#this takes place like late highschool or college I’d assume? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

simps-and-scribbles · 3 years

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Bokuto x Reader - Need you to Know

Rating: Strong T Genre: Romance, Fluff, slight smut Fandom: Haikyuu Word count: 1556

Summary: you have some instructive thoughts around your body image, but bokuto makes you feel better :)

Warnings: +18 content, a little bit of sexy time, trigger thoughts, insecurity around body image, self-consciousness

I ran up to the outside of the Jackals main training facility, my college class had gone overtime making me only a few minutes late to meet up with Bokuto to catch our train back home. Bokuto wore his jackals track suit with his gym bag slung over one shoulder. He was waving both hands back and forth in the air as he told what I could only assume was a very exciting story to Yumi, the team manager. I smiled to myself at his exuberant expression. My gaze drifted to Yumi, she was one of the sweetest girls I knew and was laughing at Bokuto’s story. My eyes drifted over her fit form, although she didn’t play volleyball professionally anymore, you could tell she worked out regularly and took good care of herself. I felt a twinge of insecurity and pushed it down as I waved back at Yumi who had noticed me approaching. I could still feel the insecurity sitting right below the surface.

“Babe!!” Bokuto said running the rest of the way to greet me, placing an arm around my shoulder and kissing me on my cheek. My heart warmed a bit, before a sneaky thought wriggled through my mind, chubby cheek.

“Hey babe..” I said a little more lackluster than I had hoped for. Bokuto noticed and an expression of worry began to develop on his face, I quickly tried to add some life to my voice. “What were you guys talking about?” I said more carefree trying to forget the unpleasant thought. Bokuto seemed satisfied with my change in tone and delved back into explaining his story which of course had to do with volleyball and how Hinata had hit a new personal record on his vertical jump today. I smiled at the excitement he exhibited for his friend. Bokuto was such a supportive friend, always wanting his friends to be the best versions of themselves. You’re definitely not the best version of yourself.

“Bye Bokuto! Bye y/n! I need to get to my soccer practice, but I’ll see you soon!” So zoned out in my thoughts I had missed the rest of Bokuto’s story and Yumi saying goodbye as she ran away to catch the bus.

“Bye Yumi!” I yelled after her a little late in my response. She turned around and waved back again.

“Shall we go catch our train?” Bokuto asked me, I nodded smiling up at him. The train station was only a few blocks away from the training facility and we took our time chatting about our day and taking in the blue sky as we walked under the shade of the trees along the sidewalk. We reached the train station in good time, as we walked into the station I noticed a couple running together past the main entrance. I took in the women’s lithe figure as she ran, healthy, strong. I wish I could do that with Bokuto. Any thoughts of the pleasant walk to the station under the blue sky disappeared as I stepped onto the train.

During highschool I had been athletic, I wasn’t on any major sports team, but I participated in the sports festivals and did averagely well. I’d always had some issues with self-image, but when I compared my current self to my highschool self, I wondered why I ever worried. I had been healthy, eaten well and ran regularly to keep my cardio up. I don’t know how Bokuto ever noticed me, I was just another girl at school, but I loved watching him play volleyball and somehow he’d asked me to be his girlfriend. He probably misses that skinnier version of me. I sighed, it’s not like I had put on a ton of weight. Since entering college, things had just become busier, I studied a lot and any extra time I had, I spent with Bokuto. It probably wasn’t noticeable, but I noticed it. I felt Bokuto place his had on my waist and pull me toward him, My muffin top. I felt tears prick my eyes. He’ll leave you if you keep gaining more weight.

“Hey are you ok?” Bokuto asked. I nodded silently and he pulled me closer to him, I grabbed a fistful of his jacket at the thought of him leaving me. The thought alone scared me. The thoughts only intensified the rest of the train ride and by the time we got home I was mentally exhausted from fighting them. “y/n, I’ll make some dinner, what do you want? I’m starved!” Bokuto said heading straight for the kitchen. My stomach growled, but I resisted it.

“I’m not hungry, I’m actually really tired, I think I’m going to go to bed early.” I said by-passing Bokuto who already had a cookie hanging out of his mouth has he watched me walk by with a worried look on his face. I headed straight for bed, all I wanted to do was sleep so I could stop thinking these awful thoughts about myself. I usually slept in my cute lingerie nightgown that always turned Bokuto on, but that just didn’t seem like an option tonight. Instead, I opted for my pajama shorts and oversized T-shirt and crawled into bed.

Don’t weigh yourself, you’ve probably gained 20 pounds. Bokuto probably hates that you’ve gained weight. Your arms are so flabby. It’s most noticeable around your belly. You can’t even run a mile anymore.

I felt the bed dip and gasped in surprise as I was pulled out of my thoughts. “Sorry I didn’t mean to wake you.” Bokuto said gently as he placed an arm around my waist and pulled my back against his solid frame. I could feel the heat of his bare chest through my t-shirt. His fingers rubbed gentle circles on my waist and stomach under my shirt. Tears pricked my eyes at the thought of how squishy my skin probably felt there, I sniffled.

“Please stop..” I said, placing my hand over his.

“y/n?” Bokuto lifted himself up on his elbow, leaning over to see my face. I sniffled quietly, trying to stop all the ugly thoughts from entering my mind. “Babe, what’s wrong?” Bokuto said visibly concerned at my tears. Gently cupping my face in his hand, he rolled me toward him “Is it that guy on the train? I swear if he—” I shook my head. Silence settled between us as I quietly continued to cry “Please tell me, I want to help.” He said leaning in to kiss my tear-stained cheeks.

Gathering my courage and trying to calm my breath I answered, “I….I…hate…gain…weight” I said quietly through my sniffles.

“What was that?” Bokuto said intently focusing on my face, listening for my words.

I took a deep breath to steady my breath again “I hate myself…because I’ve gained weight,” I said finding my voice, the tears coming in full now, “and I’m not as skinny as I used to be, and you probably hate that I’ve gained weight, and I feel ugly and –”

“Don’t….” Bokuto said. My eyes widened as I looked up into his serious golden eyes. His head slowly lowered until his lips gently brushed against mine. His eyes met mine again, “I don’t want to hear you talk about yourself like that.” He said ghosting his lips over to my ear. “You are so beautiful,” he kissed below my ear “and sexy,” down by neck, “every time I see you, I have to restrain myself.” His hand slipped under my shirt stroking my waist and trailing up the side of my breast. I small gasp escaped from between my tears. “I don’t care how your body changes. I’m always going to love you.” Cupping my face Bokuto closed his mouth over mine, wrapping his arm around my back he pulled me closer deepening the kiss. His lips were soft against my own, the heat from his body emanating against me as he held me tight in his muscular arms. I felt safe and warm here, all of my ugly thoughts melted away. His tongue found my own and I moaned into his mouth in pleasure allowing him to take full control. “Kotarou…” I said breathily coming up for breath as he immediately began kissing down my jaw and neck. I wrapped my arms around his neck, running my fingers through his grey and black tresses.

“I need you to know how beautiful you are,” he said repositioning himself above me, lowering his hips to press against mine “see how much you turn me on?” I could feel his bulge pressing against my thigh. I bit my lip as heat pooled at my core, my lust filled eyes piercing into his golden ones. Reaching for him I pulled him into me in a passionate kiss.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Exhausted I laid across Bokuto’s chest, a content smile on my lips. I didn’t want to be anywhere else but here next to Bokuto right now. I could feel myself drifting off to sleep, before one more thought came to mind “Kotarou?”

“Hmm..” He answered sleepily.

“What did you mean by ‘that guy on the train?’”

Bokuto placed a kiss on top my head “He wouldn’t quit staring at you…I didn’t like it.”

I giggled, clasping his hand in mine, before drifting off to sleep in his arms.

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parkers-gal · 4 years

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Hi! May I request an imagine where Tom meets an Indian who’s sort of on the path to be a paediatrician?? But she’s like, 3-4 years younger than him?? And like, both of them are attracted to each other n they sort of start dating??

Love your blog! I’ve read pretty much everything you write! Lots of love to you!! 💛💛

requests are open

wc: 1.5k

—

Growing up, you were always lost on what you would do with your life. You’d seen friends and family discover their passions, the very reason they live and exist.. Time and time again, you thought you came close to finding out your own, but each path was a dead end, each lead and false tip.

That was, until you volunteered at a children’s hospital that one winter break your parents were away on business. A light flicker inside you, and you knew that was what you were meant to do. Leaving the hospital that day, you pulled up your browsers and stayed up in bed until three A.M., researching and reading about all the doctors that helped children. Perhaps it was your fire, burning so bright and passionately, that granted you access, that paved your path to college and a career for life. Or perhaps it was your heart, loving and nurturing and relentless. It never gave up when something it loved came into view. You knew deep down, in your gut, that it was a bit of both.

But to you, this wasn’t a career. This wasn’t merely just a passion. It was your life for theirs. Your privilege, through the hardships and the struggles and the heaviest tears, it was your brain that was your privilege. But your heart held just as much responsibility as your mind did.

Tom was no different, at that. Acting started as a job, it started as continuing his love for dance and theater. But as he grew, so did his heart. Acting wasn’t just a task of learning how to control one’s emotions. To him, it was a creative expression. It was perspective on life. It was living a life someone dreamed they could’ve had. And no, not as a celebrity, but as the characters. He often thought about how Peter Parker could have been a figment of Stan Lee’s imagination. That the small, nerdy Parker boy was a life Stan Lee wanted but never truly got. Tom pondered a lot of things, but he never once wished he could have another life.

College is harsh. Relentless. It’s a true reality of life, and with the pressure of your parents to do well, you could only pray you would do well. You had been studying for weeks now, finals coming closer with every passing day. You were due for a break, and mind release. You had signed up for your yearly volunteer during winter break. Your roommate rolled her eyes when you told her; she was unsurprised.

Apparently this year, there would be a few special guests. You were happy to share the children, happy the hospital could bring in more people for the kids that deserved the world but could only get a fraction of it. You swore on your life, on your grave, that you’d give them as much of the world as you could.

You were giving the world to them today. Dressing in thick leggings and a sweater, you grabbed your puffer coat as you left campus. The drive to the hospital was short and speedy. You greeted Katherine as you came in, hooking your coat on the coat hanger in the back room.

“Hey, Y/N. It’s good to see you. How’s college?”

“Stressful,” you chuckled.

“But worth it?” “Always worth it,” you smiled.

“The ‘guest stars’ will be here soon,” she moved a few clipboards, taking the papers attached to them. “I think they’re bringing things.”

“Oh that’s awesome,” you exhaled. “We need more presents.”

“More?” Katherine chuckled. “You’ve practically emptied your bank account for them.”

“Because my parents would totally allow that,” you eyed her. The two of you chuckled together, setting up a few things.

Katherine was five and a half years older than you. She’d worked at the hospital for awhile though, replacing a nurse who retired. She was young when she started, but the retired nurse had requested her, recommended her, and the hospital didn’t want to waste time on looking for someone else. You’d practically grown up with her; she’d been a volunteer in college while you were finishing high school.

“They’re here,” Nate popped his head in through the door. You and Katherine exchanged looks before going up front to greet them.

“Hi, I’m Kevin Fiege, I’m here with the cast of Spider-man Homecoming. We’re here for the meets I emailed about?”

“Yes hi,” Katherine stepped forward while you shied away from a brunette’s glances. His jeans and sweater were on loosely, and you assumed he probably had a costume on under. He was holding a mask. “I’m Katherine, the one you emailed.” They shook hands and smiled politely, the boy’s eyes never leaving sight of your figure. “Shall we get started then?” the man, Kevin as he addressed himself, suggested.

“Yes, of course,” she rushed out, glancing at you with wide eyes before the two of you chuckled.

A lighter skinned, tall girl stepped forward. You recognized her. “Hi, I’m Zendaya. I play MJ.”

The two of you shook hands, and she did the same thing with Nate and Katherine and a few other nurses. One by one, each cast member introduced themselves before eventually, the brunette came forward.

“Hi, I’m Tom,” he shook your hand, his fingers lingering against yours. “You are… ?”

“Y/N,” you filled in, biting your bottom lip.

“That’s really pretty,” he blushed slightly despite being the one who gave the compliment.

“Thank you,” you breathed a laugh, stepping back and in your rightful spot next to Katherine.

Throughout the day, you noticed Tom through the corner of your eyes, lingering and watching quietly, gazing as if he wanted to say something but didn’t know how, or what. You enjoyed the cast’s company; they were great for the kids. By the end of it, it was nearly eight o’clock, time for ritual medications before bedtime.

The cast stood in the lobby, Tom in his suit talking to Jacob, Zendaya talking to Nate while Katherine finished up with Kevin. You emerged from the elevator, having just said your goodnights and goodbyes to the children.

“You gonna head out, Y/N/N?” Katherine stopped talking to Kevin to ask you the query over all the chatter.

You nodded with a smile, removing the Division 1 Volunteer lanyard from around your neck. “Yeah, I told my mom I’d call her before it gets too late.”

“You and your parents,” she sighed, handing another clipboard over for Kevin to read. “Are you ever gonna let them go?”

You chuckled, “I think the real question is are they ever gonna let me go?”

“Touche,” she laughed. “Say goodbye on your way out,” she motioned her head towards the cast. You glanced at them, they smiled, and you nodded towards her, grabbing your coat from its hook.

“It was really nice having you all here,” you smiled. “Thank you so much for coming; it meant a lot to the kids and to me.”

You saw Tom glancing outside, and without thinking, he stepped forward with a smile. “Let me walk you to your car.”

“Oh, you don’t have to,” you laughed lightly.

“Please, it’s dark out. It’ll only be a few minutes,” he smiled. “It’s no trouble, really.”

“Tom’s always doing that,” Zendaya rolls her eyes. “He’s that one in a million gentlemen.” Her arms crossed as she laughed. “Just let him take you; he won’t take no for an answer.”

You had a feeling they were talking about something else, but nonetheless, you let him accompany you. You waved to Kath one last time before walking through the doors with Tom by your side.

“How long have you been volunteering?”

“Since the summer before my junior year of highschool.”

He hummed. “How old are you?”

“I just turned nineteen,” you walked over a puddle. “How old are you?”

“I’m 21.”

You hummed just as he had. You saw your car near, and you were almost sad your encounter with Tom would end soon. You doubted you’d ever see him again after this, even if he did remember today.

“Listen I was wondering,” he spoke as you placed your bag into the backseat of your car — it wasn’t actually your car. It was your mom’s old one, she’d gotten it when she first moved to your childhood home. Convincing her you should have it was a nightmare. You focused on Tom. “If maybe… we could go out sometime? Sorry if this is totally unprofessional and if I’m completely reading this wrong or somethi-”

“No no-!” you cut him off before stopping shortly. “You didn’t. I’d- I’d love to go out with you sometime.”

“Great,” he said softly before repeating it more confidently. He handed you his cell phone gingerly, and you typed away in the bitter cold, smiling as you handed it back.

“I’ll- I’ll call you tonight. Af- after your parents.” You giggled. “Goodnight Y/N.”

“Goodnight,” you whispered just as he stepped away. You smiled to yourself, opening the car door.

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daveed-diggs-imagines · 4 years

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A Little Illegal: Daveed x fem!reader

Smut! 18+ reccomended

warnings: rough sex, large age gap, professor-student relationship

Summary: A highschool senior begins taking college courses. She never thought she’d enjoy her new professor so much...

To say you were nervous was an understatement. You had worked hard and kept your grades up to start taking some college classes throughout your senior year to get credits. You had signed up for any government or history-related classes you could get in hopes of filling your mind with as much information as possible before you graduate. You didn’t know many students who had signed up for the same classes as you which only heightened your anxiety. Not to mention the horror stories you had heard from some of the other students who had dealt with some of these professors before. You just hoped if you did the work and kept quiet it wouldn’t be a problem.

The bus that was transporting you and some other students arrived and harshly jerked to a stop. You stood up incredibly unconfidently and grabbed your bag. You shuffled off the dulled yellow ride and followed the small map you had in your hand. Luckily, you weren’t running late and were ahead of what was previously planned by ten minutes. You weave your way through puzzled kids and easily find your room. No one else is around so you nervously turn the handle and walk-in.

The first thing you notice is a tall man with glasses and amazing natural hair. He is not focused on you as he scribbles notes down on a post-it.

“U-um, hi,” you stutter, causing the man to look up. “You are Mr. Diggs, correct?”

“Uh, yeah, and you are?” he asks, a puzzled look on his face. He hadn’t seen you on campus before.

“I’m y/n l/n, it’s nice to meet you,” you say, walking over and reaching out your hand for him to shake.

“Ah, are you new here?”

“Yeah, in a sense,” You laugh, assuming he already knew you were with the high school.

“Well then y/n, come by my office after class and I can give you the rundown of this place, yeah?” he suggests.

“Yeah, that would be wonderful, thank you, Mr. Diggs.”

“Daveed is fine,” he says. “ ‘Mr. Diggs’ doesn’t sound right coming from your mouth.”

“Oh yeah, of course Daveed,” You say, deciding you like the way his name sounds rolling off your tongue. You turn away from him and walk over to the plethora of seats. Damn, she has a nice ass too.

“Sit here,” Daveed says, walking up behind you and pointing towards one in the front row.

“Are you sure?” you ask, not knowing if you want to be right in the middle of everything.

“You seem like you’ll be a great addition to this class and I don’t want to miss your thoughts,” he simply states, watching you sit down and pull out your laptop seemingly ready to take notes.

“Prepared, I like it.”

“Eh, I guess, I’m still pretty nervous though,” you admit, tucking some hair behind your ear.

“Don’t be. I’m always here if you need anything.”

He finishes talking as you hear the door burst open, several people coming in. Most of them rowdy and of the male gender.

“Gentlemen,” Daveed says, nodding at the group.

“Ayyy, it’s Diggs,” one of them yells, slamming his stuff down next to you. A look of irritation forms on your new professor's face at the sound of his voice.

All of the group follows the leader and set their bags and themselves down around you. You’re nervous at their actions knowing that they didn’t seem the most trustworthy.

“Hey, who are you?” one of them asks, leaning closer.

“Someone that wants you to leave them alone.”

“Ooh, c’mon, just play along, yeah?” he smiles, hand now resting closer to yours.

“No thanks, I’m okay,” you tell him, hoping he’ll take a hint.

“Yeah right, you sat right in the middle in the front row. You love this attention, don’t lie,” he concludes, making his friends snicker. You jerk your hand away and sink back in your seat. You figure they aren’t going to stop so ignoring them seems like the best option.

“Aww, c’mon, I just wanna have a little fun,” he says, hand now resting on your knee.

You all hear someone loudly clear their voice and everyone’s head jerks up.

“No means no,” Daveed declares, making direct eye contact with the boy who was previously harassing you. The boy doesn’t have a response as he crosses his arms and leans back.

“Why don’t you go sit somewhere else?” he more demands than suggests. Without a word, the group gets up and moves to a section in the back, far away from any authority figures.

“You good y/n?” Daveed asks, feeling guilty for telling you to sit up front for his selfish reasons.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just a little startled.”

He then grabs your bag and moves it over to a seat in the lower corner.

“The bulk of people sit in the middle so this way you shouldn’t be bothered,” he explains as you move over to sit down. He stares down at you for a moment.

"Hey, I'm sorry, I wouldn't have told you to sit there if I knew what they would do," he apologizes, running a hand over his hair.

“No, don’t worry, it’s not your fault,” you laugh. “Honestly, you would think they would be more mature.”

“Yeah, you would think.”

You had sat through the whole class and surprisingly wasn't bored to death. Even though most of it was just introductory, Daveed had a voice that was just captivating and you were looking forward to coming back. You shove everything into your bag before getting up and stretching. You begin to walk towards the door when you hear someone call your name. You turn around and see Daveed, having forgotten he wanted to talk with you in his office.

“You still want to talk?” He asks.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Okay, great, just give me a quick second and I’ll meet you in there. You can make yourself comfortable while you wait,” he tells you gesturing towards a door off to the side.

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” you respond, going over and walking in. Everything looks like a standard office. A desk with two chairs in front of it along with a couch towards the wall. Tons of books on shelves or stacked on stands. The atmosphere was romantic with the dim lighting and brown undertones set through the small space. There’s a hint of a woodsy smell that’s more calming than overwhelming.

After waiting for five minutes you begin to grow bored and gaze around from the seat you took in one of the chairs in front of the desk. Nothing new seems to pop out at you but curiosity still gets the best of you and you stand up and walk around the desk to snoop. All there seems to be is essays, not that you were expecting much else. The only thing that interests you is a spinny office chair the was positioned directly behind you. So what other choice is there besides sitting down and well, spinning?

You can’t help but laugh at how childish you must seem as you push on the desk to gain momentum.

You barely have time to enjoy yourself when the chair is suddenly halted to a stop. You looked up to see Daveed looking down at you, holding the chair still, hand right next to your head, catching some of your hair with it.

“Comfortable?” he asks, seemingly growing closer. Damn, he smelled amazing. You sit there and stare up at him, forgetting you were asked a question. You grip slightly onto the arms of the chair, growing nervous.

“I asked you a question, y/n,” he whispers, his mouth now next to your ear.

“Fuck uh, y-yeah, I’m great,” you stutter, clenching your legs. Were you really turned on right now? He’s your new professor who’s probably twice your age and you’re ready to strip right here and now.

“Oh, oh god, I’m so sorry Daveed I-”

“That’s Mr. Diggs to you,” he growls, his lips now grazing over your ear as he speaks.

“O-of course, Mr. Diggs,” you comply, eyes wandering down his body. His shirt seems to show far more muscles than earlier. But you weren’t complaining.

“Tell me to stop and I will,” Daveed whispers, mouth moving to yours to capture you in a kiss. It’s not gentle nor rough but has a sense of lust you'd never experienced before. You don’t even know this man and you were letting him have his way with you in an unlocked room on the campus of a school. You know this isn’t right. Hell, this isn’t even legal but right now you’re thinking with the dampness in your panties not the good judgment in your mind.

He continues moving his lips on yours and pulls you up so you’re standing against him. He walks back toward the couch, mouth not leaving yours once. He still has some of your hair tangled into his hand from when he had stopped the chair earlier. He uses it to his advantage and pulls on it suddenly, making your head jerk back and you’re mouth open. You moan when he slides his tongue in. You’re lowered onto the couch, him starting to slightly lean over you.

He pushes you down completely, straddling one of your legs. You move your knee up spreading your legs a little more and feel something hard graze against you. You know you should stop but you forget about thinking when he starts to reach his hand down the waistband of your jeans. Your breath hitches and you can feel him smile against your mouth.

“Damn y/n, I didn’t know I could get you like this so fast,” he whispers, voice husky.

“Of course you wouldn’t know. You know nothing more than my name at this point,” you pant while beginning to lift the edge of his shirt.

“Well I’d love to get to know you but I’m a little busy right now,” Daveed jokes, struggling to rip off your too-tight jeans. You swiftly remove his shirt as he finally strips you of your only layer of clothing- you decided not to wear panties that day.

“Are you ready?” he asks while undoing the belt holding up his slacks. You give a small moan in agreement as you see his dick nearly protruding out of his boxers. Without notice Daveed drops his remaining clothing and grabs the back of your head, gripping a fistful of hair and pulling. He pulls you closer to him as he uses his other hand to position his cock against your lips. You expect him to let you take the lead and you prepare to welcome him into your mouth. His grip on you tightens. Daveed slams himself into your throat and you let out a gag. This wasn’t your first time but it feels different than before.

You had watched porn scenes like this but never imagined it would be happening today. And not at 18 years old with your new professor. The onslaught continues as you feel his cock stretch your throat with every forceful pound. Your saliva and Daveed's sticky precum are dripping down your chin as you try to swallow. You can barely breathe much less swallow the fluids combining in your mouth. You were in pain what felt like everywhere. Your hair, your neck, your head, and anywhere that was being forcefully moved and penetrated by Daveed. But you loved it. You relished in the sting of your hair being pulled and your face being fucked.

Daveed begins to slow down and releases his grip on your head. You take in a deep breath and wait for the next act. Daveed moves quick, tearing off your shirt and pulling your bra off over your head. He pushes you back on the couch and moves down to your sopping pussy.

“I’m going to fuck your little cunt up so bad,” He growls. You watch as he slowly runs his tongue over his lips before he uses his fingers to sperate the lips of your pussy.

You shudder at the small touch bracing yourself for what’s next. Daveed opens his mouth, consuming your cunt in a sloppy kiss. His tongue lands on your swollen clit as he begins sucking and flicking all-around your sensitive ball of nerves. You try and keep quiet, reducing your moans to muffled groans. You bite the back of your hand as you feel a finger slip inside of you. You had only ever fucked boys who couldn't find a way to please you. This was what you needed; a mature man to make you feel something worth screaming over.

Daveed's finger begins thrusting faster as he slips another inside you. You lay there squirming and whining like a little puppy as the pleasure continued consuming your body. Then He added a third finger. It had been a while since you last had a dick in you and you could feel your pussy stretching to accommodate the new addition. You begin thrusting into Daveed as you feel your body ready to explode.

Daveed senses your body close to climax and abruptly stops. He rips his fingers out of you and stuffs them inside your panting mouth.

“Lick it off, get a good taste of yourself you little slut,” he growls, leaving his fingers in your mouth and gripping your chin to close your mouth. You begin sucking your juices from his fingers and move your hand down to your cunt. You felt so close and you just needed to keep going. Daveed notices your hand traveling down and wastes no time removing his hand from your mouth and pinning your hands above your head. He says nothing as he reaches to the floor to grab the belt he was previously wearing. It all happens so fast you can barely squeak out a word before your hangs are stuck tied above your head.

“Don’t try that again,” Daveed scolds while wiping his hand against your stomach to remove any of your remaining juices.

“O-oh I’m sorry Mr. Diggs,” you cower, showing the best puppy dog eyes you can muster. Daveed stares down at you for a moment before reaching into his discarded pants pocket.

“I’m on the pill,” you inform him, smiling slightly as his face lights up. You were excited to feel all of him raw inside you.

“Good girl,” Daveed tells you. He smooths down the stray hairs on your head and lines up his throbbing cock to your cunt. You honestly weren’t sure it would fit without tearing apart your insides. You didn’t get a chance to prepare yourself before he sinks halfway inside you. You let out a forceful breath, feeling a euphoric mix of pain and pleasure. Daveed lets out a small grunt and slightly pulls out of you.

“Be quiet,” he sternly warns you. You slightly nod and ball your fists as much as you can while tied above your head. Daveed slams back into you. this time forcing as much inside you as he can. You let out a gasp as he begins roughly thrusting his large cock inside you. You let out a moan; this one a little too loud. Daveed doesn’t hesitate as he wraps his right hand around your throat and slightly applies pressure. you throw back your head in immense pleasure reveling in the gentle pain.

Daveed moves his free hand to your clit and begins quickly rubbing his hand side to side against your clit. His intense thrusting continues as you try and contain your moans and noises. You can’t help but let out a small shriek as you feel yourself begin to unravel. Daveed tightens his grip around your neck, this time applying enough pressure to make it hard for you to breathe. You thrust your hips to meet him feeling every nerve in your pussy being abused by his cock. Every part of you tenses and you feel a release coming. Daveed removes his hand from around your neck and groans at the sudden lightening of your pussy.

“Shhh,” you hear whispered into your ear as you explode, your juices combining with Daveed’s. He thrusts into you while you both climax while muffled moans fill the dim room. Daveed quickly pulls out of you and begins undoing the belt still strapping your hands together.

“You good?” he asks. You look up at him still breathing heavily, the events catching up to you. “Um, yeah, I’m just... yeah I’m good,” you reply, not sure how to answer. You sit up and bend down to collect your discarded clothing. You slip on your jeans and the rest of your clothes, not sure if he expected you to stay.

“Come here for a sec,” Daveed tells you, walking to his desk. You follow him unsure of what's coming next. He looks up at you and reaches up and begins smoothing your messy hair. “We don’t want anyone getting suspicious,” he states. He gives you a small kiss on your forehead.

“Are you sure you’re okay? Do you need anything?” he asks.

“No I’m totally good,” you assure, smiling up at him.

“Good girl,” he tells you right as a loud knock comes from the door.

“I should get going.”

You grab your bag and quickly shuffle to the door. You open it to see an older man waiting. He must have been another professor.

“Same time next week?” Daveed asks loudly from across the room.

“Of course!” You say back, smirking as you reach for your phone to put the meeting into your calendar.

#daveed diggs x reader #daveed diggs imagine #daveed diggs #hamilton fanfic #hamilton fanfiction #lafayette x reader #thomas jefferson x reader #hamilton #hamilton imagine #hamilton smut

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destroy-the-cannon · 4 years

Text

IT’S HERE!

Hey everyone! It’s finally happening. The long awaited Olivia x MC fit is happening. I’ll leave the rest of my thoughts as the bottom as not to bore you, but I’ll put one tiny thing here: there’s actually no Olivia in this chapter. I know, I know! She’s the whole reason you’re here. But I had to do a chapter without her to set up for something you’ll see in a future chapter. I promise, it’ll prove worth your wait. Anyways, without further ado, let’s get to it!

Tags: slow burn, enemies to lovers, queer romance, eventual lemon(s).

Warnings: Mentions of drinking, death, illness. Language.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Paige couldn’t remember a time in her life when she wasn’t working towards something. She busted her ass all through highschool, working her way into a scholarship at a decent university. From there, she had concocted a simple, five-step plan:

-Graduate with honors

-Get into a fantastic business school

-Get an amazing, ultra-high paying job

-Pay off debt

-Buy a good house for her parents, and live out the rest of her life comfortably.

But no. Nearly a month after she graduated from college, her dad got diagnosed. As he spent more and more time in the hospital, the bills rolled in. Charge upon charge upon charge, until Paige’s mother had spent up their retirement funds and was looking into getting a second job. So, naturally, Paige stepped up. She got a job working at a tiny bar downtown, and sent her every spare dime to her family, rooming with strangers, because all her friends still lived back home in California.

And then, just as Paige thought her existence couldn’t get any bleaker, it did.

She was sent one final charge, then never any again.

After that, she threw herself into working extra hours at the bar, no longer having the energy to look into jobs anywhere else. For two years, she worked and slept, worked and slept. The only person she ever really talked to was Daniel, a friend who was good for cracking jokes and aimless chatter, but not ideal as emotional support. So, completely on her own, she did her best to heal. She cried till she couldn’t, screamed, cried some more, and did anything she could to try and lessen the complete suffocation that was her grief. Each day, she did whatever she could to wake up feeling a bit lighter, until she felt almost nothing at all. It took two years, but she was finally starting to feel like a person again.

That’s when she met three of the five people who were going to change her life forever.

That day, it was just the men who happened to be in the restaurant. This did make sense, because it was a bachelor party, after all. Not that that was easy to tell, just looking at them. Their clothes ranged from a simple denim-and-white-jeans look to a three piece suit, leather shoes, and a pocket square. Honestly, who still wore pocket squares? Paige shuddered just looking at it. It seemed that she was dealing with a typical group of douchey, overgrown frat boys. It would suck while she was serving them, but usually at least one of them would remember to leave a decent tip. She sighed and strode over, pulling out her pad.

“Hi, what can I-” She broke off for a tiny moment before resuming. “What can I get for you today?” Trying to cover her tracks, she flashed a bright smile.

The reason she had broken off was sitting there, watching her. He wasn’t dressed particularly flashily, in his garnet sweater and khakis, but he had an air of quiet importance about him, something almost noble. His posture was perfect, his hair done with not a strand out of place, a neatly shaved face, a perfectly straight and clean collar. It was the little things about him, things that one didn’t typically find in a crappy downtown bar, that made Paige even warier. He grinned a small, curious grin at her. Before she could respond, the man in the suit began to speak.

“So firstly, I’d like to ask about your wine. I’m assuming there’s a separate list?” Mr. Denim and a (quite cute, actually) guy in a black button down traded amused glances over Sir Suit’s shoulder.

“Sorry, we don’t. We have a good selection of beer an-” He cut her off with a horrified look. She’d never seen such a prim rage before; she had to stop herself from snorting.

“There’s nothing else? I’ve never even heard of some of these labels before! I’d think I’d like to speak to your mana-”

“Tariq.”

The sweatered man, the quiet one, lay a hand on Mr. Suit’s shoulder. His voice was warm, strong, and seemed to contain just a hint of some foreign accent that Paige couldn’t place. He smiled apologetically at her.

“That’s completely fine. We’ll take a bottle of your finest whiskey, and four glasses.”

“Great. Will you be having anything to eat with that?” She was making some strangely intense eye contact with The Sweater (she’d have to try and catch his name) when Tariq cut in obliviously. She was really starting to hate this guy.

“Yes, we’ll each take a filet mignon, medium rare, prepared with a bearnaise sauce.”

Paige blinked. The man smiled blandly at her as though this was a perfectly normal request.

“Sir, the closest thing we have to a filet mignon is the deluxe burger.”

Now it was Tariq’s turn to blanch in horror. “Burger?”

“Sounds great! We’ll take four.” Mr. Denim cut in, shooting a glare Tariq’s way.

“Right then. I’ll go put your order in, and I’ll be right back with that whiskey.”

She turned and made her way back to the kitchen, trying to fight back the smile that threatened to take over her face. Taking out Tariq, this seemed like a group of pretty decent guys. Usually, she expressed nothing more than a vague sort of interest in customers, a kind of unattached curiosity. But listening to them laughing and yelling, she couldn’t help but to want to pull up a chair and join them.

Sighing, she pulled out their glasses and whiskey. She was putting in their order when she felt eyes on her. Without moving, she peered out of the corner of her eye.

The three friends were talking, except for the quiet one. His eyes traced the curve of her neck, and her spine tingled with awareness of his every move. She arched her form just a bit, trying to be as subtle as she could, and his eyes slipped lower.

Just as she was about to turn, his friend elbowed him. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the quiet one smiled and turned his attention back to the group. She didn’t miss how his eyes fluttered back for just a half second, darkening, before he focused back in on the booth’s conversation.

She sighed, and grabbed the whiskey. Oh, well. This was going to be a boring night, but hopefully, in terms of tip, a fruitful one.

* * *

“Excuse me?”

Paige turned to find the sweatered man from before.

“I think we’re about to head out, and I didn’t want to do so without apologizing.”

The bar had emptied out completely, and the two were completely alone. Sweater’s friends were jostling around out front.

“Apologizing?” She frowned. “For what?”

“Well, I know we kept you late, and my friends can be pretty…” He paused. “Demanding.”

“Demanding, huh? Well, it was nothing I can’t handle. I’m used to it by now.”

“Well, be that as it may, I’d still like to apologize. We’re about to head out to a club right near here. Could I buy you a drink?”

“Which club are you going to?”

“Oh, well…” He winced. “We were actually hoping that you could help with that. We’re not from around here.”

“In that case, I know just where you should go.” She scanned him with a critical eye before making a decision. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy that would particularly enjoy some wild party spot. There’s a great little secret cove right near here you might like.”

He grinned in relief. “That sounds amazing. I’m getting just a bit tired of the traditional bachelor party antics. Why don’t you lead the way?”

“Sure, that sounds awesome! Let me just get out of this uniform, and we can get going.” She turned to go, then stopped short. “Before we go, can I get your name? I’m Paige.”

She turned to offer her hand, expecting a firm shake. To her surprise, he leaned down and actually kissed her knuckles. An honest to god bow-and-kiss. As soon as he’d done it, his eyes widened in embarrassment before shrinking into a wince. “Sorry, that’s an, ah, custom. Where I come from. It’s tradition. I just- just forgot you don’t do it here. I’m Liam.” He was clearly quite mortified, but Paige smiled. She thought it cute, and made her feel oddly regal. There was something so gentle in the gesture, it was almost reverent. Sweet. Grinning, Paige ducked back into the backroom, changing into an emerald-green dress she kept in her bag. She paused for a moment to check her reflection, fluffing out her hair and dress. Confident, she followed Liam into the night air.

As soon as she stepped out, the first thing she heard was: “Daaang! The waitress is hot!”, quickly followed by a more earnest: “That uniform didn’t do you justice.” Before she could respond, Liam stepped forward.

“Hey. Paige is a guest among us, and I doubt she appreciates you commenting on her appearance like that.”

If he didn’t before, he now had her full trust.

She was pretty used to receiving comments like that by now, and it didn’t particularly bother her. At least these guys didn’t seem to have any cruel intent. She got much worse in clubs or on the street. But it was rare to see another man stick up for her like that. Liam barely even knew her, and yet he was ready to call out his friends for her. Instantly, she found she liked him even more.

The guys stuck their head down and muttered apologies. They seemed sincere enough, and clearly eager to earn a fresh start, so Paige let it go.

“So, the waitress is coming with us?” Mr. Denim piped up, looking Paige over.

“Actually, we’re going with her. She’s picked out our next destination.”

“So she’s our tour guide now.” Denim raised his brow. He didn’t seem malicious, per se, just skeptical.

“Hey, Paige very graciously agreed to show us around, so play nice.” Liam turned to her. “Lead the way!”

“I’d love to, but can I get the rest of you guys’ names first? I can’t be referring to you three as ‘you there’ this whole night.”

“I’m Maxwell! Maxwell Beaumont.” Button Down grinned and shook her hand enthusiastically.

“I’m Drake Walker.” Denim stepped forward and also shook her hand, though much less enthusiastically.

“Great. And you’re Tariq, right?” She pointed at the third man, who was smiling at her in a way that did actually make her just a tad uncomfortable. He nodded, his smile growing.

“Awesome. Let’s get going!” She spun around, and they followed her into the night.

* * *

They emerged from a small swath of greenery into a beautiful little cove. The starlight shone on the ocean, and the whole place seemed mysterious and magical. Like anything could happen.

“We should build a bonfire!” Drake looked happier than he’d been all night.

“I am will not be engaging in manual labor.” Tariq looked like he was about to throw up.

“I forgot who I was talking to. What I meant was, I’m going to go build a bonfire.” He practically skipped off. Paige could’ve sworn she heard a giggle. The men turned to take in their surroundings.

“This place is awesome! Skinny dippiiiiiing!”

“Keep your pants on, Maxwell.”

Liam turned to Paige as the other two bickered. “Thank you for taking us here, Paige. I can tell the guys are enjoying themselves already.”

“Forget your friends. Do you like it here?”

“I love it.” He was completely sincere.

“This is my secret spot, so I’m really trusting you here.” She was teasing, but he looked her directly in the eye as he responded. “I will do everything I can to be worthy of that trust.”

There was a moment there, where he held her gaze. But he looked away and turned his eyes to the sky as he spoke.

“There’s only one problem. How am I supposed to buy you that drink now?” He’d made his tone light as meringue, but there was a tiny crease between his brows.

“I don’t know. Maybe you’ll just keep owing me.”

“Seems fair enough to me.” They stood together for a second, until Drake called out.

“Guys! The fire’s ready!”

He beamed as he motioned for them to sit. His proud beam suddenly reminded Paige of a particularly peppy golden retriever. She stifled a giggle as she tucked her feet under her.

“Hey, can I ask you guys something?” She had grabbed one of the beers Drake had insisted they get from a convenience store on the way. She sipped from the bottle, trying to appear casual. Maxwell looked up from one of the pop-tarts he had picked up. “What’s up?”

“Well, what’s up with you guys? What’s your deal?”

As soon as she asked the question, the atmosphere shifted noticeably. The air grew thick with tension. The boys traded nervous glances, each one visibly uncomfortable. Finally, Liam spoke.

“Guys, it’s fine. She deserves to know.”

“Are you sure?” Drake’s puppy-like grin had vanished, replaced with a look of guarded skepticism.

“Positive.” Liam nodded, and they all turned to her.

“Okay. Paige, there’s something you should know about us.”

“Alright…” It suddenly occurred to her that she was on a remote island with four strange men who were now all staring at her, and why did she think this was a good idea? She tried to tamp down her growing panic.

“As you know, we’re not from here. But where we are from, specifically, is... Cordonia.”

“Okay. And this is a secret why, exactly?”

Liam shifted again. Clearly, there was more.

“Well, we’re not just tourists. I mean, we’re not really, ah, average citizens.”

Hm. Well, that wasn’t too surprising. Liam’s controlled manner, the way Maxwell kept looking over his shoulder, Tariq’s pocket square. But what, exactly, did this all mean? They were either spies, mega rich, or criminals. She waited for them to go on.

“What I mean by that is… well, we may have left some things out in our introduction. Drake really is Drake Walker, but the rest of us are different.”

Maxwell piped up. “I’m Sir Maxwell Percival Beaumont. Of Ramsford.”

“I am Lord Tariq Nadar, of Larada.” He bowed and leered at Paige in a way that caused her stomach to lurch suddenly.

“And I am Prince Liam Cicero Constantine Rhys, prince of Cordonia.”

Prince of Cordonia. The way he kissed her hand. The way the other men seemed so keenly aware of his every command. His cordial behavior. She had been flirting with a prince. An heir, she guessed.

But, if he was an heir, then that could mean-

Oh, God.

“Whose bachelor party is this?”

To her horror, Liam raised his hand tentatively.

“It’s mine.”

Shit! Ew, ew, ew. Her opinion of him dropped right down to the ground. Of course he was fucking engaged. He had been flirting with her, checking her out, and he was engaged! Fuck that, fuck him. She hadn’t even been that into him, so any disappointment she may have felt was swallowed by anger and disgust. She was almost ready to leave when he jumped in, probably sensing her rage.

“I’m not engaged. I mean, I will be, but I don’t actually have a fiancé yet.”

Oh. She lowered herself back onto the log, smoothing her pinched features.

“But wait. That doesn’t make any sense. Why have a bachelor party if you’re not even engaged yet?”

“That’s what you're concerned about? Not the nobility thing? I mean, I would- ow! Drake!” Drake elbowed Maxwell into silence before turning to Paige to explain.

“Liam’s at the age where it’s finally time to pick a future queen. The social season begins the day after tomorrow, and by the end of it, Liam’s gonna have a bride. They try to win the favor of the king and queen, catch Liam’s eye, demonstrate their queenly abilities through a series of competitions, blah blah blah. We’re throwing a bachelor party now because the next one’ll basically just be a press event with a bunch of nobles he barely knows.”

“Oh.” It was all she could manage to say. What the hell was she supposed to say? This was a huge bomb to just drop on her casually.

“I hope you don’t think we’re trying to fool you. If that is the case, it’s completely understandable-”

“I believe you.” Oddly enough, she knew they weren’t lying. Somehow, in her bones, she just knew. These were genuine nobles, ones she’d just happened to somehow convince to spend the night out together. Her, the broke, tired waitress. Intellectually, she knew this was an absolutely wild and preposterous thing she was doing, but emotionally, that just wouldn’t register. This felt right, like an evening out with three old friends and one Tariq.

But then again, this was different for them. They weren’t used to spending time with people like her. She was suddenly keenly aware of her own casual behavior, how she’d treated them like any old group of people. They weren’t. She started to gather up her things, fussing with her bag. She should leave them. Why would they want to spend time with someone like her?

“Does this mean I should have been curtseying? Bowing? Using your proper titles?”

“Well, personally, I wouldn’t have minded if you had-”

“Shut up, Tariq.” Maxwell twisted towards her. “This night has turned out to be awesome. You’ve turned out to be pretty awesome. And it doesn’t have to end! Let’s stay out! Just keep thinking of us as regular tourists. Don’t go.”

“I-” She stopped. “Okay. I’m staying.”

Her answer seemed to have surprised her as much as it did them. But she meant it, truly. She was having fun, and as weird as this night had turned out to be, she felt like she had made friends. Real friends, not work ones. This night would become a cool story she told at parties, and these people would become ones she’d wonder about and obsessively google for years to come, she was sure. So she didn’t leave. She sat with them, and it was one of the best nights she’d spent in a very long time.

* * *

“Paige! Wait up!” Paige turned to find Maxwell running after her. Her face split into a surprised grin. “Maxwell! What are you doing here?” He bounded up with a bright look about him. “I’m here for you! The plane leaves in like half an hour, and I wanted to catch you before we left.”

It was the morning after the bachelor party, and Paige was trudging to work. The sidewalk was choked with people rushing from place to place, and Maxwell was struggling to hold his ground.

“And why did you need to catch me, exactly?” Surely, from the beam on his face, he wasn’t just delivering a lost earring? Hope started to tickle at her insides, though what it was for, she had no idea.

“I wanted to make an offer. Obviously, it’s totally cool if you want to say no, and there’s no pressure or anything, but I had to ask.”

“Okay…” What was he doing?

“Come with us.” Her expression must’ve been absolutely shocked, and he hurried on upon seeing it.

“Liam looked really happy last night. Like, uncharacteristically happy and smiley. And you seem really cool, so I got to thinking. You could come with us. You’d be sponsored by House Beaumont, and you’d have a real shot at it! It wouldn’t be easy, since you’re not technically nobility, and House Beaumont is kind of-” he stopped himself. “Um, I mean, it would be hard. Is what I’m saying. But cool! Fun! Are you in?”

“Sorry, what is ‘it’, exactly?”

“Oh, yeah, shoot. Liam’s hand in marriage!”

Liam’s hand. In marriage. The sidewalk seemed to spin. She liked Liam just fine, but marriage? There was no way. She knew it, deep down in her soul. She wasn’t going to marry him, and she never would.

She glanced back over her shoulder, back at the bar. The whole place seemed grubby and hollow. Daniel was wiping away at the counter, a faraway expression on his face. He was dreaming of an out. They had dreamed of that out together, on mornings like this.

Paige pictured elegant palaces, glamorous parties, beautiful people. She imagined dancing the night away, drunk on champagne and laughter. She imagined stolen corridor kisses and secret rendezvous in lavish gardens.

She turned back to Maxwell.

“I’ll meet you back here in twenty minutes. I’ve got some packing to do.”

Son that was the first chapter! It’s out a bit later than I’d like, but it’s out! Sorry again about the Olivia thing. I promise, she’ll be a key character in chapter two.

I’m really new to publishing my stuff, so if you have any tips or suggestions, please let me know!

#slow burn #enemies to lovers #olivia nevrakis #choices stories you play #the royal holiday #the royal romance #trr au #trr mc #trr #the royal heir #choices fanfiction #choices fandom

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secretlynestaarcheron · 5 years

Text

COLD AS ICE

Figure skating x hockey player

TWO: Cassian and The Bet

Cassian ran a hand through his wet hair as he makes his way back out towards the locker room, he throws his towel over his shoulder as he unlocks his locker. “Hey Cas, are you coming to the party tonight?” I heard a rumor that Tamlin might be there,” Rhysnd says from where he was sitting on the bench slipping on his shoes.

Cassian rolls his head, he was already feeling the tension in his shoulders from the stress semester, “I don’t know man, I’ve got a ton of homework and I don’t really feel like getting involved with Tamlin before the game this weekend.”

“Never thought I’d hear the day that Cassian Monte would say no to brawl, who are you becoming?” Tomas cheers from the other side where he changes despite not doing much throughout practice besides sitting on the bench. He was only on the team because his father donated the new bleachers.

Cassian looks over at Rhysand with a deadpan expression, growing up in foster care made Cassian a fighter but once he joined the hockey team in highschool where he met Rhysand and Azriel he had a new reason to fight. The only reason he was at this school working towards a degree in engineering was because of hockey.

He wouldn’t let his scholarship be taken away because of some fight off the ice or a bad grade in an easy class, Rhysand understood it but unfortunately not a lot of the rich kids on the team did. “I got an eight am tomorrow, why don’t you come have a few drinks and then we can head back to the apartment together?” Azriel chimes in, being the voice of reason as always.

Cassian frowns, rubbing his chin, “Okay, but text me when you’re heading over and if I haven’t gotten a load of my homework done its a no from me,” he retorts, slipping on his jacket and leaving the locker room.

As he makes his way towards the exit, he stops short when he sees Nesta sitting down on the bench in front of the rink, ear muffs and scarf pulled tightly around her neck. She had her knees to her chest as she clutched a book in front of her face.

He stepped forward, grabbing his keys from his pocket, he felt the need to go out there and talk to her. To pick on her, or maybe to offer her a ride home. He shakes his head at the thought, she was probably waiting for Mor or possibly her own personal driver.

He steps out in the cold making his way towards the parking lot where his beat up jeep was, it was a typical cliche but it was cheap and he needed transportation to take his gear all over the place. He jumps into the front seat, quickly sticking his key into the ignition before blasting the heat.

Once his mirrors are set and he can feel his hands, he pulls out of the driveway, looking over the bench in front of the rink where Nesta was gathering her stuff and moving towards the bus. He furrowed his brow, watching as she smiled at the bus driver chatting as she handed him her card. She had a transportation card. He curses himself for assuming that she was waiting on a personal driver.

There was more to her than he thought, he figured the blonde hair and figure skating made her the prime stereotype for rich white girls. There’s a beep and he looks in his rearview to see Rhysand sticking his hands up in confusion.

He waves apologetically before turning towards campus, where he was going to seat himself in the library and knock out the rest of his homework. His phone chimes after a couple hours and he looks up as someone shushes him, smiling apologetically, he grabs his backpack and answers the phone as he exits the library.

“Yeah, I know, I am heading home now,” Cassian retorts before the person even said hello.

“I am glad you just now remembered,” Azriel says on the other side but he was chuckling, “Where are you? I’ll just pick you up from there.”

“He’s probably still in his loungewear from after practice he is not going to a party in his joggers and teeshirt,” Rhysand calls out from the passenger seat, “He’ll come home and change, I don’t care if you’re late.”

Cassian rolls his eyes, “I am at the library,” he says.

“Cool, I’ll see you there,” Azriel retorts earning a groan from Rhysand. He leans against the wall, flipping mindlessly through Instagram while he waits for the slick black car to pull up. He finds himself pulling up Nesta Archerons page, he was trying to know more about her.

There were pictures of her with Mor, dressed up for parties or hanging in the quad, as well as a few of her competing, she looked angelic on the ice. He scrolls far enough down that he stumbles upon a picture of Nesta laying down on a hospital bed her head against an older lady who looks just like her. The lady is talking with a bright smile and Nesta looks over at her with sparkling eyes.

Cassian was familiar with the bright blue cap on the ladies head and all the IV’s, he was there when his own mother had passed away from cancer, he scrolled down her captain only a yellow heart, the comments full of condolences. Her mother had passed away as well. He takes note of the date it was posted, six years ago today.

He felt weird, he honestly kind of felt like that guy Joe from that stalker show. She posted on her instagram for all of her followers to see but he still felt like he was invading her personal space, as if he wasn’t welcomed.

“Stop spacing out and get in the car, it’s already six!” Rhysand yells. Cassian looks up to see him halfway out the window, waving wildly at his friend. Azriel shrugs in the driver seat as Cassian jumps into the back. “What were you so deep in thought about?”

Cassian runs a hand through his hair, “All the organic chem homework I am going to have to do when I get home at eight,” he says.

Rhysand laughs, “Like you're actually going to get home by eight,” he chuckles, reaching forward to turn up the music before Cassian has any objections.

Rhysand grabs his shoulder before moving past him into the house, it was already bumping full of intoxicated college (and probably some highschool) students and bland techno music. “Nesta! Nesta! Nesta!” a group of college kids in the back chanted catching the attention of Cassian as he moved his way through the crowd.

She sat on the kitchen island, taking shot after shot of some unknown liquid that happened to be neon blue. She took the last one, punching her hands into the air as she turns to the crowd letting out a loud cheer. The crowd cheers along with her but quickly makes their way deeper into the party aside from a few college guys who linger around her.

“People don’t know it but you’re such a crackhead,” Mor says as Nesta moves off the island, stumbling into Mor’s shoulder as she regains her balance. She looks up, her bright green eyes catching his, she pushes herself up keeping contact with him. “What? What are you looking at-Oh, Cassian,” Mor says, turning to face him, moving a hand around Nesta’s waist. “This is the last time I DD for her.”

Nesta rest her head against Mor shoulder, he wonders if she’s always been like this at parties or if it had anything to do with her mom. He had seen her at parties before, finding a dark corner and pulling a book from her bag to read. He had never seen her like this but he never really gets out much either.

“Amren!” Mor yells, groaning loudly, “God, why are both of them such bad drunks? Could you watch her while I grab Amren? I really hope I am not this bad when I am drunk.”

She pushes Nesta towards him, as she pushes through the crowd to find Amren, another figure skater on the team. He holds her up, looking around the room deciding what he should do next. His eyes fixate on a girl across the room talking with Rhysand, she had the same dirty blonde hair as Nesta as well as the same facial expressions.

Rhysand looks over at her, gaining the attention of the girl as well, her eyes widen and she bolts away from Rhysand who looks after sadly. “Cassian?” Nesta murmurs, looking up at him, blinking to regain focus in her eyes, she pushes his arm around her. “What are you doing here?”

“Babysitting you, apparently,” he says with a roughness that’s a little too sharp. She blinks up at him, her arms dropping to her side, “Wanna go outside?”

She looks up at him before nodding, she follows behind him towards the back door, Cassian didn’t know whose house this was but they would have a giant mess to clean up tomorrow morning for sure. He lead her over to a porch swing, she fell into it putting a hand against her forehead.

“My 9:30 class tomorrow is going to suck,” she murmurs, her head moving to the side, as she closed her eyes. He pushed off his foot, moving the swing lightly back and forth, “Who’s idea was it to have a party on a thursday?”

“Probably those kids from Autumn Court, their parents paid for their degrees so they don’t need to worry about class,” he hums, leaning back and looking up at the dark sky, “You know, I am still mad about your post.”

She groans, turning to look at him, “Seriously? If your team could have scheduled another practice anytime that day, but you chose to pick the two hours we were in there,” she says, pushing herself into an upright position staring down at him. “I want to see you do what I can do, you couldn’t even if I trained you.”

He raises an eyebrow, “Okay, deal.”

She frowns at him, running a hand through her tangled hair, “What do you mean? Deal? I didn’t make a deal with you?” she says, her speech quickly sobering up. “I don’t want to make a deal with you.”

He rubs his chin, “The game against Spring Court is this Sunday and so is your conpetition, you teach me to figure skate and I’ll teach you how to play hockey, first one to quit loses,” he retorts, “This way we’ll both learn how to appreciate each other's sports.”

She looks down at his extended hand, before grabbing it, “Deal, I hope you like losing. Balancing on one leg while wearing a revealing costume is a lot harder than hitting a puck with a stick.”

He rolls his eyes, turning as the door opens, he frowns standing up quickly, “Tamlin, what are you doing here?” he says, squaring up and blocking Nesta from his view. He looks down at the small frame beside him, the familiar girl that Rhysand was talking to earlier.

“Cassian,” Tamlin says, his lip curling into a smile, “Haven’t seen you in a long while, I am sure you’ll go back into hiding when we beat you this weekend.”

Cassian feels a shove and Nesta is standing in front of him, her eyebrows furrowed, “Feyre Archeron, what the hell are you doing here,” she growls, her eyes on fire as she looks at Tamlin, “Do you realize that she’s seventeen?”

Feyre frowns as Tamlins arm falls from where it was around her shoulder, “Way to kill my vibe, Nes, some sister you are,” she snaps, turning on her heel angrily and running into the house.

“Don’t you run away from me, we are having words, just because dad doesn’t care anymore doesn’t mean you can do something stupid like that!” she yells after her, following her through the open door, disappearing into the crowd of people.

“That’s pretty sick, man,” Cassian says turning back towards Tamlin who shrugged in response, “It’s not like we did anything, besides she’ll be eighteen soon enough. Her sister is pretty firey, maybe I’ll have her entertain me until Freyes birthday,”

Cassian gripped his fist, his nails piercing the hard skin in his palms, “I’ll see you on Sunday,” he says calmly, before pushing past him and back into the house looking around for Rhysand or Azriel. He had wasted enough time here.

Comment to be tagged!

Tagged: @awesomelena555 @catwomancabello @sannelovesreading @candid-confetti @gendryaforthemasses @musicmaam @skychild29 @empress-ofbloodshed @8emmy @overgrown-bat

#nessian #nessian fanfiction #Nesta archeron #Cassian #sjmaas #figure skating au #feyre archeron #elain archeron #morrigan #amren #actoar fanficition #acotar #actoar #acomaf #nessian au #nessian instagram au #instagram au

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breakingisabella · 6 years

Text

give me your heart (leah x angela)

leah clearwater hadn’t even wanted to go, but jacob had insisted

the cullens were back in town for a few days after being gone for three years

the cover story was that bella and edward were visiting charlie from college

it would be the last time their family would return to forks for a century

the last time before the fact that they weren’t ageing became too obvious

sam and jake were putting on a bonfire on la push beach for the cullens as a sign of friendship

they all had to show up, though leah had tried endlessly to get out of it

she was finally starting to feel normal, if not necessarily happy

since the cullens had left and everything had settled down, she had picked up an old hobby that she and her dad had shared; woodwork

she had started by making small figures which she sold through the reservation tourist store but had upgraded to bigger and bigger pieces as her skill had grown

charlie and her mother had helped her find a small workspace on the outskirts of forks where she could set up shop and word was starting to spread about her intricate furnishings, all made of sustainably sourced wood

she spent a lot of time alone in the workshop, but she didn’t mind that

it was nice to have some peace and quiet after the almost constant hum of her various pack-mates in her head

seth visited her almost every day after school, or sometimes during school hours, but they didn’t tell their mother that part

he split his time between the small apartment leah had set up for herself above the workshop, crashing on her couch, and living at charlie’s with sue after she had sold their family home

that was another reason leah had to go to the bonfire, to greet her new step-sister for the first time since their parents got married

strange that she should have a sister that was a vampire after everything they had all been through

she showed up late to the bonfire as a mark of protest, but nobody really seemed to care

there was mountains of food for the non-vampiric guests and some of the younger boys had brought their guitars so there was music too

despite herself, leah started having an okay time

she was greeted more warmly than she deserved by the cullens, with esme giving her a long hug and then talking to her for at least ten minutes about what she was up to

jasper and emmett were interested in her business and they arranged to come and see the shop the next day

alice piped up that she would probably come too in the hope of getting some furniture for the new house she and jasper were setting up

leah nodded and then wandered away in search of some food

she almost fell over the girl sitting beside the table, eating quietly from a paper plate

“sorry.” leah muttered, side-stepping the girl

“my fault.” she replied. “i’ve been sort of hiding back here. i’m not great in large groups of people.”

“then why did you come?”

“i wanted to see bella, of course. it’s been so long and i don’t know when i’ll get to see her again.”

leah realised that she recognised the girl, faintly

“you’re leah clearwater, right?” the girl said, smiling

“yeah… good to see you again, uh-…”

“angela weber. our dad’s used to go fishing together occasionally. or rather, my dad used to tag along when charlie and your dad would go.”

“oh right.”

“i’m the only one here from our highschool.” she said suddenly. “i guess they must think i’m the only one that wouldn’t notice the changes or something.”

leah shrugged, trying to hide how pleased she was that the cullens plans weren’t working quite as they had hoped they would

served them right for assuming humans are completely oblivious

“or maybe they just like you the most.” she offered

“let’s hope it’s that one.” angela laughed. “i hear you’ve opened your own business?”

“yeah i do wood-work. my workshop isn’t far from here.”

“that’s amazing,” angela sighed, “i wish i had a skill like that.”

“what do you do?”

“i’m studying photography at nyu.”

“well that’s a skill! and not just that, you moved all the way to new york city when you’ve lived in forks, washington your whole life? that’s fucking brave.”

“brave? me?” angela repeated as though it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard

“absolutely.” leah insisted. “look at me, too scared to go more than two miles from the place i was born. i’ll probably die in the apartment above my workshop because i’m too scared to try anything else.”

“i get the feeling you’re a lot braver than you think you are.”

“maybe we have that in common.” leah grinned at angela and opened her mouth to say something else but at that moment jake called everyone together to make a speech

the next morning when she was back in her workshop, leah couldn’t stop thinking about angela

despite this, when she heard the tentative knock at the door she assumed it was the cullens come to look at some of her work

“come in, you guys.” she called out, sanding down a semi-circle of mahogany and blowing the dust away, critiquing the finish

“oh sorry…” the quiet voice said from the doorway. “are you expecting somebody? i can come back later.”

“no, no.” leah rushed, half-running to meet her and then blushing as she realised how silly she looked. “now’s a great time. what can i do for you?”

“uh… it’s my mom’s birthday next week but i’m flying back to new york on tuesday so i won’t be here for it. well, i need to get her a present and when you said you did wood-working i thought maybe-… is that stupid?”

“not at all. what kind of thing do you think she might like?”

“maybe something decorative. do you do photo frames or anything?”

leah took her over to the display portion of the shop, which was cleaner and held the cash register

angela complimented the craftsmanship while leah followed along shyly

a photo frame was chosen, one with intricately carved stars around the border and leah took angela up to the register to pay for it, giving her a heavy discount on the normal price

angela’s eye was caught by a stand of hanging necklaces, carved wooden hearts on leather string

“these are beautiful.”

“take one.” leah said impulsively.

angela shook her head humbly, “oh i can’t do that.”

“sure you can… i’d like you to.”

“which one should i choose?” angela debated

leah smiled and bit her lip, leaning over the counter to look at them

she selected one of her favourites and slipped it over angela’s head, holding the ornament between her fingers

“look at that... it fits!” she murmered and angela’s breath caught in her throat

their eyes met and leah swallowed nervously, before leaning forward and pressing her lips to angela’s

when they finally pulled back, leah looked away and cursed herself for being so stupid, but angela chuckled

“thank you. that was lovely.” she whispered, glowing with happiness

“really?”

“really.”

“do you want to… go out for dinner or something?” leah asked tentatively. “tonight maybe, if you don’t have plans or anything?”

“i would love that.”

the made plans to meet later that day and angela asked to come back the next day to photograph leah and the workshop for her next college project

“i’ll see you soon?” angela asked, as she reached the door to leave

“absolutely.”

when she was gone, leah raced up the stairs to her apartment and looked up flights to new york

and vowed to be brave enough to deserve angela weber

#fi's writing #twilight au #twilight #twilight saga #the twilight saga #angela weber #leah clearwater #angela x leah #leah x angela #bella swan #bella cullen #jacob black #edward x bella #bella x edward #charlie swan #the cullens

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arcaneapologist · 6 years

Text

Partners in Crime- Ch. 4

So i finally thought of a title and it’s really dumb but I’m keeping it. Anyways, this is chapter four! It’s also a day late because yesterday was an absolute mess for me. So uh, enjoy as we learn more about Dan and Arin and their lives! Thanks in advance for the feedback! (and as usual here’s the link to it on a03!)

Chapter 4: Take the Key (and This Apology)

Danny looked up the girl’s address and saw she was only two blocks away, so he decided to walk. He could have sworn Ego looked slightly offended by him leaving, but then again, he did leave really suddenly. He didn’t care either way, to be honest. For as tough as Egoraptor acted, Danny could tell he was the clingy, needy type. And that was not how Danny operated, by any means. He was low commitment as it came. If it hadn’t been for the threat of death, he never would have agreed to even be work partners with Arin. Unfortunately, though, that threat was there, which is why he was going to fake the friendship until he was in the clear.

As he walked, he realized Arin lived in the same neighborhood as most of the girls he hung out with. Well this could be useful, he thought. I wouldn’t have to catch a cab or bus all the way back to the other side of town. I can just crash at Ego’s place. And that’s just what he did for about two weeks. He’d meet up with a girl around two, and be on Arin’s doorstep, usually drunk, at four. Each time, Arin seemed more irritated, but then Danny would stay for breakfast and talk and things were okay, sort of. If he knew had plans with a girl, he'd be sure to go over to Arin’s to have dinner and play games. He was great at giving the illusion of caring. Danny knew Arin was too kind to see through what he was doing and say something, despite, his growing anger.

It was kind of true, Arin was too nice to ask him to stop. So instead, he had a spare key made for the apartment and gave it to Danny. He was pissed off about being woken up, but Dan was his friend and work partner, so he dealt with it. This was part of becoming friends with someone, right? Figuring out the parts about then that frustrated you and learning how to handle them? Arin hoped the key would show Danny that he did actually care about him and trust him. Danny didn’t seem to think the same way.

“That’s fucking weird. We’ve known each other for like. Three weeks. And I know absolutely nothing about you. I don’t even know your name yet.” Dan was leaning against the kitchen counter while Arin cleaned up the breakfast dishes. He was tired, dark circles under his eyes, and already on edge because of Dan waking him up earlier that morning.

“I’m tired of being woken up every night. Now you can let yourself in and not bother me.” Arin became exponentially more upset. He was tired of Danny using him as a place to stay when he was too drunk to go home, and just tired period. “I just thought this would be easier. And, you know, if you asked my name again, I’d tell you. But you’ve been too busy getting high and fucking every girl in the goddamn neighborhood to care.”

“Dude, come on. All I’m saying is giving me a key just seems oddly serious. Partners or not.” Dan chose to ignore the comment about his sex life, it was kind of true after all.

“Shit, Danny. If a key is too serious for you, then stop staying here every night and go back to your own damn place.” As Arin spoke he scrubbed at a plate, not wanting to look at him. “I’m doing you a favor by keeping you alive. I will not let you use me as a place to crash in return.”

Danny hated fighting with people, but Arin’s last comment set him off. “You’re doing me a favor? How are you doing me a favor? You’re just being an okay human being by not letting someone kill me! Doing me a favor would have been leaving me out of all of this!”

Arin dropped the plate in the sink with a clatter, then stalked over to Danny. He decided that Arin’s size was less intimidating in the daylight, and the Hello Kitty pajama pants weren’t helping, but his yelling was terrifying.

“Listen, I did not have to do this. Because, newsflash, if something goes wrong we both end up dead and I’ve got people that depend on me!” Arin took a deep breath to compose himself before continuing. “You know what. Just forget it. Don’t take the key, but don’t expect to be let in tonight either. Go home. We have somewhere to be this evening and you need a fucking shower. I’ll be over at four to pick you up.”

Arin went back to the sink, and Danny slipped out the front door. Egor//aptor is terrifying when he’s that angry, Danny thought, then decided that he would never make him that angry again. And, he had to admit, maybe he could use one consistent, close friend in his life. Ego, seemed to be fiercely attached to him despite their brief time together. So maybe he could try. He would need to apologize, though. Ego seemed like the type of person who would melt and forgive you if you gave him an apology. He wasn't sure how to apologize, yet another thing he wasn't the best at. He knew someone who could help him, though.

Danny had found out the first time he’d met Commander and Mortemer that both of them, but especially Mortemer, were very protective of Arin. As soon as he’d left Danny alone with them, they attacked. Both women warned him against doing anything to hurt Arin. They claimed they wouldn’t do anything physical to him, but they had other ways to ruin his life. Danny believed Commander when she said this, but he got a sneaking feeling Mortemer would kill him.

He pulled out his work phone, Connect was alarmingly quick with getting it to him, and dialed Mortemer’s number. Danny knew she and Egoraptor had been friends for an incredibly long time and figured she could be the most help. She was furious with him when he told her what had happened and bitched him out for a solid five minutes before telling him how to apologize. Before hanging up, she made it very clear to Dan that she was only helping him because Arin liked him. She also made it incredibly clear that she would ruin him if he messed up again.

When Arin text Danny that he was waiting outside that afternoon, Danny was anxious about how he was going to act, worried the hostility from that morning would still be there. Dan didn’t like being angry, hated the way it made him feel. Even more, he didn’t like people being angry with him. Meanwhile, Arin was still hurt at the way Danny had treated him, but he knew he had no right to be. They hadn’t even known each other a month, and if Danny wanted to keep everything professional then they would. Arin knew he really shouldn’t have expected anything more.

As Danny shut the car door, Arin began to apologize, “Hey, listen. I’m sorry for how I-”

“No listen, Ego. I’m sorry. I’ve been treating you like dog shit for two weeks now. You’re a good person. Mostly. You deserve better. Truth is, I don’t like commitments… To anything. That's why I freaked out about the keys. But, for you, I’m willing to try to be serious. And actually try, not just pretend like I have been for the past few weeks. I could probably use one consistent thing in my life and you seem like a pretty solid choice.�� Danny handed Arin a Sailor Moon keychain with a small A on it. “And, I swear I’m not trying to buy your forgiveness, I just wanted to get you something… Because I am sorry and you are kind of saving my life.”

Arin stared down at the keychain in his hand, expressionless. Danny kept talking, hoping to he’d he’d he’d respond at some point. “I don’t know what the ‘A’ stands for. I was going to get an E, but Mortemer told me to get that one instead. I… I’m assuming your name starts with an A?”

Arin gave him a small smile, “Arin. The A is for Arin. That’s my name… Thanks Danny.”

“No problem, man.” Danny. “And you probably already know this, but I go by Dan.”

Arin put the car in drive, laughing, “Yeah I know, Le/igh Da/niel ‘Dan-slash-Danny Sexb//ang’ Avid//an.”

“Oh come on.” Dan groaned. “You know all this stuff and all I get is “Arin” and what I can piece together from your apartment?”

“What do you want to know? Ask me things.”

Dan thought for a minute, “Let’s start from the beginning. What was your childhood like?”

A look passed over Arin’s face, but Dan couldn’t quite tell what it was, “Well. My dad died when I was young. My mom was an addict so we were constantly broke and moved around a lot. She’d hold a job for a while and keep herself semi-clean. Then she’d get fired and things would get bad again. In highschool, when things got really bad, I tried selling art commissions and cartoon animations, but didn’t make enough money to keep us afloat. So, I started pickpocketing. We lived above Brian’s restaurant at the time, and if I was on the run from someone, he helped me out. Then, our landlord found out how we were getting the money, evicted us, Brian helped us get a new apartment, and a year later I dropped out of high school.”

Arin held his breath after he finished speaking, nervous, while Dan stared at him. He knew Dan had done well in school and even graduated from college. He knew the judgement of being an high school dropout was coming. He parked the car outside a small diner, and opened his door, wanting to get out of the confined space as soon as possible. Dan followed, but surprised Arin, however, when he asked where his mom was now.

“She lives in a long-term care facility. I have no way to take care of her. She overdosed one day and by the time I found her, the brain damage was permanent. She’s the ‘people’ that depend on me.” Arin focused on the ground as he walked. “I was on the run from police when it happened. If I hadn’t been so careless and made it home earlier, she might not be.”

Dan felt terrible for asking, so he awkwardly pat Arin’s shoulder then opened the door to the diner for him. Both men were thankful for the break in conversation. They ordered and ate in silence, neither had eaten since breakfast and were starving. Arin had decided they were just going to walk around that night and see what they could get into, maybe steal some money along the way. Arin knew a lot of objective facts about Dan, but he knew very little about his opinions and interests. Connect only told him enough to have a few conversations and keep him alive. That needed to change. As they walked around they asked each other more personal questions.

“I thought you knew everything about me.” Dan said, jokingly, after Arin asked him about his love of singing. “I don’t know. I just really enjoyed music when I was younger. I was in a band and we called ourselves Vacuum because we sucked. I tried singing serious stuff and it never went anywhere, and then I got into comedy music. I created a fake name and persona for myself and everything.”

Arin waited for Dan to continue. He turned a deep red and sighed, “I was going to be a sexy, Jewish superhero who wore a blue spandex suit with a red Star of David on the front…”

Arin was barely holding it together at the thought of Dan singing and dancing around in spandex, “And what was the name?”

“Danny Sexb//ang,” Dan turned an even darker shade of red, “It was originally SweetNuts.”

Arin doubled over and howled with laughter. They had to stop walking so he could compose himself. When he was finished Danny continued, suddenly bitter and angry, “It doesn’t matter though. That dream is dead, just like everything else I’ve ever tried to do. So now I’m just some ‘shitty thief’ who is ‘only good at being a distraction’ as you once said.”

Dan shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, and stared at the ground. Arin bumped his shoulder into his, “Aw come on dude. You’re not that bad. I was joking. And you’ll get better. Then one day you’ll have enough money to quit this and you’ll find someone to be in a band with you and you’ll become ultra famous. And then you can sleep with women all over the world and not just my neighborhood.”

Dan just shrugged and asked if they were done for the night, then asked if Arin could just take him back to his own apartment. As they drove, Arin tried to ask Dan about other hobbies and interests he had, but only got shrugs in return. The silence in the car was tense and awkward, and Arin felt like it was his fault. He tried to think of anything to lighten the mood, but he had nothing.

Arin stopped Dan as he got out of the car, “Hey, man. We all have our failed dreams, you know? But they’re never actually failed. Just incomplete dreams. You’ll do it eventually. I promise.”

Danny gave him a small smile and shut the car door. Arin watched as he unlocked his door and went in. The bedroom light cut on a few minutes later, but he didn’t leave just yet. Arin felt awful, hearing the way Dan talked about himself. He knew all too well how that felt. I’m going to make his dreams come true, Arin thought. He didn’t know how he would do it, but he was determined that Dan would become the musician he’d always wanted to be.

#partners in crime fic #listen yall. i know the title is suuuper dumb #but its the best fucking thing i could come up with for now #possibly permanently #also. this chapter is a little weird and maybe feels rushed? maybe its just me being to hard on myself #my writing #polygrumps #shipgrumps #egobang

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thenobodyhasarrived · 6 years

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Rant, sorry

People always wonder where my money goes because I don’t really buy things, and it usually goes towards food.

The place that gives out food-stamps often likes to fuck with us, so the stamps will just randomly get cancelled or come a month or two late, and my brother is a teenage boy so he’s only getting hungrier so even when we get stamps we have nothing by the last week of the month. So my meager amount of money goes towards buying my brother food. I got a Dairy Queen gift card for my bday and I was so fucking excited, I’d been planning on buying some ice cream for me and friend and going to the botanical gardens because I never get to hang out anymore. But lil bro was hungry. There was pasta in the house, but we eat so much pasta that even when I’m hungry I *physically* can’t make myself eat it; my stomach will be empty but each bite will send me closer to puking. So, pasta was out. And I took my bday gift and bought him a meal instead, and never did end up hanging out with that friend.

At the end of eighth grade, I won a $100 Walmart giftcard and a (used) kindle (that we didn’t get the password for so we couldn’t use lollll) for some contest thing I won. I was so proud. Most-- what, 13?-- year olds might have thought about buying books that they like, or new clothes, or anything, but I gave the giftcard to my mom because she was crying about being tight on money for food. The kindle was going to be sold but my dad either broke it or sold it for drugs or strippers. I was so proud, and I wanted to get a million different things-- $100 seemed like SO MUCH-- but that didn’t matter when my mom was exhausted and crying, when food ran low.

And when you’re poor, you can have nice things. You can have a computer, a phone. Maybe you got a nice house before you got broke like my family did. People look at the outside of my house and wonder how we’re on food stamps if we’re doing so well? And it’s frustrating, because everything I get goes towards food. I used to get allowances and Christmas money, and I didn’t spend that shit. I /enjoyed/ saving up. And I gave it all to my mom for food, for electricity, etc. when I was still in middle school. And most of the appliances in my house are broken. We have a bunch of TVs that don’t work. An AC that freezes over and stops working routinely. Parts of shattered windows covered with glass. And it feels like a metaphor: we look alright, so people assume when we have problems that it’s like their problems, but everything’s so broken on the inside that you know it’s not the same. Seeing posts where people criticize the poor pisses me off. Because I started taking only college classes because it meant we didn’t have to lose gas money. Even though it meant I couldn’t talk to or hang out with anyone, because I’m a highschooler surrounded by 20-something-year-olds and my mom would never let me hang around people that weren’t also minors. Even though I don’t get to talk to any of my old highschool friends because we don’t see each other. Because poor people often look like “normal” mid-class people; they can look like “outstanding” students who will probably graduate with their associates degree. But I’m always hungry and I can never eat. And I don’t get to see a real doctor even when I start twitching out of nowhere and have moments where I can’t breathe and get pounding migraines all the time, because no one takes the poor insurance.

Poor people don’t have the luxuries that mid-class/rich people do. We don’t get doctors, usually. Most food is junk food. I know this rant is 100% me blowing fumes because I looked at responses to the previous post I reblogged, but fuck it. I can rant. I’m allowed to get mad and have feelings. I’m allowed to be frustrated at people who don’t understand that poor people don’t get the same things as everyone else does. A lot of evidence points to the fact that cops crack down harder on poor people (and are more lenient towards richer people. Which is fantastic, really, because poor people are targeted and black people are killed. Cops are really for the people amirite -,-) and you can do your own research on that because I’m not in the mood to find sources. I just want to scream.

I have it a lot better than a lot of other poor people, I know that. But I’m still made that the top 1% get to make billions in their sleep and act like the world should be grateful when they give away a million or two, like they don’t have an ungodly amount of money that they literally couldn’t spend in several lifetimes. Like the amount of money the foodstamp company spends versus the amount people get doesn’t add up. The fact that 47million of 330million Americans rely on foodstamps/foodbanks and we still call ourselves a first world/well functioning/rich and prospering country.

So yeah. Here’s my rant sorry y’all I had to get it out of my system yanno?

#rant #being poor #America sucks

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spicynbachili1 · 6 years

Text

Forza Horizon 4 is really very British

There’s a phenomenon of tradition that I’m not satisfied has a reputation. Residing within the UK, the huge, overwhelming majority of the media I devour is from the US. And almost all the time has been. Whereas tv was extra localised, all my life the movies and video games (and certainly an terrible lot of the TV) I’ve watched and performed has not solely come from America, however been set there, or created by individuals whose notion of life relies there. And, whereas we could share an honest proportion of a typical language, we actually are very completely different nations and certainly continents. The results of this being, the media I watch that comes from the US is in lots of senses alien, to the purpose the place a movie set in an American highschool may as properly be set on a spaceship for all of the familiarity it should my very own lived experiences.

Which makes taking part in Forza Horizon four a extremely bloody bizarre factor. It’s… it’s British. Which is inflicting my double-takes to do double-takes.

I’ve been to the US an terrible lot. By a tough depend, perhaps forty-five occasions. Whereas I’ve by no means lived there, I’ve had some fairly assorted experiences, from dozens of press journeys to equivalent resorts in a dozen completely different states, to sleeping on the couches of buddies of buddies in unknown cities. I’ve spent most of my time in Chicago and San Francisco, whereas additionally visiting Seattle, Boston, New York, North Carolina, DC, Baltimore, LA, Indiana, Philadelphia, and all of the others I’ve forgotten. I’ve spent sufficient time within the States to understand how that record seems to be effective to anybody not residing there, however the muddle of cities and states will annoy anybody who’s. And but regardless of the frequency, I’ve but to have a single expertise over there that hasn’t felt somewhat bit like I used to be on a film set.

Now, it’d at first appear to be it doesn’t have a terrific deal to do with an open world racing sport, however let me start through the use of the instance of secondary schooling: Whereas there are many parallels, the US and UK schooling programs are actually radically completely different experiences. Within the UK we trudge to our state-run comprehensives in class uniforms for 9am, distinctive classes every day, topics splattered throughout a various timetable, sport a factor you’re compelled to do one or two mornings every week, maybe after college for the devoted few when the day is lastly over between three.30 and 4pm. There are not any yellow college buses. There is no such thing as a highschool (American) soccer staff, or cheer squad, the probabilities are there is no such thing as a college paper nor radio station, and we’ve frankly no thought what “coloration guard” is. We do have proms lately, however they’re a bizarre hybrid simulacrum of what was known as a “college dance” in my day, and what individuals have seen on the telly in US reveals. In truth, so completely primarily based on US media are the UK’s makes an attempt to include such concepts, I’d not be in the slightest degree stunned if each British promenade ended with the custom of pouring pig’s blood on the promenade queen. As a result of that’s what they do, proper?! Oh, and nobody known as a “freshman” or a “senior”, since you’re 12 months 7 or 12 months 13, and sure, secondary college is six years lengthy, not 4.

I’ve been to US excessive colleges. I’ve buddies who train in them, and I’ve sat in classes at 8am when youngsters are barely acutely aware but impossibly at college. Within the lesson they’ve at 8am on daily basis that week. For weeks. Stripped and stranded instructing, like their TV channels, completely in contrast to our personal. Everybody in their very own garments, clearly in tribes, leaping up out of their seat when the bell goes though the instructor is mid-sentence. IT’S LIKE ON TV! It’s astonishingly, impossibly, completely like on TV. To enter a US highschool, to stroll down these locker-lined corridors that stretch to vanishing factors, is to step into fiction. To see the jocks, the nerds. They’re actual issues! I’ve been to a highschool soccer sport! It’s Friday Night time Lights! It’s all fiction come to life!

Besides in fact, no it isn’t, in case you stay within the US. It’s simply life. It’s simply regular, on a regular basis life, with fictional tales and characters projected on high. For the UK viewer, American highschool teen dramas are nearer to being a present set on an alien spaceship’s schooling heart than they’re to something “regular” or acquainted to us. As, I can solely think about, could be an episode of Grange Hill proven to a teenage US viewers.

It will get even flipping weirder whenever you stroll by a US college campus. The primary time I did that, in Washington State College, I genuinely felt dizzy. Group after group of scholars walked previous delivering corny dialogue from a crappy script. “Are you going to the sport tonight?” To emphasize, UK universities don’t have “a sport tonight”. They may have a soccer staff, however nobody is aware of what it’s known as except they’re in it. They actually don’t change the color of the city clock to the staff purple once they win, as I noticed as soon as in Evanston, Illinois, when staying with buddies at Northwestern College.

That first time I used to be in Evanston, staying with a good friend who had simply began on the college, I noticed a gaggle of women strolling down the highway that regarded like clones. Equivalent lengthy blonde hair, equivalent outfits, equivalent facial expressions, and I, fully perplexed, requested my good friend what that was about? “Oh, them?” she replied offhandedly, “Sorority chicks.”

OK, at that time I could as properly be on the Enterprise and I simply obtained advised they had been “Romulan chicks” for all of the sense it made. I regarded round me, noticed blue submit packing containers (mail packing containers, sorry), crimson hearth hydrants stood in gleaming white sidewalks, these metallic packing containers that include newspapers bearing headlines that ship essential exposition for the scene, and in case you’d advised me it was a prank, that I used to be on a movie set, I’d have believed you.

The purpose of all of that is, once we Brits (and presumably the remainder of the world too) watch US media and play US video games, we internalise all this, we droop our disbelief and settle for this fictional setting. It’s not till we bodily set foot in that fiction that the jarring insanity of all of it turns into obvious. In any other case there’s simply common college that we go/went to, and there’s faux college from the TV and the flicks. You recognize, the one the place a senior is throwing a keg get together on the final day of college. BUT THAT IS ACTUALLY A THING THAT HAPPENS! I checked! I requested actual precise People they usually aren’t simply faux!

You, actual precise People studying this, you’re both laughing at me or assume I’ve gone mad. However that’s the purpose! We’re from completely completely different continents, and the overlap of our realities is simply sufficient that it seems to be prefer it must be acquainted, however completely flat-out isn’t. We’re two nations divided by a typical uncanny valley.

Which is all to say, the expertise of taking part in Forza Horizon four is sort of a mad redoubling of this strangeness.

Once I play a racing sport, a Burnout Paradise or a Want For Velocity XXXVIII, I nonchalantly, even unthinkingly, step into the American Driving Universe. Regardless of commonly driving a automotive round British roads, pretty persistently on the left facet, once I play a driving sport I mechanically drive on the suitable, no acutely aware effort. I recognise (ignore) US site visitors gentle patterns, I barely acknowledge the US avenue furnishings, I comply with the inexperienced highway indicators that inform me to which metropolis I’m heading, and don’t discover that they’re not blue, on my technique to Vajazzle Metropolis and never pointing to someplace like Bummingtonshire.

So taking part in this, each single time I see one thing undeniably British, which is roughly each 1.6 seconds in Horizon four, I double-double-take. Each a type of black-background-white-arrowed “this bend is bendier than you’re anticipating” indicators makes me snap out of my anticipated fictional expertise and realise that is actual life. Crimson telephone packing containers are pretty simply ignored, as a result of in precise Britain they’re just about an anachronism in all however essentially the most smugly center class pokey villages (of which Horizon four is usually comprised), and crimson submit packing containers, whereas a every day actuality, additionally present up in each horrible Hollywood depiction of a British avenue for them to be acceptably faux. However these grey-white gasoline meter packing containers on the outsides of terraced housing that appear like the had been artexed within the 70s? That’s an excessive amount of.

Extra trendy phone packing containers with these pale purple panels throughout the center, not getting used for something apart from individuals who want a wee? They don’t belong in video games! Bus stops which might be only a pole with an empty inexperienced metallic body the place the timetable info must be? This isn’t escapist fantasy! And inexperienced and crimson mans on the pelican crossings! Truthfully, that is the way it works in my mind:

Actual life = crimson/inexperienced man on the pedestrian crossing Video video games = white man on the pedestrian crossing Precise America = faux magic land from off the telly

You’ll be able to’t go having the actual life ones in a sport!

This cognitive dissonance in me bounces forwards and backwards in an infinitely recurring confusion. As a result of that is regular, besides it’s not regular that it’s regular, so this doesn’t really feel in any respect regular, and does that imply what I see as regular for being not regular is simply common regular for all regular People taking part in almost all regular video games? Is… is the world of fiction considerably much less fictional for People, in methods they will by no means know they’re experiencing?

I imply, British cinema is so grimly depressing, or craptacularly posh, but it surely’s by no means nonchalantly British. British cinema continues to be novel due to its very existence. It’s all the time about being British earlier than it’s about the rest. At one finish of the size, Billy Elliot isn’t a couple of working class British boy who needs to bounce… ON THE MOON. Brassed Off isn’t a couple of brass band that forestalls a volcano from destroying Yorkshire. They, and their identikit brethren, are only a dreary sepia-brown dirge of a fucked up nostalgia for when issues had been barely worse. On the different finish of the size, Notting Hill is about repulsive British individuals being repulsively British at an American woman, which is Bridget Jones, which is Love Truly, which is no matter wretched smug horror Richard Curtis shits out subsequent. What I’m saying is, you couldn’t simply devour British cinema and begin to get used to the normality of Britain, as a result of it’s all so self-obsessed and navel-gazing that it could as properly be screened on the facet of a novelty teapot.

British-set gaming is… properly it doesn’t exist! OK, it form of does, however once more with its Britishness as novelty. Your Sir You Are Being Hunteds, and your Time Gents Pleases, are flag-wavingly British, in a method that, to pluck a sport out of the ether, Watch_Dogs is just not flag-wavingly American. It IS American, it must be American to be what it must be, however it’s so with out self-consciousness. And but half the video games you play had been in all probability made in Guildford – simply by no means set there. Oddly it’d be the perfect place! I grew up in Guildford, winner of Britain’s Most Mediocre Metropolis. The city motto is, “Guildford: It’s effective.” Nobody hates Guildford, as a result of it must have performed one thing attention-grabbing to warrant it. Guildford is the right setting for gaming, as a result of it’s extra painted background than precise place.

So my competition is that People merely can’t expertise this double-whiplash of bemusing familiarity. However hopefully when taking part in Forza Horizon four, they will at the very least take step one towards it: an genuine expertise of Britishness, that isn’t reliant on stereotypes, simply utter ordinariness.

Whereas Horizon’s geography of its phase of Britain is likely to be primarily based on tearing up an A-Z after which sellotaping it again collectively at random (the Uffington White Horse is within the South of England, 376 miles and a 7 hour drive from Scotland’s Edinburgh, which itself is 146 miles from the Lake District’s Ambleside…), you actually don’t drive previous Large Ben each 13 seconds as in each different UK-set sport. Whereas the Leamington Spa-based builders, Playground Video games, might need considerably exaggerated the networks of dry-stone partitions that line the North of England and South of Scotland (which right here all look like one county/nation), they’ve averted the straightforward landmarks, the Beefeater stood exterior Buckingham Palace consuming fish and chips off a cricket bat that may often entrance the UK scene in a Roland Emmerich film. Edinburgh Fort is a magnificence, and Arthur’s Seat is a vacationer spot, however nobody’s utilizing them as establishing photographs for a world viewers.

However neglect the fortress. Overlook that they’ve so lovingly reproduced some acquainted streets of Edinburgh. What issues right here is that they’ve put these tiny yellow “no parking” indicators on the 30mph poles. It’s that they’ve the derestricted velocity restrict indicators heading instantly into single-lane nation roads, implying you may tear round these blind corners at 60mph.

I have a good time the ordinariness of Forza Horizon four’s bucolic Britain, the tiniest particulars that give me a psychological whiplash of confusion. I had assumed, when studying this sport was to be set within the UK, that I’d simply expertise a driving sport like People expertise all of theirs – that the ordinariness could be, properly, atypical. It seems I’ve been so ingratiated into the ever-present Americanness of driving video games that this was an integral a part of their vocabulary for me. Who knew normality may very well be so novel as to be distracting? And I’m bloody glad of it!

from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/forza-horizon-4-is-really-very-british/

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5hfanfiction · 8 years

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now im climbing the walls

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“Just don’t look down, don’t look down that’s definitely a bad…” Lauren rambles nervously to herself as her sweaty palms hold tightly to the metal bars of the fire escape ladder.

So Lauren and Lucy had been good friends for a while now, almost all of highschool and now into their early twenties despite some distance in the beginning of college, but they’d only ever really slept together a few times. Mostly drunken experimenting when both girls were too nervous to trust anyone else with their sexuality, but also last night when they’d decided they both needed some tension relieved.

It was as platonic as a friends with benefits set up could get because really despite some confusion before, they knew they’d be better off as friends. But still, Lauren was usually smart about these things.

She’d considered most things to be honest. She’d covered the whole no feelings thing easily from the beginning of this new set up, and she’d made sure that Lucy didn’t have any danger of falling either because the last thing she wanted was to hurt her best friend, but there had to be something missing right?

She kind of should have known this was a bad idea when it came to who’s place to go to after the night out.

It’s just, well her mother has been pestering her for weeks, months even to settle down, start dating and see where it takes her. She’d been strongly against the idea since her mom started but at this point it was just getting her mom to think she was at least done with her fucking around.

So hooking up in the apartment next to her mother’s best friend? Not a good idea.

Not just because of the paper thin walls but also Lauren’s lack of walk of shame subtlety that would give away what she was up to the night before. She assumes that Mrs. Summers hasn’t placed who her neighbor was having sex with, but if she were to catch a glimpse of Lauren leaving (which she would since she’s been out there talking to the other neighbors since like two hours ago) she would now exactly who wasn’t listening to their mother lately. And hey, Lauren may be 24 years old but like, who isn’t afraid of their mom sometimes?

In hindsight she isn’t sure why she didn’t just wait until she was sure Mrs. Summers was out at work to leave Lucy’s, but she was too paranoid at the time with thinking of her mother’s best friend and fuck buddies neighbor finding out what she’s been up to.

That’s how she finds herself here though, freaking out over the height like Donkey did on the way to rescuing Fiona. She’s always been afraid of heights, but there wasn’t any other way to sneak out when the lady next door was out there chatting up a storm with the other neighbors.

Shimmying down here didn’t seem to bad at first, especially when Lucy was wishing her luck with a lingering kiss and a pat on the cheek and okay but now that Lauren is alone in the cold and god jesus Christ this is higher than she thought it would be.

“Fuck okay you just looked down and holy shit that’s really-”

“Do you wanna like, come through here or..?” a voice breaks Lauren’s monologue and she almost falls to her death with the shock of it (not that she would’ve since the fire escape is safer than she’s making it out to be), but a hand wraps around her wrist tightly to hold her in place when she wobbles a bit in shock.

“Holy shit don’t just pop up on people like-” Lauren starts, more annoyed than anything even though technically she’s the one who isn’t supposed to be out there but like, still she’s in a bad mood ever since she realized she’s higher than the Everest and probably about to die. But when she turns to address mystery raspy voice, she’s cut off by the air being sucked out of her lungs by how attractive the girl now gently holding her steady on the platform is.

She’s a tiny thing, petite frame cloaked in an oversized t shirt and sweatpants. Her long dark hair is messily pulled up into a bun that she pulls of better than anyone Lauren has seen and she’s got some damn good lips, don’t even start on her eyes though, they’re brown and big and oh they’re - they’re looking right at Lauren who’s still not answered the question oops.

“Okay it’s freezing out here so you in or out?” raspy voice cuts off her staring and she feels her face flush but it was already red from the wind so she doesn’t try to cover it.

“Umm…” Lauren hesitates but then realizes that she’s at least a floor below now and smiles brightly, nodding that this stranger just saved her from plummeting to her death.

“Okay well coolio I was just getting-”

“Oh my gosh Mila a girl! Are the storks updating to fully grown or are you like… late?” a male voice cuts in as Camila bends to shut the window behind Lauren who’s rubbing her arms and trying not to stare at how Camila’s sweats hug her ass.

The voice makes her realize she’s staring though and so she snaps her eyes up to meet a smirking brunette boy sitting at a small table with a mug of coffee. He’s got a baby face kind of adorable actually but also lowkey dope. For some reason Lauren is happy to have good gaydar because even though she literally doesn’t even know the girl - Mila? - she’s pretty and Lauren wants all pretty girls to stay away from boys.

The apartment is pretty open, the window opens up to a small kitchen with two small tables, one on either side with two chairs at each. One side is against a wall and one is against what looks like a bookshelf facing the other way which Lauren can make out to be a living room area with a small couch and a television set. If you follow the wall side, it leads over to the exit but along the wall are three doors, bedrooms and a bathroom Lauren assumes.

“Ha ha Troye,” the girl cuts in and heads over to the Keurig to grab what Lauren assumes she was doing before Lauren interrupted. “But anyways as I was saying, I was making coffee and then Troye over there was like, ‘Oh my god it’s a girl! And a pretty one too,’ and I had to see because, well I don’t know actually I guess I just like girls and you are definitely a pretty one but it’s not every day a pretty girl falls from the sky and-” she’s once again cut off by a male voice but this time it’s a different one, laughing as the girl blushes at what she’d blurted out.

“Smooth Mila,” the new boy jokes as he runs a towel over his wet hair before tossing it to the couch on the other side of the open apartment. “I’m Shawn,” he grins as he turns to address Lauren who’s been standing off to the side somewhat awkwardly as she watches the roommates interact.

“Lauren,” she smiles warmly, not knowing whether she should head straight for the door or stay and chat with the friendly neighbors she never knew Lucy had.

“That’s Troye and the lovely lady to your right is Camila,” Shawn continues, plopping in the seat across from Troye and grabbing the mug out of Camila’s hand, who pouts at first but turns to make her own, accepting that he took hers. “I’m assuming by your rumpled dress and hickey covered neck this is some weird version of a walk of shame? Pretty original idea though so it takes away some of the shame,” he jokes and chugs some of his coffee and sending Camila a thankful grin as she hands him a plate of toast with scrambled eggs.

“Well I mean… it is pretty obvious huh?” Lauren laughs, not bothering to deny it to the strangers because they don’t seem to be judging. “But yeah, my umm, my mom’s friend lives next door so I figured I’d hop down,” she explains and the two boys burst into laughter and Camila fails to hold in a laugh herself from where her back is turned to the coffee machine.

“How do you take your coffee? It’s the least we can do to help you defrost,” Camila offers from over her shoulder and Lauren smiles as she takes a seat at the other table that Shawn’s gesturing to.

“Just a little sugar,” she answers and it only takes a second before Camila is taking the seat across form her with two cups of coffee.

“So now that we’re acquainted and all, tell us about yourself Lauren,” Troye speaks and Lauren notices from her seat the way his and Shawn’s feet are intertwined and smiles lightly are learning more about the trio’s dynamics.

She ends up learning a lot about their dynamics. It’s not on purpose actually, they get to talking and they all get along extremely well. She accidentally stays for over an hour, chatting and joking with the three new friends before Shawn realizes he’s late for class and Camila has to get to work and Lauren realizes she may have overstayed her welcome and thanks them before heading off, much happier than she had been outside on the freezing fire escape.

“You guys were loud last night,” Camila greets as she opens the window for Lauren a few weeks later after having done so a few nights a week.

It’s become routine kind of, Lauren cuts down the fire escape, camila’s making coffee next to the window, and the four talk for a few hours. This is one of the few times the boys are out already and Lauren feels a bit happy because okay she might kind of have a crush on the girl and Shawn and Troye are great but they either talk too much or make jokes about Lauren staring and she kind of doesn’t want to be caught.

Lauren blushes dark at the comment though, often forgetting that the paper thin walls aren’t exclusively when it comes to Mrs. Summers next door. “Well Lucy was kind of-”

“Lo I recognize your voice,” Camila turns around and pushes a cup into a still blushing Lauren’s hands before continuing, “It’s hot though so don’t worry about the lack of sleep,” she winks and Lauren’s face turns even redder if possible.

“Still, I’ll take you into consideration next time,” Lauren says but stops when she realizes what she’s saying and Camila’s laugh breaks the silence.

“So it’s Lucy Vives?” Camila asks once they’re both settled into their usual seats next to the bookshelf. At Lauren’s nod she continues, “I’ve talked to her a few times, seems like a cool girl. How long have you two been together?” Camila asks and Lauren can’t help but laugh at the question that makes Camila furrow her brows in confusion.

“We’re not like dating or anything, Lucy’s been my friend for a few years now and we both just wanted to telive some tension, you know? This seemed like the least complicated way to do so,” Lauren explains and Camila sips her coffee but nods along, looking at Lauren over the rim of her cup and fuck her eyes are like, so hot right now but Lauren isn’t thinking that, nope not at all.

“Wow, okay sorry I didn’t mean to assume things, you’ve just been coming through for almost a month now and I guess I just thought… yeah but that’s cool still, I get what you’re saying,” Camila answers and reaches for the cereal on the counter that she forgot, but obviously ends up falling in her attempt to reach and not get up out of her chair.

Lauren laughs before she show her concern, which kind of makes her laugh even brighter because that means they’re better friends already than she thought they were.

They laugh it off for a few, joking and teasing and finally settle into conversation after about half an hour of aimlessly joking and making small talk.

“So Lauren Jauregui,” Camila starts and leans forward to rest her chin on her bent arms. “I don’t know enough about you.”

“What’d you wanna know?” Lauren shrugs back, feeling flustered with Camila looking at her like that even though Camila’s only ever looked at her like that. “I’m pretty much an open book but I guess some facts haven’t been revealed yet.”

“Where you from? Obviously you live in New York, unless you commute to fuck,” Camila jokes, “But like born and raised?”

“West Philadelphia… kidding, Miami actually, I’m a 305 baby, my parents moved up here once my youngest sister went to college because they wanted to spend some time in the city but they’re bound to go back,” she answers with a grin, not being able to not use that pun. Camila’s giving her a funny look though so, “What? Seriously you can’t judge me for bad jokes Ms.-”

“I’m from Miami too,” she interrupts with a smile taking over her face. “Actually I’m born and kind of raised in Cuba, but only til I was six years old, 305 since then,” she continues on with a smile and Lauren smiles too at how cute Camila looks when she’s smiling.

“This is crazy oh my god, where’d you go to high school?” Lauren questions as she stirs at the little remaining coffee she has in her mug, unable to break eye contact with Camila long enough to finish it.

“Carrollton? It was one of the all girl-”

“Holy shit, I went to Carrollton too. You’re what, two years younger than me? We legit went to school together how did we never connect this?” Lauren asks in shock that she’d missed this drop dead gorgeous girl in her high school. Sure she was a little bit younger but their high school wasn’t exactly packed, maybe six, seven hundred girls but not enough for her to not recognize Camila at all.

“This is why you looked familiar,” Camila replies, jaw kind of slacked as she leans back in her seat in awe of her realization. Camila starts giggling after a moment and Lauren quirks an eyebrow urging the girl to continue, and Camila shameless as ever does so, “I had a huge crush on you my freshman year.”

Lauren’s jaw drops at that. Mainly because holy shit this Camila had a crush on her woah but also like, how did Camila not recognize her? She doesn’t look that different, maybe since her hair is darker and she’s lost all traces of baby fat on her cheeks.

“For real?” Lauren asks with her jaw still a bit agape but she knows she has to say something.

“Mhm, you were like, hot shit so I never could’ve talked to you, but I knew what you looked like and I knew your first name,” Camila explains with her grin still present as she goes into details of her crush. “I’m surprised it took em this long to recognize you, god I had like a huge crush for a year and I only got over it because you were dating some guy from the public school and i felt like a dumb underclassman.”

“Holy shit how did I not notice you? Like god if you would’ve tried to talk to me I probably would’ve been all over the idea and-”

“Lauren you were the most popular girl in school, not to mention taken for the most part by that girl you were… oh my god was that Lucy? Her name started with an 'L’ and-” at Lauren nod she groans to herself and buries her face in her palm, “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize this sooner. But it’s totally because I had baby fat and the social skills of a hippopotamus- why you don’t recognize me that is, I was awkward and shy and never really went to any parties and such. I just went to the same school but I wasn’t really socially active with anyone other than my best friend Dinah.”

“Well on the bright side you’re like my bestie now,” Lauren jokes with a small blush still at the fact that Camila Cabello had a crush on her. “And if it’s any consolation to not knowing what you looked like back then, I think you’re beautiful now.”

That’s the first time she makes Camila blush herself and she’s damn proud of herself for it.

They become pretty good friends after that day. It’s almost three whole months of Lauren stopping by for coffee on the mornings and joking around with Camila (and the two boys but mainly Camila) before something goes wrong.

Lauren knows that Camila kind of has a crush on her.

Shawn makes it obvious with his teasing and Camila’s red face makes it even more obvious (and Troye’s “awe leave the love kitten alone” kind of makes it clear too).

Camila’s crush is kind of adorable, at some point she even started buying Cheerios for Lauren to have once she found out the older girl liked them, and it makes Lauren’s mornings better. Camila is just so sweet and nice and hot and adorable and hot and sexy and so so cute and so so hot and Lauren has a huge crush back.

She doesn’t notice the way that Camila’s eyes lose their spark for a minute whenever Troye teases Lauren for her hickies or bruised lips.

She doesn’t notice the way Shawn shoots Camila a soft sympathetic look whenever Lauren makes jokes about being too loud again.

She really thinks she likes Camila a little too much but she also thinks that Camila just has a crush. She doesn’t think it’s anything to act upon, especially since they only really see each other when Lauren’s coming back from fucking somebody else.

Now like, it’s also pretty obvious that Lauren likes Camila, at least in her own opinion. The amount of times she’s caught checking her out is literally uncountable at this point, and she smiles brighter than she usually does whenever Camila does or says anything cute (or actually anything at all).

So like, it kind of hurts when Camila isn’t the one to open the window when she knocks, but a girl in nothing but her pantes and bra on.

“Umm I don’t know if you like have the wrong house or-”

“Lo? Oh hey I didn’t, you don’t usually come on Wednesdays cause of class but umm… I have coffee if you want any?” Camila offers, entering the room and trying not to let her eyes widen too much at seeing the girl she’d kill to be with staring confusedly at the girl she had over the night before.

“Seriously?” Lauren asks once she finds her words. Okay Camila may not like her as much but she doesn’t have to ignore the tension that had been growing between them. She’d kind of been waiting for Camila to make a move, assuming her feelings were obvious enough (conveniently forgetting that sleeping with someone else is kind of cancelling out any signals she could be sending).

“Forget it,” Lauren continues after a minute of looking angrily at a clueless Camila who’s making this harder by being dressed in just panties and a t shirt, obviously with no bra underneath. “I’m going to go.”

“Wait Lauren hold up,” Camila stops and makes to grab Lauren’s arm but the older girl shakes it off, making Camila’s face drop and her stomach sink. “What’s wrong?” she asks, not grabbing Lauren but turning to she’s blocking the short path form the kitchen to the door.

“What’s wrong?” Lauren asks incredulously as her eyebrows raise and Camila flinches a bit with how sour her voice sounds. “Why don’t you ask her,” Lauren snaps and that opens up the obvious tension, leaving Camila flabbergasted that, woah Lauren is jealous and the girl standing innocently at a loss.

“Umm…” the girl trails off cluelessly as she looks between a wide eyed Lauren and a guilty looking Camila. “I’m just um, I’m gotta Zayn,” she decides and shrugs her shirt on fully before turning for what Lauren knows is Camila’s bedroom probably to pick up her clothes and the rest of her dignity.

Lauren waits until she’s out of sight to speak again, “Well I guess I’ll have to knock next time huh?” she snips before making her way past Camila heading towards the door. “Wouldn’t want to make you stop for seconds on account of me,” she continues and, okay she knows she can’t talk but Camila’s never had anyone other than Shawn and Troye over and it’s kind of throwing her off.

“Are you being serious right now?” Camila asks with her eyebrows high as the ceiling because Lauren can’t be serious right now.

“I don’t know, forget it okay? I have to get to work anyways,” Lauren rolls her eyes and grabs her purse from where she had set it in her usual seat.

“So you’re allowed to fuck Lucy every night but I can’t have someone over once?” Camila demands as she watches the girl try to leave without addressing anything and becomes even more angry than before.

“Lucy doesn’t mean shit!” Lauren yells in frustration as she spins to face an equally as pissed off Camila.

“Yeah well you could’ve fucking fooled me,” Camila snaps back, running a hand through her hair frustratedly, “You’ve been hooking up with her for months now, really screams 'she means nothing’ if you ask me,” she sarcastically snips and Lauren knows she’s kind of right but like also not really. But still, Lauren knows she can’t really be as hurt as she is by Camila having a girl over.

“Look,” Camila sighs as she runs a hand through her hair and nervously lets out a breath of air. “I’m sorry if you feel ambushed or whatever but… do you know how hard it is to be around you knowing that not over an hour ago you were with someone else? I’m just so confused and all you ever do is flirt and smile and your smile has been enough to keep me content but I can’t just wait around for you to make some move or-whatever it is you’re doing I just, I’m too confused at this point, so keep fucking Lucy or whatever but if you’re going to do that then stop flirting with me,” she confesses and holds her breath waiting for Lauren’s response.

Lauren knows that she should use this chance. She’s been waiting for Camila to make a move, but learning that Camila’s been waiting for the opposite? That’s basically confirmation that nothing’s going to go wrong right?

She doesn’t know why she replies the way she does, but the words are out before she can stop them, “Being friendly isn’t flirting,” she grits out, too stubborn to admit she feels the same and wants to slap herself when Camila’s face falls at the words, but instead of slapping herself she finds herself continuing. “But I guess I’ll stop doing that then.”

Camila looks like she’s going to cry once Lauren can finally meet her eyes again. And part of Lauren wants to kiss her, or some other grand gesture so that she’ll know Lauren didn’t mean it. She knows that numb pain that comes with trying to hold your tears in and she doesn’t want Camila to have to go through it for a second longer. She wants to take it back, to hug Camila and kick the girl out and promise to never sleep with Lucy or anyone else as long as Camila will have her for.

Instead she turns and walks out so Camila can stop trying so hard to hold in the tears.

Lauren doesn’t answer any of Lucy’s texts for almost two weeks. Kind of because she’s busy and not in the mood, but she knows it’s more to do with the fact that Camila must have told Shawn and Troye and they all must hate her.

She cracks eventually though because Lucy’s always been a good friend and blatantly ignoring her and blowing her off is kind of rude (and she kind of wants to see Camila, even if she might not survive the wrath of double gay trouble that live with her).

“Lo, are you sure you don’t want to just go out the front? Mrs. Summers won’t give a shit and I doubt she’d actually rat you out to your mom,” Lucy suggests as she sees the hesitation in Lauren’s eyes over going her usual way. Lucy was her friend over her fuck buddy, meaning Lauren had told her all about Camila and her friends downstairs and her small crush and then about her small fight and now she’s here trying to convince Lauren to not go that way for the day.

“I feel like that’s pussying out, Luce,” Lauren says in a small voice, looking out the window and tugging her jacket tighter around herself to brace for the cold. “I’ll just climb all the way down if they ignore me,” she decides and Lucy doesn’t look like she agrees with the idea (and Lauren thinks it’s more to do with Lucy feeling bad for Camila than it is for her sympathizing with Lauren. Ever since she’d explained Camila having feelings Lucy had felt like a huge bitch leaving marks all over Lauren’s neck).

“Okay well let me know when you’re home? Maybe we can grab lunch with Keana since she’s starting today, girl’s probably nervous as fuck,” Lucy adds with a grin and Lauren smiles, nods her approval and then she’s out on the familiar ladder that leads to her death (she’s not sure if she’s still talking about that in terms of the height).

She gets to the window in a longer amount of time than usual, not as nervous about falling down on the fire escape exactly. She’s more overanalyzing every way that she could be kicked out of Camila’s apartment and none of them seem too appealing. She’s half expecting nobody to let her in, for the curtain to be closed or for a “fuck you” banner to be hung in the window opening, so imagine her surprise when Troye is standing at the counter and sends a small smile before coming over to open up for her.

“Hey stranger, long time no see,” he greets and Lauren smiles nervously back at him, hesitating to come in but ultimately deciding that Troye wouldn’t let her in if it was to risky. He’d become her best friend out of the three (other than Camila but that wasn’t exactly platonic), and she figured he would give her some sort of warning if the other two were out for blood.

“Sorry I haven’t been around, I’ve missed you guys,” Lauren answers quietly, pulling the window shut behind her and being hit with the familiar smell of coffee and Shawn’s weird egg benedict omelet thing that he always has cooking. “I’ve just been so busy and-”

“Busy fucking around? That sounds-”

“Shawn, not now,” Camila’s voice cuts the boy off as they both make their way into the kitchen, Shawn with a glare thrown towards a defeated looking Lauren and Camila with her eyes focused on the ground as she sneaks past them all to the coffee counter.

“Ignore him,” Troye says, sending a look to a still glaring at Lauren before continuing, “he’s going to play nice unless he wants to be sleeping on the couch tonight, isn’t that right Shawny?”

“Fuck you,” Shawn spats at Troye surprisingly although he probably wants to be saying it to Lauren, but he crosses his arms and glares at his plate instead of Lauren, smiling a little bit when Camila comes over with his food but going back a glare before he can fully break character.

“Here, I umm… I made you a to go one? I know you have class in…” she pauses to look at the clock, “forty minutes? It’s fresh so-”

“How’d you know I’d be here?” Lauren asks, shocked because usually she’d been coming most days and she’d abruptly stopped so she assumed they’d think she was gone for good. “Not that I’m not grateful, like thank you so much cause I would’ve died without it but-”

“You’re loud in bed jackass,” Shawn snaps shoving his fork down with a clatter and returning to glaring at Lauren whose face drops realizing that Camila had to hear her- fuck turning to look at said girl Lauren’s heart sinks even more at her dropped gaze and nervously fidgeting with her shirt hands. “Have some decency Jesus fucking-”

“Shawn that’s enough,” Camila cuts off and surprisingly her voice is strong and not quivering with the tears Lauren swears she was seeing a second ago brimming her eyes. “It’s not her fault if I have a fucking crush, she doesn’t have to stop with… fuck here Lauren I have an interview so I can’t really talk or anything but…”

“Camz…”

“I’ll see you around? Probably anyways since you’re still… yeah,” Camila rambles, running a nervous hand over the back of her neck before giving Lauren what is clearly an attempt at a reassuring smile.

Troye sends her a small bye but Shawn’s glare is still in place and boy, he’s adorable when he’s normal but mad Shawn is probably the scariest person in the world, so Lauren ducks out without much argument, hearing Troye scold him once she’s passing the door.

She goes to Lucy’s a few days later and Shawn beats either to the window. He has the decency to let her out that way, but he guides her to the door with no coffee and doesn’t let her see if Camila or Troye is home, but then again it’s probably better not to make Camila go through knowing she was with Lucy and Shawn says as much after all but shoving her towards the door.

Now Lauren’s been doing a lot of thinking and she kind of regrets never telling Camila she didn’t mean it. It’s been a few weeks since that last time and she’s kind of stopped with Lucy. They’re having a girl’s movie night with Keana and Alexa and it happens to be at Lucy’s when she finally sees Camila again. She hadn’t seen her since that time Shawn had been a dick (with good reason of course) and she wasn’t really planning on it until she was read to grovel for her affection, but of course fate has to step in and remind her why people always call fate a bitch. Well actually that’s karma but like, same thing right?

She’s in the elevator, going up to Lucy’s place with a bottle of wine and a string bag for her pajamas and she hears the voice right when the elevators are closing, “Stop the elevator,” it says as a foot pushes its way between the doors causing them to open and of course it’s Camila.

Of course it’s Camila who’s face demeanor saddens when she sees that Lauren’s obviously prepped for a night at Lucy’s. Still she smiles slightly in greeting then continues to say nothing else.

It’s, to put it lightly, the most awkward situation Lauren has ever been in. She’s wondering if running as soon as she saw Camila and taking the stairs would have been more or less awkward and now she thinks that it would have been less because anything would be less awkward than being on a silent elevator with Camila who knows exactly where she’s going and exactly why she’s going there. And the whole not talking. She’s only known Camila for a few months but they never had a minute where things were silent and now suddenly they’re in an elevator alone, both hoping for the trip up to just be over already.

“Have fun,” Camila snips as she walks off and Lauren really didn’t see that coming, like yeah Camila has been sarcastic before but not like, Lauren thought she’d gotten over the fact that she’s “not into her” but this jealousy kind of made her think otherwise?

She officially ends thing with Lucy that night. It had already been over but knowing she still has a shot with Camila kind of made her want to make sure they were both on the same page before she went for it.

She’s still nervous though.

She doesn’t really know how to go about it. She has all three of the roommates numbers, so she could just text Camila to meet up and hope for the best, but Lauren’s always been a big believer in 'go big or go home’, so she can’t just text her and expect shit to turn right.

It takes another week for her to finally come up with anything. It’s kind of because of her post Camila depression that she does think of something. She’d been thinking about the younger girl a lot and of course that led to listening to all of her favorite songs and artists and watching her favorite movies and television shows, and Camila may have had weird taste sometimes, but some of the recommendations surprisingly weren’t as torturous as she’d thought they would be.

She texts Troye a few days before she’s planning to do it, wanting to make sure her and Camila will have privacy to talk (also because Lauren has stage fright and couldn’t confess her feelings with Shawn shooting daggers at her). The younger boy is thrilled to say the least and vows his secrecy when he finds out Lauren’s finally going to fight for her, and to her relief he informs her Camila is still too upset to go out and try to actually date someone else.

Lauren’s afraid of heights still.

Coming down from Lucy’s apartment that first day seemed impossible. She lived on the tenth floor, almost the top of a giant condo building and Lauren just, she felt like she was going to fall no matter how tightly she held on.

She never actually made it all the way down though, Camila had let her in and then all of that had happened. So this means she had no idea that she would have awkwardly had to ask one of the residents on the first floor to cut through their apartment anyways since the jump to the cement was too risky (but now because she couldn’t reach it even if she tried).

Going up it is easier at first. Because she isn’t yet all the way up there and it isn’t yet as terrifying as it’s going to be once she gets a little ways up.

It would also make it easier to back out. In the beginning she had to get down, whereas now she already is down so why bother, right? Well Lauren considers getting to Camila more important than avoiding Mrs. Summers, so technically this is more necessary than going down. Especially if she wants to do it right.

She feels kind of awkward on a few different occasions, making eye contact with people looking at her lie she’s crazy or suspicious which, yeah she’s climbing a fire escape but it’s like three in the afternoon so it’s unlikely she’d be robbing anyone, but then again this area of New York isn’t always the safest so she can’t blame them.

Camila’s standing in the kitchen window when she finally makes her way all the way up, nervously thinking about all that could go wrong on her way. Her main thought being that Camila wouldn’t be home so at least that’s not an issue, but when Camila sees her and her face changes to something Lauren can’t read, she kind of wants to run back down and not care about the risk of falling. Because that’s less scary than facing Camila with that facial expression.

“Lauren? Booty calls getting late or something?” Camila comments, opening the window for her but leaving it without welcoming her in to return to the counter and go over the articles she’s seemingly focused on.

“Actually I came up,” Lauren explains, waiting for Camila to react but not getting a reaction so continuing, “for you? Like I climbed all the way- look I know you have reason to be upset and all but could you at least hear me out?” she asks, getting slightly annoyed when Camila turns a page in the magazine to emphasize that she;s not listening.

“Not really,” Camila snaps and Lauren’s about to reply before she’s cut off by a dry laugh escaping Camila’s lips. “Look I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing here but you really should leave, I’m in the middle of-”

“I know you’re not doing anything I asked Troye to be sure,” Lauren cuts her off and grimaces to herself when Camila just glares at her for that. “Look Camz-”

“Don’t call me that right now, you can’t…” Camila starts and rubs at her forehead before finding words, “I can’t deal with this right now, I’m tired and I just- I’m sorry Lauren but I need you to go,” she finishes and drops her magazine to the counter and turns, not shutting the window but instead making her way towards her bedroom while Lauren panics on how to make her stop.

“I listened to One Direction,” Lauren cuts her off and Camila stops in her tracks, not facing Lauren yet but obviously curious as to what she’s talking about. “I umm… I’m climbing the walls, since you’ve got that one thing and all? I know it’s cheesy and stupid but like, they aren’t as bad as I always thought they were and if you like them then they’re even better and I just… fuck Camila I really like you,” Lauren elaborates, blushing slightly when she realizes this could have just been stupid and cheesy for no reason.

“I’m such an idiot for being so rude and I was just… I’m afraid of heights. And it’s a stupid metaphor and all but if I couldn’t climb down the fire escape, how was I supposed to let myself fall for you? I should’ve told you though. I shouldn’t have waited until you were with someone else and then I shouldn’t have been so in denial when I had my chance with you… I should’ve stopped seeing Lucy as soon as I met you and I should’ve come to your door instead. But I’m here now. And I’m sorry for that, I’m so sorry for that and I’m willing to ale you coffee every day for the rest of four months and then some to make it up to you?”

Camila doesn’t reply at first. She’s still facing the other way, not reacting as far as Lauren can tell and she’s honestly kind of embarrassed because 'go big or go home’ also means throwing your pride to the side. Also she kind of doesn’t want to have to climb all the way back down there, it was scary enough to come up.

She sighs heavily after at least a minute of silence from the younger girl and starts to accept defeat.

“My favorite right now is 'Video Games’,” Camila speaks, cutting Lauren off before she can spin and let her feet guide her back down nine floors. “I know all the words, but I kind of can’t think of any lines to use right now that wouldn’t feel too soon but umm… you da bestest?” Camila speaks nervously and she spins around to let Lauren finally see the grin splitting her face and the beautiful blush covering her cheeks.

Lauren’s grin feels two times as big when she picks up on the reference to the music she had recommended to Camila that day.

She’s happy, she knows that much. Camila isn’t mad, at least she doesn’t look mad, and maybe she’ll be mad again later but right now she’s not. Right now she’s quoting equally as cheesy lyrics to Lauren and smiling like she feels the same.

“You know umm, the next lyrics? 'Lean in for a big kiss’?” Lauren asks as she pulls herself through the window slowly as Camila walks forward with patience in her steps as she lets Lauren situate herself on the windowsill. “Can I maybe try that?”

“That’d be perfect,” Camila smiles and lets her hand be grasped by Lauren’s and pulled in, “it was kind of bad compared to yours but I was referencing the One direction song by the way, Perfect? It’s on the newer album so-”

“Yeah yeah I know what you’re saying Camz, now shut up and let me kiss you,” Lauren cuts off and wants to smack herself in the face when Camila lets out a loud laugh at the accentual pun.

“Like the song? Kiss you? Get it?” Camila starts again through chuckles but Lauren doesn’t bother cutting her off with anything but her lips.

#UPDATE #one shot #AU #camren #humour #submission #now im climbing the walls

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wouldvebeensweet · 8 years

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Anxiety and Depression.

If you know me, you know that sharing my feelings is one of the biggest parts of my life. I share a lot through my music, and I’ve always been honest. But another big part of my life that I haven’t shared too much about is my mental health. I’ve talked about anxiety and depression before, and I make jokes at myself about anxiety publicly because that’s how I deal with things- but I want to get serious about it. I’ve sat down to write this multiples times, and I’ve filmed countless videos trying to talk about it. But this is it, this is the real thing and i’m freakin’ out.

I want to share this because I feel like these types of things aren’t shared enough. There’s a stigma when it comes to mental illnesses and it needs to be broken. I hope that by sharing my story with you, you feel less alone, or even get the courage to tell your story too.

Things started for me very young, about the time I was going into 6th grade, I was around 10 or 11. The summer leading into 6th grade, I never felt good. My body never felt right, I was always nervous, I felt physically sick every day, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. Every night I would go to bed not feeling good and crying, and I would end up running into my parents bedroom. I’d be hyperventilating and freaking out, so I would make a bed on their bedroom floor. And I did that for a long time. On the first day of 6th grade, my mom had to basically pull me into the building because I did not want to go. I remember that day so clearly, even the sequin limited too dress I was wearing. During lunch that day I went to the office to call my dad and begged him to come pick me up. But as most parents would do on the first day of school, he told me to stick it out. So I proceeded to just wait in the office for an hour and then go to band class. That entire year was a struggle for me. I went to different doctors, had different blood tests done, and even had an MRI. Nobody really knew what was wrong, I don’t think anyone wanted to assume that someone so young could have anxiety and depression. I lost a lot of weight, I never ate. At one point all I had were protein shakes that my mom made me drink. Late that year, I went to a psychologist and was finally diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression. I had no idea what that meant, I was so young. I was told that this wasn’t my fault, and doctors tried telling me it was just a chemical imbalance in the brain. But I was only 11, and I just thought it was my fault.

In 7th grade I joined choir which made things a bit more bearable, but that was when my shitty attendance took place because of my anxiety. I got casted in the school musical that year, which was so exciting for me and looking back i’m still proud. But then I remember that I literally almost chickened out opening night and the understudy almost had to go on for me. Shit.

In 8th grade things were still the same, I was still taking my medication. But that year, I started to receive anonymous hate texts. They would say things like, “you copy everyone” “no one cares about you” “no one wants to be your friend”, shitty stuff like that. I went to be crying for a while, but it hurt even more when I found out the messages came from the people I thought were my best friends.

Going into highschool, I was still on medication, still anxious and depressed. But in these four years… that’s where my attendance went downhill. Freshman year was okay I guess, but sophomore year was probably the worst year of my life. My depression was something that I pushed deep down for a really long time. But my sophomore year I couldn’t push it down anymore. I fought with my parents everyday about going to school, I caused a lot of stress in the house. I still feel bad about it. When I did go to school, I would either sit in the office or go into a bathroom stall and cry. I missed a lot of driver training. And that year was also a year that I started some really unhealthy habits.

Junior year I stopped taking my medicine, not because I was told to, but because I thought I was doing better. I didn’t think I needed it anymore. But I was wrong, and when the withdrawal hit, my body shut down. I was out of school for a week while I got things back together. This happened multiple times going into my senior year, too.

My senior year of high school sucked. I hated high school if you couldn’t already tell. Due to my anxiety, I missed a shit ton of school. Like, A SHIT TON. I dropped my FST class in the middle of the year, and took an online math class. Because I started that class late, I had a lot of catching up to do. But I kept getting behind. And behind. And more behind. And because of that dumb class and dumb anxiety and dumb me, I literally almost didn’t graduate. I almost didn’t get to walk at graduation. I ended up getting to walk, but for a week or two after, I had to go into school everyday and finish my class. I was really embarrassed by this and made up a lot of excuses to friends, and even family. I didn’t want people to know I almost didn’t make it. The summer before college was rough. It’s where my anxiety kind of maxed and I had to try different medications, I think I tried about 4 and they didn’t work, which made college hard.

I started college in the fall and my first semester was fine, I made the deans list and I was SO proud of myself. And for once, I finally felt like I made my parents proud. But in my second semester, shit hit the fan again. I went to my classes for 2 or 3 weeks, but then stopped going. The anxiety was back (oh joy). But the thing is, my family didn’t know I stopped going. I would get ready every day and act like I was going to school. But when I got there, I would hide where no one I knew would see me. Then when I came home and my parents asked how school was going, I’d just say “oh it’s going fine!” BUT I LIED BECAUSE I’M THE WORST. I did that for the rest of the semester, and ended up telling my parents. They weren’t mad, but I was mad at myself. I wasted time and money. In my second year of college I tried again. I had the summer to get my shit together (or so I thought) and I told myself I was gonna do this. I signed up for 3 classes. I ended up dropping two of them and barely making it through one. Thank god I had Teresa in my class I didn’t drop, she helped me so much and I appreciate it more than anything. When you’re reading this, I should be in my second semester of my second year… but I’m not. I decided to not take any classes this semester to try and get stuff figured out. I’m working on my music, seeing a therapist, and working on myself. (Well, trying to work on myself).

Although my anxiety and depression has been bad for a long time, it doesn’t mean I haven’t had happy moments. I’ve had some of the happiest moments of my entire life and I will forever be thankful. But when things are good for me, they’re good. But when things are bad… they’re bad. I feel everything in extremes and I think I’ll spend forever wondering if that’s a blessing or a curse. I live my life by constantly thinking 50 steps ahead. I think of the countless things that could go wrong instead of holding onto the good thing that’s happening right in front of me. I can never just live in the moment and I god, I wish I was able to. I wish everyday that anxiety would just go away and stop ruining things for me. I wish that I could just ‘get over it’ like people say I should. But it’s not that easy, you can’t just get over it. And although that sucks it’s the truth.

I know that you may think your problems are small, and that they might not matter and that you’re alone. But I swear to you, your problems are still valid. They matter. You’re not alone, you’re NEVER alone. No matter how lonely you feel, I swear to you there’s people that care. When you’re alone in your room at night wishing you could just disappear because no one understands, remember that I understand. We might not have gone through the same things, but I know that hopeless feeling. I know the feeling of wanting to just give up. I know the feeling of wanting to take your frustration out on your body. But listen to me when I say this: permanent decisions will not fix temporary pain. When you’re going through something, it doesn’t feel temporary, it feels like forever and forever is a long time. But things will get better for you, you just need to hang on long enough to see it. Hold onto what makes you happy and never let it go. If you don’t know what makes you happy yet, or if you still don’t know what to live for, make it your mission to find something worth living for. And when you find it, hold it tight.

If you made it to the end of this, I applaud you. And if you’re still reading this, whether I know you or not, I love and I’m rooting for you- regardless of what you’re going through. You’re a fucking champ. Don’t hesitate to send me a message or ask me questions. I’m more than willing to help out. I love you.

We got this.

#mine #writing #personal #anxiety #depression

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dipulb3 · 4 years

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US coronavirus: Some states opened too quickly, Fauci says | Appradab

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/us-coronavirus-some-states-opened-too-quickly-fauci-says-appradab/

US coronavirus: Some states opened too quickly, Fauci says | Appradab

“There are some instances when regardless of the rules and the suggestions to open up rigorously and prudently, some states left out these and simply opened up too rapidly,” Fauci stated.

Fauci stated on Podcast-19, FiveThirtyEight’s weekly podcast on Covid-19, that he thought in some respects Florida and Arizona’s reopening plans have contributed to the uptick in instances in these states.

“Actually Florida I do know, you realize, I feel jumped over a few checkpoints,” Fauci stated.

Fauci informed the podcast that some governors and mayors did it completely when removing some restrictions and stay-at-home orders.

Earlier Fauci, , director of the Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Ailments, stated states with spiking coronavirus instances nonetheless can include them by pausing their reopening processes, reasonably than shutting down a second time.

“Slightly than assume when it comes to reverting again down to a whole shutdown, I’d assume we have to get the states pausing of their opening course of,” Fauci informed The Hill’s Editor-at-Massive Steve Clemons on Thursday.

Fauci stated the vary of individuals the virus impacts — from these with no signs to those that find yourself in intensive care or die — makes the pandemic actually tough to get underneath management.

“To not be hyperbolic about it — it truly is the right storm and (an) infectious illness and public well being particular person’s worst nightmare. It is a spectacularly transmissible virus,” he stated. “The effectivity with which this transmits is basically hanging.”

4 states that account for about 50% of recent infections — Arizona, California, Florida and Texas — must aggressively hold individuals socially distanced, together with by closing bars and stopping crowds, he stated.

“If we are able to do this persistently, I’ll inform you, nearly definitely, you are going to see a down curve of these infections,” Fauci stated.

The country and some states are setting data for common day by day formally reported instances, ICUs in sizzling spots are reaching capacity, and most states are seeing spikes, recalling the uncertainty of months in the past when the virus first broke out.

One other well being skilled echoed Fauci’s preliminary remark about second shutdowns.

“Should you’re not doing the … issues we have talked about prior to now to get this outbreak underneath management, beginning with check and hint … your solely possibility is to close down,” Dr. Ali Khan, former director of the CDC’s public well being preparedness workplace, informed Appradab’s “New Day” Thursday.

NYC cancels massive occasions like avenue festivals

New York Mayor Invoice de Blasio stated massive occasions within the metropolis can be canceled via September 30, in keeping with a information launch from his workplace.

“It is all about well being and security first,” de Blasio informed Appradab’s Wolf Blitzer. “That is clearly the factor that President Trump does not perceive. We do not simply decree that we would like issues to occur whatever the human impression. We really take a look at the science, we take a look at the information. The information is telling us it isn’t time for big gatherings.”

Occasions of 1 metropolis block or smaller can apply for a allow. Demonstrations and non secular occasions are exempt from the mayor’s order.

“This can be a historic second of change,” he stated. “Now we have to respect that but additionally say to individuals the sorts of gatherings we’re used to — the parades, the festivals — we simply cannot have that whereas we’re specializing in well being proper now.”

Staggering numbers

The US reached more than 3 million coronavirus cases this week, in keeping with information from Johns Hopkins College. No less than 33 states as of Thursday morning have seen an upward development in common day by day instances — a rise of a minimum of 10% — over the previous week.

Some states have lately reported alarming charges at which persons are testing constructive: 28% in Arizona; 26% in Texas; and 19% in Florida, in keeping with The Covid Monitoring Mission.

Listed below are some vital numbers reported Thursday:

California introduced 149 Covid-19 associated deaths, probably the most for a day

Florida reported report day by day numbers of recent Covid-19 instances — 8,935 — and Covid-19-related deaths — 120

Michigan had 610 new instances of coronavirus reported, the best day by day case rely reported since Might

North Carolina has 1,034 Covid-19 sufferers in hospitals, its highest mark for a day

Texas reported 105 Covid-19-related deaths for the day, a report

Wisconsin reported 754 new instances, a day by day report.

The place states stand

Many states are feeling the results of the Covid-19 surge.

In South Texas’ Brooks County, anybody who’s constructive for Covid-19 may be arrested if they seem in public, apart from to obtain medical care, with out first being cleared by the state’s well being companies division, the county attorney said. The county, with about 7,000 residents, says this week it has 23 lively instances.

The South Texas Well being System’s hospitals have greater than doubled its common quantity of ICU beds to take care of an inflow in Covid-19 sufferers, Wesley Robinson, the system’s assistant chief nursing officer, stated Thursday.

They’ve put sufferers in convention rooms and surgical wings, Robinson informed Appradab. No less than one of many system’s hospitals, within the metropolis of Weslaco, has arrange tent exterior for coronavirus sufferers.

“Everyone seems to be exhausted,” emergency division nurse director Pablo Laredo stated Thursday. “Sufferers listed here are very sick.”

The College of Mississippi Medical Heart has extra sufferers than rooms, the middle’s vice chancellor stated Thursday in a briefing with state well being officers.

Nonetheless, Dr. LouAnn Woodward, stated she does not advocate a brand new statewide shelter-in-place order however does encourage mask-wearing to cut back transmission. “We can’t shelter in place via the period of this pandemic,” she stated.

In Florida, 48 hospitals on Thursday had no extra capability in its intensive care models — down from 56 two days earlier, the state Company for Well being Care Administration stated. The group has stated hospitals can add ICU beds in a surge scenario when crucial.

Again to highschool nonetheless in query

As instances and hospitalizations rise, a solution to the query of whether or not youngsters will return to highschool within the fall turns into much less clear.

Fauci, in an interview scheduled to air Friday on Sirius XM Radio, stated, “We should always attempt to get the faculties open,” however he emphasised grade faculties might have totally different approaches than universities.

“Should you hold youngsters out of faculty, the unintended unfavorable ripple impact of penalties may be profound with regard to, what do the dad and mom do, that they then keep off of labor to handle their youngsters?” Fauci stated, in recordings launched Thursday.

“So, the broad strategy could be clearly … taking note of the security of the youngsters, which is all the time paramount, however throughout the context of doing no matter you’ll be able to to safeguard the well being and the welfare of the youngsters, we should always attempt to get the faculties open,” he stated.

President Donald Trump stated he’ll stress governors to reopen faculties within the fall and has threatened to cut federal funding of faculties that do not reopen.

The White Home has additionally claimed the CDC’s tips for reopening faculties is simply too strict. On Thursday, company Director Dr. Robert Redfield stated the CDC will not revise its guidelines.

Thursday evening, he stated the rules are usually not necessary.

“I need to actually stress that the aim of the CDC tips are to supply a wide range of totally different methods for faculties to make use of to assist facilitate the reopening of faculties. I can inform you that the steerage that we put out are out, and so they stand,” he stated on the “Appradab World City Corridor — Coronavirus: Info and Fears” on Thursday evening.

Redfield stated the CDC will proceed to supply further materials and replace the rules as warranted.

Appradab’s Gisela Crespo, Sheena Jones, Jeremy Grisham, Melissa Alonso, Kay Jones, Kristen Holmes, Jenn Selva, Pierre Meilhan, Raja Razek and Sarah Moon contributed to this report.

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comicteaparty · 5 years

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June 8th-June 14th, 2019 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from June 8th, 2019 to June 14th, 2019. The chat focused on the following question:

What was the original incarnation of your current comic? What has changed over the lifespan of the idea, and what has remained the same?

Nutty (Court of Roses)

My comic, Court of Roses http://courtofroses.thecomicseries.com/, was originally built around my first D&D character, a half-elf bard named Merlow the Rose. The comic was going to be strictly based on D&D, but as I started going gung-ho on the worldbuilding I started deviating away, making my own variations on races, making my own pantheon, and even formulating different magic rules and creatures. It's still largely inspired by D&D, and other fantasy works like Lord of the Rings, Elder Scrolls, etc., but I'm also trying to make the world my own, too!

Pencilz

My comic the Caraway Crew https://tapas.io/series/The-Caraway-Crew was originally based on my childhood friend group. Actually the very first incarnation I had with the Caraways was where we were all self-inserted into some large crossover fanfiction... it was pretty bad aha.(edited)

I just realized I said that twice oops

Draco Plato

The first incarnation of my comic....world was a Sailor Moon parody I believe. There was a boarding school and magical boys and girls that fought aliens or something. Firosofi was the "priest" of water and Affinity was the "priestess" of light (ironically her character hasn't seen the light of day in years). Apus was still around in that incarnation since Firosofi and Affinity were affiliated with it there too I think The initial premise still makes up the core of the Apus ideology I think; people fight in pairs against forces that threaten Earth. The focus since shifted to be much more character focused and on characters who were made much later (Damon and Lyall primarily). http://khyatix.com/

ErinPtah (Leif & Thorn | BICP)

But I'm A Cat Person http://bicatperson.com/ basically sprang into being (heh) fully-formed, but I pulled a bunch of the characters from earlier fanfiction incarnations. Jany and Kara Lynn got started in a Neopets RPG; Timothy was created as an OC member of Section XIII in Hellsing; Reseda and Cybele were from the same Sailor Moon exoplanetary team.(edited)

Leif & Thorn http://leifandthorn.com/ started as Colbert Report fanfiction XD It was so far removed from the source material that I spent years thinking "I should file off the serial numbers and try to publish this as an original work"...but it didn't click until I got away from the idea of doing a 1:1 adaptation of the fic's plot, and just used it as the foundation of a world where I could set all kinds of other stories.

AntiBunny

My comic AntiBunny http://antibunny.net/ started out as an all pencil sketchy comic about depression. It experimented a lot early on artistically as I tried to tear down my old style and build a new one. As it's changed over the years I've built up a new art style, and as I've changed as a person I'd say it's become its own story driven by the characters. The protagonist's depression and anxiety is still important, but I think the significant thing is that I'm seeing depression from the outside rather than the inside, and my writing has changed a lot as a result.

mathtans

Interesting topic. I might be unique in that my math comic started as a web serial (though I didn't know that's what it was at the time). Meaning text, but supplemented with drawings, because the point was that the graphs were character hairstyles: https://sites.google.com/site/taylorspolynomials/series/openbar

I gave it up after several years due to lack of interest, then brought it back as a web comic with many of the characters redesigned (parabola having twintails instead of bunny ears, for instance). http://mathtans.ca/ It then crossed over with the serial, meaning both sets of characters are canon and take place in the same universe. https://mathtans.blogspot.com/2017/04/math-character-bible.html

So the more it changes, the more it stayed the same? (As to plot, that tended to be whatever math concept I thought would be interesting, from archaic trig functions to fractals... I never knew where that'd be going.)

kayotics

The original incarnation of Ingress Adventuring Company https://ingress-comic.com/ was, like many other fantasy comics, derived from a D&D campaign I played in. I really loved the character I played (Toivo), and the campaign had finished, so I decided to keep using him in more stories. While the basic idea of the character is the same, I completely removed him from the campaign that he was in so I wouldn't have any issues with having to ask my friends to use their characters. Toivo has essentially remained the same, but large parts of his backstory and the entire setting has been changed from the original game I played him in. And, since I'm no longer tied to D&D with a comic, the rules of magic are a lot more vague. Similar to what Nutty said above, my comic is still largely inspired by D&D and other fantasy staples, but at least I can deviate from them as I continue to make my comic.

MJ Massey

Black Ball http://welcometoblackball.com/ is a much more recent idea of mine and hasn't really changed too much in terms of the overarching story, though minor things have shifted such as Maude becoming more of a main character, giving her a brother who is also getting more involved in the plot, and changing the role of a future character. But it's always been Emily and Chester solving a murder mystery.

MJ Massey

The shifts have been so minor and over time that it's hard to find where the "first draft" ends and the "next version" begins. But I've been mentally shifting things as I go along and see that certain aspects of the story need more attention for the ending to pay off or for the character to get well developed

Who the murderer is has stayed the same and how it happens and why. Just the circumstances around it have been smudged and fixed

Tuyetnhi

The OG plans I had for https://oiydcomic.com/ occurred after I was fiddling with twine to make a one shot short story, and an illustration series/zine project after having an intense dream. At first, I initially wanted to create it into an ero-romance comic about a woman having a one night stand with her dream lover, eventually living together after seeing each other for a few weeks. After thinking about it further (and some beta readers later lmao), I decided to develop into a romance-focused drama about acceptance and making life more than what is instilled in our dreams. I fleshed out Cara's (main character) modivations, her background in regards on courtship and romance somewhat seen in the asian-american experience (specifically Vietnamese-american rituals; some that retained after viet dispora came to the US in the late 80's - 90's and the effects on their children). Basically, from intense escapism to a general exploration on romance. With some common themes I've liked in 90's shoujo with some criticisms here and there.(edited)

Respheal

Galebound (http://www.galebound.com/) started off as what was going to be a short story. I posted it up on deviantART just for fun, and I was totally pantsing the plot xD I had an idea of a magician who for some reason couldn't ask questions, and the stablehand he kidnapped when he wasn't getting a horse fast enough. The original idea was that Din was on the run from something? And Conan was that hapless stablehand the protags burst in on like "I need a horse!" before escaping $antagonist or chasing someone. Originally Din was supposed to be a good guy, for real, just...more of a trickster to Conan's straight-faced act(edited)

Since its inception, the plot got way deeper and a gazillion times more horrible I think at one point an Obligation wasn't necessary for magic, and probably wasn't even totally compulsory But then the Pascal Incident happened and making the Obligation compulsory suddenly became much more integral to the plot and world. And once that happened, Din's backstory got more fleshed out and his character got darker. I still really wasn't sure what to do with Conan at that point, though. That didn't hit me until like seven years after the original five chapter draft going up on dA, and knowing Conan better changed everything It's fun :'D

snuffysam

Super Galaxy Knights Deluxe R (http://sgkdr.webcomic.ws/) started off as a short film I made for an introductory film class in college (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibRdxNLd3Q4). The film is about a fan of a really bad anime forcing his boyfriend to sit through an episode. The production quality of the film is honestly really bad in retrospect (still got an A though lol). At around the same time as I was making that film, I had just watched... I assume Food Wars, and I was on a real "you could make a battle series out of anything" stint. Like, I would just have a notes document full of ideas like "a shonen series about math olympiads". One idea I really liked was "a shonen series, but it's actually just The Wizard of Oz". After I had finished the short film, I wondered what the actual series that the "anime" took place in would be like, so I decided to build out a comic. I outlined five books, the first being based primarly off the Wizard of Oz. And... the rest is history.

deo101

The first incarnation of millennium (http://millennium.thecomicseries.com/) was pretty much a "chosen one" story where the main character had to go kill an evil space queen and was the only one who could do it. I made about 6 more stories that I later decided I could put together, and the easiest way for me to combine them all was a highschool space story, which I developed for quite a while... Later I changed them all to be adults and started building the current iteration of the story (which has also changed a ton)

Desnik

My WIP comic (which has an ask blog: http://ask-a-warlock.tumblr.com/) started out as a video game idea incorporating Banjo Kazooie collectathon platforming with Ace Attorney trial mechanics....obvs I'm not much of a programmer or 3D modeler, so I went with skills that I actually know how to do: Write and draw(edited)

It had one incarnation where the characters run around all of Europe but it was much too much to develop within 250 pages so I scrapped that and focused on one standalone story, which I'm thumbnailing now and I'm hoping to get into the art stage by the end of the year

and now the page count is about 170 so hopefully that's an easier project to wrangle, when it comes down to it

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #creator interview #comic creator interview #comic tea party #ctp #creator babble

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years

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Ryan Kalish, Lars Anderson seek for life after baseball

http://tinyurl.com/y5usvem7 I used to be launched to Ryan Kalish this winter at a spot in Santa Monica, California, identified for respectable burgers and chilly beer. I recalled he’d had greater than a little bit promise as a participant. I additionally hadn’t heard a lot of him for some time. He was staying within the space with mates and he nodded towards a desk the place a handful of women and men had been selecting chairs and hanging their coats. He mentioned he wasn’t taking part in ball anymore and that he was educating pilates and had a stake in a startup firm known as Birdman Bats. He appeared enthusiastic about each, and we agreed {that a} story in regards to the bats, an enterprise that had begun with a single lathe in a storage in Northern California, could be worthwhile. His buddy, Lars Anderson, was a co-founder, he mentioned, and for the second time that night time I used to be struck by a reputation and profession I knew existed however couldn’t fairly place. He mentioned Lars had performed abroad in recent times however had retired as effectively, and that I’d like Lars, who was clever and humorous and had an attention-grabbing means of taking a look at issues. The place was getting louder, my burger colder, my beer hotter, and we shook palms, promising to remain in contact. My 26-year-old son, sitting beside me, mentioned, “Who was that?” A man who used to play ball, I informed him. “Used to?” he mentioned. “How previous is he?” I tapped at my telephone. Thirty. I tapped once more. Lars was 31. A number of months later, this time at a Thai place in an El Segundo, California, strip mall, Ryan recalled that night time in Santa Monica and mentioned, “Man, I used to be so rattled then.” He checked out Lars, who smiled. “Inform him about your routine,” Lars mentioned. “My routine?” Ryan mentioned. “Oh, yeah. Get up, cry, pilates, cry, cook dinner, cry. It was like every single day. Each single day. Listening to those songs that I, I really needed to flush it. You understand, I knew it was taking place. So I placed on these songs that might sort of set off it, simply let it out. You understand?” It wasn’t precisely the baseball working out of him, however maybe the since gone imaginative and prescient of who he’d be in baseball, what he would do in baseball, how the 2 of them — the gifted younger man and the sport, his sport — would have grown not less than a little bit older collectively. Certainly, by now, he’d have carried out nice issues, created higher moments, stood in physique and soul with the participant he’d all the time imagined. As a substitute, a little bit greater than a yr in the past, he’d talked himself into the spring coaching lineup of the impartial New Britain Bees, requested his ineffective knee to carry for a couple of extra minutes, flared a single, breathed that in and surrendered. The bat didn’t make it. They had been drafted by the Boston Red Sox in 2006, Lars 9 rounds after Ryan. Lars was from Northern California. Ryan from New Jersey. They turned mates late in that very same summer time in Fort Myers, Florida, and within the coming summers had been street roomies and bus mates. Ryan reached the massive leagues in July 2010, Lars a couple of month later. They had been 22. The sport that they had performed since they might hardly bear in mind, since Christmas mornings meant toy bats and balls, since they’d begun to see they had been possibly just a bit higher than the opposite youngsters, was solely simply starting. Staying was the onerous half, everybody mentioned. Getting there, although, that was one thing, too. Over elements of 4 seasons unfold over seven summers, Ryan performed in 153 main league video games. If his swing and arm and foot velocity and instincts had been keen, they usually had been, his physique was not. His knees, his shoulder and his neck took turns sending him to medical doctors and trainers and, ultimately, a actuality that his profession could be these 153 video games, and people could be surrounded by the types of experiences that has a person schedule into his day a great cry. Lars performed in 30 video games over three seasons, all with the Crimson Sox. His first profession hit — a single towards the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park — additionally noticed the runner forward of him flip recklessly at second base, get back-picked from proper area and tagged out. So Lars stood at first base within the second he’d labored his younger life to expertise whereas a full home booed Invoice Corridor. He’d get seven extra big-league hits, then almost a decade later strike out on a baseball area in Germany, pack his gear bag yet another time and head residence for good. “I don’t have disappointment or despair over my profession as a baseball participant,” Lars mentioned. “I believe I’ve extra nervousness about what lies forward. I’m not mourning not having the ability to play. I don’t even take into consideration taking part in baseball. I performed sufficient. I miss batting observe. For me, the disappointment and the fear and the nervousness and the worry is extra primarily based on possibly the lack of id. Simply feeling such as you’ve abruptly slipped into anonymity. You’re not related anymore. It’s like a sure dying of this projection that you’ve got of your self. How individuals determine with you. Which isn’t essentially wholesome. … I’ll recover from that. “However, I assume for me, the factor is, I’ve had one job my complete life. I’m certain some issues will begin to emerge. I’m thinking about plenty of issues. … However this can be a dying. We’re going by means of a dying. You don’t know what occurs if you die. I’m in that interval the place it’s like, ‘Oh rattling, I don’t know what’s coming.’ And that’s actually scary.” ‘Twice as more durable than hell’ to remain within the majors Roughly 60 p.c of gamers who log at some point within the main leagues don’t attain the service time required (about three years) for wage arbitration, in line with Steve Rogers, the previous main league pitcher who heads the Main League Baseball Gamers Affiliation’s profession transition program. The common main league profession for these gamers, he mentioned, is about 1 ½ years. Of the remaining, the 40 p.c who do play lengthy sufficient to safe the monetary features of wage arbitration and past, the common profession is 7 ½ years. Primarily based on the union’s analysis, Rogers mentioned, the common main league profession is about 4 years. Given minor-league salaries barely cowl meals and grooming merchandise, and the foremost league minimal wage is lower than $600,000, and most gamers don’t end school if they begin it in any respect, the fresh-out-of-work ballplayer would appear significantly susceptible in a job market that usually requires schooling, expertise and, effectively, expertise past hitting or throwing a fastball. The presumed path, maybe, is a minor-league teaching job, if the sport nonetheless runs deep sufficient and choices are few. To that finish, an entry degree, A-ball hitting coach may count on an annual wage of about $50,000, and there’ll be loads of competitors for it, and that sort of cash may be simply sufficient to get a coach to his offseason job. Steve Rogers retired in 1985, the top of a profession during which he’d received 158 video games and been an All-Star 5 occasions for the Montreal Expos. He had a petroleum engineering diploma from the College of Tulsa and had plans to enter the oil trade. Within the first 9 months of his post-baseball life, the price of a barrel of oil fell from $70 to $10. He went to work for the Gamers Affiliation. Former Montreal Expos pitcher Steve Rogers now heads the Main League Baseball Gamers Affiliation’s profession transition program. (Getty Photographs) Extra Fifteen years later, he started work with others on a pilot program that might help gamers — some lively, others retired — in profession transition. A brand new iteration of that program shaped in 2008, close to the ultimate days of Don Fehr’s management and the start of Michael Weiner’s, and the present multi-phased program took form about six years in the past. This system is partnered with the Ayers Group, a division of Kelly Companies. Roughly 100 gamers have taken step one in that course of, which is to satisfy with and endure an analysis by a profession coach and design a path ahead, often persevering with — or restarting — their schooling. (MLB funds the Persevering with Training Program, which financially assists retired gamers as effectively, and lots of drafted highschool gamers have school tuition written into their contracts.) The primary part is supplied without spending a dime by the union and the Main League Baseball Alumni Affiliation. On the finish of final week, Rogers was in Miami, the place he distributed program data to the New York Mets and Miami Marlins. The week earlier than, he mentioned, three gamers, all just lately retired, contacted him. “It isn’t rocket science,” he mentioned. “The reality of the matter is, it’s more durable than hell to get to the foremost leagues. And it’s twice as more durable than hell to remain there. So the whole focus is on getting there and staying there and ‘I’ll take care of the remaining later.’ And ‘the remaining’ hits nearly everybody. And ‘the remaining’ lasts longer. … It’s comprehensible. It’s not a damaging. It’s the character of the beast.” So he goes clubhouse to clubhouse and leaves folders for gamers who imagine the life-changing cash is coming and the baseball won’t ever finish and possess neither the time nor the top house to contemplate the options. And he screens a program designed to clarify what may very well be subsequent, in English and Spanish, when essentially the most urgent query in these clubhouses is — and needs to be — what’s now. The remaining, effectively, that’d be anyone else’s drawback, till it isn’t. ‘I favored performing for the world’ Virtually earlier than that final hit fell, Ryan Kalish was on the telephone with John Baker, a good friend and former teammate and, at the moment, a coordinator within the psychological expertise program for the Chicago Cubs. Although his physique ached and his baseball was unaffiliated and he’d left his twenties behind, and although he’d had an concept today was coming, Ryan knew he was in for a troublesome experience. “I actually needed it,” Ryan mentioned. “I put myself by means of plenty of ache to try to play. This man” — he nodded to Lars — “can attest to a few of the surgical procedures that I had, the rehabs, the shoulder, the knees. The knees had been the worst of it. Having neck surgical procedures, two of them. A variety of ache. And proving, quick, that I may play on the highest degree. So it was onerous for me to just accept, wow, I’m actually not going to get to show what I believe I may present everybody I may very well be. Everybody. As on the planet, man.” He laughed regardless of himself and continued, “I favored performing for the world. I favored to be on the stage. I needed to do cool issues. And ultimately, I needed to turn into an inspiration, too. I assume in some methods I’m. However it could have been larger on an even bigger stage. I favored that. Inspiration only for a combat. Simply to attempt. Like in no matter it’s that you simply wish to do exactly preserve attempting. Like, if you’d like one thing dangerous sufficient preserve going. I don’t know. I actually pushed the boundaries of how far I may go. “Hear, I do know individuals have had it worse. Ryan Westmoreland, that man, I all the time take into consideration him. I roomed with him throughout his mind surgical procedures and all that. So I do know I don’t have it the worst. However I took it fairly far. I had it fairly dangerous within the damage division. In order that was actually onerous to just accept, that I’m not going to play anymore. I by no means bought that likelihood. That was what was onerous for me.” Baker was raised in Northern California, performed baseball at Cal, was drafted within the fourth spherical in 2002 by the Oakland A’s and performed seven main league seasons as a catcher. He went residence at 35. Former catcher John Baker performed for seven seasons within the majors. (Getty Photographs) Extra “It’s like being thrown out of a helicopter into an ocean that’s the actual world,” Baker mentioned. “Earlier than that, you’re in perpetual Peter Pan-hood. You get to be a baby. You reside in a locker room. You’re round individuals who aren’t all that superior from highschool.” These are all good issues. Ok, anyway, that hardly anybody needs to go away, to go to a spot the place the sport modifications, the place you make the schedule, the place what’s subsequent is a thriller and possibly not all too comfy. “He known as me from the dugout,” Baker mentioned. “After the hit. He mentioned he was carried out. The very first thing, I needed to verify he was sure. Man, when he was wholesome, he wasn’t only a good baseball participant, he was top-of-the-line baseball gamers on the planet, a extremely particular expertise with a physique that couldn’t stand up to what a physique may do.” Ryan’s plan was to go to Europe for some time, watch Lars play in Germany, then bounce round, see the world and put far between himself and the earlier 13 years. After that, he’d transfer again to New Jersey, begin over there. He signed a one-year lease on an condominium in his hometown, broke that in two months, bought in his automobile and headed west till he reached Gilbert, Arizona. John and Meghan Baker’s home. They shared a bunch hug on the entrance door and began the rebuild. When the baseball goes, Baker mentioned, three issues go together with it. First, the previous participant now not has an apparent ability to grasp. “Hitting might be essentially the most addictive factor on the planet,” he mentioned. “You get a success and there’s a chemical launch. You’re so pleased. After which it’s the driving drive to stand up the following day.” Second, he mentioned, there isn’t a extra collaborative aim. No extra group. No extra scoreboard. “Once I first went residence I used to be destroying my 3-year-old in tic-tac-toe,” he mentioned. “That will get previous.” Then, he mentioned, the ex-player has nowhere to place his thoughts. “The quantity of stress they endure when taking part in, 50,000 individuals screaming, an enormous image of your face, your silly face, subsequent to your crappy file,” he mentioned. “We miss being beneath stress.” So there was Ryan Kalish. Adrift. Scheduling cries. Refusing eye contact. Asking for assist. For all Baker knew, Lars could be driving up any minute. He didn’t. He may’ve. “Ryan was looking,” Baker mentioned. ‘No matter occurred to that Lars man?’ Lars Anderson sat this spring on a inexperienced knoll behind a backstop at Camelback Ranch exterior Phoenix, the place the Los Angeles Dodgers prepare. He’d kicked his footwear into the grass in entrance of him. He watched batting observe, the a part of baseball he missed, and he watched a Dodgers coach flick floor balls with a Birdman Bat fungo. From a methods again, he’d seen afternoons like this one coming. Possibly from the primary time his identify made the waiver wire right here, or when he was launched, or possibly from Japan or Australia or standing at first base as a Solingen Alligator of Germany’s Bundesliga. The breeze, the clack-clack-clack of BP, the music from the close by ballpark, a case of recent bats at his aspect, he mentioned, these had been sufficient. He was a salesman now, a type of buoyant souls who units up a row of bats close to the cage or exterior the clubhouse and fights the earnest combat of the start-up. He’d grown Birdman internationally. He’d help in Birdman’s intentions to discover a place among the many company bat giants within the U.S. There was a protracted solution to go and that was OK by Lars. He had the time. He had the curiosity. He had the sport expertise. “I used to be not a man who swung one bat,” he mentioned. “I sampled all of them. I used to be very sanguine in my bat life, like a butterfly flying from department to department. So I bought to know loads about it simply accidentally. “Generally you get a vibe about it. My dad, when he would take me to purchase bats as a child, he’d say, ‘Lars, if you choose it up it has to say ‘Sure’ in your palms.’ I sort of saved that with me all through my profession. The issue was plenty of bats mentioned sure after which typically they’d say sure for a month after which begin to say no.” Ex-Crimson Sox infielder Lars Anderson co-founded the Birdman Bats firm. (Getty Photographs) Extra The bat firm, like their friendship, like their life paths, binds them. They went searching for an condominium just lately, pretty sure Southern California would maintain them for now. Ryan is gaining traction as a pilates teacher and part-time minor-league coach with the Dodgers. His brother, Jake, is a left-handed pitcher for the Kansas City Royals, pitching in Triple-A. Lars composes dance music and has written a number of first-person items for The Athletic. They nonetheless fret over their futures. They snigger about their pasts, the great elements and the not-so-good elements. Additionally they have switched roles in latest weeks, Ryan now the settled one, pretty sure he’s on strong floor, Lars questioning what’s on the market for him. Possibly a e-book about his travels in baseball. Possibly enterprise college. And there’s nonetheless all these bats to promote. Once I requested him who was most pleased with the profession he did have, he grinned and mentioned his grandfather, who’d just lately died. “Any article about me, he’d print it out and also you’d go to dinner with him and he’d hand the hostess that article,” Lars mentioned. “I’m like, ‘She doesn’t care.’ He was simply so stoked. He’d come to spring coaching, he’d come go to me through the season. “However I used to be considering, since he handed, all of the individuals within the service trade are going to be like, ‘No matter occurred to that Lars man? I haven’t bought an replace shortly.’ ” He’s nonetheless engaged on that. So a lot of them are. What comes of those that made it, however didn’t fairly make it? What occurs when the final half is left undone? The place’s that sit of their heads? Of their hearts? Of their pockets? “As soon as I knew there was an expert baseball, that you would do this to your job, that was what I needed to do,” Lars mentioned. “So, at Three years previous. I didn’t consciously select my career out of school or one thing. That’s what I’m doing now. Nevertheless it was by no means even a selection. It was simply, I’m doing it. Prefer it selected me. It wasn’t a 12-year profession, it was a 31-year profession. As quickly as I may hit socks that my dad pitched me when he was folding them in the lounge, that was it.” Ryan grinned. Being an ex-ballplayer hasn’t been straightforward. Possibly it by no means might be. Nevertheless it was inevitable. And it’s nonetheless higher than the choice. “It all the time follows you, man,” he mentioned. “Yeah,” Lars mentioned, “I don’t assume that’ll ever go away, truthfully.” “It by no means goes wherever,” Ryan mentioned. “I’m curious,” Lars mentioned, “to see how that goes.” Extra from Yahoo Sports activities: Source link

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writers-live-on-bread-crumbs · 6 years

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Love Words

Genre: Love

Words: 1931

Let me tell you one thing, love is never easy. It’s hard work and in order for it to grow healthy and strong you need to put hours of dedication into it, doing everything you can to keep it growing, When in a relationship with a person you love you have to be willing to put that time and dedication in, if you aren't? Well, you have no business dabbling with love. You’re only going to cause pain and suffering for the person on the other side of the relationship, who does think it’s real and is willing to put in the work. If you’re that person who is messing with people’s hearts like that? I have one thing to say to you: you’re a scumbag, a filthy, stinky, disgusting, scumbag.

If you are one of the people willing to put the time and effort in? You are in for a lot of work, but believe me most of the time, as long as the other person is doing their share too, it works out and the results are a beautiful relationship. You can apply this to all relationships in life, sibling, mother-child, friendship, but what I’m personally talking about here is romantic love, the love between you and your significant other. Believe me if you decide to walk down that path it’s not going to be all sunshine and roses sometimes it’ll be storm clouds and carnage. Sometimes to make things work you are going to have to put in blood, sweat, and tears. If you’re working together, in the end, I promise it will all have been worth it. I know from personal experience. Things had never been easy for me to open my heart to others. It was never easy for my mother either, I think I got from her. It hadn’t always been like that with her. It was easy for her to open up her heart and love someone wholly and unapologetically all throughout her highschool and college years, seeing as that was when she was actually dating. My mother had actually met my father in high school, and the two dated all throughout their college years, even though they were in different states. Because those two loved each other, they were willing to make the long-distance relationship work. Once they finished up their college years my mother and father went back to the place they met, Washington state. My mother had been born and raised there and my father moved there his sophomore year of high school. When the two saw each other in person after four years, it had been a joyous occasion, even more so because my father had proposed that day. Within a year of that day they got married, in fact, the two of them got married on their anniversary of being together as an actual couple. November 3, 1956. For the next thirteen years everything had been bliss. Sure, my mother and father had their fights, but they always made it a point to make up before turning in for the night. That was an amazing thing about their relationship that I intend to replicate. With my boyfriend, if and when we have our fights I won’t let him go to bed or leave until we’ve made up. That’s one way I’ll keep our relationship healthy, but as of right now that’s off topic. Three years into my parent’s marriage my mother became pregnant with me, their first born and only daughter. Two years later my first younger brother came into the picture. Add another five my mother had my twin brothers. The birth of my twin brothers brings us ten years into my parent’s marriage. By then the marriage wasn’t as peaceful or pleasant as it had been when the were first married, and it seemed that the two of them forgot that a thriving relationship requires hard work from both sides. The marriage had become infected by unneeded jealousy, not fact based accusations, and blind rage. It seemed like every day the two would get into screaming matches from behind their closed door. Three years after my twin brothers were born my parents were filing a divorce to end their thirteen year marriage. What started off in 1980 and grew stronger and kept growing had been ended thirteen years after marriage. A relationship that had lasted for twenty years they decided to end because neither of them wanted to try anymore, they didn’t want to work things out any longer. Because of my parents’ foolish decision to just give up ruined my brothers and I. The two of them had given us a wrong impression of what love should look like by always fighting and then getting a divorce. They had given the four of us the impression that love was replaceable and that it was just fine to walk away from a relationship that could be saved. That real love didn’t really exist, that in reality it was a passing feeling. Not something that was a feeling that would stay as long as you put the work in, because if you love someone you’re going to put work and effort into them and your shared relationship. After the divorce my father walked completely out of my life, I had only been ten. I only had understood to an extent as to what happened so when my father just disappeared from my life he left a gaping wound and hole that could never be filled, a spot where my father should have occupied. The gaping wound? Well, when he just walked out of my life, refusing all contact with his past life, with his children, he gave me trust issues. I no longer could trust that someone would stay in my life. I just assumed they’d suddenly leave. I didn’t have this issue so much with females but more with males, which is why I’m positive this stems back to him. That’s why it’s never been easy for me to open my heart to anyone. I’ve always been so scared that they’ll just walk away that I didn’t want to risk it. Then again, who would want to risk their heart when they were so certain the other person would walk away? It just wouldn’t be logical. It took me years to even consider letting someone in. I was in my last year of high school when I opened my heart the first time. It was to a boy named Liam, he had been in my grade. Even though our relationship didn’t last long and didn’t end on the best of terms, I’m still grateful for him and that year we spent together. If it weren’t for Liam, I would have never gained the courage to open my heart to people, even though it was still extremely difficult. Even though things didn’t end well between us, I don’t regret one moment the two of us shared. Because we had been in love, it just hadn’t been the true love I was searching for. The second boy, although I suppose he was more of a man than boy, I dated was in his sophomore year of college while I had been in my freshman. That hadn’t lasted long, only four months, but then again there never really was any chemistry between us. The two of us just weren’t able to love each other, so we mutually decided it would be best for the both of us to move on. Look for someone else. So that’s what I did. I searched for someone else, even though I had a mostly closed heart it didn’t mean that I wanted to be alone. So I searched, and searched, and searched until I found the one. His name was and is Nolan. Nolan and I, we were in the same year, shared an advanced math class. We were in a class of fifty and the only reason we ever officially met was because of our professor. Our professor had come up with a math project in which we had to have a partner, assigned partners, that I had found stupid at the time. Now though, I am glad that we had it, if we didn’t Nolan and I would have never been assigned as partners and we probably would have never met. After we had handed in our assignment, Nolan had asked me out on a date. At first I was hesitant and unsure, after all, I had been so hurt by others that I didn’t want to bother let him into my heart. Yet, when I looked up into his hazel eyes that were so hopeful, I wasn’t able to bring myself to say no. When I had told him yes and his eyes lit up like a puppy I had know two things: I had made the right choice and whether I liked it or not I was slowly falling in love with him. Nolan and I, we stayed together all throughout college and are still together to this day. On this day the two of us will have been together exactly eleven years. Do you know what’s crazy? Most marriages end in divorce within the first ten years and forty to fifty percent of marriages in the US end in divorce. We aren’t even married, and we’ve managed to last longer than most marriages. Nolan proposed to me on December 31, 2016, New Year’s Eve. It is now official that no upcoming New Year’s Eve surprise can top that year. I’ll be honest looking back on my life, I never would have expected to be getting married as late as thirty-five, then again, I haven’t been ready to get married until now. Nolan was kind to me in that aspect, even though he had wanted to marry me within the first five years of dating he respected the fact that I wasn't emotionally ready or healed enough to be married. So, he waited, even when it was hard as he saw his friends get married and have children of their own. I’ll always be grateful to him for that. All of that brings us here to today, my wedding day. October 31, 2018. You're probably wondering why I choose October 31, Halloween day. Well, you see, Halloween has always been my favorite day of the year. Strange, I know, but that's just how it is. Seeing that my father is no longer in my life, my uncle but not actually my uncle Peter walked me down the aisle. I had been worried he would say no, taking into consideration the fact that we haven't seen one another for years. Everything so far has gone according to plan, even with all the surprises, like my hair stylist giving me a different hairdo than what I asked. I still look amazing though and like what she did even better than what I'd originally wanted. Even with all the surprises though I wasn’t surprised when Nolan started crying, he always had been sensitive. Although I was a tiny bit surprised and flattered when he started crying because of how beautiful he thought I looked. That’s something that happens in stories, not the real world, but there he was crying because he was so filled with love and thought I was the most beautiful person on the planet. “Bailey Jackson, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?” “I do.” “Nolan Peters, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” “I do.” “Then you may kiss the bride.”

#my writing #writing #love #love story #original story

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