#so for high school story we’re just using him again same stuff

[creamecream]

Michael: “how’s the prettiest boy in all Cedar Cove today?”

Luka, without looking up: “I don’t know, how are you?”

Michael, voice cracking: “I’m fine.”

[kyurizeu]

Party Luck

✿ i wrote this a bit quick, it was a request from anon ✿

— my ask box is lagging rn so as soon as i get it working i’ll post an update. Also looking forward to making a masterlist on my profile (adding hard thoughts category and stories category!) but i have to organise it better than before! ♡

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Wc: 1,2k

Pairing: Sunghoon dom x Reader sub

Summary: you attended a bit of a crazier party and it didn’t turn out to be such a boring party afterall..

Warnings: Smut!, unprotected sex (dont be silly wrap ur willy), slight soft and rough, hickeys, alcohol, etc…

More: not proofread so might be a lot of mistakes

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The party was crazy to what kind of parties you used to go to. Your usual high school party was a party with beers, vodka and some disgusting combinations between the two, a couple of horny people making out in the corner, some games like beer pong and seven minutes in heaven, but THIS… this party was something that you never thought you’d see with your own eyes. It was on a huge ship and there were so many people. There were people in fights, having sex, making out, singing and so on just partying, gosh you saw like 4 people on the ground already… but still you and your friends were in one small group drinking the same stuff you always did. The only people you recognised from the crowd of people were all your classmates, your friend group and also the popular guys: Heeseung, Jake, Jay, Sunoo, Jungwon, Niki and your crush Sunghoon.

You wish you had the balls to go talk to him… your friends wanted you to but you were too shy. You have been texting him on instagram for a week or two but you keep denying possible signs just incase he hates you.

———————————————————————

“Y/NN COME HERE WE’RE GONNA PLAY SOME GAME!!!” Chaewon yelled at you making you notice how clearly drunk she was. “And why should i?” “Because sunghoon is playing too!!!” She whisperes and drags you into the circle of people sitting.

You sat down on the ground and took a strange looking drink from someone handing them to everyone. You saw some unfamiliar boys looking at you and whispering which made you a little uncomfortable. Hanni noticed that you were visibly uncomfortable and came with a blanket to cover your legs with. And so the game began..

“Alright everyonee!!! Lets gaurr! The rules yeah so um- we have an extremely strong mix of vodka, whiskey and tequila and some stuff Mark put in there which you have to drink a cup of if you don’t want to make out with the person who lands on the bottle. So two spins, make out or drink LETS GAUR!” you just shrugged thinking you’d never get picked anyways since there were over 30 people playing.

The bottle spun and landed on Sunghoon. Everyone started wooing and teasing him as he seemed really disappointed. You suddenly felt jealous if it landed on a girl and they made out. You just kept drinking your drink trying to forget the thought of sunghoon making out with another girl until you felt people pushing you and wooing your name. U accidentally dropped your drink and you felt your heart skipping a beat. You suddenly felt hot and your heart was racing faster than ever. You looked up at sunghoon and he was already staring into your soul. “Go on! Drink or make out?” Some dumbass yelled from the crowd. Everyone’s eyes were on you and sunghoon. Sunghoon glanced at the bowl of disgusting drink and you, he got up and grabbed your hand asking you: “drink or me?” You just got up and took his hand. “Kiss here and go continue in the free room!!” He leaned closer to you, lifting you chin up with his hand and softly kissed your lips. People wooed and cheered as you both walked into the free use room. Some people locked the door and yelled back: “15 MINUTES AND THE GAME CONTINUES!”

As you sat down with your cheeks burning up and Sunghoon suddenly took your hand and pulled you closer kissing you again, harder than before. He put his hands behind your neck crashing his lips on yours but you broke the kiss. “Hmm? Are you not ok with this?” He asked while pouting a bit. “You just.. you’re kissing ME. Do you like me? Or.. are you just drunk?” You felt like a panic was rising until you felt his lips crashing on yours. You let him take control and you suddenly felt yourself being pushed onto the bed. “Does that explain enough?” He grinned looking down at you speaking in between more kisses. The atmosphere was getting hot and you felt his kisses getting needier and him touching you with more pressure. Sunghoons hands were going all over your body squeezing your tits a little, making your pussy throb.

Unsurprisingly you felt something poking at your thigh so you broke the kiss once more and pressed your hand onto his crotch making him blush and groan. He looked deep into your eyes smirking “You’re playing a dangerous game sweetie” He grabbed your neck softly slightly squeezing it and kissed down your neck making small red marks on your skin all over. You already started moaning softly as you felt his hand travel closer to your pussy. “I’ve never heard anything as pretty as your moans.” He says as he kisses you again and starts circling around your sensitive clit with his slender fingers. “Ngh.. agh- sungh- h-hoon” Sunghoon puts his delicate thumb into your mouth “Suck” You played with his finger inside of your mouth as he started undressing you. “Be my good girl and turn over so i can fuck you better.” His words made you shiver and you felt his hands guide you to the right position. He spread your cheeks and your pussy a little and admires it glowing with wetness for a few seconds before placing his tip at your entrance. he slowly entered you groaning. You whimpered at fullness you felt even before he had fully entered you. His slender dick was reaching a spot inside of you that you didn’t know existed and he noticed that you were struggling to take his dick in. trying to be quiet knowing there are people outside the door. “Take it slowly… i don’t want to hurt you sweetheart” he caressed your lower back “i-i can take it.. fuck you’re so d-deep” he thrusted fully into you now making you shiver moaning out his name. He guided your hips slowly at first turning the pace up quickly as you were adjusting to the size of his dick. You felt him hitting spots stronger than anyone before. “I- i’m not gonna last long hoon-“ he basically repeated what you said and started rubbing your clit slowly. Feeling the knot build up in your lower stomach you sensed that sunghoon was close to cumming because his groans became whimpers. “M- cumming!!” You moaned as you rode your high. Sunghoon quickly pulled out and came on your ass, groaning- “times up you better have done the dare or you need to drink!” Sunghoon got up quickly blocking the door signalling you to dress up. “Shit shit shit…” you quickly dress yourself as some people are banging on the door. After you both got dressed in a hurry you let the door open. “Yo why didnt you two open the door?!” Some of sunghoons bros complained as you snuck out of the room only to face a now bigger circle playing the game. Their eyes shifted to you and people started wooing and cheering seeing the smudged lipstick and hickeys on your neck. ————————————————————please tell me if theres more to add to the warnings or smn… love ya!! (Working on my masterlist and ask box!!! If you want a moot im HEREEE / in new on tumblr)

[murderthecat]

Space Ghost

Written By: ChryslerBuildingFeathers https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChryslerBuildingFeathers

Art Prompt #20 By: SapphicSaphir https://www.tumblr.com/kipo-oak

EctoImplosion 2023

Vast cold crowded silence. That's what this was. Like lying lonesome in a local lake long after the day’d gone dark. So much happening around him, so many stories to be told, and here he was floating. On, and on, and on. Comforted and aching at the same time. 

Danny was having a very strange last summer vacation.

Prologue: 

Split

It started, as most things do for Danny, with Jack and Maddie Fenton. The two had burst through the house's front door, raving about an old colleague they'd ran into again during their nightly ghost hunting: "Scotland!" they cried in unison.

"We're going to Scotland this summer!"

"We.. Are?" Danny asked worriedly.

“Well, we certainly are!" Jack replied, exploding with giddiness.

"But…" Jazz trailed off expectantly.

"Er, well, me and your mother, anyway." Jack corrected himself.

Maddie continued for her husband: "But not you, obviously, Jazz. We know you've got work and college stuff. And, well, Danny..." 

"Danny, we were thinking. This is your last summer before adulthood. Maybe-" Jack said.

"Maybe you're old enough to spend it on your own, and figure out what you want to do for yourself." Jazz finished for them with a smile.

"You.. You mean it?" He asked. 

The three nodded. "That's great!" Danny grinned.

And so his summer was set. It was gonna be an awesome couple months!

Except.

Except, when he went to tell Sam and Tucker about it:

"You're both going on college trips? But I thought you were set on MIT, and you've been there a dozen times by now!"

"Well, we were- " Sam replied, hesitantly. "But then we got these new letters, and you see..."

She sighed. "Danny, of all places, Harvard offered us a full ride."

"I know we had everything all planned out, and we wanted to tell you sooner, but-"

Danny groaned. "But you didn’t want to bum me out while we were studying for finals, this is an amazing opportunity, and I'd have to kill you both if you didn't at least think about it?" 

He couldn’t even blame them for waiting until now, because he knew he’d probably do the exact same thing in their place.

Sam smiled sadly. "Thanks Danny, love."

"And sorry, dude. Seriously." Tucker added on. 

"Hey, maybe this could be a good chance for you, though?" Sam suggested.

"Maybe you can do something just for yourself?"

“I guess so.” Danny said.

The two wrapped him in a hug.

“And hey, you can still give us plenty of ghostly visits while we’re on our trip, you know? You’re our boyfriend after all!” Tucker cheered him.

So here he was, following their collective advice. Or at least, trying to. Alone in space feeding his obsession, swallowing as many stars as could fit in his eyes. The portal was locked, the ghosts knew to leave him alone, and he had all the time he could need to try figuring out what to do with his afterlife. 

He’d planned to go to community college, hit the books hard to make up for his bad high school years, and then join Sam and Tucker at MIT. But, if his partners went off to a school as exclusive and Ivy League as Harvard? There’s no way he could make it into there, let alone afford it. And even if he could, he still had no idea what he’d do with himself after finishing college. 

Get a job in aerospace engineering so he can at least be close, only for the inevitable trouble that follows him everywhere to steal that away too? Become a professor so he can teach everyone else how to accomplish his hopes and dreams?  No. 

The human world is not built for a ghostly prince. 

Him, or his space fantasies.

[random-sparks-98]

Sunlit Gotham Universe Notes

Batfam Notes:

- Due to moving around the batfam timeline a bit, Jason is the only one who has died who has been fully buried and then revived (Steph’s heart stopped for about three minutes when Black Mask captured her, and Damian has not been killed.)

- Damian came to Gotham earlier than canon, and is currently 10 years old and in 4th grade at Gotham Academy

- Jon Kent is also going to be the same age as Damian in this AU

- Jason Todd is going be announced as Legally Alive before the beginning of the story (Yes, he is still Red Hood, but he doesn’t kill anymore (most of the time))

- Bruce will NOT be going missing in time

- This means that Tim never drops out of high school, gets emancipated, and becomes CEO of a company at the age of 17. It also means that Dick will not have been Batman

- Selina and Bruce are dating - he’s gonna probably propose soon, but big life events keep happening (like adopting new children every few months) so he hasn’t yet. He claims he’s waiting for a time when everything is calm. His children call bullshit and say he’s just scared she’ll say no

- Selina totally knows that he already has the ring and is honestly just teasing him and stressing him out more by making comments and jokes every so often

How does Wonder Woman not know about the demigods?

- When the Greek Amazons went to live on Themyscira they became cut off from the rest of the mortal world. This means that they weren’t aware of Camp moving around to follow Olympus

- Diana was born WAY before the First Great Prophecy, and technically isn’t a true demigod because she was sculpted from clay - therefore not really part mortal

- By the time Diana had left the island, demigods had gone underground and general society forgot that they existed. Both camps are kept secret so that the demigods are safe, so Diana hasn’t heard about them and assumes that the demigods are just no more

- Due to the Mist, Off World League Missions, Rescue Ops, and the fact that she lived in Paris for a while, Diana hasn’t been around during any of the major battles - or her focus was elsewhere

- Donna Troy might show up at some point, and the same logic about leaving Themyscira works for her too. We’re going with the Magical Duplicate origin story for her, so again, doesn’t quite count as mortal enough for the prophecy

- Cassie Sandsmark originally used magical artifacts to help Diana fight crime and was later ret-conned into being either a daughter of Zeus or a granddaughter of Zeus. The ret-con is going to be brought up in the story and we can all thank the Flashes for messing up the timeline. But basically she doesn’t become a proper descendant of Zeus until after the Titan War and therefore the prophecy doesn’t apply to her either

Children of Apollo have the following abilities According to the Riordan Wiki:

- They can curse others to only speak in rhyming couplets that can take days or even weeks to wear off (depending on strength and number of people in the spell)

- They are expert archers, inherited from their father. However, the children of Apollo who are healers tend to be less skilled with this (as seen with Will Solace)

- They also excel at anything involving throwing or shooting stuff, like shooting hoops or shooting firearms or other missile weapons 

- They are skilled in physical contests and games

- They excel in the arts

- They are skilled musicians

- Vitakinesis: As the children of Apollo, they are natural healers. They can heal people by singing a hymn to their father (in Ancient Greek).

- Audiokinesis: As the children of Apollo, they have the ability to control sound waves and music

- It is extremely rare that a child of Apollo can possess complete photokinesis, as only Apollo himself and the Titan of Light, Hyperion, and the Titan of the Sun, Helios, have been known to use the ability

- From what can be gleaned from The Demigod Diaries, it can be presumed that some, or even all of Apollo's children possess a limited form of precognition

- Thanks to a curse, all the children of Apollo have a terrible fear of snakes

In this AU, souls have auras that are unique to each soul. Demigod children with parent’s who deal with light (ex: Apollo or Iris) can see the auras if they focus really hard. Children of Apollo will often use it as a way to check how well a patient is healing as the brighter the aura the healthier the person.

[kagiura-akira]

my ASMR boyfriend

Rating: PG for Hirano's vocabulary

Words: 2100ish

Still a wip, so this is absolutely a placeholder title. This is likely going to be a long one-shot, so it'll be a bit before I properly post. But I wrote some stuff and wanted to share cause the kghr asmr AU has been plaguing my mind for a few days now and I had a productive write or die session this evening and I liked the sasawarano friendship interactions.

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Hirano Taiga has never been very good at thinking. Or rather, he's too good at thinking. Doesn't know how to stop. Now in his second year of high school, every possible thought plagues him late at night. What should he do about his paper due for English next week? He hasn't decided a topic yet. What is he going to write for his summer reflection homework? What would he even say? That he studied at the library all summer? It's not like he lives a particularly exciting life, despite how active his mind is.

Lying wide awake, thinking about school, life, his future, Hirano doomscrolls through his phone for probably a good hour or two before he decides he should try to get some sleep. It's just after midnight, and he has to wake up early to tutor Sasaki and Ogasawara tomorrow morning. So he lies there, tossing and turning, trying to shut off his brain, but all he can think about is everything he needs to remember to do in the morning.

Did he include everything he was supposed to in the flashcards he made for them?

Did he remember to pack his statistics notebook?

What about his summer break homework?

His mind won't shut up. Hell, he doesn't even think about the same topic for more than 30 seconds.

While he’s used to scrolling through his social media feeds endlessly, he doesn’t find anything particularly intriguing or thought provoking this time, so his mind starts to drift again. He can't concentrate on any one thing in particular, and he's not even conscious of the way he switches between apps — it’s just muscle memory. Twitter feed? Garbage. Instagram? Great for a few reels and not much more. Facebook? Nah, that’s mostly full of his relatives bickering or posting complaints about their neighbors. Without any real aim, he opens the Youtube app on his phone. Then, as he's scrolling through some random Youtube shorts, a handsome guy with brown hair and deep chocolate brown eyes to match catches his attention. He’s advertising a full length video for his channel.

"Can't sleep? Listen to this video to fall asleep instantly," the caption says, emphasis on the “instantly.” There’s a brief preview in the short, and Hirano is intrigued but hesitant. It seems kind of odd. Is this that ASMR thing he’s heard some people talk about? His classmates always referred to it like it was the most cringeworthy content in the depths of the internet, so his finger hovered over the link for a bit. Best case scenario, it’s exactly what it says it is, and Hirano falls asleep before 3 AM for the first time in weeks. Worst case scenario, it’s some weird video from a creepy dude on the internet and it doesn’t put him to sleep, but realistically, he’s not sleeping anyway, so giving it a chance seems like the right thing to do. What could possibly go wrong? Hirano doesn't know what to expect when he opens the full video, but it starts off simple enough.

"Hi, welcome back to my channel," the boy whispers into an expensive-looking microphone with a fluffy wind muff, gently cupping the side of it. "Tonight, we'll be reading the tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter," he says. He opens an old picture book with an English title and a couple of rabbits on the cover: a mother rabbit dressed in a full-length dress and apron and a little rabbit in a blue sweater and rainboots standing next to her.

‘Guess we’re reading a children’s book tonight, then,’ Hirano thinks.

When the guy opens to the first page, the text is in English, too. Hirano wasn't expecting to listen to an English bedtime story told by a Japanese Youtuber tonight, but realistically, he hadn’t expected to end up on this side of the internet at all.

“Once upon a time, there were four little rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter...”

Hirano gets the jist of the story if he closes his eyes, but he has to focus hard on the audio for even a vague understanding. There are Japanese subtitles, though, so rather than struggle to follow, he reads along with the captions. He’s fluent enough in English thanks to the fact it’s compulsory at their school, but he’s unfamiliar enough that he only catches key verbs and nouns without the subtitles.

The guy’s voice is soft-spoken, yet still animated — a sweet and mellifluous timbre with a slightly low pitch, but not any lower than Hirano’s own voice. Half asleep, he thinks about how aptly titled the video is. This guy really knows his stuff. He’s probably one of those professional voice actors or something that does the recording for audio books. His voice is nice enough that he surely has to be.

"Peter never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home to the big fir-tree," he starts to round out the story. “He was so tired that he flopped down upon the nice soft sand on the floor of the rabbit-hole and shut his eyes...”

It only takes the words “shut his eyes” for Hirano’s own to close, like he’s obeying a subtle instruction.

About thirty seconds later, he closes the story book, but the video doesn’t end there. Hirano is barely clinging to consciousness as the guy talks a little bit about the book and the four little rabbits, commenting on how naughty Peter was for not listening to his mother. While the reading of the story itself was somewhat formal in presentation (likely due to it being in English and being read by a narrator whose first language is probably Japanese), the talk afterward is incredibly candid. His voice is a little bit muffled by his mask, but he keeps his face close to the microphone, so while his voice isn't crystal clear, it’s still audible.

“The moral of the story is, ‘listen to your mother if you want blackberries and bread for dinner and don’t want to be sent to bed without food,’” he laughs softly. “I was a little scared for the rabbit, myself, since his dad had an accident in the garden. And it’s too bad he lost his little coat and shoes. They were so cute.”

He leafs through the pages of the book again to show his favorite illustrations as he talks about it, analyzes it a little bit. Maybe it’s a bit much for a story written for the sole purpose of entertaining a sickly child — there shouldn’t be too many hidden metaphors or intentional symbolism — but Hirano enjoys the rambling.

"I hope you enjoyed this story. It's one of my favorites," he says, starting to close out the video. Hirano can’t see him smile behind the mask, but his eyes are expressive enough that he can read his face well enough to know he is. The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles sincerely. His voice is airy, like he’s mildly hypnotized by his own video. In the end, he’s just as relaxed as his viewers. Meanwhile, Hirano is somehow still awake, although just barely. He’s too fascinated by this boy and his voice.

"Good night," the brunette whispers over and over as the video gradually fades to black. And seconds later, Hirano's eyelids, heavy and tired, finally flutter closed. He drops his phone on the mattress next to his pillow, and just like that, he’s out like a lamp.

Probably the first time he'd slept more than five hours in a night, Hirano wakes up the next morning feeling more rested than he has for the last four years. He didn't have to walk too far to get to school, since he lives in the dorms, but he’s determined to leave early just in case, anyway. Not that Sasaki or Ogasawara would beat him there, but he has to get their notes and mini lectures ready.

If one didn't know better, they'd think Hirano was their teacher rather than a fellow classmate.

"Morning,” Hirano calls to Ogasawara as the latter pushes open the classroom door, dragging himself over to their desks near the window.

“Morning,” Ogasawara mumbles. “You're awfully chipper for 7 AM.”

“Guess I just slept well last night,” Hirano says. It’s just as Ogasawara says, though — he’s never been one for mornings, so to see him awake and not homicidal at such an early hour is a rarity.

"Sasaki’s on his way. Had to stop and take a piss since he didn’t roll out of bed till right before we got on the train," Ogasawara says with a yawn. "Thanks for doing this for us.”

Hirano laughs. "No problem. How long have I been helping you two now, anyway? I'm used to it."

“Yeah, I know, I owe you my life or something. Or at least, you can have Sasaki’s. I don’t want to think about what Eimi would say if I told her I sold my soul to you just pass my midterms.” Ogasawara shudders in response to a deeply buried traumatic thought resurfacing — a feeling that can only be understood by a fujoshi’s boyfriend.

Hirano pushes a stack of flashcards across the desk toward his friend, hoping it’ll keep him from going on about their latest fight. “Score above 80% and you can keep your soul,” he says, half-joking.

And when Ogasawara shuffles through the neatly printed and thoroughly organized deck of flashcards, he’s certain that he has, in fact, just made a deal with the devil.

“Let’s get to it, then.”

Later that night, as Hirano’s getting ready for bed, he opens up Youtube instead of his usual timelines. Looks up and down his suggested feed for the page of the guy he listened to last night, though he would easily find it if he would just look at the history on his phone. He’s surprisingly slow for someone with grades in the top 20 of his class — not exactly technologically savvy, despite his habit of looking through social media every night right before bedtime.

He scrolls through his feed, phone propped on his chest as it illuminates his face in the dark room. Desperate to find the channel, he searches, "bedtime rabbit story english japanese guy,” which does him no favors at all. Then, as if the algorithm gods have had enough of watching him struggle, it pops up as the first suggested video when he refreshes his suggested video feed for the 30th time that night. He makes sure to note the username, kgurbskt11. He isn’t sure how to read that, but at least he can’t forget such an oddly cryptic username.

First on the agenda: subscribe to the channel and bookmark it for later. He’d hate to have to go through all of this again next time he wants to watch his videos. Completely throwing caution to the wind, he scrolls through the videos for less than a few seconds before randomly tapping on one without looking at the title or thumbnail. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for — he just wants to hear something that’ll put him to sleep.

The random video is just a simple talking one, and rather than soft spoken, he spends much of the video whispering. The sound causes a tingling sensation to form at the back of his head, which then spreads over the rest of his scalp, and then down his spine. He jumps a little from the ticklish feeling it gives him, but once he’s used to it, he starts to unwind. The guy wasn't talking about anything spectacular, to be honest. Just the time he spends with his friends. There’s a story about his summer vacation and his younger sisters, and then a story about playing suikawari* at his family's estate with all of his extended family. He’s bubbly without being overwhelmingly energetic. A nice bit of rambling that has Hirano focused, but he isn't focused so much on the content of the story, this time, as he is on this boy's eyes.

Like last time, his eyes are expressive in a thousand different ways as he cycles through several emotions while recounting his summer vacation. The deep brown irises captivate Hirano, and soon he finds he isn't even listening or comprehending the words of the video anymore. And within 30 seconds of his eyes slowly starting to flutter closed, he’s abruptly awakened when he drops his phone on his face.

“Fuck,” he curses, rubbing his nose. When he returns his attention to the video, it’s a little easier to concentrate, but now he has to spend a little more time watching this channel now that he’s been awakened so abruptly. So he watches another video, only making it about five minutes in when he fell asleep for real (without dropping his phone on his face, this time).

---------

*Suikawari is a traditional Japanese game that involves splitting a watermelon with a stick while blindfolded

[stevenbasic]

GITJ Post 332: A Saturday at Melissa's, p7 (5pm, Shanette)

”So,” I started, after an early hug hello in the middle of the mall, like, center-hallway-thing, “tell me about the TV station. You were there a long time.” Melissa of course looked great, all gussied-up and professional in a short purple dress.

“Omigod yes Shanette,” Missy agreed, stepping back and throwing her long dark hair over her shoulder as we started walking. We were headed first to Hera’s, where she wanted to pick up some new clothes for Dr. J. “After I thought I was done they got a call, and they needed to do more photos.” 

“Huh well that’s cool,” I said, feeling myself fall naturally into the hot-girl strut I always used in public, “it’s kinda like you being a model again.”

“Yeah kinda,” she replied, glancing over at some guy trying to be sneaky and snapping a picture of us. It was weird, now, sometimes, being out in crowds like this. I mean, me and my boobs always got looks. I get it. I’m tall, I’ve been big up top since high school, I’ve got the legs. Missy the same, even more - people were always looking at her, ‘cuz she was so pretty and built, and tall too. But now, crap. I’m 6’1” now  - 6’5” in these heels - and she was like a fucking giant. We, the two of us, walking side by side down the mall, like, hallway thing, towered over everybody. I get it, we stuck out. But these people - well, the guys - they fucking stared. They stopped what they were doing to just look. It was like a hush came over wherever we walked and though we pretended to ignore it it’s like, wow. Some guys followed us, some trying not to be noticed, some not caring at all. Things are different these days, for sure. Guys were different. And that’s why we’re here…

So, anyway. Missy continued to tell me about her day, as the crowd around us just kinda parted and let us walk, like I said the heads were all turning. I knew the Channel 5 people - which, I hear, is like all girls-in-charge now - wanted to do a story about the grand opening of the new wings in the office. That was coming soon; I was just there today in the new clinic for guys and it’s wow so beautiful. And they wanted my help! In setting up some stuff in the new clinic where I’ll be working. But I guess they also wanted to do a whole profile thing about her. They want to talk to her about her career, film her in the gym. Yeah, it was all timed for when some of the new products came out. Some marketing thing, probably. She was like the ideal woman for this new, like, age. 

“I’m so proud of you!” I told her as we got to the department store. I was! I was proud of her! We’d been friends forever. We were even roommates for a while until the doctors at Evolution wanted her to move out of our rented brownstone in the city and into the facility with them - that was a couple years ago, now. It had been a nice enough little place they set up, part of the clinic there, deep in the building I guess. It looked like a real apartment if you didn’t look too hard, she’d said. But I’d never been there; she hadn’t been allowed to have visitors. They kept close tabs on her, and I knew they were, like, studying her. She never really complained, at least to me, until recently. Since she started dating Dr. J she began to get frustrated, like they were looking over her shoulder all the time. She wanted some more freedom, some more privacy, and when her mom left the house for some travels she took the chance to tell them she was moving out, into her mom’s place. They didn’t like that, I guess, but good for her! Missy has been too nice in the past, always doing what other people told her. It’s good she put her foot down, and when the new apartments for us were ready over the office we’d all move in there like one big, happy, big-boobie family.

“You’re so beautiful…” someone said, a medium, nervous guy with an old fishing hat, as we passed him on the escalator. He was looking at Missy, of course.

“Oh thank you!” she sang, flashing him a brilliant smile over her shoulder as we rose up above him, him on the moving stairs going down. She didn’t seem to pay it much mind - we went right back to chatting - but it was, like, a reminder of just how simpy men were getting. It’d only been a few days since the election-thing, but everyone was saying it’s different already, even just since then. Guys just seemed, I dunno…smaller. Sillier. Less important. And more, like…timid and scared but also more, I dunno…eager. To show how much they liked us. I don’t know if Missy even realized it but if she called out, right here in the mall, and wanted them all to, like, do something - sing her name, give her money, maybe even haha get on their knees - I’m pretty sure a lot of them would do it. In fact I said something to one guy that was really staring at us, once we got to the top of the escalator and into the  “Young Men’s” section, where we were headed. I told him to ‘get out of the way of your goddess’ and he actually said ‘yes ma’am’ back to me.

So freakin’ funny.

Anyway, Melissa had been telling me about her feelings for Dr. J. She was really in love, but she worried about him. “I mean,” she’d said, “I really, really like being the dominant one in the relationship, and I am...”

I agreed with her, she was. For sure. She was a stronger personality, and absolutely she was physically stronger than him. By like, a lot haha. I’ve seen this girl lift up a couch recently.

“...but more than just being his, like, what do you call it..?”

“Superior?”

“Yeah…more than that, I want to be his protector. The world’s getting weird for men, and he’s…needy.”

“Yeah he is,” I agreed, “and things might get tough for guys like him.”

“And I mean, of course I want to be the boss,” she giggled, “but I also want to be, like…”

“Like a superhero for him?” 

“Omigod yes,” she said, as we started browsing the racks. We we’re like that; we knew what one another were thinking, lots of times. Like sisters.

“Here check these out,” I offered, showing her a section of decent choices. She was looking for grey khakis for him, some that would fit. He’d probably need a size 12, she said.

“Yeah it’s funny you say that,” she said, “We’ve been talking about it recently, him and me, him needing me, and already I can feel my body changing. In different ways than before…”

Ok. Let me tell you a little bit about Missy. Some of this you probably already know. She has a way - she always had, ever since I met her when she moved into town in high school - of getting what she needs. Of becoming what she needs. Math classes were tough? No problem, bigger boobs help get better grades. Needed to move up at that job, when the boss was an ass-man? Easy. Boom. Ten more pounds where it counts. Wanted your friends to be as hot as you so you could all hang out and torture boys? Done, bingo. I tell you, maybe it was just luck but it seemed like she had a way of changing herself and everything around her so she would succeed and get what she wanted. “The Missy Effect” we called it. She’d just laugh when we asked her about it, lament that she still couldn’t spell, but I swear to god it was real.

“How do you like these?” she asked, holding up a pair of pants for me to approve.

“They look like little boy pants,” I giggled, making her giggle too.

“Maybe I should get a couple, in a few colors?”

“Hm maybe but you don’t want to get too many, in case he, y’know…”

…keeps getting smaller, we both knew. Like sisters. 

“Yeah maybe these and just one more, in tan.”

But anyway, she kept telling me about Dr. J.

“So we had our date night, last night,” she continued, two pairs over her arm as we moved over towards the sweaters. The girls had been calling it ‘Boob Night’ once they heard her plans, which also made her laugh. “And it kinda showed me that I want to move our relationship to, like, the next phase…”

And that’s where I come in. Shanette Stevens: ‘Professional MommyGF’ haha. 

She looked at me, and I chuckled. “Let me tell you how it’s going with Scottie,” I said, as we started circling the mannequins with their cute little sweaters. It was getting chilly, being November, and the winter stuff was all out. There were two guys watching us from behind some racks but we just pretended they weren’t there. 

“I’m so happy you two are dating..!” she said, smiling, those brilliant green eyes of her sparkling. I love her so much.

“Yeah yeah, yeah…” I agreed. Scottie…Scott Hempsted, Scottie-Two-Times…was a guy, a guy friend of ours, mine and Missy’s, since way back in high school. I always thought he was cute in a goofy yellow-lab kinda way, and I knew he had the hots for Missy (like everybody else). Anyway years, now, out of high school we still all hung out once in a while, and he and I had finally started dating. I had a few conditions for him, haha, of course. For one, he couldn’t just use me to try to get to Missy. It wouldn’t work and I’d kill him. And second, I wanted him to be my baby.

“Oooo this one’s nice,” Missy exclaimed, finding the perfect blue-and-white-striped crewneck, in a boys’ large.

“That is nice,” I agreed.

The feelings had been strong, for a while, and since I started working again with Missy they’d suddenly gotten stronger still. I wanted a man to spoil and dwarf with affection, I wanted a boy to baby. These were getting common, these urges, in a lot of girls, and these big boobs of mine wanted to be put to good use…and as they got bigger they got harder to ignore. It sounds funny maybe but overwhelming a guy with cooking and cleaning and putting his head in your lap when he’s tired or sad or scared was just damn hot. I told Scottie I wanted to be his Mommy Girlfriend, and haha I can still see his face when his jaw dropped. He started shaking and nearly passed out. Boys liked that idea too, these days. A lot.

Missy knew what we’d been doing, together, mostly, Scottie and me. She and I shared that sort of thing. She knew that our favorite sex toy as a couple, for real, was a baby bottle. 

And now I think she was looking for advice.

”Okay, so,” I started again, after Missy added the blue sweater to the pile. I’d dropped my voice a bit, so those guys who were still staring at us couldn’t hear. “I spent the whole day with Katarina,” I said, “She told me some crazy shit. Did you know there are places, not here in America but like in the world, like colonies, new colonies, where the guys are all, like, small.”

“Small?” Missy asked, maybe a little confused. She was looking through some sweater vests that, yes, would have been adorable on him. 

“Like, made small. Smaller,” I clarified, “Shrunk. Like almost made into babies. Ooo - get that argyle one!”  Missy smiled as she’d already decided on it. Blue argyle - so cute! Anyway, I continued with what Katarina had told me. “And the women, the women in these places are all, like, their moms. Or, like, become their moms, their mommies. They all live together in these, like, yeah…little colonies.”

“omigod,” Missy said, eyes wide, picturing it. 

I paused for a second, making sure for sure that we weren’t being overheard: “Katarina asked if I wanted to visit one,” I whispered, “That maybe I could take Scottie…”

“Omigod Shanettttttte I can’t even,” she said, not worrying about lowering her voice in the least, “I’m going to soak through my panties for you.”

Just then, a crash from behind a nearby rack. The guys had been listening, or trying to. One of them was now, their cover blown, running away. The other stood frozen. 

“That’s right, run, little man,” I called out, after the one who’d bolted. Then I turned to his friend. “And you too, twerpo. Or we might just sit on you.”

That got Missy laughing, and I laughed too as they now both fled away from the big, mean ladies.

“So your first step,” I started again, as we got back to our conversation and started looking for socks for him, “is to show him how nice it can be to be with a girl with, like, strong maternal instincts. With a maternal woman.”

“I think I can do that,” Melissa giggled, pressing out her twin KK (or whatever they were today) cannons. They seriously looked huger every day, and threatened to burst out of the simple, conservative, wine-colored dress she’d worn to her interview. “These are just full of maternal instincts..!”

“Haha yeah those’ll definitely help,” I laughed, seeing that we maybe had another admirer over by the shoes, another pimply, sweaty-faced stalker. “But even more than the boobs, there’s other stuff. And not just doing his laundry or arranging his drawers.”

“Such as..?” Missy lead, picking out some black dress socks, and then thinking again. The ones with stripes were cuter, I agreed. 

“Do things for him. Like, you should be the one that calls in to order, like, pizza,” I said, taking the pants and the sweaters off her hands so she could grab more socks, “and any other thing that, like, implies someone making the call or taking care of a decision. Speak up for everything he´s too shy to say. He’ll appreciate it, and eventually he’ll come to depend on you for it.”

“Ooo I like that,” Missy agreed, eyes wide, “and I like these socks, too. How ‘bout you?”

“Ha, maybe a little much, at this point,” I said. Even Scottie wouldn’t agree to Sesame Street socks. Well, yet haha. 

“What else?” she pressed. 

“Well, how ‘bout…driving,” I started, “You do all the driving, right?”

“He doesn’t have a car, anymore,” she said, knowing I knew that of course. 

“But does he ever, like, offer to drive you guys around, in your car, ask for the keys? Does he even want to drive anymore?”

“I dunno,” she answered, nodding, and moving over to the belts. She was considering the idea, for sure. “He doesn’t really ask…”

“He doesn’t ask to drive because the truth is he doesn’t want to drive,” I said, “He wants you to do it. Because he’s getting afraid of it.” I helped her pick out a nice brown belt for little waists. Reversible, too. “And soon, he won’t be able to do it anymore.”

“Yeah,” Missy agreed, biting her lower lip and staying quiet. But the sparkle in her eye when she glanced at me told me everything. She liked the idea, I could tell. 

“And when you drive him, do you make sure he’s buckled in, all nice and safe?” I asked. 

“I…I should, huh?”

“Well of course,” I smiled, “and buckle him in yourself, make sure it’s done right.” My own eyes were sparkling now, I could feel it, and I could see Missy picturing smooshing her boobs into him the way I do into Scottie when I buckle him in. I also kiss him on the forehead, and wrinkle my nose when I tell him he’s cute. 

“He does like the tender stuff,” she said, “and he likes it when I take care of the things he knows he can´t. The mommy-girlfriend stuff.” There were some shoes that caught Missy’s eye, and we drifted that way. “But I know he also likes the bigger displays of my, like, power. How strong I am. When we’re, like, alone.”

I giggled, thinking of it, imagining what it must be like to be as strong as her and toss a guy around in the bedroom. She’d told me about the table, and pinning him to the wall, lifting and carrying him. “That’s okay,” I finally said, “you can do both. You can be his, like, Super Mommy.”

That made her laugh, but when she bent over to check out some little sneakers on a lower rack I saw our greasy little admirer from before glance her way. Her ass was way in the air, and he was staring. 

“Getting a good look?” I snapped, immediately grabbing the guy's attention. His eyes went wide and as Missy stood up…and up…and up…now peering down at him, realizing what he’d been doing, he started to back away. He was maybe fifteen feet down the aisle, retreating.

“Yeah you’d better run,” she said, her voice suddenly bigger and deeper than I’d ever heard it, eyes on the squirrely little man as he kept taking steps backwards. I saw Melissa’s eyes flash, darkening, and then in a big voice which I swear to god made the overhead lights flicker and the whole room shake she boomed “RUN!” and the guy was literally knocked off his feet, blown backwards by the sonic power of her voice. Whether it was from him falling or just the strength of her, the racks rattled,  shoes fell, and a “30% off boy’s shoes” sign across the aisle was blown clean over. 

We both watched as the little man clambered to his feet, panicked, and ran away like a scared rabbit. A mannequin toppled over. 

“Oh my god, Missy,” I breathed, finally able to speak, looking at her with new eyes. Did I see that right? What had she just done??

“Haha wow…” she said, her voice suddenly back to normal, but her smile with a weird curl, “…that’s new.”

==================================

more? Patreon.

[xoxoladyaz]

Steddie Bigbang #177: Infernally Yours is HERE!

Finally, after months of work I am SO HAPPY to start publishing my contribution to @steddiebang, a post-Season 3 AU in which Hopper doesn't go to Russia, the Byers family stays in Hawkins, and Steve Harrington finally agrees to play DnD with Hellfire. Chapters 1 and 2 are up today, chapters 3 and 4 will go up on the 9th, and the last two chapters (and the epilogue) will be posted on the 16th.

Here's the link to the story on Ao3 and a preview below :) I can't wait to see what you all think!

Listen. Steve Harrington knew that he had some sins to pay for, okay? He was kind of a stuck-up shit for most of high school and while he didn’t go out of his way to, like, ruin anybody’s day – cough, cough, Tommy Hagan – he also didn’t really reach out to anyone who needed help either. He’d led on a lot of girls before Nance, too, and if judging by the fact that the only girls he dated these days wanted a good time and not a long time, well, he had some work to do on the whole “relationship” and “finding everlasting love” front. But he’s done the work to be better! Granted, a lot of the work consisted of him getting beaten up and/or tortured by other people while protecting a group of unthankful little shitheads, but it’s still progress. And, not to brag, but he got Robin Buckley as a best friend out of the whole thing, so really, Steve Harrington’s not doing so bad on the whole “redemption” thing, thank you.

So why, why does the universe continue to torment him?

“ – and that’s when Lorcan Fairwood used Horde Breaker to fire into the pack of gnolls, dealing five points of damage to Kazar, the gnoll pack leader, and then Eddie said - ”

“Dingus,” Robin hissed, knocking her elbow into Steve’s and dislodging him from his thoughts. “Get Dingus Junior to knock-it-off with this dork talk before I knock him into the recent returns.”

Groaning, Steve rubbed his palms against his dry eyes and braced for impact. “We got it, Henderson, Munson’s the best thing to ever happen to Dorks and Demons - ”

“ – Dungeons and Dragons, Steve, I know that you know that’s what it’s called - ”

“ – and as much as I like hanging out with you, dude, these multi-hour play-by-plays aren’t convincing me that this nerd shit is, like, fun or whatever,” he finished with a sigh. Robin shot him an exasperated but grateful look and then slid her newest stack of freshly rewound returns his way.

“Shelving time, doinkus.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve rolled his eyes and reached for the stack.

Dustin snorted and kicked at the front of his desk, which, the attitude on this kid, seriously. “Guess Eddie was right.” 

Steve froze. What the hell does that mean?

“What the hell does that mean?”

Dustin snorted again before spinning to face Steve, his hands falling to his hips. “Eddie said says that jocks only care about other jocks. And jock stuff.”

“Hey, okay, first of all, there’s only one of us that’s actually saved your life multiple times and it’s not Eddie Munson, so jot that down,” Steve snapped, dropping the tapes back onto the counter (and ignoring Robin’s yelp as they tumbled everywhere). “And second, just because we don’t have the same interests doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, man. That’s a shit thing to say.”

Henderson folded inward, his eyes dropping towards the ground and voice losing its normal intensity. “Sorry, Steve.”

“And third – look, Henderson,” Steve sighed at Dustin’s drooping. (Look, he was a little shithead with the biggest ego in every room, but he was Steve’s little shithead and he hated to see him upset – even when it was his own fault.) “Maybe it isn’t like, totally boring in the moment or whatever, but getting a two-hour play by play after your game every Saturday isn’t doing a whole lot to convince me, man.”

“Well,” Dustin perked up slightly and cleared his throat, “we’re always looking for new members - ”

“Nope, no way.”

“Steve,” Henderson’s whining was out in full force now, “it would be so much fun! You wouldn’t even have to do that much work; I could help you get started and - ”

“No.”

“ – seriously, I can make you a character sheet so fast, and our party could really use another fighter anyways - ”

“No, Henderson!”

“ – besides, we haven’t gotten to hang out with you as much now that school started, and you know that Will’s having a hard time because everyone keeps calling him ‘Zombie Boy’ and he would be so excited to have you playing with us - ”

Shit, he’s pulling out the Zombie Boy card. Shit, shit, shit.

“Henderson - ”

“ – and, you know, I totally believe you and everything but Mike is pretty convinced that you’re still an asshole, especially with everything Eddie’s said, and this could be your chance to prove him wrong!” Dustin finished emphatically, his chest puffing with exertion.

Steve shot an exasperated look over the top of the Horror section towards Robin, who was pouting in mock-agreement with Dustin.

Traitor.

Sighing, Steve shoved Friday the 13th onto the shelf and dropped his gaze towards Dustin. “One game.”

Dustin let out a loud whoop, hopping in place and punching wildly at the air. “YES!”

“Just one game, Henderson, that’s it.”

“I’LL TAKE IT!” Letting out an even louder victory cry, Dustin raced for the door. “I’m going to get working on your character sheet right now – Wednesday, 3:30 in the drama room,” Dustin said, whirling around to point at Steve. “You’ll be there?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there.”

“YES! Don’t worry Steve, you won’t regret this!” Dustin beamed and then he was out the door, disappearing into the October sun.

[avalanchesumich]

mastermind! au

november 8

cameron picked at her nails nervously as she sat on her bed, her laptop open in front of her. her mouse had been hovering over the join call for about three minutes.

it was time for the weekly family video call. normally, cam looks forward to it, as everyone’s always away from each other, but currently, she was dreading it. she was about to tell them she has a boyfriend.

taking a deep breath, she finally joined the call, a smile involuntarily forming as she saw the four faces she missed.

“it’s about time,” taylor tsked. “four o’clock our time, cameron. can’t be slipping up now after being the picture perfect princess for eighteen years.”

“oh, shut up,” cam rolled her eyes, laughing at him. “how is everyone?”

“we’re good honey,” gary makar answered for him and his wife.

“good over here too,” cale added in.

“yeah, same,” taylor nodded. “cammy you good?”

“yeah,” cam nodded, scrunching her nose at the nickname. she’d always hated it.

“so tell me,” laura makar told her kids. “what’s new this week? and what’s everyone got planned?”

“it’s been good,” cale said, shrugging. “just busy with practicing and stuff

“yeah, same,” taylor agreed. “just busy with school and hockey.”

noticing his daughter’s quietness, gary furrowed his brows. she was usually the first to speak up, always excited about something. “cam honey, what about you? everything alright?”

“yeah, yeah, everything’s good,” cam nodded. “i have to tell you guys something though. please don’t be upset,” she said the last part quietly and directed it to her older brothers, who had a knack for overprotectiveness after her senior year of high school.

“cameron what’s going on?” cale demanded, worried. “are you okay?”

“yeah, i’m good,” cam rushed out. “i have a boyfriend.”

laura was the first to react, grinning ear to ear. “you do?” she asked excitedly. “that’s so lovely, sweetheart! tell us everything?”

“can he fight?” taylor blurted.

“probably,” cam mumbled, her eyes darting away from the computer to her wall, where a picture of her and gabe was taped up. “um, his name is gabe. he’s on the hockey team.”

“you’re dating a hockey player?” cale asked. when she nodded, he shook his head in disagreement. “i think that’s a bad idea, cam.”

“i think you don’t even know him,” cam snapped back unintentionally, upset he’s already disapproving the relationship. he hasn’t even met the guy.

“guys,” gary warned. “don’t fight. not now,” he demanded. “cam, i think this is nice. me and your mother will have to come up and visit soon so we can meet him.”

“yeah, i’ll be doing that too,” taylor grumbled. “so, he’s on the team?”

“he is,” cam nodded in confirmation. “if you do visit, please tell me; especially you, tay. i will not spring a family meeting on him.”

“how’d you even meet him?” cale asked sharply.

“we met at school,” cam dumbed down the story, knowing cale won’t be having any of it no matter what she says. “i know what you’re thinking, cale. he’s not like that. gabe is not like him.”

“you can’t be too sure,” cale said dismissively.

“i am sure,” cam whispered. “can’t you be happy for me, cale?”

“not if it’s going to get you hurt in the end,” cale denied immediately. “you’re my baby sister, cam. i won’t sit around and watch you get hurt over another boy like that,” he added on. “and he’s a hockey player; he isn’t good news.”

“you’re a hockey player,” cam defends her boyfriend. “taylor’s a hockey player. your argument is poor.”

“yeah, we are hockey players, that’s why i know that he’s no good for you. you deserve a better guy than that.”

cam opened her mouth to argue back, but there was a knock on the door, and gabe came in. he smiled at her as soon as she made eye contact, but his smile dropped as soon as he recognized the look in her eyes.

“whatever, cale,” she mumbled. “i have to go. love you guys.”

with that she ended the call, not waiting for anyone to respond. she closed her laptop and pushed it to the end of her bed. she looked up at gabe once again, a relieved smile falling on her lips.

“hi,” she whispered, watching as her boyfriend came and stood by the edge of her bed.

“hi,” her parroted. he watched as she moved to the edge, her legs hanging off her bed. he stepped between them, placing his hands on her knees. “is everything okay?”

“yeah,” she shrugged. “i don’t know about you, but i am hungry.”

“oh yeah?” gabe laughed. “and what would you like to eat, pretty girl?”

cam sent him the sweetest, most innocent smile she could. “chipotle?”

“you and your goddamn burritos,” gabe playfully rolled his eyes. he patted her knee. “let’s go.”

cam grinned and threw her arms around his neck, pulling him in. “thank you,” she giggled as his arms came around her waist, lifting her off the bed. her legs wrapped around his waist as he started to walk.

“yeah, yeah,” gabe playfully rolled his eyes, walking them over to ger closet, where her shoes were. “you okay? you seemed pretty tense when i came in.”

“uh yeah,” cam nodded when gabe set her on her feet. “i told my family about you. they wanna meet you.”

“oh,” gabe nodded, his heart rate picking up. “when?”

“i don’t know,” cam shrugged, kneeling down to put her shoes on. “my parents said they’d visit soon. so did taylor, so soon i guess,” she stood straight and noticed how tense he’d gotten. “hey, don’t worry. they’ll love you,” cam leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “and i’d never let them ambush you. you’ll have full warning of them coming here, i promise.”

“right,” gabe said quietly, clearing his throat. he shook his head, clearing his thoughts. “well, we should go and get dinner, yeah?”

cam nodded and smiled softly, grabbing his hand, allowing him to lead her out.

[eriquin]

The Prophetic D&D Game, part 19

Eddie is having a bad day. It's going to get worse.

(master post)

It was Friday morning and Eddie had a headache. 

He didn’t even have a night of drinking to justify it, though he had stayed up late practicing the guitar part for Master of Puppets. No, it was the same headache he’d had for most of the week. He’d been alternating aspirin and Tylenol just like his uncle had taught him, but it just wouldn’t go away. That was the excuse he used when he rolled into school late, which had the added bonus of missing that morning’s pep rally. Though, really, no one could possibly have expected him to be there. He prided himself on being the polar opposite of pep. 

The headache subsided a little bit by the time lunchtime rolled around, but it was still there, lurking. By this point, it was just an annoyance, really. He pushed it aside to read the magazine Jeff had brought in, putting funny voices to the outrageous accusations. It made the whole table laugh and lightened the mood a smidge. 

But two little annoyances in the form of Dustin Henderson and Mike Wheeler brought it right back down again when they pointed out that Lucas would not be able to make it to Hellfire that night. Eddie munched on his pretzels and shrugged. “Once again, Sinclair drops us for the dark side, eh?” He couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice. “That’s fine. Just great. We’ll just run Cursed instead.”

“We can’t,” Mike snapped. Eddie leveled a glare at him, and he shrunk back.

Dustin, ever the diplomat, came to his defense. “What he means is, Lucas really wants to be there for the last session of Cursed, since it’s going to be his character’s big moment. So can we maybe postpone Hellfire? Please?”

The whole rest of the group protested, and Eddie felt himself getting worked up just by listening to them. His headache returned with a vengeance, and he shouted for them all to shut up before launching into a rant about graduation, and the effort he’d put into session planning, and their scant remaining time together. He told them the story about finding them as lost little freshmen and taking them in, and how sometimes you had to make things a priority in order to get through the high school experience. He wrapped it up by standing behind Mike and Dustin and yanking them to their feet.

“There will be no postponement of Hellfire,” Eddie said. “You have two choices in front of you, gentlemen. If we’re a man down, then we’re playing Cursed, so either you accept that, or...”

“Or?” Dustin asked hopefully. 

“You find a substitute.” Eddie gave them a rough shove away from the table, and didn’t feel bad about it in the least. “Now get going, little sheep. Figure it out.” 

Once they were gone, he sat back down and tried to get back into a good mood, but it was impossible. It really rankled him that Lucas had sent his two friends to ask instead of doing it himself, and he had half a mind to seek him out and ask why, but he knew there wasn’t any point. Lucas was walking a tightrope, trying to be a part of both Hellfire and the basketball team, and he’d made his choice. Eddie knew, rationally, that the kid was just doing his best to balance his interests, but his headache was back and he had no interest in being rational.

Grant snapped his fingers in his face, trying to get his attention. “What?” Eddie yelled, nearly launching out of his seat again. It made all his friends flinch.

“I was asking if we were gonna practice this weekend,” Grant said. “You zoned out, man.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Eddie said. “Sure, practice tomorrow at Gareth’s house. Same as usual.”

“Are you okay, man?” Jeff asked. “You seem really out of it.”

“I’m fine,” Eddie snapped. “I just had a shitty night, and your nagging isn’t helping.” He got to his feet and grabbed his stuff. His head was pounding, and he flipped his friends off when they shouted at him as he walked away. 

Eddie took a detour to the boy’s bathroom closest to the music and art rooms at the back of the school. It had windows that could be jimmied open, and people did so even in the middle of winter, so it was always colder there than the rest of the school. It didn’t help with his headache, but it meant that it was easier to sneak a cigarette, which was why they were always open. 

Before he lit up, he took some Tylenol and washed them down with water from the sink. It tasted gross, like the tap water at the school always did, and he realized that he hadn’t really eaten any lunch. A cigarette would help. He looked up from the sink and shuddered. The room seemed to be tilting for a second, and the tiles were spinning. He sat down on the floor and slid back until he hit the wall. It slowly went away, but he stayed sitting there and skipped his next class. No one came in to bother him. That was one of the nice things about this bathroom. Once he had a smoke and managed to relax for a moment, the Tylenol kicked in and he got his headache down to a manageable level. Then he felt like he could face the rest of the day.

There was a note in his locker asking to meet at the picnic table in the woods after school. This was not unusual, especially for a Friday, double-especially when there was a big basketball game that night. Usually, it meant someone from the team or team-adjacent wanted to make a big purchase for the inevitable after-party. He refused to attend those events, so they had to make arrangements with him in advance. Something about this note threw him, though. It was written in a loopy, girlish script. There weren’t any hearts dotting the I’s but he could picture them there anyway. It asked him to come alone. Not demanded, but asked. There was even a little ‘please’ written in. 

He looked around. There were plenty of people in the hallway, but no one was looking at him. He tucked the note into his back pocket and thought about it. He wasn’t worried about meeting someone alone in the woods, per se. People generally acknowledged that he was the scariest thing in the school, and no one was going to take a chance that he had a weapon hidden among his chains and leather. He did, in fact, have a pocket knife in his jacket, but that was just good sense. There was something else bothering him about the note, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was yet. 

As Eddie walked out into the woods, the nagging feeling grew worse. He was forgetting something, or having a persistent case of déjà vu. He met people out in these woods frequently enough, but something about today had felt off since he woke up.

There was a cheerleader in the woods, looking more spooked than he was. He didn’t mean to startle her, and took every opportunity to reassure her that she wasn’t in any danger from him. Chrissy Cunningham looked like a frightened deer, ready to turn tail and run if she heard a strange noise. He had no idea how she managed to get through the screaming crowds at Hawkins basketball games. 

But he got her talking, and then laughing, even if it meant he ended up with leaves in his hair. He was feeling pretty good about the whole interaction, making his final pitch with a decent discount. As she stared down at the weathered picnic table, she asked, “Do you have anything, maybe, stronger?”

When she looked up at him, that eerie feeling came back with a vengeance. He stared at her and felt the world shift, but not in a good way. “Y-yeah,” he stammered. “I can, I mean. Not on me, but I do have stronger stuff at home.”

He gave her the quick rundown of the other things he kept at the trailer, and zeroed in on her interest in ketamine. The sales pitch felt familiar, too, in a better way than anything else that was going on. They made plans to meet up after the basketball game, but Eddie hesitated as she got up to leave. 

“Hey, Chrissy?” She stopped and looked back at him, and suddenly he felt himself flailing around for a reason to keep her there, just for a moment longer. His brain hit on something that had made her smile. “I really meant it about coming to see us play! Will you?”

She did smile at him, but it was a weak one. “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, if you’re still playing the stuff you played at the talent show, it wasn’t really my kind of music.”

“We’ve gotten so much better since then, though.” He climbed over the table and threw his arms out dramatically. “That’s why you should come see us. And, like, if you do? I’ll play your favorite song, in front of all the drunks, just for you.”

She laughed for real then. “Oh yeah? You’re gonna play ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ for me?” 

He nodded vigorously. “Cyndi Lauper? Yeah, easy. I can even make a metal version. I’ll practice it!” He put his hands up in an air guitar pose. “Yeah, I can do that. Bet I can figure it out by tonight. Might make everything go down easier, you know?”

Chrissy’s grin was bright on her face. “Okay, Eddie. You do that, and maybe I’ll get into metal.” She held up her hand in a dainty little sign of the horns. It made him gasp, put his hands over his heart, and drop to his knees. 

She kept laughing as she walked off. Her ponytail bounced with each step. Eddie got up, dusted the dirt off his knees, and put on his jacket. He waited at the picnic table until she had been gone long enough that it wouldn’t look like they were out there together. The feeling of dread was still with him. It felt like someone had rolled dice for him to notice something, and he’d failed the check. 

Tagging:

@weirdandabsurd42, @10moonymhrivertam, @blueskiesandstarrynights

[ashtrayfloors]

—I was getting kinda down on myself because I felt like I’d been really on top of my shit recently but then somehow ran out of money again. So I had to remind myself that being broke doesn’t mean I’m not on top of my shit—it just means we are living in late capitalism, and times are hard. But then I’m not going to let myself stop trying to improve my own/my family’s lives because of it, either. Times are hard but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep looking for more/better work, or that it’s not worth going back to school.

—Saturday evening, P. and I got to go out for a drink. We went to a different bar than the one we usually go to, and had the place to ourselves, so we ended up talking with the bartender. The three of us hit it off immediately. The bartender was a flamingly gay punk dude, and the first thing he said to us was: “You two have the best couple energy I’ve ever witnessed.” He said he could just tell we love each other a lot, and then he commented on the fact that we were even sorta dressed alike. Which I hadn’t realized, but when he said that…we were both wearing Chucks, and jeans, and flannel shirts over old tees. (Love each other so, closer than you know, and all that.) Then we were all talking about our favorite cocktails for a bit, and then Green Day’s “When I Come Around” came on the stereo and me and the bartender were both singing along at the top of our lungs. “I can’t not sing along to this song, you know?” he said, and I said: “Oh my god, same.” And then later somehow the discussion turned to ghosts and he told us the haunted history of the building we were in and some other nearby places, and it was all stuff which I’d never even heard! And I’ve researched that shit! We told him how years ago we went on the downtown ghost tour and it was so boring, we barely even heard any haunted stories, and it turns out that he’s one of the people that now does the ghost tours since the old group folded—and he’s a member of the local paranormal investigation group! He gave us the dates that he’ll specifically be leading the tour this year, so we’re definitely going on one of those dates. Anyway, befriending a gay punk who’s into ghosts and Green Day? 10/10, highly recommended.

—The bar we were in is also a high-end liquor store, and I perused their whiskey selection while we were there, and discovered there’s an Irish whiskey called The Legendary Silkie. As soon as I have enough money where I can justify dropping some on it, I’m going to. Because Irish whiskies are my favorite, and also because I’ve been obsessed with silkie/selkie lore since I was a wee’un.

—Sunday, I basically did jack shit. I was having a sinus issue flare-up, plus it was the first day of my period (which always comes with cramps and exhaustion and a general feeling of yuck), so I stayed in bed half the day. And yes, while I am still hustling my ass off to improve my situation, I have to remind myself it’s okay to have days like that. Especially when I physically need it. When I was younger, I would push myself past my limits, and then I’d wind up super ill for weeks or months, unable to do much of anything. I’m not willing to risk that these days, so when I need a day of rest, I take one, if it’s at all possible.

—Yesterday, I felt a lot better. I did school stuff with the kids, dayjob work + side hustle, and writing/submitting stuff. I also took the kiddos to the library for Maker Monday, and they got to mess around with robots and VR and 3D printers. While at the library, I saw the most beautiful trans woman, and I tried hard not to stare at her like a creep. I managed it—I just smiled at her, she smiled back, and I went on my way. And then in the kids’ play area, I encountered an adorable toddler. He was clearly new to both walking and speaking, and one of the few words he knows is ‘bowl.’ He found a plastic bowl in the play kitchen, and was toddling around the room, presenting it to everyone, saying “bowl!” Which he pronounced like ‘buh!’ So obviously I was super enthusiastic when he showed it to me. “That’s right buddy! That’s a great bowl you’ve got there!” And he grinned his little toothless grin and toddled away to present his ‘buh’ to someone else. Aw. I definitely don’t want any more kids, and in many ways I’m glad my kids are past the toddler stage, but it’s nice to interact with teeny kiddos from time to time.

—Today I felt pretty sucky again, physically. My period yuck has passed, but it was a bad allergy/sinus day. I wasn’t able to take the day off, but I rested as much as possible. I did school stuff with the kids, and then made a cup of tea and took it up to bed, and I worked from bed for a couple hours. After that, I felt well enough to do some other stuff. I packed up some zine orders. And then C. and I did some baking—I had a bunch of peaches left over from a meal we made the other night, so we baked a peach and blackberry galette.

—I’m deep in nostalgia these days, as per usual, but right now it’s mainly for September 2003 and September 2008—The Perpetual Motion Roadshow, and Thee Hobo Love Tour. And how the fuck were those tours 20 and 15 years ago, respectively?!

—Today, I found out that Nick Cave is playing in Milwaukee later this month. There is literally no way I can afford to go, but unlike the Blue Meanies show in July, I didn’t freak out about it. I was bummed for about thirty minutes, and then went: “Eh, so I can’t see Nick Cave in concert right now. Instead, I will sit alone in my room, dressed all in black, drinking tea or wine, and listening to Nick Cave while thinking about a girl I once knew, as god intended.”

—Overall, I’ve been better able to appreciate the small moments of contentment in my life than I was earlier in the summer. Like the fact that the weather is turning autumnal. Like lying in bed drinking tea, or sitting in my backyard drinking coffee. Like watching the birds in my backyard. Like listening to jazz while writing or doing chores. (I’ve been on a big jazz kick lately. This is fairly common for me, this cycle—listen to a ton of punk to the point where I’m almost sick of it, then listen to a ton of jazz.) Like cooking with my kids and reading with my kids.

—Plans for the next week or two include: getting the new CoViD vaccine/booster, home visit with the director for the community program we’re getting D. into, more printing/collating/packing up zine orders, submitting work to more contests and magazines, a field trip with the kiddos to our favorite nearby park/stretch of woods, and performing at 100 Thousand Poets for Change.

[boxcakeboi]

Gilded Gluttony: Part 2

Hello! Apologies for the time this took for this part to come out, I was getting close to dropping the story since I was lazy about it, but quite frankly my muse came back, hope u enjoy it!

*The two went to the lounge and grabbed all the snacks they wanted, loading up on the pastries, chips, crackers, drinks, and more, everything they could get their hands on*

Gage: *holding all the snacks in his arms* hey follow me!

Keith: *he followed Gage to a room with the company sleeping pods* woah what are these?

Gage: you have never seen these?!

Keith: nope!

Gage: geez you really were breaking your back for this company, these are our sleep pods for midday siestas, I like coming in here to chow in peace, it’s great come on!

*Gage walked up to one of the pods opened it and motioned Keith to get in*

Keith: *he went in and laid down on the soft cozy bed*

Gage: *he went in and closed the door and laid all the snacks on the bed with Keith* pretty roomy huh! It can fit both of us!

Keith: I’m shocked we have this here, i guess I was always too busy to notice…

Gage: *he grabbed a doughnut that was wrapped up unraveled it and started munching on it* yeah dude it’s great here when you let yourself relax…come on dude have some!

Keith: hehe alright *he followed suit and partook in the bounty*

*About an hour passed and they both plowed through snack*

Keith: Man, I'm kinda full…and tired

Gage: same dude…guess that's what a sleeping pod is for

Keith: we’ve been gone for about an hour, will we get noticed?

Gage: nahh dude we’re good, like take a nap, then after I’ll show you some more stuff!

Keith: *he laid down and got cozy* sweet sounds good

Gage: *he also laid down* see ya in a bit

*two hours passed*

Keith: *he woke up feeling a bit groggy, he looked at his phone* shit! we’re more than halfway done with our shift!! wake up, Gage!

Gage: *wakes up half asleep* huh???

Keith: dude we’re gonna get in deep trouble! we have been sleeping for two hours!!

Gage: oh! hehe, no worries I’ve slept in here for way longer, but hey it's good time to go grab a bite to eat!

Keith: oh…okay? sounds good

*The two left for the food court and Keith got a chicken salad and veggie chips, while Gage was 2 burgers and fries with a large soda*

Gage: Man the food is great here

Keith: ehh its alright

Gage: dude it's because you get that rabbit food, here have a bite *he held the burger towards Keith's face*

Keith: *he took a bite and chewed and swallowed* holy crap…THATS REALLY GOOD!!

Gage: told you, man! trust and believe, I know what's good here! you can have the rest of this burger, next time I’ll show you the good stuff

*The two ate together, joking around and bantering, Keith noticed something, he felt good and joyful, he looked at Gage, a realized why he was so relaxed and happy all the time, the Gage he knew back in high school was a bit different from now, not as frustrated as he was back then, he did what made him happy, or satisfied, Keith remembered the once troubled kid he knew Gage as now a kickback adult, Gage’s lifestyle showed, considering he was a chubby guy, him eating and sleeping definitely made him a doughy guy, he didn’t mind though, Keith realized why he was this way, as Keith thought about Gage and his plumping frame his face became flushed and he was slightly turned on, he crossed his legs hoping for his member to relax*

*The two were done eating and got up, Keith's excitement passed on*

Gage: and just like that less than an hour before our shift ends!

Keith: damn that flew by!

Gage: so tell me? again tomorrow?

Keith: *he thought for a moment*…hell yeah dude, that was awesome!

Gage: really! sweet we can do this all the time! whenever we want

Keith: *he chuckled* well guess we go back to our desks and wait for the day to end huh?

Gage: yup!

*The day ended Keith left the office and drove back to his apartment, he walked into his apartment, hung up his bag, kicked off his shoes, and went to his bedroom, he undressed and looked at himself in the mirror and noticed his belly slightly popped out due to how much he ate, his stomach was still taught*

Keith: *he burped* damn we pigged out today…*he thought about Gage*

*he then lay in his bed and looked at his phone, eventually scrolling through old photos of him and Gage, back in high school Gage was an angsty teen who was stick thin, then a chill skateboarding stoner in college and now a chubby kickback adult, Gage was about 230 pounds, Keith was guessing, quite hefty compared to his previous thin frame, the feeling Keith had at the food court washed over him again, he was flushed again and his face had slight red glow*

Keith: god…gage…*he slowly moved his hand towards his belt line, flashing images of Gage and his gut, his blossoming breast, his thicker legs and arms, and his face all covered in his body hair, he soon reached and realized how stiff he was and he quickly moved his hand*

Keith: *he lay there for a while and thought* what the hell??? what's going…on… *he shook his head a chose to move on*

*a few weeks of this gluttonous behavior went by*

*Gage and Keith were eating all the snacks they grabbed from the lounge, they sat in an empty conference room*

Gage: *takes a bite out of a muffin and chews*

Keith: *munching on some cheesy crackers* dude have you seen that new person that joined the team?

Gage: oh yeah the one lady, her name is Jenna

Keith: Jenna? ey…thoughts?

Gage: um just a co-worker *he shrugs*

Keith: oh thought you would have had more of an opinion, she kinda looks like your type from high school

Gage: ehh not my concern right now of who’s gonna be my life partner, besides I'm sure she's more of a person outside of her appearance *he said in an assertive tone*

Keith: *he felt a bit embarrassed* oh yeah right, yeah…

Gage: but hey if you want to get to know her as a human more, i’d suggest talking to her…

Keith: *he thought about his emotions last night* yeahhh maybe just a co-worker buddies…

Gage: *he laughed a bit*

Keith: *soon a wave of tiredness creeped up on him* geez i’m kinda tired…*he stretched his arms out above his head and yawned* *when doing so this made the fabric of his button up shirt taught against his midsection and chest, this revealed after weeks of gluttony, it started to show physically, Keiths once flat stomach was now a little starter belly, his pecs also seems a bit plumper but with now a thin layer of fat over them, he wasnt fat by any means but his appetite was taking its effects*

Gage: *he noticed and then snickered a bit*

Keith: *he swung his arms down, tucking the fabric of his shirt between his arms making the fabric still tight around his chest and mid section* whats so funny?

Gage: nothing crazy, buttt looks like you’re getting your first signs of pudge!

Keith: w-what? *he looked down and noticed his shirt and how is was displaying his belly and chest, he got embarrassed* uhh-i-um *he quickly readjusted his shirt*

Gage: dont feel bad man! i’m just noticing!

Keith: thats easy for you to say!

Gage: it’s okay man, having some pudge ain’t bad at all!

Keith: i’ve never been fat! I dont really wanna start now!

Gage: it’s not all that bad! besides, its kinda of a result of eating this shit and sitting on our asses all day

Keith: dammit, i knew this was gonna be a bad idea, i cant do this anymore, i gotta think about myself *he got up and started walking out*

Gage: wait dude where are you going???

Keith: i’ve gotta go work!

Gage: dude look i’m sorry, i didnt mean it offensive, that would be ironic coming from me! i’m literally 230 pounds, your like 160, i’m way bigger than you! my goal wasn’t to shame you

Keith: you have to admit though Gage this lifestyle isn’t okay! you can do what ever you want but i’m out, before i get too deep *he left*

Gage: *sighs*

*the next day*

Keith: *he was at his desk typing up a report, working diligently*

*soon his stomach growled, requesting he go on his daily run to the lounge*

Keith: *he looked at the time* it’s not even lunch yet??? am i already used to pigging out with Gage at this time??

*he worked though the hunger, ignoring his impulses to go eat and take a nap from pigging out, this gave him a splitting headache*

Keith: *what felt like an eternity, the lunch hour started, Keith took himself to the break room and tried eating his pre packed salad, he used to enjoy it, but now it taste very bland and unfulfilling, considering his diet just a few hours ago was ultra processed, salty sugary snacks that has flavor profiles of pure indulgences, he sighed feeling his pounding headache, he slowly ate his salad not finishing it*

*he struggled through the whole shift wondering how he did it before, eventually the shift ended and he was ready to go home and nap, the shift was so slow and boring considering he didn’t talk to Gage all day and shoot the shit*

Keith: *the work day ended finally and he left the office and sat in his car and as soon he got buckled in, his phone rang with an alarm*

*the alarm rang with the title of “Gym”*

Keith: dammit, i forgot…the gym… *he lightly laid his hand on his pounding head*

Keith: you gotta go, get the rest of the pudge off *he turned his car on and drove to the gym*

*in the gym locker, he undressed and noticed how his body has slightly changed, with some soft fat, he started at himself in one of the full length mirrors, he grappled some of his belly squeezing and massaging it, he watched the warm flesh squish and mold around his hands, he then felt flushed and turned on, he quickly stopped when he heard some other people walk in and got dressed*

*he tried his normal workout realizing just a few weeks of gluttony has changed his bodies capabilities entirely, though he could still lift the same weights as before, cardio was extremely hard, barley being able to do half of what he was just doing a few weeks ago*

Keith: *trying to run at his old pace, gasping for air and sweating extremely, soon he stopped* okay…i cant anymore *turned off the machine and stood there exhausted, sweat dripped down his back and and his face and his hair was starting to get drenched* shit….i’m already this out of shape…dammit Keith, why did you do this

*he looked across the the line of treadmills and looked at the slim fit people running*

Keith: fuck this…*he grabbed his bag and walked back to the locker rooms to change*

*the the locker room*

*he took off his sweaty clothes and noticed they where extremely drenched and a bit more musky, he lifted his armpit up and sniffed and noticed he was quite ripe*

Keith: damn, i should hit the shower *he went to a shower stall and closed it, he turned on the shower and as it flowed down on him, he sniffed his armpits again*

*he stood there for bit still, then went in again*

Keith: not…bad…*his sniffing turned to practically huffing, enjoying the smell of dirty musky underarm, he felt his penis slightly stiffen* i’m getting off? to this?

*he stood there for a moment then decided to dig deeper, he reached in between his legs and package and then slowly breathed in the scent track on his fingers, this made him harder*

Keith: i’ve never stank this bad, not until i’ve put on a few pounds…how would i smell if i was…bigger…

*he was fully erect at this point, he rubbed his penis and leaned up against the tiled wall, and clenched as he stroked, he rubbed his starter belly, and images of his stomach being huge and flabby flashed in his head and soon his climax, his load excreted from his tip like tube of frosting, as it washed down the drain*

Keith: well still got some cardio in…*he said catching his breath*

*though he enjoyed his musk he still washed up since the feeling of sweat was bothering him, he dried himself off and got dressed and left the gym, he sat in his car and thought for a moment*

Keith: what am I doing…

*he thought about Gage, thinking back to his words and ideologies*

Keith: *the thoughts swarmed around his head*…god fine! *he grabbed his phone and texted Gage*

*the text reading “can we please talk?”*

Keith: *with some hesitation, he sent it and then put is phone down a put his hands up in the air* its done! now its no longer in my control *he sighed*

*a moment of peace came, but then a ding on his phone played with text back from Gage, reading “of course, can you come over in a bit?*

Keith: *he quickly texted back, saying “yes i’ll make my way over” he drove off and quickly made his way to Gage’s Apartment*

*in Gage’s apartment*

Gage: *he was quickly putting on clothes having had been in just underwear playing video games*

*the door bell ringed*

Gage: shit…*he quickly walked to the door and opened it seeing Keith*

Keith:…hey…

Gage: hey….

Keith: mind if i come in?

Gage: oh yes, yeah…come in

*he let him in*

Gage: *he closed the door behind Keith* sorry pardon the mess, i should have tidied up a bit before

*tons of clothes and food containers littered the area with dishes and trash, Gage lived with the cleanliness of a frat boy, he never minded mess, but knew his messy was quite jarring*

Keith: all good, i kinda dropped in on you *he was used to this mess for Gage*

Gage: even though it hasn’t been that long, it feels like it’s been forever…

Keith: yeah…it does…im…sorry

Gage: dont apologize! i should!

Keith: I was being sensitive!

Gage: I was being insensitive!

Keith: we both kinda messed up…

Gage: yeah…we did…can we put it behind us?

Keith: yes please…this is exhausting, i miss my partner in crime…

Gage: *he chuckled* yeah me too

Keith: hey and even if I’m getting chubby you’re still chubbier!

Gage: *he laughed* yeah you’re right, talking about that…got time to game tonight?

Keith: i was hoping you would ask

Gage: sweet i’ll get us some food delivered

Keith: *he sighed with relief*

[ct-multifandom]

Post-AINI Thoughts

Spoilers for the whole game

First of all I’ll link my collaborative doodle whiteboard again for visibility. Obsessed with everything people have added so far,,, immaculate. If you haven’t been on it yet, go! (I hid a little something on it, too >:))

https://r9.whiteboardfox.com/91979430-1215-3634

I felt this way about game 1, but the English casting and voice direction for these games are always so good? So I looked up who’s in charge, and the director is Courtney Sanford with Robby Daymond as assistant director. I’ve never heard of him so I clicked on his link, and his directing project before AINI was the new Pinocchio movie??? Hit me like a semi truck dude you’re telling me the guy responsible for directing the great VA in AI is the same guy behind “THE WHOLE WORLDUSSY”??? I haven’t seen the movie, so maybe the VA is actually pretty good and that one part is just too easy to meme, but that threw me for a loop.

Saw lmaonade’s Aiba crewmate drawing which is fun because I posted an Aiba crewmate drawing last week, and someone in the notes said Aiba crewmate was the first thing they drew after seeing her… can we make this into one of those fake Mandela effect things like Greeble Simpson? Hive mind. In a parallel world Aiba IS a crewmate and we’re all using our SHIT abilities to see her.

I think it’s funny how Mamoru is a normal, somewhat decent guy who just happens to be employed by the minor villain of the story in both games. Imagine in AI3 there’s a character who seems very innocent and unassuming, but we find out they just employed Mamoru as their bodyguard which makes them instantly suspicious.

Thinking about how Amame dreamed about fighting Komeji for his title as Quiz King. If he’s the king, Amame would be the heir to the “throne” after his death, but she didn’t want it to happen this way. She’d rather have him back and wishes she could’ve become the quiz champion by playing against him until she surpassed him, which she will never have the ability to do. And this is a dream she has six years after his death showing how much she misses him

Also the irony of Uru seeing Amame and thinking that their encounter was fateful because he was entranced by her, and he was half-right since it was fateful, just that the fate was his own death

I started one of NicoB’s let’s play videos and someone commented how Komeji’s head being square could symbolize how he’s incapable of “thinking outside the box” which is why his somnium is so straight forward that it doesn’t have any puzzles or weird dream stuff in it. And how his “comedy” is just stories about what Shoma said because Shoma’s the creative and funny one. That commenter is a genius. I should watch Nico’s whole let’s play and read the comment section because someone always has some crazy analysis and trivia in there.

The canon explanation is apparently just “what’s the most fucked up character design I can make without it being too ridiculous”

I was expecting Ushidera to be the asshole “get out of my way, the adults are talking” detective trope, but turns out he’s just a guy with the snazzy detective aesthetic. The scene where Bibi gives him chocolate to butter him up is pretty cute

Hitomi is the CEO of finding random, injured, sketchy people on the ground and taking them home

I think if you gave Tokiko a copy of Super Mario 64 she’d have that shit wrapped up and 100%ed in under an hour. Any% in 10 min

I headcanon Shoma as being a trans guy. It makes sense with his VA being a trans guy and him not going to high school. Also angst headcanon that Komeji chose Shoma’s new name, as explained in Shoma’s somnium, based on the time he spent with his son growing up and getting to know him.

I love the fashion in the AI universe because it’s fairly diverse among characters’ individual tastes, but it has such a distinct “decades style” vibe from a decade that hasn’t happened yet. Part of it is the Pokémon design influence, but I love how it’s somewhat reminiscent of current fashion yet futuristic in a way that makes you think, yeah, if our world turned into a crazy sci fi future like AI I could see this being the new mode.

Also because it’s cool and trendy to wear huge sweaters and never brush your hair. They’re just like me fr

I saw Uchikoshi’s tweets about the weird, unexplained boss-called-SAT part at Brahman, and he said he’ll explain it if he can have a “third eye”… it seems to me like they’re planning the plot of a third game, but its development won’t be given the OK unless aini does well. I’m mad at myself for not thinking of the “third eye” thing in my AI3 predictions post lol

I hope we see Marco’s humanoid form and/or hear him talk in DLC content. We know his blob form has a finished 3D model that wasn’t used in the game.

I’m curious about a few things (people who have Twitter please send my questions to Uchikoshi. They are of utmost importance)

How do Ryuki and Tama… do what they do? Is it possible in the Virtual Reality mode?

More importantly, where does Tama park? How does she find parking for a stretch limo in the city?

Does Shoma only own one shirt? When we look at Date and Mizuki’s closet, we can see that they have several exact repeats of their usual outfit, but when we look in Shoma’s closet, all we see are some sheets, Roboji, and the large pile of thermite bombs. Has he been wearing the same thing for six years?

[because-she-goes]

aphrodite’s rage

warnings: swearing, nora being angry, drugs (weed), breakup. Enjoy!

author’s note: meet nora! can’t wait for everyone to see more of her :) Also, sorry about the song change, just thought this fit nora and matty’s story and plus george produced it!

“Nora, don’t be ridiculous! We’re good, we’re us. I still love you.”

“But thats the thing Derek, I don’t. You don’t value me, you don’t even let me talk about my job for gods sake! All we do is sit around and talk about you, your needs, your wants. Well, what about what I want hmm? Has that even crossed your mind for a second in our relationship? Have you ever for even a minute not thought about you?” Nora’s voice echoes around the apartment, voice as sweet as ambrosia, but tongue sharp enough to wound the devil. It has been exactly 19 days since she came home from Vegas, from Matty.

Oh Matty. The only person to make her feel seen, heard and understood. The only person to make her feel like a human again. The only person to actually love her.

“This is about him, isn’t it? That guy you met on your trip?” Derek dares, Matty’s name alone enough to strike fear in his veins. Derek doesn’t dare say it.

“So, what the fuck if it is, Derek? So what if I felt special for once? So, what if it somebody made me feel good enough for once? Hmmm answer me when I talk to you!” She spits back at him. A wildfire in her eyes. “Derek, I need you to get this through your thick, dull skull. I don’t love you. I haven’t for awhile.” She thunders.

He stands and looks at her, not a thought behind his eyes. Just a big, dumb idiot. Why did she even fall for this oaf, she thinks. He couldn’t be more opposite than Matty. Matty, she sighs again. Sweet, caring, spontaneous, funny, smart, interesting, fashionable and a menace with the smile of a saint. Nora shivers at the memory of him in that suit the night in vegas, goosebumps flood her skin.

“Matty… if you can even stomach his name… is the greatest person who has ever come into my life, you dick!” Continuing to reign hellfire on her now bumbling boyfriend.

“Oh please, Nora get real! He (Derek still refusing to say his name) just met you like two weeks ago and I have known you since you were 20.” He tries to reason with her, seeing her slip away.

“Hey dipshit, people change! If you think I am still the same young, naive, stoned-out-of-her-mind girl from all those years ago then you are more hopeless than I thought.” Her words like venom. “Derek, may these be the last words I ever have to say to you: we are over.” The final words getting lodged in his psyche. Haunting him.

And with that, she grabs her stuff and walks out of the apartment head held high. She’ll have movers come get her stuff tomorrow and get it to her apartment in Brooklyn.

Stepping out, she inhales the new sense of freedom that surrounds her. Taking out the celebratory joint she kept hidden in her tote bag, she lights up and makes her way towards Walt Whitman park. Puffing on the herb as she struts down the street, she feels reborn. A new, fresh woman. One totally disconnected from her old life, Derek being the final string to it. Derek being the only thing tugging her back in life, towards childish things. He never did understand her now thinking about it. He never got her desire for a career, always telling her she had him to fall back on and not seeing any issue with her being totally dependent on him. He never got her taste in music or her new friends, always suggesting they hang out with people from high school - people who may as well have been taking bets on her downfall and selling tickets to her demise. Her only thought regarding those people, and now Derek was fuck ‘em.

Joint now halfway gone and Nora’s head feeling light and hazy, she gets to the park. Deciding to sit on an empty patch of the lawn and finish her celebration. Digging in her tote bag, finding her phone. Going through her texts she finds one from Matty from two days ago when he got back to the UK. Checking the time, its 7pm in London.

One ring, then two.

“Hey Nor, whats up?” He asks, voice perfectly husky. She relaxes and melts at the pet name.

“Guess who is a free woman, Handsome?” His heart stops. Smile erupting across his face.

“No way, gorgeous. You finally did it?”

“Just got finished, think he is still shell shocked. Now celebrating.”

“As you should. He seemed like a fucking twat anyways.” He remarks.

“I think you’d like to know he couldn’t even say your name. Couldn’t even stomach me saying it.” She tells him, he smirks on the other end of the phone.

“Can’t believe you even liked him, honey. Sounds like a total wanker.”

“Trust me, he is. Anyways, I don’t have much tying to me to New York now and I’m sure I can find a place in London to work out of. Was gonna take a flight there next week and shack up in a hotel-“

“Or, you could stay with me. Save the money plus you could wake and bake with me.” He offers, smiling at the idea of waking up with her every day, of playing house.

“You got yourself a deal, Healy. But, no funny business mister! I’m single, I wanna have fun for a bit.”

“Oh trust me darling, you haven’t known fun until you’ve been in London at night.” He reassures, mouth salivating over the thought of her in a club dress and running around with him at night. Fuck, he is a goner.

The next day, Nora books a one-way flight to London and starts shopping, trying to pick things she deems as being especially tantalizing, deciding she is gonna torture Matty for however long she is there. A mischievous giggle leaves her throat, oh this is gonna be fun.

— 1 week later —

The double decker plane touches down in Heathrow airport. It is late and Nora slept terribly on the flight. Texting Matty that she landed safely and giving him the arrival information, she stands up to grab her overhead bag. Her hoodie comforting her and baggy sweatpants pool at her ankles. She pulls her headphones around her neck as she walks in the direction of checked luggage and grabbing her suitcases. Next is customs, thanking the lord she didn’t pack any weed betting on Matty having a full stock at his house. The customs officer asks her if she’s staying for business or pleasure and she responds by pausing and then decidedly saying pleasure and adding that she got a visitor’s visa approved by the UK embassy in New York last week. He nods sternly and confirms that yes, she did. Stamping the US passport and sending her on her way to the pickup location.

In the crowd of families reuniting, soldiers rushing to their partners, siblings hugging and lovers kissing she spots a card.

“Thee Ms. Nora Downey.”

The man behind the sign looks positively drool worthy. First off, he has stubble that dances across his defined jaw accentuating his features. Secondly, he’s wearing an old Yankees hat low hiding his eyes from anyone who may recognize them and as a way to tease Nora, fully knowing she prefers the Mets. Third, he’s wearing a tight crisp white shirt letting his iconic tattoos creep out from the hems and sleeves hugging his defined biceps. Finally, she sees a pair of baby blue adidas track pants hang low from his waist with a pair of battered gazelles. If she could jump him, she would. She composes herself, trying to get her voice to be even when she greets him.

From his view, she could not look any cuter. Hoodie tied at the neck, brunette hair creeping out from underneath and black headphones cover her neck. He makes a note to himself to litter it with hickeys at some point during her trip. Her grey sweatpants adorably too long for her frame and black sambas barely visible. She softly smiles at him as the escalator descends, her nerves increasing at he grows closer. He reciprocates.

Finally being within arms reach of her, he pulls her to his chest. Wrapping his arms around her and breathing in her perfume - coffee and vanilla with a little smoke - he hums. Content to have his favorite girl in his town and getting to be her personal tour guide for however long he is lucky enough to have her. He already scheduled for them to go on a guided tour of the Tate Modern tomorrow night and grab some dinner. The guys were gonna meet her in a couple days - Adam being the most eager since he was a fan of her work.

Her head is tucked into his shoulder, smiling ear to ear as she feels his shoulder relax under her arms. She breathes calmly - smelling the lavender and mint cologne she has come to love. She marvels at the fact that she was ready to go to bed just 45 minutes ago when she landed, but now feeling wide awake in his presence.

“Hi, honey. Missed you, can’t wait to show you just how…fun… I can be.” He smirks, ready to be just the most enchanting version of himself.

“Oh, you’re on, Handsome. I was born to be…fun.” She teases, mirroring his smirk.

She feels him shudder. Oh she’s got this in the bag.

[house-of-slayterr]

Rant From An Autistic Person:

TLDR: Stop using mental illness as an excuse for your Villains

I think I’m starting to realise that a lot of Slashers have a lot in common with Autistic people. But I’m not sure how we’re supposed to feel about this. Obviously we all in this community, adore our Slashers, but that’s because we all understand they are fake. They have now real bearings in our world, and therefore cannot hurt anymore. No real people suffer as their victims.

But shouldn’t we take offence to this? Because most of the time it’s neurotypical people writing these stories and directing/working/staring in these films.

Like let’s talk about some non horror aut sic characters first. And do correct if I’m wrong, but I believe both of these characters are Canonically autistic.

The most well known would be Sheldon form the Big Bang Theory. Everyone quotes him as autistic representation all the time. Now of course he’s only one demonstration of the neurotype, but at the end of the day it’s still representation. From the autistic community, I hear complaints that’s he’s just a basic Cis/het white man with “high functioning” autism. (Although we do not use functioning labels, or the term Asperger’s anymore, that was at the time what he was stated to have) And from the neurotypical side people still call him odd, but they are more excepting of his traits because they aren’t as “burdensome” on society. He’s just seen a “quirky”.

Another example that falls under the same quailfiers would be Shaun from The Good Doctor. Again, played by a neurotypical person, not someone who actually has autism. And people infantilise his character whenever he’s showing that he need higher support efforts. But then everyone praises him because “wow, I didn’t know autistic people could be doctors” which is incredibly insulting. But most people accept him because again, he’s just “a little quirky”

But back to the slasher community. There are people out there that think we are disgusting because we enjoy slashers/gore/horror. Because they are unable to separate reality, from fiction, or at least not as severely as we do.

I vividly remember getting bullies in school and someone saying “(Dead name’s) gonna be the school shooter, just you wait” because I did not hide my love for the horror genre. And I don’t see why I should have to. But that statement, it killed me inside. Do you know how awful it is to have to try and defend yourself from a statement that heavy? It was like the weight of the entire universe was thrown on my shoulders, and I was just expected to take it as a “joke”.

But this girl genuinely thought that because at the time I was Interested in learning about the Lizzie Borden case, that that meant I wanted to hurt people. I was also dressing fairly alternative at this time. I made its know that I wanted to be a mortician. (I still do, I’m just figuring all that stuff out though cause jobs are hard, lol) I sometimes have what neurotypical people would consider an “inappropriate” reaction to death, or dead things. I enjoy collecting bones, and learning about cannibalism, autopsies, taxidermy, entomology… So I get excited when I get to participate in my special interests.

But this makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and I’m tired of them making that my problem. Having a fascination with the dead, doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to become a killer. I have so much respect for dead things, I ask the Earth before I pick it’s flowers, or use any of its resources. Because as a Witch, that is a part of my specific path and spirituality. But again, that does not help my case because a lot of people think witches like me are satanists who want to sacrifice babies and goats or some shit.

Some people may just say these are harmless jokes, or overexaggerations, and that nobody really means it when they say these things. But you don’t get to make that call. The person saying the offensive things doesn’t get to decide if it’s offensive or not. That’s like saying a white person gets to decide if black face is racist or not. These jokes propitiate harmful stereo types, and can be passed on to people who don’t know any better. And you can’t say that all autistic people won’t understand, because even if one of us isn’t “smart” enough to understand your words directly, it’s still effects us at the end of the day.

Over and over again we are othered and forgotten about. We’ve been plagued by the curse of being forced to exist in a world that was built for us. We’re made to feel unsafe, and risk our own health to make everyone else feel “comfortable” with our existence. I mean even the diagnostic criteria isn’t an accurate depiction of what autism acatully is. Instead of defining us by what we can do, and experience and change in the world, we’re defined by how much of a nuisance we’re are perceived to be on society.

Instead of saying stuff like “Autistic people have an amazing capacity for learning and retaining information about subjects they are passionate about.” It’s always “Autistic people can’t hold conversations and obsess of silly things. They don’t know how to shut up about it, and it annoys me. Therefore they are being rude.”

So I bring us back around to our beloved Slashers. Do you guys realise how many of them are non verbal? I mean there’s Jason Voorhees, Micheal Myers, Bubba Sawyer, Thomas Hewitt…. That’s a trait that’s commonly seen as a bad thing to neurotypical people. Parents will cry about how their children “can’t communicate” with them, but they never stop to observe their child’s different ways of nonverbal communication. They assume just because they can’t talk or articulate themselves, they must be “stupid” or “slow” or “low functioning”, but that’s simply not true. A mute neurotypical person can’t talk, but they’re still smart. Their lives are still worth living and celebrating. But Autistic people aren’t afforded the same luxury, simply because nobody wants to put in the effort.

It doesn’t help that people often turn to Autism Speaks for all their neurodiverse questions. When that company literately spreads lies and misinformation. And tortures innocent children, simply because they are express themselves differently. ABA therapy is literally just forcing autistic people to fit into a allistic mould. It’s dangerous and harmful, an frankly disgusting.

Do you know how many parents I see how do nothing but complain about their children? Parents who genuinely believe they would be better off if they killed their children. Parents who’ve actually gone through with it, and some of which never get charged because “oh they were under a lot of stress, it was understandable.” I’m tired of society treating all disbaled people like we don’t matter. Like we’re nothing more than a sob story to get them sympathy points. I hate seeing parents film their children in their most vulnerable moments while they are having a meltdown for “educational” purpose. Especially if their child is unable to consent, it’s vile, and inexcusable.

There so many of us who try to help and educate, yet no one will actually listen to the marginalised groups about how to help us. The same way some white people will only care about racism, if another white person is calling them out on it. If a black personality dared to do that they are “rude” and “argumentative”. Or the way people are saying “Hellen Keller can’t be real; how could she communicate, I don’t believe it.” As if there aren’t thousands of Deaf/Blind people who exist to their day telling you how hurtful that sentiment is.

Do you guys know the first thing a person with a disability or chronic illness hears when they talk about their struggles? It’s always “you’re so brave” or “If I were you, I would kill myself.” Because we will always be viewed as a problem. We’ll never be defined by more than our “worst” traits. We ask people to call us “disable person” and they say “person with a disability” or “Differently abled” or autistic person” and they say “person with autism” because they literally have to remind themselves that we are also people. I can’t take off my disabilities, I can’t shove them in a little box for safe keeping. They are part of who I am, they are the building blocks designing how I have to live my life. My foundation may be a little unsteady, but that doesn’t mean you have to tear down my house right away. Let it’s fall on its own time, it doesn’t matter if it happens a little sooner then the rest of the houses on the block.

Autistic people are often quotes to have “no empathy” when really we just have a difference in empathy. Having more empathy doesn’t make you better than someone else. And having low empathy doesn’t make you a bad person. So it hurts my heart that in the media we consume, neurodivergent people often end up relating to the villain. Of course, most villains are also queer coded, but I’ll save that lecture for another time.

People seem to think when they hear the sentence “I relate to Micheal Myers” that I’m talking about finding joy in killing or hurting people. But they never stop to ask what I mean by that. They never sit and think “oh, maybe they relate to being mentally ill, and forced into getting help against their will, and not being understood.”

You guys do know we’re are supposed to be routing for Samuel Loomis in that movie right? He’s supposed to be the hero, the good guy, the man who stops the boogeyman. But we don’t, because we see that he’s also a horribly flawed human being. He treats his patients like shit, and some of his tactics are borderline criminal. He’s not better than Micheal, but he’s not the one with a “scary” mental illness.

Take Carrie white for instance. I think she is honestly one of the better examples of a Slasher who exhibits autistic traits. She takes things literally, has difficulty socialising and making friends. She doesn’t understand when she’s being bullied at first. Her own mother babies her, until she stops listening and being obedient. And what does her mother do? Try to fucking murder her own child because she’s “unruly” and “need to be punished.” Sure it’s an extreme example, but this happens to far more autistic people in real life than you’d think. Carrie was fine, until she was pushed yo the edge. She could have lived her whole life, happy and exploring her powers. Maybe even been a hero instead, but she wanted adored that luxury. Sue is the only one that really understood her, which is why she was spared. And she’s the only one who will ever know what a gem Carrie was before she was made to be a monster.

Norman Bates is also a really good example of an autistic person I think. Of course the more obvious diagnosis everyone focuses on is the Dissociative Identity Disorder (formally knows as Multiple Personality Disorder) (also how weird is it that there are two Freddie Highmore characters on this list, I think I could probably fit more in if I search other genres) But if you watched the show, instead of just the original movie, you get to see a lot more of his personality. You actually get to understand Norman as a person, before seeing him as the antagonist. He too has awkward speech, he gets upset by change, he doesn’t understand when someone is flirting with him. He feels his emotions very instantly, and does have violent outbursts during his meltdowns. But do they show us this to humanise him? No, they added it to his character because it’s entraining to watch mentally I’ll people get pushed to their limits. We are a spectacle to behold.

Dr Herbert West form the Reanimator series! Another genius level autistic intellect! He has a special interest in science and dead things. They could have made him a character who found the cure to cancer or HIV. But no, it was more entailing to make him a wanna be Frankenstein’s, and cross moral boundaries for his own gain. And if you asked anyone why he did it it’s “because he’s crazy” not “because he wanted to” They almost always blame the mental illness, not the person who has the illness.

It’s the reason Aaron Stampler gets away with his crimes in Primal Fear. He faked a mental illness so he would get put in a mental facility instead of rotting in jail. Instead of being “Aaron Stampler, the killer.” He’s “Aaron Stampler, the killer with multiple personalities!” Or Split, the movie that just antagonises DID for no reason whatsoever. There’s clearly a supernatural element in that movie with “The Beast” so why not make it’s a movie about possessions? I would have loved to watch a story where The Beast posses poor little Kevin’s body, and makes him do horrible things. But no, instead we stick with the trope that all people with DID are unpredictable and dangerous. And that they all have an “Evil alter”

I’ll never be ashamed of my love for the horror community again. Because I know my place, I know my moral standing, and I have done nothing wrong. If people want to assume my special interests or jobs or hobbies make me a bad person, then that’s their problem. I cannot force anyone to open up their ears and listen to me, but I also won’t stand idly by and watch as people who don’t know what they’re talking about, do harm to my communities. These are my people, and I love them, and will defend them with my last breath. We need to destigmatise mental illness, because too many people die each year because they are made to feel like villain, or like their lives aren’t worth living. And that’s not ok with me.

[maybankhollandparkerblogs]

Why can’t it just be us-part 2

You get to kie’s house. You go up to kie’s room and start to get to know each other.

“Age?” you ask

“13.”

“Same!”

“Favorite color?” Kie asked

“Any pastel color. What about you?” You say.

“mine would probably have to be orange.”

“Nice, favorite movie”

“You know mine would probably have to be high school musical.”

“Dude me too.”

## Couple Day Later.

Me, John b, and Jj we’re all getting ready for my funeral. I asked them not to come but them being them they refused. They wouldn’t let me go alone.

“ hey you ok?” Jj asked me as he bumped his shoulder into mine.

“Ya I just kinda wish I got to say good bye, you know?”

“Ya I get it. And don’t be afraid to cry, ok.”

He said

“Y/l/n’s don’t cry. Besides crying won’t make her come back.”

After that we went to the movies to get stuff of my mined, there we met pope one of are new friends.

***************************************************

## 2020

## Y/n-16

## Jj-16

## John b-16 1/2

## Kie- 16

## Pope-16

It’s now summer and you now live with John b and sometimes go to your dads house but you tend to avoid the place. You had to move out of kie’s because her parents hated you to be honest. They didn’t even like her hanging around with y’all.

You and John b were together running away from this guy that John b pissed off and you just happened to be there.

“John b why the fuck are we running!” You shout as you turn around a corner. “Well funny story, I owe this guy some money and…” “You don’t have it!?” You yell.

“Exactly…” he said

“Shit John b! Ok just go into the chateau. Now!” You yelled as you took a stop

“Y/n what the hell are you-“

“Just go I’ll meet you there in a minute.”

The man caught up with you. He was getting ready to yell but you stop that.

“Please, just let us of the hook. Pretty please.” You said as you gave the look that always gave you what you wanted…well most of the time.

“Fine, but this is the last time. Besides you so fucking gorgeous!” The man said as you turned to walk to the house.

You got into the house and walk into the living room.

“There’s my favorite!!” Jj yelled as you entered the room and grabbed a beer from kie.

“That’s me! By the way John b, you don’t have to pay anymore.” You said as you sat down on the floor next to Jj. “What why? I mean I’m not complaining but, why not.”

John b asked. “I bet she used that face that get her anything.” Pope assumed

“Right I did my good sir. It works with everything.” You chuckle “Who want to go surfing?”

“I’ll go.” Kie said as she stood up

“Same here.” John b spoke as he put his hand up.

We all looked at Jj and pope.

“Well you know I’m going!” Jj shouted as if we should know that already, we just chuckled as we looked at pope.

“Pope come on don’t be the only one not coming.” Kie said as she walk over to pope and pulled him up.

“Fine I’ll go.” He said

“I’m gonna go change.” You say as you walk to the back bedroom.

Jj watch you as you walked down the hall

“Dude, your staring again.” Pope said as he knock jj up said the head.

“What? Am not.” He said back defensively

“Ya, totally.” John b said as he rolled his eyes.

************************************************

Y’all got down to the beach with your boards, as you and kie start to surf you feel like someone’s watching you.

As you and kie sit on your boards and watch the boys surf you ask…

“Hey kie, can you see if anyone is watch us?” You ask not really wanting to look

“Ya ofc sis.” She looks around “shit”

“Who is it?” You ask turning around

“Rafe, Rafe Cameron.”

“Oh great, are ex best friends brother.” You say talking about Sarah.

He was always weird around you, making not so funny jokes. Like the ones that made you uncomfortable, or telling you that you were the reason you mom died. That she killed her self just to get away from you.

You always ignored it because, well you were used to it. It did kinda hurt though. But what hurt most of all what when he made those stupid sexual comments.

“They y’all surfing anymore?” Jj asked as he swam to y’all.

“Um, I don’t know about Kie but I’m gonna go home. You say, you swam away right as you said it.

“What’s up with her?” He asked kie

“Rafe.” Was all she said, then she swam trying to catch up with you.

Jj felt anger, he knew what Rafe did to you. You always told him with out a single tear in you eyes, but then again that little motto you tell yourself “Y/l/n don’t cry.”

You and kie didn’t say anything why you were walking to the chateau. But you did ask yourself, why was Rafe Cameron the king of the kooks (as your called him) in the Cut?

************************************************

When everyone came home you went into the kitchen to make dinner for everyone, you made your famous y/n burgers. Everyone loved them and you didn’t really know why in your opinion it was just like a McDonald’s burger.

“You know I love when you make those burgers of yours, their they best!” Jj said as he walked into the kitchen when you were making the meat into patties.

All you could do was laugh at his comment

“Can you get me the pepper from the cabinet above the oven?” You ask

“Ya sure.” “Here you go.” He said

When he gave it to you, your hands brushed. It wasn’t like you haven’t hugged or held hands but this was different.

After a while the food was done. Y’all ate outside in the back while you set up an old white sheet and a projector to watch a movie. You and kie wanted to watch

A romantic it movie just because of the male lead who you both thought was hot. But the boys on the other hand wanted to watch an action movie (which had no hot guys in it) but you all decided to watch both. You and kie got your movie first.

“Omg he’s so hot!” Kie yelled

“He could run me over with the fucking and I wouldn’t even be mad at him.” You said as your eyes were glued to the screen.

The boys just rolled their eyes as the sound.

Jj wouldn’t lie he was kinda jealous of the man. But it was a movie it’s fine right. He never thought would be jealous of a guy his best friend, y/n was drooling over.

*It’s not like she sees you as anything but a brother.* jj though

Then it was the action movie, you and kie were talking The whole time about how it didn’t make sense and how y’all’s movie was much better than this one.

“Omg would y’all shut up!” John b yelled

“Jesus, someone’s grumpy. I’m gonna get move beer, y’all want any. You ask while standing up.

“ya sure I’ll take one.” Jj said

“I’ll come with you.” Kie said as standing up as well

You and kie walked inside.

“Hey kie can I ask you something?” You asked while getting beers out of the fridge

“Ya ofc.” She respond

“Well it’s about…. Well I think I’m falling for my best friend.” You said not really knowing how to put it.

“Wait really! who?” She asked

“Well it’s jay” you said quietly

“Omg you have to tell him!” She yelled

“Shhhh. And I don’t think I will I’m not good enough for him, and he probably doesn’t like me.” You say sadly

“What’s taking y’all so long?” you heard John b ask

“Sorry, we’ll be right out in a minute!” Kie responded

“Listen y/n he likes you. I can see the way he looks at you, just tell him ok.” She finished

“Ok I might but-“ you got cut off

“No buts.” Then she walked off with 2 beers in her hand and at that you followed

The movie finally ended and y’all were packing everything thing up.

“So did you like it?” Pope asked you and kie

“Well on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the worst.I would give it a 3.” You said as you tried to fold up the sheet

“What, that was good quality action!” Jj said as he made his way to you to try to help with the sheet. But y’all both know that he wasn’t much help either.

“Good everything’s done. Y’all wanna stay the night?” John me asked

“Ya man” “Sure” “Yep”

“Sorry I have to go home.” You noted

“Y/n I don’t want you going home right now.” Jj said

“Jay I don’t want to either but if I don’t, you know what will happen next time.”

“Ya I know. Be safe and text me if you want me to pick you up?”

“Of course.” You said with a smile

You said your goodbyes and you walked home. Your house wasn’t very far from John bs so it was fine. You got to the door and opened it. You weren’t gonna lie you wish you would have stayed with Jj.

“Where the hell have you been!” Your dad screamed as he threw a beer bottle at you

“Ow! Sorry dad I’m just gonna go to my room a sleep ok?” You say with your voice shaking.

“No! No your not!” Your dad yelled as he kicked you to the ground

“Dad stop!”

“You don’t tell me what to do!” He yelled as he punch and kicked.

Finally what felt like forever he passed out on the couch. You went into the bathroom to get cleaned up. You saw cuts from the beer bottle that was thrown on your face and a bunch of bruises.

[roamingbadger]

‘Normal People’s Frank Blake on an actor’s life’ by Liadan Hynes

Full article below the cut (warning, it is long!):

‘I used to worry on set, ‘I’ve just done another mean thing’,” Frank Blake says with a rueful smile. We’re discussing what’s probably his most high-profile role to date, playing Alan in director Lenny Abrahamson’s TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, a show that went a long way towards getting many of us through lockdown one.

“There’s a bit where I throw water on Marianne. I just felt awful that day,” he says with a laugh. “You know, because I’ll throw water on her, and Lenny’s not going to go, ‘Good man’. They called cut, I stand in the bold corner for a while, Daisy [Edgar-Jones] gets dried off for the next take, where the same thing happens again.”

Alan is central character Marianne’s older brother, a man lost in his own stew of anger and resentment; a threatening character in both the book and screen versions of Normal People. In the past, Blake has commented on how it is necessary to find a way into a dark character, to find some sympathy. Otherwise, you’re just playing a tone, he says.

“You just have to find what makes a person human,” he says now. “Lenny was a great help there in doing the groundwork. Alan’s feeling a bit hard done by in life. He’s obviously got a bit of jealousy going on there — a bit of trauma from the loss of their dad, which is a tough thing to deal with.

“I think it’s symptomatic of a certain rural repression, that character. And a male rural repression, maybe, when we see, unfortunately, that so many young men don’t ask for help, and they go a certain way. I think it’s a nice contrast to Connell in that show, where actually he does go looking for help in what’s such an amazing scene — his therapy scene. So I think, yeah, that’s an interesting juxtaposition in the show.

“If someone just asked him, you might get something out of him, but no one does and everyone’s afraid to. That’s the energy he gives off. So, he’s probably unlikely to get help.”

It’s hard, he agrees, to portray that kind of darkness without descending into pantomime. “Particularly when that show was very much about Connell and Marianne, so you have to be comfortable in the fact that you’re there to serve the story. You have to be there to serve this part of the story, so I don’t have to be liked or whatever.”

Throwing water aside, they had the best craic on set, he says. “I used to always be jealous of the other cast members. I’d get pictures of them shooting a pool party, or all the cool, hot Trinity stuff. It was actually great craic with Aislín [McGuckin], who played our mum, and Daisy. We’d such a laugh in between scenes.”

Blake had come from performing in Louise O’Neill’s Asking For It at the Abbey Theatre before the Normal People auditions began, along with some other actors, including Paul Mescal who later appeared in the show.

“I think it was one of the last weeks of Asking For It that we were all auditioning for it, so it was quite funny actually. Not only were there actors from Asking For It, but there were plenty of other actors in the [Abbey] building, and you could just see people walking around with copies of Normal People,” he grins. “‘Ehhh, why are you reading that?’”

When he found out, months later, that he had landed the part, he was performing in another landmark Dublin theatre, The Gate. His agent let him know on the opening night of Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie that he had been successful.

Blake, now 28, didn’t grow up knowing he wanted to be an actor, but at the same time, he had always been interested in theatre and movies. He hails from Tuamgraney, Co Clare, and is the youngest of three. “I think there was a latent actor in me there, but it was never something I did as a child or anything.”

His family ran an equestrian centre. He and his siblings would muck out the stables before school and get stuck in afterwards. “It gave you a good work ethic, anyway. It gave me a good maturity, in that way. And I saw so much of the country through travelling around to horse shows and stuff. It was a really interesting environment to grow up in.

“I wanted to do that as well, for a long time,” he continues of the world of horses. “It’s kind of a world I liked. I don’t know, I just kind of lost interest in it as I got older. People are always, ‘Oh that’s so amazing’. But I think when you grow up in that kind of environment, it’s almost like a bit of a chore.”

In his younger years, he didn’t know anyone who had made a career out of acting. “There were no stage schools around me. Now, there’s loads of things there, thankfully, for other people. And I think drama is about to become a subject in secondary school as well. If only!”

Dramatic outlets may have been limited, but from the age of four Blake had attended the annual amateur drama festival circuit each year — the plays were staged in the school hall. “My neighbour used to bring me. Every single night, there’d be different drama group doing a classical play. I’d seen every John B Keane play, Conor McPherson — I’d seen all of that stuff by the time I was 12.”

Eventually, aged 17, Blake performed in the community musical. “I was in the ensemble of Jesus Christ Superstar,” he laughs, adopting grand tones. “It wasn’t a school thing, it was the whole community. They used to let some schoolkids be part of the ensemble, so myself and a few of the lads just said, ‘Sure f**k it, we’ll throw ourselves in here.’ We were pretending that, ‘ah, this is just a bit of a laugh’, but I was secretly absolutely loving it. Nailing Jesus to the cross — that was my big role!” He grins at the memory.

Previously, he had planned to study psychology in university, but this experience pushed him to look into acting as a career. “It’s a bit of leap to be making,” he chuckles. “That sorted of turned my head a bit.”

He did an arts degree in NUI Galway, studying drama along with German and philosophy. It rapidly became clear though where his true interests lay. “I did eight plays in Dramsoc that year, and I think it quickly became apparent that that’s what I was into. I was still kind of in denial a bit — ‘Oh, that’s for the people over there’.”

Who are the people over there, I wonder? He’s not sure, he says, then jokes: “People in Dublin.” He adds: “The biggest obstacle is probably yourself, really, for a long time.”

Towards the end of that first year, Blake applied for a place in The Lir Academy, Ireland’s National Academy of Dramatic Art at Trinity College, without telling anyone. “In secret. Because I still didn’t know what I was at. You did three auditions over three months. I was skipping lectures, saying I was going to the doctor — stuff like that. And then I got in there.”

That felt amazing, he recalls, although he quickly realised he would have to tell his mother, and braced himself. “I remember getting ready to ring my mum, and be like, ‘I’m dropping out of college,’” he adopts, at this point, a sort of urgent, I won’t be dissuaded, tone. “‘I’m going to be a dropout.’ And expecting this big blowout, and being like, ‘Well I’m going anyway’.”

When he did ring, his mother was nothing but supportive and very proud. “I didn’t get to do any of the big arguments I’d practised,” he laughs.

Drama school was a somewhat different pace from an arts degree. But he relished it. “A lot is asked of you. But it pushed you so much outside of yourself that I loved it.” He particularly enjoyed the intensity of the schedule. “Looking back, you spend so much time waiting around as an actor, even if you’re busy, you’re still doing nothing. And to think that you got to go in there and you got to do something from morning until night, every day, that you loved. It’s just the best.”

Ending drama school can be a time of pressure — not everyone gets an agent. Blake did, however. “And then… you think you’re going to be a rock star,” he says with another laugh. “For most people, 99pc of people, you realise, ah, things are a bit different when you finish. You realise how hard it is. You’re just auditioning and getting no’s. Not even getting the no’s — not hearing back at all. It was just that for ages.”

He worked as a doorman in a hotel in Ballsbridge. He never considered giving up on acting, but he did begin to doubt himself. “And [I’d start to] think, ‘This isn’t what I thought it would be’. I did worry and think maybe it wasn’t for me for a while.”

Eventually, things began to pick up. “I started to realise then it’s about building a career, and it’s building blocks. Like, some people come out and they’re movie stars after a week. But I kind of realised you just chip away, doing small bits in theatre, and doing small bits on telly, or whatever is coming along. You eventually build up relationships. And after a couple of years, I could see that starting to pay off.”

Resilience is key for actors, he agrees. And the knowledge that this is a long-haul game. “Everyone finds it hard. You talk to people who you think are doing amazing, and the goalposts always move. And it’s always hard. You have to find the comfort in that.”

That said, it can be difficult. “It’s something I still find really, really challenging. Because you’ll always go through bouts of not working. Or things just being a bit different to how they were before, or how they will be. You just have to find the ease in that.”

He dislikes the nature of having to wait for someone else to give you a yes that comes with acting. “But it’s the reality of it. I’ve tried writing and stuff, as a way of taking back a bit of control, myself. I found great joy in that.”

He wrote a short film a few years ago based on Donal Ryan’s short story The Passion. “It was one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done, because there was so much control in that. Being part of every aspect of a production, not just being told what to do. It was great, I loved it.”

It also demystified parts of the process, he reflects. “You think that’s for the people over there, and then you just do it, and you go, ‘Oh, right, I just had to do it’. So, I’ve gotten more into that now. I’ve written a few screenplays that are in development.”

Since Normal People, he has appeared in PBS costume drama Sanditon. He moved to London last year, having wanted to for years. “I love it. But I’m doing that classic thing of moving over to London and hanging out with a load of Irish people.”

He also appreciates that many of his friends are not in acting. It is good to have people who are not in his professional world. “When things aren’t going well, the last thing you should be doing is talking about all of the acting ever, when you could go out and kick a ball against the wall.”

For now, though, things are going well. Already this year, Blake has worked on film and in theatre. He is currently between jobs. “I’m doing that waiting thing,” he says, smiling. “I did a few bits this year. I’m just waiting for the next thing. There are a few things floating around.”