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gracelessfighters · 4 years

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Dragonfly

Chapter 1

Summary: Y/n has just moved to the Outer Banks and is struggling to enjoy it until she meets a few certain pogues (again its an awful summary i’m sorry)

Word count: 2k

Warnings: I don’t think theres anything

A/N: I was originally doing a one shot with this but I hadn’t even got to writing the main bit yet when it seemed to be getting longer so I think if people like it I’ll make it a series and this is kinda like the prologue because theres not much interaction with the pogues and stuff (also the grammar might not be great but oh well) - any feedback would be lovely!

It had only been a week since you’d moved away from Oregon, starting a new life in the Outer Banks, and so far you were struggling to enjoy it. Yes, it was a beautiful place but it wasn’t home to you yet, no matter how hard your dad tried to make it seem like it was, you missed being on the mainland, where you could drive to places whenever you wanted, you missed your friends, but most of all you missed your mum. Your mum dying a few months ago was what caused your dad to move out here - he no longer wanted to be reminded of her wherever he went, whether that was to Cannon Beach where you spent most of your time surfing, swimming and being with your friends (or your mum depending on the day); or if it was just to the shops, he’d be reminded of her everywhere, so apparently that meant he would drag you both to the other side of the country, far away from everything you loved.

It could’ve been worse, you supposed, he could’ve moved somewhere without a coast, which would’ve been your own personal hell, as being in the water was what made you happy and where you went to cool off if you’d argued with your dad or had a bad day.

Annoyingly, since moving here you’d only been able to get down to the sea in the evenings or at night as your days were spent either unpacking or looking for a job somewhere on the island. So far you had returned back to your house, having no luck in anyone hiring you, today was different though, you’d been offered a job at this place called the Wreck, a cute little restaurant in the middle of the island, and you had bought some food from there back with you so you and your dad could celebrate a little.

Pulling into your driveway, you turned off the engine, before getting out you stopped to look at your house - it wasn’t a great looking house, you knew this, and according to the sales person who sold it to your dad, it hadn’t been lived in for a while, which was obvious by the fact that your dad had been fixing it up all week. Your family had never come from money, your dad was a plumber and your mum had been a teacher at a high school, so not hugely paying jobs - but the money (or sometimes lack thereof) hadn’t bothered you guys, as long as you had enough money to eat well and enjoy life together, then it was alright. You agreed with this mentality, but you liked having a part time job to pay for certain things, it was how you’d saved up for a car and how you got your surfboard, so it was worth it.

Stepping out of the car, you made your way to the front door to go inside, and headed straight for the kitchen to put the food you’d brought back with you into the oven to reheat a little before eating.

Realising you hadn’t heard your dad say hello, you called out, “Hey dad, I’ve brought food, where are you?”

You heard a faint answer from the bathroom, and when you got there he was on the floor and attempting to fix the pipes under the bath by the looks of it.

“Hey, how’s that going?”

“Terribly if I’m being honest, one of these pipes had rotted from the inside out so when I tried attaching something to it, it snapped.”

“Oh that’s fun, please tell me the shower still works?”

“Yes it does, don’t worry you won’t have to go anywhere smelling like you do now.” He laughed as you stuck your tongue out at him.

Stepping back slightly so he could stand up, you replied, “And to think I brought you some food, guess I’m just gonna eat it all myself now after that comment.”

You began walking back towards the kitchen when your dad put his arm around your shoulder, “Oh, if food is on the line I take it all back, you smell great.”

“Wow thanks, that seemed really sincere.” You say, smiling back at him as you reached for the oven gloves to get the food out of the oven and onto the plates on the side.

Once you had dished everything up, you both sat at the small dining table in the corner of your kitchen, a comfortable silence falling between you as you dug into the food in front of you.

Your dad broke the silence, “This is really good, where is this from?”

“A little restaurant called the Wreck, that also happens to be where my new job is.”

“You got a job? Damn, you kept that quiet.” He laughed, “I’m really proud of you Y/N, and I know your mum would be too.”

You looked up at him, smiling, “Thanks dad, and there’s no need to be emotional, it’s just a part time job.”

“I think you’ll find I can be proud of you whenever I want, which just happens to be all the time because you’re amazing my little dragonfly.” He reached across the table to ruffle your hair, before retuning focus back to the food in front of him.

You also looked down at your plate, still smiling but trying to stop your dad from seeing how your eyes watered at the nickname your mum had given you when you were younger. The nickname came from the time you and your mum had gone on a walk in the woods near you, where there was a big lake, with hundreds of dragonflies flying around it - initially you had tried to catch some of them, but when that failed, you’d stayed still, holding your hand out hoping one would land on you. Within minutes a large blue one had landed on your hand, which was then followed by a couple more, your mum had taken a picture of this, capturing the joy on your face when you looked at the multiple dragonflies. Since then it had been your nickname, your mum even getting you a cute silver necklace with a dragonfly charm on it for your birthday a few years back - which you’d pretty much never taken off.

“So,” your dad spoke up again, “at this place, the Wreck, are there any people your age who work there as well?”

“Um, there weren’t many people working today when I was in there, but there was this one girl, I think its her family who owns it, and she seems quite nice.”

“That’s good, hopefully you might become friends then.” He smiled at you reassuringly, you bit back your comment about how you had friends at home because you knew he only meant well, and he was struggling just as much as you were in this move, so you just nodded and ate your last mouthful of food.

After you had cleaned your plate, you said to your dad, “I think I might go surfing in a bit, once my food has settled, because I’m going into work tomorrow to collect my uniform and do a small shift, and I’ll probably be too tired to do it after that.”

“Okay that’s fine,” he turned to you as you walked out the room, “just don’t be out too late, and like usual, be careful.”

“I’m always careful.” You smile at him before going upstairs to get ready.

—————

The beach was nice and empty at this point in the evening, probably because the sun was just setting and people would rather not be out in the cold or dark. But you liked the peace and quiet of it, hearing the waves crash against the sand always relaxed you, and there was no need to worry about what other people think of you if there are no people around which was a bonus.

You set out into the water, board in hand, before it was deep enough to get onto it and paddle out a little further. Once you were far enough out, you began waiting for the perfect wave, riding a few that weren’t too great in the meantime, enjoying it all the same though. As you were sat on your board, waiting for another wave, you heard some voices on the beach, and looked over there to try and make out where abouts it was coming from. Eventually you saw a couple of figures walking across the beach, and from where you were it looked like two guys, maybe around your age, but they hadn’t noticed you yet and you weren’t sure whether you wanted them to.

It was unlikely you would be unnoticed for long though because if they looked out to the water they’d be able to see a person, especially if you were riding a wave. Checking the water behind you again, you saw a promising wave begin to form, and so you began paddling to try and catch it, forgetting about the boys on the beach as you focused, and just before the wave broke you stood up, and started riding it. You turned to angle yourself on the wave slightly better before doing a kick flip, and successfully landing it - you couldn’t help but let out a little whoop at your success, always happy when you landed a trick well. After this you only managed a few more seconds on your board before the wave crashed onto you, knocking you into the water.

You quickly swam back up to the surface, getting your board beneath you so you could start paddling towards the beach - deciding to end the night on a high and before it got late enough for your dad to start worrying about you.

As you got nearer the beach you saw that the boys who you’d seen walking were now standing there watching you come out of the water, you’d been right about them spotting you when you were out there.

Once out of the water you rang your hair out before putting it into a bun to keep it out of your face, and just as you started moving again the two boys approached you, in a way that seemed nervous you thought. The closer they got, the more attractive they became, both very tall, one with long brown hair and the other blonde and both with incredible bodies. Damn maybe you wouldn’t mind it here after all.

“Hey, we haven’t seen you around here before, are you new?” One of them, the brunette one, asked.

“Um yeah I moved here last week.”

“Oh that’s cool, by what we saw you do just then I’m assuming you surf a lot?” This time it was the blonde one who had asked the question, and as he did you could see his eyes move up and down your body, a small smirk on his face when he met your eyes.

“Yeh I lived by the coast in Oregon, so I’ve pretty much surfed since I was a kid, which is basically the only thing this place has in common with home, so I’m taking advantage of that.”

The brunette spoke up again, “Thats nice, um, I’m John B and this,” he indicated to the other boy, “is JJ.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Y/N,” you smile at them, “but I need to go now, so I guess I’ll see you around?”

“Yeh that’d be great” JJ replied as you turned around and starting walking back up to your car, turning around one more time to give them a quick wave.

Once you were at your car, you could still faintly hear them, and from what you could work out they were talking about you, nice things it sounded like, you rolled your eyes and got into your car to drive home and collapse in your bed, still thinking about the way JJ had looked at you.

#jj maybank x reader #jj maybank x y/n #jj x reader #outerbanks fic #obx fic #obx #outer banks #john b x reader #john b routledge #pope heyward #outrebanx

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macklives · 4 years

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alright, im actually kind of in the mood to unpack some stuff regarding karkat's character and the way alternia works actually, so i dont mind giving this a go. and while act 5 isnt completely finished yet (so this is an analysis post for act 5 up until page 2305), there is still more to explore, and im pretty sure i have a lot more to read regarding both karkat AND alternia. until then, i will give a general layout as to what i know so far and how i can expand this in a psychological way (especially considering i did my psych exam so my mind is FRESH from studying)

alright, starting with what seems to be the deal with the hemospectrum, theres a total of 12 blood colors. HOWEVER, one of those blood colors is a "mutant" blood which is unwanted in troll culture as it is, well, "mutant", meaning whoever has this blood will get brutally slaughtered. hurrayyy. im guessing it is even lower than aradia's rust blood, as she is allowed to live but is the lowest on the hierarchy triangle. meaning karkats blood is not even ON the hierarchy triangle and simply buried underground where they hope he stays. so its not exactly pleasant to be living in a society where everyone is trying to KILL you or at least keep you away from everything.

from what i remember, troll reproduction is a vital aspect in their culture, that everyone is forced to mate and drones will come by each house to collect the genetic material. this is mandatory apparently, and if someone were to object, they will be “culled" as quickly as they could say no. alternia seems to be really keen on the whole "blood and carnage" thing, which means their probable solution to anybody breaking the law, is to kill them on sight and just leave them there to rot - regardless of who they are and what families they comes from or have. trolls are free to kill whenever or whoever they please without any governmental repercussions. which means revenge upon revenge happens without any policy.

however this is very important when looking at karkat, because karkat may not be able to do the whole reproduction process (not that we necessarily want him to, im saying this in terms of how its mandatory for every troll and there will be a time when the drones WILL come for karkat). but as he is already a mutant and if they were to "collect" from him, they would find out his blood regardless of how he hides it. they will either cull him for saying no, or cull him for his blood. karkat, in this sense, is doomed regardless. which makes his character much more interesting.

and keep in mind alternia kind of sucks, because from the looks of it, trolls are constantly tested throughout their lives to prove themselves to society that they are allowed to live and survive. but ONLY if they are the strongest among them. alternia wants to become this fearful planet where the weak die off and only those proven worthy can stay to grow up and slaughter more of their kind until the world is nothing but blood thirsty strong murderers. im not too sure who is governing alternia but they can suck a dick if they think this is how good morals work. alternia only really has one way to solve things which is to kill those who question/fight back, OR to kill those who CANNOT fight back essentially. which puts all the trolls through a double edged sword where they cannot do anything but follow the guidelines given to them by troll's society and government, and try to survive as much as they can until then.

if i remember correctly, when it comes to the law side of things. if you look at it from terezi's introduction where she explains prosecutions with her plushies (lemonsnout ect ect i forgot the term for them lol), she said "you are guilty until proven innocent" which is the polar opposite of "innocent until proven guilty” used in OUR own society today (tho i guess we are by far the "good guys" in this situation, but we are far different than how trolls live their lives). anyways, what this means is that everyone dies regardless unless theres literal proof that they have not done the crime. even so i wouldnt put it past them to do nothing about their case even WITH proof. terezi even goes to say that technically there is no way to deal with the law on alternia, and most of crimes get solved through death. she even demonstrates this by how easily she hung the "suspect" and flipped a coin to determine his fate. however, even with the coin landing on the side of safety, where the suspect were to be released, she said "im blind remember i cannot see this coin" and essentially "killed" him. while terezi may have just been playing with her plushies, theres something we can take from this which dictates how their actual court cases are actually solved.

NOW, vriska (yes ik pls bare with me here, i will not make it about vriska but i do have a point here), from the last few pages i saw, can basically kill her friends in an instant, without any remorse. i can tell she sees this as the most "necessary" solution for her problems. i wouldnt say its for survival, but she does do it as a way to provide some sort of safety on alternia. she is a higher blood, and apparently the high bloods are known to kill whoever they please as long as its convenient. and since trolls have this whole fad of "killing the ones who cause you trouble so the problem is out of the way", she is wired to think its the only solution when threatened or when you dislike a person.

god, she killed aradia because she wanted "revenge", because she wanted to get back at aradia for tormenting her with ghosts EVEN IF aradia did so because she threw tavros off a cliff in the first place. this may have worsened their friendship, KEEP IN MIND THEY WERE FRIENDS, but NEITHER, and i mean neither terezi/vriska/aradia, had any remorse if the other dies as long as there was a reason. in the story, vriska didnt care what happened to tavros because she disliked him, therefore becoming pretty bias over his fate. because of this attempt at killing, aradia didnt care what happened to vriska either, and neither did terezi. terezi sold her out to one of the most powerful beings on their planet, solely because of their revenge cycle. as long as the troll in question did something "malicious”, then that plays a factor in their morals. vriska gave no second thought to killing both of her friends (or at least attempt to with tavros), terezi also tormented john in act 4 which led to his “doomed timeline death” and sold vriska out after she realized vriska wouldnt change. so no fucking WONDER karkat tries to hide who he is, he's overly cautious to not let it slip out because even the people he calls friends could backstab him at any given time considering theres LITERAL EXAMPLES OF THESE TROLLS HAVING DONE SO.

to karkat, he sees this as dangerous, which is why he even CALLS vriska dangerous to begin with. she might not even hesitate to kill him herself or maybe sell him out to the drones, because 1. she may not want to be a witness to something society actively seeks to destroy and 2. she cares more for her survival than karkats. EVEN if they were friends (re: aradia and vriska and terezi). so it just shows.

on that note, i find it funny how karkat indirectly distracted vriska after she baited him with the question of his blood in a past conversation, which prompted karkat to monologue about troll romance. he was, yes, VERY interested in this topic to start with, but it was a nice little bonus for karkat as to not be found out by the one person who would most likely kill him even if it wasnt on purpose. however, we do not know how this will play out IF she does find out, we just know karkat is in the right to be scared of the theory.

and, alright i do have to mention this, while karkat may have been an angry fucker to START with, who spites the world and throws out insults every chance he gets, i feel he does this as more of a survival instinct as well. he doesnt care what he says to people no matter what they rank on the hemospectrum. they dont know his blood color so he feels he has some sort of immunity, but he just needs to keep it hidden. it also may just be his personality, as he IS a character who was given specific traits and andrew went along with it without so much thinking about plot. yet if you look at this from more of the metaphorical route, think about it with uhhhh lets say the perspective of how dogs work. for example, when you put a chihuahua next to a doberman, a doberman is more of an excited, energetic dog whereas a chihuahua will rain hell down on anybody who so goes near them. sometimes this is to make up for their size, to seem as menacing as the larger doberman, as they have nothing else to fend themselves with. another way to look at it is, if you see a bear (i forget if its black/brown or grizzly) you make yourself seem like the bigger person by scaring it off with sounds and eventually it will leave you alone. these sort of tactics work in the sense of survival. this is sort of what karkat could be doing, he uses insults and a defensive shouting to not really "hide" himself, but to have some sort of way as to not be found out if people start to question. someone asks him "hey karkat whats your blood" he goes "FUCK YOU, FUCK OFF, END OF STORY" which could make a person go "yo sorry dude forget i ever asked". so this could be a factor as to why he is so crabby, however on the other hand, he is crabby because that is also his character. andrew probably thought yo cancer = crab = crabby. however i do like how he is perceived and the whole "mutant blood" really made me do a double take on how he views life himself. he has to always hide who he is or he will get physically killed. alternia would take joy in finding out he does not belong there because lets face it, alternia is a bitch of a planet.

this also brought me to ask the question, why does karkat want to be a leader if hes so scared of what would happen to him if he were to be found out? which then, at first i said lol this is just karkat, he wants to a leader because he just wants to be the leader, he likes when things go to plan and that he the most say in their sburb plans considering he thinks everyone else is a "dumbass". to which, i then thought about it more and went ouch what if hes a leader because he knows hes not valued enough in society, that he somehow wants to feel some sort of importance in the world, so he wants to become a leader. i imagine younger karkat, not knowing why his blood is so undermined, finding out he is not wanted and suddenly on the most wanted list without having even DONE anything. even TAVROS said he was on that list, but only because he was weak and had no back-bone, here karkat may have been strong but no matter what, he was to be culled BECAUSE of his blood. something he cannot change no matter what. imagine a little kid knowing he will die at any point because of who he is (rlly sounds familiar if you think about it). so of course, he hides himself from the world, but do you think for an instant, little angry karkat wants to simply be FORGOTTEN about? i doubt that, he wants to be heard, he doesnt necessarily want to be rejected as he knows he will be, so while he does hide his blood, he wants to have a voice no matter what. when being a leader, people dont reject you, they LISTEN. they all may not want to because karkat is just a fucking ticking time bomb, who can lash out at any second, but i feel theres now a reason why he has this superiority complex. he wants to sort of become the person he knows he never will become (if you put it into that perspective). so thats kind of why im giving him the benefit of the doubt here.

i would also like to point out a sort of.... comparison?? not with the dogs but with unwanted children in a family household. this doesnt necessarily apply to karkat, but sub in family household with society and it might as well. (on that note, a warning/viewer discretion, if you have any problem with this kind of discussion, i wouldnt read further into this paragraph and skip to the next one) alright, the unwanted child psychology basically deals with the process of a child which is neglected by their parents, and/or know that they were never wanted in the family. i read an article a while back when we were discussing this in a lecture, we were browsing multiple people's perspective on the matter, and one said "An affective relationship may be suffocating to [the unwanted/neglected child]: it’s a defense against intimacy of which they know nothing. Normally they fluctuate between egotism and deep feelings of inferiority. They don’t understand what a balanced and healthy self-esteem looks like." it explains how the child who grows up in an unwanted home admits great emotion deprivation, because the child's bonds of affection are extremely fragile, and this can lead to both egotism and feeling like they are inadequate. and it really strongly shows karkats personality. we havent gotten that much from him in general, but considering how he uses this egotism to cover up the fact that he may be doomed, really shows the similarity. i liked this short article so i want to give some points to take into consideration, specifically this part: "It will be very difficult for unwanted children to build healthy relationships of affection in their adult life. Love is a foreign language to them. They don’t know how to decipher the codes and much less how to build them. It’s very hard for them to need and to be needed. That’s why, more often than not, they completely shirk their conflicts with peers and superiors, or do nothing but generate them. They speak incessantly about the broken relationship that marked their arrival in the world. A person with such a background will need help to get through those abysses of love that live in their heart. The most important step is that they recognize that their discomfort doesn’t depend on who they are, but the circumstances that led to their being." it may not be 100% tru for karkat but theres a small portion of it that can link back to karkats view on life and how being this mutant can really change who he is as a person. and i hope you can see the similarity between karkats character and this form of psychology. yet i also do not fully know the depth of karkat vantas. however i do hope it continues to build up in this way, as it would be both interesting and make us feel more for him as a person.

alright, i think if i write any more i will never stop aghjsk, which is a bit too much for a sunday afternoon, basically to sum up this post, trolls are violent and karkat will be killed if hes found out, even by his friends if it comes down to it. so karkat cannot really trust anybody, hes alone and imagine the thrill he had when he saw jack cut his hand to show the bright red blood? that he finally has someone LIKE HIM. imagine when he finds out about the kids. so i believe in his growth, while he needs to get a better vocabulary, i do get why hes so defensive all the time. because hes both scared and unwanted. and he wants to make up for it.

and i guess with all that being said, you can tell i now have a slight soft spot for the kid lmao

#hs95 #hs95 ask #anon #ask #analysis #i may not have it FULLY understood yet but thats my perspective of karkat vs trolls society

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la5t-res0rt · 4 years

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this was written several weeks ago in response to asks i was receiving i am posting it now it is very long the longest i have ever made and it is not very well edited but here it is in this final essay i talk about how shitty rae is about black people in her writing as well as just me talking about how her writing sucks in general lets begin

hello everyone

as you may know i have received a lot of anons in the last week or so about issues of racism in the beetlejuice community both just generally speaking and also within specific spaces

i was very frustrated to not be getting the answers i wanted because i typically do not talk about what i do not see but in an effort to be better about discourse i went looking through discourse from before my time in the fandom and i also received some receipts and information from my followers and from some friends

keep in mind that the voices and thoughts of bipoc are not only incredibly important at all times but in this circumstance it is important that if a bipoc has something to add you listen and learn and be better

i admit that when this happened i wasnt aware of the extent of what occurred and im angry at myself for not doing more at that time and i want to work harder to make sure something like this doesnt go unnoticed again

im a hesitant to talk about months old discourse because i have been criticized for bringing up quote old new unquote but this is very important and i am willing to face whatever comes from to me

lets talk about this

content from our local racist idiot that may be months old but its important

putting my thoughts under a cut to spare the dash but before i begin obviously this is awful

lets fucking unpack this folks

right out the gate op states that she supports artistic freedom but then within a couple words she goes against that statement

being entirely canon compliant isnt artistic freedom and even so if this person has so much respect for canon they wouldnt be out here erasing lydias obvious disgust for beetlejuice in the movie or ignoring lydias age for the sake of shipping that shit isnt canon either

also we love the quick jab at the musical there hilarious we love it dont we because god forbid a licensed and successful branch on a media have any standing in this conversation but whatever

now lets scroll down and talk about the term racebending

the term racebending was coined around 2009 in response to the avatar the last airbender movie a film in which the east asian races of the characters were erased by casting white actors in the three leading roles of aang sokka and katara

whenever the term racebending is used in a negative light it is almost always a case of whitewashing like casting scarlett johansen in ghost in the shell or the casting of white actors of the prince of persia sands of time instead of iranian ones

this kind of racebending erases minorities from beeing seen in media and is wrong

all that being said however racebending has also been noted to have very positive after effects like the 1997 adaptation of cinderella or casting samuel jackson as nick fury in the marvel movies nick fury was originally a white guy can you even imagine

i read this piece from an academic that said quote writers can change the race and cultural specificity of central characters or pull a secondary character of color from the margins transforming them into the central protagonist unquote

racebending like the kind that rae is so heated about is the kind of creative freedom that leads to more representation of bipoc in media which will never be a bad thing ever no matter how pissy you get about it

designing a version of a character as a poc isnt serving to make them necessarily better it serves to give new perspective and perhaps the opportunity to connect even more deeply with a character it doesnt marginalize or erase white people it can uplift poc and if you think uplifting poc is wrong because it tears down white people or whatever youre a fucking moron and you need to get out of your podunk white folk town and see the real world

the numbers of times a bipoc particularly a bipoc that is also lgbt+ has been represented in media are dwarfed by what i as a white dude have seen myself represented in media is and that isnt okay that isnt equality and its something that should change not only in mainstream media but in fandom spaces as well

lets move down a bit further to the part about bullying straight people which is hilarious and lets also talk about the term fetishistic as well lets start with that

this person literally writes explicit pornography of a minor and an adult are we really going to let someone like that dictate what is and what isnt fetishistic

similarly to doing a positive racebend situation people may project lgbt+ headcanons on a character because its part of who they are and it helps them feel closer to the character and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that

depicting lgbt+ subject matter on existing characters isnt an inherently fetishistic action generally things only really become fetishistic when the media is being crafted and hyped by people who are outside of lgbt+ community for example how young teens used to flip a tit about yaoi or how chasers fetishize trans people

but drawing a character with top surgery scars or headcanoning them as trans is harmless and its just another way to interpret a character literally anone could be trans unless if their character bio says theyre cis and most of them dont go that deep so it really is open to interpretation and on the whole most creators encourage this sort of exploration because it is a good thing to get healthy representation out in the world

as for it being used to bully straights thats just funny i dont have anything else on that like if youre straight and you feel threatened and bullied because of someone headcanoning someone as anything that isnt cishet youre a fucking idiot and a weak baby idiot at that like the real world must fucking suck for you because lgbt+ people are everywhere and statistically a big chunk of your favorite characters arent cishet sorry be mad about it

lets roll down a bit further about the big meat of the issue which was when several artists were drawing interpretations of lydia as a black girl which i loved but clearly this person didnt love it because they have a very narrow and very racist and problematic view of what it means to be a black person

and before i move forward i must reiderate that i am a white person and you should listen to the thoughts of poc people like @fright-of-their-lives or @gender-chaotic it is not my place to explain what the black experience is like and it certainly isnt this persons either

implying that the story of a black person isnt worth telling unless if the character faces struggles like racism and prejudice is downright moronic

why use the word kissable to describe a black persons lips now thats what i call fetishistic and its to another extreme if youre talking about a black version of lydia on top of that

the author of this post says herself that shes white so clearly shes the person whos an authority on the black experience and what it means to be a black person right am i reading that right or am i having a fucking conniption

how about allowing black characters to exist without having to struggle why cant a black version of lydia just be a goth teenager with a ghost problem who likes photography and is also black like she doesnt have to move to a hick town and get abused by racist folks she doesnt have to go through any more shit than she already goes through and if you honestly think thats the only way to tell a black persons story you need to get your brain cleaned

you know nothing about the complexities about being a black person and i dont either but you know wh odo black people who are doing black versions of canon characters they fucking know

lets squiggle down just a bit further

so the writer has issues with giving characters traits like a broad nose or larger lips if theyre a woman but if theyre a man suddenly its totally okay to go all ryan murphy ahs coven papa legba appropriation when approaching character design like are you fucking stupid do you hear yourself is that really how you see black men like what the fuck is wrong with you

none of the shit youre spewing takes bravery it takes ignorance and supreme levels of stupidity

do you really think you with your fic where a black lgbt+ woman is tortured and abused where you use the n word with a hard r to refer to her like that shits not okay its fucking depraved and yeah we know you love being shitty but like christ on a bike thats so much

can we also talk about this

what the fuck is this fetishistic bull roar garbage calling this black character beyonce dressing her up in quote fuck me heels unquote are you are you seriously gonna write this and say its a shining example of how to write a black character youre basically saying ope here she is shes a sex icon haha im so progressive and i clealry understand the black experience hahahaha fuck you oh my god

on top of that theres a point where this character is only referred to as curly hair or the fact that the n word is used in the fic with the hard r like thats hands down not okay for you to use especially not in a manner like this jesus christ

oop heres a little more a sampling for you of the hell i am enduring in reading this drivel

oh boy lets put a leash on the angry black woman character lets put her in a leash and have the man imply hes a master like are you kidding me are you for real and what the fuck is with calling her shit like j lo and beyonce do you actually think thats clever at all are you just thinking of any poc that comes into your head for this

also lydia fucking tells this girl that she shouldnt have lost her temper like she got fucking leashed im so tired why is this writing so problematic and also so bad

hold up before i lose my head lets look at some of her own comments on the matter of this character and what happens to her

hi hello youre just casually tossing the word lynch out there in the wide open world as if thats not a problem that is still real like are you fucking unhinged there have been multiple cases of this exact thing happening in our firepit of a country in the last five months alone like how can you still have shit like this up for people to read how can you be proud of work like this in this climate

and also what the fuck is that last bit

what the actual fuck

i dont speak for black people as a white person but you do!? im sorry i had to get my punctuation out for that because wow thats fucking asinine just because one black person read your fic and didnt find the torture and abuse of your one black character abhorrant doesnt mean that the vast majority of people not only in the fandom but in the human population with decency are going to think its okay because its not

i started this post hoping to be level headed and professional but jesus fucking christ this woman is something else white nationalism is alive and well folks and its name is rae

if you defend this woman you defend some truly abhorrant raecism

editors notes

in order to get some perspective on these issues more fully some of the writing by the author was examined and on the whole it was pretty unreadable but i want to just call back to the very beginning of this essay where the person in question talked about holding canon in high regard but then in their writing they just go around giving people magic and shit and ignoring the end of the movie entirely like are you canon compliant or nah

the writing doesnt even read like beetlejuice fanfic it reads as self indulgent fiction you could easily change the names and its just a bad fanfic from 2007

also can we talk about writing the lesbian character as an angry man hater like its 2020 dude and als olets touch on that girl on girl pandering while beetlejuice is just there like here we go fetishizing again wee

i cant find a way to work this into this already massive post but

im going to throw up

okay so thats a lot we have covered a lot today and im sure my ask box will regret it but this definitely should have been more picked apart when it happened

please feel free to add more to this i would love more perspectives than just my own.

#long post #racism #raecism #im so tired #thanks for reading

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spotsupstuff · 4 years

Note

🥺 vibe check my baby shithead?

bless... its my sibwing time...

Why I like them:

what the fuck is there not to like about them, lets be honest. their personality is unique when compared to other bvs. i lowkey always hoped id get to see a bv that would be more bold, angry, just more sharp towards the world. most of bvs that ive seen before joining the creating part of the fandom were soft shy kids that didnt want to hurt anybody. its valid to characterize bc like that, but it was everywhere. lost was like the polaris in the entirety of the fandom. learning about them was refreshing, comforting, it felt and still feels safe to consider and think about them. they feel real, i feel like i could meet them on the street in a playground and become friends with them. you made them so real and important to me. ive said this plenty in the server, but theyve helped me through a lot of hard times. i was too sad or anxious or scared to come out of bed? i thought about them interacting with broken and i felt better. i was in a lot of pain? thinking about them helped distracting me and getting me through a lot of it. im so so thankful for their existence and even more so for your willingness to interact, rp and vibe with me. i love lost so much.

Why I don’t:

their clinginess sometimes worries me. they are valid in it, but clingy people generally make me Slightly uncomfy bc i have times where id rather not be touched and i have trouble speaking up because i dont wanna offend or hurt. broken is the same and i fear the day they will have to disappoint lost by turning away a hug or a cuddle session. the mixture of natural understandable clinginess and anger can result in a sort of manipulation. unintentional, but still manipulation

Favorite episode (scene if movie):

,,,ill be mildly self-indulgent and say that the scene where them and broken adopted each other, overlaying with the morning after, is perhaps my favorite thing ever. BUT!! i liked the scene with them shunning ghost out of oros hut. it established their thoughts and determination to Keep things important to them away from people that had hurt them.

Favorite season/movie:

the ENTIRE FUCKIN FIC THATS ABOUT THEM GETTIN FROM THE ANCIENT BASIN TO ORO. bro ive checked ao3 like every morning when the second chapter was still in the wip bin, i just couldnt wait for it kgjslkgjsldkk the amount of details to the struggles and the size of torment expressed through your words was so so real and i couldnt get enough of it. im incredibly thankful for that fic and for all the feelings it stirred up in me wee heart

Favorite line:

”I mean you’re a clown. do I need to say it slooooowwwweeerr?” the beginning of an age...

“don’t ever pull Us together like that, ever again” theres a lot to unpack here and boy, im keepin the entire suitcase right in my lap and i WILL think and dive deep into it with my thoughts

Favorite outfit:

theyve got One but they sure be rockin in and i -cocks designer gun- have Some ideas for that second cloak that net would make them so i Hope that will follow close behind their og look

OTP:

this lil creachure is fifteen, i only ship them with safety and parental/platonic love and care

Brotp:

them and purl!!! but also them and hornet, even though its not as close of a relationship, it makes me very happy that they arent completely shut off from each other. that lil short story they shared about their first encounter with cain instinct committed by hornet has been inserted into my mind forever out of the RAN universe canon... them and broken for obvious reasons, them and net (ive been LOOKIN for an AGE AND A HALF NOW SO HARD at that relationship) and tbh??? them and junior has been on my mind a Lot lately. ever since the first doodles of junior hiding them with wings in the among us au, ive been considerin n thinkin of scenarios

Head Canon:

-thunk emoji- hmm... theyll never be too great of a flyer. they will be able to do more than just flap once or twice to get over some distances, definitely, but i feel like they will forever prefer ground over the skies. some minor hcs: ,,,they might pick up some sort of sewing from net in the bverse, maybe; their hand writing will/does look like yours; one day, they will do something that will make a giant difference in something important, completely by themself

Unpopular opinion:

i dont fahcken kno how to do these with yalls characters what hte fuck

A wish:

i wish radiance didnt fuck them up so much during Those years. they deserve to get tall and strong, capable of their dads nailarts, big enough to wield a bigass nail like him and suplex broken

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen:

this is an incredibly unlikely scenario to happen cuz i know you dont like thinkin about the ultimate end of people and characters, but my biggest fear is that one day they will come back from a hunt or a visit to a cold body in their dads bed, with eyes closed to never open again, not giving them the chance to even say goodbye.

5 words to best describe them:

angry, worried, caring, gentle, afraid

My nickname for them:

sibwing... lil star (just like u heehoo), sometimes i think about them as simply “safety” or “comfort”

#Spot says stuff #i have done it... i said things about my favorite bv ever.....#love you skye #love them too #skyedragondraws

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strongsassysexysloane · 4 years

Text

You and Me - Cont. Such a Tease

"It's completely not fair that you get the day off." Jack shouts from the bathroom, she's blow drying her hair, getting ready for the day while you're sprawled out in bed with a huge grin on your face.

"It's not fair that I should be enjoying a sleep in while you're being VERY loud getting ready." You try and pull off a whine in your voice but it isn't very convincing when Jack leans against the door frame in only her bra and panties.

"I can leave?" She raises an eyebrow and you can't help raking your eye from top to toe. She saunters towards you and you try and swallow. "Speechless? That's a first."

You just wait, wait until - you leap out of bed, catching Jack off guard and flip her onto the bed under you, she shrieks and giggles. "You aren't going anywhere." You drop a kiss to her lips.

Jack moans into the kiss, running her hands up yours sides and into your hair. She tugs you slightly so you give up your assault on her mouth. "I really need to get ready, Vance needs me in the office in an hour."

You groan and lean down to give her a quick kiss before rolling off her so she can get up and continue her morning routine. "Fine." You mumble and sulk back into bed. The only reason you have the day off is because the team worked over time this past week on a case and you missed your weekend so team Gibbs has two days off to make up for.

"Don't sulk. I'd kill to have the day off with you and make up for all those lost nights last week but someone has a slightly less unpredictable job to do."

You watch from the bed as Jack waltzes between the bedroom and bathroom getting ready for her day. It's been almost a year of being together and you couldn't be happier. It's been one of the most emotional years of your life but its been the most rewarding to. She moved in a few months ago and the cohabitation has been working out well.

"Would you mind doing a load of washing today baby? Got a few skirts I would like to wear later this week."

You look at the hamper in the corner of your room and see the dark maroon pencil skirt she was wearing last Friday and you groan. The memory of unzipping it and pulling down her toned legs floods your mind.

"Yeah that skirt." Jack chuckles from the bathroom door, seeing you cover your face with your hands.

"Sure thing, wanted that blue hoodie back anyways." You wink at her smirk. She'd managed to steal almost half your hoodies since moving in. The only reason you still have half is because you bought more and hid them from her.

Knowing theres no way you're going back to sleep now, you hop up, chuck on your oversized Army hoodie and peck Jack on the cheek before wandering down the hall to the kitchen.

"Is it no pants Tuesday again?" Jack shouts from the bedroom and you shrug.

"It's my day off, I can wear what I like." You flick the switch so the coffee machine roars to life and potter around the kitchen cleaning up from the night before. Jack made dinner and there's always double the amount of things to clean when she creates her meals. "I'm going to enforce a clean as you go rule when you cook, woman. You used half our cooking utensils and pans." You start doing the dishes and banging around so you don't hear her walk, well sneak, into the kitchen behind you.

"You love my cooking." She snakes her arms around your middle and pulls you back into her chest, dropping a kiss behind your ear.

You close your eyes and feel her surround you. "I love you." You murmur as she drops an opened mouthed trail of kisses from behind your ear, tugging your hoodie to one shoulder and continuing her mouth assault down to your collarbone.

"I know." She squeezes you tight, pecks your cheek and disappears like you aren't on the edge and fully turned on.

"Hey!" You hear her laugh as she walks back down the hall and into the bedroom. "Sexy shit."

"What did you just call me?" She shouts.

"You heard me." You smirk and continue the dishes. You hear her this time and pretend not to notice. So when she is almost about to jump you from behind you swiftly turn and try to attack her with your soapy hands but shes too quick and runs out of the kitchen but you're hot on her tail.

"Hey! This is the last skirt I have, don't you dare wet it!" She shrieks and attempts to run in the bathroom and close the door behind her but your foot catches the door.

"Hand me a towel." She passes you the hand towel through the gap in the door. Once you hand her the towel back she opens the door. You walk in, making her back up until you have her pinned between you and the sink.

"Well you have me right where you want me... now what?" She in heels so there's a bit of height difference between you and she looks down at you with dark brown, chocolate eyes and you're lost.

"Kiss me." You whisper against her lips and she does as she's told.

You rest your hands either side of her on the basin and she tugs you in by the hips, causing the friction that was building from earlier.

"Jacqueline.." You breath as she kisses down your jaw and finds the spot right at the base of your neck.

"Don't you dare touch yourself before I get home this evening. I'll know and you will be punished but trust me the reward will far out weigh your punishment." You groan as she sucks hard one last time at the spot just below your ear and you press hard into the basin for stability. "I have to go to work now."

"You look beautiful." You tear your eyes up from her tones calves, tight dark blue skirt and loose cream coloured blouse and see that she's just as turned on as you are.

"See you tonight." She quickly kisses you on the lips because any second longer and you know she'll be late for work.

The day is long, you clean up around the house. The house that has been neglected for a long time. You put a load of washing on like instructed and your phone buzzes just as you're putting new sheets on the bed.

'Want to be my lunch date? It's ok if you'd rather not come in to work. <3 J' She'd only started signing off her texts with the love heart and J a couple weeks ago and you absolutely love it. You slip the last pillow into its new case and grab your phone back.

'I'll be by your office in an hour xx' You look at your wardrobe and down at your hoodie and shrug. It's your day off, no one should care what you wear to the office when you aren't working. You slip into Jack's favourite black skinny jeans, tie up your hair and quickly dial to order lunch before leaving the house.

Jack's busy looking at a file when you walk up to her door. You don't knock just stand there watching her mind work. She is the most beautiful and cute woman you've ever seen. She sticks the pen she's holding into her mouth qand you see her tongue dart out to twist it around and you can't help but let slip a low moan.

"Hey! I thought I smelt something yummy." Jack winks and you roll your eyes knowing she's not talking about the takeout you have in your hand.

"Thought we could eat on the couch, unless you want to have a picnic in the park?" You place the bag of food onto the coffee table and watch as Jack hops up from behind her desk and walks over to you, giving you a thank you kiss.

"Jackson's team just caught a case so I just got a whole lot of names to sort through, so it'll have to be here."

You shrug and kiss her again. "Perfect." You move around and sit on her couch, unpacking all the food you bought with you onto the coffee table while Jack closes her office door and joins you on the couch.

"Thank you for coming." She wraps her arm around your waist and pulls you in tight.

"Was getting bored at home and wanted to see you. Was actually thinking about bringing you lunch." You turn and smile, Jack pecks you on the lips and then you both dig into your feast.

"My favourite." She moans, taking a bite of the (insert favourite meal here).

You try not to let her moan get to you but flashes of this morning and her tongue twirling around the pen flood your brain and you can't help but squeeze your thighs together.

Jack of course notices and rests one hand on your thigh, moving it around and up to your inner thigh and you clamp your legs tight so she can't go any further.

"No." You growl and she drops a kiss to your cheek while you take a bite of your lunch.

"You haven't given in yet, have you?" You see she's some what suprised and you laugh.

"Why the fuck would I? When you promised so much more later." She smiles at you adorably and you go back to eating lunch. You slowly release her hand when you're sure she is going to remove it instead of tease you some more.

Later happened. It happened in glorious fashion. Jack crawled back up your body, dropping a slow, wet and tantalising kiss on your lips. "Mmm, we taste good." You moan as she rolls off you and curls back into your side.

"Yes we do." She kisses your shoulder and rests her head in the crook of your neck. You trail your fingers up and down her back, tracing her scars like a feather and she relaxes into you more. There was once a time when she would freeze and take several minutes to relax back under your touch but now, now it was like nothing. She even enjoyed it which made your heart smile. Jack could be such a private, independent woman but with you she was open.

"I should tease you more often."

"Think I may die if you tease more babe." You feel her laugh against you and your body shivers under her.

"I wouldn't want that.." She trails off, running her fingers over your abdomen and up your arm. "Love that my touch still sets your body on fire." She kisses the crook of your neck, feeling the goosebumps under her touch.

"Won't ever change." You drop a kiss to her hair and relax back into the pillow. A perfect end to an almost uneventful day and that's just how you liked your days off.

. . . . .

My muse has been slowly dwindling lately, not in the best mental state so if you want this to keep going, send me ideas... or if you have an idea for another story let me know...

#NCIS #jack sloane x reader #jack sloane

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bxstiae · 4 years

Text

⚜ ; [ HEALING && SCARS / HC.6 ] CHARA. STUDY │ DEVELOPMENT

i’ve been thinking about this for days now & i just didn’t know how to go about it. mainly because there’s just so much to unpack with it. i suppose to put it simply -- link doesn’t have MANY scars. well i mean.... i suppose he does but many of them are... barely visible ( i.e. they are simply just discoloured lines/markings for the most part. ) he’s not scar ridden -- which is crazy to think but it has to do a lot with how many of his woulds in battle were treated. most of his injuries that would have scarred him were treated rather quick & with magic which causes him not to scar... ( which i will also discuss in this post ) but that being said... link does have !!! some scars that are extremely visible. partially cause they weren’t healed/taken care of in time.

anyway, i suppose i’ll break this up in parts for you though. I’ll start with what scars he has though. and then get down to the nitty gritty details of why he doesn’t have them && his sources of healing. HERE is a ref for his back i suppose? it’s just a quick doodle o a sticky so it’s not anywhere near from perfect, but the tags are also very important to note as well. anything else is going to be under a read more. read at your discretion. obviously this talks about injuries so keep that in mind alright? i really don’t wanna bother with tagging cause this is your warning now. if you need me to tag it then by all means please let me know.

TRIGGERS CONTAINED: injury, stabbing, impalement, electrocution, near downing etc.

THE INJURIES

BACK

right shoulder -- from an arrow hitting him. it had snapped in the middle of the fight with the arrowhead still lodged in him && stayed there long enough to do some serious scarring. he couldn’t stop to take it out due to the fight. simply had too many enemies on him, and when midna took it out, they were nowhere near a spring nor did they have any faeries on them to patch it up.

gash-like scare on lower right side of the back -- from a poe. the scythe hit him hard enough to severely wound him. the faerie on hand could have either given the strength he needed to finish the poe off, or heal him completely. he chose the former as he wouldn’t be able to live otherwise. midna was able to teleport him soon after to save him from bleeding out but not soon enough prevent the scar. recovery time took about a week before he could get back on his feet.

stab-like wound from dynalfos on left side of his back. the tail-whip attack stabbed him and he genuinely didn’t realise until after the adrenaline from the fight wore off. he felt sore, and when he reached, he felt blood. being nowhere close to a spring he && midna spent a good hour or so looking for a faerie. they ended up having to cauterise the wound too so he wouldn’t keep opening it up in their frantic search. so by the time they DID find a faerie it was more for the pain && replenishing energy than anything.

LEFT SHOULDER

a reason why link doesn’t like flying. a kargarok grabbed him with its talons and pulled him upwards. in the desperation of trying to have it let go of him, it clawed him well enough. he fell into the water and was ultimately drowing because he couldn’t move his left arm at all. it was a zora ( who was heading to the water temple ) that pulled him out. that same zora was the one who brought him back to get assistance for his wound -- not knowing that they could have easily taken him to lanayru’s spring. so instead of being healed how he normally goes about, he was tended to the ‘old fashioned’ way. thus a scar

FRONT

he’s been impaled by a chilfos spear in the lower left abdomen.

there’s discolouration on right side of his chest from a burn ( not super noticeable )

WRISTS/ARMS

reason for his bandages actually -- kept getting cuts and scratches as a farmhand. had also burned himself a couple of times as well. mayor bo said enough and told him to wrap up his lower arms.

they’re just various cuts that turned into small scars as he didn’t know about the spring’s magical healing properties at the time nor was the hero’s spirit awakened at the time.

left arm -- discoloured but not at all severely from a venomous sting/bite.

LEGS

right leg -- there’s an electrocution scar on his lower leg. again, not at all bad as time progressed.

link’s injuries on his arms && legs have mostly healed up tbh -- from his constant bathing in the springs that is. but the ones on his back, front, and should still remain and are reminders that even he can scar. he’s not immune to injury. and he doesn’t have that perfect skin that you think he has. anyway moving on.

HEALING

SO... as i have mention in my other post. there are 3 reasons for his unnatural/magical healing.

attunement to the triforce && the its brand. the light spirits && their springs faeries

I’ll start in order tbh. but keep in mind that the latter two are the most IMPORTANT ones for link’s healing -- ESPECIALLY the light spirits && their springs.

TRIFORCE

being the hero of courage has it’s perks. that begin that there is a natural affinity towards magic. this means that most all other people? cannot get healed. at least not in the way that link can ( being healed by faeries or the light spirit springs ). the brand makes him able to tap into some of that magic. whether he knows that or not is still a question. it could be that it just naturally comes out at times -- or it could be that he knows and when he is able, he uses it. regardless being the bearer of the triforce means that theres some of that magical essence that can help him along the way.

he may not be immortal, nor does this power make him so, but his soul is everlasting. so that is something you have to take into consideration. it’s a special soul that is bound to being life for an eternity, so it will have some magical properties to it.

LIGHT SPIRITS && THEIR SPRINGS

consider it like magical holy water if you will. these springs are blessed by the light sprits’ powers. which, in turn, help the hero along his journey. simply standing in it produces healing effects ( as you can see in the game ). but bathing or immersing youreself in it, you’re getting the full healing powers of the spring.

the water helps with just about any and all injury/pain. ( almost all pain ). while it cannot heal a broken heart by any means, it’s capable of soothing one’s body. it is very HOLY in this aspect. so naturally link will seek to bathe/cleanse himself when he can.

the spirits themselves possess healing powers. they can -- if you are a child of LIGHT -- help you to an extent. however their light is extremely strong, and sometimes can do more harm than good. so if you are, lets say somebody who isn’t a natural born triforce weilder and/or your soul is tainted in some way/shape/form, it could hurt you, make you sick, or even kill you. which is why you would want to go for their springs instead. cause the water has only a fraction of the light spirit’s true power but is capable of healing all the same.

one thing to NOTE, however, is that the springs do you better if you just recently sustained an injury. it’s fast acting as the wound is recent. but the longer you wait to go the the spring, the harder/longer it is/takes to heal you. you don’t want to wait on it. mainly because the spring cannot guarantee that you’ll be healed 100%. if you don’t go right away, then you’ll be left with a scar. end of story.

faeries

these creatures are much like the spirits of light, in that most of them are healers. since they do tend to hang around the spirits’ springs, it just goes to show you that they have a deep rooted connection with those light spirits. the special thing about faeries, though, is that tehy are quite versatile. their healing abilities can range.

they can prevent death by granting a ‘second chance’ while VERY RARELY, you’ll come across a faerie that turns back the time just a little bit, all faeries that have healing magic can turn the internal clockwork of link -- cause his body to experience that time-like effect. they can either do that, or just BRING him back to life by giving him that energy.

they can also heal link RIGHT on the spot, just like the springs can, thus preventing him for obtaining a scar. however it’s just the same as the springs, you have to do it right then and there. the longer you wait, the less likely it will work.

i think?? thats about it in regards to this subject though? i know i am a bit scattered with this but i just wanted to let you guys know where i look at with link && scars. i’m not saying he has baby soft skin. but it really does speak VOLUMES in regards to how little scarring he has despite how many near death experiences that he’s had. && thats jut cause he’s lucky to have such places to go to for healing. it’s not because he’s careful. don’t get me wrong. he is NOT careful by any means. in fact, if we look at him and what he’s done with himself in some of these fights? you wouldn’t be looking at the same cute face you’re looking at right now. he just simply knows how to TAKE CARE of himself. or rather.... he’s bee fortunate enough to have these places. which, mind you, he kinda takes a bit for granted sometimes. not ALL the time. but enough to where he probably would have an oh shit moment if these things weren’t readily available or accessible.

but anyway, if you wanna know more about this. you can always ask lol.

#⚜ ; — [ ʰᵉʳᵒ ᵒᶠ ˡᵉᵍᵉᶰᵈ ▲ headcanon. ]#[ alright i've done enough ]#[ im gonna take a break now ]

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sponfawn · 5 years

Text

MTH - Mojo Jojo

Mojo Jojo is the most well known villain in the PPG show. I was really happy when he finally got an appearance in More than Human, and especially since he was so in character. I wanted to write about him, specifically regarding his conversation and relationship with Brick (since he only really has a serious interaction with him).

Mojo is Dad number 1. He made the Boys. And tbh I don't think he fully realized at the time, the enormity of the responsibility that comes with creating life. They were plan 578,923 of his schemes to beat the Girls, and I think thats about as far as he got in contemplating their lives, initially. I mean he made them in a prison toilet, and he was perfectly fine sending them to their possible doom at the hands of the PPGs. Him wasn't much better. He brought them back and gave them cootie shots but had no qualms over sending them out again. In the episode "Custody Battle", I think he and Him finally both saw the Boys as more than just tools. They share a tearful moment of pride in their Boys' evil minds, and I think it's at that point where they start to see them more as individual living kids rather than just disposable tools to an end. But I feel like that just gave them more expectations to heap onto their 6 tiny shoulders, along with the initial directive to destroy the Girls. Even after seeing them as more or less people, Mojo can't see past his own expectations and wants for them, much like many real parents.

We see some of this in the conversation between Mojo and Brick. This conversation is so well written. We are given a lot of information about their past and current relationship, exactly why Brick became disillusioned with his Dads, and why he chose to bring the Boys to JS, rather than start their own operation or a normal life. And we are given all of this without expositional monologues or stilted conversation. It feels like an old argument with new circumstances, and we are given just enough information to be able to reconstruct the info as a cohesive picture . Mojo considers the Boys' work with JS a questionable choice, and a disappointing one. Brick counters his disapproval saying, "you speaking for Him now?", likely referencing similar lectures Him has given in the past. He explains a bit of what JS Inc. does, criticizes Mojo for prioritizing credit for his evil over subtler, secret evil, and therein lies the root of the conflict. Brick at one point, and even now, admires Mojo for his resources and abilities, but is frustrated with his strategies and what he perceives to be a futile, small-minded, obsessive struggle. He wants Mojo's approval, wants the dad that he looked up to to recognize his efforts and accomplishments he's made. Mojo calls him a disappointment and, "a boy who shunned his duty, his destiny, the very reason for which he was created”. It's kind of an old school vs new school conflict, where Mojo is the traditionalist and Brick is the son who wants to move the family business in a more modern direction, and ends up leaving to make his own business. Mojo is the dad who wants to keep the family store, and Brick is the kid who wants to sell it or make it a chain rather than inherit the same exact duties. Likely due to the way that Mojo and Him treated the Boys first like tools, and then their custody battle, and no doubt their following manipulations, Brick is hyperaware and protective of his freedom and ability to make his own choices. (Ironically, he treats his brothers like he owns them and they aren't able to make their own decisions. But I think that is a product of feeling responsible for them, since he's the leader and he's the one who got them free. That responsibility was forced on him so young - when they all should've been learning emotion regulation, communication, and coping skills, and weren't able to. He's taken care of them all this time, for better or worse. But I think, along with the childhood abuse, it's made him more like Mojo and Him than he'd like to admit.) All of this is particularly evident in the following excerpt:

"... I would advise against dismissing that which you are obligated to do.”

“I am not obligated to do anything,” he said. Mojo, this idiot, couldn't see, would never see. None of them ever would.

Brick stared at him, letting his hatred simmer. He wanted to remember this. This was why he had left. This was why it was so important that he get out of here as soon as possible. He would drown in inadequacy here, in this city, listening to drivel like this. He didn't owe anyone a fucking thing. No matter if Him had created them, and Mojo before. They belonged to nobody. Brick belonged to nobody.

“Of course you aren't. Nobody expects anything of an utter disappointment.”

~ ~ ~ ~

I want to delve into another specific part of the conversation, just before the previous excerpt. I'm gonna bold the parts I wanna talk about, and color code them by theme cuz theres a lot to unpack. I think Mojo Jojo gives us some pretty big insights, and possible foreshadowing for More Than Human's progression:

“You say you rejected a destiny that holds no option for you other than failure, but did you ever make the effort? You accuse me, and those with similar inclinations like me in this city, of wasting our efforts, of essentially not being 'evil enough,' the Devil Himself included, the absolute paragon of Evil, the very Being who recreated you! You have no grasp of how significant your origins are! You are a part of something you cannot even begin to comprehend, and instead of taking that opportunity and living up to the responsibilities you shouldered—”

“I shouldered nothing. I was a kid, a stupid kid who didn't know any better—”

“And remarkably enough, nothing has changed. Listen closely so that you may remember this later and I will not have to repeat myself since you have already listened to it and taken this into consideration. You may submit to the idea that being evil means manipulating the world from behind a dark, secret curtain of secrecy, but in the end, how much more devastation will be brought about by you killing whatever rich person it is that you kill who has a lot of money because they are rich, than by destroying those that signify eternal hope and salvation? Those that have become symbols of love and beauty—”

“A symbol is only a symbol. Humanity is fickle. Symbols come and go.”

“Your youth does not excuse your stupidity,” Mojo admonished. “The devotion of the pitiful human heart is not to be underestimated, Brick.”

A silence passed between them, marred by the deep snoring of the sleeping guard.

“You and your brothers were created to destroy the Powerpuff Girls. Both times. Him even placed you with that duty, which is yours no matter what you believe. A task from the Most Evil One is not to be taken lightly, at least, not in my recommendation; I would advise against dismissing that which you are obligated to do.”

First, the section bolded in red is an important exchange. To some degree, Brick knows that it was wrong to hold children to any serious, life-changing responsibility even if they agreed to it. I'm not sure if he recognizes that he, and likely the Boys as a whole, were subject to at least emotional abuse. But he knows it was fucked up. The line where Mojo says, "no one expects anything of an utter disappointment", really shows the kind of dad he was. As much as he's a comic relief villain who doesn't allow cursing, its a sharp reality check for how he probly treated the Boys as soon as they began showing disinterest or different goals from what he wanted. No wonder they emancipated themselves.

The section bolded in black might be a hint of foreshadowing. Mojo talks about how Him remade and tasked them with destroying the Girls, how they're part of something bigger than they can understand, whether they like it or not, and that they cannot avoid that. I think Him has a plan for ensnaring the Boys as well as the Girls (which I will get into more with Him's post). And I have a theory that it relates directly to the blue coded sections.

In blue, Mojo and Brick discuss symbols and human nature. Specifically, Brick dismisses the Girls as lasting symbols of Hope, Love, and Justice for the public, and Mojo warned him not to underestimate the devotion of the human heart. He specifically says that the Girls have become a symbol of Love and Beauty for the citizens of Townsville, which parallels how they have become symbols of Beauty and Love for the Boys as well. In my theory, this ties directly into how Him's scheme will go down. Again, I will go into detail in the next post, but I think He's going to use the devotion of the very human hearts in our 6 more than human teens. How much more devastating would it be for the Boys to destroy the very ones theyve come to love?

#sbj more than human #chillin with the villains series #mojo jojo #its a long one

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arysafics · 5 years

Text

Now I’m Addicted

Chapter Eight

Normally, Clarke really looks forward to getting away to the beach for a weekend, just her and Wells. This year, the thought makes her queasy.

Clarke had been partly relieved to move make home with Wells. Living in a hotel had kind of sucked, and living alone was even worse. She still doesn’t know if she made the right decision. But she promised him she’d try, so she’s going to try.

And yes, it’s Bellamy she really wants, and not Wells. But she can’t have Bellamy. Bellamy doesn’t want her, and Wells does. So maybe she’s settling for second best, but it’s better than being alone for the rest of her life.

Despite her best intentions, and the fact that she really is trying, she’s not ready to go away with Wells alone. She’s worried the trip will just magnify all the holes in their relationship, before they’ve had a chance to really fix them. She doesn’t want to cancel the trip completely, so she suggests inviting a few other people to join them. Wells agrees surprisingly easily. Actually, he’s been very accommodating the past couple of weeks, almost like he’s walking on eggshells around her, afraid she’ll up and run again. But the truth is he doesn’t really have anything to worry about. Now that Clarke knows she has no shot with Bellamy, she has no reason to leave him. She wishes there was some way to prove that to him, so they can get start getting back to normal.

The beach house is huge, and Clarke thinks it’s probably worth a hell of a lot of money if Wells ever decides to sell it. Thelonius Jaha had left most of his money to charity when he died, but he left Wells the beach house. Not to sound selfish, but if Clarke’s mom does that, she’s going to be super pissed.

Clarke invites Octavia and Raven, and they both decide they’re bringing their partners. Monty and Harper can’t make it, and Jasper and Miller don’t want to hang around a bunch of couples for the whole weekend. So Clarke figures it’s going to be six people in the five bedroom house, with each couple getting their own bathroom. She’s actually looking forward to it.

But then she gets a call from Bellamy. She’s on the train home from work, and she almost drops her phone when she sees his name pop up. She dithers for a moment, her heart pounding, before she finally decides to answer.

“Hi,” she says, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“Clarke,” he says, and the sound of her name on his tongue makes her knees go weak.

“What’s up?” she asks him. He’s obviously calling for a reason. And that reason is probably not to tell her how madly in love with her he is, however many times she’s envisioned that scenario in her mind’s eye.

“Uh, well…” he starts. “Octavia asked me if I wanted to come to the beach with you guys this weekend.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, I figured I should check if it was okay with you first.”

“You really want to come?” Clarke asks. She kind of figured he was avoiding her.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” Bellamy says. “I could really do with a vacation,” he laughs. Clarke squeezes her eyes shut, her stomach twisting at the familiar sound of his laugh. How had she not figured out sooner that she was in love with him?

“Of course it’s fine,” Clarke says, because why wouldn’t it be? They aren’t sleeping together anymore, so they don’t have to worry about Wells. As far as either of them are concerned, they’re just distant friends. Or acquaintances maybe.

“Great,” Bellamy says. “Is it okay if I bring someone?”

Clarke hesitates, probably too long. “Sure,” she says quickly, hoping he hadn’t noticed her hesitation. No, she doesn’t want him to bring his girlfriend, and no, she doesn’t want to think about what it means that he’s only been dating Echo barely a month and yet he’s bringing her on a weekend away with all their friends.

“Okay. I guess I’ll see you Friday.”

“Okay,” Clarke swallows. “See you then.”

The prospect of seeing Bellamy scares Clarke to death. She hasn’t seen him since A: she realised she was in love with him, and B: he broke her fucking heart. So yeah, she’s a little nervous to say the least.

Wells doesn’t seem to notice, though she’s mostly silent on the drive to the beach house. Or perhaps he’s just letting her have her space. Either way, she’s glad he’s not questioning her about it. There’s only so many times a person can use the excuse I’m just tired before it starts to seem like a lie.

Clarke and Wells get there first and claim the master bedroom. Clarke unpacks her suitcase into the wardrobe, to keep herself busy. The task doesn’t really keep her mind off Bellamy though, and she keeps listening for a car in the driveway, her heart pounding rapidly.

Octavia, Niylah, Raven, and Shaw arrive together, and Clarke finally has a suitable distraction from her thoughts, as she’d introduced properly to Niylah for the first time, and Raven and Octavia start telling a story about The Worst Driver in the World they encountered on their way here.

She’s so caught up in Octavia’s theatrics, she doesn’t even notice at first when Bellamy and Echo walk in the front door. That is until Octavia cuts herself off midsentence to greet her brother.

“Hey, you made it!” she says, walking over and giving him a hug. Clarke freezes, her heart suddenly lodged in her throat. Bellamy’s eyes seem to scan over the group until they land on Clarke. She smiles weakly, feeling like a nervous wreck. Fucking hell, he looks so good. And if in the back of her mind she’d harboured some doubt about whether or not she’s actually in love with him, that vanishes when he smiles back at her, and her heart squeezes itself so tight she can’t breathe. Not only that, but he pussy starts to throb, as if it can sense he’s close. Yeah, letting him come here was a huge mistake.

“Bellamy,” Wells says, raising an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

Oops. She may have forgotten to tell Wells. Or rather, purposefully not told him because it was too hard to even say Bellamy’s name out loud.

“I did ask Clarke if it was okay,” he mentions.

“He did,” Clarke manages, finding her voice. “I guess I forgot to tell you.”

“All good, I guess. You’re here now. And who is this?” Wells nods to the tall brunette standing next to Bellamy. Clarke hates her on sight. With one glance at Octavia, Clarke can tell she isn’t impressed with the arrival of Echo either.

“Ah, this is my girlfriend, Echo,” Bellamy introduces. “Echo, this is… everyone.”

Hearing Bellamy call Echo his girlfriend sends a dagger through Clarke’s heart. And it’s not like she hadn’t known she was his girlfriend. But hearing him actually say it out loud is something else entirely.

“Girlfriend, huh, Blake?” Raven teases. “Seems like someone is finally settling down.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes. “Give it a rest, Raven. We’ve only been dating a month.”

“Only a month and she’s already your girlfriend though,” Raven continues. She turns to Echo. “I guess you’re the one to finally tame the wild beast,” she winks.

Echo smirks. “We’ll see,” she says, glancing at Bellamy flirtatiously. Bellamy looks a little uncomfortable by the whole exchange. Clarke wants to throw up.

“Who wants alcohol?” she announces, heading for the kitchen where Wells had stocked the fridge with beer and cider earlier.

They all end up in the outdoor area out the back of the house, drinks in hand and an array of finger foods on the table in front of them. Echo is sitting in Bellamy’s lap, playing with his hair, laughing too hard at his jokes. Clarke tries to keep her eyes averted, but she burns with jealousy. She wants to be the one sitting in his lap and playing with his hair, feeling his hard cock pressing into her, teasing him until he can’t think straight. She also wants to kick Echo in the face. Instead, she tightens her grip on her bottle of cider and snuggles into Wells’ side. It’s not because she’s trying to make Bellamy jealous. She’s not dumb enough to think he would even care. But she doesn’t want him to know how much she’s affected by his new relationship. So she’s a little more affectionate with Wells than she normally is. The alcohol probably helps.

“Who wants to play a drinking game?” Octavia asks.

“I’m in,” Raven says. “What are we playing?”

“You know, I think I’m a little old for drinking games,” Bellamy grimaces. He looks to Echo. “You want to go to bed?”

“You know I do,” Echo says, leaning in to kiss him.

“Gross,” Octavia says, voicing Clarke’s thoughts for her. “We won’t miss you.”

“Hey, you invited me,” Bellamy reminds her as he and Echo stand up. Clarke watches them head inside, hand in hand. To her surprise, Bellamy glances back for a moment and meets her eyes. She quickly looks away, pressing a kiss to Wells’ cheek. Overcompensating maybe. When she looks back to Bellamy, he’s gone.

“Clarke? Wells? You want to play?” Octavia asks.

“I actually think maybe we should go to bed too,” Clarke says. Somehow the thought of Bellamy and Echo alone in their room is worse than actually being able to see them together, and Clarke feels totally sober all of a sudden.

“Sounds good to me,” Wells grins. “See you guys in the morning.”

“Party poopers!” Raven calls after them as they go back inside.

Despite what Wells might think, Clarke’s intentions are just to go straight to sleep. Only, once she’s in her pyjamas, and under the covers, she begins to hear… noises through the wall. More specifically, the sound of Echo moaning like a mad woman.

Clarke groans, putting her pillow over her face as Wells gets into bed beside her.

“God, I hope we don’t have to listen to that all night,” he says. “Surely he can’t be that good in bed?”

Clarke knows for a fact that he is that good. Although Echo does sound completely ridiculous moaning like that. Clarke likes to think her own moans are much sexier. She does realise that even though she can hear Echo quite clearly, she can’t really hear Bellamy at all. She takes some satisfaction in the notion that maybe he’s not having as much fun with Echo as he did with Clarke.

Clarke turns over on her side to face Wells. “Fuck me,” she commands him.

“Huh?”

“You heard me.”

“Are you actually turned on by that?” Wells snorts.

“I just think we can outdo them.”

“Clarke, you’re not that loud in bed. I don’t think you can outdo Echo,” Wells rolls his eyes. “You know, that name actually suits her come to think of it.”

Clarke snorts. As much as she’d like to hang shit on Echo and her ridiculous name for the rest of the night, what she really wants is to get fucked. “I can be loud,” Clarke tells him. “Watch me.”

Wells doesn’t need to be told twice. And okay, pretty much all of Clarke’s noises are fake. But she’s pretty sure a lot of Echo’s are too. Sure, Bellamy is great in bed, but Echo sounds like she’s literally being murdered in the next room.

Clarke pretends to come when Wells comes, but even then, they can still hear Echo through the walls.

“How are they still going?” Wells asks incredulously. Clarke rolls her eyes.

“Let’s just go to sleep now, okay?” she huffs. She squeezes her eyes shut tight and tries to drown out the sounds of Echo.

Clarke is awake early the next morning, long before anyone else will be up. Wells is still snoring softly next to her. It’s already warming up outside, and Clarke decides to take advantage of the solitude and go for a walk along the beach. She dresses in a pair of short shorts and a tank top and heads downstairs, stopping in the kitchen to grab a glass of water before she goes.

As she fills her glass at the sink, she looks out the kitchen window to see Bellamy lounging in the hammock on the front porch, reading, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts that Clarke swears are almost as tiny as her own. God, he’s so fucking sexy.

She lets herself watch him, his brow furrowed in concentration as he reads. She smiles to herself, her heart soft for him. So he has a girlfriend. She can still be in love with him and be his friend, right? It’s totally possible.

She puts down her glass and walks out onto the front porch. Bellamy looks up as the door slams behind her. He sits up, closing his book. His eyes rake over her body, lingering on her tits. She feels her clit twinge. So it’s not that he’s not attracted to her then.

“Hey,” she says. “I’m just going for a walk along the beach. Do you want to come?”

Bellamy considers. “Yeah, okay,” he agrees. He swings himself off the hammock, more gracefully than what Clarke would ever be able to manage, and follows her down the front steps.

They walk in silence towards the beach, Clarke with her hands in her back pockets for lack of something better to do with them. Because what she really wants to do is slip her hand into his. Or maybe just grab his face and kiss him.

It’s a five-minute walk until they reach the ocean, and it’s cooler out in the open air, and a little windy. The breeze blows through Bellamy’s already tousled locks, making him look like he’s in a beach themed photoshoot.

“So, uh, you and Echo, huh?” Clarke says. Why, she has no idea. She does not want to hear Bellamy gush about his girlfriend. “Seems like things are going well. If what I heard last night is anything to go by.”

Bellamy snorts. “You heard that, huh?”

“How could I not?”

“I will admit she’s a little over the top. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was faking it sometimes,” Bellamy admits.

“And how do you know better?”

Bellamy smirks. “Come on, Clarke. Don’t pretend like I didn’t make you come over and over and over.”

Clarke shivers. Fucking hell, does he have to make her want him so bad? “So we’re talking about that are we?”

Bellamy shrugs. “We don’t have to. How are things going with Wells, now that you’re…?”

“Back together?” Clarke finishes for him. Bellamy stops, staring at her. His jaw ticks.

“Back together?” he repeats. Clarke’s eyes widen as she realises what she’s said. “I was going to say monogamous.” Bellamy swallows. “You and Wells broke up? When? I mean… Octavia never said—”

“She doesn’t know,” Clarke says quickly. Her face burns. “I didn’t tell anyone. So please don’t mention it. No one knows.”

“Okay,” Bellamy nods. He seems unable to look at her now. They continue walking.

“It was right after… you ended things with me. And it was only for like a week. I guess I just wanted to see if being with Wells was what I really wanted,” Clarke shrugs.

Bellamy turns his head towards her sharply, his eyes piercing into her. “And it is, then?”

Clarke swallows. “Yes.”

An uncomfortable silence follows. Clarke isn’t sure why. All she knows is she’s completely on edge, half of her desperate to confess everything to him, the other half desperate to hold onto her pride. The prideful side of her wins out.

“You want to go swimming?” she says. Anything to break the silence.

“What?”

“The water looks so nice,” Clarke continues. She tilts her head at him, waiting to see if he’s coming.

“I think I’ll pass,” he says. Clarke shrugs, as if to say suit yourself, and then she pulls her tank top over her head and her shorts over her ass. She can feel him watching her strip down to her underwear, and she’s totally not doing this to get a reaction from him, but if it turns him on too then she’s not complaining.

She looks back over her shoulder as she heads towards the water. He’s still watching her. She can’t help a smirk from spreading across her face.

The water is freezing, but Clarke forces herself to wade in anyway. She reaches her waist then dives under the water. She breaks the surface again, gasping from the cold, flicking her hair out of her eyes. She stands up, the water just reaching her breasts.

“Come on!” she yells to Bellamy. “It’s not cold, I swear!”

“You’re lying!” he yells back, but he’s very clearly smiling.

“Don’t be such a chicken!”

Bellamy shakes his head, laughing. But then he’s walking towards her and into the water.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Bellamy swears as he gets deeper. “It’s fucking freezing, Clarke!”

“It’s not that bad!”

He dives under the water and surfaces half a metre from her. “You’re insane,” he tells her.

“Yet you followed me anyway.”

“You’re too persuasive.”

Clarke pokes her tongue out, and then splashes him. Bellamy raises an eyebrow, smirking.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish, Griffin,” he challenges, stepping towards her.

“Oh, what are you going to do?” she teases. He lunges for her and she turns away, trying to escape his grasp half-heartedly, but he grabs her around the waist, pulling her back flush against his chest.

“No, don’t!” she squeals, laughing.

“Do you surrender?” he asks, lips against her ear. Clarke squirms, trying not to think about his wet skin against hers. But it feels like he’s touching her everywhere, and her head swims and her cunt pulses with need. She wonders if he’s hard right now, but she doesn’t dare make a move to find out.

“I surrender,” she tells him, and he lets her go. She turns around, but she doesn’t put any distance between them. His eyes flick to her lips and she wills him to kiss her.

“Clarke,” he says hoarsely. “I really want to kiss you.”

“So kiss me,” she murmurs.

Bellamy shakes his head. “I have a girlfriend, Clarke. I’m not going to cheat on her.” Right, Echo. “We should head back,” Bellamy sighs, stepping away from her. Disappointed, but knowing it’s better this way, Clarke follows him back up to the sand. She grabs her clothes from the ground but doesn’t put them back on yet.

“We should wash the salt and sand off before we go,” Clarke says, nodding her head towards the public bathroom by the carpark. There’s an outdoor shower around the side of the brick building. Clarke gets under first, and the water is cold but not as cold as the ocean. She closes her eyes to let the water fall over her face, and opens them to find Bellamy looking at her strangely.

“What?” she asks.

“You know your underwear is totally see-through right now, right?”

Clarke had not known, but when she looks down now, she can see that he’s right. The white material of her bra and panties clings to her, the water having turned them so transparent it’s like she isn’t wearing anything at all.

“Oh,” she says. “You’re right.” She looks back up at him. “You waited a long time to tell me that,” she points out. He must have noticed as soon as they got out of the water. And he definitely hasn’t been not looking at her.

Bellamy flushes. “Clarke—”

“I guess there’s no point in wearing them at all then,” Clarke shrugs. She reaches behind her to unclasp her bra and lets it fall from her chest. Then she peels off her panties and throws them to the side where her shorts and tank top sit.

“Fucking hell, Clarke,” Bellamy groans, shaking his head.

“We’re wasting water,” Clarke says, she reaches out and grabs his arm, tugging him into the shower with her. He’s stronger than her, he could resist easily, if he wanted to. He doesn’t.

He doesn’t move to touch her, but he’s so close that her nipples brush his chest, and he’s looking down at her with dark eyes, filled with want.

“Why are you like this?” he asks. Is that an insult or a compliment?

“Like what?”

“Irresistible,” he murmurs. His hands come to rest of her waist, and then he leans down, capturing her lips between his. Clarke whimpers as she closes her eyes, her arms circling around his neck. The water shuts off automatically, but Clarke barely notices. Bellamy presses her against the brick wall behind her, crushing her tits against his chest. He’s kissing her like his life depends on it, desperate and messy, like he’s trying to remind her she’s alive. She’d almost forgotten what it’s like to be kissed by him, and now that she remembers she doesn’t ever want him to stop again. She needs him to remind her how it feels to be fucked, really fucked. She wants him to fill her throbbing cunt with his cock, and come with him deep inside her.

“Bell, fuck me,” she moans. “I need you, I need you.”

“You need me, huh?” he says. “You need your pussy filled? You need my cock inside you?”

“Yes. Please. Please.”

“Of course you do, baby,” he murmurs, slipping a hand between her legs. “Bet you missed being fucked properly, didn’t you?”

“Uh huh,” Clarke nods as Bellamy plays with her clit. “I missed you so much.”

“Missed me? Or missed my cock?” He pushes two fingers inside her and she gasps.

“Both,” she moans. She tugs at his shorts, and he helps her pull them down to free his cock. “Oh god,” she groans. “I forgot how big it is. I need it inside me.”

“I know, baby, I know,” Bellamy coos. He kisses her again, gripping her ass, hoisting her up so she can wrap her legs around him. He presses the bulging head of his cock against her entrance, and then he’s pushing inside her, stretching her pussy good and wide. Clarke almost comes right then.

Her back is against the bricks, and she clutches his back as he thrusts into her.

“Yes,” she gasps. “Fuck me, baby. Fuck me, fuck me.”

Bellamy moans and the sound sends shockwaves through her. He drives into her over and over, the pressure building inside her. She needs to come so bad, and she’s right there on the edge. I love you, she thinks. I love you, I love you. And it would be so easy to let it slip off her tongue right now, in this moment of bliss. But instead she just cries his name as she comes, her walls clenching around him as she comes all over his cock.

“Come inside me,” Clarke moans as he continues fucking her against the wall. “I need your come in me.”

“Anything you want,” Bellamy groans, letting his seed spill inside her, filling her up with his come. It leaks out of her as he pulls his cock out of her and lets her back onto the ground. Bellamy steps back, pulling his shorts back up, not bothering to clean himself up. She wonders if he’s feeling guilty. He grabs her clothes and hands them to her, and Clarke quickly puts her wet underwear back on and then her shorts and top. Bellamy looks away, as if he hadn’t just had his hands all over her naked body.

“Are you okay?” Clarke asks.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Bellamy nods.

“What about Echo?”

Bellamy considers. “She doesn’t have to know.”

#bellarke #bellarke fanfiction #the 100 #the 100 fanfiction #mine

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contactlense · 4 years

Text

wanna read something absolutely batshit insane?

???

each time i look at my reflection im not quite sure who’s staring back

now i carry all these ghosts but i dont think i’ve ever known

each time i close my eyes i think maybe i’ll be different when i wake

but every day’s the same

they go just as they came; as if no time has passed at all

it’s as if i’m waiting for an apparition of

someone i haven’t met yet

will i ever get that?

i want to run away,

ditch the phones, ditch the games

but something like fear of missing out

keeps me here, exactly the same

i’ve got a lot to lose. or so i thought.

(people to disappoint, people who love me a lot. )

whats the point of all that love when i don’t know who i am?

that stranger in the mirror needs to grow/ into someone that i can understand.

im not sure how i can do it/ when im afraid to let go

money to spend, money to waste,/ jumping around from place to place

its not my shit to jerk around, /just use it wise and settle down

finish what you started before you run again

finish what you started and maybe you’ll find you can/ finally get to know

that stranger in the mirror

maybe you’ll have to stay here for now

maybe you’ll actually figure out how /to stop romanticizing the lives you’ll never live

or maybe, just maybe, you’ll get it

i want to leave

for something uncomplicated

i dont think ill make it

things stay complicated

you’re kidding yourself

life isnt that simple

life isn’t the story you think you can write

do you want to live inside your stories?

do you really want that life?

the thing about being alone is theres no pretence to uphold

nobody to lie to

but your own reflection in the mirror

if you can even see it

im not alone

but sometimes i wish i was

so every time that i fuck up theres no one else to clean it up

no more guilt

but thats not something i can just make up

maybe the pain would be easier if my life was actually tragic

something real to cry about instead of the thoughts inside my head

only you can change yourself but not enough

not enough to get it

with all the people tying you down

its not enough room to grow, to really grow

but loosening those ties would mean i’d have to make it on my own

i need my medication. thats the part that fucks me up. if i leave i wont be stable, i wont be able to get by.

i get so dramatic when im sad, but am i telling the truth?

is this how i really feel?

when im lying by myself in bed it seems like the biggest truth

but morning comes and the alarm goes off

and i think how silly, how dumb, how crude

unrealistic, privileged thoughts

maybe i’d be better off

going to sleep at 8:30.

this isnt a new feeling. year after year i have the same thought. if i could just run away from here, maybe i’ll find what i want.

“here,” where is “here”? i’ve been so many places and i always want to go. and so i leave but where i land is not where i want to go.

its where i think i should be, to please the people who keep me on my feet

unrealistic, privileged thoughts.

if one of them was gone you’d regret everything you ever wrote. you’d beg god to bring them back but no one’s listening, and you know

that all the things you think you want

would kill you just the same

as the life you think that you resent

so maybe all you’ll ever feel is pain.

sick. twisted. ridiculous. privileged thoughts.

just because others have it worse doesnt mean that your feelings mean any less

but how the fuck can you say you’re unhappy when you know you’d feel worse if you were them

since i feel this type of pain maybe giving it all up is what i deserve

if i’ll be unhappy anyways, why not give me a real reason? i need a real reason. it doesnt make sense. i feel alone, but not in the way that i want. i want peace of mind.

the only way i think i’ll get it is if i move to the countryside

only do the work to get the money that i need to survive.

otherwise i’ll tend to plants, read a book, count the ants

count the stars

and hope a new life will find me here

without ties to who i was

just being who i am

i am who i am from moment to moment

i dont think im ever the same

when i started writing i felt i had a different name

a different face

there is no future

there is no past

if one day at a time is all we’ve got

i’ll erase it all, close my eyes, and hope that when i wake up it’ll look a different way

i should send this to my therapist. theres a lot to unpack. but i think i laid it all out, rearranged it, and put it back together, the same way i always do. i get upset. i get angry. i reframe it. and it feels empty. an empty promise of tomorrow. there’s nothing to be upset about. just finish all you started. the same cycle every time.

cycle. im about to get my period.

if none of this is how i really feel, then why does it happen Every. Single. Time. ????

the same thoughts. the Same Shit. it must be true. i think im deluding myself every time i get through it because it’s the only thing i know how to do. the only thing i think i should do. lay it out, reframe it, pack it all back up for the next time it explodes.

im fine. im alive. but am i? doesn’t feel like it.

every time i take a breath i feel like i have to document it. i have to write it all down. if i have nothing to show for it, did any of it really happen? in 100 years someone may find this and know that something happened here. someone felt something.

when i write things down i feel like im not alone. there are no people around, how i like it, but at least i am known. i want to be known. in anonymity. i want to be known when it’s all over. that’s all. but we’re all marks that get worn away by time. we sink into the ground and make way for new things, new life. nothing is permanent, except it feels like it is when you’ve only got so much time. it feels like the clock is running out when i haven’t even been here long. how do i have all these thoughts when i haven’t even been here that long??? things move too fast for me. i need everything to slow down. to experience a year for the length of a year. all 525,600 minutes of it. instead of being worried about whats coming next. it feels like a bunch of cars are speeding at me and i have to get out of the way. i just want to get out of the way but there’s nowhere to go but between the cars or under them. it feels like they’re just narrowly missing me. my heart beating fast, thinking “that was close,” over and over. i’m tired of it. i’m tired of mental and emotional labor. i’m so tired of it i think about defaulting to physical labor. moving things around from place to place for a living. helping life move along for a living. not bringing new things into it that no one needs or wants. nothing to complicate anything further. less thinking. more doing. having something to show for your labor instead of an obscenely long note in your phone and dried tears on your pillow and a C+ on a computer screen.

sometimes i think maybe i should fuck it up on purpose. make them kick me out. show my parents i actually couldnt do it. that i wasted time and money. make them cut me off financially and fend for myself. then it wouldnt feel like quitting or running. it would feel like this is how my life is now. this is what i have to do or i’ll drown.

life is really forced upon you. i did not ask for this. i did NOT ask for this. i feel like i cant control anything.

i feel like im lying all the time. lying to everyone around me and to myself.

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traviswsoul · 7 years

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Day 28 Brook's Memorial Park to Sunnyside RV Resort 50 miles

July 31, 3:49 time, 2,044 caloires, 13.2 avg mph, 1,014; climbed After so many days resting up I was ready to ride. The campsite was great, I went to sleep at sunset reading Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, which is blowing my mind, and then was at with the sun at 5:30. This was a great execution of the morning routine so I was able to run through the breakfast and packing like a pro. This was greatly assisted by having a dry tent, I think I’m learning something about dew, I believe dew doesn’t settle through the night as much as it settles in the morning after the sun comes up. It makes sense, if the air around a colder thing heats up then the surface of the thing gathers dew, it’s just condensation I’m thinking. This lines up with my observation and is encouraging me to get up as soon as its light, I really hate packing a wet tent! Adapting my body to routine of the sun is really exciting for me, I have always been a morning person and believed this to be the best way to make the most of the day. I hope that I can keep it up when I get off the road. It makes me think about how much time I have been outside, and sleeping and waking without a roof over my head that normally allows my controlling of light, and so many other things. I am enjoying an learning a lot from the simplicity of a narrow realm of control and adapting myself to nature instead of trying to force all the elements to adapt to my lifestyle. But, don’t get me wrong, I’m also looking forward to sleeping in when this is all over and I’m back in my bed, I need some black out curtains. ;) However this morning I had almost pedaled out of the park before realizing I didn’t have my Garmin computer in its place, I turned around and dug it out of some pocket it didn’t belong in, I’ve got to unpack and reorganize everything soon. Because I am no longer on the coast I no longer have maps and planned routes, instead I downloaded a route on the Ride With GPS app and when I was setting it up I checked avoid highways. This was a bad move. I rode for a couple hours, the last few miles down the same road, I knew I had a right turn coming up and that it was going to take eight miles toward the next town. This road was deep grey gravel with some packed spots from driving but like cars do to roads like this the packed spots were rippled and a nightmare to ride over. I had a little hope that it might turn into a paved road so I went almost a half mile before throwing in the towel and turning around. The way back was downhill and there were several times I was certain I as going to crash as I drifted through the loose surface. Somehow I managed to not though and arrived back to where I started. I happened to just get phone service at this same time so despite the chaos I called mom right away because she hadn’t heard from me in a couple days, and I promised her that wouldn’t happen. She was at a computer and helped find my way, as she has always done so well, even before computers. I’m actually really grateful for this mixup because I ended up cycling through the Yakima Valley hop farms. Eighty percent of America’s hops come from here, they grow all different varieties, the ones hop fans are familiar with as well as ones they developed and cultivated ones found wild. I am a huge hop fan myself and have in the last year become for intrigued about how they grow. My local brew supply store had some for sale in the shop one day that you could grow at home, then I talked with a friend of mine that farms hay about them and we wondered if they’d grow in the Texas hillcountry, surely local Texas beer brewers would pay a lot more for Texas hops than what whoever pays for hay. The field is covered with a grid of rope and wire suspended twenty feet up in the air. Ropes are run from it to the ground, one for each hop vine in the rows. They grow tall wrapping up the vine and reaching for the sun, it’s a beautiful sight to see. I stopped as soon as I did, parked my bike and walked in to inspect what this was. It was a young plot and none of the plants had mature hops on them so I didn’t recognize them right away. I did have a feeling it was hops from the baby buds I found on them, I took a sample to ask someone later but I didn’t have to, down the road was a mature field with towering vines and fully developed fat hops. I was beside myself, my ideas were confirmed and they had been on my mind for such long time so to see it in person felt like the coolest culmination of my ongoing farming lesson that has been this trip. I continued to ride turn after turn through hop farms all at different stages of growth approaching harvest and delivering those delicious betters flavoring my favorite hopy IPAs. All day I had been riding through or along the Yakima Nation Indian Reservation and the Yakima River. I will take this moment to not start ranting about the genocide that created the foundation for our sprawling across this “great” nation and the irony and conflict that I feel about national pride because we collectively choose to ignore this fact……If you stole someone’s TransAm you wouldn’t go blasting around town, blaring Metallica, yelling about it with your mulleted head hangin out the window, flying a flag with you name on it would you? How long after it’s been stolen and passed down to your kids does it become appropriate behavior? This is why I have a hard time with the braggadocios pride on Independence day, why I’ll always bring up smallpox at Thanksgiving, and could only wear an American branded article ironically. Budweiser beer has the word America in the place the brand name used to be, it’s way out of hand. People keep realizing the truth in the line Not all Donald Trump supporters are racist, but all racists are Donald Trump supporters, and they also see them selves as the greatest patriots as well, only adding to my resistance to align where I’m supposed to, patriotism, its a no brainer right? You go all gung ho about where ever your from and allow ideas that’s it’s the best actually hold water. That’s insane, It’s like religions knowing that all the others are wrong and mine is right. Clinging to nationalism, hyper patriotism and rejecting things foreign or different are blatant signs of insecurity and self doubt, in some cases, in my opinion. But since I’m not ranting about the patriotic forgetfulness of the blood on our hands after “founding” our country I’ll move on to my next flat tire. The Yakima river took me into Granger, there are dinosaurs in Granger, all over the town, apparently its a ancient river bed and some of the first fossils were found there. There really cling to there dino identity in Granger, theres not much really to be honest. I needed to eat and managed to find the only restaurant in town that was inside a little Mexican market and meat shop. I had a great time visiting with the three woman sitting next to me at the second of the only three tables there. I drank a bottle of appeared to be Mexican version of pedialite, that stuff you give to babies when they are sick and need electrolites, which I sure did, it was hot outside. The bonus was it was Horchatta flavored! I love Horchata and used to order the cinnamon rice milk drink at Magie’s, my favorite Mexican joint in my home town. I hope I find that again some day! It wasn’t much further to the next town, I had options, I could have stopped there or gone on but I was in no rush and then my tire popped a quarter mile from the first gas station of the town so it was decided, Sunnyside Washington would be home for the night. I had a hell of a time changing this tire. The one tube I tried to replace it with ended up have a bad valve in it and wouldn’t take air, I only realized this after wasting a buck in quarters and a CO2 figuring it out. When I the bike was finally ridable and put back together I spent a while riding around this big little town. I checked the Big 5 Sports store and the Walmart. Little air guns and pellet guns use CO2 but they don’t screw in so they don’t have threads to use with my tire inflator. So knowing there was nothing left to do I cruised around eyes for a spot to camp. The back of the Walmart had a line of overhead bushes and right behind them was 8 foot lane before a huge endless corn field, it would have been perfect but it was still early, I could use a shower, and didn’t want to not be able to leave my stuff to go eat or get water. Sunnyside RV Resort was a much better option for twenty bucks. I met some wonderful kids too there that were really interested in me, my stuff, harmonica and had all kinds of random ass stories to tell me like, about the bug at school, the treasure he buried in the yard, and the youngest just mumbled stuff constantly. They were are dirty from playing outside all day and not afraid of their curiosity. The six year old gave me a blue magic stone which was one of the half glass marbles from a fish tank, I’m keeping it forever. The guy who ran the place sent me to El Valle for the Lamb Shank and Cadillac Margarita. The lamb was delicious covered in enchilada sauce served with rice and cheesy refried beans, I didn’t need any liquor though so I passed on the Cadillac. I went to bed full and happy I was back on the road and in the full swing of things.

PS. The encouragement from strangers and drivers everyday is amazing, powerful and really helps me push on sometimes when it’s slow. Please take note, If you want to express your excitement about seeing a cyclist on the road and cheer him on, be sure not to begin honking until after you have passed him and he can identify you as an ally by your fist pumping out the window. Ally’s honks don’t sound any different than Asshole’s

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enchantechante · 7 years

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22012017 0509

its 330a and i woke up crying.

im still drunk, so i feel like i can be honest now.

i have been trying to ask myself what hurts. everything. everything hurts. and i dont know if im having a depressive episode in the middle of the night or if im just mourning bc my family is back home watching my gma die.

idk if i just have so much unforgiveness in my heart that it just wakes me up out my sleep.

all the demons i need to feed.

i cant remember the last time i spent time with someone who wasnt in their phone. and its becoming hard to distinguish if its a nervous habit or if people rly just rather be in their phone than be fully present w me.

speaking of things that make me feel non essential, i think certain people need people around like a fidget toy. to deflect their nervous energy or something.

esp me.

spending time w me is rly nice for some people bc i can easily have a full conversation abt someone else and be engaged. bc i love ppl. very specifically and devoutly. and ppl can feel that. and i think for people who neglect themselves, my genuine attention quenches something deeper for them.

like an itch they cant seem to scratch on their own.

and for a while ive felt like im a good stepping stone for certain people until they get ahold of themselves, heal and are able to give that genuine attn to someone else.

which is natural i guess. to finally acknowledge i was never all too memorable (to them).

but thats when you can feel good abt something like never speaking to your best friend again.

when you remember how disposable they made you feel.

you��re finally free to find someone who can treat you how you treat them.

even if that person is just you.

and they finally get it and agree to let the friendship die and its like watching everything, all of it, the pain and the pleasure, float off into outter space.

and the terror of when are they gonna hurt you again isnt lingering over your head. you can breathe a little deeper knowing theres one less person whos going to try and tear you down mentally again.

even tho it “wasnt always like that”.

tell me, how many times does someone need to tell you they used to try and make you feel stupid on purpose for you to day dream abt how to get free from that? (not them, as a person but THAT. whatever that thing is that lets “loved ones” go to sleep hurting so our egos can thrive)

if its possible to “bring the abuser out” in a person, i guess i do.

or for him i did.

call me old fashioned but i cant refriend ppl i know need professional psychological assistance and have not yet received it.

but thats nothing new.

i feel free now tho. & that is new.

sad but mostly free.

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

since christmas ive started struggling w suicidal ideology again and i see why my therapist made a huge deal abt self care.

bc once you learn to take care of yourself, there is always undoubtedly one person who can back you when you need it. who can love you as you need it.

who you will never be too clingy to. or easily ignored w someones dash/feed/phone/txt.

me loving myself came out of necessity.

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

i smoke. i drink.

but watching my family suffer, watching them die as she dies, hurts so deep ive stopped enjoying it.

there is nothing chemical or otherwise that can take this away.

i still do it.

but in the way ppl who hate their jobs drink coffee. bc its the only not-so-shitty part. it could be freshly ground & columbian imported.

its just another thing to make the empty feeling inside feel a little less empty.

except my shitty job is living rn.

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

i dont give people the opportunity to call me “clingy” twice. after the first time i enjoyed your presence and you felt mine was excessive im gon get the fuck on. its becoming hard to distinguish if he just wants to be around bc he’s used to me being around but when we’re actually out, if im beside him clingy.

it makes functions my boyfriends gonna be at w me feel like im going out by myself.

bc who gives someone the opportunity to call them clingy twice...

not in a relationship.

(or anywhere rly).

the race to be at a friends house as soon as i get home. or in another room. the constant desire to be entertained, we cant just sit and actually, you know, just be w each other.

things i enjoy bc i actually like my bf as a person.

theres are ways to be here and gone.

for me to tell you “i miss you” and youre sitting right across from me, in a room where no one else is talking. and im not soft spoken its just one of those here-and-gone things.

i asked him if he heard me tonight and he said he didnt.

i said it wasnt important.

cause it doesnt feel like it is anymore. - - - - - - - - - - - - -

my friend and i are talking again.

and thats the only plus i could give today. the only thing that didnt have a fucked up underside.

i think its hard when youve accidentally hurt someone you care abt and you want to rebuild the friendship you gotta consider why ita such an uphill battle.

but its worth it bc of who he is.

he had so much to mourn. and be angry abt. so much to try and make sense of. and bc he matters to me, i did my very best to understand at any given moment since i hurt him i could be encountering him at any stage of grief.

some of how he feels isnt so much personal to me as it is also apart of unpacking what every thing thats transpired meant to him.

and bc i love him, im patient.

and i will apologize for the rest of my life if i need to. hes too important to not understand how important he is to me.

it means a lot we got to talk today.

- - - - - - - - - - -

also got great advice from bestables. whos subtle love keeps me from feeling like im falling apart from too long. bestables could txt once a week.

bc she gave me love that grew. and we both tend it often and regularly.

bc what she built by design is self-sustaining (sured up w love, trust, understanding, consistency, pure intentions, grace and forgiveness - all that good best friend stuff) she can leave and come back.

she knows how to say or do just a few things here and there, bc she knows me, that keep my heart full.

she is my living example of how to use love to keep a person strong rather than leave them weak (which i think is an over romanticized state to be in bc of “love”).

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

i deleted a young woman i used to talk to.

and she reached out this evening and we had a v nice talk. she & i have only had a few nice talks, and flirted a bit. but she got some rly dark news.

and she stopped talking to me. which im fine w but it was hard seeing her pop up on fb talking and flirting w all of her other friends.

so i just tried to make a graceful exit and im surprised she noticed.

im kind of at the point in my life tho where if someones gonna be my friend i need them to come on w it.

mentally i dont think i have the energy for one-sided friendships rn.

also: this isolating myself shit? its clutch af.

why? bc ppl rly suck rn. & im so v fragile.

ppl still be like, “how are you?” and if im bein honest i just say “not good.” i feel sick but like its in my heart/mind.

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illfigureitoutasigoalong · 4 years

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just gotta unpack some things lol

at first i was really reserved about moving but now I am leaning into it. its all i can think about really. the only thing that gives me pause is that my sister and i want to live in the same place but we have really different wants as far as an apartment is concerned. she wants to live in a trendy area with a modern apartment and pay a fortune for it. i want to live in a place twice the size, closer to work, and with a more traditional layout. we found a place we agreed on and i just hope it ends up being what we need.

but like another thing is lately i can’t tell if I am just extra sensible or practical or if she is just very naiive. for example: i broke down my income and budget and used that to determine how much rent I can afford. i told her this and its like a foreign concept. maybe it’s because i have always been kinda broke but i know exactly how much money i make, and when things are debited from my account. and just its so interesting how we grew up in the same house but so differently.

ok so for her:

she started working at old navy where her shifts were usually 4 hours. that meant that she would eat something at home before she left, and then pick something up on the way home. on the other end, i worked at papyrus and the shifts were 9 hours. therefore i had to eat something before i left and pack a lunch for my break. which meant that i had to go to the grocery store and pick things out and pack them and budget for that. i used to also bring snacks and stuff to school when i was a commuter so that i wouldnt always be spending my money. then when she started working at capone they have a cafeteria and she buys breakfast and lunch every single day. she packs lunch only when my mom made something for dinner and she took it as leftovers. i worked at a billion different places and i havent had a cafe until i worked at mck. and even then the cafe isnt great and i prefer my own food lol.

THEN we were talking about dating life. she literally will not date any guy who is not absolutely perfect in every way for her. i don’t know how to tell her that no one is going to be perfect for her. there are definitely deal breakers (like she doesnt want someone with kids, or someone who is married etc) but like not every one is going to have the same taste in music, or be comfortable enough to show the best parts of their personality on a first date. and i can’t really tell her this because she will get upset because i’ve dated people and she hasn’t and she will think i am being a dick. i promise i’m not i’m just trying to help!! and i have my own deal breakers too but also i get that people are just, idk, annoying sometimes. she’s like “i will never settle!!! i want someone who is tall with a beard, and very devoted to christianity, funny, smart, cool, a college grad, never annoying etc. i deserve it!!!!” and she does! but also perhaps lower your expectations OR be willing to open your mind a little and realize that they may take a while to open up.

not only that but she will only consider dating men that she sees herself marrying. and plans to wait until marriage to have sex with him. in my experience you kinda have to feel different people out in order to know what you want. i dated people that were wrong for me, true, but now I know exactly what I want and what kinda things i can just let roll off my back. i didn’t even know what i didn’t want until i had it, lol. it’s one of those things she will just have to learn i guess.

i just feel like she is going to have a really rude awakening when she lives alone and it upsets me. i want her to learn but theres still a part of me that wants to just keep taking care of things for her. i don’t want her place to be gross or her friends/future boyfriend or whatever to think she’s slovenly. she doesn’t clean that well (like her bathroom will be kinda gross and she’s like idk why mama is cleaning my bathroom it’s fine! and it’s not fine at all). I’m not sure what happened but she doesn’t see the dirt in places. her room smells like feet and she doesn’t smell it? she can’t just eat cereal for every meal because eventually it will make her sick. whenever we go grocery shopping she literally does not know what to buy. like she buys 5 items because she can’t think of how to like, buy groceries in order to make dinner. i love her so so so much. i don’t want this to seem like i am shit talking her. I just want her to be successful and happy. i feel like somehow along the way i learned a lot of things from life and she just kind of coasted along and now she is going to have to learn those things at once later in life.

but also i just have been through a lot more than her. i don’t mean this is a rude way even though it sounds like it. and while it SUCKED it totally made me grow and learn and become a mature person. or at least more mature than i was before lol. i have health issues, which means that i know a lot about insurance and medication. i am gay which kinda led to my anxiety and depression so i know a lot about mental health and i am very self aware. i had a long string of shitty jobs with shitty pay, which means i know how to budget and how much things cost. i cook and clean and buy groceries so i understand the importance of those things and i don’t find them daunting.

anyway.

our air conditioning is out again. i want to kill someone. we always have this problem year after year, no matter where we are. i realize that living in an apartment may be scary or hard at times but right now i am definitely seeing the perks. random things i am excited for include: having my own kitchen and refrigerator!! ours is always packed and looks really messy and gross. knowing where my things are and finding them where i left them. especially the mail. my mom always moves things and then swears up and down she never saw them in the first place. getting a laser cutter! right now I don’t have anywhere to put it, so. having a clean space that stays clean OR being cluttered and not having anyone say anything about it. cooking weird food and not having to explain myself, sleeping shirtless, buying groceries only for myself, having leftovers, falling asleep on the couch, AS MANY NAPS AS I WANT! it’s gonna be so great. i hope like hell it actually happens.

#pipe dreams and thought processes

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themoneybuff-blog · 5 years

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The Value of Competence and Mastery

One of the most interesting personal finance concepts Ive come across is the Renaissance ideal, which I first learned of from the writings of Jacob Lund Fisker. Fiskers idea is simple: For every skill out there that people find useful, there is a level of ability of that skill where, if youre below that level, youll pay someone else to do it for you, whereas if youre above that level, someone will pay you to do it. (if youre near that fine line, its usually worthwhile to just do it yourself.) Fisker argues that youre better off having a large set of skills that are above the level at which people will pay you to do it rather than performing at a very high level at just a few skills and having to pay others for all other skills. What does that mean in the real world? Lets say you have a researcher who is one of the brightest people in the entire world at a particular research area and a few associated skills, but aside from that, this researcher struggles with everyday life. That person can barely accomplish very basic household tasks and never with any efficiency and usually just throws money at basic needs (or relies on the generosity of others). On the other hand, you have a person who is a competent carpenter, a competent plumber, a competent chef, competent at IT, competent at household tasks, reasonably well versed on a lot of different intellectual topics, and so on. Fisker argues that the latter person, a person with a lot of areas of competence, is far more stable in terms of their financial future, because not only will that person have significantly fewer expenses, that person can easily find employment in a variety of fields and can often combine their competencies to find a lot of high paying jobs. A person with just a few highly trained skills might be world-class in those skills, but what if those skills become less valuable going forward? That person is in real trouble. This idea is largely in line with my own life experience and observation about how people (myself included) find employment. Over the years, however, Ive somewhat expanded and altered some of these ideas. Theres a lot to unpack here, so lets dig in. Competence and Skill When I look at this idea, I tend to see two different lines that separate skills into three groups. The lowest level of skill is what I might call incompetence, which is where youre unable to do the task at all and usually hire someone to do it for you. The next level of skill is competence, which is where youre able to do the task well for yourself and dont need to hire someone to do it for you. The highest level is what we might call mastery, which is where youre able to perform a skill well enough for someone to pay you to do it. This doesnt refer to jobs that are mostly manual labor that anyone could do, but jobs that require a specific skill. Lets look at cooking, for example. Someone who is incompetent at cooking subsists on prepackaged meals or meals prepared by someone else. Typically, this person either has someone in their household that cooks for them or theyre spending a lot of money on food preparation (whether its prepackaged meals from a factory or restaurant meals). Someone who is competent at cooking can make their own meals and snacks out of inexpensive ingredients. This significantly reduces their food bill. However, theyre generally not skilled enough where anyone would pay them to do this. Someone who is skilled at cooking can get a job at a restaurant because they can make good meals quickly and efficiently. You can do the same thing for almost any skill or area of knowledge. Theres a level of incompetence, where you dont understand the topic or the skill; a level of competence, where you reasonably understand the topic and can reasonably practice the skill; and a level of mastery, where you deeply understand the topic and can practice the skill at a very high level. Typically, people who are incompetent at particular skill have to pay others to do it for them, competent people can do those things for themselves, and masters are paid to do their thing. If we roll back to the analogy from earlier, the researcher is a very high-level master in a few specific areas, but is mostly incompetent in all other areas. As long as the researchers career cares about mastery of those specific areas, the researcher is fine, but the researcher is going to be carrying a lot of expense. The jack of all trades, on the other hand, has relatively low-level mastery of quite a few areas and competence in a ton of areas. This individual rarely has to hire anyone to do anything and is employable in a lot of situations. Rather than being paid for pure mastery of one area, this person usually makes money by combining a bunch of different lower level masteries and competencies into one package. Entrepreneurs often fall into this category, for example. Your Areas of Competence So, lets translate this to your own life. What things are you competent at? In other words, what things can you and do you easily handle for yourself that other people pay others to do? I dont mean that you do them well enough or efficiently enough to be employed to do it, but that you do it well enough to meet your own needs. Are you good at making your own meals? Keeping your house clean? Doing your own laundry? What about fixing minor plumbing issues? Handling basic car maintenance? Handing minor electrical issues in your home? Can you repair some non-electronic appliances? Can you fix electronics issues in your home? In other words, do you regularly need to buy prepackaged food or order food because youre not up to the task of making food? Do you have a housecleaning service because youre awful at housekeeping? Do you have a laundry service that you use? Do you call a plumber every time theres any kind of plumbing issue? Do you take your car to the shop for every minor issue and every maintenance task? Do you call an electrician every time something isnt quite right? Do you have an IT guy that you call (often a family member) whenever a device doesnt work the way you want it to work? Its okay if you do these things occasionally or when things demand someone with mastery, but competence means that you handle issues like this for yourself almost all of the time. Make a mental list of your areas of competence. What things do you do well enough for yourself that other people often pay people to do for them? You arent good enough (perhaps) to do it professionally, but youre certainly good enough to fulfill your own needs almost all of the time. Your Areas of Mastery Mastery generally refers to areas of expertise where you have a high enough level of skill and/or knowledge that other people rely on you for help and will often pay you for your knowledge, skill, and expertise. Most people that have a steady job that pays reasonably well have at least one area of mastery that they rely on, or else they rely on a lot of simultaneous ares of competence. Most people that run a small business, particularly a service-oriented one, have some sort of mastery that theyre drawing on, usually revolving around an ability to do something very efficiently and with good quality. What are you good enough at that people will pay you for the service? What knowledge do you have that others will pay you for the opportunity to tap it? Those are your areas of mastery. Obviously, there are varying degrees of mastery, and higher levels of mastery earn a higher wage. True masters can often name their own price and can often get away with few other areas of competence in their life. Becoming Competent The secret to becoming competent at something is to just do it as often as possible. If you want to become competent at cooking, just get yourself in the kitchen as frequently as you can. If you want to become competent at computer programming, just write code as frequently as you can. If you want to become competent at plumbing, dive into every home plumbing issue that you can, either in your own residence or running over to help out friends. If you want to become competent in a particular area of knowledge, start reading books and taking notes on that subject. At first, youre going to be bad at whatever task it is youre taking on, and thats perfectly fine. If you have a bit of natural talent, you might quickly become competent at it; if not, itll take some time, but almost anyone can become competent at almost anything by doing it for a while. If you dont know how to do something, YouTube is an incredible resource for teaching you enough of the basics to become competent at almost anything you might want to do. If you want to learn about something, Wikipedia can give you just enough to figure out what books you should read on the subject. Competence, in my mind, means that you feel skilled enough at a particular task to simply prefer to do it for yourself most of the time rather than have someone else do it for you. Competence in an area of knowledge means you understand it well enough to explain it to others, and if its a concept thats debatable, you understand both the benefits and flaws of the concept well enough to explain it to others. You can carry on a conversation about that area of knowledge with both a person that knows almost nothing as well as a person with mastery in the topic. Heres an example of this idea at work, in the form of four people preparing a pasta meal. The first person is competent they can prepare a good meal for themselves. The next person is still what I would call competent, but a high level of competent they wouldnt quite be paid for it, but they can prepare a really good dinner at home. The last two people are at various levels of mastery. (An incompetent person in this video would call a local Italian restaurant and get takeout, or else flail around without any direction in the kitchen.) Turning Competence into Mastery The path from beginner to competence is easy enough just do it but how does one go from competence in an area to a level of mastery at which people will pay you to do that particular thing? Thats a lot harder. For starters, in some skill levels, your level of skill has to be incredibly high to be paid just for that skill. I could practice for the next 10 years and still not be good enough at basketball to get paid just to play basketball. Its not happening in any reality. I can definitely be competent at basketball understanding the game and playing in local pickup games but to be able to be paid for that? Its not happening. (Remember, were defining mastery here as a high enough skill level that people will pay you to perform that skill.) Some skills simply dont earn a lot of money, either. Other skills require some kind of external certification of your skill to earn a lot of money. In other words, there is no specific path or guaranteed path from competence to mastery. However, there are some things that almost all journeys have in common. For starters, they typically involve some form of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is a type of practice that is focused on improving technique rather than mindless repetition. For example, if I just shot 100 free throws, that would be just mindless repetitive practice. However, if I shot 50 free throws with careful attention to detail, videotaped it, watched the video, looked for flaws, then spent the next 50 shots carefully shooting with attention to correcting those flaws, that would be deliberate practice. If you want to know more about the specifics of deliberate practice, heres a great introduction to deliberate practice by James Clear. Deliberate practice can be done for almost any skill. You do something carefully and deliberately, thinking about each step, study what youre doing to look for flaws, then do it carefully and deliberately with the intent of correcting those flaws. This is where a coach or a teacher can really help, but you can do this yourself. For mastery over areas of knowledge, I usually point to two things: meeting the requirements for employment in that area as well as being able to explain that area of knowledge to an elementary aged child. If I cant explain something to a child, I dont understand it forward and backward; however, if I can do that, I can almost always achieve certifications and such. One great way to practice this is to actually try to explain what youre learning to a child, or at least on a childs level. If you cant, note where youre having difficulty and you have a direct arrow to your next area of focus in your learning. As I noted earlier, the exact path to being able to be paid for a specific skill or area of knowledge varies quite a bit. A Palette of Competencies (and a Mastery or Two) These ideas are interesting, but how does this translate into practical advice for making more money? Lets dig right into that, shall we? Almost every employee and entrepreneur out there making more than minimum wage has achieved mastery in an area or a few related areas or has competence in a wide variety of areas. Often, the people who really succeed have both they are masters of business organization and communication and competent at engineering and computer programming, for example. So, ideally, if you want to earn more money, you should be aiming for a wide variety of competencies and a few masteries. Why is that so useful? Its often the combination of several competencies or the combination of a few masteries and a few competencies that add up to a lot of value. Its relatively easy to find a person thats a master level at one specific thing; its also relatively easy to find a person thats competent at a few things. Whats difficult is to find people with specific mixes of competencies and masteries that makes them specifically equipped to tackle valuable problems. Thats what people will pay a lot of money for. Thats how people found successful businesses. Theres a specific problem out there and they have a good mix of masteries and competencies to solve that problem. The thing is, the more competencies and masteries you accumulate, the greater the set of problems in life youre going to be able to solve. If youre a master of just one particular skill and are competent in two or three areas, there are likely a few jobs out there that are great for you, but not many. If you are a master of several things and competent at lots of things, there are likely lots of problems out there youre suited to solve, and thus lots of job opportunities and lots of potential entrepreneurial paths to follow. Thats because those different masteries and competencies combine in different ways for different problems. Its like having a box of Legos. The more Legos you have in the box, the more things you can build. A mastery is like a really vital piece for a few particular things you might build; a competency is a fairly ordinary piece, but several of those are always needed to build anything worthwhile. The more you fill up your box of Legos with competencies and masteries, the more things you can build and the more problems you can solve and the more employment opportunities you have. So, what can you practically do? The first thing you should do is figure out what competencies and masteries you do have. What does your resume look like? What skills do you list on there? What things outside of your resume are you competent at? Think of things you do in your day to day life. There may even be things outside of your employment that you could be doing to earn an income, but youve chosen a different path. For most people, that ends up being a pool of talents that they possess. They might be really specific, or they might be fairly broad its all fine. Now, consider what specific competencies or a specific mastery you could add to that pool that would make you employable in more areas or make it easier for you to start your own business or side gig. What abilities, if added to this pool, could really increase your professional opportunities? Youll probably start by looking at advancements in your current career path, but dont stop there. Consider what other career paths youre not too far from being ready for if you could just add another skill or two to your pool. For example, I moved from data mining as a career path to writing, which might seem like a huge leap, but the truth was that as a data miner, I actually did a lot of writing on a daily basis, and I had the technical skill to code a very complex data driven website on my own. I really only needed knowledge and experience in another field and some general entrepreneurial ability to set myself up to make that leap. This isnt a quick process. Its something to mull over for a period of time as you try to identify a few new things you can become competent with or master in order to really amp up your career possibilities, because thats what this is all about: Adding competencies and masteries to your set of skills not only sets you up for advancement, but it multiplies the possibilities in and out of your field. It becomes much easier to rebound when things fall apart. It becomes much easier to move into interesting opportunities that pay well. It becomes much easier to open doors that would have been closed to you. Once youve figured out a few things you can add, then its time to start building those competencies and masteries, as described earlier. Start doing. Start learning. If youre wondering, the big thing Im trying to add to my skill set right now is building towards a level of mastery (or at least strong competence) in fiction writing and adding competency in a bunch of different ideas as well as competency in self-publishing Ill let you figure out what that all means. I Dont Have Time to Do This! The reaction that most people have to these ideas is one of time. I dont have time to learn new skills! I barely have time for life as it is! Heres the thing: You can work on skills as part of your life as it is right now. Your job provides a great opportunity to learn new skills, hone them into masteries, and even sharpen the masteries you already have. Just strive to do what you do now with a higher level of excellence, or look for opportunities to learn new skills or take on new challenges. Daily life offers tons of opportunities to pick up new competencies. Start making meals every day instead of just ordering food or going to restaurants or eating convenience meals. Instead of waiting for your oil to get changed, spend that hour at home learning how to change your own oil and change your own wiper blades. Instead of calling a plumber when your toilet doesnt work, fire up a YouTube video and diagnose your toilet problem. Look for anything in your life that you pay other people to do and do it for yourself, even if it seems really hard at first. Not only are you adding new competency to your life, youre also gaining the courage to try new things. During your downtime, read challenging books on topics that you want to learn about to add to your repertoire. Spend less time on cable television and Netflix and social media and more time on really challenging books and other learning materials. Look at the things you do in your life and ask yourself how you could do them a little better or a little more efficiently. Walk through the little repeated tasks step by step and find ways to shave off a minute here or make the result a little better there. (This is an awful lot like deliberate practice.) You have the time. Its really more about using your time better. The Matter of Convenience The final issue I want to cover is the fact that many people choose to pay others to do things for them out of convenience and time saving. A particular evening might not afford the time to cook a meal, so you order takeout as youre leaving work, grab it in three minutes, and when you arrive home you pop it right on the table. You might be overwhelmed by laundry, so you just pay a service to take care of it. Theres nothing wrong with doing this, provided that the time youre saving is being used in a way thats more useful and valuable than what youre doing. If youre buying takeout so that you can sit on the couch and binge Netflix for three hours, thats not an effective use of time. If your counterargument is that youre worn out after a day of work, then you should be getting more sleep try making a meal for half an hour, watching Netflix for only an hour, getting half an hour of exercise, and getting an extra hour of sleep. Convenience tactics should only be freeing you up to do more effective things with your time (and, yes, meaningful leisure can be that more effective thing, but it needs to be meaningful and valuable, not just idle). If theyre freeing you up to be idle or to do unimportant things, then that means you need to change some other areas of your life. Final Thoughts Heres what you should take home from all of this. Being competent with a skill has a nice financial benefit if it means youre no longer paying someone to do it for you. The more skills youre competent in and the more areas of knowledge youre competent in, the less you have to pay others for services. Furthermore, the more things youre competent with, the more you have to draw on to be effective in your career and life. Honing a skill until it becomes a mastery is another great move. If you have a skill (or a small group of highly interrelated skills) thats useful enough on its own to get people to pay you for it, thats wonderful. If you surround it with other skills you have some level of mastery or competence in, youll find yourself endlessly employable and likely able to chart your own path in the world. Whats at the core of all of this? Constant self-learning and improvement. Constant building of new skills and refining old ones. Constant growth of your set of competencies and masteries. This isnt just a one day thing. This is a lifelong pattern of growth. Its all up to you. Good luck. Read more by Trent Hamm: https://www.thesimpledollar.com/the-value-of-competence-and-mastery/

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bandwpanda · 5 years

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[...]

“Jake?” Lottie said, looking at his soft eyes and the bright smile, whereas he was dying inside.

“Yes?”

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“No, Sam said I’d slept for fourteen hours, it was enough for me.”

“How long do you usually sleep?”

“Well, that depends, but at most nights I sleep for like... maybe three hours, sometimes I don’t sleep at all.”

“Jake, you know that it’s wrong, right?”

“Yeah, I tried to change it, but I couldn’t, I can’t sleep.”

“Oh, baby.” Lottie said with tearful voice, pushing Jake’s weak body closer to hers, and hugging him tighter. “Please, don’t do that to yourself.”

“I don’t do anything, I just have severe sleeping issues.”

“You’re too thin, Jakey. Your cheeks are more... concave? When did you eat anything last time? And, please, don’t lie, I’m here to help you.”

Inside his broken heart and lost soul he knew that Lottie, the love of his life, was right. He could not keep lying about his eating disorder, self-harm, depression and suicidal thoughts that he has been having for about two years. Suddenly he felt guilty, what his eyes showed.

“Jakey?” she attracted his attention. “Tell me, what’s really going on?”

“I- I don’t know.”

“Jake, please.”

“I’m serious, Lottie.” Jake tried to hide his tearing up eyes, as he knew that it was not a good move to cry in the front of Lottie, because in that case she would find the truth about him out. “Everything is just fine.”

“Oh, honey, then why are you crying?” she wiped the tear streaming down his pale face. “Please, don’t lie. This one time, please.”

“I just- it's too complicated... And I- I don’t know what’s ha- happening to me.” Jake closed his eyes, and so many tears appeared on his concave cheeks.

Lottie kept holding his tiny body in her arms, but when she saw the first tears, she wanted to cry, too. For her it was a broken-hearting view. Lottie swayed him carefully, as she knew that it was one of the things that were able to calm him down, especially if she was with him during the cry, panic attacks or something even worse.

“Baby, you’re safe.” she whispered to Jake, when he tightened his fist on the material of her shirt.

“I know.” he barely said. “Just take this pain away from me.” he muttered.

“Shh, you’re safe, I’m here.” Lottie kept rocking him in the way like she was rocking a baby to sleep.

It took Jake a long time to calm down, what ended up him falling asleep in Lottie’s arms. He was, finally, breathing peacefully, even though the skin around his eyes, nose and cheeks was flushed and swollen. Lottie covered him with a warm, light blanket.

Around 6PM Lottie went to Sam’s and Danny’s room, leaving Jake alone in his bedroom.

“How’s Jake?” Sam asked when he noticed Lottie coming in.

“Well, he’s sleeping. He’s been crying for over three hours and couldn’t calm down so let him sleep.” the girl explained. “He’s very tired, thin and weak. Does he even eat anything?”

“Mostly, I think so. If he doesn’t... Well, he’s good at hiding emotions and feelings in that case... I don’t know, he usually eats something, especially when he’s with us.” Josh said after a moment of thinking.

“Oh, okay, well, he’s too skinny and small, that’s why I’m asking.”

“I know, we’re all worried about him.”

“I know. I just... I could feel and see his ribs and hips. He looks literally like a walking corpse. God... I don’t want to go to his funeral.”

“None of wants it to happen.” Sam said, looking at Ariana. “That’s the last thing I want to attend to.”

“Me neither.” Josh agreed with his younger brother. “Well, let’s talk about something different than this.”

“Let’s talk about music!” Ariana said louder than she should, what only highlighted her attitude.

“Sure, why not.” Danny nodded. “So, the Grammys?”

“Don’t tell me! No, stop right there.” Ariana moved her hand on Sam’s. “No, no, no.”

“Why? You wanted to start it?” Josh was surprised but not disappointed that much.

“She has a huge crush on Ariana Grande.” Lottie explained. “That’s why. She couldn’t stop talking about her and the Grammys two days ago.” she laughed lightly.

“I see.”

Ariana’s cheeks became flushed.

~~~~

Three days later Josh, Jake, Sam, Danny, Ariana and Lottie were to Los Angeles. It was because of the situation connected to Jake and his bad mood and mental health, of course Lottie was very concerned about it. She would never let him to go anywhere alone, which he understood. Her company was making him happier than he could ever imagine.

At boys’ house Lottie helped Jake to unpack his bags, and after it, when he was in the bathroom doing bathroom toilettes, she began preparing a meal, light enough for his damaged stomach.

“I’m back.” Jake came to the spacious kitchen. “What are you doing?”

“You have to eat something, so I’m preparing a very light meal for you.”

“I told you already, I don’t want to eat.”

“But you have to.”

“No, Lottie.”

“Yes, Jake, you’re too skinny, I can see your ribs and hips, and to be honest, your condition scared me.” she responded with a very harsh tone of voice. “If you won’t eat, then I’m fucking out, because I really can’t stand your talking about not being hungry, even if I fucking can hear your stomach, the fuck are you thinking about?! Do you seriously want everyone to be worried about you and your shitty condition?! What dream are you living in?! I’m fucking out if you won’t touch this meal. Not everything is about you! I’m trying to make you feel better and you still can’t look at the fucking food. I cared about you, I stayed up all night with you, just because you wanted to talk about some stupid things that don’t even matter to me even though I all I wanted to do was going to sleep. I paid you all my fucking attention, just because you can’t notice that you’re important to me. And still, you keep acting like a whole dick and can’t understand that we’re also scared. They won’t tell you that, they don’t want you to know that they’re scared to a fucking death of losing you.”

Jake looked down on his bare feet, as his hands were playing with each other. He knew Lottie was right, but could not admit it. His eyes teared up.

“I’m tired of your shit. Keep doing that and you’ll going to end up dead in the fucking bath.” she added and left the kitchen.

Jake was guilty. He felt like this, but he would never use his friends or brothers to feel sorry for him. It was the right time to rebuild his mental health, and health in general.

The boy sat down on the chair, thinking about his best friend’s words. And now, because of him she was gone. Of course, not out of his life, although he had that feeling.

Lottie sat on the cold floor in the bathroom and hid her face in her hands. He overreacted, and accidentally hurt one of the most important people in her life, but she was right.

Twenty minutes later she came downstairs to the kitchen, noticed Jake sitting on one of the chairs in the dining room.

“Can we talk?” she asked, coming up to him.

“I think you’ve done it for both of us...”

“Jake, no, you know that I’m never tired of you.”

“Actually... I know, you’ve said enough. There’s nothing we can talk about.”

“There is. Well, firstly, you deserve an apology. I shouldn’t have said those words, I didn’t mean it.”

“I know you, Lottie, I’ve known you for a solid part of my life. Now just... leave me alone.”

“Jake...”

“I said something. I don’t want to talk to you for now.”

Jake got up and went upstairs straight to his bedroom, laid on the bed and covered his whole body with a blanket, which smelled like Lottie, what caused him to think about her. He took an album full of their pictures, some of them were took surprisingly out of nowhere when none of them expected it, some were like those amazing photoshoots for Calvin Klein. He felt that little spark called happiness inside his broken heart, and he smiled. That was a beautiful moment.

“Jake?” Lottie stood in the doorpost, watching his behaviour.

“What do you want this time? Yell at me? Well, do it.” he responded sarcastically, and she rolled her eyes.

“I don’t want to yell at you, not again, you didn’t deserve it.”

“Nevermind. What do you want?”

“I just wanted to check on you.”

“I’m still, somehow, alive.”

“You know I didn’t mean this.” she sat next to him on his bed. “Why are you looking at our old pictures?” she took a peek at one of the mentioned pictures. In this one was her and Jake in the middle of the woods, taken probably in their high school. “I remember this.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you were fifteen then.” she laughed.

“So were you, honey.”

“I know, I’m not that old.”

“I missed this.” he claimed after few seconds of silence between them.

“What? The laugh?”

“Yes, I missed your laugh.”

“That’s so cute.”

“I know.” he laughed again.

Jake pushed her closer to him, and she wrapped her arms around Jake’s waist and lied her head on his chest.

“Do you have more albums of us?”

“I have some pictures of us with Ariana, Sam, Josh and Danny.”

“Aww that’s sweet.”

She looked at Jake’s bright eyes. The sparks were dancing in their eyes, while looking at each other. He kept her close to him, and she did not take her arms. Jake placed his hand on her cheek, and kissed her very gently. Lottie kissed him back. They opened their eyes in order to look at each other, once again. Bright smiles were true ones, without faking any second of this delicate moment. Jake wished this moment could last forever.

“You’re sweet.” Jake whispered against her face.

“Aww, no, you’re sweeter.”

“No.”

“You’re sweet when you’re trying to deny some facts.”

“Okay, let’s be it.” Jake smiled.

“Can we talk?”

“We’re talking now.”

“Yeah, I know, but seriously... Like... Serious talk?”

“Okay.”

“Are you making yourself starve?”

Jake’s eyes became more serious than barely seconds before, and darkened.

“Wha- What do you mean?”

“Well, at the hotel, two days ago, I was thinking about it, and I connected the facts in my mind. You’re very skinny, I can see and feel your ribs and hips, literally a lot of your bones, and you don’t want to eat anything, despite the fact that I can hear your stomach, but also, you’re weak and boys told me that you keep passing out after a lot of psychical effort, including playing on the stage and that sometimes you have to hold on to something in order not to fall down on the floor.”

“Oh.” he did not have enough bravery inside to admit that Lottie was right. Lowkey he hoped she will not notice his uncertainty. However, he did not want to disappoint her.

He looked down on his hands wrapped around Lottie’s waist, hugging her, but his mind and thoughts were somewhere far away than Los Angeles. On the other hand, she was staring at his scared eyes. In that moment she found out the truth and answers to her questions she had been asking long, long before.

“Uhm... I- Well...” he started slowly, as he could not find the proper words to say something, and his eyes were showing the lost.

“You don’t have to answer to my question if you don’t want to.” Lottie placed her hand on his left cheek, what caused Jake to look at her. “I can see that you feel lost.”

“I just... I had some problems.”

“That’s alright. I won’t push you to your limits. I know that damaged people need some time to admit that there’s something wrong with themselves. You need time, I see.”

“No, Lottie. I need you, you know? It’s always been you.” he said on one breath. “It’s always been you.” the boy repeated his own words. “I just- Well, I- It all is connected to you.”

“What? Why?”

“Remember that one day in our high school when we went to San Francisco instead of going to our classes?” Lottie nodded gently, still looking at the boy, who kept talking. “Then we almost kissed on that bridge. I didn’t forget. Then I knew... I fucking knew that I- I actually loved you.” a single tear ran down Jake’s pale cheek only to be wiped by the girl, who was listening very carefully.

Lottie opened her eyes wide, not being able to say anything. That was too much for her to take at once. It was not only the fact that he admitted to having eating disorders, being depressed, but also that he loved her. The girl who was always independent, cared only about herself, excluding important people in her life, but still, she would not find this secret out if she were not sitting right here on the bed with the right person after talking to other people, even if it was on the phone or texts. Her face was showing surprise, a big one. That confession was not exactly the one she has ever expected.

“You... Jake...” Lottie whispered, trying to find right words to say.

“I love you, Lottie.”

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