mental health. It's been a very cathartic experience for the most part, save for the slew of anti-Huntlow sentiments. Most of the people I've noticed decrying Huntlow are Lunter shippers. Which, I'm sorry, puts a massively different spin on any arguments they may try to dredge up against it.

Which listen. I fully acknowledge that Lunter is, thematically speaking, 100% the superior ship. And I don't just mean that when compared to Huntlow, it eclipses Lumity by a green mile. Like - yes Lumity is a massively important milestone, culturally speaking, yes it's very cute, no I'm not trying to lobby that the show would have been better without it or whatever, but I'm sorry these are the facts. Luz and Hunter had better chemistry as enemies than Luz and Amity did, and once they were on the same side they confided in each other more than Luz and Amity did. The payoff of them getting together at the end of the series would have been better than the Lumity payoff we got. ("They're siblings-!" fanon likes to interpret them as siblings; they don't share blood so this argument holds no water.)

All of this is course coming from a purely objective standpoint, you understand, because I'm very firmly Team Huntlow. Which, getting back to the point at hand, Lunter shippers apparently are aggressively against. I'm not saying they don't have valid points to their arguments (because lord knows this show turned into an incomprehensible mess by the end), but I resent that they frame those arguments as objective when they're obviously grasping at whatever they can to justify why their ship is superior. (On this note, I don't think it's a coincidence that most of the anti-Lumity sentiments I saw in the critical tag were also primarily from Lunter shippers.)

8. Common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

(Hollow Knight!)

The amount of people I see out here acting like it's even feasible that the Pale King went through all his offspring, one by one, and then chucked them into the Abyss when he deemed them "failures" is staggering. It is honestly the stupidest fucking take I've ever seen. That pit is filled with husks. There's thousands if not hundreds of thousands of them. How much time do you think this motherfucker had?

Also, he's a gotdamned bug. Who was married to someone who had to chain herself up to prevent her urge to breed. How has no one come to the conclusion that he placed their eggs in the Abyss to imbue them with Void, and then Hollow was chosen to be the vessel for the Radiance because they're the only one (seemingly) who managed to fight their way back out? That getting out was the first test they had to pass to prove their worth?

(This shit-opinion is so prevalent that it was stolen for another piece of media, and it makes just as much if not less sense there.)

10. Worst part of fanon

(Rise!)

Donnie is fucking everywhere and is used for moments that would better suit/make more sense for his brothers.

12. The unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

Considering the prevailing attitude in most of the fandom spaces I've fallen into in the last five years seems to be "if they've done something bad then they're horrible characters and don't deserve any time in fanworks unless they're getting dunked on/being a complete piece of shit!" I'd say most if not all of my faves fit for this? Soo lightning round!

Emperor skekSo: Is he one of the worst of the skeks, if not THE worst? Yes (which is a con for you people, for some reason). Does he also have some of the most humanizing motivations out of all of them, is actually very effective at redirecting the group as a whole towards a mutual goal, and unarguably has the best design? Also yes.

Pale King: First of all, what the fuck would any of you have done in his position when faced with an entity that wanted her subjects to be eternally, blindly obedient, and who then wanted revenge when you took that away from her? Even though he made untold amounts of mistakes and less than stellar decisions in his efforts to protect his kingdom, his intentions were good. Tragic, morally-grey, haunting-the-narrative characters are wonderful, actually.

Krangs 1, 2, and 3: They get absolutely no love in fanworks, but they should. They're collectively badass, their personalities and entire dynamic with each other is really entertaining and interesting, if you give it even the barest amount of effort, and the implications of what we can infer of Krang culture from them is wildly fascinating.

Philip Wittebane: Honestly at this point I think everyone should like him just because the irony of the fandom-puritans constantly shitting on him (an actual Puritan) for essentially fulfilling his role as an antagonist has long worn thin, and I'd like to make them uncomfortable.

KIKIMORA: KIKI IS FANTASTIC ALRIGHT?? She's a funny little guy, she's ruthless, she's got an abusive family (or at least mother based on the snippet we got), she'd sell you to Satan for one cornchip, she has one of the best designs in the whole show-

(Also she's proof that people are shallow as all fuck, because if she was conventionally attractive/more human-looking, she'd be a fan-favorite and have people writing essays to defend her. That's how Lilith got away with everything.)

16. You can’t understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

(Cult of the Lamb!)

Having Narinder need to apologize to the other characters. He's the only character I see people taking the stance with. Which is especially egregious when it involves the other Bishops. It's usually something to the tune of him needing to make up for the injuries he cased them.

I'm sorry, how did the entire fandom manage to leapfrog over the fact that he only injured them because they were actively trying to imprison him?? I'd be cat-scratching at people too, no pun intended. If people are apologizing I don't think the cat should be the one made to head the line.

Also, in regards to the Bishops, I never see art/fic of the Lamb being salty towards them when they join their cult, but I see loads of art/fic of Lamb being a sadistic fucking bully to Nar over their whole debacle. And it's presented as either just a silly joke or totally justified and what Nar deserves. Fuck y'all.

23. Ship you’ve unwillingly come around to

(Rise!)

I didn't plan on falling head-over-heels for Leuno. I even resisted a little once I first felt it pulling me down. Didn't last. Look how that turned out.

Also John/Rhi, but only by virtue on not wanting to like John at first

#muttering about owls #muttering about turtles #muttering about thra #muttering about bishops #muttering about bugs

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jess-moloney · 5 months

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I have to be fucking honest here I think this blog is the reason she’s back with Jamie I think he was escaping and then you ended up helping her get back in his way

I'd love to see how you drew these conclusions other than you're bitter and you'd prefer to ignore the master manipulator that Jess is and blame it on someone that you can send hate to.

You can think whatever you want, surely, but your thoughts aren't facts and your opinions aren't reality. The audacity you'd have to say this because you're anonymous (as am I) is the most laughable part.

I think what's going on here is that you're actually upset with Jess for being the manipulative little shit that she is and you are too scared to say anything to her about it because she might block you so you have to take out your anger and project it on to me.

All of these things that I pointed out existed well before I pointed them out. You don't know what Jamie knew before I wrote this blog. You don't know what kind of lies Jess had already been trapped in before I wrote this blog. You don't know what was actually going on at all. You don't know if she would have done this stuff anyway if this blog never existed because you seem to think that somehow, an anonymous blogger who most people hate (and ignore) was such a threat to her (and also so super smart and amazing at pointing out her flaws) that I helped her and it's my fault.

Wake up, darling, Jess was already in his path well before I said anything. Jess already manipulated herself into his life well before I said anything. It's not as if this relationship went on for a few months and I pointed out her flaws. This has been going on for a few years. She's been lying this entire time. Do you think it was just never going to catch up to her? Do you think that a very unpopular low-traffic blog was the blog that really helped her get back with Jamie? Do you not realize that this is how people like her operate and sooner or later they get caught on their own and a blog with less than 100 followers that most people prefer to discredit instead of agree with more than likely had no impact on anything?

For your logic to track, you'd also have to assume that my words and presence have so much power that it changed Jess to a point where she became some sort of evil genius that she wasn't already. You're also heavily implying that Jamie is an idiot and can't think for himself (which is insulting). What you've said here is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever seen and moreover, it's hate directed at the wrong person.

#jess moloney #jamie campbell bower #jamie bower #mail

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lovecolibri · 1 year

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SaL anon here bestie and I'm afraid it's time. It was bound to happen at some point during the hiatus, but I feel like now that it's here we should rip the bandaid off and talk about all the reasons the sperm donor arc is some if the stupidest shit I've ever seen. So let's start with what really pissed me off this week which is KR's comments about this storyline. Can't remember the exact quote but something like "Buck needs to be happy with himself, figure out what he wants, it's important to

do that before being happy in a relationship, blah, blah, blah" to which I thought "Why indeed KR this is true which is exactly why WE SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS HAPPEN LAST YEAR WITH THE WHOLE TAYLOR RELATIONSHIP!!" This is exactly how that story was set up, constantly showing Buck's misery, his half-hearted ily, the chance to realize he needs more than just a person that doesn't leave to be happy. And absolutely nothing came of it. We spent a whole season with this BS only to have it end with no growth for Buck. And NOW you think it's time to address this 🙄🙄🙄??!! Also this leads into my second bitchy observation. Part of the appeal of having a break up growth arc was it was relatable. Maybe we haven't all experienced it but I'd argue most people can relate to the idea of leaving (or being left) a relationship that isn't bad but isn't what you want. Eddie's breakdown arc last season was relatable, not because we all know what PTSD like but we can all appreciate the idea of bottling up hurt and pain because we don't want to face it or keep a brave face for those we love. What exactly am I supposed to be connecting to with this donor BS?? We all don't have an innate desire to have kids, or do a big favor for a sorta friend we once knew. I have a complete emotional disconnect from this storyline and don't see that changing. So next let's talk about how fucking illogical every part of this story is (on a side note I laughed at the fans out-googling the 911 writers on so many things, reminds me of my science RNM science sin compilations). Anyway, just why would anyone approach their friend they barely keep contact with to do this particular favor (maybe they explained but honestly I've blocked so many of those scenes from my long term memory)?? Why not a close friend (or relative even)? If you're going for emotional distance why not just an anonymous donor? The whole premise feels so contrived. Probably gotta leave it here for now since I'm getting sleepy. But i'm not close to being done (i'm not even done with this one point) so i hope ypu're ready for more of an inbox full later. Feel free to respond to what I do have because honestly bestie, this may take awhile.

My friend, as always your thoughts are perfectly on point! First, YES that growth was what SHOULD have come out of Buck having a relationship where he recognized he was clinging to something that wasn’t fulfilling for him and being the one to call it quits. But with the cheating added into the mix and then the Jonah mess, Buck didn’t end the relationship on “his” terms, he was pushed by her actions and needing to protect his friends. And ya know what? It might have worked if they had it end in 5a, and then spent 5b with Buck figuring out how to be happy with himself and what he wants. Also, what TF was 5x18 if not TWO instances of it being stated what Buck wants?! First with the Maddie “isn’t that what love is?” conversation and then the firefam “someone to have your back” conversation.

ANYWAY, fine, Buck still needs to learn what the key to happiness is, but please tell me why after how much we had to suffer through that BT mess, we are having yet another season of Buck clinging to something that isn’t right for him and won’t make him happy, just because he thinks doing something to make someone else happy is important even if it hurts him. If the WHOLE point of the BT mess was showing Buck being a “settler” and a “clinger” then why are we right back in the same place with him settling for being a donor not a dad, and clinging on to this couple like he’s going to be ‘fun uncle Buck”? You KNOW that couple isn’t going to want a constant reminder of how they “failed” to make a baby “on their own”, or risk their kid (or Buck) getting too attached. Not to mention how awkward it would be for them to explain their sperm donor just being around all the time. Also what was the point of Hen asking if he could have a child out there and walk away, if he can JUST be a donor and nothing more, if the storyline is showing him constantly acting like he’s going to be fulling involved in this kids life? How is ANY of this helping Buck figure out how to be happy with himself when he’s still putting himself and his needs behind other people’s who are using him for parts? What happened to him figuring out the right “couch” and how to be “at ease” and Lev’s death being something that hit him super hard and made him start thinking about his life? Because all of that got abandoned in favor of this soap opera level pointless “drama”. Thanks, I hate it.

As far as connecting to the storyline, I don’t even think it’s just about some people not wanting kids and therefore not being able to connect, it’s about the way this story is being told. Because you’re right, even people without war-related PTSD could relate or at least emotionally connect to Eddie’s arc. But with Buck, we aren’t given enough/consistent info about his thoughts and feelings to connect with! He seems unsure when he talks to Hen and that “donor not dad” line really seemed to throw him for a loop. So the audience was prepared to see him struggle with this decision a bit, maybe saying “let me think about it” and then an episode or 2 later (after some interactions with a call and/or Eddie/Chris, or Maddie (and maybe Jee) make him re-evaluate things), he tells them no, because he’s realized he can’t just donate and walk away. (Even weighty arcs like the lawsuit and Eddie’s fighting arc only lasted a couple episodes so this would be easy to wrap up within the confines of 6a) Instead he says “yes” immediately without talking to Eddie, Maddie, or Bobby or taking into real account what Hen said. Okay, fine, so he’s said yes, now it’s time for the family history to come into play or a talk with Eddie or Maddie or Bobby right?! Wrong! It’s time to forget about it for a month! Then, when it finally comes back, it’s got two conflicting things happening at once. Thing one: It’s all a big joke! Buck is telling Hen about his masturbation habits (which as everyone has pointed out is actually NOT what you should do which Buck would know if he was doing all that research on what to eat and everything, but that would require the WRITERS to do that research and OPP! Either they didn’t bother, or decided this was “funnier” than the facts 🙄). Buck is getting cock-blocked by the sperm bank! Buck’s firefam is eavesdropping on the reveal when Buck get’s accosted at work and they get caught staring! How funny is that?! (🙄🙄🙄 NOT actually funny but of course it’s never addressed) But then we have thing two. Which is the fact that despite the writing playing this off as a joke, they’re also making sure Buck isn’t telling anyone besides Hen, and makes it clear he doesn’t want her to tell anyone else. Why not? Why would Buck keep this a secret from his sister that he always goes to for a listening ear? From his best friend who isn’t afraid to give him tough talks when he needs them? From his father figure whose advice he respects? The answer if this was in an earlier season with better writing would be that he knows he’s not making the right choice and isn’t ready to confront the truth. But we don’t get any indication of that either! Just Buck desperate to do his donation, apologetic to the couple when he can’t get it done and doubling down on his commitment and excitement to do this for them, and a continued joy in the whole thing, with no indication that anyone is gearing up for a big talk with him. So why was Buck sooo desperate to not let anyone know? The audience is being given two different messages at the same time! Buck is super excited about doing this in his words, and Buck is also super concerned about the people closest to him finding out that he’s doing this in his actions. But since we don’t see him expressing that worry, and we don’t see the team expressing any worry behind his back about it, the audience doesn’t know how they are supposed to be emotionally connecting to this story. I know you’ve got another ask planed on how we’re past the point of being able to satisfyingly wrap up this arc now that a baby has been made so I’ll save some rant for that, but just focused on what we have seen, the arc doesn’t make any sense on what Buck is truly feeling and therefore what the audience should be connecting to within the storyline.

As for why they asked Buck, his buddy said it was because Buck was a good, kind, selfless person and you can’t tell that from a genetics facts sheet at the sperm bank. Which is....a) grossly manipulative, especially for someone like Buck which dude HAD to know, and b) isn’t even a tiny bit factually true! Yes kids have their own personalities and what they like and enjoy may not always line up with what their parents do, but your child being a good and kind person is sorta down to you teaching them to be good and kind. It isn’t going to just *happen* because of “genetics”. My guess is they approached him because he IS good and kind and they figured he would say yes, with the added bonus of him being a physically healthy person with on the surface level, probably “good” genetics.

Anyway, I tried to give this storyline a chance, just like I did with the impending BT breakup, but just like last season, it’s reached a point where pretty much whatever they do is going to result in Buck being the “victim” again and being the one to be “left behind” instead of being able to make the choice himself to leave a situation that isn’t good for him, meaning again, no real growth, and more of Buck being stuck having scenes and arcs entirely outside the firefam/his job. And as we saw with 4x14 and 99.9% of s5 and the BT relationship, KR doesn’t like anyone in the firefam being involved in Buck’s personal arcs. (Probably because if they WERE, he might actually learn something and be able to grow a little and we just can’t have that.)

#my sweet nonnie friends #sleeping at last anon #911 #911 spoilers #evan buckley #anti bucktaylor #bestie i am already SO tired of this arc i cannot do another half season of this #we suffered enough with the bt and L mess dragging out forever #we don't deserve this!!#BUCK doesn't deserve this!!#his firefam his best friend his sister his father figure ALL deserve better than being cut out of this arc #or just used for laughs and not to have a real conversation with him #once again the potential was there and kr had to swerve HARD lest she actually allow buck some growth #i have SO much salt about this storyline so keep the asks coming! I need to scream into the void about it #so i don't commit A Violence

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loveandfictionforall · 1 year

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Hey so this is the actual match-up request....I accidentally hit the copy and paste button on the other....sorry about that again but anyways may I please have a Walking dead and Twilight match-up? Tysm in advance and sorry again.....

Zodiac sign: Leo sun, Aries moon, Leo rising Personality Type: ENTP Pronouns: She/her Sexuality: Straight (For now might be bi but i'm going with straight)

I'm 5'4 and I have a very tiny body frame so i'm extremely petite and pretty small. I'm not very curvy and I literally have the body of a cereal box...lol but its fine because I have nice hips and thighs. I have thick brown hair that goes down to my back and it gets tangled pretty easily but its kinda fluffy. I have brown eyes and tiny freckles all over my face and body. I also have a very strong grunge style, like Flannels, band t-shirts, combat boots, leather jackets etc. But i'd also always enjoy a nice oversized sweatshirt or hoodie with a pair of skinny, ripped jeans and some converses or something along those lines.

For my personality.....this is where things get interesting. At first people find me very intimidating due to my resting bitch face and cold exterior but I promise i'm not like that ALL the time. When you get to know me, i'm goofy and about everything that comes out of my mouth is sarcasm or some dry humored joke. I'm also that one friend in a group where they literally will do the stupidest shit ever like for an example one time it was super dark outside and my other friend was there, while I was trying to climb a tree and I failed and fell out of the tree, and landed on my back. I got straight up after that somehow it didn't hurt.....like at all? But yeah i'm super reckless and sometimes people have to save me from myself if you get what I mean. I also have a very strong "I don't give a fuck" attitude and I will not hesitate to stick up for myself or my friends....like i'm the type of person where if someone glares at me, i'll glare right back.

I have bad anxiety and I can be very self destructive. This is where my feisty, stubborn, hardheaded side comes in. If I want something then i'll fight for it even if it hurts me and i'll get into a bad cycle of putting myself down and trying to do better even if I did great the first time but I always push myself too far and other people have to stop me because I usually can't see it when its happening. I also cover my emotions up and I have a lot of trouble talking about whats bothering me or what problems i'm having emotionally so I put up a wall and I act tough, or happy and sometimes i'll be the exact opposite but I try to hide it.

Weird things about me: I've grown up in the south all my life so sometimes when I talk a few words they'll come out sounding WAYYY more country and southern then I wanted, I don't have an accent but sometimes my words just come out that way. I also love the smell of cigarette smoke....let me explain. When I was a kid my parents smoked a lot and I was used to smelling it and now it reminds me of home and is sort of comforting.

Things I like: I love swimming (I was on a swim team for about 9 years), I love horror movies, I like rain and the sounds of thunderstorms because its calming to me, I also love the smell of rain, I like cloudy days, cooking, listening to 80's and 90's rock but mainly 90's because 90's is the best, My favorite bands are Bush, Audioslave, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkoln Park, Pearl jam but i'm pretty open to anything.

Things I dislike: Spiders.......I will scream if I see a spider.

Hi there!

I am glad, we found each other again, after all this time :D I read it and instantly thought of two people - so here they come:

I ship you with Daryl Dixson!

I just wanna say: Face palm. Always. He watches you and sees what you do and just face palms.

He ist legit done with you.

He does not understand how you have not died yet. But he still gives his best to ensure that you - in fact - don't die.

No, honestly, he loves you. You have character. A hard shell, just like him but behind that, you have so much personality and he feels honored to be at your side.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't want do push you off a building when you - again - fight with Rick about stupid things or when you attack Negan again. And again.

I also ship you with Emmett Cullen!

Do I even have to say something about it?

You two would be the chaos couple. The CC.

Emmett finds you absolutley funny and incredibly stunning. And it often leads from a silly prank against each other or against other family members to some 18+ stuff.

I don't even know that to add anymore, because you two are a perfect match. Absolutly funny, strange and living their best life even through all the ups and downs.

#the walking dead match up #the walking dead x reader #twd x reader #twd daryl dixson #twd daryl x reader #twilight match up #twilight x reader #twilight emmett cullen #emmett cullen x reader

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jones7thavenue · 3 months

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I've just about had it with losing, but, then again, it's just life, y'know? Just put on the coffee for Pops in a bad mood, after losing to a very good Catwoman, and, right now, I just am not in the greatest or best of emotions to push it at this point, so I'm listening to classical organ on the local public radio station, as I cool my head. I'm not supposed to be using my family friend's phone like this, but an opportune time to do so won't happen again, so scrat it, y'know?

Anyway, I'm just going to find a show to watch, focus on it, forget I was fussy as heck over such a hard play on Injustice 2, via PS4, × I hope Jackie, this phone's owner, doesn't mind, though. She may get upset, but it's okay, anyway, because I promised to not break the thing. Caring for another's property is like watching a nest of rooster's eggs. You're responsible for not letting anything bad happen to neither you nor the little chickies, so it's a big one.

I decided to not add a title to this update, but, once shit dies down, I will.

I hope that, once I get my phone replaced, I won't have it fall victim to another unfortunate accident then recycled for money to replace movies, shows, games, books, and music I had at the last residence with my parents, which brings me a flood of memories, good × bad. More good than bad, really. But!moving on...

If I don't update tomorrow, then it's because the phone is back with the owner, and I'm back to using my mom's phone again by tomorrow afternoon. I hope.

I already replaced a number of movies at the Media Exchange, and added some others, after cashing my allowance check at the PLS. I'll post pictures of them all once my mom gets home from the hospital. She had been admitted yesterday, so I had to make sure Pops doesn't fuck up anything. So far, I have done pretty good. Way better than my own mom. If he's okay, then we are all okay, come to think of it. Getting myself to be on top of things is hard, but very doable still. Listening to the organ cover of Like a Motherless Child on the local public radio station, and, boy, does it cut into me, even at top volume. Just like Martin Gore's cover, man. Fuck, it slaps like a mug, especially with the orchestra. Fucking slaps, man!

Having fun with the weekend at home is like nothing else in this life. Living in the moment is a time to be grateful to be alive! I'm so happy to be in a dimension that is me right now: Music is involving me with reawakening my happiness, the happiness that was dormant for almost five years. Now that I'm solo, with a few shared responsibilities, I can be finally happen again. I'm either the stupidest person I know, or the smartest person I know! I'm going deep, but, it's just mindful meditation, from the heart.

Anyway, as I go and post this, with tags below, I just need to have us fight the better fight. And, overall, I just need to let you know that I love you all, especially my mutuals.

The Universe Matters. Jonesy.

#Life update #organ music #Like a Motherless child #Fight the better fight #Mental health

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the-cookie-of-doom · 5 years

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I fuckign hate modern beauty standards and how shitty they make me feel all the fucking time

#I haven't work makeup in months #idek could be a year now #it's been a long time #nc I relaise I was spending way too fucking much money were talking hundreds of dolalrs #literally all my money was spent on beauty products #and that was so fucking damaging to my self esteem so I threw everything away #and for a while it was fine I didn't really care #sometimes I wanted to put some foundation on but it wasn't like a big deal #and then summer came and I never wear makeup in the summar anyway bc its too hot and I get sweaty #but lately I've started getting really self-conscious again and I just #wanted to start wearing makeup #but its not fun this time like it was before #its like my whole mindset changed from wehre I was last year that makeup isn't fun #its something I feel like I HAVE to do just to be able to look at myself in the mirror without hating myself #so I finally went out and bought some new foundation today and ended up spending way too much fucking money #came home and got done up #and I didn't even get to enjoy it for an HOUR before my parents immediately noticed and said how they didn't like it #so now im just in my room fucking crying over the stupidest shit and I fucking hate it #I NEVER cared before #I know its not personal my parents just don't like makeup in general and never have #but I feel iike my self-esteem is hanging on by a thread and this is the one thing I could immediately change #the one thing I could ***fix*** today to make myself feel better #but I cant even have that much apparently #I just want to not hate my reflection #but even once I put on the makeup I didn't even recognize myself #bc that's just not me anymore #I don't even know what to do #I used to be so confident #last year I loved myself and I don't know what happened but now I just feel so unattractive and gross and I hate myself and I don't know why #or how to fix it

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b0ynumber2 · 2 years

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"i hope we kiss goodnight"

Pairing: Noah Marshall x Dan Pierce

Rating: T

Word Count: 6.1k Summary: Halloween Night is famous for the spooky stories and violent ends, but what if a romance blossomed instead?

Author's Note: First of all, happy halloween to anyone who celebrates it! These past few weeks I've been busy brainstorming ideas for this, and managed to finish it for tonight. This fic takes place in an AU where the ILITW gang never met Redfield, so Jane's alive and everyone's a little more stable, but there is still some mild angst thrown in. The characters may seem a little OOC, so I apologise if it seems that way to you. English isn't my first language, so there might be a few screw ups. I hope you enjoy reading this, reblogs and feedback are heavily appreciated!

Halloween night was a lively night for Westchester, with all the spooky stuff Oregon’s got, it would be a shame if the small town missed out on them.

But it wasn’t the prime hour for trick or treating, partying or marathoning horror movies just yet. It was six in the afternoon, and a pair of siblings were in a room. The younger one, Jane, sat on a desk chair that has seen better years, and the older one, Noah, was laying down on the bed, seemingly blabbing on about something.

“.. He said he was matching with the football team again this year, as like a goodbye gift or something. Knowing him though, he’s gonna look like such a dork--” “Noah,” Jane interrupted.

“Hm?”

“You’ve been rambling about Dan for the past hour.”

Noah sat up, face now in shock, “Shit.. Have I?”. Jane nodded, having a small smirk on her face. It wasn’t the first time Noah’s done this, going on and on about Dan, but he’s been doing this for literal years, even before he admitted to having a massive crush on him to Jane back in sophomore year.. They were now seniors. Jane would be lying if she said she wasn’t tired of Noah’s obvious pining.

Who even was Dan? He was formerly known as Westchester’s High “Star Quarterback”, but he recently dropped football to focus on his dream career. He’s been Noah’s best friend since kindergarten, watching Noah go through the stupidest phases of his life such as his emo phase, still staying by his side to this day. Obviously, he’s got good ties with his other friends: Stacy, Lily, Ava, Andy, Lucas, Devon and Jane, but everyone in that group would agree that Dan and Noah had a really close, genuine bond. They brought out the best of each other, respecting the other’s boundaries yet occasionally going a little out of their comfort zone, like when Noah dragged Dan to roller coasters and haunted house attractions, or when Dan taught Noah how to catch frogs and bugs, they never left the other’s side during those events, and it wasn’t like they were planning to anyways.

Noah liked a lot about Dan. From his looks to his personality, but he understood Dan had flaws too, he was stubborn and too empathetic for his own good, and Noah was hot tempered and impatient, it was only natural for them to fight here and there. Even then, their banter never got extreme, and they were able to talk it out. That’s one of the many things Noah liked about Dan, that he doesn’t test Noah’s patience, that when Noah’s mad he gives him space, handing him small things he could distract himself with to divert from his anger, and they worked.

Noah didn’t see himself as someone that was super likeable. He liked to think he was bearable, but that’s about it. He never saw himself being Dan’s boyfriend in real life, he already got shittalked over his appearance and behaviour by the cheerleaders, he’d rather not deal with a bunch of homophobes like Ben and Cody. But he didn’t have to be open of course, but Dan was probably not even that into him.

“Heellloooo? Earth to Noah? What’s goin’ on in that brain of yours now, hm?” Intervened Jan once more. Noah blinked at her, brushing her off. “S’none of your business. Don’t you need to get into your costume?”

“Oh shit, you’re right-- We’ve gotta get ready super early since we’re walking all the way to Stacy’s place.” “Yeah, and half of the group already snagged Lucas’ car.” “.. Well, maybe there are other options?”

Noah tilted his head, raising a brow. Jane snickered lightly. “Well, y’know.. Dan got his driver’s license like.. almost a year ago, soo..”

“No.” Noah shook his head, his cheeks reddening lightly. “He’s busy, and probably driving his former teammates over.” “You don’t know that until you ask him, you stubborn wuss!” Jane argued, lightly nudging her brother’s arm. He avoided eye contact, huffing. “C’mon, literally everyone knows Dan has the biggest soft spot for you, if he does reject your offer he’ll do it nicely..”

“That sure makes me feel a million times better, thanks Jane.” Noah remarked sarcastically, rolling his eyes. Jane pouted, getting up from her seat.

“Look, just ask, okay? If you don’t, then I will do it for you--” “Do not.” “Then ask Dan already! It’s not like you’re asking him on a date yet, jeez!” Jane got out of Noah’s room, leaving her brother sitting on his bed. He grabbed his phone, opening his messages.

Just ask.. He can do that. He’s done it before, so why is he so nervous now? He’s been in Dan’s car like.. once before, no big deal. Noah nodded, typing away his question.

‘hey was wondering if youre able to give me and jane a ride to stacys place?’

And the message was sent! Noah stared blankly at his phone screen for a bit, to see if Dan would respond immediately, to which.. He didn’t. Noah didn’t want to ponder on it for too long, so he put his phone down, getting up and heading to his closet, rummaging through it to find the same halloween costume he’s worn since sophomore year: a white bloody shirt with some baggy ripped jeans and a worn out jacket that is still oversized for him for whatever reason.

As he changed into the bloody shirt, his phone pinged from across the room. He decided to ignore it for a bit until after he got changed, out of convenience. He changed his pair of pants and grabbed the worn out jacket, plopping it onto the bed. Once he was finished, he finally snatched his phone, checking the notification.

‘oh im up for that, dont worry. devs coming along, is that alright?’

A sigh of relief escaped Noah.

‘yeah thats cool. sorry if it was sudden’

‘it wasnt lol we’ve still got like 2 hours’

‘well i already got ready if that tells you anything’

‘lol excited?’

‘you bet’

He was back with his obvious sarcasm, his friends’ are long used to it, so it wasn’t new, especially for Dan. He wasn’t one for parties, but being in a shitty place with his friends was better than being on his own. He didn’t like being alone much, but it’s a feeling he’s grown used to when he’s at home.

Ugh, why was Noah feeling sappy right now? He’s going to a party, he shouldn’t bring his own mood down, he was just.. nervous. He’s done this lots of times, hanging out with Dan, why is it that he’s getting nervous now?

He checked his phone, seeing nothing new, and shut it off once more. Maybe he’ll make himself something before he leaves.. Yeah, sounds good.

...

Noah headed down the kitchen, getting out ingredients for a grilled cheese sandwich. He turned on his stove, plopping a piece of bread onto a butter covered pan. He stood there, deadpan, as the bread was being lightly toasted.

“Noaaahh..” A voice called out from upstairs. Noah looked over, getting greeted with a familiar face.

Jane stood up the staircase with a grin, wearing a ripoff ghostbusters costume they got for like.. 10 bucks at a small store nearby.

“Nice costume. Matching with Devon again?” “Yep, Lily’s matching with us too. Whatcha making over there?” Jane said, walking down the steps. “Grilled cheese.” Noah responded, flipping over the lightly toasted piece of bread, planting a slice of cheese on top of it.

“Ah, the classic.. You know who’d enjoy it though?”

“Pfft, who? Pretty sure Mom’s lactose intolerant.”

Jane snorted, “I was gonna say mee..!” She arrived at the kitchen, leaning against the counter. “Gimme a bite-”

“Tch, no way- This sandwich is mine, make your own.” “You’re so mean, I can’t even cook that well.” “... Oh right, forgot that you and Devon somehow set off the smoke alarm making pasta.” “It was a one time thing, Noah. Besides, it happened…”

“4 months ago.” “4 months ago?!” Jane seemed bewildered, Noah chuckled, flipping the second piece of toast and planting it on top of the piece of bread with cheese. Jane’s bewildered expression turned into one of curiosity as she looked at Noah.

“So.. Did you ask him?”

“Hm?”

“Ask Dan to take us to Stace’s place, silly.” Jane lightly grinned. Noah blushed a little, lightly nodding. “Well, what did he say?”

“He said he can, Devon’s coming along with us too.” Jane gasped, now grinning widely, “Excited to see them again?”

“Uh, duh? They’ve been sick for like two weeks and I miss hanging out with them..”

“Knowing you two, you guys are just gonna play pranks on me.” “We’re playing cupid right now, Noah. Pranks can wait.” Jane winked, to which her brother blushed in response. Noah preferred not having anyone getting involved with his love life, and Jane respected that, though she does give Noah a nudge forward here and there when he’s being too stubborn for his own good.

On other news, Noah put his grilled cheese sandwich on a plate. The smell was one of nostalgia, as he made these years ago when their parents weren’t home. He still remembered the happiness in Jane’s eyes back when he made these, Noah likes to think she still expresses the same joy.

He cut the sandwich into two triangular halves, silently offering Jane the other half. Jane’s smile softened as she accepted it, Noah never liked hoarding his food for himself, and she’s grown used to that. It was a nice gesture, his food was amazing.

They ate the sandwiches together in the kitchen, enjoying the peace and quiet…

“Reminds me of when you were just a young boy.. Look at you now, Bob the Builder.” “Pfft, mom.. It’s not bad.” “I know, darling, I think it looks great on you.” The lady adjusted the young man’s plastic hat. “Go tell Picard your goodbyes before picking your friends up, m’kay?” A cat approached the young man, gently nudging his leg. He knelt down, petting his cat, soft smile on his face.

“See you later, buddy, I’ll miss you.”

“Don’t be back too late, Dan.” The lady let out. “I won’t.”

“And if Noah made something, do send it back here.”

“Not if I down it first.” Dan chuckled, getting up, adjusting his suspenders. He waved his mom and Picard another goodbye before exiting his house, getting into his car.

Getting in, he let out a deep breath. Dan was a little nervous, he’ll admit, but he refuses to accept why he was even nervous in the first place.

Who was Noah? Westchester High never seemed to care about him much, but Noah Marshall was considered a pretty quiet guy. Once you got to know him, he’d reveal himself as a passionate guy who was a sweetheart really, yet his sarcasm was strong, but he never meant any hard feelings. He’s got dreams, and Dan wants to see him succeed. Him and Noah were super close, he considered himself closer to Noah than Devon, which was a bit of a deal.

Noah’s dealt with Dan through his dumbest and lowest moments, like that one time he decided to get drunk because he couldn’t handle his exam stress only to have Noah sitting beside him in the bathroom as he threw up, or when Dan was really into superheroes as a kid and dragged Noah along to every movie premiere.

Despite all the good things about Noah, like his personality and some of his physical features, he had his flaws too. Dan tries his best to deal with them calmly, but he was stubborn, and Noah was impatient. Fights break out, but Dan never breaks Noah’s patience, he lets the other take time for himself, even if he’s equally as mad.

He shook his head, fastening his seatbelt and starting his car. He got onto the road, driving off to Devon’s place. He had the radio on, but the stuff in it was never that good. He usually just listened to video game soundtracks or the occasional alternative, sometimes he’d check out what Noah liked, and he’d like it too..

Dan sighed. Despite how he looks, he could never see himself being Noah's partner. He’s been hopelessly pining for him for years, he doubted anything would change anytime soon. He was likeable, Noah liked him, but definitely not in that way. But part of Dan still had that little hope that maybe his feelings were mutual.

.. Gosh, was the car getting hot, or was Dan’s face just awfully warm? He knew the answer, but no way was he going to fully accept it.

In other news, he was already in the woods, it was just a matter of time before he reached Devon’s place. He sometimes wondered why they lived all the way in the woods, which seemed a little inconvenient, but at least Dan got to entertain himself a bunch as a kid.

Talking about Devon’s place, he already got to the small neighbourhood it resided in. He parked himself, checking his surroundings before getting out of the car. As he took a few steps forward, he suddenly got greeted with loud barking from a nearby house.

“Cool it, girl-” A man’s voice called, possibly talking to the dog. Dan shrugged, scanning the area once more.

“Dan?” A familiar voice let out.

“Devon? Is that you?” “Oh my god.. Pfft.” Devon came into Dan’s view, wearing a ghostbusters’ outfit that seemed straight out of the package. It was clear they were holding in their laughter when they saw Dan’s costume. Dan simply stood still, a slightly awkward smile on his face.

“Can’t wait to see the rest of the team, you look so dorky.” Devon approached Dan, nudging his shoulder, “Where’s our ride?”

“Oh, right over there-” Dan pointed at his car only a few steps away, Devon simply nodded in response, heading towards the car, “Hold on, I’ve got the keys!”

Dan unlocked the car, approaching it as Devon got in the passenger’s seat. Eventually Dan got in as well, shutting the door beside him and fastening his seatbelt once more.

“Man, this party’s gonna rock, I know it.” “.. Yeah, I think it’ll be nice. You’re matching with someone too, right?” “Yep, Jane and Lily, I was gonna drag Ava in too but she was against it and decided to be a dead witch. Andy said he’d offer to be the ghost from ghostbusters, and I don’t know if he’s joking or not..”

Dan shrugged, smiling, “Guess we’ll see?”. Devon nodded, smiling back. Dan started the car once more, driving off the neighbourhood and into the woods once more.

“I know Stacy’s place is far, but you came to pick me up a bit early. What’s up with that?” Devon asked, glancing over at Dan. Dan’s face flushed a little.

“Ah well, actually- I’m picking someone else up. The decision was a little last minute, but I didn’t mind so-” “Oh? Who?”

Dan gulped, definitely aware he was never living this down, “... Noah. And Jane too, obviously--”

Devon laughed, nudging Dan lightly, “You’re such a softie for Noah, man. Did you offer a ride or something?” “He was the one that asked, actually.” “Oh my god, you’re the biggest softies for each other.” “Lucas is picking up like tons of people, I’m sure I was just a last resort-”

Devon sighed, rolling their eyes as Dan took a turn.

“Noah never sees you as a last resort, we both know that.”

“Well, maybe not a lot, but- Uhm-” Dan huffed, “Okay, I’ve got nothing.” “At least you’re honest, Daniel.” “Please don’t throw my full name in casually, it’s like you’re gonna lecture me.” “Pfft, chill dude. I’m just stating facts. Look..” As Devon started, Dan took another turn that led to a small suburban neighbourhood.

“I won’t pressure you, but you sure you don’t want to shoot your shot soon?” “Hm?” Dan raised a brow.

“You’ve been crushing on Noah for as long as I can remember. I’m not saying that you should do it tonight, but maybe ask him out at.. Some point?”

Dan went silent, most likely in thought, as he parked his car near one of the houses in the small neighbourhood. “I’ll.. maybe consider.” Devon smiled, “I’ll take that. Also, speak of the devil-” Devon pointed at the two familiar faces approaching the car. Dan unlocked his car as he watched along with Devon. Suddenly, the sound of two of the car doors clicking, along with two people rummaging in.

“Dev! It’s been like, forever! Your roots are showing too, y’know.” The redhead let out, leaning towards Devon’s seat. “It hasn’t been that long, Jane. As for the roots thing, I’m getting that worked on..” As Devon and Jane chatted amongst themselves the quieter one of the two guests looked over at Dan, silent for a moment.

“.. You clean up pretty nice.” The quiet one said, a small smirk forming on their face. Dan looked away basfully, chuckling.

“Thanks.” “Tsk, what are you even building anyways?” “Maybe a diner of some sort, who knows..” It was the other’s turn to look away bashfully, blushing, but a small smile formed on their face. Dan returned the smile, “Hit a nerve there, Noah?” “Like you’ll know. Start the car already..” Despite Noah’s words, he still had a small smile on his face as he leaned back to his seat, fastening his seatbelt. Jane did the same, still chatting with Devon. Dan started the car once more, driving off from the small neighbourhood.

“Ooh! I love this song! Can you turn it up?” Jane let out, leaning forward again as Devon turned up the volume, bobbing their head to the rhythm of the song. Dan and Noah sat idly, giving each other a look of mutual disinterest.

They did that sometimes, these little habits of giving each other a look or doing a small gesture, it was stuff like that that proved their closeness outside of their interactions. They were both pretty quiet around the group, so most of their interactions happened when it was just the two of them, it was comforting in a way. They could be vulnerable around each other without being judged. Obviously, they were comfortable enough to be vulnerable around some of the others, but Dan was definitely the most comfortable around Noah, as he felt like Noah.. related to him the most in a sense? Even Devon thought the two were pretty similar overall, so it definitely wasn’t just a him only thing.

Dan finally managed to get to Stacy’s place in a short span of time, Jane and Devon seemed to be having in the car ride, he’d like to think Noah also had his fair share of fun, even if he was quiet for most of the ride.

He parked the car in a safe place, only a few hundred metres from Stacy’s house, nothing the four of them couldn’t handle. He stopped the car, unfastening his seatbelt and getting off. By the time everyone got off, Devon and Jane already were way ahead of him, leaving him and Noah alone.

“They’re certainly in a good mood, huh?” “You know how they are, some things never change.”

“Pfft, true. Wanna go in together?” Noah asked nonchalantly, standing beside Dan. Dan nodded, smiling, “Sure. Would be pointless not to, we’re already next to each other.” He took a few steps forward, Noah managed to catch up quickly.

They walked together in silence, Noah having his hands in his pockets as Dan adjusted and dusted off his costume. In no time, they already arrived at Stacy’s front door.

“Not it.” Noah said, glancing over at Dan.

“You’re acting as if you’re in trouble.. You’re fine, man. Here, I’ll go first.” Dan responded, taking a few steps forward, motioning to Noah to follow behind him, to which he did. Dan knocked on the door, getting an almost immediate response.

“I was wondering when you two were gonna show up! I thought Jane and Devon were lying about you coming along, geez..” said a feminine voice, letting the two boys in.

“Sorry about that, Stace. They were already steps ahead of us by the time I parked the car.” “It’s okay, I figured.. Oh yeah, Jack and Carlos are over there if you wanna meet up with them.” Stacy pointed at two guys standing near the stairs. Dan nodded, waving Stacy and Noah a goodbye as he approached the two.

…

Noah waved back, glancing at Dan as he chatted among his teammates before taking a few steps inside.

“There’s some snacks and drinks in the kitchen, unless you plan on staring at Dan the whole time.”

“Shut up.” Noah responded, furrowing his brows. He didn’t want to be teased by Stacy for long, so he walked away before she could talk back to him. Stacy rolled her eyes, going back to welcoming in more guests.

Luckily for Noah, there were quite a ton of snacks and drinks he could choose from. He got himself a cup, pouring himself some coke, afterwards munching on some of the candy in the candy bowl. He finally had a moment to himself, not having to worry about being made fun of to death just for a few minutes.

Unfortunately, his eyes decided to subconsciously glance at Dan once more, noticing one of his teammates ruffling his hair as he grinned, blushing lightly. Noah’s eyes widened for a second before looking away, munching on the candy in his mouth a bit more slowly.

It’s not unusual for Dan’s teammates to be affectionate through actions, he’s seen them do these types of things to him every now and then back when Dan was still in the team. It always kind of bothered him though, but he didn’t want to be mean about it. Dan seemed to not mind it so he shouldn’t mind it either, right? Noah wished that was the case.

He scoffed, a look of annoyance forming on his face. Noah shouldn’t feel like this, he’s happy Dan has people he enjoys being with, but sometimes he just.. Gets jealous. It’s natural, but it doesn’t mean it’s good. He took a sip of his drink, wanting to think about literally anything but that interaction. Like.. How fancy looking the lamp next to the couch is. Yeah, that’ll do it.

Footsteps neared his direction, but he brushed it off as someone trying to get the snacks as well. Eventually, a figure stood next to him. He ignored it, staring at his drink, frustrated expression still on his face.

“You okay?” The figure spoke.

“Swell.” Noah’s voice was hoarse, it was obvious he was annoyed at this rate.

“Well whatever happened between you and that drink did not end well. Noah, look at me.” The voice responded, and Noah looked up, shoulders slightly jolting once he made eye-contact with Devon. “Something ruined your mood, I noticed from across the room.”

“Nothing happened, Dev. Shouldn’t you be with Jane?” “She’s with Ava and Lily. Seriously dude, what’s bothering you? You don’t need to tell me, but maybe letting out will make you feel better.”

Noah sighed, rolling his eyes. He swirled his drink around for a bit before taking another swig of it. Devon stood idly, waiting for a response.

“I’m uh.. Tch, forget it.” “Noah..” Devon frowned, crossing their arms, but still willing to be patient with Noah.

“I just.. Maybe I’m a bit jealous.” The last word came out a lot quieter than the rest. Devon simply patted Noah’s shoulder. He didn’t shoo them away.

“Noah, it’s okay to feel jealous. Happens to the best of us. But Dan does put you on a really high priority, y’know.” “Yeah, but that doesn’t erase the fact that his teammates just bother me sometimes. Seriously, I don’t get why they’re so touchy feely with him-!” “Hey, chill for a second. Everyone expresses affection differently, and it’s not like they have much time left with Dan. Trust me, they won’t snag him for themselves.”

Noah huffed. “.. Dan seems to like it. I’m happy he does, but..” “You don’t feel like Dan’s as happy when he’s with you?”

Noah slowly nodded, taking a small swig of his drink. Devon let out a lighthearted chuckle, “You’re sometimes just as stubborn as he is, geez.” “The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re wrong. You should hear all the stuff Dan says about, he could talk about you for hours.” Devon said, smiling, “He cares about you a lot, more than his teammates. And I know the feeling’s mutual.” Noah’s frustrated expression softened, now curious if anything, “What does he say about me?” “Too many things, we’d be here all day. They’re all nice, though, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Noah blushed, taking the last sip of his drink and putting his cup down. Devon kept a smile on their face, munching on some of the candy.

“You’ve got all these chances to maybe.. ask him out. Maybe not tonight, but you should definitely tell him how you feel soon.” Devon shrugged.

“I.. might consider. Not sure how I’ll do it, though.” “I’m sure you’ll be a pro at it.”

Noah scoffed, but smirked ever so slightly. “You’re a bad liar.” Devon simply giggled, pouring themself a drink. He headed towards the backdoor, one hand in his pockets and the other reaching the door handle.

“Where are you off to?” asked Devon, perking up. Noah glanced back at Devon, shrugging, “Getting some fresh air. It’s already starting to get a bit lively.” He pointed at what seemed to be a dance battle happening between the cheerleaders and jocks, to which Devon snorted at. They simply nodded, giving Noah a wave as he opened the backdoor.

Dan’s teammates were long gone now, busy challenging the cheerleaders to a dance battle. He was glad he was stuck in the sidelines, because the battle was.. certainly going. He fiddled around with his hat now in his hands, since it was a bit of a hassle to keep it on.

“Bleuhghh, Danieelll..” A voice called out from the steps. Confused, Dan turned around, immediately getting jumpscared by whatever green monstrosity he just laid eyes upon. Whoever was underneath the costume of the ‘green monstrosity’ snickered.

“Gotcha! Happy Halloween, Bob the Builder. Do you like my costume?” said the voice, revealing itself to be Andy. He set his costume prop down, now actually showing his face and body. He was wearing a plain black shirt along with dark green pants, to sort of match with his costume instead of wearing neon green leggings.

“It’s terribly perfect for Halloween, Andy.” “I know right! Scared the crap out of Jane earlier, so much for being a ghostbuster, huh?” Both of the boys chuckled, grinning.

Dan observed the room once more, noticing Noah and Devon talking from afar. Or at least, telling each other goodbye before Noah opened the backdoor, leaving Devon to watch the battle happening not too far from them.

“Oh right..” Andy mumbled, a look of realisation on his face. Dan glanced at Andy, raising a brow.

“How’s the crush thing going?” Andy asked, tilting his head as he looked back at Dan. Dan simply shrugged in response, scratching the back of his neck.

“Not sure.. I’m working on it.” “Ogling at Noah isn’t really doing anything.”

Dan blushed in response, looking away. “I’m not staring at him, geez..” “You just were though?” Andy replied, a confused expression forming on his face. Dan let out a sigh, crossing his arms, one hand still holding his hat.

“Okay, maybe I happened to steal a glance at him.. That’s it, though.” He was being honest, he wasn’t staring at Noah for that long, he just happened to catch him leaving the party, that’s all. Andy nodded very slowly in response, squinting at Dan.

“Well, anyways.. Did you see Lucas’ costume? He actually dressed up for Halloween!”

“Wait, seriously?” “Yeah! Hold on, let me find him..” Andy scanned the area. It took him a bit but eventually he pointed at something, face lightening up. “There’s the man of the hour! LUCAS!”

Andy grabbed Dan’s hand and approached the person who was seemingly dressed up as a.. Pirate?

“What was the inspiration?” Dan blurted out, slightly surprised over Lucas’ costume choice. He quickly covered his mouth, embarrassed over the sudden question he just asked. Lucas turned around, facing Dan, simply chuckling in response.

“Since it will be my last year attending high school, I thought I should go all out. Of course, I didn’t want to do anything bizarre, so I went with an outfit that’d be the most.. ‘unexpected’ of me to wear?”

“So you went with a pirate?” Andy responded.

“Yep, the Theatre Club inspired me.” Lucas replied, smiling proudly. Dan and Andy glanced at each other, then back at Lucas, shrugging.

“Both of you have pretty good outfits too. I saw Andy’s earlier while picking him up, I’d definitely give it a prize of some kind. You and the football team put in a lot of effort too, Dan.” Lucas continued, taking a small sip of his drink.

“Dude, I’d give you like.. Solid third place. Just because of how unexpected you actually dressing up is.” Andy said, eating up some of the candy next to Lucas. Lucas and Andy kept talking, but Dan stopped paying attention for a bit now, occasionally glancing at the backdoor nearby. Eventually, after a few more minutes passed by, Dan decided to take his leave.

“I’ll go take a breather.” He let out, taking a few steps towards the backdoor.

“We’ll see you in a few?” asked Lucas, slightly tilting his head, to which Dan nodded in response. He headed, getting greeted with the fresh breeze of the autumn night.

…

Dan looked around the small outdoor patio, noticing not one single person outside, excluding a lone figure sitting on the far right on one of the seats. It was a bit dark out, so Dan couldn’t see their face well, but he instantly knew who it was already.

“Noah?” He called out, facing the figure. He heard a small shuffle before he finally got a response, “Yeah?”

He smiled, approaching the far right until he finally saw Noah’s face looking at him. He sat down next to him. Noah softly smiled back, still sharing a glance with Dan.

“Needed some fresh air?” Dan asked, to which Noah nodded in response. He nodded along with him in understanding.

“It’s a bit better out here anyways, don’t have to deal with the loud jocks pissing me off or getting dragged into dance battles or.. Something like that.” Noah added on, letting out a lighthearted chuckle. Dan understood what he meant, being in parties was overwhelming. It was nice when it was nice and quiet, just the two of them..

“Hey,” Noah started off, “Remember when we’d always swim around in Ava’s pool during the summer? Always jumping in together, having water fights.. Her dad would get mad over us staying there for too long.”

“Oh yeah..! Those times were great..” Dan replied, “Or when we’d always hide together in hide and seek and never get caught 90 percent of the time? We used to always hide in this one spot in the woods, and everyone took forever to find it!”

“Literally. Looking back on it, it wasn’t even a hard spot to find.” Noah added on, snickering. Dan laughed along with him, grinning. “You’re right though, it really wasn’t, but we were like.. Eight. Eight year olds are kinda dumb sometimes.” Noah nodded in response, still chuckling.

“Man, I just remembered.. Your mom used to give me the weirdest looks during my emo phase, and I could never understand why until now.”

“Pfft, haha! My mom just wasn’t used to that type of fashion sense, but she never found you weird to the point of making me not to be your friend. She knew I’d never do it anyway, I care about you too much.”

Dan looked over at Noah, who seemed to be.. blushing? Wait, no, it’s definitely his mind just screwing with him, Noah wasn’t that easy to fluster. He brushed it off as his mind playing tricks on him, ignoring it.

“Man, my mom always liked you, so she always lets me chill at your place whenever, as long as I don’t do crime and stuff.” Noah went on, soft smile on his face.

“Mine always liked you too. I used to drag you along to everything.. You’re practically like a second son to her too.”

“Oh huh, that’s.. Nice.” Noah went quiet for a moment, still having a soft smile on his face. “And what do you see me as?”

Dan was a little surprised by the sudden question, he couldn’t help but blush. He saw Noah as so much more than just a friend, but he couldn’t just confess to him out of the blue, but saying he was a friend felt.. weird. Weirder than he wanted it to.

“My best friend.” Dan responded with, slightly flustered. “And you? What do you see me as?”

“My.. best friend too.” Noah replied, nodding. But despite the solid reply, there was a tinge of hesitation in Noah’s voice. Did he.. think of Dan as someone inferior? Perhaps just an item? Or maybe.. Something more? That might be a little far-fetched, but Dan was far from opposed to having his feelings be mutual, but he could never tell if that was the case.

“Are you being honest with me?” Dan blurted out. “Huh?”

“I- Sorry, I just.. noticed your tone of voice being off. Is that your honest answer? You can tell me the truth, Noah, it’s just the two of us.” Dan gave Noah a reassuring smile, reaching out for the other’s hand. Noah stayed quiet for a moment, in thought, holding Dan’s hand. Noah’s hand was warm, it was nice to hold, especially with autumn having rather cold evenings.

“.. Maybe I wasn’t being honest, what would you do then?” Noah said, the first half coming out in a whisper. “I’d ask for your actual answer then.” Dan came back with, “Take your time, I don’t expect an immediate answer.”

Noah nodded, taking a deep breath. “Okay, cool.. Could you put your hat down somewhere? You’ve been holding onto it for a while.”

Dan’s stern yet reassuring expression from before turned into a small grin as he snickered, “Inappropriate timing, Noah, but you’re not wrong..” He plopped his hat down on the empty seat next to him, his other hand still holding Noah’s. “Well? What now?”

Noah held onto Dan’s hand a bit tighter, “Is it alright if I do something I’ll regret for years on end?” Dan raised a brow, “Depends on what you’re gonna do. If it isn’t anything illegal, then you can go ahead.”

The other male nodded, gulping nervously. His other hand gently cupped Dan’s cheek, which instantly made him blush like crazy. He didn’t want to assume so quickly, but with Noah leaning towards him so suddenly, he kind of got the gist of what was going on.

Before he could comment on what was happening, Noah’s lips pressed against his. He could feel the tip of his ears burning as the kiss lingered for a bit longer, but eventually, it had to come to a halt. Noah let go, face bright red.

“Fuck.” He let out, “Ah god, I screwed everything up, didn’t I? I shouldn’t have done this tonight, I shouldn’t have ever thought about this ever, I--”

“Noah.” Dan said, voice hushed, “Do that again.” “Huh?” “.. Kissing me. Do it again.”

“Wait, but that means-- M-mmn-”

Dan’s lips pressed against Noah’s, this time more desperately than their first. It wasn’t desperate enough to the point of a makeout, but Dan’s tongue traced Noah’s lips a few times, just to lightly tease him, causing the other to let out an unprompted groan. They let go once more, catching their breath.

“..A-as I was saying,” Noah started off, voice a little hoarse, “I guess you.. Like me back?” “God yes. I’ve liked you for years, Noah. I’ve been waiting to kiss you for a really long time.”

“Me too. God, me fucking too.”

They chuckled amongst themselves, still trying to process what happened in the last five minutes. Dan held onto Noah’s hand a bit tighter, smiling and laughing.

“I love you so much, Noah.” He said in a whisper, “Can we stay like this for a little longer?”

Noah smiled back, nodding, “Yes we can..” he answered, leaning towards Dan once more.

“I love you too.” He whispered to the other, running his thumb on the other’s hand.

#choices #playchoices #choices stories you play #ilitw #it lives in the woods #noah marshall #dan pierce #ilitw noah #ilitw dan #it lives #it lives series #ilitw mc #andy kang #jane marshall #lucas thomas #noah x dan #it lives anthology

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dizzydancingdreamer · 3 years

Text

Snapchat Memories and Dead People | The Avengers

Hey my lovelies. As per usual, I can only write when I'm in crises.

Today I woke up and was assaulted by Snapchat with a video of someone I miss laughing; someone whom I know I will never hear laugh again. I think I've watched the video about a hundred times. It's the stupidest fucking video. But the laugh isn't stupid. It's just heartbreaking and fleeting— like the video— and it feels like when the snap memory disappears then he will too and I needed to do something with my thoughts to keep from feeling like I'm going to disappear too.

I hate Snapchat, and I hate missing him, and I hate death, and I hope you all like this piece.

Synopsis: Peter with a camera is either the best or worst thing to ever happen //OR// Snapchat is run by the devil himself

Characters: Peter Parker, James Rhodes, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Bucky Barnes (mentioned: Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, Vision, Steve Rogers)

Warnings: Angst, mentions of death (nothing graphic), general spoilers of the movies (duh), feelings

Word count: 1.1k

They’re Avengers.

They’re the toughest of the tough.

They’re Earth’s mightiest heroes.

And they’re all huddled around Peter Parker— a teenager, sixteen, just barely an Avenger himself— because he’s the one with a Snapchat and so he’s the one with the video of Tony laughing.

It’s nothing professional— just a flimsily shot picture much too zoomed in and shaking in Peter’s unsteady hands— but he’s there and somehow his laugh is so clear that it’s like it’s coming from right next to them. It’s like Tony’s there too, laughing once more over whatever it is Rhodey had said. They can’t remember anymore— not even Rhodey himself. But they— Earth’s mightiest heroes— are all sure for one long moment that if they turn around then they’ll see Tony, death be damned.

So they don’t turn around— because death be damned or not they don’t want him to leave again.

“That laugh used to drive me mental in the labs. Could never think when he was around.” Bruce doesn’t finish his thought— now he can’t even go back in to get his research because it’s too quiet.

“It was even worse in the air. I’ve never heard another person laugh while getting nuked at.” Rhodey adds. He leaves out the part where he hasn’t flown since he died because he’s afraid of the silence.

Everyone else just hums because the video has restarted and Tony’s laugh is like a command— listen to me while you still can.

They do. For once, they do.

After the fifth loop, Rhodey breaks the reverence. “You got anymore videos, kid?”

Peter does. Peter has a lot of them.

The next video is worse— it’s better. They’re not sure what it is but it’s Clint who talks first this time. After all, it's only fitting when it’s his best friend on the screen this time.

“Kid is that—” he can’t even finish his thought— he doesn’t think he ever had one.

His eyes are locked on the flashes of red hair that twirl and twirl and twirl across the screen. It’s like flames lapping at the camera, so close that Clint takes a breath that is echoed through every other person next to him. He feels like he’s going to get burned— he feels like he’s dead too. Dead people can’t be burned, though, and his entire body is definitely on fire. How the Parker boy had managed to capture one of the rare moments of Natasha dancing he has no idea but he’s never been more willing to pay a teenager for his phone.

“Yeah.” Peter’s voice is airy, not quite as rough as Clint’s, still lost all the same. “This was at the movie marathon we had last summer. Well— five summers ago, I guess.”

No one answers when he trails off. They’re all too busy thinking about time. Too busy thinking about death. They’re Earth’s mightiest heroes and not even they can stop either of the two. They all may as well be sixteen too because that’s how they feel. Scared and tired and sixteen.

Peter— scared and tired and actually sixteen— swipes to the next video.

“So the woman turns the turkey into a cat and the audience laughs? That is funny?”

Wanda flinches so hard that she bumps into Sam. The soldier doesn’t say anything and she doesn’t either. Usually she would apologize but not today. She can’t find it in herself to say sorry these days, not when he’s alive and Vis isn’t. It has nothing to do with Sam— nothing to do with her— everything to do with how little she cares about the minor inconveniences of life when all she’s done is obsess over the major inconvenience of death.

“Yes, essentially. It’s easier if you don’t think about it.” Wanda mouths over her own words as they come— she remembers that day vividly.

It’s all she thinks about sometimes.

“What shall I do instead?”

By this point her heart has stopped— the only thing keeping her upright is the love of her life captured on the tiny screen of Peter’s Iphone. She didn’t even hear him taking the video when it happened. She had been too engrossed in Bewitched and in the man next to her. Some people have tried to tell her that he wasn’t a man but the facts are there. The facts being death. He’s dead and only living things can die so he was alive and he was a man and—

Holy shit why is she thinking about this right now!

“Laugh, Vis. You should laugh!”

Wanda walks away. She runs away. Because it doesn’t take being a witch or woman or alive to remember what’s coming next and she doesn’t think she can handle hearing him laugh. She can’t decide if this is an inconvenience of life or of death— or if she’s just a coward. Someone will hear Vis laugh today but it won’t be her.

Peter swipes again and this time it’s not a video.

It’s a picture.

It’s Bucky Barnes. But Bucky Barnes isn’t dead. He should be. By all means Bucky Barnes should be dead. As dead as his best friend, Steve Rogers, is. But he’s not— clearly. A lot of things that should be, aren’t, though. Like how if Peter had only held his thumb down longer then Bucky could have heard Steve tell him it’ll be alright again. It should be a video.

But it’s not a video— it’s a picture, one of Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers with a timestamp of two months ago sitting in the top corner. They’re hugging and if Bucky squints he can see Bruce in the background. Even if he couldn’t see Bruce he would know that moment anywhere. He will always remember the day Steve left, and then came back, and then died. Well, no, he died a few weeks later. But he may as well have died that day.

Bucky didn’t die that day either but he feels like he did so he may as well have too. He may as well be back in Austria with how little he still understands of the world and of Steve Rogers. And of photographs that should be videos. He’s one hundred and six, in a thirty year old body, but no better than a sixteen year old with an okay camera and quiet footsteps.

It’s not Peter’s fault, though, so he pats his shoulders with a huff. “Good shot, kid.”

Maybe it’s better it wasn’t a video anyway, because no matter how many times he hears it he knows that it won’t be alright.

Lies are still lies when they’re told by Earth’s mightiest heroes.

Death is still death— death is still unstoppable— when it comes to the toughest of the tough.

And even the Avengers get Snapchat memories at the worst possible time.

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sortavibing · 3 years

Note

Hii could I request a matchup please?

My name is Eva, i'm 17 and any pronouns work for me.

I'm asexual but for a romantic relationship i usually prefer boys.

I'm 5'2 and i have grayish blue hair at the moment. I don't stick to any specific clothing style, I usually just wear what I like tho. I have pretty big eyes ( I used to be called an alien bc of them when i was little) and I am half russian.

I am a libra sun, leo moon, sag rising and an ESTP 8w7. I was told that i am pretty intimidating when you first meet me, but after you get thru this facade i am usually a really hyper person. I joke around all the time and sometimes i can be pretty mean but nothing too bad. I love anything that gives me an adrenaline rush (i'd risk anything most of the time just to have fun). I really like having late night talks and laughing with my friends. I dislike when i'm told what to do and when people pry into my life. I usually like to keep things light hearted in my relationships. My favourite color is blue (many of my friends have told me that they associate me with it bc my ig account is blue themed and i've had blue hair for almost 2 years now). I am really interested in the spiritual side of life.

My top kin is Ryo from devilman crybaby, and from haikyuu i kin Tendo and Oikawa

In a relationship I look for a partner that will keep things exciting between us and is able to make me laugh a lot.

(thank you in advance for this♡)

hi eva! thank you for requesting! ack i tried to dye my hair grayish blue, but i didn’t tone my hair or bleach it enough, so now it’s a really dark greenish color and i am suffering😐 anyways here’s your matchup!

generating matchup...

matchup: complete

i match you up with tendou!

what first drew him to you was how you shared a lot of the same traits as you did, so he was really excited that he found someone who is able to be as chaotic and spontaneous as he is. he immediately wanted to get to know you better. he wasn’t really phased that you first came off as intimidating, and you guys quickly became really close with each other.

tendou will ask you to dye his hair, and tell you to surprise him with any style or color that you think would look good. so far, he has had nearly every color of the rainbow, different clumps of hair dyed different colors, and that greyish blue you have so he could match with you. his favorite color so far was hot pink, and he has done it at least 3 times.

he loves to listen to you rant about whatever comes to mind, and he will be sure to chime in and agree or disagree with whatever you are saying. you guys have gotten into playful arguments about the stupidest things like if a frog worked at mcdonalds would they get paid the same amount as a human. you guys do get deep sometimes, but most of your conversations are on crack and it’s god tier comedy.

tendou will call you at like 3am and just bother you until you sneak out of your house, and for the rest of the morning you guys will just go insane, like mixing different energy drinks, climbing statues, and vandalizing cars (with washable chalk spray paint :)). tendou’s snapchat story is full of blurry pics and videos of you guys doing this shit, and at this point, people are so used to it that they don’t even question what you and tendou are doing.

he thinks your eyes are really pretty, and he will never stop telling you just how beautiful they are. he has experienced people calling him mean names in his childhood as well, so he just wants you to know that everyone who was mean to you was full of shit and they were all lying through their teeth.

tendou loves when you surprise him by going to his games. he definitely plays better when you are watching him, and whenever he successuflly shuts down a block, he will scream “DID YOU SEE THAT EVA!” and point at you. after the game, he will show you his teammates, and he will keep on talking about how lucky he is to have you, and you are his good luck charm.

one of your first dates with him was at a boardwalk amusement park, where you guys just went crazy and went on all of the highest, scariest rides with like no breaks in between, and it was just one adrenaline rush after another. after you guys finished every ride you wanted to go on, you and tendou got some ice cream and walked down the shore to calm both of your nerves down, and tendou chases the seagulls while you laughed and took videos.

every few weeks, you guys have late night karaoke sessions in the comfort of your room, and you and tendou just sing (pretty badly) all those loud, fork in a blender type beat kinds of songs (money machine, NEVER MET!, molly, etc.) while jumping on the bed and just enjoying each others company.

he loves to give you his hoodie, or let you wear one of his jerseys because it shows everyone that you are with him, and you aren’t afraid to tell people that you are his s/o. since most people didn’t want anything to do with him when he was younger, you not being ashamed to say that you are his s/o makes him feel much more accepted and happy with himself.

overall, you guys are such a chaotic couple, and whenever you guys are together, it’s just a constant loop of “what crazy shit will we do next”, and it’s honestly the best thing ever. you guys care about each other very much, and tendou just wants you to know how beautiful and funny you are, so he will tell you at every chance he gets.

i hope you enjoyed! i’m trying out this sort of new layout, and i think it’s nice so imma do this from now on :)

#haikyuu #tendou satori #tendou #haikyuu matchups #haikyu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu imagines #tendou imagines #tendou headcanons #tendou x you #haikyu headcanons #haikyu imagines

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mellometal · 3 years

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I know I said I don't associate myself with the Panic! fandom anymore, but this is something I have been ACHING to talk about. This is some bad timing, since it was Brent Wilson's birthday recently (yes, his birthday is July 20th, NOT August 20th; source: I've been following him on Twitter for five years and he's actually said this), but this is going to be about Brent and the whole situation with him.

Warning: What I'm about to say about the situation with Brent Wilson (original bassist) is heavily biased, since I do stan him. YEAH. I STAN BRENT MATTHEW WILSON, THE ORIGINAL BASSIST OF PANIC! AT THE DISCO. CRY ABOUT IT. STAY MAD. He's one of the ONLY members of Panic! At The Disco (past and present) who I give a fuck about, besides Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith, and Ian Crawford.

Trigger warning: This will be talking about arrest, jail, drugs (doing and selling), weapons (guns), childbirth, parenthood, and some other things. If these things are triggering for you or make you uncomfortable in any way, you do not have to read this post. Consume media that sparks joy for you.

Disclaimer: I don't know Brent in real life, I'm not in his circle of friends or people he's closest to (like his wife Taylor, his parents, his brother Blake, his in-laws, his irl friends, coworkers, etc.), and this is not me acting like I do. I don't know what his life is like outside of Twitter. The only contact I've ever had with him has been on Twitter, but it was pretty limited.

My thoughts on this situation are MY opinion, any possibilities in my thoughts are just theories and not proven to be true, and I'm not trying to excuse whatever he was allegedly charged with.

Just for the record, I am willing to have a civil conversation with anyone who hates Brent. The minute you attack me or anyone else who likes Brent, or a whole bunch of you start circle jerking about how much you hate him, you're getting blocked. If all you're going to bring up is the shit Brent did when he was in his late teens instead of adding anything useful to the discussion, you're getting blocked too. I already know about that. It happened back in 2004-2006. They were all still kids, to a point. Brent has changed quite a bit since then. The whole "Hate on Brent Wilson" bandwagon is stupid, toxic, and I refuse to jump on it. I've never jumped on it when I was in the Panic! fandom, so why would I do it now?

Remember, without Brent bringing Br3nd0n Ur!3 into Panic!, your precious Br3nd0n wouldn't be successful today. JUST SO YA KNOW. (I'm very salty right now, if you can't already tell.)

If you would like to know about what happened with Brent, a few months ago, he was arrested on (alleged) drug charges and illegal possession of a weapon, along with a traffic violation and something to do with a probation violation too. He was set to go to court back in March for his sentencing, but that's the most recent information I've found. I don't know what the fuck is going on at this point. I don't know if he's been sentenced, if he's doing anything alternative like rehabilitation, nothing. (The reason why I said they're alleged charges is because I don't know if he's even been to court for sentencing or anything like that.)

People's reactions were mixed. Some actually LAUGHED and made a whole bunch of jokes about him being arrested (that's fucking insensitive and cruel). Some felt bad for Brent because he just became a dad (yes, he's a dad, but I'm not posting any pictures of the kid out of respect for Brent and Taylor). Some were shocked. Some weren't surprised (how and why????).

My reaction? It was pretty mixed. I was shocked. I thought I was having a fever dream and what I was seeing was fake at first. When I realized it wasn't fake, I was crushed. I felt absolutely horrible for Brent, Taylor, their kid, and all their loved ones. Like, I care about the guy a lot. Obviously.

Ironically, the band members and/or group members I stan are either the black sheep or they're just not as popular. Or they're the fucking scapegoat almost EVERYONE attacks for the stupidest shit. Brent's the black sheep as well as the scapegoat of Panic!, for example....and I would say that Ian is another black sheep too. Not for any negative reasons. He's simply not as popular, due to the fact he was only in Panic! during the Vices era for a short time. He's underrated as FUCK. I'm one of the black sheep in a lot of places [except for friend groups], even in my own family, so it explains why I stan Brent still.

I just want to say that selling drugs and doing drugs aren't inherently bad things to do. This doesn't mean that I'm for kids doing drugs and selling them. Absolutely not. I want people who do drugs or sell drugs to be treated like human beings. I also want them to be able to seek help easier without the judgment or being treated like a criminal. Personally, I don't do any of that, but I understand why someone would. (This kind of thing hits home for me.)

As far as the whole weapon thing is concerned (it was a gun), I personally don't like them and we need better gun control in the United States. I don't think I'd trust anyone who owns a gun because of the possibility that they would hurt me or worse in an argument or something. I've seen my abuser threaten to pull a gun out on my dad when I was a kid. Thankfully it wasn't loaded, but still. It was scary. I wouldn't own a gun because I'm autistic, mentally ill, and I'm afraid of what I might do in certain situations. If someone wants to own a gun for protection, hunting, target practice, or to collect them, fine. BUT YOU DON'T NEED A HUGE ASS GUN THAT THE MILITARY USES TO GO HUNTING OR FOR TARGET PRACTICE. I don't like them, I don't want one, I don't trust myself with one, guns scare me, and I want better gun control in the United States. It terrifies me that people openly carry. I understand that's the Second Amendment and all, but it doesn't change the fact that it terrifies me. As long as you're responsible with that kind of thing, I don't really care.

I don't know what Brent's reason was for (allegedly) owning a weapon (maybe for protection or something?), but it's none of my business.

In my opinion, this is all stupid shit. There are people who have done horrible things and they're STILL free people, but oh, god forbid you do or sell drugs! THAT'S bad. /s

Here's my response below. I'll type out everything, except for the disclaimers and what he was arrested for. I will start from the fifth paragraph on the first screenshot and continue from there. This is so anyone who has a hard time reading any of the screenshots can read them easier.

(My response was from around the time it was announced that he was arrested. Just so you know.)

First screenshot, fifth paragraph:

First off, I just want to say that this situation is a fucked up one for anyone to be in. I would never wish this on anyone. Especially because now, there's a baby involved, so this makes the situation worse. This is pretty difficult for me to put into words without coming off as bitchy or anything like that, so if I get bitchy here, I apologize.

Second screenshot, fifth paragraph:

I don't know what caused this mess to begin with, but I do know that Brent and his wife Taylor just had a baby a couple months ago (when I was typing this out initially). While it's a good thing for them, it can be assumed that this is also a very stressful time for them.

Combination of third and fourth screenshots (These are pretty much only theories; not facts, and they will be broken up into paragraphs):

The pandemic most likely isn’t helping their case. Las Vegas is a HUGE city and I’m sure A LOT of people there are REALLY struggling right now in all aspects. Maybe Brent and Taylor are struggling to pay off hospital bills or whatever (to put this into perspective, the average cost for hospital childbirth in Nevada is around $21,239, according to CBS News). The average salary for an accountant in Nevada is anywhere from $34k to $150k, and that all depends on education, experience (how long you’ve been in said career), certifications, and any additional skills. Take into account any other necessities they have to pay for, like their mortgage, bills, insurance, etc.

Let’s say that they did manage to pay everything else off, but they’re struggling to pay the hospital bills from when they had their baby. (Having a baby is fucking expensive in the United States, regardless of whether there are complications or not, and regardless of whether you have insurance or not.) Let’s say they’ve tried every single option out there, but nothing seems to give still. Maybe the drug selling was a last resort on Brent’s part. (As I’ve said, I don’t know the full story.)

The whole subject of drug paraphernalia hits home for me. My parents both did drugs when I was a kid. I’ve seen it a lot growing up. My dad was, in the past, in and out of jail for drugs and other things that aren’t relevant here. I’m not sure if my mom was in and out of jail for the same shit, but I know for a fact my dad was. Y’know, because he told me. ANYWAYS.

I get it. You gotta do what you gotta do. It’s not something I’d do personally, but I understand why somebody would do it. I wouldn’t treat them any differently. Maybe they’re selling drugs or whatever to keep themselves from losing their homes, put food on the table for their families, help pay their bills, pay for their education, whatever. It could be a number of things.

Fifth screenshot (people’s reactions to the news and my thoughts on them):

Now...let’s move on to how people are reacting to the news. There’s a lot of mixed reactions. A lot of people feel bad for Brent, especially since he and Taylor just had a baby a couple months ago (as I was typing this). Some people “aren’t surprised” because they were never fans of him in the first place. Others think this is amusing. I’ve seen some people who are solely involved in celebrity news (similar to TMZ) making jokes about the situation, which to me, is appalling.

Let me tell you something. It doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of Brent or not. This shit isn’t funny or cute in the slightest. It sure isn’t funny or cute to anyone who is being affected by the situation, which includes Brent himself, Taylor, their son, and all their loved ones. Like, full stop. Have some decency. Y’all are fucking gross. You can dislike Brent all you want, but he’s a real human being who fucked up. Personally, when I first heard the news, I couldn’t believe it at first. I thought I was having a fever dream. That is, until I looked it up and actually found that it was true. I was CRUSHED. Why? Because Brent is one of the last people I’d even expect to get into this whole mess.

Sixth screenshot (my thoughts):

If I’m being honest here...like, BRUTALLY honest, Brent needs to be put in REHAB, not jail. For anyone who has been here (on my Instagram) from when I used to dedicate this account to vintage Panic!, you know how I’ve never said anything but kind things about Brent. From the few times I’ve interacted with him a little bit on Twitter and from how I’ve seen him interact with others on the site, Brent is one of the sweetest people ever. I’m being genuine here. He’s a good guy who fucked up and did some dumb shit. Does that make him bad? No. Then again, as far as I’ve read about the current situation at hand, it’s too early to really determine anything. None of us know what caused him to have drug paraphernalia or anything else that he was arrested for in the first place.

Seventh screenshot (wrap-up):

I’m gonna wrap this up here. My heart aches for Brent, Taylor, their son, and all their loved ones. I hope that everything gets straightened out, all sides of the story come out, and that Brent can get his shit together again. Like he had been doing since he was kicked out of Panic!. I wish everyone involved nothing but the absolute best right now, given how fucked up the whole situation is. (Just to clear up any confusion, when I was referring to Taylor, I’m NOT referring to Taylor Swift or any other celebrity with the name Taylor. I’m referring to Brent’s wife.)

If you’ve read this far, thank you! If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I’ll try to answer as best as I can.

Have my thoughts on the situation changed since February - March of this year? No.

I think that Brent needs some kind of help. That's why I mentioned rehab. It's obvious to me that's the kind of help he needs. I don't believe jail is helpful in certain circumstances (like drug charges, traffic violations, and other nonviolent crimes)....at least in the United States. They treat people who do drugs and/or sell drugs like they're subhuman. Yet there are people who have committed violent, deplorable, horrific crimes, and they're still free people. Funny how that works. I'm not too educated about how the jail system works in other countries, so I can't exactly tell you how I feel about that system on an international standpoint.

Brent should be with his wife and child. I hope the guy gets his shit together again. I believe Brent WILL get his shit together. Genuinely. I would never wish anything bad on him.

I don't crucify Brent like a lot of people in the Panic! fandom do. The only reason I would hypothetically do so is if Brent actually committed violent, deplorable, horrific crimes (i.e., chomo bullshit, trafficking...like, extreme shit) that would warrant him being locked up and I'd drop him completely at that point. OBVIOUSLY I DON'T SEE HIM DOING ANYTHING LIKE THAT. EVER. THAT'S JUST HYPOTHETICAL.

Anyways....have a good day, y'all.

#mello speaks #brent wilson #panic! at the disco #tw drugs #tw possession of a weapon #tw weapon mention #brent matthew wilson #holy shit I'm talking about PANIC! despite not associating with the fandom anymore? wow!#cw arrest #i really hope they're okay though #this situation is a fucked up one for anyone to be in

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kwantified · 4 years

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waffles - zhong chenle

genre: highschool!chenji, fluff word count: 2.6k synopsis: a snitched secret leaves you feeling guilty, but there’s always chenle (and food). lowercase intended.

disclaimer! mild swearing (as teens do) and apologies in advance if it’s cringey. i’m new to this!

"fuck chaeri, they're going to kill me!"

"she needs to know! someone likes her!"

"but you don't know the name, though? what's the point?" at this moment, you realise it would've been better to have never told chaeri anything at all. damn it. who knew the same person who was able to keep all of your crushes since the seventh grade was now willingly announcing someone's feelings to the one person they shouldn't be announced to - at least, not yet.

"that's exactly the point. it's even more exciting to guess!" chaeri continues, "also, it's about time she gets a love life. i'm pretty sure ballet gets tiring sometimes."

you pull her shoulder, hoping to hold her back. your effort ignored, she instead approaches your friend, hong mijung, sitting on the leftmost seat in classroom 1-C. you watch in defeat as chaeri's lanky figure sways her way to the girl on the other side of the room. she tells mijung in squeals, a mix of excitement and shock. you could practically see mijung's heart drop after hearing her words.

mijung stands up, following chaeri to the hallway. her face is flushed bright red and her mouth moves fast. chaeri only reassures the shorter girl, trying to calm her down from the flustering news. it's an amusing sight; seeing mijung jump out of her calm, relaxed demeanour.

thankfully, you'd managed to stop yourself from spilling any names, and if mijung's already skipping beats at the idea of someone crushing on her, you can only imagine her usual ballerina bun undoing itself once she found out the hip-hop dancer from the studio upstairs had feelings for her.

feeling bouts of guilt and relief, you decide to head to your locker. exams are finally over; that means emptying your backpack of multiple textbooks and freeing you of weighted hell - even if that meant you would lose your only means of exercise.

"boo." you jump at the familiar voice behind you.

"halloween's so last season, zhong chenle," you turn around and get an eye-roll in response.

chenle cocks his head at the two girls heading downstairs, "what's going on with mijung?"

"why do you want to know?"

"because she doesn't usually do..." he trails off into silence. you begin to hear mijung's voice echo from two stories below, and chenle snaps his fingers, "...that."

"point taken," you try to find something in your locker to fiddle with, wanting to dismiss the conversation.

he folds his arms, leaning on the lockers in front of you. "anyways, what happened?"

you feel his gentle eyes waiting on your answer, and that's when you realise it's too late to scram.

"would you be mad if someone leaked your feelings for someone without your permission to the person you have feelings for?"

chenle thinks for a moment, "yeah."

"...don't tell me you did that," you can hear his cheery tone drop.

"to my defence, i didn't tell it was jisung," you pause, "i told chaeri, and chaeri only, that someone likes mijung." you began.

"should i tell jisung? mijung has class after this and i don't want her getting all giddy talking about crushes in front of him."

chenle tilts his head in thought, "yeah. just give him a warning. and an apology, because, you know, duh."

"fuck, i'm sorry." you sigh as you text jisung, letting a string of curses follow throughout.

"i feel like he likes her. like, like likes her. a lot." chenle nods, moving to face your back. he places his chin on your shoulder as the two of you watch jisung react with a sequence of 'oh my god's, 'shit's, and numerous variations of a keyboard smash.

chenle's hands go to your arms, rubbing it in an attempt to soothe you. "what's done is done."

still, you feel nervous. like, a queasy-weird nervous feeling from your gut or somewhere around there. somehow, it's familiar.

"yeah, i know, but-"

"have you tried the new café downtown?"

fuck. looks like the feeling isn't going away today.

"is 'not enough pocket money' a valid excuse or does that phrase just not make sense in your head?" you say sarcastically, turning your head to find him weirdly sweet-smelling. he chuckles in response, and you feel him beaming his usual ear-to-ear smile.

"i'll pay." he says nonchalantly, lifting his head from your shoulder, "plus, i don't want you to sulk over one thing you did for the next week."

"you can't buy me happiness," you retaliate, almost as if guarding your shame.

"hey, science says chocolate releases dopamine. makes you happy." he puts his arm around your shoulders. at this point, it's hard to tell whether he actually wants to get closer to you or if your shoulders are just the perfect height for an armrest. you wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter, but you're never sure about the former.

still, it feels nice.

it turns out the "café" chenle referred to was more of a "waffle and coffee stand" downtown, its tables and seats taken by groups of content faces already. chenle insists the two of you line up anyways, your and chenle's eyes targeting a certain chocolate waffle. you could practically feel the warmth radiating off of the food, and your mouth waters at the thought of fudge filling your tastebuds as an abundance of sweet and bitter scents fill your nostrils.

you see him huff cold air as he speaks, his nose turning a light shade of pink. his cheeks follow, and it's only when his eyes meet with yours that you realised two things: your face is also tinted pink, and you've been staring. panicked, you swiftly avert your eyes. you had expected an obnoxious laugh or a direct jab from his part, but to your surprise, he only smiles.

randomly, you blurt, "have you ever thought of bleaching your eyebrows?"

he laughs, and then says, "only during exam season. you know, i think it would fit on you - actually you’d look good in anything." he shrugs, earning him a confused look from you.

the worker inside the stand shouts the number on your receipt, and it takes a while for the two of you to recover from the first bites you take. it was like medicine, and the side effects were: jumping, letting out less than appropriate sounds, and annoying others around you. in other words, the waffles were stupidly good. and you watched chenle space out like he's never eaten food before.

and he gave you the stupidest smile and the stupidest laugh and did the stupidest thing: he cupped your cheeks and looked straight into your eyes and made you believe this might be about more than waffles - thankfully, he'd swallowed his bite and you laughed it off.

he calmed down a bit after that, but you still can't fathom his warm hands on your face. it just made you want to reach into your stomach with a giant net and catch all the little butterflies.

"i'll walk you home," he says, out of the blue. you knew his house was located around the block, but you didn't want to point it out. besides, he's walked you home before, and he knows his way around town by now.

"okay." you smile.

"i kind of want to get back on stage again."

"really?"

"yeah. i miss the thrill of it all, you know? just having so many peoples' eyes on me, and i honestly just love to hear everyone cheer or cry or react," he continues as the two of you wait before the crossing, "i think the most powerful thing about performing is just knowing that you're making someone feel something, whoever it is. i just- i don't know."

"no, i get it. i don't really perform at all, but i've seen how happy you get on stage."

you remember that one class trip after midterms, in the talent show. chenle and jisung signed up to perform a parody of soulja boy's "pretty boy swag" as a joke, and as stupid as the lyrics were, the crowd absolutely loved it.

you also remember surfing the internet to find videos of him singing all throughout his childhood, spamming him with links of the videos in a group chat with him. though you made fun of him, you were sure of one thing; he had a talent for it.

the light turns green, and the two of you bathe in seoul's city noises once more, different aromas of street food and soju lighting up several sections of the block.

"Y/N," he calls.

"yeah?"

"i feel like i've known you for a while," he says suddenly.

you suck in the cold air as the two of you brisk walk; you barely have any time to process what he's just said. quickly, you respond, "yeah, me too."

he catches your reaction and says again, "it's like i was meant to know you, y'know? something about you just makes me feel like i've spent lifetimes with you."

he waits for your response, but there's none. you don't know what to say. 'something about you.' something about me? what is there about me?

"how- how do you know?" it's normal for him to speak so straightforwardly, but today feels different. you can't quite put a finger on it.

"this is weird, but your voice is familiar... and comforting, now that i think about it."

how does he say that so casually?

just as you're still trying to understand his words to you, chenle gradually intertwines his hand with yours.

at first, it's okay, and you feel like the butterflies have multiplied by the hundreds. but slowly, questions start to infiltrate your mind, and you have no choice but to pull him over to talk. fortunately, you're close to your house, and where you live, the streets are much quieter than his.

you stop abruptly, turning his calm face confused.

"zhong. chenle."

"that's my name?"

"yeah," you nod, "care to explain?"

he leans in closer to you (which made two seconds seem like two years), asking for you to repeat it again. you take a deep breath.

"why do you do anything? like- with me?" all you see is a confused look.

"because i-"

"you're so casual about everything and i don't know how to feel about it because one day we're project group partners that never talk and the next you walk me the long way home!"

you start to look him up and down as you speak, your pupils going in a zig-zag pattern across the boy. you're frantic and spewing words you don't even remember wanting to say, but you're focused on him, and only him. not the sunset that's tinting his violet hair blue; not the neighbouring house gates that make him look taller than he actually his; not even the puddle he's so close to standing on it's a hair strand away from staining his jordans.

you know him, and only him and how much his hair's grown it's covering his eyes; him and how his blazer, when pulled to his elbows, makes him look a bit like a k-pop idol; him and his red, unpierced ears, which colours' still show through his hair.

"and you buy me all these treats and put your fucking arms around me and basically back hug me so many times and act like it's no big deal that i'm getting confused whether or not you want me close or if i'm just a convenient armrest?"

you genuinely feel yourself getting lightheaded. am i going crazy?

"wait, but i thought you liked that because i saw jisung do it-"

"it's different! jisung's a friend - more like a brother - and yeah, of course i like it, but with you it's different! it's like- it feels some way, like- it's just-" you trip up on your words and give up.

"i- have feelings for you." you slow down your pace.

you look up at him and realise his eyes saw you first. he smiles, again, and it's only then that you get the urge to hold his hand or snuggle into the crook of his neck.

luckily, zhong chenle's a mind reader, and he goes on to wrap his arms around you, letting your head rest on the crook of his neck as you mumble, over and over again the words i like you like you're getting used to its vowels sounding out of your throat. it's some type of warmth you don't think you'll ever get with five layers of padded jackets or stupidly good waffles - and it smells like sandalwood.

"you don't have to return my feelings, just- know that i feel this way."

"i thought it was obvious?"

you pull away from the embrace, "what was obvious?"

"i've liked you since after that trip. you know, when i injured my ankle after the talent show," he shrugs, "you just came to the nurse's area, where i was, and you just- stayed there to be with me the entire night. and from then you just always approached me and, i don't know, treated me like a person instead of a walking bank."

"and i guess it didn't seem so obvious for you because we only really got close because of jisung, who you've known for forever. but i did go out of my way a few times, though."

"wait, when?"

"for starters, i walked you home a lot, bought you lunch a few times, paid for the cake on your birthday-"

"that was you?"

he scoffs.

"oh, i see." you hit him playfully, "that's why chaeri wasn't complaining about her wallet."

"but honestly," you began, "i think i've always thought you were a great, funny guy even before the trip. i remember you on the first day of school, basically shouting through the halls with your other friends from the second and third years. and i just remember, the first time hearing you talk and thinking: you're so damn confident. and when you got hurt and nobody really came to see you, i was just like, shit - nobody's going to check on him other than jisung?"

you continue as the two of you are nearing your house, pouring out the unspoken after months and months of bottling it up.

suddenly, chenle's phone rings. it's jisung calling.

"jisung-ah! call me later-"

unable to hear jisung, you read the call through chenle's face.

"wait... HOLY SHIT SERIOUSLY?"

"DUDE-" he looks down, unintentionally meeting your eyes. his tone softens, "dude, tell me later tonight, kay? i'm... in public right now."

you raise an eyebrow at him.

"well, i'm with Y/N."

then jisung speaks again, and chenle replies with a "yeah."

"oh- okay," he puts the call on speaker. the second he does that, the first thing you hear from jisung is "Y/N! GOD BLESS YOU."

"wait- why?"

"MIJUNG JUST ASKED ME OUT!"

you look to chenle, "i-is he kidding?"

"NO I'M NOT! I ALREADY PINCHED MYSELF THRICE- THIS IS INSANE!"

chenle laughs, "when and where?"

"movies and dinner... i'm never getting over this."

"wait so... does that mean you're not mad at me anymore?"

"well, you were kind of a snitch but i guess that ended well, so... no."

"i won't snitch next time, i promise. unless-"

"Y/N, there won't be a next time! there's no way i'm gonna stop liking mijung."

"proud of you bud. call us later, yeah? we're getting on the bus right now." chenle says nonchalantly, ending the call just like that.

"why did you lie?"

he grins and takes your hand in his, "why do you think?"

"oh, shut up," you laugh, reaching up to peck his cheek goodbye.

he looks at you, shocked, making you two simultaneously burst into laughter together.

“ya! your breath smells like waffles!”

#nct #nct dream #chenle #zhong chenle #park jisung #waffles #fluff #nct dream fluff #kpop imagines #kpop #fanfic #imagine #au #high school

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star-anise · 5 years

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I would enjoy it greatly if you would rant about the White People Smile thing, because ever since that post, I've noticed how much I do it

Okay this one is gonna be a deep dive.

For the uninitiated, I’m explaining why white people do what they do. This refers less to the actual amalgamated experiences of every person with pale skin and European descent ever, and more the aspirational model of whiteness held up as the cultural ideal in former British colonies.The gap between these two concepts is left for the audience as an instructive lesson on how useful racial stereotypes are in predicting the experiences and behaviour of individual people of that race.

Previously, while explaining why guest towels are often not meant to be used by guests, I dipped into the white propensity to never let someone know when they’re making a mistake–to smile awkwardly and say nothing when a person is being rude or offensive–before going back to talking about the unique properties of linen and terrycloth. This is a further look at the subject.

So, I can’t explain this for every person ever. And I’m gonna take a different tack than I normally would, which would normally be to talk about trauma and the fight/flight/freeze response to stress. Instead, I’m going to talk about my research into the cultural moment centuries ago when this response started to be advocated, and how connecting to long-lost European martial arts helped me unlearn this response.

Tl;dr it emerged as an alternative to stabbing people

I said once that I was a frustrated medievalist, fitting in my history education around other concerns, and therefore ended up studying, more than anything else, how the middle ages disappeared? This is one of those cases–the only vaguely relevant history class I could get into that semester was Early Modern England, which focused on the Tudor and Stuart dynasties, 1485-1649. That’s the period right after the Middle Ages are said to have “ended” in Britain.

At the time I was also very active in the Society for Creative Anachronism, a living history group. I did rapier fencing, using the long, light swords that were intended specifically for person-to-person combat in civilian settings. They’re duelling swords, at a time the duel was becoming a separate institution from the battlefield. They were used in Spain, Italy, and France earlier, but this time period was about when they became popular in England, so I decided to use the class as a lens to study duelling in England. My prof was very receptive to this, partly because it meant he had one student whose papers weren’t about the political machinations of someone named Thomas and/or Cromwell.

So, duelling is an inherently aristocratic system. To understand it, you have to understand that “privilege” literally means “privi lege”, Latin for “private law”. It meant that the laws that applied to nobles were different from laws that applied to commoners. Commoners were not generally allowed to carry weapons or kill people; if the average commoner killed somebody, he would be tried for murder before a jury of his peers and executed for murder. But the nobility fell under the privilege of the sword; they were the class of society whose job it was to carry weapons and kill people, police and army by hereditary right. Nobles were judged by juries of their peers, other nobles; other nobles accepted that sometimes they were 100% correct in killing people. And if you’re like, “Whoa that’s fucked up, it’s like police deciding if a police officer was right to kill a civilian,” DING GOLD STAR FOR YOU. It’s why Robin Hood, the anti-aristocratic hero whose archenemy was a sheriff, is such a popular folk figure in England.

So nobles could kill commoners without serious consequences, and nobles were also allowed to kill other nobles, so long as they followed a code of combat known as chivalry. That included things like: Don’t attack someone who’s unarmed or defenceless; don’t attack from behind or without warning; bow to him before you begin fighting; blah blah blah blah. They were always more ideals than realities during times of war, but when artillery showed up on northern European battlefields in the 1400s, they became deeply impractical in warfare. (Redacted: detailed explanation of why this is.) The ideal of a fair fight between matched foes stuck around in the duel, but it became a civil affair, not a military strategy.

Okay okay so. Why did duels happen? More than anything, they were about honour, prestige, and respect. Nobles had a certain way they expected to be treated, a code of politeness and manners with which people had to treat them. A commoner who failed to treat them this way could be punished with limited ability to resist, but other nobles had to be treated according to the same chivalric values of the fair fight. They had to be challenged to a duel.

So duels occurred over all kinds of shit. Failing to give someone precedence or jostling them in the door; having an affair with somebody’s wife; insulting someone’s favourite religious figure; behaving in an unchivalric manner; accusing someone else of behaving in an unchivalric manner; anything. People could make tutting sounds over duels being fought for the stupidest shit, but that didn’t necessarily stop them from being fought.

So the duel and the culture of politeness were really intertwined. You were polite to people because if you weren’t, they could stab you and get away with it. It’s funny how the word “gentle” started out a thousand years ago meaning someone from a particular lineage, how that lineage was the only people with social permission to perpetuate huge amounts of violence, but now means restraint from violence–but that’s what happened. A lot of courtly manners among the nobility were really like… intense high-stakes peace negotiations with everyone, all the time.

So like, imagine current Tumblr callout culture, except if somebody called you out, you had to let them try to kill you.

Many monarchs of this era HATED duelling culture. Countries like England and France had histories of war between nobles and the Crown, so the Crown hated their nobility being really strong powerful military leaders. Powerful nobility had the pesky tendency of refusing to obey monarchs they didn’t like, or even kicking them off the throne. This pushed those monarchies towards a principle of absolute royal authority over which nothing and no one had precedence. Privilege, so far as these monarchs were concerned, ought to belong to the CROWN, and then people the Crown specifically deputized. You can’t just have people running all over and killing each other whenever they wanted! So the monarchs all started, slowly, to place restrictions on duelling and noble privilege, trying to consolidate that power.

Part of how that was done in Britain specifically was to reach out to the common people. Well, the rich common people. The merchant class. You may also know them as the bourgeoisie. One of the ways the monarchs of this era got extra money their nobles didn’t want them to have was by selling rights to colonial enterprise and writs of nobility. If you had enough money, you could become a baronet! Or own land in Ireland! Or go trade fur in North America! Which led to the social mobility I’ve mentioned before–while the crown was squeezing down the rights of the nobility, it was also opening up to the concept of common people becoming nobles.

Here’s the thing about European racism: In places where there weren’t as many people of colour around to be racist at? They just narrowed down their concept of race. Nobles genuinely believed they constituted a separate race of people from commoners, and that they were physically different and genetically superior to common people. So this kind of class mobility was an existential threat. How can someone with no noble blood become a marquis?!

(Spoiler: In previous centuries there had been much more class mobility, before the medieval concept of “nobility” fully formed, so it was in fact as bullshit as most other racial constructs. And as the noble/common divide blurred, race had to be defined in more comprehensive ways: English against the inferior Irish, until the Irish could be assimilated into whiteness and defined in opposition to black Africans. When there have in fact been black English people for as long as there has been an England. Really truly honestly, race is constructed bullshit.)

Anyway, when the British Crown prohibited duelling in the 17th century, they tried to justify it by saying to their nobles: Hey look, here are all these commoners dressing and acting like you! And duelling like you! How droll! Don’t they look ridiculous and stupid, fighting over the littlest thing? Wouldn’t you say duelling is a little gauche? A little bourgeois? You wouldn’t treat them like your equals, as though they deserved to be treated with the rules of chivalry, would you? No, that would be silly.

So in former times, if someone breached the standards of politeness, they’d be called out and expected to apologize or fight. But now, calling someone out would be affording them noble status when they didn’t merit the racial construct of nobility. And also, like I said before–if a commoner who was trying to break into high society made a mistake, and people pointed it out to them, then they’d learn to correct that mistake and fit in better. And then they might MARRY a noble, and DILUTE the BLOODLINES and POLLUTE the shades of PEMBERLY and MASS HYSTERIA, CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER.

So now, the nobility slowly came to believe that ~taking the high road~ was the better response: Refuse to dignify bad manners with a response, just let the awkward silence hang there so everyone can see how badly-behaved they were. Well-bred people will just know the secret unwritten rules of society. Then you can quietly exclude the rubes from your parties without ever letting them know they’re being excluded. And anyway, if you did duel someone, you’d have to do it in dead secret and if you actually did kill them, you might have to flee the country or else the Crown would arrest you and try you for murder and it’s not nice to get your dwindling noble privilege rubbed in your face.

So that’s the birth of the British response of “When someone fucks up, smile, look constipated, and say nothing.” It was especially strong in noblewomen, who wouldn’t be able to duel anyway, so might as well make a brave face of the only option that feels possible. By the time Jane Austen was writing in the late 1700s and early 1800s, society was leaning further and further to “true politeness means never expressing disapproval of someone else’s bad behaviour.” Partly because pointing out someone’s lapse in manners came to mean you thought they were stupid and hadn’t been properly enculturated into your class, which was of course the worst thing ever.

Across the centuries, the threads holding all the pieces together have rotted, so we forget why we define politeness this way; it’s just The Way Things Are Done. It’s just #verybritishproblems. It’s just the lower-class belief that if someone offends or insults you, you should punch them in the nose; it’s just the anxious privileged liberal belief that violence is wrong and we should just wring our hands about it. The most aware I’ve seen people from former colonies be on the topic is Australians, who know that they don’t subscribe as much to British manners and ideals because they were a prison colony, largely settled by poor people who got there by breaking the rules.

My grandmother, born 1929, totally aspired to that level of class and gentility, even though she was raised dirt poor; being a white settler in Canada meant that theoretically, if you worked hard and went to church and improved yourself through cleanliness and education, you could join the new ruling class. She aspired to the heights of Calgarian society, for whatever that was worth. And she has this specific way of sucking her breath in that means “Oh GOD, granddaughter, you have just something TERRIBLY gauche. Think about everything you are doing, wearing, and being at this moment, and magically intuit which of them is incorrect!” She’s also the one who made my mom learn to do pulled-thread embroidery, and taught me how to lay a place setting of silverware for a four-course meal, and basically strove to turn herself into a living model of aspirational whiteness. When my mom and I go into family therapy, we usually end up talking about how much we want to reject her ideals.

How did I unlearn this?

I am not a good fencer. I love the idea of swordfighting, but in addition to my weakness and disability, I have a really timid posture and way of moving. When I was a kid, I made it a game to see if, by turning sideways or flattening myself against a wall, I could navigate through a crowd quickly without ever needing anyone to move or notice I was there. I really connected with the idea of Arya, in Game of Thrones, learning how to be a silent ghost, learning to catch cats.

Then, in fencing, I had to learn entirely new responses. I’ve traditionally flinched and frozen when physically threatened; now I had to train myself to assess an incoming threat and fend it off. I had to learn to stand upright, to hold my core strong and solid, to respond to an attack and then to attack in return. It’s really physical, and in turn, really emotional. When I’ve taught teenage girls in turn, I’ve had to ease them through the process of laughing in discomfort when they land a hit on someone, crying when they hit someone out of fear and shame because they’re not supposed to DO that. Those are stages I’ve had to go through as well. I was pretty affected by a book I acquired through SCA channels, The Armored Rose, about the experiences of modern women learning to do historical combat. It’s a feminist analysis and it felt true to me, but now, a few decades later, I think it’s not really about “women” so much as “people who have been socialized to never be violent”–there are a lot of men I’ve taught who have been just as likely to freeze, who needed to overcome emotional hesitation before responding assertively, and women who had no hesitation at all.

But one lesson that really left an impression on me was learning from a doña, an acknowledged master of the form, who was helping me fine-tune the way I held myself when I fought. “Pull in your core,” she said, encouraging me to bunch my muscles up so that when I uncoiled it would be even more powerful and positive. “Hold a little bit of ferocity. You gotta be a little mad at your opponent.”

“Anger gets in the way of clear thinking,” my usual teacher, an older man, said.

“Too much, yeah,” she said. “But in the women I’ve taught, the problem is usually not enough anger, not too much.”

I can still call that feeling up very clearly–legs tense and coiled, body held upright, ready to respond to an attack with a counterattack of my own. IIt felt good. I loved fencing, loved the sense of accomplishment I got learning how to respond to attacks and defeat them.

As a child and teenager I was hideously socially anxious, and had been bullied for most of my life. When people were socially aggressive towards me, it was incredibly hard not to just freeze up. Fighting back was impolite. Resistance was futile. I would either physically or metaphorically tuck myself into a ball and wait for them to stop hitting me, get bored and go away. In my late teens and early twenties I started getting medication and therapy to deal with my problems, and that meant learning to be socially assertive. To say, “No, you didn’t hear me right, what I really meant was–” and “No, I’d rather not go,” and “Excuse me, I’d like to be included in this discussion.” And a lot of the time, when I did that, I could physically feel the scrape of another sword against mine as a ghost in my mind. I’d put my feet into a fencer’s position before difficult conversations, to give me courage.

And after writing my final paper on duelling, I thought a lot about what it would be like to live in a duelling culture. How weird, how foreign would it be, to believe that somebody else deserved to die for treating me badly? How did you summon up enough anger to fight someone for insulting you? What kind of emotion would be necessary to drive a real sword into them, and not a blunted one?

What would it be like if I treated myself like someone whose feelings and experiences mattered, whose integrity was worth defending?

I mean, it was not a quick, easy, or complete fix. Years after, I’d still do things like get assaulted and take a year before telling anyone about it because the guy who assaulted me was friends with all my friends and I didn’t want to make them choose a side. But as much as I did change, that was how. And that enabled me to have richer relationships with a lot of different people. Before, people would hurt me without knowing it, and never know why I was later too scared of them to talk. I took a long time to trust people, to feel comfortable enough to connect with them. That fragility made it hard for me to help people, to do the kind of jobs that I wanted. The sturdier I got, the better at defending my boundaries and expressing myself, the wider the array of people I could talk with, get to know.

And since what I really wanted was to be a therapist focused on complex trauma, and a huge proportion of the people with complex trauma in Alberta are First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, that put me in situations where we had to talk about colonization and decolonization, and people started to ask me, “Hey, white girl, why do white people have so much stuff in their houses you’re not allowed to touch or use? Why are white people like this?” and could explain social niceties like “Yeah, this is a weird random thing white people do that seems really rude or stupid to you? But if you’re applying to a job and want a white person to hire you, they’ll judge you for not paying attention to it.”

I also learned, later, as training for a job, another form of martial art. Specifically, nonviolent martial arts–what to use when an impaired or intoxicated person attacks you, and you want to defend yourself without harming them, and how to render them safe if they’re hurting themselves. That job left me alone for 48 hours with teenagers with serious behavioural problems, who would do things like flail their hands in the direction of my face when I was helping them with basic hygiene.

They didn’t mean to hurt me, and it wasn’t aggressive, but still, their nails would sometimes draw blood and it frequently left me feeling frightened and angry, because I’d been physically hurt. And it’s actually really hard to convince your monkey hindbrain that they didn’t intend to hurt you, to make that adrenaline and fear go away. It made it really hard to care for them when I didn’t feel safe, because it was hard to summon up compassion, gentleness, and empathy with my heart going a hundred miles an hour. So that training helped a lot. After that, I could catch and deflect their hands before I risked getting hurt. We could have a better relationship because I felt confident and safe around them.

It’s filed in my brain next to the time I was playing with my nephew when he was a toddler, when I discovered that he stopped blithely using me as a climbing post when I said “Ow!” when he stepped on my boob. Once I let myself vocalize pain, he realized that he was causing me pain. He asked me about it, and when I said that it hurt me when he stepped on me, he apologized, gave me a hug to make it better, and played more gently after that. He hadn’t realized he hurt me; letting him know when he was too hard let him know how to be kind to me.

Those two are physical memories I call to mind when I’m dealing with someone who’s really upset and lashing out at me: sometimes the kindest thing you can to for someone else is deny them the ability to hurt you. To let them know the effect they’re having on you, so they can stop.

Okay. Dive’s over. I just felt my ears pop.

#staranise original #lis explains white people shit #this answer took an hour at home and then the drive from Edmonton to Strathmore #dancing-thru-clouds

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