#I had the weirdest childhood crushes man

[numberstans]

Did you have a crush on 4 as a kid or were you a normal child?

[nicolesainz]

Foolish One (MM7)

A/N: I am back with a short one shot. And it won’t be the happiest of ones I’ve written. Mason’s departure from Chelsea hurt me very much. I was crying for days and I still can’t digest it. I hope nothing but the best for him at Man United. He deserves it.

Warnings: Angst

Mason Mount x Y/N-Chilwell reader

Summary: Ben’s sister is shocked to learn about her crushes departure from the team. She’s not ready to say goodbye. Her brother encourages to speak up to Mason and tell her what she actually feels. How will Mason react?

After what felt like an eternity, I was on time to pick up Ben from training at Cobham. There was so much traffic today, everyone literally storming to the training center for some breaking news that the team is about to reveal.

I get out of the car and ring Ben. It goes to voicemail. I call him a s second time and still the same. What's going on? I stop at the third time, then I move on to texting. I keep spamming him, because I get more worried as minutes go by.

I finally get a reply after all the failed attempts of reaching him. And it was probably the weirdest reply I had evert gotten from my brother.

"Come inside the center, please. Now." If I was next to Ben at the moment, I feel like he would have yelled his answer at me.

I rush to get inside, trying to avoid all the reporters and cameras that are televising the possible news. And why does Ben need me there? What is happening?

I quietly open the door and see half of the squad surrounding the currently blonde haired Mason. The center felt empty as a lot of players had departed from the club earlier this month. A lot of my friends and Ben's teammates weren't there. That still was a shock to me.

I see Ben shushing me once he notices my presence and tells me to listen closely to what Mason is about to say. Mason eyes weirdly Ben but he keeps on going with his speech. By the second I get even more anxious about his reveal.

"I will be unfortunately leaving Chelsea" he says in the lowest manner possible, trying to hide the shame and denial that his voice is filled with.

I start shaking after the words escape his mouth. This feels surreal and like a terrifying nightmare. I want to wake up and have Mason take every single one of those words bad, saying it's just a bad prank.

Reece is in a devastating state, trying to process what he just heard. His best friend was leaving their childhood club. After all those years they wouldn't play along, but against each other.

"Please tell me this is a sick joke" I don't hold back and Mason turns to face me. His teary eyes drop to the floor, unable to look at me. He puts his hand on his mouth, wanting to hold back a sob.

"Which team is it going to be?" my brother barely wants to know. He doesn't care but knowing he may have to play against his friend, breaks his heart, just at the thought.

"Manchester United" Mason doesn't even want to admit that this is actually happening. He will be going to the biggest rivals of Chelsea. He will have to attend Stamford Bridge, not as their player, but a rival. A threat.

I refuse to listen furthermore to that nonsense, so I just ran off from the room and go outside once again. The atmosphere feels very suffocating.

I can hear someone walking behind me trying to catch me from leaving this center and asking someone else to pick up Ben.

"Y/N, hold on, please. Do not leave" Azpilicueta grabs my arm, before I manage to open my car door. I can't resist so I leave the handle and look at him.

"Why is he doing this?" my words come out as a whisper and with my lower lip quivering.

"Because that is how life works. One door closes and another opens. It's the cycle of life." he tries to comfort me with a smile and I instantly feel better. During those years that my brother became a member of the Chelsea squad, I have grown closer with Azpi, even though he is a very low key personality and is completely different to the others, like Kai, Ben, Mason and Reece.

"It hurts Azpi. He said he would stay. What changed his mind? Why was he willing to leave the club?"

"This season has been a big hit for us. Not the best one the team has had. We had to face many obstacles. Many injuries. A lot of players thought that a move would be good for them. Take Jorgi, for example, he is doing better now at Arsenal. Our environment became hostile, even for us the players."

"I know. I am so sorry for the season you guys had. I hated seeing Ben coming home being a constant downer and not being able to cheer him up the slightest. I just believed you'd stick together."

"Family members take different paths sometimes. The children leave home in order to evolve and look out for what they have been missing. And parents move on to seek for another source of excitement in life."

"Wait, what do you mean? What about the parents?" I look down at Azpi's hands, holding mine firmly. A few tears fall on the knuckles of my hand and I notice that something is about to happen.

"Please don't" the words gag my throat, get stuck in my throat as I realise what he is about to say.

"I will be going to Spain. I didn't want you to find out through the media. Not from your brother either. No one in the team knows yet. I am so sorry, mi increíble amiga"

I couldn't hold back my tears. A waterfall escaped my eyes and uncontrollable sobs were all I could utter. I was losing all my friends and now what was like a second father to me. Cesar wrapped his arms around me and gave me what was probably our last hug. This was very painful to handle.

"As much as it pains me, I want the best for you. You have been my favourite since day one. Thank you for always being by my side Azpi. I owe you my life. I am going to miss you terribly."

As I lay my head on his shoulder, I open my teary eyes to be faced with a saddened look on Mason's face, a few meters away from me and Cesar. He doesn't want to intervene, so he just waits patiently.

Azpi noticed his presence and gestured with his free hand to come our way. Mason doesn't know what to say on what he is currently seeing in front of his eyes. He knows this is between me and Cesar.

After Azpi made his way back to the center, it was just me and Mason. Mason and me.

"So that is it? You are leaving? For good?"

"I am so sorry, Y/N. I was left with no choice. Chelsea had become my toxic trait. And I hers. It was inevitable." he snips, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his jumper.

"So I won't be able to root for you? Wear your jersey? Chant about your brilliance?" Confessions were about to be made and at this point I didn't care. I had to get them out of my chest.

"Wait? You have my jersey?" he was so shocked by that and honestly I don't know how he hadn't noticed?

"Why do you think I still attended the games even after my brother's injury? Why do you think I travelled to Qatar? Why do you think I call you starboy?"

"What are you implying, Y/N? Because this could either break my heart or bring it back to life."

"I love you Mason. And my brother may think it is a silly crush but I love you. I look back and see all the missed opportunities of wanting to confess this to you, but my priority was to make sure you were alright and my feelings came second. And now it's gone."

"Who told you it's gone? Did you really think Ben willingly wanted you here today? I told him to alert you. I would hate myself if you found out from someone else rather than the man who has been madly obsessed with you from the moment you stepped into Stamford Bridge."

Madly obsessed? Where does this come from? Does Mason actually...

"I know very well you have been attending the games. Even when Ben is away, I always spot your smile in the crowd. It what motivates me. Even in the ten minutes I may play, your brightness is my source of happiness. God, the effort I made to tell you how much I love you but we were never alone and I thought you just saw me as your brother's teammate."

His words shattered my heart and built it back in seconds. It felt like my favourite dream to have Mason confess his love to me. For him to actually notice all my little hints and signs of support and appreciation.

"Then why are you leaving? Why do you let all this slip away from you? Everyone knows what a capable player you are. Can't you..." my voice starts breaking and tears blur my vision once again.

My cheeks dry up because of Mason's jumper. He is currently holding me tighter than anything else, as if I was going to turn into dust soon. The kind of hug I have been wanting him to give me since day one.

"I would love for you to come cheer for me at my games with United. I will give you a ticket for the family box. I don't know what I will do if you're not in the same room as me, your presence giving me strength." he offers to me and as tempting as it sounds, how will I ever tell my brother? how can I attend Chelsea v United games? which side will I support?

"I would really love to, but what about Ben? What if the teams play against? Would I support the man I love or my own blood? Would I even be able to cheer if you scored a goal against Chelsea?" Mason's eyes are bloodshot red and very dark. I hate seeing him hurt like this.

"Even if you give me a short glance, I will know that you support me as well. You don't have to cheer. Just look at me."

Mason's fingers under my chin, force me to look him deeply in the eyes. My heart is beating extremely fast, it may even kill me in the moment. How did we end up like this? confessing to each other the very last day?

In soft movements, his lips come close to mine and I can feel sparks flying as I can finally taste him against me. He is very tender and sweet, cupping my face with both of his soft hands. If I could replace oxygen with Mason's kisses, I would choose that over and over again.

A small moan escapes my lips, and I can feel a smile shaping on his lips, still not removing himself from me, pushing my body deeper onto my car's door. His hands move to hold my waist firmly as he refuses to let me go. I fear that someone may be looking us and especially my brother, but all I can think about right now is how my dream has come true. And my worst nightmare.

"I can't let you go." he mumbles underneath the kiss, his hands roaming all over my body, keeping me in close proximity.

"Don't do this now." I take a breath and stop from kissing him. Why is this happening now? Why did this had to happen now? The day that he is leaving Chelsea for good.

"I need you with me. I can't do this without you." he hold my hands firmly and so tight afraid I may slip away. When in reality, he is the one letting me go. Or, letting go.

"You already are Mason. I will be here for you, but I can't be with you." and with a final kiss, I say my final goodbye to my beloved footballer and sweetest human alive.

[thisismeracing]

Girl i had the weirdest dream ever because i don't usually dream about stuff like this, but i dreamt that i was childhood friends with Mick and from that, i became friends with Esteban. I had a big fat crush on Mick and Esteban was kind of aware of that, but Mick met someone and i got upset because in my dream, they were already dating like the next day. I ended up spending time with Este, and one evening all 4 of us decided to have dinner together, which was really uncomfortable for me, but i had Este for support. Things were good, until Mick thanked Este for introducing him and his gf and how he doesn't know if anybody else could've been a better match. So that's when it clicked and i turned to Este, furious of course and i shouted "It was u?? You knew everything and u did this?". So i got up and went to another room, where Este followed and we were shouting at each other, but he confessed to having feelings for me, which made him act like an asshole and get Mick out of the equation. I ended up telling him that i want to punch him in the face, but he cupped my face and kissed the fuck out of me. Now my platonic estie bestie feelings are going 📈↗️

JDSKSJGKSJD Bestie the way this man would have conflicted feelings, like he's mick's best friend, he knows that mick likes you but not the way HE likes you. Scratch that- he loves you, so when he happens to introduce his friend to mick and they hit it off its what he needs to push the blonde out of the equation and have the free pass to get to you.

Also, the way he would grab your face with both hands and just- gjgsdkjgksdjgsdkjg you're in the middle of ranting and telling him how angry you are, and he just silences you with a big fat kiss and at first you're confused and then his lips are so soft, and his arms so strong, and his height just perfect, you can't help but kiss him back hihi

[6spicy6satan6]

so i fully caught up with the oshi no ko anime and so far, aside from being an interesting/unexpected framing device, i really don’t get the point as to why aqua & ruby are reincarnations (yet). so far, aside from the previously mentioned, it seems to mostly just be a source of comedy and explanation for their intelligence as babies. at best it is being used as a way to give further depth to ruby, but i also don’t see how the story would be particularly harmed by having ruby temporarily hospitalised as a kid and having ai die a few years later than she did. as far as i can tell, the ACTUAL main reason to do the reincarnation stuff right now is so there’s a really weird incest-but-not-at-all-incest angle of gorou amemiya being sarina’s “first love” and then them becoming brother & sister, along with gorou amemiya being basically in love with ai, who ends up being his mother. while im 90% sure the closest we’ll get to an ‘’’endgame’’’ couple is aqua/arima and the weird incest-but-not-at-all-incest angle will end up being at least mildly forgotten you understand why it’s kinda Annoying to have this element at all in an otherwise really engaging show. i dont see why we needed to have aqua & ruby be otaku in previous lives to even explain why they love their MOTHER that DIES TRAGICALLY either. i also think the reincarnation angle is like technically 10x harder to sell than just explaining aqua & ruby’s intelligences with ‘they’re genius prodigies’ and leaving it at that. i think there would of been even more weight to the scene where ai helps/dances with ruby and helps her gain confidence in her body if ruby’s health was a proper point of concern for her at any given point. i find aqua’s initial response to akane’s imitation of ai 10x more compelling if we were under the impression that he is seeing his dead mother ‘alive’ for the first time in 12 years than i do with the actual interpretation i got, which is that his previous life’s crush on ai has now given him the weirdest freudian complex ever. i want to assume the manga does something more interesting and less weirdly incest-but-not-incest things with the reincarnation stuff but i have my doubts. at first i thought the reason why we had them be reincarnations is specifically so they 100% remember being infants-toddlers but then aqua just outright says he cant remember stuff from being an infant so... im just really frustrated because it’s really keeping this anime from being truly great for me. IT ALSO DOESNT HELP THAT GOROU IS THE ONLY GROWN MAN IN THE WEIRD INCEST EQUATION. I WOULD EVEN BE BETTER OFF IF HE WAS JUST THE SAME AGE AS SARINA AND WAS MORE LIKE A CHILDHOOD FRIEND THAN GROWN MAN WHO ENDS UP WITH A CRUSH ON 16 YEAR OLD AI HOSHINO.

[trashbins-stuff]

if you have a lighter, what color is it?

pepsi box blue or cheetos bag orange?

do you like pasta?

how often are you on tumblr?

are you only doing this because you’re bored?

what blogs do you mostly interact with?

can you swim?

have you had water today?

which do you prefer, cotton candy or funnel cake?

have you ever [insert question]?

bass or drums?

favorite tv commercial?

can we be friends?

do you admire the clouds and color of the sky?

what’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you?

a netflix series that’s your favorite?

an earliest obsession you remember?

do you play video games?

zombies or vampires?

have you listened to [insert musician/band]?

your first celebrity crush?

do you have a collection of cool rocks?

five words that describe you?

what have you learned about yourself?

can you tie a cherry stem with your tongue?

do you believe in aliens?

books or films?

an unusual song that’s your favorite?

the last thing you ate?

do you have a favorite [insert question]?

have you gotten bit by a dog?

do you write better with a pen or a pencil?

a song that gets stuck in your head?

when you hear “ peace ” what do you think of?

a school subject your good with?

how many alarms do you have set?

do you shop at thrift stores?

what’s the meaning behind your url?

is there wise words you live by?

what’s your favorite [insert question]?

you gotta have a favorite beatles song, what is it?

earphones or a speaker?

what do you remember from your childhood?

do you collect anything?

favorite tea?

a christmas song you secretly like?

book stores or record stores?

how weird were these questions?

what scents do you like?

is there [insert question]?

-i dont rlly use lighters but i do use molotov :] my fav is the green one

-cheetos bag orange

-pastaaaa <33

-first place i go to when open my phone, its my comfort place yk,,,

-mybe,,,

-probably a/im-going-to-hornyjail or pepperpep

-mybe

-yes

-cotton candy

-[insert amswer]

-drum

-the cafe commercial where the man (coffe) and the woman (milk) walk to eachother and blend together. Very bigender xoded

-yes

-yeah

-hmmmmmmmmm too much cant rember

-i dont have netflix

-undertale

-yes

-vampie

-[insert yes or no answer]

-i dont have any celeb crish

-*wink*

-silly loyal power-hungry nostalgic bittersweet

-idk

-mybe probably wont stay long tho

-*ring @salachy * r u an alien :0

-book

-messages from the stars by the rah band, god is calling me back home by king gizzard and the lizard wizard and to my enemies by saint motel

-rice

-[insert answer w fav thing]

-naw B]

-it doesnt matter itll still look likr chicken scratcj :'D

-dumb dumb- mazie

-the fruit

- art mybe

-i woke up whenever so no alarm

-yeah i would

-wouldnt u like to know weather boy? (Fuck around and find out)

-"the entire point of my life is to be silly kind and rlly weird btw"

-[answer]

-strawberry fields forever

-earphone

-yeah :D

-plastic bag and straws

-winter melon tea

-humbug by owl city

-bookstore

-theyre kinda weird

-lavender or those scent that remind me of a memory

-[insert the answer here]

[hellmasterphibrizo]

Copied/pasted survey thingamibob

weird asks because i’m bored

if you have a lighter, what color is it? You know I think I have one kicking around here somewhere back when my friend wanted to have a bonfire but I have no idea where it went...

pepsi box blue or cheetos bag orange? Blue

do you like pasta? I like pasta *too much*

how often are you on tumblr? Daily

are you only doing this because you’re bored? Of course

what blogs do you mostly interact with? I don't really interact with anyone, just reblog

can you swim? Nope

have you had water today? Yup

which do you prefer, cotton candy or funnel cake? Cake

have you ever [insert question]? n/a

bass or drums? Man, you can't choose between those, you need them both

favorite tv commercial? Uhhh...

can we be friends? No because I stole this off a stranger

do you admire the clouds and color of the sky? Yes but I hate that tumblr post when I'm on mobile because you can't skip it

what’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you? Can't really think of one specific thing

a netflix series that’s your favorite? I had Netflix waaaaay back when I used my Wii to watch it I mostly watched nature documentaries

an earliest obsession you remember? probably Mario Bros

do you play video games? Yup

zombies or vampires? All undead are amazing

have you listened to [insert musician/band]? N/A

your first celebrity crush? I don't think I ever really had any

do you have a collection of cool rocks? Somewhere

five words that describe you? Meh, pass

what have you learned about yourself? More pass

can you tie a cherry stem with your tongue? I doubt it

do you believe in aliens? Yes, I technically am one

books or films? Books

an unusual song that’s your favorite? if it's catchy I'll like it

the last thing you ate? Ice cream

do you have a favorite [insert question]? n/a

have you gotten bit by a dog? Yes

do you write better with a pen or a pencil? It doesn't matter

a song that gets stuck in your head? ALL OF THEM

when you hear “ peace ” what do you think of? I will get a song with the word "peace" stuck in my head. This time it's "Give Peace A Chance."

a school subject your good with? English, which apparently you were not. (it's "you're"). I also did very well in Biology.

how many alarms do you have set? just the one on my phone on work days

do you shop at thrift stores? not often

what’s the meaning behind your url? It's me

is there wise words you live by? Not really

what’s your favorite [insert question]? N/A

you gotta have a favorite beatles song, what is it? You expect me to pick only one? They have lots of good ones

earphones or a speaker? Earphones (RIP my hearing)

what do you remember from your childhood? Uh, a lot?

do you collect anything? used to collect cels, back to Monster High dolls now

favorite tea? I don't like tea, but I like the spicy that comes with chai in like, the vanilla frappe at McDonald's if that counts

a christmas song you secretly like? I don't like any, nor secretly. If you make me choose a Christmas song I'm going to say either a heavy metal cover like Psychostick's or Trans Siberian Orchestra's

book stores or record stores? Why not both?

how weird were these questions? Eh

what scents do you like? Vanilla, citrus

is there [insert question]? N/A

[pandaponderart]

Underrated Anime Part 1:

Hello my fellow Weebs, I’m back for some more Anime blogging, this time to talk about so not so well known ones. Some that have got forgotten with time, some that new Anime fans have maybe never heard of and the ones that I feel deserve more love and recognition. I’ve been watching Anime for about 13 years so I’ve seen a lot so this will be in at least 3 parts, so hopefully you like this and look forward to more. Til then enjoy, hope you can find some new anime you’ve never heard of thanks for reading and look forward to part 2!.

1. Azumanga Daioh(2002)

Starting off with an older Anime, and one of the best and earlier comedy, slice of life Anime that paved the way for a lot of other Anime in the same genre like Nichijou and Daily Lives of High School Boys. Off the wall and highly unrealistic, this comedy is completely over the top in the best way possible. it’s old but gold and should be crowned as one of the best comedy Anime to exist.

With the most lovable cast, you have Chiyo the 5th grader who is so crazy smart she gets placed in a high school class, then there’s Osaka, who’a real name is Ayumu Kasuga who’s named that because she‘s from Osaka. Osaka isn’t the smartest and neither is her other classmate Tomo Takino who will do anything to avoid studying. Then to balance out the cast is Koyomi Mizuhara aka Yomi, the smart one who keeps everyone in line and Kagura the sporty one. Then of course can’t forget to mention the teachers Yukari Sensei who is anything but the normal responsible teacher and to balance her out Minamo Sensei the responsible one. There’s no real plot with Azumanga Daioh but there’s not meant to be it’s just an over the top comedy slice of life, with moments that will make you laugh from your gut. It’s all about the characters and the ridiculous situations their put in and each one is a lovable idiot that really drives the show. Give this one a shot if you want a show that will put a big smile on your face the whole way through.

2. Eden of The East (2009)

Another older Anime, not everything on this list will be older Anime but there’s so many good ones like this!. Eden of The East is an action, mystery with elements of romance with one of the most unique stories I’ve seen in Anime. It’s a short watch being only eleven episodes with two movies following after which I recommend watching because they continue the story. I’m really surprised not more people know or talk about this show but it need to be talked about more!.

With one of the funniest and most bizarre starts to an Anime, our lead charcter Saki is on a trip to Washington D.C, when she gets in trouble for throwing a coin in the White House’s fountain she’s saved by a naked man who claims to be a terrorist. Not only is this mysterious man naked and claims to be a terrorist, he also has amnesia and is carrying a phone with 8.2 million dollars. Saki befriends this strange man and throughout the story they try to uncover more of his past, his involvment in an incident called careless monday and a dangerous death game with other players. They must also spend all of the money as instucted by the mysterious voice in the phone Juiz as well as try to save the world.

3. R.O.D The TV( 2003)

Ok I know I said this list wouldn’t only be older Anime but I guess the older Anime just has my heart and this one has a special place in mine. One of my all time favorites and one of the earliest Anime I saw and it still holds up to me til this day. It is hands down probably the most underrated show on this entire list and if you only watch one of these Anime please make it this one. The story is completely original, the characters are complex and endearing, there’s action, heartwarming moments, comedy and mystery, I wish there was more Anime like it, it deserves to be a classic.

It‘s a one of a kind show about the paper sisters Michelle, the oldest bubbly bookworm, Maggie the seemingly intimidating quiet giant. Then you have the youngest sister Anita who unlike her sisters hates books, she’s a bit rough around the edges but loves her sisters. Although they aren’t actually sisters they have a detective agency to help find lost books to help pay for rent while also doing odd jobs like being body guards. Their first assignment is to protect the author, Nenene Sumiragawa who is being threatened to be killed at her book signing. The paper sisters aren’t called that just because of their love of books, they can turn paper into weapons and whatever else they please, but each having their speciality. Nenene finds out they‘re paper sisters just like her friend who ‘s missing, Yomiko Readman and asks them for help finding her. They try to help Nenene find her friend, while solving other cases and saving the world with the power of paper.

4. Baccano(2007)

Probably the most well known but also I think one of the most under appreciated Anime, from Durarara’s creator, Baccano. I feel like most newer Anime fans won’t know this one and although it’s a beloved series by many, I still feel it’s underrated. Also another bias opinion shocker, it’s one of my absolute favorites but that’s why it’s here. It’s once again a shorter anime with only 13 episodes but it somehow manages to combine all of the storylines cohesively, it’s a wild ride full of mystery, murder, and magic that will keep you on board the entire time trying to piece everything together. Also warning it jumps around a lot so make sure to pay attention everything pieces together!.

Based in the 1930’s in the prohibition era you have several stories involving different characters going on but they‘re all connected to one thing the transcontinental train, the flying pussyfoot. Yes that’s actually the name of the train, why, still no idea but all these characters from different walks of life end up here somehow. Now to introduce some of these crazy characters, first off the goofy thieves in love Isaac and Miria, who aren’t the brightest but can steal just about anything. Lad Russo the sadistic hit man who loves to see people die, including fantasizing about killing his fiancé one day. Then you have the ones involved in gangs, all In different ones, but nonetheless involved in some sort of crime. First there’s Firo, the youngest of the Martello family and one of the immortals in the show, then there’s Jacuzzi Splot and his partner Nice, Jacuzzi is a big wimp and crybaby but will protect his loved ones with all he’s got and Nice is a bomb expert and his childhood food. Those are some of the main characters it’s such a large cast it’s hard to name and explain them all. This one is a must watch especially if you liked Durarara, jump on the hype train of this wild show.

5. Black Cat (2005)

Now quick disclaimer before I begin talking about this one, I haven’t watched this in years so it may not hold up as well as I’m remembering but when I watched it I really enjoyed it so that’s why it’s here. This was one of the earlier Anime I watched I’m pretty sure my friend showed me it but it caught my interest from the beginning. It’s not the most groundbreaking show to exist and I’ve heard that the manga is apparently better but that’s for almost every show. It’s got cool action, funny moments and a great cast of characters, plus not gonna lie I had a crush on train when I was younger. its just a fun show and definitely worth giving a watch!

Train Heartnett is an infamous cold blooded assassin who works for the organization Chronos, and because of his lack of empathy for killing he’s named Black Cat. But after a chance encounter with a bou hunter named Saya Minatsuki, they become friends and Train decided he wants to leave Chronos to pursue an honest living as a bounty Hunter. However chronos and particular his fellow member Creed Diskenth are not pleased with this and try to get Train to rejoin Chronos. Along the way Train teams up with fellow bounty hunter on the brink of broke Sven, the bio mech weapon and little girl Eve and master thief and seductress Rinslet Walker. Together they try to escape from Chronos and get enough money for their next .

6. Arakawa Under The Bridge(2010)

Where do I begin with this one first off, this is one of the weirdest Anime I’ve ever seen but just like Azumanga Daioh that’s what make it so good. Beautifully animated by Studio Shaft with some of the most colorful and visually appealing animation I’ve seen, it’s pure eye candy. it’s equally as strange as it is hilarious and it’s just a fun time that’s not meant to be taken seriously. So if you want a good laugh and something thats truly one of a kind in story and characters give this crazy show a shot.

The show begins with one of our main characters Kou Ichinomiya getting stuck by his underwear on a bridge by some kids, he falls into the river and is saved by a mysterious girl. Kou is the son of a wealthy businessman and his life motto is to not be indebted to anyone, so when he’s saved by this girl he asks what he can do. He finds out that her name is Nino and what she wants is to fall in love, so she asks Kou to be her boyfriend. At first Nino seems like a regular girl but she claims to be an alien from Venus and lives in a box under the bridge, not wanting to be in debt Kou agrees and begins living under the bridge with Nino. However Nino isn’t the only one who lives under the bridge there are many other strange characters like hoshi, the aspiring musician who wears a star on his head, and the captain who’s a human in a kappa suit. I highly suggest watching this strange sci-fi romantic comedy for something different and fun to watch.

7. 91 Days (2016)

The newest Anime on this list so far, see I told you it wouldn’t be only old ones!, this is also the darkest Anime on this list so far. This has been highly overlooked since it’s release in 2016, it reminds me of baccano and in parts like death note. If you like mafia movies or just a dark gritty story with some light hearted moments, it s short show but nothing is rushed and it’s solid from front to back and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Just like Baccano, 91 Days takes place in the prohibition era in a town called Lawless where crime is rampant and illegal alcohol sales are thriving. In this town our protagonist Aviicio‘s family is killed by one of the mafia families, The Vanetti Family. He receives a mysterious anonymous letter telling him to return to lawless to infiltrate The Vanetti Family. He tries to befriend the families son Nero, to find an opportunity for revenge, the story keep you constantly guessing if they’ve truly become friends or if he’ll kill him. Please watch this wonderful mafia crime drama of friend vs foe.

8. Yamada Kun and The Seven Witches (2015)

This is one of the ones that I still really want to read the manga for because I just couldn’t get enough of it! i’m still hoping for a sequel one day! The premise of body swapping has been done many times in Anime and cinema as a whole but this one adds a unique enough of a twist to keep it fresh and interesting. I looked forward to watching this weekly each week meeting a learning about each new witch and learning what power they had.

Ryuu Yamada is a high school delinquent who wants a fresh start at a new school, despite the intention to start with a clean slate he soon falls into old habits of laziness and getting into fights. One day he trips on the stairs which leads to an accidental kiss with fellow student Urarara Shiraishi which causes them to switch bodies. Another student Toranosuke Miyamura learns that they can switch bodies and recruits them to his Supernatural Studies club. There they learn about the other seven witches that all have different powers

9. Arslan Senki (2015-2016)

The second to last of the list comes from the creator of my all time favorite Anime Fullmetal Alchemist, while it’s a very different series and not quite as good as FMA it’s still deserves a spot on this list and deserves your time. It’s hard not to compare it to FMA but it really is it’s own thing, and it actually came out before Fullmetal, it’s a historical drama about war and strategy and a character growing into his potential. Just as Hiromu Arakawa is known for there’s still some comedic moments and some great character development and a well done story, Plus if you like this there’s two seasons so there more to enjoy.

Ok I promise from this point forward I won‘t say anything more about Fullmetal Alchemist this is about Arslan Senki, here’s the story. In the year 320 the Kingdom of Pars is at war with the neighboring kingdom Lusitania. Pars is ruled by the ruthless king Andrangoras III who has a son who’s the complete opposite of him Arslan. Although he doesn’t know how to fight Arslan tries to prove his worth by joining the battle, but things take a turn for the worst when one of the kings officials betrays him. The once prosperous Kingdom of Pars is seized, and since Arslan is the kings son he must flee to avoid capture. So he sets off with his loyal bodyguard Daryun to find allies to help take back the kingdom. Knowing that Arslan is still alive he is still faced with pursuers from other kingdoms and the head of the Lusitania army, a mysterious man with a silver mask who knows a secret that could jeopardize Arslan‘s succession to the throne. Arslan is a gentle, kind person that doesn’t enjoy fighting, he must learn to fight and protect himself and gain the courage to lead an army to regain his home.

10. Shingeki No Bahamut: Genesis (Rage of Bahamut) (2014)

Leaving one of the best for last, not to be confused with the popular series with a similar name Shingeki no Kyojin(Attack on Titan) this show is just as good. One of the first shows from one of my favorite Anime studios, Studio Mappa. I had low expectations when I heard this was a card game adaptation from a new anime studio but I decided to check it out despite that and it was the best decision. This has all the elements of a great anime, the beautiful animation, the unique characters and the compelling story and all the cool action scenes are just a plus. There is a second season too but I’ll leave that for another time, ok time to stop gushing about this wonderful show, time for the story!.

Years and years ago the ancient powerful dragon Bahamut reeked havoc on Mistarcia, a land where gods and demons lived harmoniously with humans. The gods and demons manage to seal away Bahamut with the god key and agree to split it to keep him sealed. Now that the the peace has been restored we meet the main characters and one of my favorites the orange Afro haired bounty hunters Favaro Leone. Favaro is constantly on the run from his adversary and fellow bounty hunter Kaiser Lidfard who‘s main purpose in life is to get revenge on him. One day both of their lives are thrown into chaos when they meet the mysterious girl Amira who holds half of the god key sealing Bahamut and wants help reaching the land of Helheim. I also can’t forget to mention my other favorite character and the fourth member of this unlikely crew Rita the zombie necromancer little girl she is just the definition of cool. Then there’s the characters that want to steal the god key the demon Azazel and the knight Jean D’Arc who are constantly in the characters way but you’ll find out more about them in the show. These unlikely heroes must face the threat of the battle of gods and demons, the pursuers of the god key and incoming threat of Bahamut awakening.

[awrestlinggirlwholoves80sbands]

Laid out cold, now we're both alone (part 2)

A/N: Hello, this fic is very important to me because I tried my best to give justice to such a cool idea and I hope I did a good job. Plus I don't do multichapter ofter, so this was a challenge. 

I wanna thank the lovely @livdonna for proofreading my work, you're literally the best <3. 

P.S. If you want to get tagged in the next chapters, let me know.

Summary: Nikki visits Mick to give him a very important task.

Warnings: Major Character Death,Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Drug Use, Angst, Overdose.

Pairing: Nikki Sixx x Tommy Lee

Chapter 1

Taglist: @slashscowboyboots @witchytombstonesmile @arnold-layne @emometalhead​ @i-dont-like-rice​ @nikki-sexx​ @smokeandmirrorz​

Mick was supposed to not give a shit about Nikki. He and the stupid drummer had tormented him and his wife for months on ends, making the whole tour a living hell and he didn’t need to have even more things to worry about. So what if his bassist decided to get addicted to heroin? He was a fucking dumbass but it wasn’t his problem.  He would end up killing himself and it wasn’t like Mick could have done something, not when his whole body was torturing him.

The only problem was that he cared, deep down. He cared about the fucker and hearing the news that he was gone forever hit him.  He lost one of his friends and the band all together in a day, what would have happened? He hated to admit he was scared about the future, it was hard to imagine Motley Crue without Nikki.

He sighed, turning off yet another discussion about his death. They didn’t call him yet but something was telling him that they had to release a statement soon.  Doc was probably freaking out somewhere crying for all his millions of dollars lost.

“Fucking Nikki, you had to die at the worst moment, didn’t you?”

“Yeah… sorry about that, man” A voice incredibly similar to Nikki said, making Mick jump up.

Nikki didn’t feel anything, one moment they were in the ambulance and the other they were on the beach.  He was confused for a moment before he remembered that Mick had a beach house, and stared at it for a bit. He didn’t know much about the guitarist, maybe almost nothing but he respected him so much.  He was one of the strongest dudes he had ever met.

The weirdest thing about all of this was probably how he was only able to feel certain things, no cravings or sand under his feet as he was walking, yet he would still feel guilt, fear, love, worry… it didn’t make sense but he wasn’t in the mood to question the universe’s rules.

People can’t see you until you decide to show yourself. You have to remember or otherwise they can’t hear or see you.

The voice still freaked him out, but at the same time he was grateful for it to be there… it made him feel less alone, which was great considering how he felt lonely for his entire life.

“You’re not alone Nikki, I’ll always be there with you, through highs and lows”

“God it sounds like a marriage vow, T-Bone”

“Well if I could I’d marry now…”

He shook his head, trying to get the memory out.  It wasn’t the time to be sentimental and risk fucking everything up, so he walked ( more like flew) through the front door and found Mick sitting on the couch.

“Fucking Nikki, you had to die at the worst moment, didn’t you?”

“Yeah… sorry about that, man”. The bassist hoped that he was heard, otherwise it would have been pretty embarrassing.

Mick visibly jumped at hearing Nikki’s voice and quickly turned around to look at him.  From his widened eyes and confused expression, he knew he probably looked fucking transparent.

“Okay first of all why the hell are you here talking to me if you’re dead? Then why the fuck can I see myself through you ?”

The black haired man just realized that he had no idea how to explain everything and be believed, he just went along with whatever the voice in his head was saying, but now it was different. He fumbled with his hand and realized he couldn’t feel them, while he tried to come up with the best way to explain to his friend how he was a ghost and why he was there.

“I died… I have no idea how I came back but I have unfinished business and I need to talk to you!”

The guitarist looked at him up and down, clearly skeptical.  However, there wasn’t much arguing… Nikki’s ghost was literally standing in front of him.

“Okay I have no idea if this is a dream, I’m dead or in a coma, or simply I drank too much but now I’ll grab some vodka and you’ll spill your little secrets as you like”.

Nikki smiled a bit… He honestly felt normal for the first time since he was brought back.  Having Mick joking was so familiar, usually Tommy was the aim of his jokes and they all laughed because they were all so unexpected…

Tommy. Thinking about him still hurt, again he wondered if he was okay and how much he missed him… but it wasn’t his time now.  He had other things to talk about as Mick came back into the living room with his glass.

“Mick… you gotta promise me that you won’t let Motley Crue die, that you will fight to keep the band’s legacy.”

The older man looked at him surprised, rolling his eyes.

“Well that’s a bit hard when our bassist and songwriter died!”

Rage and resentment were heavy in his voice but there was more : fear and sadness. Nikki felt guilty and he fucking hated it, it was so unlike him but he couldn’t help it… Mick cared about the band as much as he did.  He always said the band was his life, before heroin came into the picture, but it was also Mick’s and he probably destroyed everything.

“You will find another one, another bassist who is also a songwriter…” The words felt so foreign coming from his mouth.  They even hurt a bit but they were necessary.

“I know you care about this band as much as I do, Mick. I know how much you’ve worked your ass off in shitty bands, trying to find the one that was going to break… I might be dead but Crue can’t have the same fate”.

Mick scoffed, taking a long sip of his vodka.

“It’s not easy, it’s not like we can find the perfect match like we did. Plus, everyone will probably hate him for replacing you!”

The frustration was almost tangible, but there was something else… Mick was scared, he knew everything was about to fade away because of Nikki’s actions, he was already looking at the boat sinking. Nikki started to panic because his band had to live, even in his death! It was pointless and selfish but that was the only thing people could remind him of.

“If you give up, then Vince and Tommy will do the same! I know that you think no one will take you, but the truth is they will. Crue is what it is because of our vision, you are part of it and I’m asking you to keep it going. Think of this as my dying man’s wish… even if I’m already dead”

The older man’s grip on his glass got tighter, his eyes lost in thought as he was pondering Nikki’s words. It was hard to take in, hell that was an understatement, it was fucking insane and probably wouldn’t work but the bassist needed to have this false hope.

“It’s so fucking weird, you know? To realize you’re fucking dead yet here talking to me.”

He was deflecting, Nikki knew it, but didn’t want to push it too far. He learned to know Mick, he kept his promises and he was a hard worker and with a good dose of luck and jokes, you got him to your side.

“Yeah, do you remember how I said you weren’t going to make it in that interview? Well, karma hits like a bitch!”

“Mick might not make it , he drinks a little too much and it looks rough” Mick quoted, trying to imitate Nikki’s voice.

“Yeah and then you said something like I heard what you said and you’re dead, fuck I guess you were right” He laughed but Mick didn’t.

Oh c’mon so what if he was joking about his death? It’s not like anyone really cared about him.  They just saw him as a burden, which he was. Not his mom, nor his band or his Tommy would have really missed him… they would eventually move on.

“You’re a fucking idiot.” He said annoyed but his lips formed a small smile.

“I know, I know. Mick… please promise me that. If Crue is going to end, then my whole life didn’t mean anything! Ple…” He stopped himself, he was so fucking close to begging but he couldn’t. Nikki Sixx didn’t fucking beg, not in life or death.

“I’m thinking about it!”

He really meant the first part. He spent all his teenage and adult years creating the band of his dreams and making sure they conquered the world.  This band was his escape; his attempt at redemption after his shitty childhood. Nobody loved Frank Feranna but he didn’t care, he would become Nikki Sixx and be super fucking famous!

He didn’t need anyone’s love, except that he did.

“ I love you, Nikki.”

“ No you don’t, nobody does, T-Bone”

“Well I fucking do. You gotta pass on my dead body before you’ll hear me not saying it over and over”

His heart might have stopped, but he still felt the big wave of nostalgia hitting him. He couldn’t do it, he would have never been ready to see him again.

“Okay, I will. But listen to me, it won’t be easy and I’m an old man with a fucked up back, so don’t send demons against me if I fail!” The little spark of determination in his eyes relaxed Nikki, he was on board.

“I fucking knew you were the best, Mars! If I wasn’t dead I’d probably tattoo your face on me as a thank you!”

“Oh gross, never say that again!” He pretended to be disgusted but his eyes betrayed him, the small softness in them told Nikki he felt touched.

“Who knows, maybe in hell they have tattoos for the ghosts. God we used to hate each other and now we are two peas in a pod.”

“I still hate you.”

“Ugh, you crushed my heart Mick”

The guitarist flipped him off, rolling his eyes. Nikki desperately wanted to keep talking, if he did then he could have pretended nothing changed, right? He didn’t have to face Vince and Tommy and go through the light… everything would have stayed the same or he could fool himself that it would.

I think it’s time to go to the next person.

The voice was demanding yet still calm. Nikki knew that he couldn’t stay forever, they had to prevent spirits from just lingering into the real world like that, it made him a bit angry but he understood it. It wasn’t like he could have done much anyway…He was just a shell of what he used to be.

“I gotta go Mick…” He wanted to punch himself because he sounded so fucking pathetic, but the other man gave him a compassionate smile.

What he fuck are you, a little small puppy? Oh look Frankie is scared to leave his illusion of a family.

Mick walked him to the other without saying anything, but before turning the handle, which was pointless because Nikki could have just passed through the door, he broke the silence.

“Try to give us some signs, okay? Show us that you’re there… but don’t you fucking dare spill my vodka or I’ll make you two times dead!”

“Oh that’s exactly what I’ll do, thanks for the suggestion!”

He stepped outside and looked at Mick one last time.

“You promised, alien. You gotta do it!”

“Yeah yeah, you better repay me when I come to join you there…” And with one last look, Mick closed the door.

Nikki felt all of the weight crushing down on his body, even if it was made of air. He simply stood still, his mind racing like a freight train, trying to take everything in but also getting ready for his next move… being overwhelmed was an understatement, he felt peeled down like an orange and this was only the beginning. He felt like a fucking coward but he just wanted to get over it, was it that bad to accept his fate and disappear without facing anyone?

You are going to abandon him again? You know why you need to talk to Vince, and you know this will be your last chance to see him, asshole!

He went to kick the sand, but he couldn’t touch it. God, how frustrating was that!

So where are we going next?

Nikki would have wanted to scream at him, give him the middle finger and just run away but it wouldn’t have been helpful, would it? So he forced himself to be as neutral as possible.

“Vince Neil. Take me to his house.”

[tkc-info]

Luoyang and Yitian Siblings headcanons

Let's see if I can get some serotonin from this

Um, @wagner-fell ?

As Luoyang is the younger sibling, she calls Yitian 'Gege', which basically means older brother in Mandarin

Literally she hasn't said his actual name once, but if she did, Yitian would be really fucking confused. Yk the meme of the guy with the question marks? Yeah that would be his face

Yitian calls her 'Lulo' in return for no reason other than he wants to have a nickname for his sister

They're very close for two teenagers tbh

Morgan and Lucas are hella proud of that ngl

Luoyang is a sKatEr, right? So Yitian takes her to cool skate parks around Mirror a few times a month and then they have boba tea because he likes hanging out with his sister

However, he will use his taking her to skate parks as leverage to get her to hack/pirate stuff for him whenever he needs her to

When they were kids, they used to latch onto (?) Lucas every time he turned on his playstation to get him to let them play (yes this comes from irl childhood memories of mine)

Anyways, they've played a lot of videogames together: the four uncharteds, every tomb raider, the god of wars (!!!!), etc

I need to talk about God of War

Basically, Luoyang has a pseudo-crush on Kratos. Cue photo:

Don't ask me why, she just gets this from Lucas because that man is straight but he'd definitely marry Kratos if he could. Kratos is cool

Kratos is not Yitian's type, but he really does enjoy making fun of his sister

Yrah also 'makes fun' of Luoyang, but they extrapolate her crush so much they end up saying Luoyang is into necrophilia

Anyways

Luoyang is around Yitian's height (which is pretty fucking tall) and a tomboy, so more often than not she'll creep into Yitian's room at random and steal his T-shirts of hoodies

Yitian hates it because he never finds out until he one day opens his closet and realises the only clothes he has left to wear are ones he grew out of at 10 and he has a date with Esfandiyar!!!

Honestly that's the only time Yitian will get angry at Luoyang. He'll chase her down the whole of Gangkou, shouting 'Lulo come here right now' while Luoyang is laughing hysterically and Lucas (or Morgan if she's not working) is just done with everything

Yitian never steals Luoyang's clothes because he's nice like that and thinks that, for some reason, the clothes he owns are better than his sister's even if they shop in the same places and literally have the same taste in clothes

Actually Luoyang's clothes might be a tad worn down because she's ~una bruta~

But Yitian has definitely claimed a random hoodie he found in her closet while looking for the clothes she stole was his, even if it definitely wasn't

Moving on, Yitian is the secret partner in crime of Luoyang every time she gets in trouble with her friends (Aaliyah, Odhran and her boyfriend Shun)

Mind you: she gets in trouble very often and in the weirdest ways ever

Yitian's got so used to Luoyang asking very odd, specific favours of him he no longer ask why he needs to hide a goat in his closet or why he needs to materialise to Aboveground Honolulu in a Santa Claus outfit asap even if it's August

Yitian spoils his sister a lot and generally doesn't mind her doing anything, but Luoyang isn't allowed into the kitchen

Nope

That's a line Yitian will not cross

The kitchen at Gangkou is a men-only territory. Morgan is horrible at cooking, Luoyang inherited her mother's horribleness in the kitchen, and so Lucas and Yitian took an executive decision never to allow them there in case they decided to take up the pans and give everyone food poisoning

Luoyang's bf isn't allowed into the kitchen either because he's a worse cook than Morgan and Luoyang combined

Next?

When Luoyang first had her period it was pretty bad because the cramps were horrible and she was kinda young and Yitian and her were alone at Gangkou and Yitian (who's never come close to female puberty thanks to coming out soon and puberty blockers and stuff) Panicked™

Listen, the sensible thing would've been calling his mother or any of the women in his life (which, taking into account most of Lucas's closest friends are women married to other women, and that all his childhood friends but for Marcus are afab + Oliver is a doctor, would have been easy) but this dude randomly sprints to the kitchen to make Luoyang a warm cup of tea because 'tHat'S wHaT aUnT cAl gIveS mE wHeN I hAvE a StOmacHaChe'

(Cal really thinks the solution to every physical ailment is a good cup of tea or otherwise having Hunter mask her pain away, which infuriates Dr. Oliver)

Miraculously, the tea works and Luoyang gets better and since that moment on Yitian makes tea for her every time she says she's on her period

Key word: says. Luoyang asks for a cup of tea virtually thrice a week (mostly while they're playing videogames so she can get the control) but Yitian prepares one for her anyways because, again, he likes to be a caring brother

Also, Luoyang helped Yitian get his dog

Cue explanation:

Yitian came out when Luoyang was around 4, so she didn't really process stuff beyond 'mummy says jiejie is a boy and I need to start calling him gege'. During this earlier period, Morgan and Lucas had a lot of meetings (ig) with Yitian's therapist (Oliver's cousin and Morgan's ex!) to see how to tackle having a trans son in the best way --basically like how a pediatrician will tell parents how to deal with their children after something unusual has happened during an examination? Idk. Luoyang never really understood much about this, but she did get how Morgan and Lucas sometimes talking about how some things 'helped with his dysphoria'

I'm obviously not an expert, but this morning a saw a tiktok of a guy saying he can explain gender dysphoria to cis people, but not how drinking diet coke instead of normal coke helps with his dysphoria because it makes him feel more masculine, so I suppose gender dysphoria can be a bit arbitrary? So, basically, whenever Yitian said something that would indicate that something would make him feel less dysphoric, Morgan and Lucas would buy/make that something (eg toys)

Mind you, Luoyang, as she didn't understand a thing, tried to use the 'it helps with my dysphoria' card to get haoson to buy her toys once. Only that she was in front of Marco, who kneeled down to get to her 4y/o eye-level and asked her whether she was a girl or a boy, and she very proudly exclaimed 'a girl!', so her plan didn't really work out still Lucas bought her the toys she wanted

However, Yitian got his dog using the 'helps with my dysphoria' card. Long story short: he was ten, wanted a dog, Luoyang wanted one as well, they teamed up to create a power point presentation (with a lot of special effects as befits a 10y/o and an 8y/o) expressing why adopting a puppy would be good, and had the undefeatable argument of It Will Make Gege Feel Like A Man™

Yitian had to work very hard to hide his smile. He failed, but the presentation was good yk?

In any case, the dysphoria thing was a recurring tactic between them from then on until Yitian became a teenager, got more in touch with his identity as a trans guy, and began struggling a bit more with dysphoria. He told Luoyang those jokes made him uncomfortable now and he wanted to leave them in the past, and that was it

Btw I'm not saying transsexuality is an illness, there literally are researches that proof otherwise and I have read one. I just don't know how to get the 'yitian was a little boy and as such lacked the ability to carry out the more technical aspects of his social transition and possible future medical transition, if there are any + Morgan and Lucas were given tips like how parents are sometimes given tips on how to raise their children correctly by specialists' point across lol. The only 'illness/off thing' in him pediatricians told Morgan and Lucas about was an abnormal growth rate because look at his father, and Lucas got paranoic about him having some issues (pretty much like what lalima thought about him, and what my parents thought of me lol)

[marie-in-the-hallway]

Watermelon Sugar pt 1

wc: 2.3k

warnings: minor sexual content, swearing

...

Jenna doesn't know how her life came to be like this.

She was a good person; she had partied hard in uni, yes, but she studied hard enough to make up for it. She's nice enough to leave at least a twenty percent tip every time she gets the check, and certainly nice enough to drop coins in the tip jars of the baristas who make her coffee. She calls her mum a lot and she loves her sisters and she takes good care of her plant, a cactus she'd named Steve. She’s hilarious and witty, her friends love her, and she makes a decent enough living.

So it doesn't explain why she's lying on the floor, with Harry Styles, of all people, planking on top of her.

As in, seventeenth most influential person in London, pop-star-turned-rock-star Harry Styles. The same Harry Styles who has had countless model girlfriends, left, right and centre. One right now, in fact: Camille Rowe.  Also  the same Harry Styles who has been the subject of Jenna’s sex dreams since she was about eighteen.

(What can she say, she's consistent. The kid might change her look every few years but the libido wants what it wants. Or something.)

Anyway, the point is that, currently, Jenna is looking straight into Harry's gorgeous green eyes and she can feel the heat of Harry's body radiating onto hers. She can also feel one of Harry's soft curls brushing against her forehead, and she knows that if she looked down, she'd see Harry's pink lips, quirked amusedly, like Jenna is something of a particularly endearing animal.

In summary, Harry looks like something straight out of Jenna’s masterbating vault, and Jenna is especially thankful at this moment that she does not have a cock because it would be hard as a rod at this very moment. 

"Do you, uh, work out a lot?" She blurts out, her mouth temporarily disconnecting from her brain, and she watches as Harry blinks, his long lashes brushing the tops of her cheekbones.

There's a pause, and then she hears a snort.

"Is this a dating show, mate?" Nick Grimshaw, the twat, says, half-laughing from his seat at the radio console. He raises his voice in a poor imitation of Jenna, stuttering out a ‘do you, uh, work out a lot’ in between his giggles.

Jenna turns her head to look at him and scowls. "Shut up," she says, trying to ignore the cute way Harry is giggling on top of her. It doesn't really work, but at least she tried.

Nick raises his hands defensively. "Hey, I'm bringing us back on track. You're supposed to be asking him questions about his new album, not asking him if he works out. You're tiring out the little pop star there."

"Nah," Jenna hears Harry's low voice drawl from above her, and she turns her attention back to the hot boy on top of him. "`m not tired yet. Besides, I'm kind of enjoying the view." He shoots Jenna a cheeky wink, and Jenna feels her face flush.

"Okay," she says loudly, mostly for the benefit of herself. She vaguely wonders how red she looks on camera, and whether or not she can get the ground to swallow her whole right about now. Maybe she should retire after this. Radio 1 would just have to look for another person who won't choke in the vicinity of Nick's hairspray fumes.

Every day at one to four pm, Nick and Jenna host "The Future is Now", a radio programme where they play music, talk about celebrity gossip and tease each other. It's supposedly nothing special, just two childhood friends making fun of each other and making fun of celebrities and their drama and occasionally talking about football, but apparently their banter has made it the most popular rated programme on BBC Radio 1. So popular that a few months ago, their producer sat them down and told them to "come up with more shenanigans", an order Jenna was happy to comply with. Her and Nick have then proceeded to do almost everything, from innuendo bingo with a twist to organizing a huge water fight in Radio 1.

Their latest shenanigan is interviewing their celebrity guests in the weirdest way they can, and last time Nick had interviewed Taylor Swift through trying to interpret her answers through drawing. It was massively funny, a huge failure, and also very exhausting, according to Nick, because who knew that Taylor was such a terrible artist?

Which is also why it's Jenna’s turn to do the interviewing this time.

However, she's ninety-nine point nine percent sure that Nick did this on purpose. Drunk Jenna might have let it slip a few weeks back that she has a not-so-small crush on a certain very famous Harry Styles, and Nick, because he was apparently close friends with Harry, invited him to plank over Jenna.

Jenna’s going to light a match near his hair and watch his twatty quiff burn down.

"Okay," Jenna says again, because no matter how much she wants to go back in time and ensure Nick was never born, Harry Styles with his hair and his dimples is still above her, smiling like it takes no effort to plank like this at all. He's the most attractive man Jenna has ever seen in her entire life. "We're going to have a quickie--" and she resolutely ignores Nick's sniggers from the console and the way his face heats up, "--which is like a lightning round of questions, until you feel you need to lower yourself down or until the timer runs out. Alright?"

Harry nods at her, grinning even wider, and Jenna decides to pin her focus on Harry's left dimple so as not to be distracted by the rest of his face.

"Nachos or Tacos?" She asks, starting the game immediately.

"Tacos."

"Red or Blue?"

"Blue."

"Favorite emoji to use in a text message?"

"The tongue and the peach." Jenna ignores the almost-obscene way Harry says it. She also ignores Nick's snorts from the table. She can do this. She just needs to ignore the way she’s wet from this small interaction and get this done like the professional she is, before she can go home and masterbate herself away to oblivion.

 "Favorite song from your new album?"

"Um," Harry says, and Jenna feels his forearms shift from where it's beside her head. "Watermelon Sugar?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?" Jenna asks Harry's left dimple. See, she can be normal.

"Watermelon Sugar." Harry repeats, much firmer. "It's about oral sex."

Jenna’s eyes fly off Harry's left dimple and into his eyes. "I don't think you can say that on radio."

Harry just shrugs, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. "Sorry."

"Cheeky," Jenna mutters, before plunging on. "Most important feature of your ideal girlfriend?"

"I don't know if I can say it on radio," Harry shoots back almost immediately, his smile widening.

Somewhere from his place on the radio console, Nick cackles. Jenna hopes he chokes on his own saliva.

"Something radio friendly, then," Jenna answers, keeping her voice level.

"Well," Harry drawls out, seemingly lost in thought, "I'm much more of a bum kind of guy," and Nick's cackles get louder and louder. "I like a nice, firm, handful of bum. But if it has to be radio friendly, maybe the smile."

"I'm going to get suspended because of you," Jenna deadpans.

"`s the truth." Harry smiles innocently. He shifts on his forearms again, and his long curl brushes over Jenna’s eye. His cross necklace also falls out of his shirt, brushing against the hollow of Jenna’s throat.  "Do you like bums, Jenna?"

"I like mums? I like my mum," Jenna says absently, half blinded by Harry's curl. She feels more than hears Harry laugh from above her, his abs quivering from above her body. Which, hey. Why is Harry laughing at her? She’s just trying to keep this show together, for the sake of her job and her listeners and because Nick is a useless idiot.

She clears her throat. "Ideal date?" She asks, blinking her eye against Harry's rogue curl. She focuses on it, tries to get it off her eye with just the power of her blinks and her eye lid muscles. It doesn't really work.

Harry wiggles his eyebrows above her, and Jenna feels a slight sense of dread settle against him.

"A walk on the beach, then a candlelit dinner, then back to my place--"

"Favorite hobby?" Jenna interrupts, because she cannot do this. She can't. She’s two innuendos away from being soaked through her pants, and she’s positive there will be a wet spot if Harry continues to imply vaguely sexual things.

"I like to bake," Harry answers easily, as if he wasn't on the verge of saying obscene things a few seconds before. Jenna hates him. Jenna also kind of wants to suck his dick.

"Last thing that made you cry?"

"Um," Harry furrows his brow and bites at his bottom lip. Jenna can't stop staring. "I...fell?"

"Fell where?" Jenna asks.

"I was getting out of the shower," Harry answers slowly, still seeming deep in thought. Jenna tries not to imagine a naked Harry, with little droplets sliding down his skin. She mostly fails. "Then I, like, slipped and fell. There were a few tears."

Jenna makes a noise of sympathy, her eyes glued to Harry's lips. "What did you hurt?"

"My bum."

That makes Jenna tear her eyes away from Harry's lips and into his green eyes, which are already shining with mirth. "What is it with you and bums?"

"I told you, I'm a bum man." Harry winks. He shifts on his forearms, and Jenna realizes that the planking must already be taking a toll on him. He doesn't seem close to giving up though, and Jenna admires his determination. Her sex drive admires the rippling of the muscles in Harry's forearms and the strength of his core.

"You seem to be a little bum crazy to me."

"Heyyy," Harry says, a cute little pout making its way onto his face. "Only for certain bums. The nice ones."

Jenna doesn't answer. "Favorite app on your phone?"

"Instagram."

"Last photo you took?"

"It was, like, a photo of my sister's dog in, um, space buns."

"Space bums, nice," Jenna says, because she can. She might get suspended from radio for a few days, but she's already aroused on camera and they've been talking bums since a while ago, so.

"Yep," Harry says, playing along. "They were out of this world."

Jenna opens her mouth to ask another question when her phone starts ringing, signalling the end of their quickie. Harry unceremoniously drops himself down, his entire body now in contact with Jenna’s own. Jenna can feel her skin heat up from where Harry's touching her, their entire lower half aligned. She shifts in surprise, discovering Harry’s (not so) little problem, so Jenna just. Speaks.

“Did you know the average whale penis is ten feet long?” 

She wonders if she can probably retire gracefully and run away to Guam.

Nick is still cackling like a madman but ten times harder. Jenna doesn't think he's even stopped to take a breath since he started.

Good, she thinks viciously. Maybe he'll run out of oxygen.

"I did not," she hears Harry whisper to her, his voice almost drowned out by Nick's laughter.

"Fuck," Jenna whispers, without opening her eyes. "Leave me here to die." She can't believe she ended up here, embarrassed and horny in front of the guy she's been wanking to since she was eighteen. She doesn't think life can get much worse than this.

"It's okay, you know, I blurt out things all the time" Harry whispers, his breath ghosting over Jenna’s face. "Also, you're not allowed to say ‘cock’ on radio."

Oh, so now he's concerned about radio content. What is Harry Styles.

"Please do not try to make me feel better about this," Jenna says through her teeth, ignoring his second statement. They're going to get taken off air because of this interview, anyway. She raises an arm to cover her eyes. "Just....ignore it. Please."

Harry, because he's nice, doesn't say anything anymore, instead pulls himself off of Jenna, so that he's sitting on his knees beside Jenna on the carpeted floor. Jenna takes three deep breaths before she opens her eyes, sits up, and runs to the radio console, where Nick is still cackling obnoxiously. She lets Nick take care of the goodbyes, shakes Harry's hand once and refuses to meet his eyes, and doesn't say anything until Harry has left the room and Watermelon Sugar is playing on air.

"So?" Nick hedges, nudging Louis with an elbow. "That was fun right?"

"I'm going to murder you in your sleep," Jenna answers, glaring. "That was fucking humiliating."

"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad," Nick says, dismissively, wrapping an arm around Jenna’s shoulder. Jenna wants to saw it off his arm.

"You're not the one who started talking about whale cock in front of like, three cameras," Jenna hisses back at him.

"You could barely hear it anyway," Nick says, rolling his eyes.  He pinches Jenna’s shoulder, waggling his eyebrows . "But Harry, eh? That was some intense flirting you had going on there."

"Nick," Jenna says, deadpan. "He's not single. You should know this, he's one of your best friends."

Nick frowns, but before he can open his mouth to say something, Jenna beats him to it. "Never mind him. He's probably going to get us suspended anyway, with all his obscene answers and talk about bums."

Nick cackles again, with his head thrown back. "That was pretty funny."

"Yeah, well let's see how funny it is when we get taken off air for a week straight," Jenna answers, rolling her eyes, before reaching over to queue up the next song.

Nick, the twat, just keeps laughing.

[historian-in-pearls]

Because I'm a nosy lil so-and-so: Aaaaall the soft asks!! 😉😘💞🌹🌷🌻🍒🍉💕

Ahhh, thank you!!!

lollipop - favorite makeup products?

I love Dior's eye makeup--mascara, shadow, brow gel. Benefit is another go-to, especially their primer and their Dandelion blush.

daydreams - if you could be anything or anyone, who would you be?

I would be an archeologist and Egyptologist like my hero Salima Ikram. She's the main reason I always planned to go to the American University in Cairo for undergrad (which I was unable to do because of reasons long and complicated).

october - what month were you born in?

I was born in January.

caress - do you like to snuggle?

Yes. I'm extremely tactile/physically affectionate.

ivory - describe your pajamas?

I usually wear pj shorts and a long-sleeved thermal top, both from Old Navy.

golden - favorite stationary product?

Monogrammed notepaper; it works for all occasions.

freckles - most-worn article of clothing?

My fluffy Ugg slippers.

twilight - best friend?

My best friend's name is Lauren. She's a brilliant writer and all-around creative genius.

silk - do you like k-pop?

Not particularly. Just not my thing.

poppy - favorite pastel color?

I really don't care for pastels, but pink if I had to choose.

dimples - most attractive features of a person’s face?

I love seeing a person's smile. Eyes too.

sunkissed - autumn or spring?

Autumn. Fall is my happiest time.

buttery - favorite snack?

Sharp cheddar cheese and a couple of dates.

whisper - how much sleep do you get?

Lately, around 7 hours, which is a nice departure from the norm. Sleep isn't usually one of my greatest strengths.

pencil - do you own a journal?

Multiple. I'm a sucker for journals and pretty notebooks.

cupcake - are you a good cook?

I'm passable. I like cooking because you can experiment a lot more; baking is such an exact science.

honey - favorite term of endearment?

"Darling" is far and away my favorite.

clouds - describe one of your favorite dreams?

I don't usually remember my dreams, but I do love flying dreams.

velvet - who was your first crush?

Zac Hanson. I was in fourth or fifth grade, I think.

paper - favorite children’s book?

The Secret Garden. I reread it every spring.

peaches - do you have a skincare routine?

The usual--cleanser, toner, moisturizer, along with a good eye cream at night and exfoliating three times a week.

mochi - favorite studio ghibli film?

I haven't seen any, I'm afraid!

backyard - did you ever have an imaginary friend?

I did, a rather scary character called the Skeleton Man.

strawberry - favorite fruit?

Raspberries and peaches.

kiss - have you ever kissed a friend?,

I have! The weirdest was with a longtime college friend.

nightlight - do you read before bed?

Always. It's how I wind down. I have to pick wisely, though, because if it's a book I'm too much into I just keep reading all night.

shampoo - favorite scent?

Coffee, absolutely, no context.

skin - what distant relative are you closest to?

I'm very close with several of my first cousins, if that counts as distant.

aphrodite - favorite actress/actor?

Hayley Atwell and Cary Grant.

cuddles - do you have any pets?

I do! I have two cats called Anna and Elsa.

lace - if you own any dresses, which is your favorite?

It's a navy dress with tiny white dots--sleeveless with a full skirt.

sheets - sanrio or san-x characters?

Sanrio. Very nostalgic.

cream - frozen yogurt flavor?

Do they make coffee frozen yogurt? If so, that.

watermelon - do films ever make you cry?

All the time. I cry at both happy and sad things. I can't help it.

sapphos - favorite poet?

Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickenson, Tennyson

plush - how many stuffed animals do you still own?

I have about eight--some from childhood and a few new ones.

roses - what flower do you find most beautiful?

Peonies, always peonies.

sweetheart - favorite mug/cup?

I have some light blue and gold teacups/saucers/teapot from the 2015 film Cinderella. For an everyday one, a giant mug with the Haunted Mansion wallpaper.

sunset - what are your pronouns?

she/her

[demaury]

open your heart (and let me know you want me here)

9k / friends to lovers / ao3 link

Here is the thing. When he started making that list, he was never planning on his best friend checking pretty much all the boxes right off the bat. 

or; a childhood friends to lovers au

1- Someone who makes me feel something. Butterflies and fireworks and all that shit.

He’s fifteen when it happens, and as most things it doesn’t look like much of a big deal at first. It’s a Wednesday afternoon, and although it should be a regular one like so many others, there’s something unique in the fact that he’s sitting on the navy-blue carpeted floor of his bedroom, trying to figure out a math problem, while Eliott is humming to himself and scrolling down his phone on his bed. The setting isn’t what makes it all new, and much less Eliott’s presence — he’s actually one of the very few constants of his life, ever since the Demaurys moved across the street about a million years ago.

What makes it all new, scary, a bit foreign, is that it’s the first time they hang out, since he told Eliott he liked boys. Which- Okay, coming out to Eliott was really not the problem, really, it never was. He wasn’t… He wasn’t scared that Eliott would take it the wrong way, you know, he wasn’t scared that all of a sudden Eliott would start looking back at him with disgust, that’s not what it was about. He just… He just didn’t know how to word it out. When would be the right time, and if there would ever be one — but turns out there had been one. About a week ago, he and Eliott had been texting late at night, and when the conversation had drifted onto Lucille, more specifically Eliott’s lifelong crush on her — it’s not quite the truth, but two years feel a lot like two lifetimes when you think about it —, Eliott had jokingly suggested that Lucas should get himself someone too so they could go on double dates, once she finally agrees to acknowledge him.

(He doesn’t know why it’s taking her so long, and if he’s being honest, he’s a bit prejudiced against her because of this exact reason.)

Naturally, because old habits die hard, his first instinct had been to deflect. I’m not 45 yet, double dates sound boring as fuck, he almost wrote back, but at the last second he had erased all the words and went for Pretty sure I wouldn’t need you to make a fool of myself in front of my very hypothetical boyfriend instead. There had been a few agonizing minutes spent staring at the ceiling after that, phone turned screen down onto his mattress, while he nervously chewed onto his bottom lip with his stomach in knots; in the meantime, Eliott had flooded their conversation with offended texts, because ‘oh, so you just think you can keep me away from him??? That’s sweet’, and just like that, Lucas had felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Eliott asks excitedly, jumping in a sitting position so fast it makes the bedsprings creaks loudly, and Lucas hums in response, still frowning at his math problem without bothering to look back. He loves Eliott, he really does, but that boy has about a million things crossing his mind at all times of the day (and night), so he’s long given up on the idea of giving him his undivided attention every single time something like this happens. “What would you want him to look like?”

Lucas’ hands hover over his equation result for a moment as he blankly stares at his page in confusion, but then he throws a look above his shoulder, and he finds Eliott expectantly looking at him. “What? Who?”

“Your hypothetical boyfriend,” Eliott supplies, his smile widening when Lucas huffs and shakes his head.

“Don’t you think I have better things to think about right now?”, he groans, his attention drifting back onto his homework. He feels like he’s been twisting his brain over this for hours, and it’s not like he can possibly ask Eliott anything on the matter, because he may be two years older, when it comes to math he’s about as useless as a glass hammer.

“Better than thinking about the man of your dreams?”, Eliott gasps, and Lucas is about to tell him that this is all becoming extra cheesy for something that has no actual basis whatsoever when he adds: “You can’t find him if you don’t have an idea of what you’re looking for.”

“Because he’s going to suddenly show up, out of nowhere, just because I started picturing… I don’t know, some abs and a vaguely undefined hair color?”, Lucas snorts. He doesn’t make a habit of asking Eliott to be serious, because well, it’s Eliott, he’s got his head in the clouds a fair share of the time, but, like, come on.

But instead of picking his phone back up and moving onto another topic, one that doesn’t require Lucas’ participation at the very least, Eliott lets out an appreciative noise. “So you are picturing something, good start. Abs and… what’s the hair color again?”

Naturally, Lucas ends up smacking Eliott with his textbook — or at least trying to, because despite Eliott professing a lifelong hatred of sports of most, if not all kinds, he’s surprisingly quick and agile like a giant cat —, and, eventually, his idiot best friend agrees to leave it at that. Which would have been terrific, really, if his brain had agreed to do the same.

But later, much later, when it’s already dark outside and Eliott has been gone for hours, he finds himself thinking about it — that stupid, stupid idea. He can’t help but wonder, what if he’s right? What if he never finds anyone because he just doesn’t know what he’s looking for? Eliott has been crushing on Lucille for two years, but Lucas can’t even remember ever crushing on anyone. There’s never been anyone who made his stomach flutter, who made his mind go blank, who made his thoughts swirl around. There’s never been anyone who made his knees go weak, or turned his stomach to mush.

And maybe, as he keeps thinking about all the feelings everyone always talks about that he never got to experience, maybe that’s when he starts making it — maybe a couple of yearning thoughts are already the beginning of a list.

*

9- Someone who gives a shit

“How do they fit?” Eliott shouts from behind the bathroom door, and before Lucas has the time to reply he immediately adds, speech rate quickening like the words are tumbling down from his lips: “Because I’m pretty sure I can find something else.”

Lucas throws a glance at his sad reflection in the mirror, catching sight of the tee-shirt falling down mid-thighs and the shorts reaching below his knees; clearly not his best look, he thinks halfheartedly, flattening a couple of strands sticking up at weird angles at the back of his head. It’s only because he doesn’t want his best friend to take the door down that he ends up unlocking the door and stepping out of the bathroom.

“It’s fine, that will do,” Lucas mumbles, because honestly, he’s already crashing at the Demaurys’, it’s not like he can afford to be picky at the moment.

Eliott is standing in the doorway of his bedroom, and he gives him a sympathetic look — warm and gentle, honey-like in sweetness if not in color. “Good,” he nods, a nice smile stretching out on his lips as he slips into his bedroom.

Lucas follows him, shutting the door behind himself. Eliott vaguely smooths his comforter before climbing onto his bed. “What do you want to watch?”

Lucas twists his mouth a little, and for a moment he feels a bit lost without quite being able to tell why. He’s standing in this room he knows by heart, but still, it feels weird and alien. He uncomfortably rubs an invisible spot on his arm as he tries to process what’s different about it all. They’ve done that hundreds of times, he’s spent some of the best afternoons of his childhood and teenage years in Eliott’s house, in Eliott’s bedroom even, but…

But he’s never done that.

He’s never slammed the door after one too many fights and straight-up imposed himself at the Demaurys’, and judging by Eliott’s demeanor ever since he showed up, soaked wet from the rain outside, he knows he feels it too — it’s weird. It’s different. It’s not the usual excitement floating in the air.

“I don’t really feel like watching anything right now,” he confesses, fiddling with the hem of Eliott’s way-too-long tee-shirt. He’s just tired, he’s heard so much yelling today it’s like his ears are ringing.

“Oh, yeah, no, it’s fine,” Eliott says quickly. He pats the spot next to him until Lucas caves and joins him. “I just thought you might… I don’t know, like a distraction.”

“Being here is enough, don’t worry,” he says, maneuvering himself on the mattress before folding his legs against his chest, and honestly, he wishes that were true, he really does.

Because Eliott is Eliott, and he really doesn’t want his friend to feel bad about him any more than he already does — so Lucas does as he usually tries to do. He tries to shove it all as far down as possible, in the smallest corner of his brain, where it doesn’t hurt as much. He tries not to think about the fact that tomorrow is another day, that eventually he will have to come back home, and how much he doesn’t want that. He tries not to think that Eliott’s tee-shirt feels soft against his skin, and that even if it’s the weirdest sleepover they’ve ever had, even if something feels off, he still feels a thousand times better here than he does at home.

Eliott crosses his legs, and leans forward to reach for a pair of earbuds on his nightstand. “How about some music? You can choose whatever you want.”

Lucas’ eyes travel a few times between Eliott’s eyes and the earbud that is offered to him, and he picks up with a small huff. “Alright, okay.”

Eliott makes a small, content sound, like it makes him genuinely happy to spend the night with his grumpy self, listening to songs that aren’t even remotely close to his personal taste — and maybe Lucas goes along with it. Maybe he’s selfish like that, but this one night, he just gets along with it. He lets soft piano music soothe his mood a bit, slowly lulling him into sleep until his head gets too heavy and he has to drag himself to the guest mattress that has been set up for him like so many times before.

Crossing the street to go back home, that too he’s done a million times, but not often with that weird gut-feeling of walking right into a no man’s land. His dad’s car is nowhere to be seen, and the silence is deafening as he pads through the silent house. He shuffles upstairs to change before school, going about his morning routine with a weird tension lodged between his shoulder blades, his head too full of thoughts, and he’s shoving a biology textbook into his backpack when he sees it. It’s a DVD — Ratatouille. It’s, embarrassingly enough, one of those movies he could watch over and over again without ever tiring of it, and obviously Eliott knows, obviously, because they’ve watched it so many times since they were kids, and who else would have put it in there?

His mouth twists into half a smile when he picks up the DVD, a bright yellow sticky note on the front of the box. Everything is always better on Blu-ray, I promise ✳

*

11- Someone who fucking sticks around and doesn’t leave when things go to shit

A Blu-ray isn’t enough to make it all better, as it turns out, but Lucas surely appreciates Eliott’s gesture for what it is, and all those that follow later, when his family situation goes from bad to worse to terrible. He’s never made a habit of setting a stupid list of resolutions with every new year, but this time, and this time only, he’s resolved to stop thinking about that fucking new year. At best he’s allowing himself to laugh it off. Divorced parents? Funny as hell. Mom in a psychiatric ward? Hilarious. Family house on sale? Hysterical. They’re cruising around the near-empty supermarket, aimlessly going from one aisle to the next as Lucas picks up random stuff to drop them into the cart Eliott is pushing. It’s another Wednesday, it’s lunchtime, and he knows there’s nothing to eat at home, because there’s been no one to go grocery shopping for him.

“So what are you guys planning for tomorrow?”, he asks distractedly.

Just because he’s single doesn’t mean he’s clueless about the ways of those who aren’t — and he knows that tomorrow night is a big deal for Eliott, long before they even take left and stumble onto a sea of sugary pink and velvety red. An aisle has been pushed to the side at the center of the store to clear some more space for Valentine’s Day displays. The racks are filled with chocolates of all kinds and flavors, heart-wearing Teddy Bears, gifts, cards and even plastic flowers, but Eliott doesn’t really seem to pay attention to anything. Which, in itself, isn’t that surprising. He’s been dating Lucille for three months now, ever since they got paired together for some oral presentation at school and that it finally opened her eyes at how wonderful Eliott is, so Lucas doesn’t really expect his best friend to go for the first generic box of chocolates he finds.

“Uh, I don’t know,” Eliott says evasively, following Lucas when he walks past the Valentine’s Day area. “We haven’t talked about it much yet.”

Lucas hums. “It’s your first Valentine’s Day,” he points out distractedly, eyes skimming over various cereal brands, and he ends up reaching for a Crunch box that he drops into the cart, “I’d have expected you to buy balloons and a giant Teddy Bear or something.” Or simply to show up at Lucille’s window with a boombox, he almost adds, but he keeps it in just in time. Eliott doesn’t need any bad idea of that kind. Judging by his musical taste, it’s frankly better for everyone, starting with Lucille’s parents’ neighbors.

He hears Eliott toying with the shopping cart chain. “Luce’s kinda busy. Her parents are on her case with the BAC and all,” he says, and Lucas gives him a look, from his spot at the end of the aisle, that makes Eliott’s eyebrows shoot up innocently. “What?”

“Why are you lying?”, Lucas asks, squinting his eyes a little.

Eliott scoffs, but it comes out wrong — off-key. “I’m not lying.”

He’s definitely lying, Lucas thinks bluntly, and he rolls his eyes to himself. His best friend is so painfully transparent that he should probably be grateful about it, he should probably be happy that he’s able to read him like an open book, but instead he hates that Eliott doesn’t seem to have any clue when it comes down to it — it makes it even more annoying whenever he tries to lie to his face. “You are,” he retorts with a pointed stare. “What’s up? I thought you’d be over the moon or something.”

Eliott squirms behind the cart, his hands awkwardly drumming along the handle. “Oh, no I am, truly,” he says quickly, “I just thought we could… I don’t know, maybe go watch a movie or something. You and I.”

And there we go, Lucas thinks, and it’s like a weight is dropped onto his shoulders, making them slump with an inaudible woosh. There’s a pang inside his chest, and it’s not a big one, it’s not a breath-altering one, not those that make you want to curl into a ball and cry, it’s just the kind of sting that reminds you of a sore spot. A bruise still a little tender, a scar still noticeable.

“Are you asking me out, Demaury?” he snickers, trying to deflect the sudden change in the atmosphere, but he already knows it’s useless because he can’t be the only one going for it — they both have to play the same game, and he already knows Eliott isn’t willing to.

“I just think you might want some company,” Eliott says with a nice smile, and although Lucas loves that smile, he really does, this time it just doesn’t work.

“I’m fine,” he replies briskly, and he pulls sharply at the end of the shopping cart to move it forward. It’s a petty gesture that seems to startle Eliott, and he immediately feels bad about it. “Your girlfriend doesn’t need you to worry about me, she needs you to fuss over her.”

“But I-”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

Eventually Eliott nods, muttering a small ‘right’, and Lucas has to pretend he doesn’t want to rush out of here, lunch be damned. He hates it, he hates when Eliott is like this, and hates even more that it’s because of him. They walk through the store for a few more minutes, mostly in silence, only occasionally making a small comment or two about things they see on their way to the cash registers. Eliott starts filling the reusable shopping bags Lucas retrieves from his backpack while he pays a ridiculous amount of money for his purchases, and then they’re off.

“Hey,” Lucas mumbles pitifully as they reach the bus stop at the end of the parking lot. “I… I’m sorry if I was rude. I really appreciate what you do for me, everything, it’s just… I’m just trying to hold it together.” He looks away, tracing a weird line in the concrete from the tip of his shoe to avoid Eliott’s eyes.

“It’s okay, I shouldn’t be pushy,” Eliott says, and there’s the faint trace of a smile in his voice. He leans down to squeeze the shopping bag he’s holding between his feet. “But I want you to know I’m here, okay? I’m not going anywhere, so whenever you feel like talking… I’m here.”

It takes Lucas a few seconds to look up, and there’s something so soft and gentle into Eliott’s expression that it makes something melt into his chest almost instantly. He finds himself mirroring Eliott’s smile, albeit lamely — not quite as beautiful, not quite as warm, not quite as reassuring. He finds himself thinking about what Eliott just said for a while, as they hop into the bus and make their way home one stop after the other. He's not going to accept his offer for Valentine's Day, because if anyone deserves to be taken care of on that special day, it's Eliott's girlfriend. But still. Maybe, someday, he can manage to find someone who just doesn't leave.

*

15- Someone who feels like home

It’s a long while before he thinks about the list again — he doesn’t even know where it is, but he guesses moving abroad for a semester tends to do that to you. He’s in his second year of uni when he jumps on the Erasmus offer, and between paperwork and packing up and unpacking and settling down and trying to, maybe, eventually, meet some new people to make the next three months of his life somewhat relevant on a human level, he doesn’t have much time to think about whether or not he’s going to meet the man of his dreams at the next street corner, much less whether or not he checks an inordinate amount of criteria.

Frankly, it’s not that big of a deal. Lucas has never been excessively hopeful about it in the first place, so he can’t really say it’s something that requires a lot of self-discipline. Occasionally Eliott brings it up over text or FaceTime, because he’s an idiot like that, and he’s his best friend, so of course he considers it his double duty to bring up that kind of corny, embarrassing prospect.

“I don’t know, he’s kinda cute in a way,” Lucas says one day, roughly two weeks after landing in Oslo, about some guy he’s met at a party. He’s dutifully sent Eliott his Instagram handle for approval, and for the past few minutes they’ve been going through his publications over FaceTime, like they’re back in Lucas’ old bedroom, with Eliott on his bed and Lucas sitting on the floor.

“He looks fifteen,” Eliott replies unhelpfully, snickering a little. “Didn’t know it was a turn-on of yours. Did that one make the cut?”

“Shut up,” Lucas scoffs, and he regrets not being able to send something in Eliott’s face in retaliation. Besides, he looks barely his age himself, it’s not like he’s in a position to comment about someone else’s appearance — something Eliott promptly dismisses as soon as Lucas points it out, because ‘Lucas, don’t expect me to tell you you’re not ridiculously attractive’, and he’s vain enough to take the compliment without arguing.

After that, well, he goes back to not thinking about it.

Final terms are rolling around and he crams for it, and before he can even catch a breath, it’s already the end of the semester and Christmas is right at the corner. He lands back in France three days before Christmas Eve, and of course he crashes at Eliott’s, because he hasn’t spoken to his father in nearly four months and a half, so it’s not like he even has options to choose from — but he has to admit, it feels nice, knowing he’s going somewhere he’s wanted. Eliott has been buzzing over it for weeks now, making plans for movie nights and places to go and people to see, so much that Lucas almost forgot to be sad about leaving Oslo.

“I’m so fucking happy to have you back,” Eliott says excitedly, voice a little too loud in the narrow stairwell leading up to his third-floor one-bedroom flat, and he’s so eager that he ends up bumping Lucas’ suitcase a couple of times between the stairs, the wall and the banister.

“Jeez, calm down,” Lucas huffs, “the whole neighborhood doesn’t have to know I’m here, thanks.”

Eliott opens the door of his flat with a nudge from his shoulder, not looking even remotely sorry. “Well, that’s just the beginning if we get a place together,” he singsongs, and Lucas shakes his head a little — but deep down, he loves it. His cheeks are hurting from smiling, and he feels his shoulders relax instantly as soon as he crosses the threshold. Nothing has changed since he left last summer. Not that he expected it to, but it’s always nice. In the small, cramped living room, Eliott has already prepared a pillow and a comforter, carefully folded to the side of the couch, and it’s not even that late (not even 10), and the flight wasn’t even long (not even three hours), but Lucas already feels very compelled into dropping himself there and wrapping himself into the blanket — so he does just that. He quickly nibbles on a leftover sandwich he bought at the airport in Oslo, while Eliott excitedly rambles about some renting options he’s seen here and there, and then he quickly sets up his bed.

His best friend is sweet enough not to make fun of him for it, and when he flips off the light on his way out of the living room with a cheerful ‘sweet dreams’, Lucas doesn’t think, for one second, he can love him more than that.

*

“How about this?” Eliott grins triumphantly as he turns the lion plushie he had growing up in his direction. Lucas isn’t sure, but he thinks it might have been supposed to look like Simba, before he proceeded to drag it everywhere with him until the color irrevocably turned a dirty mix of greenish-yellow and grey. “Don’t you miss him?”

Lucas huffs, shaking his head, and he turns back to busy himself with a heavy storage box filled with what looks like bedsheets and drapes of various kinds. “I’m way past needing plushies, thanks,” he snorts, reaching for the plastic lid of the box to replace it in its dusty corner.

They’ve been here for about twenty minutes, in the storage unit where most of his and his mom’s stuff are neatly piled up in, and although he initially thought that this would be easy, because ‘C’mon, it’s just a storage unit, it’s not Versailles in there’, turns out there are lots and lots of things to search through. He doesn’t regret bringing Eliott along, to be honest; it takes at least two to make their way around all the stuff, and at least Eliott can reach the upper shelves. At first they had started renting the unit to store his mom’s things away after the divorce, but when Lucas moved to Norway, he couldn’t afford to pay both the student lodging and rent at his old flatshare simultaneously, so he was forced to give up his spot over there and to store his things here in the meantime.

“Have you no heart?” Eliott gasps, and when Lucas turns back, he’s pouting as he gives the plushie a sad look. “We’re definitely watching Toy Story tonight.”

Lucas rolls his eyes fondly with a scoff, and eventually, after another moment of staring, Eliott agrees to put the lion back into whatever cardboard or plastic box he found it and to move the fuck on. In the meantime, Lucas moves over to another stash of smaller plastic boxes, still looking for the clothes he left behind before Oslo, but it’s not long before Eliott makes another sound, that has Lucas’ head whipping around.

“Hey, remember this game?” he asks, grinning as he waves a version of Risk. “God I miss that old peasant woman who told us off whenever we would be beating up people.”

“Dark Eliott was really a formative experience, but don’t ever end up on the wrong side of the tracks, thanks,” Lucas snickers in his corner, taking the lid off one of the boxes before he starts rummaging through its content. There’s a bit of everything in there, from old assignments to a snapback, pictures, a couple of textbooks, and as he keeps digging through it all, Eliott huffs something he doesn’t quite catch.

It’s during that overall quiet and regular afternoon that the list makes its comeback into Lucas’ life, after months of barely giving it a thought, and maybe at least a year of not adding another entry; it slips out from an old Annabac textbook when he picks it up from the box. The fold is a little wrong and the corner slightly crumpled, and for a second he contemplates just shoving it back at the bottom box, because he’s really not in the mood to entertain that kind of ridiculously hopeful thoughts for a better future or whatever, but in the end there’s a weird kind of curiosity that pushes him to open it.

Just a quick look, he thinks, discreetly peering above his shoulder to find Eliott busy in the opposite corner. The list has a total of 54 entries, ranking from thoughtful to shallow to frankly depressing at times. A wry smile shows up on his lips at entry #4: he gotta be tall because I’m not spending my life climbing ladders to change light bulbs. Or even better, the entry #9: someone who makes me laugh so hard I cry — it has something terribly soft to it, almost… pure.

The entry #29 is entirely Eliott’s fault, he knows it right off the bat: not too many tattoos thanks. It’s crossed, because shortly afterwards Eliott got his first tattoo for some obscure reason, and despite Lucas’ adamant protests, his best friend insisted that he accompanied him to the parlor for the big day — and then he got another tattoo, and another, and after some time Lucas was forced to realize that… okay maybe tattoos were okay.  

The rest of the entries are sometimes awfully precise (#34 ‘light eyes????? Fuck yes?????’ and #41 ‘abs. abs. abs.’), or completely vague (#29 Fucking consistent). And then there’s entry #50. One of the last entries, that he probably wrote towards the end of high school or during his first year of uni, during a lonely evening at the flatshare — a very graphic description of what he’d want his imaginary boyfriend to do to him, which he had written after watching some porn locked up in his bedroom.

“What are you doing?”

Eliott’s voice sounds so close that Lucas startles guiltily, snapping the list down against his chest in the textbook definition of caught red-handed. Eliott’s eyebrows shoot up as they make eye-contact, and Lucas tries to ignore the way his cheeks heat up. “I- uh- nothing,” he croaks out. “Just going through old stuff.”

There’s a glint in Eliott’s eyes, like he knows, like he can read through his fucking mind — like he too just read that entry #50. Stop fucking spiraling, he doesn’t know shit, he admonishes himself. The only thing he knows is that Lucas is acting like a teenager caught looking at porn.

“What?”, he asks, trying to find back his composure.

Eliott shrugs, with that annoying little smirk on his ridiculously pretty face. “Nothing,” he says, voice drawling a little, but he’s motioning next to Lucas to busy himself with the upper shelves in Lucas’ direct vicinity, and he knows his best friend is being annoying on purpose.

Lucas squints at him from the corner of his eyes. Seemingly unbothered, Eliott stands onto his tiptoes, arms extended at their maximum capacity to reach for a big, dusty cardboard box almost touching the ceiling, and his tee-shirt is riding high and showing the smallest trace of his rib tattoo curling down his side, and that’s when it creeps onto Lucas, at the worst, most inopportune moment. His eyes travel back and forth between Eliott and the list a couple of times, and despite his best efforts to keep calm, Lucas’ stomach starts doing a weird somersault.  

Oh no.

*

Here is the thing.

When he started making that list, he was never planning on his best friend checking pretty much all the boxes right off the bat. That couldn’t have been farther away from what he had in mind, he’s pretty fucking sure of it. And yet here he is. He’s slipped the list into the front pocket of his hoodie before they left the storage unit, and then he took it out to shove it in his laptop bag, where he’s pretty sure no one will find it. It’s not that he’s afraid Eliott would be weirded out about it, it’s just… It’s a lot. Because it’s one thing to be aware that your best friend is insanely attractive, and it’s another one to think that maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t mind being the one he kisses, the one he pulls by the waist at night, and the one who makes him feel good in bed.

The irony of the calendar (and his life, really), makes it that the next few days are just a whirlwind of Eliott Eliott Eliott, and by the time Christmas rolls around, Lucas is ready to die. Not because he doesn’t want his best friend anywhere near, but because he would very, very much appreciate if his brain could just fucking stop bringing up that wishlist every fucking five minutes — every single time he so much as glances or thinks about Eliott. Which tends to be problematic when he’s literally living with him at the moment. All of a sudden it’s like he’s hyper-aware of all the times Eliott smiles at him, reaches out to ruffle his hair in the morning, or has a nice gesture of any kind. It’s like he feels somewhat guilty for every laughter they share, and when they go do some last-minute Christmas shopping, Lucas walks around on automatic pilot for the better part of the afternoon, after inadvertently catching sight of Eliott’s arm flung around his shoulders in a mirror.

The only upside of having a dysfunctional family is that for at least 24h it takes Lucas’ mind off Eliott and that weird-ass situation his fifteen-year-old self put him in the first place. He spends Christmas Eve with his father and his new wife in a restaurant, and if one can’t be caught dead trying anything to make his son feel at ease, the other is trying so fucking hard it makes Lucas wants to throw himself in the traffic on the way to pick up his mom at her subway stop. Because yes, his stepmother insisted that he brings his mother, and Lucas was chicken enough to accept, just so that he wouldn’t have to sit through the whole dinner with his father and his weirdly enthusiastic second wife.

The whole dinner is as awkward as it can possibly be, but then Lucas comes back to Eliott’s place, early enough that his best friend is still at his grandparents’, and he tries to make sense of the feeling of relief he feels when he drops himself on the couch, only to see Eliott’s sketchbook on the coffee table, and Eliott’s hoodie thrown carelessly on the armrest, and Eliott’s drawings pinned up on the walls, and the piano pushed in the corner. It used to be in Eliott’s bedroom back at his parents’, and they would mess around trying to get the Star Wars theme right with four hands on the keyboard.

None of these things feel new — but all the hyper-awareness is weird enough to make him want to scream and hits his head repeatedly with the flat of his hand. And the worst part is that it keeps going on like this. Spending Christmas day at the Demaurys’ shouldn’t feel so weird either, and yet. He’s always been Eliott’s platonic plus one at every single one of his family birthday dinner, so he knows everyone and everything about this family. He knows that one of Eliott’s uncles and his godfather will inevitably end up on different sides of an argument about politics, that Eliott’s dad will probably try to lighten the mood, that Eliott’s younger cousins will pout for a fair share of lunch or dinner except when they’ll venture on TikTok halfway through, that Eliott’s grandmother will make a passive-aggressive comment or two about the food that his mother will try to ignore, and at some point, as always, she’ll go to the kitchen, and make a weird face only for Lucas to see, and that he’ll have to bite the inside of his cheek not to laugh — he knows all of that, because he’s been around for fifteen years.

But still it does feel weird. A little bit. And not just because he’s never spent a Christmas dinner with them. It feels weird, because it downs on him that Eliott is single, and that he’s single too, and that although Eliott’s mother welcomes him as soon as Eliott walks him and asks if they can add a plate, when they take off their coats, Lucas catches a silent conversation between her and her husband that results into Eliott’s dad shrugging. Did they ever think they were more than friends? Did they ever think Lucas was more than just the kid from across the street with a fucked-up family? Because he himself never did, but now it’s all he can think about. And if he had been a girl, or if Eliott had been a girl, if they had been in a boy/girl kind of friendship, he knows that at some point the Demaurys would have asked for ground rules, no matter how ridiculous it would have felt for them. No closed doors in the afternoon, no sleepovers in the same room, and with every birthday dinner or birthday lunch, people would have just assumed they were a particularly chill couple who refrained on PDA.

So that’s how he spends his Christmas lunch, alongside the Demaury family. He laughs at the jokes thrown around, at the same family memories he’s heard a bunch of times already, rolls his eyes at the political arguments on the other end of the table, and spends entirely too much time pondering the ins and outs of heteronormativity and the way it may or may not have shaped his relationship to his best friend.

“You okay?”, Eliott asks at some point on his way back from the kitchen, squeezing his shoulders lightly, and Lucas has to crane his neck all the way up to make eye-contact because his best friend is standing behind him.

“Yeah, I’m all good,” he says with a smile, and when Eliott goes to sit back at the table, Lucas tries his best to ignore another look he catches between Eliott’s parents.

*

“Can I ask you something?” Eliott asks from his spot against the stove, hands tightly wrapped around his mug while Lucas pours himself his second coffee of the day.

It’s officially the last week of the year, and to Lucas’ great dismay, he’s not particularly sure that any of his internal questioning sessions will die at midnight on New Year Eve. To make matters even worse, he doesn’t feel like he’s slept one bit, and although he initially tried to conceal it at best as he could, he guesses he’s making a poor job considering Eliott joined him for breakfast roughly three minutes ago and is already picking up on the signs.

“Yeah, sure,” Lucas says, trying to sound relaxed, nose in his mug to avoid looking Eliott in the eyes.

“You would tell me if you didn’t want us to move in together, right?” Eliott enquires after a moment. “I mean, it’s not the first time I get an idea and I run away with it and you’re…”

“No, no, I still want to,” Lucas interrupts, and he hopes his voice doesn’t sound as weird and scratchy as it feels in his throat. Because he does. He genuinely still does want to go through with it, because no matter how fucked up his brain is making things for him lately, Eliott is still the closest from home he’s ever felt.

Eliott hums. “Oh, okay,” his voice trails off, sounding hesitant, “I mean I was afraid you might have changed your mind and didn’t know how to tell me.”

Lucas laughs, but deep down he wants to slap himself because it sounds like chalk screeching on a blackboard in the silent kitchen corner. God you’re so fake. “I don’t know where you got this idea, I’m still 1000% in.”

Eliott looks sheepish, chewing onto his bottom lip uncomfortably. “Look, I know… I mean you’ve been kind of quiet lately, and I know sometimes you get lost in your head a bit. I don’t want you to think you can’t, like, talk to me or anything.”

Lucas’ grip tightens around his mug. He doesn’t deserve Eliott. No one does, but especially not him. “I’m fine it’s just… You know, Christmas mood isn’t my strong suit,” he mumbles, eyes falling. “Plus, going through all that stuff the other day… It brings up some memories.”

After all, it’s not a lie. It did bring up a lot of feelings and thoughts, and although they aren’t all that unpleasant, it’s surprisingly difficult to maintain eye-contact with your best friend when you spent most of the past few days trying not to picture his mouth on you.

“I’m sorry,” Eliott says, sounding so absolutely genuine that Lucas wants to smash something — preferably his head against the kitchen sink. “Of course I don’t know how you feel but, you’re not going through it alone, right? I’m here for you. Always have and always will.”

Lucas swears he could cry. He can’t possibly keep it to himself. Not when Eliott is his best friend, not when they’re just about to start looking for a place to live together, not when the longest Lucas has tried to hide a secret from him was exactly ten hours. “You’re checking a bunch of boxes,” Lucas confesses with a long sigh, eyes falling shut for a second.

A weird kind of silence settles in the kitchen, tension lodging between Lucas’ shoulders.

“What are you talking about?”, Eliott asks after a moment.

“The boyfriend list,” Lucas mumbles, shaking his head to himself. “Or wishlist or whatever. It’s fucking dumb, I know, and I never realized that before, but the other day I found that stupid list again in my stuff at the storage unit, and now I don’t know what to do with it, or what to think.”

If anyone needs a guide on how to ruin a lifelong friendship, Lucas Lallemant is your reference, he thinks humorlessly. But it’s Eliott. So maybe it’s not that bad, right? It doesn’t have to be a big deal. And okay, maybe he is making a big deal out of it, maybe he wouldn’t have to be afraid about Eliott’s reaction if he wasn’t the one making it sound like-

“And you feel like… it’s a problem?” Eliott asks carefully, as if he had followed his train of thoughts.

Lucas sneers, finally turning around to meet Eliott’s eyes. “Well, you tell me. I’m shaping my imaginary boyfriend after my childhood best friend, what does it say about me?” He’s pretty positive it’s not the sign of someone with a perfectly balanced life.

“That you have great taste,” Eliott grins, but it kind of turns into a wince when Lucas lets out a groan. “Hey, it doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want to, alright? I’m nothing extraordinary, I’m sure plenty of guys check those boxes.”

“But…?”, Lucas prompts, because it feels a lot like Eliott isn’t done but he’s really close to tell him that pausing for dramatic effect right now is definitely not the nice thing to do.

Eliott’s hands are still gripping tight his coffee mug. “But nothing. Like I said,” Eliott adds, clearing his throat a little, “it doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.”

Suddenly it hits Lucas that he sounds fucking nervous, like, actually nervous. Why is he nervous? Oh right. He just made things weird. “Why? Do you want it to mean something?”, he asks, hoping to go for a casual laugh, but it comes out wrong, off-key.

“Well… I started making a list too, a couple of years ago,” Eliott says, before pausing. His mouth twists a little. “And it’s… uh, it’s possible you’re checking a bunch of boxes as well.”

Well that’s just getting better and better, Lucas almost says. It’s Eliott’s turn to avoid his eyes and Lucas isn’t sure what’s going on but he’s pretty positive he doesn’t like it, because now things aren’t just weird on his part anymore, and he has no idea what to do with that piece of information.

Eventually, because he’s like that, Lucas snorts — it’s just too much. “Look, I appreciate it if you’re trying to make me feel better but-”

Eliott looks offended. “I’m not,” he says, sounding earnest, and Lucas’ words die in his throat. “Okay, you know what? Come with me.” He puts his mug down onto the kitchen elements, and Lucas doesn’t even have the time to say anything before Eliott motions to leave the kitchen, dragging him along in his wake. His own coffee mug still in his hands, he stares in confusion as they walk into the living room, his best friend going to retrieve one of his sketchbooks from the tiny coffee table.

The next few seconds are particularly silent as Eliott flicks through the pages, but he eventually exhumes a loose leaf from the depths of the sketchbook. What strikes Lucas first is that there’s a lot of black ink on it. Lines, sometimes full-on paragraphs have been crossed with a thick black marker, which offers a stark contrast with Eliott’s rather small but clean handwriting.

“See? I’m not lying,” he says, and he seems to hesitate for a split second, before he hands it to Lucas. “You can read it, if you want.”

No that’s personal, is the first thing that comes to his mind. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the kind of thing he would want people to think about his very own stuff — that it’s off-limit, that peeking is rude, that it’s intrusive. He knows he’s an adult, he knows that, and Eliott is an adult too, and even more so they literally grew up together, they figured shit out together, so it’s not like Eliott would bat an eye if he ever read anything about Lucas’ slightly graphic descriptions, no.

But would he die on the spot from the sheer embarrassment? Probably.

And yet — when Eliott holds his list, he picks it up. He’s a hypocrite like that.

“Boy there's a lot of marker,” he says dumbly, cocking an eyebrow, but deep down all he can think about is that he’s holding that stupid list Eliott wrote, about the things he wants in a partner, and he hates, he hates that there’s some kind of weird hope fluttering deep inside him.

His eyes skim over the entries, more avidly than he’d like to admit. Naturally, Eliott my-head-in-the-cloud Demaury cannot go straight to the point, so it’s not surprising that each entry turns out to be at least a full sentence long.

3- They don’t mind a good challenge and won’t pass on an occasion to try out new things even if that means stepping out of their comfort zone.

8- They understand that mental health isn’t smiling all the time.

14- They’re straight-forward enough to say when things aren’t fine and don’t dismiss it with a shrug.

“Okay but that could be anyone, Eliott,” Lucas says flatly, turning the page over, and he tries his best not to feel disappointed because it’s not like he has the right to be. “And I’m sorry but I think the last time someone called me ‘optimistic’ was, like, in kindergarten, and it was about another Lucas.”

“Well that’s the thing,” Eliott argues with a small shrug, and he buries his hands in his pockets. “To me it’s kind of… you. And I know it’s confusing because well, I was there too, but I feel like… I don’t know, the point of making a list like that in the first place is to figure out what matters and what we want, no?”

Lucas’ hand tightens around his mug. “I mean, yes,” he admits, voice dragging slowly on the last word. But does that mean you want me? He can’t get the words out, it’s like his mouth is full of gravel. Another reason why Eliott’s list can’t possibly be about him, he’s far, very, very far from being brave. Or even ‘quick-witted’ for that matter — he only has biting come-backs that would also get him beaten up in middle school. “But between knowing what makes you comfortable and knowing that you want to know your best friend in the biblical sense, there’s an ocean,” Lucas points out, a bit more dryly than intended.

Eliott’s cocks an eyebrow. “In the biblical sense,” he repeats, laughter not far behind as he perches himself onto the armrest of the couch, and just because of that, because of the subtle way Eliott’s voice changes, because Lucas knows he’s biting back a laugh — it’s because of these small things that the tension lifts a little, and that the atmosphere shifts to something more bearable.

“You know what I mean,” Lucas huffs.

Eliott grins, that kind of annoying grin that made Lucas smack his face with textbooks back in the days. “Oh, yeah, I do, don’t worry about that.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, eventually glancing back to Eliott’s list — but it’s like the words don’t print themselves in his brain, like he can’t comprehend those simple sentences written in Eliott’s oh-so-clean handwriting. “You haven’t told me what all that marker was about,” he croaks out after a moment of silence.

“And how about you tell me how you actually feel about this?”, Eliott asks gently. He rises up from the couch, stepping closer, and Lucas finally finds the courage to look up long enough to hand him back his list.

“I think that you deserve to find someone more than anyone else in the world,” Lucas says, voice getting a bit quiet as he grabs tightly his cold coffee mug with both hands. “But I don’t know if that someone could be me. I never thought… I mean it’s only been a couple of days, before that I never thought of us like that.”

“But you did in the end,” Eliott points out.

It gets Lucas’ brain to work, the wheels turning even faster — because Eliott’s right. He didn’t come to think of being romantically involved with Eliott because Eliott showed him his list, he got there all by himself. And the problem isn’t that Eliott is repulsing, it’s not that the thought of kissing him and going on dates with him is weird, it’s not that falling asleep next to Eliott is grossing him out. The problem is-

“I think I just don’t want to risk losing you,” Lucas admits in a whisper, eyes falling. He’s never been in an actual relationship. His list of exes should be requalified as, at best, weeks-long flings, and he does not particularly think he’ll be a natural at this, courtesy to his parents displaying the opposite of a healthy relationship for most of his life — the last thing he wants is to hurt Eliott in the process of trying and failing.

He only looks up when Eliott’s hands cover his own around the coffee mug. “I know. And I know no amount of promises on my part will make it better, but if you need me to I’ll repeat it every single day.” His thumb gently caresses the back of Lucas’ hand. “I’ll be there as long as you want me to. And if you don’t want me like that, then it’s fine too. I’ll still be there no matter what.”

Lucas takes a deeper inhale. “Why are you so calm about all of this? How long have you been sitting on that shit to be so chill now?”

Eliott looks sheepish. “Two, three years maybe.” Lucas’ mouth falls open, but Eliott quickly adds: “I mean, it’s not that I was like, just fantasizing about you for like three years straight, it’s just that, like, I always thought you were always the one that…” His voice trails off and he huffs a laugh. “See why I didn’t say anything before? It’s just… it’s so hard to explain.”

“Yeah,” Lucas snorts, chewing onto his bottom lip. “Tell me about it.”

But deep down he’s starting to understand what Eliott means. It’s hard to put into words every little thing that makes Eliott the person he needs most. Something not even a list of a thousand entries can do. And maybe that’s why it feels so alien that, to Eliott, he’s the perfect match to his wishlist. To me it is you, Eliott had said before, and now he gets it. He gets it because Eliott’s hands are around his own, he gets it because Eliott would probably be willing to tattoo ‘I will not leave you alone’ somewhere on his arm if Lucas asked. He gets it because Eliott has been sitting on his own feelings for three years, and still he helped him out pick up guys, sort out his life, encouraged him to leave for a whole different country, and he was only brave enough to go through any of it because Eliott made him feel like he was capable of doing so.

“My list is a mess,” Lucas confesses. “And I should probably cover a thing or two before you see it because that’s, like, not appropriate for a first table read. But if you want to read it… Then you can read it. And then you can decide if you think you can put up with me more than you already do.”

Eliott’s smile is soft and blinding at the same time. He takes one of his hands off Lucas’, and when he pulls him closer by the neck, Lucas still feels weird about it, but not in a bad way; there’s just something churning in his stomach that wasn’t there not so long ago. He just leans into the touch as Eliott’s lips press onto his cheek, because Eliott smells good, and it makes him feel warm and protected in a way no one else ever made him feel.

“I’ll be honest,” Eliott says quietly, not pulling much away, “that’s why there’s so much marker on mine.”

This time Lucas feels warm for a whole different reason. He feels the tip of his ears heating up a little bit, and he’s positive it doesn’t have to do with Eliott’s immediate vicinity. “Well,” he says, clearing his throat a little bit, “that’s… something to think about.”

“One step at a time though.”

Lucas finds himself smiling, mirroring Eliott’s expression, his eyes trailing a second too long on Eliott’s lips. “Yeah. One step at a time.”

[love-geeky-fangirl]

Ranking every Teen Drama I have ever watched

(Updated)

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

+ young Shailene Woodley and Molly Ringwald I guess

- everything else. Even Shailene Woodley's and Molly Ringwald's performances weren't that great because the writing is just oh so bad. The background music is bland and repetative and it sounds like out of some teenager's YouTube chanel. The plotlines are ridiculous and convoluted, which isn't neccessarily such a bad thing, because it is a teen drama show after all, the problem is the show seems to take itself too seriously. Other entries on this list also have ridiculously convoluted plotlines, but I'm ranking them highed because they don't take themselves too seriously and don't claim to be realistic like this show does. Seriously, from the title it suggests like this was going to be a real, uncensored look into high school but it's the furthest thing from it. Not to mention how problematic it is- God forbid someone suggests that a 14-year-old pregnant girl gets an abortion or gives the baby up for adoption without being seen as a terrible and despicable person.

Otp: Marc Molina x a job somewhere far, far away from these kids

Notps: every single pairing on this show

Best moment: literally none

Weirdest moment: "I'm such a whore!" "Well, you're my whore." What were the writers thinking??? Was this supposed to be romantic??

We Children From Zoo Station

+the aesthetic, the casting of Christiane, Detlef and Axel

-this was such a letdown. Honestly I was so hyped for it after seeing the trailer since I've read the book and didn't particularly like the movie- I feel like it's hard to fit all of Christiane's story into 90 minutes. That's why I was so excited about this show. Christiane's story covers so much, so it's easier to make it into a TV show when you don't want to ommit anything and butcher the story. But they somehow managed to do it anyway. They changed so much for no reason and completely erased Christiane's childhood trauma, which was important in the book. Now, I know you can say that it's just a loose adaptation, so it doesn't have to follow the book word for word. But I feel like if you already decided to tell her- a real person's story- you should at least do it authentically. Imo they shouldn't have tried to make the setting vague. It worked with Sex Education because the story of Sex Education is timeless. However, Christiane's story is not timeless. It's a true story set in the 1970s. If they were making a new show from scratch, I would have liked it. But this is an already existing story and they’re supposed to be just retelling it. My last issue is a nit pick but I wish the actresses playing Stella and Babsi were reversed. It just would've fit better.

Otps: all those kids x sobriety

Notp: Christiane x Detlef

Best moment: Christiane's first time in Sound was pretty true to the book

Weirdest moment: when Detlef became a gigolo because he needed money for his dog. Who tf thought of that?

Pretty Little Liars

+ makeup, style, the theme song, the drama and mystery that always kept me guessing, the cliffhangers at the end of each episode that made it so addictive, Emily's coming out story, Hanna and Spencer had some good lines

- the mishandling of some serious issues (namely eating disorders), romantization of student-teacher relationship, the timeline not making much sense, these writers seem to put more thought into the characters' outfits than the storylines

Otps: Emily x Maya, Hanna x Caleb

Notp: Ezria

Best moment: Hanna and Caleb in the shower (the sexual tension was cuttable with a knife)

Weirdest moments: Aria asking Ezra out in the middle of a make-up test (it was supposed to be cute but it was just cringy), Spencer trying to block A's text messages on a laptop, in the middle of a park (what? Spencer, you were supposed to be the smart one!)

One Tree Hill

+ Brooke, the theme song, Chad Michael Murray

- the casual drinking and driving (I mean seriously these kids play a drinking game at a party and then casually hop into a car and drive home??), too much basketball and cheerleading (that's not a bad thing per se but I just don't really care about neither of these things), it just seems too stereotypical and kinda bland?? I couldn't really get into it

Otp: Naley

Notp: Peyton x Nathan

Best moment: Naley by the dock

Weirdest moment: "I guess I'm just a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside a bitch." It's not really a bad moment but a cringy line. I guess the writers though they were being clever but it just sounded bad.

Dawson's Creek

+ the clothes, the 90s aesthetic, the 90s soundtrack, many movie references, Pacey is a sweetheart, Jen is a feminist icon, dealing with mental health issues through Andie (it's rare to see in shows as old as this)

- the slutshaming of Jen really hasn't aged well, the storyline of Pacey being statury raped by his much older teacher was mishandled (it was either treated as scandalous, cool or in Andie’s case somehow shameful), same goes for Jen’s backstory- it was mentioned she was raped at 12 by an older man and then never brought up again, Dawson is the most unlikable protagonist ever and his friendship/relationship with Joey is codependent and possessive, the dialogue is sometimes pretentious and unrealistic, the timeline doesn't really add up- I can never tell what time of the year it's supposed to be, because it looks like it's always fall for some reason. And how did they sophomore year have two homecomings?

Otps: Pacey x Andie, Pacey x Joey (yes, both at the same time)

Notp: Dawson x Joey

Best moments: Jen helping Joey when that jerk was spreading rumours about her and then Jen and Joey locking Abby in the closet together (I love it when they stick together instead of tearing each other down), Pacey and Joey bickering

Weirdest moments: when Joey was upset because Dawson didn’t want to tell her how often he “walks his dog”, when Jen was about to have a treesome at a party and Dawson walked into the room and carried her out despite her kicking and screaming

Glee

+ funny, Sue Sylvester's iconic, great covers and a way to find new songs, the performances are aesthetically pleasing, lgbtq+ representation, tackling of serious issues, coming out story, a father who’s accepting of his son’s sexuality right away despite not really understanding it (it’s so rare to see, that’s why it’s so refreshing), the plotlines are ridiculous but at least the show doesn't take itself too seriously

-as I already said the 1st season was great but after that it just seemed like the writers made up a checklist of hard issues they should tackle and tried to tackle every single one of them while covering every single song and it just fell flat. Prime example- Quinn ending up in a wheelchair getting into a car crash to warn us from drinking and driving, singing I’m Still Standing and then suddenly being able to walk normally after. a few episodes Rachel and Finn got almost all songs, while other characters were criminally underrated and underused (Tina, Quinn, Mercedes). The teachers are questionable to put it mildly. Cringy moments- Finn singing You're Having My Baby to Quinn in front of her parents when it wasn't even his baby! Also no one except of Kurt looks like they could be in high school. And why are these cheerleaders wearing their uniforms 24/7??

Otps: Brittana, Sam x Quinn, Tina x Artie (unpopular opinion, I know), Mr Schue x unemployment

Notp: Quinn x Finn

Best moments: Quinn giving birth to Bohemian Rhapsody

Weirdest moment: Rachel's gross and painfully awkward crush on Mr Schue, Mr Schue joining the Glee club on the stage for a performance of Toxic and girls in the audience cat calling him (Ewww)

Euphoria

+ Zendaya's and Jacob Elordi's performances, tackling of serious issues such as drug addiction and overdose, anxiety and depression, abusive relationships and abortion in a better manner than most (if not all) teen dramas, the aesthetics, makeup and wardrobe, the musical number in the finale, the special episodes giving us insight into the characters' psychology, toxic relationships not being romanticized (which is sadly rare), teenagers sounding like actual real life teens (no "I reject reality" crap)

- lack of comic relief (why so serious all the time), sexualization of teen characters (I know this is something many teen dramas are guilty of but it's the most evident here), too much nudity (I know some of you are going to come at me with: "But it's realistic!" So what? It is realitic that teenagers get naked when they go into shower but does it mean we have to see it?? It seems to me like this show is trying too hard to be "boundary pushing" at times and ends up being scandalous just for the sake of being scandalous), these characters just aren't believable as high school juniors to me (they sound like high schoolers but they certainly don’t act, look or dress that way). There's no reason this show couldn't have been set in college.

Otps: Rue x sobriety, Nate x prison

Notps: Nate x Maddy, Cassie x McKay

Best moments: "You did this to me!" and the musical number in the season 1 finale

Weirdest moment: the fact that Maddy lost her virginity at 14 to a 40-year-old man being mentioned so casually because apparently she was "totally in control". Excuse me what??

Skins

+ style and makeup- each character has a signature trademark (Sid and his beanie, Effy's eyeliner, Cassie's soft eyeshadow), their British accents, I'm pretty sure this is the only teen drama that follows multiple classes, teenage characters being played by actual teen actors, the characters looking like average people you meet in high school and not as if they just walked off the runway, dealing with serious issues such as drug abuse, eating disorder, parental abandonment etc (yes, some people claim the show romanticized it, but I disagree. It's not the show that romanticized it- it's the fans. The show tried to portray the dangers of drugs as well as possible. Think about it- every time characters used drugs it ended in a disaster. In the pilot they thought that Cassie overdosed and ended up crashing a car while rushing into the hospital. In later season Effy hit her friend in the head with a rock because she was having a bad trip. That's not romanticizing drugs.), Effy is iconic and honestly the first episode was enough to get me hooked

- every single teacher being a creep and having a thing for a student at some point, the show can get too dark and unncessarily dramatic at times. Did that many people have to die? Did Chris's death really have to be this graphic? Timeline doesn't really add up- are 8 episodes supposed to cover the whole year? It would've made more sense if there were more episodes in a season.

Otps: Chris x Jal, Emily x Naomi

Notps: Sid x Michelle

Best moment: ooh baby it's a wild world

Weirdest moment: Chris's graphic death

The OC

+ more grounded in reality than many others on this list, the theme song, the love stories, Seth and Summer are funny, the friendships are believable and the whole group has great chemistry

- too many unneccessary fights, Luke is the worst, everyone is way too casual about drunk driving, these parents are WAAAY too chill (I know this can be said about many teen dramas but it's the most obvious here. How did the Roberts and the Coopers let two 16-year-old girls go to Mexico alone?? With no supervision?? What?)

Otps: Seth x Summer, Ryan x Marissa

Notp: Luke x Marissa

Best moments: the “oh no, there’s only one bed” in the Mexico episode, Seth and Summer's first kiss and that kiss at the yacht, Ryan and Marissa's first date by the pool

Weirdest moment: these parents letting their teenage kids go to Mexico alone. It's irresponsible when they're 16 but apparently they let them go there and party every year. What?

Gossip Girl

+ every episode having a clever title, the style, the makeup, the 00s soundtrack, the glamour of it all (it feels like reading a very gossipy magazine!), all the scandals, this show never pretends to portray the realitic teenage experience so it can pretty much be as far-fetched as it wants to and you can’t question it, it gives you a chance to live the fantasy of being super rich, living with a penthouse, riding a limo to school and going to parties in New York City every night

- the final reveal doesn't make any sense, just like with PLL these writers seemed to have put more thought into the outfits and makeup than into the plotlines, romantization of a toxic relationship, having every two straight characters date or hook up at some point, which just felt forced, mishandling of serious issues (Blair's eating disorder, Eric's suicide attempt and Serena and Jenny's sexual assault from the pilot being brought up when it's convenient but not really dealt with and brushed off at other times), sexualization of teen characters

Otps: Dan x Blair, Serena x Nate

Notps: Chuck x Blair

Best moments: the Thanksgiving flashbacks, Blair and Serena running around New York and taking selfies in stolen dresses, Nate and Serena’s first time (although it was better in the books) and then their kiss at the white party, the sheer scandal of "I killed someone", Dan giving Blair a plastic tiara to make her feel like a princess

Weirdest moments: Chuck's father returning from the death and then dying again, by yeeting himself off the roof

Freaks and Geeks

+ probably the most realistic teen drama there is, the characters dress the way I can see actual teens dressing, funny, but also heatbreaking at times, probably the only teen show that included an intersex character, the characters being a little stereotypical but self-aware at least, young James Franco and Jason Segel

- the bullying being a bit too much at times and it's a bit unrealistic that the teachers would do literally nothing about it, too short- I will never understand why this got cancelled

Otps: Daniel x Kim, Lindsay x Nick, Amy x Ken

Notps: Sam x Cindy

Best moments: Sam breaking down at the end of Garage Door, Daniel and Kim getting back together in the rain

Weirdest moment: Cindy doing a 180 and becoming super mean when she started dating Sam.

Gilmore Girls

+ so many movie, literary and music references, the quotable lines (what a great way to learn about new movies, books and bands! It’s so unique for a TV show to make you smarter), the witty banter, the comfort of the first few seasons (it really feels like wrapping a warm blanket around yourself while holding a hot cup of coffee, I can’t explain why, but it’s such a comfort show), the quirky small town with many unique festivals, many entertaining and snappy fights where everyone has a point, characters dealing with real world problems (seriously, how often do you see a storyline about termites? Or a teenager with zit cream on a teen drama show?), this is also one of the few shows where teenagers are shown to have rules and restrictions and curfews (finally some kids growing up with strict parents representation) and doing homework and studying and not just partying and drinking and having sex all the time and that’s so refreshing

- but while it is refreshing to see teenagers waiting to have sex and not doing it behind every corner, the show is kind of sex negative. Every single time a (female) character loses her virginity it ends in a disaster. Even when she loses it after she’s married! It doesn’t make any sense, unless the writers just really hated women. Also slutshaming (”I got the good kid!”) ewww. The money and budget doesn’t make much sense on the show either and the girls seem immune to calories. I know some people might come at me for this with: “But it’s just a show!” but I think it’s harmful to show beautiful, thin women eat nothing but tons of junkfood all the time and never excersize and then fatshame people who do excersize but aren’t fortunate enough to be blessed with amazing Gilmore genes, and then throw around tactless references to eating disorders.

Otps: Lane x Dave, Jess x Rory

Notps: Lane x Zach, Rory x Dean, Lorelai x Christopher

Best moments: Then She Appeared, Rory’s valedictorian speech, Lorelai’s graduation

Weirdest moment: Lorelai and Christopher getting married in Paris at 4am. That’s not how it works in Europe. Do Americans think every single Europian country works like Las Vegas, where you can just get married whenever you decide??

[lavellander]

more bc i am unstoppable now

I Am Thinking About My DA Protagonists’ Taste In Romantic Partners both their “usual” type and why they’re drawn to their canon love interest (and the hypothetical ones from other games). i expect no one to give a shit abt this except me lsdfjd but im on a roll and its a good exercise or whatever. i’m sure i’ll use it eventually?????

once again. i know no one gives a fuck but if anyone DOES happen to want to torture themselves and read this pls know all my ocs are bi except zaniyah, who is a lesbian<3

sarenan: 

general disclaimer that “in the circle love is just a game” etc etc etc so while she definitely is more inclined to romantic relationships, she only really had friends w benefits at most

she likes smart people! she likes fun people, she likes people who can get on board with her fucked up sense of humor. she’s witty and charming and loves to flirt just to flirt, and in the circle that wasn’t much of an issue lol. leliana is the first person she ever feels like...foot-in-mouth around, bc suddenly she likes and is attracted to someone and...that’s allowed? it’s all very foreign to her but she falls Real Hard, Real Fast

in a hypothetical da2 romance obviously isabela is extremely hot but also sarenan canonically has a foursome w her, leli, and zev so dLFKKDS it makes sense that bela’s the love interest of choice<3 (but also i think it would be like...friends-to-friends with benefits-to-lovers lol)

in a hypothetical dai romance once again josie is very hot and also so sweet and cute and delightful !!!!! idk if its just me but i see similarities bw origins leli and josie so again it just makes sense to me that josie is the LI for an inq romance :’)

(BUT for the most part. it is pretty hard for me to imagine sarenan w anyone but leli, bc they are the only couple i have that like. makes sense. lmfao)

maeve: 

actually doesnt often have romantic relationships? she has ~flings~ and rarely catches feelings. she describes her type as “anyone sexy” 

(her and isabela do in fact have a brief Thing but strictly no strings attached; this is bc i was very very adamant about romancing isabela when i played da2 and then anders fucking SNIPED me. so i incorporated it into canon i guess. lmao)

her attraction to anders is originally just “sexy tortured man” and then “sexy tortured man that gives free healthcare to poor people!!!!” and then - after it’s clear it won’t be a fwb situation - she realizes she has Actual feelings for him and is like well. its been a good run. guess i’ll die! until he reciprocates dflksdjf then they are kirkwall’s weirdest couple to everyone except themselves :’)

in a hypothetical dao romance her and zev would be classic fuckbuddies who accidentally start having a crush on each other, absolutely refuse to acknowledge it, then someone else in the friend group is like “oh my god PLEASE just kiss we are all going insane watching yall do this” <3

in a hypothetical dai romance im still torn bw sera and bull. maeve would just keep hitting on sera until sera did something about it; bull would be similar to zevran in the fuckbuddies-accidentally-caught-feelings dynamic

alani:

i feel like (depending on the size of the clan etc) alani was prob mostly involved w people she’d known almost all her life. she’s obviously attracted to other ppl who like to learn and stuff, but other than that it’s equal opportunity crushes ykwim. she doesn’t even Know she has a thing about people who are like. puzzles to be solved until solas lol

in a hypothetical dao romance she’d be drawn to alistair bc...who wouldnt be. hes adorable. they’re both warm friendly charming sunshines and i think it’d be natural for them to be drawn to one another. once she realizes he has Baggage she’s like oh. OH. i have to defend you against the world now

in a hypothetical da2 romance i thiiink it would be kinda similar to solas. like oh this bitch has a lot of emotional walls up, he’s got some real shit going on. I Like That. also mage rights, hes a sad sexy doctor, we love a revolutionary, etc. it makes sense imo

zaniyah:

similar to maeve i think she’s more of a fling person than a relationship person, but she has had a couple gfs. she’s not very comfy being super serious but she’s a good gf and is very devoted. generally speaking i think she just likes Hot Ladies but is esp drawn to quirky / weird ppl lol

in a hypothetical dao romance she’d like morrigan bc 1) she’s hot and 2) she’s standoffish lol. she’d take it upon herself to get morrigan to like her as like, a personal triumph, but then along the way realize she has a real crush on her and be like shit? fuck? (the same goes for morg. it would be an oh shit oh fuck moment on both ends)

in a hypothetical da2 romance i think her and merrill would be more like friends to lovers :’) zaniyahs immediately like “youre weird. i like you” also they bond bc dalish etc, and over time she starts liking her more and more. eventually zaniyah just cant take it anymore and kisses merrill, apologizes profusely, etc, and merrill’s like “oh. i thought we were dating?” sldkfjsLDKFJds i care them

(josie is kind of an outlier bc she’s so graceful, collected, knows what to do/say always, etc. i dont believe in love at first sight but if i did thats what zaniyah and josie would be<333)

ranae:

she doesnt like. have a type really. because she’s just been in love w her childhood best friend since forever and doesnt think of what she might like in other ppl bc well. he’s right there? she assumes they’ll be together forever, even if only platonically :( 

when she meets morrigan she’s like oh i like women too apparently. cool?? when she meets alistair shes a little put off by the fact that hes a golden retriever, then clings to him bc Trauma, then VERY begrudgingly realizes she has a crush on him but feels like shes betraying tamlen 

eventually she comes to terms w the fact that like. theres nothing she can do about tamlen unfortunately, and alistair is here and Loves Her and he’s been the only person to make her truly happy in a very long time. it takes a lot for her to think she deserves that, but she does, and the rest is history :’)

in a hypothetical da2 romance it makes perfect sense to me that she’d latch onto the other Elf Who Is Full Of Rage immediately. they are both very intense and it can put other people off sometimes but they dont really care! die mad about it, shem! etc

in a hypothetical dai romance she’d be drawn (platonically) to blackwall bc grey warden stuff, but subconsciously they both kind of feel like frauds, like they dont deserve happiness, etc; theyre both kinda brusque, at least at first, too. she just kinda sees him as a buddy til she watches him bonding w sera or with some kids or something and then shes like  😳 😳 😳 and then angry that shes like that lmao

[lefttigerobservation]

Photo by (https://unsplash.com/@matsefcik)

lefttigerobservation's monthly writing update: june 2021.

basic statistics!

words written: 41 425 (including fic words, because i can <3)

total (A4) page count: proud to announce tfg is very long! 359 pages!

thing i'm proudest of doing: a) finishing chapter eight! and b) finally delving into lucille and zephyr's childhood backstory

things i Need to do: figure out a daily writing scheme to get myself going (i hit a depressive episode in the last week of my holiday and had a Very long hiatus lmao)

comments and shenanigans!

across chapter eight:

genuinely writing zephyr's depressive episodes and negative symptoms was almost... like writing a mirror image with different aspects to it? and the way i touched on the feelings she harboured even during more restricted emotion felt so hard-hitting simply because i think it's personal?

zephyr dumbass don't confront that man (in conclusion, i just want to give her a hug.)

i got very mad at people misgendering lucille and it shows

protective lucille is now my favourite thing ever <3 (it's not, but it's on the list)

can we just appreciate zephyr and her mother? there's so much i love about them, how kind they are to each other and how much they respect each other— virtually almost as equals except for the slight change in dynamic, and the pure Love TM in them i just... sdjksd (sidenote: ana's dog is everyone's new favourite thing to describe. mop? fluffy dog? rodent? who knows. also ana loves war romance movies canonically enjoy.)

the fact that very few people know what negative symptoms are makes it so understandable that zephyr got diagnosed with depression as a kid but STILL (i swear i'm wrapping up these notes)

final note on ch8: i dearly love zephyr being her very emotionally visceral self in inner monologues even if she doesn't currently Show it and having her english name be different to her korean one was... a writing experience, let's just say

chapter nine brief notes:

we're getting into the parker and lucille concerning shenanigans and Yes i am worried even though i'm writing them <3

i feel So Bad to just thrust lucille into a full-fledged mixed episode the day before zephyr's birthday and it was hard to write :/ (content wise not writing wise) also, zephyr's 24/7 hallucination is bugs n those make their usual appearance. (is it normal to feel bad about this! probably)

also the weirdest thing about having abigail (lucille has a girlfriend, lmao) being a character is that i've slowly realised they are two sides of the same coin and they're kinda an odd couple? abi didn't Do relationships and ghosted them and everyone was rightfully angry <3 but now they're... together? idk man writing

i wrote an incredibly long passage i still need to have someone proofread but it was interesting to delve into college zephyr <3

we stan oliver immediately knowing zephyr has a crush

and we Also stan caroline's partners (italian childhood friends-to-lovers leonard because why not, and the writer, amethyst, at her mom's magazine she later inherited who quit when she became EIC lmao)

final comments:

i'm trying to come up with a daily writing word count to get back into the gist of it but i have exams this week so ehhh. also writing a fic so we'll see how that goes!

posting an excerpt later <3

[lovelyirony]

For the fic title meme: The stars incline us, they do not bind us.

Thor had found out about his original family history because he couldn’t stop using Mjolnir in-house. His father had told him countless times not to, but he still did. 

He ruined one of the domes, and down came crashing tile. The family mosaic was ruined, and there was something...something above. 

Their actual legacy. 

He couldn’t speak for a moment. 

He realizes that Loki? He isn’t...he is his brother. There’s no questioning that. But he’s not biologically related. He’s a Frost Giant. The very creatures that Thor and Odin have both promised to kill off. 

“I told you,” Odin says softly. “I told you not to. You don’t want to know about this.” 

“Because I would be ashamed?” Thor asks, incredulous. “Because you wouldn’t have told me otherwise? Who is this woman next to you?” 

“She’s...she’s your sister.” 

“Where...where is she?” 

“That’s something you cannot know, Thor. Something you cannot ever know.” 

“Father, what do you mean--” 

- 

Thor Blake works for a pharmaceutical company, delivering products over the area’s surrounding hospitals. He doesn’t mind it. He does personal training work on the side. 

He can’t remember his childhood. He’s talked to doctors about that. The MRI scans didn’t turn up anything unusual. He has his driver’s license, but he can’t remember how he got it. He remembers that his birthday is in July. He doesn’t remember celebrating. 

Thor Blake is very lonely. 

But he gets to see a man every single Friday that he likes to see. 

Dr. Bruce Banner, who works at the hospital that is in the very heart of the city. He helps with the clinic and signs off on most of the supplies being brought out. 

He is very sweet. And very nervous. He likes talking to Thor. 

Thor brings him a candy bar every Friday, one of the free-trade chocolate bars that he’s so fond of. 

Every Friday, it goes like a movie script: 

Bruce, fiddling with his glasses and looking down: Thor, you know you don’t have to get me anything. 

Thor, enthusiastically and with a wide smile that should not be as wide as it is currently: You deserve a candy bar! How is the clinic? 

Bruce, shrugging: It’s good, it’s fine. A lot of people coming in, you know how it is. How’s delivery? 

Thor, also shrugging and hoping it doesn’t seem like he’s copying Bruce at all because that’d be tragic: Same as ever. Except Linwood down a couple of blocks keeps ordering less stuff and getting surprised when they run out. 

Bruce: It’s Linwood, I’m surprised they even know how to order. Anyways, it was nice seeing you Thor! I’ll see you next Friday? 

Thor: You know I wouldn’t miss this for the world. 

Bruce, not knowing that Thor actually means it because it’s the only thing Thor does with his life: I’ll see you next Friday! Have a good weekend! 

Exactly. Like. That. Every single Friday. Thor wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s literally the most exciting part of his day. It’s basically the only fun thing he does. 

It’s kind of embarrassing because Thor doesn’t have hobbies. Like, none at all. He tried knitting and learned how to make socks. He has a lot of woolen socks. But only socks. He tried a sweater and that ended disastrously. 

(So many looped stitches.) 

He cannot paint. And yes, he knows that there is such a thing as practice involved. But sometimes you know that your red blob will only go so far in the world of creation. 

He also has weird dreams. He’s not sure if the state government is lying about the water quality or if he should talk to a psychic or dream-interpreter about what it means to keep dreaming about lightning and a hammer smashing a wall, but oh well. 

He has more important problems to attend to, like paying bills and looking for a new apartment. 

- 

What Thor Blake doesn’t know is that he’s about to be paid a visit by a brother he didn’t know he had, as well as a sister, who have decided to join forces to do the following: 

A.) Take down a king that rules with an iron fist, and potentially be finished by teatime. 

B.) Establish community theater. 

Those are both very important goals. Loki still thinks option B should be option A, but that’s his own thing. Hela has (mostly) gotten him to focus on getting their brother back. 

Here’s the problem: 

Loki and Hela intend to grab Thor on a Friday. 

He cannot miss Fridays, as we are all well aware of. He will not miss them for the world. 

So he hides out in Bruce’s office, too big to successfully hide under the desk, and accidentally gets his crush invited on a journey to either kill his father--that he didn’t know was basically royalty in space--or maybe just get him to step down, which Hela is saying “is impossible.” 

Apparently, he also has a hammer. 

“Which isn’t yours, dad was just an asshole,” Hela mutters. 

They are on public transit. 

Bruce has to say this isn’t the weirdest conversation he’s heard. 

He’s gotta say. He was planning on being spontaneous. Maybe asking Thor when his lunchbreak was so they could go out and get lunch together. 

Oh, they went out alright. 

He just wasn’t expecting to be on another planet.