#its so funny that i started t before i got a haircut but i was suffering with my body so badly i had to do something

[butchwestgri]

cisheteronormativity is so fucking funny because the fact that im afab with long hair somehow means im immune to accusations of being Not Cishet...im hairy and i wear my keys on a carabiner and shop in the mens department and so many other not straight things. i laugh at my female friends when they talk about having crushes on men, i'm hesitant to call myself a girl or pretend to be interested in men even as coverup, but the fact that i have long "girl" hair means that people don't pay attention to that and see me as a girl. and i mean i guess thats fine but god im so frustrated

[nana-au]

Best Friends Forever!

Suguru Geto ♡

MDNI

₊˚ପ⊹ Summary: You’re Suguru’s bff and roommate. You know him like the back of your hand – and he knows you the same, if not better! Some people may think you two are too close, but they just don’t understand. When you have a date planned and need help picking out your outfit, Suguru’s your guy! ...What’s this? He doesn’t want you to leave?

₊˚ପ⊹ Warnings: minor mention of blood, mention of pet death, possessiveness, jealousy, nipple play, thigh riding, fingering, making you beg, overstimulation, unprotected sex

₊˚ପ⊹ an: kicking and screaming and crying and throwing up and scratching my face I NEED HIM.

₊˚ପ⊹ wc: 2.8k

𓂃⊹ ִֶָ

BFF! Sugu who’s been by your side since before you can even remember! You grew up neighbors and when you both went off to college you got an apartment off campus together. It was only natural to be with Suguru. He was the only constant in your life – your anchor. 

BFF! Sugu who is so protective of you. How could he not? You two experienced life’s firsts together. You were there when Suguru took a nasty spill off his bike. His tears were hot down his face as you stayed by his side. You used the water bottle you kept on your own bike to flush the blood off his knee, giving it a quick peck. “My mom always says a kiss makes everything better. Do you feel better Sugu?” He nods his head, wiping the snot off of his face with his t-shirt. He was there when you lost your first pet and even though you were preteens and everyone made you feel dumb being sad over a goldfish - Geto made it a point to hold a funeral in his backyard. He dug a small grave for it - picking out the perfect rock for you to write its name on to place on top of its resting place. 

BFF! Sugu who makes sure you’re safe. He would never allow you to pump your own gas. He’s seen the type of guys who prowl around the gas station close to your home. He’ll make sure you get to sit pretty in the passenger seat while he fills up your car. Don’t worry about the price – he’ll take care of it. He always takes care of you. 

BFF! Sugu who knows everything about you. He knows all your favorites. Favorite color, favorite season, favorite food, favorite tv show… there was nothing that you liked that he was not aware of. He knows about things you wouldn’t be caught dead telling anyone else – trusting only your best friend. 

BFF! Sugu who is so so sooooo protective of you. Any guy he thought wasn’t the absolute best for you was quickly kicked to the curb. He’ll admit – sometimes the criteria was a little strict. The guy from your art class? His haircut was stupid. Shithead from your after school club? Believe him – he was a tool. Worst of all was the douche on your school’s baseball team. Suguru had quite the time getting you to see his point of view, but he didn’t dare say I told you so as you cried in his arms retelling the embarrassment of catching him cheating. 

BFF! Sugu who learns to relax in college. You were a woman now – you no longer needed his constant guidance. He would genuinely smile as you talked about all the friends you were making in your major. How funny your coworkers at the concession stand job you worked every football game were. The fact you had a date with a friend of a friend – your girl friend had vouched for him. He was a good guy. Geto was glad you had people looking out for you. He couldn’t wait to meet him. 

BFF! Sugu who helps you pick out the cute little outfits for your dates. You were so beautiful, that guy was truly lucky. But even his luck couldn’t match Suguru’s as you put on a little show for him – trying on every tantalizing option. 

BFF! Sugu who loved watching you dress up so much he bought you more. You didn’t even need a date to have a fashion show! He just loved seeing that color on you. Oh! – And don’t even get him started on the skimpy little dresses with the ruffles. They were made for you. He couldn’t decide whether your plump butt or your squishy boobs looked better hugged by the fabric. He had to use his large hand to hide the bite he gave to his bottom lip when your cute little panties peaked through the bottom of a particularly short one. “Maybe that one is good for around the house,” he proposed. 

BFF! Sugu who had to swallow his need when you begged him to rate your lingerie. “I didn’t realize you two were at that point in your relationship,” he would try to laugh off his distaste. 

“I’ve told him no to sex for so long, I’ve been thinking maybe it's time…” you trailed off. You played with the hem of your dress as you stood in front of Suguru on the couch. He was sunk comfortably into the loveseat, legs spread wide and one of his muscled arms stretching across the back of the couch. The other on the arm rest. “Ok princess. Let’s see the options,” he spoke.

BFF! Sugu who couldn’t make it through the first set. The white lace left little to the imagination, a black bow adorned above your cute mound. “You trying to make me sweat?” A dark chuckle broke through his lips. “Sorry?” you asked him, not hearing him correctly. How silly you were to think that just because he was a friend that made him any less of a man. A hot blooded man at that – with eyes that glued to your nipples visible through the thin fabric. “The dresses were one thing, princess, but this? Don’t play dumb,” his dark eyes were now impossibly black. You were staring into the voids that indiscreetly roamed your body. It was entirely silly of you to now try and hide yourself from his hungry gaze. 

BFF! Sugu who doesn’t let you leave. You were no match against his strong grip as he pulled you onto his lap. “You’re leavin’ me no choice,” he assured you, pushing you down hard against his thigh. You tried to push away but his hands on your waist locked you in. “No choice,” he reminded you. You swallowed thickly, realizing you were completely helpless as he began guiding your hips up and down his thigh. The rough material of your panties rubbing deliciously against your clit. “Sugu s-stop,” you begged him, all breathy and hot against his ear. “You want me to stop?” Of course! He was your best friend. You didn’t want him making you feel better than you ever thought possible by just rubbing your pussy against his leg. “But you look so cute like this,” he pouted at you, “Humping my thigh like a puppy. I’ll let go – but you better stop moving your hips,” he tutted at you. You didn’t have it in you to keep your eyes open to watch yourself continuously rut against him even after he removed his hands. It wasn’t your fault his muscled thigh felt more pleasurable than any toy you could ever buy. 

Geto had plenty of girls at your school talking about their experiences with him. You spent your entire teen years hearing about his ‘magical tongue’ and ‘horse dick’. For the majority of your life you had little interest in getting to experience that part of your best friend – that was until the bastard from the baseball team. The absolute snore fest he put on for your first time was jarring. Maybe you were so used to hearing how life-changing Suguru’s hips were that you had high expectations... 

No – you were not purposefully trying to get Geto to want you. He genuinely gave good advice when it came to what looked good on you. Ok so maybe you were pushing your luck with the lingerie – but Suguru was always so level-headed. It was scary how quickly he caved.

It was even more frightening listening to his taunts hot in your ear, “Why aren’t you stopping?” You couldn’t stop now – but you would. Just a little longer. You’d find the strength to stop soon. “Tell me you want me, or I’m stopping this,” he threatened and your form shook. “Please don’t,” you begged him. “Don’t what?” he lifted your chin, making you look at him “Don’t s-stop t-this,” you squeaked out.  

BFF! Sugu whose rumors were true. His tongue was magical. His hands flew down to your hips, helping you roll deliciously against the fabric of his sweats while his wet muscle was hot against your nipples. He used his teeth to pull down the fabric so he could taste your bare bud against his tongue. He suckled and licked your sensitive nipple causing your arousal to seep past the lace of your panties. You began to soak his sweatpants but he wasn’t gonna have you stopping anytime soon. He pulled your hips into tight circles against him, overwhelming your nub. His teeth nibbled at your nipple and you jerked up at the sudden shock. His grip was bruising and you wanted – no needed more. “Sugu.. more.. need more” you sounded so pathetic. 

BFF! Sugu who was left with little choice! His princess wanted more and more she was going to get. His head kissed your entrance, barely pushing in past the tip. You mewled, nails digging into his shoulders as he teased himself into you. “You think you can take me?” he asked you and you nodded fervently. He was thick and long – even his tip felt like he was tearing you in two. You wanted to be absolutely broken. “M-more Sugu,” you begged, trying to move your hips to sink down further. He kept you still – only allowing you to move if it was him dragging you down against him. Your slick was dripping down the rest of his cock, you were completely overwhelmed by the little attention he was giving you. One of his hands moved from your hips down to your clit, rubbing slow circles – barely ghosting above it. You were clenching on his fat tip and whining embarrassingly loud. He wanted to have you crying for his cock. He clicked his tongue at you, “I’m not convinced enough you want my cock.” He looked so unaffected as you shook, “I do! I need it, Sugu,” tears fell down your cheeks as you desperately tried to convince him.   

BFF! Sugu whose hips slapped against yours at a brutal pace. He had you pinned into the loveseat, head down and ass up. A creamy ring formed at the base of his unrelenting cock. Drool was seeping from your mouth and onto the couch, the only thing you could think about was the way he was pounding into that gummy spot that made you dizzy. “No one could make you feel this way,” he promised you, “this pussy was made for me.” His pace was bruising, his balls slapping against your clit. He pulled your hips up farther, making you arch your back. Everything was so noisy – the sound of you meeting his hips, the squelch of his cock pulling in and out, and his grunts each time he felt his tip kiss your cervix. Geto looooved watching you take him so well. Each time his cock disappeared inside of you, only to reappear as he roughly dragged out of you. He didn’t know if you were purposefully squeezing him each time his hips pulled back. Were you trying to keep him buried deep? “Your date won't mind if I leave my cum in you, right?” he teased you – knowing full well you wouldn’t be going anywhere after he was done with you. “Dripping out of your pussy at dinner,” you couldn’t fathom him being able to laugh right now. “What would you even tell him?” he was imagining the scene playing out in his mind, “My roommate thought I was looking a little empty. Needed to stuff me full,” His smile lazy thinking about how he was claiming you tonight. He was fucking your tight little hole deliciously, making sure you could never be satisfied by anything other than his cock. You pushed your hips into his, making sure he reached as deep as possible. “You want to cum, princess?” he picked up his pace – which you didn’t even think was possible – your tits bouncing at each thrust of his hips. You nodded, pleading for him to make you cum. “God – cum on my cock. Want t’feel you squeezin me,” the rough pad of his finger met your clit, helping your pleasure meet its peak. “I’m cumming, Sugu,” you cried out to your best friend. 

BFF! Sugu who wasn’t done with you once you came. You tried to claw at his hands on your hips, begging him to slow down. The tension in your tummy snapped, cumming undone loudly around him. He paid no mind to your pleas, “You can take more. You’re a good girl, I know you can.” He didn’t ever want to leave your snug pussy. He would fuck you all day if that’s what it took for him to feel satisfied. “Give me another, baby. Cum on my cock one more time. I know you can,” he was so filthy. You never had a guy dirty talk to you the way Geto was. He was demanding and unrelenting. It was alarming how much you enjoyed the filth leaving his lips. “How could you tell me to stop when she’s gripping me so tight – pussy doesn’t want to let go of me.” he threw his head back, “”S your fault I’m pounding you like this. I couldn't let you get away with showing me that little number.” The lingerie he was referring to was on the floor below you two, ripped into pieces from when he tore it off your body. He completely pulled out of you – leaving your pussy uncomfortably empty before flipping you over and folding you in half. He placed the back of your knees on his shoulder, wasting no time pushing himself back into you. The new angle took your breath away. His heavy frame held you down as his cock was unrelenting. When you looked down you could see his length slide in and out of you, your cute little pussy lips swallowing him whole. Your arousal coated his cock – all thick and creamy. You felt like you could pass out from the sight – not thinking it was possible to be so wet. His thumb reached down to your clit, rubbing harsh circles on it. “C’mon baby. I’m addicted to the way you squeeze my cock. Let me feel you cum again. Need it, princess,” he begged. He was slowly losing all control. You were so perfect underneath him, taking him like the good girl he always knew you were. You were wrecking him. Your sounds were so cute – choking back sobs as he fucked you to another peak. You were begging for him to cum inside you. You wanted to feel him coat your walls in his sticky juice. “Gonna pump you full,” he promised you. “Gonna feel so good stuffed full with my cum.”

BFF! Sugu who can’t stand watching his semen leak out of you. You were completely fucked out – chest heaving as you laid on the couch. Geto was still holding your legs up, trying fruitlessly to push his juices back inside of you. 

BFF! Sugu who needs to make sure you keep all of it. He didn’t even wait for you to regain your energy before his thick fingers are deep inside of you. “Can’t let a single drop go to waste,” he tells you. He curls his thick digits, pushing against the squishy spot that makes you see stars. “No more,” you breathlessly say. “Just one more. Need to make sure it all keeps,” you are completely overstimulated. The feelings of his fingers are heightened by your two orgasms – which only makes you come undone even faster. His fingers are lightening fast and your pussy sounds like it's made of water. It’s so loud and wet and you just can’t help yourself from cumming again. You’re thrashing against his unrelenting fingers, crying loud enough that your neighbors definitely hear. “That’s it. S’good for me,” he’s emotional watching you come undone so many times by his doing. You were his. His, his, his. 

BFF! Sugu who doesn’t even have to tell you to cancel your date. You couldn’t pick your head up after he was done with you. You were staying home with him – where you belonged. 

[ciaossu-imagines]

hello, this is nix! i’ve read the self-shipping headcanons you did for me and shoichi, and all i could say is wow. i’m in awe. it’s amazing that you got most, if not all, spot-on! i enjoyed reading them and thought to myself, “this makes so much sense.” they’re long and specific, so it must’ve taken you time to write all of that 🥺 don’t worry about having repeated some things because it’s still worth the read. i know you put a great deal of effort into interpreting the descriptions i gave and writing those headcanons, and i really appreciate it. i had never put much thought into self-shipping with a fictional character before, that is until you matched me with sho-chan (and don’t worry, i can share him with you! haha).

i would also like to express my gratitude for the two personalization prompts you’ve done for me. honestly, i never expected that because i simply loved your works without anticipating anything in return. so, for you to do reader appreciation gestures warms my heart. your dedication to giving back to your readers is amazing. 💝

one thing, though—i was laughing when you mentioned my pfp because i’m not even a feline enthusiast, and i’m allergic to them. it’s just that i find the icon picture itself cute and funny, so it was hilarious that it’s how you had pictured me when you thought of me, haha. oh, and the sawako face claim works out as well because i do have jet black hair, except that i don’t have any bangs, and i prefer a short haircut (i only had to grow my hair out because my health degree program requires us to wear a chignon most of the time. ugh!)

for the personalization prompt #1, no need to worry because i’m familiar with servamp from watching the anime. however, i have yet to read the manga, so there are characters i still don’t know about. even if i’m not deeply invested in the series (because i’m more focused on other fandoms), i still enjoyed it and the personalized prompt you made as well. 💗🎀

Hey Nix! It’s so lovely to see you back in the inbox 😊 I’m so glad you enjoyed the self-ship headcanons. I honestly had a lot of fun writing them up – I’m a sucker for those kind of things honestly, so I’m glad that most of them hit the mark! It did take a fair amount of time, but it’s time well spent to me! I enjoy it and I like being able to do special little things like that for lovely readers like you. I wasn’t kidding – your support, all your likes and asks sent in mean a ton to me, as I am one of those bad writers who really do get a lot of their motivation from interaction with readers and feedback/knowing people are reading! I’m glad that the repetition I did notice didn’t bother you too much. It’s really such a compliment to learn that my little match-up made you consider self-shipping! It really is just a fun and sometimes therapeutic thing, but that’s coming from someone with so many self-ships hahaha! And thanks for the sharing – sharing is caring, after all lol!

Aww, thank you so much for saying that 😊 I know it wasn’t expected from any of the people I did it for, they were all meant to be little surprises for those who keep me happy and motivated to write! I really do appreciate all my gorgeous constant readers and do believe that every single one of you is an amazing person behind those screens and when I sit down at my altar at night for meditation, I send blessings out in the universe for each and every one of you <3 Hopefully that’s hitting its mark in at least some cases!

Okay, but I am laughing over here at the irony! It sucks you’re allergic to cats and I can see why you wouldn’t like them if they make you all sneezy and gross feeling but yeah, the icon picture is adorable! It just did not work out well for actually inserting you into a universe, something I do with any of the readers I start to recognize by name or favourite characters (it fleshes out the world’s just that much more when I write my little cheesy stuff for myself or imagine myself/my OC’s in the various ‘verses!) That’s so weird that your health degree program specifies a certain hairstyle and that’s really gender-biased, as I’m assuming they don’t make men have chignons! I hope you’ll get to have your hair back to how you prefer it when you finish your degree (with great success, as I know you will!). I really lucked out in that, even when I was doing my clinical work for my degree in the health field, it was only the standard – long hair pulled back and I had to get rid of my funky colored hair and have it only natural colors while in the program. Thankfully my current workplace is fine with whatever I want to do with my hair, as long as I don’t shed into the pill bottles. And I’m glad you were at least familiar with the universe, even if it’s not one you’re deeply invested in! I just honestly could see you in that universe so well, plus another couple universes but the fandoms for those are so, so small that I assume nobody knows them haha!

Anyway, thank you so, so much for sending this in to the ask box. I popped on tonight to really catch up on everything new that has come in and to add a bunch to my queue and this made me smile a lot and made my heart happy, so really appreciate it and you 😊

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Seconding the 'mob guys watching over Chris for Paul's suggestion!

CW: References to murder/mob organization stuff, references to parental death, grief, referenced past whump of a minor

Every Tuesday at 9 am, just like clockwork, Sean Malley lumbers into a coffeeshop nestled into the corner of a flat featureless strip mall. Contrasting to the pale concrete nothingness of its surrounding, the little coffeeshop is painted  a warm, rich brown along the exterior, with heavy platers spilling over with purple and yellow flowers every few feet until Sean reaches the door.

It’s a welcome bit of individuality along this ring of small strip malls and larger big-box stores kept out of the city proper by a pile of zoning laws too draconian to fight. He’s been coming here for ten years now, more or less, and has seen the little coffeshop through its earliest days struggling for business right to now, where he feels reasonably certain he’ll be dead long before they close this place for good. 

He moves inside, the light immediately warm and slightly dimmed. The scent in the air of freshly roasted coffee beans and baked goods. The cannolis they sell came from him, Sean’s proud of that - his wife had a favorite recipe and he’d given it to them after she passed, hoping for one batch for the service. They’d just kept making them, having one ready for him when he popped in, and... well, they’ve sold them ever since. Even call them Christa’s Cannolis, handwritten in cursive on a little placard. She’d have been tickled pink, he thinks sometimes, to see it. 

One of his knees comes and goes as it pleases these days, giving his step a bit of a shuffle-scrape. He’s smiling, though, and humming as he goes.

Life is good for Sean Malley, all things considered. 

Truth be told, he hadn't actually expected to live this long. Keeping close to Conor and his family had paid off in the early days - just as his instincts had kept him safe when the Garden erupted in in-fighting, too. When the Clean-Up happened, during the Garden’s most vicious in-fighting, Sean had seen half the men he’d watched start as snot-nosed dumbasses taken out one by one, clearing the way for Conor’s fucking grandson to make his play for power.

Those kids who’d run lookout gigs and then moved on to guard duty or work with the cargo coming in... one by one those kids-turned-adults, with families of their own, had been removed from the picture. Fifteen, all told, a bloodbath stretched out over six months - sixteen, of course, if you count how Paul’s murder went all wrong. 

The one comfort had been watching Conor’s grandson lay the groundwork for his own comeuppance the whole time - promising favors for loyalty and then killing the ones he’d promised those favors to. That’s no way to start yourself as leader, and... well.

Trash had been taken out, in the end. Riley Higgs had gotten rid of the poison - and the poison’s friends - and his crew’s a damn sight better than Conor’s grandson’s people had been. 

Riley, for one thing, understands that an organization like the Garden works, in the end, on trust. On being a family.

Don’t kill your family without a good damn reason, now do you? 

Now Riley... he had a good reason. And Sean had made sure Riley Higgs knew a few very important facts that kept him on the man’s good side, and very much alive when the dust settled.

Even if he had did have to live with a bum knee. And back. And his hip’s started twinging every time it rains...

"Morning, Mr. Malley!" His favorite barista calls out, giving him a wave from behind the counter. She's a pretty thing, just cute as a button. Probably in her late twenties but when you’re as old as Sean is, everyone looks like a child playing pretend. 

Still, it always brings a bit of sun in the old man's day to see her bright pink hair before he ever takes his seat. He always tells her she should move on from here, do something with her life other than serve old men their coffee and watch them while away the hours.

But I like it here, Melody always replies, giving a little shrug of her shoulders. I like our regulars, too. Besides, this place pays better than the job I’d get with my actual degree. 

"G'morning to you, Melody!" He calls back, moving to have a seat in his usual spot, sinking gratefully into the plush armchair by the bookshelf in the corner. His favorite coffee table book, a heavy thing full of photos of World War II, is already laid out on the side table next to it, bookmarked where he’d left off last week. "Busy day, today?"

Melody is already heading his way, coffee in hand just how he likes it, one of Christa’s Cannolis on a small plate in the other. Sean’s doctor has been on him about cutting out sugar, and he’s done it just about everywhere else, but he still has his cannoli on Tuesdays. Christa had been so proud of herself when she’d mastered that recipe... 

"Not really,” Melody says with a shrug, breaking into his thoughts. “Just the usual morning rush and a couple college kids, wandered outside but they left their drinks, I figure they’ll come back. One of 'em looks like he got mauled by a real weak bear."

Sean feigns surprise. "Oh, does he now?" He takes a sip of his coffee and sighs happily. "Not too hot. You had it out already, didn't you?"

"I saw your car pull into the lot," Melody says, giving a little it's nothing gesture. “I knew you’d be in, so I kept an eye out for you.”

"You're a doll, Melody, and this place would be lost without you." He presses the twenty-dollar bill into her hand, and when she protests, he shakes his head, adds another ten, and closes her hand firmly around the cash. "Take it, take it. I'm an old man on my own, who've I got to spend it on, huh?"

"You're not that old, Mr. Malley," Melody sighs, an old song and dance between them. “You’ve got grandkids who could use it, too, you know.”

"Ha! Trust that my grandkids never want for anything, Melody. Besides, live the life I've lived, and sixty feels like eighty-two. Go on, then. Cilly'll be along in a bit."

He sits back to drink his coffee as she heads back behind the counter, watching through the front window the cars that pass along the highway, the scattering of people getting in and out of their own vehicles in the parking lot. It's a perfect, and perfectly normal, Tuesday morning. Just like any other.

A perfectly normal Tuesday where one creature of habit makes it a point to get a quick look at another. 

A flash of red catches his eye, and he frowns, watching a bright red Northern cardinal alight on the bench placed outside the shop, preening one wing briefly and then seeming to look towards the lot.

Sean follows its gaze, silently chastising himself for being so utterly taken by a simple bird, but... Northern cardinals are more or less unheard of around here, especially in the city. This one seems to cock its head in his direction. 

"Someone," He mutters to himself, "is a bit lost."

There's a peal of laughter, as the door opens, the little bell on top chiming to announce them, and there they are.

Two young people walking inside, heads tilted together. One of them has thick, wavy black hair, one of those haircuts the younger people like so much now, shaved on the sides but long on top. The younger guys in the Family wear their hair like that now and then. 

Sean thinks he liked it better when everyone kept things neat and tidy, but times change, and the Garden can't stagnate just because an old timer's got opinions. Riley’s take is he’d rather is people look like they could be anybody anywhere, and Sean has to admit the kind of haircut he’d like to see would stick out like a sore thumb.

Both of them are wearing all black head to toe, the black-haired one in a tank top and baggy pants, a large yellow lightning bolt on a cord settled just below their collarbone. Honestly, if he gets past the hair thing, they’re cute as a button, too.

Really, though, he’s not here because of them.

He’s here to get a good look at the young man walking in beside them. 

It’s funny - it’s been nine - ten? - years since he last saw Paul Higgs alive, the day before he and his sweet Ronnie were gunned down in their own home in the night... but tears still prick at the corners of Sean’s eyes when he see the ghost of Paul in his son’s narrow face.

There’d been a joke when the little one first came into the world, that somehow Paul and Ronnie had put together a child where her genetics simply skipped out entirely. He’d been a little clone of Paulie from the start, and he’s different as a man than he’d been as a child lining toy cars up at their feet in the warehouse on Saturdays when Ronnie needed a break.

Sean pulls his phone out, idly scrolling - his daughter had helped him to get Facebook and a couple other things besides, including some kind of app that had his favorite card games. He pretends now to be fascinated by something he sees, but in truth he pulls his camera up and starts recording.

“It, it, it could change everything,” Paulie’s boy is saying, breathlessly excited, hands moving through the air in a blend of gesture and general happiness. “You see? Everything! Make it, it, it-it safer, make... make things better.”

“I know, I know,” The other one replies, deep voice warm and thick with love, and Sean sighs, missing his Christa now more than ever. He consoles himself with a bite of cannoli. “I already told you I’m in, Chris, okay? I’m going to help you. You don’t have to sell me on it.”

Tristan ducks his head with a shy smile, and boy if he isn’t Paul’s spitting image in that, too. Paulie hadn’t smiled much, not like his kid does - maybe that’s what he got from Ronnie - but in a smile like that, well... you could see where he got it from. If you’d known Paul, of course.

Which the kid didn’t, not anymore.

“It could, um, be dangerous though.” They’re barely audible now as they go back to where they left their still-steaming drinks, sitting down on a nearby couch. “Nat’s worried. And, and, and you know Jake-”

“Chris, you could walk across a crosswalk when the light starts blinking and Jake would still worry about you,” The other one teases. Sean knows their name, but right now it won’t quite come to mind, lingering on the tip of is tongue, never quite landing. “It’ll be public, yeah-”

“Telling everyone who... who, who I am.” Tristan starts tapping his fingers on his pants, a peculiar finger-twist-tap-tap-tap gesture that Sean once knew as well as anyone, when the boy was small. But it’s the words, with a hint of nervousness lining them, that get his attention. “The... the whole world’s going to, to, to to-to-... to... to know about Tristan Higgs.”

Now that gets Sean’s attention. He cuts the video, sends it to Riley, and starts a new one. It takes work not to sit up, or drop his cannoli, or in some other way give himself away. 

He knows, then?

How?

Sean looks down at his phone, looking over the scar on Paul’s boy’s forehead, the only remaining evidence of what had been much more visible the first couple times they’d seen him out after it happened. Sean and Cilly had figured maybe a fight - people get into them, really. Paul wasn’t exactly gentle as a lamb, and why would his boy be?

But now... he wondered. His instincts told him the two were related, and of course he knew from the time they’d worked with WRU pretty closely under the table that those memory things they did sometimes failed. Sean had done a fixer job once for someone whose pet had recovered memories too fast and killed a servant in a panic...

“Oh, Paul,” Sean murmurs. “What’d your boy do, hm?”

“I’m, I’m going to to to t-... to tell everyone who I am,” Paul’s boy is saying, leaning forward and taking the hands of the other one in his own, squeezing them tight. “I’m... will, will, will you come with me? When, when I... so someone’s there?”

“What? Holy shit, Chris, go to the Olympics? With you?” They inhale and exhale, blowing some hair from their eyes, and smile. “You should take someone who knows more than I do about all that stuff, Chris, take Jake, or-”

“Jake has has to stay here. To, to protect the house. But... will you come with me?”

Sean cuts the video, sends it to Riley, and this time adds a message.

Olympics are in Chicago this year. What’s Paul Jr. planning?

He feels eyes on him and glances up to find Tristan looking over at him, an expression of uncertainty on his face. Sean’s been watching him for years, popping up in places, the way you sometimes see the same faces at the corner store, the mom-and-pop, a coffeeshop like this one. Now, he watches Tristan look him over, knowing he’s familiar but not knowing why. Part of him, with a pinprick of an old, old grief, wishes Paul’s little boy would recognize him now. 

Most of him knows it’s better if he doesn’t.

Tristan looks away, and goes back to talking, but his voice lowers and now Sean can’t quite pick up what he’s saying beyond a few scattered words. He gets a couple photos of the lovebirds with their head together, sipping coffee, and sends those on to Riley, too.

Job done, he settles back to finish his cannoli and drink his coffee. Tristan and-... Laken, his name suddenly supplies, only an hour after he’d started trying to remember it - get up and leave, Tristan’s arm around Laken’s waist.

Good for the kid, Sean thinks, with a smile. By this age Paul had an elementary school son running around, but you know, it’s good to take your time on these things, and it’s nice to see that all the shit they’ve had to stand back and watch still wraps up nicely into Paul’s boy living a pretty nice life indeed.

His phone dings just as Cilly enters - right on time at 10, like clockwork - and he glances down to open the message from Riley.

I’ll get one of our guys to look into it. This might give us the out on the business I don’t want to be in I’ve been looking for. Kid looks good, looks like Paul. Family genes run deep.

Sean greets Cilly, even older than him but a sight more spry, and glances out the window. The bird’s gone from the bench, of course. The day is bright and shining.

-

In Laken’s car, they’re halfway back to the house Laken shares with their roommates when Chris suddenly sits straight up. “Mr. Malley,” He breathes out, green eyes widening.

Laken jumps - he’d been silent, preoccupied and in thought - and nearly jerks the car into a curb. “Damn, Chris! You scared me. What’d you say?”

“The old guy, in, in, in the the the the-the-... the coffeeshop, who kept looking at, at me.” Chris rocks forward, hands on the dashboard, his eyes staring ahead but not at the road, they’re looking far ahead... or behind himself, back in time and not space, when and not where. “His name’s Mr. Malley. I, I, I knew-... my dad knew, my, my, my dad, my dad-” 

He winces, the headache splitting him apart, and Laken hits their turn signal, pulling into the parking lot of a generic fast food place, swinging into a parking space and turning to look at him. 

“Chris? You okay?”

Chris’s face has gone pale, cold sweat breaking out. It still happens, sometimes, and when they lean over to touch his shoulder he flinches back from them, instinctively.

Laken exhales. “Okay. Ride it out, Chris. Let the memory go if it’s hurting, it’ll come back to you. They all come back now.”

“No! No, I, I, I want-... Mr. Malley knew my dad, I went to-... work, with, with him sometimes, his his his wife babysat me, I... I know him. I knew him. I knew-” He turns to look at them, and they fight the urge to try and touch him again.

Not yet.

“Do you... do you think, think, think he knew me?”

Laken swallows. “I don’t think so. Wouldn’t he have said something, if he recognized you? If he was your dad’s friend? Are you absolutely sure that-”

“Yes, I’m, I’m sure. I know it was him. I, I, I know, he, he, he gave me me me Dinotopia books... for Christmas one year...” Chris jerked in a breath and let it out again, hands going up over his head, folding himself in half until his forehead rested on the dashboard, pressed to the cool molded plastic. “He, he, he, he came to their funeral, he hugged me, he said, you’re too young to to to to have to lose so much, and everyone said-... everyone said stuff I hated but but but not him, he said, he said-”

“Chris, please, don’t hurt yourself doing this-”

“He said grief gets worse before it gets better, and and and and he said-... he said... he said don’t let anyone tell you that R-Ronnie’d want you to to to be strong, she’d want you to scream your head off if you want to, your dad’d be proud if if if if-if... if you told us all to go to hell, and... and and and and it felt like he was the only person who who who knew them at all that day, everyone said, said, said stupid things but not him, not-... not him and not Mr. Cilly, not-... not my Aunt Jo, not anybody, but he-”

Chris chokes on a sob and when Laken throws their arms around him he melts into it this time, crying against their shoulder, the two of them uncomfortably arched over the center console and the gear shift. 

“It’s okay,” Laken whispers, running their fingers over the slowly growing fuzz of his hair. “It’s okay. Let it ride, Chris. It’s okay.”

“He, he, he was my dad’s b-b-best friend-... Why d-didn’t he, if he saw me, why wouldn’t he-... I s-see him all th-the the the time, why doesn’t he know who I am?”

“Maybe he’s like Akio,” Laken says, and feels him trembling under their touch. “Maybe he’s always thought you were dead.”

“I w-was,” Chris whispers “When I, I, I was Baldur. When I was training. When... when I... was good. I was dead.”

“Chris-”

“I was dead,” Chris says, and they kiss his head, helpless to think of anything else to do. “When my p-parents died, I died, too. Mr. Malley made m-me feel like I I I wasn’t. Why didn’t he kn-know me? Why didn’t a-anyone know I was alive?”

“I don’t know, baby. I don’t know.”

“Hurts,” Chris whispers. “Why, why, why didn’t anyone help me before she she she-... before I was-... why didn’t anyone help me?”

Laken’s own eyes burn, and they draw circles on his scalp with their fingertips. “I can’t answer that,” They say, low and soft. “I’m sorry. But you know you have people who can and will help you now.”

For a while, Chris’s only sounds are sobs, and Laken can only make soft soothing nonsense noises and feel like shit that it’s not enough.

“Ev, everyone knew she-she hated me,” Chris whimpers, and sounds younger than he ever has, and Laken wants to throw a punch or scream and they can’t do either, only sit in the car and glare at people who look in as they walk past. “Everyone.”

“Chris-”

“Everyone knew, why, why, why why why didn’t they stop her?”

-

Back in the coffeeshop, Sean and Cilly are in the midst of an argument about a baseball game that happened 30 years ago when his phone rings. He holds up one finger and picks it up, lifting it to his ear.

“I have a job for you,” Riley says, with his cheerful hint of brogue. Funny, to remember that this part of the family only came here a few decades ago. “It’s a job I know you’ll enjoy.”

“Watching Paul’s boy is my retirement gig,” Sean says amicably. “You know I don’t do the dangerous stuff any longer, Mr. Higgs.”

There’s a silence. “I’m going to do some looking into what you sent me. But in the meantime I need to give you a job, and you’re going to do it.”

“And why is that, Mr. Higgs?”

“Because you’re going to want to do this.”

“What is it, then?”

Another pause.

“I want you to find Joanne Botham.”

Sean thinks of the dour, angry woman who had ignored Tristan in his funeral suit, gathering mourners around her while she sobbed over Ronnie’s loss, Ronnie’s own son alone on a couch staring off into space until Sean himself had sat down and told him, don’t let ‘em say your mom’d be proud of you bein’ stoic today, kiddo. Ronnie’d want you to scream if you felt the urge. 

The kid had looked at him like he’d been given water in the desert, a starving man offered a bowlful of broth. Mr. Malley?

People will say a lot of real stupid stuff to you today, Sean had said. His eyes had gone to Joanne Botham, and Ronnie’s sister’s icy glare when she looked at her own nephew had made his blood run cold with anger even then. Likely in the future, too. But you just remember Paul and Ronnie weren’t saints. And they’d never want you to be, either. I’m sorry for your loss, Tris. No one on God’s earth has loved their kid like yours loved you. Should’ve seen his face when he told us your mom was pregnant with you. Could’ve lit the world with all the sunshine there.

A clap on the back, a whispered thank you, and that had been the last day Sean Malley had ever seen Tristan Higgs alive.

Until, of course, Riley had told him there was a boy living in a pet liberation safehouse who looked remarkably like Paul. Until, of course, Riley had shared that he’d known Tristan Higgs was alive all along. Until, of course, Sean had been told he couldn’t make a move because WRU was protecting all the players who had stolen his friend’s kid. 

Until... now.

“Mr. Higgs?” His voice drops, and Cilly sits up, alarmed at the sudden change in tone. 

“You heard me. Find Joanne Botham. I have a feeling we are about to get the opportunity we’ve been waiting for.”

The phone goes dead on the other end, and Sean slowly sets it down, finishing his second cup of coffee in a gulp. Then he looks at Cilly, and starts to smile. 

“Riley’s got work for us,” He says, and when Cilly’s eyebrows raise he doesn’t wait for him to ask for more. “Don’t worry. You’re going to like it. Finally get to do what we should have done ten fucking years ago.”

---

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump  , @oops-its-whump  @cubeswhump ,  @whump-tr0pes  @downriver914 @vickytokio @whumpiary @orchidscript @moose-teeth @nonsensical-whump

[schoolastica]

The one

@peterparkerbingo​

Free.

Disclaimer: My second Peter Parker Bingo, I’m sorry for the delay! My life has been crazy AND GET THIS: As i was writing this piece, i actually broke up with my boyfriend and found comfort in Taylor Swifts songs! Ha, so funny! Anyways, i hope you guys like it.....

The one by Taylor Swift

I'm doing good, I'm on some new shit

Been saying "yes" instead of "no"

Peter goes to Flash’s house party for the first time in his life. Most of his friends can’t believe it but he does it anyway. MJ moves all the alcohol from Peters side during the event and keeps holding his hand, like if he would just get trashed at a random college party. Please.  

He’s trying new things, not throwing his future away. For the last two months, Peter occupied his time fully; 8 hours of sleep each day, classes and then time for assignments. He took to attend a bar during the weekend nights to make some money, he’s jogging each day, cooking healthy recipes, reading like never and catching up on his lost shows. Dinners, museum tours, concerts, parkour, he goes into meetup events.

He fills his time, one day at a time on the Google Calendar until it becomes a rainbow flag with lots of different things to do. Peter would do anything to kill any free minute he has because to have spare time is to think of him.

I thought I saw you at the bus stop, I didn't though

Still, for a broken heart, New York is the size of Sitka. The route from his apartment to campus got 10 minutes longer because Peter can’t pass by that stupid coffee shop, he donates 3 t-shirts because he wore them on special dates, but his phone always play the same stupid playlist. 

He cant see a pretty sunset, neither look at the stars at night. On a random day 3 months later of The Thing, he’s on a bus to Ned’s house down Queens. Peter doesn’t know if it’s the rays of light, the turn of the bus or the collective craziness that takes over Big Apple, but it happens.

His black hair over some leather jacket at the bus stop Peter passes by on the way. He feels faint, it’s like he can’t breathe, and like it all goes to slow motion and it will be hell. Because the bus keeps its path, unknowing of the boy on the back losing his mind, and Peter only fills his lungs with air when he sees clear as day that it was the wrong boy.

Same height, haircut and almost same leather jacket, but his nose is too long, his face too round. Peter ends up having to sit down and try not to panic, but nobody needs to know about it.

I hit the ground running each night

    I hit the Sunday matinée

You know the greatest films of all time were never made

Whenever things like that happen, Peter puts, even more, want in his calendar blocking. He does all the college assignments in one evening, then gets up a few hours later to jog the entire Central Park. If he also bakes cookies for every single person in his building, it’s his fucking business.

He goes to movie marathons with his crew and insists on watching Horror flicks. Nothing that lasts, nothing that can make him yearn. Before everything happened, Peter liked to think they could have been a movie. He finds a preference in his loss on the reality of the world. 

I guess you never know, never know

And if you wanted me, you really should've showed

Peter likes to think that if He wanted to, they could have worked. He would have called right after The Thing happened. Stayed outside Peter’s apartment building with a boombox, or wrote a letter for each day they were apart. If He had wanted Peter, he should have shown.

And if you never bleed, you're never gonna grow

And it's alright now

When The Thing happened Peter cried like a baby in May’s lap. He kept going over every detail, trying to catch where the relation started to rotten and he just couldn’t grasp it. May kept repeating Peter was going to grow from this, but he couldn’t help but doubt.

Now it’s been months and Peter can’t look back without thinking about his fragile and little self, how he wept in the loss of a part of himself. He couldn’t say he was healed but he was stronger.

But we were something, don't you think so?

Roaring 20s, tossing pennies in the pool

And if my wishes came true

It would've been you

Peter would very much like to have an excuse for the breakup. At least one that wasn’t as stupid as the truth. But the truth is that they had been good for so long. Young, restless and bored, like His favourite old song, used to say, but good, nonetheless.

They had stayed 3 years together, and if Peter could rewatch it all, front to back, like in 500 days of Summer, he would only see the great parts. Like their birthday’s parties, the Christmas spent together and the kisses on New Year’s Eve. Peter had looked at Him and wished him a happy and long life, with a house in the suburbs and lots of adopted babies, like Peter always wanted.

Just one word and Peter would have done it all.

                                         In my defence, I have none

                                       For never leaving well enough alone

                                          But it would've been fun

                                         If you would've been the one

Seeing it all back, it was Peter’s fault. For not realizing that they were going to different paths, for squishing him until nothing was left but them. They had never been aggressive, nobody had been abused, Peter was proud to say they were never a police case.

 But wants and wishes were dismissed. Peter had this idealistic future where His wants were tossed out of the window like paper as they weren’t more than dust on Peter’s perfect apple pie prospect. The truth was that Peter had wanted it all, not caring about his partner.

Peter has no defence for what happened, and he hated himself sometimes.

I have this dream you're doing cool shit

Having adventures on your own

You meet some woman on the internet and take her home

Peter unfollowed Him on social media but he could picture his life easy as a movie. He’s probably watching all of the movies Peter hadn’t wanted to see, but no tv shows because he was never into that. Probably hitting the gym more, working on his body.

Having nights out with Steve and the guys, having lunches at Nat’s and going to clubs with Sam. That’s something he would love to do. When they started dating, each of them brought some friends, and when they broke up it felt like they took their niches again. So for the last 3 months, Peter stayed with Ned, MJ, Liz and a couple more, and no contact with the crew. 

Peter hates himself for imagining Him meeting someone. At a bar, a coffee, the gym or Tinder. Man, woman, tall, short, strong or weak, blonde or brunette, it didn’t matter. The person would feel so turned on by his strong arms, his beautiful eyes and sharp jaw. It would be so easy for him to get over his ex. 

And Peter tried to think about how that was good. He loved that guy so hard that he would never want his unhappiness, but he couldn’t help feeling a bit sick. Jealousy wasn’t a pretty emotion at all, and it could poison everything, including Peter’s heart.

We never painted by the numbers, baby

But we were making it count

You know the greatest loves of all time are over now

They had never been a normal couple. They met in a library, Peter was studying and he was hiding with his buddy Steve from some punk guys. He wanted to fight and Steve required some stitches, and when he smiled like a wolf, Peter couldn’t help but kiss him right there.

Careless. That was how most people described them. They would dance in the rain, fuck in bathrooms and display lots of PDA. It was sad and the best thing they could ever feel. It’s like they knew they had just a little time and made sure to seize each minute.

I guess you never know, never know

And it's another day waking up alone

But if Peter could choose, change, wake up with a warm body beside him, he would. That’s the saddest part, that he would.

But we were something, don't you think so?

Roaring 20s, tossing pennies in the pool

And if my wishes came true

It would've been you

I, I, I persist and resist the temptation to ask you

If one thing had been different

Would everything be different today?

After months away from his great love, Peter thinks to himself over and over what could have been different. And how it if he behaved differently, if he had been better, his Lover would still be here. He thought of the universe was a crazy tangle of strings and that each choice made it tangle more. And Peter thought he made the wrong choices each time.

We were something, don't you think so?

Rosé flowing with your chosen family

And it would've been sweet

If it could've been me

In my defence, I have none

For digging up the grave another time

Peter sees him in a bar, late in the night, months after the breakup The same leather jacket, high cheeks and dangerous eyes. But when they glanced at each other, he smiled kindly. And Peter was hit once again how he had squeezed that man until he couldn’t breathe anymore, he dug his own grave. 

Life was still going for both of them. And they would find new people, and things to do, but Peter would have fun in the universe he got married to Bucky. That he knew, and he couldn’t have it anymore.

But it would've been fun

If you would've been the one

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep 31 - All members of this band caught Covid-19.

K: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru, with this week's episode of The Freedom of Expression.

Joe san, Tasai san, welcome. So, today, we have a guest. Please introduce yourself.

Y: Nice to meet you, Im YG, the bassist of Jack Caper.

J: Wow, thats an impressive...

K: He stands out, right? I think everyone took notice as soon as he appeared on screen.

J: Right, he looks different from anyone else.

K: Yeh, like 'Eh?!'. Well to begin with, the headcount is different .

J: Yeh, its different. The extra one is this head.

T: *To Y* Have you always had this haircut?

Y: Yeh, well, since summer started. I decided on it this summer.

J: Why that hairstyle again?

Y: Well, I wanted it to feel cool (*as in breezy*)

Kami: It does look cool, right?

J: Hahaha.

K: He said it does look cool, haha.

J: It got a reaction from Kami. He said it looks cool.

Kami: Ah, Im Kami-sama. Pleased to meet you.

Y: Pleased to meet you Kami-sama.

J: He's not a very impressive god.

K: Yeh, exactly. haha.

J: He's one of the lower ones.

Kami: Im really not such an impressive god. I really can't do anything.

J: He gets ¥1000 p/h 

K: Ok, so as to why he is joining us today, his whole band caught coronavirus. So, I thought we could talk about what it was like.

J: This will be a valuable testimony.

Kami: Its a world first, right?

Y: Yeah, its the first case in the world of the whole band catching it.

J: Unbelievable, its not like you could apply to Guiness, but...

K: Yeah, this won't be a Guiness record, haha.

Y: I'll be happy if its recoded as ???*1

J: So how did you all catch it?

Y: Well, its not exactly clear, but it started with our vocalist, and we think that was probably from within a live venue somewhere. And after the vocalist, the other members were tested one after the other, and we were all positive. So we all recieved treatment.

T: Was this in August?

Y: Yeh, August, the vocalist first displayed symptoms on the 13th. And one by one the other members did after that. I was the last, I got symptoms on the 16th.

J: I also know some people who have been infected.

K: I was shocked, right? haha

J: No, not me! A few people I know...but I've forgotten what they said about it, so, could you tell us what happens after you test positive?

Y:  So, you get a positive result, and then in my case, I was hospitalised.

J: Oh, hospitalisation?

Y: Yeh. Well, its probably different depending on the district..districts with free hospital space, or districts with free hotel space. I think there are even districts with no hospital or hotel space free. But I was just straightforwardly hospitalised, within the same day.

T: So, did you have a fever or a cough or anything?

Y: In my case, I had a cough first, and I developed a fever of 38.3℃ on the same day I was tested, just after i did the test. I got the positive test results two days later, and was hospitalised with those symptoms.

J: In what way was it different from a regular cold? What was hard about it?

Y: Well, it was mainly like influenza...high fever, cough, weariness...Also, its often said that you experience loss of taste. I didn't have that, but the other members did.

T: Like loss of smell or taste?

Y: Yeh

K: But you get that a bit anyway when you catch a regular cold, right?

J: Well, yeah, you do. And if you get a fever, you  can't move around much anyway, but.. all the members had this?

Y: Yeah.

J: What was it like in hospital?

Y: Well, in my case, I was in a room with one other patient. We weren't allowed to leave the room, except for shower and toilet.

T: Did you speak much to the other patient?

Y: We didn't speak at all!

J: Was it another corona patient?

Y: Yeh, his symptoms appeared so.

J: Ehh, no conversation?

T: Wasn't it tough?

Y: Well, honestly, I was only thinking about how I wanted to go home. That was pretty tough...the stress..

Kami: How many of you were hospitalised?'

Y: My symptoms were kinda moderate..

Kami: No, no, how many of you?

Y: Out of us five, only I was hospitalised.

J: Only you in hospital?

Y: Yeah.

J: Were the other members in hotels?

Y: Um, two were in hotels and two were at home.

J: So, how did you end up getting discharged?

Y: As for the flow, I had a PCR test every two days in hospital, and after I got two negative results in a row, I left hospital.

J: So its like, if the tests are fine, they say, 'Ok you are free to go'? You didn't have to do anything after that?

Y: Not really, no. They just requested me not to be in close contact with people for two weeks.

J: Just 'requested'?

Y: Yeah, nothing stricter than that from the hospital.

Kami: Eh? After leaving hospital?

Y: Yeh, after being discharged.

Kami: Eh? Even after two negative tests you were told not to have close contact with people?

Y: Yeah, just in case. But as for work, I could restart as long as I kept to this advice.

Kami: You could restart work? As soon as you were discharged?

Y: Yeh, they said that was ok.

Kami: But they asked you not to come into contact with people?

Y: Yeah, they said to limit direct contact with people.

Kami: That seems pretty difficult.

J: Yeh, it does. It would have been easier if they just told you don't meet people.

Kami: After getting a negative test result, and being told you can restart work, you can't be in close contact with people? It seems pretty difficult to understand.

Y: I think they meant like normal situations, like this...like, don't stand near people to talk to them and stuff. Or, refrain from going out to eat with peope, and stuff.

T: How long were you hospitalised for?

Y: 14 days in total.

K: Ahh, two weeks, thats tough.

T: How did you feel when you were given the all clear to leave?

Y: It sounds funny to say, but it was like coming out of jail. Like, 'Back to reality!'

K: Were you charged hospitalization fees?

Y: Not for the first ten days after symptoms appear, but I had to pay after that.

J: So out of 14 days, you had to pay for 4 days yourself?

Y: Well, I was hospitalised a few days after my symptoms began, so I paid for the last 7 days.

J: It seems kind of a unsatisfactory, if you are forced into hospitalization.

K: Well, isn't it the same with any illness?

J: Well, yeah.

K: Like, it can't be helped.

J: Well, yeh, if you are hospitalized with a cold you'd have to pay. Have you had any lingering symptoms?

Y: Out of all five, there is still one of us with no sense of smell.

T: Even after a month?

Y: Yeah, still one with no smell.

K: Thats pretty scary.

Y: I asked just now on Line, and he said he still couldn't smell.

J: Not at all?

Y: Like, recently we all tried smelling our drinks, and he was the only one who couldn't.

J: Are there any parts of it that you were dissatisfied with, or any parts that you thought were handled really well?

Y: Like, inside the hospital?

J: Yeh. Its probably ok for you to summarize what its like in Tokyo, right? Which area were you in?

Y: Arakawa ward.

J: Is there anything you thought they could have done better?

Y: I was grateful that the process leading up to hospitalization was so smooth. They sent a car to my house and stuff. They were really prioritizing me staying away from other people.  And even in the hospital, the nurses and doctors really looked after me.

J: Conversely, was there anything troubling about it?

Y: Yeh, some people were being discharged before they had two negative test results. The government covers the fees for the first ten days as I said, and you have to stay in hospital for at least that time, but after that staying is optional. I stayed and paid for it, even though it was optional. I think it would be better if the state paid for it until a negative test result happens.

J: So there was quite a lot of people leaving before they had a negative test result, for financial reasons, right?

Y: Yeah, for financial reasons.

J: So, that might end up being a reason why the virus spreads more.

Y: It might be, yeh.

J: That kinda leaves a bad taste...

Kami: How much did you pay in fees?

Y: For me it was ¥30,000 per day.

J, T: Eh!?

Y: Thats with insurance.

T, J: ¥30,000 with insurance?

Kami: So, how much did you actually pay?

Y: After that, I got the bill, and it was less than that, so I was relieved.

T: Ah, you paid for seven days?

Y: Yeh. So in total...at first they said it would be ¥30,000 per day, but I got the bill afterwards, and it was about ¥155000.

J: Oh, not bad, right?

Y: Yeah, its not bad.

Kami: So you paid ¥150,000? Im struggling to understand, could you explain again?

J: He likes talking about money, haha.

Kami: How much did you pay?

Y: I paid ¥150,000, actually ¥155,000.

J: Thats with insurance, right?

Kami: Out of pocket?

Y: With insurance, yeh.

Kami: And how many days was that for?

Y: Umm, seven days.

Kami: I though it was only from after ten days?

K: Ten days from the start of symptoms. After that it costs you.

Kami: Oh, is that it? So you paid for seven days.

Y: Yes, I paid for the optional longer stay.

K: This was already explained earlier.

J, T: Hahaha.

K: It was, right?

Kami: Eeehhh?

T: There should be some way to get it back in taxes, it may be a good idea to check.

Y: Thats what I'll have to sort out from now.

J: I think this is a problem. It sounds strange to say it, but in terms of income, low earners have a higher chance of being infected than higher earners. Naturally, rich people won't be getting on packed trains everyday, they will be going to crowded places far less, it some how ends up like that. But if you pass that ten days, and have to pay out of pocket, there will be people who can't. Its like, how is this gonna go? There will be people who don't have the money, and just decide to go home.

K: Yeah, there will be.

T: When corona first started it had this image that it was life threatening, right? But once people actually catch it, their impression might change to it not being that bad. What did you think?

Y: Yeah, when I caught it, I thought it wasn't as bad as I expected.

※On screen note: Symptoms differ depending on the person※

Y: It was like influenza.

J: What kind of reactions did you get from people around you? Were they worried about you? Or were they trying to stigmatize you?

Y: There were both. I had some messages from people in my home town who I barely spoke to before asking me if I was ok, and some derogatory messages from people I don't know.

K: Well, the way the media has dealt with this issue from the start, had been to blame people going out drinking, or enjoying entertainment, thats the image. Its not the case all of the time. But you think you picked it up from a live  event or something?

Y: Yeah.

K: So live shows have that kind of image too. But we don't really know where its originally coming from.

J: Well, as long as infections keep rising, we won't be able to trace it in real detail. Have you had any detailed explanation about that?

Y: I just had a phone call after our vocalist tested positive. The members were then recommended to get tested, and arrangments were made for that.

J: Were you asked about your recent activity?

Y: Yeh, what I did on which day etc. And my temperature at the time.

J: I see. So, at the moment they are saying you will have anti-bodies if you've caught it once, but there have also been reports that the anti-bodies might not last very long. What do you think about that? Have you had an anti-body test?

Y: About a month after all of us got symptoms  and when we were all close to total recovery, we had the opportunity to do a broadcast, and we all did an antibody test at that time.

J: And the results?

Y: The results were that one of us didn't have a lot of antibodies, but the other four did. That was about August 16th *2

J: So its been about three weeks since then. Are you gonna continue to have antibody tests from time to time?

Y: Well, I don't have plans to at the moment, but its a good idea.

T: What kind of talks have you had about how to contine band activity?

Y: Well, forward looking, focusing on putting out material. We've already re-started live shows, so we'll be putting our energy into that.

K: Oh, you've started lives?

Y: Yeah.

K: Well, if your band has antibodies, its easier to move.

Y: Yeah, its safer.

J: Now is the safest time.

K: Right.

J: In relation to corona, its the safest time.

K: People who have antibodies could all do a live?

Y: Ah, us too. Thats interesting.

K: ???? *3

J: But infection numbers are culminating in Japan, so if you think about it, its kinda of the reverse idea.

K: Hm, but if you really think about it, the numbers are still small.

J: How about that? As a band, do you wanna try it?

Y: Yeah, I do. If it was a success, it might help return the music scene to normal.

K: Well, we have to keep moving, little by little, otherwise nothing will start.

J: Yeh, thats it.

K: If we don't try, we too will be always waiting. If there's any chance to get moving, I want to take it. So if these guys can get moving even a little, I can kinda begin to see the light. So, do your best.

T: It puts out a good message, right?

K: Yeah. Ok, well, lets end here. Thank you very much for today.

Y: Thank you.

K: Please subscribe.

T: And check out Jack Caper!

*2 Dates right??

*1, 3 Couldn't catch

[flowerbeom]

Double Pepperoni | LJB

Part of The Pleasure Chest | A GOT7 Cringe Collaboration

Lim Jaebeom x Female!Reader Genre: College AU, Crackhead Comedy Smut Rating: Mature. So very mature. Warnings: Bad puns, Swearing & Explicit smut scenes. Word Count: 4k

Concept:  to: cassandra.l@unisk.edu.com hey cass, its me. your best friend. or what’s left of her. remember that kinda hot but kinda gross pizza delivery guy? the one with the nose ring and always smelt of cheetos? yeh, he’s looking less gross these days. what?! don’t judge me. desperate times call for desperate measures. it has been 154 days since i’ve had sex. shit’s dire here man.

A/N: If you lean into how bad this is purposefully meant to be, you’ll really enjoy it. 

All GIF credits for this series go to @defsenses.

Day 97 

📧 to: cassandra.l@unisk.edu.com hey cass!  yes my phone is still broken, and i have no idea when im going to get a new one cause im broke from visiting you in another goddamn country - so just suck it up and reply to my emails like the good best friend you are.  fuck i miss you already! why the hell did you have to be smart and shit and get into that international program and go to college in Seoul of all places!  do you know how far away that is?! 16 hours cassandra! 16 fucking hours on a plane with no leg room, subpar food and a middle aged balding man snoring next to you the entire time so you get no sleep on a 16 hour flight AWAY FROM YOUR BEST FRIEND.  it was really good to see you though, can you thank mrs kim again for me - you really struck gold with that housing sitch you got - especially your roommate! that fine ass college freshman you DID NOT allow me to fuck!  yeh yeh whatever, i get it - how the hell are you meant to look mrs kim in the eye again when your childhood best friend who you talked up to be an angel fucked her only son on the fold out couch. yes i get it, stop rolling your eyes at me.  either way, its still the dry season down here. miss you, love you. bye. 

It’s funny how jet lag after coming home from a holiday feels almost identical to a hangover; it’s a painful reminder that something that was quite enjoyable is over. The headache feels almost the same, along with the cotton mouth, hunger, dehydration and utter disappointment and resentful emptiness that the fun you were having is completely done - but only one makes you hurl your guts out at the smell of orange juice. Condolences to those who are unlucky enough to hurl in both instances. 

Either way, that’s where you found yourself - Thursday night, half unpacked suitcase lay in the middle of your living room, eyes bloodshot and staring blankly at the television; an all consuming headache pounding between your temples. Lucky for you, you knew a sure fire way to get rid of it without painkillers. Insert Mr. Pene Falso. No literally, insert it. You didn’t call your vibrator Fake Penis in Spanish not to insert it. And in case anyone hasn’t caught on yet, an orgasm legitimately helps get rid of a headache. Try it next time. 

As ever, positioning is important - preparation is key. Sweatpants pushed down to your ankles, one leg completely fished out. Sideways lean, cushion under one elbow, completely bare leg propped up onto the couch; allow for maximum spread when those pre-orgasm hip rolls start. Set Mr. Pene Falso on one, there is no need to go hard straight away - ease into the session, let the endorphins build. You have been deprived of a real penis for a while, so you know you’re eager; but a little self control will yield the most delicious of results. 

You will run the long race to Destination Stimulation and you will bite that bottom lip as your eyes roll back into their sockets as your long awaited, slow built, easy increase of settings on Mr. Pene Falso brings home the most delectable of orgams. It will not be a dry night, no sir. So lower that beautiful vibrating, bright pink silicone wand onto your clit-- 

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK 

Who the fuck..? Your eyes snapped to the front door, your hand clenched around your vibrator just millimetres away from your clit. A small loosening of your grip dropped the angle and the tip of your vibrator dipped against your clit, sending shockwaves through your body. A gravely moan escaped you; your focus immediately brought back to the task at hand. Literally. 

Ignore it, it’s probably no one important. That’s what you told yourself, shaking your head and leaning back against the couch once again. You licked your bottom lip at the enticing notion of self-induced euphoria. Spreading your legs further than before, you corrected your grip and pushed Mr. Pene Falso into you. Your head dropped back involuntarily, your teeth marked your bottom lip and those pre-orgasm hip rolls started slowly. It felt devine, finally some release; a little bit of pleasu--

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK 

“Who the fuck?!” 

“Pal’s Pizza!” 

Tossing Mr. Pene Falso aside, you yanked on your sweatpants, wiped the one bead of sweat off your brow and stampeded to your door. 

“You got the wrong house, buddy!” Ripping it open, your rage was greeted with a face you had not seen in a long time. Your eyes blew wide, as the eyes of the man before you narrowed; complimenting the smirk etching across his face. The ever familiar smell of cheetos, weed and pepperoni of years passed filled your nostrils and nostalgia wasn’t a word you wanted to use in that instance, but repressed memories were being dug up nevertheless. 

A few moments of stone-cold silence passed before a subtle hum started to invade your auditory peripherals. Leaving your eye-line, Mr. Pal’s Pizza leaned sideways, throwing his smirk into the apartment behind you and directly onto the bright pink silicone wand still vibrating on your couch. All colour drained from your obviously stiffened face. 

He scoffed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your alone time. Mind if I join you instead?” 

Day 106

📧 to: cassandra.l@unisk.edu.com hey cass did you know that there’s a woman in Georgia, who due to a rare disorder, experiences hundreds of orgasms a day? she’s just persistently aroused and will climax any time, anywhere - even in the most obscure of places. whereas I cannot even have one, in my own goddamn apartment.  because you will never guess who delivered a pizza to the wrong house last week. Crusty Jae. Yyu heard me. Fucking Lim Jaebeom from high school! Who by the way, still looks like a tryhard 2006 Skaterboi with his stupidly baggy jeans, Stussy t-shirt and bad haircut - or lack thereof who fucking knows.  AND he still smells like damp. No no, he doesn’t smell damp. He smells like damp. Like the idea of damp. but istg i could still cut myself on that jawline of his. and come to think of it, I haven’t had pizza in ages.  miss you. love you, bye. 

Day 114 

“Seriously dude, you need to stop ‘delivering pizza to the wrong house’. It’s getting pathetic.” You feigned irritation despite taking the box out of Jaebeom’s outstretched hand.

“Bruh, I am not. The guy’s next door never answered. So you--” He shook back his overgrown fringe and shifted all his weight back, angling his pelvis towards you. His eyes traipsed up and down your frame, saliva clearly pooling under his tongue. “-- get a free pizza delivered by this handsome mug.” 

You didn’t even try to bury the scoff that escaped you as Jaebeom dug two thumbs into his chest; a pungent smugness wafting from his stained Pal’s Pizza t-shirt. You practically laughed in his face. Yet he didn’t waver. 

“You’re still the same overconfident creep from highschool, Jae.” Jaebeom faked offense, a hand slapped on his heart - leaving a faint damp hand print. 

“And I still managed to nab all the ladies.” Sliding his tongue over his top teeth, he winked and you almost gagged. The fact that Crusty Jae, the school’s resident stoner, managed to have the highest body count by graduation is something that still baffled you. Something must have been seriously wrong with the girls who let that inside them. There were rumours of course, but you weren’t willing to explore any of them to prove if fact or not. 

Lifting the lid, you inhaled a glorious whiff of mozzarella and pepperoni but caught Jaebeom scratching his head from the corner of your eye; little flecks of dead skin floated to the ground and you couldn’t help but focus on the flakes of what looked like parmesan on the top of your pizza. Horror ensued, visible in the quiver in your voice. 

“You.. you don’t make the pizzas do you?” 

Jaebeom smirked, and ran a clammy hand through his greasy hair. 

“Nuh babe, I just deliver them.” He punctuated his statement with a wink and pucker of his lips. You were not comforted and turned away before he could see the grimace on your face. You dropped the pizza box onto your couch and fished a twenty-dollar-bill from your wallet and returned to the door to slap it into Jaebeom’s hand. 

“Nuh baby, it’s free.” He insisted with a stupid slanted grin. You shook your head, pushing the money harder into his hand and away from your door. 

“Keep the change.”

“Damn, thanks for the tip.” He smiled softly. Maybe he isn’t so much of a creep anymore. 

“Want a taste of mine?” 

You couldn’t have slammed the door in his face any harder.  

Day 129 

European. What about Lebanese? Kirby? No, too short. Continental? Way too long. But then again Kirby cucumbers have girth, and it’s not all about length. It’s how you use it. Would you go raw? Or would you wrap it? How sturdy are Kirby cucumbers? You’d obviously have to wash it first. Oh shit, could they poison you if it smooshes up while inside you? No, well you eat them so they can’t be too dangerous. How much lubrication would you need? 

“Little to none if you’re warmed up enough.” 

Cutting off your mental ramblings and ripping you back into reality, your head snapped towards the voice. Jaebeom’s voice. Of course it had to be Jaebeom. Why is he suddenly everywhere? 

“Excuse me, what?!” 

“Lubrication. You wouldn’t need any if you’re warmed up. Cucumbers just slide right in.” He said with total confidence as if speaking from absolute experience. If anything, the pompous smile was enough to tell you what he was saying was true. You tried to swallow and gasp at the same time, causing you to start choking in the grocery store. 

“Wh-wait-what, I was saying all of that out loud?!” You prayed it didn’t say all of it out loud. 

Are you really that delirious from lack of sex that your pathetically curious and completely comedic wonderings about cucumbers as dildos was said out loud in the grocery store?! Have you become that incapable of controlling yourself that you can’t even keep being a horny bitch on the inside?! Must you zone out in full stereo?! 

Jaebeom giggled. 

“Maybe. I heard from about ‘What about Lebanese?’.”

You froze, the hand gripping your shopping basket growing dangerously limp.

“So pretty much all of it.” Jaebeom laughed again and reached across you to pick up the thickest Kirby cucumber from the pile and dropped it into your basket. 

“Think of me.”

“What!?” 

His smirk thawed you completely, leaving you standing in a lukewarm puddle of distaste. “Later babe.” 

Seriously, you needed to find every girl who fucked him in highschool and just ask them “WHY?!” 

Day 147

📧 to: cassandra.l@unisk.edu.com hey cass he ran out of battery I have no spares I live in a wasteland of despair miss you love you bye

Day 165

ring-ring-ring

“Pal’s Pizza, can I take your order?” 

“Hey Jae, it’s me. The usual please.” 

“Stuffed Crust?” 

“No thanks.” 

“No probs. How about I stuff you?”

“Bye.” 

“See you in twenty minutes!” 

Day 167 

📧 to: cassandra.l@unisk.edu.com hey cass I think I’m living in a permanent fever dream today in my tech drawing class my professor told me if I lick the tip I’ll get better results so I asked him, if i let him lick my tip would I get extra credit? HE MEANT MY PENCIL CASSANDRA, HE MEANT TO LICK THE TIP OF MY PENCIL SO I GET THICKER LINES what the fuck is wrong with me?!  oh I know.  it has been 167 days since I’ve had sex ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY SEVEN DAYS and Mr Pene Falso still does not have new batteries.  miss you love you bye

Day 175

You had never felt more accomplished in your life. In one hand rested your brand new phone, shiny and in-built with all the things to keep your easily distracted brain entertained. No longer did you have to make calls from the decrepit pay phone outside your apartment building. No longer did you have to sit on buses and pretend to like reading. No, you were reunited with the technology of your generation and you were ecstatic. Full time college and part time employment didn’t always meet the needs of your demanding lifestyle, but you saved enough to finally get a brand new phone.

And in the other hand lay two beautiful AA batteries. You know perfectly well what they were for. You were equally as ecstatic. But for some reason there was one person you wanted to talk to about it. 

Your fingers dialed the number almost on their own; muscle memory taking over. It rang six times. 

“Hello?”

“CASS!” So excited to hear your best friend’s voice you tripped on the corner of your rug; your body colliding with the couch. 

“Holy shit, you finally got a phone. Took you long enough.” 

“Shut up, I’ve been busy.” Rubbing the part of your shoulder that managed to miss abundant cushioning on the couch and hit the tiny piece of wooden framework beneath it all. 

“Sure. Busy trying to get yourself off every chance you get.” 

The fingers trying to unscrew the bottom of your vibrator halted; your bottom lip folded between your teeth - a pout formed in your silence. 

“I--” Lost for words you resumed unscrewing the cap, placing one battery into each slot. 

“You’re probably gonna go masturbate after you get off this call.” 

The last battery dropped in with a clang, albeit muffled by Cass’s muffled laughter. 

“You know I’m messing with you right?”

“..Yes.” 

“Good. So how’s Crusty Jae?” She continued to laugh as you groaned.

“Dude, can you please explain how he managed to pull so much in high school?! Please! Am I the only one who doesn’t get it?!” Suddenly incredibly frustrated, you screwed on the vibrator cap with so much gusto that your grip accidentally turned it on; the abrupt buzzing ripping out a quiet yelp. 

“You know his nickname used to be Double Pepperoni.” You scoffed so hard, you felt it in your ribs. “Nuh apparently he was packing.”

“What? Like what, like he always had slices stuffed in his pockets?”

“No, like p-a-c-k-i-n-g.” 

“I highly doubt that flat-ass McGee is huge.” You smirked while Cass tried to stop herself from choking on laughter. “And even if he was, dude, I still don’t understand how that seemingly unhygienic mess can score so much.” 

“Bro, I don’t know either. But from all the girls I’ve ever talked to about him, they all say that whatever he did to seduce them or whatever - their reactions were purely carnal.” You made a pathetic noise, like a dying car horn to highlight your skepticism. “Like apparently, he would do something or they would see him do something and they’d just snap. Fuck him once, have a great time but then refuse to ever bring it up again. Except to me.. Cause after all, it was Crusty Jae.. But that’s beside the point.”

“They’d just ‘snap’?” 

“Yup. Like a fresh green bean.”

“Weird metaphor.” 

“But you got it.”

“Sadly. I’m going to go now.” 

“Happy Orgasm!” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Miss you.”

“Love you.”

“Bye!” 

From putting down one electronic device to picking up the other, you settled into the couch cushions with Mr Pene Falso in hand - recharged and ready to go. Yes, you were obviously going to prove your best friend painfully correct by getting off as soon as you hung up that call, but honestly - fuck it. You deserved it. 

Remember, preparation is key. Sweatpants pushed down your ankles, one leg completely bare. Hair pulled up into an overeager and messy as ever bun. Sideways lean. Mr Pene Falso, setting one. 

It’s not meant to be pretty, the faces you pull while masturbating. And the sounds one makes, equally as carnal. But who the fuck cares. You’re doing this for you. And as those pre-orgasm hip rolls get more and more intense as your clit is vibrated right down to Destination Stimulation, you moan in pleasure for you know you are finally getting what you’ve wanted for so lon-- 

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK 

“Hey it’s me!” Your head snapped so fast to the door it cracked every bone in your neck. 

“Jae!?” 

“Yeh, can I come in please?”

“Oh come on, what the fuck!?” Fury swallowed you whole, Mr Pene Falso slamming into the ground in a fit of rage. “What do you fucking want, Jaebeom?!” 

“Please, I need--” Jerking your pants back on, you charged at the door; ripping it open. 

“Need what?!”

“-- to use your bathroom.” Sheepish eyes met your own; blown wide and shaking. Jaebeom stood before you, pizza delivery bag hung loosely in his hand; completely soaked from head to toe. 

“Sorry, it’s fucking pouring outside and I delivered next door and I just want to dry off a little, that cool?” 

His usually loose shirt clung to his body, every inch of his torso outlined. His hair, normally shaggy and overgrown, was completely pushed back off his face; slick and saturated to show every carved line of his face. Was his eyes always this piercing? Or was it only because it was in context with the rest of his beautiful face? 

“So..?” Jaebeom reeled you back from your slow descent and you shook it off violently. 

“Uhh yeh, that-that way.” Throwing a thumb over your shoulder to show him the way, Jaebeom slinked past you; a marginal waft of damp weed followed behind. 

What has gotten into you? This is Crusty Jae we’re talking about here. You are not meant to find him attractive. Nothing about him is meant to be attractive. But there you were - standing in your hallway, dumbfounded as you watched Jaebeom take off his shirt and wring it into your sink. You tried to tear your eyes away from how broad his shoulders were, or how all the muscles around his waist tensed as he squeezed all the water out of his shirt. You couldn’t even fight off the shiver that crawled down your spine when you watched his triceps flex when he pushed his hair off his face. You swallowed hard when that shiver landed right between your legs. 

“Like apparently, he would do something or they would see him do something and they’d just snap.” 

He didn’t see you come up behind him but he felt the hand you placed in the middle of his back. Turning to face you, his eyes were as dark as yours were crazed.  

“Sup.” His cheeto breath didn’t deter you.  

“You’re a pal, right?” You swore you couldn’t sound any more desperate. 

“Says so on my shirt.” You couldn’t quite figure out if it was Chipotle or Flamin’ Hot cheetos. But it wasn’t the time or the place. You had needs. 

“Be a pal then.” Jaebeom quirked a lewd and curious brow. “Get me off.” 

The speed of which he had his hands under your arms and lifting you onto the benchtop was frighteningly fast. Your shirt was pulled hastily over your head and thrown aside, your pants were torn down your legs equally as fast. You had no time to question, no time to doubt - not when Jaebeom’s mouth was on yours, his tongue rolling over your teeth as if searching for hidden cheetos in your cheeks. But with the way his thumb circled over your clit through your underwear, you weren’t going to complain. Go on, fish for those cheetos baby. 

Through wet and messy kisses, your hands tracked down his chest; stopping at his belt buckle. Of course, you thought, it was one of those snap closure canvas belts - ridiculously too long and matched his ridiculously baggy jeans. Nevertheless, you snapped open the buckle, fished it out of the loops and his pants fell instantly to the ground. 

Jaebeom broke away from your mouth, leaning back to make room for his hands to pull off your underwear; just to have his lips crash back into yours the moment the lace garment hit the floor. 

“Conmg-do. Cone--. Con-” You mumbled against his mouth. Strong hands pushed against his chest; disappointed eyes flashed for a moment, before turning devious at the sight of your naked breasts. 

“Condom.” He nodded and you swung around to grab one from the medicine cabinet. Rounding back to face him, you saw his underwear was on the ground, his very erect penis greeting you fully. Double Pepperoni…  

He ripped the wrapper open with his teeth, slid the condom expertly onto his length and caged you against the mirror in one fluid movement. He waited, paused for effect if you will and you weren’t having any of it. One hand scratched into his hair, the other pulled on the chain around his neck.

“Oh, you want me to stuff you do you?” Said with total hubris. 

“Like cheesy crust.” Who have you become?! 

Jabeom’s heavy hands found themselves on your hips, pulling you down onto his dick. He filled you wholly, deliciously; throbbing against your walls so achingly good that you didn’t even care that you could feel crumbs of garlic bread that did not belong to you in your mouth. 

He pounded you roughly; each thrust making you bounce on your porcelain sink. His hair, still wet, dripped onto your shoulder and down your back as his teeth marked your neck. Your bathroom began to fill with lewd and erotic noises, squelches and squeaks of wet flesh against wet flesh and some against hard surfaces. 

Jaebeom snapped his hips harder and harder into you, moans tumbled from your mouth as the orgasm you have craved for finally rounded the horizon. He was merciless, relentless, completely determined to drive you home. 

You yanked harder on the fist full of hair in your hand, ripping a loud and gravely groan from Jaebeom. Not one to be upstaged, Jaebeom shoved his hand into your hair, tangling his fingers into your bun and pulling down to expose more of your neck to him. His pace had not slowed down at all. 

He marked your neck, sucking and biting on your flesh so gloriously that you began to mewl - high pitched and needy, and it’s what sent Jaebeom over the edge. His hips snapped harder, forcing his dick deep into you; hitting spots you had forgotten about completely. 

Different colours were flashing behind your eyelids and you were close, so close. 

And as Jaebeom neared climax, he tore his hand out of your hair. Though in his earlier fervour, got so much of it tangled around his fingers and stuck under his ring, that your whole body was torn sideways and off the bench. 

Landing on the floor, shocked eyes watched Jaebeom ejaculate all over your sink as your own orgasm retreated away; shrivelling up into dust and blown away in the wind - his hand still stuck in your hair. How the fuck, wasn’t he wearing a condom, you thought, only for you to reach down and find it stuck inside your vagina, half hanging out. There was literally nowhere lower you could go. This, this is rock bottom. 

“Haha, holy fuck. Sorry babe.” Jaebeom leaned down and carefully untangled his fingers out of your hair. Towels were passed around for hygiene purposes and you almost vomited when you saw cheeto crumbs wedged between Jaebeom’s butt-cheeks. 

You weren’t really sure what happened after. You think Jaebeom said something crass. Or maybe he said thank you. In a crass way. Either way, he eventually left and the two hour shower you took still didn’t make you feel clean. Especially not after finding a half-dried pearl of cum on your toothbrush. 

But there was one thing you knew for sure. You totally snapped. 

Day 0

📧 to: cassandra.l@unisk.edu.com hey cass in the interest of our friendship and for the purposes of full transparency it has been 1 day since ive had sex and we will never speak of it again

[what-kinda-fuckery]

Hey so, I was one of the star struck falsettos stans that spent the forty dollars for the webinar, and I took notes (like a weirdo). So I decided I would share my funny moments and updates from the cast here!

- Host: Everyone should be keeping their audio off.

Christian: Oh alright!

Host: nO Christian not you

- Christians in Manhattan and his hair is back and he’s wearing a Superman t-shirt.

- Brandon is with his parents in NJ

- Stephanie and Brandon still love each other

- Brandon: Meat should be cooked just right

- Betsy: Stephanie are you in maple wood?

Stephanie: Well thank you for telling everyone where I am (she’s in NJ)

- Stephanie: Are you fucking kidding meee!!!

- Tracie is in LA, she looks like she’s in Costa Rica and I love her dog.

- Anthony’s VOICE IS LOW EVERYONES FREAKING OUT

they’re all talking about Anthony’s clear skin

- Andy Randy is in LA with a fresh haircut his boyfriend did it and he’s watching too much TV

Andrew: I’m watching this is America

Stephanie: SO GOOD

Andrew: SO GOOD

- Everyone’s having hard days

- Christian is acting out tracies dog’s pathetic bark and everyone’s like WHAT are you doing bc it looks like he’s about to throw up

- BETSY IS A WEEK AWAY FROM HAVINGA WHOLE CHILD

Betsy: What else do you do during a pandemic? Have a baby!

Andrew: Can I toss out another baby name? Celery.

Literally everyone: Goodnight Andrew goodbye!

- Christian is living with a girl (?) and playing board games instead of watching television

HE COOKS NOW EVERYONES PROUD OF HIM

Christian: yesterday I made pork filet en croute

Stephanie: I MADE PORK WITH SAGE AND APPLES ON WEDNESDAY

Stephanie: In mean girls they wear pink on wednesdays. In falsettos they make pork.

- I can’t get over Anthony’s voice

Again everyone returning to his literally perfect skin

- Stephanie: When watching four jews in a room in the beginning who’s in China?? I know the answer I just want to hear someone say it.

Andrew, with a thick accent: It was Bryna, in China, with a torn miniscus

- Christian: Did anything interesting make it on to the telecast between me and you? Andrew? Actually I dont remember I need to do my research.

Andrew: There’s been some strange comments about Christian and I- (AT THIS POINT IM WHEEZING)

HE MENTIONED THE TONY BONY

HE SAID IT WASNT A THING

HE DIDNT HAVE ONE

Andrew: No that’s not a thing that happened

Brandon: Andrew i want you to know that it’s okay if it was. It’s a safe space just the seven of us. (Lol)

- Bill Finn would take two steps into the room: “WROONG”

Stephanie: he wanted me to sing the end of I’m breaking down up the octave and I said #notmytrina

Brandon: #NOTMYTRINA

- Tracie what did you do during act 1

Tracie: Betsy and I sat in that dressing room for like an hour and a half

Andrew: You SANG the WHOLE SHOW TRACIE

- Betsy watched parts of the first act to feel like she was there

- Betsy sprained both her ankles at one point during the run and was a trooper anyways

Brandon reenacting Betsy limping during look look look look

Everyone dies laughing

Christians LAUGH makes me SO HAPPY

- Betsys screen is frozen like this: 🤨

Andrew: What if she went into labor??? (This is a common thread throughout the zoom)

- Anthony: I’m getting a lot of glitching so Stephanie is just like “HUH UH UH UH”

- Betsy comes back and everyone is like

YOU GUYS ITS COMING!!!

- They bought Andrew an ice cream for his birthday from the vending machine at rehearsal

- Andrew: The Hawaii crop top

Betsy: I would give anything to have that

- Tracie: it was very hard. Very precise bringing the blocks together

Brandon: Trying to be like oh my god we’re going to a funeral

Andrew: MY DEATH IT WAS MY DEATH

- fan question: What did the blocks weigh?

Stephanie: They were like thick yoga blocks. Not heavy but awkward shaped

Andrew: Significantly heavier when Anthony sat on them

Anthony: I just realized how much I got thrown around

Stephanie: Anthony were you proud of yourself? #proudofyou

Anthony: The one moment I was cringing was father and son

Christian: HERE WE GO *SLAPS TABLE*

Betsy: Anthony’s like BLAH BLAH BLAH blah my line BLAH BLAH BLAH my line BLAH BLAH

Christian: I LEAVE THE PAUSE IF YOU CANT GET IN THATS ON YOU

Anthony: I was blinking in that number like constantly

Christian: THE WHOLE THING LIKE A SALAMANDER

Oh Anthony.

- Andrew: I HAVE A STORY ABOUT CHRISTIAN BORLE. Tech for what more can i say. He was laying on me. We were shirtless in underpants under the blankets.

Christian: SLOWER

Andrew: he leaned over; He sniffed his armpit and said “I hope you like France”

EVERYONE DIES LAUGHING INCLUDING ME

Christian: i haven’t worn deodorant in 10 years true story

- Christian: i seem to remember holding our pillows and blankets pretending like we were partying on fyre island and Andrew said:

Andrew: WHATS YOUR NAME???

Christian: No no it was something like:

WHAT HOUSE ARE YOU STAYING IN??

Andrew: WHAT HOUSE ARE YOU STAYING IN???

Betsy: James lupine I feel like we’re ruining this show

- Andrew: The shenanigans were real but so was the sadness

Stephanie: We’re real and we’re funny what you gonna do

- Andrew talking about how hard the show was to do: Finding some liberty, It’s a hard world to live in all the time. It was a hard time especially for Christian. I would sometimes go home and cry for no reason

Brandon: Building up emotion with nowhere to put it

Betsy: then Lesbians come in and provide all the levity

Stephanie: Although Dr. Charlotte brings in horrible news

Tracie: Everything’s beautiful at what more can i say and I’m like not so fast

- Tracie always had a funny thing to say

- Who broke character the most on stage?

Anthony Stephanie and Christian

Anthony: it was when I said “I don’t want a bar mitzvah” and I spit in your face a lot and you went like *puts arms up* and someone at stage door was like very condescending like it’s not professional

Christian: Oh my bad we’re people sorry

- Stephanie wrote a line in the show “YOU HAVE PAINTINGS OF DICKS”

- James wanted her to cut off her finger during I’m breaking down

And turn around with a bandaged bloody finger

- Betsy’s nose bleeding during something bad is happening

And Tracie was like something BAD IS HAPPENING

Tracie: Christians throwing up right now

Betsy: Bloody Kleenex up the nose THE SHOW MUST GO ON

- Fan question: Stephanie how do you belt with a banana in your mouth

Christian: Practice practice practice

Stephanie: just shove it in your cheek. But Really that wasn’t supposed to happen

Anthony’s nickname in the rehearsal room was little bananas because he had to gather up all the pieces of stuff after Stephanie shoved the table over with her rear. Sometimes he didn’t have enough time to put it somewhere so he would just put the pieces of banana in his mouth and that’s where it came from

That’s why

- Andrew: Stephanie your glasses are very chic

Stephanie: Oh my gosh thank you *shocked*

- Betsy: Bill was like I’d rather DIE than change lyrics for the pbs special

FLaT aS a LaKe

- Cue everyone accidentally talking over each other and saying what at each other for 30 seconds

Christian: what? what? what?

Who is it?

What’s going on?

- If you could play anyone else in the show who would it be

Anthony said Mendel

Tracie said Mendel

Brandon said Trina

Andrew said marvin

Betsy said whizzer

Stephanie said Mendel

And I honestly couldn’t hear if Christian said anything whoops

- Brandon: If someone could at some point explain to me the Mendel eats dirt meme? People have been Asking me if Mendel eats dirt? I don’t think it’s about Trina Trina is not the dirt. I was overwhelmed. Can someone in the Q&A explain this? *A few seconds later* oh It was from a meme generator?

Christian: Greaat.

Brandon: It’s a fan fiction about Mendel eating dirt and getting aroused by it

Everyone: WHAT

- They still get fan art

Someone recreated the whole soundtrack 8bit and also with KAZOOS

- Brandon: CONGRATS CHRISTIAN ON LULOS WIN FOR LITTLE SHOP. If you haven’t seen Christian in little shop it’s revelatory I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass I have not laughed that hard in a while at the theatre

- Christian talking about little shop

Christian has a 12 inch Batman toy in his dressing room and he misses it

- Ticket prices were getting out of control before corona everyones hoping this will make a difference

Brandon and everyone think it should get more accessible

- Brandon: Hear hear I need a refill

- Stephanie: Your hair looks incredible Brandon (it did)

Christian: She’s been waiting to talk about it for 53 minutes

- Andrew: Well Betsy what I’m wondering is have you crowned yet??

Proceed everyone dying

Brandon, taking a picture of the screen: This moment will go down in history as When Betsy was asked if she was crowning

- Everyone mimicking zoom freezing by starting a sentence and freezing halfway through

- Christian: What new Steven sondheim musical are you excited about Anthony *devilish grin*

Anthony having no idea what Christian is talking about

Christian: Come on Anthony you know the answer. Ugh. The minds of the young. You’re smoking pot now aren’t you??

Christian: We have a lot of fun

- Andrew: I’m trying to get people to pay attention to me

- Christians pretending to be frozen

Cue a lot of yelling: Stephanie BRANDON STEPHANIE

NO CHRISTIAN

Everyone accusing each other of being frozen

NO YOURE FROZEN

- Andrew: Let’s all act like we’re frozen

Steph: I see Andrew acting like hes frozen

Betsy: Watching you do that is killing me

- Listening to the cast recording for the first time together

Stephanie: Why was I the a-hole that couldn’t be there???

Christian: That’s a question only you can answer

- Betsys husband came in everyones like BETSY LOOK OUT

Christian: that scared the shit out of me

- What is marvins last name and what was his line of work

Christian: we definitely said it at some point right? (They didnt) but he was in advertising. What was the last name? Gardens? O’Malley?

- Andrew: Betsys gone oh no

Betsy: I’m right here!!!

Andrew: She’s giving birth (again)

Stephanie: Betsy Wolfe is a ceiling

- Brandon: Welcome back Anthony. You’re here now.

Anthony singing merrily we roll along over Betsy trying to tell a story

Christian: STOP SMOKING POT IN YOUR BEDROOM ANTHONY

- Betsy: Steve (Steven Sondheim) comes to the door I call him steve

Into the woods is the reason Betsy is in theatre

- Betsy: Andrew was nervous singing at the tonys for Book of Mormon and he got dry mouth he sang like 😬I BELIEVE and he licked his lips so much during the song.

Brandon: Did you have a boner then too?

Andrew: GUYS DONT BE DICKS

Stephanie: It’ll be like dry mouth, boner

Andrew: BETSY YOU FUCKIN BITCH ITS ACTUALLY NOT THAT BAD

Stephanie: Bets maybe we should wrap it up

- Brandon sings MARRIAGE PROPOSAL

EVERYONE TELLING HIM TO STOP SINGING I took a video it was beautiful might post that later

- “Tracie Thomas from Lent!”

Tracie having stage fright

Tracie: Billy porter said “oh child we all forget the words” and walked away

- Anthony said WHO SHAT THE BED in four jews once

Anthony: That’s my contribution. Steph got her line, I got who shat the bed

- Steph: We lost andrew oh no

Christian: Um, we lost andrew ten minutes ago. Yeah when Brandon started singing

- Then Betsy sang a song by Bill Finn beautiful

- Steph: Wear your masks and eat pork on wednesdays

That was it!! I hope you enjoyed and people who were there if I got anything wrong that’s my human error it was hard to note everything I wanted to. Smooches! Byee

[iwach4n]

i said I'd do it and now it is simp time because punk yamaguchi is the only thing on my mind rn. general hcs for now but perhaps i will do a boyfie hcs for him as well

also yes this is sorta badly written and obnoxiously long its mainly just me rambling all my ideas

punk third year hcs

his confidence has grown drastically since the beginning of first year, especially when it comes to volleyball. but the end of second year and the holidays before third year starts are when he really starts to come out of his shell and experiment with his style

his hair comes first. he doesn't have time to get a haircut for a while, and so he ends up tying it back as a temporary thing. except its no longer temporary because he really likes it

he only does it for volleyball and when he's studying at first, just to get his hair out of his face. sometimes when he goes out on errands.

but he leaves it up after morning practice once, and suddenly he's getting Looks. he would have missed all the blushing stares of the girls (and probably a few guys) if tsukishima hadn't pointed it out to him

his face has become a bit more defined and masculine recently coz puberty, and although he still has pretty soft features, tying his hair up shows off a sharp jawline

he's a bit awkward about all the attention he's getting at first! like he really doesn't know what to do with it. but he slowly manages to take it in his stride (tho he'll still get blushy if anyone outright compliments him on it)

buying a leather jacket on impulse is really the turning point for him. he loves the more confident vibe it gives him, which in turn makes him even more confident

he buys more clothes like that to match it, and by the time third year starts he's decked out with a whole new wardrobe

when the new first years start on the first saturday practice, they're already a little nervous because karasuno has a pretty intimidating rep.

but when they see this guy with long hair, a leather jacket, big boots and ripped jeans unlocking the club room? shaking

that is, until he notices them and starts talking

he literally just smiles and they know they're fine. just immediate 'cool older brother' vibes

he's absolutely great as a captain, he helps out all the new kids and keeps tsukishima and kageyama from being too mean or intimidating

one day, yachi asks if she can paint his nails. he agrees and loves it and now he constantly has his nails painted. they're black more often than not but sometimes he switches it up with random colours. because of the volleyball they're always chipped but it just adds to the whole vibe

tanaka invites noya and all the third years (like the year below them you know what i mean) over to his house to catch up. when yamaguchi shows up he does a visible double take, but before you know it he's giving him an undercut and noya's dying his hair black

he's now a lot more scary at games. not only is his style more evident even without the clothes, he's also spent years watching his teammates intimidate their opponents and he's picked up a thing or two

while hinata, tsukishima and a handful of the younger ones are actively insulting the other teams, yamaguchi can't really make himself do that and knows that as captain he should reign them in

"leave them alone guys, we don't have time for this"

but his confident stare and tiny smirk sends shivers down their spines too

the minute they get round the corner, everyone's clapping him on the back and cheering about how he 'totally made them piss their pants', while he just laughs awkwardly

the first time he does something like that, he genuinely feels bad about it and almost apologises. but sooner or later he just finds it kind of funny

at some point, tsukishima finds some rings that akiteru used to wear (akiteru had a low-key eboy phase in my mind but thats another story) and gives them to yamaguchi. its like a gateway drug to jewelry for him honestly

rings? yes. chains? you bet. bracelets? fuck yeah.

soon enough, he's got a couple of piercings too. he starts off with a few in his ears, but then he gets a lip ring and eyebrow piercing too and he looks sO GOOD

he's pretty much got fangirls at this point. and one thing they love is how he looks really punk and hot but whenever they talk to him he's super sweet and awkward

he forgets to take his lip ring out before a game once and they l o s e t h e i r m i n d s

audible groans from the stadium when ukai reminds him at a time out

(honestly me too i can't stop thinking about how hot he'd look with a lip ring)

(i've been trying so hard to keep it together and not just yell about him this whole time but it's so hard. i'm breaking down man. i've got a crush on punk yams send help)

ukai is also his go-to for advice on piercings, and the man lives for it. he's watched this kid grow from a nervous smol babie to a confident punk child and he's more than happy to take him under his wing and share what he knows

if there's one group of people he knows he'll never be nice to if he ever saw them again it's his old bullies. he’s moved past them but looking back he gets kinda mad

well, one day he’s walking out of saturday practice with tsukishima and sees an awfully familiar group of guys walking down the road, talking about the school, and about “doesn’t that really weak freckly kid from elementary go here?”

well, speak of the devil

remember how they were intimidated by tsukki before? oh how the turntables.

i wouldn’t say tsukishima has a ‘soft boy’ style, but he opts for slightly preppy clothes like button up shirts, knitted sweaters, that kind of thing. and he usually wears lighter colours (beige, light blue, a muted yellow, ygm)

meanwhile, yamaguchi is here with all his black clothes and piercings and newfound confidence, and the way he’s looking at them is honestly a bit terrifying

“t-tadashi?” “who the fuck let you call me that?”

tsukishima is genuinely impressed. probably the first time he’s heard him swear not out of frustration

its a bit of a staring contest until one of the new first years runs up and calls him captain and asks him if they’re getting meatbuns (he totally carries on daichi’s tradition of treating the team to them prove me wrong). he’s back into nice senpai mode when he says he’s buying, but the bullies now know he’s also the captain and it just increases the air of authority he’s got right now

they keep staring each other for another minute or so, and tsukki’s getting concerned because god knows what this kid’s gonna do

but he suddenly just starts walking past them, no fucks given

“come on tsukki. these assholes aren’t worth our time.”

those bullies are left having an existential crisis in the street because that was mildly terrifying and also the last years treated him well damn (puberty hit him like a freakin BUS)

I WAS GONNA END IT THERE BUT I NEED TO TALK ABOUT TATTOOS

while he’s still in high school, he can’t get any tattoos done professionally, but he definitely messes around giving himself stick-and-pokes

they’re all quite small and simple - little stars and smiley faces on his ankles and arms

would probably let the team try their hand at it on him. as a result he has some deformed splodges, something that is just barely recognisable as a volleyball and a couple freckles on his legs joined up like a dot-to-dot (he asked yachi to do a crow on his bicep because she’s the best at drawing but she was too nervous about messing it up)

he’ll also try giving the team some if they want to (though not first years coz to him they’re literal babies). hinata tried to get the third years to have matching ones but tsukishima didn’t want to be associated with them like that and yachi was a bit scared to so they didn’t end up doing it

when he’s old enough, he gets a few proper tattoos, but they’re all quite small and simple. he probably seriously considered getting a big design on his neck (kind of like this) but he ultimately decided against it

in conclusion yamaguchi is punk in third year and my heart is going absolutely crazy over him

(jesus christ this turned out long)

[polaristranslations]

Nadeko Eye Level

000

"By the way, Sengoku. Those bangs of yours that you grew out--and of course I mean they grew out in a good way--but doesn't it hurt?"

"It, i-it, i-i-it, it doesn't hurt at, a-a-at, a-at, at all?"

The one who responded to my exceedingly eloquent question was none other than my sister's friend, Sengoku, whose agitation was all but natural at this point--she had an expression that looked like a caricature of agitation, and her way of record scratching on the first sound of her sentence was a technique that followed the fundamentals, although scratching towards the end of the sentence was a novel sort of fade-out.

What was she, a DJ?

Though her posture was that of a kabuki actor--an unexpected blend of East and West.

"It's not like I grew them out to hide the third eye on my forehead or anything..."

"No, that's not what I meant by it 'hurting'...[?] I was just wondering if the tips of your hair would get into your eyes and poke at them."

For someone like me, who sometimes had the eyesight of a vampire, it wasn't really necessary for me to dramatically improve my eyesight, but it wouldn't really be funny if I lost my eyesight because of my hairstyle.

Although, a Sengoku in glasses wouldn't be bad.

"There's nothing to worry about there. It's true that the ends of my hair can taper off a bit, though."

"Are you talking about a shaggy haircut? You sound like an artisan."

"But I like to walk with my eyes closed so that they don't poke at me."

Rather than an artisan, this made her sound like an expert.

Hold on, you close your eyes?

Even now? Behind those bangs?

"Well, even if the ends of my hair didn't get into my eyes, just by being alive, your eyeballs will start to deteriorate over time. In that case, I think it's better to not misuse my eyesight, and instead keep my eyelids closed and fresh normally so that I only use them when I absolutely need to."

Misusing eyesight (shiryoku)... She said it like one would say misusing political power (kenryoku).

I've heard of athletes reading books, watching TV, or playing smartphone games only in moderation so as to take good care of their eyes, but to think that those bangs acted as a defensive wall.

In the first place, it was common knowledge that one grows hair in order to protect their head--so perhaps Sengoku's bangs were playing the role of goggles to protect her eyes from the sun's rays. Even the hat she wore low over her eyes was a sun visor, huh...

However, if you didn't use them at all, then by not using them, I felt like they would still deteriorate... Or rather, they'd degenerate.

Just look at those deep-sea fish that live in a world of darkness.

"I can't look at them. Because my eyes are closed."

"You got me there."

She sure showed me up[?], could have been the punch line I used, but why don't we continue the conversation for just a bit longer.

"In the first place, you're the type of person who does play games, aren't you?"

"I turn the screen off, and play with sound only."

That was a super-advanced way of playing.

If she could do that, then it seemed like she would be able to play without not only the controller, but without even the console itself--her eye level was at a high level.

"You know. The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes. You'd be able to see the world better if you looked with the eyes of your heart, Koyomi-onii-chan."

The eyes of your heart... I couldn't say it didn't sound even more shady than a third eye, but perhaps that depended on how you looked at it. Just with the eyes, that is.

Perhaps the eyes of my heart were too dull to take a straight look at the wise sayings of the little prince.

"I've seen too much of this filthy world, after all."

"That's so cool, Koyomi-onii-chan..."

Can you retort with something instead?

Can you not stare at me with those eyes sparkling like the stars, visible even through those long bangs?

That gaze was too radiant for me.

However, now that I realize it, saying that "you shouldn't judge people by their appearance" involves the premise that "we unconsciously like to judge people by their appearance", and I think that's something we should keep in mind. Especially since, at some point, the teachings started to become "it's not just etiquette that's important, but your personal appearance, too."

If you're going to be caught up by those misleads and feints, then it might be a valid strategy to just ignore your eyesight, and not look at all.

"That reminds me, the goddess of justice at courthouses is blindfolded while carrying scales, isn't she? In order to lay down fair judgments without being led astray by appearances..."

For those sorts of people who are at a poor station in life with the possibility of being brought to court for some crime or other, they may be thankful for this policy, but if possible, I would like for the courts to keep it in their hearts and not actually wear blindfolds during trials.

It's unthinkable (shingai) for someone to ascertain the truth with just the mind's eye (shingan).

Plus, aside from the defendant's appearance, can't you see your scales being tilted?

"They say that eyes speak louder than words, and that seeing is believing. Even with me having a reputation for having eyes on my back, I still think it's important to make frequent eye contact, Sengoku-uji. Or should I say, Kaga-Hyakumangoku-uji?[?]"

"You shouldn't make fun of people's names, Koyomi-onii-chan..."

Rather than a retort, I ended up just being admonished normally.

But if that was the case, then I would prefer you told Hachikuji that... But I guess they'd never actually come into contact before? Regardless, after being told that, especially after being told that by Sengoku, I had to apologize.

The act of teasing someone using their name can be as delicate as an eyeball.

In Sengoku's case, while her family name was just cool, her given name did seem like something she'd get teased for... I felt like, when I was in elementary school, I constantly asked about why it wasn't "Nadeshiko" instead.

Perhaps I'd poked at a trauma of hers--emotional scars are also invisible to the naked eye, after all.

For me, it would be that hellish spring break.

Though it was certainly a large cut, I wouldn't exactly call it precious to me.[?]

"Sorry, sorry. I'd like to apologize, including for the stuff I said in the past. If you could look the other way."

"Nadeko is sorry, too. It was a lie when I said that I grew out my bangs to preserve my vision."

"Well, of course."

"The truth is that I'm not good with making eye contact."

Rather than hiding my third eye, I was hiding my embarrassment.

That was what Sengoku said.

Because she'd been hiding something, I'd assumed it was something that was worth hiding, and mistaken it for some sort of valuable truth, but once I dug into it, it turned out to just be hiding her embarrassment--after having seen through it, it was quite the anticlimax.

The skilled hawk may not always hide its talons--it may not be talons (tsume), but dreams (yume).

And not dreams, but nightmares.

"When someone looks straight into your eyes and it feels like they can read your mind, isn't that scary? It's something that Tsukihi-chan often does."

It was true that that girl liked to look straight into your eyes without wavering.

You may as well call it, direct heat.

"It almost feels like my retinas are being scanned. Like all my personal information is about to be leaked. That's why I end up closing my eyes."

Thanks to my sister, such a cute girl ended up becoming the kind of character that uses her mind's eye... I couldn't help but feel responsible.

I couldn't turn a blind eye to this.

"All right. In that case, I'll be your eyes from now on. Just like Swimmy."

"Y-you don't have to go that far..."

I was rejected.

You could say that she was just looking at me from a distance, but my feelings were always looked down on with a bird's-eye view.

"It's hard making eye contact with my homeroom teacher, to the point that I want to wear sunglasses in class, but of course I can't actually do that, so I'm enduring it."

"So don't tell me, those bangs were actually the result of a compromise?"

There was nothing harder to get across than the endurance and compromise of someone that wasn't you... Just like the pain of being strangled by a snake.

"But, but, Koyomi-onii-chan, in the end, maybe the reason I isolate myself by not wanting to look at people's eyes is that I'm constantly looking into people's eyes. Because I was constantly aware of the gazes of others, I ended up thinking that maybe other people were aware of Nadeko's eyes, too."

That was, quite literally, an insight.

Or should I say, the focus of her attention was different.[?]

When you think that everyone thinks a certain way, it's usually because you're the one thinking it the most--when I thought that all my classmates considered me to be a dropout in school, it's because I was treating myself as a dropout the most.

It's the kind of self-contradiction where you're worried that someone set up a security camera, so you end up setting up your own security cameras. If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you--that is, if you're feeling that way, it's because you were gazing into the abyss.

Thinking about it, there was no way my smaller younger sister was staring into people's eyes in order to understand their feelings. It's because she loved herself to the point that she believed, without a doubt, that everyone else loved her, too.

In other words, she was a self-siscon.

"That's true. Rara-chan just turns on the direct heat towards the other person for no reason at all."

"Scary... My sister is scary..."

However, it was an extremely apt metaphor--after all, she was the advisor of Tsuganoki 2nd Middle School's Fire Sisters.

"This idea has been shelved for quite some time now, but originally, in Nisemonogatari volume 2, my lovable sister was supposed to have fallen into despair at the idea of justice and turned into a pyromaniac, setting fire to the abandoned ruins of the cram school. Just a side note."

"I, i-i-i-i, i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i, isn't that too much for just a side note?"

Her record scratching went so far that she almost sounded like a chicken.[?]

Allow me to call her, Chicken Nadekko (although, if I showed no signs of remorse from earlier, she was sure to get mad at me).

"After hearing that idea, I realized it's better to keep unseen things unseen... Let sleeping dogs lie."

"Oops. Once again, it appears my quick wit has come and gone.[?] It's been exposed, my knowledge.[?]"

Incidentally, while this idea was not used, it was carried over into Nekomonogatari (White)--in a sense, it was Hanekawa's calamity, her calamity of fire.

Perhaps she didn't see the light of day, but she saw the light of the fire.[?]

In conclusion, whether it's truth or deception or light or darkness or fire or water, or perhaps like oil and water or like oil to a fire, it's enough to look at with a wink.

"Right. Nadeko can't become like Tsukihi, who always says 'Look right into my eyes and speak', but I do think that I'd like to cut my bangs short someday. It's really hard being cursed because I had no idea about my friends' feelings or even my own feelings--it was too terrible to even look at."

In Nadeko's case, it wasn't the light of the fire that I saw, but snake eyes.[?]

Saying that, Sengoku turned her face downward, as if lowering a shutter--taking a wait-and-see approach for the looks of her downcast eyes, it didn't seem like those eyes, or rather, that day would come. But when the day comes that Sengoku did show her eyes as if she were rolling dice, if you asked whether a demon would show up or a snake would show up[?], then, well, of course what would show up would be a snake.

And they all lived happily ever after.[?]

[bioodorange]

hey bitch this is very important

rate every pasta based on how fuckable they are, and i need r e a s o n s.

I've been thinking about this ever since i first joined the fandom

here ya gO

Jeff The Killer....2/10

this bitch has like no fuckin expierence but he thinks hes all that

*pokes your thigh with three fingers* hows that feel baby gorl ?? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

And he has a dumb look on his face like yeah I know I’m amazing

Lowkey would start crying about his mommy issues

or his dead brother

LIke serisously dude right n o w

Uh I dont think he smells very nice so up close and personal nO thanks

He gets 2 points because its fun to play tic tac toe on his skin

also hes got a shriveled raisin pp- thats pretty funny

Ben Drowned.....no

This bitch a child and a ghost sweetie

idfc if hes mentally like 40

just n o

would play videogames with though

Masky.....7/10

so first off, dad bod, mad respect

This mans has definetely done stuff before so he knows what hes doing

I feel like hes good at it but he’s awkward ya know but in a sweet way

And he’d definetely make a few dumb ass jokes 

But that makes it better (in my opinion)

Ima have to take away points because he definetely could use a shower

and a s h a v e

Bitch thinks he’s wolverine with those sideburns-

Hoodie....6/10

ok so he’s definetely really good at it

but theres some take away factors

I feel like he gets jealous easily

like a child

so like nO

Also im prreeeeety sure he’d try gun play or some shit-

yeah nO thanks buddy

also he wears black face 80% of the time like wtf-

but uh points for skill, being pretty and knowing what a shower is

EJ.....4/10

you gonna die

sleeping with this man can not be good-

he’s either gonna do the “uR my mate uwu” thing, shish kabob you with his pp, or like abandon you for fear of attachment

Uh his tounges be pretty nice, kinda cool

Acidic spit tho? no thanks

but points for big hands and knowing how to shower

and shaving

imagine how whack he’d look with facial hair-

can he even grow facial hair?-

Lj.....-18/10

you a dead bitch

and a C H I L D

the only thing coming-

is the organs spilling out of your chest cavity 

plus this mfer kinda looks like a bird

and that N O S E

just n o

he doesn’t get any points cause this bitch is c r e e p y

Toby.....5/10

he don’t got expierence

but he tries and like this boy just needs a hug

He’d definetely be sweet unless he’s having an emotional fit

would try his best not to hurt you tho

taking away points cause he needs to e a t more for his own health

and he showers but doesn’t wash his clothes

unrelated but like imagine how fluffy his hair is

I wanna braid it

X-Virus....7/10

Cody is good but awkard

But once again in a cute/funny way

this man showers AND washes his clothes

he’s got some expierence and skill

B U T no shame

like s i r take it to a room not like the fuckin kitchen counter

also he’d like talk about it alot afterward infront of a shit ton of people

and baby n o

he also probably has fluffy hair

Slenderman...???

hentai tentacles

Jane...8/10

ok this isn’t biased I SWEAR-

But you can NOT tell me she ain’t good at this shit

She’s well kept, confident AND the sweetest thing

Would definetely go a bit out of your comfort zone to make things that much better

She can top ot bottom so best of both worlds

I just love her oKay

and she knows where the clit is unlike everyone else on the list-

Clockwork....9/10

ok so she k i n d a knows where ‘it’ is

but she’s skilled enough to not need it

next level sHIT man

she has some points off cause she has a bad haircut but its clean!

I can’t see her being into real weird shit or not being good at it

is definetely picky about it tho like when

also she def has a thing for thighs

I dunno why but I see it

[dallonm-archive]

Hi! I love ur WIP oh revelations revelations, and I was wondering if you could give ur characters physical descriptions?

hi thank you so much!!! not gonna lie i ~suck~ at character descriptions (really I’m just not confident in them) and the ones I do aren’t overtly detailed and feed a lot more into showing their personality combines with appearance. Plus as a reader I will create my own image in my head if I don’t get something from the author lmao. So this will just be some rambles with some picrews and IRL photos (I don’t do official faceclaims and will get into that, but I do use some to help visualise what’s in my head), and also fashion because I love fashion and I love 80s fashion and I have to stop myself from writing 389424 outfit descriptions <3 feat. some barely edited prose!! 

only doing the “main five” (are they truly the only main characters? I have no self control <3) because I lose track of which characters I’ve talked about so this is far from all the cast! And picrew/photo limitations mean these aren’t how exactly they look but it gives you an idea! Also I wrote this out and then lost it t w i c e :) Here are the two picrews I used: x x

Beau

My KING. It’s kinda funny to me because his description comes from the POV of a man who’s going to fall in love with him so whilst it’s not like “oh my god he’s so hot” I feel like you can DEFINITELY tell there’s something there. Beau and Felix aren’t exactly a slow burn couple lmao

Beau mirrors his mother. Same complexion, same smile, the only difference is his eyes are lighter and his curls are wilder, one absentmindedly coiled around his index. He wears a pistachio coloured button up with palm tree prints, oversized. A necklace with a shell charm, a brown beaded bracelet. He still grins at Felix, charmingly, as he continues to ramble about the music. Beau is effortless. He swims in the San Francisco colours.

This picrew captures him pretty well although I wish they had a facial hair option as he does have a bit of stubble

It’s all about the curls! He has a head full of them and they’re my favourite thing about him. This is a good example of where I don’t have a faceclaim but I do have pictures of a model that help visualise what I see: these pictures of Miles Frank were the first that resembled what I saw in my head, but only these two resemble him lmao. He’s not his faceclaim. Again, it’s all about the curls! (and the leather jacket)

He kinda has an athletic build not not overtly? Like he’s not muscular but he used to do a lot of sport as a teenager and he’s 100% the type of person who wakes with the sunrise to go on runs. Cannot relate but good for him! He’s around 5′10/5′11

Style is definitely important for his self expression but he also values comfort over fashion. It’s all about the oversized printed button ups (I found one in a thrift store that looks EXACTLY like the one in the description and I didn’t buy it I’m so mad!!! I failed both Beau and the queer community in that moment). He will wear All The Colours but he especially likes greens and pinks/reds. Leather jacket is a staple when the weather allows it. 

He also loves jewellery, especially bracelets, especially homemade bracelets. 100% makes friendship bracelets.

Dorothy and Felix

I’ll put these two together because they’re not identical but like, they are twins lmao. Life hack: if you hate description for the POV character give them a twin and make them lowkey hate each other so you can ~compare~

Brother and sister. Born minutes apart on a dreary January night that wheezed rain. Bundled in identical bloodstained blankets, porcelain limbs and faces indistinguishable - but as they grow, the mirror their reflections share starts to crack. Dorothy grows taller, then Felix overtakes at 16. Dorothy’s features soften, but she grows a glare that digs deeper than Felix’s ever could. Dorothy aims for the moon; Felix accepts that he’ll never leave. Dorothy maps out a survival plan for the outside world; Felix maps out how he’ll work for the Church. But they still share the cinnamon hair, the freckles peppering their nose and cheeks, the grey-blue irises and heavy eyelids. They grew into different people with the same face made of different stitching, the same blood infected with different sin.

Dorothy is the only one who kinda has a faceclaim but not really? I struggle with faceclaims beyond inspo/resemblance because like I said, I don’t have the most exact image in my head but I am still very picky so I can look at a pic and immediately be like YES or NO lmao. But also, an issue I have is that a lot of faceclaims come from models/actors; I have no issue with pretty characters (I would call mine pretty lmao but it’s never like. a character trait), but there is that element of conventional attractiveness as well as editing/posing/lighting for professionally shot photos. That’s just me personally though, love them for helping visualise ideas! Since Dorothy was really difficult to get an image of, a “faceclaim” really helped. I made her after Felix so her only descriptor was “brown hair like her brother, similar facial features”, until I saw these pictures of Jane Birkin from the 60s. Again, not an official faceclaim (Dorothy isn’t as skinny as her), but that was where I first got an image of her as an individual character and was definitely the foundation. Her hair looks exactly like that!

She doesn’t really wear makeup, it’s not a statement or anything I just don’t think it suits her haha. 100% wears astronomy themed jewellery though

Her favourite colours to wear are red and violet. I’d describe her fashion as quite casual and flowy? She loves blouses, especially ones with floral prints. 100% rocks double denim (we are pro double denim here). I’d say her style is also more 70s inspired than 80s 

She’s 5′9 which makes me 😳

I first made Felix because of a picture of Luke Powell, and I have to laugh because he is SUCH a common faceclaim on Pinterest but also suddenly I was just like ??? NO???? I held onto him as a FC for way too long when they don’t really look alike  

Fluffy hair! Floppy hair! This isn’t canon in the book yet because I’m not sure how to present it beyond a bunch of hair descriptions, but I can see his hair being much shorter whilst he’s still in the cult and then he slowly grows its out (not much longer, just messier and unkept until its like the picrew) - again I have no idea how to show it in prose but I think in a movie/TV Series that’d be a cool way to show passing of time but also him settling into his identity. If he wasn’t a coward he’d grow it to mullet length

He and Beau are similar heights - 5′10/5′11. I love height differences in couples but I don’t think that suits them? They’re more likely to argue over who’s the taller one because the inch or so difference is so subtle they can’t even tell LMAO 

I know this man just has the ugliest fashion taste but like in good way? Like you know when you see a sweater in the store and you’re like that’s so UGLY I need it? 100% owns both of these:

I think he’d wear a lot of yellows/oranges/browns but also blues. Would love a brown corduroy or bomber jacket, or dark/moss green??

Jolie

The way she was LITERALLY meant to be the main antagonist and then I was like wait but she’s hot lol. Jolie is a very interesting character to me - she won’t be in the next update but she’ll be talked about a lot in the one after 👁️ (Not obvious in the excerpt but the idea is Dorothy’s listing the “colours” of Jolie)

High waisted, baggy jeans distressed at the knee; matching denim jacket rolled up to the elbow. Faded blue. Cheap band print shirt. Blondie. Kitchen scissor-cut fringe. Bleached – originally chestnut. Chipped nails. Cherry lacquer. Round glasses with scotch tape around the bridge. Silver. Triangular face, straight nose. Pale. No makeup besides red lips. Whatever the cheapest red shade at the drugstore was in 1984. Combat boots with heels nobody else would travel in, but Jolie would. Leather black. 5’2. She smiles at Dorothy with her teeth. Lipstick stains her incisors.

Jolie’s been the hardest to nail appearance wise and it honestly this picrew is the only thing that visualises what’s in my head. 

At 5′3 she’s the shortest out of these five. She’s plus sized, which is another thing I find a lot of picrews don’t show very well unfortunately

She bleaches her hair just before we meet her in the book, and later on we see her cut her hair into a messy mullet style, before that it was shoulder-length. Would never pay for a haircut because hairdressers cannot give her what she wants

A lot of her style is a blend between masculine and feminine. She has a very complicated relationship with her gender identity which she navigates through her expression but she does embrace some elements of femininity, although to her it’s redefined to suit her perception of it. Her style is very similar to Jamie’s from Bly Manor. I think she’d also be influenced by punk and rock fashion.

She’s a gardener and it shows, definitely the type to tuck a little flower behind her ear. 

Isaias 

No character description for him because I scrapped and am currently rewriting the whole chapter where he’s introduced so :( but I will make sure to include it in the next writing update! I love him, he has such pleasant vibes

There is one picture that is very similar to how I see him, especially because the person in it is wearing a denim jacket and an oversized denim jacket is an Isaias STAPLE. The only problem is the photo is in black and white, also I’d like to see him smile.

I’ve been struggling to nail his hair but the picrew shows it quite well, albeit in a cartoon style. It’s all about the long side part

Besides the denim jacket he wears a lot of turtlenecks when the weather allows it, otherwise he’s a big fan of dress shirts. Loves to wear deep blues and purples. Depending on the weather, he’d also layer up with two jackets over a dress shirt. On the flip side I can see him wearing a pastel coloured blazer as well, like lavender? LOVE that. 

He’s a pretty average height, not short and not very tall. Around 5′8? 

Pretty much always has some kind of bag/backpack with him because he likes to have his notebook on him at All Times. 

I’ll stop myself there because this is getting long! Like I said, I don’t have exact images in my head but I do have well, an image lmao. I do like the idea that people can develop their own image in their head too based on what I’ve described so I hope that was interesting! I’d also love to do some art of these guys so I can show better what I see, but unfortunately my tablet is at my dorm and I’m at home and we are on strict lockdown for the foreseeable future :( someday! 

[homemade-potato]

shit i forgot to say like a week ago

Here’s chapter two, have fun reading or smthn

Chapter one for those of you who are too lazy to go back (bcs same)

and here it is below the cut (i know, i’m putting effort in today)

This chapter was surprisingly short compared to the last one lmao, it's only seven pages compared to the last one's nine and it's 1500 words shorter which is good for me, but it was still a surprise.

Anyway, enjoy!

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had barely changed. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the uniform brass number four on the Dursley’s front door; it crept into their living room which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr Dursley had seen the fateful news report about owls. Only the photographs had changed, ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink boy wearing different-coloured bobble hats. But Dudley Dursely was no longer a baby, now the photographs showed a large blonde boy riding his first bicycle, on a roundabout at the travelling fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign of there being another boy living in the house.

Yes, Harry Potter was still there, he hadn’t been abandoned on the front step of an orphanage no matter how much his aunt wanted to do so, he was asleep at the moment, but not for long. His aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice which made the first sound of the day.

‘Up! Get up! Now!’

Harry woke with a start, his aunt rapped on the door again.

‘Up!’ She screeched. Harry heard her making her way to the kitchen and then the sound of a frying pan being pulled from its wrack and put on the cooker. He rolled back on his and tried to remember the dream he had been having, it had been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike in it. He had a funny feeling he’d had the same dream before.

His aunt was back outside his door. ‘Are you up yet?’ she demanded.

‘Nearly,’ said Harry.

‘Well hurry up, I want you to look at the bacon. And don’t you dare let it burn. I want everything perfect on Duddy’s birthday.’

Harry groaned.

‘What did you say?’ His aunt snapped through the door.

‘Nothing, nothing...’

Dudley’s birthday - how could he have forgotten? Harry eased himself off of his small mattress and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his mattress and, after pulling a spider off one of them, he put them on. Harry was used to spiders because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.

When he was dressed he went down the hall to the kitchen. The table was almost hidden with presents of varying sizes. It looked as if Dudley had got the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Why Dudley wanted a racing bike was anyone’s guess, as Dudley hated exercise - unless of course, it involved beating up somebody. Dudley’s favourite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn’t catch him more often than not. He didn’t look like it, but Harry was very fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard for the better part of his life but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age and he looked even more small and skinny than he was because he was forced to wear Dudley’s old clothes and Dudley was about four times larger than he was, in both width and height. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore wire-framed round glasses held together with a lot of sellotape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry really liked about his appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead shaped like a lightning bolt, he thought it looked very badass and had had it for as long as he could remember. The first question he could remember asking was asking his Aunt Petunia how he got it.

‘In a car crash when your parents died,’ she had replied before saying, ‘and don’t ask questions.’

Don’t ask questions - that was the first rule to a peaceful life with the Dursleys, if he didn’t obey that rule…. Well, we’ll get into that later.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon. ‘Comb your hair!’ He barked as a way of a morning greeting. About once a week, Uncle Vernon peered over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, yet there was never any difference, his hair simply grew all over the place.

Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother, Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon - he had a large pink face, not much neck, small watery eyes, and thick blonde hair on his head which he inherited from his Aunt Petunia. She often said Dudley looked like a baby angel, Harry thought he looked like a pig in a wig.

Harry put the plates of bacon and eggs on the table, which was quite difficult as presents took up most of the space. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting them. His face fell.

‘Thirty-six,’ he said looking up at his parents, ‘that’s two less than last year.’

‘Darling, you haven’t counted Auntie Maggie’s present, see, it’s under this big present from Mummy and Daddy.’

‘Alright, thirty-seven then,’ said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry, who felt a huge Dudley-tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley  flipped the table.

Aunt Petunia obviously smelled danger too, as she said quickly, ‘And we’ll buy you two more presents while we’re out today. How does that sound, Popkin? Two more presents, is that all right?’

Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work, Harry thought. Finally, he said slowly, ‘So, I’ll have thirty… thirty…’

‘Thirty-nine, sweetums,’ said Aunt Petunia.

‘Oh,’ Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel, ‘okay then.’

Uncle Vernon chuckled. ‘Little tyke wants his money’s worth, just like his father. Atta boy, Dudley!‘ He ruffled Dudley’s hair.

At that moment, the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went up to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley a racing bike, a cine-camera, a remote-control aeroplane, sixteen new video games, and a video recorder. He was ripping the wrapping paper off of a golden wristwatch when Aunt Petunia walked back into the room looking like she’d just eaten a lemon.

‘Bad news, Vernon,’ she said, Mrs Figg’s broken her leg, she can’t take him.’ She jerked her head in Harry’s direction.

Dudley’s mouth fell open in horror but Harry’s heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley’s birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure and theme parks, hamburger bars, or the cinema. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away, Harry hated going there, the whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs Fiigg forced him to look at photographs of all the cats she’d ever owned. The only part of going to her house he enjoyed, was when she offered him stale cake and tea about halfway through his visit. The lavender scent of the fondant flowers on top of the cake was always so calming. The bittersweet of the flower’s taste never failed to relax him and then, somehow, he didn’t mind learning about her cats with heavy eyes under the heavy scent of lavender and the heavy, sleep-inducing taste of the tea.

‘Now what?’ said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he’d planned this. Harry knew he should be sorry that Mrs Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn’t easy when he reminded himself that it would be a whole year before he had to look at Mr Tibbles, Snowy, Snowball, Mr Paws, Tufty, Smokey, Misty, and Coco again.

‘We could phone Marge,’ Uncle Vernon suggested.

‘Don’t be silly, Vernon, she’d kill the boy.’

The Durselys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn’t there - or rather, as though he was something very nasty and beneath them, like a slug.

‘What about whats-her-name, your friend, Yvonne?’

‘On holiday in Majorca,’ snapped Aunt Petunia.

‘You could just leave me here,’ Harry put in hopefully (he’d be able to watch the television and maybe even have a go on Dudley’s computer).

Aunt Petunia looked like she’d swallowed another lemon. ‘And come back and find this house in ruins?’ She snarled.

‘I won’t blow up the house,’ said Harry, but they weren’t listening.

‘I suppose we could take him to the zoo,’ said Aunt Petunia slowly, ‘and leave him in the car.’

‘The car’s new, he’s not sitting in it alone.’

Dudley began to cry loudly, in fact, he wasn’t crying. It had been years since he’d properly cried, but he knew if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.

‘Dinky Duddyums, don’t cry, mummy won’t let him spoil your birthday!’ She cried, flinging her arms around him in a comforting hug.

‘I… Don’t… Want…. Him… T-To come!’ Dudley wailed between huge pretend sobs, ‘He always s-spoils everything!’ He sent Harry a nasty smile through a gap in his mother’s arms.

Just then the doorbell rang - ‘Oh Good Lord, they’re here already!’ said Aunt Petunia frantically and a moment later, Dudley’s best friend, Piers Polikss, walked in with his mother, Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat - he was usually the one who held people’s arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry immediately.

Half an hour later, Harry couldn’t believe his luck, he was sitting in the back of the Dursely’s car with Piers and Dudley on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life! His aunt and uncle hadn’t been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they’d left, Uncle Vernon had pulled Harry aside. ‘I’m warning you,’ he’d threatened, putting his large purple face up close to Harry’s, ‘I’m warning you now, boy, any funny business and you’ll be in that cupboard from now ‘til Christmas.’

‘I’m not going to do anything,’ said Harry, ‘honestly.’

But Uncle Vernon didn’t believe him, No one ever did.

The problem was, strange things happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn’t make it happen.

Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn’t been at all, had taken a pair of craft scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald bar his fringe which she’d left to ‘cover his horrible scar’. Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry who’d spent a sleepless night tossing and turning imagining the kids at school pointing and laughing at him, he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and Sellotaped glasses. The next morning, however, he awoke to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had shorn it off. He’d been given a week in his cupboard with one small meal a day for that, even though he tried to explain, he couldn’t explain how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time, Aunt Petunia had tried to force him into a revolting old jumper of Dudley’s (burgundy with bright orange bobbles), but the more she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it became until it would have better fitted a sock puppet, but definitely wouldn’t have fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn’t punished.

On the other hand, he’d got into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchen. Dudley’s gang had been chasing him as usual when, much to Harry’s surprise, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry’s headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he’d tried to do (as he shouted to Uncle Vernon through the slats in his locked cupboard door) was jump behind the big bins outside the kitchen. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him mid-jump.

But today, nothing could go wrong. It was even worth being with Dud ley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn’t school, his cupboard, or Mrs Figgs cabbage smelling home.

While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia, he liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were a few of his favourites. This morning, the subject was motorbikes.

‘Bloody bikers roaring along like maniacs, the young hooligans,’ he said as a motorbike overtook them.

‘I had a dream about a motorbike,’ said Harry to himself, remembering suddenly, ‘it was flying.’

Uncle Vernon nearly crashed the car, he turned in his seat and yelled ‘MOTORBIKES DON’T FLY!’

Dudley and Piers sniggered.

‘I know they don’t,’ said Harry, ‘it was only a dream.’

But he wished he hadn’t said anything, if there was one thing the Dursleys hated more than him asking questions, it was him talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn’t, no matter if it were a dream or a cartoon. They seemed to think he would get dangerous ideas.

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams and then because the smiling lady in the van asked what Harry wanted before they could hurry on, they bought him a cheap lemon ice lolly. It wasn’t bad either, Harry thought, licking it while they watched a gorilla scratching its head. The gorilla looked remarkably like Dudley, except it wasn’t blonde.

Harry had the best morning he’d had in a long time, though he was careful to walk a safe distance away from Dudley and Piers, who were getting bored of the animals by lunchtime, so they wouldn’t fall back into their habit of using him as a punching bag. They ate in the zoo restaurant and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory wasn’t big enough, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish off the first.

Harry felt afterwards that he should have known it was too good to last.

After lunch, they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of snakes and lizards were crawling and slivering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see the huge poisonous cobras and thick man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon’s car and crushed it into a dust bin - but at the moment, it didn’t look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.

Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the brown coils.

‘Make it move,’ he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass but the snake didn’t budge. ‘Do it again,’ Dudley ordered and Uncle Vernon rapped on the glass smartly with his knuckles once more, but the snake snoozed on. ‘This is boring,’ Dudley moaned and he shuffled away.

Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it had died of boredom. It had no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It must be worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom where the only visitor he got was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake him up, but at least he got to visit the rest of the house, he thought.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on level with Harry’s.

It winked.

Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone else was watching, they weren’t, he looked towards the tank once more and winked back.

The snake jerked its head towards Dudley and Uncle Vernon then raised its eyes towards the ceiling as if to say 'I get that all the time.'

‘ I know, ’ Harry murmured through the glass, although he wasn’t too sure that the snake could hear him. ‘It must be so annoying.’

The snake nodded vigorously.

‘Where do you come from anyway?’ Harry asked.

The snake jerked its tail at the little sign next to the glass. Harry stared at it.

Boa Constrictor

Brazil

‘Was it nice there?’

The boa constrictor once again jerked it's tail at the sign again and Harry read on

This specimen was bred in captivity

‘Oh, so you’ve never been to Brazil?’

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump. ‘DUDLEY, MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IT’S DOING’

Dudley came waddling towards them from the lizard section as fast as he could. ‘Out of the way, you,’ he said, punching Harry in the gut. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What happened next happened so fast no one saw what happened - one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning with their noses on the glass, the next, they leapt back with screams of horror.

Harry sat up and gasped, the glass front of the boa constrictor’s tank had vanished. The great snake began uncoiling itself rapidly before slithering out onto the floor. Harry could have sworn he heard a low hissing voice that said ‘ Brazil here I come… obrigada amiga.’

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock. ‘But the glass,’ he kept saying, ‘where did the glass go?’

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a strong cup of tea while he apologised over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry could tell, the snake hadn’t done anything but snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon’s car, Dudey was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg. But worst of all for Harry at least, Piers was calming down enough to say ‘Harry was talking to it, weren’t you, Harry?’ With a smirk on his obnoxious face.

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could barely speak. All he could manage to say was ‘Go - cupboard - stay - no meals,’ before he collapsed in a chair and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

Harry lay in his dark cupboard days later, his stomach rumbling and wishing he had a watch. He didn’t know what time it was and he couldn’t risk sneaking to the kitchen to get some food before the Dursleys were asleep.

He’d lived with the Durselys for almost eleven years, eleven long miserable years. He’d been with them for as long as he could remember, ever since his parents had died in a car crash. He couldn’t remember being in a car when his parents had died, but sometimes, when he strained his memory during the long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he assumed, was the crash, though he couldn’t imagine where all the green light came from, a traffic light maybe. He couldn’t remember his parents at all, his aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and, of course, they forbade him from asking questions.

There were no photographs of them in the house.

When he was younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation, an aunt or uncle or cousin from his father’s side to whisk him away, but it had never happened; the Durselys were the only family. Yet sometimes he hoped that the strangers on the street that seemed to know him would do just that, take him away. Although they were very strange strangers, so he thought not. For example, and a tiny old man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping, Aunt Petunia, after asking Harry and Dudley if they knew him, had rushed them out of the Tescos without buying anything, the small half-loaf of bread that Harry had stuffed under his huge shirt for just in case aside. A wild-looking woman dressed in all green had once waved merrily at him on the bus. A bald man in a very long purple cloak had shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. the weirdest thing about these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry attempted to get a closer look.

At school, however, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley’s gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley’s gang, they had a reign of terror in the playground that all were too scared of them to try and overthrow them. However their reign would be coming to an end soon as they go to secondary school.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: “Spark”

What’s the current mood? I would sell all future RWBY seasons for one episode of The Mandalorian.

Okay, I exaggerate. Overall this episode had some really great moments, just (per usual) tied up in a lot of awful implications. Which frankly is a step up from last week’s more overt nonsense, so I’ll take it. I’ve just got Space Dad Fever like the rest of the internet so whenever RWBY does something stupid my brain goes, “Why can’t you be more like Baby Yoda? With non-forced cuteness and consistent writing?” 

Okay, okay I’m focused on the correct fandom. I swear. 

This episode opens with Penny waking the group up extra early. Yang wants to know what time it is. “Time to be huntresses, of course!” Really, the contrast between, ‘I love my job’ and ‘But my job makes me get up at an ungodly hour’ is easily the most relatable thing RWBY has done this season. I was also just greatly amused by the animation choices with in-world implications. Like that Weiss sleeps with her giant braid in. Or that the group owns nothing except for the new clothes on their backs. I wondered after the Volume Six’s train scene if most of their luggage had been up front with JNR, or if they’d lost it all during the crash itself. We only see three bags as they make their way to the farm. 

Did Oscar re-pack everything before they had to hightail it out of that burning, grimm-infested place? I don’t remember and I’m way too lazy to go check. Yang then loses her motorcycle. Who knows, if they did have stuff, whether it got onto the stolen airship. Doubtful. I mean, Weiss showed up with a massive amount of luggage, but that’s for hiding grandmas. Basically, what I’m saying is that I think the group showed up in Atlas, exhausted, and had to tell Penny they don’t have PJs anymore. Cue standard issue t-shirts and strange thermal-ish pants.

We then begin a montage of their different work. It starts out not with the missions they signed up for last episode but anything and everything connected to Amity Arena. Keep clearing out the mines. Protect resource transports. Fill in for the missing soldiers in Mantle, etc. On the whole I legitimately loved these moments showing the various relationships and life as a huntress in Atlas, with the exception of two scenes. The first is during the section where we see Blake and Yang working with Marrow, who makes the mistake of saying a) that they should consider partnering with other people sometime and b) pointing out that he’s not sure their styles are complimentary. 

Look, I get it. A few hours after the episode dropped and tumblr is already exploding with GIF-sets of this scene, celebrating how Blake and Yang are so in love they can’t even stand Marrow suggesting that they might spend some time apart. From a shipping perspective it looks like gold and as someone who also ships them I’d normally be inclined to celebrate too. Except that this is a really unhealthy pattern of behavior. Marrow is right. The group should practice partnering with other people for the simple reason that this is a job and they may not always get to decide who they’re going to work with. It’s a job with endless risks and they may not always be able to control who they end up fighting beside, because when was the last time a plan actually worked right? The advice of ‘Hey. Don’t stagnant by only fighting with the same person 24/7’ is sound, especially in an episode already focused on training and progress. As is the innocent observation that their styles don’t seem to compliment each other. Marrow isn’t being cruel here. He’s not trying to insist he knows better and separate them based on that. He’s just making casual conversation---and gets this in response. 

This scene would read completely differently if Blake and Yang were playfully smug after that attack combo. Then it becomes a moment of bonding where they’re correcting Marrow through a bit of teasing. Instead they’re legitimately mad. Mad enough that Yang’s semblance briefly activates. I’ve mentioned before that Yang has a tendency to think the worst of people and act violently towards them on instinct (Ozpin, bot in the street) and that Blake has a tendency to go wherever she leads, even when that makes no sense for her own characterization (siding with Yang’s anger over her own experiences as an abuse survivor). This is another example of that. Marrow gives them good advice and makes a casual comment? Immediate fury from Yang. Yang’s pissed off? Well I’m gonna be pissed off too. I try not to bring shipping too much into these recaps, but I do think it’s worth mentioning here. Big Blake/Yang fans have a tendency to paint everything they do as the most Romantic Thing Ever ™; anti-Blake/Yang fans have a tendency to make blanket statements about how their relationship is inherently unhealthy. But as usual the truth lies somewhere in between. They’re fantastic together, I think Rooster Teeth is setting up a relationship, and there are also aspects that are unhealthy. Not because it’s queer (which is the basis for most antis’ anger), but because the writing has them enabling their flaws in the name of “support.” Sorry, but if you can’t deal with someone making a comment as innocent as Marrow’s without beating up a grimm in fury about it... then you either need to work out that relationship insecurity or work on general anger management. Because Marrow didn’t deserve those cold looks and these two weren’t justified in receiving his panicked backpedaling. It’s one of those little things that presumably means nothing on its own, but combined with Blake and Yang’s entire development speaks volumes. Let them talk through Adam. Let someone call Yang out on her judgments. It’s ‘fine’ in situations like this; not fine in situations like Volumes 5-6. 

The other part of the montage that didn’t sit well was another ‘joke.’ Just like I’m not inclined to view Yang and Blake’s anger as cutesy romance stuff here, I’m not comfortable brushing off Jaune’s interaction with the kids’ moms as a bit of humor. Yeah, maybe I’m “sensitive,” but was no one else creeped out by that? Jaune might technically be an adult, but he’s, what? Nineteen? So a junior in college. Maybe a sophomore. A young adult is what I’m saying. Is it possible all these women are also eighteen to early twenties (it’s so hard to tell ages with RWBY) and they just had their kids early? Sure. It is possible that these women all decided to become single moms, or divorced their partners, or are open to polyamory? Also sure. But let’s be real here, that’s not the joke. The joke is that a group of older, presumably married women are thirsting over the young, hot huntsmen. People would be more willing to admit that it’s not a great humor choice if RWBY had done that to one of the girls, but when a guy is the target it’s seen as a funny victory. Look at Jaune getting all that older, adulterous attention! As Nora herself says, “It’s totally the haircut.” (Even though that haircut remains atrocious, sorry.) The message is basically that if a guy is hot enough it doesn’t matter that he’s just trying to do his job, that he’s probably far younger than you, that you’re probably married... go gawk at him and give him gifts that clearly make him uncomfortable. 

Again, I realize I’m being “sensitive.” It’s just a web series, just a stupid scene meant to generate a laugh, etc. But I’ve reached a point in my life where I simply don’t find that sort of stuff humorous. As a woman who has had much older men hit on me while I’m trying to do my job, I look at the same thing happening to Jaune and ask, “Why was this supposed to be funny again?”

But anyway, enough about all that. Other moments in the montage include Ruby and Yang fighting grimm together (presumably in their downtime. Nerds), Winter pretending to be unimpressed with Weiss’ summoning, and Ironwood telling Oscar that maybe they can “jog [Ozpin] loose” with a bit of training. 

Yeah, remember how excited we all were that, based on the Volume’s opening, we would at least see Oscar training with Ironwood? Remember how we all thought that this would provide him with some much needed character development? That maybe this would be the moment when he struggled with and potentially decided to come clean about their lies? Or he tries to talk to Ozpin while sparing with an incredibly difficult opponent? You know, since Ironwood himself brought up jogging Ozpin loose, we might actually get some interaction with Ozpin? 

Boy were we optimistic! What we actually get is them charging each other for one hit before we cut back to others training. Namely Jaune. And this right here is the problem with this entire episode: for however cute and wonderful these moments might seem, they’re all flat out ignoring the primary conflicts of the show. The ones the writing keeps refusing to grapple with. Who knows how much time this montage is supposed to cover, but it’s substantial. We get multiple flashes of different days, see the group working on different missions, a couple different moments taking place in the early morning, so I’d wager at least another week has passed. Combine that with however long it took Pietro to make their weapons and you’ve got the group fully entrenched in their lies. No one is questioning Ruby. Ruby isn’t making headway towards trusting Ironwood. Everyone is just kicking their heels, happy with the status quo until something forces them to finally make a decision. They now, officially, have no right to judge Ozpin for the time he took to trust people. We see them doing the exact same thing here and they’re all happy about it. With the exception of those two quick flashbacks in “Ace Operatives,” we’ve seen no evidence that the rest of the group is struggling with their own hypocrisy. I---like many---had hoped that Oscar’s training session would finally acknowledge and expand on the rest of the team’s initial hesitation. But no. 

(In which Jaune’s expression is me.) 

Jumping ahead just a bit, we see this same issue when Ruby, Penny, Qrow, and Ironwood are out driving the supplies. Ruby and Penny finally have some time to themselves! Will they discuss her murder and resurrection? Nope. Ruby vaguely references it with, “You know...” but there’s no actual depth to their conversation (and if you can’t even say ‘When you died’ that implies that maybe there are some lingering feelings about all this). Instead Ruby is interested in whether Penny has made new friends and she says that Ironwood claims she has no time for friends. Slot that in next to the Ace Ops’ ridiculous, “We’re not friends.” 

Second, we have this moment between Qrow and Clover where they reiterate the huge gap between age and experience here. Clover is hoping that “another generation” will do right by Remnant after we’re gone. Namely Ruby and the others. Continuing with that age theme, he reassures Qrow that “those kids wouldn’t be where they are without you” which is all well and good, but is anyone going to tell THEM that? The adults don’t need to know that they’re doing good work---even if it is nice for Qrow to get some validation for once---rather, the whole “we don’t need adults” fiasco came about because the teens refused to acknowledge that work. We don’t need someone telling Qrow that he’s helped keep them safe. Overlooking some insecurities (which RWBY isn’t tackling anyway), he knows that. We as the audience don’t need to hear it because we saw it all happen on screen. Rather, Clover should be put into a position where he reminds Ruby of all that her uncle has done for her. Just like Qrow talking to Ruby about her motivations for moving forward against Salem doesn’t accomplish anything, Clover telling Qrow, as one adult to another, that they’re worth something doesn’t accomplish anything either. These parties know all this already. 

As a side note, this is why you should mix things up. Not just so that Blake and Yang can practice fighting beside other people, but so that people who don’t already agree can be challenged for once. Put Yang with Qrow and have him comment on her anger, continuing Tai’s work. Put Ruby with Clover and let him talk to her about what adults have done to get her here. All these moments of potential development are lost by maintaining the expectation that the original partners have to be the priority. Rooster Teeth had an easy way of throwing new people together by assigning them various missions and they didn’t take it. Yang is still with Blake. Ren is still with Nora. Of course Qrow is with the one other guy his age who we have to pair him with. Reinforcing these relationships is great, but so is pausing them too. 

And then there’s the drinking. 

Hold up one second. I need to grab a bit of writing from my Volume 6 finale recap. Think back to Qrow and Ruby’s interaction in the airship:

And then Qrow lowers his bottle which… what? Alcoholism doesn’t work like that. Much more importantly, no one has tackled his drinking this season. Or the reasons he was drinking in the first place. Literally, Qrow’s semblance, his place in the war, Ozpin’s secret, none of it has been addressed. He has no reason to suddenly put aside his flask like he’s actually learned something. Does RT think we’re going to just imagine scenes that never actually happened?

After I posted this a couple of people pointed out that it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. We’ve seen other times where Qrow goes to take a drink and then thinks better of it, so it’s a reach to assume he’s magically given up drinking now. Which, fair. Now though it looks like that’s precisely what we got. Sometime between being found passed out on the front steps of the Argus house and reaching Atlas, Qrow just decided he was done with drinking and thus far we’ve seen no evidence that he’s struggling with that. Meaning, it’s not a conflict he’s working through. That doesn’t seem to be his arc this volume.  

Yet he’s an alcoholic. Qrow’s drinking may have functioned as a joke for most of Volumes 1-3, but Volume 6 made it abundantly clear that this problem is incapacitating for him, especially after learning about Ozpin and Salem. So what happened? What changed? Even if I choose to overlook Qrow just deciding not to engage with his addiction anymore without help or backslides that we know of (doesn’t work like that...), I can’t ignore the fact that there was no catalyst for this. If the show wanted us to work under the assumption that Qrow stopped drinking because it endangered his family then they should have had him stop after the farm. You know, when he was almost killed by Apathy and had to be dragged out by his nieces. As it is, his drinking continues on throughout their whole time at Argus. He’s not picking up his scroll. He’s passed out on the steps. He’s brushing past Ruby to go get a drink instead of helping them figure out a way past Cordovin. Then a day later they make it to Atlas. So what precisely in that 24 hour period happened to change one of Qrow’s defining characteristics? Or, if this is supposed to be an arc wherein Qrow attempts to get sober and struggles with it, why haven’t we seen that? Again, they’ve been in Atlas for weeks now. This isn’t a one day sober Qrow with a naively optimistic outlook. He’s apparently been managing this for a while now with no downsides, no difficulties, no regrets.

Blake and Yang getting mad at Marrow instead of acknowledging their trauma. Oscar taking one hit at Ironwood instead of grappling with their secrets. Ruby talking about new friends instead of the relationship she already has with Penny. Clover telling Qrow adults are important instead of anyone telling the teens that. Qrow revealing that he’s just not drinking anymore. For reasons. It’s amazing just how much space this episode provides for the characters to start working through their conflicts and we bypass every opportunity. This is RWBY’s primary problem. Beyond the pro-protagonist perspective is the issue that, especially since Volume 5, the show has made a habit of introducing intriguing problems and then either twisting them so they have simplistic ‘solutions’ (we don’t need to tackle Ruby’s hypocrisy. She’s just “different” from Ozpin) or ignores them completely. We don’t need a new friendship vs. professional relationship conflict. We don’t need a new luck vs. bad luck semblance conflict. Not yet anyway. Not until we work through the conflicts that have already been introduced. Let Ruby talk to Penny about their own relationship. Let Clover help Qrow get sober. RWBY is like me when I’m writing fic. Why would I finish the thing I started when there’s this shiny new idea over here? Except I’m engaging in a low-key hobby whereas they’re writing for their livelihood. For the love of everything, please solve the problems we already have before chucking in new ones. You can give us all the same moments and relationships, just tailor them so they acknowledge the things the viewers have been waiting for you to tackle. I don’t need to know why Ruby and her team are Super Special because they’re BFFs when everyone else in Atlas apparently rejects friendship like the plague. I do need to know why a guy who was introduced downing a glass of whiskey apparently got over his alcoholism off screen.

Ugh. You know what we need? Penguins. Everyone look at the penguins for at least five seconds and allow them to cleanse your soul. 

Heading backwards, before the transport scene we get a training fight between JNR + Oscar and Neon’s group. I honestly wonder how a team like theirs feels about them getting their licenses. After all, they fought at the Battle of Beacon too. The only reason why RWBYJNR got into extra, life-threatening situations is because they stupidly went off on their own. I realize that duh, as a story we can’t just have our protagonists twiddling their thumbs, but from an in-world perspective Ruby snuck out of the house to hunt down a woman who would absolutely have killed her and 100% would have been kidnapped if Qrow hadn’t followed to keep her safe. Everything else stems out of that. So not exactly a classically heroic basis for special treatment. All of which Neon and Flynt presumably don’t even know about because it touches on all those secrets. I suppose they just heard something along the lines of, “I, Ironwood, am giving two Beacon teams early licenses because they survived a horrendous battle. You, my actual students, don’t get them even though you did the same work.” It could have been really interesting to have some tension over this and for the group to see another complication of their secret keeping. Here they have to keep Cinder, the Maidens, the Relic, etc. quiet... but because of that it leads to some pretty awful miscommunication between friends. There are repercussions to your secrets and not all of them are things you can plan for or fix. 

We don’t have anything like that though. Obviously. Instead we just get a generic fight with a side of weird Nora/Ren stuff. Meaning, Neon calls him Nora’s boyfriend and asks, “Where’s that energy when he’s around you?” Later Nora asks if they’ll still get sandwiches before work and Ren heaves out an annoyed sigh.

That moment struck me simply because it doesn’t come across like one of his normal, happily indulgent sighs. Ren seemed legitimately annoyed. Which is even stranger when we consider that Nora isn’t being over the top here. Sure, she pops up behind him in a sort of silly manner, but really all she’s doing is expressing that she’s hungry after an intense battle. Can we please make sure we grab something before heading off to work? That’s a more than reasonable request. 

Ren shutting her down over his hair. Seeming to ignore her when she fiddles with it while on patrol. Neon’s comment about his lack of energy around her. Nora getting mad enough about it to give her a black eye (RWBY so rarely shows injuries). Ren seemingly put out by her theatrics. They’re all little things that only seem to paint a picture when put together, but of what exactly? It’s like I said last time, if the show wants to introduce some sort of arc for Nora and Ren this volume it had better do it soon. Really soon. Details that may or may not be setup can only take you so far. 

During this battle Ironwood smiles down at all their progress, which could be endearing or creepy, depending on whether you think he’s hiding something (more on that in a bit). Neon actually acknowledges Oscar’s existence and draws a blush out of him, so thank you for that, Neon.

I thought for just a moment that Jaune might compliment Oscar too, but he just compliments the other team instead. At least they’re letting him train with him. After last week’s episode I’ll take this small step forward. 

Back past the talk between Qrow and Clover, we finally get to meet the infamous Robyn Hill. She blocks the road to Amity Arena with one of her Happy Huntresses, the same faunus who was spying on the project last episode. And who I forgot to mention in my recap. Whoops. I love Hill already though precisely because she’s able to do what our protagonists couldn’t last Volume: stand down when a plan fails. 

Hill takes her shot by putting up the roadblock and asking Clover to be straight with her, but when that doesn’t work and it looks like they’re about to come to blows, she admits defeat and lets them through. That’s how you handle a tenuous ally. Keep the peace and regroup with a different idea. Show them basic respect so that they might help you in the future. Clover’s “good luck” regarding the election speaks volumes about how everyone does want to help each other, they just need to figure out a way to do it. Hill could have attacked the group and stood her ground purely because she believes she’s right---just as Ruby did with Cordovin---but she demonstrates her maturity instead. She didn’t risk lives for the sake of getting what she wanted right here, right now. Despite the fact that what she wants likewise involves the safety of the people. Take note, Ruby. 

Speaking of, everyone catch that guilty look when Ruby learns that Ironwood’s project is taking resources directly from the city that most needs it? Yeah, what did you think was going to happen? At the very least the group saw that they were taking manpower away. Ironwood needs them to help protect Mantle because most of his men are off in the middle of nowhere, so the group is well aware that their actions are causing a negative impact. I highly doubt that the eight of them (including Qrow) can make up for however many people Ironwood is pulling out, to say nothing of the fact that many of them (like Ruby here) are also on Amity duty. They’re allowing Ironwood to put people, money, supplies, and time towards an endeavor that they know is bound to fail. Sure, it would be nice to have communication across Remnant without fear of losing that to the grimm again, but we all know Ironwood is primarily doing this because of the Salem situation. If he knew about her immortality he’d probably go, “Hmm. Well, the first part of the idea is still nice, but I probably shouldn’t pour this much into just a regular communications tower. Defeating Salem potentially justifies me hurting the people to get this done. But not anything else.” I’ll say it again: Ozpin’s secrets didn’t endanger anyone. Everyone from Pyrrha to Yang agreed to put their lives on the line for reasons entirely separate from Salem. Their lives were in danger from the start and, given their choices, always would be in danger. Ruby is the one whose secret is not just threatening all of Remnant in the future, but actively hurting people now too. She has the ability to stop this and she chooses not to.

Or rather, she chooses to keep putting off the decision. We’ll tell Ironwood when we’re ready. Yeah right. I still want someone to challenge Ruby on what this magical ‘He’s trustworthy!’ moment looks like. They’ve spent weeks with this man, fighting for him, training with him, accepting gifts in the form of weaponry, armor, facilities... so what exactly is it going to take, Ruby? I’m not saying Ironwood is trustworthy, I’m saying you can never know until the day they betray you. If that day comes. So when is Ruby going to acknowledge that? That she will never get that magical moment and that she’s just like Ozpin, putting off telling someone because the information weighs so heavily and there’s just too much to risk? 

Hill thematically acknowledges the last two Volumes with, “It doesn’t have to be difficult. Just tell me,” while we all know it’s not that simple. Even if people would like it to be. Clover refuses, Penny spots two invisible huntresses closing in (nice), and as said, Robyn backs down. 

We then end this episode with a long bonding session between Winter and Weiss. We see them fighting with their summonings and Winter comments about how, “You’ve grown up a bit, haven’t you?” We get it. You’re not subtle. Weiss has grown up. “Make no mistake. School is over.” They’re adults now! If only we saw that more than we heard it. Weiss at least is a character who has had legitimate, excellent development over the last couple of volumes. I’m admittedly a bit confused though regarding how that development aligns with the old Weiss. Meaning, we learned early on that she wanted to become a huntress to redeem the Schnee name. Now Winter is talking about how separating herself from the Schnees was the best thing to happen to her and Weiss seems to agree. So is that it now? Is Weiss just concerned with being her own person, or is she still invested in being a Schnee? Just a Schnee who embodies what her family used to stand for? It’s unclear based on the conversation. 

Then. Ugh. They discuss Ironwood’s choices and Weiss snidely comments that, “Everyone thinks what they’re doing is right, but really they’re just looking out for themselves... and their secrets.” Yeah, Weiss. INCLUDING YOU. Are they really so dense that they don’t see how lying about how Ozpin disappeared was looking out for themselves, namely by making sure that Ironwood continued to embrace them with open arms instead of getting pissed? After all, it’s less likely that the group would have gotten a nice place to live, awesome weaponry, high-tech places to train, and early licenses if they’d admitted to their sins last volume. They’re also protecting their own secrets by spending these weeks nice and quiet, just ignoring the Ironwood problem completely. Weiss is protecting their secrets right now by encouraging Winter to question Ironwood’s intentions---subtly casting him and Ozpin in a bad light---while she herself is keeping secrets from Winter. I mentioned before that Ironwood’s smile could potentially be a bad omen if we follow the writing rule of, “If a character insists someone isn’t keeping anything from them... they’re definitely keeping something from them.” Winter’s belief that Ironwood doesn’t keep secrets from her sets up the expectation for the audience that he probably is. But we don’t actually know that yet. Weiss thinks Ironwood might be keeping secrets. Weiss knows for sure she and the rest of her friends are keeping secrets. Only one party is definitively guilty here, so I’m not sure why she feels entitled to act like she still has the high ground. 

With Ironwood’s honor in question, Winter takes Weiss to see the Winter Maiden. We really don’t get to learn much about her except that she still looks young-ish (again: RWBY ages are hard) and seems to like to paint. 

No one else can visit her---and thus we don’t hear the conversation---because Ironwood wants Winter to inherit the power. Okay. So that leaves us with a couple options now:

Older woman can inherit and Ozpin made a very iffy call in trying to foster that responsibility off on a First Year. Which is probably down to more writing concerns than Ozpin’s characterization. Meaning, you want to keep the conflict among the main cast, not bring in a random new character to do the volume’s Important Thing. So you set up Pyrrha as the Fall Maiden, even though in-world that looks like a sketchy decision. To say nothing of the fact that Rooster Teeth isn’t very good at setting down hard rules. What functioned as a limitation during Volume 3 can easily be wiped away in Volume 7. In the same way that we went from Qrow’s semblance being totally passive and range-based to “sometimes I can’t control it.”

Ironwood and Winter are assuming that Winter can inherit, but she’s actually too old now. They’ll be blindsided by this when the power unexpectedly goes to someone else.

Ironwood has convinced Winter that she can inherit but actually has some sort of other plan up his sleeve.

Really, my biggest takeaway is Winter’s speech about how she is choosing this. Regardless of whether fate forced her into a situation with only bad options. Regardless of whether others also want her to make this decision. It’s still her choice. 95% of the fandom needs to listen to that speech and then chuck Pyrrha into Winter’s place. Having only tough choices isn’t the same thing as having no choice. The fact that your choice coincides with what others want doesn’t lessen it. They both chose to take on this power and it’s wrong for others to trivialize that by claiming that the men in their life---Ozpin and Ironwood---manipulated them. It’s implying that they can’t make their own decisions. That making this terribly difficult choice doesn’t come down to their own strength. They know it’s dangerous, regardless of whether they understand every detail of that danger, and actively choose to take on that responsibility anyway. Because they want to do some good in the world. The fandom has worked its butt off to take that away from Pyrrha and I really hope they don’t do the same to Winter. 

Although... the death flags. Yeesh but Winter looks like a particularly enticing target for the end of this Volume. What with talk of destiny and all... I really hope the series doesn’t go the route of giving every Team RWBY member one of the Maiden powers, what with Winter in a position to think about Weiss if she dies with the power, Raven in a position to think about Yang, and Cinder obsessed with Ruby literally all the time... yeah. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m personally more invested in ‘normal’ people managing the impossible through hard work, belief in themselves and each other, all that jazz. Not already overpowered people (at least in Ruby’s case) getting literal magic to solve their problems with. There’s so much more you can do with that.

Finally, Jacques comes online to spew a bunch of BS about how everything ever is Ironwood’s fault and he’s totally suffering just like everyone in Mantle. 

Right.

As Winter says though, the lies are just enough of a “spark” to ignite an already pissed off populace. We close on an angry mob beginning to tear the streets apart. Guess we’ll find out next week how the group tackles that nasty problem. 

Until then! 💜

Minor Things of Note

What was that sandwich gag? RWBY is really pushing the humor in iffy directions this volume.

I enjoyed Qrow and Clover playing cards though. What a mess with their semblances.

Also, I made us a poster: 

[poptod]

What Plagues My Thoughts (Kenny x Reader)

Description: In the span of a year you went from nobody to arguably one of the most well known kids at your school, but there’s one kid that won’t pay attention to you, and his attention is the only one that matters.

Notes: back at it again with my boy Kenny. again this is a ‘gender neutral’ fic with HEAVILY implied male/mlm reader. Quick warning, I do write ‘fag’ in this. I think that, as a bisexual man, it’s probably okay.

No AO3 link this time. A tumblr special I guess lol. anyway i’m sorry, this one is really not great, wrote it while high.

Words before editing: 6.827k

Words after editing: 6.872k (thought this was funny)

You’ve lived a very simple life - a very common, orthodox, and casually stereotypical life. In fact, you were so barren of any type of hobby or distinction from others that you had hardly any friends, up until you were picked random by a group of teenagers a year older than you.

Looking bedraggled and dressed in dark, grunge-esque clothes, they asked you to join their band, Acid Tears, or Hopeless Thought. They hadn’t decided on a name.

“I don’t play any instruments,” you told them curtly, in your usual soft and polite tone. They still pushed for you to join them, and despite your resistance, you reluctantly did. A year later and you were playing bass in a very punk rock band while not being at all punk rock yourself. In that time you grew into yourself - became a real person, achieved a sense of who you were and what your morals were, as well as several hobbies you enjoyed. Even so you were quiet, and the band didn’t exactly boost your popularity considering they didn’t play massive venues, and the venues they did play, you stayed at the back of the stage.

Your drummer was a nice fellow, tall, with red hair and pale skin - his name was Jakob, and he was fine with sharing the back space of the stage with you. ‘It gives the best seat in the show,’ he always said, and in many ways he was right. There were only two other people in the band, both guitarists and both singers, and they were certainly the most energetic. Jane was the exact opposite of her name, and the opposite of the identity her parents gave her. Naturally, she was a blonde, with blue eyes - typically pretty, with Christian parents who were very orthodox. She changed herself into something else over her years in high school, till she had electrifying blue hair, several tattoos, and usually wore colored contacts instead of her prescribed glasses. Her main job was singing and rhythm guitar, though she usually copied John Lennon’s response when asked what she did. Frankie played guitar, sung backup vocals, had short, black hair, and was the object of many peoples’ affections.

After winter break, you scored big - something had changed, either in your band or in the hearts of your listeners, because suddenly more people were showing up. Ticket prices began to go up, till videos of your original music started popping up online. This continued, up until the point where getting a Grammy award wasn’t something all too ridiculous a thought; the thought of which alone terrified you. The biggest jump of this popularity occurred over spring break, so, your band, officially titled Radio Waste, decided to get together to decide what to do if people recognized you.

Frankie had very little trouble with the popularity, always being the most crass and excitable. Jane expressed her own excitement in the situation, while you and Jakob made a pact on how to deal with panic attacks, should they arrive.

The four of you entered your school at once, you dressed in the most normal clothes you could find, and the other three dressed in their usual, full on punk outfits. Students gawked, whispering amongst themselves, and once one asked to get a picture with you, it started. Jane agreed, then came the uproar of ‘if he can have a photo, why can’t we?’

All in all, very horrid. You managed to escape by crawling on your hands and knees, heading to the cafeteria to wait out the crowd. Sitting alone you kept your hand in your hands, glancing up every now and then, till you spotted someone you’d nearly forgotten about, sitting in the corner with his best friend: Kenny.

He’d never noticed you before. Not that he was more popular than you, no - he was on the same level of forgotten nerd that you were, though he actually had interests. Since the sixth grade you’d had a massive, horrible crush on him that you’d done everything in your effort to hide, which wasn’t actually that hard, considering he never spoke to you. How a crush persists that long is beyond you, and beyond Jakob (once you tell him about it an hour later), but it’s there, and it disrupts all your thoughts.

To your luck, he isn’t in any of your classes, which are now heavily disrupted by your presence. Ms. Denvers pulls you out of the classroom halfway through the period and asks what exactly happened to attract all this attention -

“- it’s not like people were like this before the break,” she says, and though it’s a little insulting, her tone indicates she means the best for you.

“I joined an emo band and it got kind of popular,” you mumble, trying to hide behind your barely-there bangs. A recent haircut made sure your eyes were visible in the most uncomfortable way possible.

“I see. Is there anything I can do that might help alleviate this problem?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll do my best to ignore it,” you say, and she smiles, pats your shoulder, and leads you back into the classroom. Free seating is given up pretty quickly, and the people who don’t know who you are are seated all around you so as to avoid any serious collision.

It’s like a miracle has struck you and the school - everyone’s so nice to you when lunch comes around, warming up to you and trying to gain your favor. Some are a bit more subtle, just asking for photos, or saying hi. You appreciate that a bit more, it’s an honest approach you can respect. Besides your bandmates you don’t have many friends, if any at all, so you sit with them, and stare at the back of Kenny’s head through the growing crowd.

Someone taps your shoulder, pulling you from your trance, and she asks for a photo with you.

“Me?” You ask, mostly because everyone had ignored you in favor of your more eccentric friends during the lunch period.

“Yeah! You’re, like, my favorite member,” she explains bashfully, and a little dumbstruck you agree, helping her hold the phone steady for a selfie. For the rest of the period, you stare at Kenny when you can, who doesn’t so much as flick a hand in your direction.

You come to the (very wrong) conclusion over the course of the next couple weeks that Kenny doesn’t like guys. That’s fair, you tell yourself, but it still hurts a lot, just as much as if a girl wasn’t interested in your gender. For the most part you’ve got your own sexuality figured out, and you’re very loose with it considering how anxious you usually are with other subjects. Your conclusion doesn’t stop you from dreaming about him, and it doesn’t stop your staring either.

It’s junior year, you think to yourself, still staring at the back of his head through the crowd around you and your band, which still hasn’t worn off. There’s still time, you think, even if there really isn’t that much left, especially contrasted with what you started with.

“So you’ve been doing this since sixth grade?” Jakob asks, eating his home-brought lunch of spaghetti.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. I guess so. Never got the courage t’ really do anything about it I guess,” you mumble distantly, forking at the food on your plate.

“You should go online sometime, see the type of stuff people post about you,” he informs with a chuckle, shaking his head.

“What do you mean?”

“(Y/N), you’re really popular. I mean, not as popular as Jane, cause she’s the lead singer n’ all that, but people really like you. Apparently, bassists are pretty hot,” Frankie informs you, delighted as she shoves her own food in her mouth, also from Jakob’s home - the two of them have been friends since they were babies, and they routinely share their home food, something you didn’t really understand.

“I don’t know. I don’t think he’s into that,” you sigh, forlorn and dreamy as your gaze stays direct on Kenny and his friend who you’re pretty sure is named Jerry.

“Couldn’t hurt to say hi anyway, become friends? Ever thought of that?” Jane adds sarcastically, never one for drawn-out romance.

You can’t think of a reply, but you know she’s right. They all are. At some point you need to say hello to him, say something, even if you don’t tell him your true feelings. Fears gnaw at the back of your mind constantly, whispering their honey words and promising his hatred with such a sweet voice you can’t help but believe. Again you sigh, and your world seems utterly, irrevocably small.

Even with school going on, Radio Waste finds time to perform at smaller gigs, and Jakob makes the mistake of advertising your evening at a local club. It leads to a massive crowd trying to file its’ way in, pushing and shoving, even though you’re sure most of the people don’t even like your music. A lot of girls (and some boys) keep to your side of the stage, which is Jakob’s as well technically, and they cheer incessantly for you, till you have to turn around to avoid your face blushing bright red.

Before your popularity you weren’t ever bullied. Maybe the passing comment about being gay or a pussy, but you weren’t important or interesting enough to be a popular outlet for bullies. Still, many of the older guys who had or definitely would have called you a fag were there, and they’re cheering, their cameras and phones held up to record your music.

Jane comes up to you and Jakob during a quick interlude, and mutters to the both of you, “posers. Bunch of posers.”

“Clout chasers,” Jakob helpfully adds, and Jane agrees with a quick nod and swig from her water bottle.

The event continues normally, and you scan the crowd trying to find any familiar face, even if you didn’t like them. It’s not until the very end of the night that you see Kenny, shocking you from movement as he exits the crowded club, Jerry-or-whatever-his-name-is at his side. Until Jane closes your mouth you don’t even realize it’s open and, blushing profusely, you head offstage with your friends.

During the weekend you congregate at Jakob’s house. It’s more of a ‘settle’, when it comes to the location - Jane has a practical mansion with a pool and hot tub, but her parents are terribly conservative to the point that even you’re a suspicion since you aren’t dressed like them. Frankie, on the other hand, has incredibly nice parents who deal with pretty much anything, but their house isn’t the greatest. Your own house isn’t in the picture - your parents aren’t even aware of your band involvement, and you’d rather keep it that way.

Over a late breakfast (the group arrived at 8 AM, bright and early, and it’d taken you several hours to organize breakfast) you tell them what you’d seen that night, and explained you were too tired to tell them the whole story the previous night.

“Well, that’s good, right? He knows who you are, that’s a start,” Jakob says, leaning over his cereal to make more direct eye contact with you, a habit of his you dislike greatly. Only then, contemplating his words, do you realize how thankful you are for your friends, who hadn’t even questioned you when you said you had a crush on Kenny. No judgement from any angle - no gay jokes, no popularity jokes, and no jokes about you being a miserable romantic.

“Yeah, I guess so,” you say, feeling rather dumbstruck.

“You always guess. You gotta take what’s yours!” Frankie exclaims, having already had two cups of coffee and feeling her high pretty hard. You chuckle, but it sounds heartless.

“I think… I need a motivation to talk to him. Like, you guys gotta say ‘talk to him or else we’re gonna’…” you trail off there, hoping for some suggestions.

“We’re gonna kick you out of the band,” Jane says, gaining gasps from both you and Jakob.

“Not realistic enough, we could never lose our little baby bassist,” Frankie laughs, ruffling your hair. You mumble your displeasure, waving her hands away and straightening your hair out.

“What about… you have to talk to him or else we’ll expose you as gay to the presses,” Jakob says, and he’s instantly met by the slaps of you, Jane, and Frankie.

“Or we could do the realistic action: you talk to him or we will,” Frankie says, sounding incredibly threatening, a wicked smile coming across her face. You pale - that’s a realistic and very dangerous threat. You didn’t trust yourself all that much, but you certainly didn’t trust Frankie when it came to someone as… skittish? is that the right word? as Kenny.

“Okay! Got it, I’ll talk to him Monday,” you breathe out in a rush, your voice strained as you stare wide eyed at your own breakfast. “Will do.”

Your friends laugh in good nature, patting you on the back and congratulating you on ‘building a spine on fear’. Throughout the rest of the weekend, your deal doesn’t feel so bad - it can’t be that hard, right? Come Monday, you’re feeling sick enough to stay home, and your mother is legitimately worried for your health when you wake up swaying, and your face lands on the plate she sets out on you.

“I need to go t’ school today. I’ll be okay,” you insist, knowing that your absence would give your friends permission to approach Kenny.

Eventually, you make it - albeit a little late - and by lunch period you’re feeling even worse.

“You don’t look so good,” a boy next to you comments, his conversation with Jane interrupted by him noting your sick expression.

“Yeah,” Jakob agrees, his brow furrowing. “You sure you wanna do this?”

The boy has no idea what Jakob is talking about, and resumes his conversation with Jane, while Jakob assures you that ‘if you feel this bad, maybe you shouldn’t do it.’ You shake your head - if you don’t do it now, you’re going to brush off the future threats with your excuse of being sick. Which, you actually are sick, though you know it’s entirely psychosomatic.

Slowly you stand, getting your bearings when the world spins at the change. The crowd makes a small part, and you escape the groupies gathered at your table, trying not to stare at Kenny too much. Frankie noted it to be pretty unsettling, which you had no basis to disagree with.

Time stops, and your heart beats in time with every step you take (which you take very, very slowly) - or maybe it’s beating a hundred times a step. It’s hard to tell, what with the noise level and the other students and the fact that Jerry is now pointing at you, and Kenny’s turning his head and now they’re both looking at you - fuck, they’re looking at you - and you pray to any God that’ll listen that you don’t look creepy.

Swallowing, and trying to get a grasp on the concept of breathing, you make your way over, several students’ eyes watching you as you stand at the head of their small table. Jerry - or whatever his name is - is staring at you, eyes wide and mouth open as he tries to figure out if what’s happening is really happening.

He must be a fan or something, you think nervously to yourself, eyes darting from Kenny to Jerry.

it feels like so long has passed and you’ve said nothing, and you’re just standing there, but only a second of time has actually passed.

“Hi,” you finally get out, sounding surprisingly normal. “I’m.. I’m (Y/N).”

Oh. That went well - no slip ups, no wrong names. You smile to yourself, but the smile ends up on your face, and it’s a charming smile; friendly and warm, and to Kenny and Jerry, they think you’re completely calm, if not relaxed. Your mind blips when you realize you don’t have any excuse for introducing yourself - Jerry saves you.

“I - I’m Larry!” He says, and you internally grimace that you’re going to have to relearn his name, but outside you just shake his hand and sit next to him.

“I’m Kenny,” he says, his voice quieter than you expected, almost dream-like.

“It’s sort of crowded up there,” are the words that come out of your mouth, and you realize your tongue and lips are making decisions you didn’t get to okay. “I prefer the quiet, so I hope it’s alright if I sit with you?”

You look back and forth from Jer - Larry to Kenny, and they look at each other, then you, then agree profusely.

“Yes! Yeah, of course, anything you want,” Larry says, grinning far too cheerily for someone with an American school lunch in front of them.

“We, um,” Kenny shifts in his seat, leaning closer to you, “we saw you this weekend, you were really good.” You smile at him, readying a bashful thank you, before noticing Larry’s glare at him.

“He didn’t like you guys and didn’t wanna listen to your music, so I dragged him to your guys’ show, and now he likes you,” Larry says, and Kenny looks affronted as the truth comes out. But you just laugh, shaking your head.

“That’s alright. I know their songs aren’t for everyone,” you agree, considering you were much like that when you joined. It took a lot of compromises and ear plugs before you began to enjoy the music.

“So, do you, uh, write music? With them? It’s just that you said their songs, and y’know, if -“

“No, no… nothing publishable,” you interrupt him. “My songs aren’t really like theirs,” you admit, gauging Kenny’s reaction while simultaneously trying not to stare at him. He’s fucking gorgeous, shining like a setting sun, like a beauty so long unappreciated that he no longer knows how pretty he is. Considering what he wears and the fashion he carries himself in, he probably doesn’t.

“Not the same genre?” Larry asks.

“Actually, yeah. I uh… I have a hard time writing face paced songs, let’s just say that,” you chuckle, and with the conversation Larry carries, it feels more like an interview rather than the result of an intervention.

“I would love to see some of your songs on an album or two,” Kenny says, his lips in a soft pout as his brow knits together, resting his chin on his palm.

“Maybe in the future,” you mumble with a shy laugh, and you’ve suddenly taken Kenny’s world by storm, though you’d never know, and he wouldn’t ever remember exactly when it was he fell in love with you; but it was just then. A flip switched in both your minds - your dreams realized, his just found, and your thoughts and all your world is surrounded in a hazy golden glow, a loving shade of red emanating from the both of you so strongly that even Larry senses something is up.

It’s not till your fifth house party that semester that he gets to ask your friends what exactly is up.

Over the past couple months you’d gotten to know Kenny a lot better - his passions, hobbies, his personality, his morals, and several of his best stories, many with Larry. Even if he never loved you, you’d be happy with his friendship; being in his presence was a gift previously so rare that you’d forever cherish it. The house party isn’t much different. Kenny is reluctant to go, but you’d asked him, so he went regardless of his own fears. It took some negotiations with his parents, but considering you looked much like a normal teenager, they relented their own worries.

Keeping close to each other you navigated around, him waiting patiently in the corner when fame swept you up and required you play a song on the makeshift stage. The entire time you keep looking for him in the crowd, till you spot him in one of the hardest spots in the song. Nearly missing a note, you don’t even have to look back at your fingers to get back on the right track, your eyes still on Kenny, assuring him you haven’t forgotten him. He waves and smiles giddily at you, and you return a softer version of your own smile.

Eventually you drag yourself off the stage, drifting nearly obstruction-less through the crowd till you reach Kenny again. Talking about the performance and your own energy level, you head over to the drinks, and that’s when Larry makes his move to your band and asks his question.

“Hey uh, guys? I, uh, don’t know if you remember me, um… I’m (Y/N)’s friend?” He introduces himself once the crowd has finally died down a little.

“Oh, yeah!” Jane says, laughing and patting him on the back. “We didn’t forget you, don’t worry.”

“Oh, good. I just, um, I wanted to ask you something? If that’s alright?” He gets nods from the group, so he continues. “Is… there’s no easy way of putting this, but is (Y/N) trying to steal my best friend? Cause Kenny’s spending, like, all his time with (Y/N) and it’s annoying because he’s my only friend, and (Y/N) already has a bunch of friends.”

The band shares looks with each other, several rather sarcastic, before bursting out in laughter.

“No, no,” Jakob says through near tears. “That’s not it at all. (Y/N) is trying to come onto your friend, so no love lost there, if ya know what I mean?” He adds a sucking sound at the end, nudging Larry with his elbow. In turn, Larry scrunches up his face, disgusted.

“Kenny’s not gay, though,” Larry says, thoroughly confused and horrified.

“Huh,” Jane says, and the group goes quiet.

“Yeah, okay,” Frankie says after the long silence, and they break into crude laughter again.

Upstairs, you lead him through the house, hoping to find the room just above the living room. Lucky you know your way around - the girl who owns this house (and the party) is a big fan, and had shown you around the place. The room belongs to her parents, found when you open the door. Much grander than the girls’ room, with a massive bed and closets that go on forever.

“Should we really be here?” Kenny asks, marveling at the wood carved ceiling.

“Can’t hurt more than what they’re all doing to this house,” you say with a shrug, feeling a new sense of comfort in his private presence, something you adored in its’ entirety -alone time with him wasn’t given easily.

“That’s… true. Wanna watch TV?” He asks, jumping up on the giant bed and patting the space beside him. Grinning you run and jump, landing beside him, your legs neatly folded in front of you along side his own legs. A large television sits on the wall opposite the headboard, the remote at Kenny’s side. With a press of a button it’s on, and you’re flicking through channels, deciding which one would be best to watch.

You decide on a sitcom that you’ve seen parts of, clicking through the expansive list of channels, though you don’t know the name or any of the characters. It makes you laugh, at least for the night, till the moon shines bright outside and you’re falling asleep on Kenny’s shoulder.

“You wanna go?” He asks meekly, his voice cracking. You don’t notice, too sleepy to see anything. Instead of responding you hum indistinguishably, mumbling incoherently as you turn and rest more of your weight on him and the pillows behind you. Somewhere in there he hears a small ‘no,’ so he obeys, and turns the volume back up. Not enough to keep you awake, but enough to hear it over the music continuously playing downstairs. A minute passes and you’re snoring softly.

He glances to you, the show forgotten as the topic changes, all his concentration on you. A stray piece of hair falls in front of your eyes, so he pushes it back, admiring the plush of your cheeks, blushing strawberry and squished against his shoulder. For a while, he lets you sleep - the music downstairs is playing a little quieter, a little sweeter, and the fuzzing of the TV is going down. It takes a good hour of him sitting there, too anxious to sleep, before he jostles you awake. From there, you leave, and part ways.

In the morning you show up at Jakob’s house (a Saturday tradition) and they all congratulate you.

“Hmm?” You hum sleepily, still rubbing your eyes awake. “What happened?”

“You scored last night!” Jakob says with a joyous laugh, patting you on the back as he leads you to another bowl of brand name cereal.

“You and Kenny got lucky last night, huh?” Frankie says with a smirk, nodding her head slowly.

“What? No, I fell asleep next to him then he woke me up and we both went home. To our separate homes,” you quickly clear the situation up, all too ready to rid of a lie you wish wasn’t false. They groan, clearly disappointed, and go back to their own seats at the table.

“Aren’t you ever gonna do it? It’s been, like, a million years,” Jane groans, resting her cheek on her palm.

“We’re just friends right now. I don’t think he’s into me,” you mumble with a shrug, starting on your cereal. Frankie pretends to fall asleep and snore. The other two just stare, dumbfounded at you, wondering how much denser you could be before dying of brain inactivity.

“Right. Whatever you tell yourself at night,” Frankie sighs, rolling her eyes. You frown, but don’t correct her, and the subject moves onto other topics. Jane tried to hook up with someone last night, but it turned out he was just trying to get pictures of her naked, and Jakob came home with a mild concussion than no one can explain. Frankie had a surprisingly mild evening, only punching one black eye into a guys’ face, and doing only seven shots of expensive vodka that definitely didn’t belong to her.

At lunch one spring-verging-on-summer day Kenny asks you something strange, something he never asked of you before. He asks you to meet him, at midnight, at an address you don’t know. If it were anyone else you would’ve been suspicious, but he looks so innocently nervous, you trust him with a quick nod and a smile. He looks relieved, and takes a seat next to you - Larry sits across from you both, and conversation ensues as normal.

That evening you find a note in your backpack, from Kenny.

For this adventure, you will need: . 1 Guitar . 1 Songbook Good luck on your quest. By the way here’s the address.

Except for the last line, it’s modeled after a shitty video game from the 90’s that the two of you found on the street. The storyline, animation, and overall execution was so horrid the two of you loved it, and you giggled softly at the memory as your fingers ran down the page. Caseless, you swung your guitar strap round your shoulders and set it against your back, wondering what he could be planning as you grabbed your songbook. You hadn’t ever shown him any of your songs, despite his insistence that he’d love them. But, when Kenny asks you to do something, you nearly always do it.

Climbing out your window, you crawl into a nearby tree, shutting the window back up and making your way down. You know the town better than anything else, and you know where the road is - but you’ve never been to the specific address. As you reach the street you grab at your pocket for the number, but Kenny’s standing outside, giving you a small wave. Letting out a breath and a smile, you jog to where he stands, and wait for his answer to what was happening.

“I, uh,” he pulls his hand from behind his back, holding a journal you’ve never seen. “I thought we could show each other some stuff.”

“You write songs?” You ask, gaping. You hadn’t ever learned this about him, and if anything it excited you.

“Yes! Well, no, actually, not really, I uh, I write poems,” he clarifies, clearing his throat and nodding awkwardly.

“That’s amazing. I didn’t know that… are you any good?” You ask, wondering how he could still look as beautiful as he does in the yellow glow of a cheap streetlight.

“I dunno, I’d like to think so, but I’ve… I’ve never really shown anyone before,” he says, his voice suddenly small and hard to hear. In the distance, the creek almost grows louder.

“Like I’ve never shown my songs?” You chuckle softly. “Wanna trade?” You hold up your book, and he nods excitedly.

You walk down to the creek and share in the delights in the only thing unknown about the other. It’s something ceaselessly private and terribly close to the soul, but you make do in the dim starlight, laughing away your insecurities with care. Bugs occasionally buzz around you but mainly keep in the light of the streets, and the peace of the running water fills your heart with an unfamiliar warmth. The only thing you dislike in any fashion is the fact that it’s a little harder to see him, even if he isn’t any less handsome, you like to note the color of his eyes.

It’s a little hard to pinpoint the color, especially in the dark - but you have the memory of them shining a brilliant green in the sunlight, and turning a cold grey when he cries. You match it to each of his emotions, each sparkle, every turn of the lip that you’ve memorized in such a tender way you’d never forget them, never misplaced for a second. When he lets out a breathy laugh your words catch in your throat, and you barely play it off as your own laughter when he looks right back at you with the same recognition of the features on your own face that you’d never bothered to care about.

“It’s amazing,” you note, when the sharing has finished. “Your poetry is.. fantastic. Really.”

“Oh, thanks,” he replies nervously, quietly, and he presses the journal tight to his chest and hugs it. Your notebook isn’t nearly as nice looking as his, but both are worn with the same amount of care. “Your songs are really good too.”

“Thanks,” you say, unsure of what to do next. You didn’t want to part - it was too perfect a night to just leave so suddenly.

He shuffles nervously, so subtly that you don’t notice he’s scooting closer to you till the cold of your bare arm begins to wash away with his warmth.

“W- d- Larry keeps making fun of my hand size,” he fumbles out, looking directly at you while simultaneously looking like he’d rather be looking anywhere else.

“What? Do you have small hands or something?” You ask, looking down at his hands. They look perfectly normal sized, actually. Then you turn to your own - you could even have the same sized hands, you decide, but it’s something you test. You hold up your hand, palm facing him, and he holds up his own. Your fingers touch and you try to ignore every flare in your heart, every spark in your nerves, and you look at the sizes;

You’re barely bigger than him.

“Ha, look at your tiny hands,” you laugh, even if it’s not that amusing, teasing is a wonderful way to get close to someone.

“Hey! You’re barely over my fingertips!” He says, but he joins in your laughter, still looking insulted.

“Kenny,” you chuckle, trying to calm yourself down with slow breaths, “what time is it?”

“Oh, um,” he grabs your wrist, the only one with a watch on it, and reads, “4:57 AM.”

“Shit, that’s so late,” you say, your mood switching to worried mother, and you gather up your guitar and songbook.

“Or early,” Kenny helpfully adds, earning a playful glare from you. He chuckles, holding his own journal in his arms, and the two of you make it as close as you can to your own houses without having to part.

“So, um, I’ll see you tomorrow? At school?” He asks at the crossroads separating the paths to your homes.

“Yeah, of course.”

You’re reluctant to part but you force yourself to with a small wave. When you have to turn down a different road you look back, finding he’s looking back too, and the two of you smile and wave, and truly part for the evening.

I should’ve kissed him, you think to yourself on the way home, groaning. The entirety of the story is spilled the next lunch period, and your friends agree profusely with you

“You’re a fucking idiot, (Y/N),” Jakob tells you. “Can he do literally anything gayer to make you realize he likes you???”

“I know, I know, I know!” You hiss, gripping tight at your hair. Jane untangles the knots round your fingers and takes your hands away from your head, setting them down on the table with a weary sigh.

“I’m worried about you,” she says.

“So am I,” you grumble back.

Still, your little dance goes on till the end of the year, and by then you’re thoroughly sick of it, and Kenny has gotten a lot more free with his affection since coming out. Jane hosts a party while her parents are away (cliche, but she swears she’s the luckiest girl, and she’s right), and the massive house is perfect. The pool out back lends for a sneaky showing of far too much skin on girls and boys alike, and you feel a little anxious standing in the shaded corner.

Kenny comes round the bend of the house with Larry, and they both look far more like they belong. Larry’s talking about something, his hands moving animatedly around as he laughs. Kenny listens intently, till he sees you, and Larry gets easily distracted by the parts of girls he’s never seen before.

“You okay?” He asks, grasping your upper arm. You shrug - probably, you’re fine.

“I’ll be better once the whole pool thing is done,” you tell him, and he doesn’t really understand your insecurity, but he stays with you as a source of comfort. You appreciate him dearly, and for the next several hours you think of how to show that appreciation.

Night swings around, everyone gets into their other clothes, and the party moves inside. Music pounds throughout the house, and deafly you search for a drink to numb yourself for the next several hours before it’d be appropriate to go home. Frankie catches you before anyone else, and convinces you to try your first shots - you’re feeling terribly woozy by three, and she calls you a lightweight.

“I’m light as hell, cause I’ve never gone light, dark…” you mumble to yourself, trying to sort out your jumbled thoughts. “I don’t drunk because I can’t drink, you know?” She laughs, ruffles your hair, and sends you in the direction of Kenny, who she comments on looking very lonely in the kitchen corner. Stumbling through the dancing crowd you make it to him, feeling the wave of drunkenness passing very slowly away.

“Hey, whatcha doin’ alone?” You ask, holding a cup of water in your hand, a precaution Frankie insisted on.

“Oh, Larry’s dancing, I don’t really feel like it,” he says, shrugging and pointing to Larry, who’s caught the eye of some girl who’s probably too drunk to see, but Larry looks just about as drunk as her.

“Whoof. He’s not coming home tonight,” you say, your verbal filter terribly weakened.

“What? What does - ohhh… good for him,” Kenny replies awkwardly, and the two of you stay in the corner watching the crowd.

“Hey, hey… Kenny?” You say, turning to him. Stumbling slightly you loose your balance, and catch the counter, now looking up at him. “Kenny…”

“Yeah?” He asks, his heart beating fast against your hand, which you just realized is pressed to his chest.

“Come here, come… come here,” you say, grabbing his hand and dragging him along till you make it to some sort of broom closet - you’re not sure where you are, but it’s private, and the dull thudding of the music barely reaches you here.

“What’s - what’s wrong?” His voice has tightened even further, the small space forcing your bodies together.

“I… this might just be.. the liquor, or whatever I drank… but fuck I wanna kiss you,” you admit with a numb tongue, not even realizing your confession, and certainly not sober enough to remember it. Kenny freezes - he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol and he’s perfectly coherent in every way, and it’s not helping him at all in this moment. Instead it’s forcing so many possibilities into his mind he can’t keep track of them, only able to focus on your heat and his thumping heart.

“You’re drunk,” is what comes out of his mouth when he can’t speak.

“Doesn’t mean I haven’t loved you since fucking sixth grade,” you sigh, wrapping your arms listlessly round his waist and leaning your head on his shoulder.

“Sixth grade?” He hisses, trying to help you stand, desperately wishing you’d just sober up and tell him straight out what you thought of him.

“Please kiss me,” you murmur, lifting your head and nuzzling up into his jawline. He chokes on his own breath, his hands going numb as he loses coherent thought.

“It’s not right,” he says, tight and high. “Just… let’s get you home, okay?”

“No, no, no! I can’t, I’ve loved you for so long, I can’t wait any longer, just - please, I can’t draw this out anymore, tell me you fuckin’ hate me or something, I don’t care, just… please,” you beg him, sounding on the verge of tears even though they’re not really there. Tired, he sighs, and helps you to look at him. His palm holds your cheek, and it’s the most comforting thing that you might fall asleep in his hold.

“I like you,” he admits. “But you won’t remember this in the morning.”

“Then help me. Ask any of my friends, I’ve been raving about you for ages, I adore you,” you murmur, your lips pressing against the sensitive skin of his neck. He stutters, trying to find a response, before your hand comes up to his cheek. In blurred thought your fingers trace from his cheekbone to his jaw, reaching his lips and tracing their outline with as delicate a touch as you can manage. You straighten yourself out, no longer leaning on his shoulder, and in a trance he follows where you guide him, till your lips move against his. Neither of you can define when you touch, when it starts, or when you begin kissing fierce - you don’t even realize it till he grasps at your hair and you pull at his shirt.

Breathing heavy you pull yourself away, realizing in a sudden sobriety that you’d just kissed him. Kenny, the guy you’d liked for nearly five and a half years, and he’s moving back into you, his chest tight against yours as he kisses the life out of your mind, until you feel so full you could explode with your affection for this one boy.

“I adore you,” you mumble against his lips, playing with his hair as you kiss him over and over again.

“I think I love you,” Kenny practically whimpers, and you return the sentiment so deeply you can’t help but moan his name, your body begging to be closer to him.

In the morning you recall in crystal clear memory the events of the night before. Frankie is the most surprised at this - not just because you got the nerve that you finally kissed him, but also because you remembered it at all. She makes another joke at your expense, but it brings laughter to both you and your friends.

“You know,” Frankie says, stuffing her face with leftover croissants from Jane’s party, which she’d brought from her house to Jakob’s, “I knew it’d end well.”

“How’d you know?” You ask.

“It’s as I said. Bassists are pretty hot.”

You wave her off, chuckling. When you kiss Kenny at the back of the school during lunch, you think on it - maybe she’s right, you think, considering Kenny is way out of my league. But he holds your cheeks in his hands and pulls you closer, holding you tight, out of view of every other person, and you lose all thought of anything but him again - an emotion you can never get enough of, and one you’re lucky to get the rest of your life.

[notexactlyrocketscience]

Modern-day Feminism And Normalizing/desexualizing Female-presenting Nipples: Does It Really Matter?

The other day I came across a meme showing an image of Savitribai Phule (a historical figure known as the first woman teacher of India), labeled “The feminist we want”, and below it an illustration of several women of different ethnicities (braless, with spunky haircuts, tattooes and piercings, taking selfies with their toungues out) labeled “... the feminists we get”.

Images and thoughts like this produce nothing but harm. They aren’t funny, they aren't proof that modern-day feminism is a failure.

In fact, both images are proof of feminism at its finest, and why it is NEEDED.

A large, and extremely important part of modern-day feminism is the erradication of the objectification of women, and the normalization of the existance of female sexuality. The point? Reduction of assault, rape and the victim-blaming that comes with it.

Still find it weird?

I’ll share a personal story to make this clearer.

When I landed in the US (San Antonio, Texas, to be precise) in December 2018, the first feeling that hit me was how liberating it was to not FEEL eyes on me. To be able to wear the clothes I always wore, but not have to be in constant vigilance if my dupatta was out of place, if my top didn’t cover my ass over my full-length jeans, if my bra strap was showing, and if the way I was sitting looked “improper”. And I’d say most, if not all, girls feel the same after stepping out of Sylhet, Bangladesh.

When I started university, I noticed girls sitting in classrooms with their legs splayed out, enough for their underwear to show if they were wearing a skirt. I noticed girls wearing shorts short enough that their buttcheeks hung out. Girls wearing crop-tops showing a whole LOT of cleavage to school. Girls scratching their inner thigh and their back in public, sitting with their phones stuck between their thighs, near their crotch. Girls who went braless. Girls with tattoos, leg hair, armpit hair, stretch marks. Girls with flab or with toned, tanned muscles. Girls wearing strappy or off-shoulder tops. Girls outside, running in loose activewear shorts the size of underwear and a sports bra, with their phone struck in the strap.

And for about one month, I couldn't stop sneaking peeks. I'm not attracted to women, but I'd never SEEN women be so carefree about their bodies before. I hardly even KNEW all the shapes and sizes legs and breasts and stomachs and arms came in. So I tried not to stare, but I also kind of did.

I also saw girls that’d start dancing, loudly singing, or climbing walls completely at random. They'd snatch things from guys, punch people, and then go to the gym, where there are no separate sections for women. Those same girls wore makeup, posted glamourous pictures on Instagram with their toungues out (and stories showing educational illustrations about female genitalia), and used accessories that were stereotypically feminine.

And I'd look at all that loudness, and I'd despise those girls instantly. "She's one that's out for attention," I thought.

But I was wrong. The way she was loud and active and attention-grabbing and extroverted? If a guy had done those same things, I'd have thought of it as NORMAL. She wasn't an attention-seeker. She was just being herself. She was being ... like a guy. Confident in her own skin, knowing that no one except mysogins would judge her for it.

Backward-minded people ... like me. A girl who has identified as a die-hard feminist all her life.

I’ve since had to rearrange my entire image of what it means to be a girl, just because I had the opportunity to move to a country which hasn’t completely achieved equality but finally has a generally decent society that accepts women not as “women”, but as humans (unlike in Sylhet). I’ve realized that I’m an incredibly two-dimensional person compared to other girls here. My traits are the same as a bunch of other Sylheti girls, because that's the only way we can define ourselves and be accepted as good women. I can't explain to you what it's like to walk in a crowded grocery store in which everyone from the homeless to the wealthy shop, and just know that when someone walks by me, all they'll see is a young student wearing a UTSA T-shirt. They won't see a stupid girl that's all alone in a large store at night. They won't see a shameless girl without a dupatta. They won't see a girl that's disturbingly thin or disgustingly fat. They won't see an promiscuous girl who actually dares sit down with her legs NOT squeezed together tightly.

They'll just see a young person. And they'll smile and say hi and move past.

I no longer stare at women's bodies, no matter what they're wearing. Not just because I actively taught myself it's not right, but simply because I got used to seeing all that skin. I got used to other women's bodies. After nineteen years of being a woman myself (and never even bothering to glance at men wearing nothing but underwear-sized shorts, because I was so used to it), it took me a move to the other side of the planet to stop over-sexualizing the female body too, even though, just like the male body, it's only a normal, adult body.

Because research says systematic segregation and censoring by society only adds to objectification. Because the best way to normalize any kind of phobia, any kind of new concept, is through actual exposure therapy.

Yet you don’t even have to run around naked to fight for getting rid of objectification and over-sexualization. Feminism is about free choice. You can cover as much as you want to and still support everyone else having a choice in their lives and not being forced into anything (if you’re a muslim, like me, you already know that isn't tolerated in Islam). You can still support the women who choose to actively combat objectification, and stand by them with your own CHOICE of clothing, just like them, and fight to not be harassed because of it (looking at people who automatically, without good reason for the particular instances they come across them, see headscarves as “oppression” or “extremist” instead of a personal, wholesome, religious lifestyle choice).

I can't speak for my male friends, but I daresay they stared too, when they first landed abroad. And I daresay by now they're too used to it to bother anymore (unless it's something exceptionally eye-catching). I daresay they no longer oversexualize women's arms, legs, buttocks, and breasts either, even when women are working out, lounging in weird poises, or bringing attention to certain body parts by randomly itching them publicly.

I daresay they wouldn't even think of judging these women's morals for it (I wouldn't).

I daresay they actually find it refreshing to find women with many more dimensions to them, women who are more alive and carefree and ambitious and LIVING. Women that are less afraid, every moment, of behaving the wrong way or giving the wrong idea, to be slut-shamed and victim-blamed. That know that, above all, they'll be treated as human.

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