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jensonsbuttons · 4 years

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Hii Katie! Top 5 Sebson moments please? ✨

HELLO!! sorry it took me a while to respond but uhhh i hit the wrong button, closed out of this, lost my work, got distracted, etc. So. Take 3. Here we go. Anyway what follows are my absolutely dumb rambles on these two morons. They aren’t in order. All equally drive me up the wall and these two are absolutely terrible so its tough to condense this into 5 moments. But...by god we’re gonna try.

1. You gotta talk about the bowtie incident. Here’s a nice gifset to show you what the hell happened. But yeah essentially at the 2011 Autosport Awards they both had to give speeches and absolutely teased each other in the speeches. Jenson of course teased Seb for being a great competitor but not wearing a bowtie and just ??? took out an extra bowtie that i guess guys just have hanging out in their suit jackets??? And then seb retaliated saying he’d wear a bowtie when he was 30+ so just cute little banter and all that and it makes me hate them. Here’s jenson’s speech and the time stamp is around 2:25 for his bit. And then here’s seb’s speech and the time stamp is around 5:55 for his bit. Anyway i hate them both.

2. The second one has to be the paddock pass incident. Basically what happened was the day of the 2011 indian gp these two go to the paddock but what was different? Jenson rolled up with Seb’s credentials. He covered up the picture as soon as he swiped it but he leaves a little too early so we all saw a picture and name and hey surprise! is not jenson’s. Seb had his own pass too with a more official looking picture. There is...........a lot to unpack and a lot of questions but if i go into those, this post will never be done. Anyway!!! What morons!! Here’s a nice gif set where you can see the incident. I’ve never found video??? don’t know if anyone else has either so maybe its just lost forever. Sad day.

3. Moving right along to: “why? are you proposing?” seb’s goal in life especially in 2009 is basically to fluster jenson it seems and he does that perfectly in this moment. More stupid dumb banter between the two but essentially jenson is talking about how he’s gonna go enjoy the offseason and celebrate his championship and what does seb ask? “Do you marry now?” now...okay all right you can agree or disagree with me on this next point but most people would hear that and be ???? Jenson, god bless him for playing the game, feeds right back and says “why are you proposing?” leading seb to quickly catch himself and say “no no no i mean are you getting married” or whatever he said. It ends with jenson slapping seb’s arm but hey thats just guys being dudes. Anyway, check out the video of these morons here.

4. If someone asked me to sum up their entire “thing” i’d show them this gif set of a press conference for the 2013 japanese grand prix. Basically, jenson and seb have always chatted and made jokes when they shouldn’t (press conferences, podiums, anthems, etc.) and it is in full force here. The cherry on top of all of this has the be the last gif. Obviously, seb’s life goal is continuing and he passes test of flustering jenson at the worst moments. Its just...they’re so stupid oh my god.

5. “Who was that anyway?” honestly there is nothing more to this than just how cute it is and them clutching onto each other (cause they always have to be touching whenever they’re in each others area) its just more dumb stupid banter and i hate them

Honorable mentions:

- whatever the fuck this was with seb just clearly staring

- they have inside jokes of making fun of each other’s winning celebrations as seen here and here

- any interaction they have at any ROC just....yeah. go look it up. they’re terrible.

- that time that jenson was in an interview and they asked what other driver’s he’d want to have dinner with and he brought up seb sending him a “dirty” whatsapp and ??? it literally had nothing to do with the original question??? like he just...brought up the whatsapp and never said “oh sure i wanna go to dinner with him.” like...he just brought up seb.

- the fact that there are A LOT of pictures like this that could uhhhhh be taken a different way. like sincerely abu dhabi 2009 was not the only time pictures like this was taken. so. yeah.

- last gif in this set with once again seb very clearly uhhh doing as one would probably say “checking someone out”

and lastly whatever the absolute fuck this is:

ANYWAY THERE YOU HAVE IT. my top five and some of my favorite sebson moments. (sincerely though...all of it is great)

sleepover saturday?? sleepover saturday

#maisie #answered #sorry this took so long but they are so !!!! and there is so much #they're just so familiar and fond with each other its alittle too evident #also the way jenson describes seb in his book holds a place in my heart #sebson

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spaceskam · 4 years

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this time i’ll do things the way you wanted

for @alexmanesappreciation day 2: canon divergence :) (warning: descriptions of injuries, mentions of violence, dissociation, memory loss, etc)

ao3

Michael paused as he walked into the airstream.

He'd expected to come home to no one. Maria was angry at him and Alex was missing. Well, allegedly missing. He'd spent the last four days frantically trying to search for him before caving and going to the group, laying out a whole plan to go find him in the early morning, only to see that Alex had found his way home all by himself. Michael's heart was in his throat.

On the tiny bed, Alex had made himself comfortable. He was curled up and still and hurt. From the tiny bit of moonlight alone, Michael could see the bruises on his pretty face. He took slow steps, not wanting to startle him despite how badly he wanted to just tackle him in a hug. He had no idea how badly he could miss that man.

"Alex?" he whispered, reaching out to touch he shoulder. Alex jolted awake and Michael took a step back to give him space, letting him look around and make note of his surroundings. His face looked even worse now that he could see more of it. "God, your face."

Alex's eyebrows furrowed just a little at that and he reached up to touch his busted lip. He didn't bother going to his eye that had been swollen shut or the nasty claw-like marks on his cheek or his nose that looked crooked or the giant split beside his eyebrow. Michael's whole body hurt in guilt. If only he found him sooner...

"I'm gonna call Kyle, okay? He'll patch you up," Michael said softly.

"Wait," Alex said, voice so underused and body so wrung out that he immediately started coughing. Michael quickly grabbed a bottle of water from the mini fridge and handed it to him. He took it and downed it.

Michael waited, fingers itching to call Kyle for help.

"Um," Alex hummed, testing out his throat before he tried to speak again, "Don't call Kyle."

"But you're hurt."

"Bullies suck, shit happens," Alex said, shrugging his shoulders. Michael blinked in confusion.

"Bullies?"

Alex stared at him for a moment and looked around before reaching up to touch his face again. He winced and Michael just felt so helpless. He wanted to kill whoever did that.

"You know there's bullies in basic," Alex said. Somehow, Michael felt even worse. Basic? As in, basic training, something Alex had gone to a decade ago? What did that have to do with anything? And, more importantly, did people back then fuck up his face that bad?

"Alex, what–"

"Please just lay with me for a minute?" Alex requested, looking up at him in absolute desperation, "Please? I'm so fucking tired of everyone except you. I just, I need... Just give me you for a little while?"

Michael didn't know what to do. Logically, he should've said no. He should've called Kyle and Liz and told them something fucky was going on. And, even then, he shouldn't even think about touching Alex. When he came back to modern day, he would be so pissed if Michael took advantage of him being confused.

But then his Alex was hurt and confused and wanted him.

"Just a little while," Michael said slowly, "Then we're gonna go get your face checked out."

Alex nodded in agreement. Michael stepped out of his shoes and watched with hesitation as Alex settled back into bed, staring up at Michael like he was scared to take his eyes off him. He began to brainstorm as to what could’ve possibly led Alex to think it was 2009. Had someone hit him so hard he was disoriented? Was he having a mental break? Was he fucking with him? Or...

Butyricol.

But even that didn’t make much sense because, with Jenna, it only clouded the last few months. If that’s what was happening, how much was in his system? Would he regain his memories when he got it out of his system? Were they gone forever? Was that even what this was?

Michael sat down on the bed and Alex reached out to pull him closer, hands making themselves at home on his body. He slung his good leg over Michael’s hip and dragged his fingers over his side, making sure to feel each muscle and rib before he cupped his face. Michael felt like he was going to lose his goddamn mind. When was the last time Alex touched him so freely, so confidently, so sure that this was his place? Had it really been a decade?

“You look old,” Alex whispered, “I think I’m dreaming.”

Michael didn’t know how to respond. What the fuck was he supposed to say to that.

“Since when did you decide to grow a beard?” Alex continued, scratching the hair on his jaw.

“It’s not a beard, I just haven’t shaved,” Michael told him, eyes detailing all that was wrong with his face. He gently grazed his forefinger over his broken nose and Alex jumped slightly. Yeah, he really needed to get Kyle.

“But it’s gonna be all itchy when I kiss you now,” Alex whispered, moving in closer. Michael knew he should tell him to stop and ask more questions. He had no idea what Alex thought was going on, just that he thought he’d just gotten out of basic.

But Alex kissed him, careful not to hurt his own busted lip, and it was hard to remember to be an upstanding citizen.

“Sorry,” Alex said after he flinched in pain again, pulling away to touch his busted lip. Michael rested his hand on his hip. “Sorry, I-I want to kiss you, but it hurts.”

“Don’t apologize, it’s the thought that counts,” Michael told him, giving him a soft squeeze before pushing himself up to reach for his phone, “I’m gonna call Kyle, okay? Get him to come look at you.”

“Why do you keep talking about Kyle? I leave for a few weeks and you guys become buddy-buddy? Don’t call him,” Alex said, a little bit of harshness in his tone as he sat up. Michael eyed him again, trying to figure out exactly how to explain what was going on. He didn’t know how. He definitely needed Kyle and Liz as soon as possible. He texted them both. “Guerin, what the fuck is going on?”

“It’s gonna be okay, I promise,” Michael said, sending out his S.O.S. before turning back to Alex. He reached out, laying his hand on the side of his neck instead of his cheek like he wanted to. There didn’t seem to be a single feature on his face that hadn’t been hurt.

Alex thought they were 19. So Michael was going to act like he did when they were 19.

He moved in for a kiss, pecking the side of his mouth that wasn’t busted and then placing strategic kisses over his jaw and onto his neck. He could feel the tension bleed from his body and, if he could keep him that way, he would.

“Okay, but,” Alex said, sighing gently as he let Michael lay him back down, “I don’t want other people showing up. I just wanna be alone with you.”

“He’s just coming to make sure your face is okay,” Michael told him, kissing his collarbone just once before realizing that was bruised too. “Alex, where else are you hurt?”

“Why Kyle though?” Alex prodded. Michael ignored the question, tugging on the hem of his shirt so he could see more. “Jesus, I’m fine, answer me.”

Michael looked up at his eyes--or, rather, eye--for a moment to try and gauge how he should approach this situation. This whole thing felt like he was stepping around a landmine. He just wanted to wrap Alex up in his arms and sleep until he was back to normal. Or maybe he didn’t want him to go back to normal. Maybe him not remembering was a blessing in disguise...

No. Alex needed to have his memory.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Michael asked. Alex swallowed, nervous energy radiating of him. Michael kept touching him in hopes it would give him something grounding to focus on.

“Last thing I remember was going to sleep two days before I got to leave basic,” Alex said softly, looking around again, “I think I’m dreaming. This is a dream.”

Michael caught his hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing the back of his hand softly.

“It’s not a dream, Alex,” he said softly, “But I’m right here and I’ve got you. It’s gonna be okay. Can I see where else you’re hurt?”

Alex looked like he was about two seconds from losing it entirely. Michael just kept touching him and kept hoping it’d be okay. Any moment now, Kyle would pull up and he wouldn’t have to handle Alex losing 10 years of his life by himself. Eventually, Alex agreed with a quiet little ‘yeah’ and Michael helped him get his shirt off.

Bruises littered his chest and his back like he’d been kicked extensively and Michael’s heart ached. He tried not to show that it made him so sad and instead pressed a kiss to his bare shoulder. Then he started helping him out of his jeans. Which, honestly, Michael should’ve thought more about before he did it.

“Oh my God,” Alex said, voice strangled and hands shaking as he caught sight of his prosthetic. That seemed to be the last straw, the final thing to make him panic. He began stammered and hyperventilating, trying his best to make words and form sentences, but nothing made sense. It was just a sea of why and how mixed in with crying and heavy breathing. He was so confused.

“Hey, it’s okay, breathe with me,” Michael instructed calmly, getting Alex to look him in the eye despite the fact that it was much harder than it should’ve been. He wasn’t okay. Michael was starting to wonder if he ever would be. “I’ve got you, I’m right here. Things are going to be okay.”

“I’m dreaming, I have to be dreaming, this isn’t real,” Alex told him, shaking his head. His eye that wasn’t swollen was wide and terrified. “This isn’t real, Guerin, tell me this isn’t real!”

“Let me take it off because you’ve probably had it on for a week and that’s not good, okay?” Michael said softly. Alex took a shaky breath, shaking his head.

“I don’t understand.”

“I know, baby, but I’ve got you. I’m right here,” he promised, rubbing his thigh gently. It seemed to be the only part of him that wasn’t fucked. He kept rubbing his leg and kept trying to keep him calm as he moved to text Kyle again, asking him to make sure he brought crutches with him.

When Michael turned back to Alex, he seemed a lot more calm. For anyone else, that might be a good thing. For Alex, it was certifiably not. Michael reached up to touch his face, hoping that would help ground him a little more. It was rare Michael could see him starting to dissociate, but right now it was obvious and, while it was understandable, he needed him to still be aware.

“Alex, it’s okay. I know it’s a lot, but it’s okay.”

“I wanna wake up now,” Alex said softly, distantly. It hit Michael in the chest hard.

“I know. But stay with me for just a little while longer, okay?” he asked. Alex was still for a few seconds before he slowly nodded as if the question had only then processed in his mind.

Instead of focusing to hard on that, Michael went to remove the prosthetic from his body. He moved slow and cautious, unsure of what to expect. He kept checking with Alex to make sure it didn’t hurt him, but he’d seemingly checked out entirely. It left Michael on his own.

He peeled off the prosthetic and then the liner, grimacing at the strong smell of sweat and the clear irritation that had been going on for the last week. Alex’s leg was red and swollen. With a little bit of telekinesis, he got a warm, wet washcloth without leaving Alex’s side. He didn't react.

Michael took his time giving him basically a sponge bath with the wet washcloth, starting with his stump and moving up. His chest was bruised and his the flesh covering his ribs was extra tender, but for the most part the worst was directed at his face. Michael didn’t know whether to be thankful or even more angry.

He cleaned off the dried blood around his pretty face and did his best to be careful. Alex was still zoned out in his state of shock or regular dissociation or both, his eyes unfocused and his reaction time ridiculously slow if it was there at all. Michael just cleaned him up and then wrapped him in the blanket so they could wait for Kyle.

Climbing back onto the bed, Michael pulled the newly-burritoed Alex into his arms. That was the first time he caught sight of the injection spot on the back of his neck. When he ran his fingers over it, it seemed to shock Alex’s system back to life and he gasped.

“What the fuck is going on?” Alex asked, that same panic coming to the surface. He tried to sit up, but Michael just shushed him and held him. He knew Alex. He knew he just needed comfort. “How did I get here? What’s going on? I-I don’t understand, what’s going on?”

“I’ve got you,” Michael murmured against his hair, kissing the side of his head, “I’ve got you and I’ll explain everything I can, okay? I promise.”

Alex ended up moving closer, clinging to him. He wouldn’t say it, but Michael wasn’t stupid. He could tell that he was scared. Michael couldn’t tell him not to be because he was scared too. They had no idea how this drug worked, they had no idea if or when it would wear off. The whole entire thing was question marks that he couldn’t fix.

So he held Alex and even when Kyle came in with his handy first-aid kit and Alex got uncomfortable, he held Alex.

“What’s going on?” Kyle asked, eyeing them as if he was intruding. Michael took a deep breath as he tried to think of a concise way to answer him.

“Whoever took him gave him that fucking drug they gave Cam, but they upped the dosage or something,” Michael said. Alex lifted his head at the new information. “He thinks it’s 2009.”

Kyle’s eyes widened. Alex took another deep breath, a small whine vibrating in his throat as he dropped his head back onto Michael’s shoulder. He was so tired.

“But more importantly, whoever was holding him, beat the fuck out of his face and I need you to look at him,” Michael said, slowly maneuvering Alex so his back was against his chest.

Kyle slowly moved closer before reluctantly sitting on the foot of the bed. Alex was laying heavily against Michael and Kyle wasn’t blind to the fact Alex not having his memories meant he didn’t know that Kyle wasn’t a dick anymore. Usually. But Michael kept talking in hopes to distract them both.

“I was thinking maybe Liz could do some tests? Maybe we can reverse the effects,” Michael said, rubbing his hands over Alex’s arms as Kyle reluctantly moved closer to his face. Kyle looked at Michael and then back to Alex. He knew it was judging him. “We need him back to our Alex if we’re going to get anywhere.”

“Yeah, we can head over to the lab as soon as I patch him up,” Kyle decided. He looked over Alex’s face for a few more seconds before getting up to wash his hands in the sink. “I’m gonna re-set your nose, get a couple stitches on your brow bone, and clean up the cuts.”

“Oh, and check his ribs. They didn’t feel broken to me, but it’s been awhile since I’ve broken a rib,” Michael said. Kyle sighed audibly before nodding.

“So,” Alex said softly, swallowing hard as he tried to sit up better, “I’m probably gonna regret asking, but if I’m not dreaming and it’s not 2009, what year is it?”

Michael leaned forward to press a kiss to his shoulder. “It’s 2019.”

Alex deflated against him with an exhale.

“Fuck. You really are old.”

Michael huffed a laugh and kissed his neck softly. He could feel Alex relax a little with each kiss. It made up for all the side-eyeing Kyle was doing when he sat back down.

“So, we’re friends with Kyle now,” Alex went on, trying to keep himself aware while also calm.

“Yeah, we made up,” Kyle said, wiping an alcohol pad basically all over Alex’s face. He barely winced. But his hand made it’s way to Michael’s, weaving their fingers together and squeezing. Again, Kyle looked at Michael like he was the biggest dumbass in the world before going back to Alex’s face.

They made small talk for the entire time Kyle was messing with his face, catching Alex up to speed and answering questions. They filled him in on how he got taken, but how they didn’t know by who or why or anything. They told him how he was a Captain in the Air Force, but would soon be promoted to a Major. All the little things like that, all the things to keep him distracted before they had to deprive him of sleep to go do tests on him to see if this could be undone.

“No broken ribs. Ten on the right might be a little cracked, though, it feels a little weird, so be careful when you’re on your crutches, got it?” Kyle said, more doctor than friend. Michael wondered if that was because of Alex not knowing their current friendship status. He was putting distance between them for the same reason Michael stayed impossibly close. “I’m gonna go get them and then we can head to the lab.”

Once he was gone, Alex turned to face Michael again. He was more settled now, past the panic and onto acceptance if only because he had no other choice. Michael did his best to give an encouraging smile. They were going to be okay. They were going to find a cure for whatever the fuck they did to him and bring him back.

Then they would fix things.

“So if I managed to make up with Kyle...” Alex said, voice soft and careful, “What are we?”

“We?”

“Me and you,” Alex pointed out, smiling sweetly through his bold question just like he did when he was young. Michael couldn’t help but smile. He missed that. “Where have we gotten in ten years?”

Michael stared at him, his smile faltering once he realized he couldn’t actually give him a positive answer. They were broken up and over and had gotten in a fight the last time they saw each other. Alex’s sweet promises that he would keep him safe being ruined by Michael pushing him until he got mad was what had stuck in his mind since he’d gone missing. There was no good answer to give an Alex who thought he was 19 and was hurt and yet still so goddamn hopeful that his future had them together.

So, instead of answering, Michael leaned forward and gave him a kiss. Alex laughed softly and folded into the kiss despite his busted lip. Sadly, it wasn’t the first time they’d kissed through a busted lip. He knew it hurt, he’d said it hurt, but clearly Alex’s priorities were on him. And wasn’t that just the best thing?

Kyle cleared his throat as came back inside and Alex moved away quickly. Michael squeezed his thigh gently in reassurance and Alex accepted the crutches. Kyle helped him steady himself and they both helped him out of the airstream.

Alex shoved them both away, though, as he started heading for Kyle’s car. He didn’t want any help. Because of course he didn’t.

“This is bad,” Kyle breathed softly. Michael sighed, watching Alex struggle to handle both crutches and open the door at the same time.

“Yeah,” Michael agreed, “But we’ll figure it out.”

And they would.

They had to.

#alexweek2020 #alexappreciation2020 #malex #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #roswell new mexico #my fic

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maliciouslycreative · 3 years

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A totally fake-sounding story of how stupid I am at flirting, fake dating, and kpop

My life is for the most part a series of weird coincidences that once strung together sound entirely fake but I swear to god they are real.

Back in the early 2000s I found a lot of fame in the Beyblade fandom. I wrote a popular fic, it was pretty rad. One of my oldest and dearest friends from YGO once asked if she could introduce me to one of her friends who was apparently a HUGE fan of my writing. And I was like “absolutely” and that was the start of things with me and J. We got exceptionally close. Honestly I know I’m aro but the love I felt for her might be the closest I’ll ever feel to being in love.

Things were complicated though, we lived in different countries and were both in high school. We were super close friends and flirted a lot, everyone noticed. Our friend wrote poetry about us. Yes I still have some of that poetry saved somewhere. Everyone in the fandom shipped us and honestly we did talk about how if we weren’t in different countries and in high school that we would be together.

In my senior year of high school I had this biology teacher that enjoyed making us do a lot of group projects. There was another girl in my class that we weren’t really friends but neither of us had friends in the class and we didn’t mind each other so we always grouped up. Unfortunately we needed to do groups of 3 or more for this one project so this random guy in the class ENTHUSIASTICALLY volunteered to be in our group. Neither of us knew who he was but whatever we could survive some weird guy for one project. We exchanged emails so we could exchange notes easily. Except when I got home I noticed the guy had added me to MSN messenger. Ok sure, he probably just wanted to discuss something about the project. Except he didn’t. He wanted to talk to me about anime. Which… I guess? I mean there were not a lot of anime fans when I went to high school, it was distinctly not cool in 2005.

I spent the next few weeks being mostly weirded out by this guy but he seemed harmless so I kind of talked to him intermittently. And then came the day before Valentines Day. He asked me what my plans were to which I responded that I was spending it with a good friend whose birthday was February 14th. He then proceeded to ask me what kind of flowers I liked and I was like “uhh I’m allergic to flowers so I guess fake ones?” And then I mentioned this to my one friend and she was like “OH MY GOD, STACEY. HE IS TRYING TO ASK YOU OUT.” And I was like “what? No, that’s………… fuck” so I had to in a panic tell the guy to not get me flowers and that I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend.

He seemed ok with this. But like any mediocre white man it didn’t stick. He proceeded to talk to me a lot about his favourite anime and how it’d make him cry. His favourite anime was Ayashi no Ceres. For those of you not familiar with it, it’s a series written by Yuu Watase that tells the tragic story of a selkie that was bound to a human man and they died tragically so they were cursed to forever reincarnate as fraternal twins in this one family’s bloodline. So yah, he’d cry to me over an anime about incest. Like yah it’s a great series but you’re not gonna woo someone by telling them how much it makes you cry.

I’m not sure who came up with the plan, my fandom “older sister” or J herself but eventually we decided the only way to get rid of him was if I had a girlfriend and J enthusiastically agreed to be her. So when he finally did outright ask me out I got to be like “sorry man, I have a girlfriend in the US.” He absolutely lost it. Was very upset and thought she was fake. I had to bring J into a chat and be like “yes, this is my loving girlfriend.” He told me how disappointed in me he was and how he didn’t think I was “that kind of girl” whatever that means.

He didn’t speak to me for an entire year after that. I ran into him randomly at university and he asked me “did you really have a girlfriend or were you just saying that to let me down.” And I was like “excuse you? Yes, I had a girlfriend and we are still together now. What gives you the right to ask something like that?” And he got upset about it again and I’ve never seen him since.

J and I were sort of together for a couple years. Nothing serious, just some casual flirting. I sent her a care package once full of chocolate. We both knew neither of us were ready to move across the continent for the other but we still loved each other deeply. When I started dating my abusive ex we were still friends. I got to meet up with her one of the times I visited the US. Like most of my fandom friends I lost contact with her in 2009 after my fandom big sister passed away. It hurt a lot to be in that space without her. My abusive ex also did a good job of isolating me from everything. I did briefly reconnect with her for a bit afterwards but it’s been a while since I’ve talked to her.

To detour back to the fake dating, there’s another parallel story. So when I told one of my other friends about this, A, she was like “oh, well if you need another fake girlfriend I would be willing and I mean we only live like 5 and ½ hours apart.” And my stupid ass was like “oh of course! I’ll keep you in mind.” This girl who had the patience of a saint with my stupid ass. She started calling me “muffin” one night and I was like “why are you calling me muffin?” and she was like “because it’s cute” and I was like “ok but I feel like I need to give you a food nickname now…” but my brain short circuited. I couldn’t think of anything cute in turn and made a terrible comment about calling her porkchop. And this girl, bless her heart, told me I could call her porkchop. So for several years we went around calling each other Muffin and Porkchop. It took me almost a decade to figure out that she was FLIRTING with me. I have no contact with her any more so I can’t even apologise.

So here comes to the kpop and how I stumbled into it. I had my sisters over for a movie night in 2018. While waiting for our food to cook somehow we wound up watching K/DA POP/STARS among some other stuff. But this planted the seed in my sister's mind and she descended into kpop hell. I’m sorry not sorry. She mostly got into girl groups and we let her gush to us about them. But then she found it, Lucifer by SHINee. This song is an absolute bop and the clothing was absolutely tragic. We were in love with it. Something always haunted me that I knew this song though but something was just not 100% right so I couldn’t figure it out.

Lockdowns happened and we couldn’t do our regular family get togethers. However where we live if you were a family of 4 or less you can adopt into your bubble a single person that lives alone, just so that people that live alone aren’t so isolated. So once a week I’d go over to her place and we’d do supper together. Neither of us like do anything other than go to work and grocery shopping and the occasional shopping for other essentials. Anyway when I’d be at her place we’d often listen to her kpop playlist. It was a little more bubblegum than what was really my taste but I was starting to get a taste.

Then my shit brain did what it always does and comes up with a cursed fic idea that involved everyone listening to kpop. I dove head first into kpop. I have learned so much in the last two weeks. It started with SHINee and branched out. One of those things that I discovered with SHINee though was that they recorded a lot of their songs also in Japanese. And then I found the Japanese music video to Lucifer and it was like someone plunged a knife deep into my heart and twisted.

J was into SHINee. She tried to get me into them in 2011, right around the time we fell out of contact. We were both really big into jpop and jrock back then and she was right, I LOVE that song. So somehow I narrowly avoided becoming a shawol in 2011. I don’t know how I didn’t honestly. Probably has to do with my abusive ex. A lot of stuff from that time period is honestly a blur and I really don’t care to remember it.

So that’s the story of how I, an aro, am a disaster when it comes to people flirting with me and how I almost became a kpop stan in 2011.

#malicious musings #fake dating #aro problems #ok to reblog #you are also free to ask me what is wrong with me #because honestly so much #i also wan't to seriously apologise to anyone who has ever flirted with me #i don't mean to not realise you are flirting #but i really have NO idea

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path-of-my-childhood · 4 years

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Collect Call From... TAYLOR SWIFT

Blender Magazine (final, unpublished issue from May 2009) // By Josh Eells

Each month, one lucky rock star phones Blender HQ for seven days straight, just to, you know, share. Now on the line: country-pop princess.

DAY 1: FEBRUARY 24th, 3:51 pm

Swift calls from Nashville, where she lives with her parents and younger brother. “I’m so happy to be home! I’ve been in Europe for two weeks. I got back two nights ago and spent half of yesterday sleeping. This is my only week off for months, but I categorize vacations differently than most people. I don’t care if I’m doing interviews from when I wake up till I go to sleep, as long as l’m in my own bed, that’s a day off. This morning I went to some of the radio stations in town, said hi to program directors. Then I met with my stylist - we talked about tour outfits. And now I’m getting dressed for my brother Austin’s lacrosse game. He plays goalie - this is his first game as starter. His friends used to tease him about me, but now he's six two and built. I don’t think they make jokes anymore.”

DAY 2: FEBRUARY 25th, 4:14 pm

Swift phones from home, where she’s “lounging on the couch under a quilt” and playing with her dogs, Baby (a Doberman) and Bug (a mini Pinscher). “Austin did great! His team won, and he kept a bunch of balls out of the goal. Afterwards I went with my friend Emily to a Nashville Predators game. I did a commercial for them, so they hook me up with tickets when I’m in town. There’s a couple of cute guys, but I think they’re all married. I totally cheer and do the fang-finger thing. Last night they put me on the JumboTron, and you could literally see the wave of people getting up to come over. I’m still getting used to the fact that being stared at is part of my day - in high school it meant I had something on my face. The fact that my albums has been No. 1 for 10 weeks - it’s unbelievable. But this week looks a little questionable: The Jonas Brothers have an album out, too. Hmm.”

DAY 3: FEBRUARY 26th, 5:30 pm

Swift dials in from the road In Nashville, where she’s stuck In rush-hour traffic. "I just shot a video with my friend Kellie [Pickier] for a song we wrote together. It’s about ex-boyfriends. In the video I am kind of her trouble-making sidekick - I wore this strapless studded dress with a zipper up the front. The whole day I was afraid someone was gonna walk by and unzip me. It would have taken half a second to ruin my day. Oh, my God, last night I fell asleep on the couch watching CSI: NY. I was out at like 7, but at some point I dragged myself to bed, and apparently in my haze I turned the heat up to 95! I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, with my poor cat lying on the floor panting. I made myself an ice bath and called my friend Emma in LA - she was in Superbad - and she kept me company for two hours while I cooled down.”

DAY 4: FEBRUARY 27th, 4:37 pm

Swift rings from the music room at her house, where she’s teaching herself how to play piano. “I’m still not caught up from my jet lag. Today I woke up at 5:30, ate same cereal and fell back asleep on the couch. I didn’t sleep long though, because we had rehearsal this morning. Kenny Chesney was rehearsing next door, so we chatted for a bit. Nashville is a really small town. I still live with my parents because I’m never home long enough to move out. And I don’t go to bars, because I’m 19 and scared of breaking rules. Besides Kellie and my best friend Abigail, who moved to Kansas, most of my friends are in LA. And boys aren’t even an issue right now. I categorize guys as “talking”, “nominees” - people you feel like you could someday date - and “dating”. Right now I don’t even have nominees. I don’t even have potential future nominees! But I’m used to being single. Before my last relationship [with Joe Jonas] I was single for like two years. It’s sort of my thing.”

DAY 5: FEBRUARY 28th, 12:50 pm

Swift checks in from her mom’s car with some medical news. “So, I’m driving to the doctors office. I burned my face with a curling iron! Don’t worry, I’m fine - I’ll call you after we’re done. [She phones a few hours later.] OK. What happened was, I woke up at 6 am and decided to curl my hair. I guess l was still asleep, because I slipped and burned my face under my right eye. It hurt really bad, but I didn’t think much of it. I edited and uploaded a MySpace video - unhindered by the fact that my face was melting off - and went downstairs, and my dad was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ I guess it was worse than I realized. So we went to the dermatologist. She gave me a prescription for some burn cream - I’m not sure what it is, but it has a lot of syllables. The good news is I’m expected to make a full recovery.”

DAY 6: MARCH 1st, 10:03 pm

Swift phones from Plant City, Florida, where she lust performed at the world famous Florida Strawberry Festival. “This place is strawberry city! When we landed, there were official Strawberry Festival minivans waiting to pick us up, driven by people in strawberry shirts. In the dressing room there were bushels of the most beautiful, gigantic chocolate covered strawberries I’ve ever seen. It’s like they welded three together! And this afternoon I met the Strawberry Festival Queen and her court. They were dressed in red and looked very sparkly. It was cold for Florida, like 55 and rainy, but everybody bundled up and had a great time. Afterward we had a police escort, which always makes you feel cool, and we’re taking a private jet, which is even cooler. On the way to the airport all these kids were trying to hurl themselves on our car - it was pretty frantic for a second. But thankfully no one got hurt. That’s why it was cool.”

DAY 7: MARCH 2nd, 12:50 pm

On her last day at home, Swift calls from her favorite couch, where she’s enjoying the view of Old Hickory Lake. “It’s freezing in Tennessee! It’s like 29 degrees, and I’m sitting here packing sundresses and flip-flops for two weeks in Australia. That and downloading movies for the 20,000-hour flight I’m about to embark on. I have three goals for this trip. One, get a tan. Two, go to the beach. And three, debut my new summer wardrobe. Oh, and four, play some good shows and make an impact on Australia! Ha. I don’t go into most situations thinking I’m going to win. I’ve never even won a raffle. These blessings I’ve had lately are more amazing than I could have ever imagined. We got the new projections today, and It’s looking like we’re going to be No.1 again. Does it feel a little sweeter this week? [Laughs] Yeah - just a little.”

#someone posted this on twitter so I thought I'd share #little TBT #fearless era #I find young Taylor so amusing...cause you never know what you're gonna get =)#like - she was always trained and disciplined enough to be careful with her words #but sometimes...lmao sometimes she would just go off...I don't know - I just find it so funny #anyways...#apparently this whole issue was never even published #blender magazine #interview #taylor swift #baby taylor #scans

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jedivszombie · 4 years

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36, 44, 51, 59 💗

Thank you, thank you Mari! Having to put under a read more because I went off.

help me freak out about F1: send me some F1 asks

36. What were some of your favourite races?

I know I will miss so many because like my brain is currently like a sieve but these are the ones that immediately come to me:

Canada 2011, Canada 2011, CANADA 2011!!!!!! Guys honestly, 15 y/o Maisie was just vibing - I got to stay up late, it was wet, DC and Martin had to commentate about the birds in the rain while it was red flagged. It all seemed hopeless for Jenson and then suddenly he won it and honestly it was up there with when he won the WDC in 2009.

Monza 2006 - three words: Kubica’s First Podium!!!!! guys he had been in the sport for 3 races, he ended up on the podium, beside bloody Michael Schumacher, it was epic.

Canada 2008 - I will say that society has progressed past the need to replay Robert’s Canada 2007 incident every time they talk about crashes because I still hate it. BUT 2008 he returned and he said fck u Canada for destroying my car I’m going to win, and he did! It was wonderful, I cried.

Monaco 2018 - Daniel finally winning in Monaco brought so much joy, almost as much joy as when he won his first ever race, god bless.

Austria 2002 - super memorable, tears on the podium, tears in our living room, 6 year old Maisie cursing Michael out for being a bastard and then sobbing when he gave Reubens the top step??? Yeah iconic for the drama as much as anything.

44. Where would you want to have a race?

This is a difficult one, I would love a race in London (because it’s super easy for me to get to) but also like that’s NEVER gonna happen.

So, I would love a race in Germany. Oh, didn’t we have a race in Germany I hear you ask? Yes, yes we did. We used to have 2 different tracks we could race on in Germany in fact (leads the crowd chanting: BRING BACK NÜRBURGRING).

I could also vibe with a race in France, it’s a shame we don’t currently have one.

51. Which was your favourite line up?

Aahhhhh now you’re asking a tough question. There is no ONE fave line up, as with most other things. So I’m gonna answer with many:

Jenson and Lewis (so soft, so fun, great competitors)

Flonso and Jenson (the only teammates Flonso has vibed with have been Stoffel and Jenson and I dig that)

Michael and Reubens (THAT’S MY CLOWN TEAM!! FEAT. OGs Ross Brawn and Jean Todt)

Seb and Mark (the DRAMA kids, the dRAMA!)

Esteban and Daniel (we have been robbed of a great duo guys I can’t impress this on you enough)

Checo and Lance (honestly just real father-son vibes here)

Robert K and Nick Heidfeld (that’s my polish husband with my ewok thank uuu)

59. Which is your favourite ship?

Sooooo like I vibe with Sewis, Dansteban, Andrea Stella and Flonso and Sebson (unwillingly I am a Sebchal fan but it’s all of YOUR faults and that fcking all the things she said fancam). I vibe with these guys platonically - top pals the lot of them.

#thank youuuu for enabling me mari #pals are wonderful #also real talk like i write fic but i genuinely 'ship' them outside of fic platonically #just a bunch of v good dudes #also count the amount of times i get feral in this post #long post #alonsista #Maisie answers

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emjee · 5 years

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full Emma thoughts

As I mentioned in a very excited text post last night, I saw the new Emma adaptation and I really enjoyed it. More thoughts under the cut, because this might get long.

Before we begin, just a note: I am going to discuss the 2009 miniseries only in the sense of compare-and-contrast, without value judgements. I love adaptations, I love adaptation theory, and I think this is a case where we have been blessed with an excellent miniseries, an excellent new film, and an iconic teen movie (raise a glass to Clueless), all of which are doing different things and none of which are inherently good or bad, just different.

With that out of the way! Here are my very excitable thoughts:

I think Anya Taylor-Joy plays Emma excellently, with a reading that is definitely supported by the text: she is deliciously competent in certain areas (running a household, planning a ball), and less so in others (considering the needs of others over her own impulses; learning how to do this and how to consider situations from the perspective of other people is her major character arc, it’s very Capital R Romantic, I wrote a paper about it once). Taylor-Joy has the most incredible micro-expressions, they were a delight to watch, especially because I know I’ve made a lot of the same faces.

When I first heard about this movie, I thought, “it’s bold of people to attempt to re-make Emma when we’ve already got Knightley as played by Jonny Lee Miller. The hubris!” I confess I have been made to eat my words, and gratefully. Johnny Flynn is a fantastically physical Knightley (riding across fields to meet with tenant farmers! Jumping over walls!) and I love the chemistry between him and Anya Taylor-Joy. There’s a lot more UST between Emma and Knightley from the beginning, which is a lot of fun to watch. I know we all go feral over dance scenes, particularly if no one is wearing gloves, but the dance scene is TRULY ONE FOR THE AGES, and it was immensely satisfying to get to see some proper pining from Knightley (my God can Johnny Flynn pine, everyone go watch Lovesick). I love how his face is just like “shit shit shit shit shit shit” before he starts running after Emma, and the scene where he wrangles his coat off before collapsing on the floor is POETIC CINEMA AT ITS FINEST.

In the moment, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the nosebleed during the proposal scene, but as soon as Knightley handed over his handkerchief and they started talking over each other, I bought it, because it’s a perfect demonstration of how nothing has changed for them, even though also everything has changed. AND it allows the kiss (one of the best kisses in Austen film-land, if you ask me) to happen right after Knightley offers to move in with Emma, which, YES, that’s the grand romantic gesture we deserve.

On the subject of that scene, I LOVE how there are servants all over this film. The rich people constantly forget they’re there which makes for some excellent comedy. The servants all filing out of the dining hall as soon as Emma and Knightley begin to disagree because they know what’s coming? Genius.

This is a beautiful film. Costumes, set design. The soundtrack SLAPS. It’s highly stylized and choreographed, which I loved and thought made the physical comedy even funnier.

I loved the attention they gave to Harriet and Robert Martin, this is my favorite treatment of Harriet by far. It takes time away from Frank (who I don’t think you see enough of to become properly invested in or to understand why it’s so shocking that he’s been secretly engaged this whole time, also I don’t know who keeps casting the guy who played Frank as men with whom women fall in love despite their terribleness, which can be ranked on a sliding scale--I don’t think he was well cast here, and he certainly wasn’t well cast as Anatole Kuragin in the 2016 War and Peace) and from Jane Fairfax, although I thought Jane was perfectly cast and what little we saw of her was excellent. The scene where she and Emma walk toward each other across the room at Donwell was perfect, it looked like they were mirror images.

Was Bill Nighy a Mr. Woodhouse straight out of the book? No, MIchael Gambon probably comes closer. Do I care? I do not, because he was fucking hilarious.

There were so many moments in this movie that made me want to shriek with laughter. Its shortcomings are mostly due to the time constraints of a feature film--except for the diversity, whoooo boy, this is a very white film and IT DIDN’T NEED TO BE--but the main characters are well-cast and all the emotions are there and hit at just the right time. I can’t wait to see it again, and I’m sure it will become a staple of my household viewing. Come yell about this film with me!

#MG says stuff #Emma 2020

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thewhumperinwhite · 4 years

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Guardian Angel, part 4

Part One / Part Two / Part Three

(I’m gonna make a masterpost for this one later today cause I’ve got.... Some Plans for this one)

@whumpitywhumpwhump

TW for: religion/Christianity, including probably some mild blasphemy; mild body horror (reanimated corpse); referenced seriously ill parent.

----

The priest seems like a nice enough guy, based on the not-even-two-minutes of interaction Karim has had with him. He’s also looking at Karim with deep concern and not moving from his seat in the front pew, so at this moment he’s Karim’s least favorite person on earth.

“I can’t tell you why I need it,” Karim says through gritted teeth. “I just need it. It’s an emergency.”

The priest’s frown deepens, and Karim fights back a frustrated groan. “What emergency are you having that you think holy water will help with?” the priest says, in the kind of calm voice you use for children you think are idiots.

“None of your business,” Karim snaps, because he’s way, way too stressed to come up with a convincing lie, and not crazy enough yet to think this guy with his carefully-ironed cassock and his uber-sensible wire-rimmed spectacles will believe the truth.

The priest sighs and removes the glasses, slowly, like a teacher who thinks you’re making them tired on purpose.

“Young man,” the priest says. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t bless water and just give it to you. The Church sanctions the use of holy water for a limited number of purposes. Now.” He looks at Karim with an over-exaggerated kindly-old-man expression. “I’d be happy to accompany you and help you with whatever emergency you’re facing.”

Karim scowls, and points behind him toward the back of the sanctuary. “You can’t pretend it’s a, a controlled substance or something, you’ve got a big bowl of it just sitting back there.”

The priest looks over Karim’s shoulder. At the end of the sanctuary’s center aisle there’s a big glass bowl nestled in the top of a carved wooden stand. He looks back at Karim, looking patiently disapproving in a way Karim hates down to his bones.

“The font is intended to remind parishioners of their baptism when not in use,” he says, a bit more severe, and then his face softens and he turns to face Karim fully, folding his hands in his lap. “Young man, I’m happy to help, if something is frightening you. I understand there are many things you might wish for holy protection from. Tell me, what is it that’s got you so upset?”

Karim stares at the man for a second. Then he says, “Oh, fuck this,” and turns on his heel to run.

By the grace of God— who he can apologize to later, if he thinks of it— the bowl that comprises the top of the font isn’t secured to the bottom, just like he hoped. It’s heavy, but now that he is actively sprinting out of a church he’s filled with enough adrenaline that the weight seems very manageable. A little of it slops over the front of his hoodie when he spins to shove the door of the church open with his butt, but it’s still more than half full by the time he skids to a stop next to his mom’s car, awkwardly repositions the bowl— it’s way too big to hold securely, but by some miracle he doesn’t drop it, maybe that means God is fine with it after all— and pulls the car door open by shoving the toe of his sneaker under the handle and yanking it towards him.

“What the Hell are you doing?” the priest squawks from behind him, and Karim laughs hysterically.

Whatever else this is, it’s a much better distraction than stealing his mom’s car ever would have been.

Art half-sits up in the back of the car, his eyes widening when he sees Karim holding an entire baptismal font balanced on his knee. “The fuck are you—?”

“What do I do with it?” Karim yells, because they don’t have time for this.

Art blinks at him at the same time that he hears the church door slam behind him, which means the priest is only the length of the parking lot away now.

“Wh— fuck, here,” Art says, and he leans forward, grabs the edge of the bowl with his good hand, and tips the bowl toward himself. Karim follows his momentum, pouring the entire contents of the font over Art’s ruined arm and leg, and incidentally also soaking the rest of him and practically flooding the backseat of Karim’s mom’s car, which he doesn’t have time to think about at the moment.

Karim slams the back door, turns, holds up the empty font, and sets it down on the asphalt next to the car, and blurts, “Thanks Father!” before he spins, throws himself back into the driver’s seat, jams the car into gear and peels out of the parking lot literally as fast as the car will go. He looks up once to see the bewildered form of the priest, holding the bowl and staring after them, and then he grips the steering wheel hard, feeling laughter bubble unstoppably up out of his chest. He can feel the hysterical edge to it, but he doesn’t try to stop it; this is the best he’s felt in—well, in six months, at least.

He hears Art laugh, too, from the back, though he mostly sounds confused, and meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, grinning. “Did it work?”

Art laughs again, breathing hard, and his answer sounds a bit strained. “It’s— in the process of working.” Karim can hear some deeply unpleasant cracking sounds from behind him. In the rearview he can just see Art stretched out on the back seat, his neck a tight painful arch, exposing his scarred throat. “Fucking— hate this part,” Art mutters.

Karim catches his breath, though his stomach hurts pretty bad from laughing. “You need me to pull over?” he says, trying to watch the road while also craning to see if he can see what’s happening any better in the rearview.

“No no, it’s—ah—it’s fine. I’m—” Art laughs, bitterly. “Used to it.”

Karim frowns at the rearview, where he can see Art’s eyes squeezed shut in obvious pain, and once he’s put another three blocks between them and the church, he pulls into an empty parking lot and turns around in his seat.

“Jesus,” he says, wincing back immediately.

Art’s leg seems to be almost done knitting itself back together, but Karim does get to see about three seconds of the bones snapping back into place. Art collapses back against the seat, panting.

“God,” Karim says. “I’m— um. I’m sorry, dude. About hitting you.”

Art waves his newly-repaired arm dismissively, then lets his hand drop onto his forehead, where Karim can see the cracks where he hit the windshield have closed up, too.

They’re a bit harder to see, now, lit by street lights at an odd angle, but it doesn’t look like the scars on his throat and arms have gone anywhere.

“‘sfine,” Art says breathlessly. “You’re lucky it was me, actually. Would’ve killed anybody else.” Pushing his hair out of his face, he cracks one eye to squint at Karim. “What the fuck were you going so fast for, anyway? And is this— what, Farah’s car?”

Karim jerks backward hard enough to honk the horn with his spine, making them both jump badly. “You know my mom’s name?” he blurts. That’s the most terrifying thing Art has said so far.

Art raises an eyebrow at him, like that’s funny. “I know Farah, yes,” he says, smirking. “You could not pay me to try and steal her car, to be honest. What the fuck—is—” He trails off, the smirk sliding off his face, and he sits up, running his hand through his hair and no longer looking at Karim. “Wait,” he says, apparently to himself. “2009. Shit.” Then he turns his head and looks at Karim like Karim has just turned into a hurt puppy before his very eyes. “Your father,” Art says quietly, and Karim feels his stomach muscles tense painfully, like he’s waiting for a blow. “I’m sorry. I forgot about that.”

Karim looks at the dead boy, and his ears immediately start to buzz a little.

“Is that why?” Art says softly, looking at Karim with his dead eyes full of pity. “Are you—”

“No,” Karim snaps. Art blinks, surprised, and Karim shakes his head, stiffly. “That’s not what we’re doing. I don’t know you from shit, and I’m not talking about this.”

He isn’t sure what he’s expecting—more pity, maybe, or else a fight—but Art nods immediately, saying “Okay, right, yeah, absolutely,” so fast he trips over the syllables. Karim watches his shoulders relax, like he’s grateful for the out, and it soothes a little of the knee-jerk that was building bitter at the back of Karim’s throat, too. “Absolutely, dear, whatever you need.”

Karim breathes out, trying to come down from his immediate defensive position, and then he shakes his head, slowly. “Hold on,” he says. “Hold on, you—you noticed the year right off,” he accuses, frowning at Art, who jumps guiltily. “I said it was 2009 and you—swore, or something, like you knew it was bad. You must have known about,” he swallows hard, makes it come out, “about m-my dad from the beginning, or… you…”

He trails off. Art is looking away, chewing on his cracked and colorless lower lip. When he looks back at Karim, his face is hard to read—somewhere between discomfort and nervousness and maybe guilt, too.

“What?” Karim says, alarmed.

“It’s, um. It’s gonna be kind of a big year,” Art says.

#whump #original whump #guardian angel au #undead whumpee #painful healing #religion tw #christianity tw #catholicism tw #time travel whump #art: this is gonna be a bad year for you #karim: uh yeah my dad is dying #art: ...oh yeah huh that too i guess

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nazariolahela · 4 years

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Best Beloved: Chapter 5

A/N: Hey y'all! This is a PM AU I’ve been working on. It’s a bit different than my previous fic series and I’m really excited to try something new. I hope y’all enjoy it. This story is told in dual first-person narrative, from Kaia (F!MC) and Damien’s POV. The first half of this story takes place during Kaia’s freshman year and Damien’s senior year of college. The second half is two years after Kaia graduates. There will be sprinklings of canon in this fic, but we’ll try to step out of the box for the most part. Thanks for reading, and please leave feedback, and/or if you would like to be tagged.

Catch up here

Series Tags: @burnsoslow @lady-calypso @irishwhiskys-blog @loveellamae

Synopsis: What happens when you find yourself crushing on your best friend? For years, Damien and Kaia have been friends, while secretly harboring feelings for one another. Everything changes one night after a little too much alcohol and years of pent up feelings. Can they control their emotions and salvage their friendship, or will the feelings they hold for one another destroy everything they have?

All characters are the property of Pixelberry Studios. Thanks for allowing me to borrow them.

Chapter Summary: Damien and Kaia meet for a study group, but the assignment isn’t the only thing they’re struggling with.

Kaia

“You’re late,” I said, my feet propped up on the table, as Damien shuffled across the library to where I was sitting. It was our weekly study session and we were supposed to start 20 minutes ago, but I was the only one in our group who had grasped the concept of time management.

“Yeah, sorry. This internship is kicking my ass. I had to stay late because we were setting up some new security clearance protocols. Don’t tell anyone though. That information is classified,” he replied as he slid the backpack off his shoulder. He took a seat at the table and shot me a panty-dropping grin. My body instantly reacted. Bastard. How did he keep doing that?

“Yeah, well Brad and Allison aren’t here yet either, so I guess I can’t be too mad at you.”

“You couldn’t be mad at me if you wanted to. You love me.”

I paused. Did he really just say that? He always knew how to push my buttons. Even when we were kids. It’s like he lived to get a reaction out of me. I cleared my throat awkwardly. “Anyway. We need to get the rest of this project done. It’s due on Monday. Did you finish your part?”

“Of course I did. What do you take me for?” he grinned, pulling his laptop from his backpack. I watched him from the corner of my eye as he set it on the table and opened it up, powering up the device. “I’m emailing it to you right now so you can add it to the final document.”

I had the unfortunate task of presenting the project to the class, so everyone sent their parts to me. It was my job to outline the project, then organize each part into our PowerPoint.

“Not gonna lie, this is not how I wanted to spend my Saturday afternoon. I have a very pissed off girlfriend right now,” he said.

I hid my smirk behind my laptop. I know, I know. It wasn’t very nice of me, but I got a little thrill hearing that Damien and Alana were having problems. It wasn’t that I wanted my friend to be miserable, but if he suddenly became single, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I had nothing against Alana personally, but the few times we interacted, she was very cold towards me.

“Hmm...that sucks. So, I have Allison’s part. She emailed it to me last night, but I’m still waiting on Brad’s part. I put your part on slides 5 and 6 to transition from Allison’s slide, then we’ll put Brad’s part on slides 9 and 10 after my part. Then, we should be good to go.” I checked the time on my phone. Brad and Allison were over half an hour late. I sent both of them a text asking when they planned on showing up, then went back to laying out the presentation.

Damien and I worked in silence for several minutes. Occasionally, I would look up from my computer and sneak peeks of him. I couldn’t help but stare at his features. Even after all these years, my attraction for him never waned. He looked up and caught me staring; his lips turned up in a wide grin.

“Do I have something on my face?”

“Um...uh...nope. Y-you’re all good!” I replied a little too enthusiastically.

“Then why are you staring at me like that?” he smirked.

I felt my cheeks turn beet red. I quickly looked away and tried to focus on what I was working on, but I could still feel his eyes on me. My phone pinged, breaking the silence — and thank the gods — the tension. I grabbed it and saw a message from Allison. She mentioned that she wasn’t feeling well and would not be able to make our study group tonight, but that she would see us next week. There was still no word from Brad, which I was not surprised by.

I rolled my eyes and placed my phone on the table. “Well, Allison’s not coming. I don’t know about Brad, but I’m guessing if he was going to show up, he’d be here by now.”

Damien shrugged. “No biggie. That kid is a major tool anyway. Not having him here is a blessing.”

I giggled. “True, but we can’t finish without his contribution, so we’re stuck with him until we turn this stupid ass project in.”

“Yippie,” he said in a monotone voice. I rolled my eyes and went back to finishing up our presentation.

We worked for about ten more minutes until my eyes started to blur from staring at the screen. “Well, I guess this is a good stopping point for now. Until we get Brad’s part, this is as far as we can work,”

I stuffed my things in my backpack and slung it over my shoulder when Damien stopped me.

“Hey, you busy right now? Wanna go get a bite to eat?”

I cocked my head in confusion. Was he really asking me to hang out? I had offered to meet him for lunch or coffee outside of our study group several times, but he always had plans with Alana. “Uh…I guess. If that’s okay with you.”

“Obviously it is because I just asked you,” he smirked.

“Yeah, sure. You wanna go now?”

“Nah, I was thinking sometime next month. Of course, I want to go now. When else would we go?” His voice dripped with sarcasm.

I looked down at the yoga pants and hoodie I was wearing. “Well, I was hoping to shower and change before I go out in public.”

“You look fine. No one’s going to give a shit what you’re wearing. Besides, you’re technically already out in public, so it’s a little late for that,” he laughed.

I huffed. “Fine. Where are we going?”

“There’s a little bistro off-campus that has really good burgers.” He slung an arm around my shoulder, pulling me to his body. The feeling of him pressed up against me sent chills down my spine. I shuddered as he grabbed my backpack and handed it to me, then led me out of the library.

When we reached his car in the campus parking lot, he unlocked the doors and tossed his backpack in the back seat. I stopped in my tracks. He still had the same car from high school. All the memories of us riding around in this thing on Friday nights came flooding back. He moved to the driver’s side door, stopping to wait for me. “Are you going to get in the car, or are you just going to stand there all day staring into space?” He extended his arm and tapped his index finger to his wrist. “Time’s a-wastin', Park.”

Snap out of it, Kaia. It’s just Damien. But it wasn’t ‘just Damien.’ It was the boy I had been in love with for as long as I could remember. I moved slowly to the car and opened the passenger’s side door, sliding in. He smirked and started the ignition. We drove in silence, the only sounds coming from the radio. A song from our childhood started playing and we looked at each other with goofy grins on our faces.

“Remember the first time we heard this song? You wouldn’t stop singing it for weeks,” he said with a laugh.

“What? It’s a good song,” I replied, singing along and dancing in my seat.

I smiled at the memory that song brought back. It was the summer of 2009. Damien and I were in his backyard, hanging out in the treehouse he and his dad built a few summers before. Two of his younger sisters, Isabela and Carina, were having a sleepover, so he was hiding out. His sister Carina was my age and we were in a couple of classes together, so I was friendly with her, but I spent more time with Damien. The sun had finally set over the horizon so we decided to start up a fire in the fire pit and make S’mores. We climbed down the ladder and he pulled a lighter from his pocket.

“Why do you have that?” I gasped.

His eyes met mine and a smirk spread across his face. “I was smoking a J behind the school gym this morning, so I needed it.” He stared at me for a few seconds, watching my reaction, then burst out laughing. “I found it in the junk drawer in the kitchen, you dork. You know I don’t smoke.”

I leaned over and smacked his arm. “Not funny, Dames.”

“I disagree. I thought it was hilarious.”

“Whatever. Just light the stupid fire. I’ll run inside and grab the stuff to make S’mores.”

“Watch out for the slumber party,” he called back as I walked into the house. I made it to the kitchen and started rummaging through the cabinets, looking for the ingredients we needed. I found the graham crackers and chocolate bars but had no luck locating the marshmallows. I was about to go back outside and asked Damien when I turned and bumped into Isabela.

“Hey, Kaia. Whatcha doing?” she asked, holding several bags of chips in her arms.

“Dames and I are making S’mores. Where are your marshmallows?”

She set the bags of chips down and rummaged around the pantry before locating and tossing me the bag. “So, what’s going on with you and my brother?”

My cheeks instantly flushed. “Wh-what do you mean?”

She smirked. “You know what I mean. You two spend an awful lot of time together. Are you two a thing?”

“No. It’s not like that. We’re just friends,” I lied. Her cocked eyebrow said she didn’t buy my bullshit, but she nodded her head. I grabbed the bag of marshmallows from her hand and hightailed it back outside. "I Gotta Feeling" by Black Eyed Peas blasted through the portable speakers in the yard. I approached Damien sitting in front of the firepit, poking one of the logs with a stick. He was shirtless and the moonlight bounced off the muscles of his toned back. The sight made my mouth water. That was the first time I realized I was in love with him.

I was thrust back into the present by the sound of Damien killing the engine. I looked up and noticed we had arrived at the bistro. We exited the car and made our way inside, snagging a table toward the back of the restaurant. The waitress dropped off the menus and took our drink orders, before leaving us to decide what to eat. I pretended to peruse the menu, but my mind was on the guy sitting in the booth across from me.

“Order whatever you want. My treat,” he said.

“Huh?”

I looked up and he was watching me. He nodded toward the menu in my hand. “Don’t worry about paying. I’ve got it this time.”

“You don’t have to do that, you know.”

“I know,” he said softly, riling up the butterflies in my stomach. Our waitress returned a few minutes later and took our orders. Damien ordered the Maple Bacon Burger while I ordered the Mac ‘N Cheese Burger. The waitress left to put our orders in, leaving us alone again.

“So, now that we’re a month into the school year, how are your classes going?” he asked.

I shrugged, swirling my straw in my glass. “Classes are going well. I’m not ready to drop any of them, so that’s a plus. Dorm life is pretty fun, too. I got really lucky with my roomie. Her schedule is different from mine, so we don’t see much of each other, but one night a week, we hang out.” I tapped my finger against my chin. “It’s crazy to think that we’re already a quarter of the way through the semester, so that means I’m 1/32nd of the way through my college career.”

He laughed. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it. What else is going on? Any interesting guys catch your attention lately?”

My eyes shot up to meet his. Why was he asking me that? I went back to staring at my drink. “Uh...not really. There is this guy in my algebra class who asked me out, but I turned him down.” I peeked at him from under my lashes, unable to make out his expression.

***

Damien

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On one hand, I wanted her to find someone who would make her happy if I couldn’t. On the other hand, knowing that she wasn’t involved with anyone gave me a tiny sliver of hope. I know she wouldn’t wait for me forever, but I still liked that there wasn’t another guy capturing her attention. Jesus, I was such an asshole.

“So, what happened?” the words left my mouth before I could stop them.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s super nice and really cute, but I just couldn’t bring myself to say yes. Which is weird, because there’s definitely an attraction between us. My whole goal for this semester was to step out of my comfort zone.”

She looked up at me, those big, beautiful brown eyes staring into my soul. No matter how hard I tried to fight it, everything about this girl did things to me. Her laugh was like the most beautiful music to my ears. Her sense of humor was aligned with mine. Even her looks were enough to make other girls jealous. When she complained earlier about how she was dressed, I internally rolled my eyes. Even when she didn’t try, she still looked mouth-watering. She was wearing a pair of black yoga pants and a light pink hooded sweatshirt with the words “Rosé and Shine” written in gold cursive letters across the chest. Yes, I looked at her chest. If she busted me, I would’ve just said I was trying to read her shirt.

I awkwardly cleared my throat. “You should give him a chance. Who knows? He might turn out to be a great guy. We all know those are in short supply lately.” Gods, what was I doing? I knew it was the right thing to do, but saying those words hurt.

She nodded. “Yeah, I guess. Maybe he is great and we’ll be really happy together. I just don’t know if I’m ready to start dating yet. I think… I just...I’m not over...” she trailed off.

“You’re not over what?”

“Nevermind,” she shook her head and took a long sip of her drink.

The wheels started turning. Was she talking about me? I know she dated in high school, but Nadia told me those relationships never lasted longer than a few months. She suspected I was the reason for that. Yeah, I know it sounded a tad creepy, but I was able to keep tabs on her, thanks to her cousin’s need to gossip.

One particular moment was that first Christmas after I left for college. I received a text from Nadia asking if I was coming home. She then asked that I keep my distance from Kaia. When I asked her “why,” she told me that she was still upset about what happened after graduation.

But I didn’t care. I wanted to see my best friend. I dropped by her house to say hi to her parents. They always treated me like the son they never had. Her dad asked how college was going. I told them about my classes and the friends I had made so far. Her mom was filling me in about the neighborhood gossip when I caught a glimpse of Kaia hovering in the hallway. She looked like she wanted to talk to me, but I could tell she was embarrassed to see me.

We locked eyes briefly before she turned around and retreated to her bedroom. I waited a few moments then excused myself to use the bathroom. I stood outside her door, listening for any signs of movement, before lightly tapping on the door. I heard the springs of her mattress squeak under her weight, then the door swung open. She looked adorable in her red and white Reindeer pajama pants and white thermal top. My eyes briefly traveled down and I noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“So, you weren’t even going to come to say hi to me?” I asked.

She shifted on her feet. “I don’t know. I figured you didn’t want to talk to me after what happened last time.” I watched as her eyes traveled up and down my body. It took everything in me to keep from pushing her into her room and kissing her. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t. Not only were her parents in the other room, I knew the whole age difference was frowned upon. And what if we did get together and it didn’t work out? I’d lose my best friend forever.

“You’re my best friend, Kaia. No matter what happened in the past, that will never change,” I replied.

“Even when I get drunk and act like a lovesick idiot?” She played with the drawstring of her pants, avoiding my eyes.

I gripped her chin with my thumb and forefinger, tilting her face up towards mine. “There’s nothing you could do that would ever make me want to stop being your best friend. And hey, I don’t hold what happened back then against you. Sometimes we do dumb things when we’re drunk.”

Her face dropped and it told me I had said the wrong thing. I brought my hand up and cupped her cheek and she leaned into my touch. The moment was interrupted when her mom called from the kitchen to ask me if I wanted some hot cocoa. I dropped my hand and gave her a weak smile, then backed away slowly as I made my way down the hall back to the living room. I looked over at my shoulder to see her still standing in her bedroom doorway, watching me go.

I was pulled back into the present when the waitress arrived at our table and delivered our food. The two of us ate in awkward silence, occasionally looking up at each other. After our plates were cleared, the waitress reappeared and I ordered a slice of cherry pie for us to share. When the pie arrived, we each took a fork and dug in.

“So, tell me more about this mystery guy?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.

She chewed for a few moments, hesitant to talk about it, then finally spoke. “Well, his name is Hayden. He’s a freshman and a photography major. He’s from Upstate New York and has a Border Collie named Dipper. He also has a twin brother named Harley, but I guess they don’t get along. Nadia loves him and she’s been bugging me to go out with him for the last few days.”

I didn’t know this kid from Adam, but I instantly didn’t like him. Was it jealousy? Probably. Was I going to do anything about it? Nope. “It’s obvious that you like him, so why not go out with him. You’re overthinking this, Kaia.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she sighed and took another bite of pie. At that moment, Alana’s friends Rowan and Cecile walked by. They waved, then stopped short when they noticed it wasn’t my girlfriend sitting in the booth across from me. Cecile gave me a skeptical glance while Rowan looked on in shock.

“Hey, Damien. What are you up to?” He asked, looking between Kaia and me.

“Hey, guys! Just capping off a little study session. This is Kaia. She’s an old friend.”

He nodded. “Cool, cool. You guys going to Homecoming next week? Cecile is a candidate for court, so we were going to have a little get-together after the crowning ceremony. You and Alana should come. It’s gonna be fun.”

“Yeah, that sounds good, man. I’ll talk to her about it this weekend.”

Cecile cocked an eyebrow as if to call me out on my bullshit, but didn’t say anything. She narrowed her eyes at Kaia, then turned back to me. “Well, we gotta go. Tell your girlfriend, Alana, hi for us.” She grabbed Rowan’s hand and they walked out. I sighed. I was sure I was going to get a phone call about that by the end of the night.

“Well, that was weird,” she said. “Speaking of, what’s going on with you and Alana?”

Shit, where do I start? “It’s complicated right now. We’re taking a break.”

Her eyes widened. “You guys broke up?”

“Eh...Not exactly. We’ve been fighting a lot, so we’re taking a few days to calm down and re-evaluate the relationship. It’s not how I would have handled things, but she thinks it will give us time to,” I held up my index and middle fingers, making air quotes, “figure things out. She thinks I’ve been neglecting her, which I kind of have been. But she also thinks I’m cheating on her.”

“Wow...I genuinely don’t know how to respond to that,” she replied.

“Yeah, me neither.”

Kaia nodded silently, setting her fork down on the plate. She rested her elbows on the table and folded her hands in front of her face. “Can I be honest with you? This whole relationship seems really unhealthy. There’s a huge lack of trust on both sides. That’s something a break isn’t going to fix. If she doesn’t trust you to be faithful, your relationship is doomed to fail. So, it’s up to you to figure out how you want to proceed. If you think the relationship is worth saving, you need to prove that you’re a reliable partner, and she needs to work through her insecurities. If not, you’re better off ending it now. Especially before you two decide to get engaged or something.”

“I kind of already proposed to her though,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Oh,” she replied. “Well, you should think about doing some sort of premarital counseling before you get married.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because she said no,” I deadpanned.

Kaia went quiet. I waited for her to say something else, but before she could speak, the waitress reappeared to drop our check off and ask if we needed anything else. Neither of us spoke as I paid the bill and we made our way out to the car. I debated asking her what she was thinking but decided against it. We rode in silence back to the dorms. When I pulled up in the parking lot, she grabbed the handle to exit the car, then stopped.

“For what it’s worth, Dames, I am sorry about you and Alana. I might not like her, but you’re my best friend. And if she makes you happy, then I’m happy for you. If you ever want to talk about it, you know where to find me. I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”

I nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate that. And hey, let me know how things go with Hayden.”

She frowned slightly, then quickly covered it up with a smile. “Will do. I’ll see you in class on Monday. Have a good weekend.” She got out of the car and took off running towards her dorm.

I dragged my hand down my face. Get it together, Dames. She was my best friend. And I had a girlfriend. I got out of the car and headed toward my dorm. When I reached my floor, I swung open the door to my room and was met by the cold stare of my girlfriend, sitting on my bed, her hands folded in her lap.

“Alana? What are you doing here?” I asked as I moved into the room. She rose from the bed and made her way towards me.

“Cecile texted me.”

Shit. I knew this was coming. “Babe, it’s not what you think.”

Her eyes gave away nothing as she took a deep breath. “It’s not important. What matters is you and me.”

Confused, I grabbed her hand and sat down on the bed. “You know I love you, babe. And I know I’ve been a shitty boyfriend these last few weeks, but I want to make this work and I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

She nodded, but her face told me she didn’t believe me. I sighed and pressed a kiss to her temple. It was going to be a long night.

#best beloved #pm au #college au #friends to lovers #perfect match #choices fanfic #damien nazario #kaia park #damien x mc #nazariolahela fanfic

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lobothepunkwolf · 4 years

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Alexander Hansen | Interlude Self Para Part One | Heavy

[TRIGGER WARNING: Death and Description of Attempted Suicide]

June 15th 2020

The rain came down hard against the window of the building, sounding like pebbles hitting concrete. Normally rain was calming for Alex. It was something that was a rarity for his part of Texas. In the little town of Driftwood, rain was a relief from the dry heat. It meant that the ranches and farms around were going to flourish. It meant that the creek was closer to a river, which was much more fun to swim in. It was a blessing from Heaven.

Today, however, that blessing felt like a curse. He sat in the room, across from the Psychiatrist he's come to know as Dr. Thomas Mallory. The man was older, his once dirty blond hair graying from age, his sharp features softened. His eyes were like a deep dark sea, filled with a curiosity and understanding that Alex wasn't used to. It pissed him off beyond belief, and he couldn't figure out why the man filled him with such rage. Maybe it was the fact that the man had shown him kindness that the world has seemed to forgot? Or maybe it was the absolute hope that the man had.

Sitting cross legged on the couch in front of Mallory, Alex played with the sleeves of the dark blue long sleeve shirt issued by the hospital he was in. His clothes were taken from him once he arrived… god knew how long ago. All of it felt like a fever dream. The black slipper socks and same colored pants almost felt like his scrubs. At least that was a comfort in the long silence that set between them.

"Dr. Kenzie told me you haven't been participating in group therapy." Mallory finally spoke up, his deep voice filled with a softness that nearly made the man cringe. He didn't need coddling and understanding. He needed out, back to the operating room. Back to Grey-Sloan, back to the distraction that was his job. Still playing with his sleeve, he didn't look up at the man.

"Mr. Hans--"

"Dr. Hansen." He looked up and snapped quietly at the man, a frown on his face. "I worked for that title. I'd like to be called it."

A surprised look crossed Mallory's face as the man finally spoke up, but a smile quickly replaced it. "Anger. That's a sign of progress. It can be productive. Let's go off of that. What are you angry about?"

Alex opened his mouth to speak before closing it, frowning. Taking a moment, he turned to face him. "I'm angry that I'm stuck in this room, in this hospital, when there's patients out there that need help. When I was workin' on ground breakin' work with one of the most brilliant surgeons in the U.S. I'm angry that I'm stuck here in a room with you and your stupid face."

"That's a bit mean, Dr. Hansen. But very telling and very understandable. It's understandable to feel this way, especially in these times. It's understandable to feel helpless, when your entire career is dedicated to helping the helpless." Mallory chuckled a bit, leaving back in his chair. "But, I hope you understand I'm not the one who put you here. We're trying to help you be the best you can be, that way you can get back to doing what you do: helping the helpless." Placing his hand in his lap, the man continued, "I've read over your medical file. This isn't the first time you've been in a facility like this. How about we talk about that?"

Hansen fell silent, looking away from him and back down at his lap, fidgeting with his hands. Mallory raised an eyebrow, giving the man an encouraging smile. "Okay. Instead of talking about your time while you were there, how about we talk about what led your there? We can compare similarities to what happened now, detect patterns of red flags to help you in the future."

Alex looked at him, before closing his eyes.

July 20th 2002

"Arg-- I've been shot--" a boy about eight years old with dark brown hair clutched his chest as he fell in the grass of the backyard with a dramatic groan. A girl with long hair of a similar color ran towards him with a white bag. Kneeling beside him, she pulled out a toy stethoscope and put it up to his chest, pretending to listen.

"Sounds like the bullet entered your lung. I gotta do an emergency removal!" The girl said, a dramatic tone tinged with her southern accent. She then pulled out her toy forceps and pretended to remove the imaginary bullet, pressing it a little harder into his chest than she meant to.

"Ouch-- Allie, be careful--" the boy pouted. Allie stuck her tongue out at him, pulling them away.

"Don't be a big baby, Alex. Besides, I got the bullet, which means I'm the best trauma surgeon around!" She giggled and tossed it to the side. Alex puffed his cheeks out, crossing his arms.

"I'm not a big baby, and only 'cause I'm the best cop around."

Allie rolled her eyes and laid in the grass next to him, looking up at the summer sky above them. "You're gonna be the easiest target out there with your big ol' dumbo ears." She turned to look at him, grinning widely.

"Uh-huh, and you won't be able to see your scalpel with that big nose of yours." Alex smirked back at her. The two started giggling to each other and sighed, enjoying the summer breeze that was blowing. A silence fell between them, before Allie spoke up.

"When we graduate, we can move to Austin together. Best brother-sister duo out there, Cop and Doctor. Gonna be savin’ the world!"

Alex looked at his sister with a smile and nodded. Reaching his hand out towards her, she took it, and they laid there together. Summer days seemed to last forever. And he was grateful for every moment he had.

August 12th 2004

"Alex, Allie. Time to get up and get ready for school!" A motherly voice called out from downstairs. Alex sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes. It was their first day of fourth grade. They had the same teacher, and he knew that they'd be sitting next to each other. Smiling excitedly, he got up and quickly got dressed, rushing out to the hall. Allie came from her room, groggily holding her stomach. "Mama.. I don't feel good." She called out.

Alex looked concerned at his twin sister, seeing how pale her face was. A woman with dark graying hair and brown soft eyed came upstairs and frowned worriedly when she saw her daughter.

"Oh, baby… you don't look so good.." that concern only grew between everyone when Allie turned to vomit in her room. The woman rubbed the girls back and shushed her. "It's okay.. it's probably just a stomach bug.. c'mon, let's get you cleaned up. I'll take you to the doctor.." she turned to Alex, "Go get ready for school. Your Pa'll take you. Virgil?" She called down the stairs, "I need you to take Alex to school. Allie and I are goin' to the doctor."

Alex pouted a bit, unsure about starting a year of school without his sister. He was even more worried about her. "But I wanna be with Allie, Mama--" he said

"Do as I say, Alexander." She said, a little sharply, causing the boy to turn on his heels and towards his room.

September 20th 2009

"Jenny said she misses ya, and wishes she could come and see ya. She made the cheer team at school." Alex, now fifteen, sat next to Allie in her hospital bed, smiling at her. "Darren is.. still a dick. But, I mean, that's what ya get when you got a crush on a dumb jock."

"Alex, be nice." Allie chuckled quietly, laying back in her bed. She looked a little more sickly than Alex was used to seeing. Her skin was pale and she was losing so much weight. It was a big concern with him. He pushed his parents to take her to a doctor in Austin, something. Finally, they listened when she started throwing up blood. They rushed her thirty minutes into the City where they got the diagnosis: Stage Four Stomach Cancer. When he heard the news, Alex was filled with anger. They could have caught this before it got this far if they just went and got her checked by someone more qualified than the town doctor. If they did more than hope and pray. Now, here his twin sister was, his other half, dying in a hospital bed. There was nothing the surgeons could do but make her comfortable. And Alex made sure he drove every day to see her. He couldn't stand spending a moment away from her.

"You know.." she said, breaking him from his thoughts, "You grew into those dumbo ears of yours. Now they're only slightly too big."

Alex looked at her and smiled a bit, "Wish I could say the same 'bout your nose."

She laughed and laid back, shaking her head as she reached her hand out for his. He looked at it and took it gently, intertwining their fingers carefully. They sat there in silence before she spoke up again. "Smile more. Girls might actually like you… Maybe even boys." She teased, laughing a bit when he gave her a worried look, "I haven't told Pa or Ma 'bout you and Dylan, don't worry… but you got that dopey grin when you're really happy. And it's a great thing to see. Share it with the world."

"Ain't much to smile 'bout these days." He admitted, mostly to himself. She gave him an incredulous look. "I mean with how the world is." He backtracked a bit, shaking his head. "It's all crazy."

"Alexander Joseph Hansen, I ain't gonna let you die inside." She pouted at him, squeezing his hand. "Go see Dylan after this. Go out to eat somewhere. Live your life, Alex. At least for me."

'I don't know how to do that without you' was what he wanted to say. Taking a deep breath, he smiled and nodded at her. "Alright, sis. I promise."

October 17th 2009

[Come up to the hospital now]

That was the only text he got from his older brother as he left the cafeteria towards the parking lot and to his car. There was nothing stopping him as he tore out of the parking lot and towards Austin. Something was wrong, and he knew it this morning when he woke up. Something felt off and this text just confirmed the feeling in the pit of his stomach. He rushed as fast as he could on the highway and nearly skidded into a parking spot. Putting the car in park, he quickly got out and ran into the building as fast as he could. Once he got up on his sister's floor, he saw his mother sobbing into his father's shoulder. His brother looked up from his spot on the floor, his face covered in tears. He barely recognized the tears that were streaming down his face as he looked at the room, his body consumed with anger and sorrow. No. He couldn't lose her this way. It wasn't happening. It was a nightmare. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't wake up from it. His world was underneath that white sheet, behind that hospital room door. And despite her being only yards away, he's never felt lonelier in his life.

July 18th 2010

"You sure you don't want to come to service with us tonight?" His mother stood at the door, leaning against his door frame with a worried look on her face. Alex sat on his bed, cross legged and playing with the hem of his shirt.

"Nah, Ma.. I'll be fine." He looked up at her, a smile on his lips that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'm just tired.. I'm gonna go to bed early. So I can get up and help the Dillon's with their barn."

She let out a sigh and walked into the room, wrapping the boy in her arms and gently kissing the top of his head. "Alright, baby… get some rest. We'll be at the church next door if you need anything. I love you.." With that, she left the room.

Alex laid in the bed, staring at the ceiling, as the hours passed. He was exhausted beyond belief, but every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was his sister. His heart felt empty, and no matter how much he tried, he couldn't move past that day. The world was colder and duller without his twin. They had done everything together, ever since they were little. A lump in this throat, he got out of the bed and stumbled to the bathroom. He just wanted to feel her one last time. Be by her side again. He rummaged through the medicine cabinet, pulling out the painkillers that Dr. Shelley had prescribed her for her pain. The stupid idiot who took his sister away from him. But now, they would be together again. Forever.

As he felt the darkness overcome him, he thought he could hear his mother scream and the clatter of a pill bottle on the floor.

June 15th 2020

"I think that's enough for today. You're making progress." Mallory smiled brightly as he sat the pen down on the notebook in front of him. "And that's the first step towards recovery. Is being open. I'm sure you've heard this all the time… but if you ever need anything during your stay here, don't hesitate to ask. We're only here to help you. Now, I think it's rec time. Go get some fresh air out in the yard. It'll definitely make you feel better.

Alex frowned a bit and rubbed his neck. Despite hours of talking with the man, he still felt like there was a weight on his feet, dragging his down beneath the dark cold water. Looking out the window, he saw that the rain had started, revealing a summer sky. Maybe his sister really was looking down at him, now happy he finally spoke about that bottled up emotion.

#Hansen #Self Para #Interlude #Heavy #Trigger Warning

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paralysis-comic · 5 years

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yourocsbackstory week 3: education

@yourocsbackstory || [read on wattpad]

so this ones kinda long huh. tw for ableism, self injurious behaviour, just a lot of crying

But Not Too Familiar (Baby Blues: Interlude)

September 2009

The word school has been fucking you up for a while now. Mum says that’s just how school is. Dad says she’s wrong.

He came into your horrible little room one evening and said he was very sorry for not being a good dad, that he’d promised your previous dad to do a better job, that he would show that bastard Atticus, that he’d get you through school no matter what, all of it, right up to uni. You didn’t really know what uni was.

John said school is designed to make you think you’re meant to be learning French and Geography and stuff, when they’re really sorting you into popular, unpopular or medium. The medium ones, he said, make the best adults. He said occasionally, you get these edge cases—kids who have so many friends that they can’t imagine anyone not liking them, and the ones who don’t have any so no one bothers trying to find them some—those, he said, never last. He wrote all this out on a piece of A5 paper in his own horrible little room, while writing at your mutual parents about things that nine-year-olds don’t concern themselves with.

He also told you not to bother with uni.

•

And he says it again as he pauses outside the gates.

You look around. Ysgol Blodeuwedd Tudur—or Blodeuwedd Tudor Primary School And Nursery, as it says underneath—is bigger and shinier than you imagined. John’s staring at it too. Mum sort of shepherds you both through (is it shepherding if you’re both willing to go? And if theres only two of you?). You can’t see her face from where you are, but she sounds weird, both crosser and gentler. You stop for a second and turn around. She’s got her hand on John’s shoulder and keeps glancing at the other mums.

You’re not yet sure who you’re supposed to know and who you’re not. Maybe the girls who just came out from amongst them and are hugging you. They have nice vibes, rather than the ok and oh no vibes that everyone else has. According to their book bags, they are Cerys Thomas and Louise Yang. They are decent.

The sound of tiny little footsteps brings your attention away from them. You look up to see a stocky, curly haired boy sort of skid to a halt beside you. He raises his arms to wrap them around your neck, then stops.

“Do you remember me?”

You look down. You do remember Diane. Kind of. You don’t remember his middle name, his birthday or his favourite colour, but still…

“I remember you’re my best friend.”

He goes blank for a second, then he hugs you harder then you’ve ever been hugged in your life this year.

“We missed you SO MUCH Mrs Davies was being REALLY MEAN they haven’t changed the REGISTER yet and we thought you moved SCHOOLS—“

“Son, we don’t talk about that in public. And why don’t you let go of Iffy, you’re wobbling her crutches.”

He rearranges his arms into a position more accommodating to your unipedality.

You’re having a hard time thinking; partly from the dread-induced skeletal inertia and enteral pain, partly because there are at least five conversations going on around you (four spoken, one written). John holds this morning’s piece of paper in your direction.

she thinks letting me stay over therell make her look like a bad mother

any idea why she touched me like that? almost rather her wheeling me herself

You read it a few times (sometimes his handwriting is too neat) and shrug. You can’t talk in front of all these people and, well, you can’t write in front of anyone. Before you can dwell on how you’re gonna get through Year 5 if you can’t write, he pulls you over to the patch of concrete by the main doors. Mum hurries after you. She tells him off very quietly while you steal his headphones. He says you used to do that every day before he moved to London. You’re not sure about his taste in music.

•

In Year 1, no one was sure whether you were Iphigenia St. David or Iphigenia Richard or Iphigenia Henderson, so they put you at the top of the register. In Year 5, that means you sit right by the door, on a table with Stacey Ashton, Calum Beddoes, Dai Borgstein and Tonya Bufton. It’s the only table here with 5 seats instead of 4.

And it’s right by Mrs Davies’s desk.

She’s doing the register silently, so no one has to say why Gellert and Harvey and Suzie and Hector aren’t here. Sometimes she looks up sharply at you and raises her eyebrows in a way that says you should be focusing on doing your mental maths. Occasionally she says, “Do you want anything?” in a way that says you shouldn’t be wanting anything at all, no, not you, the girl who could walk and talk and write just fine in Year 4, what makes my class any different, Gina?

But the paper in front of you is evading you right now. Actually, no, it’s not the paper, it’s the white noise of 23 nine-year-olds (and Stacey) not quite whispering, it’s Mrs Davies clickiticlackiting on word or whatever, it’s stacey asking you if you need any help in that loud, over-enunciated way that girls whose birthdays are in September have, it’s the girls on the next table gossiping with Tonya, it’s Tonya turning to look at you and looking back at them and laughing, it’s Calum asking you why you can call Dai Diane and he can’t, it’s everyone calling you Gina, it’s not remembering what your name is meant to be, it’s everything else in your head that’s not letting the mental maths in, it’s everyone telling you things that apparently happened, things that you did, horrible things, things that will keep you up at night for years, it’s Calum snapping his pencil because he knows it makes you cry, it’s the feeling like you’re falling, and you might well be, who gives a f—

It’s Mrs Davies clicking her fingers in front of your face.

Everyone’s staring at you. You don’t move. You don’t say anything.

You can’t.

“Well?”

You don’t answer. Partly because no, you’re not well, anyone can see that, but mostly because… you have no idea what she’s asked of you.

“You know what perimeter is, Gina. D’you want to tell me?”

OK, sure, yeah, you know what a perimeter is. You know how to spell it, you know how to work it out, you know the relationship between it and area (John told you), you—

Maybe you don’t know what perimeter is.

And that’s not the voice she uses with Stacey. Or Tonya. Or anyone else. That’s not even the voice she used in assembly, when all the Key Stage 1 kids were there. That’s the voice that…

Fuck.

“No. Don’t.”

You try and let the sound of your breathing take over the giggling and the eyes upon you, and it kind of works because you’re breathing so loudly. Every muscle in your body is tensed to stop you rocking back and forth.

Or worse.

“Look at me.”

Huh? No. No, you’re not doing that.

“Gina.”

And that’s not your name. You don’t have a name anymore.

Something happens right by your ear, but you can’t identify it amongst everything else. Your eyes squinch shut and for a moment you can see her leaning over you.

You go cold.

You whimper slightly, pulling away, expecting your head to hit metal but theres nothing there. No, god, don’t fall, don’t-

You’re jerked forward, upright. You open your eyes to make sure you’re definitely in the classroom. There’s a voice to your right.

“Mr Lloyd never did that.”

“Well, I’m not Mr Lloyd.”

The hand around your left bicep moves to raise your head.

“Look at me.”

Your head comes up, and you look at her.

And now you are screaming.

“No. we don’t do that.”

You wrench your head to the right to look at Diane, but you can’t look at him, so you stare at the wall like you’re looking for something very specific on the Roald Dahl poster. The wall is too white and too far away. It hurts like hell.

Diane moves somewhat into view. He’s a bit close, bless him, but the blurry shape of his face and hair are easier on your healing eye.

He looks up at Mrs Davies (still shouting, but you’re trying to block her out) and moves away with a start. You can see his expression more clearly now; he’s worried, really worried, but you can’t work out why exactly. No one else seems to be.

After a moment of dithering, he gingerly takes hold of Mrs Davies’s left hand and prises her index finger off you. Something moves in your peripheral vision and you instinctively look back at her. She snatches away her hand, gouging her fingers into your flimsy little arm, feeling the bone. The force almost launches you at Calum. She lunges at Diane with what can only be described as teacherly incredulity.

“Uh-“

That noise. It’s familiar, but you can’t place it. It reminds you of the noise your dad makes when you start crying, but scary. Like she wants to collect more tears from you, not wipe them away. Well, you’re crying now. Is that what she wants?

“Dai?”

Some of the other kids do that fake-gasp-and-real-titter that kids are wont to do when someone’s properly getting what for. A few of them gasp for real, the ones in the quagmire between friend and stranger that bullies so often occupy, the ones that have forgotten that Diane isn’t his real name. Matthew Powell says they’ll do you for saying that to a pupil. Stacey asks if you’re alright again. You certainly don’t look alright—you’re shivering all over now and you’re not sure why. Diane starts crying as well.

Mrs Davies takes her hands off you and frowns at him.

“We don’t need that from you, Dai.”

All the tension from being grasped drains out of you and you flop down onto the table. You try to convince yourself that you’re somewhere else, but you don’t have enough memories of nice places yet. You’re having the same overwhelming sadness as you did when you first got home, but you’re too tired to cry now. Diane isn’t.

You want to comfort him, but Stacey is doing that already. She doesn’t look very good at it; he’s crying in a different way and he keeps reaching out to hold your hand. Mrs Davies says not to give you any attention.

You pretend there’s no one in the room except you and him.

He says your name. Maybe he wants you to look at his face again. You try, because you want him to know you’re alright, and then maybe he’ll be alright too.

But god, you can’t. You just can’t.

He raises his hand again, and Stacey grabs it back.

“No,” she says.

You go cold again.

For fuck’s sake.

•

Mrs Davies sits down at her desk and tells everyone to be quiet and do their work and to Not Give You Any Attention. Even Stacey. Even when you’re making all this noise. And, for the first time today, you remember why you are.

And you don’t fucking like it.

Diane nudges you and gestures to his worksheet. The old John Fairfax manoeuvre.

do you want me to tell her ?

You nod. He wipes the tears of his face and puts his hand up. How does he compose himself so fast?

A few minutes later, you look out the window to the hall. You’re still crying and shivering, so Stacey tries to pull you back down. Diane and Mrs Davies are heading towards reception. A thought occurs to you. Calum grabs one of your crutches and you fall against the bookcase. Mrs Davies turns around, sees you and starts shrieking at you for some reason. You look at Diane and gesture to the Year 1 class as much as you can with no free hands. He gets it.

When Mrs Davies gets to you, she runs her hands down her face, makes a frustrated noise, and drags you out into the hall. You drop your crutches. She makes you sit down (you can’t get back up on your own), puts your worksheet in your left hand (you don’t have a thumb on that hand) and your pencil in your right hand (you’re left handed). She goes back into the classroom. She throws your crutches in your general direction. She slams the door. Fuck, it’s really gonna be like this every day, isn’t it?

You’re really crying now. Your throat has been hurting for quite a while. When you were in the classroom, it hurt to swallow, and now you can’t even feel yourself swallowing. Especially with your prosthetic tongue. and you’re tired as fuck.

You wait for Nesta to come out of Class 1, or at least for Diane to come back. Anyone. There’s a clock at the far end of the hall, but its too far away to see. Whatever. Time is a mystery to you anyway.

All this fear is making you feel like you’re about to both hurl and shit yourself—and to be honest, you wouldn’t really care if you did. You look down at yourself. At your hands. For a second, you swear you’re in hospital again. You emit a blood curdling scream and throw yourself to the side like you normally do, but instead of a mattress or a rail or thin air, there’s just floor.

You see legs.

Nesta says a long something to Diane while you continue to scream, and he starts to go inside. He pauses and turns around. Nesta takes out her notebook, scribbles some stuff down and gives it to him. Hey, you recognise that notebook. While he’s gone, you start to really miss him. You snuggle up to him when he comes back. You stay like that while Nesta goes to reception. You calm down a bit. Mrs jones comes out with her and stalks over to you, telling you to get up. She shuts up when she notices your missing leg and the bruise on your face. She says she doesn’t think you’ve got a concussion, but she’s not sure. Nesta says your dad’s coming to pick you up.

You don’t think school is meant to be like this.

#writeblr #writerblr #writing community #yourocsbackstory #actuallyautistic #paralysis tiwh #mariums

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trek-tracks · 5 years

Text

Tony-winning actress, writer, and humanitarian Phyllis Newman passed away today.

I worked - almost lived, basically - in Phyllis’ astonishing apartment in the Beresford, which shared a floor with Jerry Seinfeld’s and overlooked Central Park West, for a year in 2009-2010, doing an internship to accompany my MFA thesis at Columbia. The internship was a dream come true - they needed someone with archival experience and a passion for musical theatre to organize half a century of notes, photos, cards, and memorabilia, stuffed into every crack of the two floors. I remember essentially telling everyone else in my year to “back off” - this was mine.

Phyllis was married to the late Adolph Green, of The Revuers (with Judy Holliday) and Comden and Green, for decades. If Green sounds familiar, it’s because of the book to Singin’ in the Rain, and the lyrics/books for shows like On the Town (with its famous tune about the Bronx being up and the Battery down), Wonderful Town, The Will Rogers Follies, On the Twentieth Century, and many more. About the understudy role for Holliday in Bells are Ringing, Phyllis used to joke that it was the only time sleeping with the writer made it harder to get the part. She won the 1962 Tony for her featured actress turn in Comden and Green’s Subways Are For Sleeping as Martha Vail, with her memorable song “I Was a Shoo-In.” Apparently she was, because she beat Barbara Streisand that year.

Phyllis was a regular guest on talk shows, such as the Tonight Show (she told me she was the first woman to guest host it), and game shows like What’s My Line, due to her sparkling wit and sunny personality. She beat breast cancer and wrote a fantastic book about it, called Just in Time. She worked on all sorts of fascinating shows, including a vehicle called The Madwoman of Central Park West. Just about every star from the 1940s-1970s and beyond was her friend; they all sent cards and telegrams, and attended parties at her apartment. And it was my job to organize it all. (She was still giving those when I worked there - if I had known there was going to be a party with Alec Baldwin for The Actors Fund one day, I would have done better than wearing my casual, dusty archivist clothes to work. I think I was more presentable the day Glenn Close showed up.)

I went through hilarious cards from Stephen Sondheim (one, a Peanuts card featuring Snoopy, had “Happy Birthday” crossed out and “Fuck Off!” penciled in its place), and telegrams from Frank Sinatra, and photo after photo after photo of Carson and Comden, Bernstein and Bacall. My favourite thing was a picture of Groucho Marx, signed “To Phyllis - NOT Betty or Adolph.” My biggest shock was an original composition by Leonard Bernstein - in his own writing - possibly never copied, given as a gift to Phyllis and Adolph for their wedding, just sitting in a desk drawer. I almost had a heart attack carrying one of their original wedding photos, taken by Richard Avedon, to Kinko's to make a scan.

“There’s something about working in an apartment that’s suffused in glamour that makes even the most mundane tasks seem magical,” I wrote, back in 2009. “Knowing that probably half the stars of the past 50 years (and probably a larger percentage of theatre-makers) have partied here, worked here, generated ideas here for the classics of the stage makes every ride up in the elevator, every interaction, every rummage through dusty drawers contain some measure of awe…The apartment preserves a time when celebrity had that mid-century golden sheen of class. Its drawers are filled with original memorabilia of the coolest things imaginable, that its occupants haven’t seen in decades.”

“There’s a wonderful telegram, for the opening of Subways Are For Sleeping, or maybe Moonbirds, where a young Stephen Sondheim tells Phyllis that he’s more excited for her than she is. In a way, that’s what I’m doing - going through this world of my dreams that will never exist again; being more excited for Phyllis than she is, because she’s lived it. Though she is clearly super excited when I find things like photos from a forty-year-old production she hasn’t seen since they were taken, or her birth announcement (I love talking with her), she is still busy all the time - the Tony people call, or she’s organizing another evening of exciting benefit performances to fund health care for uninsured female artists. I am making files of Important Things, cataloging lives of wonder, lives more exciting that mine will ever be, with datebooks filled with soirees and names and numbers of modern gods…Maybe the golden veneer that shimmers all around this place will rub off on me one day. It could happen.”

I created file after file, and enormous finding guides of these treasure troves. She once told me that I was more than earning any of the credits Columbia was giving me for the internship. I definitely saw it the other way around - I was getting more out of my time spent in her world than any sort of school credit or monetary remuneration could possibly encompass. I was finding material for the publication of The Comden and Green Songbook. I was scanning photos and sending them to James Lapine for Sondheim on Sondheim, and finding the very best headshots to be approved by her to accompany press releases. I was helping her with her new websites, and her guest-blogging for Playbill, in which she was very kind to me:

“I have never thrown away anything in my entire life. Have you?” she wrote.

“I mean nothing….menus, invitations, notes, tickets, programs, (PLAYBILLS, of course). Clippings, diaries, notebooks, photos by the thousands, lists and more lists, clothes I’ll fit back into when I lose 542 pounds, hats, scarves, multi-colored boas, crayolas, old arrangements from nightclub days….I just stuffed everything into any available opening. But into this madness came a skilled archivist who is changing my life. She comes in four days a week. She has organized and unearthed amid the boas and rhinestones, some pretty interesting memorabilia of two lives whose passion was every aspect of The Arts.”

I was thrilled when she won the inaugural humanitarian Tony, the Isabelle Stevenson Award, for her work with the Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative (or PNWHI - Pin-Wee, she'd say), which sought to provide funds for female actresses and artists who did not have health coverage, due to the precarious nature of the industry. I was enraged when her award was not shown on the Tony broadcast - what, after all, was more important than this?

Most of all, I got to spend time with the woman herself - never as much as I wanted, as her health was not ideal, but she was still a powerhouse. She was brilliant and self-deprecating at the same time. She would pin you with the sharpest look and say something wickedly funny. One day, for the life of me, I had no idea who some person in a picture was (I think it wound up being Andre Gregory, but I hadn’t seen My Dinner With Andre), and she didn’t either. “Sidney will know,” she said. “Oh?” I responded, uncomprehendingly. “I’ll call him, you describe it…Hi, Sidney,” she said, and suddenly, as she explained our predicament and handed the phone to me, I realized that I was on the phone with legendary director Sidney Lumet, a long-time family friend who lived just upstairs, with absolutely no preparation as to how to handle it. I think Phyllis found my reaction very funny; I just lived through it. “Sidney” died in 2011.

She told me to speak up for what I believed in, and to continue to write and follow my passions. She was incredibly supportive of female artists. I hope what I do today continues to honour her.

One day, a life-sized leg made of chocolate, saying “break a leg!” to celebrate her Isabelle Stevenson Tony win, appeared at the apartment. I thought it was a piece of statuary until it started to melt in the sun, and until a fellow staffer in the kitchen took a cleaver to it and handed me the foot to take home.

Never say that Phyllis didn’t let me get a foot in the door.

Working for Phyllis was like a dream. She was a legend, not only for her many, many amazing achievements, but for the era she represented. She was one of the last from that era, having been so young when she married Adolph - whom she always spoke about with so much love it was physically palpable. I was absolutely blessed to spend a moment in time - just in time - with her, and I’m so sorry that she’s gone. She changed my life a lot, and I can only hope that I helped her life a little.

Thank you, Phyllis. Rest in Peace.

#my life #not trek #phyllis newman #i'm sorry you're gone #most of these names will be lost on the truly young people of tumblr

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cultofthepigeon · 5 years

Text

Venom Reading Order Part 9.

This is the point where we start transitioning from Civil War Era to the Skrull Invasion Era because literally the only thing that will take the audiences mind off of the past several years of straight Pro-Dictatorship talk is a literal alien invasion. And surprise surprise, all this registration shit eventually leads to what is know as the Dark Reign Era. Wonder fuckin why.

This is all big cluster fuck of borderline political intrigue with some guy and an alien symbiote sometimes in the background. Like 5 different events going on that can only be put in a passably cohesive order and I advise not looking at the publication dates for your sanity.

And It all takes a back seat to The Norman Osborn Show at this point but hey, at least THAT’S a good

Part 9: SO many FUCKING tie ins oh my fucking god yall better acknowledge the work I put into this shit to make it make chronological sense jesus CHRIST

Thunderbolts: Reason in Madness (August, 2008) McVenom. The mac/osborn comedy duo routine continues to please and symb is getting HANGRY . MY baby penance is talking more now oh gosh and mac gargan venom punches a nazi and I know I shouldn't but god DAMN i love this villain team up

Moonknight #22 (September, 2008) McVenom. Actually my intro to Moonknight and I will say I’m intrigued

Moonknight #23 (October, 2008) McVenom. Wait no oh no I’m invested in Moonknight and his friend now wait

Moonknight #24 (November, 2008) McVenom get’s their ass beat by Moonknight

Moonknight #25 (December, 2009) McVenom. Moonknight fakes his death and boy I feel like I walked in on this comic at the wrong time.

Venom: Dark Origins #1 (August, 2008) Eddie Brock. This entire mini is an assault on the eyes and the art of storytelling and completely shits all over Eddie Brock’s character and disrespects Anne Weying something fierce. But like a scavenger amongst the bones I have found a few things of worth. It does give us at the very least more of Eddie’s sister and a reason to argue that Eddie Brock didn’t grow up evil wealthy.

Venom: Dark Origins #2- (September, 2008) Eddie Brock. I love the idea of Eddie struggling as a journalist that’s uh.....that’s about all the good I’ve got to say about this.

Venom: Dark Origins #3 (October, 2008) Eddie Brock. Some good sad Eddie content and good symbiote suit making. Even an interesting bonding but.....But yeah that’s about it.

Venom: Dark Origins #4 (November, 2008) Venom. Suddenly the art is a little more bareable, the characterization closer to home, not to mention dunking on MJ and Spiderman and the “Take Me” scene.

Venom: Dark Origins #5 - (December, 2008) Venom. Hey remember that brain cancer thing??? Whatever happened to that???? Are you gonna mention it or??? No?? Just the symbiote liking peter more because idk if the writer knows Venom as well as he maybe should.

Amazing Spider-man #568 (August, 2008)- Eddie Brock doesn’t have cancer any more so …I mean i guess that’s good. He’s still angry and impulsive tho….interesting

Amazing Spider-man #569- (August, 2008) The introduction of Anti-Venom. Ever see something that’s so fucking cool that even tho it’s gonna fucking hurt its kinda gonna be worth it?

Amazing Spider-man #570 (September, 2008) McVenom vs Anti-Venom. Weird Eddie is still full of anger and revenge and self-righteousness even without the symbiote or brain tumor....how odd...it’s almost as....those are flaws inherent to him as a character

Amazing Spider-man #571 (September, 2008) McVenom vs Venom. I think it says a lot about Anti-Venom that he’s the only one who can share the page time with the Osborn Days of Our Lives drama and come out even, if not on top.

Amazing Spider-man #572 (September, 2008) McVenom and Anti-Venom and everything being fucking cool and fun and interesting again god bless

Amazing Spider-man #573 (October, 2008) McVenom and Anti-Venom. Oh BOY this HURTS

Amazing Spider-man #574 (October, 2008) This still counts as military propaganda even if it says Flash has NO dick game. Also what an oddly concise summary of Flash’s character arc, history, and growth over the past several decades I wonder why it’s here.

Thunderbolts #122 (July, 2008) McVenom for a few pages I guess. Norman being Norman and it’ awful and great.

Secret Invasion #3 (June, 2008) McVenom for one page again but like, good for understanding wtf the skrull war is.

Secret Invasion #6 (September, 2008) McVenom is on a page I think???? More Skull BULLSHIT

Secret Invasion #7 (October, 2008) McVenom in a few panels. This whole everyone teams up to fight a bigger threat thing would be way more enjoyable if half of them weren’t now Confirmed Fascists. Idk read #8 to complete the whole....whatever this is there’ a LOT going on that I’m pretty sure was jut made up on the fly

Thunderbolts #123 (August, 2008) McVenom. Now things ARE going downhill for some characters I’ve become invested in BUT i think it means they’ll be free of the government soon so

Thunderbolts #124 (September, 2008) McVenom doing....ngl what I would do in this scenario.

Thunderbolts #125 (October, 2008) McVenom is in the background I guess I really am just hanging on to this story for Norman “Baddest Bitch” Osborn”

Thunderbolts #126 (November, 2008) McVenom is in a panel I think?? Things are going South really fast for a lot of characters I like but hey at least they wont be conscripted to Norm Osborn’s...whatever the hell is about to happen. Also I officially decide to hate Bullseye.

Thunderbolts #127 (December, 2008) McVenom. Songbird steals the show and can I say underutilized of goo aside this entire arc was super solid???

Thunderbolts #128 (January, 2009) No Venom just.....just the absolute finesse Ocean’s 11 bullshit happening here....

Thunderbolts #129 (February, 2009) No Venom but please read to watch Norman doing the absolute MOST

New Avengers #48 (December, 2008) McVenom in: Baby Squad!

New Avengers #49 (January, 2009) McVenom in: Bastard Squad!

Dark Avengers #1 (February, 2009) McVenom. Intro to THE one and only Victoria Hand. This whole plot concept is so silly and dark at the same time it’s so FUN. And I’m pretty sure this counts as some sort of psychological torture for both Mac and Symb

New Avengers #50 (February 2009) McVenom cameo background appearance. Everyone mad they ain’t on the Thot Squad anymore

Thor #600 (February, 2009) McVenom. Small appearance. Cameo but good for knowing wtf Loki is doing on Earth

Dark Avengers #2 (February, 2009) McVenom. I think the first???? Canonical appearance of Dragon Symb

Dark Avengers #3 (March, 2009) McVenom in: Norman You Bitch

Dark Avengers #4 (April, 2009) McVenom small part. Still trying their best but boy are they small potatoes rn.

Wolverine Origins #34 (March, 2009) McVenom there in the background. Again. I guess Daken took a brief break to get more claws using an accursed sword covered in a concentrated drop of blood filled with his father’s hate???

Incredible Hercules #128 (April, 2009) McVenom. It’s a pretty small part but honestly it has the best McVenom panel to date so Iove it.

All-New Savage She-Hulk #1 (April, 2009) McVenom in one panel. Can you believe this was written and drawn by men only?

All-New Savage She-Hulk #2 (May, 2009) McVenom again in the background. I think any lady hulks have just been permanently ruined from me ever getting interested in them.

All-New Savage She-Hulk #3 (June, 2009) McVenom. Potential for interesting world building sidelined for a bad understanding of what ovulation does to women

All-New Savage She-Hulk #4 (July, 2009) McVenom in the back yet again. This issue only saved by Osborn and Boadicea the silly devoted ai unicorn.

Dark Reign: Fantastic 4 #3 (May, 2009) McVEnom cameo at the end but idk if it makes up for having to deal with this awful family and these shitty fuckin kids

Dark Reign: Fantastic 4 #4 (June, 2009) Norman if you do not beat these children

Dark Reign: Fantastic 4 #5 (July, 2009) McVenom small part and Reed continues to be a bastard while I’m pretty sure his kid is going to grow up to be a school shooter awesome

Free Comic Book Day (May, 2009) McVenom in a temp team up.

Amazing Spider-man Extra #3 (May, 2009) There’s no subtle way to slip this in here so…here it is.

Amazing Spider-man #595 (May, 2009) No McVenom. I know I’ve been soiling my jorts over Norman Osborn this past couple runs and I do love the character but that doesn’t interrupt my one true desire for the Osborn Line: Please Someone Help Harry

Amazing Spider-man #596 (June, 2009) McVenom in this issue......doing......their best. Bu also being the worst. Harry Osborn deserves more.

Amazing Spider-man #597 (June, 2009) McVenom kind of. Listen this whole arc is going to end up with Harry’s character getting mildly assassinated and several interesting ideas and avenues for story being tossed out the window so just appreciate this all while you can

Amazing Spider-man #598 (June, 2009) No McVenom but listen the utter d r a m a. It’s like 50 Thanksgiving dinners all at once. Between the possible fetish art to the bi spider-man jumping out to the Jerry Springer Level family dynamic like I know there’s no Venom but yall TREAT yourself.

Amazing Spider-man #599 (July, 2009) Still no McVenom but bruh like....bruh......Harry fucking Osborn.

Dark Reign: Sinister Spider-man #1 (June, 2009) McVenom. “Captain Wolfenstein’s furry suit is gonna get stuck in my teeth”

Dark Reign: Sinister Spider-man #2 (July, 2009) This shit is just Fear and Loathing gonzo bonkers McVenom and I’m upset that we haven’t gotten to get it this entire time. It’s literally just tits and booze 24/7 for this guy who was already crazy and has a crazy alien attached to him and the fucking REDEEMER SQUAD

Dark Reign: Sinister Spider-man #3 (August, 2009) McVenom. IDK where the fUCK the idea Eddie Brock was the Crazy Venom came from because Mac is out here being a certifiable fucking LOON and its GREAT

Dark Reign: Sinister Spider-man #4 (September, 2009) McVenom. I’ve been informed this is very ooc for Mac Gargan which does suck. But I LEGITIMATELY think this is just like, the delusion retelling of events from Mac perspective jesus fuckign christ

Amazing Spider-man Family #8 (July, 2009) McVenom being a DICK

Dark Wolverine #75 (June, 2009) McVenom. Man SOMEONE is looking to outbid spider-man in the homophobic jokes huh

Dark Wolverine #76 (July, 2009) DAKEN’S BI I WENT TO LOOK OUT OF CURIOSITY ABOUT ALL THE GAY JOKES AND FUCK ME I GUESS I STAN NOW

Dark wolverine #77 (August, 2009) McVenom being adorably awkward and I can’t tell if Daken’s hitting on them or not and now I’m wondering if it’d even work. Daken you still count as a rapist I’m pretty sure but damn it I sorta like you a bit and you’re permanently in my good books for fucking with Bullseye.

Ms. Marvel #40 (June, 2009) McVenom in then ackgound. Weird art and babies and glowing women. But more on Moonstone for once!

Ms. Marvel #43 (August, 2009) McVenom in the back ground again. More Lily plot too!

Ms. Marvel #44 (August, 2009) McVenom small part. And actually a pretty stupid ending ngl because Moonstone is great as villain.

Dark Avenges #5 (June, 2009) McVenom in the background while the political drama plays out in the front.

Dark Avengers #6 (June, 2009) McVenom gets some snackies. Normon Osborn is stressed. Moonstone is all right but ain’t got near enough juice to be talking to my girl Victoria like this.

Dark Avengers #7 (July, 2009) McVenom bg. God now all this mutant shit I guess?????

Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-men: Utopia #1 (June, 2009) McVenom in a few panels and a hole lot going on with mutants???? Making their own country I think???? This doesn’t sit right with me.

Dark Avengers #8 (August, 2009) McVenom in bg. I just.....do not care about any mutants aside from that fuckboy Daken.

Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Exodus #1 (September, 2009) McVenom. Well....that was all pointless.

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#venom #venom comics reading order #venom comics #part 9

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anth-seeing2019 · 5 years

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Looking Prohibition: The homeless in Clifton

Alexi Frick

Living in Clifton for the last three years has made me an almost lax observer of the homeless and those less-fortunate who inhabit the area. I’ve always found it very interesting to see how people interact around the homeless and what they do when they’re approached by someone they probably don’t want to be around. Especially when you’re dealing with parents from the suburbs or affluent kids who really have never been around these issues and are experiencing a sort of culture shock. I always hear that you should just ignore them, not look at them, pretend they’re not there, all of the above. While this isn’t an outright written rule in a constitution or anything, it is still advice a lot of parents probably give their kids right before they move to an urban area. At least my parents did, and I’m sure a lot of other parents in the predominantly white, middle-class town where I grew up did as well. This looking prohibition, of acting like another human being doesn’t exist simply because they’re begging you for money, is something I find very interesting and very poignant in a country where the gaps between classes just keep growing and growing.

To start my experiment, I tried to find a place where there is usually a high volume of people and also a place where I’ve had several encounters with the homeless. The first place that came to mind was the Clifton Krogers. Well, the parking lot to be exact. There’s usually three or four people who I regularly see begging customers who are walking to their cars. Today there was an older African-American lady with pretty beat up clothing who was constantly scratching her neck and arms. She noticed me and came up to my window, and when I told her I only carried a card on me and apologized, she said “God bless” and politely left me alone. I witnessed a lot of college-aged kids walking by her and I’d say the majority of them outright ignored her and acted like she wasn’t even there. I noticed this more with straight couples and groups of men. People who were alone walking into Kroger’s interacted with her more, but not by a large margin.

I talked to one of the security guards always standing outside of the Krogers about the regulars he sees in the parking lot. He said that, for the most part, there’s never really issues with them. “I really can’t do anything unless one physically starts to assault someone. But I haven’t seen that happen yet. For the most part they’re ignored until they go away.”

One of the things that I think is interesting about this space is that there are more factors than one going into these panhandling interactions. The Kroger customers just spent money on groceries, they want to get them in their car and get them home, they don’t want to hang out in a Kroger’s parking lot. So that itself could factor into the decisions they make when interacting with the homeless. For the most part, they don’t feel threatened as well. The customers know that there are security guards, cameras, and cops always posted in the parking lot. So I’m sure people feel a little more at ease when dealing with a beggar in a very public space like this. I talked to a man who was unloading his groceries in the car next to mine pretty briefly, and found out exactly that.

“Yeah, I mean I never really think they’re gonna pull anything or threaten me. But there is always that fear, because you never really know. But yeah, there’s literally a cop car parked 20 feet away so I guess I feel like I can just ignore people like her and not really be afraid they’ll try to rob me or something.”

After about ten minutes another car pulled up next to mine, so I planned to ask whoever came out how they felt about panhandlers in this parking lot. This time it was two girls, around my age.

“Honestly they don’t bother me, I’m pretty used to them in Clifton and kind of just ignore them. Like I stopped giving them money, but every now and then I’ll give them a dollar or something. This lady I’ve seen here like three or four times, she’s always around. I don’t really like looking at them, because I am a girl so I kind of have to worry about if a male takes my gaze the wrong way or something. But this lady is pretty nice, I feel safer interacting with her.”

Her friend spoke out and said something pretty interesting.

“Yeah, she’ll actually remember who she asks and if she asks you for money when you’re going into the store, she’ll remember you when you walk out and won’t ask you again. I just feel like you never see homeless people doing that.”

While a lot of times it was hard to hear what people would say to her, since I didn’t want to just follow her around the parking lot, I still heard some things here and there. A few “go aways” were probably the rudest remarks I heard, I never witnessed a really harsh response or physical threat or anything like that. In terms of power relationships, I think in a lot of these cases the homeless person, or beggar actually has more power than the person they’re interacting with. If something or someone is making you avert your eyes, or completely ignore something that’s a few feet away from you, then that thing has the power in that situation. While the beggar may not have money, and the other party does, the beggar is still the one in control of a social situation regardless of whether they even know it. I noticed a lot of people going out of their way to avoid the woman I was observing, even if it meant a longer walk to their car. That right there is power over other people.

Tying this back to Garland-Thomson is interesting, because I think she would be more interested in the lack of staring going on in situations like this. She states that staring is a form of communication, and that when we stare at somebody we are sending them a message. And while people do stare at the homeless, they do it more from a distance, where they won’t be bothered. When the homeless person is actively interacting with a person, that person puts up blinders and stare at anything but the beggar in front of them. In Chapter Four, Garland-Thomson says that it isn’t civil to “stare at those beneath us”. While I do think this rule has something to do with people outright ignoring the homeless, I think the annoyance of the situation, of interacting with a panhandler, has more to do with it. It’s not something you want to deal with when you’re just going about your day. I asked my roommate how he feels when he’s going around Clifton and ends up in a situation like this, and had a pretty casual conversation with our friends about it.

“It’s just annoying, I really don’t like to be an asshole but I also can’t just give every person a dollar. I don’t like to think about those people’s situations, honestly. It just makes me feel guilty and like I should be helping them.” One of my friends chimed in that he likes to observe the homeless, kind of just for fun.

“Just like, when I’m in my car or across the street and know they can’t talk to me, I’ll look at them and try to figure out what their whole deal is. Like how they got there. I dunno, I don’t really think about the staring part, but I guess that could come across as rude.”

I asked them what he thinks about when he stares at them.

“Like I said, I like to think about how they go to that position. A lot of the times I assume they’re, y’know, on crack or something. Like I know not all of them are, but like a lot of the times I really think they’re either boozing a lot or just high off some shit.”

This kind of opinion relates back to Segal’s visual typification. While my friend wasn’t assuming that all Jews have curly hair or a stereotype like that, he was assuming that most of the homeless people he sees are high off of some substance or are just going to use the panhandling money to buy alcohol.

“…we must recognize that all of our sensory typifications are, in common, social constructions, and that their relative reliability must be understood by examining them as social constructions.” (Segal, pg. 238)

This Segal quote really sums up the bias that all panhandlers are high and just want money for drugs or alcohol. That opinion, shared by one of my friends, is a social construction that modern society would have us believe. I think it’s a lot easier to tell yourself that drugs and alcohol did that to someone instead of life, and the world itself. Because then that barrier between you and them gets a little weaker, when you realize that maybe that could be you. So I think people like to ignore that idea and assume that they’re just cracked out instead. I think, when it comes down to, people have their own reasons for interacting or no interacting with panhandlers and the homeless. A lot of people are told by society growing up that these people aren’t “regular” and that you should just ignore them. But in a very unstable economy, and in a country that has just begun to pull itself out of a financial crisis, I think homelessness and beggars are becoming a much more normalized part of society. Or, at least they should be. References: Thompson, Rosemarie Garland. Staring: How We Look. Oxford University Press, 2009.

Segal, Daniel A. Can You Tell A Jew When You See One?; Spring 1999; 48

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themerrymutants · 6 years

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Long ass “what if Aragorn and crew were hipsters” modern au headcanons

@loyalservants - since you’d asked to see :)

Under a cut because there’s.. a lot. Also there’s a bit of canon breaking here but what’s a good au without a bit of canon breaking?

Elrond works as head doctor at the local trauma clinic. Having been alive as long as he has he's amassed quite a fortune which he uses to cover the cost of medical care for those who can't afford it himself.

He returned to Middle Earth when word reached him that Aragorn had passed on but his daughter hadn’t. It killed him to leave his wife a second time but, not knowing the fate of his sons, he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her alone so he pleaded to be allowed to go back and join her and was eventually granted permission on the condition that if he or any others who inevitably follow suit do they will never be able to return.

Celebrían eventually rejoins her husband and children on December 24th 2008 (modern calendar). In March of 2009 she contacted her parents, with a bit of help from her children, via text pretending to be Arwen. She wasn’t even able to get a simple “hello” out before she was pulled into a tear filled bear hug

Galadriel is a self defense course instructor at the Y and a very active environmental activist and human rights activist because for the love of Eru she’s way too old for your shenanigans humanity and someone has to fix it. humans are cute but by the valar are they dumb. Galadriel is still very much someone nobody wants to f*ck with and those stupid enough to still try anyway end up regretting it dearly. Rule #1 of telepaths: don’t piss off a telepath.

Her husband is a historian and has long since worked with his colleagues to help preserve Elven heritage sites.

Legolas looks wise looks like what would happen if you shoved him and Skrillex in a blender and put it on “puree” and already has a degree as a veterinarian (specializing in exotics) and is a biology and environmental studies dual major.

Aragorn is a history major and is starting to get the memories of his past life back though he keeps this quiet because he rather enjoys his classes.

Gimli is dual majoring engineering and economics, Pippin and Merry are general studies majors and honestly have no idea what they’re doing half the time but hey at least they’re having fun doing it!

Arwyn, as she spells it in modern day to try and stay lower key, works at a tattoo parlor and has a total Kat Von D look going on which drives her dad up the wall.

Sam and Frodo are ex marines that were on the same squad (only survivors after an IED went off) they are roomies they were honorably discharged and earned a purple heart. Sam is blind in his left eye and Frodo was paralyzed from the waist down both suffer from PTSD. They've got two labs named Samson and Delilah who think they are lap dogs. Samson is a service dog washout (he was supposed to be Sam's dog but he just didn't have the right drive for it) and Delilah is Frodo's service dog. Currently Sam is looking for new candidates. In this AU Frodo died at mount doom so I can have him reincarnate with Sam since there was no way in hell Frodo would come back to middle earth after the sh*t he went through.

Legolas has a blind albino reticulated python named Lucy who was a rescue from a mass breeder. She's a bit off in more ways than one but is as sweet a noodle as possible Legolas often takes in special needs herps that his rescue can't home for various reasons

Gandalf is the history professor and has become resigned to the fact that humans are dumb af and kind of need perpetual babysitting (races and magic and shit have remained unchanged just because it's more fun that way)

Thranduil is tough as nails and gives 0 fucks. if something needs done to keep those in his territory safe he will do it regardless of legality Cops don't bother coming because it's a cesspool and they've got less taxing things to do He's kind of a mob boss archetype but good and does good well except when he kicks some faces in but they always deserve it. He’s kind of the head of his own lil section of an as of yet unnamed city. He's not like crime or mob boss so much as "police don't do sh*t so we keep the peace instead". Police are happy to do so because the area is basically Gotham crime wise and nobody wants to touch it with a 40 ft pole I love the idea that Thranduil ended up blinded after his run in with Smaug he ended up staying in middle earth the entire time god bless his poor soul. In modern era he ran into a gangster with a fondness for flame throwers and got toasty again. Received extensive burns but survived because 1 Thranduil, and 2 like hell he was gonna die now when sh!t still needs to be kept in order.

Elves did sail to the west but it was less going back home and more "FUCK THIS SHIT I'M OUT" Eventually they come back and first land in ireland becoming the basis of the Tuatha Dé Danann Because I will die on the hill that elves are somehow involved with celtic mythology in the universe of LOTR and yes I know it's not earth but come on The geography actually kind of matches ...no I did not have an embarassing phase where I was way too obsessed with LOTR and calculated this stuff for funsies

I'm also super fond for immortals watching throughout history and just going "why did I do this again?" Also Elrond getting even more done with humanity gives me life

Merry is addicted to idle games and half the storage space on his phone is filled with them.

Pippin has won a few Pokemon tournaments and even got a scholarship from one of them. He enjoys building teams from "useless" Pokemon and wiping the floor with them. His favorite pokemon to use is Pachirisu because no one expects to have their ass handed to them by a pika clone.

In this AU Aragorn is reincarnated over and over and over again and Arwen somehow manages to find him each time. Sometimes they’re lovers other times they’re just friends and every once in a while she’ll only manage to briefly brush past him before he’s gone again. Her father tried to convince her to go be with her mother but she found that even the short amount of time she got to spend with her love each time was worth the sorrow of losing him again, and again, and again.

Elrond and Celebrían renewed their vows in 2015 after learning of the practice and finding it fitting. Their first dance was to Like I’m Gonna Lose You

#ooc #lord of the rings #ngl i was tempted to make this a fic or an au blog

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