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hoopdiddies · 5 years

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I'm Not Over You // Ben Hardy x Reader (Part 10)

A/N: I am so sorry that I have not been on for a full week. The phone I had used to edit this in broke and I had to buy a new one plus this is the last chapter and apparently the longest, regardless of my recent claims of the previous ones being the longest lmao. I hope this won't disappoint, I couldn't think of a more consistent flow due to the days I've been without my phone to type some ideas in. I hope you guys will enjoy this last part anyway, and thank you so much for supporting this entire series! I have a new series in mind but it's a WIP. Thanks again for all the love! IMPORTANT NOTE: I WILL BE CUTTING A PART IN THIS CHAPTER AND PUTTING IT UNDER A PART 10.1 IMMEDIATELY AFTER I POST THIS FOR THE SAKE OF THE LIMIT. TAGS WILL BE MENTIONED IN THE COMMENTS

Summary for this part: A wedding brought you apart and it will be a wedding that will bring you back together.

Warnings: A good balance of fluff and angst, mention of injuries and alcohol and some long ass writing.

WC: A whopping 10k

Parts: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

You are painfully a feet away from the door and yet here you are, frozen after having turned 180 degrees only to stumble upon those eyes you had hoped to gaze into again. One swallow from you and you begin gliding along the tiled surface towards him, checking through every pad whether or not he's really awake.

After stopping at his side, you are now certain you're not anywhere close to dreaming. "Ben?" His name leaving your lips like an answered prayer. He's staring back at you with his left eye half-open – taking into account his current sensitivity to light– but with the same energy he exudes everytime you're together.

His chapped lips curl into a smile so slow yet so sweet at the same time; almost an upgrade to his classic 'Benny beam' which you had fun dubbing back in the days. "Y/N..."

And once again, you disrupt the orderly function of your tears and let them gush down, quickly but carefully wrapping your arms around him in bittersweet joy, exclaiming his name thrice into his hospital gown. "You...you bloody idiot! I thought you'd never wake up..."

Having just woken up from a coma, his voice comes out extra breathy and brittle but full of life, chuckling at how you're greeting him back into the conscious world. "Is that...is that how you welcome your best mate back?"

You shake your head ardently, sniffling against his chest and taking in the scent of mint. "Shut up. You frightened us!"

He really wakes up seconds before the clock strikes 'it's too late'. The convenience is hardly believable.

"I'm gonna call the doctor and tell him you're up." You act swiftly on your feet but a grip as strong as you least expected it to be hinders you from taking a step away and you turn around at Ben who's woven his fingers around yours. You give him a concerned yet quizzical look for it.

He sighs deeply, closing his logy eyes for a brief moment before opening them to you– gazing up at you meaningfully as he draws you close with the little, physical strength he has left. "You frightened me, rather."

"What... are you talking about?"

You won't admit it now but the way his fingers are currently snaked around yours could make your heart palpitate any second now.

His green eyes bore into yours effectively, suddenly invalidating your surroundings and making it seem like it's just you and him on the face of the entire planet.

He struggles to swallow before repeating. "You frightened me. You're still leaving..."

His voice crack as he said 'leaving' obliterates the fragments of what was once your soul, punching a gaping hole as a replacement. How is he able to remember your emotional outburst at the after party when he has just woken up and should at least forget a few details?

But then you realize you've been talking to him a lot as he was out of order.

You nod unfortunately, laying your hand on his which is still fondling your other one. His skin has warmed up a notch and that's a progress. You need to clarify this to him again since the last time you did, you both ended up in disarray and in the middle of the road.

"I...I've already told you everything."

"I don't wanna- I don't wanna lose you."

"Ben..." You cut off as your hopeless gazes meet like lightning, his irises darkening at the manner in which your eyes have transfixed on his.

"Please..."

Worried that his stable condition might shift due to the rising agitation he's showing, you sit beside him and bring his knuckles up to your lips, hearing the beeping of the heart monitor quicken which sounds incredibly alarming, an indication that his heart rate has elevated due to his induced stress.

You press your lips into his pale knuckles with your eyes thoroughly shut hoping to soothe him through it, tears trickling from your cheeks and onto the back of his hand as you choke on your words. "Ben...come on. You know I can't stay, you have to understand that."

He slowly shakes his head, biting his bottom lip as he grimaces at the bitterness, softly but agonizingly begging for you to reconsider. "You have to. Please, love. I need you to. I want you to."

Do the short term effects include stubbornness? Cause he's really determined to get you to stay no matter what. Joe must be tortured with waiting by now and at any given moment, he's bound to consider barging in.

You kind of hope he would. God, you should be out there notifying his attending physician about his regained consciousness and for goodness sake, Rosy ought to be here for this. She can't just wander out whenever she likes when her fiance's an injured man struggling to recover.

While keeping his trembling knuckles close to your lips, you move closer and question him, your voice downsizing to an unsteady whisper. "Why? Ben, I'm leaving primarily to pursue a career. Not just because of some heartbreak, this is a dream come true. I'm finally a stair close to reaching it. Why aren't you at least happy for me?"

"I am..."

"Then you have to let me go."

"It's not that easy..."

"Do you think it's any more easier for me? No! But this is what must be and you have to trust me on this," it's as if your heart is in your mouth from feeling so harrowed by all of this, but you have to make him see that this is the only way and that it is also important that you leave, "I'm sorry if I said some things that night that weren't exactly the way I felt. But I have to leave. You're getting married to Rosy soon, you know. Don't worry about me..."

He wishes he could just sit up with ease and cage you in his arms but all his incapacities at the moment are inhibiting him from doing so. Knowing he can't do anything about it emotionally deflates him.

He withdraws his hand a little and presses it to your flushed cheek, kneading your delicate skin as he shakes his head gently to prevent the dressing around his head from becoming less taut.

"I think I know well enough who I want to marry now..."

You can't distinguish what present beating has accelerated; the heart monitor's, your own heart, or at best both. But you're sure as hell his words weren't a product of your own imagination, your eyes drifting from one of his orbs to the other in a daze, looking for any sign that would prove that it's not you he's directed it at but it does otherwise.

"What are you saying?"

The skin of the front of his neck moves along as he swallows dryly to assure you the realness of his words, his thumb traveling up your face to wipe the moist corner of your eye. "I'm a bloody wanker for taking so long to see...that you're the one who has always kept me grounded, who has always made me feel more like myself. Even as far as making me feel like I don't need all this fame to lead a good life, " his breath shortens between each sentence and your jaw goes slack as he exploits the atmosphere to continue, eyes buried deep into yours as if the space in between doesn't even matter anymore.

"I'm an idiot...for not realising sooner that it's always been you."

"Ben-"

"I love you too, Y/N L/N, more than the way I used to. How could I ever be happy without you? We promised neither of us is going anywhere, right? "

Definitely not in the context of mere friendship. For a moment, you make it your quest to find your voice to react and you do.

"You can't. You can't- I mean, what about Rosy? Surely your feelings for her wouldn't just go away like that-"

"It's been doused for so long with the ones for you growing," he's thumb is now gingerly stroking circles on your cheek, the green in his eyes gleaming, "that dance at the after party put me in my place and I asked you if you were still coming to my wedding because...it was my way of telling you how I felt at that moment."

Despite the idea coming off a little incoherent, you immediately get the bottom line. It would've been like coming to your own wedding. You study his gaze confusingly before coming to believe that he actually does love you back in the way you always have.

The words have been built up from the moment he whipped out his share of the polaroid and reestablished his promise as the way he felt towards you took a dramatic turn.

Yet no matter how badly you want to stay and finally work some things out with him, he's engaged and you're leaving in 45 minutes.

And what of Rosy? Hopefully Ben wouldn't think of just fragmenting her like that.

Your deafening silence puts Ben under a heap of worry as he painfully anticipates for your reaction. You shake your head at the unlikelihood of your present situations, bringing your eyes shut as you respond in the only way you can without any words needed to express how sorry you are and how much you've waited for him to say it.

Against your better judgement, you lean your body towards him and catch him off guard with the most bittersweet, goodbye kiss anyone could ever exercise on a moment's notice.

You can tell his positive response with how rapid the heart monitor pulses are becoming and how his lips have begun moving passionately against yours.

His eyes flutter shut in return, tangling his fingers in your hair as he dares to deepen the kiss, eager to feel every inch of your lips as he knows that you still won't be staying after this.

Wait for me to come home...

You pull away catching your breaths as you rest your forehead on his, his hand stroking the back of your hair for the little time you have left in your hands.

This feels so wrong yet so right at the same time. Howbeit strong the desire to stay put, you break away before the spark between either of you becomes magnetizing enough to change your mind.

"Please tell me where you're going...please." He pleads yet you refuse to tell him where you're headed to avoid a fuss, shaking your head apologetically with the space between you both increasing.

"I'm so sorry." You whisper, retreating quickly to the door as you ignore his broken pleas and just in time to be welcomed by the doctor, Rosy and some nurses who are here to conduct another assessment. Your pulse picks up at the sight of an uneasy Rosy along with an extra glimpse of a tuft of red and a head of blonde hair overtopping from behind her, eager to check up on whatever is occurring.

Joe and Lucy.

You clear your throat as you utter quickly to the doctor, unable to set your gaze steady. "He's awake." Your update stirs them to hasten on their steps inwards and you don't bother to stop to give Rosy a glance as she brushes by you, with you feeling the slightest, if not an immense amount of guilt for kissing her fiance– your best friend, who now has to make a troubling choice in choosing between you and her. Most importantly, you wouldn't dare to contend with Rosy over this, you'd rather let it happen naturally and see where it would lead but that's the least of your priorities.

You've whizzed a meter past Joe and Lucy but freeze in your spot at Joe's frail call of your name, your shoulders relaxing after a brief pause. "Y/N...how did- how did it go?"

You remain static in your spot, just wanting to leave the building and basically see past everything.

"Let's just go."

Of course he and Lucy half expected your last conversation to be balanced on a scale of nonchalant to vehement but it went off the boundary of vehemence. With one more look at the closed door, the two catch up with you on your way out with a plan on revisiting Ben on their way back from the airport.

You lengthen the sleeve of your sweater and dab your eyes with it, striding towards the car and slipping into passenger's seat gracefully with the two trailing from behind. Once they climb in after you, they begin bombarding you with questions you'd expect them to drop but being so exhausted from all of drama just lessens your likelihood of elaborating your answers. With a few questions dismissed, you ask Joe to just step on it and he complies sadly.

Lucy gives you a sympathetic, lopsided smile and however stagnant your expression is at the moment, you return the favor as the car accelerates on the road ahead.

You bother to give the distancing hospital one last look; giving him one last look.

At the same time the doctors are asking Ben some questions and performing a few physical tests on him, you make it to the airport with some time to spare. Joe and Lucy accompany you into the waiting area agreeing to stick around just until your flight number is announced.

Propping your luggage bag against a vacant seat next to the ones Joe and Lucy are seated on, you dig through your pocket and pull your phone out to check if there are any calls you've slept on. So far nothing of the sort but a dozen texts from friends and acquaintances wishing you the best on your flight to Spain, though you still have to return to London to collect your essentials.

Their words coax a small smile on your lips and after pressing the button to your home screen, the wallpaper brings a small tear to your eye– you and Ben with your arms wrapped around each other beaming goofily at the shutter of the camera.

In this instance, you begin wondering why photos and pictures

have become such a recurring emblem in your friendship. Joe and Lucy notice the sadness spring out of your eyes and cloud your features as you gaze one last time at your phone, and they instantly figure out what you were looking at. Lucy gets up and turns you around softly by the shoulder, prompting you to talk it out to them prior to leaving. If it unloads the stresses you're under then you agree to it, telling them what went on inside the room not too long ago.

Upon mentioning the bit where Ben confessed to you and was insistent on not letting you leave, Joe breathes out a firm, "I knew it" and Lucy shakes her head incredulously at Ben's 'perfect' timing but overall they're both glad he's opened his eyes– in a metaphorical and physical sense– to the person who has always been worthy of that spot in his life. As your conversation comes to a close, the announcement of the boarding of your flight number limits your bittersweet goodbyes however you do promise that you'll call them as soon as you touchdown.

"You better do well out there! Don't forget to call us every once in a while. Or everyday, damn it!" Joe calls out after blowing multiple kisses to you, he and Lucy bidding you an effective farewell. You wave back at them with a reassuring grin before disappearing into the crowd of bustling passengers, huffing sadly underneath your breath as you trail your finger smoothly across your bottom lip– where Ben had left his precious, goodbye mark for you. Something you ought to hold on to dearly for the moments you'll be missing out on.

Many months later

During your first day in the University of Barcelona, you could've sworn it was all but a dream and at any given moment you could've awakened; but it wasn't. It was right before your eyes and you were standing upon the solid concrete that held those opportunities. In the first days you were but a foreigner; merely wandering around the campus with your textbooks in hand making your journey to the lab and cafeteria a noble quest. Like your life depended on finding your way through every twist and turn on a day to day basis, asking fellow students where particular rooms were as you struggled to maintain good eye contact.

It was an everyday uphill battle for everyone.

However things have improved immensely in the following months, you have gained new friends in most of your classes, developed a good sense of direction around the campus and you've scored solid 90's in your classes which you thought would be bumpy the first time but attainable anyway through nights spent with ounces of coffee, extensive reading and episodes of academic agony.

Despite the pressures in your first year, you still keep in touch with your friends and family back home, especially with Joe and Lucy to whom you had once swore to always call. They're glad to know you've been at your peak in the past few months plus they wouldn't stop making a fuss about how much they miss you and long to have some sort of reunion once you decide to go back for a break. They've been well too– Joe's planning on producing a new movie although he's not certain with the details yet, Gwilym has talked to you as well and he's thriving with new projects which you were quick to congratulate him on and Lucy - oh, darling Lucy- apparently Rami had taken her out of the country again and popped the question out of nowhere just two months after you left.

Of course, when she told you the news the hot brew you had nearly swallowed came spewing out of your mouth in surprise thereby catching the attention of the people you were with at that time. But that was out of happiness too, she's invited you to her wedding –a few months after breaking to you the news of her engagement– which is to take place two weeks from now, something you're unfortunately unsure of attending since you are steadfast on getting heaps of classwork done.

But you promised to update her if ever you found an opening on that week to squeeze in a flight.

"Aren't you coming with us? They're waiting downstairs and it's our only night off this week. " Ava, your roommate and closest friend among the others, asks as she slips on her cardigan, ready to leave for a night out. You've got a book propped up in front of you and you were just getting immersed in the lines you've taken your eyes off of. "Er, it's kind of a cold night out. You girls have fun anyway."

"You sure?"

You nod, flipping your pen in your fingers. "Just bring me home a smoothie while you're at it."

"Get your butt off the chair and do it yourself!" She whines as she throws a nearby ball of cotton at you and you giggle lightheartedly, wishing her and the girls good luck as she heads out, shutting the door behind her.

You're just relieved they can communicate fluently with you or you never would've gotten around the city easily. Just as you begin turning your attention back to your book, you suddenly lose the interest to continue and just close it for the night, picking your phone up and tossing yourself on the bed with a small jounce as you land.

You shift on your spot as you check through your messages, emails, some posts from friends and whatnot to pass the hour, eventually noticing a message from an unknown number sent just earlier today. Curiosity peaks in you and you don't think twice before clicking on it to read.

You've changed your number weeks prior anyway so it could be from someone you know whose phone number you haven't asked for yet.

Hey, Y/N.

I know this is out of the blue but it's been a while since I've heard from you and in all honesty I didn't even bother to contact you the first time out of the assumption that you might have busied yourself a lot and don't have the time to check your phone. But I've become so worried then that I had to decide to ask you how you're doing. How you're holding up wherever you are. If you're not overworking yourself since you tend to do that a lot. I know it's been months since we've last talked to each other but I just miss you. I miss seeing you, having those late night conversations that got you late in the morning for work, hanging out and your voice. I kind of want to call you but you might be occupied and I don't wanna be a bit of a bother.

I miss you so much, love. Every single day. I'm trying to distract myself with the new project I've taken but you're just impossible to sleep on. When will you ever be back?

Why does the tone of the message seem familiar?

You reread along the last lines and your heart comes to a stop at one word that gives away the possible identity of the sender.

The lingering silence in the room making it possible for you to hear the elevated throbbing of your heart. It's been a while since he's slipped into your mind and even until now, the love you have for him is still flourishing wholly. Even when you had your mind set on your studies, your heart unknowingly had some other priorities.

So has he called things off with Rosy because if he hasn't yet, the tone of the message wouldn't come off as sincere as this.

That's a question you don't need answered for the meantime however you wonder how he was able to text you when you've pretty much changed your number.

You hope he's fully recovered from that head trauma though it's been nearly a year since that happened. Your thumbs hover over the keyboard, thinking about replying.

Hey. Ben if this is you, it's great to hear from you again.

Your eyes dart to the send button, taking a brief pause before hitting it and discarding your phone to the side at least hoping he wouldn't respond immediately because then it would lead to a conversation that might just turn awkward.

Never have you had an awkward talk with him so it's something you wouldn't want to acquaint yourself with.

You grab your pillow and press your cheek against it in uncertainty.

"Don't even start...thinking about him." You mumble groggily into the pillow and lay flat on your back as you begin wallowing in your own doubt, your eyes becoming droopy at every second spent on staring at the pale ceiling with your right arm and leg thrown over the pillow like you're never gonna let it go.

You never even considered seeing someone else because deep down, you still hoped for him. Though you had exchanged some stares and 'interactive' words with a few guys in your classes, none of them ever came or would ever come close to Ben.

- - - - - - -

This week's lab work gave your brain a mild whiplash with all the hustling you were required to do.

Every morning, you either had breakfast or not and it all depended on how early you had to be there. Provided that you had to take off in the early hours, you had to skip a good bite nearly every morning; plus you were all being assessed closely by your professor and so a downshifted movement was every bit as unacceptable.

At least now that you had just gotten off from your last period you can reward yourself with some good Mediterannean food that should be the ultimate dinner of your night.

You and Ava are seated around a table laughing and enjoying each other's companies with your plates and glasses half-filled with leftovers after a quick chow down, but your attention is quickly divided as a text from Lucy surfaces. She's asked you about your availability next week and you ought to re-check your schedule for it. Once again upon pressing your home screen button you can't help but let a longing smile take form on your lips at your wallpaper and with you being oblivious to Ava noticing, to your demise, she takes a sly peek at what you're looking at and disrupt your train of thought.

"Who's that?" Ava asks with a cheeky grin to which you quickly recoil with your phone held loosely in your hand.

"Nothi- no-one. "

As nosy as she is tenacious, she swiftly

snatches your phone from your weak grip and dares to unlock it, the wallpaper of you and Ben making her swoon in delight. "Y/N, how on Earth did you get Ben Hardy to hold you for a photo like this?" Squealing like a schoolgirl, Ava grills you with an inquisitive look. You've never bothered to tell her or any of your new found friends anything about your friendship with him and so now she thinks you're a fan who merely got luck in her favour for a picture.

If only she knew.

"I don't know? How'd you know it's him?" You speak up your mind, a fleeting blush crawling its way to your face.

" Bohemian Rhapsody was a hit, of course. Queen rocks and I was all for it," she gesticulates as a matter of fact and winks playfully, "and later on we were all for the cutie who played Roger Taylor."

You try your very best not to let a single squeak of laughter escape your lips as she begins drooling over him. What are the chances of her finding out, right? You would tell her about it and have her meet him however your situation is too dire to act in. Come to think of it, you haven't received a reply to your reply to his message. He could be juggling a lot in his hands at the moment, perhaps.

"Cutie. Yeah, he's cute. But the guy seems clumsy enough to drop your heart." Here you are throwing a sportive shade all the way from Barcelona.

As if she's taken a fake offense at your comment, Ava overdoes a gasp. "Is that how you say thanks?"

You respond with a one-shoulder shrug, your voice neutral to keep yourself from giving away the screams of your heart. "I'm just saying. What are we doing next week by the way?"

"As I've been told by Mr. Gomez, the school will be hosting an array of meetings with the BOD and so we're given a time off."

You blink thrice at her. "Seriously? Like a week?"

She forks a tapa from her plate and bites down on it, nodding at you. "Three days max." So you don't have the entire week off, but that's great. Given that you had told Lucy you'd update her about your availability during that time and now that you have a few days to spare, you're conditioned to go. You quickly get up from your chair and excuse yourself from Ava, making your way to the terrace to dial Lucy who you hope is reachable at the meantime.

"Hello?"

"Lucy, hey!"

"Y/N, thank goodness you called!"

"About my weekly update?" You bite down on your lip in excitement, swinging your leg back and forth aimlessly.

"What about it?"

"I'm free next week."

- - - - - - -

"And cut! Okay everyone, lunch break. We're not cleaning up the rubble yet so we'll leave it there for the next scene." At the sound of the clapperboard slamming, all stunts have been ceased until the next roll and the main actors retreat individually to their own trailers, one of which is Ben who is walking back within beads of sweat dripping from his forehead as a result of a car stunt he had to perform on set. He's glad he can finally swing his left arm with unbridled ease after disposing of the sling just two months back although he's left with a few scars; the primary one on his forehead from the trauma he had.

A PA hands him a bottle of water and he thanks her for the save, cracking the lid off and chugging away. He waves at his fellow co-stars before entering his trailer and slipping out of his sweaty shirt, dumping it on the edge of the bed.

He places the bottle on a coffee table and swipes his phone from his drawer, being welcomed by a heap ton of messages, one days older than the next. He scratches his head at the result of his constant business; not being able to find time to reply thereby impregnating his inbox with miscellaneous messages.

Three from Lucy which he is 'obligated' to check first and foremost. Ben's lips twitch to an uneven smirk as he reads her messages, amused that he's been invited to her wedding, along with other people.

He replies with a simple yet sincere, "Thanks, I'll mark it on my calendar" before proceeding to put his phone down on the bed. He sighs, taking out his wallet from his drawer and opening it to pick out something, the dual polaroid he's folded in catching his eye and all of his attention; and for a moment, his heart stops.

He pulls it out from its slot and unfolds it, the tape used to stick it together crinkled but still an effective adhesive. Without taking his eyes off of the polaroids, he plops down on the edge of the bed and wipes his forehead, hiding the ridiculous smile he now has on his face behind his hand. The memory still does things to him apparently and he has never let go since the day you kissed him goodbye. He can still feel the touch of your lips linger on his and admittedly, he traces his finger across the spot every time you cross his mind. The things you had said to him while he was unconscious ultimately stuck in his mind and he just longs to hear your voice once more. There are multiple times he forgets that you're not around to vent to or watch a good game of rugby with or do whatever you used to do together, no matter the trouble.

Generally speaking, he just yearns to be with you.

On a side note, he had long called things off with Rosy, exactly a day after he had awakened. Of course, she didn't take it easy but he knew damn well who he loved.

A heavy sigh leaves Ben's lips as he lowers his head at the frustration he feels for never owning up to his feelings.

She probably has some other guy in her life now. What are my chances? He thinks dryly to himself. "Hey, Ben? Break is over." The assistant director knocks on his trailer door and he tells him that he'll be out in a few. Tucking the polaroids back into his wallet, he snags the fresh shirt that's been laid out on the sofa across him and pulls it on, combing his blond hair back with his fingers before heading out to get the day done without realizing that he has skipped your reply.

With the days leading up to Rami and Lucy's wedding, they have never been more busier about any other event in their entire lives. They've decided on a beach wedding and to hold the reception there as well. Lucy has made you one of her bridesmaids yet you declined at first because that would mean you would have to fly in early for a practice down the aisle but she's assured you that practice wouldn't be necessary. She has taken care of the dresses and such and all you need to do is just fly down to California, again, to attend. Speaking of dresses, you bought her a little wedding gift yourself. It's something small but it's bound to suit her look.

You've told Ava about the wedding– excluding essential details like whose wedding it is specifically– and she's a little disheartened that you wouldn't be around to hang out with for the week but you've reassured her that you won't be long; considering you'll also be reviewing for upcoming tests.

"Okay, so it's a beach wedding? Drastic times call for some drastic measures, chica!" She exclaims and throw her arms up in the air, springing out of her bed and rummaging through her wardrobe as you throw what you can into one, just one luggage bag.

She pulls out a black two-piece bikini from the drawers and upon beholding it, you feel your eyes burn to a crisp. "There won't be any swimming, as far as I'm concerned."

"You'll never know. Just toss this in, it might come in handy." You swear you saw a mischievous glint in her eye as she said that. You press your lips into a tentative, hard line before surrendering, grabbing the pair from her and stuffing it in the unreachable depths of your luggage.

"Happy?" She nods vigorously and you sigh in defeat, zipping your bag close.

The day came and the jet lag is still real. You've flown in a day prior, exactly the day of Lucy's bridal shower and well, a literal bone crushing hug welcomed you on your way into the arrival area. She looked really fresh and bloomy before you arrived but afterwards, it was a messy head of hair and a waste of makeup, not to give it a stretch but it was. She's shed a few tears from how long you've been gone and you couldn't help but shed a few yourself, awfully missing her and the rest.

She's prepped a hotel for all her bridesmaids to stay in and you had some thoughts on how much she's spent but it's her wedding so who are you to question? As she helps you settle in your room, she pauses and brings you in for another big hug.

"Aww, Luce." You chuckle over her shoulder, rubbing her back.

She snaps her eyes shut and hums. "Oh Y/N, I've missed you. We all have. I know we call a lot even from a distance but it's been so long since we've last seen each other."

You sigh heavily, still holding her close.

"LAX. Yeah. It's only been a year but it feels like forever," you pull away deliberately, hands still firm on her shoulders with a heartfelt gaze, "Congratulations, Luce. You and Rami better make wonderful babies."

She smacks your arm lightly as an appropriate response to your little tease. "Shut it. Tell me everything."

"Everything?"

"Yeah," she planks down on the edge of the duvet and crosses her legs, leaning her body forward, "how's Spain? How's the school? The agony? Been seeing someone?" The last bit catches you by surprise; as if she's emphasized the question enough for it to be the main thing you have to answer. You disregard it for a few seconds until she brings it up again. You turn to give her an incredulous brow lift, something she returns with a curious grin. "Are you seeing anyone?"

In your mind, she should know that you've only ever had one guy in your heart but knowing Lucy, she just wants to hear you say it yourself .

You huff underneath your breath, planting your hands on your hips as you perpend on saying the following. "Spain is amazing. School is both heaven and hell. The agony exists in every divot, and no, I'm not seeing anyone."

"That's good."

You glance sideways awkwardly. "Okay? Is what good?"

"Everything, except the agony part, especially the last."

"I'm not seeing anyone?" You repeat and she nods with a blossoming smile. You don't say anything else since it's obvious that she's keen on letting you talk about Ben but today's not the day that you do. It's the day before her wedding and every present air particle should be all about her.

"Regardless, Miss Boynton. This week is all about you so," you alter your stance and skip to your luggage bag, unzipping one compartment and pulling out your wedding gift for her, "it's not much but I figured this looks better if it's on you." You hand her the palm-sized object and she lets out a little gasp at what you got her. It's a hair comb adorned with two, white roses and pale rhinestones that glimmer under the spilling light.

Something that would upgrade her sun-kissed beauty on a clear day. You try it on her and step back to picture her with the full ensemble as she walks down the sandy aisle tomorrow. "Good lord, look at you all grown up." You pretend to tear up and she tilts her head back in a burst of laughter, walking to you with welcoming arms and green eyes that are nearly brimming with tears.

"Oh I love it, Y/N! I knew something was missing in the outfit but you've completed it. It's perfect." She mumbles happily against your shoulder and her contentment tickles your insides.

"I'm glad you like it."

After giving you a look of what you'll be wearing tomorrow and a few, friendly introductions to the rest of the bridesmaids, the bridal shower is where everything is at. Ranging from colorful streamers to champagne to cake strippers, the latter putting you under uneasy situations when you just wished to enjoy your drink and your own space. At the same hour you're enjoying yourselves, on the other side of town is where Rami and the boys are on full swing with his bachelor's party. It has the same vibe, only without the strippers and streamers and constant belly-aching movement.

You just pray none of you will be waking up with hangovers at the hour you'll be fixing yourselves.

And indeed none of you have.

You've all waken up like ladies but clumsily as the realization of the time nudges you out of your beds. Ceremony starts at 9 and you're 5 hours early to ensure that everything progresses smoothly.

It's a condensed hustle within your separate rooms; the pattern of getting ready ever so similar. Shower, makeup, hair, dress, and retouch; all done in complete unison. With all the bridesmaids, including yourself, conditioned outfit-wise, you all gather in Lucy's room to assist in psyching her up for the big day. Her mom's in too to witness every precious second of seeing her daughter fly off on her own.

She's still in her robe but her hair and makeup have been beautifully done by one of her makeup artist friends. She's about to step into her gown, a sight the girls are just dying to see.

"Alright, Lucy. Let me just zip up the back." Says one of the girls who has helped with her makeup as Lucy stands confidently but nervously in front of the mirror, scanning her reflection. You fold your hands together in anticipation, gasping as she turns around slowly with the skirt of the gown gracefully following her turning motion. Her radiance could put the sun's to complete shame.

"Well, say something, girls." She prompts with a chuckle and as expected, it is followed by the uproarious squeal of everyone in the room including yourself. Rami is guaranteed to have his gaze super-glued to Lucy the moment she reveals herself. After having a dozen compliments shower her, you and the rest of the girls retreat outside to give her and her mother a time to talk. As you lean against the door frame, you fish out your phone from your purse and check your messages; coming across your reply to Ben which hasn't received another one from him yet.

You wipe off the downhearted smirk on your expression as the girls' murmurs increase as Lucy steps out holding a bouquet of flowers with her mom on her arm and the edge of her gown lifted by two assistants. She turns her head to find you and crooks her finger at you upon seeing you inclined against the frame, letting you walk by her side.

You notice she's sporting the gift you've given her and the sentimentality makes you want to tear up but in doing so would ruin your makeup and so you decide to save it for the kiss.

You lean in close to her and whisper in a flat but playful tone, your words making her giggle. "Rami's totally getting it."

"I'm not the only one who's getting it today." She winks at you and leaves you questioning what she meant. She made it sound like it's something you have to find out for yourself later on. The weather is fine and not as humid as you thought; the ideal atmosphere to marry under. The bridesmaids are to ride in a separate vehicle that will follow up behind the one Lucy and her mom will be taking. To say that your ride with the the girls to the resort turned out fun and noisy is an understatement; you couldn't be any more conscious about smudging your makeup as you busted your guts laughing at your topics. The driver had given you weirded out looks but you know he was just trying to feign a laugh. By the time you arrive at the resort, a gust of wind from the seaside welcomes you out and nearly messes up your hair though you've put it up in an elegant bun with your tendrils hanging loosely from the sides of your head. You traverse closely behind the rest of the girls and find the venue nearly packed with attendees in their most sophisticated dresses and suits. The altar is set meters away from the shoreline and a red carpet has been rolled out to serve as the aisle between lines of pillars decorated with tropical flowers. A gentle music piece is being played by a violinist and a cellist situated on the left side of the altar with waiters serving some four-seasoned refreshments for the guests to enjoy as they wait.

With all these people around, you can't help but wonder if either Joe or Gwilym made it. You haven't contacted Joe about arriving, given that you wanted to surprise him with your arrival. You peer down at your wristwatch and it's only an hour before the ceremony starts. Rami's nowhere to be seen and you badly want to congratulate him on this, but either way, he's probably attending to some other people and so you put that chance on hold.

As you had wished for yourself to be void of any mishaps today, you bumping into a tall figure as you turn around to walk away deters that possibility and mortifies you for a moment.

"Oh man, I'm so sorry-" You quickly apologize but cease as a familiar face meets your lifting gaze.

"What- Y/N?!"

"J-Joe?!"

"Y/N!"

"Joe!" After shamelessly screaming each other's names, you put no thought into the action of jumping into his arms for a tight hug. He's crushing you in one anyway. "Oh my g- what- when did you arrive, you little sneak? " He exclaims and lets you go for a split second, careful not to ruin your satin outfit. "You're going to murder me for this but yesterday."

His brows furrow in disbelief as his mouth hangs agape. "How dare you not tell me? I mean, I knew Lucy would invite you but...actually how dare you both for not telling me." He whines in a joking manner and you respond with a quick shrug. "Surprise, surprise."

"You sure did and wow," his eyes travel up and down your outfit and you click your tongue at him as he does, pointing your finger to your eyes that are aimlessly roving around his suit in the same manner. "Hey Mazzello, eyes here."

"Hypocrite, eyes here." He mimics your action mockingly and you take eye-rolling to the next level.

"Damn it Joe, I've missed you."

"Missed you too. Been a year but it feels like a decade and you look beautiful, by the way, in that outfit as a bridesmaid." He places his hand on your upper back and leads you into the lounging area that is close to the pool but not far from the event area.

"You don't look so bad yourself for a groomsman. "

"How'd you guess?"

"This is Rami's wedding. I'd know."

You got an hour to talk before you take your positions anyway so catching up would be vital. You settle down on the sofa and fit your talk into the time limit, telling each other about what went on in your lives for the past few months. A lot of interesting stuff has happened to Joe and he's absolutely lively as he talks about it however yours hasn't been much, just adaptation to a new environment and the academic agony. Your talk takes an interesting turn as Joe asks you a question related to something you haven't thought about for a few days.

"Since you're pretty much still on the market, you ever think about...you know."

Your brows crease at him. "What?"

"You know," he lifts his shoulder in a half shrug, "Ben."

"Oh." Is the only thing you can say. The answer is pretty clear, you do think about him but not on a daily basis. He comes across your mind when you've drifted off into oblivion with your thoughts or when something that may remind you of him catches your eye.

"Sometimes I guess. But not as deep as I used to."

"I know you miss him, Y/N, and he misses you too. Believe me, he tells me everytime he calls."

You cast him a short gaze but look back at your fingers, a little comforted by the thought and it motivates you to ask. "Is he still with Rosy?"

Joe scoffs, mildly amused and wholly relieved at the contrary. "That's the good news. He's broken things off with her long ago. Just a day after he regained consciousness."

"Really?" You won't admit it but part of you feels bad for her.

"Yeah and I'm not spoiling you the rest," he rises from his spot on the sofa and reaches out for your hand, pulling you up gracefully. "The thing's about to start." He gestures to the chairs that are beginning to get occupied by the people as the priest arrives. You walk back out alongside him, leaning in to ask out of curiosity. "What do you mean you won't spoil me the rest?"

"You'll see, now go skedaddle to Lucy. She needs her crew." He pats your shoulder with a crooked smile on and you sigh inwardly, waving at him as you divert paths; with you headed to where the rest of the bridesmaids and the bride herself are gathered.

"Gwilym! You're just on time." Spotting Gwilym making his way to join Sami – Rami's brother– at the front row of chairs on the right wing as one of the groomsmen, Joe greets him with a brief hug and takes his place next to him. Sami greets the two men as well, exchanging some remarks before being joined by Ben who had been caught in traffic on his way. "Benny!"

"Ben!"

"Hey, you guys! Am I late? Did I miss the vows?" He asks with a hint of irony as he takes the spot between Gwil and Joe, shaking hands with Sami at the same time. Not a minute longer they are joined by the remaining groomsmen and Rami who has finally garnered up the physical strength to stand on the altar without breaking a sweat.

"You got this, mate. Just don't look down. Your boutonniere looks nice if I might add." Gwilym simultaneously advises and compliments an already nervous Rami hoping to appease him yet earns a quick yet teasing smack from Joe for making a small joke out of the situation. To show them that he's actually better on every possible level, Rami stands tall and rests his hands on his front to exude that confidence and excitement of being minutes away from watching his soon-to-be Mrs. Malek grace the aisle with her presence.

The guests simmer down with their chatters as the first ones who will be walking down the aisle take their positions. The musicians stop playing as they wait for the cue to initiate the main piece in accordance with the first walk.

Among the ones that will be walking before Lucy's big entrance is you and though you'll be joined by your fellow bridesmaids, it somehow just quakes your nerves, tightening your grip around the small bouquet of flowers you've been given as a prop.

You can't understand why you're feeling nervous; you're not the one that's getting married but you just don't know why. The musicians are given the cue and they begin playing a familiar song, something contemporary but heart-achingly romantic.

"You okay?" Asks a fellow bridesmaid and you nod, telling her that you're a bit anxious. She reassures you with a smile and it unknots your tension. The guests and attendees turn their heads towards the threshold of the aisle and the sponsors begin walking down first. Next are some of their relatives, then you– the bridesmaids. There are at least seven of you and you come in fifth. As you begin sauntering down the aisle, you feel relaxed yet piercing eyes trail your movement yet you beg to differ and keep your head up with a mellow smile on your face as you keep your eyes ahead, your unsteady gaze fleeting from the altar and to the groomsmen seated at the front row of the right wing.

Your eyes land on Joe and Gwilym who start giving you bright beams as they notice you in an instant. If you weren't trying to walk sophisticatedly with all these people staring, you would let out the loudest, most awkward giggle. It's nice to see Gwilym again though. Just as you begin turning your unwavering attention away, you take a subtle double take at a certain pair of eyes that has found you long before you found them. You are meters away from reaching your end of the aisle and yet it seems as if you've only started walking with how the music has turned up and how you're exchanging astonished yet longing gapes with Ben who knows he is seconds away from exploding with who he's finally seeing. You're here as a bridesmaid for Lucy and yet ridiculously, you feel like the bride.

Of course he's here. Of course he's one of the groomsmen. Of course Lucy and Joe wouldn't tell you. Of course this is the thing Joe didn't want to spoil about. Why didn't you think about any of this earlier? It would've saved you the shock regardless of it being so obvious.

You gather the strength to break away from the trance you've put yourself in and stand next to the girls, using up all the willpower in your body to avoid risking a peek at the groomsmen– at one groomsman rather. It's the same struggle for Ben who is every bit as stubborn as the next person and does the contrary, going as far as tilting his head to one side just to cop a longer view of you, an action Joe notices and slaps his hand for. Ben winces a bit and gives Joe a questioning look for two reasons.

"Save it." Joe whispers flatly and yet Ben dismisses it and feels his breath hitch in his throat as the sight of you appeases his worries yet makes his heart run a mile. With the ring bearers and flower girls at the edge of their walk, everyone rises up at the reveal of Lucy. The music slows down to fit the pace of her walk with her mother by her side, her eyes finding Rami's and establishing a home in them. You glance at both of them and feel your heart inflate at how strong their love for each other is, something that usually only exists in novels and fiction. Lucy's eyes well with joyful tears as she reaches the altar and her mother finally surrenders her hand to Rami.

It's too much.

With you being too distracted by the spark between Rami and Lucy, you overlook Ben's unbreakable gaze at you. The moment you grew a smile, it invalidated everything else surrounding him.

The priest requests everyone to finally sit down and witness the lifetime commitment blossom. Throughout the ceremony, you can't help but feel his eyes sear through you yet you stand your ground and fix your gaze at the happenings on the altar, briefly failing every once in a while by finding yourself looking back at him. The moment has come for them to exchange their vows and you listen intently at every word sincerely uttered by the two. There are parts in their vows that make the people giggle and tear up at the emotion put into every word expressed. It seems surreal to you that the moment Rami tells Lucy that he's never going anywhere, your gaze meets Ben's and it becomes undeniably bewitching, Rami's words acting as a call back to your promises. As the rings are exchanged and the "I do's" are said, the priest pronounces them husband and wife and you tear your focus away from Ben just in time for Rami and Lucy to share their first kiss as a married couple. Cheers and applauds fill the air and even more tears of joy are shed at the start of their lifetime bond. They both couldn't look any more blissful, with the pair of them giddily flaunting their rings with grins so radiant and bright it undermines the power of the sun upon them.

The cheers and excitement continue at the reception which, of course, is hosted at the very same place. After the ceremony– you, the girls and Lucy took off to the rooms you've booked in the resort for the meantime to change into the appropriate apparel to match the vibe of the venue and even the venue itself. Rami and the boys drove back to their respective hotels to change as well and it was a bit hard for the newly weds to go their separate ways for a few hours just to change clothes. Now that you've all rejoined for the reception, lively doesn't even begin to cut it. It's just like any other wedding reception and like any other wedding reception, it's upbeat, smooth and a little haywire on the egdes. After going through with dinner and a couple of toasts and remarks about the funny side of Rami and Lucy's relationship, the dance floor is open for business. At first glance, the girls take you for someone who is in need of a lot acquainting with the dance floor and they're right; because of that they haul you in themselves and you end up enjoying moving around to the music. You decide to refreshen yourself with a glass of iced tea before returning to your fun. One gulp is all takes to replenish the energy lost and you turn around to head back but freeze in your spot at the sight of Joe with his hand out, asking you for a dance.

"Seriously?" You're not surprised but your brows shoot up in question.

"It's my way of saying 'I need to talk to you'. "

"We can do that outside." You gesture to the vacant space yet Joe insists that he dances with you as you talk. You purse your lips together, letting him take your hand and he pulls you along with him almost too abruptly, eliciting a ticklish squeal from you.

"Don't do that!" You whine as you both settle among the multitude of dancing people. He lowers his head in laughter and twirls you under his arm, drawing you close afterwards. You rest one hand on his shoulder as he holds up the other. "Where's the fun in talking outside now, huh?"

"Alright," you grin ridiculously, spotting Rami and Lucy in each other's arms as they slow dance near the mini stage, looking and feeling at one with the other. "Hey, doesn't it just warm you?" You poke Joe and gesture to the newlyweds. He peers over at them and hums in a heartwarming way. "Yeah. Man, it's like they're communicating with each other merely through their close-knit heartbeats."

"Speaking of communication," you clear your throat and give him a direct look, " what did you want to talk about?"

He snaps out from gauging at the two and leads you on a gentle sway as he swallows, increasing the volume of his voice just loud enough to cut through the music and for you to hear. "Right. About the thing during the ceremony," you immediately catch on to what he's trying to say and interrupt his next words.

"Okay, thanks for implying, but are you kidding me? Giving me stroke by hiding Ben's attendance?"

"It was for dramatic effect," your eyes flatten puzzlingly at his defense. "What was so dramatic in that besides the awkward... staring?" You know the truth and it really wasn't awkward; in fact it felt like time dilated between you both.

Joe ping-pongs his gaze from one end of the place to the other and back to you. "You paused after 'awkward'. You liked it." The smile on his face teasing you. He's really that sensitive to the nuance of your voice, making it easier for him to figure out how you actually feel about anything.

You evade his prying look and clear your throat, trying to keep up with the transition of the rhythmic music to a slow tune. "So what if I did?" You mumble intentionally.

"Nothing bad. Just Ben wouldn't stop fidgeting in his spot after seeing you. He was this," he makes small jerky movements with his upper body as to imitate Ben's inability to keep still during the ceremony, "antsy and I was this close to losing it."

You snort as you let an explosive laugh overcome you, recollecting yourself shortly as you are flattered by Joe's report. "I felt the same. It took every cell in my body to prevent myself from launching at him honestly."

"I'm glad we sat in separate tables or else neither of you would function like regular...human beings." The grin on Joe's face fades in the same manner as his last words, staring off at a figure approaching from behind you. He regains his voice in a matter of seconds, only with a sly twinkle in his eyes this time.

"You okay?" You ask him, slowly removing your hand from his chest and he nods vigorously, taking position to whirl you off but with a sneaky twist.

"I'm fine. Just... Gwilym wants to dance with you and he's right behind you so I'm going to spin you off to him, sound good?" He lifts your arm up and you shrug in agreement, going with what Joe's planning to do.

"Ally oop!" He twirls you around and releases your hand just in time for you to cling onto a firm frame, giggling at the rush you felt. "Hey Gwil! Good catch, that was a strong spin-" You take a hard pause the second you lift your eyes up with the expectation of meeting Gwilym's sapphire blues, greeting a pair of forest, green orbs instead and it becomes more than what you've bargained for. His veiny arms have caught you with ease and you're sinking, both literally and metaphorically, your arms awkwardly thrown over his shoulders for support.

He helps you regain your balance and smiles the smile you had craved to behold again, breathing out your name like he hasn't said it in a long time. "Y/N, hi."

You find your voice just in time to reply. "Ben...h-hi." He's looking quite good in an all white attire. His white dress shirt is tucked in and has three buttons undone, exposing a lot of his clavicle and a preview of his pecs and the way his white pants just hangs loosely around his legs– you've lost the proper words to describe the sight.

Joe, you crafty asshole.

#borhap #queen #ben hardy #ben hardy imagine #ben hardy x reader #borhap cast #borhap cast x reader #borhap imagine #ben hardy fanfic #imagine #fanfic

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candyshua · 5 years

Text

Intertwined | Chapter Two - It’s Never Too Late

Kim Mingyu was your best friend, your knight in shining armor, your crush, your everything. But sadly, you were not his.

After getting his girlfriend pregnant in his fourth year of college, the two of them moved away to America after graduation. And then, you were all alone.

Meet Yoon Jeonghan, your current best friend. An aspiring video game designer, he has been your rock for 5 years. He helped you through so much drama. You would be surprised to learn that he was madly in love with you.

What happens when Mingyu comes back to Korea?

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Potential Smut (I haven’t decided yet)

Word Count: 2,042

Warnings: Mentions of alcohol, foul language, and mentions of sex

You had always been the life of the party. When you were a teenager, you’d show up at every party with a happy attitude. Mingyu was the sober one, most of the time, but he never had any desire to drink underage anyway.

But as you got older, and graduated college, your desire to drink and party just went down.

Maybe it was because you didn’t have Mingyu there to protect you anymore.

Being a full functioning adult was hard. It’s especially hard when you hate your job and you’re unhappy with everything that has happened so far in your life.

Or, you were just unhappy with the way things turned out.

Soon, Monday rolled around and you were forced to go back into the world of the living. You had stayed at Jeonghan’s place for the rest of the weekend, mainly because you hated your apartment. You also happened to enjoy Jeonghan’s company.

You remembered the time where you and Mingyu were at a party one night, in your second year of college. There, you had stayed over in his fraternity house since you didn’t want to walk home alone at night, and Mingyu was too drunk to drive you home.

Yes, this time Mingyu was the drunk one. It was an odd sensation, being the caregiver. The healer. The one in control.

So, you set him down in his bed and pulled out a spare blanket from his closet and lied on the floor. You turned the light out, but then you heard the click that signified the lamp was back on and light soon forced your eyes open.

“What?” You grumbled, rubbing your eyes.

“Y/N...I’m bored…” Mingyu slurred, and you just scoffed. During that moment, he looked absolutely adorable. You never understood how people were intimidated by this gentle giant. All he did was love and appreciate, he would never hurt anyone.

“Okay.” You stated, teasing him. You tried to hide your smile, but it was to no avail.

“Come lie down with me.” Mingyu ordered playfully, which caused you to widen your eyes drastically. What did he just say?

“Huh?” You whispered with a weak, timid voice.

“Please!” Mingyu whined, and you carefully got up and walked over to his bed. You lied down next to him, but kept your distance. You tried ignoring how hard and fast your heart was beating. You hoped Mingyu couldn’t hear it.

Mingyu then got comfortable in bed, closing his eyes and slowly falling into a deep sleep. After a few minutes of viewing his features, you felt overwhelmed with adoration for the boy.

“I’m in love with you,” You whispered, knowing he wouldn’t hear you. And even if he did, he wouldn’t remember it the next morning anyway.

You knew that Mingyu would never be yours. But you thought you were okay with that during that moment. One day you would get over him.

You really hoped that was the case.

Monday was a blur, but everyday seemed like that. A blur. A day filled with nothing but numbness and haziness. You also didn’t get the chance to even talk to Jeonghan, but that was okay. You two would be going on a trip to Jeju next weekend anyway.

When you arrived home, you made yourself a shitty microwave dinner while putting on some early 2000’s American pop music. It had to be quiet, of course, so your neighbors weren’t disturbed. You then started to reminisce on the time where you and Mingyu went away for a weekend during your last year of college. You were playing some American music at the time, and it was basically euphoria. That’s all you could really remember from the trip though, since you were obliterated for the rest of it.

You sighed, completely baffled on why everything you did reminded you of him. He hadn’t been in your life for over 5 years, and he won’t ever come back.

You wondered if he still had your number. Knowing Mingyu, he probably did. He just chose not to text or call you, or even send you a fucking letter saying “Hey, I’m alive”.

All you were left with were questions, and lots of them. It was like finishing a book mid-chapter, never knowing the full ending.

It’s just empty.

You knew Mingyu had to change his number, since he moved to a new country and everything. But he had your number memorized. Was it that hard to just call you? Maybe he couldn’t afford the international fee.

You needed a breath of fresh air. No, even better--you needed Jeonghan.

Jeonghan opened the door to his apartment with wide eyes. You usually always text him if you’re about to come over, but not this time.

“Dude, it’s Monday, what are you doing here?” Jeonghan asked, but you gave him no answer and just walked into his apartment. You then looked through his liquor cabinet, searching for anything that would make you feel something.

“Hey! Stop!” Jeonghan demanded, rushing over to you in your frantic state. You gave in immediately, knowing you didn’t stand a chance against Jeonghan’s strength. Instead, you just hugged him and cried. Why were you even freaking out?

Jeonghan hugged you back despite his state of confusion. He stroked your hair and hushed you, slowly making your tears dissipate. “What happened, Y/N?” Jeonghan murmured, a frown plastered onto his usually bright face.

“Jeonghan,” You sobbed, “what am I supposed to do? Why the hell do I feel so incomplete?”

In that moment, Jeonghan wanted nothing more but to kiss you. He wanted you to know that he loved you, and that it would all be okay because you had him.

Alas, Jeonghan knew it was inappropriate. Plus, he was certain the feelings weren’t reciprocated. You were still in love with Mingyu anyway.

You just didn’t want to admit it.

Despite all the boyfriends you had, they never ignited that spark of excitement within you. You never felt like you did around them like you did with Mingyu.

Jeonghan pulled away from your embrace so he could look you straight in the eye.

“Y/N.”

“Yes?”

“Why do you act as if you’re an 80 year old man who has no time to change things? You have more life left to live than the amount of life you have already lived. Get the fuck out there! Nothing except yourself is stopping you!”

Fuck. Jeonghan was always spot on. What would you do without him?

Instead of freaking out, you merely gave Jeonghan a kiss on the cheek and a quiet “thank you” before running out the door.

Jeonghan couldn’t ignore the quick pace his heart was going at. The moment your lips met his cheek, he felt his entire body heat up.

He was bathing in warmth. Even after you left, the ghost of your lips haunted his right cheek. He mindlessly stroked it, his heartbeat refusing to slow down.

Why did it have to be you? The emotionally unavailable woman. The “in love with another guy” woman.

Why did he have to be in love with you?

From the moment you got home, you had been sitting at the seat by your keyboard, staring at it aggressively.

Ever since the ripe age of five, you had always wanted to be a singer. And boy, you could sing. You started getting voice lessons at the age of six, and you loved it. You knew from then on out that nothing could ever stop you from chasing your dream.

Unless, you happened to lose your voice.

After already being signed by a very popular entertainment company, you were about two years from debut. That was until, one day, it hurt to sing.

You went to the doctor. To put it simply, your vocal chords were being overused. They needed a break from singing.

They also needed surgery.

So, you reluctantly got the surgery that temporarily impaired your singing voice, and prolonged your debut. You became a nuisance; an inconvenience.

Therefore, you were cut. No debut for you. Just a lot of hurt and regret.

It hurt like a bitch. No, not the vocal cords (although they did hurt), but the fact that your life would amount to a girl who never had the chance to follow her dreams. You had wasted six years of your life training vigorously, only to have it never pay off.

But Jeonghan was right. You were underestimating yourself. You shouldn’t let everything waste away like this. It was too late for debut, sure, but why not make a Youtube channel?

You then cracked your knuckles, did some warm ups on your keyboard, and then went onto your phone. Since you couldn’t afford a high quality camera, you would just film yourself singing with it.

You let your fingers fall down on the weighted keys of the piano, feeling the coolness kiss your fingertips. You felt a memory with Mingyu pop up in your head, but you suppressed it. It was time to move on, just like he did.

You woke up the next morning to about 5 views. You were sure three of them came from you.

You didn’t really know how to do this whole “Youtube” thing. It was foreign, and kind of scary. You hoped you hadn’t embarrassed yourself. And you prayed to God that your coworkers wouldn’t find your channel.

After getting ready for work, you texted Jeonghan back after letting him know that you were okay, and that you stayed sober the entire night.

You went to work with a new attitude. You greeted your boss, Wonwoo, with splendor. Your friends and coworkers were surprised to see you actually smile. “You look nice while smiling,” Your younger friend, Chan, told you.

“Thanks,” You had said.

The day passed by relatively quickly. Yet, there was a certain sense of clarity to it, you felt as if you had woken from a 5 year long sleep. It felt good.

Really fucking good.

You had gone one whole day without thinking about Mingyu. It was kind of crazy, once you thought about it.

Maybe you were finally letting him go. It was a bittersweet sensation, letting the man you had loved for so many years go.

But, Mingyu was never going to come back. You had to deal with that. He had a wife and a kid. He probably had another kid on the way, for god’s sake. And then, it hit you.

You needed a boyfriend.

Or at least to go on a date; get laid. You had been through a few boyfriends previously. One was named Seungcheol, whom you had met through Jeonghan. He was a tall, muscular fellow. You broke up with him, because you just weren’t ready to let Mingyu go.

Next, there was Seungkwan, who was younger than you. He was a great boyfriend, and you had also met him through Jeonghan, but, yet again, you weren’t ready to let Mingyu go.

Lastly, your longest relationship was with Joshua Hong, you two were together for about a year. A little over that, actually.

He was a great boyfriend, and you two are actually still friends. You’re still friends with all of your exes, because they were such great people.

You and Joshua broke up because it became mutual that the spark was gone. You had both loved one another, but it was over.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t awkward being friends with your exes. You had expected it to be, but they have all moved on just like you. Seungkwan even has a girlfriend now.

You hadn’t cried over the breakups as much as you expected you would’ve, mainly because none of them made you feel the way that Mingyu did.

Mingyu made you feel like love was new, and fresh. You never got bored with him, even if the two of you were sitting around and doing absolutely nothing.

Your biggest fear was that nobody else would make you feel like Mingyu made you feel. It was a scary thought.

The only person that made you feel alive after all these hazy years was Jeonghan. But, he would never look at you that way.

Or so you thought.

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pass-the-bechdel · 5 years

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Marvel Cinematic Universe: Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

No.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Four (23.52% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Loads of fun, though tonally dissonant; works best on first viewing. Easily the superior film of the Thor franchise, though that’s not a huge achievement considering its predecessors.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Sigh.

Female characters:

Hela.

Scrapper 142 (I know, she is credited as Valkyrie, but since the name is never used to address her in the film it doesn’t count by the rules of this blog; if she didn’t happen to be referred to by her scrapper number a few times, she wouldn’t count as a named character at all).

Topaz.

Natasha Romanoff.

Male characters:

Thor.

Surtur.

Skurge.

Loki.

Stephen Strange.

Odin.

Volstagg.

Hogun.

The Grandmaster.

Carlo.

Korg.

Bruce Banner.

Heimdall.

OTHER NOTES:

The use of Immigrant Song is my favourite thing about this movie, to be honest. I don’t mean that as an insult, it’s just such a good choice.

The inclusion of Doctor Strange in this film feels like a pointless misstep, a distraction at what is really a vital early point in establishing tone, especially considering this useless scene is what leads us in to...

...the literal death of Odin and introduction of Big Bad Hela, all of which should be emotional and intense and is instead flat and dissonant in the extreme. Watching this for the first time, I was very concerned that the whole film was just gonna end up gimmicky and soulless. While it does pick up, I was also not wrong about that early assessment.

Not that I was attached to Thor’s friends from the previous films, but they sure do just kill them off without fanfare, except for Sif who just doesn’t appear at all (logically, we should assume she dies off-screen, otherwise there’s no reason for her not to be up-front with Thor at the end of the movie). Fandral doesn’t even get a line in before he croaks, that’s how irrelevant these franchise-veteran characters are. Emotional engagement in plot and character is for chumps, anyway.

*whispers* Jeff Goldblum is here.

“Piss off, ghost!”

Hulk reveal is pretty solid, if you manage not to have been spoiled (a tall order, since it was in the promos).

Heimdall is still the MVP of the Thor franchise.

Can’t believe it took this long for any movie to squeeze some real fun and heart out of the Hulk character. This is way better than embarrassingly forcing a love match on him.

The valkyrie-battle memory is soooo good-looking.

This movie is too recent to be using the word ‘gypsy’...

Thor’s story about Loki pretending to be a snake when they were kids is the good shit.

But, Immigrant Song is still the most inspired choice of the film. Not sorry.

So, this is one of those movies which I felt was pretty over-hyped, to be honest. It is great fun, don’t get me wrong, it’s fresh and hilarious and subversive and way the Hell better than the previous Thor films, plus it has a great cast and strong visuals and they used Immigrant Song really effectively...but the tone of the film is an absolute fucking mess, the plotting is a shambles, and there’s nowhere near as much heart and weight underpinning it all as what there should be for a movie involving the near-total destruction of an entire civilisation. The majority of the movie is handed over to a shenanigan-heavy side-plot of no consequence to the central conflict, while the central conflict - LITERAL RAGNAROK - is relegated to a handful of scenes sprinkled across the film, obliterating any chance of it seeming meaningful or even particularly serious. The strongest point of the story is the final act, once Thor and company finally get to Asgard to confront Hela, but the narrative doesn’t earn that strong finish; it just goes to show how much more engaging the rest of the film could have been if they had stayed on track.

This is a big part of why this movie - while a delightful surprise on first viewing - doesn’t age particularly well on repeat; this was my fourth time through, and by the third quarter, as Sakaar draaaagged through its roster of jokes and pratfalls, my attention span was waning fast. Even if the entire garbage-planet sidebar was not distracting from what should have been a very serious main plot, I’m not sure it would remain engaging long-term, since it is rather spare and low on emotional/character investment; it’s not a pitfall of comedy that has to exist (heavily-emotional and/or dark comedies are definitely a real thing), but unfortunately, this is not a movie that is very interested in what has come before it, and it expresses that disinterest by neglecting any element of the established Thor mythology which might have brought this plot a sense of meaning. As such, rather than feeling like ‘the Thor movie that finally got it right’, it’s more like a reboot, with old characters unceremoniously ditched and any sense of purpose or import in old story threads or histories gone right alongside Asgard itself.

I’ve seen people praise this film for its ‘anti-Imperialism, anti-colonialism’ message, but I feel it’s a point weakly made onscreen; any depth to that argument would require a more sincere effort from the script in addressing those scant Asgard scenes, and as such, I feel that this element - though it isn’t completely wishful thinking - is much more in the eye of the beholder than it is a function of the narrative itself. The attempt to engage with any thoughtful discussion on Asgard’s legacy is a swift casualty of the film’s overall superficiality, just the same as the devastation of Asgard and the decimation of its population is blithely underplayed because, hey, Thor vs Hulk is worth way more attention than genocide, right? It’s that tonal dissonance in the two pieces of the plot which keeps me from really relaxing and enjoying the lightness, because that lightness is both excessive and out-of-place; I feel uncomfortable being asked to just shrug and go with it, I want to be emotionally involved and moved by the plight of the Asgardians, and instead I’m stuck watching Thor get a haircut and an eyeful of Hulk dick. Under almost any other circumstances, I would be all about a hard-comedy version of Thor, especially after the generic drudgery of the earlier installments in the franchise, but at the same time as Ragnarok? Not so much.

That said? This film is definitely not without quality. Comedic quality, for sure (anything with Taika Waititi’s name attached is worth a look), and there really are some great casting flourishes (though I maintain disappointment that the Asgard plot is so undersold, because it means Karl Urban and especially Cate Blanchett are under-utilised); for the interests of this blog, it’s that Scrapper 142 aka Valkyrie who forms the highlight (and she’s a worthy highlight without the context of this blog, too). Valkyrie’s drunk, angry sauntering and her snappy disregard for Thor’s righteous pontificating positions her within an archetype normally restricted to male characters only, too loose and unseemly for a female character, who might be found dislikeable and (horror of horrors) too sloppy to be sexy, whereas a man in the same archetype is funny, a ‘lovable asshole’, and the perception of his appearance is not tied up in his behaviour the same way nor is he under the same pressure to prioritise his appeal for the audience in the first place. Angry male drunkards who begrudgingly tag along with the protagonist in the end because they’re surly but not bad, those are a dime a dozen, but a woman in the same position? A rare gem indeed. And Valkyrie is more than just a fresh twist on an old cliche; her personality is grounded, it has a relatable simplicity (disillusionment with a side-order of survivor’s guilt), and there’s a confidence about the way she and the unspoken parts of her life are presented, without need to force a connection with Thor and his personal plight in order to justify Valkyrie’s actions or relevance to the plot. She’s an entirely self-contained character who could just as easily have the story to herself with no further mention of Thor et al., and that’s the hallmark of any well-constructed character: the ability to stand alone.

As a whole, this movie is far from bad - when I call it overrated, I am very much talking about the fact that it’s mostly a string of shenanigans with minimal narrative underpinning, and while that’s not a terrible thing in itself, I do think the hype around this movie implied that it had something more to offer than just laughs and a retro look. For me personally, the lack of emotional engagement and character stakes is close to a fatal flaw, and so while I enjoy this movie on a superficial level, it gives me nothing I need in order to really dig it (for others, obviously, this is not a problem). It always rubs me the wrong way to see something completely disavow previous chapters in the same story - there’s a big difference between developing an idea in a new direction, and simply ditching whatever you didn’t like about what came before - and I would have preferred to see this film make its changes with at least a modicum of respect for the foundations it is building upon (basic as the previous Thor films were, they weren’t catastrophic embarrassments). And yes, ultimately, the burying of the Ragnarok plot under a pile of Planet Garbage (feat. Jeff Goldblum) is just a little unforgivable in my mind, and it’s the first thing I think of whenever this film pops up; I really, really wish that Ragnarok were not part of this plot at all, that the Sakaar part of the story (i.e. the part that The Powers That Be were actually invested in, clearly) formed the bulk of the second film in the Thor franchise instead, since that movie basically sucked and took itself too seriously, and then the Thor film which took itself seriously could have been actually about Ragnarok. Basically, I wish that Marvel had gotten their shit together sooner rather than later with this part of the franchise, because while this worked out fine for them monetarily, narratively it’s just not a step I can get behind.

#Thor: Ragnarok #Marvel Cinematic Universe #MCU #Bechdel Test #female representation

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amethystunarmed · 6 years

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Repercussions

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Kirishima Eijirou

Word Count: 1902

Trigger warnings: Blood, torture, emotional manipulation, graphic depictions of violence

Set after they become pro heroes.

AO3 Link

Midoriya never became a hero, never inherited One for All. After All Might left him on the roof, he was found by a group calling themselves the League of Villains. And now Bakugou has to pay the price.

A Bakugou-centric villain Deku au.

Bakugou had been pissed off for about a week straight. Kirishima had laughed at the way he puttered around their shared apartment, explosions sputtering from his palms. He was calling it Hurricane Bakugou, which got a mug chucked at his head. “Can’t say I’ve seen you this pissed, love,” he chuckled against Bakugou’s scalp, torso already hardened against his explosions, “I think it might be a record.” Bakugou growled at him to shut up, but he wasn’t wrong. He’d been like this ever since the new villain had surfaced. Deku.

It had been a normal patrol. A perfect one, even. There had been no activity, not even a stolen bicycle. It should have made him suspicious, really. It wasn’t a night of low activity. It was the silence of a forest before a top predator enters. It was the silence of knowing just how dangerous it would be to get in their way.

The explosion happened fifteen minutes before his shift had ended. A hero agency on the south side of town, completely obliterated. It had been mostly empty at that point. Bakugou managed to get the only two people still there out with ease. He had been handing the unconscious secretary to the emergency personnel when he saw him. A flash of green hair, ducking into an alley. He stopped, as though he’d felt Bakugou’s stare. He turned, smiled, and waved. Then he disappeared, and Bakugou felt a shift in reality. He’d recognized him, but he hadn’t been sure, until the body of Mt. Lady was found behind a dumpster. The words “I am Deku” were written above her corpse in her blood.

They’d been playing cat and mouse ever since.

Hence the mood.

Kirishima only joked because he didn’t know. He thought Bakugou was mad because the villain toyed with him, or because he didn’t immediately best him. He didn’t know who Deku was to him. He didn’t have to suddenly replace memories of missing child posters with a foreign smirk. He didn’t understand the relief Bakugou felt upon seeing him, knowing their parting words hadn’t killed him: Go take a swan dive off the roof. And, most importantly, he didn’t know what Deku meant. Useless. Most people thought it was irony, a reference to his apparently lack of a quirk, yet high body count. But Bakugou knew. Midoriya had chosen Bakugou’s name for him. Bakugou hadn’t thought of Midoriya as Deku in years but clearly, he hadn’t forgotten. The very thought sent chills down his spine.

The world became stifling. These thoughts… The universe was holding its breath, and Bakugou hadn’t gotten the memo. It was oppressive, the silence. No car outside, no birds calling, nothing. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Just the smirk, the genuine pleasure in his eyes when he spotted him. It filled his vision. The vegetables were burning, he could smell it. But still, he couldn’t move. Ringing filled his ears. A smile soaked in blood.

His phone rang. A photo of Kirishima laughing popped up on his phone. Fucking finally, Bakugou thought. He switched the burner off (the meal had to be scrapped anyways) and answered. “Hey idiot, where the fuck–”

“Hello Kacchan.” The greeting was nearly a giggle. For first time in his life, Katsuki Bakugou froze. Because he knew that voice, would have recognized it even if the nickname hadn’t been a dead giveaway. It was deeper and more confident than he had ever heard it, but he recognized it. And it belonged to someone who absolutely should not have this phone. “Aw, Kaachan, are you going to ignore me?” He could hear the pout in his voice. He remembered it well. It was a tone he associated with watery eyes and backpedaling. “And we haven’t talked in so long! It’s a shame too, I have something important to show you.” The enthusiasm was both familiar and foreign. It was the same inflection he had used to talk about heroes, what felt like so many years ago. It was that excitement, but there was a coldness to it. A once-friendly dog snapping at you after being thrown into a fighting ring. Bakugou wasn’t sure which part of it was more unsettling.

“Why do you have Kirishima’s phone?” Bakugou snapped. He wasn’t about to exchange pleasantries with villain.

“You really haven’t heard? How wonderful… I was hoping to witness when you found out.” Once again, Bakugou was thrown for a loop. The conversation flipped a dial, redirecting in a way he didn’t understand. He used to be able to tell was Midoriya was thinking from just an expression, a snippet of a phrase. But this deeper, darkened lust meant nothing to him. Trying to read him was like trying to fit into his first year school uniform; an act once familiar as breathing now entirely impossible.

“What are you chattering about?”

“Turn on your TV. Any channel will do.” Bakugou’s heart rate picked up. The scent of nitroglycerin was strong on his nose as his hands began to sweat. Still, he went to the living room and turned on the monitor. It was set to a movie channel, something he and Kirishima had fallen asleep to the night before. Yet, even on this obscure channel, Midoriya’s smiling face greeted him. He was gripping a knife, holding it up to the arm of–

Kirishima.

Bakugou wishes he could take it back, wishes more than anything he’d stayed silent. But the sight of Kirishima, tied to a chair, blood running down to his neck from a slash across his cheek, left shoulder shredded to near viscera, it had been too much.

Bakugou let out a small gasp.

The sound echoed back at him through the TV.

Midoriya’s wide grin nearly unhinged his jaw.

“So you really do care…” He breathed, like the mere thought as ecstasy. “I’d nearly thought it was impossible.” He’d trailed the knife along Kirishima’s good arm, blood immediately flooded from the wound. Kirishima grunted, but otherwise didn’t react. You idiot, Bakugou wanted to scream, Why the fuck aren’t you protecting yourself?

“I remember when you started your agency together… The two of you were so close, I thought it had to be a lie for the press. But even when you snapped at him, even when he teased you, you were smiling Kaachan. Not smirking or sneering, but actually smiling at him. So I looked closer… I was always watching. I saw every late night paperwork session, every pining gaze, even your first kiss… How sweet.”

“So you’re a stalker now too?” he snapped, but his stomach twisted.

“More like a spy,” Midoryia countered, “I was only meant to get information on you, the budding top ranked hero! But I couldn’t help but be a little jealous. I spent so long trying to befriend you, did everything I could to impress you, would have followed you to the ends of the earth, and then this nobody is a little nice to you, and suddenly you can make friends? Surely, you understand why I was upset!” He jammed the knife down, making to stab Kirishima in the thigh. Instinctively, Kirishima hardened, and the knife shattered. Midoriya’s face turned deadly, and he glared at Kirishima. For the first time, he looked panicked.

“No, I didn’t mean–”

“Now, Kirishima! That’s against the rules! And you know the penalty.” Midoriya’s eyes locked with a person offscreen. “Shigaraki, if you please. A pinky should do.”

Bakugou’s breath left his lungs. Shigaraki. Leader of the league of Villains. Quirk: Decay. He’d seen the effects of what it could do before. The injuries looked remarkably similar to the mess of blood around Kirishima’s bicep.

“No, no–” Kirishima was squirming when the pale fingers wrapped around his pinky. The skin, tissue, bone began to disintegrate. Kirishima didn’t scream. The sound he made wasn’t human enough for that title. It was like nothing Bakugou had ever heard before. It didn’t let up until Shigaraki let go. Nothing was left, not even a stump showing where the finger once was. Bakugou didn’t realize he’d been shouting until it echoed through the TV.

“Bastards! Absolute cowards! I’ll kill you!” Midoriya rolled his eyes.

“See, this is what I mean. Losing your stoic facade?” He walked over to where Kirishima had slumped in his chair. He threaded his fingers through Kirishima’s hair and forced his head up. Kirishima was panting, face bright red, and Bakugou was suddenly certain the pain in his scalp was the only thing keeping him conscious. “You’ve gone soft, Kaachan,” Midoriya continued. “He’s right here.” He tapped over his heart with the hilt of the shattered knife. “But, I suppose I should thank you. Letting him in? That gave me something to work with.” He rested Kirishima’s head against his chest, a mockery of comfort Kirishima was too weak to refuse. Bakugou could read the shame on his face. He growled.

“I’m going to kill you for this!” He shouted and Midoriya laughed.

“What, for hurting him?” He cackled, “That never stopped you.” He glared at the camera, and Bakugou shuddered. He looked absolutely unhinged.

“You always hurt me Kaachan. The burn scars attest to that, sure, but emotionally, that was where you really thrived. Useless, quirkless, deku…” He chuckled. “I fantasized torturing you over and over, but it never felt right. Cutting you up would be fun, sure, but that’s hardly revenge. I need you to hurt the same way I did, all the trauma and nightmares and shredded sense of worth. But I couldn’t figure out how to do it.” He looked down to Kirishima, and beamed.

“Then, what do I find? You just let your heart walk around unattended. How short-sighted.” He clicked his tongue. “So this is for you Kaachan. Torturing Red Riot publicly? That certainly aligns with our goals. But honestly, he’s not that important to me. Taking him out is just an added bonus. Every bit of pain he feels? That’s all for you.” He patted Kirishima’s cheek and cooed, “And currently, he still has too many fingers.” Midoriya nodded, Shigaraki’s hand came back into frame, and–

“Don’t.” The word was quiet, demure. Bakugou couldn’t believe it came from him. Midoriya stops.

“What was that?”

“Don’t. Don’t, I–”

Midoriya lit up, a shark smelling blood in the water.

“Beg me.”

“Please, stop, don’t hurt him. Please, I’ll do anything.” The words were unconscious, coming from him like a busted floodgate.

“Once more.”

“Please, I…” He swallowed his sudden flare of pride. “I’m begging you. Let him go. Please, Midoriya.”

“How many times did I beg you to stop Kaachan?”

Bakugou could see it, every time Midoriya asked him to stop, to leave him alone, to give back whatever item he’d stolen. He runs through them, on nights he can’t sleep, moonlight reflecting every desperate plea.

His wet exhale was an answer.

“And how many times did you listen?”

Something in Bakugou snapped. “No, no, please.” His words were frantic now. “Stop, please, Izuku, I’m sorry!” He thinks he might be crying.

“Not. Once!” Deku hisses, “And I only ever wanted to be like you.” He nodded to Shigaraki again, who grabs Kirishima’s ring finger. “And besides,” he continued through Kirishima’s shrieks, “Don’t bother calling me anything different now! You know it better than anyone.”

He stared straight through the camera and Bakugou felt it through his stomach like a butterfly pin.

“I’m Deku.”

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imagine-loki · 6 years

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Maelstrom

TITLE: Maelstrom CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 18

AUTHOR: wolfpawn ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine helping Loki leave his physically and emotionally abusive girlfriend. You treat him with kindness and respect, and with time, as he falls for you, you teach him that love isn’t supposed to hurt. RATING: Mature NOTES/WARNINGS: Trigger Warning - This story is going to deal with emotional and physical abuse by a female abuser to her male partner. Maelstrom - a situation or state of confused movement or violent turmoil.

Cara and Loki sat across from the Light Elves, listening to them speak of some matter that made little sense to Cara, but which Loki knew in detail, seeing as it was related in some way to the studying of seidr, but she listened intently, loving the look of excitement on Loki’s face at discussing something of a significant passion of his. She smiled when he looked at her, genuine excitement on his face. She excused herself for a moment and headed to the bathroom.

‘So, Prince Loki,’ He turned to the Light Elf. ‘A healer?’

‘Yes.’ Loki nodded.

‘When I first heard, I thought it a mistake, but seeing as her father is the great Tyr…’

Loki gave a small grin. ‘Yes, we were fortunate that such allowed this to be.’

‘She has changed you, you are not the boy that came to Alfheim to try and learn some seidr years ago, you are far stronger now, and it is clear to see that she is a part of that.’

Loki smiled fondly. ‘More than likely.’

‘Regarding the Sanctum.’ Loki frowned, having not mentioned the Ljosalfar Sanctum at all during their time talking, the Sanctum was their most sacred temple of learning, only the most gifted seidr wielders from any realm could go there to study. Frigga had gone there, but she was one of three “outsiders” (non-Ljosalfar) to be welcomed there in a generation. ‘I have heard much of your abilities, and though you applied before, you were not ready then, but now….’

Loki swallowed, shocked at what he was hearing before turning to the side and seeing Cara looking on shocked. ‘I don’t…’

‘The Sanctum of Alfheim wishes to extend an invitation for you, Prince Loki, to study with them. From what I gather, the Master wishes to learn from you also.’

‘What?’ Loki frowned, barely able to compute what he was hearing. ‘I don’t….I can’t possibly…’

‘Loki!’ He turned to look at Cara. ‘I know this is sudden but this is everything you ever wanted.’ She reminded him. Loki had mentioned the Ljosalfar Sanctum to her a few times and that he dreamt for so long of studying there. ‘You have to do this.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Whyever not?’

‘I will let you discuss this. We will require an answer before we leave at the end of the week though.’ The Light Elf rose, bowed and left.

As soon as he left, Cara walked over and sat beside Loki. ‘You have to take this opportunity. It is everything you ever wanted, why can you not take it?’

‘You.’

‘Me what? Wait, you won’t take it because of me? Are you insane?’ She demanded. ‘I am not a reason to pass this up.’

‘But…’

‘There is no “but” Loki, this is your dream.’ Cara stated.

‘You don’t want me?’

Cara was readying to argue him again when his words seeped into her brain, ‘Wait, you think I am telling you to go because I do not want you?’ The look on his face showed that he did indeed think such a thing. ‘No, I love you, with all of my heart.’

‘Then why….’

‘Because you have always dreamt of this and this is everything you ever wanted and to not strive for it when you have earned the right to study there is not something I can stand by and say nothing about. I want you to achieve everything you are capable of. I want you to do whatever makes you happiest.’

‘But we….’

‘Loki, this is your dream, it cannot be dependant on anyone but you and you cannot give it up for anyone.’

‘But I don’t want to lose you.’

‘Lose….You won’t lose me.’ She dismissed. ‘I will be here when you finish, I will come to visit you, you will come here and visit and we will write and when you are done and you return home, we will be stronger than ever and I will still love you.’ She swore. ‘Think of it Loki, the Sanctum, they want you, they want to learn from you, this….this is incredible. You should be elated. I am so proud of you.’

Loki, however, did not feel that way. All he saw was losing Cara. ‘I...I need to think about this.’

Cara, seeing his conflict, smiled comfortingly. ‘Of course. Take some time to process it and I will see you in a while. I love you.’ She kissed him and left to give him the space he needed.

Loki sat and thought about everything.

Sif sat in the Healing Rooms waiting to get a bandage changed. She had almost been bested in training, but while the warrior’s sword glanced her arm, she used the hilt of hers to strike him in the genitals and get him to the floor. She ended up with a cut to the arm, he ended up getting surgery to remove a testicle. She would feel guilty, but as he had four children and did not pay towards any of them, she made a private note to take the other one as soon as she had the chance also.

While sitting there, waiting for the Healer that was cleaning her wound to return with the bandages, she paid little heed to much around her. She knew that Cara was off today, and as much as she did not like her little sister being around him, she knew she was with Loki.

It was clear that things had progressed between Cara and Loki and that angered Sif. Even with everything with Lucia and seeing that Loki was not as bad as she had thought, she worried that he was not a good fit for her sensible sister. Also, as the eldest, she felt she had a duty to protect Lucas and Cara, so the idea of a man that she was not even officially courting being intimate with her little sister annoyed her somewhat. She knew it was similar to herself and Thor, but they had been together secretly for over a century, there was a foundation of trust there. Cara and Loki had nowhere near the background she and Thor had.

‘Why would you even risk it?’ Sif glanced to the side, noting two young apprentices talking.

‘Well, would you rather be working here for the rest of your life or a princess?’ That comment made her pay closer heed to their words.

‘So, if Healer Cara is officially courted by Prince Loki, she is...what exactly?’

‘She…’ The young healer turned slightly and her eyes widened to see not just anyone sitting nearby, but the subject of their conversation’s very own sister. ‘I…’

‘What, what occurs if my sister continues this courtship?’ Sif demanded. The two women said nothing. ‘If one of you do not give me an answer…’

‘Healer Cara cannot be considered for any position of significance especially the Head Healer one as the Head Healer is assigned to the Royal Family and if she is being courted by Prince Loki, it is seen as a conflict in interest.’ The first stated fearfully.

Sif’s face fell as she realised what the apprentice was stating before anger filled her. ‘I...she is blocked from progression...because of Loki?’ She reiterated. The apprentice nodded. Forgetting her bandage change, she stormed out of the rooms.

Loki wandered the gardens, thinking of everything that Cara had said. It was true, it was his dream but the happiness he was experiencing was too incredible to risk also. He never felt so conflicted. He thought about how she said that they would make it work, that she would wait for him, but he thought of all the stories he had read through the years, the odds were very much against them, he did not know what to think.

The first he knew of Sif being in the gardens as well was when she was in his face, shoving him backwards. ‘What in the Norns is wrong with you?’ He growled.

‘I told you to stay away from her.’ Sif snarled.

Loki’s brows furrowed. ‘Are you after taking a hit to the head, you mad woman, why is this an issue now after a few months?’

‘You went and ruined my sister’s life.’

‘What?’ Loki became genuinely worried. ‘What’s happened?’

‘You, you happened and now Cara’s whole life plan is obliterated.’

‘What...How…?’ Loki’s eyes widened. ‘Is she pregnant?’

‘If she is, I will castrate you where you stand.’ Sif hissed, appalled by the mere thought.

‘Then what in the realms are you blathering on about?’

‘Cara’s career.’

‘What about it? How in the world's am I affecting that?’

‘Because of you, she will never be able to progress.’

Loki looked at her baffled. ‘How is...what?’

‘Because you are sleeping with my sister, she cannot become Head Healer, everything she ever worked for is being destroyed for you.’

‘What...no.’

‘You are royal, meaning she cannot be given one of the top jobs because of you. All her years of study to be the best, gone, for you.’

Loki realised what it was that Sif was saying and stared in shock as he processed her words.

When Cara did not hear back from Loki, she began to become concerned. She genuinely thought that when he had time to think about it, he would see that he had to avail of the opportunity. Yes, it would be hard and she knew it would be lonely without him, but for his betterment, she was willing to endure it.

When she could take no more, she decided to check on Loki. As she came to his rooms, she noticed Alfred instructing another servant to carry a travelling case into the room. Seeing this, she smiled sadly. She would miss Loki, but it was an incredible opportunity for him. She walked in after the servants to see Loki boxing some of his more important books. ‘Alfred, I will need…’ He paused when he saw Cara there. Swallowing hard, he looked to his hand servant. ‘Leave us, please.’ The hand servant bowed slightly and ushered the other servant out in front of him. ‘I didn’t expect…’

‘Do you need a hand with anything?’ Cara offered, as much as she tried, she could not fully mask her sadness, knowing she would not see him again for a time, but she wanted to help, she wanted to make sure he had everything.

‘No. I have most everything.’

‘Good.’ She gave her best attempt at a smile. ‘This will be hard, Loki. But this will be worth it, a few years there, with your incredible talent, you will do so well.’

‘Cara.’ She looked at him expectantly. ‘I…’ He walked over to her. ‘I need you to not wait for me.’

Cara, who had been focusing on the good of the situation over the bad realised the words he spoke. ‘I...what?’

‘We can’t do this. I don’t want to spend my time in Alfheim focusing on someone I will not see for months at a minimum, it’s not fair. It’ll be too hard, we need to end this.’

‘I...But…’

‘We shouldn’t do it to ourselves, Cara. We will be lonely when we don’t need to be. Why inflict suffering on ourselves. Maybe when I return we will see things the same, maybe when I am gone we will find…’

Cara’s eyes filled with tears at his words. ‘Of course, I...It was stupid.’ She shook her head. ‘I mean, you went through so much and you shouldn’t feel burdened down now after it all. I wouldn’t want to...yeah, no. I get it.’ She inhaled deeply to steady herself.

Loki swallowed, seeing how his words caused her to falter physically as though she had been struck by something. ‘I...I was going to tell you when I was finished packing, I just...I am going to leave today.’ She stared at him wide-eyed. ‘I don’t think I can wait around.’

‘No, of course not.’ Her voice cracked.

‘Thank you, for everything. You are an incredible being. You’ll go far. You’ll probably be the assistant head healer when I get back.’ He chuckled.

She nodded, tears blurring her vision as she attempted to smile but it came as more of a pained grimace. ‘I...I hope you are happy there. You deserve it, Loki.’ She looked at him as she said those words. ‘Excuse me.’ She turned and left the room, running through the hallways until she got to her rooms. When she closed the door, she slumped against it and sobbed, feeling as though her heart was being torn from her chest.

In his rooms, Loki walked out of his bedchambers, his own eyes filled with tears and waved his hand, the duplicate of himself he had speak with Cara fizzling away to nothing. He had to use it to interact with her, if he had tried, he would have never gotten the words out. He thought of her love for her job. He loved her too much to stand between her and her dream, the same as she was urging him to follow his.

#loki #angst #submission #submitted fic #chapter 18 #Maelstrom #wolfpawn

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minijenn · 6 years

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Worthless Endeavors

For the fifth time in a row this week, Steven was having trouble sleeping. No matter how many sheep he counted or glasses of milk he drank, he just couldn’t find a way to put himself under. However, it wasn’t like the young Gem was in an uncomfortable position. His bed was as soft as ever, the sheets had been freshly washed, and his pillows were fluffed up to the extreme. Steven had even requested Lion to sleep on his bed to act as a sort of cuddle buddy, much to the feline’s obvious annoyance. No, Steven’s body was perfectly comfortable and ready for the night’s embrace. His mind, however, was far from such a blissful state.

I wasn’t unusual for stress to plague Steven’s mind on the daily basis. Being the son of a galactic war criminal and constantly under the threat of aliens and demons would logically do that to a boy. But despite all of that, Steven was still miraculously able to push all of that to the back of his head and continued to wear a bright smile. However, it was harder and harder to wear that smile whenever he looked at that prosthetic arm attached to Dipper. That arm was a constant reminder to the young Gem how much he had failed when he was taken out into space. He thought that willingly giving himself to Homeworld would finally solve the intergalactic feud and maybe even give the Diamonds some closure. That idea went null when the twins decided to come along with him and was made even worse when Dipper didn’t come back.

By that point, the Young Gem thought it couldn’t get any worse, but even that change when Dipper miraculously came back, only to be brainwashed and hellbent on killing him. And even though both him and Mabel were miraculously able to snap Dipper out of it, he still had the feeling that something was seriously wrong. Dipper had been distant with him as of late, and barely even communicated with the young Gem. Steven had tried talking to Mabel about this, but even she was in the dark about what was going on with her brother. This was the main concern that kept Steven up these past few nights, and he had no idea when it would end.

“Lion, can I ask you something?” he quietly asked. The pink feline gave a small yawn and slowly opened his eyes. As usual, the pink beast looked apathetic to the young Gem’s plight, but he decided to continue on. “It’s just…Do you ever have that feeling that even though everything seems fine, but deep down you know something’s very wrong? That’s how I’ve been feeling since Dipper finally came back to us.” Lion gave a small groan at the mention of the boy. “I know you’re not the biggest fan of Dipper, but just here me here.” The feline did finally raise his head a bit as he noticed his master’s growing worry. “Whenever I talk to him, he always tells me that he’s fine. But I really don’t think he is fine. He has this sad look in his eyes and he doesn’t have the same passion he had ever since…” The young Gem slowly trailed off as the dreaded memory came back into his mind. Nevertheless, he shook the thought out of his head and continued. “The real thing that’s really bothering me is…why won’t Dipper tell me something’s wrong? I’m his best friend, I’m supposed to be there for him whenever he’s hurt. How am I supposed to help him if he won’t talk to me?!” Steven’s mind began to delve into really dark places now. “Do you think he blames me for what happened to him? Do you think he doesn’t want to be around me anymore? What if he actually hates me now?! Do you think he hates me now?! What I am going to do to gain Dipper’s trust again? How am I supposed to face the Mabel or the Gems when my best friend hates me because I got him hurt?! How am I-“

The young Gem’s chain of questions came to any abrupt halt when he felt a large paw on his chest. He looked over too see that Lion was now at full attention of his master. Steven looked into his pet’s eyes to see genuine concern over his well-being. It was rather rare for Lion to show anything other than apathy towards the boy, so this was clearly a desperate measure. As he continued to look, Steven slowly began to realize what he was just saying and how ridiculous it really was. More likely than not, Dipper certainly didn’t hate him for what had transpired on Homeworld and was just recovering from his traumatic experience. Steven gently patted Lion’s head and gave him a soft smile. “You’re right Lion, I think I was just getting out of hand a little.” Lion put on a skeptical look at the young Gem’s claim. “Okay, I was getting a lot out of hand,” the boy admitted. “Thanks for snapping me out of it.” The pink beast let out a small purr as Steven slowly laid back down on the bed and looked to the ceiling. “Still, I really wish that Dipper would just talk to me about this. I really worry about him sometimes. I don’t know if don’t already know this Lion, but Dipper can sometimes tend to keep his emotions all bottled up. And that can really lead to some bad situations. All of this Stonemason stuff is really hurting Dipper emotionally, and he should really talk about it me…and everyone else of course. Do you have any ideas, Lion?”

Steven received his answer in the form of a soft snore for the pink feline. Steven looked over to see that Lion had snuggled against his side and had fully fallen asleep. Steven smiled at his pet and realized that perhaps he might be on to something. Right now, the young Gem needed to finally get a good night sleep, so that he can tackle this problem with a clear mind. If Steven really wanted to confront Dipper on this matter, he needed to have a clear mind. He certain didn’t want to cause his friend anymore stress, but this needed to be addressed. As the boy continued to think how to go about talking to Dipper, his eyelids soon began to feel heavy. Before Steven even knew, he had finally gotten the much needed sleep that had eluded to last few nights.

Only instead of much needed relief, the young Gem would receive something much, much worse.

Steven immediately knew something was wrong when he didn’t fell the familiar softness of Lion’s mane on his side. At first, he just assumed that the pink feline had got up and went to his usual sleeping area under the porch stairs. But this assumption was cut short as he noticed that he wasn’t laying down on his soft, warm bed. It seemed that the boy was laying down on a cold, glass-like surface instead. Steven slowly opened his eyes to find out what exactly was going on, but they went wide as saucers as he saw where he was. Instead of the ceiling of his cozy room, the young Gem stared up to vast infinity that was outer space. Millions of stars twinkled above Steven’s head as he quickly got to his feet. The confused boy hastily looked around to see that he was standing in the middle of a large, glowing platform floating in space. The young Gem instantly began to panic with the potential lack of oxygen, only to find that he had no issue breathing. With that potentially lethal question answered, Steven began to try and figure out where he was and how he had got there. His answer came in the form of a laugh. A laugh that was all to familiar to the boy.

“Oh, come along with me,” a voice began to sing from an unknown location. “And the butterflies and bees!” Steven’s stomach dropped when he began to recognize the voice singing to him. It was a nasally, somewhat sadistic voice that the young Gem was all too familiar with. It was a voice that had tormented him and his friends not too long ago. “We can wander through the forest, and do so as we please!” the voice continued to sing. In an instant, Steven summoned his shield and put up a defensive stance. He quickly scanned his surroundings for where the voice was coming from. No way he would get the jump on Steven, not this time. “Come along with me,” the voice continued. “To a cliff under a tree. We can gaze upon the water…” Steven was starting to get irritated by this annoying singing. Why won’t he just face him already? The boy’s internal question was answered as a sudden flash of light caused Steven to shield his eyes. When the young Gem looked back, he was finally face-to-face with the dream demon he thought had been defeated a year ago. “As an everlasting dream!” Bill Cipher finished his song with dramatic passion. “Aw come on, Rose Bud, you not impressed with my singing? Maybe you would’ve like it better if I started to break down sobbing in the middle like how you and those Crystal Chumps do it. But enough about me and my amazing sing, how’s it going, Rose Bud?! I heard you’ve pretty busy screwing up as of late, right?!”

Steven wasted no time in raising his shield up against the dream demon. “You stay away, Bill! I’m not like last year. I know exactly what you are and how dangerous you can be! You’re not going to trick me or Dipper again, so you can just back off!” Bill looked rather unimpressed with the young Gem’s bout of courage as he reached out to the pink shield and gave it a tiny flick. Almost immediately, the shield shattered into sparkly glitter and gently fell to the young Gem’s feet. Steven could only look with awe as his main line of defense was completely obliterated in an instant and then looked up to the demon again. “Oh man,” the triangle said, trying to suppress his laughter. “Now that’s a LOTTA DAMAGE! Good luck trying to put that over-decorated trash lid back together with duct tape!”

Instead of continuing to entertain with his frustrations, Steven decided to just cut to the chase. “Why are you even here? Can’t you just let me get some sleep?” The young Gem wasn’t exactly sure why he had asked such a question to Bill Cipher of all beings. He knew that the dream demon was dedicated to making his life miserable. Memories of the horrendous acts the demon had done to him and Dipper sent a shiver up his spine. Just the mere thought of Bill Cipher caused Steven to almost have a small panic attack and almost made him want to just hide away from the world. It was a weakness that Steven didn’t like to admit he had and tried he could to try and hide it from his friends and family.

Bill had ceased his laughter so that he could answer the boy’s question. “Come on, kid, sleep is for the weak! You handle the day best when you’re panicked and stressed, that’s obvious! But to answer your former question, I noticed that you’ve been crying over your self-esteem, well, more than usual that is! That’s what I like about you, Rose Bud, you always think that you’re just a piece of garbage! It’s nice when some people finally decide to admit it!” Steven told this moment to back away from the rambling demon, just in case the demon decided to launch a surprise attack. “So, decided that your good pal, Bill, should stop by and remind how much of a screw up you are. Just to really drive it home!” The young Gem’s fists clenched at his sides at the triangles insults to his character. He may have lost his shield, but that didn’t mean Steven would just stand idlily by and let the demon humiliate him.

“I am NOT a screw up,” the young Gem yelled at the demon. “Sure, I make a mistake once and a while, but I do a lot more good than bad. I help the Gems protect the Earth, I was able to save Dipper from Homeworld, and I stopped you from take over the universe!” Bill gave the Gem a dark stare, a stare that me his back shiver and almost made Steven regret speaking up against the petty demon. “You know Rose Bud,” Bill spoke in a dead serious tone. “I wouldn’t suggest bring that last detail up with me. Because whenever I think about how my well-deserved victory was taken away from me that one year ago, I get ROYALLY PISSED OFF!” The demon’s voice boomed as grew several times his size. His yellowed body turned into a dark crimson and his eye became a single black hole of hate. Steven was immediately startled and fell backward onto his back. The young Gem was relieved when Bill decide to revert back to his original form and straightened out his bowtie. “But I’m above things like that. So instead, I’ll go ahead and prove to you that your whole existence is nothing more than a burden that cause more harm than good! How about we start with Pine Tree, or as I call him nowadays, Half Pine! See, it’s funny because he’s half the meatsack he used to be!”

Steven immediately stood again; ready to take another stance against the dream demon. The boy could take a lot of punishment from the demented triangle but talking bad about his best friend struck a nerve within him. “I’m not falling for it, Bill! I know that I saved Dipper from Stonemason. I know I left him behind on Homeworld, and I already feel terrible about it! Dipper got hurt and lost a part of him because I…wasn’t strong enough. I know I messed up, but I fixed it! Me and Mabel saved Dipper from all of that, and I’m proud of it! You can’t convince me otherwise!”

Bill decided to let the young Gem finish his little tangent before he started to burst out laughing again. “Oh man, Rosebud, I knew you were dumb but come on! Do you honestly think that you actually saved Half Pine from this mess?! Sorry to burst your pink, girly bubble but Half Pine still has that killer instinct deep in that head of his. Hell, it wouldn’t really surprise me if Half Pine turned psycho assassin just like that!” The dream demon gave a sharp snap of his fingers and Steven immediately went rigid. The boy felt a cold, blade press up against his neck, immediately recognizing it as the horrid, yellow that Stonemason had wielded against. Though he still didn’t the Homeworld assassin himself, he still didn’t dare to move in fear of suddenly slitting his throat. “Ha, oh you should see the look on your face right now, Rosebud. I totally need to save this!” The demon quickly floated next to the frighten Gem and put his black arm around his shoulder. Bill then summoned a smartphone out of nowhere and snapped a selfie of the two of them, blade included.

Once the demon had gotten his desired picture and floated away, the blade under the boy’s neck disappeared into nothingness. Steven let out a sigh of a relief as he was now out of immediate danger, for now at least. “This will make for a nice home wallpaper. So, what were we talking about again? Oh yeah, we were talking about Half Pine! Well I’m bored of talking about him, so let’s move on to the other people lives you’ve ruined. Mainly, those Crystal Chumps that have to deal with you.” Steven was about to counter the demon on this accusation, but Bill quickly stopped him. “Hold it right there, Rosebud. Don’t even lecture me about how those Crystal Chumps ‘care about you’ and ‘would die for you’, because we both know that a load of hot trash. Did you just forget about that time back in the day where they made a deal with me to stop from ever existing?! Here, I have the transcript of that that magical night right here!”

Bill then summoned up a sizeable stack of papers and threw them in the air above the young Gem. Though most of the pages rained down to the floor, Steven was still able to catch a few of the page out of the air. He glanced over them, reading over the events that the Gems had told him and the twins last summer. Though Steven had made inner peace with what the Gems had did that dreadful night, his heart still sank as he looked at the transcript, describing how the Gems made the deal with the dream demon and their varying motivations on why. “Yeah, that thing is like twenty-five pages, believe it or not! I guess I like to go into detail with character suffering and torment in my writing, sort of like another angsty writer I know!” Steven hardly paid attention to the demon, as he was too engrossed with the pages right in front of him. “They…they told me why, but…” The young Gem would be lying if he said that what the Gems did still bothered him to this day. Was Rose really that important to them that they would wish away his existence when given the chance?

“Trust me, kid, I was surprised too how fast they took the deal. They must have REALLY wanted you out of the picture!” the demon taunted the boy, who was on the verge of tears. “But I’m not done yet, Rosebud! I think it’s time we bring up the person that you let down the most! Can you take a guess? Here let me give you a visual aid!” With another snap of the demon’s fingers, Steven felt a hand land on his shoulder. The boy slowly began to look behind him, scared to see what horror the demon had summoned up this time. As he finished turning his head, Steven’s eyes went wide as he looked up to the figure behind him. The smooth, white skin and bright, curly pink hair were a dead giveaway that it was none other than Rose Quartz standing right there. “M-Mom?! What are you doing he-“ Before the young Gem could finish, the pink Gem suddenly grabbed him by the neck and held him to eye level. Tried his best to struggle his way out, but it seemed like his mother’s grip only got tighter and tighter. Amidst his panic, Steven was able to get a good look into Rose’s eyes and went pale at what he saw. They were glowing a sickly yellow hue and there were black lines where circular pupils were supposed to be. As if that wasn’t terrifying enough, her eyes were full of piercing rage and scorn that seem to pierce through the young Gem’s heart.

“Boy, Rosebud,” Bill taunted as he floated behind the pink Gem. “It looks like Quartzy is mad AND disappointed with you! Bet you’re wondering why, huh? Well, let me put it this way without dropping a few spoilers on ya! You see Rosebud, Quartzy sacrificed a whole lot for this crummy planet. And when I say a lot, I mean a WHOLE LOT! She gave up everything so that she could protect her dumb friends and this dumb heap of dirt. But then YOU go along and just turn yourself in to those Homeworld mooks like all of that sacrifice meant nothing! Sure, you made them promise to not hurt the Earth or those Crystal Chums once they had you, but let’s be real here! The minute they crushed your Gem into sparkly glitter, Yellow and Blue would’ve immediately went to Earth and wiped that eyesore off the star map. All of those thousands of years of loss and sacrifice, wasted over your dumb decision to ‘protect’ your friends. If I were Quartzy, I’d be pretty pissed off at the dumbass who did that!”

Steven was left speechless at what the dream demon had just told him. While turning himself over to Homeworld was the smartest decision he ever made, deep down he still liked to think that what he did was a brave, noble action to protect the ones he loved. But with how Bill put it, it sounded like he was only thinking about himself. “I-I only wanted to protect everybody. I didn’t mean to…make things worse.” Steven said, trying to defend his actions. But even he didn’t believe what he was saying, and neither was Rose based off the anger still in her eyes. “Aw, quit your crying, Rosebud,” Bill intervened. “Because I’m here to help get rid of all of that doubt and worry! I just need a little something from you!” The demon lowered his hand and started to tap at the boy’s gemstone. The young Gem became alarmed at the demon’s request, remembering very well how the triangle was so deadest on claiming his gem. “I’m not giving you my gem, Bill! You’ll never take it from me!” Bill just laughed at the boy’s outburst. “Oh don’t worry, kid! I’m not gonna rip your gem out of your gut!” the dream demon said as he floated away from him. “Quarty’s gonna do that for me!”

The boy’s fear was reignited as looked over to Rose again to see that she had her sword in her hand, pointed directly at his stomach. Steven began to struggle even harder to try and escape the pink Gem’s grasp, but she was too strong and still held him tightly in place. “Yeah, I thought it would be more appropriate if Quartzy here did the honors here since you were the one that almost screwed up her plans! Plus, I’d hate to get my hands all bloody, gotta be a little bit hygienic, you know? Let this be a lesson to you, Rosebud: I ALWAYS get what I’m owed!” The triangle then pulled out a bucket of popcorn and continued. “Alright, you can go ahead now, Quartzy! Remember to cut really deep in there!” The pink Gem gave a dark grin as she pulled her arm back to get ready to plunge the blade deep in her son’s stomach. Steven could only give a pleading look to his mother to not go through with this horrendous act, but all he received was the same look of anger in his mother’s eyes. The young Gem let out a scream as Rose’s blade began to move toward him.

Steven woke up to the sound of his own screams and a mighty roar from Lion. The boy immediately shot up from his bed and was on the verge of hyperventilating. After a quick scan of the room, it looked like he was back in the safety of his room. He then looked over to Lion, who had a concerned look in his eyes for his master. Steven then realize that it must have been Lion who woke him up from his night terror. After taking a moment to calm down a bit, Steven rushed over to embrace the pink feline. “Oh Lion! Thank you, thank you so much for waking me up!” The pink beast gave a content purr from his master’s gratitude to him. “Bill came to me,” Steven continued. “He made Mom almost stab me and cut out my gem! I-I was so scared! I thought I was going to lose my gem! I…” The boy went silent as he began to remember what the dream demon had told him. From how he didn’t actually saved Dipper from Stonemason, to how he almost ruined what his mother had fought and sacrifice so much for. Steven buried his face deeper in Lion’s mane.

“I messed up really bad.”

#universe falls #sumbission #submission #FUCK #STEVEN IS A SWEET BOYO WHO DESERVES NONE OF THIS AND BILL CAN GO FUCK RIGHT OFF #ALSO #YA THROWIN A LOT OF SHADE WITH THAT FOURTH WALL BREAK BLAZER #I LOVE IT THO #WHOLE THING WAS DAMN GOOD #uf fan art #uf 3 year anniversary extravaganza #character week #blazer's oneshots

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elizas-writing · 6 years

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How I Would Fix Steven Universe: Beginning the Fifth Season (2/2)

*** The following was drafted up before Rose was revealed to be Pink Diamond. I’d honestly feel bad if I didn’t finish this (like the completionist I am), so here’s a fix-it if that reveal didn’t happen. ***

Click here for the first part so you’re all caught up on my frustration about the start of season five.

Picking up where I left off, this will focus on total rewrites spanning roughly from Dewey Wins to Kevin Party, possibly cutting a couple of these episodes and drastically changing the themes of this particular arc.

So we continue with our tearful reunion. The Gems and Greg can’t help but panic and ask over and over if Steven’s hurt. Connie just won’t let him go while Steven reassures, “I’m here. I’m here. I’m so sorry I didn’t hold on tight enough.” This little bit would cut the unnecessary drama between the two and spare us from Steven being an insufferable, selfish ass and missing the whole point on why everyone was panicked. Even if he’s okay, he knows what everything that just happened will mean for their world and the dangers which may come, and they have to be prepared.

The Homeworld Gems and Off Colors make their appearance once they’re assured the ship is still intact, and while there’s some shaky trust in meeting the Crystal Gems and other former Homeworld Gems, they eventually come together knowing they have a common enemy who must be stopped and a planet worth protecting. Once an agreement has been made, the Off Colors finally take in the new sights of Earth and Beach city... the sand, the sea, the clear blue sky, lush greenery, etc. Amethyst is quick to befriend the Rutile twins, the fusions are in awe with Garnet, Homeworld gems catch up with others to update what Homeworld is like, etc etc.

One major interaction which would be great to see would be Rhodonite and Pearl. Now it’s not much of a secret that at least one of the gems which make Rhodonite is a Pearl, possibly Pink’s Pearl. Rhodonite would catch a glimpse of Pearl and just freeze, staring at her.

“It really is you... the Renegade Pearl..”

“Sorry, have we met?”

Rhodonite unfuses to two gems, revealing Pink Pearl. Upon recognizing her, CG Pearl goes into shock, covering her mouth and tears ready to flow again. Pink Pearl rushes towards her and hugs her tightly.

“It really is you!”

“But how? After Pink Diamond... I thought for sure you were shattered with..” Pearl hugs back tightly.

“I just barely escaped. I thought you were hit by the Corruption Song. They said no one would survive the blast.”

Upon seeing the Pearls reunited, Steven learns more about the Gem War and the aftermath from a Homeworld perspective. We see more of the Diamonds’ obsession for perfection with the mistreatment of the Off Colors, and an up-close account of Pink Diamond’s wrath from her former Pearl who made certain Rose Quartz would get close enough to strike. Upon seeing that the Diamonds won’t stop until the Earth is obliterated, the Off Colors and Homeworld Gems join the Crystal Gems to aid in the fight no matter what.

However, Lapis Lazuli can’t help but feel paranoid of the Diamonds possibly returning to unleash their wrath on everyone. Much like in “Raising the Barn,” she considers leaving Earth before that would happen. Peridot still affirms that this is their home and it’s worth protecting and fighting for, and running away won’t stop the Diamonds from galactic conquest. Lapis, still emotionally conflicted, starts singing “Distant Shore” to calmly explain her fears and slowly open up more to the others. By the end, she hugs Peridot and Steven, takes a deep breath, and agrees to stay and join the fight.

While these changes would cut out the episodes of Steven and Connie’s rift, I actually would leave in “Dewey Wins.” At this point, the Beach City citizens have been relegated to filler episodes without their stories having any major impact on the overarching narrative of the Gems. And at this point, with some of their own kidnapped and almost taken into space, there is more than enough reason to panic and pressure leaders to do something. Knowing Dewey, he’d probably be quick to blame the Crystal Gems for everything (like he did in “Ocean Gem”), and Steven has to shut that down again because it’s not a constructive way to solve anything. And of course, the citizens won’t have it when the ones who were kidnapped remember the Crystal Gems saving them and fighting off Homeworld. The re-election with Nanefua Pizza winning would amplify to a time of humans and Crystal Gems coming together to fight a common enemy and save their home. Even if Beach City can’t be a part of the giant intergalactic battles, they’ll at least be in the know of what is going on and how to prepare themselves for anything. I’d love to see more episodes of them working together instead of being separate so it doesn’t feel like completely different shows when we focus on one group or the other.

And that’s how I’d make season 5 open much smoother than... whatever the hell all of that was.

If you enjoyed this fix it and what I do here, consider buying me a ko-fi to show your support!

#steven universe #how i would fix steven universe #fix it #su #su critical #su criticism #editorial #my writing #opinion

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coffeeandmoonthoughts · 6 years

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his name was hunter

His name was Hunter.

I walked into the gym with wobbly legs. I was a runner who took up weightlifting but never actually had the courage to lift someone remotely challenging. Not only were my legs tired, but my spirit was also getting wobbly. I went through a long series of no-strings-attached relationships, with strict rules I enforced. Sure, I was warm and friendly, but I always made sure they knew it wasn't going anywhere. Family meetings weren't allowed and when I noticed feelings were developing, or it got scary, I would cut it off. It was a messy procedure but being emotionally vulnerable to someone wasn't in the cards for me. I kept them all at an arms length, getting what I wanted and calling it quits when the time came. I was a feather in the wind whom no one could ever chain down. Too much baggage so I substituted with merely physical intimacy and thought that would do the trick. It didn't. It got tiring after a while, floating around, refusing to be anything concrete and tangible but honestly, I didn't even know where to begin. Ruined a lot of people, too. In a way, it was incredibly selfish so when someone close to me accused me of being the most selfish person they had ever met, I showed them they were right. I refused under any circumstances to give in.

I asked if anyone I knew wanted to join me with weightlifting in the gym and he eagerly volunteered. We were acquaintances, or friends, for a while but I always kept him at a distance because something was just “off” about it. When he stepped up I took him up on the offer because he seemed to be the only reliable one who would actually show up at 5 am every morning with me, plus he had some experience. I was the newbie. The first day destroyed me. I hardly had any muscle tone. He was patient with me though and took me through it all. A few weeks into it, he started testing the waters. You know, flirting etc. I didn't have any current prospects so I sort of let things go where they went. Plus, he really pumped me up, supported and challenged me and I was starting to feel incredibly empowered. He had a very “no bullshit” sort of attitude that I liked. But other than that, I wasn't sure if I really liked him or was even attracted to him, so I tried it out to see if it would be anything real. Looking back now I see that if you have to question something then it’s not right. I had a lot of unresolved issues and things I hadn't addressed so naturally that played out later. One day I went to his place after the gym and one thing lead to another. He was incredibly affectionate. Next thing I knew I was moving in with him, super quickly. I would give this thing a go. Maybe there was something I was missing on the other end of having a serious relationship. It took me a while to put a label on it, as usual, but I sort of just let it manifest.

It might be good to remember that this is an experience from my perspective and that each story has two sides. To this day I don't know which one is right or wrong or if two people take equal part in destroying each other or if there really are people out there that are toxic to everyone or if its just wrong time, wrong place, with the wrong people. I can only show from my perspective, trying to remain as objective as possible without diminishing how I felt in the very moment.

His family had money. They drove bmw’s and lived in the rich part of town with a private club. I started realizing he got a lot of what he had from his family. His apartment was even owned by his uncle. I went to swanky parties where I was thrown in head first and swam to the best of my abilities. He introduced me to all his friends as his “hot” girlfriend. His friends being frat boys with daddy’s money who I normally would avoid because, well, sometimes they are devoid of anything real (I'm totally generalizing and judging here). Sometimes they spoke bad about their girlfriends behind their backs and did dark things but I thought “this must just be a boy thing, they can't really mean it”. They wore salmon colored polos and binge drank on the weekends and had private pool parties. They drank into obliteration. I stuck it out thinking that maybe there was something I was missing here. Maybe this was where I belonged. We played racquetball at the gym and tennis at the club and swam during the summer. I tried to fit in, but I always felt like I was just the drifty hippie girl wannabe who tailed along with them. Fast forward some months and he lost his drive in the gym because of the comfort of our relationship. Things got comfortable, stale maybe, and I started feeling a little insecure and empty. We didn't have much of a connection and whatever leftover between us was nothing. We were polar opposites. I felt like a passionate, fiery person, but around him I felt like I disappeared. Like his loud and opinionated self took over everything, leaving no room for me. It left me quiet. Very quiet. He would make little comments about people different than him and they seemed harsh to me. I would call him out and he would justify it and then I would be left thinking maybe I was just overly sensitive. Maybe it was just me being too nice again. And so the brainwashing began. He would go out drinking at a buddies place in another part of town, call me up at 3 or 4 am wasted and incoherent and demanding I come get him. He would get impatient and angry when I couldn't understand where he was. One time I picked him up in a strange part of town after he got kicked out of his friends uber ride. He got into a fight in the car and broke his friends hand when they tried to kick him out. He was stumbling around in the middle of the street like a mad man with a shredded shirt. I took him home and he got angry when I seemed upset at the situation. But I had already learned that you can't argue with an incoherent drunk. He got out of my car and accidentally knocked my side mirror off when he fell over. He barely made it up the stairs.

We started fighting a lot. A lot. Especially when he was drunk. He had a lot of female friends and they never bothered me before, but they started to. Especially when I realized I used to be one of them. I was the girl he “had a crush on for forever and always wanted to be with”. I was that girl. I used to be one of them. I started getting weird vibes about it. I caught him talking on the phone outside with one in particular once. She was crying to him and got into a fight with her longtime boyfriend and Hunter was who she called to talk to. He told me she was having a hard time, something was wrong medically that was making her lose her hair or something etc and I felt really bad after that, knowing that she probably needed support even though she looked fine. He got a snapchat from another one of them, it was pretty much her boobs and for some reason it made me feel really uncomfortable. I began to get so insecure. How did I go from being the hot girlfriend to feeling like this. I started turning into “the crazy girlfriend”. I never wanted to be one. I always wanted to be secure and open but I started to feel like I was losing my shit. We would argue about his destructive drinking, girl friends or just me in general. Every time I had something to say he had a rebuttal ready to fire at me. I questioned my sanity every single day. I was genuinely losing my mind. Not only that, but I was losing all of my (few) friends too. He would talk shit about them to me. He told me they said things to him behind my back and that they didn't deserve me and were trash. Slowly, they stopped coming around and I was left only with his frat boys. I started disconnecting from (few) my family members - they just weren't important and sometimes messed with me. Family is family but they come with a laundry list of flaws and sometimes drama. I felt completely isolated.

This all happened so slowly that I never had a real concrete reason to leave. Every time we had an altercation I was left feeling way too emotional or sensitive. Like, this was all in my head. We were becoming toxic together. Eventually, I stopped speaking up at all. I started walling myself up one brick at a time realizing that this wasn't what I thought it would be. He would cry crocodile tears, you know the ones, where the tears are coming out slowly and the eyes are turning red but the expression on his face doesn't match the tone of the words coming out of his mouth. As if they were forced. In my eyes, he became devoid of empathy and was turning me into someone I didn't want to be. I wasn't this person I felt like I was becoming. His insecurities started showing and they usually turned towards me. Anything I said, any tiny criticism or suggestion was met with rage. I lived with him, but I started hiding from him - avoiding saying certain things, doing certain things, in order to not get backlash from him. I felt bad for everything, all the time. I was walking on eggshells. I was such an upbeat person but something, something, had happened to me and I cracked and didn't see a way out. Something was wrong with me. Is this what a serious relationship was these days? Was this what I was going to have to put up with forever? Was this just a phase and would it get better?? Was I the one destroying this? I always destroyed things, I kept people far from me, it was my thing. There were good times, sure. But deep, deep down inside, something was wrong and I couldn't figure out what it was. I went to a barbecue at his friends house and he got so drunk he lost control of himself, got into a fight and embarrassed me and we had to leave so he wouldn't cause anymore trouble. This happened more times than I'd like to admit.

I was with him for almost two years. I had some friends who asked me why I was and that I could do better but in my eyes, his family had reliability, was as normal as they came and maybe if I stuck it out it would be worth it. I drove off my last friend who called me out on everything. I pretended I was fine, but deep inside my heart was crying and I didn't know how to ask for help. I was so brainwashed no one could tell me anything and I stayed. I’ve found that maybe people like me, see someones light or goodness and cling to it. That’s all we see. We see someones potential even if they are destroying us or sucking the very life from us. And the really good ones, we see something bad in as an excuse because we are afraid they will turn into the former. But who knows. We got into so many stupid fights. They always left me sitting alone in tears. Always. Everything I said was wrong. I never won one, not even once. My words got twisted and misconstrued. I didn't know how to say exactly what I meant to get my point across, because, well, he wasn’t listening anyways. I questioned every word that came from my mouth. Questioned every thought. I felt like he was so mean. Or was I too sensitive? I couldn't tell anymore and everything became foggy. I wrote about it a long time ago and it broke my heart reading it because I wrote it when I was in the thick of it. He would speak about his exes and called one of them spineless. He was still on good terms with her and she was very very sweet, but he said she was spineless. I wanted to talk to her and get her take on it but I never had the courage because I didn't want to go behind his back and be “that girl”. Spineless. That always stuck with me. What a thing to call someone. If he said that about her, what was to stop him from saying or thinking that about me. What made me different than her? She was a sweetheart and I knew it. I wanted to be the girl who had a spine of steel. But in that very moment, I felt like maybe I was spineless too and I actually wrote those very words and I’ll never forget it. If I couldn't stand up to him, then I had no spine. I had no voice and didn't even know how to start speaking again. One night he made a comment about my brother. It was supposed to be a joke and I uneasily laughed it off and uncomfortably asked him to drop it. He didn't. He kept going. I grew a spine and stood up and tried to angrily walk away and he got up and grabbed my shirt and pulled it down and inappropriately grabbed at me and I wasn't sure why. Next thing I knew I was in tears and according to him, it was my fault. He thought it was funny. It was a joke to him. Eventually, I stopped talking at all. I hated who I was and I didn't even know how it happened. I didn't know how to get out. We would stay at one of his parent’s houses and I would be left alone for days in a giant house with a personal gym with surround sound and big library and I thought it was worth it. It wasn't. I have never felt so stupid in my entire life trying to fit a square into a circle. Trying to always see the good.

I started having regular panic attacks. I spent days in bed, hiding under covers shaking from head to toe. I missed days at work. He left me alone letting me “sort through it” and did nice things from time to time to ease it. But I couldn't even speak to him because every time I did I felt more and more stupid. And I had no one to talk to about this, out of embarrassment. I didn't have anywhere to turn or go and every time anything happened he would hear about it. I got on my old Tumblr page and vented about it because it was the only thing he didn't know about. Of course, any magic between us was lost too. He got frustrated and told me it was too much work turning me on anymore. I would get mad, pack of my stuff and leave to run errands. To this day, I can't believe I ever stuck it out, or ever came back. What did I think was going to happen? I thought about leaving all the time, but I didn't have anywhere to go and no one to turn to. I wasn't a healed person and couldn't even turn to myself. We went to his family’s condo in Florida and I thought maybe it would get better. It seemed to get better but only on the surface. The beach was soothing and I even found a sea monster off the coast of Sanibel island. Ok, it wasn't a monster it was a giant conch shell creature. Turns out the whole trip I was trying to escape myself and him. I never quite felt like myself and I didn't know this girl I had become. We drove back and he passed out in practically a coma the entire way. I’m not going to say how many hours I drove but I drove it myself. And I was glad he slept the whole way. That means I didn't have to deal with him. And on it went.

We broke up shortly after Florida. Well, it wasn't a breakup, it was a “break”. He told me I hadn't been “myself” and maybe we needed time apart. Part of me said it was a good idea, but that I wasn't going anywhere and that I had decided he was where my future was. Another part of me, in the back of my mind, told me thank goddddddd. I need to breathe. I left. I won't say where I went or what I did next because I'm too ashamed to even speak of it. I was at my lowest low and will have to live with what happened next but I'm taking it all to my grave. That being said, after some days apart I realized not having him around me felt like a physical weight had been lifting. I felt it physically. My mood changed. My thoughts changed. Everything changed and I realized I had no desire to ever speak to him again. I sat in my car and realized I had no need for him. ever. I never responded to anything from him. I just stopped. I was on my own and, oh my god, I felt free and the possibilities were scary but endless. I realized it was him that dragged me down and I couldn't even believe I got to that place. But he wouldn't leave me alone like I wanted. He continued to binge drink, call me hundreds of time, stalked me in person and on twitter and each time I blocked him, he created new account after new account.

One particular night he called me up panicking. He was completely smashed and begging for me to come over. He told me he would pay a few hundred dollars to pose as his girlfriend for one night, to impress some friends coming in from California. I didn't know whether to be insulted or laugh. Pay me? Bribe me? Seriously? That’s what I was to you? You are out of your mind. Making me feel like the crazy one. He also shut my phone service off one night because I wouldn't answer his calls and he was primary on my phone account. Now I see that I had something he wanted. I was bright and shiny and everything he couldn't be, everything that he wanted to take from. I was a perfect target. But after he had shuffled through all my tricks and the reality set in, he didn't have anything to offer. I’m not saying that I'm perfect, by all means I have a list of flaws longer than my arm but I'm willing to admit when I was wrong and work on it. Maybe I was toxic too. I probably was. I was an incredibly unhealed person which is probably what got me into the situation to begin with. He still sends me requests to this day. He still tries to get in. I’m not sure why. Actually, I am sure why. Because someone like that always has to have the last word. He has to know. And no, I won't let him know anything about me. Not where I am, not what’s happening, not how I feel. He gets nothing. Not out of spite or anger or hatred but because a person like that is toxic for you and depletes your energy. They take it and don't replace it. They always have to have you in their sights. Which is odd because don't most people like that use and then ditch you forever? I wish that had been the case.

After we were over he started talking to my best friend who he regularly spoke bad about when we were together. I’m not sure if they are still together but I do know that he might have used her as a way to get back in with me, or get information or god knows what. How could he be with someone who he spoke so badly about before? My best friend of all people? So, I lost her too. I’ve gotten regular messages saying “I know we didn't end on the best of terms but my god can you at least unblock me?” No absolutely not. But you’ll never get that reply from me because thats what you want. To be acknowledged. Just this year, on my birthday, I got a unsolicited snapchat from him. I had re-downloaded the app to give it another shot. The settings weren’t set on “only friends” who could send me messages and one got through. I thought I had him blocked. I thought my settings were different. I didn't even open it. I blocked and deleted the whole thing right away. He doesn't get to see if I opened it, because I didn't. It was my birthday. I was shopping in a department store and my heart started beating fast, I couldn't breathe, I stopped and stood there questioning my reality for a split second. I before I could throw my phone across the store and light it on fire I remember who I was and what I wanted and I blocked and deleted the entire thing. No, I'm not your friend. You saw me at my worst. I was a shivering mess who didn't want to live. Yes, I allowed it but you don't get the last laugh.

After that relationship, I apologized to anyone I had ever burned (or at least attempted to apologize). I reached out to people I left in the dust, who I blocked out, destroyed. I never wanted to repeat this lesson ever again. I’m still balance all of this, understanding when I'm acting in a toxic way and working on letting others in. This summer a friend asked if it’s hard for me. Emotional intimacy. I told her it was, but that it’s getting easier. But I don't think it will ever get easier. I think I will always be afraid to lose myself. I think it’s just the way I am based off my experiences. Maybe one day it will be easier. I’m still working on learning how to be something permanent, something concrete and be okay with it. I’m learning how to draw boundaries and realize when I'm crossing them myself. I’ve learned not to be pulled off centered and not triggered by people like Hunter (who may (or may not) do this on purpose). I’ve healed myself so far (as cheesy as this sounds) but I'm still a work in progress. I’m caring for myself and learned a lot of self love. This relationship made me question my love itself. I thought I was a broken person who couldn't love correctly. I thought I didn't know how to love. I thought I destroyed others. Maybe I did. I will never know for sure. Maybe this was all made up and this whole “healing” thing is nuts, but I know what I went through in this instance and that’s all I'll know.

#personal

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cynthiajayusa · 6 years

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Sugarland’s Frontwoman Talks New Gay-Inclusive Video

Just before releasing a hotly anticipated new album with Sugarland bandmate Kristian Bush, duo frontwoman Jennifer Nettles summed up her history of progressive politics and queer advocacy and love for chicken with one defiant tweet: “Steals recipe for world’s best chicken sandwich and opens ‘Chic-fi-Gay.’ Serves EVERYBODY deliciousness and is open on Sundays. Wins world,” she wrote on May 15, her unfettered outspokenness still a rare but significant thing in country music.

“Or the spinoff of it: It can start as Chick-fil-Gay and then it could just turn into Chick-fil-Heyyy!, which would be super fun too,” she tells me with a robust guffaw.

Bigger, the band’s first release since their long-established country sound was cranked to arena-rock heights on 2010’s The Incredible Machine, reflects on our emotionally and politically strained modern world (their powerful lament, “Tuesday’s Broken,” addresses America’s gun problem and school shootings) with love, hope, unity and inclusiveness, themes near and dear to Sugarland since the release of their 2002 debut. “These are the days of the underdog, the counted out, the ones you don’t see coming; times of the left-behinds…,” Nettles sings on “Not the Only,” counting herself among us. “Silent voices I’ve never heard, all waiting to say the words, held up and kept inside, but we don’t have to hide.”

Here, Nettles wins the world by phoning to talk about Sugarland’s mission to shine a light on the unseen, being political post-Dixie Chicks, and why it’s important for people (see: homophobes) to not get it twisted: that “Mother” lyric is most definitely referring to a gay couple in love.

Did recent world tragedies and the country’s overall divisiveness have anything to do with you getting back to your Sugarland roots?

Yeah. I had been feeling the urges to get back and do something and see what that would feel like again. At first it seemed to be a matter of the calendar, and then we started writing and then when we looked at this collection and what was coming out of us we realized, “Whoa, we have a lot to say, and this is actually the reason for the timing” – that these messages that we have are, well, no pun intended, bigger than what, initially, this reconvening was going to be. It was very much a bigger message for the world.

I hear myself and my community’s struggles represented in some of these songs, and I feel emboldened by them. To what extent was the queer community on your mind while creating this album?

It was on our minds significantly. You hear those messages poke through within the music: messages of unity and inclusion, and of not only tolerance – sometimes tolerance to me is such a… ack!… it’s not even the right word anymore. We need to move beyond just tolerance. And it even needs to move beyond acceptance. It needs to move into celebration and just outright humanism.

I don’t think any person wants to just be tolerated.

Tolerated, no – I don’t even know where that word came from. It’s clear that whoever started throwing that term around was already coming from a defensive standpoint. So that being said, I think you hear those messages celebrated in songs like “Tuesday’s Broken,” “Mother” and “Not the Only,” and even in songs like “Bigger.” But you hear it much more clearly and outright on “Mother,” where it says, “She’s got a ring to give to you she hopes you’ll give away. She don’t care who you give it to, where they’re from, if they pray like you…”

And “first thing she taught you is love is love.”

Yeah, that love is love, right? So you hear it very distinctly and you hear it in the messages of heartaches in “Tuesday’s Broken.” Even in the second verse you don’t know why the teenage girl is on the bed and why she is possibly considering self-harming because of not feeling love and not feeling celebrated and not feeling a part of her community and being online, dear God help us all. So you hear those messages, for sure, throughout.

And for me, obviously always being a champion of the marginalized, always being a champion of those who are being oppressed – and all of these really horribly divisive tones that we hear now in our culture and in our community that have always been there but we’re hearing them now in a way that is super ugly – when you hear those messages of self-love and of inclusion on this record, absolutely the LGBTQA community was on our minds when we were writing this.

In the lyric video for “Mother,” two gay men are seen holding hands. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gay couple featured in a major, mainstream country music video. Is that precisely why you chose to include them?

Yes! I mean, not to say like, “Hey! We’re the first ones in country music to feature a gay couple visually!” But to be able to say, “Just so you know, what you hear in this and what you might be assuming is absolutely visually and literally true. Like, if you might be toiling around with the idea of what this might be about, let’s go ahead and show you.”

youtube

It feels bold, but in 2018, I feel like it shouldn’t feel that way.

No, you’re right, it should not feel bold. But the interesting thing is the reason many times it feels bold within the country music community is because everyone talks about the Dixie Chicks syndrome of what we saw all those years ago. I think times are different. I think it is time for people within all of the music community, but especially in the country music community, where we have such a beautifully diverse audience – we are not preaching to the choir here. We are offering messages. We are offering them to hopefully inspire people to be open and think differently for those who may not already.

Did you learn that love is love from your mom?

Absolutely. I have a mother who’s beautifully open and unconditionally loving, not only to myself but to the world and, yeah, she definitely taught me very, very early on.

How have you passed that same sentiment onto your own son?

Magnus is 5, so certain concepts feel abstract in terms of “let me teach you a lesson.” What I do is show him through life. The gay community is a big part of our lives in terms of people. My manager is gay and my personal assistant is gay, and these are people who are family to me. My PA was my roommate all four years of college. You know what I’m saying? It’s a family.

So, it’s in life, it’s just a matter of fact. And if questions arise, as children many times will have, I will be very open and celebratory in that way. But children live what you show them, and if you show them love and if you show them openness, that is what they will enjoy. If you keep them closed off, and you show them hate, that is what they will reflect. So, he reflects my values in that way.

When confronted with backlash from conservative country fans, how do you stay motivated to keep letting your voice be heard in a genre that once sought to quiet artists like, for instance, the Dixie Chicks?

I believe that times are different and social media is an echo chamber. People shout their hate and other people shout hate back. So, I try to be mindful. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to keep people in check. But really, at the end of the day, that’s just noise. The importance is the message that I am putting out there. And if somebody fires back and they don’t like it on social media, who cares. And if people are going to judge someone’s art and someone’s music based on this really new concept of an artist being more personally connected, because now we do have immediate access through social media between fans and artist, then you know, don’t listen to the music, don’t buy it. To each his own. (Laughs)

There used to be a direct connection between the two that you couldn’t say too much because people wouldn’t buy your music and record labels would worry, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

No, I don’t think it can be because, especially now – again in the age of social media where you have a direct outlet to the world, not just to your fan base but to the world – I don’t think that dynamic exists anymore. The publicists and labels can’t worry about that in the same way because it’s like, look, you’re going to be who you are.

Especially once you’ve opened the floodgates. And you’ve opened the floodgates.

Yes, yes. (Laughs)

But some artists choose not to use their platform for political reasons. For instance, your collaborator on “Babe,” Taylor Swift, isn’t known for making political statements and she gets a lot of flak for that.

Really?

Yeah, she isn’t as politically outspoken as you, for example. Do you think artists have a responsibility to use their platform to speak out on matters of concern?

I think human beings have a responsibility. I definitely feel a calling within myself to speak my truth. I’m very outspoken in my own personal life as well so it bears to reason that I would be that authentic in my public life. Some people aren’t very outspoken, even in their private lives.

Have you prepared for the country conservatives who may have an issue with you broaching gun policy on “Tuesday’s Broken”?

Yes, but I feel really confident, Chris, in the sense that, look, what happens is everyone on the far margins scream and are terribly afraid that suddenly each of their rights are going to be completely obliterated by comprising at all. If you give anyone an inch, they’re gonna take a mile and pull you to the opposite pole – I don’t believe that. I believe that sensible gun control is possible. I believe we are in a challenging time right now with lobbyists and the NRA and different money powers, and I believe the waters are convoluted. I believe there needs to be tort reform within our congress and within the ways we vote on all of these issues.

Those are huge, broad issues, but at the end of the day, I believe it’s absolutely possible for us to do anything we want to. We can change the rules, we can remake the rules. We wrote ’em the first time. It’s possible to fix this. It’s possible to look at gun laws, it’s possible to look at mental health, and it’s possible to look at all of these pieces. We just have to be willing to do it and to elect the people who are going to do it.

Have you thought about how this album could bridge gaps between people who think like you and your conservative fanbase?

Look, art has many purposes. Sometimes it’s to entertain, sometimes it’s to inspire and sometimes it is even to provoke, and all of those are valid. What I hope we are able to do in Sugarland and in all of my music is to be able to inspire dialogue and to invite conversation. Rather than pressing the buttons, I want to sit in a corner, point a subversive finger and say, “What do you think about this over here? How could we make it better?”

To ask you a lighter question that’s tour related: Do you have a favorite Christian Siriano dress that you can’t wait to wear?

(Excitedly) Mmmm! There are several pieces I cannot wait to wear! I mean, he really did his thing on this, and we had such fun in this collaboration just because it already had a theme to it. So, he was able to then just take that and really have fun with it because the theme for the tour, visually and aesthetically, is this beautifully, other-world vintage circus-y look, so we had a lot of fun doing research for that.

How will the healing vibes of the album translate to the stage?

We try to make it feel transportive so when you leave you feel like you have been offered an escape and some asylum and some refugee, and that you leave feeling seen.

Sugarland is known for sneaking cover songs into the shows. Have you considered any cover songs that may fit the healing vibes of the album?

The fun part about the live shows is that over the course of the tour they will continue to evolve. We’ve got some cover choices and a remix situation that’s super, super funky and fun, and we also have a sort of an all-skate that we like to do at the end with all of our openers to come on and join us, and that’s usually a big, fun party.

I am sure that within that we will be able to figure out messages of unity; the potential is ripe for all of those messages. (Laughs) Right now, we’re leaning toward the fun party side, but that’s not to say that isn’t about unity too.

What do you hope your queer fans take away from this album?

I would harken back to our conversation regarding the tour: to feel seen. I think it’s such an interesting time where we are supposedly more technologically, in terms of ideas, connected than ever. But at the same time – the last song on the album, “Not the Only,” especially speaks to this – a lot of us still feel very alone and very unseen, and I hope that within the queer community, within the gay community, the trans community – the LGBTQA! All the letters! I hope that everyone feels seen, and let’s say again: celebrated.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/07/26/sugarlands-frontwoman-talks-new-gay-inclusive-video/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2018/07/sugarlands-frontwoman-talks-new-gay.html

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demitgibbs · 6 years

Text

Sugarland’s Frontwoman Talks New Gay-Inclusive Video

“Or the spinoff of it: It can start as Chick-fil-Gay and then it could just turn into Chick-fil-Heyyy!, which would be super fun too,” she tells me with a robust guffaw.

Did recent world tragedies and the country’s overall divisiveness have anything to do with you getting back to your Sugarland roots?

I hear myself and my community’s struggles represented in some of these songs, and I feel emboldened by them. To what extent was the queer community on your mind while creating this album?

I don’t think any person wants to just be tolerated.

And “first thing she taught you is love is love.”

youtube

It feels bold, but in 2018, I feel like it shouldn’t feel that way.

Did you learn that love is love from your mom?

Absolutely. I have a mother who’s beautifully open and unconditionally loving, not only to myself but to the world and, yeah, she definitely taught me very, very early on.

How have you passed that same sentiment onto your own son?

Especially once you’ve opened the floodgates. And you’ve opened the floodgates.

Yes, yes. (Laughs)

Really?

Yeah, she isn’t as politically outspoken as you, for example. Do you think artists have a responsibility to use their platform to speak out on matters of concern?

Have you prepared for the country conservatives who may have an issue with you broaching gun policy on “Tuesday’s Broken”?

Have you thought about how this album could bridge gaps between people who think like you and your conservative fanbase?

To ask you a lighter question that’s tour related: Do you have a favorite Christian Siriano dress that you can’t wait to wear?

How will the healing vibes of the album translate to the stage?

We try to make it feel transportive so when you leave you feel like you have been offered an escape and some asylum and some refugee, and that you leave feeling seen.

Sugarland is known for sneaking cover songs into the shows. Have you considered any cover songs that may fit the healing vibes of the album?

What do you hope your queer fans take away from this album?

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/07/26/sugarlands-frontwoman-talks-new-gay-inclusive-video/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/176301585895

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hotspotsmagazine · 6 years

Text

Sugarland’s Frontwoman Talks New Gay-Inclusive Video

“Or the spinoff of it: It can start as Chick-fil-Gay and then it could just turn into Chick-fil-Heyyy!, which would be super fun too,” she tells me with a robust guffaw.

Did recent world tragedies and the country’s overall divisiveness have anything to do with you getting back to your Sugarland roots?

I hear myself and my community’s struggles represented in some of these songs, and I feel emboldened by them. To what extent was the queer community on your mind while creating this album?

I don’t think any person wants to just be tolerated.

And “first thing she taught you is love is love.”

youtube

It feels bold, but in 2018, I feel like it shouldn’t feel that way.

Did you learn that love is love from your mom?

Absolutely. I have a mother who’s beautifully open and unconditionally loving, not only to myself but to the world and, yeah, she definitely taught me very, very early on.

How have you passed that same sentiment onto your own son?

Especially once you’ve opened the floodgates. And you’ve opened the floodgates.

Yes, yes. (Laughs)

Really?

Yeah, she isn’t as politically outspoken as you, for example. Do you think artists have a responsibility to use their platform to speak out on matters of concern?

Have you prepared for the country conservatives who may have an issue with you broaching gun policy on “Tuesday’s Broken”?

Have you thought about how this album could bridge gaps between people who think like you and your conservative fanbase?

To ask you a lighter question that’s tour related: Do you have a favorite Christian Siriano dress that you can’t wait to wear?

How will the healing vibes of the album translate to the stage?

We try to make it feel transportive so when you leave you feel like you have been offered an escape and some asylum and some refugee, and that you leave feeling seen.

Sugarland is known for sneaking cover songs into the shows. Have you considered any cover songs that may fit the healing vibes of the album?

What do you hope your queer fans take away from this album?

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/07/26/sugarlands-frontwoman-talks-new-gay-inclusive-video/

0 notes