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mischiefandspirits · 3 years

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Bloodlines (1 of 3)

After receiving a vague warning from his mother about his cousin and Richard, Damian goes looking for his runaway ward.

This chapter started as a flashback in the latter half of the story, but I felt like it was running on too long so I decided to cut it out and make it its own chapter. As such the events of this chapter occur a little under five years before the events of the main story, which takes place a few months after “Family Weekend.”

Part of Batkid and Robin

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Damian was surprised to see Nightwing in the Hatch when he arrived. He knew his ex-partner noticed his entrance, but the Super didn’t look up from the conversation he was having with Señal in the doorway to the infirmary.

Taking the hint, Damian turned to E-ko. “What happened?”

“We’re not entirely sure. Izzy and I were both in class and Dax was at work when Dick’s distress beacon went off so only Duke and Dre responded,” she said, glancing towards the infirmary. “By my estimate, they sent out the request for backup almost immediately after they engaged. Nightwing had been finishing up something with Metro across the bay so he responded. Izzy and I were suiting up when ‘Wing dragged them in. He thinks they were fighting talons when he got there, but the guys took off as soon as he got close. Dre was already knocked out -- drugged we think -- and Duke passed out on the way here -- bloodloss.”

“Richard?”

“Your son wasn’t there,” Nightwing said as he and Señal approached. “I didn’t know he was involved until I got here and the girls filled me in.”

“He’s not -” Damian closed his eyes and asked, “Did Signal say anything before he passed out?”

“He slurred something about Cobb and Halloway and I think he tried to say something else, but he was fading fast at that point. Didn’t recognize either name, but I’m not surprised since this seems to be Gotham stuff.”

“Nightwing.”

“Batman.”

Damian glared up at neon blue eyes. “We’re not doing this while Richard is missing.”

“Well, I guess I’ll just stay quiet then. Not sure I have anything to add since I don’t even know the kid.”

The only reaction Damian allowed himself to have was to clench his fists as he turned to Señal. “If the talons are involved, then Cobb is William Cobb. Why would he be after Richard though? The Court has only ever targeted adults for kills and street kids for would-be talons. A child from a prominent family doesn’t fit their M.O.”

“We’re not sure,” she said. “Oracle’s looking into it. In the meantime, Selina’s pulling Stephanie and Jason out of school in case they’re targeting Wayne kids. Cass and Mia are also going to bunker down somewhere safe with Tim if they can drag him away from wherever he is now on his mental breakdown road trip.”

“Don’t call it that.”

The group turned to see Duke slumped against his IV pole in the infirmary’s doorway.

“¡Bobo! Lay back down!” Señal snapped, rushing over to him.

He let his girlfriend take his weight, but didn’t let her drag him back to bed. His chest and arms were heavily bandaged and butterfly stitches were keeping a few cuts on his cheek and neck closed. He was also glaring at Señal. “Lay off Tim.”

“Sorry, I know you want to humor him.”

Duke shook his head and turned to Damian. “We’ve got a problem.”

“I know. We’ll find Richard. Go -”

“No, you don’t understand. Halloway was there. From DCF.”

It took Damian a moment, but he put the name to the face. Cathy Halloway was one of the social workers that gave him the hardest time while trying to foster Richard, but not one of the ones who’d earned his respect because they thought Damian was taking Richard in on a whim. He wasn’t sure if it was Richard’s Romani heritage she had a problem with or if it was the fact Richard was white-passing while Damian had very clearly taken after his mother, but the family had dug up a few comments made by her about keeping Richard “with his own people.”

As if the Gotham branch of the DCF had placed Richard with a family instead of in a detention center.

Backward morals aside, the Bat’s investigation hadn’t turned up anything tying her to the court. “Why was she there?”

The Hatch’s main computer lit up green, announcing Oracle’s presence. “Because Cobb told her he was Dick’s grandfather.”

“What?” Damian asked. Richard didn’t have any living relatives, the Bats checked as had DCF at the Waynes’ insistence. “Why would she believe that?”

“I’m looking into it, but she’s started the paperwork to transfer custody and she was there to help Cobb pull Dick out of school. Selina played it off like she was picking Dick up alongside Steph and Jay then went full PTA mom when she found out they’d sent Dick off with strangers. Alfred’s bringing the little Bats to you while she puts the staff through the wringer to get as much info for us as she can. I’m trying to match our maps of the Court’s labyrinth to what little information from Dick’s beacon is making it through the scramblers so, hopefully, I’ll have a location by the time you’re all suited up.”

Damian made a mental note to bring his own version of hell down on the staff if any of them survived his Step-Mother’s fury then focused back on the matter at hand. “Señal, you know the labyrinth best. Can you see if you can help Oracle? I’ll get Duke back in bed.”

She nodded and passed Duke off to him after giving her boyfriend a quick kiss.

“Sorry, Dames,” Duke said as Damian helped him back onto the medical cot. “The talons cut us off before we could get anywhere near Dick or Cobb.”

“You did your best. We know what we’re facing now. We’ll bring him home, no matter how many talons we have to freeze. Get some rest.”

Duke nodded and leaned back.

Damian returned to the main room and approached E-ko and Nightwing. He asked the latter, “Are you staying?”

The Super gave a sardonic smile. “I guess I should get going. Don’t want to overstay my welcome. Call me if you think the situation is bad enough to need outside help.”

“That’s not what -” Damian started, but Nightwing was already gone. He sighed and turned to E-ko. “Has the Court been up to anything recently that could explain coming after Richard?”

She shook her head. “They’ve been quiet since we reclaimed that youth shelter they were using to try and lure in would-be talons. We knew they’d try to find a new way to bring in kids, and trying to get their hooks in the foster system isn’t too far out there if they don’t realize we’ve been keeping a close eye on it ever since Jason, but going after someone as notable as Dick doesn’t make sense.”

“There has to be a reason.”

“Who cares, let’s just get out there and find Dickie!” Jason called as he stomped into the Hatch. He and Stephanie came towards them while Alfred went off to check on the two in the infirmary.

“Knowing why a person is doing something is very important,” Damian said and Jason scowled.

“It’s not more important than rescuing my Red Bird! Let’s go!” he snapped, shoving Damian towards the changing rooms.

“Rushing in is going to get you in trouble,” Damian huffed, but let his younger brother push him along with Stephanie trailing after.

The three quickly changed into the extra suits they kept in the Hatch in case of emergency then they, Señal, and E-ko set off towards the labyrinth entrance closest to the approximate location Señal and Oracle had decided on.

Batman took the lead, keeping an eye out for danger as Señal directed him through the tunnels. Thankfully the closer they got, the more accurate the beacon's positioning became. He was keeping a sharp eye on everything, looking for the booby traps and talons, so he immediately noticed when Señal and E-ko began to share worried looks.

“What?”

“There aren’t any mazes, meeting halls, or holding cells this way,” E-ko said. “The only things down here are…”

“Labs and cryo-caskets,” Señal finished.

“Shit!”

Batman grabbed Batkid before he could race ahead. “Hold on.”

“Hold on? I’m not going to wait around while those psychos turn Red Bird into one of those monsters!” the boy snarled, then took off down the tunnel.

“They wouldn’t start the process so soon,” E-ko tried to reassure as the four chased after him. “They always start training before beginning the Electrum injections. They want to be sure the investment would be worth it.”

A shadow slid out of a side tunnel and Batman grabbed the edge of Batkid’s cloak. He yanked the boy back just in time for the talon’s dagger to cut through the air in front of his face instead of across his throat.

E-ko intercepted the assassin with her cryo-gun as Señal repelled another two with her chain whip.

“Go find Grayson. We’ll deal with these ones,” E-ko called out and Batman nodded.

He led Batkid and Batgirl forward, bringing up Richard’s distress beacon on his gauntlet computer. They raced up to a heavy door that he quickly kicked in once confirming it was locked.

Inside, scientists and talons stood over an operating bed that held a teary eleven-year-old. Thick leather straps wrapped around Richard’s arms, legs, and chest to keep him pinned to the bed. A scientist had been preparing an iv filled with a dark silver liquid while William Cobb had leaned over Richard with his hand fisted in the boy’s hair, but all eyes turned to the Bats at their entrance.

Batkid immediately launched himself at the scientists, ripping the one closest to Richard away from him and laying into them with a fury. Batgirl and Batman tossed liquid nitrogen pellets at the talons, partially encasing three of them in ice to put them into hibernation. Batgirl engaged another two talons while Batman tackled Cobb.

“You must be getting desperate for new talons if you’re starting to steal children from Gotham’s old families, Talon.” Batman ducked one knife strike, deflected another, then landed a blow that snapped Cobb’s arm with a loud crack.

“Wayne was the one who stole him,” Cobb spat, disengaging just long enough for the Electrum to twist his bones back into place before slashing at Batman’s neck. “The Gray Son was born and raised to serve the Court of Owls. Just as his grandfather, my son, was before him.”

Batman shifted back in time for the claws aiming for his ribs to cut through nothing more than armor. “Emil Grayson was a circus acrobat.”

“Emil was raised by Nathaniel Haley to be the perfect talon, just as I was. Had Nathaniel not passed before he could return my son or instruct his own in the ways of the Court, then Emil would have surpassed even me. Instead, that fool Cameron spirited my son away to Europe. By the time the Court could reforge ties with the circus, my son was lost to us while my grandson had been raised weak and the Court had no influence over him. We could only ensure that the child he bore would receive the proper training and be returned to Gotham when the time came.”

Batman felt sick. He wanted to deny it, but Cobb had no reason to lie and the Bats hadn’t bothered to look that far into Richard’s family’s past. “The Graysons’ deaths…”

“Not the Court’s work, though it provided us with an opportunity to place the boy somewhere we could have full influence over him.”

He’d never felt better about rescuing Richard from that awful detention center. He fought down a smirk that would be both telling and uncharacteristic for Batman as he slammed his foot into Cobb’s chest, audibly breaking a few ribs. “But Wayne took him instead.”

From his place on the ground, Cobb pulled off his mask to spit out discolored blood then glared up at Batman. “It doesn’t matter. The boy is destined for the Court. Whether now or later, the Gray Son of Gotham will be a talon.”

“Never,” Batman growled, freezing the talon with a liquid nitrogen pellet.

When he turned back to the room at large, Batgirl was taking down her opponents while Batkid had tied up the scientists and was pulling off the straps. Batman went to help the boys, pulling Richard into his arms as soon as he was free. The ladies agreed to handle the talons and scientists so Batman and Batkid could get Richard up to the surface where Oracle had police cars and an ambulance waiting.

Once they were out of the labyrinth and away from any cameras the Court may have had, but before they reached the authorities, Dick pressed his face into Batman’s neck. “Dami.”

“I’m here, Dick.”

“Th-that man, he said…”

Batman tightened his grip on his ward. “I know, but I’ve got you now and I promise, the Court won’t ever touch you again.”

Richard wrapped his arms around his neck and Damian quickly ran his fingers through the black-brown curls before Batman stepped out of the shadows and passed Richard off for a paramedic to check him over.

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

For Reference:

The Batcave: Under Wayne Manor in Bristol, acts as HQ for Batman, Catwoman, and Batgirl (and Batkid)

The Perch: Under Damian and Jon's house in Somerset, acts as HQ for Nightwing and Flamebird (and Robin)

The Hatch: Under the Lucius Fox Center in Burnley, acts as HQ for We Are Future (Signal, Señal, E-ko, Flyfox, and Allegro)

The Clocktower: At the top of Gotham Clock Tower in Old Gotham, acts as HQ for Oracle and Orphan

The Roost: Under Drake Towers in Blüdhaven, acts as HQ for Black Bat and Athens

#dick grayson #damian wayne #Jason Todd #robin #red x #fanfiction #batkid and robin

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drxwsyni · 4 years

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Petrified (pt.3)

Yandere Erasermic x f!Reader

SERIES MASTERLIST

a/n: is this what they call a slow burn?? i promise the intense yandere stuff goes down soon...-ish. i’d like to have a new part out every week or so, give or take a few days. we’ll see how it goes, but for now enjoy the new chapter!!!

ALSO WE REACHED 200 FOLLOWERS LAST NIGHT THANKS Y’ALL, YOU’RE AMAZING

(5.8k words)

Warnings: reader experiences mild anxiety

If there was ever a time in your life when you felt like you could finally take some well needed rest, it was now.

It wasn’t like you had a choice though, your nurse making it very clear that you weren’t cleared for discharge yet. Therefore another long bout of unconsciousness was the only option you had whilst in the dreary hospital room, and waking from it felt much more pleasant than you anticipated.

Your sleep schedule appeared to be unaffected by the recent events, something you were grateful for. It had you up on this fine Sunday morning at precisely 8:12 am, according to the time on your phone. Unfortunately, you neglected to bring a charger with you to work on Friday. So when your abandoned belongings were retrieved from that dreaded alleyway, you were still left with relatively nothing to keep you occupied. The phone was running on a steadily declining 14% battery life, leaving its use to be minimized to an expensive clock.

With nothing to pass the time in that regard, you simply observed the world coming to life outside your window. It left you the chance to go over the past 48 hours in peace, and you specifically regarded the strange development from last night.

It wasn’t something you hadn’t already been over multiple times in your head, but you still couldn’t manage to wrap your mind around the motivation that was fuelling Shouta and Hizashi to propose such a request. Concern over your health did explain some of it, but the extent of the actions caused by this concern was not at all equal to the reasoning.

Regardless, you’d already accepted to fulfill their strange request, so there wasn’t much that overthinking the situation would do to benefit you at this point.

_____

Breakfast came at around 8:30 am, effectively pulling you out of your wandering thoughts. It was simple enough: eggs, sausage, toast, a side of bland oatmeal and a tall glass of water.

The nurse left you to your own devices after that, telling you that for now it was a matter of continuing the same treatment before any more judgments could be made.

This wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t growing increasingly bored by the minute due to the lack of distractions. So when the sound of a certain voice hero’s conversation could be heard on the other side of your door not long after breakfast, it served as a great relief to the mind numbing atmosphere.

Not a moment later and you heard the familiar rapping on the wooden frame, before the blond pushed it open and entered.

“How’s my sunshine doin’ this morning? Ya feelin’ any better?” Hizashi was dressed in casual clothing with his hair down. In addition, he appeared to be holding some sort of shopping bag in his right hand.

You watched as he made his way towards the right side of your bed, responding to his worries. “Well, the rest definitely hasn’t gone unnoticed. My head still hurts but they’re giving me some pretty powerful meds for that thankfully.”

You figured he would sit down in the armchair, but instead he opted for settling on the edge of your bed again. “Ya sure you got enough shut eye? I can come back if ya need to snooze a lil’ longer.”

His open compassion for your health was comforting, albeit a little insistent, but it made for a relaxing atmosphere for now.

“I don’t think I could sleep anymore no matter how hard I tried, thanks for the concern though.” You gave a warm smile, sensing that he was almost stressed over your wellbeing, unnecessarily much in your opinion.

The blond brought the bag up to rest on your lap, and vaguely you could make out the contents for a brief second.

“Well, Shou’ and I figured you didn’t have all that much to live off of since being admitted, so I went and grabbed ya some essentials on the way here.” He gestured to the bag, to which you hesitantly reached for.

He continued, “I wasn’t quite sure what my favorite listener needed, so I just bought a lil’ bit of everything.”

You peered into the opening, seeing quite the assortment of toiletries. Picking up the packet of cleansing facial wipes, something you desperately needed, you continued to peruse through the items. Smaller things like high quality travel sized tissue packets and floral scented lotions were settled aimlessly at the bottom.

One thing that did catch your eye was a small stuffed black cat, wearing a white frilly dress. You took the plushie out of the bag for further inspection, also singling it out for just being cute.

“Shou’ picked that out. Sent him some photos from the gift shop downstairs since he’s not a mornin’ person. Thought it’d keep you company until ya get outta here.” You looked up at Hizashi, seeing him smiling warmly at the thought of something so wholesome, and you couldn’t help but do the same.

“It’s adorable, thanks…” For a moment you sat in the feeling of being cared for so well, something that you didn’t have much time to receive given your lifestyle. However, that sentiment was quickly overshadowed by the circumstances you were in, particularly with this man.

Once again, your body became riddled with grief over the fact that they’d spent not only their time, but now their money on you. Not that you didn’t understand that Hizashi was genuinely concerned for you―nobody could miss that. It’s just there was no reason for it as far as you were concerned.

The two had done more than enough as it is, and the overkill only made you feel worse. “...I just―I can’t help but feel bad that you spent so much on me. I’ll pay you back completely, it’s the least I could do for how much you and Shouta have invested in me so far.”

That’s what you said, and you meant it completely. But you knew that the voice hero wouldn’t stand for it, so you could only hold onto a string of hope that he’d at least let you compensate for half of the valuables.

He almost let out an amused laugh at your worry for the state of his finances. “Look, I know ya mean well, baby. But this stuff costed no more than pocket change. After all, can’t have you bein’ neglected in this place after going through all that trouble to get ya here.”

“Can I at least pay back half, just for some peace of mind.” He was more stubborn than you initially thought, just another trait of his you were growing used to.

“Not gonna happen, sunshine! But there is one thing ya can do…”

The blond pulled out his phone from his jacket pocket, unlocking it swiftly. He handed it to you, the screen appearing to show a page for new contact information. “Go on and type in those digits of yours. We’re gonna need a way to contact you if some new info pops up about the case from Friday night.”

You glanced at his awaiting expression before silently agreeing, typing in your phone number.

“Also, we gotta work out when that dinner night is happening. Can’t have you runnin’ off on us before then.”

He was right, the only way they were letting you make up for their generosity was oddly by letting them provide you more of the manner. It was your only option, so you settled with the new belongings and finished typing in your contact information.

As if to make sure you didn’t give him the wrong number, Hizashi sent you a quick text of a sun emoticon. You took the opportunity to save his information to your phone.

Just as you did, the screen turned black and wouldn’t come back to life no matter how many times you pressed the power button.

“Outta juice?”

Your eyes darted to Hizashi, who moved to rummage through the bag. He pulled out an object you somehow managed to completely miss: a phone charger.

He began unwrapping the cord from its casing, getting off the bed to find an outlet.

“The police ended up havin’ to go through your bag to file everything as evidence. Shou’ was there when it happened, told me to grab a charger cause you were missing one before I left this morning.”

Just another expensive item you wouldn’t be able to compensate for. It’s like he wants you to feel bad for being so helpless.

“Thanks…I’d be pretty screwed without you I guess.” You didn’t want to keep going on about the regrettable feeling that was all too persisting, seeming as it didn’t matter much anymore.

He handed you the end of the now plugged in charger, letting you hook your phone up to it. “No worries, actually I―”

The same nurse as last night had interrupted his train of thought, making her presence known before entering.

“Good morning Yamada sir, checking up on my patient I see?” She didn’t let him respond, “Well, I hate to break it to you but I’m going to have to steal her for a while.”

He regarded the nurse with a smile. “‘Course, I’ll talk to you later, songbird.”

The blond gestured some finger guns in your direction as he spoke, walking out of your room.

Regardless of the circumstances, you thought, at least I have someone coming to see me. That’s what I get for throwing myself into work and not making friends I guess.

You let the nurse close the door all the way, silently awaiting the slew of information about to be sent your way.

_____

It would seem at this point the only stimulation outside of examinations was in the form of boring phone games, and your newly acquired, and insistent, hero companions.

One of which was currently posted in the armchair, waiting for you to finish eating dinner before you told him about the exciting day you had. Shouta, reserved as ever, kept on his phone until then.

You finished up as soon as possible, the silence eating away at your psyche due to its growing awkwardness.

“How was your day?” Simple, the only thing you could think of asking, great for breaking the silence.

The erasure hero looked up from the screen immediately. “Good, actually. Still haven’t heard anything from the station.”

Remembering that fateful night wasn’t something you particularly wanted to do, but for now it had to be dealt with. “I doubt much will come of it, not exactly like what was going down wasn’t obvious, so no need for an investigation, right?.”

“Probably...any changes with yourself?”

You knew well enough that like his partner, Shouta seemed genuinely interested in your health. The difference was that his way of conveying this was much more...intimidating.

The look he gave you demanded a response, even if the question was harmless enough.

“Ah―not really I guess. I’m here until tomorrow morning for sure, but that’s about all they’ve said.” You wouldn’t know if he was pleased with the response if you didn’t catch the slight nod he gave.

“Well, it’s not a bad thing. You could certainly use the rest.”

Now that’s something you could agree to, but you’d still rather do so in the comfort of your own bedroom.

“Listen, as much as I want to keep you company, my students are expecting graded essays back tomorrow morning. I’m afraid I can’t stay any longer.”

While you did appreciate his presence as a change of routine for a short while, it was only to an extent. You’d be lying if you said the atmosphere didn’t feel heavy while he was around, even if just a little in times like these.

“That’s no problem, I’d hate to keep you from your work.”

He slowly stood up from the armchair, “Hizashi will probably visit tomorrow morning. He’s got the day off so he’ll likely stick around as much as possible. Just tell him to leave if he’s annoying you.”

You watched as his eyes drifted to the stuffed cat resting on the bedside table next to the bouquet, the sight influencing a tired smile.

“You should try and get to sleep early―oh, one more thing.”

Like his partner had done earlier today, he reached for his phone, handing the unlocked device to you. Having done so already, something he was also aware of, you silently typed in your information.

“Don’t be afraid to send one of us a message if you need anything.”

You returned the phone to him, “Right, thanks for stopping by Shouta.”

As he exited the room, you were left with feelings of confliction over the whole ordeal. It was strange―having someone being concerned about your wellbeing was nice, but something, you couldn’t quite place what, was getting in the way of your gratitude.

The two men were clearly busy people. Hero work, on top of being teachers, would more than suffice as something to occupy most of their time. When it comes to dealing with victims, you’d assume that for the sake of efficiency a hero would just drop you off at the nearest hospital and then be on their way.

And yet, for reasons still incomprehensible, the presence of the strange duo was something you couldn’t shake off. Perhaps it wasn’t intentional, but the reality left a peculiar underlying feeling of...suspicion?

It was too soon to say, and frankly it’d be rude to judge them after they’d been so kind to you. However you’d always been someone who falls on the more overstrung side, and neglecting the situation by simply ignoring it was not something you could do.

_____

It was just as his partner had foretold―the next morning you had once again been graced with the presence of Hizashi.

You noted how he was awfully chipper for being up at 8:20 am on a Monday, but like the couple other odd traits of his, you chose to disregard it.

Especially since this person also came bearing quite the appetizing breakfast.

“The nurse said ya didn’t have to eat the hospital food if someone brought you a meal instead. Thought you’d appreciate somethin’ homemade so I whipped it up before leaving.” This time he was seated in the armchair, likely because there wasn’t enough room on the bed with the table that was positioned over it so you could eat.

The meal consisted of―somehow still warm―scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage, fruit, and a side of blueberry pancakes. All in all, it was delicious, and you didn’t quite think it was something he could just ‘whip up,’ but you’d let that slide. You thanked him profusely for it before regarding just how little you’d been informed of things since coming to the hospital.

“I didn’t even know that was allowed to be honest. They don’t tell me much aside from whether or not my condition has changed.” You tried to talk in between bites, not wanting to let the warmth dissipate by waiting to have a full conversation.

“Funny you say that cause she also told me you’d be cleared to leave by the end of the day. Looks like the hit you took wasn’t too serious.”

Well, you would’ve appreciated being the first to receive this news. Isn’t there like a doctor-patient confidentiality thing to keep others from knowing stuff like that?

Regardless, it was still good news. The hospital room was starting to drive you a bit crazy.

“That’s good to hear, thanks for letting me know.” You quietly continued your meal while Hizashi went on about similar things―cases that were like yours, his opinions of the hospital staff.

If there was anything he was good at it was filling the silence, and you supposed this was where his relationship with Shouta came in handy. Not that his partner didn’t seem to mind talking, it was just he wasn’t the most energetic when he did so, whether he knew that or not.

In general, the two of you quickly realized that there wasn’t much to discuss, given how you’d been holed up in the tiny room for the last few days―it didn’t really allow for the most exciting news.

He asked you about a few work details of your own occupation―how long you’d worked there, if you liked your coworkers―menial stuff mostly. By then you had long finished breakfast, and it would seem that the blond had no intention of leaving, much like his partner warned you of.

So, you listened patiently while he went on about this and that. Sometimes trailing off into hero stories, other times bringing up his work as a teacher.

In general, you had no problem listening to him go on. You’d speak up here and there, but not for long as he’d quickly resume with whatever topic he’d fixated on for the moment.

One would think it’d be annoying, and perhaps this was just a result of some form of exposure therapy that made it bearable, but it was enjoyable hearing him ramble.

Yet, good things only last for so long.

It’s not that you eventually found the endless discussion boring, rather the developing behaviour was due to you still recovering―even just in the slightest―from recent events. You didn’t even notice it, but gradually your eyes were becoming heavy, and the sound of Hizashi’s voice was becoming more and more distant.

Embarrassingly, he was the first to pick up on it.

He was mid sentence when he caught you nodding off. Rather than being offended, the blond actually found it endearing.

Instead of alerting you just yet that he’d taken notice of your behaviour, Hizashi silently stood up out of the chair, walking over to the windows of your room.

Your half-lidded eyes just barely picked up on the movement, vaguely seeing him pull the blinds closed before coming back to your senses.

“Oh god, I didn’t mean to―you weren’t boring me I promise. I just-”

“Relax, songbird. It’s my fault, ya must still be a lil’ done in, no worries.”

Naturally, you felt terrible. He was acting like he didn’t care, anyone would be offended at this point.

It was excruciatingly awkward, and you desperately tried to collect your thoughts. “No, no it really was interesting, you can keep going if―”

“Stop it, sunshine.” He started towards your bed, which you instinctively shrunk into. You always defaulted this way, panicking immediately in the face of little to no danger. But Hizashi wasn’t dangerous, you told yourself. He continued, “I should’ve known you weren’t better yet. Still not sure how but you really managed to wear yourself out, didn’t ya?”

He pushed you back down into bed by your shoulders while he spoke, continuing to pull up the blankets you discarded earlier.

“I’m gonna head out so you can get some more shut eye, yeah?”

“Um...o-okay. Yeah, I guess…” You inwardly cringed at how small your voice sounded, but to be fair it wasn’t like you could exactly help it.

It was confusing, how he acted so indifferent to the unspoken insult that you gave him by nearly falling asleep. Was he acting?

Hizashi moved away, heading towards the door, leaving you somewhat comfortably tucked into the hospital bed.

“Get some rest, ‘kay sweetheart?”

“Y-yeah, thanks.”

You heard the door click shut as he left, the room falling into silence amidst the now dim lighting.

Okay...what the fuck.

Devoid of any distractions in your proximity, the hard thumping in your chest was more than clear. At times like these you didn’t even realize any growing anxiety―not until the ordeal was over and you were left with the aftereffects.

The attention to it was only drawn more when you processed the increased rate of beeping coming from your heart monitor.

The last thing you wanted to do was bother the poor nurse taking care of you. Steeling yourself, you took deep breaths, focusing your attention on calming down. It worked soon enough, leaving no need for medical intervention.

You noted that getting like this always drained you of energy―mentally and physically. Heeding Hizashi’s orders, it was easiest now to try and sleep off the anxiety.

You can think about whatever just happened later, maybe when your not still hospitalized.

_____

You were stirred awake by a gentle hand on your shoulder, lightly shaking your resting form. Eyes fluttering open, you observed the dedicated nurse you’ve seen time and time again leaning slightly over you.

“Miss (l/n), I have an update on your condition.”

That was more than enough to give you motivation to pull yourself from the jaws of sleep. You sat up slowly, although it was your best attempt at doing so quickly.

The nurse continued, “Well, it’s good news. You’ve been cleared for discharge. Your condition has improved considerably, so you can continue the rest of your recovery at home safely.”

You needed to hear no more, immediately looking around to find your bag that had been delivered to you from Friday night. Still, you figured that this deserved a response.

“That’s really great to hear, thank you for taking care of me...also, where are the clothes that I came here in?”

“Oh yes, they’re in your bag.” You watched as she reached underneath your bed―no wonder you couldn’t find the damn thing.

The nurse settled the bag next to you before continuing. “Here you go, miss. I’ve prescribed some pain medication for your head injury. Directions for consumption are on the label...and I believe that’s it.”

You rifled through the bag, retrieving your clothing from the bottom.

“Oh, one last thing actually. Now, this is only a recommendation, but given your health it would be beneficial if you were to remain home for the rest of the week. You can go to work if you’d wish, but it may slow your remaining recovery process.”

“I’ll have to think about that one, but thank you for letting me know.”

She turned off the heart monitor before removing the clip on your finger. The IV had been removed yesterday, so there was no need for attention in that department.

“Perfect, you can get dressed and gather your belongings. Please speak to the receptionist at the end of the hall―right before the elevator―so you can pick up the prescription before you leave.”

“Sounds good.” You offered a warm smile to her, and she politely excused herself from the room.

You got changed, clothing appearing to have been washed at some point while you were asleep. Somehow you managed to pile all the things Hizashi brought you the morning before into your backpack, and you threw the shopping bag into the garbage.

It was nice to finally stretch your legs for longer than a few minutes to use the washroom, although your muscles did feel somewhat weaker now.

Slipping on your jacket and bag, you exited the room, closing the door behind you. The receptionist’s desk had been exactly where the nurse said it would be, and you handed over your information to the man behind the counter. He left for a moment before returning with a paper, your prescription printed on it with an illegible doctor’s signature. You thanked the man before heading to the elevator and stepping in.

Nothing was more enticing at this point than returning to the comfort of your own home. The thought of your bed waiting for you was enough to have you drooling, being so done with the unfamiliar setting of the hospital.

The elevator chimed, signalling it had reached its destination of the ground floor. The doors slid open and you stepped out, heading straight for the front entrance.

At least you were, until you collided into some poor unsuspecting human standing in your path.

How many times are you going to embarrass yourself before the day is up?

The person had caught you by the shoulders, stabling the both of you. You were quietly trying to apologize while, painfully so, you lifted your head to assess the damage.

You weren’t sure to be thankful or not, but you were met with a familiar gaze.

“You really shouldn't keep your head down like that all the time. Are you okay?”

Shouta looked down at you with a stern yet concerned look. He didn’t exactly back away, rather he continued his hold on your shoulders as if you were going to fall over any second. Hizashi also stood close by his side, and therefore close to you.

The sudden proximity had your head spinning, blood quickly rushing to your face.

“Ah―yeah. I’m fine.” Your response was pitifully sputtered out, and gently you moved back, out of his grasp.

“You headin’ out? Shou’ and I were just comin’ to check up on ya.”

The blond regarded his partner, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll drive you home, have you eaten yet?” The erasure hero didn’t seem to be asking permission over the matter, but you still forced yourself to give them your take on it.

“You don’t have to do that, I was just about to call a cab. And I have stuff at home for dinner, so I honestly can’t impose on you two anymore.”

“Aw, but we're already here sunshine. It’s no problem, c’mon.” The blond flashed a warm smile before moving to place a hand just beneath the nape of your neck, guiding you to the front entrance alongside his partner.

You were beginning to grow frustrated with the way the two acted, disregarding your wishes so casually. Sure, they weren’t doing anything inherently wrong―just helping a poor civilian get home―but that wasn’t what irked you.

They were too insistent, and it was making you uncomfortable. Clearly they either didn’t notice, or simply didn’t care.

Heroes or not, you couldn’t just let them do whatever they want.

But...would they be offended if you got mad? They’re just trying to help, so what’s the big deal? It’s not like you would have to deal with it much longer, surely you could put up with a bit more of their pushiness.

...Just endure it a little more, you’ve already done enough damage anyways.

It was growing dark out, the sun having just set over the horizon. The crisp air hit you hard as the automatic doors slid open, being equally refreshing and shocking to your system.

An involuntary shiver wracked your body, and you felt Hizashi’s hand slip to your shoulder, gently pulling you closer to him.

It made your stomach churn ever so slightly, but you pushed the feeling down.

Shouta walked in front of you two, presumably leading you to their car in the parking lot. Approaching it, you weren’t surprised to see the expensive looking exterior, and were even less surprised to find an equally luxurious interior as the erasure hero opened the backseat door for you.

You offered a quiet ‘thanks’, removing your backpack and slipping in. The door shut with a heavy thud, and you waited for the two men to enter the vehicle while putting on your seatbelt. It smelled of pine inside, likely due to an air freshener somewhere that you couldn’t see.

They stepped inside, immediately turning on the heat. Shouta was given the responsibility of driving tonight.

“We can grab you something to eat on the way home, I know a couple good joints around your area.” Hizashi seemed quite invested on the topic of good food, but you had to turn him down at least once today.

“Oh, no thank you. I’ve actually got a frozen dinner that I made last week that I was gonna heat up.” You felt the car start to move, grateful to be getting home faster than you would’ve by cab.

For the first time in a while, the blond actually acknowledged and accepted your opinion. “Alright then. Hey, did the nurse lady have anything new to say ‘bout the whole passing out thing?”

“Surprisingly not, guess it wasn’t as bad as it looked.”

Yeah, because they didn’t know why you were so tired, or how getting the crap scared out of you was the final driving force that night.

“That’s good to hear. I take it you’ll be staying home for the rest of the week to rest?”

Once again, you noted the tone in Shouta’s voice that was a little off-putting. He was asking a question, one that you had the freedom to answer however you see fit. But the lowness, sounding like a warning rather than a simple inquiry about your future actions was all too present.

It made you nervous.

“Well...I’m definitely going to take Tuesday and Wednesday off. But I’m already feeling good so I won’t bother to cancel for the rest of the week after that.”

You could only anticipate the disagreement in silence. And disagree they did.

“I’m not too sure that’s a good idea, sunshine. You went through a lot, its best ya hold off for a while.” You could hear the passionate concern in Hizashi’s voice, but it did little to deter you.

You briefly glanced outside, thankful that your apartment wasn’t too far from the hospital. “Maybe, but the end of the week is always really busy, and I usually handle evening shifts anyways. It wouldn't really be fair on my coworkers to bail for that long.”

Without skipping a beat, Shouta replied. “It’s not fair on yourself to put unnecessary strain on your body.”

Well, he’s not wrong, but that’s not the point.

“I can handle it just fine, besides it’s still a few da―”

“‘Zashi told me you fell asleep while he was there today. That doesn’t sound like handling it to me.”

Confrontation had never been your strong suit, even less so when it was directed at you. His words made you want to disappear into thin air, or have the backseat swallow you whole―anything would do at this point. You felt the shame from earlier today resurfacing, despite the internal fight you put up to contain it.

You were a little over halfway home.

“I was just a bit tired. Nothing a nap c-couldn’t solve.”

This time the blonde spoke up. “We’re just thinking ‘bout what’s best for you right now. And with the way things have been...maybe working so soon ain’t the greatest idea.”

The atmosphere was weighing down on you, thick with tension likely only you could feel. “The nurse said that it was okay to work if I wanted, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Is that all she said?” Your eyes flickered up to the rearview mirror, Shouta’s hard gaze meeting yours for a moment before you shied away.

God, this man is relentless.

You could lie, it might make this easier. But something told you that they would know if you did. They were pro heroes after all―didn’t they train to detect stuff like that?

“She said working might slow the recovery process, but I think two more days is more than enough time to get better.”

The two men exchanged looks mixed with annoyance and doubt, which you would’ve seen if you hadn’t had your head down, incessantly picking at your nails to distract from the bubbling anxiety you felt.

“Songbird, if the nurse said to stay home then you should listen to her. Going back to work ain’t gonna do ya any good.”

What could you say to prevent this from getting worse?

“She recommended staying home, I don’t have to listen to her.”

“Even though you should?” There was that tone again.

There was a silence in the car that felt like it lasted for an eternity. Clearly both of them were thinking the same thing, Shouta was just more insistent over it, much more insistent.

“What I should do is take responsibility as an employee. I’ll be okay by the time I have to go back.” Somehow you managed a response, despite feeling yourself physically shrinking back into the seat with every passing second.

Judging the surroundings, you were about one minute away from your apartment. One minute away from freedom.

You heard the blond sigh, “We know you wanna work, just promise you’ll think about staying home this week, give us some peace of mind?”

If that’s what will get them to stop hounding you over the matter, then whatever.

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

The car pulled into the parking lot of your apartment complex. You would’ve jumped out at full speed and ran into the building to escape the tension at this point. But that would be rude, and you didn’t want to look like a lunatic. And even if you didn’t care about that, the car doors were locked.

“We better not have to bring your unconscious body to the hospital again, especially if it happens because you thought going back to work was a good idea. If you think we’re worried about you now...well, this would be nothing compared to what would happen if you pass out again. Understand?” Shouta glared at you in the rearview mirror as he spoke, creating more than a lasting impression of his warnings.

You swallowed dryly, “Of course, thanks for the ride.”

Another moment of silence, then the click of the car doors unlocking sounded.

You opened the door, grabbing your bag while stepping out, trying not to trip over yourself in the rushed panic you were in.

Rounding the vehicle, you started towards the entrance to the complex.

“We’ll catch ya later, sweetheart!” Hizashi’s voice boomed after you, having the car window rolled down.

Out of courtesy, you turned back around, giving a small wave and a smile before stepping through the doors.

In a haze, you shuffled back to your apartment, pulling the keys out of your jacket pocket. You locked the door as soon as you stepped inside, chucking your bag on the floor in the entryway.

You didn’t even bother to heat up dinner, knowing the nauseating feeling in your stomach wouldn’t allow for sustenance at this time. Instead you showered, taking the time to massage your scalp in an attempt to relax.

Sliding into your pyjamas, you found that eating still wasn’t an option, but drinking likely was.

Not alcohol, but herbal tea―it always seemed to do the trick.

The exhaustion set in quickly after you’d gotten only halfway through the cup, so you retreated to the comfort of your bed. You knew the feeling was a mixture of coming down from a stress induced high, the tea, and your still recovering system.

It served as plenty of foundation to knock you out the second your head hit the pillow. This time, you welcomed the inevitable unconsciousness with open arms.

End of Part 3

_____

taglist: @tjhonoluluprezstitch626 @shinsous-eye-bags @roseloverofpastels

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broadstbroskis · 4 years

Text

present tense | matthew tkachuk

back on my childhood friends to (enemies to) lovers bullshit here! have a nice 5k matty fic that was not the fic i set out to write and is far better for it! one flashback-ish area set in italics! enjoy!

-----

There’s a picture that sits on the desks in both of your dad’s offices-in the Blues training facility and over at Enterprise Arena-that everytime you look at you can’t help but scoff in disgust. Sometimes you even flip the picture down, if it stirs up particularly loathsome feels at that moment in time. But each time you end up back in his office, the picture’s back standing, in its usual place front and center on his desk.

You can’t figure out why. Sure, you’re by far his favorite kid (suck it, Josh and Seth), but for him to keep a picture that’s close to fifteen years old on his desk that features you just cheesing it up with a guy you can’t even stand anymore is a little ridiculous.

“Just because you don’t like Matthew anymore doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t,” Your dad tells you bluntly, anytime you try to mention that fact to him, which you definitely should have known better. He and Keith had only become better friends since Keith’s transition to his front office role.

“I still don’t understand what went wrong with you two.” Your mom huffs. It’s the biggest tragedy of her and Chantal Tkachuk’s lives, the day that you and Matthew were no longer best friends and neither of them ever miss a chance to lament that fact. “Best friends one day and then not the next. What could possibly have happened that can’t be fixed?”

“Can’t fix asshole!” You respond cheerily.

“YN!” Your mom snaps.

“What?” You shrug. “It’s self-proclaimed!” She gives you a look and even though you are 22 years old, you know what thin ice looks like, so you merely smile back at her.

And there’s the other thing. For all that you can barely stand to be in the same room as your former best friend, the rest of your family loves him. Your dad and Seth will golf with Matt and Keith once a week now that it’s summer and he’s back in town. Josh invited both Matt and Brady to his fucking bachelor party this summer. The entire family will be at his wedding!

You literally couldn’t escape the guy. Your summer had barely just begun; it was only a few days after graduation, and already the pressure was on to keep applying for jobs or decide to go on for a Masters. Josh’s wedding was fast approaching and Nicole had the entire bridal party running all around St. Louis in preparation.

The last thing you wanted was to have to deal with Matty.

-----

From the minute you and Matthew Tkachuk were thrown together it’d been instant connection. You can’t recall the exact moment you’d met; you can, however, remember running through the halls of hockey games, trying to keep up with your older brothers at barbeques as Brady tried to keep up with the two of you, sharing secrets under blankets, and making promises to each other in the dark that you were too scared to make in the light.

Until you were sixteen, you’d both kept those promises, each and every one of them. The smallest things, like promising to bring two snacks to an after school event, to the biggest things, like always being there for each other.

You were Matty’s biggest cheerleader growing up, quite literally sometimes, showing up to his hockey games in your cheer uniform after a practice or competition. And even though it was clear from early on that Matty was destined for great things, he never made you feel like he’d be leaving you behind, celebrating all your accomplishments the same way you’d celebrated his (far more incredible) ones.

But the distance apart during his first year away at the NTDP changed something. You no longer had Matty to rely on to have your back unconditionally. He was up in Ann Arbor, crushing his dreams, and you were so happy for him, really, but that left you at home and for the first time, realizing what Matty’s dreams would really mean for your friendship long term. You threw yourself into cheer, into your other friends. When his responses to your texts took longer and longer to come, you realized that you were doing the same thing- what’s the rush to get back to someone who’s only going to take three days to respond to you?

And then summer rolled around and Matty came back and acted like nothing was different. He’d swept you up into his arms and twirled you around, proclaiming how much he missed you, while your families looked on and laughed, especially at how you’d whined at him for messing you your hair.

“You didn’t miss me?” He’d pouted, poking you until you’d admitted that you did, of course you did, and that brought the grin you knew and loved.

From that moment on, for the rest of summer, the two of you were inseparable. It’s like every minute you couldn’t spend together was a wasted one. For all the time that went between texts when he was away, your phone was blowing up now that he was back, unable to stop talking those scarce moments when you were apart.

It became expected, amongst both your friends, that if you invited one of you somewhere, the other was showing up as well. You were blowing off after-practice Starbucks runs for Matty to pick you up and get lunch. You’d found out later that he was moving workouts and basketball games with some buddies so they’d coincide with your practice times. Very quickly, you’d fallen back into old habits, but no one called you out on it, accepting both of you easily, and merging friend groups fairly seamlessly.

As the summer went on, the looming date of Matty leaving again started to hang over your head as the-thing-that-just-wasn’t-mentioned...but that didn’t mean it was ever far from your thoughts. It would pop in at the worst times- when the two of you were grabbing coffee and driving around, when you were lying by the pool for the afternoon, when you were bickering about what movie to watch that night.

You’d just wanted to forget for one night, that he’d be leaving you in just a week, and Paul Morgan’s house party seemed like the place to do it. There was cheap booze flowing, shitty beer in your cup, and it was easy enough to keep the smile on your face surrounded by your friends.

But you couldn’t shake Matty, the entire night, who was right on top of you, his arm wrapped around your shoulders first, and then playing with your hair, and then his palm splayed against your back. How were you supposed to forget that he was leaving you in seven short days when his thumb was brushing over your hip bone?

You’d shoved him away, offering some excuse about the bathroom, but going instead to hide in one of the rooms upstairs. The tears had started almost as soon as the door shut, your body shaking as you’d sat down on the bed. Was this going to be the new normal? Days without speaking, only the most vague responses when you did, barely knowing each other for most of the year, only for Matt to come home and cling to you for three months of the year?

That it was Matty who’d come to find you was entirely unsurprising, opening the door more gently than he did almost anything, but then rushing to your side once he saw your face and pressing to know what was wrong.

The combination of alcohol and nostalgia had gotten you. “I can’t do this every year, Matty. I can’t pretend everything is the same when you come home, when you’re away and we’re like total strangers.”

“So let’s not be.”

You’d laughed, pretty hollowly. “And how are we supposed to do-” But before you’d even finished, he’d kissed you.

There are things you remember so clearly from that night, your first time. The way Matty had looked at you anytime he pulled back from kissing you; the way he’d laced his fingers into yours as he’d entered you so carefully, like he was terrified of hurting you; how tenderly he kissed you each time he pressed his lips to yours. The fuzzier moments are some of the words he’d whispered to you both during and after, the things that sometimes return to you in a dream- how beautiful you were, how perfect this was, how much he adored you.

That he loved you, that he always would, that he only wanted you for forever.

Usually in your dreams, that was when you woke up. But at least you didn’t have to see him kissing another girl that way.

-----

Bridal showers were one of the worst things you could possibly think of, but you’d give anything to be at one of those stupid traditional showers where all the women sit in circle for hours and the old ladies cry over what great gifts all this stupid shit is, if it meant you didn’t have to see Matthew.

But no, Josh and Nicole had to go “non-traditional” and throw a co-ed shower. “We’ve already got a house.” You’d heard Nicole explain to yet another older relative, the same thing she’d said to the rest of the bridal party (granted, sounding much less like she’s tired of saying it) when she’d first tossed the idea out. “We don’t need a bunch of stuff we already have. We just want to get a bunch of our family and friends together.” And for you all to stock our bar, was the second part of the joke, and the theme of the party.

Nicole hadn’t looked stressed about this day- which was supposed to be a casual get-together at your parents with family and close friends-until the comments had started to rain. You can see the eye twitch start to go in your future sister-in-law and as she’s explaining the concept to another aunt of hers, you slip in next to her with another glass of champagne. “Can I steal you please?”

“Of course!” She beams, excusing herself from that group. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, I just don’t want you to murder anyone before you marry my brother this summer!”

She laughs. “Thank you. For the record, the same goes.”

“Me? What have I done today? Seth is the one who opened that $600 bottle of wine accidentally!”

She gives you a look. “I saw the Tkachuk’s walk in, including Matt. Be nice.”

“I will if he is.” You say childishly, sipping on your own glass of champagne.

It’s just your luck, though, that I saw the Tkachuk’s walk in means here they come now. In classic Tkachuk fashion, Keith and all three kids are shoving each other around, and Chantal is rolling her eyes, right up until the moment they reach you and Nicole, when Keith sends once final shot at Matthew, before regrouping to congratulate her along with his wife.

“Where’s that brother of yours?” Keith wonders, craning his neck. “We’ve got some putting to discuss today.”

“Here we go again.” Taryn mutters, rolling her eyes.

“Hey now!” Matt protests. “Joe and I won that fair and square. We’re just better golfers than you two.”

“Better cheaters, more like.” You mutter into your champagne glass, but it’s just loud enough for everyone to hear and Keith and Taryn laugh even as Nicole and Chantal sigh, like ugh, this already.

“No need to cheat when you’re just this good.” Matty grins back sleazily. It seems to be the smile he reserves specially for you; you’ve never seen him break it out for anyone else.

You plaster the fakest smile on your face. There’s no reason for you to be so hurt by an otherwise innocent comment-after all, despite him professing how much he loved you, you were never actually together-but even now, you can’t help the feeling that hits you when he even mentions the word cheat. “Well you’d know best, wouldn’t you?” You say, managing to feign a cheerful tone to make your fake smile.

Chantal smiles, not catching the dig you’d intended it to be. “Well it’s nice to see that the two of you are at least capable of putting your differences aside.”

“Yeah, my wedding is looking so much more promising!” Nicole teases.

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Even if Matty manages to control himself enough to not start a fight, you’ve still got Seth to worry about.” You nod over at your brother, who’s apparently already given up on glassware, and is carrying around the $600 bottle of wine he’d cracked open earlier in the afternoon.

“Yeah, and even if YN manages not to shit-talk all the other guests, I’m sure Joe and Dad over here will throw something out there as soon as they get a few in them.” Matthew snarks back.

“Well that lasted long.” Keith says pleasantly, like his own son hadn’t just rudely thrown him under the bus.

“We shouldn’t have expected less.” You hear Nicole say, but you’re too busy arguing with Matthew about which one of you is going to be worse at her wedding to respond.

-----

The worst thing to come out of the summer that you and Matt had spent attached at the hip only to end up hating each other is that it had actually made your separate friend groups become friends. So now anytime he was home, it was fairly common for a large group chat to go out to round up the squad for a night out.

Which meant yet another night where you were stuck with Matthew.

Even more annoyingly, when he does show up at the bar, he’s nothing but nice. He immediately waves off cards from everyone, offering to pick up the tab for the night. You’re shocked when he remembers that Mel, your best friend, is going to med school in the fall, and he shows, like, genuine interest in her move to Boston and offers her a few places he remembers from Brady’s short time there or recommendations from friends.

“You’re being ridiculous.” Mel says, when she drags you out on the dance floor.

“Says who?” You return petulantly, like you have no idea that she’s talking about the sour face that you’ve been making most of the night.

“Um, all of us.” Mel tells you. “Behind your backs, because we think whatever happened between you and Matt is dumb.”

“You talk about us behind our backs?” You cry, outraged.

“Well if the two of you aren’t going to tell us what happened to our faces, then we had to speculate somewhere!”

And that was never going to fucking happen. You’d never told anyone what had happened between the two of you and as far as you knew, Matthew had never broken the unspoken agreement to never tell anyone, either. You certainly remember the sound the smacking palms had made when Nick had high-fived him for managing to “get something” from Sofia Taylor only a day after you had- “There’s nothing to speculate.” You tell Mel, stopping that train of thought and falling to an old standby. “He’s just an asshole.”

“An asshole who’s buying all our drinks tonight?”

“Yes.” You state stubbornly, and knowing she’s not going to win this one with you, she drops the subject and just starts dancing, shouting along to some of the throwbacks you both know and love.

When she leaves you to grab another drink, her spot is quickly replaced by another body, and you loop your arm around the neck of the guy that takes her place, grinning as his hands start on your hips and gradually begin to slip lower on your back as you press yourself closer to him.

It doesn’t last long because almost the second his hands get to the point where it might even be considered getting close to your ass, he’s pulled away from you. “Get moving.” Matthew says, even as you glare at him furiously.

Whether he knows who Matthew is or just doesn’t think he could take him if it came down to it, the guy you were dancing with starts shoving his way through the crowd, even after you call for him to wait. When that doesn’t work you round on Matt. “What was that, you asshole?”

“Wait, you liked him touching you?”

“I didn’t mind!”

He actually laughs. “That guy?”

You give him a dirty look, pushing your way through the crowd, in the direction you’d seen that guy go, but it’s a lost cause. No matter which way you look, you can’t see him.

The only thing you can see is the curly head of hair that’s followed you. “That can’t be who you want.” He tells you, as you’re starting to give up, stuck on the outskirts of the bar now.

“You don’t actually get a say in that.” You cry back at him, a little hysterical. “Maybe you could have, one day. But you fucked that up.” He actually does a double take at that, stepping away from you. “So no, you don’t anymore.”

“YN,” He reaches out for you.

“I’m calling an Uber and going home.” You shove his hand away. You can’t even be near him anymore. “And since you can be nice enough to buy drinks, I can say thanks. But that’s it. Don’t pretend like you did me some big favor tonight. You ruined my life once and now you’ve ruined my night.”

And that’s it. You shove past him before he can say anything else to you.

But he doesn’t come after you. For once, you might actually have left him completely speechless.

-----

On the same weekend that you, Nicole, and the other girls jet off to Austin for her bachelorette party, Josh and his bachelor party take off for Vegas.

“As long as he doesn’t come home having gambled our house away.” Is the only thing Nicole says, when one of her cousins asks if she’s at all concerned about the Vegas crew. Privately, you think her nonchalant attitude has more to do with the amount of champagne she’s already consumed, but you can’t deny that she’s right.

“Low bar there.” The maid of honor laughs.

Nicole shrugs as you laugh. “She’s just hoping that Matt doesn’t pull a Hangover on him.”

“You know, name recognition is probably going to be what makes Matty the one who stops the others from pulling a Hangover on Josh.” Nicole muses.

You give her a look. “You couldn’t just give me this one thing?”

She laughs. “After a couple more shots, I’ll give you anything, babe.”

You’ll cheers to that.

Hours later, you’re still cheers-ing-to Nicole, to Josh, to anything ridiculous that anyone of you can think of, each time someone buys you all a round of shots at the bar. You’re pleasantly buzzed, buzzed enough that the letters are too blurry to read clearly when your phone rings, so you just swipe to accept the call and make your way outside, where it’s a little quieter. “Hello?”

“That’s not how it happened at all!” You hear Matthew say loudly. You can’t tell where he’s at, but the background music sounds muffled, like it is behind you, and he sounds as drunk as you feel.

“What?” You can’t keep up with him. Had you missed something? You almost pull your phone away from your ear to check the group chat, to see if you’d been drunk texting in it and forgotten already, but his voice stops you.

“I didn’t ruin your life; you ruined mine!”

If you weren’t leaning against the wall, your legs would have collapsed out from under you. As it is you slide a good foot down the bricks and the flowy tank you’ve got on isn’t doing much to help avoid the scratches that are sure to run down your low back tomorrow. “What?” You can only repeat.

But it seems like Matt’s been building up steam for this. “After everything we’d been through, after everything I said to you, you could just walk away like that?”

“I’m sure Sofia fucking Taylor could give you a great reason why I just walked away like that.” You snap back, finally understanding and ending the call immediately. You’re raging. You can’t believe he’d even attempt to call you out like this.

Even a few deep breaths doesn’t calm you down. When you make your way back into the bar, a few of the girls have concerned looks on their faces, but you wave them off. “I’ll be fine. Just need to drink more. That’s what we’re all here for, right?”

“RIGHT!” Nicole shouts in your face, already beaming.

Maybe if you keep drinking to her level, you’ll be able to forget this whole conversation even happened.

-----

When drinking doesn’t work to forget that phone call, you just start going out of your way to avoid Matty completely. When you see him at family events, you just ignore him entirely. You start pulling back from the big group chat with your friends, only committing to events once he’s fully committed to not going.

Mel calls you out on it, telling you that you’re just being childish and that you can’t avoid him forever, but your family commends you for finally taking the high road, even if they still think the whole thing is dumb in the first place.

And it’s easy to look like it’s you taking the high road, because Matthew’s trying desperately to talk to you. You’ve got nothing to say though. It’s like the years of rage have finally cooled. Like if you can’t forget the phone call where he says you ruined his life, then you can finally move past the part where he actually did ruin yours.

The day of your brother’s wedding dawns, hectic as you’d expected, and you spend your morning alternating between doing anything Nicole asks and getting ready yourself. You feel like a princess when you slip into the long, blush dress, but it’s nothing compared to how Nicole looks, and you were far from a crier, but seeing her in her dress was only the first time you teared up that day, and it was far from the last.

By the time the ceremony ended, it’d happened three more times and you made a few jokes about it with some cousins and Seth before you figured you could excuse yourself for a few minutes in the garden outside to get some fresh air before the photographer needed you.

Outside, the weather is perfect, an ideal day for an August wedding. There’s a few places to sit, you remember, from when you’d toured the venue with Nicole once, and you start off for one of them, only to be interrupted.

“Hey!”

You jump around, almost twisting your ankle in your heels, entirely surprised at the voice “Nick! What the fuck are you even doing here now?” You frown, when you see him. He’s dressed in street clothes; he’s not here as a date and it’s too early to crash (which you’d straight up invited some of your friends to do, once it got a little later in the evening and meals had been served).

Nick’s rubbing the back of his neck, looking incredibly awkward and like this is the last place he’d rather be. “I uh, I think I owe you an explanation. Sorry, I couldn’t wait anymore.”

You frown. “For what?”

His hand moves from the back of his neck to his face, but you’re still able to hear as he says, “I was the one who sent Sofia over to him.”

You laugh hollowly. “Fuck off, Nick.”

“YN, Matt only told me the other day that you guys slept together in high school. He was just-god, he was so into you! I swear to god I didn’t know!”

“Fuck off!” You repeat, a little more desperately.

“I just wanted him to get over you.” Nick says, sounding almost as desperate as you. “He didn’t even want her-she just-it wasn’t-I swear to god if I had known, I never would have-”

“Seriously, Nick, fuck off.” And whether he actually took your words to heart or not, Nick does to turn go, leaving you standing alone in a long dress and ready to cry, once again as he didn’t even want her rings through your head repeatedly.

-----

Once you know that things could have been different between you and Matty, it’s like you can’t look away from him. In two separate rounds of pictures, you get called out by the photographer for not looking, just because you thought you heard his voice.

The reception isn’t much better. As you start greeting different friends and relatives at the cocktail hour, you can’t help but wonder how things could have been. Would Matty have been by your side through all of this instead of over by the bar joking with Brady and Seth? He’d certainly be sitting next to you at dinner. Would he be throwing a couple side chirps into Seth’s best man toast or would he have managed to keep his mouth shut?

After dinner, when the real party begins, you nudge Seth and gesture at the bar for a shot, breathing a sigh of relief when he enthusiastically agrees, and you round up Josh, Nicole, and a couple of your cousins to meet him at the bar, only to find that he’s rounded up your dad, Keith, Brady, Matthew- the person you’d been hoping to start drinking to forget again.

Matty doesn’t look away from you and as his eyes follow your every movement- the passing of glasses, lifting the glass up to your mouth, licking the last drop off your lip-you feel the flush grow across your cheeks that’s got little to do with how much you’ve already had to drink.

“Another!” Josh calls.

“If you’re too fucking drunk tonight,” Nicole warns, leaning against him.

“We just got fucking married!” He beams, capturing her lips in a kiss that has you leading a cheer and then all of you cycling through the motions of another round of shots, all while a pair of blue eyes don’t leave you.

When Seth starts making his third toast of the night, about how happy he is for Josh and Nicole, you seize your opportunity to sneak out for some fresh air, slipping out the doors right behind you.

“Fucking finally.” You hear Matthew behind you and quickly lift the bottom of your dress to be able to run, only for him to stop you dead in your tracks. “YN, god, just-”

He stops abruptly and you let the bottom of your dress fall as you turn to face him. “What, Matty?” You ask him helplessly.

“Don’t...go.” He finishes, rather lamely, compared to anything you’ve heard him say ever.

“We are at my brother’s wedding!” You cry back to him, gesturing around you wildly. You’re not that far into the garden that you can’t still hear the sound of Love on Top from where you’re standing now. “Where am I going to go?”

Your response is enough for Matty to collect himself. “Since the day I told you I loved you, all you’ve done is run from me and we are finally, finally on the same page about why, and you’re going to do it again?”

Desperate for a second to breathe, you gesture around you again. “Is this really the place?”

Matty nods. “I’m not walking away from you again so that can be it. I don’t want to spend another six years thinking you walked away from me, when it turns out you didn’t want to at all.”

“Of course I didn’t, but I didn’t want to be just another girl!”

“You’ve never been just another girl.”

“Well, I just learned that a few hours ago,” You tell him dryly. “From Nick. But it really didn’t feel like that when the day after you told me I was your everything, you were making out with another girl.”

“We weren’t-” Matty starts, but cuts himself off at the dirty look you send him and instead steps closer and grabs your hand, completely ignoring your flinch. “Why didn’t you just say something to me? Anything? God, it would-” He shakes his head, and the unspoken it would have made things so much easier goes unsaid.

“Why didn’t you say something to me?” You counter.

“I asked you first.”

“I asked you second!”

“YN!” It’s like he’s trying not to laugh, but it only works at lightening the mood between the two of you for a moment, before you’re sighing.

“What would I have said?” You ask, kind of ruefully. “Things were weird after you went away and you were about to go away again and I should have what? Begged you to love me and not any of the other girls that might be right there in Michigan with you, let alone the one I thought you’d already chosen over me?” You shrug. “It wasn’t-it wasn’t exactly peak confidence levels right then.” Matty winces at that and you nod at him. “ Alright, your turn.”

“I guess…” He trails off. “I was mostly worried that you had just changed your mind. And that you were trying to let me down easy.” The laugh that escapes after that is so bitter that it’s your turn to wince. “And then by the time I got home again, it was pretty clear that you weren’t letting me down easy at all.”

“I haven’t changed my mind at all.” You look him straight in the eyes, meeting the blue you’ve missed so desperately, determined not to look away for anything this time.

“Haven’t.” Matthew repeats, squeezing your hand, and as the smile starts to bloom across his face, you feel a matching one grow across yours. “As in, present tense?”

You nod, but you barely get the chance to before his other hand is coming up to the base of your skull and pulling you in for a kiss. Christ, if you thought sex with him was good at 16, expectations have changed, because this kiss alone takes your breath away, makes your knees weak, and has you gripping onto him just to stay standing. “Matty, please tell me you’re going to do that again.” You manage to breathe out, mostly against his lips, which is as far away from him that you think you’re ever going to be able to be.

“I’m never going to stop doing that.” Matthew says, and it sounds like all the promises you’d made to each other as children under blanket forts, but it feels like your past, your present, and your future have combined as he presses his lips to yours in another breathtaking kiss.

#matthew tkachuk imagine #matthew tkachuk fanfic #matthew tkachuk fanction #hockey fanfiction #hockey imagines #nhl fanfiction #nhl imagines #my hockey fics

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makeste · 5 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 229: The Real Me

Previously on BnHA: Dabi fought a dude who could control ice. For like three pages. Then we cut to my boy Twice, who had located an unconscious Toga (who as you recall had her blood blown up a couple chapters back, so yeah) and was understandably freaking out about how to get her some help. To make a long and somewhat confusing story short, you know that long-haired guy who hacked Giran’s phone? Turns out he has the power to create human puppets or some shit, and he created a bunch of Twice duplicates and sent them to capture the real Twice (who you might also recall has some traumatic history involving clones of himself). Seems they want to use Twice’s quirk to create a backup clone of Re-Destro, just in case history repeats himself and he ends up kicking the bucket like his great-great granddad. Wouldn’t that be sad. Re-Destro getting murdered. Wouldn’t that just be a darn shame. Anyways so let’s see where this leads.

Today on BnHA: The Villain Flashback Arc continues with today’s installment featuring, you guessed it, more villain flashbacks! We learn more about our little buddy Twice who was apparently orphaned as a young teen and subsequently found himself alone in a cold and uncaring world. Honestly you guys, after reading this I’m amazed that he’s still as nice of a guy as he is. Anyway, so he used his quirk to clone himself because he was lonely, and the clones and him engaged in a petty crime spree or two, and then somehow or other it all led to the whole murderfest that fucked up his head so badly. Back in the present, a struggling Jin tries to escape and help Toga, so Skeptic orders his puppets to break Jin’s arms. They do so, but this has a curious side-effect that Skeptic may not have been expecting. Namely, that having that much damage dealt to him makes Twice realize that he definitely is not one of his clones, and is in fact the real deal. This appears to at least temporarily cure his split personality woes, and the chapter ends with him creating about a dozen duplicates to go fuck up the Liberation Army’s day. Hell yes.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, but aside from that there are no changes.)

hey guys, sorry I’ve been inactive all week; I’ve been sick and haven’t really had much energy. I still am sick, but I appear to have reached the stage of exhaustion where I’m all “eh, fuck it, yeah sure whatever” where it’s ironically easy to motivate myself to do stuff because I have no willpower to resist, lol

so anyway. we’re apparently not missing a beat, picking up right where we left off last week with Twice’s mask being pulled off by one of the gorilla puppets

wow and they’re just like. flinging him aside

DON’T FLING MY BOY NO!! AND GET AWAY FROM TOGA

AHHHH

shit, how creepy is that? are they cold because they’re just ~puppets~ and not actually real, living people? what a disturbing touch

now we’re cutting back to Skeptic, who’s giving the puppets orders and addressing them as various letters of the alphabet. how can he tell them the fuck apart

meanwhile Giran’s asking what they’re doing to his pal. ;_; Giran you continue to be the best

and Re-Destro’s forcibly directing his attention elsewhere, but he’s also answering his question, strangely enough

that’s a lot of detail to be giving the guy when you could have just smacked him and told him to shut up. these villains are so confusing

but I guess they’re just telling him all this to taunt him more, because now Skeptic is bragging that he learned about Jin’s psychological disorder from Giran’s client data

hey btw I don’t think I’ve said this yet, but fuck this guy so hard for taking advantage of Twice’s trauma and using it against him. what a shocker, the Meta Liberation Army of dickheads pulls another dickhead move. these guys are so classy

oh my fucking god you guys Giran is getting hotter with each fucking chapter though fffffffff

if you’d told me a month ago that this dude would be nipping at Aizawa and All Might’s heels for the title of BnHA’s most eligible bachelor I would have called you a liar and a thief, yet here we are. good lord

that said, I appreciate that he’s thinking about how hard it’ll be on poor Twice, but they also just said they’d kill Toga as well, so I imagine that part of it would be pretty hard on her too. just saying

SDLFKSDLFHK SPEAKING OF

FUCK ME YOU GUYS I ALMOST LEAPED TO MY FUCKING FEET, WHAT THE FUCK. DON’T TELL ME THEY’RE GOING TO SNAP HER NECK. HOLY SHIT

SOMEONE BETTER SAVE HER OR I’M GOING TO FLY OUT TO JAPAN AND GIVE HORIKOSHI MY STUPID COLD. THAT’LL SHOW THAT BASTARD. HAVE SOME BRONCHITIS YOU PIECE OF SHIT

AND TWICE IS WATCHING ALL PANICKED AND SCREAMING THAT HE’S GOING TO KILL HER

AT FIRST I WAS CONFUSED AND WAS LIKE, DOES HE BLAME HIMSELF FOR GETTING HER IN THIS SITUATION? BUT THEN I REMEMBERED THE CLONES AND THAT YEAH IT’S LITERALLY HIM KILLING HER THOUGH OMGGGGG

AHHH HE’S SO CONFUSED THIS IS SO CONFUSING

I’M TOO SICK TO DEAL WITH TWICE’S EXISTENTIAL CRISIS YOU GUYS, IT’S REALLY FREAKING ME OUT, HELP. THE FUCKING PANELS ARE ALL WOBBLY-LINED AND THEY KEEP ZOOMING IN ON HIS FACE AND SHOWING HIM ALL BUG-EYED SCREAMING “WHO AM I” OVER AND OVER AGAIN OH GOD

OH SHIT!?!?

ACTUAL TWICE FLASHBACKS OH SHIT?! I was not expecting this oh snap. I am so into this

anyway, so he’s thinking -- with surprising coherence -- that because of his rough appearance, people were always afraid of him growing up

but also, what was that part about him not having a family? so he was an orphan then?? Horikoshi you are aware that I already love Twice and am emotionally attached to him, yes? but like if you want to hit me with even more feels and fuck me up some more then be my guest I suppose?

anyway so whoever he’s talking to here says Jin, who is apparently sixteen here, evidently hit some dude with his motorcycle by accident. oh shit

and baby!Jin says the guy jumped out in front of him and he was obeying the speed limit and everything

and the man he’s talking to seems vaguely sympathetic but says that regardless, it’s usually the victim who ends up winning these cases, and that Jin may end up with a criminal record. “but don’t let it get to you.” oh, sure. yeah, let’s just look on the bright side here

he says that no matter how many times you stumble in life, you can always start over

well shit is it any wonder this kid ended up going the villain route and making a bunch of clones of himself to live his best life? I mean jeez, he had absolutely no one on his side and was slapped with a criminal record when he was only sixteen. that shit is rough

oh fuck me and it just keeps getting worse

well that’s nice. so make that homeless with a criminal record, then. jesus christ he was still just a kid

so apparently his parents died in a villain attack when he was in middle school, and he had no relatives. I guess the state didn’t give a fuck either, damn

I find it extraordinarily easy to empathize with, actually! that’s one of the things that makes you such a great character!

so I guess he originally ended up making a clone of himself just because he was lonely. okay wow. not only does Twice continue to be the most likable villain in the series, he’s working his way up there as one of the most likable and relatably human characters, period

look at this shit! he’s just a guy who had a run of bad luck and tried his best to cope with it in whatever ways he could. there’s nothing villainous about him, he was just someone whom nobody wanted. he had his entire future stolen out from under him in the blink of an eye and had nowhere else to turn. he just wanted some friends for fuck’s sake

and so then he and his merry band committed a bunch of petty crimes. but they just needed some cash so they could live! like, all he wanted to do was just chill out and be happy. I got your back Twice. it’s not your fault

and then the flashback just kind of cuts to him tied to the chair in the aftermath of the clone hunger games. so I guess that’s all the backstory we’re getting as far as that goes. ngl I would have really liked to see just a bit more of the lead-up to that specific event. he’s such a nice guy that it’s a bit hard to picture him just suddenly going “RAWR I’M GONNA MURDER ALL Y’ALL.” but what I’m thinking is that all of the tragedy in his past contributed to him forming his violent alter ego personality, and that one of the clones must have just snapped one day and the rest is history

anyway so now we’re cutting to his first meeting with my new boyfriend Giran

ah okay, so he’s scared because if he actually is one of the clones then just a tiny bit of damage would be enough to finally do him in

btw Giran, possibly the one good thing Re-Destro and his buds did was getting rid of that scarf and sunglasses though bud. if you decide to change up your look after all of this, I’m not going to complain. there’s a reason I thought you were just some douchebag this whole time. obviously I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge you, I realize that now of course

but seriously Giran who wears sunglasses at night indoors. I mean, idk, maybe you get migraines or something. but if not I’m just saying

regardless, questionable fashion choices aside, Giran is actually a super nice guy, a mensch if you will, and he is now casually changing Twice’s entire life in the span of a few sentences. awww

how the fuck were you planning on smoking that cigarette while wearing a paper bag over your face. ??

also, Giran on this page kinda reminds me of Sanji, if Sanji was, like, a beatnik about to throw down on open mic poetry night

anyway so that’s the end of our happy flashback, and now we’re back in the present with Twice resuming his freakout!

but in spite of his mental struggles, he’s shaking the puppet clones off and trying to dash toward Toga again omg!

up in his little tower Skeptic seems fairly surprised

in related news, fuck this guy so much. also he’s using one of his puppets as a chair, which is one of the creepiest touches Horikoshi has put in this manga to date. but also they mentioned last week that Skeptic makes the puppets out of any human-sized materials that happen to be lying around, so I kind of wonder if maybe this dude originally was a chair. the mysteries of BnHA

moving on though, yeah, Twice and Toga really do have a strong bond though, don’t they? their chemistry is as beautiful as it is strange

oh shit but they really did hit him though

FUCK YOU F AND G

FFFFF SON OF A BITCH

DLASFKJLKJ PLEASE DON’T YOU FUCKING PSYCHOPATH, I CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU TO FUCKING DIE YOU ASSHOLE!!!

motherfucker! and we just established that he’s afraid that a broken bone will be enough to kill him if it turns out he really is a clone!

-- holy shit, but. on the other hand, if it doesn’t kill him though, that just might be enough to cure him of that particular fear once and for all. oh shit, unexpected plot twist

though in this particular situation it probably won’t make much of a difference how sane he is if he’s still got two broken arms though fuuuuuuuck

anyway... gotta click to the next page... even though I really don’t want to, sob

aaaaaaaand they’ve broken them. well shit. at least it wasn’t graphic. he’s just hunching forward and screaming and his arms are facing the wrong way, fuck

and now Skeptic is all “your legs are next,” and uh, can Twice actually hear him, though?? like, what? did I miss something here? is he piping his voice in through the shed’s convenient sound system or something?

anyway he’s telling Twice not to struggle anymore, and Twice is muttering to himself all darkly about how much that hurt

and apparently Toga’s regained consciousness now!!

wow Skeptic, okay sure, go ahead and keep talking about how you’re about to kill Toga in front of his eyes. just keep on digging yourself deeper. it’s like he doesn’t realize there’s only one page left in the chapter and things are just about reaching a tipping point and our heroes (?! I mean they are, though, for this arc at any rate) have had just about enough of his bullshit

lol I can’t take the tension omg

please do something badass please do something badass please d --

oh snap

Twiiiiiiice ;_; so it’s like I thought. they unexpectedly cured you of your identity crisis angst

anyway I guess this chapter is a longer one than usual because it’s page 15 now and we’re still going! so I will now resume my “please do something badass” chant. c’mon Twice. kick some assssssss

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

THIS TIME I REALLY DID LEAP OUT OF MY CHAIR OMG. BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

LMAO ARE ALL OF THEIR ARMS BROKEN TOO. FUCK IT, IT DOESN’T MATTER. DEKU HAS SPENT APPROXIMATELY HALF THE MANGA WITH BROKEN ARMS AND IT’S NEVER STOPPED HIM*

*forest angst aside. and anyways that all worked out in the end, so

“wounded heroes are the most dangerous.” well fuck. given that we’ve just seen an exhausted and delirious Shigaraki eradicate an entire wave of people, and a bloodied and wounded Toga straight up murder one of the Army’s leaders, I think it’s safe to say we can apply this statement to villains too. and I for one can’t wait how dangerous a wounded -- but now sane -- Twice can be. motherfucker how I am loving this glorious arc

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kaiju-z · 5 years

Photo

Today’s summary is of a One-Shot DM’d by the lovely @langstymclangstface. Go visit their page and give them some love, for they are a talented writer and we had a hellaciously fun time playing this one shot together!

Seon Adventures Episode 20.5: “Crumbling Wax”, a Seon Adventures Halloween One-Shot

(Aka Nelatha’s Coochie Quest. The sequel title no one asked for :eyesemoji:)

It has been. A short while since our heroes have been in the city of Crystalgate, Capitol of the country of Aetorumia.

A costume festival is being held, bright and shining lights illuminating the night time sky above the wandering citizens as they pass by booths and tables of contents, finding entertainment for themselves and their loved ones.

Each and every one has made it their goal to wear a costume as ostentatious as the next, a sort of challenge between each other to see who can be the most in the spirit of the event.

High spirits are in the air, in spite of a problem that has arisen for everyone. Or most of everyone. A sickness has hit a substantial part of the populace and thus, people are using this evening as a gateaway from the bad vibes of their relatives being down for the count.

Some call it the end of the world, but they’re honestly being overdramatic dramatic.

Amongst the walkers of this town, there are four of the five members of the party “The Cultbusters”. Sadly, Belli is at home (I headcanon that Mournimar left Morgan with her, as we didn’t get a description of Morgan’s costume. So the good direwolf is there to be her comfort animal, along with familiar, Orion.) and she is siiiiiick. And thus, she is locked off at home, as are all that have been hit by this flu.

The rest of the party are lucky.

And the rest of the party are dressed up to their heart’s content!

Amelia wears the proud costume of a sea corsair. A daring, romanticized fersion of a pirate, with Archie as her fat little shoulder griffin, a pair of wings strapped to the chunky, hunky kitty’s back, a little beak on his face. He’s living his best life and loves his catmom.

Walking beside her, Nelatha Shadowspire’s joined the group yet again. Accompanying her lady friend Genasi, she is wearing a sexed up version of a Cleric’s uniform. Particularly, that of a Honos cleric. (She is basically a fantasy sexy nurse) And she is confident as hell in that outfit. She makes it work and she knows it.

Flanking them is Mournimar, who, while initially planning some other attire, has opted for the costume of a favored character of his from a classical play. He wears the rags of the infamous drug dealer, tomb raider, bard and poet, the Graverobber. And he is blue screening real bad on account of not being used to such festivities. With Belli on the sick bed, he is but inchest away from touching shoulders with his fellow tiefling.

He, of double disguises. Who, along with the elf baby have dressed up as the characters of Fangface and Fangpuss respectively. They are goofy outfits, but Luctan is having a ball with it, enjoying the cartoonishness of it all and the hilarity that he, someone already in disguise, is wearing a third skin now. And the baby is baby. He don’t care none.

Last, but far, far from least, Malak walks with his new traveling companions, wearing a skeleton costume. A onesie, his face painted up to appear skullish.

Together the five, plus the baby and cat, walk amongst the people as streamers fly overhead. People dance and play and drink to their heart’s content. In a various level of dress.

What catches their attention is that amongst the chaos there’s a man selling candles. A sign upon his booth states the title “The Candle Man”, as their noses are attracted by multitude of scents from these particular ones.

The closer they walk, the musical tunes of The Living Tombstone’s “Spooky Scary Skeletons” hail in repetition, much to the frustration and disguist of Nel, who’s bardic pride feels poked at with the ridicilousness of that tune.

Along the way to the Candle Man’s booth, Malak’s eye stops at a nice old fashioned game of bobbing for apples. His curiosity overtaking him, the human man gives it a go and dunks his head in the water, trying to be as dexterous as he can with his chompers.

He tries his best. Swinging his head left, right, center. Up and down, trying his damnedest to nab one of the apples. But alas, he fails at the task. From the outside perspective, someone has to walk on over to him and pull him out and back, as the Death Cleric looked like he was drowning.

Trying to give it a go himself, Mournimar enters the “battlefield” of fruit and preps to dive headfirst (as you do). Malak is the ever helpful man he is and places a hand on Mournimar’s shoulder for encouragement, casting Guidance on him.

Through a combination of the ranger’s skill in handling items and the Cleric’s holy magic, the tiefling nabs an apple. But not just your regular Granny Smith’s apple! This one is of a golden color.

“Congratulations, you won the grand prise!”

He is the victor of the game and earns himself a bag of candies from the vendor, a kind lady speaking in her best Applecore accent.

“Excellent!” exclaims Mournimar and offers the bag around. But be it because of a distate in sweets or a lack of hunger, he is left to feast on the candies himself. All the more for himself!

As they continue on, they pass by a number of establishments. From new age bars, to meat houses. Bakeries and the like, all theming their foods after the holiday that has been bestowed upon the masses, with skulls and pumpkins and bats and all sorts of crawlies.

Luctan asks around about the sickness. Most people suggest it’s a cold time of year, so it’s normal. There are a couple of people out of town, panicking a bit regarding a pandemic. Performers say they’ve lost a hood half of their act, because of this. Lost their voices and shit.

Mourni’s type of Orc walking around, basically looks him up and down, shakes his head and says they tried, but shit didn’t work

A fire genasi performs a juggling act with flaming knives nearby. Luctan, being the boy, who loves his pointy things that he is, goes for a closer watch of the show. The Genasi man waves at Luctan, between throws and tosses and twirls and spins of the burning blades.

Impressed with the performance, Luctan gives a gold piece and a bunch more Fire Genasi come out, juggling. Despite that they are very excited to perform for him and stuff, they haven’t said a single thing. To Luctan, it appears that they are just very dedicated to their craft. And he appreciates that.

(He loves a man, who can handle a blade. Somewhere Ficus has himbs a sneeze, probably.)

Nel is not amused. Why? Aside from the juggling, her resting witch face is earned from seeing Amelia approach a pet store, where they have cats dressed in little costumes.

And you can pet said cats.

Set up as advertisements and stuff. You can buy treats themed for each cat.

She picks up the quiet mewing of kittens from the back of the room, where people pay to have kittens crawl and paw over them.

While Malak enjoys a variety of Pumpkin Spice Lattés (And there are so MANY Pumpkin Spice Lattés) Amelia goes to the cats. There’s a nice lady holding two fat cats. And she gets to pet some cats. Lennard and Harry. They were married and had a ceremony last week and the kittens are in the back.

Amelia is tearing up. This is the best day of her life.

Good work is being done for these cats. She is warned about a certain cat boi who jumps on people and demands cuddles. Amelia seems to be prepared for this. Heavy is the ribcage that must contain so much love for felines.

Out of nowhere areally fat Scottish fold jumps and descends on her, which causes Nel to scream a loud screm.

In response, The cat looks at Nel and bleps.

This is the happiest day in Amelia’s life.

Cats are available for adoption.

With the cat on her head and the two in her arms, as well as Archie on her shoulders, she is virtually in cat heavan. If this is a dream, don’t let her wake up.

All the while, Malak gets free gingerbread with every latté. (Nel feels like the world’ll collapse around her over all the coffee.)

Eventually, with cats in tow, the party find themselves at the Candle Man’s store.

One very bored teenager fiddling with a candle. He looks like he can’t be bothered. As they get closer to inspect them, each one looks like a person. They seem to be made expertly, made in order of famous people, but they don’t recognize any of them.

Except for one.

Luctan vaguely recognizes one of the figures as the dancer!Zitra! But something seems off about it, like it was done in a hurry. Almost like someone wasn’t used to this, as opposed to the expert.

The young one explains that the candlemaker’s sick, so the kid had to rush ‘em. Luctan buys one of the Lady Zitra and an unknown dude. Then hands the young salesperson a pamphlet and encouraging words. He believes that they can do better!

Curious, Malak wants a candle made of him. But gets the strange explanation that a personal hairstrand is required for the wick. And backs off immediatelly.

Luctan and Mournimar have no idea what this is about. To Nel there seems to be more than he’s letting on. Sinister vibe coming off of him.

She’s noticed he hasn’t’blinked once since they met him, but a few minutes prior.

He’s very cagey about what his general job is, as opposed to the summer job.

It’s mostly, you know, ehm, bar keeping and cleaning.

At the Busty Wench. The one in town.

Nel doesn’t remember a franchise opening here.

On these revelations, the shadyness of the character, if Malak hadn’t changed his mind before, he most certainly had now.

Malak casts Zone of Truth.

The moment he casts the spell, something odd happens. No. Something horrid happens. The ground begins to melt.

All around them? Everyone starts melting as blobs of flesh and clothes and then they realize they’re surrounded by wax, which starts to pull and move towards the stand, which is slowly changing form until they start in front of a vague humanoid figure twice of Mournimar’s height.

Yeah...

The sign is very litteral.

Much to Amelia’s horror, all cats, but Archie, begin to melt. Gordon and Harry and the one on her head crumble and fuse and melt off and down to the ground below. Even the cats were fake.

The wax man has a big as smile. Whatever he is. the party had never heard of it before.

As he says that, he rises into the air and drops down and suddenly everything is melting into wax, white and overpowering scent of burning candle and the floor is disappearing beneath everyone’s feet.

BOGUS!”, to say the least.

Thinking fast, Nel uses Polymorph and changes into a giant eagle and grabs Amelia and Archie to move them to safety. Once in the air, she looks out into the horizon and in a perfect circle? She sees that the city is surrounded by a desert. And slowly-an-and- and melting?!

Malak is noticing that the fire jugglers, who but moments prior were catching and throwing burning blades, were now sleeping and drowning in wax.

He tries to save them, but isn’t strong enough to do a thng about all this.

From what the lot of the ‘busters can gather, apparently the sick people are the real ones. And they are sinking.

Wasting no further time, the rest of the party start climbing.

Arriving at the top, they see that the area they started from? There’s this vast and expanding black hole, going outwards. Up top, Luctan has a vague feeling that something isnt’real here, but there’s so much magic surrounding him, he cant’pinpoint what the illusion is.

All the while Mournimar strategizes with the polymorphed Nelatha.

Malak takes a notice that the hair sticking out of the wax candles is still there and he realizes that the figurines at the stall are left completely in tact.

Luck realizes that some of the people he tried pulling out had wax figurines.

The ones he was shown were selected so he wouldn’t recognize them. It is by mere chance that they had met the Lady herself. And thus, he acts upon a gut feeling. He removes the hairstring and the figurine cracks, before beginning a climb down to the candle booth. To repeat that on a grander level. And Mournimar follows, in spite of Luctan’s protests.

Nel is tasked with carrying the others away.

(And here we have a bit of a 2-3 minute break, because Cat’s mic was off for a good while. Because her kitten, the Little Man/Little Bastard as she calls him had turned it off. It was the funniest thing ever.)

As they part ways, Amelia casts Levitate on Luctan. Yell heah!

As Luck flies, he remembers he left Belli asleep in the Shadowspire Manor, which from his perspective, begins to melt. Cursing under his breath, he takes the figurines with a box and removes the hairs on the way to Belli’s as Mournimar sprints after him.

As they move, Mourni notices Luctan’s in tiefling form. And has a tail?!

The levitation drops eventually and Luctan falls on the ground. As he turns around, he sees he’s been chased by a fellow tiefling, but it’s not someone he recognizes.

Nel turns in her normal form forcibly as they travel and they are surrounded by strangers. Making her 3 point landing, Amelia notices a bird turning into a humanoid form and sadly doesn’t recognize Nel.

Everyone’s... surrounded by strangers.

A figure about Amelia’s height rises from the wax and says “Hello there, don’t be frightened. You’ve been saved.”

Luck see this form as well, but it’s smaller and childlike and feels an eerie sense of calm.

Mournimar, unfortunately, fails on a wisdom save and “ knows everything’ll be alright”.

As he realizes this, his features starts melting off, until Mourni is gone, replaced with a lump of wax.

Seeing all this madness happening around him, Malak casts Protection of Good and Evil and protects himself.

Luck feels Danger as he sees that someone start melting, which causes him to have... the freaks out. It’s this reason why he probably only too late notices he has his tail back?!

Feeling threatened by this wax fhild, Luctan casts Sacred Flame, which burns a hole through the child’s chest. Not falling for whatever niceties the child propheces, the red tiefling burst into a dash towards Belli’s location.

Mournimar is ordered to attack Luctan. And he does so, chasing after him, unsheathing the swords from his hips and attacking. All the while this big lump of wax follows along as the floor seems to start to swallow him.

Luctan gets attacked and the seering pain feels like fire. Looking at the wound inflicted by the possessed Mournimar, he realizes he’s made of wax. Out of anxiety and rage and frustration and pain, he goes on to react with a Hellish Punishment at his attacker and melts Mournimar?!

(BEGONE, TIEF!)

Malak makes an attack, casting Litch Slap on the monstrous child. He hadn’t prepared any combat spells, but at the very least he had this.

Chunks fly and hit Amelia and Nel and reveal wax underneath.

Nel bounces. Not recognizing anyone, she has no reason to be here.

The thing goes after Malak.

Amelia bounces as well.

She takes two steps, before a hand reaches out from the ground and grabs her, squeezing and burning.

With a strength, unmatched and one powerful crushing motion, Amelia’s head pops off. And she poofs out of existence.

Malak attacks with his axe and that has no effect. As Nel runs, tendrils are grabbing at her feet. “Nope-nope-nope-nope-nope.”

One successful tendril grabs and pulls her down.

Nel feels herself being pulled down into the wax and it pours down into the ground. She suffocates and no longer is within this realm of existence.

The tendrils go after Luctan, shifting into vicious spikes, but melt behind him, due to him perpetually casting Prestidigitation, applying sparks in the viscinity aorund him.

.He carries on like this, until the sensation of emptyness under him catches his attention.

And he starts falling.

And falling.

And. While still dressed in the Fangface costume, he tries to concentrate on hsi wings. Figuring he could create them at this point, he does so. Wax versions of his wings shape from his shoulderblades. And for a short moment, he manages to fly up.

Until the wings break apart.

And he starts falling yet again.

As spikes portrude from around him and impale him, taking him out as well.

And then there’s Malak.

“ I’m the last survivor, you guys.”

The kid begins to clap with a wicked smile and congratulates him.

Then we all open our eyes. Peppery Pete stands over us as we wake up.

Basically. What it comes down to, as we catch our bearings and get up, is that Pete explains Belli hired Pete to drug us with some strange drug.

It was whack.

The party are not amused. Nel is confused.

They just stand there. Being menacing.

Malak takes a knee and rests a hand on Pete’s shoulder.

“Look, mistakes happen.”

“ But if you ever do this to us or anyone again, I will personally sever your soul from your body.”

Pete is. To say the least. Terrified from the death glare.

And Amelia basically realizes that Pete is bullshitting them and Belli had nothing to do with this. It was meant to be a team building exercise.

“Yeah, but why am I here, though?!” - Nel’s still confused.

FIN!

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fullcolourcur · 5 years

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Luis Scammer Man Cameraman Diaz

So, I was scammed out of payment on a videography job by a guy named Luis Enrique Diaz Alvarez, trading under the business name “High Structure Studios Ltd” and social media handle @luiscamerman. His business is currently registered to 18 Capel St, Dublin 1, although he doesn’t appear to have his CRO filings at all up to date. I’m gonna keep this as simple and factual as possible because it’s just too long and irritating a saga otherwise.

When this is published I will show it to Luis and I know he will respond by trying to confuse people*, muddy the waters, and obfuscate the whole thing just enough for them to think “oh, I’m not sure what to believe now, I better give him the benefit of the doubt”, and he will try to get off the hook this way. But, nah. He did what he did, I’m gonna tell the truth about it.

(*This is the tactic he will use to try confuse the issue: At a point months after I finished the work for him and after he agreed to pay me, he got angry with my impatient tone when requesting payment and he suddenly decided to claim he didn’t like the quality of the files I produced. Luckily I have very straightforward evidence showing him agreeing payment is due - ZERO complaints about the video quality all along - and acknowledging he delivered to the client - who also paid him.)

So, below is a chronology what happened between us, with links to screenshots of everything, which I highly encourage you to click and see for yourself everything he said. 2018 Apr 26: Luis posted about needing camera operator (own gear) to capture an event for one evening. We messaged on facebook agreeing on €120 for me to film 1 camera with audio just via XLR input from the venue sound desk. In person

early May 2018: After some back and forth for a few days successfully retrieving an original copy of a file that he got a corrupted copy of, I got Luis the files I captured of the event (a theatre performance called ‘Live Collision’ run by a woman named Lynette, who has to her credit been very supportive to me throughout this). Note that surplus to the job specs we agreed, as a bonus I also gave b-cam files and extra audio files I captured on an additional Zoom audio recorder. Turns out he even needed the extra bonus audio I gave - because the XLR desk audio input he actually asked for didn’t suit him or something - and he later got me to help him sync up the audio to some of the video files. No problems.

early May: I first invoice Luis, to his ‘High Structure Studios’ business as instructed by him, via paypal. Here’s a screenshot showing when the original invoice went to him, plus the MANY reminders sent on it since then

May 25: Luis confirmed he got all the files and delivered to the client (Lynette who runs the Live Collision theatre event). May 28: I reply saying “no problem”, “glad it worked, cheers!” and I am naively believing at this point that he’s about to pay me for the job

Let’s pause here to take note that he has no complaints about the ‘quality’ of the videos I captured.

June 6: Luis sends me a link to some random hyperlapse video he’d like me to check out and click ‘Like’ on. Not something you really ask of someone you have no intention of paying for their work, is it?

June 20: I message Luis to ask if he has any update on the payment for this job. I mention the reminder on the invoice I sent him. Luis replies with a voice message saying he’s just waiting to hear back from the client (Live Collision/Lynette) and will update me then. I especially like how in this audio he talks about how annoying it is for him that he didn’t get paid yet after putting in his time (just like I did) working to get the video delivered to the client.

Let’s pause again to take note, again, that he is talking about paying me soon with STILL no complaints about the ‘quality’ of video I captured. I’m told so far I just need to wait a bit and will get paid in full.

June 21: He messages me again to say he’s still waiting on response from the client (the implication being that he isn’t paying me yet)

Jul ~18: We’re in July now. Not April, Not May, Not June. but mid-July. Feel old yet? After a couple more of the exact same polite reminders from me, re-sent invoices, and vague answers from Luis leading me to believe he would pay any day now (saying “a client from a different job is about to pay me so I will send you the money then” etc). He said stuff about having to spend his money on “CRO fees”, and on paying his “accountant”, and is still talking about having not been paid by the Client. I start to realise he might be just leading me on forever with excuses

Pause #3, for recall that he still has no complaint about the video quality and is promising to pay me very soon

Jul ~19: desperate and losing hope, I messaged Live Collision (the client) instagram account to give my contact details and explain the situation, asking if it might be acceptable to break off my relatively tiny portion of the overall fee and get this paid to me, since I had delivered on the job.

then, Lynette from Live Collision actually called me back and explained she had DEFINITELY already paid Luis for this particular job, and anything he was claiming about not being paid yet could only relate to a totally different event that happened earlier in April and had nothing to do with me. She was very helpful, I thanked her for getting back to me, apologised for having to bother her, and she wished me luck in getting my payment from Luis sorted. Totally hassle-free communication, huge credit to Lynette for being so supportive and nice.

Jul ~19: hugely frustrated because of finding out Luis was lying, I messaged him to say that the client told me the truth and if things drag on until August, I will go public and talk to others about what he’s done, and expect this to cost him business to the tune of at least the amount of money he owes, if not much more. Luis responded with a few different reactions at this point. There’s the audio message of him telling me to go fuck myself and calling my behaviour stupid. There’s the whatsapp messages of him saying he didn’t “want” to give me the job in the first place, and claiming he “knows stories” about me. There’s the whatsapp msg of him saying “until I get paid no one else gets paid [...] that’s how the business goes”. Note that it’s this point, clearly angry and hoping to insult me, he first tries to say he didn’t like the quality of video I captured. In any case, he ends by saying he’ll get back to me once he’s got the funds.

Aug ~15: after Luis posts a similar gig, in the facebook group “Film Network Ireland, looking for a “paid” Camera operator to work for him, he gets into a disagreement with another facebook user who then makes a post warning everyone about dealing with Luis. On this post I add my own comments, in a very factual and straightforward style, stating what happened to me with Luis so far. Luis eventually comes on commenting criticism at both of us and gets a friend of his who admins the facebook group to delete all evidence of these arguments against him. Luis later refers to my facebook comments as “rants”.

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funkymbtifiction · 6 years

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Yet Another Typing Request!

Hey there, Charity! It’s me, the gal that beat any prospect of getting peace from these requests to death with a baseball bat. Also, congratulations on getting somewhat of a template for these questions! It’s probably way easier to do these things now that these type questions exist. Probably feels pretty great.

Now, I’ve been tossing these ideas about for quite a while; I can never fix on the one that seems the most accurate; according to both internal and external opinion, I’m pretty sure that Se is up there somewhere. At first, I wondered if it was Ne, but I’ll get to that. It’s the other axes that I can’t seem to hack; the feeling/thinking axis and which one, you know? The four that seem to fit most are either ISTP, ISFP, ESTP, or ESFP. Maybe ENFP or ENTP, which I’m throwing in there for the Ne thing I mentioned earlier, but those two are unlikely. Those four are likely, but it may not be those at all, you get it. So pretty please type this if you can, and I’ll greatly appreciate you using your time in my assistance!

Extrovert / Introvert Questions:

After external stimulation, do you prefer to engage again immediately or to withdraw and reflect over your experience before engaging again?

What’s there to reflect, I’ve often imagined. I know what I would reflect in a theoretical scenario where I did that, but thinking tends to take the fun out of it. If it’s boring stuff that I don’t want to deal with, then the withdrawing can come, but I’ve made quite a few friends bonding through boring and/or terrible activities. That being said, it’s kind of like warming something up; if I’m already withdrawn, I can get comfortable in my solitude and take a while to get going again, but if I’m already out then I can keep going practically forever I just have to keep going. I do have a really low threshold for boredom, though; I need to be doing something even if I’m doing nothing, you know?

How fast can you switch from one thought to another?

Again, this depends on what I’m engaged in; if it’s something that’m invested in, my mind can function like a Tesla coil in a Frankenstein movie, just constantly going in loads of different directions, and not many people can keep up with what I come out with. If it’s something I’m bored with, I prefer to just find something to do and do it so I don’t have to entertain the boring thoughts.

How often do you change things about your life (decisions, careers, relationships, environments, interests) and how much does this motivate you?

The idea of new, exciting things all of the time motivate me pretty well; that’s kind of been a recurring pattern in my life, given that it’s often the newness of things that catch my eye. I’ve never done it before, and that’s intriguing, and I want see how it goes; got into a really good university and left after not long, because it wasn’t what I wanted any more, kind of jumped from job to job a bit, but I liked playing it by ear like that. I love the job I have now, because I don’t have to stare at the same four walls forever. I do have things like favourite movies, favourite foods, family traditions that I get hate I can’t uphold if something happens to impede them. Things tend to have to be particularly significant in my life for me to cherish them like that; same favourite movie since I turned 13, in spite of everything I’ve said so far.

Bolded = Se-dom.

Thinking / Feeling Axis Questions:

How strong is your personal understanding of your feelings? How often do your emotions guide you? When do they tend to appear and how do they manifest?

I have a very complicated relationship with my feelings; I’ll often feel something in the moment, but it’ll be somewhat murky. Like, I’ll know that I’m feeling something, but I don’t really know what it is at the time. Not sure if that’s high Fi or low Fe.

Yes, it’s high Fi.

I wear emotions on my sleeve to a certain extent; I like people liking me and thinking I’m cool or clever, but it’s not something that I particularly pursue. I still do stuff purely so I can gain social approval, but that’s more because I’m a natural showwoman than because I feel anxious without it; I’m somebody that can wear the stupidest clothes in public because I like them or probably ironically, even though I know objectively that they’re really weird. The fact that I like them is enough for me, even if people decide to mock me for them, which I’ve found they don’t really do if you rock it with enough confidence.

Are you more concerned with self-opinion or external praise? How much does either one factor into your personal and professional decisions?

Touched on this a bit in the answer above, but it can be a mixture of the two; my default is to be likeable and charming because that tends to make it easier for me down the line; if people like you, life becomes easier, even though external praise is always subjective and it never conforms to my standards of acceptability because they’re not me, it makes it easier in life nonetheless.

Fi + Te thinking.

I find it quite hard to connect with people on a genuine level in this manner, though, probably because I’m not fantastic with confronting my feelings in a straightforward manner. But in both personal and professional decisions, I tend to just duck out whenever I have to do something that I really disagree with; I’m quite easy-going for the most part and I tend to put the needs and wants of my family and friends before my own pretty much every time because that’s the kind of person I want to be, but in one of my jobs, my boss tried to make me do something that I really didn’t agree with, so I just noped out of there without a word. Again, I’m a natural showwoman that likes attention and praise as much as the next girl, but then again I’d never knowingly make somebody do something they didn’t want to do to appease me, so I don’t like it happening to me, and quite a few of the familial and friend problems have come about when they didn’t tell me that they were uncomfortable with something, which means that I can never remember the event with the same happy feelings.

Fi.

How easy is it for you to verbally articulate your feelings to others?

Feelings, I can articulate pretty easily. My feelings are pretty much constantly under wraps unless I’m thinking it’s a good idea to show them. I mean, for the most part I don’t know what I’m feeling until I’ve had time to mull it over. More problems in life come from other people asking me to talk to them and my default response is always to just dig my heels in so deep you can’t even see them anymore. I don’t like people prying; if I thought it was okay for them to hear what I was feeling, I’d tell them. I’m that girl that talks all the time, but in an argument, I just sit there with a stone face and say literally nothing until you’re done, then I get up and leave. Because I know I’m feeling something, but I don’t know what, and I feel it bursting in my chest to come out but it can’t leave the tip of my tongue.

Fi.

Describe a situation where you had to problem solve and your thought process in doing so. It can be anything provided you describe what you did and why.

Well, the example that comes to mind quickest is when I was working in one of my jobs, and the manager was out and there were six of us left. We were all the same rank and of a similar age, so there was no illusion of superiority, and he was pissed because inspections were coming around and we were all relatively inexperienced. Long story, while he was out, I pretty much marshalled everybody into getting their jobs done like a sheepherder; assigned each guy/gal to a different section of the store to get whatever jobs that needed doing done, and then told them all to switch after an hour so they didn’t get too bored and stopped working. I was just as surprised as everybody else that I could get it done so easily and I had an image in my head of a mother suddenly lifting a car out of necessity, but it helped all of us in the long run. I mean, in my head, it was pretty simple; he’d be back in two hours, so if each of us worked a section of the store and worked jobs until he got back, the inspection would go well, meaning that he’d be happy with us, meaning that he’d be more lenient, meaning that we wouldn’t dislike our jobs as much. Bosses are simple creatures; do your jobs well, and you’ll get rewarded. At first, I tried saying something along the lines of “think about how stressed he must be”, and when that didn’t work, I pretty much slammed all of them down with cold, hard facts; he comes back and the store isn’t tidied and organised, not only will he be pissed but the inspection will go terribly, meaning that you’ll all be out of a job and eating Pot Noodles in your mother’s basement because you can’t pay for a place of your own until she finally kicks you out and you spend the night crying in a homeless shelter. Felt like it was really harsh at the time and internally I was screaming at myself and wondering if I accidentally went overboard, but it worked. He ended up buying all of us pizza every Tuesday as thanks for the inspection going great. I was never the ‘fun’ one after that, but I’ll take that any day.

Good tert-Te.

Intuition-Based Questions: *

Do you find it easier to describe things in vague or detailed terms? Can you describe the intuitive connections you see in the world in easily-understood terms for others to understand or struggle to put them into words?

For the most part, it’s pretty easy for me to hone into the details of something; I’m very good at scrutinising things, and I’ve gained something of a reputation for noting things that everybody else missed. I’m not necessarily quick to put the pieces together, though; if something doesn’t make concrete sense, it takes me a while to articulate it in an appropriate manner and not just a half-assed analogy. I can do it if I have to, but I prefer to engage with the world around me to get my point across, because for me, intuiting things needlessly both takes too long and there’s a margin of error for if it even makes sense. I could make five things make sense to somebody else before I make one thing make sense to somebody else if I try to do it in abstract language, in a sense.

Se-dom / Ni inferior.

How much of your natural focus is on a singular vision of the future?

I have a vision for my life where I’m happy with what I have in life; when I won’t need to chase everything because it’s shiny and new, and I’ll be content sitting down and going to work and staying with one person, etc. That’s been stewing in my mind every my entire life, but it seems very…distant, in a sense. The idea itself seems very idealistic, and not something I can see myself reaching in a clear-cut path, so I do things that make me happy, and I feel like I get closer and closer, but also kind of like I’m grasping in the dark a bit. But to answer your question, quite a bit; it’s always been that, and I’ve never really entertained anything else, because why would I if I know it’s what I want? I might want something else more, but I’m not interested in something else if this is what I want; if I wanted something else, I would have chosen something else.

Se wading through murkiness to reach a vague inferior Ni abstraction.

How often do you abandon projects midway through and why? How long have you stuck with certain interests and why do you value them?

I lose interest in things almost as quickly as the interest develops in the first place, which means that I either abandon it or I switch it up to keep it interesting for me.

Se-dom.

There’s still a ton of interests that I still love even now after a while, but those are the ones I particularly like, and I tend to stick with things that I’ve liked for a while because those are the things that I tend to define myself by, in a sense; if I do something enough, then that’s because there’s either repeated stimulation to keep me there or it’s a staple that’s somehow been imbued with feels and meaning that I can’t shake. I focus on the now, so that thing’s got to be impactful as all hell to take such a place for me.

Do you place too much faith, or not enough, in your own hunches? Are they specific or prone to changing with more information?

I get flashes of hunches and they turn out to be accurate, but that’s when I can decipher them; most of the time they’re just generalisations, like 'don’t trust this person’ or 'that seems suspicious’ or 'that person isn’t the killer’. It’s never more than that, which means that I’m left with something that I can’t really use, but I tend to keep it in my mind until it’s proven wrong by outward evidence.

Inferior Ni.

Do you find it easier to be active in the world or contemplative about the world?

It’s all well and good to think about things, but impacting the physical world is the only way you’ll ever see that change in reality rather than in your dreams. You can be theoretical all you want, but actual stuff always feels more real and impacts the world. That’s my knee-jerk response; my sister tends to live inside her own head, but she never does anything about it. I mean, I get why if she doesn’t want the world to mess up her vision, but there’ll be no vision in the first place if you don’t get stuck-in.

Se/Te.

What happens to you more often: you become fixated and unable to change your direction or you cannot choose between possibilities?

I’m very good at remaining spontaneous, but I’m hardly ever frozen because I can’t make a choice; I can feel the gears in my head turning when I need to make a decision, but any decision is better than no decision, so I just choose one and roll with it even if it may not be the best. With that in mind, I can get very fixated when I’m under pressure; I feel like I have to stay on this path, because if I switch then all of my progress is lost and I won’t finish in time. I realise in a kind of detached way that making progress in the wrong direction is just as bad as making no progress in any direction, but that doesn’t really register; I have to have at least something to show for it, so then at least it’ll be somewhat worth it.

Inferior Ni, under Se-dom control (back to ACTION).

Can you take someone else’s idea and expand it without needing down time, or do you prefer subconscious mulling over an idea before you accept it?

I do often need to give it some time, because if I don’t give ideas time, then they’re paper-thin. And you can’t work for long with paper-thin until it becomes something entirely different and subsequently useless.

Sensor, haha.

Do you take a methodical approach or mostly ‘wing’ it?

Bitch, I am the queen of winging things, even though I do try to be methodical in areas that I’m really unsure about. For the most part, though, I’m a brilliant improviser, so I tend to leap in under the assumption that I can handle whatever’s thrown at me, because I usually can. Plus, winging things is more stress-inducing, which can be fun when done correctly; just have to find the balance between excitement at handling something on the fly and realising that you’re in over your head.

Se-dom.

When approaching a new situation in which you have no experience, what do you do? (Leap in and assume you can handle it, or try and relate it to a former experience as a guideline?)

I believe I touched on that pretty well in the above answer. No scenario is the same as previous scenarios even though they look really similar; if one thing is different then the entire methodology would be flawed, so it’s best to just handle things as you go so the solution is tailored to that exact problem.

Se-dom.

How confident are you in being sensory-aware and attentive to the environment? Can you describe a situation in which you did both? Is it often?

Pretty confident; I do it all the time. I like to exercise, do different sports (both regular and extreme, if I can), etc. If I’m not tuned in, like in the car or in a cafe or something, the moment can pass really easily, so I have to get on it quickly before the moment passes. I tend to notice everything and everyone around me, and I usually have my finger on the pulse a lot of the time; for example, when I’m in a park, I’m aware of a lot of things even while talking; the person next to me, how the clothes feel on my skin, the sound of the wind whistling, the people walking by, etc., and it just pops into my head automatically, even though I can still do things like accidentally touch a hot kettle and burn myself like an idiot.

Se-dom.

* Find Ne/Ni and Si/Se automatically become more apparent.

Inferior Function Questions:

What behaviors manifest under stress and what triggers them? (Can you describe how you behave under stress or when you were at your worst?)

When I’m stressed, I tend to steamroll over everybody else at the slightest provocation even though I think I’m being quite reasonable, and if I’m not, it’s their problem. I start to spin my wheels, thinking there must be something I can do to resolve my situation, and when I think of the first solution that pops into my head, I carry it through even though everybody else is telling me that it’s a bad idea only to be met with fire, because it’s a solution, and that’s all I need, and I don’t get why you’re trying to stop me from stopping myself being sad! Why do you want me to be sad?! And then it escalates from there, and it’s a whole thing.

What areas in which do you ‘lose control’ or act different from yourself when upset, pressured for time, and forced to take immediate action?

I tend to cut everybody with my desire for everything to shut up and help me resolve the situation, and if people don’t stop their protests and help me however I ask that very second, my brain goes into overdrive thinking about how my life is ruined and how nobody was really there for me after all at crunch time, when in reality I’m just metaphorically screaming with my fingers in my ears so I can’t hear them. I also become very aware that being opportunistic won’t help, because if I don’t have a direction to head towards that’s absolutely perfect and flawless, then I’m 100% doomed.

What is something that nags at you every day, as if you feel you should be ‘better’ at this than you are?

I often want to be better at organising my life; I’ve loved the life I’ve had so far, but I often wonder what it would be like if it wasn’t very touch and go, leaving most of the boring stuff to other people. I often wonder how far along I’d be to that vision of mine if I’d given the time to flesh it out while I could.

Low Te / Ni.

What have others said about or admired in you and complained about?

Apparently, I’m a singularly exciting person that tends to motivate people into doing more things by example alone, and my unending compassion and understanding when they’re going through something that nobody else can understand. Those same people tend to hate the fact that I don’t look where I’m going in anything, though, and the fact that I only corral myself when it’s crunch time and never when it would actually help in reality, as well as the fact that there’s been multiple times when they’ve found out that I’ve been suffering in silence for years without just telling them.

What do you admire most in other people?

Strength in the face of adversity, more than anything else; people that can weather the tide whether on their own or with the support of anybody they choose. It’s easy to give up, and I like people who don’t.

ESFP. Possibly an Enneagram 7 or 7w8.

- ENFP Mod

#question #mbti #esfp #submission #type me

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dansphlevels · 6 years

Note

Could you do a fix where one of them goes the dentist please? You're an amazing writer.

This ask freaking haunted me. I can not tell you how many times my family or friends asked me what was wrong and I sobbed out “how am I supposed to write a story about them going to the DENTIST? What spin can I put on this? How has my life come to this?”

(Don’t let that keep you from ever sending in asks tho. I will write whatever stories you request, no matter how vague/detailed the prompt is. A little bit of challenge/emotional turmoil is necessary for the creative process.)

Words Aren’t Always Needed

Day 6 of 12 Days Of Prompts

Length: 2.5k

Summary: After a bad reaction to painkillers administered by his dentist, Dan loses the ability to speak for a few days. Which wouldn’t be that big of a deal if they didn’t have plans, including an important business meeting and going to the Star Wars premiere.

Or, the one where Dan loses his voice and Phil has to interpret for him like an extended, inappropriately timed game of charades.

TW: For light (but semi-frequent) cussing

Dan certainly had his peculiarities. One of which being that he actually enjoyed going to the dentist.

Well, most of the time.

Daniel Howell, as in danisnotonfire from YouTube, as in ‘Dan and Phil’ Dan, was slightly different than many people due to his high tolerance for pain. This meant that he didn’t mind small bumps or bruising and that he seldom took painkillers unless they were really needed. It also meant that going to the dentist every six months wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable an experience as it was for others. Dan always left with his teeth feeling fresh and clean. What was the harm?

That was on a normal trip to the dentist, however.

This specific trip to the dentist was supposed to be no different. Dan would go, the dentist would poke around for a while, there’d be a little scrapey scrapey, then Dan would get a free toothbrush and be sent on his way. And Dan was an absolute slut for free toothbrushes. But instead, he found himself reclined in the dentist’s chair as the man towered over him, tapping the side of a needle with his knuckle. “This will make you go numb for the procedure. When the medicine wears off, your voice might still be slurred for a few hours, but should recover relatively quickly.”

The dentist lied. Because after the ‘relatively quick procedure’ was over, Dan’s voice wasn’t slurred, it was gone. When the dentist asked him to say something, all that came out was a squeak.

The dentist frowned. “That’s not right.”

No fucking shit, Dan thought, trying to avoid glaring at the doctor as he inspected his mouth and throat to see what the issue was. Fifteen minutes later, and Dan was sent out the door with the explanation of 'the numbing medicine seems to have had a small unexpected side effect. While uncommon, this has happened before, and your voice should likely return within the next few days.’

And, to top it all off, they were out of free toothbrushes.

So Dan was left with no voice, the lower half of his face still numb, and a goody bag with only floss in it. Floss.

Dan managed to get in a cab and hand him his phone with his address typed into it- his phone was on 7% battery, because God absolutely hated him- and was sent on his way. He was already almost home when he remembered to text Phil, and let him know what had happened.

To Phil: The dentist was horrible. He screwed up the numbing solution and now I’ve lost my voice for the next few days.

To Dan: Aww, I know how excited you were to goI’m sorry the dentist didn’t fulfill all of your scrapey dreams But you lost your voice? What about the event tomorrow?

And that’s how Dan ended up sitting in the backseat of a cab, banging his head against the window, because Fuck, they had plans tomorrow and how was Dan supposed to do anything when he couldn’t even speak?

—-

Phil was waiting for him when he got home.

He laughed when he saw Dan. “Is your face still numb? You look a little, um…” he didn’t need to finish his sentence.

Dan managed his best seriously, Phil expression and flicked his friend the middle finger before heading to his room to charge his phone.

That night was Phil’s turn to make dinner, which was good because otherwise they weren’t going to fucking eat, were they? Unfortunately, by then the painkillers had completely worn off and Dan’s jaw hurt to move too much, so he was unable to eat the fajitas. Finally, taking sympathy on him, Phil stopped making fun of him for thirty seconds so he could get Dan some applesauce.

“The shoes I ordered came in!“ Phil said when Dan was settled in with his applesauce and spoon. All of their normal spoons were dirty, so Phil had given him a decorative tea spoon that someone had given him. It was about half the size of a normal spoon and made Dan want to crawl under his duvet and never come out.

Still, Dan managed to give Phil a mildly interested look. Okay, that was a lie. But he did manage to not scowl at him, which was an improvement.

"They’re really cool Dan, they’re gold and like, scaly-” he giggled at Dan’s expression. “And shiny. Really shiny. Actually, they’re not gold, they’re more of a yellowish, copperish, I’m just going to keep talking because it’s not like you can interrupt me, and they fit really well…”

Dan set his tiny spoon on the table and picked up the cup of applesauce, bringing it to his face and trying to down it like a shot. Instead, a single glob fell out and went down the wrong pipe, resulting in Dan almost choking to death which would have been just awful, really, he wouldn’t accept the warm embrace of death at all on a day like this.

Dan was done with his applesauce after that. In fact, he decided then that he was done with that day in its entirety, and with a small salute to Phil, Dan headed off to his room to scroll on the Tumbs for a while and try to forget the day he’d had.

—-

The next day, Dan woke up and had almost forgotten about his loss of voice.

He went about his morning routine as always, scrolling on Tumblr for a while before getting up and making himself get ready for the day. His face was back to normal, which was good. Dan put on some of his nice-ish clothes and went to grab breakfast.

"Hey Dan, is your voice better?“ Phil asked when he saw him.

And Dan. Dan actually yipped. A full blown, injured puppy yip. And Phil gave him this look, like he was wondering if Dan had just been possessed or if he’d stepped on the LEGO Phil figurine again (which happened far more often than you would think, seeing as Dan’s LEGO figurine never fell off their whiteboard. Dan believed there was a conspiracy.)

Dan tried to explain himself, but all that came out was a squeak.

"I guess that’s a no,�� Phil reasoned. “How are we supposed to even go to the things today? Should you just stay home?”

Dan shrugged, looking at Phil pointedly, like you should be able to figure this out because I don’t know.

Phil scratched the back of his head. “Well… you might as well come? I mean, you’re going to the Star Wars thing anyways-” Dan nodded vigorously “-so it’d probably be offensive if you skipped the meetings.”

Dan sighed, which he was still able to do just fine. He nodded and went to get his shoes, pouting all the way.

—-

In the car on the way to their meetings, Dan and Phil texted each other back and forth, even though they were sitting right next to each other.

They got to the official-looking office building and Dan climbed out of the cab as Phil paid for them. They walked in together, with Phil taking the lead slightly and Dan trailing behind, his hands stuffed in his jacket and his eyes on the floor. It was strange how the loss of his voice seemed to affect the rest of him; no one was trying to take to him, yet he still felt as though he wasn’t able to communicate properly.

They got to the queue. A chirpy seeming receptionist (who’d probably been there since five that morning and drunken her entire body weight in coffee) greeted them, letting Phil in with a chirpy “Floor 5!” But when Dan tried to follow, the turn dial didn’t let him through. “Sorry, I don’t think there’s anyone else authorized to go upstairs? If you’d like to take a seat, I can check.”

At this point, Dan had absolutely mastered his 'I’m so fucking done’ face, which he proceeded to show the receptionist.

And Phil hadn’t noticed. He’d kept walking along, turning a corner and was out of sight, and Dan couldn’t fucking yell to get his attention, because, well, he couldn’t fucking speak.

Dan aggressively gestured and pointed for the next thirty seconds before Phil came back, looking a little embarrassed. “Um, sorry. He’s with me.”

Damn fucking right I am, Dan thought as the receptionist apologized and let him through. He was still glaring as they started walking away.

"Sorry about that,“ Phil admitted sheepishly.

And Dan was so done with not being able to speak that he actually stopped walking, pulling Phil to a halt with him, and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him so close that Dan’s lips were almost touching his ear, and Dan managed to whisper in the quietest, raspiest voice imaginable, "Lit-rally fuck everything.”

Phil giggled, made a bad innuendo, etc etc. Dan smacked him on the arm. And they kept walking.

The meeting was, surprisingly, not as miserable as Dan expected. They came in and shook hands with everyone, Phil explaining that Dan couldn’t speak while Dan tried to smile instead of grimace. Then they got down to business.

This particular meeting had to do with new mercy that was to be released. It involved a lot of technical stuff, which, depending on the topic, Phil was either very good at or completely oblivious to. He and Dan usually split up the duties of remembering important things.

"We need to approve the styles of shirts as well. Did you have some in mind?“

Phil looked to Dan. "Um…”

Dan gestured like go on, you should know this. Phil just widened his eyes, to which Dan rolled his eyes in response. He gestured at his arms, tapping his wrist.

"A watch?“

Dan pinched the air above his wrist as if tugging at invisible cloth.

"Oh, long sleeves. And…”

Dan tapped on his shoulder, right where the cut off of short sleeves would be.

"And short sleeves.“

"What style of short sleeves?” One of the official looking business people asked.

Dan cupped the air under his chest, as if pushing up invisible boobs.

"Girl ones,“ Phil translated. "Like… you know those tighter fitting shirts that girls sometimes wear?”

"You mean a fitted T-shirt?“ One of the people supplied.

Dan nodded. "Yes!” Phil said. “And…”

Dan flexed his arms like a bodybuilder.

"Muscle shirts?“

He shook his head, pointing under the table to his crotch.

Phil looked a little uncomfortable. "Dan, I don’t think that’s exactly appropriate…”

Dan huffed. Finally, he reached over under the table and pulled Phil’s jacket up a little, grabbing onto the edge of his T-shirt.

"And normal T-shirts,“ Phil supplied. "Um… unisex ones.”

Dan nodded, giving him both thumbs up.

—-

Phil adjusted his bow tie in the mirror. There was a knock on his bedroom door, and he walked over quickly, opening it to reveal a suave looking Dan decked out in a completely white suit with a black dress shirt underneath. Dan leaned against the door, biting his lip, showing off his ensemble for Phil to admire.

"You look very dashing,“ Phil agreed, because though Dan hadn’t said anything aloud, his feelings towards the outfit were made clear with the prideful glint in his eyes.

Dan nodded in a you too. He stepped forwards, admiring Phil’s golden shoes.

"Pretty snazzy, right? I kind of based the whole outfit around them.” Phil tugged at his lapels, which were patterned with golden swirls. The rest of his suit was a formal black, save for a white dress shirt underneath.

Dan nodded in agreement, moving closer and adjusting Phil’s bow tie for him wordlessly. Phil had been wearing them for longer, but Dan had more of an eye for detail.

Wordlessly, they grabbed their phones and wallets and headed out front, Phil stepping into the road and catching the attention of a cabbie almost immediately. He stopped, and Phil climbed in, followed closely by Dan. They sat so close their legs touched without thinking. That’s just how they were comfortable.

It took a long time to get to the Royal Albert Hall where the premiere was being shown, mostly due to traffic. It was a big event, and if you weren’t going as a guest, you were going as press. Then, when they finally got there, they had to wait in line for ages just to get in, as everyone had to have their bags searched, because the princes were there, screeeeee!

"We could play i-spy!“ Phil suggested in excitement. Dan tried to let him down easily, gesturing at his throat like um, how? Then, when Phil insisted they try and make it work, they tried, and it didn’t work.

Dan pointed at himself, gesturing that he’d go instead, and Phil could guess. He scanned the room, his eyes locking on a hideous white dress shirt with polka dots on it. He nodded, pointing at his white jacket.

"It’s white,” Phil translated. Dan nodded in agreement, and Phil scanned the area.

"Those shoes that lady is wearing-“

Dan shook his head.

"That man’s white shirt.”

Dan saw where he was pointing, and shook his head again, smiling a little smugly.

"Is it one of the stormtroopers?“

Dan widened his eyes, peering over the heads of people to where Phil was pointing. He squeeeeed in excitement, one of the only noises he could still make, ignoring the looks he was sent.

"You have to take a picture with them!” Phil encouraged.

Dan gave him his trademarked 'duh’ expression, though this time, it came with a genuine smile. He puffed out his jacket a little, like you think I wore this for any other reason?

———-

They got the picture with the Storm Troopers, even though in order to do that they had to pose for the press, which both of them tried to avoid as much as possible. It was still sort of funny to think that people were actually interested in pictures of them, but Dan sort of doubted anyone in the press actually knew who they were. They just knew they were snazzy looking guests and that they must be important enough to have been invited to the event, so they didn’t question it.

Then, finally, they got to see the movie. And almost the whole time, they whispered back and forth, Dan’s whisper even quieter than Phil’s, but he still understood it. They’d been best friends for long enough that sometimes, words weren’t completely necessary. They could interpret each other’s expressions and general excitement almost as easily as they could interpret each other’s words.

12 Days Of Prompts Masterlist / Fic Masterlist / Request A Fic

#12 days of prompts #dansPHlevels #fanfic #fanfiction #phanfic #phanfiction #phan #prompt #prompts

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bakechochin · 7 years

Text

Book Reviews - The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies

The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies - Martin Millar - Ever since I started uni and set off on the path of becoming a verified smart boy, I’ve been a lot more interested in the stuff that surrounds and inspires the literature I read; I learnt about Poe’s life story just as I was reading Newman’s short story ‘Just Like Eddy’, I learnt about early drama patronage and morality plays having already developed an interest in such things from Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicle and Lynch’s The Republic of Thieves respectively, and the week I was learning about Russian fairy tales was the week I learnt about Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale -> With this in mind, I thought I’d try to find some fantasy literature that took inspiration from shit that I was already interested in, and lo and behold I happened to stumble across a book that promised me bawdy comedy set in Ancient Greece, so I was dead set on reading it - This is a pretty bloody cool setting; when I think of Athens and ancient Greece I can’t help but think of big grandiose affairs with gods and divine entities, so it’s great to see a story from the perspective of the common grubby man going about his business, buying street food and getting gattered and watching plays with excessive dick jokes -> That’s not to say that there aren’t gods and divine entities running about, because what would be the point of setting the story in ancient Greece otherwise, but it’s all integrated relatively well into the overall society, and set against the backdrop of the wild Dionysia festival, it allows for great potential for the intermingling of the divine and the mortals and all in all makes for a great setting and premise for the story to unfold - I am a big fan of early drama with excessive ribald humour (everyone go and read Mankind and/or Gammer Gurton’s Needle immediately), and all the stuff involving Aristophanes’ Old Comedy play was a great fucking laugh that has since inspired me to read more into similar work - The real-life setting allows for some pretty funny and clever references to real-life events, with the author’s own spin on it to tie everything together in a way that elicited a few smiles out of me - The ending, whilst incredibly simple, was nonetheless gratifying and really quite heartwarming in that lovely idyllic low-effort ‘everyone gets what they want’ way; the whole book can probably be summarised by this ending, in that all in all it is an inoffensive enough read - Something that I will be infinitely grateful for is this book’s glossary of ancient Greek terms; I’ve bitched about this in the past with books like The Incorruptibles and London Falling (both books constantly utilising specialised or setting-appropriate terminology and jargon), and so I’m glad that this book doesn’t expect me to know what a hetairai or a choregos is (though I am now glad to know what said words mean, because they’re pretty cool words) - Though I tried to read the story within a comedy tale framework, I can’t help feeling that the characters and setting often seem a little bit too grim for this to be accurate -> From the blurb I’d pegged Aristophanes as a baffled defeatist trying and failing to keep his theatrical production going and Luxos as a vain idiot with an inflated sense of self worth, which could have been played up for a comedy vibe, but instead Aristophanes is surly and angry at everything and everyone around him, and emphasis is put on Luxos’ shitty living circumstances and the injustices he faces, and all in all the book just seems to have missed an opportunity for a fun story -> Similarly, a setting on the brink of war with gods and nymphs running about could lead to some fun stuff, or at least some vaguely humorous satire, but everything is played completely straight, and even the additions to the story that could have resulted in wacky mishaps (like the divine figure Late having the power to make people make dumb shitty decisions) are played totally seriously and with grave consequences - This is a short book, exactly one hundred and eighty pages, but the story’s scale far exceeds what it could possibly accomplish in so few pages, and so of course the storyline, not having room for any clever twists, is very very predictable - Whilst there were a few lines in this book that managed to elicit a slight chuckle in me, for the most part the comedy in this book seems forced and ends up falling flat, and rarely goes beyond the most basic stuff possible (y’know, stuff along the lines of ‘this character is kooky and air-headed and this character is blunt and hates fun, let’s put them together and see what wacky conversations they have!’) - There are a shit load of characters in this book, simply because what could probably have been accomplished by one person is, in this book, facilitated and carried out by a shit load, and as such there are a lot of generally unnecessary side characters with difficult to remember names who get their own little bit of exposition and sometimes never even appear again -> On top of this, because there are always new characters being introduced who do like one thing before the book moves on to someone else doing something completely different, the book does seem quite fragmented and could be a bit arduous to read with its lack of flow - 5.5/10

I have a load of other book reviews on my blog, check that shit out.

#book reviews #the goddess of buttercups and daisies #martin millar #aristophanes #old comedy #not that i want to be pedantic or anything but this book sets up lysistrata as aristophane's next big play #when technically lysistrata came ten years after peace #let us quickly go over my favourite examples of quality banter in early drama #anything the vices do or say in mankind (including when new-guise gets smacked in the bollocks with a spade)#the bit in wit and science when wit gets brutally murdered by tediousnessness #and then immediately tries chatting up the lass who resurrects him #that bit in galatea when the gods refuse to accept hebe as a sacrifice because she's too ugly #the numerous synonyms for a slag and following drag queen fight in gammer gurton's needle #riot's appearance in the interlude of youth straight from the gallows #oh and what was that liturgical drama where noah's wife is being a bitch and refuses to get on the ark so noah fuckin wrestles her

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fentonizer · 7 years

Text

Zero Value

“You should do some more writing” my girlfriend said to me in what may just be a narrative framing device.

I have always dabbled in writing, and people have always been polite enough to tell me the things that they’ve read that I wrote have been good.

Truth is, of late I have been in a funk. “Funk” being an offhand and slang way of distancing the problem that is no doubt a depressive disorder. Low mood is the symptom, as as far as symptoms go, it sounds benign. Everything is grey a lot of the time, and I do not know where the colour has gone.

I can’t seem to remember the last thing I looked forward to. Nothing grand anyway, nothing more important than a pizza, or a lie in. The days, like much of my writing are a run-on sentence.

I did write a 2000 word, mostly auto-biographical story about the year of my life twenty-fourteen, a year where a lot of “mad shit” happened to me and which I have never fully internally processed to closure. I probably never will.

Here are a few paragraphs from it I feel comfortable sharing with you:

There’s a documented condition called Paris Syndrome; a form of culture shock, the romanticised view of France and Paris specifically, a city of green grass, culture, love and that European free spirit is at odds with the reality of an overpopulated, dirty city, full of normal French people sick to death of tourists.

Depression itself is like Paris Syndrome, but instead of culture shock, it’s existence shock. You’ve been thrown into a world you don’t understand and are trying to cope. It’s not like how you thought it would be, is it? It’s not like how you were told it would be. Everyone else seems to have it together, right? Why aren’t I like that? Why do I go home and want to do nothing but rest in bed? Where do these people find the energy to do all this stuff? See places. Go to things. What am I missing that doesn’t make me feel capable of doing all that too?

The quintessential existential problem is feeling like you don’t belong and having no memory of the place where you do, if it even ever existed in the first place. How can one hope to fit in and find purpose when we have no template with which to work from? This is the void depressives speak of, like being perpetually hungry for a meal that doesn’t exist, the hole is indescribable precisely because nothing will fill it. It is formless, and we try to sleep, eat, drink, love, talk and fuck our way to a fulfilment that doesn’t exist for us.

We cannot ever get a plane out of Paris.

My intuition tells me only one thing here, and that is that because I am actually quite proud of the literary clarity of my mental state in the above, it is likely trite, probably plagiarised, and essentially of zero value.

Maybe you know or even remember that I wrote the allgamesshouldbedarksouls blog. This was a few years ago, before even Dark Souls 2 came out and society hit what we now refer to as “Peak Dark Souls.”

I don’t really want to go on about it, but it’s easily summarised. Remember liking “the cake is a lie” references? Then remember hating them as overdone and shallow, popularised not because of any real love for the art or end result, but because it was coded “in-language” that separated you from “them?” Like drawing a fish in the sand, we understand, and we’re safe here, away from those neophytes. And when they kneel at my feet, saying “Why!? Why didn’t we listen to you about how Dark Souls was an instant classic?” I will shove them aside. They had their chance, and no, I will not lend you my copy of it now.

The writing was good (people were polite enough to tell me) but as far as “video” “game” “writing” goes, it was shallow and I could see that. It was overly concerned with mechanics and more than implied some measure of objectivity in game-design. Plus, I was really tired of the “angry young dude hates every video game for petty reasons” shtick, knowing full well that if you gave me money and a team to design a videogame I would inevitably shit out something milquetoast.

But nevertheless, it was well received and proved that if I had the inclination I could string words together to create something vaguely compelling, although possibly I’m not accounting for the low bar of the subject matter, in this, the medium where you can wax idiotic about your constitutional right to kill a virtual prostitute.

I bring this up not because it’s the one good thing I’ve ever produced and reminisce about it daily, but because it’s yet another unfortunate example of something in my life that I tried, started to get somewhere with, then got bitter about not being handed fame on a plate and gave up.

I noticed this of myself today; (now, look, this is going to get pretty pathetic, but my girlfriend said I should write more (she didn’t), and I’m being open and honest with you, even if that reveals some... truths.) I have very few twitter followers. Not even 150. I use twitter all the time, every day. I say things, I make jokes, I comment on current events. I have tweeted almost 6000 things. I use hashtags, and I use them correctly. I do not, repeat DO NOT, make up random hashtags about my day like #FentonsTeaBreak, which is, like, something everyone who is new to using twitter does in the first week and thinks they are hilarious for doing.

But I am yet to find any more than 150 people who are interested in things I have to say. And 150 is generous as well, I suspect at least half of those are either robots, people who have since died, or people who followed when they signed up because Twitter suggested it might be a good idea and haven’t logged in since.

I actually lose more followers than I gain, and I can assure you that it not because of self-pitying screeds like this (I learnt that lesson about 4000 tweets ago). If you've never felt unsure about your place in the world, imagine the feeling that it is easier to find people who actively regret choosing to listen to you, and you’ve got a good approximation.

Today brought this to the fore as I saw a tweet that was basically the same as a tweet I made, retweeted into the thousands, simply because that person’s audience was bigger than mine. It was weirdly validating, that yes, my thought would have been accepted en mass, but also infuriating like meekly muttering a joke, only to have your confident friend repeat it, louder, to roars of applause (having used better words with a defter sense of comedic timing).

I realise this is incredibly arrogant. People are busy, and the world does not stop when Fenton Makes A Tweet. These days, everyone is a “content producer.” Running the wide gamet of pictures of their cat all the way along to pictures of their latte. There simply isn’t enough internet attention to go around, because mostly, it’s all so fucking boring.

I have come to see twitter more as a diary. A repository of my thoughts so that, like the cold unfeeling robot I am, I can purge the memory banks once this string has been archived, and move on to thinking other things (there is no rider to this joke, I am not going to list two normal things followed by one surreal thing).

For 6 months in 2016, I captured approximately 40 minute chunks of me playing video-game farming simulator Stardew Valley. I uploaded these videos to YouTube and in each I would talk about the game and talk about things going on in the world and it was generally incredibly cathartic. I appreciate there’s not much of a market for what ended up being about 70 hours of unedited video-content of a man, forever teetering on the the brink of an emotional meltdown talk about miking a virtual cow, but goddammit, I produced that content anyway. Fuck the haters (of which there were none).

Someone once said of my brief foray into stand-up comedy, that I was talented but showed an obvious lack of preparedness. That review (3 stars, Milton Keynes SnoZone, 2010) was a more accurate summary of my being than any psychoanalyst has ever achieved. I do not apply myself, and therefore I do not achieve. Even this, these very words that you’re reading right now, I am writing so that I don’t have to practice for a tournament of a game I supposedly enjoy playing and want to be good at.

My entire life feels like a omnibus of half-efforts. Even my job, which I openly loathe, I don’t quit because I do not want to risk trying anything different and have it be worse. I talk myself out of it daily for reasons like “you only know how to do this once specific job anyway” and “other jobs are probably a lot harder.” I give up before I even begin, and then use that same lack of motivation as a self-fulfilling prophecy to convince myself that it was never going to happen anyway, so I’m justified in giving up.

And then, on top of this, the Earth in year 2017 is a shit show to the point that your troubles are pretty small-fry. I’ve drafted tweets, had thoughts, typed internet comments, and then fallacied myself into relative privation by realising “wait, maybe the world doesn’t need THIS JOKE right now, because Muslim’s are being unlawfully detained at airports. Is this really the time for a pun on the word fondant?”

Today is February 2nd. It’s hashtag Time-To-Talk day. And that is as good an excuse as I’m going to get to be this massively self-indulgent and start my commitment to writing more by laying out my neuroses on the shaky pre-tense of lowering the stigma towards mental health.

But please, talk to each other. See your faults, your weaknesses, understand why you feel like you do and then you can start looking at changing patterns and habits that might be bad for you.

Don’t keep this shit locked up. Be brave. Talk. It’s ok. People will understand that you’re a mad-shit. Write a blog post that people will have trouble deciding if it’s too meta or not meta enough.

Society puts so much pressure on us to perform. Be like this. A man should be like THIS, a woman should be like THAT. This is damaging and only serves to alienate.

Mental health is important. My mental health needs constant work. Did you actually read the above paragraphs? That’s my brain all day “Not good enough, stupid weak thoughts, stupid weak job, you’re a failure and it’s no surprise you give up.”

To be Onan just one more time, my mental health is really the only thing I’ve never given up on.

Plus, of course, I have an amazing support network of my partner, family and friends. And if you feel you don’t have this kind of network, then there are plenty of resources which are listed here, the Time To Change website: http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/mental-health-and-stigma/help-and-support or you can drop me a line.

#timetotalk

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brophyblam · 7 years

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Iceberg Theory Third Place Winner: “Everything is Alright” by Derby Reeves ’17

August 4th: Day 1: Please, anywhere but here.(1)

September 30th: The room was silent as I sat back down. (2)

October 31st: No one asked. (3)

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(1) Dear Me, The first day of school has always scared me. The new classes, new teachers, and almost inevitably, a new school. I know Mom tries to keep us in one place but her jobs always seem to have a different plan. Every time she tries to lay down roots, it just gets harder when her company pulls them up. The few friends I manage to make always come and go, so why bother getting close anymore? Mom seems to think I need friends for senior year, and I can’t see why. I mean, I’m leaving for college soon anyways and I’ll never see them again. Plus, not like anyone here would want to be friends with me. Mom drops me off in this new public school in the middle of nowhere and I’m already terrified to make eye contact with anyone outside of the car. I put my head down and plow past the crowd, clutching my bag as I make a beeline for my first class. When the teacher calls my name, I swear every pair of eyes in the room is glued to me and time stops. I stare at my desk for the rest of class as I listen to whispers of “Who the hell is that weirdo?” or “What is he wearing?” or “What a loser.” None of this is new. I don’t mind it anymore, really. On the way out the door, the teacher tells me if I “want to be successful in her class, I’m going to have to participate.” Great. I turn to leave and see five heads quickly swivel around as my audience disperses from the window of the door. I know what’s waiting as soon as I step out there. Please, anywhere but here. Sincerely, You

(2) Dear Me, Please remember to never talk again. To anyone. Or anywhere. Remember when I said Ms. Levi told me I had to participate to “be successful” in her class? Well, maybe I shared a little bit too much. I know the assignment said to “be honest” but for God’s sake there’s a line. She didn’t tell us she’d be asking us to read them, but I knew at least she would see it, and that’s reason enough to shut my mouth. She didn’t need to know about Dad, or the counsellors, or the therapy, or the tens of prescriptions. It was just supposed to be a simple paragraph about myself. What unholy inspiration caused me to turn in a four page synopsis of my life struggles? I mean, I might as well have just stood up and shouted “I’m depressed!” and rolled up my sleeves! No, what I did was worse. I was honest. I said it all. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. The room was silent as I sat back down. Sincerely, You

(3) Dear Me, I was thinking about how this used to be my favorite holiday back in Oklahoma. Even the year I broke my foot because I was convinced my Spiderman costume gave me the ability to climb walls was better than this year. Of course, the last few years have been much more dull; too old to trick or treat, but too young to not look sad while passing out candy to the elementary school kids on the block. That’s how it goes; you have your fun, then the younger kids get their turn. Of course, the typical choice of celebration for high school seniors is a house party. Mom works tonight and I told her I planned on staying in. She seems to be getting more concerned about me. I mean, after the teacher sent the note and the new counsellor appointments, how can she not be? Of course I lie and tell her I feel so much better. The counsellor seems to be buying it too. The meetings are shorter and way less boring. Mom has plenty to worry about, least of all should be me. I insisted I would go out, I just wasn’t invited anywhere. No one asked. Sincerely, You

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November 24th: It’s much more comfortable in the dark. (4)

December 1st: I’ll kill myself. (5)

January 2nd: I might do it. (6)

(4) Dear Me, I never cared about Thanksgiving. It seems really nice for people with big, happy families. Our neighbors practically begged Mom and me to come over. I guess they had noticed how stressed my mom had been lately. We walked over to their house, one spot to the right and $200,000 past ours. When we got there, I wanted to crawl out of my skin. A new relative at every turn, asking my name, how old I am, where I’m from, my life story. Everyone looked sideways at us, biting their tongues to stop the most obvious question from falling out: “Where’s your family?” After an uncomfortable 45 minutes of meaningless small talk, who I can only assume is the father of the host is wheeled into the house. Everyone flocks to him and lies about how young he looks, how they knew he’d make it this year. Once everyone has said their hello’s, he points to me and my mom and asks, “Who the hell are they?” I can feel my face turning bright red as his daughter quietly tries to explain. Before she can finish, he blurts out, “Well why ain’t he here?” I feel sick to my stomach and stumble into the kitchen. I vaguely hear Mom behind me whisper an “I’m sorry” before I run out the side door and find myself in their yard. I plod across the grass and back to my house where I promptly lock myself in my dark room. Of all things, he had to mention Dad. I hear Mom come in the front door and sit at the kitchen table. A silent gloom hangs over the house as Mom cries onto a picture frame. I sit silent on my bed. It’s much more comfortable in the dark. Sincerely, You

(5) Dear Me, Thank God for winter. Back in New Mexico, the weather was constantly a miserable 90 degrees. Minnesota made me love the snow, so now that the first powder of the season has stuck to the streets here in Pennsylvania, I feel some semblance of joy. I watch the days on the calendar slowly tick by as 2016 comes into its last month. School has been fine, and it seems like people have forgotten about September. Of course, still no one talks to me. But that’s fine, I’ve been able to focus on my schoolwork and applications to college. Scholarships have been a big worry, considering the hoops Mom has to jump through to make rent; college is a fiscal monster of biblical proportions in comparison. For the moment though, everything is alright. Soon we’ll be on break for the holidays and I can relax a little more. Mom seems concerned about what I’ll fill all my free time with, even when I tell her I’ll just be home, “reading or something.” She keeps asking me to talk to this girl in my English class. Her dad went to Mom’s office a few weeks ago and somehow got to talking about their kids. I find it laughable that Mom thinks I can just walk up and talk to this girl who probably hasn’t ever noticed me when I can hardly manage a regular conversation with her. I’d completely disregard the notion if she would quit reminding me already. I mean, I’d love to try, but I wouldn’t know where to start or what to talk about. If I have to talk about dumb stuff like school or hobbies or, God forbid, family, I’ll kill myself. Sincerely, Me

(6) Dear Me, You’ll never hear me say it again, but Mom was right. Annie came up to me after class asking if I was the kid her dad told her all about. I asked her what he possibly could have told her and get this: she said, “Come find me at lunch and I’ll tell you.” Of course, I didn’t. How was I supposed to talk to her while she’s sitting with her friends? But after school she found me somehow and asked me why I didn’t find her at lunch. I stumbled through an explanation about not wanting to butt into her circle of friends before she stopped me and offered to drive me home. I stood silent at the offer before finally accepting when she started considering retracting. The drive was mostly quiet, but what was she expecting me to say? Our only conversation piece is English class, but I’m silent on account of September. As I’m praying she’d forgotten all about it, she turns to me and says, “You know, I thought it was really brave of you to write that English piece. Most of the kids in that class have mush between their ears and no sense of sympathy. I really hope none of them gave you a hard time.” Of course, I lied and stuttered out that they hadn’t. She saw straight through the facade and decided to drop it. As I was stepping out of the car, she handed me a torn corner of a notebook page and said, “Text me!” I think I stood in my driveway for 10 minutes as the snow collected on my shoulders, staring at the ten numbers. I spent an hour staring at my phone, trying to decide how to introduce myself. I settled on “hi.” It’s not a great start, but I guess I tried. She responded seconds later and suddenly I found myself in a real life conversation. I guess this was as surprising to her, because she shot me with an “I didn’t know you knew this many words.” Maybe I’m being too positive, but this could be a good thing. I’m afraid of being too optimistic, but if she wants to hang out more, I might do it. Sincerely, You.

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March 5th: I’d never be saved. (7)

May 24th: My last goodbye. (8)

(7) Dear Me, I know I haven’t written anything to you in a long time. Ever since Annie and I started going out, life has been a whirlwind of emotions and events. I mean, I went to a school dance last week. Most everyone asked me what school I went to, and Annie made every last one of them feel bad about not knowing someone at their own school. She introduced me to her friends, only for me to forget their names the next day. Mom couldn’t believe it when I brought a girlfriend home, considering the last time I even had a friend over was Oklahoma. Even better, I’m actually going to college! La Salle gave me enough money for it to be feasible to pay tuition. It’s nice that I won’t be too far from Mom in these coming four years. I know she worries and the last thing she needs is to be tense about how I’m doing for eight semesters. Annie hasn’t heard from NYU yet but she’s really hopeful, and my fingers are crossed for her. When I read back through these letters, I can’t believe where I am compared to where I was in November last year. I think I have Annie to thank for that. She saved me when I thought I’d never be saved. Sincerely, You

(8) Dear Me, We knew it was going to happen. I mean, we started dating just a few months before college. Graduation is finally here and that means school is done. Of course I’ll be home all summer but Annie’s family goes to New York every June and stays through half of August so we clearly wouldn’t be seeing much of each other anyway. Last week she called me crying about how we’ll never see each other again. I think she was mad I didn’t cry. Of course I’m sad, it’s just not a surprise. Like Mom used to tell me every time we had to move, “All good things must come to an end.” But somehow, it’s ok. I saw her today and insisted on talking about it. For the first time ever, I think I did most of the talking while she quietly sobbed and listened resignedly. She knew we wouldn’t last, but that doesn’t mean what she gave me won’t make all the difference for the years to come. Today, once I walk down that aisle and get my diploma, it’s all over. I don’t think I’ll keep writing after today is over. As they say, the worst is over and the best is yet to come. So consider this my last goodbye. Sincerely, You

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