#This morning my friend posted this tweet and I figured it belonged. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

princessofprocrastination · 3 years

Text

You Live In Sweatpants And Hoodies (GeorgeNotFound)

MASTERLIST

pairing : georgenotfound / george x influencer!reader.

summary : george and your fans realize that under all the sweaters, you have a body.

a/n : if you are wondering what dress i was talking about, search up jennie short black dress :)

before social media, you studied law and got a degree in it but ended up not using it due to your social media career sky rocketing.

but you never thought studying was a waste, that could be your backup, after all. social media doesn’t last forever. and you were ready to accept any difficulties since you knew you had plan b.

you, till this day, could not describe what you do on social media. it started with tiktok. everything nowadays started with tiktok. but you were one of the first people who was on it.

and then tiktokers would make their way onto youtube to sustain their “career” and grow. so that’s what you did. you never abandoned that app, though. especially not now, everyone on that app is seriously hilarious.

your content on youtube was all over the place. once, for a video, you talked to weird men on omegle and tinder. another time, you would try different aesthetics on yourself.

but here’s the catch, you’ve never really worn revealing clothes. your mum had always told you to never deprive yourself from what she says “fun young girl things” which is dressing up, or down, in her say and go have fun with your friends.

but since the pandemic hit, you have had no where to go anyways, and you never really liked to show off your body. it’s not that you felt uncomfortable doing it, it’s just that you’ve never had the reason to.

you also didn’t grow up girly. you hated dresses, especially short and tight dresses. and you weren’t a fan of wearing shorts either. you always opted to go comfy.

whenever you post a tiktok, you always wore your signature hoodie and sweatpants that were clearly sizes too big for you. but you liked it, it’s comfortable to sleep in.

and whenever you had to pan down to show your outfits on youtube, you were always caught wearing jeans and a baggy shirt, just styled differently, according to the aesthetic of the video you were filming for.

you heard your phone ring from the couch. you picked it up, knowing who it was anyways. “morning, cutie.” you stared.

“morning b.” george greets you, hair everywhere, clearly just woken up.

you and george met on tiktok, just like all good friends do. he had duetted a tiktok of yours and you found him hilarious. you quickly followed him on every single social media platform he was in. you even set an alarm in case he ever streams and you’re asleep.

you two are close. some would say you two are dating, but you two haven’t figured it out yet. you two didn’t really want to disclose it anyways, you two knew your not so secret feelings for each other, anyways.

remember when he called you ‘b’? yeah that stands for ‘bub’. he thought it would be cute for him to have a different nickname than the usual “baby” or “babe”.

you two actually live very near each other, making it way easier as a couple, but since england was put into a quarantine order, you two didn’t meet often.

some would probably ask why you’d have to set an alarm when he streams when you two clearly are in the same timezone? well, that boy had no sense of time and a terrible sleeping schedule. it amazed you at how early he got up today.

that facetime call lasted about half an hour before you told him you needed to stream on twitch today, to which he responded to you that he’s watch it later.

today, you had a surprise. for the world. you can’t believe you even thought about this but it was about time you showed off to the world what assets you’ve been blessed with.

speaking of showing off. no, you weren’t a particularly insecure person, you were just comfortable in the clothes you’re in. but celebrating the long time you’ve been on social media, and it being your birthday, you thought it might be fitting.

george and you agreed to not make anything special about your birthday. you hated parties and large gatherings, and since you were still in the middle of a pandemic, you used that as an excuse to not go out.

you spent the longest time searching for a good enough outfit for this day. and you found it. you decided to pick a pretty simple dress, a black short dress that went to your mid thigh, that showed off your waist, spaghetti strapped and a little backless.

you walked out the shower, your robe on as you walked to your bathroom counters to dry your hair. you didn’t really bother to style it, just leaving you straight long hair down.

you put on the most basic white sneakers you could find to still make it casual, and you thought it went well together, anyways.

you finished you makeup and took a good look at yourself. you had been aware that you only wore baggy clothes, so this was a huge change. you twirled yourself, feeling confident.

you couldn’t wait for people to have heart attacks.

you sat on your gaming chair, getting ready to start your stream.

before you started your stream, you made sure you left your facecam turned off first.

you went live. chat was confused since this was the first time that you’re not on facecam. all they could see at the moment was the caption “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!” that you typed on your notes app on your computer.

“hi, chat.” you said, to calm them down a little.

you heard your phone go off, a text notification. which you knew was george since he had a special notification ping on your phone.

it said “did you forget to turn on your cam?”

you laughed at that. “no, chat, i haven’t forgotten to turn on my facecam, just wait for a sec, please.”

you felt giddy, excited for the reactions.

instead of wearing your cute cat headphones, you wore your airpods instead to get the whole look going.

you let out a sigh before moving your mouse cursor to linger on the ‘start recording camera’ button. you clicked on it, before moving your chair back to fully say hi to your chat.

you brought your hands up to wave to the camera. you tilted your head slightly. “soooo, it’s my birthday.” you said.

chat was going crazy so you stopped reading them so you wouldn’t get a headache. the donations went crazy too, but you tried your best to read them all.

you thanked the people who subscribed to you or gifted you subs.

“360 of this dress? sure, i’ll give you a twirl.” you replied a dono.

you stood up, and rolled your gaming chair away so that they can see your whole outfit. you spun around once, quickly telling them where you got the dress from.

you tried to hold your foot on one hand, balancing yourself to show them that you could go casual in this dress too.

what you noticed was that, your phone hadn’t stopped beeping from a text notification, which belonged to the one and only georgenotfound.

and since maybe he noticed that you won’t check your phone, he sent a donation instead.

“WHAT THE FUCK.” the monotoned voice read out the donation, which was from george.

you facepalmed, knowing exactly what his reaction is like at home.

“I’M COMING OVER.” the voice said again. you laughed at his antics.

“see you then.” you replied, laughing, knowing he was joking around anyways.

GEORGE’S POV

she thinks i’m joking, isn’t she?

well, she gave me her spare key for a reason, and this would be the best reason.

i knew i wanted to come around anyways. just after her stream. i promised her no going out, but not no gifts and ordering in.

sneaky, i know.

i had a plan brewing in my mind. to walk in her house as quietly as possible, to surprise her.

after seeing her in that dress, i don’t think i can stand our fans not knowing we aren’t dating.

i know, i haven’t really asked her out, but we kinda both agreed that there was no use, knowing each other’s feeling was good enough and that we didn’t need to do anything extravagant.

i don’t know what she’s tell her fans but i’m sure i hadn’t disclose our relationship. the fans shipped us, sure, but i don’t think i’ve ever said it out loud.

we knew we’d have to say it someday. so i thought, why not today? as i surprised her at her own house.

her fans watching her stream are tweeting at me like crazy. no one had seen her like that. she practically lives in sweats and hoodies, constantly.

the most fitting thing i’ve seen her wear is skinny jeans, but she would always wear a baggy top with it. people always say she drowns in her clothes, but i never complained, she looked good either ways.

but seeing her in that dress, damn. i needed to be there and hug her, kiss her. i couldn’t wait to see her in that dress, right in front of my eyes.

our observant fans or close friends have asked if she dresses the same at home, and my answer always stayed the same. that she lives in baggy clothes.

there are some creepy people out there who would ask that question in a sexual way. thinking i’ve seen her in less. but truthfully, i haven’t. we’re not pass that stage, and we prefer it this way.

what the fans see is what i see on the daily, too.

and no, me going to her house to see her more clearly in that dress doesn’t mean we’re doing anything. i just want to observe her beauty. see what she’s hid from me.

YOUR POV

chat was going crazy over george’s donation. but you still laughed it off. it’s all a joke anyways, him coming over.

he was coming over later, after noon, so he wouldn’t just drop everything to see you right now.

“geez. chill out, chat, george was joking.” you told them.

you sat on your gaming chair more comfortably as you started playing a couple rounds of among us with your fans. you told them not to cheat and watch your stream as they’re playing ad lucky you, they listened.

for some reason, your chat still kept blowing up with george comments. maybe they were still caught up on that comment he said earlier.

but you hadn’t thought that he’d be behind you the entire time, telling the chat to not make it obvious.

“happy birthday, b” you heard a very familiar voice from behind you.

you almost had a whiplash from how quick you turned your head to see who was behind you.

you stood up to hug him, almost falling to the floor, stumbling on your own feet.

with the way you ran to him, he almost fell to the floor. “you’re here, you’re here.” you kept repeating it to him, not believing that he actually came. you knew he’d come later, but not this early.

george moved you back gently to see your full outfit. you two were aware that the facecam is still on, and pointing to you two, seeing every move.

“come here.” he whispered to you before grabbing your waist, to kiss you.

you two took a little while enjoying each other’s company, still in front of everyone on twitch.

he moved you back a little, turning you to face your gaming monitors. “MY GIRLFRIEND, EVERYBODY. isn’t she so hot, oh my god.” he said to the stream.

you laughed at his stupid antics, covering your face with your hands as you blushed.

your chat didn’t stop talking about the interaction, not believing that their ship was finally sailing.

you played a couple more rounds of among us with them, george taking over sometime or making funny comments to entertain your chat while you played.

after the stream, george and you took time to enjoy the time alone, ordering in your favourite food and opening gifts that he bought you.

you forgot to mention that both of your twitter was blowing up too much that you had to mute it for a while. you knew that a lot had screenshot the cute moment.

you took note to screenshot some of the photos on twitter later.

#georgenotfound #georgenotfound imagine #georgenotfound imagines #georgenotfound x reader

639 notes · View notes

bbyboybrock--archived · 4 years

Text

Shipped (Colby Brock Imagine)

Summary: *REQUEST* Omg your requests are open!! Can you do something about colby and reader dating in secret and she’s always hyping him up on everything and fans just think it’s cause they are best friends. But she posts a post wearing the love for hire letterman on accident and the fans connected it because Kat and Tara have it to so they figure out they are dating and go crazy (in a good way) for them 🥺❤️

Written: 2020

Word Count: 1,967

Warnings: Major fluff, Swearing

Masterlist

I harassed Colby into letting me listen to their new music. Let’s just say, when you guys hear this, you’re going to be glad One Direction is on a break. Can’t help but stan L4H!! #numeber1fan

I press "send tweet" before plugging in my phone and taking a quick shower. When I get out of the shower I grab my phone and throw myself onto Colby’s bed. It’s our bed at this point. I spend more time at the trap house than I do my apartment, I might as well move in. I go and read the comments under my tweet. Most of them are good. Some fans want me to leak the boys' music, others are freaking out over mine and Colby’s friendship. Someone makes it a point to mention how cute Colby and I would be as a couple and linked an edit that they made. Someone commented that fans like them, the one that posted the edit, are the problem and the reason why Colby doesn’t have any friends who are girls. There is a whole fight going on under that comment.

I quickly try to defuse the situation between the fans before exiting twitter altogether. I take my towel off of my damp hair and walk back into Colby’s bathroom to detangle it. When I finish doing my hair I grab the first jacket of Colby’s that I see to get warm. Lucky for me, it’s his Love for Hire lettermen jacket. For whatever reason, this jacket is more comfortable than any hoodie I’ve stolen during our entire relationship, maybe it’s because it smells strongly like him. Or maybe it’s because I get to finally live out my high school dream of wearing my boyfriend’s lettermen. Either way, Colby knows that this is my jacket now and he’s going to have to fight me to the death for it back. I don’t know if it’s because I freshly showered and my hair is fluffy, or because my skin is thanking me for not putting makeup on it yet, but something is compelling me to take a selfie in Colby’s bathroom mirror.

I get up on to the counter and try to position myself comfortably. I take a few selfies, while carefully not exposing Colby’s messy counter. I do cute poses with peace signs and my tongue sticking out. I do serious “model” poses with hair looking like I’m in a photoshoot. I take a couple and post them on my Instagram story. I triple check each one before pressing send to make sure they end up on my close friends’ list and not my public story. That would be disastrous. I saw how people were acting in the comments of my tweet supporting Colby when a fan posted an edit wishing we were dating. I can’t imagine how his fan base would react if they knew we really are dating and have been for well over a year.

Well, I can imagine how they would react, I’ve been around Colby long enough to figure out how his fanbase functions. Most of his fans would be supportive. Of the majority, there would be roughly half who constantly would show their support over our relationship. The other half would keep quiet and try not to mention it directly so they don’t “jinx” it. No matter how open Colby is with his fans, there is still so much of his life that he has to keep private from the rest of his fans who wouldn’t be supportive of our relationship. The obsessive ones who think that Colby is a toy and belongs to only them. In all honesty, Colby and I probably would have been together longer if it wasn’t for them. We probably wouldn’t have been friends. There was a period in his life when he wouldn’t make any new female friends because of what his old friends had to go through. Because of that, Colby has always been protective of me.

Even though we’ve been friends since he moved to Los Angles, he only introduced me to his fandom two years ago. Even then, it wasn’t like, boom: “here’s a girl that I’m friends with, be nice!” Colby made sure I was properly acclimated to his side of internet stardom by having me appear in all of his other friends’ videos and photos first before a strand of my hair was placed in one of his videos. And then he said, “here’s a girl that I’m friends with, be nice!” Being a Youtuber myself, I have some experience with fandoms. But nothing could prepare me for his intense fans. For the first couple of months after Colby put me on his channel, I understood why Colby kept so many of girl friends in the dark or why some chose to stop being friends with Colby in general. It’s only a select few fans, but when there are so many comments of harassment and death threats it can get overwhelming.

Those comments died down after a while though. Mostly because I either mute certain words from my comments or I don’t read them. Colby and I try really hard to hide our relationship. If we’re in videos together, we don’t sit too close. We keep our hands to ourselves; even a simple hand on the shoulder can cause a frenzy. We only post our couple pictures on our actual secret Instagram accounts and close friends list. Our friends know not to post anything where we might look too much like a couple. We make it a point to bicker like siblings whenever we do work together. Hell, the reason I still have my apartment is to avoid people finding out we’re dating. If I have my own place, people just think I’m visiting the guys whenever I’m over. And it works, everyone just assumes that we’re really close friends.

“I’m back and I bring food!” Colby yells as he opens the door to the room. I plug my dying phone back into the charger before abandoning it in the bathroom to greet Colby.

“Oh thank God, I was beginning to think you were with your hoes. But then I ran into Sam, Jake, and Corey in the kitchen so I relaxed.” I give Colby a quick kiss and help him with the shopping bags in his hand. I set them on the bed and start going through them.

“I wish, but they were too busy for me. So I went and got us stuff for this weekend.” Colby sets the food down and helps me unload the bags.

“Oh that reminds me, we need to stop by my place after dinner so I can pack my things.” Te whole friend group is renting a log cabin in woods for Thursday to Monday morning for bonding and to get a few collars done. Colby went and got a few road trip snacks without me. Probably because I would get distracted at Target and we would never leave. It’s fine, he remembered to get my favorite snacks.

“Yeah, okay, I figured. We could have gone earlier but I had to let you sleep in after you spent all night watching tiktoks.” Colby walks over to the couch and starts to set up our lunch in front of the tv.

“To be fair, I’m not responsible for the time lost when I’m on the tok. Besides, I learned more dances to teach you!” I take off Colby’s jacket and set it at the foot of the bed before joining Colby on the couch.

“Of course you did. You know how much I love learning a new TikTok dance every day.” Colby jokes before kissing my forehead. He hands me my food and turns on Netflix.

A few minutes into our show, there’s a loud, rapid knock at the door. Annoyed, Colby paused the show and puts his food down.

“What?” Colby asks as he gets up to open the door. Sam stands on the other side, relieved. The last time Sam knocked on the door like that, Colby and I were busy… rearranging furniture.

“Oh Colby, you’re home. But I’m not here for you. Y/N, did you mean to post that on your story?” Colby moves aside to let Sam in.

“Haha, Sammy, I’m not falling for that one. Colby already tried that on me last week.” I go back to eating my food and ignore Sam.

“No, I’m being serious. Katrina said she kept trying to reach you but you’re not answering. Fans are freaking out on twitter.”

“Oh shit!” I quickly put down my food and grab my phone in the bathroom. There are miss calls and texts from Kat, Tara, and Devyn. I unlock my phone and open Instagram to check my story. Sure enough, I accidentally sent one of my selfies to my main story instead of my close friends. The selfie looks harmless enough, except I’m wearing Colby’s jacket and it’s very obvious that I’m in his bathroom. Jake moved in some of the cardboard Colby’s into Colby’s room and one of them faces the mirror, you can kind of see it in the selfie. Most people might think nothing of it, but earlier this week Kat and Tara posted pictures of them wearing Sam and Jake’s jackets. With that association alone, everyone is going to find out.

“I don’t get it, there’s only a selfie on here. Did you already delete it?” Colby yells from the bedroom. I slowly walk out of the bathroom with a confused look on his face.

“Please tell me you’re joking.” I open up my story and check how many people have seen it.

“What, I’m lost… Oh… Oh! Oh, fuck!” Colby finally gets it and does something on his phone.

“‘Oh fuck’ is right. So many people took screenshots that even if I deleted it now, it would be pointless.” I walk to the bed and throw myself facedown, like a teen in a movie after having a shitty day at school.

“And you guys are trending on Twitter,” Sam says. I almost forgot he was still here.

“Dude,” Colby warns.

“Not helpful, I get it. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” Sam leaves the room and I let out a scream as soon as I hear the door close. I feel the spot next to me sink as Colby sits down and starts rubbing my back.

“Hey, Y/N, these aren’t as bad as you think. I’m only seeing positive messaged. Look,” Colby gently pats my back to get my attention.

“Really? Let me see.” I sit up, sniffle, and peek at Colby’s phone as he reads.

“Are you crying?” Colby asks as he wipes my face.

“I immediately got overwhelmed. Let me read the tweets.” I take Colby’s phone scroll through the tweets. He’s right, they’re mostly positive. I haven’t seen a negative tweet yet. That’s the opposite of how I thought this would go. A few people are telling other fans to stop assuming, but even those are calm compared to the fight I saw earlier.

“See, I guess we were stressed all this time for no reason. We can do normal couple things like our friends and not go out of our way to hide everything.”

“That’ll be nice. It was getting exhausting. What do we do now? How do you want to approach this? Live stream? Youtube video?” I look at Colby and he has a big smile on his face.

“Right now, let’s just finish lunch. We can deal with this later. Now, I’m going to take this back. I don’t want you to start crying again.” Colby strokes my hair and kisses my forehead.

“I love you, Colbs,” I say softly.

“I love you too, Y/N.”

#colby brock #colby brock imagine #colby brock imagines #colby brock x reader #fluff imagine #traphouse #trap house #imagine #imagines #traphouse imagine #trap house imagine #sam and colby #sam and colby imagine #sam and colby imagines #colby x reader

529 notes · View notes

steverogersbingo · 3 years

Photo

✨ STEVE ROGER BINGO’S ROUND UP - POST 1 ✨

Check out the fills our participants posted from the first month under the cut!

🎨 ART

heaven isn't in the sky (it's underwater) by agron T // Steve/Tony // Mermaids Summary: when steve went underwater he was discovered by three mermaid tony stark instead

Untitled by ABrighterDarkness G // Steve/Bucky // Alpine Summary: Steve and Bucky get distracted, Alpine enjoys every minute.

Space Stone by AriaFandom G // Gen // Moodboard Summary: Galaxy aesthetic for the space stone

Untitled by sanguineterrain G // Gen Summary: Magical, canon-divergent Steve

Untitled by call-me-kayyyyy G // Steve/Bucky // AU; Fantasy; Loin-cloths Summary: Steve and Bucky are elf's who ride their unicorns to check the perimeter.

Steve Rogers becomes Cernunnos by pinkybitesu T // Gen // AU Summary: Steve had always felt connected to the Earth. Becoming the God of the Forest, Cernunnos, made it all make sense.

"That Is America's Ass." by bleedxblack T // Steve/Bucky Summary: Steve Rogers straddles Bucky's waist with booty shorts that read "it ain't gonna spank himself".

📝 FIC

Clean Up These Bloody Fists by dontcallmebree E // 8,657 // Steve/Bucky // Shrunkyclunks; Mob AU Summary: Bucky can’t decide if Steve’s unendingly generous with his care for those around him, or if Bucky’s simply been lucky enough to scale the wall built up over decades, and had somehow proven himself worthy of the affection. Either way, he knows he’ll never take this for granted. Spend some time with Steve and Bucky this week in the perpetually fluffy ‘verse of Do The Things You Never Showed Nobody.

Scars by Kimberly T // 1,888 // Steve/Bucky // Post-CATWS Summary: The serum means that Steve can't scar anymore, though he's retained his pre-existing scarring. While in the hospital recovering from the fight on the helicarrier, Steve does a little introspection about this. It's bittersweet.

Without Regret by ABrighterDarkness E // 5,284 // Steve/Thor Summary: It had been a very long time since Steve had last felt like this. There was a buzz in his mind and tingling through his body. His movements were just slightly slower, clumsier and his were words spoken a little more loosely with a tongue that felt more weighty than it ought to. Even that, though, felt different than the last time that he’d had the opportunity to overindulge with a friend.

Love and Learning by ABrighterDarkness T // 7,746 // Steve/Natasha Summary: It reminded him, a little bit, of stepping into a machine seeing everything in varying shades of grey. Only to stumble out again into a world of color more vibrant than anything he could have possibly imagined. Overwhelming but entirely breathtaking and welcome.

Good by hawkeyeandthewintersoldier T // 1,062 // Steve/Bucky/Tony Summary: Steve returns to the compound and finds that the two men he loves, but never told his feelings to, are a couple now.

Lie to Me by Kit T // 2,102 // Steve/Bucky // Body Swap Summary: After a mission gone wrong, Steve and Natasha end up trapped in the others body. Instead of telling everybody, they make a bet. Who will be able to conceal their identity the longest?

Dream a Little Dream of Me by buckybleeds E // 5,719 // Steve/Bucky // Dub-con; Self-cest Summary: Steve goes back in time to comfort himself after Bucky fell and ends up having sex with himself.

Pride by Kit T // 1,726 // Steve/Bucky Summary: Tony wants to take Steve to pride to watch him freak out. Natasha tags along to do damage control.

Take Care of You by hawkeyeandthewintersoldier M // 1,756 // Steve/Bucky // Daddy Kink; Age Difference; AU Summary: Steve has been so busy with his work as a commander at shield lately, that he has barely had time for his partner Bucky. Bucky’s worried his Daddy might not want him anymore and Steve has to rectify this by showing how much he loves his baby.

Love Has Left a Printed Trace by Girl_Back_There E // 1,726 // Steve/Bucky // Vampires; Dub-con Summary: Steve is obsessed with finding a mysterious figure named Winter in paintings throughout the years. James is a Vampire named Winter charged with keeping Vampires a secret from humanity.

with the weight of the world at the tips of my fingers by avintagekiss24 E // 4,420 // Steve/Reader // AU Summary: You and Steve share a morning in bed.

Always You by hawkeyeandthewintersoldier M // 1,691 // Steve/Bucky // AU Summary: After a year of traveling, Steve finally comes home and confesses his feelings to Bucky.

Stop the World by Rex E // 6,828 // Steve/Scott // AU Summary: When Steve got hired to entertain at Cassie Lang's thirteenth birthday party, he had thought it was going to be like every other kid's party he'd booked. He'd show up, play Captain America, get paid, and go home. He never quite gets to that last step, but to be fair, there was no way he could have anticipated the draw of Scott Lang.

Always by Rex G // 437 // Steve/Matt Murdock // Canon Divergence Summary: Even the Devil of Hell's Kitchen needs an angel from time to time. This one just happens to be from Brooklyn.

Glass by Rex M // 859 // Gen // Non-graphic torture; Implied non-con; Referenced suicide Summary: "We'll lose." "Then we'll do that together, too." Sokovia crashed, Ultron won, and he always had hated Tony the most.

We are already home by Bitters E // 4,948 // Steve/Bucky Summary: Steve carries an injured Bucky through a portal into…somewhere else? But they’re together, like they always have been, and that’s all that matters.

end of the line, time to go home. by moonythejedi394 M // 3,484 // Steve/Bucky // Canon Divergence; Daddy Kink; Age Play/Regression Summary: Steve and Bucky always said they were together 'til the end of the line. But even they have to get off the train eventually. Everybody always figures, at the end of the line is... Y'know. The End. But actually, at the end of the line is happily ever after. It just took them a few decades and a couple suitcases of trauma to get there.

Not Technically A Bromance by dontcallmebree M // 8,657 // Steve/Bucky Summary: “A bromance?” Bruce asks, voice tinged with restrained laughter. “Yeah, we have one of those.” Steve glowers at Bruce, who’s patently laughing at him, eyes bright and twinkling with mirth. Bruce composes himself, biting at his bottom lip. “And you’ve had sex how many times?” (Inspired by that tweet, you know the one.)

At the Top of My Lungs by ralsbecket T // 1,646 // Steve/Tony Summary: Two months had passed since Tony had lost his life; since they had laid him to rest six feet under. It was two months of trying to keep his world from further falling apart, and it wasn’t really working in his favor. So, no. No, he wasn’t okay.

Thor’s Art Class for the Heroes of Midgard by WinterSabbath T // 6,338 // Steve/Bucky // Canon Divergence Summary: In which Thor makes it his mission to help mend the broken, cold relationship between Steven and James through the only way he can think of: Art class. As a bonus, he also helps the team loosen up.

So Let It Happen by Bitters E // 2,287 // Steve/Bucky // Canon Divergence Summary: Steve comes home from a tough mission and needs to get out of his head. His husband and retired Avenger is only too happy to help him with this.

Made of Glass (The Way You See Through Me) by ralsbecket T // 1,132 // Steve/Tony // AU Summary: Steve wasn’t sure what came over him when the model walked out from the back room, wearing a robe; from the moment his eyes landed on his face, he was just… awestruck. Dark hair, bright eyes, full lips. He was fucking beautiful. Or, the one where Tony is the model in Steve's life-drawing class.

for your cooperation by xceru E // 3,145 // Steve/Nat // Canon Divergence Summary: Hydra kidnaps Natasha on a routine mission in Cairo. When Steve finds her, Natasha decides that it's his turn to play prisoner.

my heart in the still winter air by xceru E // 11,887 // Steve/Bucky/Nat // Canon Divergence Summary: “He will,” Steve says, and suddenly Natasha understands. This is the man that Steve altered his heart for, the one he thought only the serum could love. But now Steve knows better—he knows he’s bisexual—he knows his love is real, and the man that it belongs to is undead.

Won't Let Go by afalsebravado E // 2,358 // Steve/Bucky // Canon Divergence Summary: Steve is on the hunt for the Winter Sold-- Bucky. He's on the hunt for Bucky when the leads dry up and he heads home to regroup. But a package from Tony Stark arrives on his doorstep and makes him re-evaluate old promises.

The Truth of Who I Am by hawkeyeandthewintersoldier T // 1,203 // Steve/Bucky // Canon Divergence Summary: Steve Rogers is not a cis straight man and he is tired of people erasing that and other parts of his identity so he fits into the image they already had of him.

Bruise of a Rose by marvelousmoons G // 1,710 // Steve/Bucky // Canon Divergence Summary: It’s moments like this that get under his skin the most. The way Steve can just… be Steve. Be dramatic and give Bucky the cold shoulder for simply caring. But Bucky was stronger. He could play Steve’s game. He wouldn’t cave, no. He would sit and wait for the silence to overwhelm Steve first.

... And all I got was this lousy t-shirt by RainbowNerds M // 3,126 // Steve/Bucky // AU Summary: A month ago, Steve had the best sex of his life with a guy he met in a bar, and went home with the most hideous shirt he'd ever seen but no phone number. Enter his new roommate, Becca. The two instances are not connected, right?

Love you too, jerk by WinterRaven G // 636 // Steve/Bucky // Canon Divergence; Fanart included Summary: Steve makes breakfast for Bucky and their 'kids' help him wake up his husband.

#steve rogers bingo 2021 #2021 round up

13 notes · View notes

isitmadness · 3 years

Text

Needed Company

summary: After Umbara, Obi-Wan and Cody find themselves unable to sleep. Both men have different ways of coping, but sometimes coping together is better than coping alone.

characters/relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Commander Cody, pre-relationship Obi-Wan/Cody

words: 2.4k

tags: pre-relationship, look at these idiots pining again, mutual pining, post-Umbara, light on the angst - just a dash, i tagged both relationship types, because it is both, and i didn’t want to trick anyone...if that makes sense, Jedi positive

a/n: I saw this tweet and ran with it - “underrated trope: when character a can’t sleep and character b finds them wandering or tinkering or painting and decides to keep them company”

Read it on a03

Obi-Wan strolled slowly down the quiet halls of the Negotiator, hands clasped behind his back, no destination in mind. The Force felt mostly still and calm surrounding the thousands of lives on board, and for that he was grateful. And as it was the middle of the night—such as that was flying through hyperspace—the quietness was to be expected. It still didn’t keep Obi-Wan from passing troopers and officers in the halls, but they were more scarce than during the day.

As he got closer to the training rooms, one Force signature he knew rather well was projecting a lot of hurt and that was concerning. He slowed his steps and finally heard grunts, thuds, and slaps which became louder and more insistent as he rounded the corner. It certainly wasn't a strange noise to be coming out of the training room, but it was out of place in the wee hours of the morning.

He found the door to the room open, light from inside spilling into the dim hallway. Obi-Wan could sense strong frustration, anger, guilt rolling off his marshal commander in waves. He stood in the doorway and leaned against the frame to watch Commander Cody taking out his frustrations on a punching bag.

He moved with precision and finesse, muscles rippling each time he twisted or landed a new blow. His warm brown skin sheened with sweat in the light, and the movement was mesmerizing. Obi-Wan tried not to ogle, but was finding it difficult. He had only very recently realized his attraction, but had attempted to put it out of his mind due to their circumstances. He was Cody's general, his superior in rank, in addition to being his friend, and Obi-Wan couldn't, wouldn't jeopardize that.

But objectively, the man was handsome.

He straightened up when the noise stopped and Cody turned. "You just gonna stand there and stare?" Cody said, unwrapping his hand, "Sir." There was something biting in the way Cody addressed him. Obi-Wan frowned and stepped into the room.

"I apologize for disturbing you, commander," Obi-Wan stood at the edge of the mat, hands still clasped behind his back. “I just heard noises in the hall and thought I would stop and see if I could be of any assistance.”

Cody looked him up and down quickly, attempting to do so undetected. The general looked like he just rolled out of bed, and at this hour, he no doubt had done just that. He was wearing his leggings, boots, and only his undertunic which exposed a V of pale chest covered in darker ginger hair. The lighter sandy-colored hair on his head was delightfully sleep-mussed and Cody found himself with twitchy fingers, wanting to reach out and smooth it down. He was his general—that would be wrong and unprofessional.

He sighed, "You didn't disturb me, General Kenobi." Obi-Wan’s eyes tracked Cody as he walked to the bench on the edge of the mat and grabbed a drink from his water bottle. “You knew it was me already though, didn’t you? In the hallway?”

"Please, just Obi-Wan," Obi-Wan replied. "When we're alone," he hastily added. He winced thinking about how that sounded, and Cody pretended not to notice. “And yes, I knew it was you.”

"Well, Obi-Wan, I was just finishing up, so," Cody said as he wiped a towel across his face, around his neck, and over his chest and arms. "I hope I didn't wake you." Cody knew that was unlikely considering the General's quarters were nowhere near the training rooms, but the Jedi was always so in-tune with the lives around him, he had to wonder if the Force worked like that.

Obi-Wan waved a hand dismissively, "Not at all." Truthfully, Obi-Wan had had a hard time sleeping since the Umbaran mission two weeks prior, Krell's betrayal weighing heavily and irrevocably on his mind. "I was just taking a midnight stroll, if you will, and I heard noise and found you."

"Hmm," was all Cody could find to say as he turned to face Obi-Wan finally, neither really knowing what to say. That was new...and odd.

"I just…" Obi-Wan started carefully, unsure of what he wanted to ask, always afraid he might overstep. "I figured whoever was in here was having difficulties, like I am, and I thought maybe they needed company." Obi-Wan shrugged one shoulder, and in that moment, he looked younger. Cody briefly wondered what he must have been like before the war, when he was just a Jedi, and not a High General, unburdened by the cares of war.

Cody leaned over and picked up his black shirt from the bench and slipped it over his head. He really wanted to shower now, but his general was here—a shower could wait.

"Would you like to walk with me? Or perhaps you'd care for tea in my quarters? Absolutely no pressure, perhaps your destruction of this punching bag did the trick,” he smiled. He knew it was a dangerous question, but he and his commander had been alone in his quarters many times—whether for tea or conversation or to go over battle strategies. It wasn't an unusual question, but the request felt heavier than usual.

Cody debated. He had of course been to Obi-Wan’s quarters before, several times, alone and with others—but this time the request felt different. "I...that would be nice, sir." Obi-Wan looked at him pointedly with a small quirk of his lips. "Pardon, Obi-Wan."

"Very good," Obi-Wan said with a smile.

----

They walked back to Obi-Wan’s quarters side by side, both aware that a gap of a few feet between them would be smart, but instead both finding the nearness of the other a small comfort. Cody wished he had more than his blacks to wear but, well, it was what it was. And Obi-Wan didn't seem to mind the informality, especially dressed as he was.

The door slid open when they arrived and everything was just as it usually was except for an untidy bed—Obi-Wan really had just rolled out of it. There was the usual stack of datapads on his desk, a flimsi book opened facedown on the end of his bed, and his outer tunics draped carefully across the back of his desk chair. "Pardon the mess," Obi-Wan said as they walked in.

Cody huffed a laugh, "You're a real slob, sir."

That made Obi-Wan laugh an honest-to-goodness laugh. "Whatever will you do with me…" he replied, unthinking, as he walked over and filled his electric kettle with water.

"Quite frankly, you're past all hope," Cody added, teasing some more. It felt good to laugh and joke with his general, especially after…

"That sounds like something my old padawan would say," Obi-Wan turned to face Cody again and smiled, a far-off look in his eyes.

Cody became serious again. "And how is he, si-- Obi-Wan?"

"Ah," Obi-Wan leaned against the small counter and stroked his beard. "He is angry, as you can imagine. Feeling betrayed."

"As we all are!" Cody interjected more forcefully than he intended.

"Yes, you are right." Obi-Wan sighed and motioned to the small two-person table in the corner near his kitchenette. "Would you care to be seated, commander? Of course, you’re welcome to sit anywhere you'd like."

"Just Cody," he said with a tight smile and took a seat at Obi-Wan’s small table. Obi-Wan remained standing so he could fix the tea.

"And how is Captain Rex?" Obi-Wan asked, cutting right to the chase. He knew why Cody was awake—it was the same reason he was.

"Angry, as you can imagine," Cody said, parroting Obi-Wan’s words back at him. "And I don't think he's telling me everything. Sir, I--" What could Cody even say? It was a betrayal of the highest order and none of them saw it coming. Rex was taking it very personally and very hard—questioning his choices, his command. Many good men were dead now, by their own brothers’ hands, too. How did you come back from that?

"Take your time, Cody," Obi-Wan said as he busied himself getting mugs and his tea out of the cabinet.

Cody was silent a little longer. He felt responsible, of course he did. As marshal commander, he was responsible for hundreds of thousands of lives, and every good man's death weighed heavily on him. And he knew it was the same for his general. He considered himself damn lucky that his general was Obi-Wan.

He knew the Jedi felt a very heavy responsibility being pressed into command of an army—they were guardians of peace and justice, negotiators, not warriors. They were not created for war like he and the clones were. And, belonging to the Galactic Republic as they did, they could have been subjected to the leadership of more Republic officers, none of whom gave a shit about the lives of mere clones. They were a means to an end. Even to the citizens of the republic, they were just a white helmet. But Jedi like Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, Yoda, Plo Koon...Cody knew that they cared about their men.

The kettle's whistle tore through the silence, startling them both. "Apologies," Obi-Wan said as he poured the water. Unsurprisingly, the silence dragged on as long as it took the tea to steep. "Sugar, honey, milk?" Obi-Wan asked when it was finished.

"How about a little honey?"

Obi-Wan nodded. When finished, he brought the cups over and sat across from Cody, sliding his over to him. They sat in silence for several more beats, enjoying the warm and soothing amber liquid. Cody didn't like the stuff at first, but he had grown used to it, and anyway, this little ritual was something he could share with his general—that alone was worth learning to love the drink.

In the harsh light of his quarters, Obi-Wan was slightly greener and paler than usual, but the artificial light could never truly detract from his handsomeness. Cody buried his nose in his cup wondering why he was thinking these thoughts and desperately hoping that the general couldn’t pick up on them.

"I think, Cody," Obi-Wan started again. "That perhaps Rex, and you, could benefit from a mind healer. I don't want to overstep, but as your general, you know it is my duty to look out for the both of you—all of you. And I think you and I are awake for the same reasons.” He hesitated again, taking another sip of his tea. “I myself have been unable to sleep since…"

Umbara went unsaid. It had been a rough two weeks.

"You're very perceptive, as always," Cody smiled but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

Obi-Wan took another long sip of the tea, letting it warm him from the inside. "I'm sorry I didn't have anything stronger."

Cody chuckled, "Maybe next time."

Obi-Wan coughed lightly, "Yes, next time."

They sat in more silence, the only sound was the gentle hum of the Venator-class destroyer hurtling through hyperspace back to Coruscant. They had grown accustomed to that in a short period of time, too. Sometimes it could lull Obi-Wan to sleep, but other times he missed the quiet of the Jedi Temple.

“If you were ever interested—and others, too, of course—I would also be happy to teach you some meditation techniques. It’s not a perfect solution, but I find it helps quiet my mind,” Obi-Wan finally added. “Anakin never took to it too much, but I think you might.”

Cody gave Obi-Wan a genuine smile and agreed. Before he knew it, he found himself feeling rather drowsy—like the tea was some kind of sleeping draught. "What did you put in this tea?” He asked with a grin.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm feeling oddly relaxed all of the sudden," Cody replied.

Obi-Wan smiled, "Well, I'm glad to hear it. But it's only tea and honey, if you're trying to insinuate that I drugged you." Cody laughed. "I guess I can't help that I'm such a lively, interesting person and I can put people to sleep with my conversation." Obi-Wan arched his eyebrow, teasing Cody.

Cody scoffed, "You're one of the most interesting people I know, maybe the most interesting…" Oh, he was tired and saying too much.

"Hmm, oh I doubt that," Obi-Wan chuckled and took another sip of his tea, finally emptying the cup.

"It's true! Your company is infinitely preferable to many." Forget the sleeping draught—there was a truth serum in here, making Cody confess secret thoughts. Cody finished it anyway.

Obi-Wan smiled again, "Well, that goes both ways." He stood and collected their mugs then washed them out in the small sink.

Oh.

Cody was surely imagining this conversation, he was dreaming up this entire scenario, he was sure of it. He decided that maybe he should go try and get some sleep before he hallucinated any more scenarios where his general told him he cared for him, placed his palm on his cheek and--

He stood suddenly, nearly upsetting the chair, "Well, I think I might try to go get some sleep. I'll be returning to my quarters." Even though Obi-Wan’s bed was right there, looking warm and inviting now...

Obi-Wan stood, too, something aching in his chest. "Yes of course, commander, shall I walk you back?"

Cody chuckled, "I think I know my own way, but thank you , sir."

Obi-Wan nodded with a smile and walked Cody to the door. "Well then, thank you for the company, commander."

Cody turned and gave Obi-Wan a lazy two-finger salute, "Thank you, sir."

"Obi-Wan.”

"Yes, Obi-Wan," Cody returned the smile finally.

"Find me if you can't sleep again. I'll find some topic of conversation to drone on about that'll put you right to sleep."

"Ah, but the sound of your voice would keep me awake," Cody said, wincing internally, and Obi-Wan wasn't quite sure how to take that. The door slid open as they got closer and Cody turned to face Obi-Wan again. "Good night, sir, try to get some sleep."

"Good night, commander," Obi-Wan said as Cody walked through the door.

Cody nodded once more then headed down the hall. Obi-Wan stood outside his quarters and watched him until he turned the corner then walked back inside. He sat on his bed and pulled his boots off then his under tunic and tossed it at the chair. He slipped back under the covers which had unfortunately lost all their warmth. With a flick of his wrist, he turned the lights off and nestled in hoping finally for some sleep.

#my writing #codywan #commander cody #obi-wan kenobi #fanfic #obi-wan x cody #needed company #we play fast and loose with canon

33 notes · View notes

goldensunflowers98 · 3 years

Text

Coffee House Dreams

Luke Hemmings Imagine

Please let me know what you think❤️

Aurora sighed as she blew a golden blonde curl from her line of vision once again, her fingers lightly pressing against the piano keys while trying to find the right sound. The small coffee shoppe nestled in one of the side streets of London, where her sister worked tirelessly, bustled with life, the strong scent of espresso overwhelming her senses with every inhale.

She was here almost everyday since she couldn't afford a piano this nice at home, knew most of the customers by name, and she always enjoyed a classic, sweet, vanilla cappuccino after a long day at Uni.

Aurora was a simple girl who loved the sight of rain droplets on rose petals, the sound of the ocean waves crashing against the shore at night, and the scent of espresso as she played the piano. She loved the color red, especially her crimson colored scrunchie that currently tied her mess of golden curls up, and she found unkind people to be the scum of the earth.

She also found the mysterious blonde haired, blue eyed boy that hid his face being a pair of sunglasses and a steaming caramel latte to be the most beautiful creature she'd ever seen. He had started coming in just in the past week, but Aurora found his Australian accent positively enchanting and the dimples that appeared when he smiled made her slam her fingers down on the keys of the piano the first time she saw them, causing a loud crash of discord to sound through the small shoppe and for her to duck her blushing face when he whipped around confused.

He sat perched at the window seat across the way and Aurora noticed how he had a blueberry muffin as well today, his fingers picking at the treat as he watched the raindrops rolls down the clear glass beside him.

He looked sad today, Aurora noticed, the corner of his lips turned downwards and he anxiously fidgeted every few minutes, scratching his temple with his sweater paw.

Now, noticing she was staring like a crazy person, Aurora clears her throat, turning her attention back to the keys and the song she was trying to figure out.

Well the sky is finally open, the rain and wind stopped blowin'

But you're stuck out in the same old storm again

The notes just don't sound as perfect as she wanted and she tries again in another key.

You hold tight to your umbrella, well, darlin' I'm just tryin' to tell ya

That there's always been a rainbow hangin' over your head

She groans to herself, placing her head down on the polished wood, frustrated that she couldn't even get the cords right to her own song.

"That's a beautiful song. Have you tried it starting out in 'G' though?"

She gasps in shock, jumping backwards, her sheet music flying everywhere, and she nearly falls off the piano stool as she hears the accented voice of the mysterious boy who loved caramel lattes right beside her.

He looks mortified at her reaction, his bright blue eyes that were no longer covered by sunglasses were wide and his long arms were out like he was about to catch her before she hit the ground.

"Whoa! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you," he says but it's all muffled as Aurora stares up at him in shock and wonder.

This mysterious boy wasn't so mysterious after all. He was Luke freaking Hemmings from her old favorite band, 5 Seconds of Summer. She had been staring at Luke Hemmings like a certified freak for over a week now and didn't notice. She really needed to get more sleep.

"It's fine. Everything is fine. Just startled me is all. First, you're way over there and now, you're all the way over here. You must have some long legs on you," she mumbles frantically like a crazy person, picking up her sheet music and as she finishes her sentence, her eyes trail from his torso, down his long legs, and to his feet that were awkwardly doing this thing where they turned into one another. "I rest my case."

He laughs lightly at that and her eyebrows raise when he rests his latte cup on top of the piano as if he was staying awhile.

"Sorry, I tend to creep up on people without them noticing. I'm Luke, by the way," he reaches out his hand for her to shake and Aurora smiles at the sight of his red gel fingernails, her favorite color.

"Aurora... I love the red," she says, earning a brilliant beam from him with a hint of a blush. He mumbles a 'thank you' quietly, tucking a wild blonde curl behind his ear sheepishly.

"You come in here a lot. Do you live close by or something?" He asks, taking a sip of his hot drink as she assorts her music once more.

"Are you stalking me, Luke?" She smirks as he nearly chokes on his drink and starts to fumble over his words.

"N-No! No, I just hear you play every time I come in. It's quite nice and it's a small... it's a small shoppe. Oh, god... Please don't think I'm a psycho stalker," he winces behind his cup, knowing his previous words made him sound like a creep.

"I'm just kidding," she giggles with a mischievous grin, finding his nervousness to be quite funny. "It's a small and quiet coffee house. Not many new people come in, so you're a sight for sore eyes, for sure."

She furrows her brows as he doesn't really reply to her statement, looking back at the door as it chimes, lips bitten harshly by his front teeth. He looks disappointed as Andrew, the local dog walker who liked a double fudge hot cocoa after a long morning of trudging along behind a sweet saint bernard, two huskies that were brothers, Mrs. Henderson's prize winning poodle, and a teacup yorkie that had a bite of a lion, walked in.

"Waiting for someone?" She asked quietly, trying to be gentle as his face is crestfallen after checking the time.

"Uh.." he runs his hand through his curls, tugging at the roots anxiously for a moment before turning back to her. "My girlfriend. She... We've been fighting a lot recently, but she was supposed to meet me an hour ago to talk some stuff out."

Sierra Deaton, Luke's girlfriend, was a sweet girl from what Aurora observed from the tweets and Instagram posts, but every relationship had its downfalls.

"Maybe she's stuck in traffic. You know how London is," she once again tries to be gentle with his feelings and her heart aches just a bit when she sees his deep frown.

"Yeah... Maybe it's just London." He hides his upset eyes by a fake smile and Aurora finds it upsetting at just how good he seemed at that specific action; hiding his true feelings.

"Fuck," he suddenly curses, looking frantic for a second as he starts collecting all of his belongings.

"What's wrong?" Aurora asks, his nervousness making her anxiety spike.

"I'm late for rehearsal. Shit! I completely forgot," he shoves his phone in his pocket and shoots back the rest of his latte quickly. "It was so nice finally meeting you! Um, I'll probably see you tomorrow! Try starting the song out in G!" As quick as he stumbles out his words, he is out of the shoppe and Aurora watches in hazy confusion as he speed walks past the window, tugging at his hair nervously again.

"That boy is going to go bald one day if he keeps that up," she mumbles, turning back to her piano and feeling a bit confused and star struck by her encounter.

"What boy?" She hears her sister ask as she walks around the corner, taking Luke's empty mug from off the piano and placing it in the dirty dish tray she had rested on her hip.

"Just a boy, Cece," she smiles up at her older sister who looked disheveled after a long shift. "Damn, you look rough."

Celestia rolls her eyes playfully at her little sister, reaching up to maintain her jet black hair that was nothing like her sister's. You would have never have known that they were related if you had set your eyes on the curly blonde haired, green eyed, shy girl and the older, upbeat girl with obsidian hair and bright, blue eyes. "Want another cappuccino?" She asks, earning a grin and a nod from Aurora as she walks away.

Looking down at the ivory keys, Aurora hums to herself as she hovers her fingers over the 'G' key. Beginning to play the song, she can't help but grin and scribble down notes inside her tattered song journal. Maybe Luke knew what he was talking about after all.

________

The sun is dimly shining the next morning and Aurora inhales the smell of wet asphalt after the night full of rain, a small smile on her face. Turning the corner towards the coffee shoppe, she nearly stops in her tracks as she sees a familiar, teary-eyed boy through the window, sitting in his normal seat. He was alone, no coffee or muffin in sight and she watches as he buries his distraught face in his hands.

Trudging along slowly while taking looks back at the upset Luke through the window, Aurora frowns as she enters the shoppe and walks over to the counter. "Hey, Cece. I need a vanilla cappuccino, a caramel latte, and two blueberry muffins, please. Put extra caramel drizzle and whipped cream on the latte too."

She ignores her sister's confused smirk as she places the money on the counter, continuing to look over at Luke, who's shoulders were now lightly shaking with sobs. Her order is quick to arrive and she collects the cups and muffins carefully, making a beeline towards Luke's table.

"Hey, sunshine," she whispers solemnly, a gentle, comforting smile on her lips as he looks up with red rimmed eyes, a flushed nose and cheeks, and sniffles quietly.

"Hey," he croaks, wiping his eyes and looking embarrassed that she caught him in his weakest moments.

She slowly slides the muffin and caramel latte in front of him and when he looks up at her confused that she got his order right, she shrugs lightly. "Lucky guess," she says before taking the seat in front of him.

"I know we just met and aren't the best of friends, but I felt like you needed someone to talk to or else you wouldn't be sitting here in the middle of a public coffee house and crying, so... Here I am," she says, stuffing a large bite of blueberry muffin in her mouth and ignoring the crumbs that fall onto the table.

He doesn't say anything for a few moments, a dazed look in his eyes as he gazes out the window and stirs his spoon around and around the rim of his cup.

Aurora is patient, half of her cappuccino finished before he finally parts his lips to speak.

"She left me. She said she didn't want to deal with the distance when we go on tour again and that she didn't trust me to not h-hook up with other girls while I'm gone. I've never done anything but give her l-love and reasons t-to...to trust me! I would n-never cheat."

His words, heaving chest, and his trembling lip are enough to make Aurora wince in sympathy, nearly burning her tongue as he says it in the middle of her taking a larger gulp.

"I'm so sorry, Luke... I know she meant a lot to you or you wouldn't be having this reaction." He nods solemnly as her words before she continues. "If it's any consolation, she didn't deserve you after you kept trying to meet up and talk and she never showed. You tried. She didn't. Some people aren't worth your tears. I know that's not going to stop you from being upset, but it's a thought to think about."

His eyebrows furrow a bit at her words before he gives a small nod. "I guess you're right," he says, showing progress in his mood as he finally picks up his latte and takes a small sip.

It's quiet for a few more minutes and the second that Aurora sees his bottom lip start to tremble again, she panics and leans forward. "Hey," she reaches out and lightly touches his hand. "Want to get out of here? I've got this place I'd like to show you if you let me. It's a bit of a drive, but you won't regret it."

Looking down at his watch, he seems to weigh the pros and cons for a moment before giving in. "Why not?" He says, standing and throwing his jacket on as Aurora looks up, slightly dumbfounded that he accepted.

"Okay," she stands up and gets out an excited giggle, placing their cups in the bin. "Lets go"

With a wave to her sister, who was giving her a proud smirk, Luke puts on his sunglasses and they leave the coffee house, making their way to her car that was parked around the corner.

"Holy shit, this is amazing!" Luke laughs unbelievably at her cherry red 1976 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible with cream colored interior.

"Thanks! It was my granddad's!" Climbing in, she cranks the car and with an excited grin and looking both ways, she pulls out into the traffic.

The wind blows through their hair as the cruise down the roads and Aurora gently smiles when she looks over and sees Luke grinning as he looks at the scenery and people around.

"Here," She hands him her phone as she enjoys the cool breeze, placing her sunnies over her eyes. "You choose the music."

"Brave choice," he hums, taking the phone and beginning to scroll through the songs until he gets to a certain category.

"I knew it!" He shouts with a crazed laugh, Aurora giving him an odd look as she worries for his health.

"You okay there, bub?" She asks with a slight chuckle before he shoves her phone in her face with a wide grin.

"Every one of our albums, including our old EP's, and features. I knew you were a fan!" He laughs as her face drops, a blush taking over her cheeks.

"I never said I wasn't," she sticks her tongue out at him before smirking at his dumbfounded face. "Play a song, doofus." She shoves him playfully as he continues to grin, his thumb scrolling through the songs.

English Love Affair starts playing through the speakers and Aurora rolls her eyes behind her sunglasses. "I see what you did there," she laughs as he smirks over at her cheekily, his sadness hidden well, but Aurora knew it was still under the surface.

________

Oh tie up your boat, take off your coat, and take a look around

Everything is alright now

The door to the coffee shoppe chimes cheerfully the following day, making Aurora look up in curiosity. A smile tugs at her lips as she sees the familiar, lanky, blonde boy walk in but her eyes slightly widen as three other beautiful boys follow behind him.

"Holy mother of God," she mumbles to herself wide eyed as she sees Luke turn towards the piano and give her a smile and wave, making a beeline towards her with the boys in tow.

Gulping, Aurora tries to hide her shaking hands by sitting on them, nervously grinning as they come closer.

"Hey, Ro! These are my friends, Michael, Ashton, and Calum. I told them about your song and they really wanted to hear it." Aurora almost fell over as a pleasant nickname passed through his lips but what really made her vision blurry was the end of his sentence.

"O-Oh, that's so... that's so sweet, Luke. It isn't finished yet though," she frowns, biting her lip as he seems to deflate.

"Oh, well maybe next time then," he says sadly and the look on his face is enough for her to grab his hand as he starts to turn.

"Wait! I-I can show the parts I do have," she says, making his smile appear once again.

The boys all crowd around her, making her feel extremely nervous but with Luke's encouraging smile, she places her still shaking hands over the keys.

When it rain it pours but you didn't even notice

It ain't rainin' anymore, it's hard to breathe when all we know is

The struggle of staying above, the rising water line

She continues the song, trying to his cracking, nervous voice, until she no longer has any lyrics, trailing off with a quiet hum and shaky exhale. "That's all I've got so far," she looks up to see the four boys grinning at her widely.

"She's perfect, Luke," Calum says over to Luke proudly and Ashton nearly jumps up and down.

"Such a smart breadstick, you!" Ashton pats him hard on the back as Michael continues to smile but stay the calm one.

"I don't understand," Aurora nervously picks at her bottom lip as they continue to talk excitedly amongst themselves. That's when she realizes her music journal that was testing on the piano is in Ashton's hand and they are all flickering through the pages with excited grins.

"Um, excuse me," her eyebrows are now furrowed as they read her personal songs and words from her heart and Luke looks up as they hear the edge in her tone.

"Sorry, Ro," He yanks the journal out of their hands and places it back on the piano with an apologetic wince. "I think we owe an explanation." When she nods annoyed, he gulps and continues. "We are in a band called 5 Seconds of Summer."

"I know this... Plus, there's only four of you," she deadpans as Ashton snickers in the back.

"Anyway! We are in a band and we are looking for an opening act and someone to sign, but we didn't want anyone to mainstream or famous. We think you'd be perfect to open for us."

Aurora stares up at them in shock, her mouth becoming dry.

“So... what do you say?” Luke asks, his cheeks turning slightly red.

What should she say?

26 notes · View notes

thesassenachswiftie · 4 years

Text

Chapter 2: “You Need To Calm Down)

Read on AO3

Summary:

Chapter 2 is here! It's time for Claire and Jamie's first fight but that also it's time for their first make-up sex. This is my first time writing Smut but @statell assures me I did a good job. If that's really not your thing (I mean you are reading OL fanfic so it probably is), it's all the big paragraph near the end and the two dialogue paragraphs after you can easily skip to the last 3 dialogue paragraphs without losing the plot. Big thanks to everyone following along on this journey and all the kudos and comments on the last chapter.

This chapter is not only inspired by "You Need to Calm Down" but also by "The Reckoning" any quotes borrowed from either of these works belong to their respective author whom I am indebted to and admire greatly.

Notes:

First of all, I’m on Twitter now @sassenachswifty.

Second of all, There was a short lived comment on AO3 about Jo's pronouns on my last chapter. I genuinely think the commenter realized their mistake and deleted it before I had a chance to respond--which is fine and good, heaven knows I've made mistakes with pronouns and felt weird and caught of guard about them and all of that. Basically they were saying the they/them pronons were not grammatically correct and were distracting to the reader. I get that, I totally do, it feels uncomfortable because we were never taught about the singular they in school and it looks/sounds weird if you're not used to it. However, the sigular they has been recognized by APA, MLA and I believe Chicago style and is, therefore grammatically correct. It's something I'm getting used to as a writer and it's something we can try to get used to as readers as we move forward into a more progressive society. Our grandkids are going to make fun of us someday for struggling with pronouns. I just wanted to say it's ok to struggle, it's not ok to dismiss (which I genuinely believe the commenter was not doing). Jo came to me as a nonbinary character, and while it is a good exercise in pronoun usage for me as an author, that is not their primary function in the story, they are there to be Claire’s friend first and foremost. They/them are Jo's pronouns and I cannot and will not call them anything else because that would be disrespectful to them. My only other option would be to use "Jo" in every instance where he/she/her/him would come up which would be annoying, repetative and frankly, bad writing. Thank you for coming to my TED talk, now on with the show!

Chapter 2: “You Need To Calm Down”

Claire awoke in Jamie’s bed early on Saturday morning. It was graduation day, but she was definitely not walking the stage. Still laying on her side, she picked up her phone off the nightstand and began mindlessly scrolling Facebook, stopping at a collection of photos from an end of semester happy hour the night before. Frank was there as well as several of their mutual friends. Were they still friends? Probably not anymore, who knows if they ever were. Claire tapped from the photos posted by Gillian to the tag that took her to Frank’s profile. She scrolled down his feed to see if there were any new updates. Other than the pictures, it was the same barely cryptic statuses that were clearly throwing shade her way to anyone that knew. In a tweet? That’s a cop-out. Taking shots at me like it's Patrón, she mused to herself, recalling the pictures from the night before. Claire began swiping through Frank’s photos going back further and further. Her and Frank in front of the house with the “sold” sign in the yard. A candid picture she took of Frank in a coffee shop one day. Brilliant, smiling faces of them and their friends all dressed up at their New Year’s Eve party--many of the people pictured in the photos from last night. Frank proudly standing with his arm around her, Claire beaming and angling her hand just so a few days after they got engaged. Claire was so engrossed in these images she didn’t realize Jamie had awoken behind her. He leaned over to plant a kiss on that spot just behind her ear, pausing when he saw what she was looking at, “Damn Sassenach, it’s seven AM for Chrissakes” he hissed.

Claire’s face flushed immediately. She had been caught. She didn’t even know why she was doing what she was doing, but she felt ashamed, defensive, embarrassed, and justified all at once. She swiped out of her Facebook app instantly but it was too late. He had seen and the damage had been done. She couldn’t speak, she didn’t have any good excuses, and she definitely couldn’t turn to look at Jamie. She set the phone back down on the nightstand and burrowed her curly head under the pillow trying to avoid his gaze. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew Jamie was watching her intently waiting for an explanation.

“Hey, are you ok? I dinna mean to snap at ye Claire, It’s just early and I dinna expect to see ye looking at pictures of your ex after what I thought was such a satisfying night. Am I not good enough for ye Claire?” His tone started gentle and caring, but his veins were pulsing with jealous rage and his voice got more angry and frantic as he continued. “Look at me, Claire!”

Claire didn’t like being told what to do, especially not with the newfound feminist energy Jo had ignited in her. She hoisted herself out from her cocoon, and sprang up to face him. “I don’t have to do what you tell me to. You need, to calm down, you’re being too loud!”

He made a distinctly Scottish noise--“Hmpph. That’s not what ye said last night Sassenach” he growled. He couldn’t help flirting with her even in his anger. She looked so bonny, bare-breasted with her curls splayed every which way, the fire of her anger alight in her whisky eyes--frightening and sexy at the same time.

Claire wasn’t amused by his quip, or by the tone of voice in which he said it, “you need to just stop, like can you just not? I don’t like it one bit!”

“Not what, Claire? Not want ye only for myself? Not feel jealous seeing pictures of that rat bastard with his smug grin and his arm around ye to be the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning? You do belong to me, whether ye like it or not. Why are you mad? I’m the only one allowed to be mad, Claire! Yer mine, damn ye Claire! Mine, and I wilna share ye, with a man or a memory or anything whatsoever”

Her glass face broke before his eyes as he raised his voice louder. Her anger had turned to something fragile, something Jamie was afraid he would break. Even still, she spoke softly, but confidently, “I don’t belong to you or anyone, I’m my own person. You need to just take several seats” She glanced away from him, trying to keep her composure.

Controlling his urge to scream, he replied “I know that, that’s not what I meant. I ain’t trying to mess with who you are or your self expression, I mean that I am yours just as much as you are mine”

Damn, he’s good, thought Claire as she met his gaze again. His passion, even when directed towards anger, was still sexy.

“Claire, I see you over there on the internet all the time, this isn’t the first time you’ve done this is it?”

She nodded in agreement, embarrassed, but somehow she felt safe admitting it to Jamie. She was beginning to realize just how much he truly cared about her. As strange as it seemed, through this small fight, their relationship was moving from simply mutual, passionate attraction to something deeper. It might have been there all along beyond the urges of the flesh, but she was just now truly seeing it. It was exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

“Listen, I’ve learned a lesson that stressing and obsessing about somebody else is no fun.” Jamie disclosed, trying to restore the peace. “He’s not worth your time if he let a girl like you go on the drop of a hat like that.” This made Claire wince internally, hoping he didn’t see, there was more to it than that. He didn’t seem to notice and continued, “What we have is like sunshine, but you act like you would rather be in the dark.” He reached for her arm, caressing it gently.

“You’ve figured me out. You’re right, I don’t know why I keep checking on him. I guess I’m hoping I’ll find out something horrible has happened to him; but I promise, only you have me.”

“I mean to have you Claire, I am your master and you are mine. It seems I cannot possess your soul without losing my own.” Both of Jamie’s hands were on Claire’s arms now, gripping her more firmly now. They were drawing closer to each other, the passion of their anger still surging in their veins. “I want you Claire, I want you so much I can scarcely breathe. Will you have me?”

“Yes.”

Their lips met with a fervour unlike any they had experienced before, hands caressing everywhere. Claire moaned into Jamie’s mouth as his hand cupped her breast, stroking her nipple vigorously with his palm. His lips moved to her neck, that spot behind her ear that made her giggle and squeak. He was ravenous, consuming her flesh with his lips, making his way down to her other breast, sucking her nipple as he ran his tongue around it, willing all sorts of noises to emit from her mouth. She was straddling him, grinding against him, feeling his wanting against her in just the right spot. She thrust her hands into his boxer briefs, tugging at his hips to bring them even closer. He responded in kind, slipping his hands into the lace waistband her cotton panties and grabbing that arse he loved so much. He moved one hand around to her front and started stroking her most sensitive area and slipped a finger inside her. “Oh, Jamie” she moaned as she began to ease his waistband down. She allowed herself to let him go for a moment, releasing him to remove his underwear, as she did the same. As soon as they were fully exposed to one another, she was on top of him again. She moved herself up and down his length, feeling him rub against her, igniting a euphoric sensation in her core. When neither of them could take it anymore he slipped inside her, and she took him in to the hilt, riding him almost violently. All the anger and shame she had felt moments ago had transformed into a primal lust unleashed on him. He responded in kind, kissing her vigorously across breasts, neck and shoulders until she shoved him back on the bed to gain a better angle. Pushing her hand to his chest for leverage, she rode him harder than she’d ever ridden anyone before--not even the vibrator she used to experiment with in college. She could see he was close, his face contorting as he resisted the urge to finish before her.

“Sassenach, you’ll be the death of me” he groaned.

“Just a little more, Jamie” she panted, just before crying out, “Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh”. Seeing her satisfied, he allowed himself to finish as well. Claire gently detached from him and collapsed beside him, breathless, resting on his chest, hair sprawled across him.

“Oh Sassenach, ye keep that up and I’m liable to pick fights with you more often” he sighed.

“You better watch out before you start something you can’t finish” she quipped in response.

Jamie simply made a Scottish noise in reply, staring at the ceiling stroking her hair, wondering if he had, in fact, done just that.

End Note:

I try to slip in as many lyrics from each song as possible and make it still "work", occasionally changing tenses or adding/subtracting words to make them work. Claire's orgasm moans are the "oh oh's" in the chorus of YNTCD and I'm simultaneously proud of myself and ashamed.

#lover #outlander fanfic #outlander fic #jamie x claire #claire beauchamp #jamie fraser #modern au #inspired by taylor swift #you need to calm down #smut

40 notes · View notes

sprnklersplashes · 3 years

Text

heart of stone (18/?)

AO3

The sky is grey as Cady crosses the front yard to school, a dark, dusty kind of grey. She pulls her jacket tighter around her body; the air gets colder every day. She doesn’t hate winter, but she doesn’t love it either. She tilts her head up to the sky, a heavy weight in her heart as she misses the sun and the blue sky and fluffy white clouds. The world feels so small when the weather is like this.

She rubs her hand over her face, a low groan escaping her lips of its own accord. It’s not just the cold that makes her wish she was still in her bed; she doesn’t think she’s been this tired before, ever. The kind of low-battery, foggy-brained, running on fumes kind of tired. She blinks heavily and shakes her head, her exhaustion settling into her bones as the day ahead stretches out before her.

Last night hadn’t been ideal.

Sleep hadn’t come easily. Every time she got under the covers she was up again not five minutes later, her body feeling like there was a live current running through it. She gave up fairly quickly, instead distracting herself the best way she knew she could; by opening her textbook and working through the pages until she found she had finished the chapter. And so she turned it over and started the next one. They hadn’t covered that yet, but it was fine. She knew that she could teach it to herself, and that’s exactly what she did. Time melted away, just her and her pen and what became pages of notes that must have been legible that one point but blurred and distorted and turned into black scribbles that were one degree away from senseless.

She had her phone too. She keeps it on all night now. Just in case she had told herself, but it’s not like anything came from it. Not at that hour of the night. Not that there had been anything earlier either. Not a text, not a phone call. No posts from her either.

Three days. That had been how long it had been since she last heard from her in any capacity.

Cady shakes her head, cursing at herself under her breath. She rubs her eyes, debating whether or not she has time to run to the shop at the end of the road and buy breakfast. She had ended up crashing out some time after 2 am only to be woken up by her mom what felt like minutes later, hysterically telling her she was late for school. And her overtired, overworked brain took a minute to compute it before she jumped off the bed and before she knew it she was running down the stairs and thanking God for her dad being able to give her a ride there. If it isn’t cool for a senior to be driven to school by her parents, she really, really couldn’t care less.

She takes a deep breath and reaches into her pocket. She feels herself becoming more centred, her feet once again planted on the ground, and she realises that in her haste this morning, she’d forgotten to check her phone. Not like it’s a necessity for her, but it’s nice to keep up with the rest of the world and she won’t get a chance to check it properly for a few hours. Just in case there’s something important there that she can’t miss.

So she takes her phone out and pauses for a minute before turning on her data. Duh, Cady, what else would you do? Not like you can use the WiFi way out here. And she waits and she watches. Watches as her calendar reminds her she has a tutoring session after school today, watches the Mathlete groupchat pile up, watches as people like her tweet. She sorts through each like, and her heart falls a little more each time. She tenses when she gets a message and deflates when she sees it’s from Taylor, asking to borrow her biology notes. She goes through her apps and her messages one by one, checking every icon that pops up, some twice, before she finally nods and accepts it.

Nothing from Janis.

She adjusts her bag on her shoulder. She honestly doesn’t know if she’s allowed to feel this way. Whatever she’s feeling. Just… three days without talking to her girlfriend is harder than a lot of people might think it is. Maybe she’s just being dramatic. She probably is. After all, Janis seemed fine the last time she saw her. She just misses her, misses her presence, misses holding her hand and doing nothing with her. And at least-

Bam!

Pain bursts across her cheek, her cold skin turning hot in its wake as something smacks her in the face. She stumbles and almost falls, her balance failing her until the last possible moment. She closes her eyes tightly until the world feels steady again and she catches her breath. When she opens them, there’s a soccer ball rolling across the ground.

“Hey… are you okay?” There’s a hand on her shoulder and she turns around, finding herself facing a couple of awkward-looking freshman boys, all with zipped-up jackets and glad in gloves and beanies. She blinks at them, words catching in her throat. Whatever they asked her, it had faded away the moment they said it.

“We’re sorry,” one of them says. “We didn’t mean to. He-he just doesn’t know how hard he can kick.”

“It’s…. it’s fine,” she manages. She clears her throat again and straightens up. “It’s really fine. I’m fine.” She is. It’s just a soccer ball, no matter how hard it gets kicked. They didn’t mean it, and the pain is next to nothing now, a slightly warm flush to her cheek the only indication that it even happened. She’s okay. It didn’t even hurt that much.

Then why is she crying?

She backs away from them, away from their wide eyes and confused worry, as the yard begins to spin. She covers her mouth just as another sob wrecks through her body and this one is so loud that everyone hears it.

She sees herself turn away from them, sees the school get closer and closer and then she’s tearing through the halls, her head down and her hair falling past it. Hands come on her shoulder and fall away in the next second. She doesn’t know where she’s headed, why she’s running, all that she knows is that she can’t be where she is now.

She falls into a bathroom stall and pulls the lock over it, securing her in. She presses her back against the wall and pulls her knees against her chest. Her chest hurts, her throat, her head. Hurts from holding it back and shoving it down. This is the worst place she could be, confined in four walls all so close to her and the door bolted, even if that was her own choice. And who knows who else out there, listening to her.

She wishes she were on the roof staring at the sky, or in the park, or better still, back in Kenya, standing atop a cliff with no-one looking at her. Where she could scream until her throat is torn apart and cry until there was nothing left in her. If she was there she could let her voice mix with the wind and be carried away by the wind, let out everything she’s kept locked up inside. But instead she’s in here instead, and she has class, so all she can do is swallow her feelings and cry into her knees until the bell rings. It helps, but not by much.

Damian doesn’t say anything when she sits next to him. But he does hold her hand tighter than he ever has before.

*****

If Cady was exhausted that morning, she stumbles through her door eight and a half hours later a complete corpse. Not a figure of speech; she catches sight of herself in the mirror and flinches at what she sees. Her skin is paple and dark smudges stand out under her eyes, her hair is tangled and messy and falling out of the ponytail-bun she put it in at lunch. She leans against the wall and leans her head against the wall as a long rush of breath escapes her lungs. She keeps her eyes open only because she feels if she closes them, she’ll pass out right here.

At least she’ll probably fall asleep easier tonight.

She pushes herself off the wall and heads to the kitchen. Her lunchbox is still mostly full; she wasn’t really hungry today. Maybe she’ll reuse it tomorrow, she thinks. Her hand is on the doorknob and she’s two seconds away from turning it until she hears a voice that’s familiar but doesn’t belong in her house.

“And you’ve seen them work before?”

“Oh they worked wonders on the kids in Africa,” her mom says. “And we don’t need them here. You take as many as you need, Lauren.”

Cady’s eyes go wide. Janis’ mom? In her house? She presses a hand to her mouth and slowly lifts her hand from the doorknob. She presses herself against the wall and freezes, all her attention focussed on what’s on the other side of the door.

“Thanks so much,” Laura sighs. “I mean when Janis mentioned these, I know she wasn’t thinking about herself, but you know, I think they’ll be perfect for her.” She chuckles, but it doesn’t sound right. Too dark. “That is, if she’ll agree to eat them.”

“Well we have ones with little chocolate chips in them,” her mom adds. But Cady knows that isn’t what Laura meant, and her mom must know it too. “And the kids back in Kenya all liked them. As did Cady’s friend last year. Besides, they just take up space here now.” Kalteen bars, Cady realises, and among the prick of guilt, she puts the pieces together and feels sick at what it must mean. “If nothing else, it’s worth a try.”

“It is,” she agrees. “Probably healthier than bulk buying her donuts and letting her rip into them.”

“You do not.”

“Last week Alex came in with a whole box,” Laura says. “Her doctor doesn’t disapprove. Anything to keep her weight up, he says. Everything else goes out the window.”

Cady closes her eyes, her nails digging into her cheeks as she pictures Janis, her Janis, and how thin she is now. Her collarbone poking out of her skin, how loose her bracelets are on her wrists now. How when she holds their hand, Cady feels like she might crush her if they hold too tightly. She never told her she was worried about it, but she can never ignore it either. She just didn’t know if it was something to worry about.

Well, guess she has an answer now.

“She’s digging her heels in about the meat thing though,” she goes on. “I can’t count how many times she and Alex have had that talk. She swears she’ll wither away before she eats an animal.”

That’s my girl Cady thinks, pride blooming in their chest.

“Well, she’s stubborn,” Cady’s mom says with a note of admiration. “You couldn’t shake that out of her.”

“I know,” Laura sighs. “Kind of wish I could though.” Cady takes a step backwards at that. She feels as though she’s crossed a line just by listening. That this isn’t any of her business, even if it is about Janis. Not every detail of her girlfriend’s life is about her. “Anyway, thanks for these, Rachel.”

“Oh, any time Laura.” Cady pauses. She doesn’t think her and Janis’ moms have ever exchanged more than a few words with each other. Not hostile, but not friendly either. Just casual, polite, formal conversations while one waited for their daughter to be ready. Heck, one day she and Janis had actually tried to quote “parent trap our parents” (Janis’ choice of words) and try to force them into being best friends. Cady had been cautiously optimistic, but gave up before Janis did, reminding her that they can’t force their moms to bond. If it happened, it’ll happen.

Who knew that when it did, it would be over Kalteen bars?

“And… Cady?” Laura asks, and she jumps at it, looking over her shoulder like she’s about to be caught. “How’s she holding up?”

“Oh she’s… she’s holding,” her mom says. “Tough as nails that one.” There’s a pause, and then, “I’m so glad they found Janis. You know, I never thought I’d see Cady as happy as they were when we first moved here, but then I see them with Janis and it’s just…” She sighs. “You know.”

“Yeah. Janis is the same,” Laura says. “You know… oh she’ll kill me if I tell you this. But sometimes when Janis is on painkillers at the hospital… she’ll just start babbling on about Cady.” She laughs, and her mom does too. Cady doesn’t, but her cheeks glow pink. “I’m just so glad she’s got Cady. I mean she’s always had Damian, but still. I think Cady’s keeping her sane, you know?”

Cady gasps a little. She her eyes are wet, but unlike this morning, she’s not hurt. She’s never doubted that Janis likes her. She’s wondered why sometimes, but she’s not really doubted it before. She just never thought she meant that much to her either. And dare she say it… it feels good.

Cady hears the scraping of chairs and jumps from the wall, running over to the door and opening it. When the kitchen door opens, she’s just stepping through it, twirling her keychain around her finger.

“Mrs Sarkisian,” they greet. “Um, Laura. Hey, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, I just came round for coffee,” she explains. She shifts her large shopping bag behind her. “How was school?”

“Oh you know,” they say. “Same old, same old.”

“So your mom tells me that you’ve applied to Carnegie Mellon,” she says. “That’s a great school. You’re applying for math, right?”

“Yep, that’s right,” she replies. “Uh, it’s mathematical sciences, so it’s tough, but it’s everything I love, so…” She tugs on the straps of her backpack, the tension visible only to her. “So… how’s Janis doing?”

“You know,” Laura says. “Powering through it. She misses you.”

“I miss her too.” Her hands tighten on the straps. “Would you tell her for me?” Laura’s face softens at her request.

“Of course I will, kid.” Laura pats her shoulder, a fond smile on her face before turning to Cady’s mom. Cady’s eyes are drawn to Laura’s bag, where the boxes of Kalteen bars are sitting. They seem to burn through the fabric and fill the room with smoke. They hold Cady’s attention to tightly that she doesn’t even notice Laura leaving until the door is closing behind her and her car starts up in the driveway.

“So… how was school?” her mom asks.

“Fine,” she says.

“And how was your tutoring?”

“Hm?”

“Your tutoring,” she says again. “After school, you said you were tutoring.”

“Oh yeah, that was fine,” she says. She folds her arms tightly over her chest. There’s a phantom sting on her cheek from where the ball hit her this morning, even if the redness has long since faded. As have the tears, but the worry never does. She can see the Kalteen bar in her mind’s eye, sitting on Janis’ table, and wonders if she’ll ever tell her.

“I’m going to go start my homework,” she mutters, and she’s running up the stairs before her mom can say anything else.

*****

Cady jolts awake, a yelp emitting from her throat and a high-pitched ringing in her ears. She pushes herself, her hair a tangled mess in front of her face and blinks until her eyes can stay open on their own. Her room doesn’t feel familiar at first, her bed not her own. She waits, panting heavily like she’s finished running, until the ringing dies down and the ground beneath her starts to feel solid. She drags a hand over her face and shakes her head, her mind feeling rusty and lagging like an old car engine.

It takes her a minute to register another sound, not in her head, and another minute still for her to put two and two together and reach under her pillow to grab her phone and turn off the alarm.

She does know it’s wrong for her to sleep with her phone under her pillow like that. It’s a fairly recent decision, taken after one day when the impossible happened and Janis texted her when she was asleep. It’s not the best plan, the health risks alone would kill her poor father if he found out, but it’s fine. She’s made it this far without something happening to her, and it’ll only be another two months. And besides, it wakes her up.

She pushes herself off the bed and wobbles as she rises, her legs unsteady. She stretches out her back, her spine creaking like an old rocking chair. Damian has made jokes about his body feeling like an old man’s, and while she’s laughed, she’s never understood it until now.

When she turns around, she’s greeted with the sight of her textbooks and notes strewn across the bed and around the floor, mostly sprawled open and all tossed haphazardly. She rubs the back of her neck, embarrassed even if she’s alone. The sight of her books treated so carelessly unsettles her, almost making her guilty. She’s used to treating her school things with respect, or at least being gentle with them. Her friends call her type A, or a nerd, but she knows how lucky she is to have books like these. Since her first day in North Shore, she’s treated them with the care they deserve.

She makes up for her misstep by picking them up carefully, smoothing out the bent spines and creased pages. She realises she doesn’t actually remember “going” to bed last night, other than moving her studying from the desk to the bed. As she picks up her notes she finds highlighters and pens as well, hiding in the folds of her duvet. It comes back to her, sitting up with the pages against her legs as she worked, and then a fuzzy image of her lying down comes to mind. She’s pretty sure the light was still on when she did, as she told herself it was just for a minute.

“Famous last words, Cady,” she whispers to herself. Satisfied with how her bed looks, she slides her phone out of the waistband of her jeans, having almost forgotten to check it. Like she ever could, really. It was a habit she picked up in her plastic days and has hardened in the last months, and one she pays for with headaches and itchy eyes. She honestly wishes that she could stop, but she keeps going anyway, her one excuse is that it’ll end once this is all back to normal.

And sometimes, it pays off, like today, when at the top of the screen is a message from Janis, and her heart does a flip. It’s a long one too, two actually because it’s Janis and of course she did that. One hand types in her passcode while the other dances and fidgets at her side.

‘Hi babe,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, I know it’s been a hot minute. I’ve just felt pretty out of it these past few days. Nothing I can’t handle. Anyway, miss ur face a lot. And the rest of u. So what’s happening on ur end?’

Cady presses her hand to her mouth to keep the squeal inside. In amongst the delight and the ecstasy of it, there’s this immense feeling of relief washing over her, coming from too many places for her to pin down. But it doesn’t matter. Janis is texting her, and that means she’s fine, and that’s all that matters.

‘I really am sorry it’s been so long. I wasn’t like, really sick or anything, I was just really tired a lot of the time and I didn’t want to text you when I wasn’t physically capable of holding a conversation. And I know you’re busy with school and Mathletes and stuff. Anyway, yeah, still miss ur face. Text me when u can???’

Cady sits down on the desk, pressing her thumb into the wood as she reads the messages again, once for joy and the second because well…. Janis was tired, she says. That’s not abnormal, she’s tired most of the time. So it shouldn’t bother her like it does.

She takes a deep breath and replies, telling her that it’s fine that she’s been quiet (it is) and that she misses her too (she does) and that she’s been seriously busy (she wishes that weren’t true) and then finishes it off with a reminder that she misses her (because it’s seriously, seriously true). She hovers for a minute, waiting for a reply that doesn’t come. Of course, she thinks. She’s probably on a round right now.

She’s downstairs when it hits her that Janis didn’t mention the Kalteen bars at all, and she doesn’t know how she feels about that.

******

“You doing okay?” Damian asks her. They’re standing at his locker; the hallway mostly empty which is a miracle in itself. This one time on this one day is one of the few times the two of them can run to their lockers without being swamped, and the added bonus is that they can hang out for a few minutes too. Right now, Damian is looking at them through narrowed eyes, seemingly searching for an answer. They just shrug at him and tug on the straps of their backpack.

“Yeah. Why?”

“You just seem a little bit… on edge today,” he says. “Something happen?”

“No, no.” They shake their head firmly, their ponytail swinging with the momentum. It’s only now that they realise they’re tossing their phone between their hands. They turn it on quickly before making a point of shoving it in their pocket. They shake their hands out, ignoring they feel without it. “Nothing like that, really. In fact, I’m great.” He raises an eyebrow, which translates to a rather sarcastic-sounding really?

Cady has to wonder if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that she can now understand Damian’s eyebrow movements.

“Well, I got a text from Janis this morning,” they say, folding their arms for emphasis. “So yeah, I’m doing pretty good.”

“Oh,” he says, and his lips curl into a smirk and then to a smile, his face growing soft. Something in the air shifts, the tension fading as the few people in the hallway fade away and he says gently, “I’m glad she’s back.”

“Yeah,” they whisper as he closes his locker. “Same here.”

It’s more than just having her back; they think as Damian slings his arm around their shoulders and walks them down the hall. Yes, they missed her, but it’s more a confirmation than anything else; that she’s okay, despite everything, that mentally and physically she’s doing what she needs to be doing. That she’s on the right track, and soon they’ll all be back to normal.

They wonder if Damian feels the same, if he has a similar prick of anxiety every time his phone buzzes. He seems to be handling this far better than they are, dancing along where they’re stumbling. Not that he isn’t worried, he’s just handling it better than they are. They’re glad of it and they sure as hell hope

Damian leaves them off at their history class. He gives them a friendly pat on their head, but his smile doesn’t quite meet his eyes, a look on his face that if they didn’t know any better, they’d call worried.

“You take care of yourself, okay?” he asks, his voice all gentle and soft.

“Sure,” they say, although they don’t quite get what he means. The question came out of the blue. “Um… you too.” He nods and pats her shoulder again, that look of parental concern staying in his eyes. There’s an awkward pause, and Cady’s about to turn to go into the class before he pulls them into a quick, tight hug. He squeezes their shoulder one last time before he finally walks away, the ghosts of his arms still lingering around her body.

Cady stands and watches him go, waving to some people, chatting to others. He looks the same as he always has, just Damian, bundle of laughs, giver of hugs, human teddy bear Damian. And they feel immensely stupid. This whole time they’ve been assuming that Damian is handling this thing pretty well, better than they are anyway. They guessed it helped that he comes equipped with a sunny outlook on life, and so believed he was fine. All it took was a hug to prove them wrong, and he probably didn’t even know he was doing it.

They turn and head into the classroom, a feeling of helplessness clinging to their back.

The history lesson is interestingly enough. History isn’t a particular strong suit of Cady’s, but they don’t hate it either. It’s kind of fascinating, learning about the past, there’s just so much information to consume and regurgitate. And reading, so much reading, cherry picking the ‘important parts’. Unlike math, where everything is important. Janis likes it though. She’s even said that even if she’s planning on doing art next year, she might apply for history as a back-up. Cady doesn’t quite understand the appeal of it, and while it’s usually interesting enough to keep their brain engaged, today they’re far too distracted to pay attention.

About halfway through the class, when Ms Winters is still getting to the point about the industrial revolution, Cady feels their phone vibrating against their leg. They almost drop their pencil in shock, their eyes bulging wide. As they look around, they can see no-one else heard it, although they also feel the weight of more than a few looks on them, their expressions half-concern, half-pity. Like ‘oh poor Cady whose girlfriend has cancer’.

Their cheeks flame red, but they slide their phone out of their pocket anyway, eyes trained in front of them until the last possible minute. Another trick from their plastic days. Their fingers swipe across the screen as though guided by invisible hands and when the moment is right, when Ms Winters’ back is turned completely, their eyes move downwards.

They’ve barely started replying to Janis before their name is called and they actually leave the seat for a moment when they jump. When they look back up, they’re met with the sympathetic eyes of their classmates and the irritated gaze of their teacher, stopped in the middle of writing. The word “legislation” is half written on the whiteboard.

“Something you’d like to share, Cady?” she asks.

“No.” They swallow and their throat feels like sandpaper. They clear their throat and try again, louder this time. “No ma’am.”

“Mm-hm.” Ms Winters steps over in their direction. “And what’s on your lap, Cady?”

“Nothing.” They turn the phone over and attempt to press it between their legs, knowing putting it in their pocket is too much of a risk. Ms Winter’s eyes harden and Cady’s stomach drops.

“I’m not an idiot, Cady,” she says. “And I’ve been teaching a long time. I’ve found out people far more subtle than you are right now.” She holds out her hand and Cady bites back a scream. “Hand it over.”

“No.” They aren’t sure they actually said it at first, convinced it was just something in their head, until they see the disbelieved expression on Ms Winters’ face.

Around them there are two types of people. Those who watch on with concern and those who watch like it’s the latest episode of their favourite drama.

“I’m sorry?” she asks.

“Sorry,” they mumble. “I just-I can’t. I can’t give you it.”

“And why is that?”

“Because-” It sticks in their throat. There are words in their mind, true as true can be. But when they open their mouth, nothing comes out, but their grip on their phone grows tighter. Anxiety builds and builds inside them and they’re just left stuttering, their face growing hotter and Ms Winters getting more impatient. Eventually they look up at her through blurred eyes and whisper “Please.”

“Nice try, Cady,” she says, not unkind but not kind. “But you know the rules. Hand it over and you can have it back later.”

Cady looks around as if someone will help her, but no-one does. Of course no-one does, what can they do except look upset and mouth ‘I’m sorry’ at them.

Slowly, they hand their phone over, the air feeling more like mud that they drag their arm through. Ms Winters takes their phone and they let out a little squeak when it’s taken away. Like she’s taken away a limb instead of a phone.

They can’t pay attention for the rest of the class. They can’t even work up the effort to pick up their pen. They can only sit there with their dry eyes and empty chest, their mind spiralling as they watch the minutes crawl slowly by.

When the bell rings, they make a beeline for the desk.

“Ms Winters?” Their voice sounds so far away. Ms Winters looks up at them, a flicker of annoyance behind her glasses, and Cady clenches their fist at their side. That’s not what’s needed here. “Can I have my phone back? Please?”

“Cady,” she sighs. She looks away from her computer and leans on her desk. “I know you’re a good student. And I know you have some exceptional circumstances this year. But” she emphasises. “I can’t be seen giving out special treatment to students. You know the rules and you know my class policy on phones.” She turns her attention back to her screen and waves Cady dismissively. “You can come back and get it at the end of the day.”

“No!” They sound so strong now, strong enough to shake the trees outside. Now it’s Ms Winters’ turn to jump. “Look I’m sorry, but you can’t take away my phone. Okay I’m begging you. Give me detention, make me do lines, make me do all your marking, I don’t care. Just give me my freaking phone!” They’re so worked up they just about remember to slip in a “Please.”

“Cady-”

“Yes, your policy,” they interrupt. “I know you have a policy on phones, but you haven’t had to enact it on me yet. Come on I’ve had a great record this year. So just give me my damn phone.” Their hands are shaking, tears running down their face. It’s only through sheer willpower they don’t drop their knees. “Come on!”

“I don’t like your tone much,” she says.

“Frankly, I don’t care!” Cady snaps. “I don’t care how you feel about my tone or anything. All I care about is you giving me my damn property back, you cow!”

Ms Winters hears the words before Cady hears them themselves. The ringing in Cady’s hears starts to clear and they hear what they said echoed back at them at double the volume, and their hands fly to their mouth.

That isn’t them. That’s not how they talk to people, to anyone, let alone teachers. Not even when they were plastic. It’s like they set off a bomb in the middle of the classroom and now they’re standing in the debris, watching the smoke clear and being shocked when they see the match in their hand.

It’s then that they realise they didn’t say cow, they in fact said something else, and they feel sick.

Ms Winters splutters at first, but then her face hardens and Cady gulps.

“Well,” she begins. “In all my years of teaching, I don’t think I have ever been spoken to by a student like that,” she whispers. Cady opens their mouth to apologise, but all that comes out is a squeak. “I’ll give a call to Mr Duvall. And see what your parents think of this.”

Cady lets out a gasp and it turns into a sob. It doesn’t feel real, nothing from the past half an hour does. It shouldn’t be, they’re not this kind of person, they know they aren’t. They’ve spent every day making sure they don’t become this. It’s like they’re standing outside watching this happen.

They turn around and head out the door, not daring to ask for their phone this time.

After school, they head down to Mr Duvall’s office. According to his secretary, their parents are on their way. Just the words your parents makes their stomach turn. Maybe the people passing will think they’re sick, pale as they are. They suspect the secretary must think that too, because she moved the trash can closer to them and asked them if they wanted some water.

Ms Winters stalks past them, giving them no more than a sideways glance before heading into the office and for the first time since history class, Cady feels angry. Ms Norbury would never treat them like this. And as out of line as they were, they like to think they might have earned a little bit of sympathy.

“Cady!”

They turn to their mother’s voice, equal parts angry and worried. Their dad is with her, looking bewildered. They shrink into the seat like a little kid and pick at their nails, tearing them off their hands. Their parents take seats on either side of them and they’ve never felt so claustrophobic.

“What happened kid?”

“Didn’t Mr Duvall tell you?” they ask. “I yelled at a teacher.”

“He told us, yes,” their mom says. “But we want to hear your version of events, Cady.” Her hand is on their shoulder and all they can think is how they don’t deserve it. “What happened?”

“She-she took my phone off me.” They realise how pathetic they sound when they say it. “She wouldn’t give it back and I-” Their breath hitches in their throat and their dad wipes their tears before they can.

“And… why were you on your phone in class, Cady?” he asks softly. He reaches over and squeezes their hand. “Or should we guess?”

“I-” They shake their head, the voice in their head urging them to keep it inside. Because if they start now they might never stop. But on the other hand, this weight hurts so much.

They have to take three deep breaths before they can say it.

“I was texting Janis.” Her mom hums in agreement, her hand on their back. “And… I don’t know. I’ve missed her so much.” They look straight ahead at the wall. It’s the truth, but not the real one. “And I…. I keep thinking what if something happens and she calls me and I’m not there to pick up the phone.”

“Something good or something bad?” her mom asks.

“I don’t know,” they confess. “Bad, I guess. I don’t know. I just keep thinking what if there’s some massive development and I don’t know about it. What if-” They almost can’t bear to say it. “I keep thinking what if she’s suffering or she’s really, really sick and I don’t know about it?” They bury their face in their hands. “I’m so scared that next time I see the text from her that it’ll be bad news.” They let out a shuddering breath. “And what if she’s sitting waiting for me to reply and feeling like I don’t care? What if the last thing she saw me say was something stupid?” They press their hands against their mouth. “I can’t… I just can’t-” They choke on something and the last defence comes tumbling down. “And I’m worried all the time. I’m worried about her losing weight and I’m worried about her being sick and about her being tired and I’m just so worried all the freaking time! And I’m tired of it!”

They fall silent after that, slumped forward, exhausted from telling them, from living it. On some level they must have known it, but it feels like they’re realising most of it for the first time. Their head spins with it, Pandora’s Box opened and all that darkness swirling around her mind, threatening to sweep them up and let them get lost in it.

“Oh, Binti,” their mom sighs. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell us about this?”

“Guess I thought I had it under control,” they mumble. They sniffle. “I was wrong.”

“And that’s okay,” their mom says. “It’s okay that you were wrong. What’s important is how you move forward.”

How they move forward? They can’t see forward. They can’t even see right now.

“Mom,” they say quietly. “I know about the Kalteen bars.” Their mom freezes beside them, fingers curling in their hair.

“Oh,” is all she says. Then her arm is around their shoulders and squeezing tightly.

“I… I don’t know how to handle this,�� they confess in a broken voice. “I don’t know what to do anymore.!

“That’s what we’re here for,” their dad says. “Okay? We’ll go home, we’ll figure all this out. We’ll make this okay.” He rubs his hand on their leg. “We’ll fix this Cady. Have a big, long talk about it.” He rubs her cheek. “Get all those nasty emotions out. Then we’ll work out what to do, okay?” He strokes her hair. “You aren’t doing this alone, sweetheart.” They feel, more than see, their parents’ eyes meeting over their head. “You shouldn’t have had to. But now we’ll fix it.”

It sounds nice. And even better than that, it sounds doable.

“Okay,” they whisper. “Okay, that sounds good.”

“Great,” their mom says. Just then, the door creaks open, and Mr Duvall asks if they’d like to come in. Ms Winters is already on the other side of the glass and Cady tenses.

“All right.” Their mom stands up and straightens their dress, hitching their purse on their shoulder. “Now, I’ve got a few choice words for this teacher of yours.”

#mean girls the musical #cadnis #mean girls fanfic #cady heron #janis sarkisian #cady x janis #mean girls broadway #fic: heart of stone

2 notes · View notes

grittyreadsfic · 3 years

Text

Hi :)!!! I’m sending this through submission because halfway through writing this via ask I got stressed about the character count and splitting this into multiple asks is not something I have the energy for today.

I’m not in the middle of reading any fics right now (very out of character for me), but a few of my favorite fics this year have been… *sweats and rifles through my ao3 bookmark list because this is really hard to just pick a few*. "body’s in trouble" [Nolan Patrick & Nicklas Backstrom, Nolan Patrick/Travis Konecny] by cloudsandpassingevents, “(break something old) to build something new” [Danny Briere/Claude Giroux] by Lake(beyond_belief), “i might (even know what to say)” [Danny Briere/Claude Giroux] by callabang, “you know you’re a terrible sight but you’ll be just fine” [Jake Guentzel & Knowing Himself, Jake Guentzel & His Brothers, Jake Guentzel/Jared McCann] by heartequals(savvygambols), “little spoon” [Quinn Hughes/Thatcher Demko] by mundanememory, “Your Will In My Hand” [Sidney Crosby/Evegni Malkin/Anna Kasterova] by Sparcck, “Closed Fracture” [Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin] by lightgetsin, “Lean on Me” [Mitch Marner & Matt Martin, Mitch Marner/Auston Matthews] by sheyrenawyrsabane, and “Morning to Wake You” [Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin] by oflights.

Oops, that was definitely more than a few. I know for a fact that you’ve read some of those (like “little spoon” for example!!), but I figured I’d send some of my favorites.

A lot of these are sort of centered on the process of growing up, along being able to acknowledge who you are and be comfortable with it, just because *shrugs* it’s sort of where I’m at right now. I’m 1000% sure you’ve read most of these, but I’m going to tell you why I love them anyways.

This might be recency bias, but “body’s in trouble” actually took me out, literally mowed over me emotionally. I basically had to write an essay when I commented on it, but if I’m going to try to summarize (which I’m guessing isn’t necessary because it seems like the sort of thing you’d have already read), I LOVED how human the characters were and how genuine their struggles felt. Like, Nolan was trying to figure out how to let himself be happy, and *pained screaming* it was such a raw moment when he started to change his thinking on that and I think the author did such a clear job of getting you into his head and mindset and walking you through it so the moment also felt intensely personal as a reader.

“Morning to Wake You” is also just so incredible!?!?!?!! I feel like it’s a characterization of Sid that’s somehow simultaneously really consistent with how he’s usually portrayed in fic and also really different. I think one of my favorite things about the fic is that I loved all the relationships in it, not just the main pairing. I absolutely loved the friendship between Colby and Sid, the way Mario was clearly someone with whom Sid felt same and at home but also like an adult, and the little moment between Sid and Tanger. In a fic about growing up and growing into yourself, I thought the development and investment in making those relationships so rich really enhanced the fic because Sid (from the way I read it) was really learning not just how to let himself be human for himself but also let other people witness it. I’m not doing a very good job of articulating why something about this fic feels so unique, but it’s one of my absolute favorites. If guess if I’m trying to summarize, the grey area and realness of the uncertainty combined with the process of figuring out how to grow into yourself but let that growth take root in one’s life really makes this just absolutely wonderful.

“(break something old) to build something new” makes me unhinged every single time I read, albeit for completely different reasons than “body’s in trouble” or “Morning to Wake You”. I can’t put a finger on what makes me love this fic so much, but I guess in some ways it’s a later in life, less fraught but just as significant story of learning to make space in your life for the things that make you happy/feel like you’re home. It’s not an examination of the question of allowing yourself happiness in the same was that “body’s in trouble” is, but it’s a story that just makes you feel good. I think every reader likes vicariously through characters in fic, so I think this is what I read when I’m craving that comfort of belonging, home, and family. Danny has a good thing, and it’s a story of him realizing that and then actualizing it. By putting Danny both at a time when he’s so established and secure in his life yet still at a crossroads, it makes him think about what he has and what he wants. It takes him longer for him to be able to articulate what it is he wants than it does for the reader, but that’s the journey (that sort of makes it feel like it’s drawn out–it’s not, it’s more of a Danny just has to think about it before he figure it out). I also love the way the author wrote the supporting characters on this one!!!! I think it just really adds dimension to the story and is the first thing that really cultivates this atmosphere of family that’s woven through the fic, right there for when Danny finally sees it. (In regards to supporting characters, I’m so overly invested in the storyline between Cameron Briere and his bio lab partner in which he finds his first non-hockey friend.)

Anyways, I hope you’re having a great day/morning/evening!!!! I really enjoy reading your fic recs and I also really enjoyed spewing out an.. oops… eight paragraph ask :)

okay HELLO i tried to format this in the way the made the differentiation between the post submitted by @kingdom-of-the-shades and my response clear but uhhhhhh if i didn’t do a good job lmk and i’ll edit the post. i also tried to hyperlink all the fics you mentioned for ease of finding for anyone interested!

i do see a common theme in these fics based off what i’ve read the and descriptions of the rest (i’ve read half of them though i did immediately read the callabang fic when i went to grab the link because it was very much my shit and i love ao3 user callabang’s writing)

also you really called my out about body’s in trouble because i literally waws scrolling through the hockey rpf tag like the sunday paper and fully had to tweet about the tags because it was very much my kind of fic. absolutely back what you’re saying about it, because i agree completely. feeling very feral about the scene were nolan takes nicke fishing because it’s such a full circle moment (nolan putting what nicke’s taught him into practice AND using it to help nicke when he’s going through it? fucking......GOD)

i haven’t read the other two you called out specifically but you making a compelling argument for both of them (probably gonna read that danny/claude fic sooner rather than later because i absolutely ADORE fics where the supporting characters add to the fic)

#personally i would love it if i regularly got messages like this in my inbox this is so lovely #thank you so much for taking the time to share all this with me!#recs for gritty #fic rec #submission

3 notes · View notes

not-a-perfect-metaphor · 5 years

Text

J2 tinhat summary

For a while now I’ve been wanting to piece together a more comprehensive version of J2 tinhat facts/observations/thoughts/etc., and although the project is obviously an incredibly lengthy one, I figured I would at least create a kind of summary to post in the meantime. Even the summary however is VERY long, and I don’t have the ability to do cuts, so I apologize for that! But I am going to post the summary in a few parts, so here is the first!

This does not follow a linear timeline by the way, just as a heads up, and I’m not including many examples that I’ve already talked about recently to save space.

1. The Js spending holidays together and also vacationing together, like their skiing trip to Whistler, Canada for example and the Padackles family vacation to the Turks and Caicos among others. Recently the Js traveled to Europe, Dubai, and Australia.

2. Of course Jensen’s public move from Malibu to Austin (conveniently near Jared’s house) is a strong piece of evidence. Jensen’s comments about being closer to friends and family don’t make much sense as most of his friends live hours away, and he has also stated several times in the past that he loved living in Malibu and being on the beach, yet he still relocated (to be closer to Jared, we know).

3. This Js have used the word “we” instead of “I” on quite a few occasions while talking about things that should not involve the other J (again, as far as the general public is aware). They have also done the same thing with the word “our” instead of “my” and “us” instead of “me.”

4. Both Danneel and her brother Gino were nearly bankrupt when Danneel began her ‘relationship’ with Jensen. Jensen 100% supported (even way back then) both Danneel and her brother financially, which is often one of the main benefits a faux-spouse receives in the bearding arrangement (financial security and/or the recognition that comes with marrying a celebrity/someone who lives in the public eye).

5. We know for a fact that the Js share clothes and belongings very frequently (and have for many years). Not only do we have photographic evidence of this, but they’ve also both admitted that it’s true.

6. There is now a vast amount of evidence that Jared and Jensen spend a great deal of time with each other’s children, together and by themselves, and keep in mind that even the evidence we do have is likely only a small fraction of the actual reality. They really do seem to function in a lot of ways as one family, which of course makes sense from a tinhat’s perspective.

A few examples that I haven’t posted recently:

Jensen talking about how he used to wear a sherif’s belt and nothing else as a child and then when Jared makes fun of him, reminding Jared that Shep also likes to go nude and that Jensen has to remind him to put clothes on at the breakfast table.

Jensen: “[Jared] was out, so I was watching the kids.”

^ the above blurb by Fangasm

In 2015, Jensen said during a convention panel that he has “kids now,” realizing the error and correcting it to “kid” (he only had one at the time according to public knowledge).

Along the same vein, we can look at things that Genevieve and Danneel have said as well, such as Genevieve stating that one thing she loves about Jared is that “he shows up as a co-parent to our kids.” The definition of co-parenting is “the experience of raising children together as single parents like when a divorce or separation occurs,” or in this case, an agreement to parent together alongside the guise of marriage.

7. At this point the Js have accidentally mentioned so many things that relate to sleeping with each other/being with each other late at night or first thing in the morning etc. that I won’t even try to list them all. But just know that there are many of these examples (I’m happy to specify if anyone wants to send me a message about it).

8. The Js have been spotted dining together (or out at bars/other venues together) on many occasions, less in recent years, some of which have even been described as quite romantic/intimate settings. And of course, again, these are just the ones noticed by the public, not the likely many times the Js have booked private dining arrangements or something else of that nature. I just posted a few of these examples separately if you want to check them out.

9. Jared has forgotten the specifics of his ‘dating’ timeline actually a few times, probably the most well-known of those times being during his Live With Kelly interview where he claimed to have been single at the start of Supernatural when in reality (according to the information given to the general public), he and Sandra McCoy were very much together at that point. He also told an interviewer that he was single and then later on claimed to have been dating Genevieve two full months before that interview took place.

10. I already posted a fantastic humorous account of the many different stories told concerning the period of time Jensen publicly lived with Jared (again, message me if you’d like me to send it to you), but suffice to say…the lies became quite immense and tangled up in each other and the whole thing made many people wonder about what might really be going on between the Js.

11. Jared posed in front of a mural by himself (without Gen) that said “Love will win” in response to Jensen posing in front of a mural earlier that same day that said “Love is love,” a well known LGBT slogan.

12. Jensen has rotated between several different wedding rings, which I have yet to see anyone come up with a believable-enough reason for, but whatever the reason, it certainly is something that makes you wonder.

13. When asked about “finding the one,” Jensen gave a very long, beautiful, thoughtful response during which he never once used the word “she,” “her,” “wife,” etc. (or Danneel’s name). His reply also contained several things that he had previously said (and would say again) to describe Jared and/or his relationship with Jared:

Another similar example is when Jensen was asked about his favorite memory of SPN and he responded with his journey from single-hood to marriage, again not using female pronouns or “Danneel,” who hadn’t had anything to do with the show at that point anyway.

14. This one I remember having to hunt down and verify back when I first started “hardcore hatting,” and yes it is true. Sandy, Jared’s ‘girlfriend’ from years ago, favorited a tweet once in which she was referred to as Jared’s “ex-beard.” I mean, it’s pretty hard to misinterpret that…

15. Gossip columnist Ted Casablanca once pretty much accused Danneel of her relationship with Jensen being fake. Previously to that spat, he had also written an article in response to double engagement rumors saying that “Jensen and Jared would sooner marry each other than who they’re currently rumored to be getting hitched to. If I’m wrong I’ll get Taryn Ryder a date with Ryan Gosling.”

16. Speaking of the engagements, nearly everything about them was highly suspicious. Both occurred on the same weekend under the guise that each J had no idea the other was proposing, despite having said multiple times that they tell each other everything and showing that to be true through their actions as well. When asked on the spot what his proposal story was, Jensen retold the exact proposal story that had taken place a year earlier with Jared and Sandy, changing only the location.

17. Another well-known mishap was the ‘dinner in Italy’ story, told first by Jared in which he claimed to have been with his wife at the time and told second by Jensen at a different convention in which JENSEN was in fact the one who had been with Jared. Of course ironically, nothing would have even seemed strange about the whole thing if the story had been told truthfully from the get-go, but keeping up with lies is far from easy.

18. This one I think we all know. Joanna Krupa, known for her role in The Real Housewives of Miami, has admitted to bearding for someone in the past, and the only real celebrity she’s ever dated was Jensen. Which of course, like many of these observations, is not proof as much as it’s, well…an observation. Albeit quite an interesting one.

19. It was revealed by Ryan Seacrest (who has been at the center of many “gay or straight or other?” whispers for a long time now) that he used to live with Jensen, which wouldn’t be odd if Jensen had ever mentioned it while talking pretty extensively about his past roommates/living situations.

Like, for example, we HAD known that Jensen and Ty Vaughn lived together for a stretch, and some hats believe (due to the seemingly very intimate nature of their relationship at the time) that Ty may be an ex of Jensen’s.

20. I saw someone point out the fact that Jensen’s oldest daughter’s middle name is Jay (a nickname Jensen has for Jared and actually something they’ve each said they call each other). On its own, this could just look like either a coincidence or a testament to the strong friendship between the Js, but it’s an interesting bit of information alongside everything else.

21. Richard Speight Junior has flubbed pretty famously a few times and nearly given away sensitive information about the Js being together. I’ve posted a few of these examples recently so I’ll hold off on including them here, but-, you know by now, just ask me if you’d like them!

And he’s not the only one who’s said some interesting things!

#j2 tinhat

435 notes · View notes

taexual · 5 years

Text

HOLIC - 21 | jb x reader

pairing: Im Jaebum x Reader

genre: enemies to lovers au | roommate au

warnings: angst + strong language

words: 4k

disclaimer: i do not own the gif, please let me know if it belongs to you, so i can give proper credit

prev / next

You woke up the next morning, knowing very well that the apartment was empty without having to get out of bed to check. Everything just felt different when Jaebum wasn’t here with you; emptier, even, somehow. Even if the two of you haven’t gone to sleep fighting, you still felt lonely in the apartment without him but in today’s case, your confusing exchange last night certainly made everything feel worse.

Forcing yourself out of bed – because you craved water after all the drinking last night – you checked the time on your phone and were surprised to see that it was well after ten in the morning. Since it was Sunday today, you didn’t put it past Jaebum to go out jogging early in the morning, but he should have been back by now.

Not wanting to think that he was avoiding you again – maybe staying out with his friends was starting to become like second nature to him and he was this close to actually moving out of this apartment – you focused on preparing your breakfast instead. However, you didn’t have any plans today and you could only stay focused on corn flakes for so long before you got distracted by the most useless stuff – this time, it was a new notification on your phone.

It was just a tweet that one of your favorite artists had just posted, but your heart rate already picked up. You couldn’t lie to yourself; you were absolutely hoping it was going to be a text from Jaebum but, of course, it was something else. You should have known how unlikely it was for him to text you right now.

Ever since you went out to see Jiho and ended up at Mark’s bar, Jaebum had been acting weird. Starting with his random burst of anger when you mentioned hanging out with Mark, and ending with his seemingly pointless statement about how you and Mark were “friends” last night, you were more confused than ever.

Kiera’s words from last night replayed in your head – she thought that Jaebum might have been acting weird around you because he was uncomfortable with you knowing so much about him—and his friends—and perhaps she was right – but, even though Kiera’s observations made sense 95% of the time, you had a feeling that Jaebum fell into the remaining 5% category.

You couldn’t figure him out and you were living with him – and sometimes it seemed as though Jaebum couldn’t figure his feelings out himself – so there was virtually no chance of Kiera knowing better. Then again, perhaps you’d been blinded by your constant arguments and your—as much as you hated to admit it—budding feelings for him, so you couldn’t see the situation clearly. Not to mention, you’d already come up with so many theories of why he was the way he was, it was starting to become difficult to find the real him -- the Jaebum that you were perhaps yet to fully meet.

And while it always upset you to realize that even after seeing him every day since you moved in together, you still barely knew the real him, what was truly annoying about this situation was that your job was, essentially, to capture people’s emotions. To understand them. You were a photographer – well, you wanted to be one but, clearly, it was taking some time since you haven’t been able to find the time to photograph anything lately – and you always thought you were somewhat good at reading people’s faces. And you failed profoundly when it came to recognizing what Jaebum was feeling.

It was hurtful and unfair that you had to try to hard so figure Jaebum out – while your emotions always showed on your face as clear as day – but perhaps you—and the hidden masochist inside of you—enjoyed the continuous pain he caused you by being cryptic and refusing to talk to you. Maybe just like Jaebum, who – at least, according to Suji; although God knew how much you could have trusted her words – was attracted to people who could “put him in his place” or he was going to get bored, you were also attracted—and intrigued—by the mystery surrounding your roommate.

At the end of the day, it was clear that Jaebum never let people in and you basically forced your way into his life with a damn sledgehammer. Perhaps you’d really left him no choice but to open up to you and now he was slowly distancing himself from you because he wasn’t actually ready for you to enter his life like that.

The saddest thing was, you weren’t sure if he’d ever be ready for you and you absolutely weren’t sure if falling into the mystery that was Jaebum wasn’t going to kill you.

And there went your corn flakes. You could never focus on anything else; Jaebum always lingered in your mind.

Since you assumed Jaebum was with Jackson again – therefore, it was very likely that he was recording his music – you figured you could use this alone time to catch up on your own photography that you’ve neglected because you were too busy dealing with Suji. And Jiho. And, honestly, everyone.

Because you haven’t taken any new pictures recently – for shame; you couldn’t remember the last time you’ve gone this long without photographing anything – you were stuck digging out old ones, especially the ones you’ve chosen to ignore for the time being as you weren’t able to fix the coloring in a way that you would have liked.

Having nothing better to do, you arranged yourself – and your laptop – into a comfortable position on your bed – anticipating the inevitable back pain – and then turned Photoshop on. To ensure that, this time, the thoughts about your roommate did not interrupt your semi-productive mood, you put your headphones on and started a playlist of old favorites to distract yourself from anything that was going on in your life at the moment, and to take your mind back in time instead.

The music seemed to work like a spell and you found yourself humming along as you toyed with your pictures, slowly drifting away from reality and allowing your unconscious mind to do most of the editing for you – this used to be your favorite state when you were in university; just dissociating until real-life problems called for you again.

You never liked to listen to music on full volume because you never owned headphones that wouldn’t make loud songs sound like the screeching of a pregnant cat, but today you needed to tune out the sound of your thoughts, so you were listening to music louder than usually. And that is precisely why you didn’t hear the door of the apartment close and the door of your bedroom open.

Since you weren’t expecting Jaebum to come home while you were still awake – you knew of his tendency to avoid his problems, he’s shown it to you quite a few times before – you were absolutely horrified to see him standing by your bed, watching the screen of your laptop.

Squealing in surprise, you nearly tossed your laptop at him as you threw your headphones off.

“Jesus Christ, would you knock?!” you yelled, trying to calm yourself down while Jaebum snickered – what an unexpected sound – and sat down on your bed, nodding his head in the direction of your abandoned computer.

“Did you take those?” he asked, obviously meaning the pictures you’d been editing.

You were still recovering from the shock of seeing him home but now you were left wondering what had gotten into him – after days of cryptic responses to all of your questions, he was now striking up a proper conversation with you? That boy needed help.

“I did,” you told him, keeping a wary eye on him in case he burst out again. “Why?”

“They’re beautiful,” he said, repositioning your laptop so he could see better and then, even taking it as far as using your mouse to click on a specific picture – the one that showed the reflection of the city lights on the glass of a dark window. “I like this, where did you take it?”

“My old campus,” you said, leaning in closer to him to see the picture in question. “I used to take most of my pictures there before I ran out of spots to photograph and had to look elsewhere.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, clicking through other pictures – it didn’t upset you much even if he was doing this without your permission. “Oh, this one’s good. Really good. Could you send it to me? I’d love to have it on my phone.”

Surprised – no one’s asked you to send them a picture you’ve taken if it wasn’t a picture of them – you glanced at the screen of your laptop and were confused to see one of your much earlier pictures, taken almost immediately after you bought your newest camera that you’d been using for three years now. The picture, actually, wasn’t anything special: it was a shot of your shadow—the only distinguishable shadow in the dark picture—surrounded by various darker, rectangular shadows—the buildings behind you—and a small puddle of water—reflecting the street light above—in the spot where your heart was supposed to be.

“You like it?” you asked somewhat awkwardly. Not only had he chosen a picture you took when you weren’t as confident in your photographing abilities, but it was also a picture that literally had a part of you in it.

“Yes,” Jaebum nodded. “Does it have a title?”

You pulled away from him before continuing. You never felt confident about the titles you gave your pictures – they all seemed to make no sense when you said them out loud – and you were even more insecure now that you were in the presence of someone who essentially lived on words, being a songwriter and all.

“Alive,” you ended up saying. “That’s the title I gave it when I took it in about three years ago. It sounds stupid now – why would a lonely puddle in the place of a heart symbolize someone’s life – but—”

“I think it’s beautiful,” he stopped you, zooming in on the picture. “I love the idea behind it and I think the title fits the mood of the picture, too. Will you send it to me?”

Swallowing, you decided that now was the time to confront him about what’s been going on with him these past few days.

“I will,” you promised. “If you answer one question.”

Jaebum wasn’t expecting this but he merely shrugged. “Sure. What is it?”

“What’s been going on?” you asked and, after noticing that confusion started to slowly descend upon his features, proceeded to explain, “I-I mean you’ve been really cold to me out of the blue, and I know you’re generally not a warm person — and we’re not best friends or anything – but this was, well, unusual. And I know you know what I mean because you almost told me what was wrong last night but then… you shut me out again.”

You looked away from him in the middle of your explanation, despising the neediness in your voice. If he was going to remark about how you shouldn’t have been “waiting up for him” like he’s written in his note before, you swore you were going to hurl the first heavy thing you found at him. Because you’d looked away, however, you did not see Jaebum look away from you as well – masking the guilt that flashed across his face once he heard you speak out about the way he’s treated you.

“Yeah, uh…” he started to speak and then cleared his throat, thinking of what to say next. “This obviously isn’t something I want to talk about.”

“Obviously,” you agreed, resisting the urge to roll your eyes.

“Right,” Jaebum took another long pause before finally saying, “I actually wanted to apologize about all of that. Mark – I sort of talked to him on the phone today, he’s a lot more level-headed than I am – let me know how big of an asshole I’ve been to you, so, yeah, uh… I’m sorry.”

You appreciated the apology – and made a mental note to thank Mark because, obviously, he must have found a way to subtly approach Jaebum about the issues you’ve mentioned at the bar last night – but before you could say anything, Jaebum continued.

“I don’t want to constantly complain about the same things,” he started to say and then cleared up, “not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just prefer not being a nuisance to other people—”

“You’re not a—okay, maybe you’re a little bit of a nuisance,” you said, earning a small smile from him that almost made you believe that his explanation was going to make sense and the two of you were going to move past this and return to another calm period of your lives, however short-lived it would be. “But it’s not like I’m much better. I’m fine with listening to you complain if that means you’re actually talking to me.”

After a quiet moment – God, did your words sound too much like a compliment? Should you have said something else to lower his ego? – Jaebum’s smile completely disappeared and you knew he was back to business. His serious expression unsettled you, somehow, and it felt as though you knew what he was going to talk about before he even opened his mouth. There was really only one thing that nearly ruined his life, after all – what else would he complain about continuously?

“I went through this thing with Suji,” Jaebum started, “she’d always tag along whenever I went out with my friends. She was all over them and most of them liked her because—well, you know why. She had something about her that fooled you and pulled you in. She always insisted on coming to see my friends with me, and before long, I was starting to suffocate with her everywhere. I had even asked her to stay home so I could have a guys’ night out once, and she still showed up at the club.”

You wanted to know more about his relationship with her but, at the same time, you were struggling to understand how Jaebum’s coldness to you related to his ex-girlfriend. However, after remembering everything he’s asked you – “how long have you been hanging out with Mark without me?” – you were slowly starting to see what his point was.

“Hold on for a moment,” you stopped him. “Are you—do you think I’m doing this, too? Do you think I’m trying to—I don’t know—corrupt your friends somehow, too? Steal them from you, even?”

“I—no,” he said and then sighed. “I don’t know. I just know that I’ve already been in a position where my friends had to pick sides before and I don’t want to go through that again. And, you know, I’ve already experienced someone take over my life for me. I know we talked about you dealing with Suji already but that still happened. And I-I get that our situation is different now, we moved on from that, and I moved on from Suji, but sometimes the lines blur for me.”

“The lines blur,” you repeated, your pulse quickening. “So, essentially what you’re saying is that, sometimes, you think I’m just like Suji?”

“No,” Jaebum was quick to realize how big was the pile of shit that he’s just stepped – or, flung himself – into, really. He closed his eyes for a moment, regretting opening his mouth as if staying quiet and shutting you out – as you’ve put it – would have worked out better. A minute later, he continued, “I’m just saying that I—maybe I get a little insecure about this sometimes. I talked to Mark about you today and he was the one who told me I was being unfair to you by expecting you to do the same things Suji’s done, so I realize it was wrong of me to—”

“—to compare me to your so-called psycho ex-girlfriend?” you finished for him. “Yeah, I’d say that was wrong.”

Every word he said only seemed to make this worse. Jaebum had absolutely no clue how to communicate with anyone without ruining everything, but he still tried – although he was slowly starting to forget why he even bothered.

“I’m not comparing you to her,” he said. “But you have to understand where I’m coming from. You know—better than anyone—about the kind of shit I had to experience with her, so, forgive me for being cautious so history wouldn’t repeat itself.”

“History wouldn’t—what the fuck, Jaebum?” you got up from the bed, no longer feeling comfortable sitting so close to him while he looked for parallels between you and his ex. “You didn’t know me for very long, sure, but didn’t I ever show you that I’m actually, you know, a completely different person from Suji? We’re both girls – and that’s as far as our common features go.”

“You’re—”

“I know I met up with her to get her to leave you alone, and I get that I shouldn’t have done that because it’s not my business – I’m not expecting your gratitude for that – but, shit, I didn’t do it to take over your life! I did it because I was looking out for you in whatever messed up way I could manage,” you continued, noticing how he covered his face with his hands, only getting more frustrated. “I understand your insecurities but, for fuck’s sake, have I not shown enough of my support to you? Have I not hyped your music up even though I’ve never even heard it? Have I not put up with your seemingly endless stream of one-night-stands? Did I ever lie to you about where I was and went out to hang out with your friends behind your back? Did—”

“No!” he cut you off, showing the first signs of anger, no matter how hard he’d tried to restrain himself. “You never did any of those things but how am I supposed to know you’ll never do them in the future?”

Both of your faces contorted painfully as soon as he said this – yours, because you suddenly knew just how little he trusted you; and his, because this was the exact opposite of what he should have said to you.

“Do you treat all of your friends like this?” you asked, crossing your arms over your chest when he got up from your bed as well. “Do you expect this kind of behavior from everyone? Do you immediately assume every new person you meet is going to take everything you’ve worked so hard on from you?”

“No, I—”

“Are you still waiting for me to fuck up, then?” you were shouting but it was nothing new – the two of you could never have a calm conversation – and you were sure your neighbors had already gotten used to it. “Did you tell me you forgave me for meeting up with Suji, when you actually didn’t?”

“No!” he said. “I did forgive you. I thought I did. I don’t care a-about that. I care about you.”

“You care about how similar to her I am.”

Jaebum groaned. “I care about how similar to her everyone is! And I’m not fucking waiting for you to fuck up.”

“Well, then what is it?” you questioned, your voice loud and piercing. “Why is it that you don’t assume every person you meet will ruin your life, and yet, you think I might?”

“I don’t think you—fuck, you’re important to me,” Jaebum shot back, equally as agitated. He was obviously struggling with his words. “I wouldn’t care about anything that you do if you weren’t. I’m just trying to make sure—”

“—I don’t turn out to be a psychotic bitch?” you guessed, the conclusion you’ve reached making him groan because it was mostly true – he was always making sure he didn’t end up meeting another version of Suji – but it sounded ugly when you put it like that.

“N-no, I just want to be sure I know the real you,” he said. “You can’t blame me for not trusting people easily after all of this.”

“I’m not blaming you for that,” you countered. “But why the fuck did you expect to get to know me better by not talking to me? You’re not even giving me a chance to show you that you can trust me because you distance yourself from me every time you start to have doubts about me. We don’t have mutual friends, Jaebum, we’re still virtually strangers – so who the fuck is going to clear these doubts for you if you won’t let me do it?”

“I… I don’t—”

“It sounds to me like you just want to escape me and you’ll take any chance you get to do just that,” you said, your heart slamming right into the sharp edge of your ribcage until you nearly doubled over in pain. It was true, you weren’t just paranoid. Jaebum was indeed trying to get out of the cage your close presence had put him in. “Every time I do something wrong – even if I don’t realize it – you disappear on me as if I’ve cursed your ancestors by making a mistake. I’m not perfect. If anything, I’m the furthest thing from it, but you have to let people make mistakes and believe that they won’t ruin your life, Jaebum. You have to let people apologize for them, too. And if you don’t think you’ll have it in yourself to forgive them, then tell them that and let go of them. Tell me to leave if I fucked up so bad that you think I’m exactly like Suji—”

“Did I say you were exactly like her?” he was frantic now as the fight progressed into something that no longer involved just the past couple of days, but also covered the entirety of your relationship with each other. “Or did I ever say I wanted you to leave? Fuck, I’m spending almost every moment of my free time at home just so I could spend more time with you — and I don’t fucking do that. I go out, okay? I like to have fun, I like to drink, and I like to be out when it’s dark – whatever. I don’t do that as much anymore.”

“Oh, well, thank you so much for making these sacrifices for me.”

The sarcasm in your voice made him want to punch the closest wall.

“Those are not—I can’t—you’re not fucking hearing me,” he stumbled around different arguments. “I’m telling you about all the shit I do for you – the shit I’d never done for anyone else before – just to prove that I don’t think you’re like Suji in any way.”

“Well, then why the silence?” you countered. “Why did you not talk to me about what you were feeling?”

“I didn’t know how to put it in words so it’d make sense,” he said. “Clearly, I still don’t understand any of this myself. A part of me might never be able to fully open up to anyone and, fuck, I sure as hell don’t want my past relationship to influence my decisions about my future but it does, okay? I am going to be paranoid and I can’t fucking help it.”

“Do you think that’s fair to others? To me?” you asked, shaking your head. “You’re not even giving me a chance.”

“I’m not—chance after chance is exactly what I’m giving you!” Jaebum protested. “And that’s why I’m scared. That’s exactly why I’m fucking terrified – because, suddenly, I don’t care about anything that you’re doing. I’m fine with all of it. I forgive you for everything and I open up to you about everything without sitting down to think if that’s the right thing to do. And then, the next second, I’m hating myself because, fuck, why am I even doubting this? I have every right to tell you shit about myself. I have every right to forgive you because, technically, you didn’t do anything wrong. But, then, how could I not doubt this? I’ve already been through something similar, I don’t want to go through that again. I’ve already experienced a period of my life where I forgave everything. Where I opened up about everything.”

“Alright,” you said, your lips forming a straight line. You knew the words he said had a different meaning – he wasn’t trying to hurt you – and yet each sentence that left his lips seemed to dig painfully into your chest. “You are making sure I’m not Suji 2.0. That’s fine.”

“That’s not fine,” he voiced the obvious. “And I get that it sounds bad but it’s—fuck, I’m being really fucking open with you here – I literally don’t know how to deal with myself. If I get the feeling like I’m about to get burned, I-I pull away because I’ve been there before. I can’t keep on trying to calm myself down and ignore the bad feelings in my stomach because I know those bad feelings can turn into a bad reality. That’s how I fucking deal with my problems – I leave. I can’t cling onto something that will potentially rip my heart out and force me to swallow it raw.”

You hated how deep the argument had gotten. You had not prepared to pour your entire soul into this and Jaebum hadn’t either – that’s why he looked almost nauseous – but there was no going back now.

“And you think I could do that to you?” you asked.

He looked down. “I don’t know.”

“Alright,” you said, your voice calm all of a sudden. You wanted this conversation to end now. “I appreciate you telling me this.”

Immediately understanding that you were done, Jaebum tried to find one last way to magically mend the scars on both of your throats after you’ve yelled at each other. “Fuck, I’m—”

“Look, maybe we should be alone for a while,” you cut him off, not wanting to hear him say anything else because you could only shout so much before tears finally showed up. “I don’t want to deal with this and, obviously, neither one of us can think clearly right now. Maybe we can just ignore this conversation like you’ve been trying to do before I brought it up.”

His hands were on his face again as he tried one last time, “I’m sorry.”

You swallowed thickly – the lump in your throat letting you know that you were either about to suffocate or cry, and you didn’t know which one you’d have preferred.

“Okay,” you said, turning away from him in case tears appeared in your eyes before he left. “Thank you. I’m sorry, too.”

Jaebum wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t sure where the two of you were standing – he’s revealed so much of himself to you in the past ten minutes and he knew he’s never been this honest about his feelings with anyone before – and he knew now wasn’t the time to ask.

If he could turn back the time, he’d change the sequence of his words to you – first, he’d tell you how much you mattered to him and how much he loved being with you, and only then would he mention how hard it was for him to be around you. How afraid he was to open his heart up – how much he resisted it, even – and how easily he allowed his feelings to defeat him, in the end.

He was getting more and more scared by the second because what if he ended up getting himself into something he could not get out of? What if he’d start something he’d never be able to end again? Even if these fears sounded irrational – even more so after he saw how wildly you tried to get him to see that you hated being compared to Suji – he still couldn’t escape them. And he was afraid he never would.

Jaebum didn’t wish to take his words back. He’d said all that he’d been dying to say to you for the past few days. He just wished the two of you lived in a world where the past could have been left in the past and all the words spoken in the present – and all the confessions hiding underneath those anguished tones and desperate eyes – were all that remained between you and him.

chapter directory

593 notes · View notes

geewithluv · 4 years

Text

◁ comforting each other ▷

Ｐａｉｒｉｎｇ：Maknae Line X Fem!OC

Ｇｅｎｒｅ： angst and fluff

Ｗａｒｎｉｎｇｓ：crying, anxiety, mention of parental death (takes place in the past), hate comments, references the Jungkook tattoo and tattoo shop incident.

Ｒａｔｉｎｇ：PG

ＷｏｒｄＣｏｕｎｔ：1.7

Ａ／Ｎ： «this belongs in my headcanon universe and you can read the other parts in the masterlist, the description of the characters is [here] so you get a summary of who they are. (hyung line version here) also Jimin’s is short compared to the other’s, sorry! »

ｍａｓｔｅｒｌｉｓｔ

ｊｉｍｉｎ

Everyone knew Jimin was head over heels in love with Harlow. It was pretty obvious and it was only a matter of time that it got a little too obvious and the public found out.

It was a no-brainer that Jimin and Harlow were going to be together for a very long time.

At least it seemed like a no-brainer. Harlow didn’t mean to overhear a conversation between a couple of the makeup artists and she definitely didn’t mean to freeze in her spot long enough to hear them say everything they thought about her and Jimin. And most of all, she didn’t mean to spend so much time in a bathroom crying that Jimin busted in looking for her.

So now, they were in the bathroom right after Jimin’s performance, holding each other as Harlow cried. She wasn’t quite ready to talk and Jimin, though understanding, was becoming a bit impatient due to his worry. “You’ve gotta tell me what happened so I can fix it, baby.” He tried to coax her into talking. One more loud sob made Jimin think it was a hopeless attempt but soon she started explaining.

“Some of the girls were talking.” She said. Jimin knew who she meant immediately, it wasn’t like there were many women on the staff and Harlow didn’t know many well enough to refer to them outside honorifics. “They were saying we shouldn’t be together.”

“Why would they say such a stupid thing!” Jimin’s eyes widened. He had known quite a few of the makeup and hair crew for a while and wouldn’t think they’d doubt his relationship like that.

“They said you don’t love me.” She muttered, trying not to start crying again.

“You know that’s not true right.” His body stiffened. Harlow doesn’t respond. “Look at me.” He demanded. Her gaze quickly found his. “I love you so much.” He said as seriously as he could without becoming angered. “Anyone who thinks otherwise isn’t worth the energy it takes to hear their opinion.” Harlow nodded, rubbing her nose. “Now, let’s go where those dumbasses aren’t anywhere in sight. We can order some food and cuddle, how does that sound?” He asked.

“Sounds great.” Harlow smiled. Jimin pulled her into a tight hug.

“I’ll take care of them later, alright? For now, just know that I love you more than anything, baby.”

ｔａｅｈｙｕｎｇ

Taehyung had wondered, on more than one occasion, if he could shut twitter down. Of course he knew it’d take a lot of planning and money. But he’d do it if he could. Maybe just the trending page. That’d be a good start.

Between the hate tweets from those who couldn’t name a BTS song, the hate tweets from those who liked the other 6 members better, and the hate tweets from those who only liked him and resorted to being hateful to his best friends, Taehyung felt so surrounded by negativity.

As much as he knew, and told himself, that he was just going through a rough time and was having difficulty seeing anything but the positive, that didn’t make it easier. He knew that his life was good. He was safe and secure, loved by so many, good friends and family. He knew all was well. Which is why he hid the feeling for so long. He didn’t want to seem selfish.

The boys noticed, of course they did, how could they not. It was only a matter of time before Bang PD noticed or was informed. They didn’t say anything, not yet at least. They hoped he was working on it. He knew he had a couple days to get it together before they confronted him.

He didn’t need it though, because Claire noticed and confronted him immediately. “Tell me what’s wrong.” She said as they ate dinner. Taehyung looked up at her a little confused.

“What?”

“Something’s wrong. Don’t pretend everything is fine when I can tell it’s not. I don’t want to argue about it, so just tell me so we can work through it.” She set her fork down. To most people she might have seemed a little harsh, maybe pushy. But Taehyung admired her blunt “straight-to-the-point” nature.

“Social media is kinda getting to me.” Taehyng ran his fingers through his growing hair, a little annoyed as the longer length had recently become a target for the hate. “It’s just a weird moment. Maybe the planets are doing that thing again. Retrograde?” He suggested an explanation.

“Have you talked to the guys? They’ve all gone through something similar, right?”

“Yeah…” He sighed. “I haven’t talked to them, yet.” He felt kinda bad saying it outloud.

“You don’t want to worry them, I know.” She explained. “But you need to tell someone. You can’t keep it all inside, insisting it’ll be okay and blow over eventually.”

“I know,” Taehyung grabbed Claire’s hand from across the dinner table, “I’ll talk to someone. I promise.”

“My dad never recovered. It’s been almost 20 years and he’s never gotten over it. My mother’s parent’s hardly talk to me because I remind them of her. Everyone tried to help her, but in the end no one else’s help mattered but her own.” Her eyes watered as she held his hand tighter. “I know you think I’m overreacting. That I’m taking it too far. But I’m worried about what happens if I don’t.” She kissed his knuckles softly. “Do what my mother didn’t do for herself, Tae. Before the storm gets too loud.”

It was as open as she had been regarding her mother’s death. And in a weird way, Taehyung found a sense of comfort in her tears. Her tears and worry for him reminded him of how much love people feel for him. “I’ll call Bang first thing in the morning.”

“You should call him now an--”

“Stay the night.” He interrupted. “Stay the night and make sure I do. I won’t even leave the bed before calling.” He compromised. Claire nodded. “I love you, I’m not going anywhere, baby.” He reached over to kiss her lips.

ｊｕｎｇｋｏｏｋ

Finally, Jungkook did something for himself. He had spent nearly a decade having to worry about every decision he made and how fans and press would react. Finally he did something for him. On the month long break he got tattoos. Something he wanted for so long, he finally did it. He was expecting some backlash from it. He knew some people would be upset but he wasn’t quite expecting some other headlines. First, were the CCTV photos and people thinking he was dating the woman next to him.

Jungkook was upset, upset that his privacy had been invaded, upset that his friend had been dragged into it, and upset that his actual girlfriend couldn’t say anything about it. He apologized profusely to both women, more to Emmie of course.

Second, a woman he thought he was friends with, a woman he let tattoo him, decided to take to social media. BigHit said to let them take care of it. Jungkook trusted them of course but there’s only so much you can do to silence someone. And unfortunately, this woman was out for him.

“Jungkook does have a girlfriend, but it’s not me :)” was a caption on an instagram post. Jungkook felt his world collapse when he read it. He hoped, for a moment, that people wouldn’t believe it. He hoped that he could continue living a life with Emmie separate from the fame. But all hopes were crushed when she posted a photo of Emmie and Jungkook together. No way to say it was photoshopped, some people recognized Emmie since she designed for them a couple times. This was all wrong, everything was going wrong. He was supposed to reveal it on his own terms, or never. Never seemed like a better option after the initial reaction from fans.

Emmie turned comments off as soon as she found out, she would’ve gone private had she not been a verified account. She told her assistant to hold any calls for the next 48 hours as she would be turning her phone off. Her assistant understood but not Emmie had to worry if she would still have a showcase in a week. She wondered if her business would go under. She worried if Jungkook would leave her.

They sat in silence at the Bangtan dorms. Too stunned to talk to each other or anyone else. The guys gave them some space. Only getting updated that the news was confirmed by BigHit and now they wait till it blows over.

Emmie cried first. Both tried so hard to hold it together for the other. But she broke first. Jungkook shortly after. As soon as he heard the sob he lunged to wrap his arms around her. “Why can’t we just be a normal couple.” She cried into his chest, marinating his breaking heart with her tears.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I’m so sorry.” He kept repeating. Holding her as if he was afraid she’d disappear if he didn’t.

“It’s not fair, Jungkook!” She yelled, not at him but the situation. She broke free from his grasp.

“Emmie, Emmie don’t--” He started worrying without her in his arms.

“Why won’t they let me love you! Let you love me! I’m just supposed to be the most hated woman in Korea, maybe even the world right now, cause I fell in love!”

“I’m sorry!” He yelled.

“Don’t you dare apologize!” She said, the guys debated on leaving their rooms to calm the situation. “It’s not your fault.” She softened. “You did nothing wrong.” She walked back over to him, taking his face in her hands. “You have done nothing wrong, Jungkook.”

“I’ll do anything to be with you, to keep you safe, to keep loving you. I’ll sue every single person who says something bad. I promise. I’ll make them open a whole department in BigHit dedicated to stopping the hate. I’ll do that. I need you.”

“We’ll figure it all out.” She told him, sniffling. “Right now, I just wanna be with you. In this way too silent apartment, holding you, pretending it’s not a warzone out there. That’s all I want right now.”

“I can do that. We can do that.” He said, and so they did. For two days they stayed in their happy place. Away from anyone with anything negative to say.

I know I said I’d finish soon, but a month slipped away from me because I moved, then moved back home because of some horrible stuff so I haven’t been writing or reblogging. I’ve been up-to-date thanks to twitter lol! Just not reblogging here. Hopefully I’ll be more available and stable (in terms of housing) to write lol. Thanks for reading, I don’t think Tumblr likes me anymore because I don’t show up in tags ;( if you see this give it a like! Or message me! I do take requests! This is getting long, sorry! Thanks again!

#bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts imagines #bts fanfic #bangtanhq #bts reaction #bts fanfiction #bts imagine #my writing

2 notes · View notes

faresramettas · 5 years

Text

160219: skam italia x gay center event (part 1)

it’s going to be really hard for me to recap everything that happened yesterday, so i’m going to split this in two parts: one dedicated to the conference and one to the moment when we actually met them and took pictures etc. i’m sure all the things i’m going to report were already said yesterday in tweets and stuff but i wanted to have a place to write them all down cause my memory is so bad. warning: this got long.

the conference

first of all, kudos to the gay center’s staff. so many people came they couldn’t fit them all in the conference room, so they decided to have a second shorter session so that no one would go home disappointed. they also said that afterwards we’d be able to take selfies and meet pietro, rocco and federico

spoiler alert: pietro, rocco and federico are literal angels. so sweet, funny, honest, humble, intelligent and well-spoken. ludovico bessegato is confident, smart and a savage. he dragged the whole fandom and yet we still love him cause he’s a genius

as soon as ludovico stepped on stage he made it clear that this was not an event about skam only and to please respect that. he said that they wouldn’t talk about season 3 and not to ask about it, and that’s why no info came out

the conference started with a presentation of the gay center. their representative introduced the work they do with the gay help line and talked about really heartbreaking cases of lgbt youth (12 and 14 year olds) who called to report violence from their own families. it was really hard to hear. they showed statistics of discrimination in italy and other data. their point was that skam s2 shows a positive reality where martino is able to come out to his friends and live his truth and his love, but unfortunately we have to be aware that these terrible realities exist too, especially in this country

the skam section started with a question to ludovico about his choice to include the voice messages in the first scene of s2. we watched that scene. he said he knew he wanted to do it from the start but recording and adding the voice messages was the last thing they did, one week before the release of the first clip. he came to the gay center in rome and met the young people and recorded the messages with them (i’m sorry, i’m not sure this is accurate) and he was moved to tears. that’s when he realized how important what they were doing with this season was. he said it was important for him, before showing the easiness of two people who can be together without external hardships, to start the season with the voice messages, as a reminder that these realities also exist

the host asked what was the most important thing for him, what he felt more responsible showing, and ludovico said for him it was the reaction of a group of heterosexual friends to one of their friends coming out. without dramatizing it or simplifying it too much. so the coming out with gio was the hardest scene cause there was a lot of weight on it. giovanni also had to be worthy of the moment. i loved this part: he said for him it was fundamental that giovanni touched martino right after his coming out, because it shows that nothing has changed between them, that they can still have a physical friendship, because so many times this doesn’t happen, straight friends pull back from/become less physical with their gay friends. their friendship not only hasn’t changed but is made more precious now

ludovico researched stuff like the gay street and grindr by experimenting them himself. he went to the gay street in rome and had a mission to get hit on (and he was lmao) and who did he meet that night? ROCCO, who went to the audition the morning after! incredible, he said he didn’t know rocco’s sexual orientation or anything but because he had seen him at the gay street he knew he could help give his input to the series, and of course pietro was precious as well to help with the representation

we watched the coming out scene and it was federico’s turn for questions (you could hear he had a cold, bb), the host asked him about how he felt/prepared for it and he said he felt a lot of pressure but he basically let martino lead him, he trusted his character that he had worked so hard on day after day and he also leaned on ludovico tersigni and bessegato. he hopes as many people as possible can relate to that scene, see themselves in it and live it

federico said the series enlighted him and made him reflect on lgbt themes and problems. he was never one to use homophobic slurs to follow the logic of the “pack” but it’s a thing, when you’re 15 or 16 you think you have to conform to what your friends say and do even if it’s harmful but this is why we have to spread awareness (”bisogna evitare il grigiume dell’uniformità” - we have to avoid the greyness of uniformity, he’s such a poet)

special mention to federico’s beautiful sweater, apparently he bought it in oslo, that sweater made his shoulders look even broader and it’s my new religion

we watched the milan uramaki/wedding proposal scene and BITCH I HAD NEVER REWATCHED THAT PART CAUSE IT HURTS i swear we were all holding our breaths. that’s when the host asked rocco about gay marriage and he said italy is very late but at least we have civil unions now and it’s been hard fought for. it’s important to talk about gay marriage not so much for younger gens but for older generations. discriminations are always present so you can’t relax even when you reach a goal, you have to fight for the next one

when asked how he pictures his wedding, rocco said marriage is very far in the future for him, but whoever it’s going to be with his wedding is going to be very normal (”everyone naked is not a bad idea tho”) and y’all already know this part, he said he’s a person who’s experimented a lot and he HATES LABELS, for himself and for others (so maybe don’t call him pan king, u know what i’m saying). he’s experimented a lot and tried to figure out what he likes and he likes a little bit of everything (ME PIACE NPO DE TUTTO. i was there. i was there when he said that. iconic) he understands the need for labels cause they can help you identify yourself and give a sense of belonging but there’s also the risk that they can be too limiting

we watched fili’s speech and fede blew a kiss to pietro??? my heart

EMMA STA A ROSICA’ - cit pietro turano (emma is jealous af)

at this point besse DRAGGED US TO HELL AND BACK he said the fandom gets mad at emma and when characters say things that are wrong but it’s hypocritical (cause it’s a realistic show, no?)

he dragged the tumblr sjw politically correctness of fandom and something about how we all say we accept and love everyone but then WE are the first who feel the need to put labels on people and people in boxes. he said IT’S COOL TO HAVE NOORA’S QUOTE IN YOUR BIOS BUT DO ANY OF YOU ACTUALLY STICK TO ITS MEANING? YOU’RE THE FIRST WHO AREN’T KIND smth like that i swear i was a bit stunned

he also really didn’t like how everyone spoiled scenes and clips, ruining the experience for everyone while also creating false expectations, cause we expect things to happen and get mad if they don’t (ngl as a person who hasn’t watched the og i was like yeah tell em). idk, basically at the end of the speech all i got is that he’s an emma apologist

pietro said so many amazing things, like that when we have that moment of awareness, when we realize we are victims of behavioral schemes, prejudices and stereotypes deeply rooted in society, that’s when we can change the world. idk he’s seriously such a well-spoken smart person and he’s only 22

he also said in a video i have posted here that positive lgbt representations in tv shows/films are SO important for young people cause they need to see that there’s a positive reality out there for them too, that gay characters aren’t only the psychos, the ones who kill themselves or suffer

host dragged ludo for not including a beyonce song in the gay season but he said we can expect satisfactions from fili in s3

fede took the gay test and ludo told him the answers to get the totally hetero results, but when ludo took the test his result was Not totally hetero

rocco knows he looks like edward cullen, actually it was his first girlfriend when he was like 14 and before twilight was a thing that told him that he looked like cedric diggory aka rob pattinson. when twilight happened it all went downhill. the vampire outfit in the halloween clip was Not Casual. actually they had a line when someone told nico he looked like edward but it didn’t make the cut

fede said the hardest scenes, not because he couldn’t get in character but because of the expectations and pressures were the ones with mamma rametta (<333) and the coming out with gio. but the scene he hated the most was the i wanna be yours scene cause he said he went cross-eyed (è venuta di merda - it came out like shit)

host asked who’s top and bottom and they all laughed about it don’t worry (although i know someone asked again in the second session? and they said they switch idk, whatever)

at the end there was not a lot of time for questions but as soon as the host asked if we had any i IMMEDIATELY shot my hand up cause i thought i would regret it if i didn’t ask. so i stood up and pietro came to give me the mic (<33333333) and I WAS SO NERVOUS but i thanked them for all their work and then i asked rocco how he felt representing a character that’s not only lgbt but suffers from a mi, that he did a WONDERFUL job doing it because he helped so many people who suffer from bpd/mi to identify with niccolò (i accidentally said multiple personality disorder instead of borderline and i am so embarrassed but i swear. i couldn’t. think. i apologized too) if he felt he had more responsibility and if he could talk about the milan scene. he said he did feel a double responsibility and an additional pressure because henrik holm already did a splendid job, but he dealt with it like any other role, worked on the character like any other and tried to do it justice. he didn’t treat it differently. the milan scene was hard cause it was the very last one they did but they also had so much fun. he told us about bessegato pranking him and making him yell TABBBBASCOOOOO when he was running around naked in milan

i feel like i should mention that in the second session rocco said federico is a really good kisser (”bacia da dio” literally means “kisses like a god”)

that’s all i have and sorry this was so long. the conference was truly incredible. but meeting them afterwards was even more so and that’ll be part 2

#skam italia #i was so blessed to be there #text #this is long #incontro gay center

186 notes · View notes

1dreality · 5 years

Link

Why The Normalization of Stan Culture is Unhealthy

How a tweet about Ariana Grande made me realize the extent of harm this subculture has done.

Haaniyah Angus

FollowJan 27

The way in which pop culture is consumed in the 2010s is unlike anything else we have witnessed since the dawn of pop culture itself. Social media has created a hyperreality wherein the distance between regular individuals and their idols is slowly shortening, or at least appearing to. This is most obviously seen within ‘stan Twitter’, a section of Twitter dedicated to celebrities even to the most harmful lengths.

I want to make myself clear here: I don’t hate stans or stan Twitter. Throughout my teenage years, I was part of this subculture in various ways, whether it be K-Pop, One Direction, Justin Bieber, 5SOS and — ironically enough — Ariana Grande. Through ‘standoms’ I was able to meet people and make friends in a way I couldn’t in real life. I felt as if I were part of a community, that I finally belonged. But, as I got older, I realized the obsession I had wasn’t healthy, and that’s why I worry about the direction that many young people seem to be heading in. Their dedication to strangers in order to boost their own self-esteem feels almost like a car crash ready to happen and, for some, it already has.

But, though this is undoubtedly a phenomenon of the social media era, in order to understand what stan Twitter is and its origin, we need to travel back to a time before Twitter even existed.

Currently, on Urban Dictionary, a stan is defined as an overzealous maniacal fan for any celebrity or athlete, stemming from Eminem’s 2002 hit, Stan. In the video, Stan wants Eminem to make contact with him but Eminem doesn’t reply to his letters and, due to this, Stan thinks he has been ignored. As revenge, Stan ties up his own girlfriend, stows her in his trunk, drives along a rain-soaked highway and drives off a bridge. Eminem gets around to responding and says how thankful he is for the support, only to understand that Stan is obsessed with him and then, finally, to connect the dots and realize that he’s the man who killed his girlfriend.

What many psychological professionals would describe this as is a parasocial relationship. This is not a made up disorder nor an armchair diagnosis, but simply the definition to a relationship many people have with famous figures. Parasocial relationships are one-sided dynamics in which energy, interest and time are extended towards the object of obsession whilst they (commonly a celebrity) remain ignorant of the existence of the other.

But, though critics and think piece writers often frame them as a symptom of young people’s generational rot, behaviours such as this are not new in the slightest. Before the boom of social media, obsessive fans had existed for a long, long time — such as during the Roman reign, where people collected gladiators’ sweat out of admiration; or the Victorian era, when hordes of fans forced author Arthur Conan Doyle to revive his star character, Sherlock Holmes. The Beatles had a superfan plotting to murder John Lennon, Michael Jackson had to prove that he didn’t impregnate a stalker, and Uma Thurman received a card from a fan that had a drawing of an open grave, a headstone and a man standing on the edge of a razor blade.

This is not an exclusively Western phenomenon either. In Korea, this type of idolatry exists heavily within the K-Pop industry. Sasaeng fans are over-obsessive fans of musical idols, to the point that they engage in stalking. According to Yahoo Lifestyle, Korean idols have been filmed, had their phones wiretapped, and even had fans breaking into their homes.

What makes this new era of ‘stalker fans’ different, in my opinion, is the admiration that seems to be growing towards such behaviours. Today, even as a joke, the terminology of ‘stalker fan’ or ‘stan’ has been the latest object of amelioration — where a word’s negative meaning is elevated to a positive one.

Last year when culture writer Wanna Thompson received a hateful DM from rapper Nicki Minaj and decided to share it, the following backlash shone a light for many in regards to this behaviour. Minaj clapped back at a comment Thompson had made on her Twitter account and Thompson brought it to her timeline, shocked that a celebrity of that magnitude could do such a thing. According to an interview with the New York Times, Wanna received hateful messages via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and even email; including insults to her infant daughter and suicide bait. The majority of these hateful words came from stans, who seemed to have a soldier-like sense of duty to protect Minaj. It was as if they would do anything for their idol.

Though Wanna and Nicki’s beef was recent and particularly notorious, one could pick any of all the major stan groups and they’d find that they all exhibit this need to protect their idols from critique, even when it is valid. Which brings me to the point of this article.

We need to talk about Ariana Grande.

It was last week when Grande released her song ‘7 Rings’ and, as a longtime fan of the 25-year-old star, I was ecstatic. I loved the song and felt like she was finally blossoming into the artist she could always be. That was until it was rightfully pointed out to me that Ariana was walking along a tightrope that many young white pop stars toe — and often fall off of. Like many ex-child stars before her, Ariana was rebelling against her ‘good girl’ image by appropriating Black culture.

As stated by writer Erin Dyana:

Viewing her 7 Rings video after seeing her come up in real time throughout the years has left a bizarre taste in my mouth and I’m not sure if there’s anything that can cleanse my palate of it. The video has quite literally glamorized a trap house (something she wouldn’t know anything about) while she raps in an airy voice about buying weave, being rich, and having a “stacked” ass (a lie). These lyrics and visuals aren’t fitting and belong to a Black woman, period. It’s inauthentic and corny to me that she felt the need to cherry pick from Black culture to make something that’ll sell and get clicks.

As much as I love Grande, I couldn’t ignore this issue, which has plagued Black culture for years. The more I listened to 7 Rings, the more I understood why it made people, specifically Black women uncomfortable. While I wasn’t the most damning critic of Grande’s song, I immediately got pushback for suggesting that those who dislike it weren’t in the wrong. Historically white pop stars have been able to cross genres (pop to trap, in Grande’s case) while Black singers haven’t.

I was noticing that anytime someone dared speak about Grande, they were silenced by her fans and stans alike, even though some of the people criticizing Ariana might have disliked her already, or been indifferent to her, many of us truly loved her music. Though stan Twitter might have you thinking otherwise, critical consumption doesn’t negate enjoyment. I and many others are perfectly able to spot the problematic aspects of music, writing and film whilst still having fun with it. Critical thinking only makes our experience richer, and definitely doesn’t mean that we hate an artist for making mistakes.

The drama culminated when people noticed that Ariana herself was liking tweets defending 7 Rings, its music video and the genre choice. I find that, when celebrities try to defend themselves against valid critiques such as cultural appropriation, it does more harm than good. This self-victimization causes the stans to be even more defensive and thus lash out against anyone critiquing their idol. Grande seemingly felt attacked or felt that these critics — mainly Black women — were harassing her. Her fans didn’t just internalize those feelings as their own but, of course, felt the need to defend Ariana by attacking anyone who dared criticize her.

I probably wouldn’t be paying as much attention to this if I hadn’t been also a victim of the harassment her stans were dishing out online. What sparked it, you may ask! I had simply tweeted a ‘judgemental’ reaction image in response to Ariana’s Instagram story. In it, it seemed that someone had jokingly written in their Insta-story: You like my hair? Gee, thanks just bought it” *kissing emoji*!!!! white women talking about their weaves is how we’re going to solve racism. Grande then proceeded to repost that story, thanking the OP for praise, even though it was clearly a mockery of that line.

As I mentioned earlier, I’d already gotten pushback from Ariana’s stans, and I didn’t care if people got mad at me. I would have continued on not caring but, after that tweet started circulating, it got to a point where my direct messages started blowing up with fans threatening me and telling me to delete it or else. I didn’t pay them any mind since I felt that there was no reason to take their threats seriously. However, come the next morning I woke and saw that my Twitter account had been suspended. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had been falsely reported by stans in order to get the tweet taken down.

You see, Twitter’s reporting system is beyond repair. Reports are evaluated by algorithms, making it ridiculously easy for abusive accounts to skirt suspension by misspelling slurs, and even easier for ill-intentioned people to ‘game’ the system by mass-reporting innocent users. I only got a tenth of the backlash that Thompson received from Minaj fans and yet my Twitter account, a platform on which I had built a following of 12,000 and which held contacts throughout various industries was gone. Not only that but, once I tweeted on my new account that I had been suspended unfairly, stans started to mock me and say that I deserved it for posting that tweet. A tweet that simply reacted to a foolish post of Grande’s — which, mind you, she acknowledged as such and took down.

But why do these things happen? Why do hordes of fans maliciously attack critics? Why do ‘stans’ behave in such an obsessive manner? Some say that social media is to blame and that isn’t a completely ludicrous view. As stated earlier, stans existed long before the age of the Internet, but the anonymity and the mass reach of social media allow their harassment and stalking to be extremely harmful while sheltering them from consequences. You can’t get a restraining order against an anonymous person who could use various accounts to stalk you. If stans are harassing those critiquing their favourite celebrity, blocks may prove futile, as they could make uncountable new accounts, and online harassment may continue until the aggressors get bored or the target finally gives in and deletes their account, whatever happens first.

I want to be positive when it comes to stans, I want to say hey! let these kids do what they want and oh, they’ll grow out of it, but I’m worried it may be too late. These stans have projected their own self-esteem issues and insecurities upon celebrities that make them feel whole. I know this because I did this, and many of my friends did this. Maybe obsessive fanaticism is an inescapable part of growing up, and maybe stans will come across this article and drag me for it. They will say that I’m being extra and that I just want clicks but — while I do want clicks, that’s why we’re all here, right? — I am genuinely worried. What was seen as fringe behaviour before — the invasion of privacy, obsessive fantasies, aggression and possessiveness, absolute disregard for others’ wellbeing — seems to be expected now in order to be “a true fan”. I’m worried that this has become the new norm for celebrity culture, and that the popularization of ‘standom’ has cemented this behaviour for years to come.

Edited By: Andrea Merodeadora

#fandom culture #stan culture #excellent article on the phenomenon!!

29 notes · View notes

edgeofmyniall · 5 years

Text

i know i posted chaper two a couple of days ago but i wrote part one of chapter 3 and idk when i’ll have a chance to post this so here!! let me know what you think! also i’m trying a new header thing with each chapter and what it pertains to

Part One

My phone screen illuminated my dark bedroom. It was 4:48 a.m., and I could hardly sleep, only tossing and turning the entire night, my stomach in knots. It was early Friday morning, and less than five hours until Niall pulled into my driveway. I hated this feeling, a feeling of left wanting more-of feeling almost empty since Niall left the office. I couldn’t shake him. His eyes were there when I closed mine. I replay the memory of his laugh over in my mind. How is it that his laugh feels so safe, so comforting like home when I barely know him?

I close my eyes, trying to coax myself to sleep, but instead of dormancy, it’s almost as if Niall was here, lying next to me. His hand cups my cheek, pulling my face towards his. Why is he here?

“Bet ya missed me. I mean it’s only been 5 hours and 32 minutes since I last texted you. Obsessed much?” His laugh fills the silent room with such warmth that I crack a smile. The white sheets almost look ghostly against his tanned skin. “We got a long day ahead of us, why don’t ya just go back to sleep. Ya packed everything except what you need for the ride, c’mere.”

His hand grabs the arch of my neck and pulls me close to his naked body. And suddenly I realize I’m naked too...and I’m okay with it. I wrap my arm around Niall’s torso, burying my face into his chest-his chest hair tickles my nose. I breathe in his lingerings of his cologne. I shudder. His lips plant a gentle kiss on my forehead as I close my eyes. This is it. This is what love feels like.

I jerk my eyes open. My hands grab the soaked collar of my t-shirt that I slept in. I’m still clothed. It was a dream, just a dream.

A dream that had both me and Niall completely naked in. I rub my forehead with the palm of my hands, hoping it will wipe that delusion away. He’d never go after a girl like me. A big girl.

I grab my phone to see what time it is. 6:37 a.m. I groan as I pull myself to an upright position. I rub the back of my head as my feet touch the cold hard wood floor. I push myself off my bed, still feeling like I haven’t slept as I turn on the desk lamp. I might as well run a few more errands before leaving. God knows when I’ll be back.

The patter of my footsteps echo through the room as I walk towards the bathroom. I need to shower to wake me up before I head out to whatever grocery store is open at this god awful hour.

The shower squeaks before ice cold water spurts out of the fossit. I pull the metal tab letting the water flow through the shower head. I pull the curtain to letting the water heat up. I wonder if he’s up, I think as I begin to brush my teeth. I close my eyes as I continue to go on with my morning routine. I can see Niall perfectly as he sits on the toilet waiting to brush his teeth. He gets up and wraps his arms around my hips as he begins to sing some love song in my ear. I open up my eyes, and I look up in the mirror, seeing a white girl with a white foamed mouth standing there alone.

LA in the early morning hours is some kind of Twilight Zone shit. Most people are just now coming home from club hopping, having a one night stand, or passing through as they travel wherever they intend to. For some reason, every person needed to come to Ralph’s.

I push my cart down the chip aisle when a group of girls, most likely college aged, are grouped together in the aisle,drunk off their asses. They’re chatting away about the night’s activities, and I’m praying they don’t recognize me. I have my black Nike hat tugged low, nearly giving me tunnel vision, but I want to get out of here as quick as I can. I grab a bag of cheddar chex mix and Cool Ranch Doritos, but as I try to turn the other way, one of the girls comes up to me. She’s in a tight red dress and heels. Her makeup is smeared, but she gives me a sweet smile.

“I know I don’t like know you personally, but you’re even prettier in person. You’re like so lucky to have a mom like Ashley. Can I totally get a picture?” I nod and she gets one of her friends to snap a picture.

“Wait, you’re Ashley Diana’s daughter? Holy shit! I have to tweet about this. Dylan is not going to believe this,” another girl nearly yells. “Can you follow me on Twitter?”

“I actually have to go. I’m trying to write my new album, and I’m only here to grab snacks. But I’ll tell my mom you guys said hi,” I smile. I turn my cart and walk straight towards the wine aisle. I’m going to need it to get through this day. As I turn from the chip, I can still hear the girls talk loudly about our interaction.

I’m sitting on my couch when I hear Niall up, and for some reason, maybe a nervous tick, I smooth my top. I had gone to Ralph’s in yoga pants and a t-shirt, but I figured for this road trip, Niall would be dressed casual, not completely homeless so as soon as I got home, I changed into a navy blue and white striped shirt and dark washed jeggings. I hear the chirp of Niall’s car locking and his knuckles hitting my front door. I frantically look around and see that I should have straightened up my living room. My shoes, clothes, and odd things still are scattered everywhere. Fuck, it’s too late.

I get up and open up the door to see Niall leaning on the door frame, his fingers hanging in the air where he was tracing the chip in my door where my wreath was.

“Door hangers, huh?” he smiles. He’s dressed in dark blue shorts and a white shirt. His black sunglasses are still sitting on his face as he takes me in. The corner of his mouth slides up as he waits for me to say something. I feel somewhat self conscious. I hope my boobs are falling out of my bra. I give them a quick look; we’re good.

“I- uh...Ya ready?” I ask, my mind totally blank. I’ve never been like this, totally vacant as to what to say. Normally I never shut up, I over share and end up embarrassing myself, but around Niall, I can’t speak.

“Born ready. Where’s your bags?” His eyes dart towards my luggage that’s parked at the end of my couch. He begins to dart past me, but I catch it.

“I’ll bring them right out. I gotta grab the snacks anyways,” I turn around, my palms sweating. I don’t like this. I grab my multiple bags and begin to walk out of my apartment. I double check the overflowing food bowl I’ve left for Lucky. Niall stuffs my suitcase into the trunk of the black Range Rover as I lock up my apartment.

“Ya pack yer bathing suit?” Niall asks as he opens up my door. I slide in, grabbing the snacks from Niall to sit them between my legs.

“Yeah along with my stranger danger whistle,” I smile. Niall chuckles and I hear him call me a smart ass as he closes the door. Niall’s car is new. The leather is clean and in pristine condition, like we’re the first ones to ride in it. Suddenly I feel inadequate and almost ashamed of my car.

Niall climbs into the car, and as we pull out of my driveway, he nods towards my mustang.

“Is that yers?” He sounds almost interested. The sun shines on her silver exterior.

“Yeah, I’ve had it since my sixteenth birthday. It’s a ‘98” I’m short with my answer. My car doesn’t have heated and cooling seats.

“Nice. After the nineties they made them more muscle cars than sport. I like it. Very, um, vintage.” I roll my lips together suppressing my smile as Niall puts on music.

The sun is sitting in my line of vision as we get on the highway. Niall glides in and out of traffic as I rummage through my purse to find my sunglasses. As soon as I put them on, the sun rays are less alarming. Thank God for polarization.

“What kind of sunnies are those? It’s looks like a record is on the front.” Niall’s eyes dart back to the road. His left hand is on the steering wheel, thumbing to the beat of the music as his elbow is resting on the center console. With the sun beating on him, he looks like an angel.

“That’s because they are. They’re Maui Jim’s and apparently they’re one of a kind. They’re heavy though.” We’ve barely gotten out of LA when my stomach rumbles, alarming everyone in the car that I haven’t had breakfast.

“Ya hungry, cause I’m starving,” Niall zooms out of the fast lane as he sees a billboard for a local twenty-four hour breakfast diner. He elbows my arm gently.“What’s yer favorite pancake?”

I see the same billboard. “Any Way You Want Pancake House--That’s the way YOU like it”

“Peanut butter chocolate chip pancakes,” my stomach is knotting at our touch. He eyes me, almost suspicious as to why peanut butter belongs on pancakes. He arches an eyebrow.

“Let’s see if they have any peanut butter there.”

#Think About Us #Niall au #niall fc #niall fanfic #Niall horan #niall #niall horan au #niall horan fic #niall horan fanfiction

29 notes · View notes