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#i’m literally talking to her on discord right now but ITS NOT THE SAME. ITS NOT THE SAME!!!!!!!
sunriseverse · 1 year
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THEY KILLED HER.
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fruity-phrog · 2 years
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Dead End Paranormal Park shit I need to talk about and I feel bad for my discord server so:
I was expecting a Barney/Logs kiss to be monumental like the first Lumity or Catradora kiss, or at least something like Troyson or Bubbline. But NOOO, I just get SLAPPED IN THE FACE with it right at the beginning of the first episode.
And on the subject, I distinctly remember thinking “I wonder if they’ll have Barney tell Logs he loves them or smth” as I clicked on the second episode. I WAS NOT PREPARED.
Logs is a non-binary gay person. Don’t even fight me on this I’m right.
I was. So. Fucking. Excited. Watching Norma realize her crush on Badyah. It was literally exactly how I realized my crush on my friend and I was so excited to have those two canon.
I was fucking wrong.
Barney talking about transphobia?! Barney talking about people asking about his binder?! THIS SHOW FUCKIN RULES.
Again, I was very wrong about Badyah and Norma.
Badyah rejecting Norma hurt. So fucking much. The rawness of it all just stung so much.
BUT. I HAVE NEVER HEARD ANYONE SAY THE WORDS “I’m straight” IN A KIDS’ CARTOON. It was astronomical. In shows nowadays, queer rep is so far and few between you don’t have any characters to get rejected. So to see Badyah let down Norma as softly as she did, explaining she’s straight then immediately going into a mini sexuality crisis was amazing. Norma’s tears though. 
Gonna be honest, was worried about the Josh thing for a minute.
Honestly, I wouldn’t even mind Norma x Zagan. I mean, Zagan’s canonically queer, and I can get behind a good height-difference ship. Also, I love the dynamic of “Morally grey but with a heart of gold x literal demon” Buuuuut Zagan being like 1600 comes with its Twilightes-esque issues.
Not Temeluchus and Pugsely acting like exes that still love each other lmao
Norma regretting everything when her connection to Badyah was lost just hit me in the worst way. The exact same thing happened to me about a year ago - I had a straight crush who was also my best friend, I told her I liked her and we...drifted apart. Everything about Norma's regret from the whole thing is so perfectly written, from her staring at photos of her and Badyah to insisting she's over the crush to being so incredibly excited when she thinks Badyah has come round to her house. I've never been able to relate to a character this much before, and adding on to the fact that Norma has social anxiety and can fixate on one thing until it becomes her entire personality...it just hit me so hard.
Am I still allowed to ship Norma and Badyah? They just meant so much to me before that episode. Is it problematic now? Coz it’s either that or aroace hetero-leaning Badyah. 
That whole episode though
The use of the word bi? An entire conversation about how hard it is to come out? The use of the word gay? Norma literally chanting “bi bi bi” like NSWNC?! Screaming, crying.
No, Pauline’s right, Norma’s mum has the best legs.
The coming out scene...shoot me now.
EVEN THE MUM SHIPPED BADYAH AND NORMA-
JULES USING THEY/THEM PRONOUNS. AND SAYING “I use they/them pronouns”. THE GAY IS REAL AND IT IS COMING FOR US.
Not Barney being saved by the power of gay 
I called Courtney being an angel from early s1. Suck it.
THE WATCHER THING I DID NOT CALL.
But we all knew Fingers had issues. I mean seriously. The dude’s got slay though.
Last thing - Gord means the absolute world to me.
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rmstitanics · 2 months
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List 5 topics you could talk about for an hour without preparing any material.
With Malice Toward None: a Musical of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. I’ve been developing this musical since summer 2020. With Malice Toward None focuses on exploring the mental health struggles that Lincoln experienced during his presidency. The musical is narrated by Robert Todd Lincoln, who recalls the storyline’s events with complete omniscience while at the 1922 Lincoln Memorial dedication. Relevant themes for the show include mental health, public history, teams that become brotherhoods, compassion, the stages of grief, leadership, and a bunch of other concepts that I’ll probably end up yapping about on here at some point. Orchestrally, the show can be described as “if Les Misérables, Hello Dolly, and Evita decided to have a threesome in my brain”.
all of my original characters. seriously. I have SO MANY OF THEM that I’ve developed over the years, mostly for historical fiction. 😭 the ones that are living rent free in my head the most right now are Anastasia Andrews-Ismay (the human personification of the Titanic), Lieutenant General Ethan Clay, and Dr. Constance Pierpont Morgan. Honorable mention goes to my Star Wars OC Shi’al Valorum 💅 if any of these muses seem familiar to you then we’ve probably either been in a discord server together or you’ve somehow stumbled across one of my roleplay blogs.
the rms titanic. literally EVERYTHING about this ship and her sinking is my Roman Empire. I’m particularly fond of yapping about Captain Smith, Thomas Andrews, Wallace Hartley, William Pirrie, J.P. Morgan, or any of the officers — but if you get me talking about the vilification of Bruce Ismay by the sensationalist yellow press in the aftermath of the sinking, then I WILL NEVER SHUT UP.
star wars. my first exposure to the Star Wars franchise was when I was a sophomore in high school and I got to see a screening of A New Hope where the soundtrack was played by a live orchestra. suffice to say, this altered my brain chemistry and I’ve never been the same since. I’m a Prequels girlie and Jedi apologist to my CORE; my favorite characters are probably Yoda, Dooku, Mace Windu, and Bail Organa.
film and tv soundtracks. …the fact that I once did a TWENTY FIVE MINUTE LONG presentation on the film score for Titanic (1997) should tell you everything that you need to know about this silly fixation of mine.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: ghost hunting, tarot cards, classical music, Taylor Swift, creative liberties taken by Lin Manuel Miranda for Hamilton, historical fiction as a genre in an era where media literacy is on the decline, Antebellum America, the Great Triumvirate (Henry Clay, John Calhoun, Daniel Webster), the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, and public history.
TAGGED BY no one. I stole it from the for you tab LOL
TAGGING: @viellohi, @the-rmstitanic, @man-i-dunno, @allysah, @charmwasjess, @quicksiluers, @aceofthyme, @tipsywench, @macaron-n-cheese, @meerawrites, @elisabeth515, @its-rmstitanic, @mattaytchtaylor, @tommy-288, @chamberlainswifey, AND YOU.
* make a separate post. do not reblog.
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docholligay · 5 months
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Episode 2.1: Lottie
Hello! This is about up to Season 2, Episode 1 of Yellowjackets, and ONLY that of Yellowjackets. I have not seen beyond this spot, at all, and know NOTHING about this show. Please do not spoil it for me.  Things that are spoilery in nature, for me, include: saying things like  “Just wait!!” confirming or denying anything I put forward, outside information about the cast interviews or creator statements, leading questions like “Do you think “blank moment” means anything?” etc. Remember  that Y’ALL HAVE SEEN THE SHOW AND I HAVE NOT. This informs the way you  talk about things relating to the show. Just be really careful is all  I’m asking. Also: If there is LITERALLY any stance I  could take on this show or character that would make you upset, please  just fucking block the tag
If you WOULD like to discuss the show and my takes on it, the Discord is right here! I don’t go there, so it’s a great place to get every emotion out.
Please thank @sailorsunspot and @moonlight-frittata for backing this odd way of doing a liveblog, and remember my tip jar is always open
Here’s a non-helpful, non-analytical observation: I do not like Lottie. She’s a grifter who believes her own grift, and while I suppose that should give her some slack with me, all it does is make me think of a Charismatic Christian preacher. Because that’s what she is! I’m using this in the theological sense, not in a “Christian with an inspirational leadership style” sense. And I’m giving her all the good faith i would someone controlling what the group does and says under the banner of Heaven. 
ANYWAY LOTTIE’S RUNNING A CULT I GUESS. Again, much like Shauna eating Jackie’s ear, this is not something that shocks me all that much. Lottie believes she is God’s favorite, and she sort of is, because she is willing to give the wilderness what it wants. I really, really, really hope they have a good answer for why the wilderness let them go, because if they don’t, having established SO SO HARD that it is nature, it is this place, that’s not letting them go (physically. They never leave mentally. This is why Lottie is up to the same damn shit) there has to be a realy fucking good reason it relents. And one of the ideas I floated only to myself was that Lottie was going to destroy herself to free them, befcause whatever this thing is has such a hold on her. Clearly this is incorrect, which I’m not mad about, I just have a concern about this plot point. 
I’m fascinated by the the way Lottie uses basic therapeutic techniques to be made out to be this sort of godlike entity. I’m not being a hater! I think if no one has ever considered the healing power of taking a fucking breath, it can be that way. Congratulations, your time in therapy was helpful. 
Also I disagree so so much about there not being false hope. I also want Lottie to say a lot fucking less. I CANNOT BELIEVE I AM NAT BUT HERE WE ARE. (also: I have a message for you from Travis. Master manipulation. Is it true? Doesn’t actually matter) 
And, like being in a religious cult, no one can say anything against her in the wild. Lottie is their leader now, they abandoned to the cold, pretty literally, the leader who worked in the 90s in teen New Jersey for the mystic, and what does that say about the rationality of people? I mean, Taissa thinks Lottie is out of her fucking mind and is the only one brave enough to say so, but its pointing out the backside of, ‘We all have to stick together”. Which is that we all have to stick together. If you get too proud, you’ll die. 
Being in the cabin right now is basically being in fucking Puritan Massachusetts in the winter. Maybe less survivable. HOPE YOU’RE ON BOARD WITH ALL THIS WEIRD GOD SHIT. 
Actually, going back to both my “I expected Lottie to sacrifice herself to save everyone” and also “The idea of trauma as an anointment,” so, Lottie has that scar on her forehead from the crash, and the look of it, the style of it, is very much in keeping with a traditional anointment with oil, in a number of religious communities. So by the crash itself, Lottie was chosen. Did the wilderness maybe even bring the plane down? She has been chosen by God, and she communicates with God, and God communicates with her. She is visibility the anointed one. Great, okay, so, what if, then, i’m not wrong about Lottie sacrificing herself? But what if that sacrifice was giving up her body in a way that I hadn’t imagined, of letting a God come into her body? This might be the “I love a possession narrative” talking, but what if it let them walk out because it got to walk out? 
This would explain other than Lottie’s just being crazy, why she doesn’t speak at first, why she just wanders around the house. It would also explain why Lottie now has a cult in the middle of the woods, near a lake. Going home, of sorts. I don’t know, this is just an idea I’m floating.
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josiebelladonna · 1 year
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i’m reading “are you with me now?” and i’m laughing at the thought of nick’s number being “666″ on her phone’s caller id.
it’s the most unintentionally funny thing i have ever seen, because you know what she’s trying to do, right?
it’s like...
you take
(ahem)
six, six, six on the head and the wrist, the bloodied, battered crucifix. two coins to cross the river styx on bended knees and satan's fist. 
yes. nikki had a hard life with heroin and abuse and homelessness, and he was technically dead for two minutes at one point. his comeback story is absolutely incredible.
but no amount of edginess from the green druidess can convince me that she’s evil when jeff becerra exists.
i really wish i could tell her, “girl, just relax and be yourself! no need to be overly edgy” but then again, i don’t think there’s anything i can say to her without fear of discord/back-and-forth dm reprisal. and aside from that, this one’s not even funny. it’s just nothing. it’s like she saw my whole “i poke fun at you if i like you” and went “absolutely not”, even though i have had all manner of stuff thrown at me and called every name in the book by kids in the schoolyard and had it dismissed with “oh, they just like you!”
apparently, her excuse is that she bailed on me to mirror lizzy’s antics in state of euphoria (or something like that, i wasn’t properly paying attention and i immediately knew it was nonsense as well) like an “art imitates life” sort of thing-
yeah, don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.
you did it because you can’t handle someone who’s different than you. you want someone who’s your equal so you can leech off them until there’s nothing left. you did it with me and then you moved over to temple when you found that i wasn’t cutting it for you anymore because i wrote a little something called “the mirror never lies” after you wrote stay, and then “amped and wired” the same time you wrote crawl (a kind of pointless retelling of state of euphoria where amped and wired did in fact have a point).
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“sketchiness of wattpad” i never yelled BITCH PLEASE so loud, especially when you’ve got reads in the literal tens of thousands and an actual cult following over there. at worst, that is the most ungrateful attitude i’ve ever seen in my life (coming from someone who struggles with that mindset, that is saying so much). 
moreover, she tries to play dumb with people, saying that i don’t know what i’m talking about and i’m being a bully to her, probably so people can come over to her and pet her head. let me get this perfectly straight, because i’m still trying to comprehend this. i’m being a bully to someone who cut me off for no reason other than to be petty...? how in the world does that work? you’re in the arts of self-defense, i would hope that you know you do not fight unless the aggressor comes first.
she also has the balls - THE BALLS - to justify her plagiarism, too, which... on its own, just amazes me, especially in an era where you have literal hordes of people justifying stealing art from hardworking artists (such as myself) to pump through algorithms and make shitty, soulless ai pieces out of them. steal from us and also have the audacity to pick a fight with us just to be a horse’s ass, and we’ll fight you right back (weird how the whole incident foreshadowed the whole thing with ai art in my eyes).
she cut me off and then covered her ass because she’s territorial, among other things. and she’s lying to her followers constantly which is just... i have no words for that. what do i even say to that? that probably infuriates me more than the plagiarism.
really, never mind me: this piece of work. this scumbag. this lowlife. is flat-out lying to her followers right to their faces for absolutely no reason than to appear as though she’s right. day in. day out.
cowardice. that is utter cowardice.
given the choice, i would much rather speak opinions about fic just to spit in the face of “don’t like, don’t read” than lie to my own goddamn followers.
it makes me wonder if her whole thing is merely an act or if she really is that cunning and believes her own bullshit that much.
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6riffith · 2 years
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and people said that proved they can r-move entire h-rassment posts when needed. Its not the main reason the site has issues but its why a lot of people are upset at st-ff about it all. Also I’m SO sorry about the random dashes I literally could not send the ask without them because st-ff bl-cks certain combinations of keywords from being sent in asks and this topic is one of the f-ltered ones. But yeah other than that you’re 100% right 2/2
So I heard about the case of this staff member as it was going down. If it’s not immediately obvious, I do know people who are on staff even if I myself am not. I sew costumes for a living at a corporation. As far as I understood it, what happened was someone found out that a person on staff (but *not on trust & safety*, which is the department that handles reports of harassment) was a Harry Potter fan. And then they proceeded to make a big deal out of it in a way that singled that staff member out for harassment, which is against TOS. I don’t remember seeing any specific transphobic posts from this person, just that they like Harry Potter. And that it seemed unfair that the person bringing this to people’s attention was punished, even though they really did break TOS.
Now, to be clear I think it’s in extremely poor taste to still be a fan of Harry Potter now. The author is so beyond the pale in terms of proof pointing to her bigotry. And being a member of Tumblr staff I don’t think you can even give this person the benefit of the doubt in assuming she didn’t know. She probably does. She could be anywhere from an ignorant idiot clinging to nostalgia to someone who really does hold transphobic beliefs. But ultimately as far as I understand it there wasn’t sufficient proof of her saying blatantly transphobic things, so what do you do? Would you, as a member of HR staff at a company, feel comfortable enough to potentially risk being brought to court over firing someone because they consume shitty media? It’s almost inevitable as an adult in the workplace that you’re going to have coworkers that have harmful political stances. My best friend worked with an antivax flat-earther. But if they don’t talk about it at work, there’s not a lot that most companies would do about that. It’s annoying and unpleasant but the same laws that protect someone like me, a trans gay Jewish AnSoc, also are protecting them. But anyway, since this person wasn’t actually on trust & safety, it isn’t within her power actually to make decisions over how transphobic harassment gets handled.
Further, it’s weird to then treat staff as if they’re a transphobic monolith when most people don’t even interact with each other directly. This company is almost entirely comprised of remote workers. They’re not like, hanging out around the water cooler pitying this person for liking Harry Potter. By far the most annoying result from their perspective has been this game of telephone that started at “there’s a staff member who has interests that are distressing” to “the company is sheltering a secret hive of TERFs.” When meanwhile the people I know who are affiliated with Tumblr are as far from that ideology as you can be. And they mostly are not going to be outspoken about this issue at all because it is pretty uncomfortable to get in direct fights with the userbase when it really only will result in not letting this matter ever die if they did and wouldn’t help clarify anything.
Most people who are invested in this come off as very young to me and without the experience of how working at a company like this is. They don’t know how difficult it is to be bound to a enforcing a set of rules that can both be used against bigots and people who mean well but still break those rules. I’m nearly thirty. I really feel sorry for the people who feel like they’ve been treated unfairly, but I think what they’re looking for doesn’t exist. You can’t even get people to all behave in a leftist discord server. And as you can see in the other conversation I’m having, people constantly underestimate the labor it takes to keep social media safe. I could grumpily tell people to grow up and touch grass but that doesn’t do any good either. All I can do is simply plead for people to think it through better.
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The past few days have been super hard and has made our mental health absolute dog-shit. We just lost a few friends all because one of them decided to pull the same bullshit our highschool bully pulled six years ago. Of course this was super triggering for us because, once again, we literally didn’t do shit plus false claims we’re made about us and one of our friends, calling us xenophobic, toxic, using violent speech, an inability to cooperate with them or the mods of the discord server we were in, bullying people into leaving the server, shunning people we didn’t agree with, passive aggressiveness(this is the only right one), hostility towards them and their girlfriend(We barely talked to their girlfriend and our friends constantly tried to avoid conversations with her), and abuse of the blacklist channel by targeting specific members(which also not true, we’d communicate with everyone we had and issue with and *then* put it in the blacklist so there wouldn’t be any further issues). We’re fucking pissed off because they then sent us a message saying that we were now banned from the server and that they were “terminating our friendship from here on out.” Then they blocked us without even letting us defend ourselves. They never even showed us or our friend any of the apparent evidence that they have! But we have piles upon piles of evidence of other shit that they have done to us! And we can’t even send it to anyone! I’m fucking pissed off. I’m pissed that we’re also being lied to and gaslight by this person again and being lied to and gaslight by a former friend again for shit we didn’t even fucking do. This has literally caused us to dissociate so much to the point where we can’t recall the majority of the past 72 hours. The gaslighting is finally even starting to get to us too. Its ringing around in our head like an echo chamber. This fucking sucks.
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thefanficmonster · 4 years
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Love For The Faceless
Corpse Husband x Youtuber!Reader(Female)
Warnings: Swearing
Genre: Fluff 
Summary: Y/N is a YouTube gamer who has recently gained a much larger following thanks to the streams she does with her friends. Naturally, considering her faceless and bodiless nature, people are starting to get curious about her. When she finally follows her friend Corpse’s example, a lot more than her hands is revealed.
Requested by anon, you know who you are 😉 Thank you so much for placing a request and hope this fic fulfills the expectations you have for it.
“Hey!“ I greet the lobby as I finally hop into the Discord call after quickly saying ‘hi‘ to my audience.
I’ve been a YouTuber for four years now and I’ve only recently started streaming, encouraged to do so by my best friend Rae. She’s the one who got me in multiplayer games such as Among Us and Phasmophobia which led me to meet her amazing gaming squad that consists of some of the most famous names on the platform. They are all wonderful people and I will forever be in Rae’s debt for introducing me to them. However, becoming friends with Felix, Sean and the rest of the team brought not only a more fulfilled life, but also a small boost in following. Who am I kidding, it wasn’t small. It was overwhelming, terrifying even.
My YouTube channel had a little over a million subscribers at the start of quarantine and now....now it’s closer to three million. Speaking of three million, I’m about to reach it any day now and it’s really hard to believe. I’m a gaming youtuber and I’ve never considered changing my genre despite expecting to not get any attention whatsoever, with all the big names on the platform. I was convinced not even as many as a hundred people would stumble across my videos and now here we are.
My OG subscribers are very supportive of my sudden growth and are defending me when my newer fans ask for a face reveal or whatnot. While we’re on that topic I might have to mention that not even my YouTube friends, and that includes Rae have seen my face. I’ve been faceless and bodiless for the entirety of my time on social media. Some claim I do it to grab more attention or for dramatic effect, but the reason is beyond that. I’m not shallow. Actually, shallow people are the reason I don’t show my face. I’ve never been the prettiest, but my middle school bully thought that I wasn’t lacking self confidence enough. As a result, I ended up with a not so handsome scar on my right cheek that starts from the corner of my mouth and nearly misses my eye. Yeah, it’s a long and pretty noticeable scar that has thankfully become less and less obvious as the years have progressed. Still, it’s not something I’d like to show to my viewers.
Eight ‘hi’s greet me back, each making my smile grow wider. “Sorry I’m late guys. Technical difficulties.” 
“Don’t worry.“ Rae’s voice dominates over the rest, “Corpse still isn’t here so we’re waiting for him.“
I mute myself on the Discord call and take a look at my comments. I’m most flattered by the comments about my voice. Seeing as how they don’t have much to compliment about me other than my content, they make the nicest comments about my voice, personality and humor. Those comments are the ones who warm my heart most. Even when people in my day to day life compliment my appearance I can’t find it in me to believe they are being genuine. I’d like to believe these amazing people are being one hundred percent honest when they tell me they like me for who I am and not for what I might look like.
“Sorry I’m late guys.“ A deep voice causes me to even physically jolt, switching my focus from the comments to the Among Us lobby where my eyes land on the newly materialized black avatar.
“Hi Corpse.“ Rae greets him.
“Hello mister who broke Twitter!“ Sean laughs, provoking the laughter of the rest of the players.
“Yeah, congratulations man. That’s a big deal.“ Felix chimes in.
“Thanks guys, but I think you’re forgetting we’re talking about a picture of my hand.“ Corpse chuckles timidly. I have noticed how shy he gets when someone gives him a compliment - like a snail slowly withdrawing in its shell. I find it adorable.
“That’s what makes it even better!“ I unmute my mic, sending my own congratulations.
“While we’re on that topic...“ Rae begins, waiting for the rest of us to shut our traps, suggesting she has something important to say. “Y/N, do you ever plan on doing a reveal like that? Not a face reveal. Just a body part reveal.“
I have no problem talking about the subject with friends but I get nervous when I’m supposed to discuss it with my fans. Seeing as how everyone, including myself, is streaming right now, I get a bit of a stutter in my speech. “Haven’t thought about it yet. But I guess a body part reveal is harmless.” I cringe immediately after letting the words leave my mouth, “That sounds so weird.”
Rae knows that I’m not too fond of my face, but I haven’t told her about my scar yet. I let almost all people I’ve met online think I’m using my lack of appearance for effect. For the mystery of it all. Mysteries attract people which equals attention. Attention equals views and the domino effect continues.
“Just a suggestion. No pressure.“ Rae adds quickly, knowing full well I get anxious when the subject is brought up in front of cameras. “Let’s get this game started, shall we.”
                                                          * * *
The idea dwells in my mind, sitting on the back burner even after I disconnect from the Discord call. I’m sitting in my gaming chair, which was a gift for my two million milestone, and weighing out the pros and cons of the action Rae suggested I take.
“It’s a picture of your fucking hand, dummy. How bad can it turn out?“ I say out loud, shaking my head at my indecisiveness. “You’ll be fine.”
In a blur, two pictures are already posted on my Instagram. The first one captioned ‘Took a leaf from my friend’s book. Did I do it right @ corpsehusband?’ and the second ‘Thanks, Rae. These are on you.’
Rae’s POV
As I’m watching a movie in my living room, I get a notification from Instagram, informing me that Y/N has posted for the first time in a while.
I scoff, “More like the first time in forever.”
The first thing that comes to my mind is the possibility of her reaching that three million milestone that’s been long time coming. I bring the glass of water that’s sitting on my coffee table to my lips, taking a sip as I tap the notification. The picture I see makes me hurry to put the glass back down so I don’t drop it. Y/N’s hand. Her fingers are covered with several thin rings each. And here I thought Corpse had too many rings, this girl has at least two on every finger! 
Then my eyes land on the second picture she has posted only minutes after the first and my heart drops. I struggle to get the water that’s been sitting in my moth down my esophagus while my mind is struggling with the task to comprehend the picture I’m looking at. 
Another hand is resting on top of Y/N’s. A hand also covered in rings but fewer and larger. The nails are painted black. 
I think I know who it belongs to.
Before I can even finish the thought, I’m dialing Y/N. She picks up after the second ring, sound cheery as ever as she greets me. “Hey Rae!”
“Don’t you ‘Hey Rae’ me!” I practically scream. I hate being kept in the dark about anything ever so this is just driving me mad. On top of all, she’s my best friend, for fuck’s sake. “Is that Corpse in the photo with you?!”
“Ugh....“ the cheeriness to her voice is all but gone now.
I go on with my rant, not giving her the time to reply. Not that she would reply. I bet she doesn’t know what to say. “So he knows where you live?! Or was the picture taken at his place?! He knows what you look like?! You have seen him! He has seen you in real life but me, your best friend, haven’t!!! You are breaking Covid 19 protection laws to take pictures?! Are you fucking serious, Y/N?!”
There’s a long moment of silence which frustrates me even more but I literally have run out of things to yell and the power to be angry. I mean, I still am, I just can’t express it.
“Rae, sweetheart, please calm down. You’re scary when you’re mad.“ This girl has some fucking nerve! She’s on the verge of laughing!
“Listen here you...“ 
“Rae, please stop scaring my girlfriend.“ That oh so distinguishable, oh so familiar voice interrupts me.
I am flabbergasted, for a lack of a better term.
“Now that we’ve got you quiet, I can explain.“ Y/N pics up the conversation, “Corpse and I have been dating for six, almost seven months now. We started dating around Easter after talking for quite some time. We moved in together at the end of September. All thanks to you, Rae. You’re the best.” She pauses to breathe in real quick, “There, all caught up?“
I’m in no less shock than I was before she explained. Actually, I think I might be even more confused now. It all just feels like a fever dream. “Yes...no. I don’t fucking know! I need details, Y/N!”
“Details later.“ Corpse makes his presence known once again, “We’re watching Family Guy right now. Talk to you later.“
“Love you, Rae!“ Y/N calls out before the line goes dead.
My arm goes limp, dropping my phone on the couch next to me. 
“Motherfuckers” I mumble under my breath.
Y/N’s POV
It’s been a week since Rae has stopped talking to both Corpse and me. I know she just needs some time to cool off. In the meantime, the rest of our friends were informed and, as oppose to Rae, were nothing but supportive and overjoyed. I bet Rae feels the same way though. Sean, Dave and the rest of the gang have confirmed that she’s incredibly happy for us and says she noticed a spark between me and him since day one, but she can’t help but be mad at us, and especially me, for not telling her sooner.
“Any regrets?“ I remember Corpse asking me when we hung up on her after dropping the bomb.
“Not being able to see her face when she saw the picture.“ I beam at him, feeling as content as ever.
He laughs, agreeing with me before leaning down to kiss me.
@susceptible-but-siriusexual  @simonsbluee  @save-the-sky  @hacker-ghost  @itsminniekat  @bi-andready-tocry  @imtiredaffff  @jazzkaurtheglorious  @hereforbeebo  @fandomgirl17  @chrysanthykios
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letsloveimagines · 4 years
Photo
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Title: Crush
Pairing: Corpse Husband x fem!youtuber!reader
Collab with: @the-winter-sxldier-posts
Requested by: @unicornblood4ever
Request: Hi I just saw your request post for Corpse, so if you're still taking requests I have one. The reader have been on a losing streak, and Corpse tries to help. But accidentally rats himself out as the second imposter. With fluff if possible, of course only if you have time to write and everything.
Word Count: 3963
Warnings: a little angts and fluff, i guess?
Note: The images doesn’t belong to me, all the credits go to the respective creators. I only made the collage. Also, I will not make anything to make Corpse uncomfortable, if he ends saying he doesn’t like fanfiction about him, I will delete this.
Part II: Here
                                                            ♦⋅☆⋅♦ 
Y/N sat down at her gaming setup, she was getting ready to start a stream she had been invited by her friend Felix (aka Pewdiepie) to play among us with him, and some other friends. She made sure everything was in order before starting it. She had been doing this for so long, but each time it felt like the first, and there was always that little chill in her belly indicating she was nervous.
She got onto her twitter quickly, just to let people know she was live in case they didn't get the notification about it.  As people started coming in, Y/N smiled at the camera. “Hey guys, welcome to the stream.” She read one of the comments from chat asking what she was gonna be playing on stream today.  “Today we are streaming some “Among Us’ with some friends, and I am getting to who they are before you guys spam it in chat. I’m going to be playing with Corpse, Sykkuno, Rae, Felix, Seán, Lily, Toast, Poki and Leslie.” 
She joined the discord call, as the game loaded up. Y/N had her facecam in the middle on the bottom screen to make sure that she wouldn’t leak the code, once Felix sent it to the discord. Once the code was entered they were in the lobby and Y/N, went to the little mini computer in the game to customize her astronaut, and as always she was quick to pick the white colored one with the pink flower on her helmet. “Hey guys.” Y/N said to her friends in discord with a smile. Felix was the first to speak “Y/N finally you’re here!” She and everyone else laughed as he kept talking, excitedly. “We are still waiting for Corpse and Seán to join before we start, they’ll be here in a minute.” Everyone had said their hellos to Y/N as Seán joined the discord call and the game, followed shortly by Corpse. “Hey, Seán, Corpse.” “Hey, Y/N.” “Whaddup baby.” They both said at the same time making everyone laugh once more, as they all had their characters customized. Y/N’s face turned a few shades of red at what Corpse had said, and her chat was quick to pick up on it. “That is everyone, we are starting the game now.” She muted her mic after Felix had started the game and the black screen with the red astronaut, said shhhhh. Then her screen read ‘Crewmate, there are 2 imposters among us.’ 
She blew out a breath talking to the chat. “At least we can warm up as a crewmate this round.” 
But…
It didn't take much longer for her to get killed, which made her swear. She knew she couldn't trust Felix but she did anyway, and he literally stabbed her in the back… What a traitor. 
                                                             ♦⋅☆⋅♦
The time passed faster than it should have, or at least that’s what it seemed to the group of friends who were just having fun. 
Y/N had now been streaming for an hour, and she was on a major losing streak. She either got crewmate, or voted out first as imposter because she was a bad liar. Or when that didn't happen, she was one of the first ones to be killed, and had to spend the entire game floating from one side of the ship to the other as a little white ghost, completing tasks for her team to win. To be honest, she was already a little irritated about that. They were now in the lobby talking to each other while waiting to start the next game. Y/N's nostrils were flared with frustration after another round of failure at being an imposter. She sighed, unmuting her mic."I just wanted to say that in all of these rounds I must have played a full 8 seconds! Like come on, what's wrong with me today!?" 
That phrase was enough to make the others burst out laughing, including her chat. The comments came and went so fast, sliding on the screen on her right side, that she could barely keep up. 
Sykkuno, like the blessed and pure angel he was, replied amid laughter: "Don't worry, you're just on a bad streak. Better luck next time."
"Yeah, I guess." She answered while moving her mini white astronaut in circles, being quickly accompanied by the black astronaut with horns on his helmet. Y/N smiled at that.
"Stop talking guys, I'll start the new round now." Pewds, who was the host, almost screamed at them. 
Y/N cracked her neck and her fingers preparing herself.
"Stay with me this time Y/N, and I'll protect you." A deep voice was heard through her headphones, causing a shiver to go all the way down her spine. 
"Oh!" She exclaimed surprised, looking at her chat that was going insane with everyone saying how cute that was. "Thank you, Corpse, let's do that."
"No problem." She could hear the smile in his voice. 
The game was started and the black screen with the red astronaut, said shhhhh. Then her screen read IMPOSTER.
Y/N quickly muted her mic, as soon as she stopped listening to her friends speak. "Okay, I wasn't expecting that." She commented to her chat, very surprised, because next to her doll was Corpse's own little character. "Well, maybe my luck is changing. Everyone heard that Corpse and I were going to be together, so at least now we have an alibi if anyone suspects us." Corpse danced around Y/N, suggesting she follow him, and immediately she did. They both went through the ship as he was looking for innocent astronauts for them to murder. They ended up in medbay first, where Y/N faked her samples task, with Corpse watching over her and making sure that no one would find their behavior suspicious. 
And, oh, how her luck seemed to have increased when Felix walked in. Y/N immediately pulled up the sabotage map and locked the medbay doors, and Corpse was quick to kill him. That made the girl laugh hard, yelling out loud. "That was just karma having its way!" 
Then both vented out as the doors were still locked. 
Y/N smiled talking to the chat. “Pewds is dead, next if the opportunity arises we need to get Seán. They are the two that always sus me out even when I’m a crewmate.” She went back to the game as they vented into electrical, since nobody was there presently. They both faked tasks in electrical, Y/N going first with Corpse watching her back. To her surprise, Seán walked in all alone and right as she was going to get her first kill, when Felix’s body was reported. She rolled her eyes. “Damn, so close to getting them both.” She said to her fans as she unmuted the mic, and saw that Rae was the one that found Pewds. 
“Where is the body?” Y/N questioned trying to keep her voice level and calm, to not give herself away. “Pewds is dead in medbay.” Was the answer she got from the other girl. “Y/N and I were in Electrical with Seán.” Corpse said, trying to immediately shift suspicion off of the two of them. “They were already there when I entered the room, however. I don't know where they came from before, though." 
"We came in through storage, after Y/N and I both did the trash chute, Y/N stopped at the gas can and then we came to the electrical to do our tasks." 
Y/N quickly muted herself. "God, Corpse is gonna carry us this round, I can already feel it…I just want one kill and that is Seán, Corpse can kill everyone else... I just want to kill Seán!" She unmuted again as the friends decided that they didn't have enough information to vote anyone, so they skipped and no one was ejected. 
Corpse danced around again for Y/N to follow him and she did. This time they went through weapons. Y/N faked the task against the wall while Corpse faked one as well. Y/N brought up the sabotage map while they waited on the kill cool down to end. 
Y/N  sabotaged the lights, and the two imposters ran over there to turn them on as a way not to give anything that made them suspicious.
"Kill someone, don't wait for Corpse." Y/N read the comments, confused. "I don't know guys, are you sure? Today I haven't won any games as an imposter, so I don't want to give any reasons to make my team lose.” Looking back at the screen of the computer, she smiled seeing that the two little astronauts were touching each other, eye to eye, in what would probably be a strange little kiss. "Awww guys, look! Corpse just kissed me, this is too cute to handle."
But there was something that the fans did not fail to notice, and were quick to tell her that.
                                           User: She's blushing!
                                     User: This is so cute, I'm dying.
                             User: UGH, I ship them together so much!
"Oh, shut up y’all." She said with her face on fire, clearing her throat trying to make her voice normal again. However, the pink tone that painted her cheeks did not want to disappear, getting worse and worse as she thought about it. “Okay, as much as I don't like it, I'm going to do what you said. I’m sorry, Corpse." And then she quickly ran away, going to another path separated from Corpse, looking for someone alone that she could kill.
Hopefully it would be Seán.Y/n would be the first to agree that she was a little obsessed with getting her revenge. But could you blame her? Seán and Felix were almost always the reason she got voted out or killed first.
She went around the map, and on the navigation she found Lily alone. "Oh oh, poor Lily, but I need to do this." She was quick to press the button, kill and enter the vent, leaving Lily's body cut in half behind.
"Quickly, I need to find someone to be my alibi! Where's Corpse?" She came out of a different vent, running and seeing Rae nearby, quickly joining her. It didn't take long before someone reported the body. "Oh no, I'm sweating already."
“Lily’s body was in navigation.” Leslie said.
“And Toast is dead too, so it was a double kill this round.”
"Where have you been, Leslie?" Corpse asked with such a deep and calm voice that if Y/N were not the other imposter, she would think he was innocent. “I was with Sykkuno in security, looking at the cameras.”
“Yes, I was with him.” The mentioned boy said.
“Well, I was with Poki in medbay but I needed to do the asteroids in weapons. So, when I finished in weapons  I went down, and found the body." Leslie replied.
"That seems a little sus to me, to be honest."
"Yeah, seems pretty sus to me too." Y/N repeated after Corpse, trying to help.
"Okay, wait a minute." Rae began, suspiciously. "I was with Y/N for a while because we met in storage, but she came from the right side of the map, I saw it."
"Explain yourself, Y/N."
'Oh no. Busted.' Thought the girl nervously looking at the camera. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, and replied as calmly as she could: "Well, yes it's true, but I was in comms uploading. When I finished I left and that's when I found Rae in storage."
"It's her!" Seán accused.
"Definitely."
"What!?" Y/N asked shocked. "No, I'm not the imposter guys, I swear!"
"Y/N, stop, it makes perfect sense. I'm voting." She rolled her eyes, that is exactly why she wanted to kill Seán. 
It was then that Corpse interrupted: "It couldn't have been her, she was with me."
'What?' Y/N asked herself, 'No, I wasn’t. What is he doing?'
"But... You said you were with Sykkuno."
"I... Yeah, but before that I was with her in Comms, but I left to go to the Security."
"And what path did you take?" Rae questioned.
"I went through storage, then electrical and I went up."
"That’s impossible because I went down the left side, and went through electrical and I didn't see you."
"They’re both the imposters, oh my god." Was Seáns revelation. 
"No, we are not. What he said is true!" Y/N tried to defend. 
"I'm going to vote Corpse this time just for his audacity!" Rae exclaimed excitedly. "Then we vote for Y/N!"
"What!?" Corpse said shocked. "No...!"
But it was too late, and quickly his little bean body flew off the ship. ‘Corpse was ejected.’
The girl could do nothing more than gawk at the computer screen, still shocked by what had happened. "No!" She said when she muted the microphone. "The game is already lost. What can I do?" She questioned, guilty.
                                           User: Noooo! Poor Corpse.
                                          User: He was defending her :(
                              User: It's her fault that they found out he was the other imposter.
Guilt weighed on Y/N's heart and she felt saddened. Why did she have to ruin everything? "I know, I'll apologize to him when I can." She whispered to the chat, quietly, running around with her character confusedly. "What do I do now? Do I kill someone or do I play innocent?"
But at that time a meeting was called by Seán who was camped by the emergency button, and everyone got together to speak.
"Yes?"
"Well, we already know who the other imposter is. Are we going to vote her out or not?" He said laughing.
"Guys, please don't, it’s not me."
"Sorry Y/N, but you're the only one sus right now."
"What about Leslie?” Y/N tried. “She left Poki in medbay, she could have gone to navigation, killed Lily, self-reported and said she was in weapons!"
"No, don't believe her!" Leslie shouted. “She’s lying.”
"I know it's Y/N, I'm going to vote for her!"
And one by one everyone voted, and the game was over.
"Good job guys, we did it." The others celebrated while the girl almost pouted.
"What happened, Corpse? I’ve never seen you like that, well, playing so badly I mean." Sykkuno questioned his friend timidly.
There was silence from Corpse for a moment, before he simply said. "I don’t know.”
Swallowing hard, Y/N spoke softly. "Corpse?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry."
"Ehh, don't be. That's alright."
But that was not enough to erase her guilt. "You know Seán this is exactly why I was gonna kill you in the electrical, before Rae found Felix's body. You always sus me out even when I’m  innocent." 
“But you were the imposter this time!”
After a new game where she quickly died (Seán was the one who broke her neck and left her body in admin), the girl was quick to open Discord and send a message to the deep-voiced boy, who as much - as she didn't want to admit it, even more to herself - was her crush.
                                                           Y/N:     I’m so sorry I got you voted out, honestly, I feel so bad about it. I’m such a bad imposter.
                                                       CORPSE:             Y/N, It’s fine, really. There’s no need for you to feel bad about it ♥.
This put a smile on the girl's face again, and her chat was quick to question what was going on. She shrugged her shoulders and gave no further answer, Y/N returned to concentrating on the game, with the corner of her lips lifted in a half smile that she couldn’t control.
                                                           ♦⋅☆⋅♦
Time quickly passed full of fun for the ten friends, and the thousands of people who watched them. Y/N didn't win any of the rounds, but she didn't care about it anymore. After another hour  of playing she decided to say goodbye and finish the stream, feeling the tiredness dominating her. She ate something and took a long and relaxing bath, which eased her aching muscles, and was already in her fluffy blue pajama pants, and was getting ready to go to bed when her phone rang.
Picking it up from the nightstand, she looked at the screen and gasped in surprise seeing who was facetiming her. A shiver ran down her spine. Shaking from head to toe, with her heart pounding, she quickly ran her hand through her hair making sure she was at least minimally presentable, before she answered it, saying nervously, "Hey, Corpse, is everything okay?"
The screen came to life, with her tiny image in the corner and the completely black screen dominating it. Of course he wouldn't turn on the camera, nor did she want him to do it if he didn't feel comfortable. It was already surprising that he actually called, since he has never done that before, and that was what made her even more nervous.
"I just wanted to check on you."  His voice came through the phone. 
That made her face heat up a little. She was thankful that the only light she had on was the lamp on her nightstand and he couldn’t see how red her face got. 
"Cute pajamas by the way." He said while laughing a little bit, provoking her.  
"Well, I would say the same thing, but I can't see anything."  Y/N provoked back.
There was a comfortable silence after that, a silence that the two of them seemed afraid to try to break. The girl laid down on her bed, curled up under her warm sheets, and looked at the black screen kindly, with her head resting on the pillow.
"So-"
"I-" They both said at the same time, and immediately stopped talking when they realized that. “Go ahead-” “You first-”  they once again said at the exact same time. 
Y/N tried to speak. She really tried. She was so prepared to tell him the truth, to tell him how much she was into him, that she was in fact in love with him… She was prepared to say that meeting him, and having him in her life for the past few months was one of the best things that ever happened to her. Y/N was determined to speak, but when she tried, nothing came out.  She stood there, opening and closing her mouth, sighing with a frown on her face. 
"What's up?" Corpse asked seeing that, with concern in his voice.
"Nothing."
"Y/N, you know you can tell me anything."
"I know that." And she really did, Corpse was a good friend, an excellent friend who was always there for her... And that was exactly what she was afraid to ruin with her confession. "You are able to make me so nervous sometimes, even when I think I'm feeling brave."
"Oh, yeah?" He asked, and she could practically see his smile, even though she has never actually seen it. She was in love with a faceless man and she had no idea how to tell him that. 
"Oh, shut up."
He laughed deeply for a long time, and that was enough to make her smile. Finally he stopped and said quietly, almost timidly. "I think what you wanted to say is exactly what I want to tell you."
Impossible, Y/N thought with a sad smile on her lips. I want to tell you how much I love you but… how could I? And who could ever love me?
"No, believe me, it isn't." “And how do you know it isn’t?” Y/N bit her lip a little unsure of how to answer him without revealing her feelings for him. “I-” But she cuts herself off, not having the courage to actually say the words. She pressed her face into the pillow to muffle the groan that came out of her mouth, at how much a coward she was being, but she mumbled out her response that was still muffled. “I just know.”
“What was that?” All he had heard were incoherent sounds.. She sighed, removing her face from the pillow not wanting to repeat what she had said, to save herself the rejection, since he couldn’t possibly feel the same way that she did about him.
“Are you really not going to tell me?” His voice broke through her thoughts. She sighed, trying to get away from the internal battle going on in her mind. “Y/N?” He spoke once again, breaking her out of her thoughts. 
“If I say it... everything is gonna be ruined and weird for us, and I don’t want that. Your friendship is so important to me, you're my best friend.” She ran a hand down her face, furious with herself. “How do you know that, if you don’t say it?” 
“Because I just do, okay?” Why couldn't he just let it go? "I-" She tried to say it out loud, once more. C'mon Y/N, just say it. "I gotta go!" She said quickly tried to end the call, but he wouldn't let her.
"No!" He screamed out sharply, taking her by surprise and then he did something she never thought he would do.
The screen, which was previously completely dark, lit up and his face finally appeared for the girl who loved him to see. Y/N sighed in shock, admiring all his features, from his ivory-white skin to his dark curly hair.
"I have a crush on you too." He confessed quietly, with a soft pink tinge appearing on his cheeks.
Did he just...? Oh my god!  
There was silence again, but this time it was a silence that had become tense and terrifying for both of them. Corpse was nervous waiting for her to say something, and she could tell. His mouth was pressed in a thin line, he didn't seem able to face her as his gaze traveled anywhere but to her, and he fidgeted immensely, touching everything within reach from the rings - that she saw he had on his fingers - to the chain necklace he had around his neck.
"Oh." She sighed softly, not knowing what to say.
He looked at her then, apprehensive and almost ashamed. "Ugly, I know."
"No!" Y/N was quick to interrupt. "You are incredibly handsome just… just as I always imagined." The girl managed to see a small smile appear on his lips as he blushed deeply.
"I..." 
"I’m in love with you too." She confessed, finally without fear. It felt like weight lifted off her to finally get it out in the open between the two of them.
Corpse’s eyes went wide, completely shocked but so, so happy. A huge smile full of shiny teeth on his face, as he focused all of his attention on Y/N. "You are?"
"Yes." She said blushing and smiling intensely as she snuggled up in the blankets, her face almost hidden when she looked at him dreamily.
"I-" He cleared his throat. "Good."
"Good."
"Great."
"Great!"
They burst out laughing, their voices mixing in hamornia. The two looked each other in the eye, separated by a mobile phone screen, separated by kilometers and kilometers... but even with everything that separated them, the world was not able to stop them from falling in love with each other.
"What do we do now?" He questioned.
"Well..." Y/N started. "We'll have to see, won't we? Why don't you start by giving me your address?"
Corpse smiled provocatively, his beautiful eyes shining maliciously. "Of course... But be careful now baby, the devil’s got his eyes on you."
Y/N laughed completely in love.
"Oh, shut up."
                                                            ♦⋅☆⋅♦ Tag List: @breathygasps
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Text
Part Ten. Faces
warnings: swearing, hate comments word count: 4.1k (not including pics)
behind the screen (irl dream x f!reader) series masterlist ultimate masterlist
A/N: sorry its late!!!! this feels rushed but i was just too excited to get to some parts!!! also i have had some parts written out for SO long that they dont even feel cute to me anymore so im literally praying to every deity rn that you guys think its cute lmao anyway enjoy!!!!
**********
It had been about a week since Karl's slip up but everything was already more normal than Y/n had expected it to be. Of course, George, Sapnap and Quackity were all very understanding and gave her space while simultaneously reassuring her that she was safe with them. She fully believed it too, she knew she was safe with them and they weren't going to tell anyone her name.
The one unusual thing was now she had a heavy guilt, like someone dropped another sandbag in her stomach, every time Dream texted her. If the others knew, it was only fair that she tell him her name too, right? I mean, it's Dream. Dream! The boy who had quickly slipped his way into her life and, though she wouldn't admit it to Karl or Naomi, her heart.
But how? Does she just come right out and say it or wait until it gets brought up? She hadn't practiced telling anyone her name because she wasn't planning on doing it any time soon. Though, maybe she should have been seeing as she was going to see them all in person in a little over a month.
Regardless of the guilt, Y/n had other things to worry about today; Quackity was coming to visit. Karl had picked him up from the airport and the two of them spent all day catching up and doing who knows what but Y/n still hadn't met him. She was scared. She wasn't scared of Quackity, but scared because it was the first time one of her online friends would be able to put a face to her name and voice.
Y/n shuffled across her living room rug and reached for her phone on the coffee table, looking for some sort of distraction while she waited for them to arrive.
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Y/n rolled her eyes but smiled, shaking her head as she threw her phone on the couch. Okay, he's right. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be great. It's just Quackity. If he said anything rude or annoying or anything she could literally just step on him like a bug.
A sharp knock on the front door of her apartment snapped her back into reality. She shook her limbs of nervousness as she made her way to the door, two familiar voices begging to be acknowledged from the other side.
"Let us iiinnn!! Y/nnn!!!!" Karl whined.
After countless times asking the same question, she finally convinced Karl that she was okay with him using her real name in front of Quackity. He clearly still felt guilty about telling the boys her name, asking her multiple times in different ways whether he should call her Y/n or Bugsy in front of the guest. She finally got it through his head that she didn't mind either way.
"Hold on!" she yelled back. She unlocked the door and swung it open to see Karl and Quackity. "So impatient."
"Holy shit, you are tall! Goddammit, I thought that was a joke!"
Y/n laughed shyly at the greeting, looking at Quackity like he was crazy. "Hello to you too. Tried to warn you, dude."
"Yeah but, damn! You're tall and attractive, what the hell?"
"Dude," she said with a warning in her voice. She thought the flirting on Twitter was funny, but in real life she got embarrassed easier and wasn't a fan. "I'm about to kick you out of my house before I even let you in."
This was weird, meeting Quackity before meeting some of her other friends. She loved Quackity, but she had known George much longer and Sapnap even before that. There was no problem with meeting Quackity, she just had no idea how to act since she felt like she hardly knew him.
"Am I allowed to tell people that you're hot?" he asked as he fell on her couch, Karl following right after.
"Quackity!" Y/n yelled, her face heating up at a compliment. "Seriously?"
Karl cackled and shoved Quackity. "Shut up, Alex! No, you're not allowed!"
"Sorry, is that compliment reserved for Dream?" He cackled at his own joke and Y/n's face heated up even more.
"I seriously will kick you out of my house."
"You wanna be flirty on main but not in real life?" Quackity scoffed.
"I'm not flirty on main, you are!" she laughed. "Seriously, don't."
"Okay, sorry, I'll stop," Quackity promised with a laugh in his words.
The three of them fell into easy conversation, mostly because Karl and Quackity were already comfortable around each other at this point. They eventually decided to go to the mall, just to mess around and do something.
*reminder: covid doesn't exist in this fic bc we only want happy things so ignore their masks :P*
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Y/n frowned as she unlocked her front door, staring at her phone. She had been so happy with all the fans freaking out about the meetup so she looked at the trending list, expecting to see a flood of keyboard smashes and happiness, but that's not all she ended up seeing. BUGKARLITY was trending, so she scrolled through the tweets and was upset to see not all of them were positive. In fact, when she typed her name in the search bar, lots of the tweets using her name were rather mean.
A few that stuck in her head called her an attention whore and said that her friends only flirted with her because she paid them too. Who on earth would even do that? Some hurt way more than others but she tried to push them aside. It wasn't like this was the first time she had seen comments like this, but they had only gotten worse since her Minecraft date with Dream. She was worried it was cause more hate for her friends and the last thing she wanted was to be the cause of their own hate.
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She typed several different messages to Dream, deleting them all after she reread them. She felt like she had to request the same thing from him in a different way. Maybe because she felt like his words meant more, even if he really was just joking like the rest of them. She decided to call him instead of texting.
"Hi!" he chirped happily from the other end.
"Hi, Dream," she said as her chest filled with something warm at the sound of his voice. "How are you doing?"
"Good," he dragged out the word. "How are you?"
"Okay."
"Just okay? What's up?"
"Um," she started, immediately forgetting the words she decided she'd use. "I just... would you mind, uh, not flirting with me so much on, like, Twitter and streams and stuff like that?"
There was a silence before Dream's frantically apologetic words came through. "Yes, of course, oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. If I had known I was making you uncomfortable, I wouldn't have—"
"Wait, no," she interrupted but he must not have heard.
"—said things like... oh gosh. Bug, I'm really sorry—"
"Dream!" she raised her voice, getting him to stop ranting. "You don't make me uncomfortable."
"Oh. Really?"
"Of course not. I actually think it's really..." Cute? Adorable? Endearing? "funny," she decided.
"Oh. Then why...?"
She sighed heavily and explained what she told the others. "So, yeah. I just don't want you guys getting hate because of me so I figure if you stop then... you know."
"Bug..." he said gently. "I'm really sorry. I promise you that I don't—none of us think those things about you."
"I know."
"No, seriously," he said, clearly not believing her. "You need to understand that I..." he paused. "I mean what I say. Always."
Always? she thought. There's a few things he's said that certainly he didn't really mean... like calling her cute?
"I don't joke around like that unless I want to. I wouldn't say things like I say to you unless I really, really, genuinely considered you a close friend and felt comfortable around you. And I do."
Her heart swelled. "Thanks, Dream. I just... maybe don't do it so much for right now? Online, at least," she clarified, not wanting to deprive herself completely of Dream's flirting.
"Yeah, if that's what you want, of course."
"Well, I don't want you to stop flirting with me but, yeah."
He chuckled. "Oh, you do like when I flirt with you?"
She hummed and changed the subject. "Did I interrupt you doing anything?"
"No," his teasing voice dropped and was back to his regular self. "I'm just editing the video we filmed the other day."
"Oh, the 'Minecraft, but you can't touch the floor'?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"Oh," she said, not meaning to sound disappointed. "I'll let you get back to it—"
"No. I mean, you can stay on the phone. Unless you're busy."
She smiled and put her phone on speaker and set it next to her foot on the floor. "I was just gonna paint. So I can stay."
Before she knew it, almost two hours had passed of them sitting in comfortable silence, occasionally speaking to share something with the other before going back to their tasks. It was comforting knowing she didn’t need to speak constantly and could just hang out with Dream.
Y/n's phone rested on the floor next to her, Dream on speakerphone on the other end, only the sounds of his keyboard clicking letting her know he hadn't fallen asleep or hung up. She wasn't sure when they started doing this, staying on the phone even when they had nothing to talk about, but they had done it a few times before. They had talked on the phone and Discord many times but it was usually always with purpose, not usually this silently-enjoying-each-others-presence nonsense. Who was she kidding calling it nonsense, she enjoyed it an embarrassingly insane amount.
She repositioned so she was laying on her stomach as she finished sketching an image that was in her mind.
"Hey, you still there?" Dream asked softly.
"Yeah. Sorry, am I taking away from your sitting in silence time with George?" she joked.
Dream chuckled lightly. "Nah, you're more fun. I was just seeing if you ditched me for Karl yet."
"Nah, you're more fun," she mimed truthfully. "But I'm very focused on this drawing."
"Can I see it when you're done?"
"Don't expect too much. It looks bad."
"If you don't tell me what it is, I can't know how accurate or inaccurate it is."
"Very true..." she trailed off, holding the canvas further away to examine it all at once. She wanted the sketch to be perfect before she made permanent choices with paint. She enjoyed the serenity they maintained even when talking, voices low and delicate like they were keeping secrets but not quite whispering. "Are you almost done editing your video from the other day?"
"Sorta. I'm at the part where you and Sapnap almost died laughing because a ghast knocked George into lava and then Sapnap laughed so hard he fell into lava."
She chuckled, remembering the situation vividly. "That was so funny. The way George screams is so funny."
"Let Naomi know that," he mumbled, causing Y/n to gasp.
"Dream!" she laughed loudly and he joined.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's true though."
"Disgusting!"
A distant voice sounded on the other end and she assumed it was Sapnap. "What do you want for dinner?"
Dream responded with a soft, "Nothing, I'm good."
"Are you talking to Bugsy?"
He must have responded physically because the next sound was Sapnap's very clear, much more lively voice speaking directly into the phone. "Hi, Bugsy!"
"Hi, Sapnap!"
"Can you tell Dream to eat some damn food? This man literally hasn't eaten a single thing all goddamn day."
"Dream," Y/n scolded slowly. "Please eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"I'm not showing you my painting until you eat."
A door closed on the other end and she took that as a sign that Sapnap had left.
"I don't wanna see it anyway. It's probably trash."
"Take that back!" she gasped lightly. She looked at the canvas as she grabbed the first paint color and laughed. It was only a sketch and it was already trash. "Fine, then I won't go on the trip if you don't eat in the next ten minutes."
"That's punishing yourself too though."
"Who says I want to see you?" she asked.
"I never said anything about not seeing me being the punishment."
She had been caught. "It was implied."
"Sure it was."
"It's true though. Who says I wanna see your stupid face?"
He didn't say anything, but an incoming FaceTime call lit up Y/n's phone. A FaceTime call from him.
Her smile dropped. "Clay?"
"Answer it," his voice was lower and her heart started beating faster. Was he really about to show her his face to prove a point? Reveal his biggest secret that only a few close friends knew? To her of all people? She made sure she couldn't be seen in the small window and pressed accept, the voice call ending and the FaceTime call starting.
To her surprise, what came into view wasn't his face, but the logo of the hoodie he was wearing, the simple smile of his merch taunting her. She laughed, the anxiety slowly fading away as it was replaced with a heavy feeling in her stomach. Was she disappointed? Maybe a little, but he teased her into believing she would see him.
"Oh, wow! Dream face reveal! He looks just like his icon, no way!!!"
His chest moved up and down as he laughed, not moving the camera away. "You heard it here first, guys! You've known my face all along, the logo is actually my face!"
She laughed and returned to painting, not paying any more attention to her phone since he was now also showing his ceiling, a small corner of his monitor in frame but nothing else. "I mean it though, if you don't eat, I'm going to be so mad I won't even want to be friends anymore. Or you'll die from malnourishment before we get the chance to meet."
"I doubt it. I'm just not hungry."
"Whatever."
"Oh, hey, so you met Quackity today. How was it?"
"Very scary."
"Yeah?" he asked sympathetically, urging her to explain if she wanted.
"Yeah. But it turned out okay! He didn't act any different so it was fine. It was mostly just awkward. He's also so freaking loud. You would not believe how much louder he and Karl get when they're together."
"I can imagine. Aren't they doing a stream right now or something?"
"Yeah, I think so. I don't wanna watch though, I've had enough of them for the month."
Dream laughed. "How will you deal with them together for New Years'? It'll be for like two weeks."
"Who knows if I'll actually go?"
"Wait, what?" he asked abruptly, not even bothering to hide the disappointment in his voice. His keyboard stopped clicking and she could picture him staring at his phone as if looking at her. "Of course you're going."
"Not if you don't eat food! You have, like, 3 minutes to eat something until I officially am busy doing other things whenever the trip is."
Dream groaned and clicked a few things on his computer before the image on the screen became blurry as he walked through the house, still pointing it at the ceiling. She looked away again and kept painting.
"Quackity's really funny though," she continued. "It was super awkward at first but it was fun to have someone else to help me make fun of Karl."
"Wait, Bug," Dream called out over the sound of wrappers crinkling.
"Hm?" She hummed, continuing to paint.
"Bug," his voice was much softer and he sounded nervous.
She looked at her screen and dropped the paintbrush as she focused on what she saw, grabbing her phone and holding it closer to her face so she could see, still making sure she wasn't in view. All the anxiety from the beginning of the FaceTime suddenly came back and hit her like a truck. Sitting on her screen, waiting to be seen, was Dream. His hood was up, tufts of blonde hair sticking out, and he was standing with his back towards a dark room, the dim light from his pantry making his face just visible.
He held up a cookie in front of his actual, real face. "Are you watching?"
"Y-yea... I... Yeah. I'm watching. Is that really you?"
He nodded once before shoving the cookie in his mouth. "There, I consumed food," he announced, his voice muffled by the cookie. "Now you're legally obligated to come."
"I—What? CLAY! WHAT?"
"What?" he asked innocently as he chewed, walking back to his room and still holding the phone up to show his face. His room light was on, making his face much more visible. If Y/n thought he was attractive in the harsh pantry light, he must have looked like a god in his room lighting, even as pixelated as he was due to the quality of FaceTime. He fell on his bed and Y/n could only gape at his features. He slumped against his headboard, surrounded by roughly a thousand pillows, sporting a small, shy smile as he stared at the screen. "Bug, what?"
She opened her mouth but no words came out. Needless to say, he was unbelievably handsome. Part of the speechlessness was from the shock that he showed his face out of the blue, but obviously, the majority of it was that he was pretty much the most attractive person she'd ever seen. It should be illegal for someone to look that good in a hoodie, especially when pixelated.
"Hmm," he hummed thoughtfully. "Wanna take back what you said earlier?" He bit into another cookie.
"W-what did I say earlier?" Why was she stuttering???
"You said you don't wanna see me and that I'm ugly," he teased.
She paused for too many seconds too long before finally muttering, "you arrogant son of a bitch." He laughed loudly at that.
His eyes crinkled and he threw his head back. So that's what he looks like when he wheezes, she thought to herself, pretty.
Dream shuffled his position on his bed and rested his head on one of his hands. He looked so comfy. "Why are you so quiet, weirdo?" he mumbled.
She set her phone back down and touched her cheeks with her hands and looked away for a moment, grounding herself to the real world for a second. She couldn't process her thoughts when she was staring at a man as gorgeous as Clay. "I don't know, maybe because you gave me no warning before showing me your face? Or because you failed to mention that you're incredibly hot?"
She was so glad she had looked back at her phone or else she would have missed the glorious sight of his cheeks turning bright red before he turned the camera back to his ceiling. "Oh my gosh."
"Aw cute, I made you blush."
"Shut up," he mumbled. "You threatened to not come if I didn't eat something!"
"You didn't have to—you showed me your freaking face just to prove you ate a cookie!! DREAM! I would have believed you if you just said you ate something!" she laughed breathlessly, staring at the phone now for a chance to see him again. "I was joking anyway!"
"Sure you were."
"I was."
"Well, oh well. You deserved to see me anyway."
"Oh, I deserve to see you?" She laughed. "How big is your ego?"
"You know what I meant," he groaned. "You got doxxed by Karl and you met Quackity in person. And you've clearly had a bad day because of all the hate and stuff. You've done a lot of stressful things recently and you deserved to be let in on a secret too."
He was so sweet. Like, tooth-rotting, Halloween candy stash hidden under a kid's bed, upset tummy sweet. She also couldn't get over the fact that he was a million times cuter when he was shy like he was being now, his voice soft and unsure. It contrasted vastly with the confident, loud-mouthed Dream everyone usually saw, though she liked that Dream too. She wished he could show his face for just one more second to see what he looked like shy. Probably sickeningly adorable.
This was it, wasn't it? The chance she had been waiting for to tell him her name? He just let her in on his biggest secret, now he was the one deserving to be let in.
"Y/n," she said with a confident, but soft voice.
There was a long pause. "W-what?"
"Y/n."
He understood the second time immediately. "Y/n..." he tested, the smile in his voice clear as day. "I like it."
"Yeah, well, I guess you deserved to know the secret too."
"I would have been content never knowing."
"Really?" She didn't believe him. He seemed like the type to never be satisfied, always looking for something better. Not in a greedy way, but in a motivational, goal-oriented big achiever way.
"Really," he hummed. "I already feel like you're too good to be true so I wouldn't be surprised if you weren't a real person."
It was silent as she tried to collect her thoughts.
"Bug? You okay?"
"Yeah, I... it's just a lot."
"Sorry."
"No, it's not you. Well... I don't know. I just don't know what I'm supposed to say when you say things like that," she admitted.
He paused. "I think you always have the perfect responses when I say things like that."
"What do I usually say?" She smiled shyly, pulling her hoodie up to her lips.
"You usually call me a nerd or say you can't stand me. 'Oh my gosh I cannot stand you'," he mimicked before laughing.
"What? How is that the perfect response to you saying you can't believe I'm real?"
He hummed and she could practically hear him shrugging. "Because it's a classic Bug response. It's a hundred perfect you. So yeah, it's perfect."
She was silent, trying to compose herself before she exploded.
"By the way, check Twitter."
"Why, are you bragging about me calling you hot?" she teased, hoping to make him blush like she had earlier. It worked.
"Oh my gosh, no. Just look."
She clicked her home button and navigated to the app, her feed instantly flooding with the same similar messages.
"Oh, my gosh," she muttered, her fingers flying away as she typed out her own tweet in response to the love.
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Dream chuckled from the other end and when she asked him why, he vaguely said that George texted him but didn't explain further.
"Um, I have to go," she said mournfully. "Karl and Quackity are coming over again."
"Booooo," he pouted.
"Sorry, you aren't the only man in my life," she teased before instantly regretting her choice of words. Too flirty, Y/n, she thought to herself.
"Hm, shame. Am I at least at the top of the list?"
She bit her lips, wanting desperately to repeat what she had told him on their Minecraft date. In the end, she gave in. "I always mean what I say too," she started. "You're my main bitch, baby."
Dream made some sort of sound, a mix of a scoff and a whine but Y/n didn't comment on it, just glowing with heat in her cheeks.
"Leave before I don't let you," he said softly and the heat only grew.
"Goodnight, Dream," she pressed, the tone in her voice letting him know he was being a tease. "Thanks for... thanks for your tweet. And for everything you said earlier."
"Of course. Sorry that you have to see those kinds of things a lot."
"It's okay when I have people like you."
"People like me? What does that mean?"
"Just.... people like you." Cute, sweet, kind, genuine people who make her heart flutter.
She could hear his smile in his words and she figured he knew the unspoken words in her thoughts, the ones she was saying without saying. "Okay. Goodnight, Y/n."
"Goodnight."
**********
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chocolatecakecas · 3 years
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Quality Family Time: Baby Jack ficlet
for the bah discord besties<3
In Dean's humble opinion, the week was off to a pretty good start. Sunday, he and Cas took Jack to the library and let him go wild in the children's section, then let him run off his "excitement about literature" in the park, ending with lunch at their favorite diner, which is Dean's humble opinion qualifies as a pretty great Sunday afternoon. And then Sammy and Eileen finished up their hunt earlier than expected, and they even brought back Claire and Kaia as a surprise. Meaning they got to all have a much-needed family dinner, movie night, and catch up with the girls. And they decided to stay for a few days, which meant extra babysitters, which really meant, he and Cas could have their date night this week. And of course it also meant Dean had a few days to just hang out with his family, watch some movies, watch his kids bond, run some stupid errands, cook some big meals. 
Now it was Wednesday, and Dean was spending the day with Eileen and Jack, while the others opted to help Sam with the supply run. Eileen was getting a movie queued up for Jack's nap, while Dean got a start on some laundry.  
(read the rest under the cut)
He was currently running out to the garage to grab the blanket he keeps folded in Baby's trunk, smiling fondly at the memory of Monday's date night.  
So yeah as far as Wednesdays go, Dean was having a pretty good one.
At least, he was.
Dean's stomach dropped as he flicked the lights on, barely registering the clang of his keys hitting the floor, standing frozen in the doorway.  
He's hallucinating, he must be. There's absolutely no way that-
He squeezed his eyes shut, counting to ten while he tried to will away the hallucination with his mind. But unfortunately for Dean, he didn't have that kind of mind power, because that thing was still sitting there when he opened his eyes.
Fuck.
Forcing his feet to move, Dean stepped further into the garage, reaching out a shaking hand as he inched forward. 
He'll just touch it and his hand will go through it, and he can blame this hallucination on that questionable burger he ate at some local joint they all went to last night. It'll be fi-
Dean's blood turned to ice as his hand connected with cool metal. He quickly jumped back in shock, jaw hitting the floor.
Because last time he checked, Dean didn't leave an 18 foot long Lightning McQueen sitting in his beloved Baby's parking spot. 
He tried to speak but all that came out was an incoherent squeak, as he raced around the car inspecting every inch of it.
He couldn't get any of the doors open or the hood for that matter, but as far as he could tell it seemed to be a real car, despite being a cartoon look-a-like. 
Well, at least it wasn't talking. 
"Ka-chow"
Dean slumped over onto the roof of the car, banging his head, fists following in defeat.
Because there was a Lightning McQueen look-a-like with a toy voice box, parked in the garage of their super top-secret underground Bunker, in place of one of his most prized possessions. 
Maybe he spoke too soon about having a pretty good Wednesday. 
Why is this happening? How did this thing get in here? Where is his Baby? Is she alright? Can he even get her back? How the hell did this ev-
Son of a bitch. 
"Jack!" Dean called, voice coming out more strangled than he'd care to admit. 
Of course. Cars had become Jack's new obsession over the past week, they first watched it on Friday night and he's insisted on watching it at least once a day ever since. 
Dean groaned scrubbing his hands down his face. There's truly never a dull moment with a half-Nephilim toddler. 
Jack probably didn't even realize what happened. Sometimes his powers react before his mind can catch up with them, like when he subconsciously made all of his toys come to life after Toy Story became his favorite movie. The kid probably didn't even know about the Cars wannabe parked in the garage, besides his kid would never tamper with Bab-
"Dee! You found Lightning!" 
Dean's jaw once again found its way back down to the floor. His own kid.
He turned to see his four-year-old come bounding into the garage, practically bursting with joy.
"What the hell"
Dean tore his gaze away from Jack to see Eileen frozen in the doorway, who's jaw also joined Dean's on the floor. 
"Look see it's just like Lightning, Dee!" Jack cheered as he ran over to check out the car, regaining Dean's attention.
"Uh...ye-yeah buddy. I-I can see that bu-" Dean began sounding pained, only to be cut off by Jack.
"It's a real car, Dee. You can drive it! And look I gots all the stickers on it too"
"Yeah kiddo, bu-"
"And it can talk too! It says all of Lightning's things! Do you like it Dee? Where you surprised?" Jack asked as he wrapped himself around Dean's legs, smiling up at him without a care in the world.
Dean still mostly in shock, glanced up at Eileen who looked to be in the same boat, except she was holding back barely contained laughter. 
Great no help from his best friend, traitor. So Dean shakily knelt down placing his hands on Jack's shoulders.
"Listen, Squirt. I was definitely surprised. But yo-"
"Oh my god"
Dean's head jerked up to see Sam, Cas, Claire, and Kaia now standing with Eileen in the doorway, dropped grocery bags spilling out onto the floor. All of them too stunned to move, except for Cas who luckily must have noticed the distress in Dean's eyes.
"Jack, Baby. What is this?" Cas asked, quickly making his way over to them, quickly kneeling down beside Dean.
"I made Baby into Lightning! Ta da!"
"Wait, that thing is my Baby?" Dean asked voice cracking. 
And of course, that's what did it.
Sam doubled over in laughter, Eileen, Claire, and Kaia quickly following, and Cas was beside him, clearly trying to conceal his laughter.
"God this is the best thing I've ever seen" Sam wheezed in the background, and if Dean weren't still reeling he'd walk right over and punch him. 
Cas placed a grounding hand on Dean's shoulder, all while trying to bite back his smile. Well, Dean appreciated the gesture, at least he was trying to be considerate, unlike some people he knew.
"Bug, do you remember what Daddy and I told you about using your powers?" Cas begins, trying and failing to sound stern.
"That I can't make my toys be alive! And I didn't Baby isn't alive, and she's not even a toy!" Jack explains with a smile. 
"Yea-yeah Squirt, but the second part of that little talk was that you shouldn't use your powers unless you ask Daddy, or me, or Uncle Sammy or Aunt Eileen, remember?" Dean supplied after he finally got his gears spinning again.
"Ooooohhh. Oops, sorry!"Jack shrugs and he even had half a mind to at least look a little bit sorry, but it's drowned out by another fresh wave of laughter.
"I'm so glad we decided to stay longer, does stuff like this happen all the time?" Kaia laughed behind him, as Claire wiped the tears from her eyes.
"Oh I'm so glad my distress is amusing to all of you!" Dean shot back, voice still a little unsteady, which only caused them to laugh harder. Cas met his eyes, as he squeezed his shoulder, scooting closer.
"Squirt it's okay, just uh don't do it again....now where exactly is the real Baby?" Dean asked cutting right to the chase, not missing the look Cas gave him for glossing over the whole "don't use your powers without asking" lesson.
But there was time for that later, because right now his Baby was currently a firetruck red cartoon racecar with eyes.
"That is Baby. I just made her look like that, it's her. See!" Jack explained jumping up and dragging Dean over. Everyone else followed suit, Sam giving him a shit eating grin as he handed Dean the discarded keys.
To Dean's surprise, the key unlocked the car just like baby, and the interior looked exactly the same.
"Wow kid, this is honestly pretty cool" Claire complimented with a low whistle, which earned her a death glare from Dean, only making her laugh harder.
Unbelievable. All of his kids have it out for his car today.
Dean heaved a sigh as he watched his family examine every inch of the car, not bothering to hold back their laughter at this point.
"Well, I guess it's a good thing we didn't watch How to Train Your Dragon" Cas quipped wrapping Dean in his arms as he pressed a quick kiss to his lips. Dean flopped over and laid his forehead on Cas's shoulder, letting a soft laugh escape.
"Yeah well, at least my car wouldn't have been caught in the crossfire" Dean groaned back, feeling Cas' laugh rumble in his chest.
"Yes I know this is a tragedy, clearly the real live dragons would have caused less damage-well less emotional damage anyway"
"Woah, look at that, he's got jokes. Alright everyone step away from the racecar" Dean smirked, yelling that last bit as he pushed away from Cas' chest. He made his way over to Jack who was currently in the driver's seat (keys nowhere near the ignition of course), showing everyone how the horn says McQueen catchphrases now.
"Alright Houdini, while the Lightning McQueen trick was very cool, and we've reminded you that we don't use powers unless we ask. It's time to turn him back into Baby, capiche?" Dean said in the most no-nonsense tone he could manage as he kneelt down to Jack's level.
And of course Dean's very logical, very simple, very warranted request resulted in an uproar from his family.
"Wait you aren't even gonna take it for a spin?"
"You've literally got thee Lightning McQueen sitting in your garage"
"Dean c'mon one dri-"
"Nope. Not happening. Now way am I driving that thing" Dean cut in, flinging his arms out for emphasis and effectively silencing the traitor-his family.
Then he felt a little tug on his shirt.
"Please Dee? One time, then I change Baby back?" Jack asked with his best puppy dog eyes, and Dean quickly made a mental note to kick Sam's ass for teaching him that.
And as he slowly tilted his head back up, he was met with four pleading faces, all hovering around the car He desperately turned his gaze towards Cas knowing he'd be the voice of reason, he'd neve-
"Well, it would be a waste not to take the car for at least one ride" Cas shrugged almost sheepishly, barely hiding his grin. Dean stared back into his eyes trying to will him to change his mind, but he knew it was pointless.
Dean sighed his defeat, running a hand down his face. Damnit
"Fine, one drive-and I mean one. Twenty minutes tops" He shouted, throwing his hands in air in exasperation as everyone cheered.
And when Dean found himself driving back to the bunker four hours later, he and failed tried to hid his smile. He glanced in the mirror at Claire and Jack passed out, while Kaia and Sam held a whispered conversation in the magically (which Jack may or may not have had a hand in) stretched out backseat. Eileen turned in the front seat joining the conversation, as Cas sat in the middle, pressed up against Dean.
Cas gave his hand a squeezing, shooting him a knowing smile, which only earned a nudge from Dean.
So yeah, maybe Dean did almost have a heart attack earlier in the day. And maybe he did have to let a bunch of annoying people in the next town over pose for pictures with the car when they stopped for dinner. And maybe the horn said "Ka-chow" and "I am speed". And maybe the drive was more than twenty minutes. But in Dean's humble opinion, it was still a pretty good Wednesday after all.
Lightning McQueen be damned.
Tag list pt 1:
@wormstacheangel @smiledean @chaoticdean @midnightwings-deancas @jellydeans @sunshine-jack @archervale @wikiangela @subbydean @organicpurplepants @you-cant-spell-subtext-without
@tkdwolf2012 @doemons-blog @rolling-stoned-girl @skylerkernaghan @icefire149 @dakiaty @seffersonjtarship @angeltiddies @feraldean @teamfreebees @keshetcas @jewishdeanwinchester @martymar1963 @midnight-sparks-studio @aestheticflyer26
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hamliet · 3 years
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Ahhh well, I have written much on Romeo and Juliet before, because it's one of my favorite works of Shakespeare and of literature itself. It is criminally underrated and scorned because of sexist anti-romance sentiment. So uh, yeah, I'm more of your opinion.
To start with, I wrote this here, and highly recommend this old post by someone else as well. It's quite comprehensive.
But, because I love Romeo and Juliet and the more I learn about it, the more impressed I am with the absolute art of the story Shakespeare told, I have more to say. Essentially:
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Juliet is one of the most astounding female characters in all of literature, and most of her brilliance has been lost with the loss of Shakespearean context. You see, Juliet was a deliberate deconstruction of the idealized, virginal, holy creature of Woman. Yes, that's how the medieval poets like Petrarch (the inventor of the sonnet, which Shakespeare adapted and wrote his own versions of in Romeo and Juliet and hundreds more on their own) and even Dante Alighieri (yes, that Dante, the Inferno guy) wrote their women. For Petrarch, Laura (whom he like, never talked to) was the object of all his love poetry. For Dante, Beatrice was written as his spiritual guide into Paradise in Paradiso.
Not to simplify their love for these women, but Shakespeare was essentially like "RIP but I'm different." He wrote Juliet as a human character with flaws (hardly a spiritual guide) who was not this virginal, holy creature. She starts off the play extremely obedient to her family and polite, almost like that ideal, but as the play goes on she begins to let her fire grow.
Romeo's poems for Rosaline are deliberately trite and parody Petrarch's sonnets, as well as other sonnets from the day (for example, Rosaline is literally sworn to chastity forever, which wasn’t even the case for Laura or Beatrice). While the fact that Romeo can switch loves from Rosaline to Juliet so quickly does indeed emphasize his flaw (impulsivity and deep passion), it also thereby emphasizes his humanity, because the unique imagery Romeo uses with Juliet show that he is really in love with her as she is--not as an idea like with Rosaline, but as a human being. As with many of Shakespeare's other renowned plays' characters, Romeo's flaws are also his strengths. He's complex--human.
So what am I going on about? Why did Shakespeare write Romeo and Juliet this way?
To emphasize their humanity. Which is interesting, because Romeo and Juliet's first meeting, the one where they both create a sonnet together, is all about idolatry:
Romeo If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this. My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Juliet Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. Romeo Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? Juliet Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. Romeo O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou lest faith turn to despair. Juliet Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake. Romeo Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. [He kisses her]
He describes her as a holy shrine and a saint, but the more their romance goes on, the more human she becomes. He kisses her right away. When they meet in the balcony scene, Juliet herself tells Romeo that the only thing she wants him to swear by--no gods or moons--is himself. In other words, Romeo and Juliet can be seen as a deeply humanistic play. 
Also, the more their romance continues, the more human they become and yet the deeper their love becomes. As one of the posts I linked above states, Romeo loves Juliet more after they’ve had sex, not less. Juliet loves Romeo more despite the fact that she knows he killed her cousin--and she is not happy with him for that, either. The more they learn of each other, the more they love each other. 
Oh, and about the extra gross modern take that "it's actually a story about a 13 year old and a much older man"--that is complete bogus, as the above post says. Romeo is almost certainly 15 or 16. While people can be squicked out by it (as it was designed to do with some Italian stereotypes), to say it shows anything creepy is basically literary blasphemy and betrays an utter lack of reading comprehension. 
Juliet sets the parameters in their relationship: she tells him if he really loves her, he has to marry her before she will sleep with him, and Romeo does. She muses herself how much she wants to sleep with him in a way that clearly expresses Juliet’s very human desires. Juliet is going to assert who she is and go after what she wants. 
So to go back to your question, it’s not just about their families, but about society as well, as Prince Escalus says in the final scene:
Capulet! Montague! See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love. And I for winking at your discords too Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish’d.
Everyone is punished for participating in the feud, which, keep in mind, we were introduced to via an intro fight scene between the servants of the respective families joking about raping the women in the opposing family. Yes, really. It’s almost like toxic masculinity was being called out before its time. 
Society is extremely sexist, as we see when Juliet’s father essentially sells her to Paris for the sake of having political clout to win the feud (literally, as Paris is the Prince’s kinsman) and threatens to send her on the streets to prostitute herself if she wants to survive for asking him not to make her marry Paris. But the cat’s out of that bag: Juliet is not going back to being the docile, obedient idol. She’s decisive. She wants to write her own story, and if that makes her a sinner, well then, she’ll go to hell. In the end, when the Friar suggests that Juliet come with him so that he can hide her away in some convent (after Romeo’s death), Juliet refuses and kills herself. She is not going back to being a figure shrouded in some kind of ethereal, unknown glow. She is a person, and people die. But she shouldn’t have had to die for people to see her as a person. 
There’s also another layer here: the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine. Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one. That’s the first thing Juliet declares to Romeo in the balcony scene: that she will always be loyal, and she shows this in every choice she makes in the story.
In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit). It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society. And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later. 
But, Romeo and Juliet’s story is also one of hope. Because instead of no one listening, finally, Montague and Capulet realize how wrong they’ve been. They grieve together, and Capulet vows to let Romeo remain in his family’s tomb, by Juliet’s side (also different, you know, that the husband stays in the wife’s tomb). Montague vows to build a statue for Juliet:
For I will raise her statue in pure gold, That whiles Verona by that name is known, There shall no figure at such rate be set As that of true and faithful Juliet.
Gold is associated with the masculine as well; silver with the feminine. She is remembered as someone “true and faithful,” aka for her loyalty and bravery. 
But no statue can bring Juliet back. She was not an idol, and it’s tremendously unfair that that is all she can become now. Same for Romeo. Even so, the fact that their deaths have finally brought peace to the city means that there is life growing from their deaths. They will never be able to birth a family of their own, but the city will grow and live, because of them. 
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outercrasis · 3 years
Text
Sessions
Pairing: College!Din Djarin x F!Reader
Rating: Mature (18+)
Word Count: 3.2k
Warnings: References to sex, masturbation (nothing actually occurs)
Summary: After meeting Mando, you just can’t seem to get him out of your head. (events directly follow Introductions)
A/N: Thanks for the kind reception to the first post of this AU! I’ll be making a masterlist soon for easier navigation :) Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future posts or if I’ve missed a warning.
Series Masterlist // Main Masterlist
Lingering Impressions
Your day ended up being an exhausting one. Mando had been your most exciting session for more reasons than just the obvious. You'd reviewed the papers of two freshmen, a junior who wanted you to basically write their paper for them, and another graduate student who disregarded every suggestion you made. Needless to say, Mando's gratitude felt extra special after all of that.
Getting home, you're greeted with the welcome smell of something delicious coming from the kitchen as you throw yourself face-first into the couch. The open floorplan of your tiny two bedroom apartment allows Layla to spot you as you wander in.
"Hello to you too!" she calls over. "I'm making chicken marsala."
You lift your head up from the watermelon-shaped throw pillow to smile at her. "You are a saint and I don't deserve you."
"You totally don't," Layla teases back, happily returning to the stove. You flip over on the couch, mindlessly scrolling through your phone while she finishes making dinner. A comfortable silence fills the room, interrupted only by Layla's hums and the discordant sounds of cooking.
Layla has been your roommate since your sophomore year of college, randomly paired together by the dorm sorting system and inseparable ever since. The two of you clicked, a friendship forged over the awkwardness of early adulthood and a shared love of terrible reality TV. Both of you keep busy schedules while pursuing your respective master’s degrees and help each other out where you can. Making dinners for each other is just a part of that.
It’s not long before Layla brings over two steaming plates of food to lay out on your thrifted coffee table. She sits opposite you, preferring to sit on the floor rather than the couch. You’re eager to dig in, groaning at the first bite.
“I’ll take that as a thank you,” Layla grins, tucking into her own meal.
“God yes.”
“Long day then?”
You groan again, this time in irritation rather than pleasure. “Yes. I don’t know how many more know-it-all grad students I can deal with.”
She’s heard all about your nightmare sessions with students that think they already know everything. You’ve questioned more than once why they bother booking the session if they're just going to ignore your advice and decide their paper is perfect as is. It seems like a total waste of time for both you and them. 
Layla sympathizes and shares her own gripes about some of the assholes she's forced to put up with while working on her research project. After all, no group project is complete without the one person who does nothing but acts like they know everything. Giving each other time to vent another small way the two of you take care of each other.
As you think back on your day and sessions your mind inevitably drifts to Mando. He hadn’t been anything like you’d expected. He was kind in his own way and by far the most amenable session you’d had all day. Not taking off the helmet was odd, as was not giving out his real name, but neither of those had really bothered you when it came down to it. If anything, they only serve to fascinate you further.
“Did something else happen today?” Layla asks, a spark lighting up in her eyes. She can always read you, something that can be either a blessing or a curse depending on what it is you're hiding. You take a few more bites before answering, already anticipating her reaction.
“Well I might have also met Mando today,” You try to throw it out there casually, hoping that if you treat it as though it’s not a big deal she’ll follow your lead. You should have known better.
“You what!? Tell me everything,” Layla screeches at you from across the coffee table. She pushes her food off to the side, clearly deciding that your unexpected meeting with campus's resident celebrity is far more important.
"He came in for a session. His paper was really good, it-"
Layla is quick to cut you off. "I literally couldn't care less about that and you know it. Tell me about him, what's he like? Is he terrifying?"
You can’t help but snort at that. You know why she asked of course - the rumors flying around about him getting out of hand these days - but when you think about him now they all seem ludicrous. The gentle way he spoke to Grogu and offered his hand out to the kid before leaving. The sincerity in his voice as he spoke to you, eager to hear any advice you had to give him. No. Mando was decidedly not terrifying. “He’s… just a guy,” you tell her, not really sure how to explain his unique presence.
The eyeroll you receive in response is warranted. “Are you kidding me right now? You probably know more about him than anyone else on campus and you’re going to tell me he’s just a guy?”
You shrug, shoveling another bite of food into your mouth. “I don’t know what to tell you Lays, I only spent an hour with him. He was nice, really sweet with his kid, and I’ll probably never see him again.”
You’re not sure why you feel a quick sting in your chest at that thought. It wasn’t like you knew him well or that he even owed you anything. Considering the fact that you’d gone weeks without so much as glimpsing him on campus you’d probably only have another chance to see him if he signed up for another session and there was no guarantee he’d return.
“So the kid thing is true?” Layla asks.
“Yeah. Really cute kid, pretty quiet.” Very quiet now that you think of it. You don’t have much experience with kids that young, but you’re certain kids Grogu’s age can talk. He hadn’t said so much as a word, only letting out an occasional noise or two. It was odd, but then he could just be shy or something. Another question you’d probably never have an answer for.
“Is the kid his?” Layla presses.
“I don’t know, it didn’t exactly come up while we discussed his paper on unique material applications,” you snap back at her. You wince a little at your sharp reply. It wasn’t deserved. Layla was simply curious and now the victim of your long day and swirling thoughts.
You quickly follow up with an apology. “Sorry. I just- I had a long day and I really didn’t learn much about him, okay?” 
There’s a small sense of relief when Layla nods, backing down from her inquisition. “It’s cool, I get it. Just promise you’ll tell me if you see him again?”
“Yeah, I’ll let you know.” 
The rest of the night passes like usual. You wash up after dinner, a fair trade since Layla cooked, and the two of you get to tackling homework that’s begun to pile up with the semester entering its full swing. Nighttime study sessions have been a regular occurrence since your undergrad days and have only intensified while pursuing your respective graduate degrees. It’s more about solidarity and accountability than shared workload, what with your program being in English and Layla’s in Marketing, but it’s nice. Simply having company is better than doing it all by yourself.
Around 10:30 you call it, eyes bleary from staring at your laptop. Layla is deep into a PDF reading so you leave her to her work and shuffle off to the shared bathroom. While the water heats, you brush your teeth lazily, going through the motions of your nightly routine. You test the water with your hand before deciding it’s warm enough to step in.
Your thoughts drift aimlessly as you stand under the hot stream, unfocused until they land back on him. It’s like you can’t help yourself, the way your thoughts have been returning to him all night. You’ve puzzled about him before, but only in the abstract. A hypothetical more than a real person. Wondering if rumors are true isn't quite the same as wondering about the man himself. 
All throughout the night he kept popping up. One moment you would be considering the symbolic use of color in your assigned reading and the next you would be puzzling over Mando’s favorite color. Maybe orange, if his gloves were anything to go by. Layla's favorite song played and while she sang along you couldn't help wondering what kind of music he listens to. Rock probably, or was that too on the nose? As you sipped your drink you wondered what his drink of choice would be, alcoholic or not. Did he even drink alcohol at all? Something told you he wasn’t much for losing his inhibitions.
It's all the little things, all the little details that actually make up a person that no one bothers to speculate about that consume you now. Who cares about his favorite movie or favorite food when you can guess on whether or not he's been to jail?
As you wash the grime of the day from your body, your mind continues to drift further, settling onto the first thing that captured your attention earlier today. His hands. Those gorgeous sun soaked hands, how fluidly they moved across his keyboard. The firm hold of them when he shook your hand.
Eyes fluttering closed, you can't help imagining that it's his hands skating across your skin. You can almost feel the gentle roughness of them, the way he'd squeeze and hold you - tight, but not so hard that it hurts. Almost unconsciously, your hand begins to drift down your body, only to be interrupted by a pounding on the bathroom door. Your eyes snap open, confusion and embarrassment replacing your fantasy.
"Hurry up in there! I need to pee," Layla yells through the door.
You grumble in response, knowing she can't hear you, but quickly finish your shower. It's not quite as relaxing anymore, flustered by your wanton thoughts. 
Getting back into your room, you check your email before setting your alarms for tomorrow. There’s the usual spam from online stores reminding you of limited time deals, a reminder that rent is due next week (lovely), and a couple generic university emails. Your eyes fall to your new tutoring appointment emails and you flick through them mindlessly to clear them out, knowing they’ll all automatically appear on your calendar. 
Just as you’re about to close out of the app and get some well needed rest, a new email pops through. It’s another appointment alert scheduled for next week. You tap to open it and your heart flutters when you read the name on the form. Mando. No need to wonder about if you’d ever see him again now. You’d be seeing him Tuesday at 3 PM. Somehow you know he won’t miss his appointment.
×××××
Din is exhausted. Between Grogu, classes, and trying to find ways to make money, he barely has enough time to do basic functional adult things. Things like showering regularly, eating more than a required minimum of once a day, or heaven help him sleep. 
He wishes he could afford a regular babysitter, allow himself some occasional reprieve but it's not possible. He makes just enough to keep the bills paid and at least Grogu's stomach full. There's also an ever present paranoia about letting a stranger into his home, much less to watch his son. Only Paz and Cara have ever babysat for him and even that was mostly against his will.
Din slumps onto his couch, exhausted from the long day. He’d found the couch on the side of the road. It’s well worn and has a couple holes in it, but it was devoid of fleas, comfortable, and most importantly, free. His helmet is off, sitting on the kitchen table where he’d left it after getting home from campus. He’s mostly used to it these days, but sometimes it can still feel suffocating underneath the custom bucket. Taking it off at the end of the day is always welcome, especially when Din sees Grogu’s eyes light up at his exposed face.
He allows himself just a moment of rest, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the back of the couch. Grogu had finally gone to bed, demanding three stories before he fell asleep and Din not having it within him to deny the requests. A small smile rests on his lips, thinking of Grogu's excitement at his mediocre storytelling. He already loathes the day when Grogu won't ask him to read anymore.
There are about twenty other things he should be doing right now other than sitting on the couch. The apartment hasn't been cleaned properly in weeks, dishes are piling up, laundry needs to be done, he needs to find a job for this weekend, should probably find better daycare for Grogu, has an exam to study for, and a paper to finish writing. He should be doing all of that and more, and yet he can't find the will to move. He stays planted firmly on the couch, letting his thoughts drift. A few different ideas and ruminations swirl around, but his mind settles onto one. Her.
She isn't what he had been expecting. When his professor had recommended a session with a writing tutor he'd been a little miffed at first. Din knew words weren't his strong suit, but he hadn't thought he was that bad. He probably wouldn't have even considered it if she hadn't immediately assured him that it was only a suggestion because she saw potential in his work.
He had still only been considering it, form half filled out, when Grogu had hit submit. He’d looked for a way to cancel the appointment, but couldn’t figure it out with the school’s poorly designed website, so instead he had resigned himself to going. After all, just the one session couldn't hurt and he'd already be on campus.
He thought the tutor would be some irritating know-it-all, pointing out all the mistakes in his paper. Either that, or that they'd be too nervous to make any real criticisms. He’d noticed the way people froze up around him, sometimes too timid to even look in his direction. She wasn't either of those things.
She was all smiles and kindness, not hesitant around him for a moment. Even Grogu took an immediate liking to her, as evidenced by the gift of his frog drawing. Din had more of those than he could count, but very few others had been bestowed the honor of his sacred amphibian themed artworks.
She challenged him in a way he liked, not rude but still forceful. Encouraging him to figure out what it was she was guiding him towards with the paper. Not taking ownership, simply identifying where ideas could be made stronger or clearer. They’d only worked through a few pages in the session and Din already felt more confident in his writing. 
What he liked most though was that she hadn't even asked about the helmet. It was all he heard from those brave enough to speak to him. Where did he get it, why did he wear it, did he ever take it off, what does he look like underneath, and so on. Avoiding all of those questions got to be draining. She didn't even acknowledge it.
She had mentioned the rumors that were apparently swirling around campus about him but that was it. He was a bit grateful for that though, entirely unaware of how popular he'd apparently become. The stares that followed him on campus were hard to ignore, but he didn’t know about their accompanying whispers. He still isn’t sure if the rumors are a good or a bad thing. Her reaction hadn’t given him all that much to go off of. He wishes it had.
That thought stops Din short. Where did that come from? Why did her opinion of him suddenly matter after a single one hour session? Din can’t remember the last time he considered someone else’s opinion of him. Probably when he first brought Grogu home to meet everyone. Now here he is, wondering what his English tutor’s thoughts were about the rumors everyone has been spreading about him. He needs to get out more.
Din shakes his head free, trying to ponder other aspects of his life. Like when he’d be able to get the Razor Crest up and running again. She’d broken down again after only the second week of classes. Paz makes fun of him for riding on such an old bike, but she’s a classic. Din can’t get rid of her, no matter how much she likes to break down on him. In the meantime he could make due with the loaner truck from Peli.
Thoughts of his motorcycle only distract him for so long though. He realizes half-way through the fantasy that he’s imagining taking her out on his bike, feeling her hands clasped around his waist as he rides through the city. The way she’d hang on just a little tighter, pressing herself against his back, as he hits the throttle just a bit harder.
Din sits up on the couch and mutters to himself. “Come on, Djarin. Pull it together.”
She’s beautiful, yes, but to already be fantasizing about taking her for a ride? That’s a bit much. It has been months since Din has seen any kind of action, but he shouldn’t be this desperate after spending only an hour with a pretty face. Still, now that he’s thinking of it, his mind wanders to what she’d be like. 
Would she take charge, calm and in control like she was earlier today? Or would she submit to him, allow him to do whatever he wanted? A small groan escapes Din’s lips at the thought of having her beneath him, begging for him to take her. How she would look spread out on his bedsheets, how sweet she’d taste. He can already imagine how good she’d feel wrapped around him, the way her eyes would look all strung out and cockdumb. It would be a beautiful sight if he’s ever lucky enough to see it.
An alarm Din forgot he set suddenly blares on his phone. He can’t even remember what he set it for as he’s yanked from his lewd imaginings, scrambling to turn it off. There’s a small wave of embarrassment as he registers where he allowed his thoughts to drift. 
Ignoring the uncomfortable pressure in his jeans, Din pulls up the tutoring appointment form on his phone and signs up for another session. There’s an option to select a specific tutor and he’s quick to open it up, choosing her name from the drop down menu. 
There’s nothing wrong about this, right? She’d helped him with his paper and Grogu liked her. She even asked if she’d be seeing him again. That was plenty of reason to have another session. His renegade fantasies had nothing to do with his decision to go back. Din is a man in control of his urges. If anything, this next session would prove that his thoughts were all just fleeting, just a simple result of going too long without anyone in his bed.
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taglist: @honestly-shite​ @booksarekindaneat​ @wonderless-screwup​ @pinkninja200​ @captain-jebi​ @ajeff855​ @leias-rebelion​ 
Reblogs and comments are highly appreciated 💕
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spanishskulduggery · 3 years
Note
Do you know of any fossil words in Spanish, words that used to be common but fell out of use and are now only preserved in idioms? I tried looking on Google but all the results were English-only examples
I'll try and think of some others but here are the ones that come to mind; and I’m not sure all of these will be what you’re looking for.
si fuere menester = "in the event of" el menester used to be fairly common especially in the Medieval period, where it was another word for "need" or "necessity". Today you only see menester in si fuere menester which is an unusual construction as it is, since fuere is the future subjunctive - which is an obsolete tense - and so it literally means "should it be necessary". This expression only now shows up in contracts and legal contexts normally as "in the event of"
donde fueres haz lo que vieres = "when in Rome... (do as the Romans do)" Again, this is future subjunctive; literally "wherever you go, do what you see".. but in a more obtuse future subjunctive way "wherever you should happen to go, do whatever you may happen to see"
la urdimbre y trama = "warp and weft" The idea of this is related to "weaving", and though this phrase is rather antiquated or particular, it occasionally shows up as something like la urdimbre y trama de la sociedad or something where that's "the fabric of society". It's not the way you say that so much now [el tejido or la tela are more common], but urdir "to warp" was related to working a loom. You still do use tramar but it's not often that you see it related to weaving anymore... tramar is "to plot" or "to hatch a scheme", but you can see how "weaving" would go into "plotting"
so pena de = "under pain of" You don't often see so used in Spanish today, since it's a more direct link to Latin and Italian. And today la pena rarely means "pain" in the physical sense, it usually means "sorrow" or "anguish"... but again in legal cases, so pena de muerte is "under pain/penalty of death"
a diestra y siniestra = "all over the place" This expression literally means "to the right and left". The word diestro/a is still "right-handed" (also means "skillful" or "dexterous"), but siniestro/a used to mean "left-handed"... the idea that the left hand was more evil and "sinister", and "under-handed". In older contexts, siniestro/a means "left-handed", but in modern contexts you say zurdo/a for "left-handed"
al tuntún = "impromptu", "improvise", "on the fly", "by ear" This expression is derived from Latin, ad vultum tuum which is literally "to your face" in Latin. You never see tuntún anymore unless something is done al tuntún but it might be more regional; it just means you're making it up as you go
dormir como un ceporro = "to sleep like a log" Most people today say dormir como un tronco which is the same idea; el ceporro is a variation but it's extremely unusual to see it. Most people will use tronco if they have to
tuerto/a = one-eyed I'm actually not sure if people use tuerto/a still, since there are other ways to say "blind in one eye" or "one-eyed". In older Spanish, tuerto could show up as a "grievance", but in the expression en el reino de ciegos el tuerto es rey is still used sometimes, literally "in the kingdom of blind people, the one-eyed man is the king"
(el) haba = bean [technically haba is feminine] Not common to see el haba used much anymore except in certain contexts, and it's the root of la habichuela "bean". In Spain, sometimes haba is "idiot" so if you see el tonto del haba it's like "the biggest idiot that ever lived"
Vuestra Merced = "Your Lordship/Ladyship" This is the original form of it, but it eventually turned into usted "you" used for polite things. The title was Vuestra Merced and it was how you addressed someone without knowing their title, so it became very polite. In older Spanish you'd abbreviate it as Vd. which eventually became Ud. as the abbreviation for usted. Keep in mind that at a certain point in time, Spanish wrote the U sound as a V, and it followed more of the Latin pronunciation where the V had a softer U/W sound at times. Outside of Spain and works set in older time periods, you're unlikely to use vuestro/a - it even became informal plural "you all" in Spain - but you rarely ever see merced used. Chances are you're only going to see it was vuestra in front of it. But just know that vos has a very different meaning today than it did in the Middle Ages
meter/sembrar cizaña = "to sow discord" You're never going to see cizaña used in any other context unless you happen upon some botanical book. The literal translation is "darnel" which is sometimes called "false wheat"; basically la cizaña looks like trigo "wheat", and it grows close to wheat but it often has a fungus that's poisonous so you need to separate it. The idea behind it is that if you're deliberately planting cizaña you're actively trying to poison someone or make things worse
la celestina = "a go-between, a mediator" This word comes directly from La Celestina a novel written in Spain's Golden Age by Fernando de Rojas. In it there's a woman named Celestina who sets up meetings between women living in convents (who weren't always nuns) and men; acting as a go-between and chaperone for love affairs basically. The term was also la alcahueta but became celestina after the character in the book. Certain characters in literature are considered celestinas like the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet; basically the girl/woman can't risk her reputation so she has her maid or chaperone working to arrange things, and they're often the catalyst for things going wrong. In other contexts, celestina or una alcahueta is a "pimp" or "madame", or sometimes "a gossip"
pardo/a = brown, brownish-gray Today you’re only really going to see pardo/a used with animals. Specifically, el oso pardo is a “grizzly bear”, and pardo/a can be used with horses as “dun”. I don’t know if “grizzly bear” counts as an expression but anyway. In older Spanish pardo/a was another word for “brown” when it came to people too. Today, if you’re describing hair color as “brown/brunette” you’re using castaño which is literally “chestnut”, either castaño claro “light brown” or castaño oscuro “dark brown”. When it comes to things that are brown, the typical word is now marrón or sometimes you see it as color café which is “coffee-colored”
ser un caco = to be a thief Not commonly used as ladrón, ladrona “thief”, but un caco literally means “a Cacus”. Basically, Cacus was a mythological figure who stole some cattle and Hercules killed him. In some places people use un caco to mean “thief” as a euphemism
la Parca = the Grim Reaper Orginally, las Parcas were the Parcae in Roman (originally Greek) mythology. They were the sisters of fate who would measure someone’s life and eventually cut the thread. Today, it’s just one Parca and it’s typically a male figure, skeletal, with a scythe as the “Grim Reaper”, rather than it being a woman with scissors. That’s because during the Plague, people thought of Death as being a skeletal figure that held a scythe, the symbol for “reaping” wheat that was ripe.
manjar de los dioses = “nectar of the gods” / a delicacy el manjar is used in some places in certain contexts but it originally came from Italian as “food” or something “to eat”. Today, manjar is usually a “snack”, or in some cases it’s dulce de leche, but most of the Spanish-speaking world doesn’t use manjar so much. It is sometimes “delicacy”, but in older contexts it was code for “ambrosia”, the thing that the Greek gods couldn’t get enough of. The world manjar still feels very antiquated to me, but when it’s used it’s some kind of good food or eating a lot of food
valer un potosí = “to be worth a fortune” un potosí is pretty antiquated, but it came from the city Potosí in Bolivia which was famous for its silver mines that the conquistadores exploited. There are still some places that will use potosí as “something of great value”, though it’s not so common anymore unless you’re talking about the actual city.
moros y cristianos = “beans and rice” Usually it’s black beans and white rice, though this is literally “Moors and Christians”. You still use cristiano/a today but typically you only use moro/a in a historical sense
Also there’s the expression más sordo/a que una tapia where it means someone is really hard of hearing; literally “as deaf as a garden wall”, but I’ve never seen people use tapia ...only a muro or a cerca as “wall” or “fence”. The idea of tapiar is related to “mortar” and “masonry”
There are also some expressions related to metal and older words for it. For example, saturnino/a is an older word for “gloomy”, though it now refers to “lead-poisoning”. Saturn was linked to “moodiness” in alchemical society, and the symbol for Saturn was the older symbol for “lead”. 
This is similar to how áureo/a is “gold” but also linked to the “sun” because the Sun and gold are linked.
Another is el azogue which is the older word for mercury so it’d be “quicksilver”. You may see azogarse in some texts where it means “to be fidgetty” and it’s related both to mercury-poisoning, and probably to the idea of Mercury/Hermes being the messenger god so always on the move. 
There is also hidalgo/a which doesn’t have quite the same meaning it did originally. Today, hidalgo/a is sort of like “having noble blood”. It literally means “son of something/someone”, where originally in Spain hidalgos were the children of nobles - specifically, it tended to refer to the children of nobles who weren’t the firstborn male. Firstborn sons often got about 2/3 of the money and were expected to run the estates. The second or third or fourth children were usually on their own. It became a running joke that the firstborn became the lord, and the others would either join the army or the clergy. In Cervantes’s time, hidalgos could be among the poorest of society, even poorer than slaves in some cases. They were still “noble” in terms of blood though, and hidalgos couldn’t be tortured by the Inquisition because of it. So they were afforded certain rights, but usually tended to be poor or lower than you’d expect a noble to be. Today it just means “of nobility”, but in Cervantes’s time a hidalgo was the symbol of Spain under the Holy Roman Empire - wealthy and noble and glorious in theory, much poorer in reality.
I'd also add the phrases levar ancla "to raise anchor" or "anchors aweigh/away", where levar is rarely used today aside from nautical terms. Similarly, izar la bandera is "to hoist the flag"... not a lot of chances to use izar if it's not related to "flags" or la vela "a sail"
I also would say errar is less common today in Spanish. It's still used, but you normally say cometer un error "to make a mistake". Still, errar es humano, perdonar es divino "to err is human, to forgive divine". Also errar is weirdly irregular at times, it turns into yerro as present tense yo
And I’m also going to include when la manzana means a “city block”. Today manzana is not rare, it means “apple”. But manzana as a “city block” was originally mansana where it meant a “collection of manses/houses arranged in a block on a grid”. So there’s that. If you ever see manzana used for blocks in a city, it’s technically a separate word
Also depending on context el mar “sea” will be la mar with the feminine article. That’s usually more particular, usually meaning “open water” or deeper waters like alta mar “high seas”. The more poetic or open the water is, the more likely it is to be feminine, and so la mar isn’t quite so antiquated but it’s a little special
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lilysdaydreams · 4 years
Text
Boyfriend-girlfriend feelings ~
Pairing: Corpse Husband X Reader
Genre: Fluffy stuff.
Warnings: Um none i think.
Summary: Request where fem!reader has like a husky voice and it’s not like super deep but deep compared to the other female streamers and she joins the lobby w corpse and stuff as a substitute and everyone is supposed about her voice and calls her the girl version of corpse bc she’s faceless too, except her personality isn’t bc she’s super optimistic and stuff. Anyways her and corpse bond and later admit separately on stream that they like the other, then fluff? Thank you!!!!
A/N: This is my first request and I went a bit overboard lol, this is nearly 3000 words so Anon I hope you enjoy lol, but yeah I did my best, I really really really  hope you like it :((
~~~
You yawned and took a sip of your bubble tea before turning back to chat.
“Hmmm, what should we do now, everyone? I think I might end stream now, it’s been like nearly 4 hours.” you mumbled glancing at the time.
It was only 10, so it wasn't that late, but you’d been on stream for 4 hours and you needed to finish your essay.
Your phone lit up with a notification and you glanced at it to see that it was from Sean.
Sean: hey wanna play among us? We need one more person.
“Uhhh or maybe not.” you said to everyone, smiling as you saw the chat light up with excitement.
Quickly typing out a “yessss, send me the link.”, you let your viewers know that you were gonna be playing among us and then quickly opened up the game.
Opening up discord, you joined the group and realised the only person you actually knew here was Sean.
“Shit” you said, biting your lip.
“Guysss,” you whined to your viewers. “The only person I know here is Sean. I’m so nervous now.”
The chat blew up with “you can do it!” and “we believe in you!” and other supportive messages.
You smiled seeing all of this. Your community may be small, but they were probably the best ones out there. They were sweet and kind and there was barely any toxicity in the group. You were only a small streamer, doing it as a hobby since you started college. You only knew Sean because he had messaged you himself, inviting you to a game of Phasmophobia because he'd liked your previous videos where you played it. You had been shocked then, barely being able to comprehend that Jackspecticeye decided to Twitter dm you, like what the actual fuck. That had only been a month ago, and you had played again a week ago with him, but your friendship was still new so even though his presence made you a bit comfortable, the anxiety was definitely overpowering it.
“Okay, okay I can do it” you mumbled under your breath trying to hype yourself up.
Quickly joining the call, your ears were filled with the noise of everyone yelling about the previous game. Sean quickly yelled at them to shut up once he noticed you'd joined.
"Everybody, I have our tenth player, this is Y/N, say hi everyone."
Valkyrae was the first one to yell out "Hi" with everyone else chiming in as well, and you had to breathe in deep to stop yourself from fangirling over Valkyrae.
You awkwardly smiled and said "Hey guys, I'm Y/N, Its nice to meet everyone."
There was silence for a second and you narrowed your eyes, wondering if you were muted or something.
"Wait what oh my god, you're Y/N from Y/C/N?" Valkyrae said her voice going quite high.
"Oh, that's where I know you from," said Sykkuno suddenly, leaving you staring shocked at the screen. Sykkuno and Valkyrae knew who you were? What the actual fuck?
"Uhhh," you said eyes flickering between the chat and the screen. "Yeah, that's me, I didn't even think you would know who I was, um oh my god."
"Oh right, now I remember, you did a cover of dreamy night, right?" chimed in Lily, and by this point, you were almost having a panic attack.
"Oh god, you saw that?" you questioned, whispering because you were worried that you were gonna wake up from this dream soon.
"Yeah!" exclaimed Lily, "Your voice is like total opposite of mine, so it was really cool to hear! Your  voice is really nice!"
"Awww, thank you so much, that's so sweet of you to say," you said, wringing your hands, not really sure what to say. What the actual fuck, how were all you favourite streamers here and ALSO knew about you huh? You wondered if this was a dream.
"Yeah what the hell, your voice is so deep." said Poki.
"Right, when you said 'hi', I literally thought it was Corpse for a second," Dave replied, chuckling a bit.
You made yourself take big breaths, trying to make your heart calm down.
"She's not very much like Corpse though" Sean chimed in. "She's very sweet, and gets scared so easily."
You unmuted yourself and gasped exaggeratedly. "Excuse me Sean, but who was it who screamed so much in Phasmophobia and nearly made my ears bleed?
"That game is FUCKING scary okay?" He screamed back, making everyone laugh in the background.
"Hey guys, what did I miss?" a very deep voice came in suddenly, and you realised this was the 'Corpse' they were talking about. You had seen his popularity on Twitter and seen a few clips of him playing but god damn hearing his voice in your ears like that was fucking amazing. You squeaked, thankful you were on mute.
"Holy shit, his voice is deep," you said to the chat, immediately getting responses such as "We know!," and "SIMPPP" as a joke from others.
Giggling you unmuted yourself when Sean introduced you to Corpse, and nervously said "Hey", dragging it out at the end, "Its nice to meet you!"
"Oh yeah!" said Sean as if remembering something. "Y/N is faceless as well, so she kind of is like the  female version of Corpse."
"What?" "Oh my god." "Brooo, thats so cool"
You didn't have time to say anything back as Sean decided to start the game at right that second.
Everyone went quiet and you sighed in relief as "CREWMATE" flashed across your screen. You did not want to be an imposter right now, you wouldn't be able to stomach it.
Quickly hiding your chat, you moved to admin and started humming something to calm your heart down. This had been a crazy 5 minutes for you, and you really needed to calm down. Taking a sip of your drink, you talked to the viewers as you did the card swipe.
"I cant believe Valkyrae - oh I should just call her Rae, right? considering I'm playing with her right now, oh my god, ANYWAYS, I can't believe Rae and Sykkuno know me. Like Lily even saw my cover. Ahhh! I didn't even know she saw it, and now I'm just playing with them, im literally shaking," you rambled to the chat as you went towards electrical to do the tasks there.
You saw Poki there, and you both ran around each other and then you followed her as she started walking to reactor. Suddenly the lights went out, and you gasped as the report button went red, and you quickly pressed it.
"Okay okay," you said before anyone could speak. "Me and Poki met up in electrical, we went to reactor and I was doing the one two three four five six seven eight nine ten task, and she was doing the Simon says and then lights went out and I went off and then suddenly the report button was red. So the kill happened right now."
"Did you see anyone?" asked Toast?
"Nope, I saw no one."
"Well, it couldn't be Sykkuno, because we were both waking to electrical together," said Corpse,
"Yeah it couldn't be Corpse, we were together at the last moment," confirmed Sykkuno.
"I was in weapons," said Rae.
"Navigation." - Dave.
"I was already at Electrical with uh Lily I think," said Sean.
"Yeah, that was me." confirmed Lily.
"Toast where were you?" asked Rae.
"I was just going into navigation."
"Leslie?" you asked, noticing she hadn't spoken up.
"I was in weapons."
"Well one of you is lying." said Corpse softly making everyone laugh.
"Gee, I wonder what this game is about?" Sean replied, teasing him.
"Maybe it's a self report?" questioned Dave.
"No oh my god, it's not me," you said quickly defending yourself. "Poki and I were literally doing our tasks, I swear."
"I don't think it's Y/N, why would she report the body, there was no one around, and she could  have easily just vented somewhere."
"Are we skipping?" Leslie asked.
A chorus of "Yeah" came in so you quickly skipped. Going into weapons you did the shooting task there and then started towards navigation, letting out a gasp as you got killed suddenly.
"ITS SEAN?" You yelled, completely shocked. "How could he kill me like that, I just started playing with them, and he was the one who invited me as well!" you whined, brining the chat back in again.
Opening up the dead chat, you messaged ":(((((" and Poki did the same back. You talked to the chat for a bit, moving around until you got to electrical where Corpse was.
"Guys, it's Corpse, lets follow him," you said, smiling a little.
Just as he was leaving electrical, Toast came in and killed him. You let out a small gasp as he self-reported and pretended that he'd just stumbled onto the body.
"CORPSEEEE" you typed into the dead chat, laughing when Corpse responded with ":((((" just like you had done.
"Whose the other one?" he asked and you quickly typed in "Sean :((("
Corpse: "*GASP, he killed you after inviting you to the game?*"
You: "Ikr!"
Corpse: “that’s so rude, we should stick together next game so we don’t get killed easily."
You: "Yes let’s do that!”
You guys continued talking until the next round started.
"SEAN!" you yelled immediately. "How could you kill me like that, when you were the one who invited me?" you whined.
"Exactly Sean, that was so rude." Corpse chimed in, supporting you.
"Ah, uh, exc -" spluttered Sean, "Please, oh my god, I can't handle the both of you at the same time, it's too intimidating."
Everyone started laughing and you giggled as Corpse accused Sean of avoiding the question.
The next round started and you laughed when you both got double killed five minutes into the game. Seems like your strategy of staying together wasn’t that good.
You played a few more games with everyone, getting imposter with Poki once. Finally, you decided that you really should finish that essay that you had due.
Finishing your fourth game, you let everyone know, pouting when everyone groaned.
"It was really nice to meet you, Y/N" said Rae, "We should definitely play more!"
Everyone chimed in then and you said bye to everyone as you left the lobby. Just as you were leaving the voice call, you heard Corpse say "Bye Y/N" again, but you couldn't reply because you just left.
"Whoops," you mumbled, feeling a bit bad.
You quickly said bye to all the viewers and ended the stream.
Opening discord on your phone, you sent a friend request to Corpse, being shocked when he accepted in a second. Wasn't he playing still?
Typing out the message, you sent it before thinking about it too much.
"Hey, sorry, I heard you say bye at the end, but I left right then. Just wanted to let you know that I wasn't purposely ignoring you or something."
“Ahhh no worries,” he replied.
Then a second later; “I checked out your covers btw, you’re really good.”
“Oh, thank you so much,” you replied typing quickly. “Your songs are great as well. I have to admit they’re a bit too intense for me lol, as I normally only listen to ballads and stuff, but I loved agoraphobic with al my heart :((( literally listened to that non-stop for a week when it came out lol.”
Okay maybe I went a bit overboard, you thought staring at the message.
“Oh Thankyou, that means so much to me. And yeah, I know that not everyone likes this type of music, don’t worry about it. Actually, I was thinking of doing another Lo-fi type of song like Agoraphobic, but I’m still working on it.”
You settled into your chair, continuing on the conversation.
It was an hour later that you realised that you’d just been texting Corpse and not done the essay like you planned to.
“Sorry corpse, gtg,” you messaged, putting a string of crying emojis after.
Putting down your phone, you finally started working on your essay, ignoring the butterflies you’d had in your stomach for the past hour.
~~~
You guys kept talking. The next day he asked for your number, saying it’d be easier to text there than discord. You guys messaged for ages. Your conversations never ended because even if one of you had to go, you would just pick up the conversation from where you left. It was by far the easiest friendship you’d ever had, and if you were being completely honest, you’d kind of developed a small crush on him.
A few weeks later, you were streaming among us again, this time with another group. You died quickly in the first game, so you pulled up chat and started asking some questions.
“Corpse?” You asked reading one of the questions. “Ah I don’t know guys, I don’t think Corpse is coming to this game, he’s quite busy with his music and everything, and I don’t think he’s available today.”
“Do you like his music?"
"Yeah, his music is great. It’s sometimes intense for me,” you admitted giggling, “but I do love it. I actually really wanted to cover Agoraphobic or MISS YOU! They’re both my favourites and I’ve been wanting to... hmmm.. maybe I’ll do a poll on Twitter and see which one more people want?”
Suddenly a message caught your eye; “I kind of have a crush on corpse.”
You laughed out loud, saying the username and replying “Yah I think everyone who meets corpse ends up having a crush on him, like how could you not, he’s freaking perfect.”
When everyone started spamming chat though, you realized you might have said too much.
“Anyway guys look, I think Sykkuno might end up voting Rae, and oh he did it,” you laughed as the “defeat” screen came up and Rae started yelling at Sykkuno for not believing her.
~~~
The next day, Corpse was waiting as Rae asked people to join the lobby. Answering questions from his chat, he saw one about you and read it out.
“Is Y/N gonna play?”
“Ahhh, I don’t think so guys, I think she has an assignment or something. It’s been a bit since I played with her, it would have been nice to but yah I don’t think she’s available.”
Suddenly all the chat was talking about was you.
“Do you see the clip where she says she likes you?”
“Bhahah I think she has a crush on you lol”
“Did you see that clip?”
Corpse furrowed his eyebrows confused about what clip.
Another comment caught his eye.
“Do you like her?”
“Do I like her? Of course, I like her, it was amazing to meet her, her covers are great, she’s so nice, also she’s like the exact opposite of her voice, it’s so funny." He laughed remembering the photo you'd sent of all your plushies lined on the bed. "Yah no she’s really sweet, we’ve been talking a lot recently, it’s been fun.”
“SIMPPPPP”
“Omg he actually likes her.”
“CORPSE X Y/N”
“Oh don’t make her uncomfortable guys,” Corpse huffed as he saw the comments. “Yah I kinda like her, but y’all are too much” he muttered, before realising exactly what he’d said.
“Wait no, what.” he stuttered, “Um oh look Rae's found some more people.”
~~~
When you finally decided to look on your phone, you realised that your Twitter notifications were blowing UP. Quickly going into the app, you clicked on one of the mentions saying “CORPSE X Y/N, ITS REAL I CANT BELIEVE IT.”
Tapping the video underneath it, you listened as Corpse talked about you, blushing when you realised what it sounded like. But...he couldn’t actually have a crush on you... right?
He was probably kidding, you told your beating heart. Probably just wanted to go trending for something. A voice whispered in your mind that Corpse wasn’t like that but you didn’t wanna give yourself hope.
Just then your phone rung, making you jump and stare shocked at the screen when you saw Corpse with a yellow heart next to it. Corpse had never called you before.
Quickly picking up the call before it could go to voicemail, you shakily questioned “Hey corpse?”
“Uh hey,” he said, his voice sounding way too deep. “Sorry I normally wouldn’t call but like, I just got off-stream and saw the Twitter trends and everything. Um, I like - didn’t wanna, um make you uncomfortable with all that so I can tell them to back off if you want?”
“Um..” you said stalling, trying to process everything here. Deciding to oho full in, you just blurted it out, “Do you actually have feelings for me?”
“Like not just friend feelings", you continued, "but like the boyfriend-girlfriend feelings if you get what I mean.”
Immediately after saying that you wanted to slap yourself. Were you in 2nd grade? Like who the hell says boyfriend girlfriend feelings?
“Uhhh, I- I kinda do I guess, I like you but like it’s okay if you don-
“I do," you said cutting him off before he could finish.
“I um, I also like you.”
“Oh.
“Yah”
“Cool”
“Cool”
~~
Should I do a pt 2?
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dropintomanga · 3 years
Text
“Look Back” - 140 Pages of Raw Emotion
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Koyoharu Gotoge gets all the attention right now, but the real manga superstar of the future (or soon-to-be) is Tatsuki Fujimoto. His previous known works, Fire Punch and Chainsaw Man, have developed passionate followings. But his one-shot about creativity and the bonds that form as a result, Look Back, solidifies Fujimoto as one of the very best in depicting real human emotions during terrible moments.
Look Back focuses on the artistic journey of Ayumu Fujino, a 4th grader who loves to draw manga. She draws comic strips for her school newspaper. However, Fujino sees that a fellow peer of hers, Kyomoto, draws even better than her. Fujino becomes more determined to be better than Kyomoto. However, family and peer pressure causes Fujino to change her priorities during 6th grade. It isn’t until she is asked by school staff to deliver Kyomoto’s elementary school graduation diploma to the latter’s house that she gets back into drawing manga again. Fujino draws something on a blank 4-panel strip she finds at Kyomoto’s place. Kyomoto, who’s a shut-in, sees the strip and tells Fujino that she’s been a fan of her art since 4th grade. Fujino becomes ecstatic in seeing her work recognized after constant criticism from her peers. Fujino and Kyomoto begin to work together on manga since then. Both got recognized by Shueisha multiple times over the years to the point of having one of their works becoming an anime series.
Shortly after the anime announcement of one of their works, a rift between the two starts to happen when Kyomoto tells Fujino that she wants to go to art school to get better at drawing. Fujino argues that Kyomoto’s social aloofness is too much for the rest of the world and that it’s better for Kyomoto to stick by her. Kyotomo still goes to art school regardless. Years after their separation, Fujino watches the news one day and finds out that someone attacked the art school Kyomoto attended with multiple dead victims. Kyomoto was one of them. Fujino begins to criticize herself for Kyomoto’s death, but after visiting Kyomoto’s drawing space and seeing how much Kyomoto loved her, Fujino continues to draw as a way to move forward.
I can’t speak on the creative process of a mangaka and mangaka relationships (though I know several mangaka have commented on Look Back for its honest take of being a creator), but I can definitely comment on Fujino blaming herself for Kyomoto’s death. “Drawing is useless,” she says. Fujino imagines a scenario where she saves Kyomoto from her attacker. Fujino was once told by her older sister to practice karate and she feels that maybe she should’ve taken it more seriously. What if she didn’t draw that strip back in 6th grade? What if Fujino and Kyomoto actually met during the art school incident instead of 6th grade?
Those “What ifs?” get shown in vivid detail. And it’s heart-wrenching. There’s always constant reminders to treasure those around you because you never know what will happen. It’s hard to do that sometimes when certain cultures always avoid issues like death and the inevitability of it all like they’re not worth talking about. Also, I think we’re always told that we can save someone if we tried hard enough. If they never get better, society will say that it’s our fault. No one wants to talk about how random life gets. That’s because no one wants to admit that they can’t control everything.
The most powerful moment was Fujino realizing that drawing isn’t useless. She notices a small strip at Kyomoto’s place while in grief. This panel says it all.
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It’s nice to have someone with the same interests as you be your friend. But more importantly, it’s even nicer to have someone who literally gives a shit about you. Someone’s who willing to guide you, take in your pain, and be vulnerable with. Fujino exposed Kyomoto to the outside world during their early mangaka days and Kyomoto expressed her gratitude for that. It’s so hard to find people like that. I mean, if you know you’re about to die, it’s worth knowing that at the very least, you met someone that loved you and got you to feel life was worth it, right? I often hear there are many people who don’t feel they’re truly being heard among their relationship circles. Their connections aren’t as deep as they would like.
What this also says is that if you’re working on something that almost always feels undervalued, there’s always someone out there who will tell you that they are inspired by your work. Maybe I can speak on this a bit. I sometimes feel that blogging is a drag given all the mass attention is going to other outlets. Like why write? Especially on a platform that’s been crapped on the past few years. I realize that this isn’t the case. There’s people who dislike “hot takes/clickbait tiles/news promoting discourse.” I think about what Roland Kelts said about anime discussion in this interview.
“What sucks is that the discourse on social media is so coarse. When you go back and read exchanges between diehard anime fans on Usenet and old chatrooms and forums from the mid-2000s, they read like middlebrow literature compared to what you see on Twitter, Reddit, and Discord. So many social media posts are made just to get hits, not to communicate or share ideas, and the most provocative, cruel, or just plain daft stuff gets liked and retweeted a thousand times.”
I feel that there’s still a place for me and if I can still communicate ideas worth thinking about, I’ll keep going as long as I can. Plus, trying to appeal to everyone feels like a trap because it sometimes requires sacrificing certain core values that you might hold dear. When I look at Fujino and Kyomoto, they held on to their core values and found solace in one another. Just find “good enough” people who are willing to love and respect you. I’m glad Look Back got published because finding bonds with other like-minded folks and developing very close relationships with them is sadly a rarity during these times. You also can’t put monetary worth on creativity that inspires people to do what they want to do and/or find reasons for living. Hobbies and creative ventures aren’t “side hustles/distractions” - they’re part of a universal cry to be human.
I think it’s safe to to say that we will really look back on this one-shot for years to come.
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