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penfullofwordsaheadfullofstories · 4 years

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So We Refuse To Take it Tragically

A/N: I’ve just accepted my fate is to be obsessed with this man, so here’s yet another Obi-Wan fic. There will be a second part to this, and I’m thinking a mini series of in-between moments. I won’t give spoilers, but this is NOT my normal type of fic, but he’s an exception to every rule in my book, apparently. Thank you to @caffeine-in-an-iv for being my beta on this, I don’t know where this would be without you!

Thank you also to @beskars for her post here that birthed this. Always blessing us with fuel for the thirst.

And to the one I know IRL that found my tumblr, one I will refer to as Top Voice, this is your final warning to gtfo before feasting your eyes on unprecedented filth and sap.

Pairing: Obi-Wan Kenobi x Force sensitive! Fem Reader (no Y/N)

Warnings: SMUT!!! Cumeating, hair pulling, Comfort Sex, ANGST!! (It has a happy ending later, I promise, but it starts after ROTS, so it’s par for the course) If you’re gonna write not-particularly-pertinent-to-plot-porn, might as well make it unnecessarily detailed, right? As usual, too many feelings for porn, More warnings will be in the tags to prevent spoilers

Title from one of my favorite quotes:

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”

-D.H. Lawrence

Tatooine is no place for a baby.

There are no soft surfaces, nor comforts, nor surplus of anything. It’s desolate and deprived and oppressive, but you watch as Obi-Wan shields the child from its harsh, sand-pelting winds with his whole body, despite the fact the child fits in the space between his wrist and elbow. It’s overzealous, but you don’t say anything of it.

The past two days have ripped away nearly everything he held dear, insisting on devastating every tender place. Nothing sacred has been left untouched.

He broke the code long before he met you, and you know part of why his love for you came so easily, why he had no qualms with breaking his vows, was because he’d long since loved the man that became his family in every way that matters.

Love and Light so tightly knit together the fabric of his being one could not be separated from the other.

And you could take on the entire Force with your two fists for how it had rewarded him for it with Hate and Darkness coming from someone so close it shattered something foundational in Obi-Wan.

Yet even now, there isn’t Darkness surrounding his signature. There’s brokenness and his ever-present equilibrium has been replaced by jagged shards. But despite it all, those rugged pieces still reflect light erratically in their shine.

It’s a loss and betrayal that spans many different planes: on one level, there’s nowhere you look in the galaxy beyond just the two of you that isn’t marked by the Empire’s rise in power, marking the end of the Republic he fought for and the fall of the Jedi, his community, comrades, and only home he’d ever known. And on another level, you’ve seen the weight of war and worse in Obi-Wan’s eyes, but nothing, nothing like this.

The pain is panoramic, but it’s also profoundly personal.

Even still, his attention isn’t on himself, but on the fussy bundle in his arms.

You wonder: is it the galaxy that doesn’t allow this man time to heal? Or is it his own choice to throw himself into the need of others so he has a tangible reason to avoid his own torments?

When he places the baby into the arms of the young couple, you know the times ahead will give the answer to that.

Because there aren't the cries of the past few nights to wake either of you, there’s silence.

You long to fill it, to try to bridge this insurmountable void with something, anything you could say. But you know it’s bigger than you. So, so much bigger than you.

Monumental obstacles and tremendous loss find themselves standing in the threshold of an abandoned hut smaller than your flat was on Coruscant.

“Well… it’s not much to look at, certainly. But the moisture vaporator seems to be in repairable condition, and we’re just far enough from town to avoid any curious neighbors. What do you think?” He turns to you, and his eyes, dark circles under and all, turn sharp in their assessment of your response.

“I told you. I’m going wherever you are so long as you’ll let me.” Your voice is gentle but adamant as you remind him.

He walks up from the living room to the threshold of the kitchen where you are, wrapping his arms loosely around your waist. “Be that as it may, I’m asking your input on where we’re going, or living, as your happiness means a great deal to me.”

There’s still no smile, but it’s the brightest his energy has felt since the last time you saw him before he came to your door in Coruscant days ago, whispering a rushed, heartfelt farewell, which you quickly countered with an emphatic, unshakable, “I’m coming with you.”

You look up at him, gliding your hand across his cheek into the hair at the nape of his neck. There’s Darkness at the door of his soul that he’s fighting off every moment, and he has the audacity to speak of your happiness.

You don’t dare bring up his. It’s irony, at best.

So you smile, timid, knowing the gesture in itself might be blasphemous to the tone, but genuine all the same. “We can make a life here. I know we can.”

He scans your eyes, looking to find the authenticity in your statement. “Are you certain?”

He’s not asking about the hut anymore. Or, at least, not just the hut.

“Obi-Wan, I never had any delusion that any life I had with you would be easy. I thought I’d only ever be getting you in secret, sparse moments. Although I’d never, ever wish for it to be under the circumstances that it is, having you like this is better than I ever hoped.”

There’s silence as he processes your words, then a wry twist of his features. “How I wish that your expectations needn’t be so low.”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant.” You incline your head, trying to find the words to convey what you mean.

“Nothing any person or any planet anywhere has to offer me holds a candle to what I’ve found in you, nor will it ever. I’d never trade unshakable wholeness for the transience of materialistic happiness.”

You know this has to resound with him. Is it not within the core set of values he was taught to forsake comfort in any avenue for something far greater?

His eyes flick between yours, gauging, and you can feel him reaching out to feel at your signature to solidify the truth.

If you knew him any less, you might be insulted at his questioning of your trustworthiness. But it’s not you he doesn’t trust. It’s something good willingly giving itself to him that causes his wariness.

The Force can have your middle finger along with your fists.

Then he’s relaxing into you, letting out an exhale that seems heavy with more than just air, and burying his nose in your hair for his next inhale.

****

By the end of the day, you’ve gathered enough supplies for basic necessities and to start on the repairs of the hut. You both snarf down a ration bar before shortly thereafter clearing the blown-in sand off what must have been the bed of the home. It’s a half circle indenture in the wall, and it has a dip obviously made for a mattress or cushion of some sort, but as all that’s available are the blankets bought in town today, you set to fluffing them to some semblance of comfort.

Fatigue pulls you into it far sooner than the suns setting. Last night was your first night without Luke, spent in a room you rented in town. Today was spent traveling to and from the hut, discussing details on what needs to be done, and you? You are absolutely exhausted. You can only imagine what he must feel like.

Obi-Wan secures the lock on the door before sitting on the side of the bed, looking off into nothing for a long, long moment.

You push up to your side, placing a hand on his back. “Obi…”

His shoulder nudges toward your hand, but he cuts you off. “It’s going to get quite cold when the suns set, and since the stove isn’t properly ventilating yet, we’re going to have to work with body heat.”

“I’ll try to mask my reluctance,” you retort.

He turns his face to you then, and just a smidge of humor sweeps across his eyes before he sheds his cloak, followed by everything else until only his pants remain. You’ve long since stripped down to your own sleeping comfort level, so before he can fold his cloak along with the rest of his discarded clothing, you take it and cover yourself with it.

He shakes his head a little at you once he’s done, settling down next to you, throwing the covers over both of you.

“Tell me what you need.” You’re face to face with him, but his expression is unreadable.

“I… I don’t know.” He considers you as if you held the answer to the question you just asked him.

“What about want, then? What do you want, Obi-Wan?” You wish he didn’t have his shields perpetually raised these days. It’d be so much easier to just read his energy.

His hand reaches up so he can stroke your cheek with his thumb. “You’re tired, darling. Rest.”

Ah, there it is. If the answer to the question of desire is him counter offering his own response with the fact you’re tired…

“So are you. But you still want.” You press your body fully against his, dropping your voice down to a whisper. “And so do I.”

You won’t push anymore than that, letting him take or leave the invitation. For you, it’s not even a question. It’s been four months since you last saw him. Since you’d last felt his touch.

You’d spent the last few nights in each other’s arms, but between Luke's shrill cries and the deafening devastation of the events of the days prior, it’d been just that: sleep. Or, what tousled, disturbed counterfeit the circumstance offered you both.

For him, though, there’s an abysmal weariness that digs far beyond lack of sleep, and you don’t dare infringe upon him in any way.

But there’s still a longing present, and even without his Force signature to guide you into his feelings, he can’t hide his eyes.

You watch the moment he makes a decision solidify across his countenance right before he presses his lips against yours. You sigh into it, letting the draw of his skin on yours pull you into orbit.

Because that’s exactly what happens. It’s a kiss for a kiss’ sake, for flavor and fervency and the fullness of each other, but it quickly gains its own momentum when his tongue parts your lips truly.

It’s an acute absence. Not having his energy surrounding you with his shields so far up. But it also gives sharp attention to the press of skin against skin, makes it an anchor and an outlet for all that is still too tender to even acknowledge.

You find grip in his hair, purposefully running your hands the opposite of the way he combs it as he takes your face in both hands and pulls you into him all the more.

When you both need to breathe, he only moves so far away that his lips still brush against yours on every exhale. “I..” he starts, then stops.

The hand still in his hair rakes through it gently, scratching your fingertips against his scalp as you wait for him to complete his thought.

“Let me taste you,” he says at last. You know it's a question from the way he stills, waiting for permission, but it’s phrased as nothing like it.

You raise an eyebrow. “Is that a rhetorical quest…”

“Oh, hush.” He’s already nudging you over onto your back, situating his body over yours, claiming your lips again. You allow yourself to sink into it, cherishing his weight over you, his hand roaming your ribcage, before pulling back to speak.

“I’m sorry, are you now getting on to me for my sass? Because… oh!”

He finds a nipple through the thin fabric of your shirt, pinching softly with a small tug.

“By all means, continue. I was most intrigued.” His smirk is back, but it fixes you with a tinge of worry when it again proves to be a smile only skin deep.

You place two fingers just shy of his forehead, but he catches your wrist in an almost painful clasp. The alarm casted by his expression quickly is washed away by a carefully constructed impassiveness, and your heart sinks.

He has to see it, because he bows his head in apology. “Not tonight.”

And before you have any room to respond, he’s shifting himself down as he lifts your shirt up, placing a single taunting, wet kiss on each nipple before moving even further down, nipping at the skin right below your belly button.

He’s distracting you from what he’s not allowing you access to, and you know it, and you let him anyway. That’s what this is, isn’t it? Distraction from the barrage of the mind. If that’s what he needs, that’s what you’ll give.

As he toys with the hem of your underthings, and you lift your hips to assist their removal, you realize it’s exactly what you need too.

Except he apparently isn’t planning to remove your underwear at all. With a casual flick of his hand, your legs are parted and held like that with a no-nonsense sprout of Force energy. Then he’s simply pulling the cloth to the side and brings his mouth torturously closer, but stops just before contact.

You push up to your elbows to tell him you can’t take much of those teasing breaths he’s taking, blowing hot air against sensitive nerve endings. But when you hear his breath stutter as he just looks, unhurried in admiration, you decide against it, even as you flush at the undivided attention. Sprawling his palms out over your inner thighs, he dips down to press his mouth between his fingers, sucking not-so-gently into the soft skin, sending the flesh into tremors before he’s even really done anything to you.

He says your name as he opens you up with his fingers, parting your folds so everything is bared to his view. You start to squirm, the exposure starting to feel a little too heady, and you’re starting to appeal with the beginning of his name when he leans forward, straight away connecting his lips to your clit. You try to thrust up into it as some shameful noise leaves you, but there’s only so much movement you have with your legs still pinned.

He loves to tease, so you don’t expect him to retract the energy that constricted your legs at the first resistance. Instead, he slides his hands under your ass, pulling you on to his tongue and lets you push your hips into him unchecked.

He hums at your enthusiasm, the reverberation sending your hands into his hair again, which gifts you with even more noises from him.

It doesn’t take long at all, and you’re coming undone on his tongue, biting into your forearm to dampen your cry.

He doesn’t stop until you push at his shoulder, signaling your tender surrender. He obeys, looking up at you from between your thighs, absolutely besotted, eyes shining a shade brighter than before.

Then. Obi-Wan Kenobi keeps his eyes on yours before dipping his head and tilting his jaw, running his beard right where you’re still open and vulnerable, abrasion grating in a way you know you’ll be feeling all day tomorrow.

He licks his lips as he moves back up to kiss you again, letting you taste yourself on him.

He goes easily when you gesture for him to lie on his back so you can straddle him, carefully avoiding any contact where he’s throbbing for you. His hands fall right to your waist, stroking gently as he waits for you to initiate.

You focus your study on the section of his hair that’s fallen in his face, twirling a finger in it, happy to have anywhere to look but his eyes.

He’d normally at least be in your mind by now, and even though you understand it, well, the drought of it is as appropriate for the planet as anything.

You remember too late to raise your own shields against any accidentally too-loud thoughts, as Obi-Wan cups his hand on your chin, forcing your gaze to his, saying your name quietly in calling.

“You have to know, it isn’t anything to do with…”

You interrupt him. “No. No. I won’t have you addressing my insecurities of all things in light of…”

“Please listen, love. I need you to know, it hasn’t anything to do with the love I have for you. That hasn’t changed and never will. I think I need… “ He pauses, solemn in thought. “Time,” he finishes finally.

You knew this already in the pit of your stomach, but hearing him say it, hearing him affirm that it isn’t you insufficiency… you hate that you needed it as much as you did.

And if he needs time? That’s what you’ll give. But he also has a want, evidenced by the brush of him against you when you scoot yourself down his torso.

You take the hem of his pants with you when you continue down, ridding him of them and his shorts. But when you wrap your hand around him and begin to lower your mouth, he grips your chin again, shaking his head.

“I can’t… please, just.” It’s always an anomaly when he’s at a loss for words, usually ever-so articulate.

A gasp chokes out of you when you feel the phantom of his mind. Not in full, no. With barriers, and it’s projected out, not at all the same sensation to being within it.

It’s desperation. For how long it’s been, for how drained he feels, how he’s not sure how long this will last, and how much he yearns to be inside you.

There’s not even a second of debate in your mind as you take your position on his lap again, lifting your hips, intention apparent. He takes his cock in hand, holding steady so you can start to seat yourself onto the thick push of him.

The hitch in his breath is your only warning before he seizes the undersides of your thighs, halting you from taking him any further.

His eyes are tightly shut, and you know from watching him before that his facial expression is an attempt at borderline meditation, except it’s several long seconds before he achieves anything resembling calm.

It’s as good a time as any to push his hands off you and squirm around to take him a little deeper. You plan on rubbing your victory in, but your smirk is wiped away with a whine at the elation. Instead of stopping you again, he almost imperceptibly thrusts up, and it’s your turn to falter, slamming your hands into his chest, nails digging in, working against your weight trying to pull you down onto him.

It goes on like that, until you’re both bordering on hysteria before you’ve even fully taken him. You can’t figure out if it’s a worse torment to keep delaying or continuing.

Obi-Wan seems to have come to his own conclusion to that, as he finally opens his eyes, locking them with yours as he places his palms flat on the tops of your thighs and pushes down until your skin is flush with his.

You pull a hand up, biting on your fist, trying to stifle the exclamation in your throat.

He pulls it away, voice ragged as he speaks. “I want to hear you, little one. We needn’t hide anymore.”

It’s a dimensional statement. For one, no one is around for miles, a stark contrast to your quarters on Coruscant where you at least attempted to be considerate of your too-near neighbors when it came to noise. For another, it’s the irony of being in hiding from the Empire, but being allowed to be open in your relationship with each other finally.

And the deepest irony is that you both have your barriers up so firmly right now all you can concentrate on is bared skin.

Oh, but what a beautiful spanse of bared skin he is. Freckled and almost luminously pale, bending and curving with the strength of the form underneath.

He sits up slowly, generating a breathless plea from both of you at the new angle. A search of your eyes asks you a question, and you’re nodding, kissing him with the full brunt of your craving.

You slide up and then down again just as he drives up, and you’ve found your rhythm, just like that.

His hands push you onto him every time you pull up, and his tongue laves your breasts, sucking and biting along your collarbone, as you rake your nails down his chest, over the backs of his shoulders, his scalp, anything you can touch.

It’s enough to send him into a chorus of groans, shoving himself hard up into you.

He doesn’t even speak it aloud, just projects the apologetic warning that he’s on the edge.

When his thumb finds your clit, everything in you goes tense despite the relief. You clench around him, hard, and he instantly moves his hands to your shoulder blades pulling you flush against him as he lets out an unrestrained sound against your breasts.

You push his thumb away from where it’s stilled against you, replacing it with your own. His fingers twitch in their bruising grip, and you can feel him throbbing inside you.

You stay like that for a moment, just letting him ride out his bliss, whispering sweet affirmations into his hair.

When he looks up at you again, his eyes are glassed over. You wonder if it’s ecstasy that is the cause, or something from the bedrock boiling to the surface.

He doesn’t give you a chance to elaborate, flipping you over on to your back. The moment he withdraws, you can feel the mess dripping down your inner thighs.

It takes everything in you to not come at the sight alone as Obi-Wan dips further down your body, parting you and lapping his tongue right where you’re weeping evidence of desire.

You know you have to be making a mess of his face and beard, but he certainly doesn’t seem to mind, indulging on his own spill infused with yours.

When he adds two fingers in you and curls them strategically, searing heat shoots through your lower stomach as you arch against his mouth, his name a high whisper with absolutely no suppression, echoing across the empty stone walls of the home.

He leaves a final tender kiss against you before lying down next to you, pulling you into his arms, and you pull him into yours right back when your limbs remember how to function.

His head drops against yours, and his eyes flutter shut, taking a deep inhale, like he’s trying to fill his lungs with more than just oxygen.

Nothing is fine, and the world is crumbling. But right now, as the suns finally leave the house in dark, as you clasp each other in tight embrace, as sleep pulls you under, you can pretend it’s fine. If only for a moment.

*******

There’s a flash of feeling that startles you awake and into the disorientation that comes from waking in a new place. The sensation worsens when you feel the reverberations of the equivalent of a slammed door in the Force.

You sit up quickly and look over to Obi-Wan, who sits on the side of the bed, head in his hands, fingers brutal in their grip.

You move toward him, and he turns around at the sound. “Go back to sleep, darling. it’s nothing.”

When you fix him with a gaze that essentially translates “bantha fodder,” he just lies back down, pulling your back into his chest, and you doubt the fact you can’t see his face like this is a mistake.

The rhythm of his breathing betrays the fact he is nowhere near sleep, but you find yourself fading off soon again anyway.

****

When you wake in the morning, you’re alone in the bed, which is no surprise. He’s not one to lounge, and if the height of the suns peaking through the window has anything to say, he’s already been up for a while.

His cloak is still tangled in the blankets, though, and you wrap yourself in it, padding outside after doing something about your morning breath.

The hut is situated on a cliff, overlooking a barren valley. The suns glare with their unrelenting eyes of heat even so early in the day, and you stare back as best you can without squinting, daring them to do their worst. They know nothing of the misery that’s already visited this home. They have no hope of competing.

You find Obi-Wan cross-legged near the edge of the cliff. Cross-legged and levitating.

Of course, you know he can do things like this. It’s just such a different thing to see him doing it . You’ve never had a proper morning with him like this, seeing his routine. He was always up before the sun, you with him, gathering moments and soaking them in before he had to leave again.

He looks almost peaceful now, not at rest, but peaceful.

How?

How does he still have so much trust in the Force?

A more lighthearted thought emerges through the grim train, as you notice he’s opted to not put his tunic back on yet.

It doesn’t matter out here, you suppose, there isn’t any other living being for miles around. For that matter, you wonder why he even left the pants.

His voice damn near startles you, not even opening his eyes to address you.

“Although that may be the case, there are some locations more bearable to get sunburn than others.”

You blush at being caught, and gently ensure your thoughts aren’t accidentally projected again, but he doesn’t give you much time to dwell on it.

“Join me?”

As he opens his eyes and descends the couple inches down back onto the ground, you feel your heart do the same. He’s taught you little things, here and there, and you’ve enjoyed it, learning to tap into that constant humming you never had the tools to channel before.

But now?

What interest do you have with The Force that failed the man who served it without fail? You could burn it down for the atrocities it’s committed even in negligence against the man you love.

But there’s been enough burning.

Obi-Wan won’t speak of what transpired on Mustafar, but you’ve caught glimpses. Last night wasn’t the first night you’ve had him back, and it wasn’t the first you’d woken to a severe troubling in his aura.

You’re still not sure if Luke is a fussy baby or simply a very responsive one, as it seemed Obi-Wan was already awake before Luke started crying.

It was only mere seconds before his shields came slamming down, firmly in place, every time.

You can’t tell if he’s trying to shelter you from his feelings or blockade them away from himself.

Maybe both.

But those seconds? They’re long enough. For just a flash of a charred, severed body. Of hateful, pleading, golden eyes.

There’s been enough burning.

“I can’t ever be a Jedi, Obi.”

“That’s not what I’m asking of you.”

He knows your criticisms as well as your compliments over the Jedi. You’ve both discussed it at great length many times, always over a firm understanding and respect, but you’ve never really had long enough to have a conclusion. But you’re not going to push now, not with the fall of it all still so close behind him.

“I should think our relationship itself is testimony that I don’t inherently agree or adhere to all Jedi teachings.”

You drop your eyes, trying to ignore the sweat starting to trickle down your skin from the relentless heat. “I thought maybe you were with me in spite of your better judgement.”

His brow furrows. “At first, that’s what I may have thought too, but it made itself clear that although what transpired between us was forbidden by the Code…” he trails off for a moment, almost hesitant. “...the way Light was and is exemplified any time I have you in my arms presented a solidified case that not always is the Jedi way synonymous with the will of the Force.”

He says it wholeheartedly, but you can tell it pains him. It’s easy to never speak ill of the dead, either of individuals or groups. To glorify and wipe away any transgressions to ensure their memory sparkles as you grieve it.

The harder thing is to grieve everything, both the good you lost and the bad you experienced from the same source.

And there’s another level there. Something that has him patting the spot beside him and giving a heartbreakingly forced smile.

Even through it all, wariness of aspects of his own religion included, he seeks unity with the Force without reservation or resentment.

You don’t fight him anymore.

The war is over, but the battle has just begun, and so help you Maker, you’re going to fight for him to have the chance to heal.

So you sit, mimicking his position.

When he smiles again, it’s much smaller but not at all fake.

“First, clear your mind.”

*****

The days are afflicted with an underlying gloom, full of work that busies the hands but leaves the mind to wander, which wasn’t at all a luxurious thing.

But the nights are filled with unclaimed time, time in an abundance you never had with each other before.

Sometimes it’s shot with silence from the weight of the day, reveling in the presence of another as you work together on the supper dishes.

Or sometimes there’s almost an excitement, despite the labor ahead, of the plans for the place that’s now your home.

“Wouldn’t we have to have some sort of larger equipment to hoist that over the cliff edge?” You wonder aloud to Obi-Wan, speaking of the replacement unit for finally getting some very basic temperature control for the hut. “The way around back is too rough and would scratch it up, and I, for one, wouldn’t want to try pushing it up manu…”

You stop at his smirk he’s trying to hide with tilting his tea cup higher over his lips.

“...Or there’s a Jedi solution to this problem that requires neither, and you’re just letting me ramble on anyway.” You punctuate the end of your statement by tossing a pillow his direction, which just stops. Midair.

There’s so much legend surrounding Jedi, you haven’t really been sure what’s factual and what’s fairytale.

You certainly knew of some of his abilities, but he didn’t tend to elaborate on details of his missions before, and you never argued, knowing it was a liability for you to have that kind of information if anyone ever found out what you meant to Obi-Wan.

He chuckles, not even trying to look a little guilty.

Once you remember to shut your mouth, you get back to planning. “And that same principle just applies to objects of any size?”

He nods. “Same principle, just more concentration required.”

You tuck your feet under you on your chair as you think on that for a second. You’ll have to ask him to teach you that one next. Mediation alone could get rather dull.

“So, for instance, if a great amount of concentration is being spent Force-lifting an object up the cliff, it would leave a Jedi vulnerable to, say… projectiles thrown?” You throw another pillow at him, which just as easily halts next to the other, gravity defiant.

He could have lowered the first one by now. You raise a brow at the knowledge he’s putting on a show for you.

“You’ll have to do better than that, I’m afraid.”

More often than not, the time of the evenings are spent loving and lounging in sheets, savoring the difference of unhurried lovemaking, with no heart-wrenching farewell on the horizon.

But every time you gently ask to reach his mind, he pushes the request and your hand away.

*******

Obi-Wan’s visits to see Luke are met with a level of hostility. The man, Owen, seems wary of him, doing everything he can to cut the visit short as you and the woman, Beru, if you remember correctly, look silently to each other for some relief in the tension.

They already likely know his actual name, but you’re careful to only address Obi as “Ben” here, along with everywhere else that isn’t your hut. It’s precautionary, but if it’s for the sake of protecting Luke and Obi-Wan himself, you’ll do it without any further questions.

But Luke seems to be doing well, and that is ultimately what matters most. It’s hard to believe how quickly he’s grown in the mere weeks that you’ve been here.

The boy might be by far Obi-Wan’s greatest purpose being on this planet, but it’s not his only.

Master Yoda had given him Jedi texts, yes, but also another task for his time here.

You’re thankful to talk about either, as it seems to be one of the few things he’ll open up to you about as it pertains to himself.

But when he goes to meditate alone, calling for his mentor, his father in every right of the term, he comes back more empty than he left.

When you look at him with a too-knowing look, too infiltrating for his comfort, he easily slides into a quip.

“My old master, it seems, won’t appear unless on his own terms. I’m not sure what else I expected, honestly.”

******

You also learn that the man does not cook. Not that you consider yourself an expert, but at the very minimum, you know how to use spices, which on Tatooine come as hot as their weather.

“Is it a Jedi thing to have tasteless food, or is that just you?” You tease as he dices some sort of root at your direction while you sift through the cabinet.

His eyes are full of mischief when he’s quiet for a moment before speaking up. “I would argue there’s concrete evidence that I’m quite happy to indulge in the pleasures of taste.”

You can’t help your blush as his very pointed look.

Dinner is long forgotten after that, but the night is delectable all the same.

*****

Something has shifted in your own Force signature. Something you can’t put your finger on.

It doesn’t seem harmful or threatening in essence, but it makes you wary in a way that makes your skin itch with more than the dryness.

You try not to think much of it. After all, there’s plenty to do between tending to the vaporator, hunting, fending off the Sand People, and your learning to wield the Force.

After rumors of Tusken raiders being nearby, you ask Obi-Wan to teach you combat. This would be starting long before he normally would teach someone, he explained, but he does it anyway. It’s not exactly using the Force at first, having to start with how to even move your body in the event of attack, slowly enhancing those skills with the Force as you become more confident in them.

You look forward to it more than any other task. It gives you a strength you haven’t had before, and it’s a whole different level of connection to the Force when you trust it physically, not just in your mind.

It’s also another level of trust with Obi-Wan, knowing he’d never hurt you even as he enters the role of a potential threat, guiding you through how to handle it.

So you don’t know why today your stomach won’t agree to the way you want your body to move. You push through it anyway, despite Obi-Wan’s concerned questioning.

You lose your lunch into the rocks, and you really wish he wouldn’t pick you up to take you back into the hut, because the shift of what’s up and what’s down doesn’t help at all.

And you wish he wouldn’t dote over you the rest of the day, as if you didn’t feel useless enough already, as if the illness didn’t leave as quickly as it came.

You make a mental note to ensure you don’t let yourself become dehydrated again to that point.

*****

The trips into town are kept to a minimum, trying to keep curiosity away from the new couple. Also, there wasn’t much to do except barter and spend credits, something you both tried not to do a great deal of.

Obi-Wan was sent off with enough Republic credits to get you started here, but it was hit or miss if the vendors took them that day, and he also didn’t want to spend too much at once.

Nothing was more suspicious than surplus here.

The woman you brought the limited produce available from seemed… different this trip.

Obi-Wan was a couple of stalls down from you, negotiating with a man who had obviously jacked up the price on the items needed. Poor man didn’t know what he was in for.

You turned your attention back on to the woman in front of you, and tried to decipher what was different this time and why it felt so familiar.

As you pointed to a basket of hubba gourds, inquiring of the price, she gave you one that you knew for a fact was higher than last time.

You counter offered the same price as last time you were here, and she firmly stated her price again. Ready to stand your ground, you go to state your price again, she puts her hand to her belly, bringing her skirt in around, revealing a small bump.

“Can’t afford your low-ball offers with this one on the way, understand?”

The sky suddenly falls around you in thunderous clamor as the physical realm around you moves on, unaffected and unreachable. Almost mechanically, you place the credits she asked for on the table, not even capable of addressing the obvious manipulation.

Understanding drenches you in its brutal weight as you realize the source why she felt so different this time.

Your hands shake in their clasp on the basket as you pull yourself into a side alley, heaving your breakfast up.

Because you recognize the same difference in her is the exact same one that has changed your Force signature.

It’s because there’s a flickering light of another being’s Force signature within you.

Tagged as requested: @maybege

#obi-wan #obi wan kenobi #Obi-Wan Kenobi #obi-wan X reader #obi-wan kenobi x reader #obi wan x reader #obi wan kenobi x reader #obi-wan x you #obi-wan kenobi x you #obi wan x you #obi wan kenobi x you #Obi-Wan fanfic #tw: violence #tw: pregnancy #tw: trauma #obi-wan x reader #obi wan x oc

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katierosefun · 3 years

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bestie i may or may not have just stalked your page’s tag about korean stuff…as a second gen korean american i’ve been trying to learn korean for a couple years now, but i always give up after brushing up on the alphabet.

i went to korean school when i was younger, right after church service on sundays, for a year? two years? but i stopped because i was lazy and didn’t want to waste my sundays learning something i would never use.

tw: family trauma, internalised racism

a lot of it was because i hated my family. my father is emotionally abusive, both parents are your typical Strict Christian Korean parents. why would i want to learn korean, and be more like my parents? the last thing i wanted was some sort of tether to them.

i wanted to be less korean, so i could fit in with my classmates. i hated bringing food from home, and having to field questions from my white friends. so i turned my back on my korean ancestry and just…pretended i wasn’t korean.

then there was the fact that learning languages is hard for me. my brain struggles with memorisation. and while korean is decidedly easier to learn than english, my tiredness and unwillingness to push my brain after all my school work stopped me.

end tw

fast forward to now. i’m 20, in university. my korean vocabulary is abysmal. but i want to learn now.

i am proud of my heritage and my ancestry. i have been vocal in asian social justice causes. my high school senior exit project was “asian representation (or the lack thereof) in american entertainment media”. my freshman rhetoric & argument paper talked about sandra oh, korean beauty, and sexism/ageism/racism in hollywood. my current psychology research project is about the model minority myth and how it affects asian americans, specifically their stress levels. i am trying to connect with my grandparents, and my culture as a whole.

it’s awkward and stilted, but i asked my 할머니, 어떻게 지냈어요? and her face lit up. she was so excited, she immediately told my mother what i asked her. i would love to be able to hold an entire conversation with her, learn about her life in korea. and definitely learn some recipes.

funnily enough, i am connecting with my mother through korean food. the cuisine i once loathed to bring with me to school, i now long for in my lonely dorm room. i know the words of my favourite dishes, the ingredients, and when they are best enjoyed. (my favourite dishes are 순두부찌개, 곰국, 짬뽕, and the shin 라면, korean soups & stews & noods >>>)

when michelle zauner (japanese breakfast) published “crying in h mart”, i about cried at the first chapter. (read here) i felt what she felt so poignantly, even though i still struggle to put it into words. i would definitely recommend the read, it’s one of my favourite books. michelle’s music is great, too, and she’s a queer korean woman to boot. she’s also very vocal about social justice, especially when it comes to our asian siblings. i never thought i would see someone i relate to making music and being authentically themselves, but i am so glad to have found her.

i’m so sorry for word vomiting in your ask inbox, but i saw your post about your mother finding out you were learning korean again and the tags almost made me cry. in a good way! i’m glad i found the post. it was heartwarming to know that i am not alone in my struggle. even if you aren’t going through the same thing…you get it. and that is something.

even though i share none of your fandoms, i followed you because i wanted to stay updated on the korean stuff. i hope we both can be fluent someday. good luck, and have a nice now <3

aaaah, wow. wow, wow, wow--first of all, thank you so much for reaching out! i was so pleasantly surprised to read this (and haha, def. noted in my activity page that you were commenting on my tags, and that always warms my little heart). thank you for sharing your story--i was so surprised to find how much of your story really resonated with mine (i also come from a christian korean family, so ooph, i definitely understand what you mean about that really tricky history).

and yes! food...it really is so lovely how we can bond so much over food. like you, i distanced myself a lot from my own korean background throughout my childhood and teenage years--and i think that could be said of some of my own immediate family members too, in that we have multiple people from varying generations who either reject or embrace their korean-ness. (my dad, for example, immigrated to the states when he was pretty young...and he vehemently rejects parts of korean culture, whereas my mom, who only came to the states after marrying my dad, really still emphasizes a lot of parts of our korean culture.)

(and also omg...the excitement i felt when i saw literal korean lettering in my inbox...i absolutely adore 설렁탕 and 곰국...and 삼게탕, as well as all the 찐빵. my classic comfort food though is 김밥--while i was really studying for the lsat, my mom would make a small thing of it for me during lunch to get me through my afternoon study sessions :'))

and oh god...thank you so much for linking that essay. i actually had the honor of seeing michelle in concert at my school a few years back--and it was a magical experience, mostly because i'd never seen a korean-american singer perform before. but reading this essay really...really made me cry too (because yeah. i also feel most fluent and most comfortable with my korean heritage when i'm standing in an h mart...)

anyways, i have a lump in my throat now, but it's a happy lump. thank you for sending me this lovely message--seeing you like and reblog my posts from back when i was sixteen, seventeen years old...i think the lonesome sixteen/seventeen year old girl growing up in a mostly-white town really...really would have felt so very thankful for connecting with someone who shared this experience with her.

but anyways: thank you, and i wish you all the best in your journey too. 행복하게 살아.

#tw family trauma #tw internalized racism #tw racism #answered #ngl i kinda teared up :'))

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baby-grayson · 4 years

Text

Kind Stranger|GBD|Part 9

Parts 1-8

Words: 3.6k

tw: fluff and angst? Tags: @dolanpornhub @styles-dolan @evergreendolan @someonetogray @vintagedolan @prettyboydolan @dolansficsandpics @graysavant @baby-turtles

Grayson leaned back on a patch of grass, his body falling beneath him as he slumped on the ground. Ethan sat beside him, one arm draped over a bent knee and the other fidgeting with blades of grass. Ethan could swear Grayson hadn’t been this quiet since their father passed. Ethan struggled to comfort his brother, growing increasingly tired of dead ended conversations. Grayson had tried to call Kate at least once a day for the past five days: she never picked up. Ethan shepherded his brother between Zoom meetings, phone calls, and their various responsibilities while the shell of Grayson wallowed in heart break.

Grayson’s usually glimmering eyes were duller, like a light inside of his face had been put out. He had lost sleep, beginning the accumulation of heavy, dark bags under his eyes. The calluses on his hands were picked over and ripped up, his pass time during meetings. He and Ethan were preparing for Wakeheart’s candle launch, being persecuted on twitter for their podcast, and trying to maintain momentum for their Youtube channel. Grayson struggled to find focus, much less creative energy, since his fight with Kate.

This afternoon, Ethan invited Grayson longboarding in an attempt to get him out of their rental house, and hopefully out of his head. A few wipe outs later, the twins founded refuge on a patch of grass. The silence was deafening. Negative clouds ruled Grayson’s mind while Ethan tried to navigate around them to soothe his brother. “What did you do last time things weren’t so great?” Ethan probed, hoping to find the answer to Grayson’s dilemma. Grayson shrugged from where he laid on the ground. His eyes followed a cloud moving across the open sky above him. “We kinda---just …” Grayson exhaled, thinking about the happy times felt like a treacherous tap dance on his heart. “I went over. We kissed. I spent the night and it just went away..” Ethan’s jaw dropped softly as he cocked his head to the side. Grayson stayed focused on his favorite cloud and did not notice Ethan’s eyebrow raised. “Are you telling me you fucked it out of her?” Ethan could not veil the cutting tone in his voice. Grayson groaned. Her soft skin, her plumps lips, her whispy hair, her sweet, citrus scent..it all flooded back to him. Fuck. Fuck Ethan for making him think about this..about her..”No, we just got busy and happy and didn’t really think about it again.” Grayson’s eyes darted around, no longer able to locate his cloud. He clenched his eyes shut, trying to focus on the feeling of the ground beneath him when he added, “We haven’t had sex yet.”

Ethan’s head pushed back, his brother was always full of surprises. It both made all sense and no sense to him. Grayson usually practiced certain activities on a regular basis, soon after meeting women. Of course Grayson would have waited for the girl who actually meant something to him. Ethan exhaled, realizing the gravity of the situation. “You do know you can’t be a virgin until marriage if you’re not a virgin when you meet her, right? Do I need to explain that idea to you?” Grayson’s arms went limp against the grass. He exhaled through his nose, striking a twinge of pain in his sinuses. He did not try to mask the annoyance in his voice, “No, but you can explain what I need to do to get her back.” Grayson’s head throbbed in pain, his lack of sleep not serving him well. His eyes felt heavy. His body felt heavy. His soul felt heavy. He questioned where he went wrong. His heart twisted and turned between being hurt and wanting to hear an apologize but feeling the obligation to apologize himself. He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling and asking himself if this was a preventable problem. He barely heard Ethan’s words of encouragement, telling him not to give up on her if she really meant something to him.

******* Kate opened her freezer to pull out one of many pints of ice cream. She dug a spoon out of the bottom of a kitchen drawer, not wanting to think about the pile of dishes sitting in her sink. She plopped down on her bed, opened her third pint of the day and continued playing the youtube video lighting up her laptop. Getting over a break up was hard—Was this a break up?—but it was made even harder when the object of your affection was plastered all over the internet.

Over the past five days, Kate had consumed enough Dolan Twins content for a lifetime. She watched Grayson perform as a goofy teenager on TRL. She mused over him in the image of a Greek God at Paris Fashion Week. She cried over a scoop of chocolate ice cream while watching his tribute to his father. She laughed at the antics of a younger Grayson and Ethan. She admired the way his hair fell in front of his face. His wheezy laugh sounded like a song to her. His smile beamed through her heart and lit her soul on fire.

And suddenly, she remembered that she kicked Grayson out of her apartment and her heart. Occasionally, she would hold her phone when he called. She would let it ring, internally debating whether she knew what to say. Did she miss him in a deep place? Yes. Was she willing to forgive him for his double standard? For holding her to different rules? For trying to control the way she processed and celebrated their relationship? No. His phone calls extenuated the moot point.

She cursed his beautiful face when it appeared on her screen. She cursed the glittered gems embedded in his teeth. She cursed the watercolor tattoos on his legs. She cursed every ridge and curve of his bronzed, muscular body. Somehow, having a virtual Grayson in her company only made her feel more alone.

LA was a lonely place, especially when you moved during a pandemic. Kate missed Philly, the familiar sound of the subway and bustle of people in City Center. She missed walking through the universities, looking for food trucks in the afternoon. She missed not wondering if everyone she walked by on the street was an internet celebrity, post-career actor, or wanna-be sugar daddy. LA wasn’t home: LA was a lonely, abysmal place that separated Grayson Dolan from Kathleen Walker.

A hollow knock rapped across the front door. Kate sat straight up, not trusting her own ears. No one in LA knew where she lived…except—Kate shot up when the knock came again. She looked down at her bare thighs, the very tops of which were covered by an oversized t-shirt. A third knock jolted her off of her bed. She tossed her ice cream to the side and hurried to open the front door.

She turned the lock to expose a tall, muscular figure towering over her. His familiar hazel eyes seemed completely strange to her in that moment. He trimmed his hair since the last time she saw him, keeping it out of his face. His sharp jaw line nearly reflected the sun’s rays from outside her apartment. “What are you doing here Ethan?”

Ethan removed his hands from his pockets and bit his lip softly, “Can I come in? I was hoping we could talk.”

Kate opened the door further, letting Ethan stroll through the door. Ethan looked around, eyeing her sparsely filled apartment, decorated in IKEA furniture. Ethan stood awkwardly in the entryway, his eyes landing on Kate. “Do you want water? Or um—a snack maybe?” She hoped he wanted ice cream, because the only other thing she could offer was a slightly moldy head of lettuce. “No I’m fine,” Ethan hedged, burying his hands in his pockets. He looked at the floor and then back up at Kate, “I was hoping we could sit and maybe talk?” She lead him to an arm chair and sat across from him.

The air in the room was heavy. It’s not every day you are stuck in a room with your ex-boyfriend’s identical twin. Seeing Ethan’s face panged in Kate’s heart, she wanted desperately to see Grayson’s again. Ethan cleared his throat and leaned forward in the armchair. He exhaled softly before starting, “I wanted to talk to you about the Grayson thing. I don’t know how you’ve been dealing, but Grayson is a mess.” Ethan revealed, wondering where the line was drawn between being honest and depicting his twin as a pathetic, lovesick sack. “I don’t know how you’re feeling about him or what happened, but if you can – could you call him? Or talk to him? Give him maybe a little more closure than he has now?” Ethan’s voice was soft, and his eyes curved downward at the sides. His reverence and care for his brother filled the room in a gentle air.

Kate struggled to find words. She struggled to maintain eye contact with Ethan; looking at a creature so much like Grayson made her heart lurch whenever she focused on Ethan for too long. Her pupils bounced to the pile of dishes behind Ethan, to the traffic on the other side of the window, to her own feet, and then back to Ethan. Her mind went blank at the first time to talk about what happened out loud. Faithful to Grayson’s request, she hadn’t told her mom, her friends, or anyone really. For the past week, she had no one to comfort her. And now, Grayson’s brother sat in front of her, assuming she had already processed her emotions.

“I don’t know Ethan,” her voice stayed just above a whisper. “I don’t know what I can offer him.” She let out a breathy chuckle as she continued, “I almost feel like he should be giving me closure—if it’s ..ya know…case closed.” She shook her head, slumping her shoulders and letting her head fall between her knees. “I really like him Ethan,” she confessed, “I just don’t know if this whole…” she waved her hands in the air, waiting for a word to come to her, “—celebrity thing” she spoke it as if it was a curse word “is a world I want to be a part of.” She sat back against the armchair, holding her stare on the ground, “At least not the way he was handling it.”

“Grayson’s my partner: in everything we do. I would have never gotten this far without him, he’s the energy when we come together.” Ethan sat back against his own chair, his mind opening the flood gates for his words. “Our ideas, our projects, our pushes—those are all him. He constantly asks for us to be better, for me to be better. I owe so much of what we have to him, because I would have never been able to do it without him.” Kate’s heart lurched, remembering a similar conversation with Grayson about Ethan.

Ethan continued, “I was the one who was nervous about you in the beginning.” Kate’s head shot up from its slumped position, finally meeting Ethan’s gaze. Ethan swallowed and weighed his head before continuing, “I was concerned that you were maybe..I don’t know a gold digger? Or something like that and you were going to use him.” Kate’s eyebrows raised, staring at Ethan as if he had seven heads. “That was before I met you,” Ethan hedged “But I think I was the one who put the thought in Gray’s head to be extra careful about you two.”

“I didn’t know that,” Kate’s voice was just above a whisper. She wanted to melt into her armchair, disappearing from this scene. Her mind felt torn between blaming Ethan for Grayson’s behavior and decided that this was no excuse, Grayson was a grown man who made his own decisions. Kate’s eyes narrowed, trying to decipher her own thoughts. Ethan started again, “I just can’t stand thinking that I’m the reason for what Gray is feeling right now and—” Kate shook her quickly, “You’re not Ethan.” She leaned forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her knees and exhaling heavily. “I’m the reason for what your brother is feeling.” She opened her mouth, but feelings of confusion, guilt, and loneliness competed for the next word. Ethan beat her to it, “If you give him a chance, he won’t disappoint.” Ethan played with his fingers in his lap, looking up to meet her gaze, “My brother is a hopeless romantic who gets off on making the people he loves feel special.” Ethan shrugged and let go of his fingers.

A few moments later, Ethan stood from his armchair and thanked Kate for at least listening to him. She gave him a thin smile and nodded as he stepped toward the door. She closed the dead bolt behind him and stood there for a while. Her mind felt like a thousand horses were trying to pull her in different directions: toward Grayson, away from Grayson, into friendship with Grayson, back to Ethan with more questions. Her mind was a mess. She stepped back into her bedroom, finding that a dollop of melted ice cream has stained her sheets. She exhaled and threw her head back, cleaning her space begrudgingly.

She sat on the end of her stripped bed, phone in hand. Her hand felt heavy as her phone rang. Her heart beat throbbed into her temples. Her good leg shook softly against the edge of the bed. Her tongue went dry. “Hello?” His voice was so familiar. Her mind set off a fireworks show of internal curse words, her teeth nearly chattered in rhythm to the shiver down her spine. “Hey Gray,” she started without knowing where she wanted to finish, “I was hoping we could talk-but not like this—maybe we could pick a time or a place?” Her tongue felt like a brick, heavy and stiff against her lips that tried to remember to pass air through her lungs. “Y-yeah” Grayson’s tone wavered, trying to mask excitement and anxiety with something that sounded stable, “I’d like that.”

*******

“Thank you,” Kate smiled at her Uber driver as he pulled up the edge of the beach parking lot. She had considered walking to meet Grayson, but eventually decided that walking across LA, by herself, at 7PM was not a good idea. She left the car and started to fidget with the hem of her skirt, which was blowing in the ocean winds. The ocean breeze usually calmed her, but today it only ignited her flaming nerves even further. Her hair would not sit still, blowing in nearly every direction as she walked forward. She cursed to herself, not wanting to look like a mess to have this conversation with Grayson.

She stopped when she spotted him. He was waiting in his usual spot from when they met—his spot. He looked so elegant, his grand figure a silhouette against the sunset. Even in the shadows, his megawatt smile beamed at Kate. She bit her lip from across the beach, the hand on her purse clenched down. Every thought about the ocean breeze escaped her mind. Her knees shook slightly. How is it that one human being could elicit that kind of response out of another?

Kate’s hands cupped her face while her heart exploded, looking past Grayson for a moment. A few beach towels acted as a picnic blanket for a home made meal and a couple of Wakeheart candles. A stray napkin floated through the wind away from the setting. Two place settings were laying on the ground, ready for the two of them to sit together. Grayson grinned watching her face, hoping that maybe he could show her how serious he was about making her happy. Silently, he wished she would take her hands away from her face. Grayson desperately wanted to see her smile; his heart needed the confirmation that he was able to make her happy again.

The hands on her face were only one part of this scene teasing Grayson’s heart. The dark tendrils flying around her face called out to the day they met: making Grayson’s heart swell. The air around her was angelic, Grayson could make out the gold flecks in her brown eyes from where he stood. The sound of her voice as she approached him was like a song to him.

“Grayson—” hearing his name in her voice sent Grayson’s emotions into a romantic frenzy “—this is amazing.” She removed her hands from her mouth, revealing her kind smile and pink mouth. Grayson’s cheeks burned from grinning so hard, his happiness overtook any anxieties that had been clouding his mind. A deep part of his mind wondered if he had done enough practicing earlier, now that he was struggling for words. His elation took over any cerebral duties his mind would usually oversee, “I wanted to do something special for you, because you’re special to me.”

Grayson took her small, dainty, smooth hands in his large, rough, calloused ones. He squeezed her palms and looked down into her big, brown eyes. Kate bit her lip subtly, wondering how one man could be so many things at one time. Grayson took a breath before starting his semi-rehearsed speech. “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry for hurting you, doing something to you that made you feel like I wasn’t proud of you. If anything, it’s the opposite. I’m so proud of you, the things you have preserved through in your life before you ever met me--..I don’t think I could do it.” Grayson gaped down at her, he swallowed while holding back sentences about her disability, career, and drive. “I just..I did something wrong. I should have been more open about who I am and what my life is like from the start. In truth, I didn’t think I had to me. I thought I was just a normal guy, who could meet a normal girl and have a great relationship.” He squeezed her palms warmly. “But I see now that maybe that’s not what this situation is. And to be honest, I don’t really know what that means. But I do know that you make my life better. You make my life so much better,” a stray tear sat on Grayson’s bottom lashes. His voice choked slightly, making Kate’s eyes widen as her entire expression softened. The sight of her garnered a stray tear on Grayson’s other lash line. “You make everything so much better. You make me think about what’s important, because so much of my life isn’t.” He made a noise that sounded like a sad chuckle, “I spend so much of my day worried about branding and images and posting schedules and comments—things that I barely have control over sometimes. But when I’m with you,” he squeezed her hands and pulled her in closer, “my life isn’t that. With you I’m happy, and I get to share simple things with you. I feel like someone is seeing me, for the first time in a long time, as just a guy.” One lone tear danced its way to his cheek while he finished, “I hate what I put you through, I hate how that other part of my life could have poisoned us…But I think we can make if you’re willing to talk things through with me because I want to keep you around for such a long time…I love you.”

Grayson’s heart felt like it was tiptoeing across a high wire above a pit of sharks. He felt like one word could change her answer. He gulped hard. Grayson Dolan had done many daring things in his life: blind folded sky diving, swimming with sharks,cliff jumping in foreign countries. And yet, no deed felt more daring than this. He admitted that his own life confused him, that the reality he thought existed was just his attempt at gripping onto normalcy: saying it out loud felt like a vice grip on his emotions.

Kate thumbed one of his hands gently in hers. She let go of one of his hands, causing Grayson’s mouth to gape slightly in fear. Grayson’s lips fell into a relaxed smile when she moved to cup his face in her hand, softly wiping at the ghostly trail left by the tear. She tried to find words, any words, but they weren’t coming. Her tongue was tied in a knot around her heart. Grayson instinctually moved his freehand around her waist, pulling her closer to him. He looked from her deep, bright eyes to her lips and back to her gorgeous gaze. Kate bit her lip, licking it softly before exhaling. Grayson drank in her sweet, citrus scent—only realizing now how comforting and soothing that scent had become for him.

The sound of the waves crashing against the shore boomed around them. Kate memorized his face in this moment, cherishing how the warm, sunset rays only illuminated his bronzed skin. The gold flecks in his eyes danced for her, begging for closure. His few freckles gave his face a boyish charm, decorating high cheek bones and a striking jawline.

A few grains of sand infiltrated Kate’s sandals, catalyzing a series of rough and jagged attacks on her soft skin. Kate’s mind raced in finding her next words, knowing that she could choose to give Grayson her whole heart or walk away from a future navigating the hurdles of his life. If it wasn’t for the pit growing in her heart, she would have chuckled at the irony of the moment. Here they were, almost embracing each other, almost crying for each other, almost surrendering themselves to each other: when just a few weeks earlier, they stood in that same spot as only a pair of kind strangers.

#grayson dolan #fanfic #romantic #fluff #dolan twins #youtuber #ethan dolan #grayson X OC

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iampikachuhearmeroar · 5 years

Text

actually another point that really pisses me off with extracurriculars (also called ECs in this post) and ESPECIALLY the ECs while I was in uni, was the fact that nearly all of them required a distinction (75-84) average/high distinction (85-100) average to actually participate. like this counted for even general tutoring where youd suppose a credit average (65-74) should be enough in arts subjects at least lmao.

like the most irritating ones that required the distinction/high distinction averages were like “leadership” workshop presenters and even uni promoters who’d travel to schools around my district and sometimes further afield to talk about study or the uni. but the most infuriating thing with that is that they also looked at your ATAR- ie. your uni entrance score or what would be the equivalent to like the SAT score in the US/A levels in the UK or the IB score internationally. and the ATARs usually hd to be in like the 80 zone to do anything with tutoring or leadership/study workshops etc.

like my ATAR was low back in 2013 when I did my hsc- coming back as 38.25.... but I still managed to pull through undergrad with a credit average and get into my post grad diploma. but is that enough to talk at elevate study workshops? apparently not. apparently the only inspiring people for these study and leadership seminars are people that are loaded with money (usually bc most attended tutoring during school.... if I remember my elevate workshop from year 10 correctly) so that they could achieve great marks to get into uni and know how to maintain them while they were at uni. they have the resources to do serveral extracurricular things and even some community work to boot. in short, they had EVERYTHING to get them to uni.

for me, i found the above super hard to relate to in year 10. and hell, even now. like I didn’t have the home environment or a great chance of doing anything really (or at least that’s how my 17/18yo self viewed it from her depressed and anxious thoughts in 2013) at all during my hsc to get good marks in those final exams. like in year 10 in 2011 before the hsc, for the school certificate, i basically almost had to repeat bc i’d stopped handing in assessments. one of my friends actually had to save my ass for me by writing half of my english speech for me so that I didn’t fail and have to repeat the next year. all through year 10 i was threatened by teachers telling me that my (now defunct) school certificate wouldn’t be marked bc if I wrote by hand myself.

it was the same in years 11/12. but my teachers were so tired with fighting the board of studies for a laptop for me to use during my final exams, that they relied on the BOS to tell me that I’d got one. but the BOS never told me, so I went in without studying and believing that everyone around thought I was too fucking brainless to achieve anything above a 50 atar without studying. I did have a computer for my final exams though, but I didn’t know UNTIL THE FIRST DAY OF MY FIRST ENGLISH EXAM when my community and family studies (cafs) teacher FINALLY decided to tell me.

like after all of that bullshit, I came out with 38.25. I moped and cried and hated myself bc I didn’t get a good atar and had to go to business college instead. bc they were one of the places that didn’t judge on ATAR at all. I hauled my ass through my fucking advanced diploma of marketing and got into uni. I did over 600 pages of work in my AD, with my longest assignment being fucking 75 pages!!!! like y’all I wrote a whole (super poorly) written textbook in a fucking year!!!!! like how fuckin ridiculous is that?????!!!!

like yes. I struggled like fuck through undergrad... in fact I wanted to drop out halfway through second year bc I felt like I’d done my whole 3 years already. but I pushed on through that finally graduated in oct 2018. now I’m half way through my grad diploma. like yes during that i only did one extra curricular, which was attending toastmasters sporadically when I remembered/felt like going/or my class schedule permitted. I tried the blogging thing but never interviewed anyone bc i was too shy... I basically did the blogging thing bc IT WAS THE ONLY THING that didn’t require the atar/some uni grade average to do it. it was that or a multimedia newsroom assistant that didn’t need a grade average... other than some career programs. so I focussed on career building workshops instead. after all of that I came out with roughly a credit average according to my undergrad uni’s WAM calculator.... my wam was about 68.8 or something by the time I graduated.

but like. the whole time i was at uni I was met with the question “how did you even get in... if your atar WAS THAT LOW???? you couldn’t even get into the uni college with 38.25.” i constantly got that from careers advisors and stuff. and I had to say “well it was my advanced diploma that got me in bc it was a pass/fail course.”

like why isn’t that considered more “inspiring” as opposed to shitty, snobby kelvin or henrietta over here who got all straight A’s through school, did several sports and other ECs; did a fuck load of charity and community work, did the duke of Edinburgh award by working at a retirement home for a year as a conversation giver or whatever they’re called. like I find that so fucking unrelatable bc I didn’t have the time and money to do any of that. like yes my hsc marks were abysmal and so were most of my marks in junior school (but let’s not count math and PE for this post, considering i went into arts lmao)... like surely the stories of lower achieving students that get into uni and eventually pick themselves up off the floor to get some shit done are 10billion times more relatable than Goodie-Two-Shoes My Parents Are Loaded AF Sally™️ or My Parents Sent Me To Over-Priced Tutoring That Sometimes Did My Homework For Me But I Turned It In As I’d Done It Myself Jerry™️ that are both selected as presenters for these programs.

like fuck off with your “how did you even get here if your atar was so low and how are you even still here?” Janice in careers central. or elevate leaders conference. let lower achievers speak and have a chance to do some fucking extra curriculars that involve public speaking etc.... so that they can inspire and relate to the lower achieving kids to maybe attend and finish uni..... and come out on top of the stupid rich cunts like henrietta/sally/jerry/kelvin who are usually the ones who are more likely to drop out half the time.... because they realise that they’re just doing it to make the parents proud.... bc it turns out that it’s not what they ACTUALLY WANTED TO DO in the first place.

so yeah. I think more ECs at universities should be more accomodating to people in the lower mark ranks (like credit averages or people who got lower atars than the standard 70 for most courses)..... and especially the ones that are about “leadership” or “study” or whatever.... bc like i didn’t do my advanced diploma probs wouldn’t‘ve gone to uni until much later in life (i think anyway idk). and people should be kinder to others who got into uni via alternate pathways like a diploma from an outside institution and not be all snide like “how did you even get here if your academics were so low?” like learn to acknowledge that people have problems with getting high marks or will usually nowadays get hit with bad depression/anxiety in year 12 over marks and thus not achieve what they probs could have.

anyway there’s another academia/extra curriculars rant done lmao.

#life #about me #shut up ilona #uni #uni life

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hecktic-creations · 5 years

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Growing Pains

Intro

I at first wasn’t going to do anything for Pride Month this year. I haven’t been in the best mental space and couldn’t think of a topic of discussion. But in an effort to figure myself out and reconnect with me, I have been writing an essay in my head. I’ve been referring to it as Growing Pains, so I suppose that ended up being the title. This essay I owe more to myself than anyone else, but I wanted to share it too, to give others a new perspective on things. I have been seeing more and more people excluding acespec people from LGBTQ spaces saying that they aren’t oppressed so they shouldn’t count. As someone who’s identified as Asexual but never really felt comfortable bringing it up, since whenever I did people told me I was lying or I would grow out of it, this feels like an attack from a community that I thought supported me. Most of my posts are on my trans identity, and this is because I feel more comfortable talking about it. I still hold a grudge against myself for being ace, because I’ve only ever been told that life isn’t truly complete without a significant other. I’m done ignoring this part of my identity though, as it has been such a key part of my being for such a long time. While discovering my relationship with gender has helped me feel more whole, it hasn’t been until more recently. I have been fighting a battle with myself my whole life about being ace, it wasn’t until I looked back that I realised this though. So that’s what this is, me finally coming to terms with my ace identity in coalition to a past I only vaguely remember.

Growing Pains

My younger years weren’t easy for me. All the situations and all the circumstances of my life, logically have been fine. Quiet, maybe. But for me, they have been hurdles. Each and every action. I describe a day by how much “effort” I have. There are good days with plenty and bad days where I have none. If I’ve run out of effort, I won’t be able to do much more that day. It’s always been like this but I’ve mostly ignored it, not a good idea. Because of this, I didn’t do much outside of school with anyone as it was “too much effort” in the way that I couldn’t bring myself to get over the hurdle and into the action. If something required more than a few steps I simply couldn’t do it. But there weren’t many people to do extracurricular activities with anyways. I never felt like I belonged to a group, more an outsider allowed to interact because everyone else was too polite to say anything. As a result I’ve never really allowed myself to get close to anyone, expecting them to one day betray me, or simply move on and leave me behind. Maybe we can blame my inability to connect, my personality, my being queer but not knowing it, the people around me. All of this, none of this. Doesn’t matter in the end. Most of my younger personality felt like a lie I had constructed to be able to interact with my peers. Elementary school I had to make up crushes I’d never felt before. Middle school I had to try and feel excited about a future I never really expected to come. Every interaction felt like perpetuating the lie, until it became my truth. I‘ve never had much in the way of romantic experiences. There was a boy in fifth grade who asked me out when I was in third, I was uncomfortable with the thought of dating --let alone someone So Much Older than me-- so refused. He thought it was because I hated him. I told him it wasn’t but he didn’t speak to me again. Later that year he got expelled for stealing money from the book fair so maybe that was for the best. Depending on you definition of it, my first kiss was a surprise to both me and the kid who kissed me. I was leaving an event with my family, but had walked too far ahead. I stopped by the edge of the sidewalk to wait for them and a boy I had spoken with on several occasions but we never really interacted was walking by with his mother. I think it was his idea of a greeting, but he kissed me and moved on. His mom told him not to kiss people like that, he said he was just being nice. Beyond that, I haven’t kissed anyone. Nor do I plan to. I remember someone telling me that once I kissed someone for real I would understand how good it felt and would want to do it again. But I just don’t see the appeal. Maybe I gave off a vibe of not wanting to, but after elementary, no one asked me out during school. Indeed the next time anyone would was outfront of the liquor store I worked at last year. He quickly dropped it when I said I was trans. I am glad no one ever did because I think the sheer shock of it would have done me in. I’d never seen myself as good enough to date in the first place. I was never bullied, more like ignored entirely. Which was perfectly fine by me then, but looking back it was lonely. There were close friends through it all, and I think I owe it to them that I made it this far. Not gonna name any names, but I hope you know who you are. It’s hard for me to remember my childhood. Really, anything past a year ago is hazy at best. It’s not a poor memory exactly because I’ve proven to have a good one, it’s more. There wasn’t enough good to remember so my brain decided throw all of it out. If I can recall, it feels like a story I’ve read. Something to think about, but not my own experience. It’s not me. I can’t connect.

High school is different. Newer in my mind, and more intact. More friends, more experiences. Really it’s where I as a person began. It’s where I learned the words that described me, learned that other people like me were real. I wasn’t just broken. It’s where I started to sluff of the lies from my youth. As a defense, I’d shut down my connection to my emotions. I remember clearly the last time I fully felt anything. I was seven. I was angry about something petty, I got scared of my own anger. Promised I wouldn’t get that mad again, guess that was true. I always thought that my inability to think of anyone else romanticly was because of that detachment from myself, and would not be surprised if it played a part. But in an unofficial poll of the one queer table at my high school Freshman or Sophomore year, I accidentally identified myself as asexual, at the time I didn’t even know what it meant, and I don’t know why I did it. Later I looked it up, found out the definition, and everything felt right. It made sense. I cried with relief because I belonged somewhere. I was real. When I found out that Asexuality was an identity, I connected with it immediately. This had been my whole life. All of the awkward dodging of strange questions about my tastes and who I was attracted to, and wondering if I would ever get it; or if I had to lie about my romantic inclinations my whole life made sense. It didn’t make the questions go away, but I at least understood that when I responded that I’ve never had a crush before I wasn’t saying I was incomplete. It’s more recently that I started to accept that I’m also aromatic but that’s for different reasons, a different post I think. Around that time I also learned about trans people, that they existed. Many of my friends were. It sent me on a three year soul-search. After many sleepless nights, crying in the shower with confusion and frustration, hiding in my bed paralysed with fear of what it meant for the future I never got around to planning, and frantically scrawled notes to myself that are now lost to moving out, I figured it out. I reached an understanding of myself that I never cared to have before. It was a struggle through the barrier in my mind between my thoughts and emotions. I made a deep connection with myself I had never had, and have since lost again. The first time I said aloud that I thought I was trans, I was crouching backstage during rehearsal for the winter performance of the drama club my senior year. I was stage crew, crouched next to me were two friends. I don’t know what finally pushed me to say it, but that same feeling of relief and the realness of my own existence rushed through me again when they asked if I’d picked out a name yet and started using the right pronouns straightaway. It was different than learning about my asexuality, but nonetheless fulfilling. I’d quietly expected everyone in my life to deny me because of it. Didn’t matter to me if they themselves where trans, or they had shown support for it in the past. I was going to be a special case. But these were mostly baseless worries. I’ve noticed plenty of quiet prejudice and some not so quiet since then. But I was lucky in seeing little of it from those close to me.

After high school was college, but not for long. I don’t remember for the life of me if I ended up going to two or three semesters, though I’m leaning more towards two. Those semesters where the darkest of my life. I remember trying and failing to do as good in college as I did in high school, I’d graduated with an honours diploma after all, college should be easy right? I hadn’t fully realised all the brand new stresses of having to choose what you wanted in life. Nothing could have prepared me because I hadn’t prepared myself. With a future so vast and endless, I shut down. My first choice was art college, I got accepted into the one I was looking at most. They ended up giving me almost a full ride scholarship, but it was in Portland and I couldn’t come up with enough money to live there. That plan fell through. Then I figured I’d just get a job around town and save up for next year, the college told me they’d reserve my spot and everything. But no one wanted to hire me. That plan fell through. I ended up at my community college. I hadn’t exactly wanted to pursue higher education in the first place, but I couldn’t manage to do anything else. The first semester was alright mostly, I finished it with average grades which for me was abysmal. My last semester there I’d only attended two of my originally scheduled five classes. The rest I hid from in the cafeteria. I was too afraid to tell my parents that I couldn’t get myself to go to the classes because they were so much more excited for my future than I was, and this was a good next step to whatever it ended up being. I didn’t want to let them down. I was working part-time then too, the job --my first-- had taken me more than a year to get. I think it was a combination of my inexperience and my being trans which led to so many rejections. At this point I’d applied to the majority of entry-level jobs in my hometown, and was running out of options. I went to campus as if I was taking class, instead hid in the cafeteria, then went to work. This continued until I moved out. I’d basically already quit college at that point, so when the semester ended, I didn’t register for new classes. But with the prodding of a friend during the campus tour the beginning of that year, I signed up for the GSA of the college. I really should thank that friend. They probably saved my life. The club was what got me through college. It was why I hid in the cafeteria. Between classes my friends from GSA would go there for meals or to do classwork. I met some people there who changed the direction I was heading. It is more sideways now than down. They helped me connect more to a community I hadn’t even known was established. I’m not the most active online or in person, and never had many friends to begin with. But even after I’d dropped out I went to the GSA meetings. They were, and are, the most supportive group I’ve ever been a part of. The more recent stuff I’ll keep to myself, at least for now. It’s been more than a year since I dropped out of college, and that year has seen even more of a dramatic shift in my life. It is all too close to the present now to discuss. I don’t regret my choice to leave college, and at the moment I’m not planning on returning. It has left a big angry mark on my life, and whatever good it would do me isn’t worth revisiting that part of my mind. But because of what I’d been through then I know who I am now. I know what it means to be me.

I don’t know where I’ll fall or how far till the bottom, but I know this. I’m ready to fly. Too much of my life has been clinging to a cliff, hoping for everything to pass me by. Waiting for it to all be over. But while I waited, my wings grew. I’m not ready. I don’t think I ever will be. But if I don’t go now my arms will fail and I will fall anyway. I liken myself to the mythical figure of Icarus often, mainly saying my pride will send me into the sea one day, which it will. Hubris will be my undoing. But maybe before that I should have the same fierce confidence to leap. To soar. Because I hope to be smarter than he, more cautious. It might not sound like it, but I am proud. I know the person I am now is better than the person from last year, last month even. And I am proud to belong. Because the rest of my life I never felt like I belonged, never fully connected. So this month, and beyond. You can catch me breathing deeply, knowing that whatever happens, I exist and I should be. It means so much more to know you aren’t alone in your experiences. Though no one else can be you, that doesn’t mean no one else can know you. It’s important to know where you come from, but it’s even more important to know why you got here isn’t just because you have a past, it’s because you also have a future.

#transgender #trans #pride #asexual #ace #ftm #autobiography #art #digitalart #digital art #reading #essay #long post #discourse mention

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killapunk · 6 years

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Hm okay

So someone who has an ED and is in the very middle of it reblogged my post and reminded me of. All that. That people really think being skinny is good. That they're obsessed with completely destroying their bodies because they want to be thin. That's the part that makes me sad.

Then I remember there's like actual tags like pro-ana. That's the part that makes me angry. If you're lucid enough to know you have a fucked eating disorder, why would you encourage other people to potentially develop one/not seek help and fucking celebrate it instead?? BRB starting my pro-depression tag

This shit ruins lives, hello?? I have a dearly beloved friend (who I haven't spoken to in forever hi if you see this I love you so much) who struggled with EDs and I'm serious. It was a fucking struggle. A battle. It was a hard battle. My amazing friend made it to the other end and I'm incredibly proud, and I always will be, but let me tell you. None of that was glamorous. None of it was good or fun. My friend suffered immensely. It's not my place to share details but I remember exactly how it felt to be updated on the situation even though I was an ocean away (hint: I cried. Hard).

And actually, since I have way more authority to talk about this bit, I'm really just gonna remind everyone that skinny =/= healthy. Yes, healthy height-weight proportions are often depicted as lean or slim, but lean or slim aren't SKELETAL. You're not meant to see the fucking bones. And listen, body types are varied. Genetics are weird. Some people may never put on weight, some people may put on a lot of it, but their bodies are built that way and as long as they live a healthy lifestyle they're fine. But to force your body to lose weight to the point you look like a fucking Halloween decoration with paper maché skin?????

I'm underweight. I've been underweight my whole life. I finally got hauled to a doctor in my teenage years and was taught how to deal with my peculiar disorder (starvation). To this day I still fall into patterns of not eating more than once a day, so my weight fluctuates a lot, but I am constantly trying to battle this. You know why? Because when I look down and see my tiny wrists, showing off all my veins, I lose my fucking shit. It distresses me like you wouldn't believe. I was meant to be better than this. I was meant to be able to show my doctors I could do this.

I'm underweight, but I'm also not taking abysmal care of myself. I don't want to be underweight so I work against it. And yes, when I was a stupid pseudo goth teenager I thought it was cool to feel my bones and look like I was dying. Except I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: I was dying. I couldn't feel it at all, I thought I was perfectly fine, but years later my mother told me that I was dangerously close to organ failure during that period of my life.

If I had been any thinner, my body would have shut down.

Please for the love of God think about what you're doing to your bodies. You won't even look good. Your hair will lose its shine. Your nails will break. Your skin will look like shit. You'll always be cold. I used to like swimming when I was a child, but when I hit negative weight as a teenager cold water was torture, and to this day I still dislike going to the pool or the beach.

Do you know what people thought when they saw me, a pale, stick thin teen skulking along with shitty stringy hair and bags under my eyes? They sure as shit didn't think I was attractive! They were repulsed. They were afraid. They didn't want to touch me even remotely "for fear I might break". So if you do this to your body, if you try to look like a fucking Barbie to the point where your body isn't getting what it needs to function, you're gonna end up looking like shit, and everyone's gonna agree, and more than one person will let you know.

You also might end up dead.

I'm so fucking mad lol

#eating disorder #tldr fuck pro-ana

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gymwrites · 6 years

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Second Thoughts: A Fan Sequel to First Times

[Author’s note: There will be a final, longer part released soon, but wanted to get this out there. Thank you for the kind messages. May the new year treat you all just as kindly!

I wrote this chapter to: Bloodstream (Quartet Session) by Stateless.]

Links to: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5 (Part I), Chapter 5 (Part II), Chapter 6 (Part I), Chapter 6 (Part II), Chapter 6 (Part III), Chapter 7, Chapter 8 (Part I), Chapter 8 (Part II)

Chapter 8: Lights (Part II)

Laurie keeps insisting on accompanying them back to Team USA’s apartment block, but Aliya firmly resists. She points out that the girl should enjoy what’s left of the night, especially if this is her first time attending an Olympic after-party. Most gymnasts are still on strict competition training schedules and will begin retiring to their rooms in a few hours. There’s no sense in Laurie missing out on the fun while it lasts.

At least, that’s what Aliya tells herself is the reason for taking it solely upon herself to guide Aly back.

Having left a reluctant Laurie and an even more reluctant Eythora at the entrance, all that’s left to do is carefully usher a half-slumbering Aly down several flights of stairs, then into the elevator, and out into the chilly night air.

Aliya has walked many a girl home after a long night of drinking. There are those who complain loudly and incessantly, who insist they’re completely fine and berate their helper for assuming they need any assistance at all. Others are too sick to say much of anything, needing a pit stop every few minutes to empty out their stomachs. Those are probably Aliya’s least favorite experiences.

And then there is Aly.

“Aliya, you really don’t have to do this.”

Aliya glances over at Aly, her mouth tilting up in a smile. “I doing nothing.”

The girl sighs heavily. “Yes you are. You’re laughing at me.”

“Laugh must be inside your head, Aly.”

“No. It’s inside yours.”

In addition to being a continuous source of amusement for Aliya, their banter crucially helps keep Aly awake, and Aliya thinks they might make it back to their destination in good time. All she has to do is traverse the relatively short distance necessary, and not let herself get distracted by the whimsical, adorable antics of an inebriated Aly Raisman.

It is far more difficult than Aliya anticipates. At first, Aliya had tried letting Aly walk on her own, but she had lurched one too many times before Aliya decided it would not do. So she had slung Aly’s left arm across her shoulder and her own arm around Aly’s waist. This lets her act as a support for Aly while they press forward together, but it also inconveniently floods her senses with the nearness of her.

The evening sky is mostly clear and dotted with stars. A few wisps of clouds trail behind an unusually outsized moon. A quiet, almost lazy calm hangs in the air; it doesn’t feel as though lifelong Olympic dreams have been made and broken and cried over in numerous buildings and rooms scattered all over the Village. It’s as beautiful a summer night as any for a stroll. Probably too beautiful - it might afford opportunities for Aly to burrow in deeper, and make the permanent home she has in Aliya’s heart even more so.

Aliya has to stifle a laugh when Aly swings her free arm up to point to one of many identical overhanging lamps they happen to be passing under.

“Look,” Aly says in rapt wonder. “That’s the most gorgeous light I’ve ever seen.” Her words are slow and slurred, though not incoherent. Aliya takes that as a good sign. The girl would likely get hit with far worse headaches in the next hour, but it shouldn’t be so bad as to take her out of action the next day.

“It is just light, Aly,” Aliya replies. She fights a grin when Aly huffs at her.

“And I’m just a girl,” the girl fires back.

Aliya licks her lips, ignoring the way her heart jumps. Focus. She places another foot forward, then another, and gently nudges Aly to do the same. Aly complies, but is apparently still very taken by the lamp.

“It shines like the moon but is so much bigger and brighter.”

“Because it is more close than moon.”

“Things are always better when they’re closer,” Aly says sagely, expelling a dramatic sigh before craning her neck in an attempt to focus bleary eyes on Aliya.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Aly begins, then promptly trips over an uneven crack in the ground before she can finish the sentence. Aliya instinctively braces both hands on Aly’s forearms, holding her upright until she’s sure the girl has recovered her footing.

“Thanks,” Aly breathes, still clinging to Aliya like moss on a tree. Aliya nods tersely, pulse thudding in her ears. When she releases the girl to continue moving them onwards, the tingling on her skin left by Aly’s warmth doesn’t go away.

They only make it another several feet down the pathway before Aly again stops to stare fixedly at the next lamp post they’ve reached. The flickering light emitted by the fluorescent lamps seems to hold some strange, hypnotic power over her.

“You say I thinking something, Raisman?” Aliya reminds Aly, giving her another nudge with her shoulder. She’s strong, but she’s not sure she can manage hauling a hypnotized, or worse, unconscious American across the remaining few hundred feet.

“Right.” Aly shakes her head, as if clearing away a thick fog. She lets Aliya tug her along another few steps. “You’re thinking that I did this on purpose. That I’m upset about how we’ll never be together, and this is me trying to get your attention because I’m still and will always be crazy about you.”

The unexpectedly honest words roll out thick and fast, and they hit Aliya with an almost physical force. Either Eythora had spiked Aly’s drink with truth serum, or Aly’s ability to hold her liquor was even more abysmal than Aliya knew it to be. Aliya is also fairly certain there are other, far more efficient ways of getting her attention than intentionally downing a massive glass of hard vodka, but does not say so.

“I’m trying to leave you alone,” Aly continues pleadingly. “I really am. I didn’t even look at you during the all-around. And when I did, it was only because I absolutely had to.”

Heat pools in Aliya’s cheeks as she bites down a smile. She uses the hand wrapped around Aly’s shoulder to give the girl a brief squeeze.

“Da. I know this.”

“Do you know how difficult not looking is for me?” Aly demands haltingly, as if it is some big injustice she has been forced to endure. She shifts her body to more fully face Aliya, a pout formed on her lips. “God knows who wouldn’t look at you, Aliya. You’re beautiful. Not just on the outside,” and Aly swipes a hand clumsily through the space in front of Aliya’s face, before pressing it against her own chest and squeezing it into a tight fist, “but here, where I feel how beautiful you are on the inside… on my insides… and it doesn’t ever stop.”

The simultaneously awkward and passionate statement sends a familiar surge of tension thrumming through the air; it shifts and compresses the space between them, pulls them in closer, always closer. Aliya chances a glance into the plunging sea of Aly’s eyes.

“Znaiyu, Aly. I know,” Aliya murmurs in a low rasp. She forcibly steers her gaze away and up ahead, strange flutters in her chest. “Come. We are almost there.”

Gravity seems to work at an increasing rate the closer they get to the Team USA building. They’ve walked past a good number of other athletes at this point, and Aliya starts to worry about the attention they’re drawing. People talked in the Village, and things had a way of getting back to the wrong people - Aly’s over-controlling national team coordinator, for one. Though feeling the urgent need to return Aly back to Team USA’s apartment as soon as possible, Aliya finds herself wistfully wishing it was further away.

Aly suddenly doubles over at the waist, clutching at her belly and giving a little groan. Aliya tightens her grip on the girl, brows furrowing in concern. “Aly?”

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” Aly breathes out, in a manner that is decidedly not fine. She manages with difficulty to straighten up again, and gives Aliya a feeble nod to indicate they should keep going.

All up, it takes about twenty minutes to accompany Aly back, but it feels far longer than that. They stumble into the empty lobby of Team USA’s apartment block with no further incident.

Once Aliya helps Aly into the elevator, she watches, engrossed, as Aly bends down and squashes her face up against the numbered buttons for what feels like an eternity. The doors close with a heavy clang. For the next thirty seconds, the only sounds are the light humming of the elevator cooling system, Aly’s slow, labored breathing, and the throbbing warning inside Aliya’s head that a herd of Americans are going to spill into the enclosed space with them any second.

Unable to tolerate the suspense any longer, Aliya subtly clears her throat. “Aly.”

Aly squints at the buttons for a few seconds more before glancing back at her. “Hm?”

“Which floor? Tell me, and I help….” Aliya can’t remember the English word for ‘press’, so she mimics the motion in the air.

The girl waves away her offered assistance. “You can’t.”

Clasping her hands behind her back, Aliya sighs. “Why?”

“You were freezing, but you wouldn’t even wear my Team USA jacket.“

Aliya frowns at her, utterly clueless as to what that has to do with anything.

“These are Team USA buttons,” Aly says pointing at the elevator controls, and seeing Aliya’s face descend into further confusion, she lowers her head and clarifies in a serious whisper, “I’m saving you from touching Team USA buttons.”

Aly’s nonsensical words cause an intense affection to bubble up in Aliya’s chest. She does her best to choke it off by pressing her mouth into a hard, firm line. Aliya waits, still as a statue, while Aly scrabbles around and finally hits the button labeled ’13’.

Leaning heavily against the elevator wall, the girl straightens up and flashes a triumphant, toothy smirk at Aliya.

Aliya hurriedly looks away, her whole body flushing with heat. She concentrates furiously on their blurred reflections in the steel doors the whole ride up.

By the time the elevator hits the thirteenth floor and the doors draw open, Aliya is prepared for the moment she’ll have to deposit Aly in front of her apartment with nothing more than polite well wishes for event finals. As they stagger past Suites 1302, then 1303, 1304… 1307… Aliya repeatedly rehearses in her head exactly what she’s going to do (untangle herself from Aly) and say (an efficient ‘goodnight’ to follow the well wishes should suffice), and she will do and say it all in a calm and collected manner.

As she always does.

But when Aly halts in front of Suite 1309, and Aliya holds her steady as she fumbles around in her pocket for the key, Aliya already knows calm and collected is precisely what isn’t going to happen.

The time for ‘calm and collected’ would have been about a half hour ago, when Masha stopped Aliya at the door, a final caution marked in her eyes. Or when Eythora offered to take care of Aly, and Aliya could have just let it play out. It was definitely before Aliya drained a disappointing shot of vodka, and finally gave herself over to the reality that Aly Raisman will always be a part of every breath she draws, every whisper pressed to her soul, every end of her every beginning.

That’s why when the door swings open, Aliya quietly follows Aly inside without another thought, and Aly lets her, as if it couldn’t have happened any other way.

The time for ‘calm and collected’ is well and truly past.

#raistafina #second thoughts #first times #fanfic

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hyperfixus · 6 years

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I NEED A LIFEJACKET

Nothing I ever do is good enough. Nothing will stray me from getting hurt. Coming to the conclusion of what kind of horrific creature I was in the past life (or possibly still am) for those I care about to treat me with such disrespect, malice and bullshit is proving tricky. It’s hard to precisely explain how cloudy my head feels. This is a tired that doesn’t go away no matter how much sleep I get. My brain feels malnourished, and I am cold and empty. I have a tennis ball stuck in my throat and sandpaper for eyes.

I am plagued by the disappointment of “but you were doing so well!” circling my head. Surprise my dear friend, life is bleak. No it’s not, I’m overreacting. Am I? Oh, but when it’s light it’s beaming, but when it’s dark I’m trapped in an abyss that I call “My Thoughts”. These past 8 months have been nothing less than a living hell. It appears anybody I trust, or want to trust, grabs my teeny tiny body with their thumbs and index fingers, and snaps me in half with the same sort of ease as breaking a biscuit in two. I trust too easily and cry when I get hurt, so I guess this is my fault. I have gone to the ends of the earth trying to make those around me happy when the majority of them quite frankly couldn’t care less what happens to me. I feel like I’m the only person not allowed to make mistakes without being crucified. To quote Keaton Henson - “please do not break my heart, I think it’s had enough pain to last the rest of my life”.

I have hardly cried in 4 weeks. (I feel like I can hear you gasp in disbelief through my screen.) That’s a very long time for me to abstain from bawling my eyes out despite my life being totally abysmal lately. But now I just can’t fucking stop. I need plugs in my tear ducts. The blur in my eyes right now is as faded as my judgment on my own sanity, and all the questions flying around in my big grey thought bubble. Am I too sensitive or are people too mean? When I was sad, why did I have “what’s wrong with you?” with laughter in my face rather than “are you okay?” When I cried to someone about what was bothering me, why was it compared to their own life thus completely muting me? Why, when I told someone why I was hurting, did I get stabbed in the chest with “but that’s not hell, not like what I’ve been through”? I don’t want to be hurt anymore. Drama follows me everywhere I go and I’m sick. I want love, kindness and compassion but no matter how hard I search or how long I wait, I can’t find it. I’m trapped in an empty pitch black room with a flickering “EXIT” sign but I’m frightened to know what’s on the other side, although I’d like to try.

I’m not the best at asking for help. If anything, I shy away and slope off by myself, leaving subtle hints that I am in fact favouring the idea of death over continuing this bland life. I don’t like burdening the people I love with my pathetic excuses of “problems”, so I’d rather torture myself with them. The problem with that is that I’d quite literally die to make myself better, but wallowing in my own pool of melancholy won’t make me better, let’s face it. I guess this post is a cry for help, or me begging for a lifebuoy. I’ve become colourblind again and I need support, because I’ve realised I can’t do this alone.

I’m gonna say it. I need help right now. I don’t necessarily want to talk about specifics on what’s killing me inside, but I need to know that life is still worth it. Tell me I’ll be okay. Please can somebody help me? I just want to be happy.

#adhd #attention deficit #attention deficit hyperactivity disorder #depression #anxiety #rejection sensitive dysphoria #rsd #oppositional defiant disorder #odd #borderline #borderline personality disorder #mental health #mental health blogger #mental health positivity #pma

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tumblunni · 7 years

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Okay so this is the TRIUMPHANT TALE OF MY ELITE FOUR CONQUEST

I totally drained out all my items going through the victory road, and then used up my last healing before the champion, with two pokemon fainted, so it was ONE HELL OF A HARD.

And one of my pokemon was entirely new to the team- I swapped out my HM user for an altaria I caught during the climb up there. So yeah in addition to all that trouble I was also trying to quickly level up Tiamat at the last minute during these last four battles. He had Dragon Dance but then NO ACTUAL PHYSICAL ATTACKS TO USE IT WITH. The only viable TM for him was Frustration, and apparantly he warmed up to me very quickly cos it stopped being effective a few battles in. Alas! But also yay!

And then seriously I love that the champion in this game is a gym leader from the prequel, I feel so proud of her! Also her music rocks and i like the fullbody portraits for the versus screen, that was so fancy lookin. Nice little detail that your protagonist has their bag slung to the side as they pull the pokeball out, which you couldn’t see in the smaller version. (Actually, does that appear on the male characetr too?)

Okay, so I was down Jaws and Nougat, my two biggest tanks. And Jaws was also my main physical damage dealer and the best elemental matchup for everything I had to face. Aaaaaaa Now Edamame had spent almost the ENTIRE GAME being fragile AF and everyone else covering for her so she could level up. Even after finally reaching her final evolution she was still struggling to find her own niche cos of the ABYSMAL movepool that was available at this point in time. Couldn’t learn anything except psychic type moves, pretty much two TMs in the entire game would work on her and one was a support move and one was a move she already got from levelling up. So at best she could only use her huge power when there was both a good type matchup and a low speed enemy. Seriously, god, a glass cannon pokemon usually is speedy too.. poor bean friend... But anyway, now for the tale of EDAMAME’S TRIUMPHANT RETURN For some reason in this ONE SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCE, this defensively unendowed pokemon became a tank?? She was up facing the Hydreigon that could destroy everyone else, with no attacks that could even HIT it. Yet she could take one attack without fainting, and she could use Recover, and in combination with Excalibur’s Leech Seed she could sit there flipping the bird at this giant dragon as is slowly died of its own accord. IT WAS AMAZING And then she also managed to take down two other dragons, her glass cannon-ness finally getting to shine! Seriously, half the whole damn battle, all from her alone! MY SWEET GOOP CHILD

And then after that I was stuck desperately sailing by on every fiendish strategy i could pull out my butt! Deckard was the only one doing standard attacks, he didn’t get much of a chance to shine here cos of the annoying amount of Earthquake users but he was a good supporter holding the line when necessary And he’d been my primary pokemon throughout the entire game so I guess it all balances out? Excalibur kept up the Leech Seeding which was now my only way of healing at all. But he also did some goddamn great damage with Dragon Tail! It wasn’t very great despite the super effectiveness, cos of his low attack and the no STAB bonus. But it was a really good stalling tactic cos it forces the enemy pokemon to switch out. He just kept juggling them! And then Tiamat mostly just chipped away with Frustration, cos he didn’t have any PP left for cotton guard AAAA. But luckily enough he learned Perish Song in the last battle before the champion, and it got the PERFECT opportunity to be used on the very last pokemon Iris had left! I had two left but Deckard was on quite literally 1hp and couldn’t outspeed this lapras, so if Tiamat went down he wouldn’t be able to finish it off. But instead Tiamat took it down with him and I was left hanging on by the skin of my teeth while I took the crown!

and then like WOW the BW2 ending credits scene is really sweet and cute?? its funny that DPPT was one generation earlier yet had a far more technologically advanced end credits sequence kinda? like, it was a fully animated montage of a big scene of the heroes bicylcing home as the sky changed. And BW2 is just a literally plain white screen with scrolling text and a few static images that fade in and fade out?? But the content of it was sweet enough to make it kinda my favourite of the two. DPPT had the best end credits music and looked really nice but it was really just the same animation looped with a different sky in the background. here it was just a regular montage thing in the same style as Sun and Moon but less graphically competant, yet the framing device kinda was just.. really unique and i wish it could happen more?? Like instead of just showing all the events of the game or what the characters are doing after the game, it shows your character’s actions IMMEDIATELY after leaving the elite four! It shows you running through all the areas of the game and meeting back up with all your friends who celebrate your victory in their own different ways. And I mean its just.. really graphically bad. The overworlds of the gym leaders + rival are really limited so its hard to tell what’s happening sometimes. And its hard to get that sense of running through the world when its static one frame pictures, i seriously dunno why its animated only at the beginning and end of the cutscene?? BUT Its also REALLY FUCKING SWEET AND I CRIED I didnt even enjoy this game and i still cried! And DEAR GOD the bit at the end where you see your mum on the horizon and run into her arms!! Sun and Moon really seemed to take a lot from BW2, I’m glad they also took the post credits mum meeting scene and rendered it in full fancy 3D. I STILL really wish the mums would get more of a role in the game, but i really love that at least now its aknowledged that like.. in-universe theyre at least aknowledged as important to the protagonist, even if theyre not important to the plot. And the sun and moon one had more of a personality and a unique design compared to the BW2 one but still i was so happy to see little Usagi run home to her mama with her champion title, as if she was the most important person to tell and this story wouldnt be complete without her. My heart just grows eight sizes imagining her staying up all night telling mum about her story all super motormouth style and then thats why you wake up in your bed when you start the postgame. She tucked you in after you fell asleep on the sofa, and went to go phone all her friends at 2am to tell them the news! ..I just really care A LOT for the pokemon mums and i wish everyone else would too.

#blunni thoughts

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toddbirchard-architect · 6 years

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A Question Unanswered: "Why Did You Want to Become a Product Manager?" https://ift.tt/2TgGxLf

I've painted some pretty grim personal perspectives on Product Management in the past- perhaps comically so. There was that one time I dared make the sweeping generalization that most PMs have no interest in technology itself, but instead favored the glory of power and implied intellect. Or that other time, when I suggested oversaturation of the space could push the title towards meaninglessness... similar to the fate of marketing departments recent fall from grace to what is best described as “MailChimp Coordinators.” Brutal stuff.

That was around the time I decided to distance myself from Product. I figured this bubble of egotistical hustlers would pop at some point. I’m afraid I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Product Management: Bigger and Badder Than Ever

I mean “bad” in the literal sense, of course. Let’s rest on that for a moment to acknowledge what is objectively true: Product Management is certainly getting bigger. Bigger not only in the sense of volume, but salaries as well; reports are showing that average product management salaries have been on a steady upward trend (I'll post those them here once I find them). One report had the average salary of senior/director PMs overtaking Data Scientists: a perceived front runner for “sexiest job” thanks to a stupid article the Harvard Business Review wrote a hundred years ago. (On a side note, can we please never reference this article again? It’s excruciating to read field-based work without some subtle reminder that the author is “sexy.”)

In terms of volume of product managers, I don’t need to search for data to know something is wrong. Of the teams I’ve worked with in the last 10 years, whether they be external clients or departments in my org, it’s overwhelmingly common to see technical team breakdowns have as many or more Product Managers than actual engineers. In extreme cases, I’ve lobbied, begged, and cried for more Engineering staff in exchange for guaranteeing deadlines. The response, of course, is always the same: hire more managers. The thought process I imagine happening is “hey, there’s something going on there, we better bring in a Skilled Manager to figure that out!” Assuming that poor management is a company’s culture, the safest thing any upper-manager can do to hide their own cluelessness is place more buffers between themselves and problems.

My moment of Zen came to me after I had just started with a large company. Our team had a product team, as did the other (hundreds?) of teams in the same firm. With a straight face, our team’s Head of Product delivered the year’s initiative: to teach all the other Product Managers the concept of Agile Development. I paused. Looked around. Raised my hand, and could do nothing but say:

...Are we not addressing the more significant problem at hand here? How have we somehow managed to hire hundreds of PMs, each without the slightest clue as to how to do their jobs?

One person chuckled. As the head of product gave a political no-answer, I watched a room full of people trying not to internalize that statement. I was “taught” agile 4 times that year. I had been implementing Agile Development practices for 8 years prior.

Why Do You Want To Be a PM?

Ask any PM how they got into the profession, and I’ll almost guarantee you’ll receive some story of transitioning out of marketing or recruiting (neither of which have anything to do with product) because an opportunity opened up way back when. My personal answer to this question started by defining what I didn’t want.

It was a rainy day in Philadelphia. Now 10 years ago, the Comcast headquarters had just been completed as the tallest building in the city, and I held a gig on the top floor... as a Flash Developer. I was nearing the end of my contract, and a bit relieved to know that “White Shirt Wednesdays” and “Blue Shirt Mondays” would no longer remain in my vocabulary. As a favor, one of my bosses asked me to deliver a USB drive to a fellow on my floor whom I’d never actually met. After some quick directions to this gentleman’s office, I was beginning to see why he’d be hard to come by.

I was directed to what must have been a hallway perhaps 3 feet wide, and 10 feet long. One of those big-office “alleyways” to connect two sides of a floor. Strangely, one wall of this alleyway had a door- no, an entire office, looking out into the blueish grey wall 3 feet away. This was the guy.

I explained my business and delivered the USB drive. “The guy” wasn’t worried; in fact, he immediately laid back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, and let out a breath of self-satisfaction. “So you’re a developer, huh,” he asked. “Let me ask you this: what you want out of life?” Before I could think to respond, he continued: “I mean, look at all this,” gesturing around his 8x8 foot office. “If you stayed here at Comcast, all this could be yours too someday, you know.”

So there I was, on the 50-somethingth floor of the city’s tallest building, shrouded in storm clouds, sitting in a fluorescent-lit closet in a corporate office back alley. As the seconds ticked by, it became evident that this wasn’t a hilarious joke. At that moment, one thing was clear: I wasn’t sure what I wanted out of life, but I sure as hell didn’t want to be that guy.

(...And I definitely didn’t want to get to be that guy by building throwaway corporate apps in Adobe Flash).

Finding What I Wanted Out of Life

From that moment, I thought a lot about what I didn't want out of life. I knew that I loved coding, but after having picked up handfuls of Flash contracting jobs, I began to realize a trend. The more I created things for other people, my sense of autonomy diminished, the less individuality I had, and therefore, the less I enjoyed the act of coding. In a board meeting, one company referred to me as "the secret weapon." Another dubbed me the "the bullet," both of these things implying the same truth: when assigned a project, I would dissect it, refactor any nonsense, and over-deliver under time, and under budget.

That's all great, but I didn't want that. The problems I had with this type of heads-down work were the questions I had no authority to ask, such as:

Why are we building this in the first place? Is it really worth this much budget, as opposed to a simpler and cheaper solution?

Does anybody honestly believe that this feature will resonate with users? Imagine yourself using this app, except it wasn't your app. Is there any point of building this feature other than a stakeholder's personal need to have a sense of ownership over something?

We have meetings every week about problem X. Why don't we consider building Y to solve this issue?

As I analyzed "what I wanted out of life," I began to notice other things happening around me. I was putting in 18+ hours a day of work attempting to save a final project for University, which happened to be a video game. Thanks to some administrative nightmare, 6 people of our 9-man team became virtually unreachable midway through the project (it's a long story). I found myself taking point and scheduling check-ins (standups?) with the remaining troops. Despite their limited coding experience, we found ways to play to our strengths. We had one man on audio and soundtrack, one guy on visuals, and me on... everything else.

I lost the better half of a year and a relationship to that project. It was miserable. Meanwhile, the other fully-staffed projects were doing fine; in fact, they were flourishing. It didn't matter that the other teams didn't deliver anything technically impressive, or in some cases, finished. The teams which did best were significantly rewarded for the idea they had, despite being virtually unchanged from day 1. What's more, those receiving the highest credit contributed nothing but the concept itself (typically stolen from a project at another university, mind you).

Nobody cared that I personally pushed the limits of web browsers at the time to create a multiplayer RPG. Nor should they, in retrospect: nobody had attempted to do this; thus, nobody had any barometer for the effort or complexity involved. That was Lesson 1: Nobody Who Matters Cares How Impressive Your Code Is.

Meanwhile, professors were euphorically celebrating projects they could understand: which were typically simple apps which leveraged social media somehow. Word on the street was that each of the "idea guys" got taken out for drinks in celebration of their genius. Lesson 2: Hard Work And Originality Does Not Equate to Success.

Our project got abysmal scores. Begrudgingly, we went along with an event to showcase all projects that year and set up a station where anybody could sit down and play. We had 4 computers running the app over a local network, and the crowd loved it. Despite being cast into a dark shadowy corner of the room, it turned out users knew what they wanted more than professors. Lesson 3: The World Has Too Much Clueless Leadership. If you're not careful, you could spend your entire life programming something that had no place in the world to begin with. 9/10 startups fail, which I think is a high success rate considering 9/1000 ideas I hear regularly are abysmal.

How I Became A Product Manager

I didn't become a Product Manager because I was transferred, or promoted as an intern, or failed as a developer. I became a Product Manager by searching for Product Manager jobs out of college, and I landed it.

Everything I had learned from that final year of University taught me so many things that lead to a single conclusion: I am not happy in my career unless I am:

Collaborating with intelligent people.

Always having a say in defining what it is being built.

Building something meaningful.

I became a Product Manager because I was born to be a Product Manager. I love to code, but there isn't a single job description that reads "code what you think is best for the company." In fact, if we were to translate most job descriptions, they'd probably be closer to "code the thing that will get the person above you a promotion." I couldn't bear to watch my hobby become something I hated, and I knew the world is filled with developers who live that reality daily. I wanted to help them.

I would challenge all organizations to ask PM candidates why they've chosen the path. If a candidate cannot articulate a purpose which is unselfish, or legitimately speaks to their interests, they should not be hired. End of story.

Transitioning to a technical lead role allows me to do some of the things I set out to accomplish as a PM, but perhaps not as much as I'd like. The notion of switching back feels uneasy: the world has far too many Product Managers as it stands, regardless of how mediocre they may be. And let us not forget the "walled garden" effect: PMs can only become PMs because they know PMs. Shitty PMs hire more shitty PMs, and so on. I can say this from my personal experience interviewing at shitty companies I had no intention of joining: shitty PMs hate me. Misery loves company.

If I truly want to stick to what I love, a Principal Engineering role or equivalent feels like the next logical step for somebody like me to take. I can only hope the world's Product Management Hyenas can stay off Google Calendar and Slack for long enough to not to kill hope in the people I hope to help before then.

March 20, 2019 at 11:12AM

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heartbattled-a · 6 years

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compiled list of headcanons for one Mr Sam Evans ! some have already been posted but have been tweaked in this post for clarification / better wording . ( template not mine ! )

SEXUALITY & AFFECTION .

Sam is 100% pansexual. There’s absolutely no doubt about it in my mind.

Those feelings were closeted for a very long time, pushed very deep down. Not because his family were homophobic (which they weren’t/aren’t) but because it was unacceptable in his old school. Sam went to an all boys school and there were very few gay people there and they were bullied insistently and physically / mentally / emotionally abused.

If Sam was experiencing feelings of attraction or arousal during his time at that school, he did a damn good job of hiding it. Pretending that it didn’t exist.

When Sam moves to McKinley, he begins to realise that being gay is okay. That being anything other than straight is okay. Kurt was his first example of that and then Blaine. They were definitely the two most important role models for the first few years at McKinley.

Even though Sam is incredibly accepting of other people’s sexualities & genders, it took a much longer time for Sam to come to terms with his own sexuality. Hence why he was always so skittish whenever asked about his sexuality, especially from Blaine.

Eventually --- canonically, around the end of Glee S4, Sam finally comes to terms with his sexuality. After a lot of confiding in his close friends (Blaine included) and a fair amount of time spent googling, Sam finally had a term for what he felt. Pansexual. Sam isn’t really a big fan of labels, never has been --- but it felt really good to have one in that moment.

He is absolutely shyer with boys than he is with girls. Boys make him twice as nervous as girls do because he has far less experience in dating boys or anything to do with boys in general.

That being said, Sam will do his absolute best to learn. To be better at it. Though he’s not afraid of being seen in public holding a boys’ hand. He does know what the world is like surrounding the LGBTQIA+ and he knows that people suck but he isn’t ashamed of who he is anymore. He isn’t ashamed to completely know who he is. So he’ll absolutely hold his partners hand in public, will kiss them in public too.

RELATIONSHIPS .

Any kind of romantic relationship makes Sam very, very, wary. He’s incredibly cautious & nervous about them and it takes a fair amount for Sam to even consider entering one after everything he’s been through with the McKinley girls.

Sam has a fair amount of abandonment issues, along with trust issues and some other baggage. To begin with, Sam is incredibly clingy and worried. He panics and overthinks, which leads to Sam convincing himself that he’s doing something wrong --- that he isn’t enough, that he deserves to be cheated on.

He would absolutely rather pine over someone that he likes as opposed to telling them straight to their face. Mostly because he’s terrified that the person will make fun of him for it or shun him because of the fact that his entire life story has been spread throughout McKinley high. (homeless, stripper, etc.)

It takes a long time for Sam to work his way out of the bad mental space regarding relationships because of how many times he’s been cheated on before. He will get out of it, it just takes a while for that to happen.

That being said, though, when Sam does enter a relationship --- he enters it completely. 110%. When Sam loves someone, he loves them hard and with everything he has. Sam Evans has a very, very, big heart and it shows when he’s in a relationship with someone. Hell, it shows in his friendships.

Even though Sam doesn’t have a lot of money, he will still do his absolute best to spoil his partner. Not having much money means that he needs to get creative with date ideas and anniversary/Christmas/birthday presents. He likes to think he does a pretty good job.

Sam is an incredibly loyal boyfriend. He is incredibly caring and very sweet, very considerate of his partners feelings. He is also very, very, sensitive. Proof of point: when he was kissed in canon by that photographer while he was dating Mercedes, he cried immediately afterwards because he felt so guilty even though he didn’t kiss her back and had no intention of kissing her back, either. He owned up to it immediately, too.

APPEARANCE ( trigger warning for eating disorder mentions ! )

Sam’s hands are very rough & calloused. Both from playing the guitar non stop as well as lifting weights every single day. Some people think that his hands are soft from first glance but they definitely are not. He has a lot of callouses along his palms.

Sam is tall. About six foot one. Around 140lbs or 10 stone. He’s very close to being underweight for his height. The reason being that Sam has an eating disorder. See more about that HERE, if you’d like.

At some point during Sam’s twenties, he realises that he has a problem (with the help of friends depending on the verse) and decides to seek help for it. It’s a lifelong problem that isn’t going to go away with a snap of his fingers, as much as he wishes it will but going to therapy does help along with a few other methods. But the problem will always be there and he will always have a very, very, complicated relationship with his food.

While he might look skinny / unhealthy, he is muscular. He works out pretty regularly (sometimes to the point of fatigue/dangerous levels) and it shows. He has minimal body fat because seeing any kind of body fat/rolls/any kind of sign that he’s fat or overweight (even if he isn’t) gives him really bad body dysmorphia.

Sam’s nail beds are pretty much ruined by the time he hits twenty one. The skin around his thumbs are pretty gross looking, too. He bites/picks at his nails and bites/picks at the skin by his fingernails, a tic & sign of his anxiety.

WORK, HOME & SCHOOL LIFE .

Sam has had quite a few jobs in his lifetime. Granted, they were all pretty short term & paid pretty abysmally but they were jobs nonetheless.

At one point while Sam was in the Glee Club, he also joined the swimming team for a while, as well as the football team (and had the quarterback position for a while). Not to mention the fact that he regularly volunteers at homeless shelters for no other reason than the fact that he can (although he somewhat knows what it’s like to lose the roof over your head). He also worked at Dairy Queen, was a night time pizza delivery boy and was also an exotic dancer.

He might look lazy, he might look spacey and distracted but nobody in the world can convince me that Sam Evans doesn’t work fucking hard. He was doing all of this to try and maintain his status at high school (re: popular kid) as well as bring in enough money to help out with the rent for the motel room, groceries each week & anything that his siblings might need (school books, shoes, shirts, etc).

Speaking of the motel room ... the motel room that Sam and his family stayed in wasn’t all that big. There was one double bed in the room, with a very small TV and a dresser. There was no indication as to whether or not there was a kitchen (I assume there would be, however small) or a bathroom (again, I assume there was - it was probably just very small). That motel room was bursting at the seems, given that it was intended to sleep two people and instead had FIVE in there. The double bed would have been for mom and dad and there was a small fold up bed to the side, which I assume would have been for the kids to sleep on in the head & tail position. Sam wouldn’t have let his parents or his siblings sleep on the floor, which left only him to sleep on it. All the while working, attending Glee club as well as other after school clubs & acting like everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t.

Sam absolutely does the same thing that Fiona (Gallagher - Shameless) does in regards to saving up money. He works as many side jobs as he can, preferably ones that are cash in hand & hire under 18s, then puts the funds in a pot and hides it away, makes sure to write down how much he earned that night and keep a tally so that he knows what they can afford for the week / month, in regards to bills and other household needs. He doesn’t buy things for himself, he can’t afford luxuries even on a good payment - everything he earns goes towards his siblings care, his parents and the house/motel. He always runs himself down and stretches himself as thin as possible to make ends meet and to make sure that his family have food on the table because he’s the only one of the three kids that can legally work.

PERSONALITY .

Sam is insanely loyal. To the point where, if he trusted you, he would follow you into battle (or an equally dangerous situation with little to no care about himself). He is an insanely loyal friend, will always protect them and be by their side & defend them when they’re not there, to bullies and the likes.

Unconventionally smart. Doesn’t really understand much about the real world & its details but can name all of the hobbits in Lord of the Rings as well as nearly every character / spell from Harry Potter. Likes to use fictional situations and apply them to the real world and nine times out of ten, it works.

Cares far too much. Has an incredibly big heart. Always working on himself, always working to become a better person with better ideals. Very open minded and accepting of everyone in the world. Is full of tons of love, even after all that he’s been through. Hasn’t let the world corrupt him too much just yet.

Funny. Likes to make jokes, likes to do dumb impressions that he knows are cheesy or a little bit stupid so long as it makes his friends smile because that’s all he wants to do, make his friends laugh, smile & forget their problems for a minute or two.

Not much of a talker but a very good listener. Will listen to your problems and try his best to offer up some kind of solution or advice. Very empathetic, will try and put himself in his friends’ shoes to understand their problems if possible.

Compassionate. Full of excitement. Loves to be around his friends. It gives him energy. Isn’t so much a fan of strangers, though.

HOBBIES .

Sam is really really good at Macaroni Art (as seen in Guilty Pleasures).

He is also pretty damn good at playing the guitar. Nine times out of ten, he only has to hear a song play once or twice before he can play it almost perfectly on the guitar.

Not to mention the fact that Sam is a big ass nerd. He loves playing Video Games. No matter the console. Most of the time, he’d play on his friends consoles when he was invited over for dinner or for a sleepover. His family couldn’t afford a console of their own for a long time.

Pokémon is one of his all time favourite games to play, along with Mario Kart, Super Mario Brothers & The Sims. He likes a lot of games but those are definitely his top contenders.

He likes playing board games, too. Like snakes & ladders, monopoly & checkers.

#( HC ) sam #long post /#hoo boy

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vixen-visuals-blog · 7 years

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Tour Blog # 4- Portland, OR and San Francisco, CA

After driving for 8+ hours for multiple days in a row, the three hours from Seattle to Portland felt like nothing—we even got to the venue early. As soon as we got there, however, I realized I’d left my camera battery and charger at Shanan’s friend’s house in Seattle. I got into contact with our host, and it’s on it’s way to Cory’s parent’s house in California, but I had to inconvenience Spencer (huge shout out to him for being so nice about it) and it was money I didn’t want to spend. It’s a bummer, but I have one charger and two batteries, so I’m not hosed by any means.

I try to keep these blogs as honest as possible, so I’m going to be real and tell you that the show at The White Eagle was pretty rough. The bar was sparsely populated, and although the people who were there were engaged, TNS and Jessica were essentially just interested in getting in, playing their sets, and getting out. It’s hard to be optimistic when you spend more on gas than you get paid.

To top off a less-than-perfect night, we realized we were quickly losing tire pressure as we drove to the place we were crashing. When we stopped at a gas station, we found a screw in our tire that we had apparently run over. Cory had hitched a ride with our host, so they turned around, and picked Jess, Jeff, and me up to go home, while Michael and Shanan dealt with the van.

We also stopped for some Jack-In-the-Box tacos, which has become a pretty self-destructive running joke.

Michael and Shanan ended up filling the tire up twice and driving it back to our host’s house, and we had to call a tow truck to get a new tire the next morning. While the guys do account for these kind of things, they make it really hard to stay on budget, especially when our merch sales have been abysmal (don’t worry, it only gets worse from here).

Once we got the van back, we left Salem and headed back to Portland. We wanted to try a recommended brunch place, but we knew there would be a line, so we stopped at a fantastic donut place to hold us over. Both the donuts and the brunch were so good that I cried.

After we ate, the guys just wanted to chill out or nap in the van, but Jessica and I wanted to explore Portland a little more. We took a bus to a different part of town, where we visited a famous, massive bookstore and a coffee shop, along with running a few errands.

Having JLamb along is really a blessing. She adds a rad new dynamic to the group, and she totally gets the struggle of being a young, female creative on the road, and all the baggage that comes with it.

We met the boys at the venue, which was the first real SoFar show of the tour. The space was unlike anything I’ve ever shot for them—the “stage” was a garden, with the yard as the seating area. The boys seemed to like it, and were able to bring it into their stage banter pretty effectively. While it wasn’t the first time I’ve shot through plants, it’s the first time I shot through a tomato cage and was concerned about stepping on basil leaves.

Nevertheless, I was really happy with the photos from Portland. I’ve felt like my photos have been mediocre for the past two or three shows, so it’s putting a spring in my step to get some solid ones. This one is probably my favorite from the tour so far:

We packed up and went back to Salem, where we were staying. After devouring a plate of cannolis that were so good that I cried, we crashed hard, knowing we were going to have to be out the door at 7:30.

Which was easier said than done, considering we weren’t out the door until around 8. Oops.

The drive to San Francisco was a long one, and I slept for a healthy portion of it. By the time we got into the city, we had to immediately load in for the SoFar show and scarcely had time for dinner. We managed to scam some Chinese food from our hosts, Couchsurfing (which is a super cool company you should totally check out).

There was a miscommunication about Jessica being on the bill, so we managed to figure out a way to divide our set and share with her—it was different and harder for me to shoot, but people seemed to really like it.

As soon as the set was over, however, we received news that no musician ever wants. This is the blog post I never wanted to write.

Shanan ran into the venue as we were working merch and told us the van had been broken into. Thieves had smashed the passenger side window and taken all the backpacks they could reach. We later learned a lawyer working late in his office heard the glass break, took a few photos, and scared them off, and thank God he did.

Thinking my zoom lens (which was the only thing I had in the van other than my duffel bag) had been lost, I burst into sobs and ran outside, which I realized in hindsight was probably very unhelpful to the situation. By some miracle (or a San Francisco lawyer who wasn’t afraid to yell), the lens was still there. The backpacks of the other five, however, were gone. The only reason I’m able to give you this tour blog is because I had my backpack inside the venue with me.

During the next set, I got a call from two wonderful women who found our bags. The laptops and a wallet were long gone of course, but they went out of their way to deliver our stuff to the venue, so we got some of the important things—medications, notebooks, and Jessica’s favorite flannel—back. We owe so much to these ladies, and I wish we could’ve given them more than just a thank you.

With that act of kindness saving our butts, I was shocked to go back into the venue and hear our SoFar MC announcing to the audience what had happened, and passing around a bucket to collect donations. You could hear the wind being sucked out of the room as soon as she said it—the joyously good time of hearing music intimately ruined by a few shitty people. Seeing everyone pitch in so generously to help us was mind-blowing, and brought tears to my eyes. We ended up collecting enough money to fix the window, plus some extra.

With a bottle of tequila donated from the venue to ease our pain, and a police report filed, we had no choice but to pack it up and head to where we were crashing. Our hosts for the night helped us put cardboard over our window and we hit the hay.

I’d love for these tour blogs to just be a fun chronicle of my adventures, zipping across the west coast without a care in the world, but tour just isn’t like that. There are highs, and there are lows, and this one knocked the breath out of me. We’re all heartbroken. The incident could have been a million times worse—we had music gear in the back, and more stuff even in the cab that they could have grabbed. We’re trying to stay optimistic on that front, but it’s hard to do when you feel so violated.

Something that’s helped to ease the pain is the outpouring of support from strangers and fans alike. We are so grateful for all the kind words and offers to help.

To those of you who are asking what you can do to help: To the best of my knowledge, no kind of GoFundMe has been started, and we don't plan on starting one. The best thing you can do is just to support the band. Look at our tour dates (thenewschematics.com/tour) and encourage your friends, family, acquaintances, blood enemies, and friends of friends of friends to head out to the shows, buy merch, and spread the word. This is certainly a nightmare for all of us, but we will recover, and your support in this decidedly more difficult journey means the world to us.

I hope we have happier trails ahead of us, and that karma will come back to those who did this. On that depressing note, stay tuned!

youtube

#tourblogs #the new schematics #your year tour

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bad0mens · 7 years

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Title: The Forest of Memories 10/14

Pairings: Fluri, Ristelle (Juristelle if you look hard enough)

Warnings: Historical-ish Fantasy AU garbage/Robin Hood AU

Authors’ Notes: I swear I’m going to finish posting this.

Disclaimer: Tales of Vesperia is the property of Namco Bandai.

"I got this close to him, Yuri! He almost had me!" Karol said, wavering somewhere between fear and awe.

"I told you not to worry about him," Yuri replied, paying as much attention to the rhythmic scrape of his knife over the dark whetstone as he did to Karol. "He's harmless."

"What makes you say that?"

Answering that question was harder than it should have been. "He hasn't caught us yet. He hasn't even gotten close." If only they knew just how close Flynn really had gotten.

"Well, there was that one time."

"Other than that. He doesn't even suspect."

"If you say so...." Karol returned to kindling the fire, breaking up twigs to feed its flame. He poked at the fish skewered above it. "Are they ready to eat yet?"

"Once the eyes are cloudy."

"Oh...."

Darkness had fallen and the moonlight left faint traces of white in the canopy above, almost completely obscured by dense foliage. It was time. He fitted his knife back into its leather sheath and stood. Repede rose from his spot beside the fire, a stretch in his step.

"You leaving?"

"Yeah. Estelle's probably expecting me."

"Okay. Be careful."

He leaned down and ruffled the boy's hair. "I'll be back soon. Tell Judy and Raven not to wait up for me."

"You know they will anyway."

They always did.

He lifted his hood and he and Repede took to the darkened forest. Over fallen trees and through thickets and vines, they traversed. What paths were not lit by moonlight could still be seen once his eyes adjusted to the darkness. They had taken this path dozen of times before, but were careful not to clear the old hunting paths too much. They didn't need anyone to become suspicious. It was a long walk, but it never felt as long as it was. He knew the forest too well.

They came out through the brush beside the castle wall. With a signal, Repede ducked under a nearby bush and would wait there until Yuri was done with his visit.

Uncoiling a length of rope with a slip knot at one end, he swung it up as hard as he could and caught hold of an iron lantern peg embedded in the stone wall. Just like always, he tightened the rope and tested the strength of the peg before starting his vertical climb. In a few moments' time, he was up the rope and scaling the roof with equal ease.

He peered down onto the balcony before descending. It was vacant, and the lantern was hanging there, his signal that she was waiting for him. With a cat's footfall, he descended onto the stone, crouching by the curtains.

For a long moment, there was silence. She might have fallen asleep waiting for him. He waited still for a sound of her presence.

Softly, a humming reached his ears, its melody one familiar in the years he had known her. He stood and slowly swept aside the curtains to enter. She wasn't in her normal spot waiting for him. She was probably off in a chair reading, so he took another step inward and whispered her name.

"Estelle?"

The humming ceased and there was only silence.

"Come on, now. Where are you?" He batted at the curtain that separated her sleeping chamber from the sitting room, but drew back, skin prickling with goosebumps as it was parted by someone else's hands. It wasn't Estelle.

The face and copper hair belonged to another woman, her purple eyes alight with fear and fury. He had only a second to discern that it must have been Estelle's lady-in-waiting before he took a step back, preparing for her to scream for the guards. But she didn't call the guards. The steel in her hand spoke for her.

"Hey, wait!"

"Get out!" She cried, and plunged the blade forward.

Cold steel slipped into his abdomen, piercing hot flesh. She yanked the blade back, advancing on him, but all he could feel was warmth spilling out of the wound, soaking his shirt as he fumbled through the curtains and slammed into the stone balcony. The breath was forced from his lungs and he fought to scramble to his feet and to the rope to take him to the roof. She was nearly on him, screaming finally for the guards, but the sound was drowned out by the pounding of blood in his ears and the feel of the slick heat in his hand as he tried to staunch the flow.

It took all his strength to ascend to the roof. In the courtyard below, guards were gathering, hearing something amiss but unsure yet what. Yuri couldn't wait for them to find out. He scrabbled over the roof tiles, his blood spotting across them as he found the peak and started to descend to the lantern peg where his hope for escape was.

Although he gripped the rope tight, his fingers were weak and slick with blood and sweat. He had exerted too much energy trying to get to this point, but stopping now was a death sentence. Unsteadily, his feet tried to keep against the wall, but the weakness of his hands couldn't keep him aloft.

He barely realized when he slipped, but his rough landing, crashing into a bush, sharpened his attention. He struggled to free himself from broken branches and thorns. The bleeding hadn't slowed and his head was getting heavier with every attempt at movement.

Managing a whistle, he called Repede to his side. "Go. Get help," he said, words coming out with labored breaths.

Repede whined and licked him and looked back at him only once before dashing off. His vision was going watery and black and his limbs cold. He had to hold on.

After the idea came to him, he thought often about just how bad of one it was. He was still going through with it, if only to fulfill some misguided sense of curiosity. Yuri had been as tight lipped as ever at their last meeting. Perhaps if he could appeal to Estellise, to let her know what was going on, she would fill him in on the details. On one hand, it was worth a shot. Maybe she could convince Yuri where Flynn could not. On the other hand, she might be completely unwilling to speak and leave him with no more information than he had at this moment. He couldn't just leave this alone though.

The night ride was warm and an all too painful reminder of his last warm evening out and how poorly that encounter had gone. With luck, this would be less infuriating and abysmal than that had been, and hopefully, she wouldn't begrudge him an audience at this late hour.

The moon was high as he rode, its light bright on the dirt road, and it cut over the hills and up to the castle, leaving the grey stone awash in white. Although a strange urgency had set in his limbs, he let the horse choose her pace through the darkness.

As they neared the castle, he could hear noise spilling out of the gate, people shouting, but that wasn't the only noise. Well before he could reach the gates, he was intercepted by the sudden appearance of a dog. Startled, his horse reared back, but he steadied her. It took him only seconds to recognize the massive canine that Yuri had introduced him to.

"Repede?"

Repede barked at him and dashed away. He stopped mid-stride and barked back at him, as if beckoning to follow, so Flynn did.

Up the hill and around the edge of the castle, he steered his horse to a walk as he saw Repede stop, waiting by a crumpled bush. He barked to hasten his dismount, but did not move from the bush. Flynn quickly found out why he had been led there, and sank to his knees beside Yuri.

"Yuri!" He shook him slightly.

His breath hitched in his throat, and his charcoal eyes opened only a sliver. "F-Flynn?"

"What happened to you?" he asked, but his hands were already searching for the injury. Blood spotted his gloves when he checked at Yuri's ribs. He needed something to stop the bleeding, and even more so, a place to seek help. Tearing the sleeve of his tunic away, he pressed it into the wound and tore at the bush to pull Yuri free. "Hang on."

"Estelle's... lady-in... fuck-!" he gasped as Flynn yanked him free as gently as possible, letting him lay limp against his chest. "Guess I surprised her. She's... pretty sharp with a knife."

"Don't talk. Just stay with me."

Flynn pushed Yuri into the saddle, letting him lean against the horse's neck until he mounted and was able to cradle him. The problem now was where to go. The village doctor would be asleep and Yuri's life could not be recklessly placed in the hands of those they could not trust. The people of the village may have respected him by and large, but there would still be those whose alliances could be swayed by a heavy coin purse. Repede seemed eager to offer a solution however, and as before, he barked for Flynn to follow him.

Across the darkened meadows they rode, along a short, overgrown path through the woods, and Flynn drove his horse ever harder, head full of worry and chest full of pain. In his arms, Yuri was muttering, the fingers of one hand gripping the fold of fabric above his belt.

"You shouldn't talk. You need to keep your strength up."

"It's not what you think... between me and Estelle."

He wanted to hush his friend again, but that thread of curiosity had his attention. "What do you mean?"

"She is my sister."

"But that means...."

"Yeah." He looked up at him, eyes a little glassy from the pain. He continued, each breath labored and shuddering. "While I was looking for work... I made it back to the... Heurassein manor." He chuckled a little, a sorry sound cut off by a wet cough. "You can imagine... how well that went.

"My mother wasn't... the lord's wife, but... a simple scullery maid. I remember sitting there... while she worked in the kitchens. She always smelled of cooking. And I could never forget the... the look in her dark eyes... when she looked at me. I hadn't known what... it was then, but now... I know it was pity. But she was gone when I got back."

Flynn had never know the particulars regarding Yuri's parentage. All Yuri ever managed to tell him was that his father was a womanizer who didn't love his mother. The idea of him being a bastard child, to a nobleman no less, had never cross his mind. It seemed so obvious now.

"I guess even as kids... I kept a lot of things from you."

He could think of nothing to say, no words of comfort to offer, so he only cradled Yuri closer, and kissed the top of his head. It wasn't enough, but words wouldn't be either.

To Flynn's surprise, Repede led them to Nottingham Abbey. Yuri would be safe here. He didn't bother to tether his horse as he dismounted, Yuri still in his arms.

"Abbess!" he cried out, searching for any trace of her presence before repeating himself.

In the window of the hovel opposite the chapel, a candle lit, and her tired face appeared. She rubbed her eyes for a second, seemed to grow startled, and bustled out of the shack and toward them.

"What in heaven's name--"

"Please, Abbess. This man is badly injured. Please, some medical attention and a little sanctuary."

"Yuri!" She held the candle aloft and finally got a good look at the face of the ever weakening bundle in Flynn's arms.

"You know him?"

She did not answer, but bade him to follow her back to the thatched roof shack. She shut the door behind them and dug through the contents of a shelf as she barked orders.

"Put him on the bed, and get that shirt off of him."

Dutifully, Flynn did as he was told, propping Yuri up in the bed only long enough to remove the jerkin and blood soaked shirt that he wore. The dark green fabric had hidden the extent of the bleeding from his eyes in the dark of the night, but in flickering yellow candlelight, the vast stain was painfully obvious and the wound even worse. It was a thin cut, just above Yuri's hip, probably deep. He laid Yuri, gasping, down and pressed the clean remains of the shirt against the wound.

"Yuri, stay with me."

He swore between clenched teeth. At least he was somewhat conscious.

The abbess returned with a box, which opened to reveal a simple medical kit. She shooed him out of the way and set about cleaning the wound. The bleeding had thankfully slowed by this time, but that hardly meant Yuri was going to be okay.

"What happened to you, you idiot?"

"I found out--ah-- that Estelle's maid--fuck," he hissed. "Snuck in at a bad time."

Yuri's knuckles were white as his face against the linen sheets and he hissed and gasped with nearly every breath. When Flynn took one hand in his own, he held it just as tight, squeezing to alleviate even the tiniest bit of pain.

Needle glistening in the candlelight, Rita made slow, careful stitches to close the wound. Flynn felt every prick, every gasp and groan and sigh Yuri muttered between stitches. His fingers trembled in Flynn's hand, holding on for his life. He felt it all as if it was his own pain because he could do nothing else.

She tied the knot closed and cleaned the wound again. A heavy layer of sharply scented, greasy unguent and a layer of muslin bandages around his waist would aid the healing process. Once laid back and allowed to remain still, Yuri calmed, his shaking and noises easing. His hand grew limp in Flynn's as he drifted out of consciousness.

"He should be fine," Rita said, boxing up her small surgeon case. She didn't look at Flynn as she crossed the room and tucked it back onto the shelf. "I won't ask about what sort of relationship you have with him, but I still find it hard to believe that the Sheriff shows up with... well, him."

"Robin Hood."

"So you do know."

"We're childhood friends."

She shook her head as if in disbelief. "No matter. Now that he's safe, you should go."

He didn't want to go, but Rita made it clear that she wasn't going to tolerate his presence much further. One last time, he stood over Yuri, and smoothed the sweat-plastered hair back from his forehead. Although his heart felt the tiniest bit of relief over the situation, he knew that sleep would not come easily tonight.

Flynn pulled back and thanked Rita again. He left Repede with her and took off for home. Atop his horse, he felt the distance between them grow once more, a little less cold this time.

#tales of bad0mens is a terrible writer #tales of vesperia #fluri #the forest of memories

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