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hearts444innie · 4 months

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Just ask!

Lee: I.N

Ler: Chan

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Yuhhh I’m back!! I was supposed to post this on the first of June but I got a bit lazy (╥_╥)

Uhh anyways here it is eat up babies!! ٩(ᐛ)و

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Jeongin was in a problem….now jeongin had a love/hate relationship with skin contact but when it came to tickling it was rather…confusing to him

Did he love or hate it?, a while ago he was tickled by Han and when thinking back on it he had a feeling..he couldn’t really describe it it was like a need..he craved it so much.

“Crap…I need to pull myself together I can’t be thinking like this”

He tried to distract himself with anything else but he couldn’t get rid of this feeling so he did research a bit on it but really didn’t get much information on it until he thought of something….maybe his lovely hyung leader would know?, yet he was scared and a bit shy to even talk to him about this..

Morning passes and jeongin still couldn’t get the guts to talk to Chan about this feeling and while he was lost in his own thoughts Chan was one to notice how off innie was all day and notice at dinner that the young boy was zoning out and Chans father skills kicked in knowing he had to check up on him

Jeongin was laying on his bed everytime he thought about tickling it really flustered him he just couldn’t talk to anyone about it, heck he couldn’t say the word either after a while he got up and slowly made his way to the leaders room filled with nervousness.

He took a deep breath before entering.

“H-hyung..i-can I talk to you about something?” Chan sat there as if he had expected the boy to come in “so do I innie come sit next to me” jeongin was baffled and sat with him.

“I’ll save you the trouble for this sweetie I already know” jeongin stayed quiet processing what just left the leaders mouth “w-what?? How-??”

“Simple I looked at your phone and saw you were trying to do research” the fox boy sat there face filled with redness

“It’s cute tho that the word tickle can get you all like this~”

Jeongin slowly got up face getting more red if possible “y-you know im tired so maybe we can save this for another day haha-“ Chan cuts the boy off “nope I’m helping my baby~” jeongin booked it to the door now regretting having this talk “oh no you don’t Cutie” Chan lifted the boy up wrapping his arms around his legs and taking him back to the bed “now let me help you innie”

“H-hyung-“

“Shush sweetheart you know you want me to help you so let me do so okay?”

The boy nodded shyly letting him do so, Chan started off light and soft softly tickling his sides as jeongin still protested a bit

“Hyuhung pleahease stohohp” Chan continued to tease his sides as jeongin started fake protesting this and Chan could tell he was acting like he didn’t want this.

“Fine I’ll go harder than” he dug into his ribs “STOHOP TEASING MEHEHE HAHAHAHA!”

“Why didn’t you come to me about this cutie?~”

“STAHAHP YOUR MEAN!”

“Oh ok I’ll stop” Chan stopped keeping his fingers above the boys belly and jeongin started whining not meaning for it to actually stop “hyungggg”

“What? Little one you said for me to stop or were you lying hm~?” He said as he wiggled his fingers at him

“Stoppp teasing me k-keep going…please” I.n said quietly getting shy all over again

“Awww cute! Baby bread wants this so adorable~” Chan went back to tickling the cutie

“EEK! HYUHAHANG NAHAHAHAHAH PLEASE”

“My little fox is too ticklish can he not handle this~”

Chan tickled each rib again but slowly making the boy go insane “NOHOHOH! STOP AHAHAHAHAH-!”

Chan gave no mercy and continued for a while longer until he saw the boy getting weak so he decided to finish off.

“Get ready sweetie~” Chan blew raspberries on his neck nonstop.

“NOHOHOHOHO-NO AHHH! NOHOT THEHRE PLEHEHEASE CHANNIE HYUNG AHAHAH-!!”

“One more place foxy~” he blew a raspberry on his bellybutton “NO NAHAHAHAH AHH! STOPP” the boy squirmed violently trying to make it stop

“Alright I’m done!” Chan said smiling at the adorable boy who was worn out “haah I hate you-“

“Come here cutie let’s go get ice cream as a reward for taking this”

So they went for ice cream and jeongin got a sugar rush in the end of it 💀

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This one really burnt my brain I was thinking so hard on this one when writing it but yayyy liked how this one turned out (•̀ᴗ•́)و

#kpop tickle #stray kids tickle #hearts444innie #lee jeongin #ler!chan #stray kids

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handsinterlaced · 2 months

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hi this is gonna be my niall experience as I just need to get it out and I’m sure irls are SICK of me talking abt it <3 pls enjoy or ignore up to u

proof being delusional works!

june 27: I fly my ass out to toronto!!! and at this point I’m just giggling w a friend joking around what if I meet Niall

june 28: today is niall’s 1st show in Toronto hehe

I was eating lunch at a random restaurant I stopped by on queen st and I was soooo excited / nervous I couldn’t eat! basically forcing myself to eat so I don’t die at the concert fjdjskks but yeah after like half an hour of picking my food I start to feel unsettled.. and a lil bit uneasy! idk it was suchhhhh a weird feeling but u always gotta listen to ur gut!!

U GOTTA LISTEN TO UR GUT!!

DONT IGNORE IT

it was sooo strange like at that moment I knew I had to leave the restaurant RIGHT NOW and so I did! I was like half an hour walk away from my air bnb so I’m like that’s fine I’ll just walk back & still have plenty of time before the show to get ready and stuff! there were so many different ways to walk back. I could’ve crossed the street earlier or turned the corner sooner but the path I chose led me right to Niall 😭😭 I wasn’t even looking for him!!! but I was waiting for the crosswalk… look up and who do I see? NIALL FUCKING HORAN RIGHT THERE

- ngl tho niall in a cap and sunglasses is such a great disguise FJKSKAKA I would not have recognized him if tour manager wasn’t with him! shoutout to jstir (I met him when I was like 13 when he was working for Cody simpson and taking everyone’s m&g photos fjdjskks that man’s face is engraved in my mind so I was able to recognize him pretty quick!) like who knew my 13 year old phase would come back 10 years later and help me out !!!

anyways so Niall is across the street and I’m just fighting w myself debating if I should go up to him or not 😭😭 the saying never meet ur heroes is kinda true JDKDKAKA it changes u & all the expectations u have! Ultimately I figured that this was my 1 chance to say something so I just went for it. If I didn’t I’d probably regret it for the rest of my life!

I just know my voice was shaky and I was super nervous but niall was so sweet and patient <3 like I felt so bad just going up to him 😭😭 hes just out and about… trying to be incognito & enjoy some free time FJSKKA like I am quite aware but when else could this happen u feel 🥲 anyways here is the convo from what I remember bc I blacked out (as u do when u meet ur fave)

me: hi Niall!! just wanted to say hi and let you know how excited I am to see you perform tonight and tomorrow <3

niall: hi how are you! oh you’re going to both shows? is that right? we’re actually headed to the venue now

me: oh! If that’s the case I don’t wanna keep you guys. Would it be alright if we took a photo?

niall: yes of course!

the photos (cropped myself out bc Toronto humidity is my enemy & I was a sweaty mess from walking back to the air bnb)

and then I just say thank u so much! see u at the show hahaha and SPRINT OFFFFJFKSKAK like I ran so fast bc I needed to get away and scream 😭😭

mind u I be carrying my leftovers the entire time JFKSKAK SO FUNNY

I DIDNT EVEN INTRODUCE MYSELF! WISH I TOLD HIM I FLEW MY ASS OUT! THAT HE NEEDS TO TOUR MORE CITIES IN CANADA! TO PUT NEW ANGEL ON THE SETLIST!! so much I wish I said but again thankful they were on the way to the venue so I was forced to keep it short so I didn’t continue to yap and embarrass myself further. it could’ve been so much worse! just gotta remind myself that.

sat in the air bnb for like 2 hours in silence trying to process what happened fjdjskks would’ve been longer but I had to get to the show! anyways I was like 15 rows back on the floor and had the best time <3

june 29: Toronto night 2!!!

I’m sat 2nd row floor… right next to the barricade and I’m so close I know that niall can see me 😭😭😭 idk if it’s the delusion but I keep making eye contact with niall and he keeps looking at me! probs thinking oh is it that weirdo from the street yesterday 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 LMFAO but U TELL ME!! IS IT DELUSION BC I THINK I GOT PROOF RIGHT HERE

felt too perceived by him tbh JDKKA needed to run and hide! like eye contact was crazy djdjjsjs

OKAY THAT IS ALL FOR NOW I THINK! if u made it this far I am so amazed ty for reading the rambles <3

#niall horan #niall #the show live on tour #tslot

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varinastix · 1 year

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I’ve got a couple of questions, so I apologise in advance:

1. Do you think that K would ever consider going back to city? She kinda seemed like she outgrown them (not the people) but the way they play football. I do think her potential was wasted as she didn’t exactly get the recognition for how good she was until the euros.

2. Would you say K seems different recently? (Not talking about the Ona/Lucy situation) I’ve seen people say that she seems like she’d rather be doing anything but playing football. I don’t really get why they think this, but I’ve seen a lot. Maybe they’ve seen something I haven’t?

3. Since K has joined Barca people keep saying once Alexia is fully fit, the midfield will be Alexia, Aitana and Patri again. If this occurs and K gets benched for all the big matches do you think K will leave? I can’t see her sitting on the bench no matter how much she loves the club. I think Alexia will get played as a false nine, hence why they keep trying her there and leave the midfield as Aitana, Patri and K. But what are your thoughts?

4. Ona/Lucy seem like a sweet couple, I wouldn’t say they’re my favourite because I don’t care enough if they’re together or not. But on the topic of L and K, did they just carry on sharing shoes after they break up?🤣 In march - June they both wore the same shoes a couple of times at different times. And sunglasses, but since K always ended up wearing them in the end, I’m guessing they belonged to K?😭

5. Who your favourite friendship between K and people at Barca/England?

Happy to chat about these. I'll go question by question.

I think there is a high likelihood of Keira going back to City after she has maybe played for Barca a couple more years, and possibly another European team. I can see her playing in the Bundesliga, especially at Bayern. But my gut tells me K will retire at City, especially once GT leaves. I don't think many of his players, including K liked him. I also see her coming back as Captain, as she deserves, and finishing her career there.

2. Think people who think she looks like she'd rather be doing anything but play football are projecting a bit there. To me Keira looks even more dedicated to bettering herself as a player, becoming more aggressive, more intelligent. I think what people often get wrong about Keira are two things: She is a very calm person and player, so often looks like she is disinterested and not intense about something, but her football IQ is massive and she knows how to play simply yet brilliantly. People don't notice how serious she is about the game because she makes it look effortless. The second thing is that she is the type of person who is hard to read. I think she like to stay very stoic, which I like about her, but that makes it tricky for people to tell what she's thinking, so they project their own feelings on to her.

3. I would be very surprised if Keira is frequently benched. She is the heartbeat of any team she plays on and keeps the tempo. Alexia is still not the Alexia of old. But that said, I think Jona plans to play her as a false 9. Barca don't have too many strikers who can start regularly and I think they plan to slot Alexia into that kind of position. Imagine, Aitana, Patri, Keira, and Alexia all lined up in that midfield. I wouldn't worry about Keira's place at all. If you know football, you know how important she is.

4. I don't have much of an opinion on Ona and Lucy, expect that I hope they are both very happy. I also think these relationships are in their infancy and it's too soon to start thinking of any of them as possible long term and serious things. I do think Keira and Lucy were sharing quite a bit of their clothing until recently, because their relationships are new too. If you notice that lately they've been sharing less. It's very hard to fall out of old habits. Also, who is to say good friends still can't share? They all strike me as mature and settled people who don't cause dramatics.

5. Ahh, my fave friendship at England will surprise you. Obviously G and Leah are her besties. But I love the way Rachel Daly talks about Keira and how she feels about her. It seems she's very protective of K and loving towards her, so that's my absolute favourite. And with Barca, well it has to be with Pina. I love the fact that neither of them understands the other one yet they're always hugging each other and laughing together. It's the cutest thing to see. But Keira strikes me as such a joyful and pleasant personality that she can be friends with just about anyone.

#keira walsh #woso #women's football #barca femeni #arsenal #lionesses #georgia stanway #leah williamson #claudia pina #rachel daly

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slowthinkingreader · 9 days

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The Sword of the Lictor - Gene Wolfe

(Started June 7th, 2024, finished July 15th, 2024)

Wow I really took my time finishing this review. But I have my reasons!! ONE: my writing got deleted twice and I gave up for a bit, I was so sad, and TWO: these books get really fucking good a few chapters in, and honestly? I've struggled to put the books down. I've basically had to force myself to finish this review right now, much later, before I can already finish the fourth book. It gets good! It gets really good! In fact, I have to start by saying that this is by far the best these books have read so far. Without spoiling anything about my next review, I think Sword of the Lictor will already be the highest point in the series for me.

There's a part in the book, a little after Severian escapes from Thrax, where the story really picks up the pace, and then it never really seems to want to slow down. It stops feeling so much like a semi-distant recollection by the author of story, and we enter into a survival-horror scene. There's an immediacy and sense of detail—starting with the descriptions in the mountains— that hasn't been present in these books before. Several times between readings of this book, whilst I was cooking, or doing dishes, or driving, whatever, I found myself running back to certain phrases and impressions from these chapters that felt so vivid to me that I struggled to think about anything else. You know when you're just really into something and even when you're hanging with your best friends you just want to tell them to chill out for a bit so you can read? That's what I felt. The most excited I've been to turn pages in a loooong time.

Some key events that really stuck out, and I'm serious about spoilers now, starting with: LITTLE SEVERIAN!!!!!! I can't explain well enough how delighted I was with every single scene in which the two Severians were hanging out together. It's just so good. Getting to see (big) Severian, both socially inept and an asshole, genuinely try to take care of a little kid, is some of the most comedic shit I've ever read. And some of the cutest. When he's just carrying him around all the time like a little baby, because (big) Severian is so massive? When he's reading a little bedtime story to him? These sections were literally chemically engineered to have me giggling and kicking my feet the whole time. I was going to bed with a smile on my face. And you know what, when chapter 24 rolled around I genuinely don't know why I didn't expect That, it's truly so obvious, but I didn't expect That, and it made me scream out loud in real life like someone had killed my real life son. I swear to god. Everything before that makes it even more gut-wrenching. The like dilemma of whether or not to enter into a fight with the alzabo or the... weird lobotomized humanimals... ohhhhh... and AGIA?

So happy to have Agia back. She's the best. I love her. There's not enough of Agia honestly. I kind of wish she would appear with the same frequency of Team Rocket, she just improves every scene so much. And you know what, Severian SHOULD be shamed and mocked and threatened with knives by women more often. It's good for him and for me, who enjoys seeing him suffer. She's ALMOST as good of an antagonist as Typhon. He didn't have enough pages where I feel like I can reasonably talk about him too much, but man, I really wish he got more screentime. I'm imagining a beautiful alternate universe in which he and Agia return from time to time to try and kill Severian in increasingly cartoonish and violent ways.

What else. The standoff with Baldanders...... where do I start. Wait. I know. When Baldanders descends from the heavens with his anti-gravity belt, like a beautiful massive angel. I'm shaking my head and smiling as I recall the scene. Gene Wolfe you get me in ways nobody else does.

And then, when Terminus Est breaks— that's where I honestly felt these books were going to end. Because what an ending. I completely, briefly forgot that Severian is supposed to become the autarch at some point. By that scene I really could have let the series stop. It's that good!!! No marks!!

Honestly: 8/10. Favorite book in the series so far. I desperately want everyone to go read these books right now.

#the book of the new sun #the sword of the lictor #gene wolfe #bookreviewtag

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josiebelladonna · 1 year

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billie eilish syndrome: term i invented last night, used to describe someone who is so obsessed with being “real” and “authentic” that it actually comes across as fake. hard to spot if untrained, as they’ll often use words like “depression” and “anxiety”, but the key is to watch their behavior closely. you know someone has it when you see them and you get the weirdest feeling in your gut, like there’s just something “off” or too good to be true about them and part of you wants to fuck around and find out the truth

notable offenders: the namer, billie eilish. too many things about her either don’t add up or don’t make any sense, namely “follow me for my music and not the way i look” and yet here she is, often showing her tits and there’s this nagging feeling that you just got short-changed somewhere along the way; and “i write all my songs”, but compare her lyrics to the great writers of yesterday and even today like lana del rey and phoebe bridgers, they feel very one-note, overly obvious, and even lame, like imagine some poet somewhere getting overlooked by the attention they deserve over a pathetic line like “i don’t relate to you.” (if i was them, i’d be pissed). just because you write your own lyrics doesn’t mean they’re good—or that you yourself wrote your lyrics, finneas is always credited and songwriters often go unnoticed in the credits. for all we know, there may be 10 other people behind her in penning her songs. industry plants are like that.

another example is gipsygeek (alex skolnick’s… girlfriend? wife? who the fuck knows and i don’t really care, either). i stumbled on her blog last fall and everything about it just gave me this pit in my stomach, because, just like billie, nothing about her adds up. claiming to be in love with him and yet it’s just far too difficult to even talk about him out in the open. at this point, she’s tricked everyone who follows him into thinking she’s actually decent with her stupid, obnoxious image, with that ridiculous name that just looks racist—re: she may as well just use the “n” word—not wanting to be seen in public especially with him, doing really two-faced shit like claiming to be shy and yet talking to his followers as if they’re her own and having this really holier-than-thou attitude that is far too blatant to ignore. i mean, the fact you have to actually go to her profile on instagram in order to find anything about her because alex barely talks about her should tell you something—well, not this summer, anyway. every other post from him since june has her tagged in it… oof. saying that hits wrong is an understatement. that’s nearly right up there with those people who talk about their relationship every 10 minutes, simply because he barely did it in the past. what, you didn’t talk about her before and now because she was there when your mom was in the hospital she’s got your full attention? don’t say i didn’t warn you, alex.

a third example is xxgreendruidessxx, formerly known as daveighmustaine. now, i’ve talked about her more than i would like, but all i’m gonna say is one thing about her that still sticks out to me is her obsession with “real women”. “real women do this”. real women don’t give a shit about what you think.

a big symptom of it, besides the above, is an overall spoiled personality that is often subtle unless you really look, like really stop and look. billie has been absolutely inescapable the last couple of years, to the point loudwire is even talking about her and to the point where even the commenters are like “enough”: utterly spoiled by an already brain-dead industry that feels really gross but don’t expect me to give you sympathy, though, because you’re playing right into it. you would think after knowing alex as long as you have that you would, at some point since 2012, put on your big girl pants and grow the fuck up and have a photo with him, especially when he says it’s something he’ll remember forever AND ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU RUN A BUSINESS! completely spoiled by a gentle sweet jewish man who really did seem in love with you at some point and somewhere along the way you abused the goodness of his heart to the point i want to look at you and say “how dare you” before i slap you, hard, several times. and i don’t recall the green druidess ever being satisfied with anything, like i remember every other thing she said was a complaint. yeah, you bet i’m kicking back watching hurricane idalia coming for the south and her neck of the woods. i got my tropical system and my karma, now it’s your turn.

another defining trait of billie eilish syndrome is the lack of visibility elsewhere: billie may be a superstar here in the states but the rest of the world either can’t stand her or have never heard of her (canada doesn’t even like her: i’ve been seeing a growing number of canadians who are just as fed up with her as me). see the whole thing about having to go to gipsygeek’s profile just to see her. xxgreendruidessxx may have a dickload of reads on her fics but she’s fading fast, though. i haven’t seen anyone say anything about her in months. you also get a sense that they’re hiding something. it’s a bad sign when wikipedia changes every time you turn around. someone refusing pix with their partner is not shyness especially when they have a presence of their own, there’s no way around that. and face it: you mention something that happened to you on a public forum like tumblr, people are going to ask you about it.

there’s no cure for billie eilish syndrome rather than for you—you, not the person afflicted with it—to be cautious and have a keen eye. it’s exactly like when someone says they’re a badass: they are always not a badass. if someone says they’re authentic, they either are not or they are but in the worst way. what’s really scary about billie eilish syndrome is the writing on the wall will often present itself when you’re already neck-deep with them: i unhitched my wagon from billie when she did that ~girly~ photoshoot and i started seeing things she said in the past that got me thinking. the green druidess stabbed me in the back and then tried to cover her tracks by calling me the bad guy when i started paying closer attention to her past behavior. and… i am not a person of prayer by any means but i pray for alex every day. really, i wish i was like christine in seasons grey and that i can get him away from her.

when you do get away from them, you often have this feeling that you were just lied to and used from here to timbuktu, and you really have to resist the urge to not get back at them, whether it’s writing something scathing or wanting to strangle them. it’s in the vein of a grift except they didn’t take money from you, but some of your sanity: i barely go into fanfic tags anymore because of the green druidess. modern music honestly kills me because i know billie’s gonna be mentioned at some point. and i just want to tell alex, “RUN AWAY. NOW. BEFORE SHE DESTROYS YOU.” (she’s already on her way to destroying him, too: ever since he came back to the fold in early june, it was like someone flipped a switch, this is not the same alex we all know and love. something happened to him when we weren’t looking, and it wasn’t just mama.) at least i hope they didn’t take your money.

#text #long reads #billie eilish #billie eilish syndrome

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welcometomy20s · 1 year

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June 9, 2023

Sorry for the vagueness of my words. I guess I caught the old Japanese tick where they would say with a vague euphemism instead of directly to evade personal responsibility for things, or apparently to not hurt others, but really I think it’s that first one. Oliver really hates this and I hate it sometimes as well, but then I find myself doing the same thing, so I get embarrassed and self-loathe which makes me more fidgety and evasive and more terrible at communicating.

Some people want information to be more terse, including myself sometimes, but sometimes you need to write ten words instead of two, because of the sentiments which denote conflicted feelings and perspective inside one’s brain that you are constantly fighting all the time. My brain doesn’t usually process information in statements but in rolling waves and it filters through thousands of self-doubts and anger and loathing which makes the information I am trying to relay which is obscure and unrelatable which is the problem but is basically impossible to solve.

I think back to the last chapter of Ulysseys, which is seen as one of the most impressive chapters in English writing because not many have the guts like James Joyce to accurately spill out someone's guts like that. Only a person with such a stomach could write in a physical letter that someone could save and can be read by your far descendants such lurid fantasies as ones that James Joyce wrote about. I’m not even sure if I want to be that kind of person, but the stream of consciousness writing has been utilized to great effect since the days of Ulysseys and I think there is something deserved of the format in this pithy response I write here.

Back in the old days, people used to write letters and they felt compelled to write as florid language as possible in order to impress and amuse the sender, whether it would be their friend or an enemy. Now, all text is sent through 140 characters or less, because we have no time for that when we have to process so much information. It’s not that email is a worse form of communication than your typical letter, but textual communication became our only option as physical infrastructure was made dilapidated as we chase for a more abstract notion of life. There is a tendency, especially in the West, to chase after some grand technology that would absolve us of living in reality, rather than pitifully dealing with the fact that we live in a reality with other people with different perspectives and lives that we need to physically work out the differences… again, it’s much better to stack euphemism on top of one another to avoid personal responsibility than dealing with the problem, even if the tower of Babel you created ultimately is a harder work because like the Prisoner’s dilemma, the situation you have yourself urges to take the path of ruin rather than considering the overall process as a whole.

Because going up the mountain is a risk and is vulnerable to bad faith adversaries who do not share your big picture and only want to ruin you and the rest of the world. You cannot live with termites and expect to keep your wooden house intact. We must believe in the sanctity of the living but most lives are one-track mind of mindless consumption where destruction is not only inevitable but almost necessary, because their livelihood is dependent on them.

Building systems with people’s livelihoods are not tied with barbarism would be a nice goal, if everyone wants to be so, but not everyone does, so the evil makes their mazes before any of the angels have their say, and we have to constantly please the worst people in our group because they are the ones brazen enough to actually do things instead of any of the rest.

I feel sorry that you have to read this, I’m sure you have more important things in store, which is precisely why you commented that I was being vague because you have better things that trying to interpret something that is ultimately not worth your time, but is, because you know that if you spend your life only thinking about what is important, your mind will go kaput, and also of course what is important becomes kind of meaningless, I mean why feed yourself to only feed yourself. Living to live is one of the worst fates you could get, at least in my opinion. I know some people are perfectly content with living as is, which is quite commendable in this day and age, which probably will make me angry sometimes, but I don’t need that energy right now.

But you do need that energy sometimes, which is why I’m sending this long message to you, although the inciting incident was pretty much frivolous because sometimes I want to return to the age where people used to write like this. Where frivolities had a chance to breathe and people had a chance to ponder about the world that we live in. Modern life’s breakneck pace encourages us to not think and not realize we are committing various wrongs, and of course when you realize the horror of modern life, the execution squad is right there with a gun with your head for being a nuisance to society.

I hope this was entertaining to you. In the olden days, where you had to sit in silence with only your writing implement and your brain to keep sanity, you can’t help to feel sentimentality to someone you are writing to, even if that person is your worst enemy. That’s why the world before us felt so civil, even though it probably wasn’t. Perhaps trolls act like they do because they want to marinate themselves in that false sincerity because it is a pleasant feeling. It feels pleasing to rib someone for being wrong on the Internet, because passion is so often dissipated to nothingness. Many professionals slave away for hours with not much to show, just enjoying the process of work they find passion in. Ultimately people at the top care nothing more than the fact that you don’t care about them as you work for them. All their effort is spent on pushing responsibility outwards instead of trying to drive reality into some place or another.

We know a better world is possible, but we will never get there, because people most desperate for power are people trying to get away from themselves and reality because they don’t understand the world and their place in them and their brain has simply gone rogue. In some sense, we all fall down to their level. We have to, in order to survive. Perhaps we get to keep our wits and outsmart the foxes that run the den, but likely we will become a fox ourselves.

What a petty corundum we are in.

#rambles #semantics #communication

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halohamilton · 4 years

Note

Do you think Harry will release anything this year like music or some other project with Gucci

Idk sjsksk

I unfortunately do not work with him or his team so I have no way of knowing these things lol

#Gut feeling says after June to expect something #Cos idk about the tour tbh #And idk if the stunt will still be a thing #Fingers crossed its not lol #And that 'prediction' was right #She'll be back with jason by then #Bye bye olivia #Hello HS3....#With nasty narratives lol but that's expected #To keep #In case I'm right #Maybe August-September

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rubysunnday · 4 years

Text

driver’s licence

Dear Gentle Reader, tonight is a grand occasion. It is a rare feat for Lady Danbury to throw a ball for the ton but it is even rarer for the Duke and Duchess of Hastings to be able to attend, what with their ever-growing brood.

Tonight, however, Dear Reader, these two things are happening in concession. Not only are our beloved Duke and Duchess of Hastings returning to us, but the eldest Bridgerton daughter, Y/N Bridgerton for those who struggle to remember the numerous children’s names, has been seen promenading with Lord Barclay in Hyde Park.

Perhaps tonight will be Miss Bridgerton’s lucky night and will fulfil the Dowager Viscountess’s wishes of seeing all of her children married. The Viscount Bridgerton has recently been married to, formerly, Miss Kate Sharma - a marriage that seems to be a perfect love match.

Could the 1814 season see two Bridgerton children married in a matter of weeks?

Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers, 4th June 1814

If she was being entirely honest with herself - something Y/N rarely did because most of the time it meant that her mother had been right and it meant admitting that she’d been right - she wasn’t expecting to be married off anytime soon.

Unlike Eloise, Y/N wasn’t entirely opposed to marriage. She wasn’t going to marry just for the sake of it, however. Whoever it ended up being had to be perfect and had to be someone she would happily spend the rest of her life with.

Y/N had two excellent examples of marriage to live up to. Daphne and Simon and Anthony and Kate - both love matches and both couples completely and utterly obsessed with their spouses.

Lord Barclay had been nice to her. He’d danced with her, promenaded with her and had bought her - and her sister’s and mother - flowers. He was relatively knew to his lordship, his father had passed away the previous year and left his estate and title to his first son.

Lord Barclay - Matthew, he’d told her to call him Matthew - had a younger brother who was nearer Y/N’s age but she hadn’t seen him anywhere in London. If the ton’s rumours were to be taken as gospel, he’d fled to America to get away from his father and his older brother.

But Y/N didn’t care about him. She liked Lord Barclay and after almost two years out in society and no sign of any marriage offers... well, her mother had always wanted to see all of her children married.

And if he asked her to marry him - which she suspected would be coming soon - she wouldn’t say no.

But there was a niggling voice in the back of her head (one that sounded suspiciously like her mother and her brother, Colin) that kept asking if she was happy or if she was just settling.

Colin’s displeasure and hatred of Lord Barclay was evident. He wasn’t admitting why he hated the man but every time his name was brought up or he came over to offer Y/N a dance, Colin would step forward protectively and pull Y/N away - unless another member of the family was around.

Colin was part of the reason why Y/N was having doubts about agreeing to marriage. He’d confided in her one night about how he didn’t want her to just settle and wanted her to be happy.

But Lady Danbury’s ball was going to be the night she finally decided. Y/N could feel that something was going to happen that night. She was excited to see Matthew again and to, maybe, become his fiancee.

It’d been a wonderful day. Daphne had joined Y/N, Eloise and their brothers for a ride through Hyde Park. They’d had picnic and then returned home to prepare for the ball that night.

Y/N had chosen one of her favourite new dresses to wear - Matthew had suggested the fabric when he’d accompanied her to the modiste to pick up some new dresses.

She was excited to see him at the ball and talk to him. He’d been a bit distant, lately, but Y/N put it down to stress about his lordship. But there was still something niggling her in the back of her mind. And it wasn’t Colin, who was yelling up the stairs for her to hurry up.

The dress was a beautiful lilac with silver flowers and pearls. She had her maid curl and pin her hair up with a circlet of flowers around it and wore the earrings Daphne had given her for her birthday a few months ago.

“You look beautiful, dearest,” Violet said, standing behind Y/N.

Y/N smiled at her mother in the mirror and brought a hand to the necklace around her neck. It’d been a present from Matthew a few days ago. “It does suit the dress.”

Violet paused, looking as if she was contemplating saying something. “Y/N... are you sure about Lord Barclay?”

Y/N looked around at her mother and frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Are you happy with him? You’re not just settling?” Y/N paused. She’d been so certain and now, with her mother voicing the doubts she’d been having since... well, since Monday’s Whistledown had come out and since Colin had spoken to her.

Monday’s Whistledown had mentioned Matthew and had said he’d been seen with a mysterious young woman who most certainly was not Y/N. But she’d just put it down to her being his sister. But now she wasn’t so sure. She loved Matthew, she truly did. But... it was nothing like the love Anthony and Kate had for one another or what Daphne and Simon shared.

“I...” Y/N hesitated, looking down at her shoes. “I don’t want to lie to you, Mama,” she whispered, looking up at her mother, “but I don’t know. Monday’s Whistledown has made me doubt some things. I love him, I do but... well, I doubt it would ever be anything like Anthony or Daphne both have.”

Violet sighed softly and walked over to her daughter, embracing her tightly. Y/N hid her face against her mother’s side, suddenly overcome with emotions and wrapped her arms around her waist, relishing in the comfort and reassuring she was giving.

But as Y/N walked down the stairs of Bridgerton House, her dress trailing out behind her slightly, she felt like the most beautiful woman in the world. Her two brother’s - waiting in the hallway for her - stared in awe at her.

There was something so special about a woman in love. She glowed and sparkled as if she was a star on Earth itself. She held herself in higher regard and felt like a queen. Everything seemed a little bit more okay and a little bit happier.

Even if the doubt was beginning to seep in about whether she did truly love him.

Y/N took Colin’s arm and let him lead her to the carriage. The night was young and the air was warm. She’d never been so excited for a ball before. Kate was coming too - her first ball as Lady Bridgerton.

Everything seemed to be going perfectly.

Y/N tried to ignore the niggling feeling in her stomach. She wasn’t going to let it ruin her night. Even if she hadn’t heard from Matthew since Monday. And even if Colin’s mere presence was making it worse.

She tried not to make it obvious that she was looking for Matthew as they walked in to the room. But he was nowhere to be seen, despite promising he would be there.

The majority of the night was spent on the edge of the ballroom, watching Anthony whirl Kate around the room in newly wedded bliss. Y/N danced with Simon and Benedict and chatted with Penelope and Eloise - who’d been forced to attend and was making sure everyone in a five mile radius was aware of that fact - and pretended not to be worried.

But she was worried. Had she been so caught up with being in love that she’d missed the red signs that screamed at her to stop and re-consider.

Anthony had noticed his sister’s increasing distress and had stopped dancing with his wife, walking over to his sister and standing next to her, shoulders touching.

“He’ll come, Y/N/N,” Anthony said, noting his sister look around the room yet again.

Y/N nodded, not really paying much attention to him. She’d seen the pitying stares from the mothers of the ton and was beginning to dread what Whistledown was going to say tomorrow.

Kate finished talking with someone and walked over to them, standing next to her husband. She looked at Y/N and then nudged Anthony’s side. “Do something,” she whispered, glancing at her sister - in - law in concern.

Anthony sighed. “I don’t know what I can do, Kate.” He glanced back at Y/N. “If he does turn up, however, don’t hold me back.”

“If anything you’ll have to hold me back,” Kate replied.

Five minutes passed.

Then fifteen.

Then another five.

Benedict joined them in what was quickly becoming knowing as ‘Bridgerton corner’. He glanced at Y/N, then at Anthony. Anthony shook his head, warning him not to say anything. Benedict simply sat down next to his sister and causally flung his arm over the chair, pretending to subconsciously drum his fingers on her shoulder when he was actually trying to comfort her.

Colin came over with Eloise and Violet and soon every Bridgerton in attendance at Lady Danbury’s ball was standing in the corner, waiting.

Another ten minutes passed.

Y/N stood up and grabbed a glass of Lemonade from the table. She took a sip of the sour liquid and tried not make a face at the tangy taste in her mouth.

Not liking the flavour of it she handed it off to Colin - her brother ate and drank almost anything put in front of him. Colin silently took it and shifted closer to Y/N, knowing his gut feeling about Lord Barclay had, unfortunately, been right.

Violet looked over at Y/N and sighed. “This isn’t going well,” she said quietly, leaning closer to Anthony and Kate.

“No, it isn’t,” Anthony replied, glowering at any one who dared approach them in their corner.

“Oh, he’s here!” Y/N exclaimed, perking up as she spotted Matthew as he walked in the main door. “I’ll be back.”

Y/N began heading over to Matthew, weaving her way through the numerous dancers and chatting guests.

“Matthew!” She called, approaching him by the door to the garden. “Where have you been? Come on, I put you down on my dance card.”

She held out her gloved hand to him to take but frowned when he turned and gave her a frown.

Matthew shifted on his feet, an uncomfortable expression appearing on his face. “Ah, Miss Bridgerton.”

Y/N paused, dropping her hand. “Miss Bridgerton? Matthew, what is going on?”

Matthew sighed, looking as if it physically pained him to have to explain. “I don’t want to see you anymore, Miss Bridgerton. I have found another woman - one my family approves of -”

“Your family doesn’t approve of me?” Y/N asked slowly, struggling to comprehend what was happening. “What -”

“I apologise for any inconvenience caused this evening,” Matthew said, bowing. “I wish you well, Miss Bridgerton.”

“Matthew -”

Y/N reached out to grab his hand but he brushed past her, walking across the room and disappearing off into the corridor, leaving Y/N standing alone in the corner, her brain trying to catch up with what had just happened.

Anthony slowly approached, having watched the entire conversation. He’d heard what Lord Barclay had said and had seen the way he stared at his sister - as if she was nothing more than an inconvenience.

“Y/N/N?” Anthony asked quietly, putting a hand on her arm. “What happened?”

“He... he’s found someone else,” she said, her voice a whisper. “Someone his family approves of. I - what...”

Y/N trailed off, stunned and in shock. Anthony sighed, clenching his hand in anger. He glanced up at his mother, who was hovering worriedly nearby, and shook his head once.

Y/N couldn’t form the words to speak. She just stood there, Anthony's hand on her arm being the one thing keeping her grounded.

The room was beginning to whisper and point at Y/N, all wondering what had happened. Anthony noticed a few beginning to wonder over and grabbed Y/N’s hand, gently tugging her forward and to the centre of the room.

Whilst a dance was the last thing either of them wanted - it was the only way to get away from the prying eyes and the endless questions and pitying stared of the Ton.

“Are you alright?” Anthony asked quietly, guiding her hands to the correct position and helping her take one step forward.

Y/N, not wanting to be seen crying in the ballroom, forced a smile onto her face and lifted her head up high, breathing in deeply despite the lump in her throat and the stinging in her eyes and the urge she felt to curl up into a ball and sob. “Of course.”

Red lights, stop signs I still see your face in the white cars, front yards

Every time Anthony spun her way, Y/N allowed her facade to crack for just a second. It hurt. Her chest felt tight and every breath was constricted. Everything hurt.

He’d discarded her to the side like she was a piece of rubbish and as if she was nothing. He’d played with her and showered her with gifts and love and compliments and it’d all been a lie.

Matthew had lied. He’d lied.

The words rang around her head like a mantra and it was beginning to consume her. Anthony spun her out and back into him but she almost fell to the floor, her knees beginning to weaken as her body and mind caught up.

Anthony caught her and held her up, looking down at her blank, emotionless face as she tried not to crack.

Y/N focused on each step - the way her feet rose to the tip toes and then back down to her heel as she stepped back and forth, side to side, up and down. She focused on Anthony’s hand in hers, the warmth of his palm, the familiar, comforting scent of his aftershave.

Can't drive past the places we used to go to 'Cause I still fuckin' love you, babe

The lights blurred past, the numerous people dancing around her becoming one solid merge of colour.

She couldn’t breathe. Her stays felt tight and uncomfortable - even though she knew they weren’t. The necklace she was wearing felt like it was choking her - cutting off the air she need.

Her dress was too tight, too long, her gloves too thick and too heavy.

Sidewalks we crossed I still hear your voice in the traffic, we're laughing

Y/N didn’t remember much of the dancing - she wasn’t even sure how she was moving one foot in front of the other. Anthony was watching her with concern in his eyes and was leading her and guiding her every step of the way.

The music was too loud. The candles were too bright. Everything was an overwhelming blur of orange, red, blue and yellow. Her eyes stung as finally, her mind and body came to the same conclusion.

It was over. He was gone and she was free and her entire future was non-existent and she was alone and unmarried and free.

Over all the noise God, I'm so blue, know we're through But I still fuckin' love you, babe

The song ended and before the last notes had even faded away, Y/N was pushing away from Anthony and past her mother and Colin and out the door, running down the corridor away from everyone.

Her shoes echoed loudly on the tiles and she skidded around the corner into the room that had been set aside for the women. Y/n slammed the door shut behind her and panted and sobbed, clutching the edge of the sink tightly.

She looked in the mirror, her breaths harsh and ragged, and clawed at the necklace Y/N ran down a corridor and into the room that had been set aside for women who need to freshen up or fix their dresses.

She slammed the door shut behind her and hurried over to the washroom, clawing at the necklace around her neck desperate for air and desperate for it to be out of sight.

I know we weren't perfect But I've never felt this way for no one

The clasp eventually gave way and Y/N flung the necklace to the side, taking in ragged, harsh breaths as she sobbed and clutched the sink to keep standing.

Her heart hurt. Her chest hurt. Her head hurt. Everything hurt. She couldn’t breathe, couldn't think, could barely see her reflection in the mirror.

She slowly sank to her knees, leaning against the edge of the sink as she curled up and sobbed and sobbed and hyperventilated and sobbed.

It was over. She was free and he was gone.

And I just can't imagine How you could be so okay now that I'm gone.

The door to the side room opened and Violet burst in. She took one look at her daughter - eyes red, skin blotchy, neck scratched from trying to take off her necklace - and ran over to her daughter, falling to her knees beside her and taking her in her arms.

Y/N clung to her mother tightly as if she were her lifeline in the stormy dark sea she was drowning in. She buried her face in her shoulder and cried and cried.

Anthony stood in the doorway to the room, Colin next to him, and felt his own heart break as he watched his sister fall apart on the floor.

Guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me 'Cause you said forever, now I drive alone past your street

#bridgerton #bridgerton imagine #bridgerton imagines #bridgerton x reader #bridgerton!sister #bridgerton!sibling #platonic imagine #sibling!reader

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americanmoths · 3 years

Text

and many more

Harry Potter has a time loop on his finger. A piece of red yarn tied in a bow over the tan line where his wedding ring once was.

“Are you trying to make sure you don’t forget something?” Hermione asks, a mirror of an image she no longer remembers. She asked the same question on that first first Sunday in June.

On that first Sunday, Harry had abruptly stood up—“Fuck!”—the linen napkin in his lap flittering to the floor as he floo’d straight to Malfoy Manor and rang the doorbell twice, three times, four.

“Open up, Malfoy! I know you’re there.” Are they on good enough terms for him to add, “You have to be there; you’re on house arrest”? They’ve only been talking since March, when Narcissa owled him from her deathbed: Befriend My Son Or Else I Invoke The Life Debt.

“I don’t want to talk to you!” Malfoy says from behind the Manor’s large oak doors.

“Happy Birthday!”

“It’s 9 p.m. Barely even my birthday anymore.”

“Ohhhhh there’s still plenty of time to celebrate. Besides that’s not the point. The point is that I remembered. You said I wouldn’t, and I did.”

The door swings open, revealing Draco in a purple bathrobe and black pajama bottoms.

“Goodie for you, Potter.” The blonde rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile strung through his sentence. Cushioning his hard consonants, lifting up on Harry’s name. Harry understands what a balloon feels like, suddenly: filled with nothing, yet drifting higher still.

He recounts the story to Hermione on the 31st? 32nd? first Sunday in June. “Then the next day, it was his birthday again, and the day after that too . . . I think it’s the string. Luna gave it to me. I’ve got a gut feeling it’s the string.”

“Luna probably got it from work. It’s Unspeakable string, Harry. Let me—“ Hermione reaches for it; he pulls his hand back quick.

“It’s really fine. Better than fine, actually.” One June 5th, he made a lemon cake in Malfoy Manor alongside Draco’s running commentary. Another, they listened to the new Weird Sisters album, When the Hurly-Burly’s Done, on repeat in the Manor garden. Some June 5ths he shows up in the morning and spends the whole day with Draco; others he takes lunch with Luna and dinner with Hermione and doesn’t see Draco until 9 p.m. Draco’s always a knot of surprise and confusion when Harry arrives; now that Narcissa’s gone, Draco hadn’t expected anyone to remember his birthday. The slightest tug, and he unravels into a small, private smile.

It’s the best part of Harry’s day, every day.

"It's ... really good." How to explain to Hermione in a way that makes him sound not completely pathetic? “I always liked Sundays the best anyways. That’s why me and Ginny broke up, more or less. She wanted more; I wanted—well mostly, I wanted to wake up late and go for a walk and not do anything at all. That’s still all I want. Maybe someday I’ll want more, and when that happens, I’ll take the string off. But right now, all I do is wake up late and surprise my, errrrr, well, my favorite person over and over again. When he lets me, I get to celebrate with him too. What more could you really want out of a life?” He shrugs. “Besides, if I untie the string, nobody will tell Draco Happy Birthday, and I don’t know. I don’t really want to live in that timeline anyway.”

for @drarrymicrofic prompt: tie | on ao3

#100 moths trying to write hamlet #harry potter #draco malfoy #drarry #drarry squad #drarrymicrofic #drarry microfic

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amateurduhhh · 2 years

Text

Leone's Lost Words | BruAbba

Spoilers for Golden Wind!!

Leone Abbaccio x Bruno Bucciarati

Summary: Leone reflects the words he never never said.

Leone smirked as the kids ran off to their devices. No need to soil perfectly good souls, he thought to himself. In the midst of betrayal, in other words, a criminal amongst criminals, Leone wouldn't be able to pinpoint why exactly he had done something so trivial as helping some children. After being the bad guy over and over again, maybe it was a fitting way to go out.

The boss's arm hadn't simply knocked him back, no, it had gone through him. It was like no feeling he could describe. A sickening feeling of being both so full yet so empty. His guts poured from his chest in a serene vermillion waterfall. All he had time to do was look up, and stare in deep defiance and infinite dignity at the man with his own blood on his stand's arm.

Before he knew it, he was back at his old place. The sweltering heat could be felt through the downpour, humidifying his flat. Hangovers and humidity are a terrible mix. He could still feel the layer of sweat in his palms, thick in between the flask of whiskey he'd been attached to.

Bruno Bucciarati was outside his flat, an umbrella over his head. He was like an angel. All Leone could recall was the kindness he held out. It didn't fool him, though. Bruno Bucciarati was a criminal, no worse than him.

"Leone Abbaccio, was it?"

"You don't want me," he couldn't make eye contact with the man across from him. His posture was poor and the fringes of his overgrown hair clung to the sweat on his temples. Leone vividly recalled the shame that persistently burned. It wouldn't stop. "I was–"

"I know what you were," said Bruno. "This is... an alternative. Maybe it isn't preferable but cops and gangs aren't much different. You may have a place here."

Leone found that laughable. His self-righteous, justice-instilled former self would quake in the presence of such a man. Now, with the things Leone had seen, what unforgivable things he had done, he was absolutely sure that Bruno was correct. He looked over his shoulder at his flat that reflected a depressed, guilt-ridden fool with his funds low and his booze even lower.

So, Leone took the trial and passed. At first, it was for the money, the booze, the something that may be an opportunity to not feel so damn lost all the time. And Leone didn't regret a thing. Dying this way, wasn't as nonpreferable as Bruno said. In the end, Leone's tooth-rotting justice-loving alternate ego would die the way he always wanted to.

It was all thanks to Bruno Bucciarati.

There was an ache in Leone's chest beside the obvious pit. Bucciarati would come back to this shore, expecting Moody Blues to have replayed the event here from June and find the boss's face. But Bruno wouldn't be back in time to see Leone die. If Bruno was there, Leone wouldn't be able to stop thanking him.

Leone would never get to thank him for easing the shame and giving him a purpose. Perhaps Bruno would know the impact he had on Leone's life. He hoped Bruno knew how spectacular he was. If a shooting star was a person, it would be Bruno Bucciarati. A real shooting star that's in kids' books; the ones you wish upon and all your dreams come true. That's Bruno Bucciarati to Leone Abbaccio.

It hurt to know he would die before being the one to show Bruno how beautiful he was.

Leone would die with debt and Bruno was happy to bear it for him. He just hoped Bruno took it okay. Leone never thought he was worth the grief. After all, there are plenty of foolish, resentful bastards who think they have what it takes to look corruption in the eye and not crumble. But there's only one Bruno Bucciarati and Leone's happy he found him.

Everything he never got to say, Bruno already knew.

#bruno bucciarati #jjba fanfic #jojo no kimyou na bouken #jojos bizarre adventure #jjba abbacchio #leone abbacchio #bruabba #bruno buccellati #bruno bucciarati x leone abbacchio #jjba #jjba golden wind #vento aureo #jjba part 5 #golden wind

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waveypedia · 4 years

Text

The Family We Make

Companion piece to Leaving the Nest (can be read in any order)

Ao3

After Bradford is defeated, it takes hours for the adrenaline of the day to wear off.

Fenton calls his mother, who brings half of Duckburg’s police force over much sooner than should be humanly possible. Any questioning stares are met with amused shrugs and Gyro’s passionate declaration to never get between Officer M.A.M.A. Cabrera and her son. Spoken from experience, of course. Officer Cabrera’s officers and the superheroes present arrest FOWL’s goons. (Pepper gives May and June goodbye hugs.)

The villains are gone, of course, having split with the help of Magica’s sorcery and a harmless raven on her shoulder. They’d left with winks and playful smiles tossed over their shoulders. Almost friendly, but not quite. Familiar. The promises of future tussles and battles left unsaid in the desert air. No one says anything outright, but the villains’ smooth departure puts a smile on everyone’s faces. It’s the promise of a next time. Of countless adventures to come. Bradford, for all his meticulous and careful planning, lost.

Goldie steals Manny away to ride into the nearest town and comes back with a cooler of snacks. Uncle Scrooge - Dad (Dad!) - and Granny level their fiercest glares at her and pointedly ask if she paid for them. Goldie giggles behind her hand and avoids the question, dropping a packaged ice cream cone in Dewey’s hands. He lights up, and Dad melts just like the ice cream under the hot desert sun.

Webby, sitting blissfully between Dad and Granny, has a perfect view of their conversation with Goldie. She keeps shooting Webby weird looks, like she isn’t quite sure what to make of her. Honestly, Webby doesn’t really blame her. Webby has always been Granny’s granddaughter through and through, and she inherited Granny’s disdain for Goldie and protectiveness of Dad.

Webby leans against Dad, and he puts an arm around her. Steady and protective, although she can feel his heart fluttering in his chest. He’s exhausted too - he went through perhaps the most today, at least physically. They’re both too tired to speak, at least right now, but they’re content enough to be in each others’ presence.

Dewey leads the other kids to the ice cream, and they wave her over. Gosalyn passes a cone to her, and Huey hands her a napkin. She sits sandwiched between Boyd and June, eating ice cream on the ramp of the plane. Violet is holding Lena’s cone because Lena is busy weaving friendship bracelets for May and June.

Webby glances back to where Dad and Granny have set up camp. Members of their family are filtering through, offering assistance and comfort. Donald’s leading a team to fix the plane, and Ludwig is bringing a group through FOWL’s headquarters like a tour guide, to pick up any evidence and missing mysteries. Gyro is off to the side, painstakingly fixing Boyd’s body and the Gizmosuit, with Della hovering over his shoulder and making snarky remarks he pretends to be bothered by.

Soon they’ll be in the air, and she still hasn’t talked to Dad. Really talked to him.

Fear starts to pool in Webby’s gut. He seemed to take it well enough, but that was in the middle of the fight. What if he doesn’t want to be her father? What if this changes her relationship with her other family members?

Webby squeezes her cone so hard it cracks and melted ice cream spills onto her hand.

Why should a piece of parchment, magic or not, decide her family, when she’s spent years cultivating and choosing the perfect family of her own? For better or for worse?

A familiar hand waves in front of her face, green sleeves flapping in the slight breeze, and Webby jumps, startled. Her family, no longer contentedly eating their ice cream, are all staring at her with varying degrees of worry.

“Hey, Webs?” Louie blinks at her and shoves his hands back in the pocket. “You were kinda spacing out there.”

Webby shakes herself back into the present and grins sheepishly at him. “Sorry. What’s up?”

Louie jerks a thumb inside the plane. “Mom just came by. We’re about ready to start heading back. Reinforcements just got here, and they’re going to take everyone else home.”

Webby blinks and casts a quick glance around the desert, cultivated by years of spy training and adventuring. Della is indeed a few paces away, talking to Launchpad, next to the broken plane wing looking as good as new. On the other side of the plane, Amunet and D’jinn are talking to Goldie and Storkules as they enter Gladstone’s blimp. The desert is clearing out, and those who haven’t already left are busy packing up any supplies.

Dad and Granny amble over with the rest of the adults into the plane. Dad stops in front of them, placing his cane on the ground with a clink and folding his hands over it. He’s smiling, tired but fond. His eyes rest on Webby for a moment longer than everyone else before moving on.

“All ready, kids?” Dad asks, his beak quirking up in a familiar cocky smirk, and something fond settles in Webby’s gut.

“Ready,” she replies firmly with the rest of them, smiling, and enters the plane, ignoring her growing nervousness. She’s with her family now. She’s safe.

When they’re all safe and settled in the belly of the Sunchaser once again, after Launchpad’s little snafu with the emergency hatch release, Webby seeks Dad out.

He’s sitting in the seat closest to the cockpit, talking with Aunt Daisy. Webby’s full to bursting with nervous energy, but, as she knows, it’s all for naught. His face lights up when he sees Webby coming. Aunt Daisy, as savvy and clever as she is, gives Webby a fond, knowing smile and slips away with a pat on Dad’s knee and a ruffle of Webby’s hair.

Hesitantly, Webby jumps into Aunt Daisy’s chair and maneuvers herself to face Dad. She busies herself for a few moments by fidgeting with her friendship bracelet.

Dad rearranges himself to face Webby, too. “What can I do for you, lass?” he asks, but she can tell from his tone he already knows where this conversation is going.

“So. Um.” Webby tugs at the hem of her skirt, bunching it up in her fists and hurriedly smoothing it out again. “Dad.”

“Dad,” he repeats, his voice full of wonder and amazement. A small smile tugs at his grin, threatening to burst and split his face.

“Can we talk?” Webby asks nervously. Her voice breaks a little on the word talk, and Dad noticeably winces.

“Of course,” he replies, awkward and stilted. “Go ahead.”

“Well…” Webby stares down at her skirt, then back up at Dad with glassy eyes. “Do you love me?”

Dad jerks, shocked. It’s clear that of all her questions, he certainly wasn’t expecting that one.

“Like a daughter,” Webby clarifies. “Do you love me like a daughter?”

Dad’s face changes, softens. It’s unreadable, but not unkind.

“Of course,” he replies softly.

Webby flinches and glances to the side, at the wall of the plane. Anywhere but Dad’s face. She tries to hide her discomfort, but it’s clear he notices.

“Do you… not want me to?” he tries.

Webby shakes her head. “Of course I do,” she replies softly.

“Then why…” he trails off. He has a million clauses he could finish the sentence with, but they all hang heavy in the air between them, unsaid.

Webby can’t look at him. “I… I don’t want you to only love me because I’m your daughter,” she replies. Her voice breaks on the word daughter. “I want you to love me because I’m me.”

“Webbigail Vanderquack.” Dad stares at her incredulously. “I paid full price for your birthday party. And it was only a front! How can you think I don’t love you?!”

A shocked giggle bursts out of Webby. After a moment, Dad joins her in his own giggling fit.

“I know you love me,” Webby replies quietly after their giggles have died down. Dad’s smile sags, and his expression turns serious and forlorn. “But it’s not the same. I- I know I’ve always been Granny’s granddaughter. It’s a little different. I love you, but I hate that we’re family because a missing mystery said so, and not because we love each other.”

Dad’s expression softens. “Oh, lassie.” He opens his arms, and Webby crawls into his embrace without a second thought.

Dad smooths her hair and tucks his chin onto her head. “Did you know,” he says, his voice muffled by the embrace, “that technically, May and June are my daughters too?”

Webby’s eyes burn. “Hmm?”

“Aye,” Dad continues. “If you were made from my DNA, and May and June were made from yours, then they’re a part of me too. Maybe they’re more like my granddaughters, but the point stands.”

Webby buries her face further into Dad’s coat and doesn’t respond. She’s not sure how too.

“Point being, May and June are my family, and I will treat them as such. I’m sure they’re marvelous young girls, and lovely sisters for you, my dear.”

Dad shifts his embrace so he can see her face. He holds her gaze with a steady and serious look.

“But they’re not my daughters. You, Webby darlin’, are. Do you know why?”

Webby shakes her head.

Dad hugs her tighter. “Because you always have been,” he replies, his voice thick, and oh. “Maybe not with that exact label, but, as Lena would say, labels are weird. You’re my family. You’re one of my kids. I know you, and I love you, Webby darlin’.”

“I… I know I didn’t make the effort to get to know you when you were young,” Dad continues. “I will be the first to admit I regret that. I’ve made a lot of mistakes when it comes to family. But I’ve had the honor of watching you grow these past years, and of being your family. And I wouldn’t trade that for the world.”

Webby nods. She knows they’re both thinking of earlier that day, when Scrooge’s declaration was put to the test, and won, but only narrowly. He doesn’t make that statement lightly.

Dad shifts, and his embrace loosens. His expression turns troubled and almost… nervous? It scares Webby by osmosis, but a part of her that she hasn’t processed yet thinks it’s comforting that he’s just as scared as she is. It’s new territory for both of them, but they’ll conquer it together.

“Webby, lass,” Dad begins, hesitantly. “Do you… not want me to be your father?”

Webby hums thoughtfully. Out of all the questions that had arisen in the wake of the Papyrus’ reveal, she hadn’t directly considered this one. It had been at the back of her mind, waiting, lingering.

Despite the lack of deliberation time, Webby knows the answer. She’s always known it, from the moment Bradford had confirmed her ancestry.

“Yes,” she says confidently, so firmly that it startles Dad. “It’s like you said. You’re my family, and that didn’t change.”

Dad’s face softens, and his shoulders slump with relief, and his grin threatens to split his face. Webby grins back, a mirror of his own.

“But,” she continues. “I… I like calling you Uncle Scrooge, too. It feels right to call myself your daughter, but it also feels right to call myself your niece. Does… is that okay? Does that make sense?”

“Of course,” Dad replies, shifting his arms. “I think I know how you feel. You are my daughter, and my niece. You’re one of my kids, and that will never change.”

He smiles wryly. “I do like having this special connection to you, though, lass. I have many heirs, but you’re the heir of Clan McDuck. That’s not something to take lightly. I’m proud of you.”

“I’ve never had a father,” she says after a minute. “Granny told me about a father, and a mother, too, but I never really knew them. But I’ve always had you.”

“Aye, Blaise,” Dad replies. “Your so-called ‘mother’ was your grandmother’s niece, if I remember correctly. Arianna. She and Blaise were sweet, if a bit airheaded, from what your grandmother’s told me. They were in a car crash shortly before you were bo- before your grandmother brought you home.”

Webby hums. “I didn’t know they were real.”

“Aye, they were very real,” Dad confirms. “As I’m sure Louie or Goldie will tell you, the best lies are closest to the truth. I’m sure they would love you, dear.”

“I don’t know them,” Webby counters softly. She tilts her head back to look Dad in the eyes. “I never will. But I know you.”

He beams at her. “Exactly, lassie.”

Webby shifts back into his embrace, and they sit together for a minute, the plane’s rumblings shaking them both slightly.

“Does this mean Goldie is my mom now?” Webby asks suddenly, her beak quirking into a grin.

Dad startles and squawks. “Ack, no! I know Louie calls her Aunt Goldie, for all the blasted- but now. Er, I suppose, that’s up to you, lassie,” he finishes somewhat awkwardly.

Webby smiles contentedly and leans her cheek against the fabric of his coat. “That’s okay,” she replies. “It’s my family and I get to choose the members.”

Dad grins proudly, and they lapse back into silence for another few minutes. The adrenaline, both from the harrowing events of the day and the nerve-wracking yet highly anticipated conversation with dad, slips out of her veins, and the heaviness of sleep tugs at Webby’s eyes.

Dad eventually breaks the drowsy, comfortable silence. “I’m proud to call you my daughter.” he murmurs into her hair, and Webby beams. “I’m proud you’re my family, not because that blasted Papyrus says so, but because you chose me. That means more to me than all the money in my Money Bin.”

Webby snuggles deeper into his embrace, her eyelids drifting closed. “Likewise, Dad. I love you.”

He smooths her hair down. The last thing she hears before she falls asleep, blissful and safe, is: “I love you too, Webby darlin’.”

god i. finale came out today and anyone who’s talked to me can verify that i’ve been in constant Duck Mode all day. head full only ducks. i’ve been struggling with motivation lately (as always lmao) but it struck today in the form of my absolute favorite dynamic in the entire show.

if you were in my circles back in 2018, around when confidential casefiles aired, you might remember that i talked a lot about webby and scrooge. i remember requesting them in almost every writing prompt request i was offered. i don’t talk about them much nowaways, and i’m not sure why, because i still love them. regardless of how you feel about the twist in the finale, the pure, unconditional love that webby and scrooge show each other makes me so, so happy. I almost added a section with beakley, because she's an important part of webby's family as well and they need to have a conversation, but webby and scrooge needed their moment. i'll write it later.

this is a bit of trying to make sense of how the theme of found and chosen family fits in with webby’s new biological relation to scrooge and a bit closure. scrooge isn’t the best at having these important conversations, but webby’s pretty good at sticking up for herself when need be.

arianna and blaise are actually based on my OC versions of webby’s parents i made a long, long time ago! arianna was a shush-turned-fowl agent, and blaise was a fowl technician. my plan for them was that they were working for fowl (which was, at the time, based on darkwing duck’s fowl) and eventually, they both cut ties and became freelance villains in st. canard and duckburg. the duck family would fight them, they’d recognize webby and beakley, and the truth would come out. the arianna and blaise mentioned here aren’t my old versions of them, but i wanted to pay tribute to that little picture webby had on her board of her parents. i figured they had to be someone, especially since the woman looked a lot like beakley. my headcanon is that they really were a librarian and an artist, and that beakley raised webby in their images as a tribute to the family she’d lost. also, it didn’t come up in the fic, but blaise is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns!

when watching and rewatching the finale and watching gifs of it, something that struck me was how awestruck and euphoric scrooge acted when he found out. i think most of us focused on webby’s reaction, and beakley’s, but man, scrooge gets so quietly emotional and it means everything to me. this is basically a love letter to that quiet joy, scrooge and webby’s relationship, webby’s beautiful relationship with family, the finale, and ducktales as a whole. i love this goddamn show, and i’m going to miss it so much. see you, space cowboy.

#ducktales #ducktales 2017 #dt17 #webby vanderquack #scrooge mcduck #ducktales spoilers #dt spoilers #the last adventure #wavey writes #ducktales fanfiction

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sophielovesbooks · 3 years

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Mid Year Book Freakout Tag!

I’m a bit late to this party… but I wrote this a few days ago when I wasn’t feeling 100% after getting my second Covid vaccine and took the entire day off. So I finally had the time to write this :)

Let me pull up my Goodreads real quick and have a look at the 33 books I have so far this year.

1. The Best Book of the Year So Far

Hmm, let’s see. I feel like it’s fair to give two answers to this one, because on the one hand, there is the book that qualifies as “the best” from a literary perspective (at least in my opinion) and that would be CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS by Sally Rooney. Definitely had its own style and felt… infused with a deeper meaning, at least to me. It was also very compelling. Personally, I couldn’t stop reading it. And I feel like it had a lot to say about modern-day relationships (romantic, platonic… all kinds really).

Then, there is the book that I personally enjoyed this most, and that was probably THE GIRLS ARE ALL SO NICE HERE by Laurie Elisabeth Flynn. It kind of felt like your standard thriller, but also not. While it was super suspenseful and fun to read, I also genuinely cared about the characters and loved the portrayal of toxic teen girls’ friendships and generally teenage cruelty in the context of wanting to be cool/to fit in. It made me reflect on a lot of things, so to me, it’s definitely more than a thriller that you forget right after reading it. And it also definitely qualifies as dark academia, and discovering a new DA book I love is always great! <3

2. Best Sequel of the Year So Far

Wow, I am NOT big on sequels. I have only read one this year, which is just further proof that I’m not very into book series and much prefer standalones. The only sequel I have read this year was also a very good one, though: MISTER IMPOSSIBLE by Maggie Stiefvater. Much anticipated by me and thankfully, I had a great time with it. :)

3. A New Release You Haven’t Read Yet But Want To

I’m going to go with MALIBU RISING by Taylor Jenkins Read! I was gifted this book by my boyfriend’s grandma for my birthday on June 29 (so sweet!) and I think I will read it next. I am very excited for this one!

4. Most Anticipated Release for Autumn/Winter

Two books I am VERY excited for are A LESSON IN VENGEANCE by Victoria Lee and IN MY DREAMS I HOLD A KNIFE by Ashley Winstead. I’m not even really sure why. I don’t know that much about either of them yet. But they just call to me, just like The Girls Are All So Nice Here did. And that one didn’t disappoint, so hopefully these two won’t either.

5. Your Biggest Disappointment of the Year So Far

Maybe THE GUEST LIST by Lucy Foley? I mean, it wasn’t awful. But I remember that I wasn’t impressed and had been expecting more somehow. Objectively the worst book I read this year would have to be THE SHARP EDGE OF A SNOWFLAKE by Sif Sigmarsdóttir, lol. But that one doesn’t count as the biggest disappointment, because I didn’t go in expecting that much. It was just an ebook that I bought for a low price at one point.

6. Your Biggest Surprise of the Year So Far

Definitely THE GIRLS I’VE BEEN by Tess Sharpe. I did not expect a YA thriller to be as intense and emotional and fun and just plain well-written as it was! Biggest positive surprise of the year so far, I think. :) I felt similarly surprised by A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER by Holly Jackson. Another YA thriller (or mystery, I guess?) that was so much better than I had expected!

7. New Favourite Author

I’m going to have to say THE MOTHER by Tess Stimson. I was expecting it to be a semi-fun thriller without much depth to it, just easy entertainment, I suppose. I was extremely surprised by the emotional depth I encountered. The death at the heart of this story is that of an infant, but I was expecting the book to sort of gloss over how tragic that actually is. Instead, it leaned into the grief so much, I found myself absolutely shook? The book almost moved me to tears several times. The mystery was so intense, I kept guessing and guessing. At one point quite early on, I had the solution, but the author masterfully misdirected me from that again, so that the twist at the end came as the biggest shock! Yeah, I loved this so much more than I had ever expected! Well done, Tess Stimson!

8. Your Newest Favourite Character

I haven’t absolutely fallen in love with any new characters this year, but three that stand out to me (in the order I encountered them this year) are:

1) Pippa Fitz-Amobi from A GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER by Holly Jackson

2) Katrina Hawkins from THE STARLESS SEA by Erin Morgenstern

3) Nora O’Malley from THE GIRLS I’VE BEEN by Tess Sharpe

9. Your Newest Fictional Crush

Umm… absolutely nothing comes to mind lmfao. Fictional crushes have become so rare for me!

10. A Book that Has Made You Cry

THE MOTHER almost made me cry, I think. Not sure if there were actual tears. CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS and NORMAL PEOPLE both (almost) moved me to tears several times. But I didn’t have any break-downs over books this year. At least not yet.

EDIT: Omg, omg, omg, I forgot A LITTLE LIFE! How the f did I forget about A LITTLE LIFE?! I broke down over this book several times. It was awful. Never before has a book made me suffer so much. I mean that. I didn’t just cry, the book also made me feel physically ill several times. Very well written, yes, but not one I can recommend in good conscience. This is not one of those instances of “You’ll cry, but you’ll love crying”, at least not for me. This is something I perhaps should have not put myself through. Because the experience overall was painful, first and foremost. Stay safe, kids. This one is… a lot.

11. A Book That Has Made You Happy

This is so sad to say, but none of the books I read this year gave me that warm, glowy feeling of pure comfort and happiness you get from books sometimes? Some passages of THE STARLESS SEA came the closest, I would say.

12. The Most Beautiful Book of the Year So Far

Again, I need to mention THE STARLESS SEA with the beautiful prose and imagery! <3 Also A LITTLE LIFE maybe? Beautifully written at times. Absolutely heart- and gut-wrenching at others.

13. Some Books You Need to Read Before 2021 Ends

Hahaha… so many. But I’ll pick out a few that I will likely finish until the year is over: MALIBU RISING, AN OCEAN OF MINUTES by Thea Lim (birthday present by a close friend! <3), THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS by Micah Nemerever (birthday present my dad gave me! <3) and THEY NEVER LEARN by Layne Fargo (bday present my godmother gave me! <3). You see, I am much more committed to reading books that were given to me rather than books I bought myself. So these have good chances of being finished in 2021. :)

14. Tag Two of Your Favourite Community Members

@books-and-cookies Have you answered these questions yet? And @augustinianseptember? Would REALLY love to read both of your answers! <3<3

#mid year freak out #mid year book freak out tag #reading #books #booklr #conversations with friends #the girls are all so nice here #mister impossible #malibu rising #the mother #a good girl's guide to murder #the starless sea #the girls i've been #a little life #and many others...

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spencers-renaissance · 3 years

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I'll (Never) Know What It's Like Not to Love You

Summary: Spencer finds his old journals in the attic, and he and Derek reminisce on the days they used to pine for one another. Luckily, those days are over, and they have forever ahead of them.

Tags: tooth-rotting domestic fluff, past mutual pining, past hurt!spencer, cuddling & snuggling, late canon

Pairing: Derek Morgan x Spencer Reid

Word Count: 1.3k

Masterlist // Read on AO3

Happy Bonus Fic Thursday!!! This was written on a whim after listening to "When I'm Older" by Ashe on repeat one morning. I think it's cute though and I do love to give these two a happy ending <3

Spencer has just turned thirty-nine when he finds the journal. It’s only November, but he’d ventured into the attic to dig out the Christmas decorations while Derek was out running errands — he can’t complain about it if he’s not here — and he’d stumbled across boxes full of stuff from Spencer’s old apartment that he took with him when he moved into the house Derek renovated for them.

He finds trinkets and books he’d almost forgotten about, old letters that he never sent, the small remnants he has left of his childhood, and he spends almost an hour sifting through the boxes as he sits on the floor of the loft, barely registering the frigid air around him.

Eventually, he stumbles on the box full of his old journals, and his heart stops at the sight of them. They’re a random assortment of hardback and paperback, colourful and plain, too many different fabrics to count, and they document every day of his life from his first day at university up until around 2009. After he got together with Derek, his life had grown too full and busy to chronicle each and every day, and he switched to only journaling through the really significant moments of his life.

He lifts them out of the box, fingering the spines tenderly as he holds them with the reverence he feels they deserve, until he comes across a fat, purple, leather journal. Jan-June 2004, it says on the spine in Spencer’s neatest print. His stomach tumbles as he remembers what’s written on these pages, and — his world suddenly zeroing into the book in his hands — he opens it.

23rd April 2004

We didn’t have a case today. Derek brought me coffee and ate breakfast with me in the break room and, even though I was smiling the whole time, it hurt so badly. I don’t think I’ll ever not be in love with him. Certainly not when he’s this close to me; not when he looks at me like he did when I knocked the stapler off the desk today; not when he places his hand on my hip and calls me ‘pretty boy’.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I think that the most I can hope for is that in thirty years I don’t still feel like this. Maybe when I’m older, I’ll finally know what it’s like not to love him.

Spencer’s heart clenches as all the emotions he’d felt when writing that entry rush back. Almost all the pages from 2003-2006 are filled with his lamentations about his feelings for Derek. He’d documented other things too at times, if a case was particularly interesting he’d write down his thoughts and observations, and he’d written about the trip he’d taken in 2005 to go and see Diana after the Fisher King case.

Largely, though, he wrote about the way Derek’s eyes looked in the sunshine, the difference in his first and last smile of the day, the gentleness in every strong and powerful muscle of his body. He wrote about the way his heart broke each day at the sight of him, how he would cry at night when the knowledge he’d never know how it felt to be wrapped up in his arms hurt too badly. He wrote about the men he slept with in a vain attempt to forget him.

As soon as the rush of emotions subsides a little, a smile crosses his lips. Tears shine in his eyes as he thinks about how wrong this Spencer was.

He is older now. He wrote these journal entries in his twenties, and now he’s fast approaching being double the age he was then, and still, he has no idea what it’s like not to love Derek Morgan. The only difference is that the hurt it used to bring has been replaced with a kind of joy Spencer never could have expected he would experience.

It’s not something painful he wishes he could forget anymore; it’s the very root of everything so wonderful about his life, and where 2004 Spencer Reid wished he could cut himself open and gut out all the love he held for Derek Morgan, modern day Spencer Reid only wants it to replicate, duplicate, overtake his body until it’s more himself than he could ever be.

⭐️

“I found something interesting earlier,” he tells Derek later.

Their empty pasta bowls are discarded on the coffee table as they sit cuddled up on the sofa and the TV is muted, playing Spencer’s favourite sitcoms across the screen, the sound of the November rain coming down outside filling the room. The Christmas decorations are still in the attic, but the journals are tucked under their bed upstairs.

“What’s that, baby?” He turns his head slightly to see Spencer’s face resting against his shoulder, tightening his grip on his waist, pulling him closer into his warmth.

Spencer looks up to meet Derek’s eyes, and he can’t help but immediately smile. They’re still the same shade of delectable honey brown, still the same ones that melt him every time he meets his gaze, but they’re a little more lined these days. Spencer always tells Derek that age looks good on him, and he means it. He looks older, wiser, safer, and Spencer still wants to melt into his embrace every moment of the day.

“I found the journals I wrote in when I first joined the BAU.”

Derek chuckles lowly, bringing a hand to Spencer’s curls. “Those must have been a good read.”

“They were.”

“What cases did you write about?”

“Not many,” Spencer admits, sliding down the sofa until he can rest against Derek’s chest more comfortably. “I mostly wrote about you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. When I was young and in love and it hurt so badly because I thought I would never have you, the only thing that I held onto was that maybe when I was older, I wouldn’t still be in love with you. And it’s sort of funny, because I’m older now, and if anything, I’m only more in love with you.”

“Oh, baby,” Derek sighs. “We really were a mess back then, huh?”

Spencer laughs. “That’s one way to put it.”

“Penelope was my journal when you first joined,” Derek recalls, tracing his fingertips over the exposed skin on Spencer’s waist where his t-shirt’s ridden up. “I would go into her office at least three times a day when we were home complaining about how much I liked you. And she’d get even more calls if we were on a case.”

“Wait, is that where you used to go when we shared a room? You always used to wander out of the room at random hours making phone calls. I thought it was weird.”

Derek laughs at that, and Spencer likes the way it makes his chest rumble underneath him. “That’s exactly what was going on, genius.”

“When she and Emily come this weekend I’m gonna get her to tell those stories,” Spencer teases.

“Let her,” Derek laughs, “I’m not embarrassed. The whole world can know I was and still am madly in love with my pretty boy, I don’t care.”

Spencer’s heart warms at that, and he marvels at Derek’s ability to still make him soft and mushy after all these years. He sits up properly, shifting up the sofa until he’s straddling Derek’s hips, cradling his face. “I love you so much,” he whispers, leaning in to press his lips against Derek’s.

“I love you more.”

“I’m pretty sure that reading even a single entry of one of those journals could convince you otherwise.”

“Oh, I will absolutely be reading those journals, baby, do not get it twisted.”

Spencer smiles, sliding off his hips to curl up next to him again, resting his head on his shoulder. “You’ve made me so happy, Derek,” he murmurs, connecting his right hand with Derek’s left.

“And nothing makes me happier than hearing that,” Derek murmurs back, caressing Spencer’s thumb with his own. “I’m gonna continue making you happy for the rest of our lives, you know that?”

Spencer sighs, content and warm and loved. “Yeah. I do.”

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith @negativefouriq @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @livrere-blue @hotchseyebrows @enbyspencer @reidology @i-like-buttons @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @hotchedyke @tobias-hankel @goobzoop @marsjareau @garcias-bitch @oliverbrnch @moreidstrobed

#criminal minds #cm #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #cm fic #cm fanfiction #cm fanfic #moreid #derek morgan #spencer reid #moreid fic #moreid fluff #derek morgan x spencer reid #derek morgan/spencer reid #spencer reid x derek morgan #spencer reid/derek morgan

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yikesharringrove · 3 years

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Show Pony

Chapter one - Big Sky

Also on Ao3

Billy doesn’t give a fuck about the rodeo.

He doesn’t care about country music, or fancy horse riding, or the beauty queens, even the bull riders.

What he does give a fuck about it not being in his house today.

Not when his dad was obviously itching to pick a fight. Not when Max gave him such an easy out over breakfast.

“I saw a flyer for a rodeo. I think it’d be kinda neat.”

It was in town for four more weeks.

And Billy could tell the second he and Max bought tickets, he was about to be spending more time than he ever fuckin’ thought he would spend at a rodeo.

He based that on the way Max’s eyes lit up the second she stepped inside the big fairgrounds.

Not knowing that he was right. He was about to spend a lot of time at the rodeo.

But not for Max.

For himself.

And a pretty horse rider named Steve.

He didn’t see Steve that first day.

Was too busy shelling out his own hard-earned cash to buy Max sugary funnel cakes. Sitting next to her watching the poor suckers get bucked off their pissed-off bull.

But when Max was in the car she turned to him, the sun setting outside, eyes as wide as dinner plates.

“Can we come back tomorrow?”

And the tickets were dirt cheap. And Billy hates being at home.

So they did.

And they watched the rodeo queens.

And the team-roping.

But it wasn’t until the calf roping that Billy felt his heart sink.

Because he thinks Steve Harrington might be the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.

Tall and broad, smiling like sunshine at his gorgeous black quarter horse, patting her strong neck and leading her to the entry point of the arena.

His name was loudly announced after the event name.

Calf roping, with our very own Steve Harrington! Steve will navigate his beautiful June into the arena, trying to rope and tie down a calf as quickly as possible!

Billy had tuned out everything but his name.

Leaning forward on his bench seat to watch him lead June up to the starting line, give her a few more pats before swinging one leg up, heaving himself up and over her back, settling into the saddle with a grace Billy doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to describe.

Steve appeared to shake himself out, leaning forward over June’s neck to speak quietly to the sleek horse, wiggling his hips a bit in the saddle.

And then he sat back up, readying himself and waiting for the countdown.

He was off like a fucking shot.

Billy’s never seen anything fucking like it.

June kicked up dirt as she thundered through the arena behind a small herd of a few calves, Steve ducked low against her neck as he led her forward, his lips moving as he spoke quietly to her, egging her on and forward. He was clinging to her for dear life, his legs straining as he was tossed up and down in the saddle.

And then he let go of her reins, one hand reaching for the rope on his belt.

And it was the most hick shit he’s ever seen.

This flannel-wearing cowboy on his perfect fucking horse, roping a baby fucking cow.

He slipped the knot around it from his perch on the moving horse, lassoing it easily like that was a common skill, and with a fluid practiced movement, he tossed himself off the slowing horse, getting on one knee to tip over the calf and tie it up like it was second nature.

And maybe it was. Performing in a show like this.

That’s all it was, a performance. Practiced and rehearsed over and over for Steve and June.

It was over in a blink, Steve tossing his hands up to show he was finished, and the calf didn’t break its bonds.

The whistle blew and Steve’s time was read to the arena. Nine seconds. And apparently, nine seconds was a good time, judging by the way Steve’s raised his fists in the air, and patted June’s neck so gently.

He mounted back on his gorgeous horse as the calf he had roped was released by a few of the rodeo workers and the next guy took his position at the starting line.

Steve did a lap around the arena of June’s back, smiling and waving to the crowd.

And maybe Billy just has an overactive imagination.

Maybe his stupid gay brain was looking for something not there.

But he could’ve sworn he saw Steve grin just a little bit brighter in his direction.

There were a few riders after him. Competing to earn a faster score on the same track.

But Billy didn’t give a fuck about calf roping if he wasn’t watching Steve and June.

The sun was setting as Billy finally led Max out of the fairgrounds, one hand on the top of her head, steering her towards the Camaro.

“So, you think we can come back next weekend” Max was giving him a big shit-eating grin, powdered sugar all done her front from the final funnel cake Billy had shelled out to buy her.

“Don’t see why not. Get’s us outta the fuckin’ house, don’t it.”

“Plus, there are lots of good-looking cowboys, just everywhere. Did you see the guy doing the cattle roping, or whatever? He was cute .” Billy rolled his eyes. Max was just touching the age when she stopped thinking of boys as gross, saw them as cute, and whatever else she said. It also made her realize that having a gay brother apparently meant talking about nothing but boys. It made Billy wanna slam his head into the steering wheel. He grunted in response as she kept going on and on about Steve.

Like Billy didn’t see the way his thighs gripped the sides of his horse, like he didn’t watch as he hurled himself off June to tie up the fucking calf. Like he didn’t watch him take that fucking victory lap, shit-eating grin looking like home on his pretty fucking face.

“You gotta carry your own weight, you know that, right Shitbird? I’m talking, pay for your own damn fried shit.” He bets Susan would give him money for tickets if he acts real nice this week.

He can’t blow all his savings at the fucking rodeo of all things this summer. He’s got plans for the wad of cash burning a hole in the shoebox in the back of his closet.

Max huffed at him.

“What am I supposed to do? Get a job? I’m thirteen .”

“So? Babysit or some shit. Rob an ATM. Fuck if I care. Just quit stealing all ‘a my goddamn cash for your fuckin’ funnel cakes .”

“You’re just pissed off because you didn’t try one. They’re the best. You gotta have one next week.”

“I, unlike you, care about what I put in my body.”

“Yeah, because cigarettes and beer are so much better than fried dough .”

“Whatever.” The truth is, Billy’s gotta watch what he eats. Max didn’t know him when he was prepubescent and chubby. He can’t be sitting there shoving funnel cakes in his mouth and not expect it to all go to his gut. Not like her. There’s not an ounce of fucking baby fat on her. She’s positively scrawny. If anything, the funnel cake might help her out a bit.

“Yeah, whatever .” She huffed, slumping back in her passenger seat. “But can we come back?”

“Fuck, if you keep askin’ me, the answer’s no .”

She huffed again. She does that a whole lot when they talk.

“Don’t act like you didn’t like it. I saw the way you were watching Steve race. You were practically drooling .”

Billy clenched his jaw.

“Was not .”

“Was too .”

And Max had a knack of leading Billy into moments like this, childish little arguments that made him feel kinda weird inside. Made him feel kinda warm at how sibling it was. Like they hadn’t been forced together just a few years ago.

For all his bitching, he really did like the little spit. If he didn’t, he’d be a bigger asshole than she’s always accusing him of being.

“You don’t even know what I look like when I’m really eyeing a boy, if you think that was it. Just, you know. Respected his riding.”

“ Respected his riding. Yeah ‘cause you wish he was riding-”

“Finish that sentence and I’m pushing you out of the fucking car.”

“I’m right, though.”

Billy just reached forward to turn up the radio, letting Dee Snider drown out any other awful shit Max wanted to say to him.

Which was probably showing his hand too much. No direct answer pretty much means affirmative when it comes to Billy. And yeah, Max knows that. Judging by the way she’s cackling like a goddamn gremlin over the sound of the music.

He just pressed his foot down further on the gas pedal, letting them fly down the highway.

And he thought about Steve and June, thought about how fast Steve could press that girl to go. Thought about him leaning forward, flattening himself to the horse’s neck, gripping onto the reins and urging her forward, urging her faster.

And if he thought about those strong legs wrapped around him, if he thought about what Max was about to say, Steve riding Billy like he would that fucking horse, his hips flexing as he bounces up and down, well, that’s his business.

And the next Saturday, Susan slid him a crisp twenty-dollar bill to buy Max some lunch at the rodeo.

They took it more seriously this time, bringing water bottles, and Max slathering thick white sunscreen on her freckled skin.

Billy even wore shorts, some old jeans he sacrificed to the summer gods when he wore holes in the thighs and chopped pretty much in half.

And it was kinda fun.

He knew what to expect now. Knew the barrel racing was all women, all beautiful horses winding their way along clover-shaped tracks. He knew that the bull riding was a little more fun to watch with a shot in him, and that his fake i.d. could get him an alcohol wristband from the tent at the front.

Max sneered at him when he bought himself a beer later in the day.

“Uh, you know you have to drive me home, right? Like, and not crash your stupid car on the way home.”

“Fuck off. It’s one beer.”

“And also that shot earlier, and I know you have a flask.”

“Okay, what are you, the cops? I’m just tryna enjoy myself in this blistering fucking heat. I don’t exactly get my rocks off to any of this shit.” Which is a lie. He’s totally sold on every stupid fucking event at the motherfucking rodeo.

“Fine. You wanna get stupid and drunk? Then you have to take me to the pageant. I wanna watch it.”

“Since fucking when do you give a shit about the pageant .” Max glared at him. Her nose was beginning to get red.

Maybe if Billy were less of a shithead he would tell her to put some sunscreen on. But she was really testing his patience today.

And then her eyes went huge, and her jaw went slack, and Billy was just about to tell her to close it and quit lookin’ like a dead fuckin’ fish when he heard someone cough slightly behind him.

And when he turned, he almost made the exact same stupid dead fish face as Max.

Because gorgeous cowboy Steve was standing right in front of him. In another cracker of a flannel shirt, stupid blue jeans, and fucking cowboy boots, because yeah. He’s a goddamn hick that rides a horse and ties up calves in a traveling rodeo for a fucking living.

And God save Billy, because hot damn.

Steve had an easy smile on his face, a little bit lopsided, and perfect white teeth showing between perfect pink lips.

“Hey there.”

“Howdy,” Billy responded before he could stop himself, his face burning up.

He was hoping he was already sweaty enough Steve wouldn’t notice the flush.

But thankfully, Steve’s smile went wider, and he laughed, this gorgeous bright laugh, his head tossing back, and that thick hair flowing easily.

He had gold streaks in his hair, lighter browns tussled within the darker colors. Billy wondered if they were natural, days spent out in the sun on his horse. Part of him hoped they weren’t. Part of him hoped that Steve was that intentional with himself and his goddamn hair.

He smiled at Billy.

“I’m Steve.”

“We saw you. Last weekend,” Max blurted out before Billy could kick her. She looked shocked that she had even spoken when Billy turned to give her a death glare. But Steve just laughed his gorgeous laugh again.

“And what’d you think?”

“She wouldn’t shut up about you on the way home.” And Steve was back to looking at Billy, and his eyes are so fucking big, like, who’s eyes are just. Like that. Just fuckin’. Big.

“And what about you, uh-”

“Billy. And this is Max. My sister.”

“Well, Billy,” and fuck Billy nearly creamed himself at the sound of Steve saying his name. “Did you like my display of talents ?”

“Could say so. I don’t give too many shits about all this hick farm stuff. But I can respect it.”

“Well, that’s alright then.” And Steve reached out to pat Billy once on the shoulder. “I hope I see y’all around. I gotta head off, June needs some TLC before our time.” He smiled at Max, and her already red face flushed deeper, almost blending into the roots of her flaming hair.

And then he doubled back.

“You know what, I forgot why I came over here in the first place.” He was digging through his jeans, rummaging around in his back pockets.

Billy wanted to slide his hands in there, cop a feel while he helped Steve look for whatever he was going to offer Billy.

And then Steve brought out two white wristbands.

“They’re for, uh, VIP seating and stuff. If you’re interested. Gets you closer to the arena. That way I can just see what you look like after I’m comin’ off a ride.”

Hoo boy.

This little cowboy has some fucking charm.

And he knows it too, judging by his smug little half-smile he gave Billy while he fastened the wristband around his wrist.

He helped Max with hers, doing it faster than he had Billy’s, and with a lot less eye contact, which was a good sign. He’s not perving on his twelve-year-old sister. Which is cool.

And then he was looking back at Billy, and brushing his long fingers over the tops of Billy’s shoulders, his arms out in his shirt, the arms torn off an old Aerosmith t-shirt he found at the Goodwill last year.

“You should reapply sunblock. Don’t want you burning now.” And Billy’s sure if Steve was wearing a Stetson, he woulda tipped it at them. “Enjoy the pageant.”

And he was off, and Christ, those jeans. How did Steve even successfully ride his horse in those things? They were so tight, showed off his nice peachy ass as he walked through the fairgrounds.

“Wow,” Max said. And yeah, Billy felt the same.

“In case it wasn’t clear, based on the way he was flirting with me, and also that he’s way too old for you, but, uh, dibs .”

“Billy, you can’t just call dibs on a person.” Billy just laughed.

He knows that his twelve-year-old fucking sister doesn’t have a shot in Hell with Steve. Really, he doubts he even has a shot in Hell with Steve, but he also likes to spend his time making her life as difficult as possible without actually being a shitty person. So, he just riles her up. Says shit that’ll get her going. He wouldn’t be doing his brotherly duties if he didn’t say that shit.

Max calls it even by kicking him in the shin twice and making him watch the stupid beauty pageant.

Which, like, why the fuck are there beauty pageants at the rodeo anyway?

Turns out it wasn’t pageant at all, but the four previous Miss Rodeo’s all lined up and looking far too glammed out for this fucking heat.

Max faked being disgruntled by the disappointment, but Billy knows, somewhere inside that tough bitch little soul of hers, she’s glad she didn’t have to sit through a goddamn pageant just to make Billy miserable.

Besides, Billy had whipped out his flask a few times, and he was feeling alright. Just buzzed enough that the heat had stopped making him feel quite so disgusting.

But not too drunk to miss calf roping.

And yeah, maybe it was a little bit lame to make their way over to the VIP seating earlier enough that they scored the front row. But when Steve came trotting out, leading June behind him, Billy was close enough he could pick out the cluster of moles on Steve’s left cheek.

So, lame was not in Billy’s vocabulary today.

It was pretty much the same thing as last week. Steve made everyone in the arena ooh and aah with his riding, tied up the calf in less than ten seconds once again.

But this time, when he took that jaunty little lap around the small arena, Billy knows for a fact Steve grinned at him. Knows his stupid gay brain wasn’t making up the wink he tossed effortlessly in Billy’s direction.

And they left, just like last weekend, as the sun was beginning to sink below the horizon.

“Just, c’mon. Mom gave you money .” Max was whining for a corn dog, of all things. When they have perfectly good, not fried food, at home.

“Maxine, I swear to Christ, I’m fucking tired. Let’s go home so I can crash, and you can fucking drive Susan up the goddamn wall with your whining.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t seem too bad.” And Billy felt his insides curdling at that voice, felt himself wilting and shriveling because he would not be getting out of this day without one final, no doubt embarrassing, encounter with his gorgeous cowboy.

Steve was leaning against a booth selling chili fries, looking like a perfect picture of a Clint Eastwood movie.

Billy had never liked westerns.

But he was gonna go home and spend all night watching every one he could get his grubby little hands on.

Steve pushed off the side of the booth as Max found her words again.

“You don’t have to live with him.”

“And you don’t have to live with my folks. I’d trade you any day.”

And Billy nearly died. Right there. On the spot. Because. Holy shit. I’d trade you any day.

Billy was more than happy to follow this fucking hick around America, watch him ride his pretty horse before fucking him against the stable wall.

Or whatever. Do they have stables? Billy doesn’t know how a traveling rodeo works.

But like, they’ve gotta have stables, right?

“Nah, you’d get sick of him. He stinks.”

“Have you ever smelled horse shit? Because that’s the fragrance I wake up to every morning.”

And Max was laughing, and Steve was laughing, and Billy was trying to keep his hands as casually as possible in front of his slight chub.

“Will I get the privilege of seeing you two again?” And what a way to word it? The privilege. And then Steve was looking Billy up and down, and he was biting that perfect bottom lip and opening his mouth and “I could always give you my phone number. So we can. Meet up. Next time you’re here.”

“‘Course. You can give us the grand tour.”

And Steve was digging in those tight back pockets again, and shoving his phone into Billy’s hand, and he doesn’t have a passcode, but his home screen was a picture of him and his fucking horse which is, just about the sweetest thing Billy’s ever seen.

And Billy put himself in as Billy Hargrove , and then panicked because Steve doesn’t know his fucking last name. So he settled for Billy and then for good measure shoved San Diego after it because. Billy’s a common name, okay?

And Steve took his non-password protected fuckin’ horse girl phone, and Billy was giving him as charming a smile as he could muster with sweat on his upper lip and saying-

“You better text me, Pretty Boy. So I can save your number.” Billy shrugged, looking off to his left to try and seem. Nonchalant. “In case I wanna see you again.”

And Max was rolling her eyes, but she wasn’t stopping away. Wasn’t even whining at Billy, no doubt on her best behavior in front of hot cowboy Steve.

But Steve had a glint in his eye, and if Max wasn’t here Billy would be playing this all different, laying on the charm a lot thicker than he was.

But he can’t be a horny bastard in front of her. That’s just, like, gross.

So he settles for making a real show of licking his bottom lip, and maybe flexing his bare arms just a tiny bit.

“We should probably get goin’. Got a curfew for this one,” Billy jerked his head in Max’s direction. She huffed before she could stop herself. “See you around, Cowboy Steve.”

And Steve gave another one of his pretty ringing laughs.

“Come again soon, Billy and Max.” And again, Billy’s sure that if Steve were wearing a hat, he would’ve flicked the brim at them as he set off back into the rodeo, dodgin off the main thoroughfare.

“Wow. That was embarrassing for you.”

Billy whipped his head around to stare at Max, giving her the most disgusted look he could muster.

“The fuck you mean?”

“You were so obvious.”

“That’s the fucking point . We were flirting. It’s supposed to be obvious, you demon.” Billy shoved her once before stomping in the direction of the parking lot.

“Yeah but you were like, making these faces at him.”

“Shut the fuck up. I know what I was doing, okay? It was all very calculated . Let him know I’m down for it, and if he texts, then I’m good to go. If not, then I move on.”

And the thought of Steve not texting was kinda, disappointing. Because Billy really wanted him to text. He wanted to stay up late giggling at his phone and the dumb things Steve texts him and pretend they don’t make him flush like a fucking school girl.

He pointedly didn’t look at his notification when he reached the car, just shoved an old tape in and turned up Black Sabbath when Max wrinkled her nose at it.

They were both quiet on the drive back home. Something heavy unsaid between them.

And only as Billy was pulling into his spot in the driveway did Max suck in a big breath to actually put it out there.

“I won’t tell. About him. Not even Mom. Not even that I think he’s cool.”

“Thanks. Easier just to. Avoid at all costs.”

And if Billy were a better person, maybe he would hug her or something.

But they don’t do that. Instead he sighed and didn’t hip check her violently off the porch like his instincts were telling him. So really, he’s a fucking saint.

#yikes writes #rodeo au #show pony #steve harrington #billy harringrove #steve harringrove #thought i'd make a proper post with the story for ppl that wanted to read it here #i'm very proud of it!!#please read it!!

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