#the amount of hours i've pulled into this bc i wanted details is way too much

[bratniadusza]

Briefly coming back from the dead to share this beast of a project I’ve been working on as an illustration assignment, incredibly proud of it, probably best thing I’ll ever do in life, enjoy!

Part of an illustration assignment we've had - an infographic with an abstract anatomy of an object. Did a bit of messing around and came up with a cross-section of a human body with a haunted house inside (the rooms represent different phobias connected with the parts of the body they're in)

+ little close-ups, as it’s poster sized and kinda big :DD

[apomaro-mellow]

idk how detailed of a prompt ur looking for but: Eddie thinks Steve's chest hair is hot for the bingo

im thinking of them going to the lake or something and Steve takes off his shirt and Eds nearly has a heatt attack bc yeah he'd seen Steve's chest before but he kinda repressed it? along with the whole upside down deal so he's like choking at the sight and at the newly found memory lol

but anything you come up with will be amazing im sure <3

every time i get a prompt i rub my lil raccoon hands together ehehehe

They weren't going to Lover's Lake. That had been the one thing everyone agreed on at first. Too much to unpack but it went without saying that no one wanted to relive the memory of what had happened in those waters. They all packed up and went about three hours away to a totally different town with a totally different lake.

"Summer time, a bunch of teens, a town where no one knows us", Eddie commented as they parked. "Did we just drive into another horror movie set up?"

"I think we can handle some random killer in the woods", Jonathan said.

Eddie couldn't argue. He knew for a fact that Steve had packed away his oh so trusty nail bat and that Nancy was strapped too. At a moment's notice, Robin looked ready to turn a beer into a makeshift molotov. But that was the last thought he wasted on the spring break from hell. Because the moment everything was set up, Steve pulled his shirt off like he was in a goddamn cologne ad.

That unnecessarily sexy way where he grabbed it off his back and pulled it of, shaking out his hair as if it would dare to fall out of place.

So here's the thing.

Eddie saw Steve shirtless that one time back in Hawkins. But it had been dark, and they were on a boat hunting an evil wizard and then in an underworld running from demon bats and there had been a lot going on, okay? He's ogled Steve plenty since then, now that he had time to, but he hadn't had an opportunity to see his naked chest again.

"Put on sunscreen!", Robin shouted, tossing it at Steve's head.

"Ow! Rude!" Steve picked it up and obeyed anyway, starting at his arms. Time seemed to slow. Or maybe Steve was purposely going slow, it was hard to tell. Then his eyes met Eddie and his next stroke up towards his neck seemed very intentional.

Eddie swallowed.

"Mind getting my back?", Steve asked.

Eddie didn't trust his mouth for once, so he just nodded, taking the tube of sunscreen and was definitely not thinking about squirting another kind of creamy white substance onto this beautifully dotted back. He tried to distract himself by looking at what the others were doing. Jonathan had already lit up a joint that he was now passing to Nancy. Robin was laid out in a chair, nose in a book.

Argyle was leading the kids down the shore to where they could rent out canoes. Or was it kayaks? All Eddie knew was that El was adamant on some sort of boating adventure.

"You okay back there?", Steve asked.

"Yep, yup, mhm. Almost done." He was done. The sunscreen was completely gone and he was just rubbing circles into his skin for no reason.

"You mind doing my chest too?"

"Wh-hat?", Eddie choked.

"I don't really like the feel of sunscreen on my hands", Steve justified and that was good enough for Eddie.

He still wasn't prepared for when Steve turned around. Eddie sat between his legs and god this might've been the closest they've ever been. Especially with this little amount of clothes between them, both of them in their swimming trunks and nothing else. Eddie squeezed some sunscreen onto his hands first, rubbing them together and warming it before pressing them to Steve's chest.

Goddamn it felt so....would it get thicker as he got older? It went all the way up to his collarbone and there was just a hint of a happy trail now but maybe with some time...

"They do know we're still here, right?", Nancy asked after letting out a puff. True, they were some feet away but still.

"I've got a spray bottle in case they go below the waist", Robin said, shaking said bottle.

Steddie bingo under the cut

[capillaryspice]

Unpopular opinion rant incoming:

I did not enjoy Baldurs Gate 3

Before anything else I will admit I am biased, as strategy turn based games aren't something I'm usually into to begin with. I mostly ended up playing it because my partners and a friend are SUPER into the game and wanted to do a 4 player run. I do have 30 hours on a solo run I tried to get used to the game with, so I have a decent bit of experience with how it's supposed to run as a single player but I'm not judging companion stories or anything because I haven't completed them.

I do understand why people like BG3, and I don't wanna rain on anyone's parade for a very critically acclaimed game, but I do have some thoughts that I just need to get out of my head, so if you like the game and don't wanna hear me complain about it just scroll on ahead. If you do want to hear me complain, I'd love to hear if anyone else has had the same thoughts, because genuinely I've not really had anyone to talk to that hasn't been head-over-heels for it. (Actual thoughts under the cut)

-----------------

With that out of the way, for starters BG3 is a very impressive game. From a technical perspective, from a voice acting quality perspective, the sheer amount of tiny tiny details, etc... it is IMPRESSIVE. Too impressive, I'd almost have to say. Because, despite being impressed by it, I did not have FUN playing the game. For all its details it doesn't draw me in. For all the technical marvel, it's just too janky. It's all of the rules of DND and none of the immersion or fun

I would love to have had a functioning camera position that didn't give me whiplash whenever a new character in the combat of 20+ NPCs decides to do so much as shuffle to the left. It feels like pulling teeth when trying to select/interact with anything, god forbid a reaction happens while you're trying to attack and you just completely lose the action bc the interruption to movement pauses everything and screws u up. I'd love to be able to jump without going through two menu screens and a map to just hop over a gap(I'm never complaining about the Dark Souls jump being too complicated ever again). Also everything moves so slow, I would kill for a fucking Sprint button.

I would have liked anything approaching a streamlined combat system that didn't take a long ass time to set up a move that takes six seconds to play out, and then wait for ten minutes literally doing nothing while the rest of the NPCs in initiative whip the viewpoint around and get it stuck in walls and corpses so I can't even see what's happening while I can't do anything for the rest of the round

A lesser gripe, but just a bizarre choice to not do: Id like to hear the character voice I chose in character creation for cutscenes, instead of just background ambient lines. Like, if the last dragon age game (from 2014 mind you) can have a voiced main character with multiple voice options, this new game that has unique voice lines for every goddamn squirrel on the map and ALREADY PAID VOICE ACTORS TO VOICE THE MAIN CHARACTER TO BEGIN WITH can probably afford to do so. Hell, I'd like some background music that isn't just the tenth rendition of Down By The River in a different key. The bard music is all gorgeous, why couldn't they have reused some of those compositions as ambient music for different locations?

This is a MASSIVE game, and what they've put into it is definitely admirable, but like. Not in the ways that make a game breathable or immersive? The choices in where they've decided to dedicate the anal level of detail seems misguided from a just general player standpoint; There's some gorgeous settings in the game, but I was distracted every time by getting frustrated that I couldn't even get a more-than-vague look at any of the scenery I actually enjoyed because the camera is so limited in its angles. So I can't take a good look around what should be a beautiful temple that I'd love to see closer, but I can individually inspect every moldy apple and tax form on a random dinner table instead. It's a vast open world, but the character models have very clearly defined paths they have to stay within. The amount of unique NPCs is insane, but the mechanics themselves TREAT them as NPCs(i.e., resurrection rules), and they don't react to PCs unless ur doing Violence or Crimes (even og skyrim had NPCs have comments on if u weren't like wearing clothes, for instance). Every shelf and bag and nook and cranny are searchable, but that gets overwhelming very quickly as you have to choose between taking like an hour of real time to clear a cluttered area and possibly find something important but more likely just end up with a bajillion rotten carrots, or move on but have the anxiety of knowing you've possibly missed something vital. There's a million options you can take at any moment with any object or character, but there's rarely anything indicating what will be vital later for general world stuff. But then with the main plot (the Emperor, Raphael, the crèche) it felt very railroaded in the sense that TECHNICALLY you could try and choose between outcomes, but your choices don't actually matter because you die if you choose The Wrong Option (or end up in effectively death sentence combat) and will end up where they want you to go regardless.

BG3 isn't a game I want to spend time playing; it's not a world I can wander around and appreciate the beauty of and get lost in the soundtrack or the environments. The whole combat system is incredibly frustrating to manage, and just feels like Hurry Up And Wait. I'm not gonna knock the romance parts of the game, I've heard good things and haven't gotten far enough in any of em to have an educated opinion on, so really the only thing the game has to offer in spades OTHER than romance is replayability. Which normally I would say is a good thing, but for how long of a game it is and how non immersive the gameplay and world feel, it really just ends up being a game of fucking around and seeing how many things you can get an alternate dialogue for or create new stats around. Like, this is great for completionist folks who love collecting achievements and making the most busted crunchy math-based builds possible, but Baldurs Gate 3 to me just isn't a game I can sit down and have Fun(TM) relaxing and playing.

It's a game that I feel absolutely missed the forest for the trees.

So anyways, essay complete. I've only slept like 6 hours total in the last three days so a lot of this may or may not even make sense. But on so much sleep deprivation finishing this game and realizing I was just frustrated with it instead of actually feeling accomplished for having finished it, it was the final straw and I just needed to get the thoughts down somewhere

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

[thestarlightsymphony]

Do you by chance have like anything written or something like that for the character traits/personalities of everyone on the BeBop? You just write them all so accurately and I'd love to just study off you and I hope there would some way for you to share your knowledge, if not I completely understand. I've been writing my own fic and honestly it's like baby shit when compared to your accuracy!!

heart eyes motherfucker

You Have No Idea What That Means To Me Holy Shit. I would love to share my knowledge! But also, I will say: Every person’s interpretation of this crew will (and should!) be a little different! Something I identify in them may not be what you see or jive with, so take my words as one interpretation and not Bebop Gospel, as it were ;) 

Um??? Where do I start?? Well.... an easy one is I’ve rewatched Cowboy Bebop about a thousand times at this point and I’ve Taken Notes. Physical movements, identified particular wordings, focused on their actions and reactions to each other. I reference specific scenes a lot in Spike’s nightmares and internal exploration bc I really wanted to draw on the source material and have it be a literal Part of the story. I’d also really recommend looking up Session XX if you haven’t already; a hefty amount of Faye’s growth came from analyzing her sessions, but also seeing where she falls at the End of Cowboy Bebop vs. where she is during Session XX (which is arguably halfway through the show).

Next, and I’m fighting the instinct to be embarrassed by this, but I did a personality analysis using the Enneagram (kinda like the myers briggs but with fewer, more articulate options imo). My roommate’s hella into it and we’ve spent Hours talking about their personalities and lemme just say holy Shit I am convinced of several things:

Spike is an 8 wing 7 (impulsive, control-oriented, deflects, speaks with his actions, passionate, has a hard time being vulnerable especially emotionally, craves autonomy).

Faye is a 7 wing 8 (spontaneous, material, pleasure oriented/ indulgent, avoids negative feelings, self-reliant, craves independence).

They compliment each other. But they also have a high potential of clashing. I don’t use the enneagram as like a “this is the only inspiration for scenes i get” but it HAS helped me when i’ve been like “fuck how WOULD they respond? what makes the most logical sense?”

Bonus: Jet’s a 1 and Ed’s a 3 (i think). Ed’s harder to pin down bc she’s a kid, and I haven’t done as much exploring with them, but I think I’m still pretty good on those lines.

The hardest part of writing Bebop past Real Folk Blues is that the majority of the content we have for them is a lot of the growth happens at the Very End of the series. I’ve struggled with Faye bc most of her life we see on screen is about Running, and Keeping Moving and being so fucking mad that she has no past; when she finally remembers that past, it’s lost its weight, and then when she realizes she has a home, THAT gets broken, too. The last shots we have of Faye, she’s crying, heartbroken and angry and (in my interpretation) hella confused. I’ve struggled with Spike bc in the end, it’s hard to fathom what he’d be like after losing two of the largest reasons for being alive. In those last scenes with Jet and Faye, is he numb? Decisive? Did he already die with Julia, or is he genuinely just going to end it with Vicious and then see where/ if the world turns afterwards?

Who’s to say, either way?

You, the writer. A lot of my stuff has been written on instinct, with a goal in mind. The closer I got to the characters, the further the goal got, bc I realized in order to write the characters, you have to respect them. Which is a weird way to say it, but like.... It’s the best way I can describe it. You have to accept their faults and strengths; stubbornness is cute to play with, but it can also be an incredible source of conflict. Oh sidebar, every single fucking memory of the Bebop is stubborn. Opinion or fact? Yes.

I could go on for days. I definitely should, maybe I’ll make character analysis posts if people are interested, idk ;) 

Most importantly though (and this is gonna be just straight up writing advice): don’t be so hard on yourself. Blah blah blah, you’re your own worst critic, I’m sure you’ve heard that before, but it’s so true. 

Those first fifteen chapters or so, I’ve reread through for details and to get a hold one where I want to go, and I BIG cringe at them. I had no sense of timelines and my heart just wanted them to Get the Damn Together Already, but once I got a better sense of who they were, the rhythm and motion of their push and pull became so much more natural and something I’m more proud of. 

You’ll get better at writing the more you write. I just spent the past two months of my life working on this project, and I’m fucking Excited to keep going. How?? How did this happen??? I just wanted Spike and Faye to make out?!?!

Listen. Listen well. Trust your instincts. If something feels off but you still want to explore an idea, don’t dump the whole chapter, just put it to the side and write again. I’ve written multiple chapters that way: I started writing, it felt off, so I KEPT the chapter, but I reworked the order, or took lines and mashed them in a way that changed the meaning. Writing is a process.

Second, write what you want to write. What you want to read. I’d defo recommend reading a bunch of different fics, see how other writers interpret the characters and such, but don’t let them (or me!) influence solely how you write the crew. Find your own voice in this world. Rewatch Bebop and take directly from the source material if you have to; break it down and ask the question “why did they use that Exact word? Why did they make That choice?” and then answer it in a way that feels honest to You.

Hope any of this helps! (P.S. if you are so inclined, dm the the title of your fic and i’ll try to take a gander!)

[goldenhour-goldenboy]

Hi, I'm obsessed with this movie. I've seen it like 10 times now and none of my friends/family will watch it with me. But I was wondering if you could do a younger benny and his high school sweetheart. Maybe they find eachother again later in life. How they were in high school and how they were before he and Will enrolled Vs how they are now given all the things they have seen and how they are older. I just thought this would be so cool.

My LOVE I am so sorry this took so long but I’ve made it! I actually got a bit carried away by the whole younger Benny thing but I hope that’s alright! The ending is fairly short since I didn’t want to overwrite the whole thing (maybe I’ll do another one where I go into detail a bit more how the service changed him but I have to work through the other requests first and there are some that are asking for the same thing so we’ll see)I had SO much FUN writing this and also broke my own heart bc now I’m sad that there’s no Ben Miller in my life lol OKAY 

also i’m also obsessed with that fcking movie it’s not funny i tell you

High School Sweethearts and Long Life Lovers (young!Benny Miller Headcanons)

When you and Benny first meet it’s like two worlds colliding. It’s not necessarily because you are the opposite side of a coin but more that you’ve never interacted with him and don’t exactly share the same group of friends. While you try to get through High School as fast and as unproblematic as possible, Benny seems to almost celebrate every second of it. He’s not a trouble maker per say but he likes to be seen (and heard) while you try to fly under the radar as much as you can. 

For Benny High School is just a passing point, somewhere he’s stuck until he gets his degree and an environment where the rules are not meant to be broken but defiantly meant to be bent to the maximum. For you he’s just another loud guy that tries his damn hardest to prove to the world of tough and different he is and you’re not at all interested in getting drawn into whatever mess he decided to create this week. He’s not a trouble maker but you think he does mean trouble.

You shoot him down the first time he strolls up to you to ask you to hang out. It’s not because rumor has it that Benny Miller leaves nothing but broken hearts and bruised knuckles behind but because his cocky attitude and constant teasing annoy you, not as much as the stares from jealous girls down the halls do, but still enough to decline. What does spark your first interest is the way he accepts your answer (which really consists of a simple “No”, you not intending to argue with him). Though his gaze is still lingering on you for a second, he backs of fairly fast - faster than most boys you’ve encountered by then and it’s his understanding and the space that he gives you afterwards that you appreciate about him. You don’t like him a whole lot better after that but at least he doesn’t turn out to be a real asshole.

Falling for Benny Miller turned out to be a marathon, not a sprint. Somehow, and you’re still not sure how, he wedged his way into your heart. It’s the little things that seem to come to your attention more often afterwards, how he’s almost always late to the classes you share with him not because he doesn’t care but because he walks everyone else of his group of friends to their classes first. How his face lights up when he’s getting picked up by his brother and you watch them through the windshield, Benny turning up the music and belting out the lyrics to a song where he doesn’t hit every note and his brother just snorts at him. 

His bruised knuckles turn out to don’t come from fighting in the streets and picking fights constantly but from taking boxing classes late after school at a local gym. You find out by accident, your cousin who picks you up from school recognizing his brother William and stopping for a quick chat, mentioning training and Benny being involved. William seems far softer than Benny, though you haven’t talked to Benny any more than his brother. For a second there’s a hint of surprise in Will’s eyes as you introduce yourself and you wonder if it may be recognition as well. As you pull your hand from the short handshake you can’t help the thought that crosses your mind if Ben has talked to his older brother about you, the image sending a soft blush to your cheeks.

A lot of firsts happen in the time you’re with Benny. 

The first time seeing bloody knuckles followed by a first time where you have to patch up said bloody knuckles. This time it’s not from training and it’s takes a bit of questioning until he rasps out that there were those bullies that tried to pick on a kid in his neighborhood. You scoff, telling him that he’ll get in trouble if he goes to School like that the next day and that it’ll only make the rumors worse about him being violent but Benny just shrugs, murmuring that it was worth it and he’d do it over and over again.

The first time you taste the bitterness of beer was on his lips, which happened to be the first time you kissed. You remember how his lips were a bit chapped that night, the music blaring inside the house you’ve been invited to, the smell of cigarettes lingering on the front porch and the railing behind you. You remember Benny’s hands on your waist, at first more hesitant but then your lips parted, a soft sound escaping yours and he gripped your waist harder, pressing his body against you.

You remember the first time you smelled him, face pressed into his shirt as it seems that you just couldn’t stop crying. You felt silly in that moment, balling over the loss of your favorite pet but that bundle of fur grew up with you and though you knew that it’s end would come long before your own it still hits you, hard. Benny was there then, rubbing small circles on your back and holding you steady.

Benny’s seeing a kind of sanctuary in you, something steady in a life that seems to move too fast for him. There are countless nights that he crawls through the window and into your room late at night. Sometimes you’re still sitting at your desk studying, sometimes you’re already lying in bed and the face that suddenly appears in your window scares you to death. 

When his dad gets called for another tour, it’s you Benny turns to. Will calls you first after Benny storms out when he hears the news and it doesn’t take long for the younger Miller brother to show up at your window, cheeks red and breathing furiously. He’s frustrated at first, walking circles into your carpet and cursing his dad and his brother and the army and the whole goddamn world before stopping with his back to you. You can’t see his face but the way his shoulders tense up, hands balled at the side before starting to shake you take a gentle hand to turn him around. The sight of his scrunched up face, tears falling big and heavy to your shirt as his head hangs low nearly breaks your heart and this time it’s you that wraps him in a tight hug and rubs his back.

Normally he leaves after a couple of hours but this time Ben falls asleep in your arms, face pressed into the crook of your neck, exhausted from the fear and the crying while you stroke his head, again and again until his ragged breaths calm down and he stops shaking. There’s really nothing you can say to him that will make it better. After all you’re both just two teenagers, too old to believe in miracles, too grown up to ignore the realistic chance of his father getting injured while being deployed. So you hold him and hope that in the daylight, the fear won’t be as strong.

Benny’s an absolute sweetheart to you in school. It’s not like he was rude before but now he’s taking chivalry to a whole new level. There’s usually an arm around your waist or a hand in your back pocket, stolen kisses between class. Glancing his way he’ll catch your eyes, a sheepish smile on his lips and before you turn your attention back to the board.

You’ve tried studying together for a while but it really doesn’t work that great. It’s either Benny distracting you or your distracting Benny, causing piles of homework to get kicked onto the floor, pencils clattering to the ground as you feel his body pressing you into the soft mattress of your bed, hips grinding against yours as he’s starting to suck with his sweet lips right under your jaw.

Benny accumulates a couple of habits since you’re around. There’s little notes that you randomly find in your backpack or your locker, not everyday but mostly after you had a tough week or a fight. Picking you up and dropping you off becomes a thing as soon as he passes his drivers license and there’s usually a cup of coffee waiting in your cupholder at the passenger side. On your birthday he creates a cd with your favorite kind of songs and it becomes your morning pickup playlist, William having to sit through the same songs over and over again whenever he happens to sit in the car.

Benny learns how to play guitar in those years with you though he swears Will made him do it and he didn’t learn it just for you. He’s can’t play an awful lot of songs, most of the time he can’t concentrate and sit still for the amount of time that it takes to learn a full song and playing the same thing over and over bores him to death very easily. But whenever he feels the need to clear his head, he likes to sit down, guitar in his lap and mindlessly pick at the strings. 

Though he hasn’t played in years the old guitar, that was actually your dad’s old guitar that he didn’t need and gave Benny as a gift, still sits in his childhood room at his parents house. He thought about taking it home but he really sees no point in it since he doesn’t play anymore but at the same time he can’t get himself to give it away either.

You try to go to prom with Benny, you even picked out a nice dress and he got dressed up but the night of the actual prom went a bit different than expected. You even made it to the parking lot but neither of you seemed to wanna get out of the car, instead you kept sitting there and looked at the people lingering around or waiting to get inside. It takes one look at each other and Benny’s pulling out of the lot in seconds.

You end up at a diner that night, with burgers and fries, first alone which you enjoy immensely and later joined by your friends that didn’t seem to enjoy the prom too much, even less without you two being there and Benny raising havoc. Instead of dancing in a very sweaty overcrowded gym Benny gets some change for the old jukebox and you end up dancing in the middle of the diner. And though Benny’s dance moves are a bit questionable at times, he twirls and twists you around that night that you get dizzy, grabbing onto his arms for stability where he takes the chance to steal a kiss from you, leaving your friends hollering and whistling at you two from the background.

Breaking up wasn’t so much a decision as it kinda just happened. Near the end of your High School both of you are met with the question on where to go next in life -  and unfortunately it seems as if fate is working against you. While Benny is set on joining the army with his brother (and this really does not come to your surprise since it has always been his dream) you start to look into Colleges. Both of you are stressed because finals are coming up, the inevitable question on how you should continue your relationship combines with the worries about the future and one fight too many leaves both of you with the feeling that maybe this isn’t meant to last forever.

Maybe if the timing was different, the two of you would’ve had the chance to talk it out one more time but you move away a couple of weeks after Benny gets employed and sent to camp for basis training. It’s your first real heartbreak, for both you and Benny and it certainly weighs heavy on your soul. A breakup is always hard but being this young it defiantly feels like the end of the world and it doesn’t help that you can’t seem to shake the thought of “What if..?”

The next time you see each other happens by accident. You’re back in town for a week to catch up with your family and though Ben has certainly changed you recognize him immediately. His body that just started to gain muscles when you last saw each other now has developed quite well and he’d outgrown his scrawny body but it’s still Benny. His hair is cut short and you catch yourself thinking that it’s even a bit too short for your liking. The sheepishness is still there, though his eyes flicker around the area, and you think to spot a hasty glow behind them, though it’s hard to tell from across the parking lot.

You don’t talk that day, him entering the grocery store and you’re about to pull out the lot, time doesn’t seem to give you a chance. But seeing him stirs something inside of you, the thought of him crossing your mind the following week again and again until you even ask your mother if she heard anything from the Millers, though she doesn’t know too much. Your brain is like a overachieving little helper, serving you memories at the most inconvenient times and it takes a bit for you to store the thought of Benny Miller to the back of your mind again.

It’s been ages now, at least it feels like it, when you stumble into each other, for real this time. You’re in front of a bar, waiting for your friends who want to celebrate your move back to town, though the thought brings nothing but hot shame to your cheeks that you wish to drown in a generous amount of alcohol. It really doesn’t feel like your next step in life but more like you’re taking ten steps back and thinking about moving back in with your parents makes your hairs stand in the back of your neck. 

This time you don’t recognize him immediately. He’s almost inside the bar when your eyes meet on accident, you glancing up from your phone again, trying not to look too long at the bulky dude in the grey sweater passing you by. He stops and you clutch your bag a little tighter, frantically trying to remember what your father told you about throwing a punch, just in case, and you almost take a step back as you hear his voice. “Y/N?” It’s hard to look at him now, his face a collage of colorful bruises, a split lip and red nose and you though you try hard find the boy that you gave your heart to in his eyes it takes you a minute.

You quickly realized that his appearance isn’t the only thing that has changed. He’s still witty and quick with a come back to tease but there’s a lack of his easy going charm and he seems to have lost some of his carelessness along the way. Maybe it’s because you’re not as close anymore, a small voice in the back of your head whispers and you silently agree. After all you’ve grown too, so expecting him to be still a boy at heart might be a bit too much.

You’re chatting for a while and it feels awkward at first, a stiff conversation about nonsense. Your eyes sneak back to his injuries and you can’t help but think that Benny looks .. rough. You don’t ask him how he’s been, the question seems silly to you because what even are you trying to hint at? His time in service? Where’s at now? What the hell he’s done to get that beaten up? 

You part as your friends arrive, Benny scattering away as they get out of the car and you end up not knowing how to say goodbye. It ends in a long nod from him and a small smile from you, fiddling with the hem of your jacket as you debate wether or not to ask if he wants to stay in touch and you get caught up in the excitement of your friends, the group giggling and pushing you through the front door of the bar. As you look over your shoulder you only see Benny’s back as he’s crossing the street, almost at the other side and you break into a sprint to catch him before he vanishes into the night. 

It takes a bit of convincing until he lets you type in your number into his phone. “Let’s keep in touch, yeah?” He nods and you’re almost sure he won’t call. It’s a week later that your phone rings, Benny on the other line, stuttering about catching up (he promises that most of his face looks better now and that he won’t scare the living daylights out of you this time) and suddenly you’re fifteen again, heart racing as you agree.

Find the moodboard for highschool!Benny Miller here! xx