#and their(my) limitations which i hate acknowledging. and all this fucking shame i got too over it. when i accepted it myself i did no care

[docholligay]

Madrid Preparty: Vocal Highs and Lows (part one apparently there is a video limit)

First of all, because I know I’m gonna put someone in here that people are gonna fight me about: This is (mostly) about the vocal delivery. Because I care. I actually don’t think how well they can sing is going to affect all but a few of the semi qualifiers.

People who pay the money to vote in semis go INTO Eurovision knowing who they like, and much to my chagrin, they often vote for who they liked before, not who performed on the night. This is why Cyprus, who warbled off key all stage (She was in my top ten last year, I also loved the song right up until I saw her do it) would have qualified last year. Any of these fan favorites that have, uh, vocal issues? They are still going to qualify. Am I annoyed by this? Yeah, of course. I think how the night goes should be the determiner. And there ARE people like me, but there are far more that vote for the song they intended to vote for before the semi even started. But this is the backhand of non-jury semis, which I am in favor of. Nothing in life is perfect. So if I point out issues with your fan fave, know that it probably won’t matter to the qualification.

SECONDLY, let’s all acknowledge that there were some fairly huge issues with sound in Madrid. Some people kicked ass in spite of it and some folks, like Loreen (Sweden), just kept going because it’s whatever man, I can sing this all day, but it really did throw some people off. Poor Parsha Parfeni (Moldova) had no mic for a good chunk of his song. He still brought it, but it was not great for him.

This is why I generally take the AVERAGE of preparty performances, and encourage others to do that same. Everyone can have an off night, and by the same token, everyone can have a stellar night for no reason.

OKAY

High: Armenia

I fucking hate this song, but my god can she deliver it. I would have said there’s no way she could sound like the studio version but, I GUESS. She’ll qualify even from a terrible position, I think, being in the easy semi.

Low: United Kingdom

Oh Mae. I love you, as a person, so much. I love your GCSE 5 Spanish* intro here, I love your energy, I love the fact that when you actually do this song onstage you sound a LOT more like you fucking talk instead of the accent level(l)ing of the studio version.

But this is not it. She’s out of breath (Stop trying to sing and dance!!! It’s hard!! THIS IS WHY IT’S IMPRESSIVE WHEN IT’S DONE) and off and I think it is saying something that the top comment on this is someone (In spanish) saying, “It’s a preparty, it’s for fun, not for competition” and you know when that’s the top comment, what you’re getting. A few other comments taken from the top ten.

Middling translation to colloquial American English by me: They gotta think of something for Eurovision, because this is a mess.

 * I actually don’t know how difficult the GCSE Spanish exam is. Or even if there is one. Anyway, pretend I said she got a C in Spanish if you’re American.

High: Australia

I am INCENSED about how much I love Australia’s entry this year. These guys are an established band who know what the fuck they are doing, and it’s so GODDAMN COHESIVE and TOGETHER, and it’s amazing watching how he knows how to carry a crowd. A few vocally shaky moments, because apparently he lost his in-ear (Not the first or last one) but altogether a fucking TRIUMPH. They will qualify, and I need them to.

Low: France

PLEASE KNOW THIS GRIEVES ME. She was another one that lost her in-ear (You can see her frantically signaling), but unlike Voyager above, she couldn’t make it happen. It threw her for the whole performance, I’m not sure she even ever got it back, but she sure as shit did not recover. It is a TRAINWRECK of a vocal performance. It’s a shame, I’ve heard her sing this live before I have faith she actually can, but if this were the only time I’d seen her live I would be sweating it. It’s no good, folks.

High: Sweden

Anyone who says that this song will only so well because it’s Loreen or because of her staging is really, I think, doing her a disservice. She’s fucking incredible. She was one of the last performers, it was extremely late, she’;s jumping up and down at the end and you can barely tell vocally. Absolutely fair not to like the song, but she’s an exceptional fucking talent.

#translated from the original European

[bakugohoex]

Levi fluff #8 from the prompt list?

“sorry, i shouldn't have kisse...”

pairing: levi ackerman x female reader

cw: modern au, language, fluff

word count: 2400+

a/n: another prompt for my event, hopefully they get finished before mid februrary, we can pray 

summary: in which after having a near encounter with your ex, you find yourself kissing your long term crush levi to make him go away, just as your about to apoligise, levi does something that you had never expected

1k event masterlist

↞ back to attack on titan masterlist

It was only a work event; it was only supposed to last a couple hours and then you’d drive back to your empty apartment. That was all the night was supposed to be, Eren had been the one to make you stay for longer, the event was only to gain extra money even with the CEO of the company already having all the money he needed. You never understood the need for these events, it was a way to just flaunt wealth and you would rather just stay at home. 

Even if you did love your job and your friends, the only real reason you’d ever resign was if a certain man had started to hate you. You knew it was cliche, resigning because a man hated you, but he wasn't just any man, he was the strongest in all fields of the company and a great asset. You on the other hand may have just been below him in position, but you’d never reach his standards.

Remembering the earlier conversation you had had with the man, on arrival with Eren who had wandered off to get some drinks. You found yourself flicking through your phone before hearing a cough behind you. “Oh Levi.” 

His lip twitched upwards before he composed himself, “I thought you said you weren’t coming.”

“Oh, Eren kinda dragged me here.” You stared at his build, the way the suit fit him perfectly, the loose buttons allowing his neck to show. Even his fingers with the veins across the back of his hand-held rings, you couldn’t say that you hadn't given long looks towards his arms and hands when you both had to work late. 

“You look nice.” He didn't meet your gaze; he couldn't lie and say the dress you adorned didn’t make his heart flutter. How could he not love the way your figure rested in it, how perfectly your boobs rested between the dress. How even with its length you looked seductive, the way even your neck looked ready for kisses and marks. He shook his head trying to not think of anymore thoughts but the soft eyes you gave back made him stare at you. 

“You look nice too.” You repeated before noticing the crests of ink across your wrist, you hadn’t noticed it before but now you could. “Woah, you got another one.” 

In a matter of seconds you grabbed his hand, your other hand moving his blazer jacket to see the tattoo swirls across his arm. You always loved his tattoos, he had shown you them a while back, and you had fallen for the scenes he had across his arm. He always tried to hide them in meetings but in the comfort of work colleagues, when he’d roll his sleeves up you were able to see the patterns across his arms. 

You skimmed your finger against the new ink that you haven't seen a month ago. “Yeah, I got it a month back, I’m surprised you didn’t notice, brat.” He teased knowing how you always did stare at his arms. 

“Oh shut up, it’s so pretty.” You grazed your finger across the tattoo, Levi felt his cheeks gloss over with red. He didn't care to watch how enticed you looked, your hand touching his own whilst your finger contained to trace his new tattoo. “Wait, I remember you showing me the designs.”

“I asked which one you liked, and you picked this one.” He shrugged not wanting to make you feel shy over the fact that something you picked was now permanently on his body. 

You felt your eyes widen at his words; your opinion had meant something to him. You had meant something to him, “Agh Levi, Y/n, Hanje is waiting for you Levi.” Erwin spoke having appeared from one of the doors to the hall, Levi nodded as you let go of his hand. 

He missed your touch but knew if Hanje was the one waiting, she’d become irritated from not doing anything. “I’ll see you, Y/n.” You nodded giving him a way as he left with Erwin. 

Eren passed you the drink after you both had mingled with some of the less ranked staff. You didn't care to make friends in a company filled with over 200 people there was no need, you’d never meet them again, so why should you care. Taking a large sip, glad that Erwin had finished the introductions of the night in haste, he was always good with words. That's probably how he got so much money from the company and other businesses. 

“Y/n.” Eren nudged you softly, “you spaced out, we should go find Armin and Mikasa.”

You nodded, the blue dress clinging to your frame, with the small straps across your shoulder. You regretted not bringing a jacket, having decided to go for a more attractive look rather than comfortable. “Y/n, Eren.” Armin called out.

“Hey Armin.” You gave him a smile hugging the boy, his blonde hair crept to his shoulders and the suit he wore fitted him nicely. 

Eren went next smiling at him as you wanted to talk to Mikasa, “you not seen Levi yet?” She questions taking another long drag of her drink. 

“I saw him earlier.” You seethed out, even with your early conversation, an intimacy between the two of you, he was still the strongest in your company and a man you highly looked up to. But it's not like you were in love with him, it was just an office crush, a simple crush that would go away in a matter of months. 

Jean and Connie were the next to come meet you guys, you enjoyed hanging out with them but became agitated as if someone was staring at you. It felt like eyes were eyeing every inch of you, watching the way you touched the glass, the way you licked your lips. “That guy’s been looking at you for a while.” Jean lowly whispered into your ear; Jean had seemed to notice but hadn't said anything until he saw a shiver run through you.

He moved away from your ear, having had to bend down to even reach you, he went back to talking to Connie who had been trying to gain Sasha’s attention away from the food. You stopped paying attention to the group, deciding to turn around to meet the man's eyesight, that's when you saw it.

The dull eyes of your ex-boyfriend, the eyes of the man who had degraded you to your limits, left you crying on the floor, pushed you away and gave you the worst months of your life. Your breath hitched at the sight of him eyeing you up and down without shame, the glass you held looked like it was about to shatter.  You wanted to go home, leave away from the man, putting your glass down as you quickly walked away from the group with your head low. 

You knew he was following you, the feeling of his gaze etched onto your skin. You didn’t even know why he was here, thinking back, you didn’t know how he could have even gotten in. That’s when it dawned on you as you tried getting past the guests and their plus ones, your stomach felt like it was about to explode of anxiousness. You continued trying to get out of the hall, to gain some air, but he kept at it, following you swiftly. 

That’s when you saw Levi, he was at the bar, a drink in his hand as he was looking around. He had been on his own, you were almost grateful for this, but the feeling of your ex nearing sent your mind into overdrive. With a quick step your eyes moved to the man, he had seen you walk towards you, the figure of a man following like a lost manic puppy. 

“Y/n.” The man repeated your name, but you kept on ignoring him. Your eyes fixated on Levi the way he had rolled his sleeves up, his blazer on the side. His jaw tense as he watched you being followed. 

Levi took a swing of his drink, the alcohol burning his throat, even the way you walked up to him was so fucking sexy to him. He leant against the bar, waiting for another drink to come his way, until you finally came up to him. “Y/n.”

“Levi.” You whispered, just as your ex was about to call your name, you smashed your lips onto Levi. You didn't care if others were around, who were not even bothered about your actions anyway. Levi had been in shock at first but had kissed you back, his tongue flicked against your lips, his hands cupping your face. He shouldn’t have let it continue so why was he trying to bring you closer. Why was your body moulding into his, why hand your hands moved to his hair. 

A small whimper from your mouth let his tongue glide inside, moving along with your own. He let out a groan at how both of you were too close, he could taste the alcohol and presumed you could taste what he was drinking. His hand moved to your waist, trying to bring you even closer, he didn't know why you had even kissed him. But he assumed it was because of the man who had taken a couple steps backwards. 

You finally let go, mouths still only inches away, you regret your actions, not having considered Levi’s feelings. Words spurted from your mouth instantly, “sorry, I shouldn’t have kisse…”

This time it was Levi’s turn to instigate it, his hands grabbing your head making your lips smash into his again. He had always been in control, guiding your head through the kiss, your heart fluttered, the first kiss you had had was only to get rid of your ex, but this one, it was one that proved that he did like you. 

He let go of your face, his thumb caressing your cheek as he stared lovingly at you, “you k...kissed me.”

“You kissed me first.” He grabbed his drink, taking another sip as he stared at you, hand still around your waist. 

“I...I…” You couldn’t speak, only staring at the man instead. He stared back, before giving a small smirk. 

“That guy left, I guess the alcohol took over.” He muttered; he didn't even know if you liked him like that. 

“He was my ex.” You whisper. 

Levi acknowledged, “a twat?” 

You nodded, looking down, “we broke up on bad terms.” 

“Would you ever get back with him?” Levi questioned, even with it being on bad terms, Levi knew how easily manipulative guys could be. 

Levi watched as you shook your head, his hands firmly gripped on your waist seemed a lot more. He saw you take a deep breath before you continued speaking hesitantly, “I…I like you Levi.” 

“Good, now that you’ve shown the whole event that, we should get out of here.” He put his hand out, he had spoken with such confidence, but inside he knew he was shitting himself. 

“Levi.” You were still hesitant. 

He turned to face you again, his hand still out, “take my hand, brat...I like you too, okay?”

“Okay.” You smile looking down to suppress just how wide your grin was, you take his hand as he brought you closer to him again, his jacket in his other hand, as your fingers played with the rings he had. 

He went towards Erwin hand still with yours, Mikasa was the first one to notice, elbowing Eren who had given the loudest sign before passing Jean what looked like some money. You rolled your eyes as they watched the stern Levi have you in his tight grasp. It was common knowledge between the group of yours and Levi’s crushes on each other, the long looks you’d give each other after work, the way you'd both instantly turn to face each other in meetings. Even the way Levi would bring you coffees in the morning even if he hated making them. Everybody knew and it almost came at a relief that both your pining for each other were finally over. 

“We’ll see you later, Erwin.” Levi smiled as you gave a smile and waved back to the blond. 

“Do you think Y/n will let me look inside her brain to see why she likes Levi?” Hanje questioned Erwin watching as Levi brought you closer to him, his arm resting against your waist. 

“No, Hanje.” Erwin spoke stoically, removing the drink from her hand. 

Levi’s eyes stayed fixed on yours, his arm wrapped around your waist. Your fingers began tracing his tattoos. “Y/n?” You both stood at the entrance, but the sound of someone calling your name, made you both turn around. “Who’s here?”

Your ex stood with a sadistic grimace on his face, trying to act threatening but Levi gave a dull look at the man. “He’s none of your business.” Levi spoke, seeing how you began to look scared. 

“I wasn’t speaking to you.” Your ex was about to waive the man off, ready to grab your arm. 

“I don’t like when people touch what’s mine.” Levi gave a glare holding you behind his back. 

“Yours?” Your ex looked even more pissed. 

Levi didn’t want an argument, seeing it as immature and fighting a feeble man like your ex would bring him no enjoyment. “Ignore him princess, lets’ go.” Levi didn't even let your ex interrupt instead taking you outside leaving your ex with an angry confused face. 

“I’m yours?” You questioned once the feeling of the cold air hit you both. He let his jacket drape across your shoulders, the black and blues in the sky mixing together with pins of stars scattered throughout it all.

Levi looked up to watch the stars, at how everything looked so bright in the dark. “You are now, idiot” He whispers, grabbing your hand again, you gave a small smile to the boy, his hand bringing your comfort as you both just stood outside the venue.

Basking in the comfort you both brought as you watched the constellations and swirls of blues flow throughout the sky. Levi may have hated to admit it, but he was almost relieved that your ex had come, without him both your feelings probably would’ve never been revealed. His grip tightened on your own hand, watching as you learnt your head against his shoulder, he felt comforted, warm even and was never going to let you go.

i’d really appreciate if you guys could leave a like, reblog or comment, thanks x

if you guys want to be a part of a tag list, just reply to any post and i’ll add you xx

@samusimp @alainarose13 @crispychannie @underratedmage @jennammaee @cathy8taffy @sugacious @moonlightaangel @kat-sukis-hoe @effmigentlywithachainsaw @swankiifiied @maat-the-prescriptive @missmultifangirl @tvwhoresblog @kuroos-world @chrrylevi @katsuhera @answer-the-sirens @animexholic @wapbenders @the-shota-king-masayuki @bakugousmrs @crystal-lilac @dai-tsukki-desu @fandomsinthegalaxies @crimsonbows-and-arrows @admin-in-residence @otterlockholmes

#levi ackerman #levi ackerman x reader #attack on titan #attack on titan x reader #bakugohoex 1k event #aot #aot x reader #shingeki no kyoujin #shingeki no kyoujin x reader #levi ackerman fluff #attack on titan fluff #aot fluff #attack on titan levi #levi x reader #attack on titan levi ackerman #attack on titan levi x reader #aot levi #aot levi x reader #aot levi ackerman #aot levi ackerman x reader #fluff #levi ackerman oneshot #bakugohoex #levi aot

[thegeminisage]

my secret galaxy brain reading of spn s11 is better than yours

or: why season 11 is good actually. this is a long-ass meta, so it's going behind the cut

some disclaimers before we get going

absolutely all of this is accidental. nobody does this shit on purpose. this is ~my interpretation~ or whatever. i'm not actually trying to argue the writers meant to do this lol. what i'm saying is that this is the way to make season 11 make sense in your brain because it makes sense in mine and it's one of my FAVORITES. it could be one of your favorites too if you stop limiting yourself

there is heavy discussion of sexual violence in this meta so read safely etc also spoilers for all of s11 obviously

unless you watched the anime, i've seen more supernatural than you have, so i'm right >:)

for the uninitiated, the basic plot of season 11 is that eons and eons ago, before there was heaven or hell or earth or humans or angels, there was only god (chuck) and the darkness (amara). amara kept destroying what god made, so he and the archangels locked her away in a cage, which removing the mark of cain from dean's arm opened. amara escaped and dean was the first thing she saw, so she spends the season using some kind of thrall over him to make him feel drawn to her and unable to hurt her, and also looking for chuck so she can give him a little payback.

ALRIGHT HERE WE GO

season 11 & sexual violence

you don't need to look very far to find examples of sexualized violence and outright sexual violence on supernatural, but s11 is lousy with it. just to name a few examples:

amara's "thrall" on dean, which we will absolutely get into more later

crowley's jokes about altar boys and the tastes of catholic priests

ALLLLL the pedophile jokes made when crowley was raising baby amara

angels torturing cas and threatening to cut his genitals off, only to send in hannah (an angel who formerly had unrequited romantic/sexual feelings for him) to play good cop(/honeypot??) in hopes of making him talk

the return of lucifer, who possessed sam (spn has a history of equating possession and sexual violence) and is heavily implied to have raped sam in hell, and the MULTIPLE times he menaces sam throughout this season, including forcibly touching his soul

lucifer possessing castiel and using him to enact violence on the winchesters, his loved ones

i absolutely REFUSE to acknowledge the lucifer/crowley stuff but if you know you know

the episode with the kissing curse, using "love" as a means to deliver death

dean's possession in the soul eater episode

the "chitters" monsters involving mating, orgies, and forcible impregnation

you get the idea

i could write a whole essay on almost all of these but for this post we'll be sticking mostly to dean & amara

@marcusantonius pointed out while we were watching season 11 that what amara does to dean is basically speedrun his two major attachments - sam and castiel. she starts out as a baby, someone in need of protection, and quickly grows into an adult who attempts to romance/seduce him. the feelings dean has around amara aren't feelings FOR HER, they're feelings he has for SAM AND CAS that are being TRANSFERRED onto her through means of her power. (this is important for later.)

what amara does to dean is sexualized violence bordering on outright sexual assault. compelling him to feel drawn towards her and to protect her, frequently getting in his personal space and touching his face, and even kissing more than once when he is quite literally unable to resist (it's stated many times that he is unable to kill or even harm her, so he is completely helpless in the presence of someone who makes no secret of her intentions for him, sexual or otherwise). 

dean says many times that what he feels for amara is not love or desire or attraction. he can't put a name to it at all - not once in the entire series is he able to properly define this thrall she has over him, which leaves us the audience a little confused (amara asking "what IS happening between us?" in 11.06 as a teenager making sexual advances on a grown man does give me a good laugh, because it was written SO WEIRDLY)... BUT we know that it is definitely sexual in nature, and not at all something dean wants to be happening.

this is addressed kind of strangely in 11.13. the villain of the week is a witch moonlighting as a hairdresser, who puts a kissing curse on her clients. the curse must be passed along like a hot potato - if you kiss someone else, it's passed along to them. if they kiss someone else, it's passed along to them. but eventually, a monster called a qareen will show up in the form of "your deepest desire" and kill you, and work its way backwards to the original curse-ee. in the episode, dean kisses the vic (i'll point out this was also technically done w/o her consent, though it was a very businesslike kiss) to put the curse on himself and protect her. the qareen takes the form of amara, and she gives Dean this little speech:

Qareen!Amara: You're a mystery. I can see inside your heart. Feel the love you feel. Except it's cloaked in shame. When it comes to this, you can’t help yourself, so why fight it? Just give in.

then, at the end of the episode, after dean reveals who the qareen was for him, we get this conversation between sam and dean: 

Dean: You seriously think the sister of God is my deepest darkest desire? Sam: She isn't? Dean: No! She can’t be! Sam: Why not? Dean: Why? Because if she is that means that I'm… Sam: Means you're what? Complicit? Weak? Evil? Dean: For starters, yeah. Sam: Dean. Do you honestly think you ever had a choice in the matter? She's the sister of God, and for some reason she picked you and that sucks, but if you think I’m gonna blame you or judge you…I'm not.

the "shame" part of both of these is really what stuck out to me - the word itself isn't in the second passage, but dean's vibes are absolutely filled with shame. to me, this always read as being shame about the sexual violence and about the complicity/weakness that "allowed" that violence to happen. 

and as a reminder, sam is just a few episodes past the confrontation with his own rapist (he returns to the cage to speak with lucifer in 11.09 & 11.10, and canonically struggles with what happened there even after the confrontation ends). sam made a point earlier in this episode of making sure the victim of the curse knew it wasn't her fault her husband died, but the fault of the witch who cast the curse. sam is VERY emotionally intelligent, and i honestly believe that he was speaking as one survivor of sexual violence to another here. what he's telling dean is something victims often need to be reminded of: it's not your fault. you weren't complicit, or weak. you didn't have a choice. you don't deserve blame or judgment.

we've had bad guys make sexual threats at both dean and sam many times before this and a few more times after, but as far as i can recall, this is the only conversation in the entire series that even attempts to address the impact of that particular kind of violence on dean. it's short, and strangely written, but nonetheless: there it is.

season 11 & the dean in the closet

for the purposes of this post, i'm not going to go through the entire series and find examples to try and prove dean is bi and has feelings for cas. if you don't believe that then what are you doing here? we're skipping to the goods.

actually, i always got annoyed at people who read the fake-amara's speech in 11.13 (or any of the other times people spoke about dean's shame regarding amara) as being about dean's sexuality, because in my mind it was ABSOLUTELY about his being a victim of sexual violence, which was far more important to me, as it is discussed far less often.

BUT, knowing what we know now (that cas was always canonically in love with dean, and it's all but canon that dean really was bisexual), i'm willing to entertain another notion:

Sam: ...you're what? Complicit? Weak? Evil? Dean: For starters, yeah.

the "evil" bit never really sat right with me as part of the narrative of sexual violence, aside from touching on dean's general self-loathing, but it fits the narrative of being closeted MUCH better. dean, a self-hating homophobic bisexual, would probably use a similar word, if not something heavy as "evil," to describe the way he feels about other men. it's a malevolent feeling. (if you're like me and ascribe to the jackles headcanon that dean resorted to turning tricks to make food money when he was underage, we could also consider the extremely fucked up fact that almost every queer man dean's ever met is someone who hurt him.) 

dean is ashamed of who and what he is, and the way he feels about cas. living like that, that's violence. he lives violently day in and day out with that feeling. (and amara knows it. it's worth nothing that she uses cas to communicate with dean MULTIPLE times in this season, both by carving messages on his body and psychically, through his own connection to dean - and when dean "betrays" her to rescue casifer, she's horrified at whatever she sees in his head.)

equating sexual violence to the violence of being closeted

but what's amazing about this weird badly-written little 11.13 conversation (and indeed, the season-long plotline of dean and his shame) is that we don't HAVE to assign it to the purposes of being about sexual violence OR about being closeted. it can be and IS both. 

my favorite reading of this is that BEING IN THE CLOSET IS INHERENTLY A VIOLENT AND TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE. many of the same feelings are involved: shame, guilt, self-loathing. sam's comforting words to dean - that he will not be blamed or judged - are equally applicable in both cases. dean is a victim of sexual violence, and he is also in the closet, and both of these experiences are traumatic ones, and they are intermingled with each other in a big way (again, if you're into dean-turned-tricks headcanon, they are intermingled INSEPERABLY - the sexual violence being one of the direct causes of dean not wanting to accept or address his own sexuality).

the bait-and-switch

the real galaxy brain moment of this whole thing begins at the end of 11.22 (an otherwise lackluster episode that played sam's lucifer trauma for laughs how dare they ugh god whatever that's off-topic but i HATE IT) when amara and chuck finally have the confrontation she's been fighting all season for. she is attacked by witches, demons, angels, and then stabbed by lucifer himself, before she's finally on her knees before chuck, and then we get this little exchange:

Chuck: I'm sorry. For this, for everything. Amara: An apology at last. What's sorry to me? I spent millions of years crammed into that cage alone and afraid...

maybe you already know where i'm going with this. a cage isn't so different from a closet when we're working with metaphors, right? 

amara talks about her grievances with chuck many times throughout season 11 - that he was spoiled, that he created the earth to stroke his ego, that he couldn't handle her as she was. and once he finally makes his appearance he tells it his own way - that he had no choice but to lock amara away, that she couldn't stand the things and people he made, that he did it to protect people. but something about THIS conversation in particular - even though it's not written into the dialogue - gives me a particular kind of vibe. 

there is something innately, unspeakably WRONG with amara. i don't mean unspeakable as in very bad, i mean unspeakable as in LITERALLY undefinable. it's just like dean being unable to put a name to the pull she has over him. no one talks directly at it or about it, they go in circles around it, but facts are facts: amara simply couldn't be allowed to exist as she was because there was just something innately wrong with her. and it's this conversation in particular, the first one they have together onscreen, that really slams that feeling home for me.

the entire time chuck and amara are talking, the camera repeatedly cuts to dean - he is so visibly upset that the first time i watched this, i was certain he was about to jump into the middle of things and put himself between the two of them. we're meant to believe that dean has trouble hearing this because he "cares" about amara, but i have a different take.

i think it's empathy. real, actual empathy - not the kind of feeling that amara had to force out.

stay with me here. eventually, after chuck tries to lock amara away again, she gets her second wind, attacks him, and leaves him for dead - and as he dies, the sun dies with him, and so too does all life on earth. 

in the following episode, the finale, amara finds her way to a park, where she takes in god's creation, visibly upset as she realizes that his flowers die at her touch (again, hammering home the point that there is something innately wrong with her that means she cannot live in this world), and eventually speaks with an old lady feeding the birds. 

Woman: Do you want to feed them? Amara: I shouldn't. Woman: I've been feeding these birds going on 20 years now. They're practically family. And I know that makes me sound like a crazy old bat, but...heck. My husband died a couple of years ago, and my son keeps slipping me these brochures for retirement communities - a.k.a. where they send old folks to die, but not to make a fuss about it. Amara: So you hate him. Woman: Well, a little bit. Sometimes. But you know family. Even when you hate them, you still love them.

this speech brings tears to amara's eyes. what's more, she spends this entire section with her hands in her lap. after a season of killing her way through humanity to get god's attention, she is afraid to touch these birds for fear of killing them. she feels empathy for them. she and dean are connected, after all - so as soon as he began to feel true, genuine empathy - so did she.

when dean shows up to kill amara (via a bomb made out of souls hidden in his chest), she immediately clocks his plan. she practically dares him to do it, and - he can't. he is, as always, helpless against her. 

what dean does instead is talk to her. more importantly, he listens to her. when she says her brother sent dean here to execute her, he tells her chuck actually didn't want this - that it was actually his very last resort. he asks her if this, the death of everything, is what she wanted, and she tells him all she really wanted was payback. again, dean EMPATHIZES:

Dean: Yeah, that's revenge. It'll get you out of bed in the morning, and when you get it, it feels great... for about five minutes. I've been there. Me and Sam, we have had our fair share of fights—more than our share. But no matter how bad it got, we always made it right because we're family. I need him. He needs me. And when everything goes to crap, that's all you've got—family. Now you might be a—an all-powerful being...but I think you're human where it counts. You simply need your brother. 

what's really neat about this section, and the scene before it where amara confronts her brother, is that they mark the first times dean felt any sort of genuine emotion for amara at all - one that she didn't force out of him or one that he felt for someone else that she just took for herself. dean genuinely EMPATHIZES with her - after everything she's done to him and his loved ones, and to the people on earth, dean sees the humanity in her. that's kind of his and sam's M.O., loving monsters into men - the number of non-human adversaries who eventually became allies because of the winchesters’ empathy or liking for them or even just their influence is staggering. cas, gabriel, meg, benny, crowley, rowena, metatron, to name a few off the top of my head - and now amara. 

and then we get THIS:

Dean: You don't want to be alone. Not really. I mean, hell. Maybe that's why you wanted me. But deep down, you didn't really want me... 'cause I'm not him.

(emphasis mine)

and here's my galaxy brain take: dean empathizes with amara - TRULY empathizes with her - because they're both queer (or queer-coded). 

I KNOW THIS SOUNDS NUTS BUT LISTEN. this weird creepy stalkery hetero "romance" was fake on both sides all along. dean and amara are the same. that unspeakable and innate wrongness lives in both of them. they're self-loathing and furious at god for his failures and callousness, outcasts in a world that isn't for them, a world that has HURT them simply on account of them being what they are. the violence done to amara was done to her BECAUSE of this unspeakable wrongness about her - her queerness, or her queer-codedness - and we already decided this was, for the purposes of this season, functionally the same violating and traumatic experience as sexual violence.

amara's been using dean to try and replace chuck this entire season. it's some weird comphet bullshit tied in with the fact that dean was the first part of chuck's creation she ever saw. it stands to reason then that she was trying to force dean to be with her and love her the way she wanted to force CHUCK to be with her. that's part of why she started life as a baby - as someone he'd protect as he did his own sibling. 

so in some weird, warped, very roundabout way, amara was enacting on dean the violence that chuck enacted on her - making him feel the same shame and weakness that chuck made HER feel when he locked her away eons ago. if amara unknowingly replaced chuck with dean, then she also unknowingly took part of her revenge on him. the only way she knew how to love someone was to force them to do it, because the only ways she had ever been loved until now involved violence - until dean and his moment of genuine empathy.

consider this final speech:

Dean: Maybe I can kill you. Or maybe I can't. Maybe if I pull this trigger, we all live happily ever after, or maybe we die bloody, or maybe it doesn't matter, because maybe there's a different way. So I'm gonna ask you again. Put aside the rage. Put aside the hate. And you tell me...what do you want?

dean is the only person in BILLIONS of years to ask her this! one queer to another! and it turns out that and all she wanted - the ONLY thing she needed - was to be understood and accepted by her family. immediately after this, amara summons chuck to their park, and the two of them talk it out in what is genuinely a very moving scene. amara - perhaps because of her connection with dean, perhaps because she's finally admitted to herself that she does still love her brother - sees the beauty in the world now, and feels love for it, and she doesn't want to destroy it anymore. 

and at the end, after she's made her peace with god, and the sun has been turned back on, amara says:

Amara: Dean, you gave me what I needed most. I want to do the same for you.

and what do we get at the end of this episode? mary winchester, risen from her grave. dean's family. and - SPOILERS FOR SEASON 12 - though at first mary rejects dean (and sam) as being the same children she remembers from 1983, after a long and rocky road, at the end of the season, they eventually come to a reconciliation where she sees them for who they truly are. it's never ABOUT being queer because this show uses the fucking hays code when it comes to dean's sexuality, but it's still about being queer!! 

dean gave amara what she needed - acceptance from her family - and she gave him that back in turn. all it took, the entire time, was one SHRED of empathy from one queer to another. all dean had to do was recognize her - REALLY recognize her - not as a replacement for sam or cas but as who she really was. and he saw himself in her, and the empathy that followed was genuine because it was the most natural thing in the world. in the end neither dean nor amara needed the "romance" they thought they did/were forced to want. they never did. they only needed acceptance and understanding.

supernatural is always about family and the power of love, and this season is no exception.

other great parts of season 11

if you're still not convinced, season 11 is full of other things that make it amazing:

GOD'S RETURN. after SIX YEARS he's back, this is canon, we finally get to hear what he has to say. they did more with him in a handful of episodes in this season than all of season 15

also, something else returns after six years. i'll give you a hint: it glows hot in god's presence. it was last seen being dropped into a motel trash can.

and of course the big one: lucifer and sam. what great callbacks to seasons 4-6 when lucifer and what he did to sam in hell was actually scary and mattered a lot! lucifer returns to being scary in this and i can't get enough of it.

this is also inseparable from sam's arc involving his faith - he begins praying again, having visions again, and is GUTTED when those prayers and visions lead him back to the place of his worst trauma. he gets to MEET GOD this season. it's fucking insane

the inherent melodrama of castiel, someone loved and trusted by the winchesters, being possessed by someone who they hate and who has hurt them. you get all of the sam drama with him accidentally trusting lucifer with his soul and his brother's life, and all the dean drama where he watches the devil run around in his boyfriend. also, misha collins does an uncanny impression of mark pellegrino. it's actually really creepy

somehow, they managed to make metatron, a deeply hated villain by all, ACTUALLY LIKEABLE. for TWO whole episodes. it was NUTS

this season starts off rowena's long arc with lucifer and her lucifer trauma that eventually becomes the catalyst of her bonding so profoundly with sam <3 best friends forever <333

sam and dean bond with a pair of canonically gay hunters who DON'T DIE

billie is introduced in this season and she's super hot and cool and awesome

eileen is also introduced in this season. her arc mirrors sam's so well, it's SO good. i never though i'd care about sam and a girl who wasn't jess, but i care about them SO MUCH it makes me insane. if you don't love eileen you're wrong!

anyway, watch season 11. it's weird but it's really fucking good. THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK

[spn masterpost]

#supernatural #dean winchester #amara #supernatural meta #destiel #in a roundabout way #i needed a 5th tracked tag lol #i stayed up ALL NIGHT writing this but im gonna be a smartie and schedule it to go up at noon when ppl are awake #liz watches spn #liz's meta #liz's spn stuff #liz makes stuff #long post #just in case the cut fails #this meta really is 3800 words long lol #as a bonus it was implied in late season 10 that amara is the older sibling #even though they retconned it and made them twins later #like amara and dean are both eldest sisters.......

[maybedefinitely404]

For You Became My Lighthouse (Part 2)

Genre: hurt/comfort

Pairing: romantic Prinxiety

Content: argument, crying, a decent dose of awkward but it gets resolved!

Word count: 4.1k

Comment: This is the fourth time I’ve tried to post this--- Part 1 HERE!

Roman, is everything alright?

-Logan

Roman ran a hand through his hair at the message, checking the time at the top of the screen. It was late, far too late, so it was safe to assume that Logan had heard about the spat from Virgil. He should have been home by now. It was just… impossible to convince himself to actually leave the rehearsal studio. He had a younger acting class tomorrow and was perfecting his lesson plan- even though he already knew it was perfect, and his director had already approved it. Just, anything to keep him from going home.

He’d been a dick. Such was obvious; from the second his finger had hit send, he regretted approximately everything in his life that had led to this moment. That day had been particularly bad, overrun with rehearsals he was either taking part in or directing, and gearing up for tech week of a large production. Who knew trying to block a scene with a flurry of pre-teens could take so much out of you? Rinse and repeat the cycle with two more classes to teach back to back and an achingly long dance rehearsal, add in a desperate and fruitless search for a replacement lead in his upcoming directorial debut, and you’d have what Roman would categorize as a “shit show of a day”. 

All he wanted to do at the end of it was spend some time with his boyfriend, without having to talk about his day, so he’d suggested the most basic date his fried brain could conjur. Then his work desk was unceremoniously reacquainted with his forehead as he smacked it into the wood, letting out a groan that bordered on a yell. Luckily, minutes ago everyone had abandoned the theatre, and he’d been trusted with the keys to lock up from a stagehand. He just had a couple more things to do, and then he could drive home. 

Getting a reply of denial from Virgil was nothing new. In fact, he’d been warned in the transition from reluctant acquaintanceship to inevitable friendship, that he tended to veto ideas if they were sudden, or too daunting, or if he was just feeling shitty. It was something that Roman never considered a deal breaker, and he’d slowly come to much rather enjoy a night of cuddling and watching television than going out anyways. Call it ‘getting old’, call it ‘Virgil’s homebody ways creeping into his psyche’. So usually, getting his plans rejected was no big deal. 

Except for today, when he was well and past his limit of frustration, and things not going to plan. He’d typed out and sent the snarky reply far before he’d thought it out whatsoever, and ranted out complaints that hadn’t ever crossed his mind before, which he immediately regretted. In a moment of shame so great it caused physical nausea, he tossed his phone into one of his desk drawers and slammed it shut. 

It buzzed once, twice, and then went silent. 

Until, of course, it began to go berserk an indecipherable amount of time later, and Roman couldn’t ignore it. Seeing Logan’s text, along with about a million missed calls from him and Patton, broke the fragile sense of calm he’d tried to achieve while working. 

He didn’t want to go home and face his consequences. Childish, yes. Well deserved, also yes, but he was afraid of Virgil’s inevitable anger. If this led to a breakup, a fight that wasn’t recoverable, he’d never forgive himself. 

And now…

Roman, is everything alright?

-Logan

I can see you’ve read my text message.

-Logan

I’m at work. 

You’re inconceivably moronic. Get home. Now.

-Logan

Roman sighed heavily through his nose, clenching his jaw. He began typing out another snarky response- because apparently he never learned- when another text came through.

Virgil was in significant distress last I spoke to him and he has stopped answering me and Patton. Go. Home.

-Logan

Please. If not for my sake, then for Virgil’s.

-Logan

Fuck.

Roman barely had the sense to lock the doors of the building in his rush, throwing the spare key back in through the mail slot and booking it to his car. He sent some sort of confirmation that he was going and tossed the phone to his back seat. Virgil hated when he used it while driving.

It was only on the drive back, on unusually empty roads, did he realize it was well past nine. He hadn’t even noticed the time passing by.

Most of the lights in the apartment complex were still on when he pulled into the car park, but their window visible on this side showed only darkness. He wasn’t used to entering a dark apartment.

Their flat was silent, the living room only illuminated by the oven clock and the dim city lights from the balcony. He toed off his shoes as silently as he could, wincing when he kicked their shoe rack, and decided he’d risk turning on the light. When he finally found the switch and flicked it on, he couldn’t help his gasp. 

The room had once been a pristine display, he could tell. A white table cloth adorned their usually bare dining room table and a half burned candle stood as its centrepiece. He approached it in a daze, cautiously resting a hand on the plate of ravioli nearest to him. Cold. Long cold; the pasta was starting to get crusty. 

He picked up the two plates, intent on throwing out the food. It definitely wasn’t safe to eat anymore, and he didn’t feel like warding off an attack of ants in the morning. One of the towels hanging off the oven handle was drenched in what looked like marinara sauce, and it looked like there was some more spilled in the crack between the stove and the counter. That would be fun to clean. 

Both hands full, he opened the cupboard containing the garbage bin with a socked foot, and promptly froze. 

Part of him cringed at the clang the dropped plates made on the counter, but the louder part of him was just repeating a mantra of ‘holy shit, holy shit, holy shit’ and it was considerably out-screaming the other. Hands now shaking, Roman picked up the small box from the sink edge, ignoring the dried, crunchy texture of more tomato sauce on the outside, and opened it. 

It took every ounce of strength for Roman not to collapse to his knees, guilt instantly crushing the air from his lungs, a thousand times heavier than it had been before. An elaborate dinner, a ring… there had been a plan. That’s why Virgil had rejected his offer to go out. 

And he’d been such a dick to him. 

Speaking of which, where was he?

Roman closed the box and set it back where it had been. Their bedroom door was slightly ajar, and the most obvious place Virgil would be, so he padded over and creaked it open just a bit more. The light from the hallway cast a beam onto the bed, illuminating first a mess of hastily thrown clothes; his button up shirt he only used for fancy occasions on top of the pile. 

Virgil’s huddled form was easy to make out, curled away from the door, his only movement being the steady rise and fall of the blanket as he breathed. Figaro lifted his head from where he was settled in the crook of Virgil’s knees and gave Roman an indifferent mrow. 

He couldn’t get into bed with him. There was no scenario where that was the right move. It wasn’t the right time to talk about what had happened, not so late and when they were both riding high on emotions and tiredness, so accidentally waking Virgil was not the way to go. And even if he was sneaky enough to not wake him… a part of him just felt it was wrong. Not when he didn’t know Virgil’s stance on him at the moment.

Or his stance on the relationship.

Well, couch it was. He acknowledged the crumpled weighted blanket and sound blocking headphones- clear aftermath of a bad panic attack- with a quiet curse. Somehow that pit in his stomach got even bigger, making him nauseous as his shame took a physical form. 

He could only pray that they would come back from this. 

Roman’s sleep was fitful, to say the least. At best, he drifted into a state of half-consciousness, where his thoughts could be somewhat quieted down, but the discomfort of the couch and the heavy weight in his heart were still palpable. Inevitably, one of their neighbors would make a noise or the building would make a settling creak or a distant dog would bark, and the state would be broken, leaving Roman wide awake and wracked with guilt once more. He’d never noticed how loud the world was until he wanted nothing more than for the noise to stop. 

The sun was just peaking into the window when their bedroom door widened and Roman flew up, using the back of the couch to steady his sudden sitting position. When their eyes met from across the room, Virgil in his pajamas and face hidden in shadow, a tenseness settled over the room that neither had experienced in their relationship thus far. Virgil froze in the doorway, wavering slightly. It didn’t appear he wanted to be the one to break the silence. 

Roman stood slowly, as though not to spook him.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” Virgil whispered with a sniff, and even in that one word Roman could hear the scratchiness of his voice. “I just...uhm,” He cleared his throat, “I just wanted to get some water. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I was already awake. No… no worries.” 

Virgil looked down to his feet. “When did you come back?”

“I think just before ten.”

“‘Kay.”

For an all too long moment, both of them seemed to find interest in every part of the room that wasn’t the other’s eyes. It wasn’t until Roman looked towards the kitchen in his awkwardness did he process what Virgil had come out for. 

“I’ll, um…” He pointed weakly to the kitchen and finally convinced his feet to move, filling up a glass from the sink while making a conscious effort to not look at the dishes or wasted food from the evening before. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stop the way his gaze drifted towards the box sitting next to the tap, and judging by Virgil’s sharp inhale, the look hadn’t been subtle. 

He took the glass back to the other, watching him take it with an uncomfortable, “Thanks.”

Virgil downed the glass in one go, his shaking hands almost causing him to spill. He barely had time to take a breath before Roman had zipped the empty glass back onto the counter.

“Do you want more?” He asked, already refilling the glass.

“No, I’m… it’s okay.” 

Roman placed the full glass on the counter quietly and the two were swallowed by heavy silence once again. The clock ticked impossibly loud as they stood, fidgeting, wanting this moment to be over but not wanting to be the one to start it. 

Virgil took a shuddering breath and wrung his hands together.

Roman stared resolutely at a single water drop making its way down the glass.

This was his fault. He’d started it. It seemed only right that he break the tension that almost suffocated him, so even as his mind screamed for him to shut up and every muscle in his body turned to liquid, he opened his mouth to speak.

“Virgil, I-”

“I’m sorry.”

That effectively stopped Roman in his tracks. All night, he’d crafted a collection of apologies, from eloquent monologues to stumbling pleas for forgiveness, but in not one of his countless scenarios had Virgil apologized. 

“I know… I know I can be a lot to handle, I know, I swear. And I was more outgoing when we first met, because I thought I had something to prove and it always exhausted me and I hated it but then we became… I don’t know, official? And closer and… and more comfortable and I didn’t think I had to do that anymore, I didn’t have to keep pushing myself so far!”

“V, stop-”

“The panic attacks and the anxiety and all that shit are a lot for other people and I know that but I didn’t know it was too much for you, I didn’t know you were tired of that and I can be better, I swear, I swear I can go back to how I was in the beginning, just please don’t leave.”

Virgil let out a choked sob and Roman couldn’t stop himself from rushing forward, intent on holding his stupid, stupid boyfriend until he realized this was in no way his fault, only for Virgil to back up before he could do so.

“I’m- I’m not trying to guilt you, I’m sorry, I just, I love you, and I can be better, I can, just give me a chance, please-”

“Virgil, baby, come here.”

This time when he reached forward, Virgil allowed himself to be pulled into his boyfriend’s chest, basically collapsing against him as soon as Roman’s arms tightened around him. The dam broke moments later and Virgil finally let go of his own hands to grab the back of Roman’s shirt with a sense of urgency.

“Please don’t leave, I’m so sorry,” he begged raspily into Roman’s shoulder.

“I’m not going anywhere. I promise.” 

Roman hung onto him almost as tightly in return, rocking them back and forth, finally allowing himself to cry. He shoved his face into Virgil’s hair, peppering small kisses and apologies to the crown of his head in between sobs. 

Virgil whined when Roman finally pulled away, but he didn’t go far, cradling his boyfriend’s face in his hands and wiping his tacky cheeks with his thumbs.

“Virgil, I cannot apologize enough for yesterday.”

“What are-” he hiccuped, “What are you talking about? It was my fault.”

“No, no, no no no no no,” Roman whispered, fighting that damn lump in his throat once more. “I had a spectacularly shitty day, and I took it out on you. I was leagues out of line. It wasn’t fair to you and I’m so, so unbelievably sorry.” 

As if the strings were cut on a marionette, all the tenseness dissolved from Virgil’s shoulders and he slumped forward, bumping his head weakly into Roman’s chest. “Can we sit down?”

“Yeah, of course.” Roman clumsily led him to the couch and sat on the adjacent cushion, assuming that if Virgil wanted to talk, he’d want his own space. His assumption was incorrect, however, judging by how Virgil crossed the space almost instantly and buried himself in Roman’s side like a koala. He shifted them both until he was laying on his back, Virgil splayed across him .

“I thought you’d be more upset with me,” He muttered, freeing his hand to run it through Virgil’s hair. His fingers raked through his own tears trapped in the locks and he grimaced.

“I don’t know what I’m feeling right now,” responded Virgil, accompanied by a shuddering breath, “I just need to know that you’re really here. And I need you.”

They were quiet for a moment, watching the sun begin to peek through their window, until Virgil spoke again sardonically.

“If this is a dream, I’m gonna be so pissed.”

Roman snorted despite himself and felt Virgil’s responding half-laugh from where he was tucked against him.  

“I agree. I thought I’d fucked up for good this time.”

A disgruntled meow made Roman crane his neck over the couch, watching Figaro stretch languidly in their bedroom doorway. The cat sidled over to his food bowl and sat pointedly next to it. Feed me. 

“Later, Figaro,” Roman groaned, all too comfortable with Virgil as his blanket. A small part of him was worried that if he moved them at all, the spell would be broken, and they’d lose whatever peace they’d settled into. 

Well, that wouldn’t do at all, not by Figaro’s standards. The cat gave an upset mewl and trotted over to the couch, leaping up with grace and batting Virgil’s legs. It was that pettish action that made Roman realize that Virgil had turned stone still on his lap. Figaro changed his approach to headbutting at his arm in a clear attempt to get pets, but Virgil’s hand stayed still by their sides. 

“What’s going through your head?” Roman murmured. 

“That stuff you said, about me… not contributing to the relationship…” Virgil croaked, and Roman stilled,  “What can I do to-… to fix that? Because I wanna fix it.”

“Baby, no,” Roman whispered, that shame-nausea returning, “I-” He groaned, dropping his head onto the arm of the couch behind him, “I was being an asshole. I didn’t mean that.”

Virgil didn’t budge, still deliberately ignoring Figaro’s futile begging for attention. “Then where did it come from?”

He took a breath deep enough that Virgil rose and fell with his chest, and Roman was struck with the profound urge to pull him closer and never let him go. But that would likely make him feel trapped, and that wasn’t productive. “You remember when I dragged you to that improv show my students put on last year?”

“You introduced me as your boyfriend and we found out the class had placed bets on whether you were gay or not. I don’t know how it wasn’t obvious.”

Roman gasped in mock offense. “Maybe they just were trying not to stereotype!”

“Your phone case is a rainbow-”

“Anyways!” He interrupted, resuming his gentle threading through Virgil’s hair, who snorted but otherwise gave in to the affection. “Remember what happened after?”

“Mmhm.”

It had been a fantastic show, and Roman had been exceedingly proud of his little students, especially since it was his first time ever teaching a class. After the night, when the betting chaos had settled and everyone quickly adopted Virgil as theirs now, they’d pleaded to play a few more improv games before the theatre closed. Seeing as it was their last class, hence the performance in the first place, Roman had acquiesced. But neither of the men had expected for the gang of pre-teens to latch onto Virgil and beg him to play too, despite him having zero theatre experience. 

“Remember what they said?”

“They tried to pack all your lectures into five minutes of information.”

“I don’t lecture, I dazzle.” 

“They thought you were straight.” 

“Only some, and that’s not the point!”

Virgil finally lifted his head, pulling his hands up so he could lay his chin on top of them. He smiled weakly. “Then what is the point?”

“The most important rule of improv is to keep the scene going. No matter what nonsense you have to pull out, just never leave a scene flat.”

There was a quiet moment while the other processed that before, once again, that layer of hurt reappeared on his face. He pushed himself off Roman’s chest in preparation to get up. “So… you’re saying you saw that argument as another scene you had to keep up.”

“No, shit, that came out wrong,” Roman insisted, and Virgil paused suspiciously, “I’m saying, that in a moment of panic, I fell back on bullshitting my way through it! That’s literally what I do for a living!” 

The distrust gave way to resignment and Virgil chewed on his cheek, turning his attention to the window. He sat all the way up on Roman’s legs, leaning back on his shins. “How do I know you’re not bullshitting me right now?” He said. 

“Because,” Roman followed him up, careful not to move his legs and dislodge his boyfriend, “You know I like when the bed is made, and even though you hate making it, you always do when I’m out of the house before you.”

Virgil looked down at his thumb.

“Because you let me choose the music in the car.”

“... you don’t like loud music,” He muttered, picking at the skin around his cuticle.

“You adjust your work schedule to come to every single one of my shows.”

He shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Yeah, but you hate working mornings. You let me rant about all my theatre stuff, even if you don’t get any of it.”

“I’m learning.” A faint smile was breaking through.

“You tell me when there’s spinach in my teeth, or my hair is messy, or if I’m acting like an asshole.”

“Well, that’s easy enough.”

Roman reciprocated the smile at that, taking Virgil’s hands in his own to stop the attack at his nail. “I’ve been watching you better yourself for years, even if it’s been really, really hard.”

“What does that have to do with us?” Virgil asked with a small blush, switching his fidgeting tactic to fiddling with Roman’s fingers. 

“Every time you do something that betters yourself, you help us, Virgil.” He leaned forward slowly, giving Virgil the time to move away if he wanted to, and rested their foreheads together. “Yesterday, I fucked up. Badly. You said you were anxious and I still acted like a dick. I kinda thought you’d hate me.”

“I could never hate you,” Virgil whispered, seemingly before he had a chance to process it, because his blush multiplied tenfold. Roman grinned. 

“Aw, is someone feeling sappy?”

“Shut up, jackass,” He retorted, bonking their heads together ever so gently. 

“I’m so sorry, Virgil,” Roman said after their giggles and blushes had faded, “It won’t happen again, I swear.” 

In lieu of answering, Virgil closed the already scant distance between their lips, and despite Roman using all of his self control to not sigh into it, he found himself doing so anyways. All the tension bled out of his shoulders at once as Virgil pulled away, pressing one more peck to the tip of his nose, and then leaning back with a small smile. 

“So… that means we’re good?”

“We’re good.”

“Thank god,” Roman groaned, flopping back and dropping his arm over his eyes dramatically. He heard Virgil’s quiet snicker before he resumed his job as a blanket. Except this time, instead of nuzzling his head into Roman’s neck, he could feel the distinct edge of a chin digging into his sternum.

The hand lifted from his eyes to see Virgil staring at him, that goofy little smirk on his face. 

“What?”

“I love you, idiot.”

Well, now they were wearing matching goofy little smirks. 

“I love you too.” 

That seemed to satiate him, because he gave a little nod and laid his head more comfortably on the other’s chest. He could have left the conversation there, content to just let them lay there in peace until the world fell away- or Figaro grew more insistent on being fed- but Roman just couldn’t banish the one persistent thought in the back of his mind. 

“Were you actually going to propose?” He blurted.

Virgil tensed for a moment, and then gave a resigned sigh. “...Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” Roman furrowed his eyebrows, desperately hoping he sounded casual, though his heart was pounding far too loudly to not be heard, “I would have said yes. If you did.”

“Oh?” Virgil lifted his head. “You’re blushing, Princey.” He could hear the smug grin.

“Nooo…” Roman whined. His arm draped once more over his eyes in a weak attempt to hide the redness, but he drew it away only moments later when Virgil didn’t retort. 

The man was staring at him with an odd mix of disappointment and amusement, huffing out a breath as he watched Roman’s eyes.

“This wasn’t how I was planning to propose,” He sighed, “It was supposed to be all perfect, and romantic, and stuff. And the surprise is ruined now.”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Roman, continuing before Virgil could cut him off, “If it’s any consolation, I think a proposal in our pajamas, on the couch, would be very us.”

“You’re not in pajamas.”

“I slept in these clothes, they count as pajamas.”

Virgil snickered. Roman counted five breaths as the other’s face melted from a smile to anxiously knit brows, worrying his lip between his teeth as he looked down at him. It took another three for him to speak.

 “So…uh... will you…?”

Roman’s face split into a grin, “Yes, Virgil. Obviously.” 

Virgil’s expression morphed to match his and he swooped down to kiss him again, though they barely could with how much they were smiling. They both devolved into giggles, happy to just stay wrapped in each other’s arms, until Virgil broke away with a gasp.

“Let me grab the ring!”

“Ring can wait,” Roman argued, tightening his grip around his waist to keep him in place, “I want cuddles.”

And so they did.

Taglist:

@max-is-tired

@private-snippers

@joylessnightsky

@marshymoop

@larkiaquail

@noemiescuriosity

@mycatshuman

@cirishere

@vpow

@ray-does-stuff

@sirprplsnail

#lywrites #sanderssides #sanderssidesfanfiction #prinxiety #romantic prinxiety #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #virgil sanders #roman sanders

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Good morning/afternoon/evening/night, Ralph. (I think I covered all my time zone bases there). I have been thinking lot lately about all the rhetoric in the fandom about Harry’s health and well-being, and how loud it has felt this year. To be clear, I am not asking for you to weigh in with your own speculations about how Harry is doing, unless you feel comfortable doing so. (I’m not telling you what to do either way, obviously, seeing as I am only a little grey icon in your inbox and have no right or way to demand anything of you.) I’m more looking for guidance or even just your rambling thoughts about what is respectful and appropriate when we’re wondering about a celebrity’s well being, and how you handle your own thoughts and assumptions about this. I feel like over the course of the last year we’ve just been inundated with all this panic and speculation about how Harry is unhappy or unhealthy or otherwise not himself, going all the way back to the Jingle Bell Ball Golden performance. Every time we get any new content there’s a wave of people saying he looks too thin and overworked like he’s not getting enough food or rest, or overweight and out of shape (pick a lane, people), he looks stressed, he looks sad, he looks angry, his eyes have lost their sparkle, his smile is dim, he’s addicted to drugs, he’d addicted to drugs because Jeff is doping him up to keep him going, he’s going to quit music, he’s going to hurt himself, blah blah blah. And the people making these “observations” hide behind the assertion that they’re just worried for his health when they’re faced with any sort of criticism.

This whole ongoing rhetoric feels really…icky? I suppose? to me. I do kind of think he has looked more drawn and intense (“stressed” and “sad”) in the content we’ve gotten this year, but I also think (1) the content we’ve gotten has largely been pap shots and stunt stuff, (2) this year he had to postpone his tour, and we know he loves performing so that must have really sucked, and (3) this year has just been rather shit for all of us, we’re all stressed and sad and scared and frustrated by the larger political and social goings on, and by the ways our own lives are impacted. In the past, the content we’ve gotten where Harry looks the happiest and most at ease has been performance footage or him with his family and loved ones. We haven’t gotten any of that this year. It makes sense that the pictures we do get would feature him looking less than completely relaxed and jubilant. And then there are all the assumptions that he’s lost weight or gained weight and is therefore unhealthy or on drugs or drinking a lot and that just honestly pisses me off. You cannot tell jack shit about a person’s health from their weight, and especially not in random pictures taken at random intervals in random settings. To pretend you can is harmful, and Harry probably won’t see you making these assumptions about his mental and physical health based on the prominence of his cheekbones in a set of pap pics, but friends and strangers who are already struggling with their weight will. And the assertion that someone is dealing with an addiction of any kind (or, god forbid, and I hate even typing this, being subjected to drug use at the hands of someone with power over them) is an allegation that a) you can’t make from one picture and b) has really deep, life altering, tragic and painful and hard consequences for that person and all their loved ones, and deserves more respect and deference than to be treated as something you can just throw out into the great wild beyond and then forget about.

But beyond the fact that people are making hurtful and invasive allegations and assumptions about a real person’s private life based entirely on a very very limited and posed and edited set of content that was hand chosen to be given to us, I think the thing that bothers me the most is it feels like the people who are driving these conversations are doing so because they want something from Harry. It’s never (or rarely, I suppose) “man Harry looks tired in the pictures we’ve gotten lately, I really hope he’s taking care of himself, things have been so hard for us all.” It’s always “Harry has been so withdrawn and sad and angry he’s not communicative with fans and he’s not willing to engage with them when he sees them in public and I miss him. I miss my Harry. I miss happy Harry. I want him back. Give me Harry back.” Which tells me the concern isn’t Harry or Harry’s health, but rather the feeling that Harry owes us something that he hasn’t been giving, and now he must pay up or give us a valid excuse.

Then I do, occasionally though, find myself thinking “am I doing exactly what I’m complaining about? Am I assuming the worst of people based on a limited set of insights into their lives?” And in the wake of the Britney legal battle that has been unfolding recently, I sometimes wonder if maybe as fans we do have kind of a duty to call out celebrities when they seem to be struggling or acting incredibly out of character. Most of the time I follow this up immediately with the thought that I’m not responsible for anyone else’s health and safety, much less that of a 27 year old man I’ve never met and have no connection to beyond liking his music and his face, and I do truly believe that, but there is some part of me that feels uneasy just turning off all my concern, because I am a person who tends to be greatly concerned about everyone, who just wants everyone to be happy and healthy and safe and loved, and who wants to help people feel that way, where and when I can. So I guess what I’m asking, in the incredibly long winded and winding way I ask anyone anything (my poor husband, he gets a novel from me every time I ask what he thinks we should do for dinner) is do you have any of these same feelings and concerns? How do your navigate them? Where do you draw a line? Do you just withdraw completely from this type of speculation? How do you balance being a kind, engaged, empathetic fan with being a respectful, responsible fan who knows their limits? (And man, isn’t that the ultimate question?). Your blog is one I end up on whenever something big happens or a particular conversation pops up, because I’ve found that I really value the way you break things down and are willing to consider them from many perspectives, so I appreciate you even taking the time to read this.

Thanks for your interesting thoughts about Harry anon. I feel like there's a lot to respond to here and I'm going to start by answering the questions your questions - and then I'm going to get distracted and talk about a post I really hated.

I'm always a little bit worried about Harry, and all 1D members. He might be really struggling, that's always a possibility. Harry has lived a very intensely scheduled high workload life since he was 16. He might have had all sorts of responses to the fact that that schedule was removed, or anything else that is happening in his life. But I feel like I'm generally pretty boundaried about those concerns.

I think part of it is because my base line assumption is that boyband members are pretty fucked up. You don't need to know a lot about the history of touring musicians to know that. I think I've said before that if 1D members are eating every day and not doing needle drugs then they're doing better than we have any right to expect (and if they're not eating and are doing needle drugs, then those are coping mechanisms for intense stress and there's no shame in either of them).

I do think it helps with boundaries to be starting from a point that acknowledges how hard it is to be a popstar. I'm all about fantasies of omnipotence and in my day to day life I think I can fix all sorts of things, but I don't think I can make any difference to any 1D member's life.

In addition, I am profoundly affected by having been a fan throughout 2016. We know what it looks like when Louis was going through a horrendous, devastating, trauma - and it looks pretty normal.

None of this means I don't have opinions, or worries, but I am aware that my opinions or worries aren't facts. It's rare that I think that my worries should matter even to people reading my tumblr, let alone other fans in general, and certainly not Harry. You say 'am I doing the same thing as other people assuming the worst about people...', but I'd argue that that's actually not the problem. There's nothing wrong with assuming the worst of people. What is wrong is when fans think their assumptions about a celebrity should matter to anyone else. You don't have to turn off your concern to think that it's not a priority.

I definitely think it would be a very bad thing if people took the moral as the 'free Britney' movement as 'fans should call out celebrities when they think they're struggling'. That sort of surveillance isn't effective or useful. What has been useful for Britney is solidarity in a well documented power struggle, which is a very different thing.

And I can't emphasise enough how important the 'well documented' aspect of this is. What most fan worrying about Harry amounts to is: 'I don't like what he's doing, and there's no way he'd do things I didn't like and therefore there must be something wrong with him'. That's a really controlling way of thinking about people. I really think it's important not to reproduce that abusers logic.

I am pretty well insulated from that sort of discourse from a very well weeded dash. But I saw a post that was mostly about other fandom stuff, that treated assumptions like: "Harry must hate being with Olivia and he's suffering and it's clear he's not happy with his image and his team" as building blocks that you don't even have to argue for (this is the post - and I'm going to come back to one of the things someone said that was even worse in a second).

Lets stop for a minute and imagine that Harry hasn't got a problem pretending to date Olivia, and his main concerns are about the messiness of life and his career at this point in time. It is really fucked up and agressive, and pretty hateful towards Harry, to say 'oh he couldn't possibly want this. It's clear that he hates it.' etc. (I feel like I've been making this argument for years about people who object to Louis doing such things as smoking and not performing middle-class culture for them). When fans trash talk what Harry is doing at the moment, and suggest that believing he could be choosing what he's doing is some how an act of huge disrespect to him, there is every chance they are trash talking him and the choices he's making.

The final thing I want to draw attention to is how often this sort of fan storytelling is combined with a profound lack of interest in what 1D members are actually going through. The tags screen shotted and added on to the post I reblogged actually described Holivia as Douis 2.0. Apparently assuming that there was absolutely no connection between Douis, and Louis and his family's ultimately successful efforts to privacy as Jay was dying. What the fuck is wrong with people that they ignore that, and erase that? There's far more interest in making up 1D members suffering so that fans can continue to tell the stories they want to tell, than actual acknowledgement of what we know that they went through.

Sorry I got distracted. What I'm trying to say is that there's nothing wrong with having feelings about celebrities or telling stories about them. But it's so important to acknoweldge the limits of your knowledge and power, even when fandom discourse encourages the opposite.

#I cannot articulate how angry the tags about Douis made me #not just insisting that they were the same as Holivia #and therefore erasing what was going on for Louis in 2016 #but insisting other people do the same #None of this would be necessary #if people would just be OK with the fact that they were following closeted artists #and therefore those artists would pretend to date women #But instead #so many fans make up suffering to explain 1D members are doing things they don't like #and in the process show contempt for what we know they've been through

[legacysam]

"#*erases a rant about fandom cas characterization bc god who has the energy*" me. i have the energy. give me the rant.

*cracks knuckles* okay let’s see if any of these particular intellectual muscles still work.

I am always pro-cas-being-canonically-dickish posts (even if they are misleading one way or another, more on that later) because dear GOD this fandom loves to infantalize the man. He’s a “baby in a trenchcoat.” He’s dumb about pop culture and clueless about human things isn’t it adorable? SHUT UP!!!! And pls especially shut up if you’re using his ignorance as a way of making another character look cool or smart by comparison. “it’s a shortened version of my name” was 100% Cas fucking with Dean because he is a dick sometimes! and it’s great! Also: Cas’s indifference to pop culture isn’t a weakness just because pop culture knowledge is a major currency on tumblr!!! It’s indicative of the fact that he’s got much bigger and more important things on his mind. (Also. listen. This trait was canonically erased by Metatron and it was literally the only good thing that fucking character ever did so can we please as a fandom just acknowledge that little slice of canon? pls?)

(Can I also just say.....fish out of water stories are only good when they are on the side of the fish and not just using the fish to make jokes. Just. as a note on the trope in general but specifically re: every time this shows up in fanfic with Cas or any other similar character. Thor comes to mind.)

Anyway Cas isn’t a child, he’s ANCIENT and TIRED and CONFLICTED about major moral issues, which is FASCINATING for an angel character and forces us as an audience to consider more deeply the actual differences between heaven and hell, good and evil, destiny and free will. Is this how we expect an angel to behave? What does this tell us about Heaven? If Cas is an aberration, what does that tell us about Heaven and goodness and God? So his expressions of anger and frustration and his impatience with or indifference to human courtesies are a really great part of his character and people should appreciate them more (and not just when it’s funny!)

(Sidenote bc I always think about this when I think about fandom and Cas, the reductive fandom approach to “””crazy!cas””” (what a fun way of saying “deeply affected by horrible trauma and guilt and trying to repress it so he can function.” thanks for that fandom) as comic relief or a woobified victim is. hm. bad. That’s all I’ll say about that one.)

{ANOTHER sidenote, this one for fan artists in particular but fan writers definitely aren’t free from sin: Cas isn’t pale or short and he isn’t a fuckin twink pls stop projecting weird m/f stereotypes onto your queer ships pls and thank}

ANYWAY about these screenshots specifically: Listen I love this post but the context of these scenes is SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING than Cas being a dick to Sam. They aren’t really about Sam at all, actually. “Don’t ask stupid questions” is such a painful fucking response to Sam asking if he’s okay, because he’s clearly not okay--he’s still struggling with the knowledge that God has given up and abandoned them--but he can’t be vulnerable about it. So he redirects to ask what Sam needs from him because that’s what he does, it’s what he is, he’s a tool. He’s a solution to problems (except his own). And his unwillingness to confront his pain (while also not being able to hide it) isn’t really about his relationship with Sam, it’s about his relationship with God and with himself and his own failures. The visibility of that struggle while he continues to try to help in this episode is just really fucking moving, okay?

Also there’s absolutely nothing hostile about “Sam, of course, is an abomination” in context. Like. Not a damn thing. There’s a task that needs to be performed by a “servant of heaven,” and Cas is explaining why none of the three of them qualify, and we know he feels shame about the fact that HE doesn’t qualify by how he reacts later, calling himself a poor example of an angel. He’s as much an abomination as Sam is in this moment.

Actually you know what? Literally everything in these screenshots that gets interpreted as “Cas hates Sam” is 100% actually Cas hating himself. He hates Sam’s voice while he’s stuck using a human voice himself to communicate, through technology he’s hostile to because it’s limiting compared to angelic communication. He rejects Sam’s compassion because he doesn’t want to talk about his own weakness. He calls Sam an abomination in the same breath that he acknowledges that he isn’t a servant of heaven anymore, and with much less anger than when he later calls himself a poor example of an angel. He sees himself in Sam but he hates himself too much to use that as a point of connection and pushes away from it instead. (I’m not going to go on a shipper detour here but sastiel shippers....you know)

So Cas is angry and complicated and self-hating and yeah, it’s funny, but if you don’t respect those feelings and their complexity, maybe don’t try to write Cas or write about him. Maybe if you only like Cas when he’s making you laugh you don’t actually like Cas.

And this isn’t to be like...”writing fluffy shippy fic with Cas being sweet is bad” or whatever. That fills a need for some people, I get it. I’ve written fic where he’s sweet! There’s a difference between someone lovingly wrapping a character in a blanket and going “nice things will happen for you now” versus using that character for a reductive joke.

There’s also a difference between people who are actually carefully writing fic and people who are, yknow, tagging posts or circulating meme-like gifsets with this kind of commentary. Which, bc I don’t read fic as often anymore, tends to be the most common way anything like analysis of Cas reaches me. I do NOT recommend this method of engaging with fandom because it’s really the worst, unfunniest, most simplistic takes that get repeated over and over again (I would pay money to never see anyone call Sam “moose” or “sammy” again dear lord), and it obscures the actually really good work some folks are doing when they write these characters.

tl;dr 1. Cas is not a child and he is not stupid. 2. Cas doesn’t hate Sam but he DOES project onto him and it’s fascinating. 3. fandom wants to be transformative but bc of meme culture and the way tumblr works it can be painfully reductive and it’s exhausting

ps nb I haven’t watched a single episode since they killed Charlie off and I don’t know much about what happened after that lol. so don’t come at me “well actuallying” bc honestly I don’t care and bc canon has been a dumpster fire for years and all extended analysis of it including my own is really nonsense just by virtue of the source material being nonsense.

pps the showrunners are ABSOLUTELY complicit in this but I can’t. I just cannot get into that. I am too tired.

#i just spent an hour and a half thinking deeply about supernatural you bastard #jk ilu #apparently i still had feelings about this jfc #ALSO (i know shut up mel nobody asked) 99 problems would be one of the best episodes #if they didn't seem to write it specfically for dean to make 'wh*re' jokes #cabalakh #@ everyone who followed me after i stopped watching spn..... #i am so sorry #supernatural #fandom critical #castiel

[lunawho47]

Malcolm Polstead

You know, I was having a really good day. I watched Stephen Colbert interview President Obama and allowed that wonderful exchange to spread serotonin throughout my system first thing in the morning. I watched all ten episodes of the continuance of Saved by the Bell and was happy to say that, unnecessary vulgar language aside, it was everything I could hope it would be.  I got to catch up on episode 3 of season 2 of His Dark Materials and got to see Lee Scoresby be the adopted dad for Lyra I had always hoped he would be.

Then I decided to hang out in the book tag for The Book of Dust (the prequel/sequel series for Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials).  And god, the amount of judgment people have for the character of Malcolm Polstead just floors me.  It totally killed my buzz, dudes.

First of all, I keep seeing people accuse him of being a pedophile.  He’s not.  As far as we can tell, he saved Lyra’s life when she was a baby (and he was 11), and then he had limited contact with her throughout her childhood.  He was present at Jordan College and Lyra knew who he was and thought of him as “nice” in one of the short story collections when she came across him, but I never got the feeling that he sought her out.  I thought of it more as though he simply saw her around, and hey, he wasn’t a jerk even though he was a scholar.  

Throughout Lyra’s childhood, he dated women in Oxford (The Secret Commonwealth expressly states this).  When Lyra was assigned as someone for him to tutor when she was *sixteen*, he noticed he found her attractive.  He was *uncomfortable* with the thought when he noticed he was thinking about it (so, Pullman acknowledges that we as readers will find it uncomfortable too), and he shut that line of thought down *hard.*  And the next time he had notable contact with Lyra, she was 20 years old.  

People can be uncomfortable with the fact that he was attracted to her when she was 16 (Malcolm himself was), but first, age of consent in Britain is *16*.  Also, he never approached her about his thought or pursued it.  Even when Lyra is 20 and Malcolm is 31 and everyone in their mutual acquaintance is guessing how he feels about her, he has never once approached her about his feelings for her.  Lyra is finding  she has feelings for him completely separate of him approaching her about his heart in the matter.  

And I think that the real crux of the issue has nothing to do with their eleven year age gap.  Which, if that is your issue, then you can fuck right off with that judgmental nonsense.  My grandmother, whose name I proudly bear, got married at *15* to a man over 20 years her senior.  And they remained married for over a decade; they only split up because she wanted to move towns to where there was more work and he refused.  If you’re looking for a literary example of a large age gap, the famous novel romance of Emma Woodhouse and Mr. George Knightley has an even bigger gap than Malcolm and Lyra.  There’s 16 years between them and he too helped to change baby Emma’s diapers, just as Malcolm notes he did for Lyra in her infancy.  And yet, I never hear people complain that Emma and Knightley are a bad match for age difference reasons.  And you can claim in both Austen’s and my grandma’s case that, “It’s a different time with different standards.”  But well, HDM takes place in a completely different universe with completely different societal norms, so...

No, the real problem comes from a feeling of devotion to the OG pairing for His Dark Materials.  Lyra and Will Parry.  And trust me, guys.  I get it.  I love Will and will always love Will.  Amir Wilson in the BBC/HBO adaptation is only making me adore him all over again.  I am dreading when we get to s03 and they adapt The Amber Spyglass because I know how that ends.   It’s been over a decade since I read the His Dark Materials books, but I still remember the utter devastation I felt at how Pullman ended their adventure.  (Really though.   I should have seen it coming.  I mean, think of what Pullman did to Sally and Fred in the Sally Lockhart Mysteries.  At least he didn’t kill Will off...)  I think really, at the heart of it, most people are angry at Malcolm because it looks as though Lyra will end up returning his unspoken feelings, and it feels like a betrayal of Will.  And hey, Lyra struggles with those thoughts and feelings all throughout The Secret Commonwealth.  She struggles with it right along with us.  But the truth of the matter is that Will is in a completely different universe.  And hey, if Will Parry shows up in the third installment of The Book of Dust, my feelings will become just as complicated as Lyra’s, but if that doesn’t happen... I want my girl to be happy, and if she has feelings for Malcolm Polstead and being with him would make her happy, then I hope she gets her happy ending.

But, fandom, I am so over this trend of hating a character because they love a character that I also love.  That is so fucking stupid.  People hated Martha Jones for the same reason 13 years ago in the Doctor Who fandom.  It was dumb as hell then and it’s dumb as hell now.  You don’t have to love or even like the romance, but the shaming of the character is misplaced and erroneous.  

#the book of dust #malcolm polstead #to read makes our speaking english good #don't know why i even bothered writing this #cos haters gonna hate #and i don't even have any friends who have read these books #but i couldn't stop thinking about it #so i had to write

[ahgaseda]

two can keep a secret || chapter 05

⇥ synopsis : when your father reveals his intention to remarry, you find an unlikely confidant in Mark, your soon-to-be stepbrother, but what began as a revenge fling ironically becomes far more complicated...

⇥ warnings : this story in its entirety includes but is not limited to strong language and dialogue, recurring alcohol and drug use, and explicit sexual content, and is intended for an adult audience only!

Mark decided to distance himself from you. Yes, he loved the sex. No, he didn't like the feelings that came with it.

The pussy is just too good, he told himself on more than one occasion.

Joke was on him, because you decided to distance yourself from Mark Tuan.

Any other time you would have been thrilled not having to deal with a period. Then you thought about all the unprotected sex you'd been having and panic set in.

In exchange for swearing to be exclusive to each other, you didn’t make Mark wear condoms, which he obviously appreciated. Birth control pills were reliable, but they could only do so much when you were milking every drop out of him on the regular.

You avoided Mark. He would react negatively to a pregnancy scare and you couldn't handle that on top of everything else.

Mark noticed how you cleared the house before he woke. Classes had started again and you gave every excuse to stay at the university or with your friends. You were short in your replies to his texts, rarely even answering when he sent you his usual dose of memes that he found.

Twice he called and you sent him to voicemail. And that was unheard of.

Mark realized you were giving him the cold shoulder and it drove him insane.

It was all well and good when he pushed you away, knowing it was due to the feelings he was growing for you. But why in the hell were you avoiding him? You didn’t have feelings for him. At least he thought. Did he do something wrong? Had he hurt you?

Mark felt a hole taking up residence in his chest, eating him alive from the inside.

Usually after his last class, Mark charged out the door to reunite with his gaming computer at the speed of light, but today he lingered, knowing you would come out of your lab in ten or so minutes.

He hated ambushing you. Everything told him to appear callous and cold, but he couldn’t stand the thought of having wronged you in some way. Were you bored with him? Were you over the sex? If that were the case, you could still hang out with him. Mark missed your company.

With a shake of his head, Mark chastised himself, Stop getting attached.

You appeared around the corner, binder held between your overlapped arms and a backpack heavy with books slung over your shoulder. Mark wanted to reach out and grab the strap to carry the load for you.

At first, you didn’t see him. Not in the sea of fellow college students filling the hallway. Then, Mark stepped out and your eyes met.

"Hello,” said your future stepbrother.

A lump appeared in your throat. "Hi."

Mark tilted his head, raising a brow. "Wanna tell me what's going on?"

You never thought Mark would have a problem with your distance, but here you were on the spot, having to give him a reason for how intently you had been avoiding him. Rather than lie, you panicked and blurted, "My period is late."

Mark’s eyes widened. That was the last thing on earth he thought you would say. "Oh..."

"Yeah."

Mark swallowed. His brain overloaded with what those words meant and then promptly shut down. "What do we do?"

You gaped. "We?"

Mark grabbed your arm gently and led you around the corner with him for more privacy. In hushed tones, he said, "Obviously I'm the father."

"Duh,” you retorted.

He pressed, "Well?"

Well, what? You had no idea. It was damn well possible you were carrying his baby, but you couldn’t think about that - much less acknowledge it. So instead you rambled and gave excuses, "It could just be stress. I have a lot of classes this semester so I can graduate on time."

Mark seemed worried when he asked, "Have you been to the doctor?"

Biting your lip, you studied his face. Mark looked genuinely concerned for your well-being, which didn’t come as much of a surprise. Though he tried to hide his feelings, you knew Mark cared. It was more than evident with how he treated you and protected you every chance he got. Many things he did were borderline subconscious.

Walking down the street together, he always made sure he was between you and the road. Regardless of who was around, he always opened and closed doors for you. When that guy at the party got a little too handsy, Mark almost ripped his jaw off.

Snapping out of your reverie, you murmured under your breath. "I haven't gotten a test yet."

He groaned your name in reproach.

Putting off getting a test was stupid, you knew that and he knew that and most of the sexually active world knew that.

"I'm scared, Mark,” you finally said, voice soft and shaking.

Mark wanted nothing more to reach out and touch you, comfort you, but he resisted.

Fighting back your tears, you squeezed the binder in your arms a little tighter and continued, “I can’t be seen getting a pregnancy test. It’s a small fucking world and I have horrible luck.”

Mark glanced up at you through his disheveled brown hair and the next thing you knew, you were in the passenger seat of his darkly-tinted SUV, sitting outside a pharmacy.

Mark’s mother went to great lengths to spoil her son. Cars included. She gave him whatever he wanted - so she wouldn’t have to deal with him. Mark was well aware of that and milked it for all he could.

Mark scanned the tests, grabbing the most expensive ones, because from what his mother told him price and quality were correlated. Just to be safe, Mark grabbed another box of a different brand. Then another.

At the counter, the guy who looked barely out of high school gave the boxes a scrutinizing glance. Mark leveled his eyes at him, as if daring the kid to make a smartass comment and was tempted to buy a carton of cigarettes. For fuck’s sake, did he really knock up his soon to be stepsister?

Well, that would certainly derail the wedding.

As the kid rang up the tests, he said, “Plan B pills, dude. They’re a fucking lifesaver.”

Mark let out a scoff, knowing it was probably too late for that if your cycle was already missing in action. “How well do they work when she’s been on the pill for years and you been raw-dogging for months and the period still late?”

“Well, shit,” said the cashier, eyes wide. “The universe really wants you to go forth and multiply, I guess. Or you’re both just fertile as fuck."

Mark snorted. This random ass dude had almost gotten a laugh out of him.

You sat slouched in the passenger seat, trying to hide your face in shame despite the tinted windows. Feet propped on the dash, you chewed randomly at your fingernails, chipping the polish.

Mark’s mother had already said she wanted you as her maid of honor. How in the hell would you be able to walk down the aisle arm-in-arm with Mark at your parents’ wedding carrying her son’s baby inside you?

Mark opened the door and hopped behind the wheel, saying nothing as he dropped the bag in your lap.

You barely moved, letting it slide to the floor between your legs.

Mark noticed, turning to look at you with his hand draped on the wheel. “Talk to me,” he finally said.

You snapped, “Do you always drive around like some kind of drug dealer?”

Mark rolled his eyes, sensing you were on the verge of combustion and humor helped alleviate your fear. “You said you didn’t want to be seen, remember?”

You covered your face with both hands and choked out, “What am I gonna do?”

Mark’s heart sank that you left him out of the equation. Did you really think he would leave you on your own with a baby - his baby? Sure, kids hadn’t been on his mind even remotely in the future, but still, if you were carrying a baby, it was because the two of you had made it together. Regardless of how you felt at the moment, Mark was damn sure going to be involved in his child’s life.

“You’re gonna calm down,” he asserted, taking your hand and squeezing. “You haven’t even taken a test yet.”

You rubbed your brow were a headache had started. “Mark, birth control pills literally regulate my cycle. There’s no way I would skip a period unless…”

“You’re stressed,” Mark interjected. “Our parents are getting married and we hate that more than anything. You’re taking the max amount of credits and hate your degree because your father would never let you major in what you actually want to major in. And you’ve been actively fucking your future stepbrother.”

You groaned, “Gee, is that all?”

Mark stroked his hand over your fingers, trying desperately to provide some comfort. “Will you look at me please?”

“No,” you replied without hesitation.

He frowned. “Why not?”

Because I’ll cry, you thought bitterly. Because I will fall to pieces in your arms and I don’t know if you actually give a shit about me or if I’m just the girl you fuck. Slowly, you turned to face him, cheeks hot with tears.

Mark finally gave in. He couldn’t imagine what you were feeling; the nerves, the uncertainty. Reaching over, he rubbed his thumb through your tears.

“I really don’t know what you need to hear right now, baby,” he started tenderly. “But you are not alone in this. You understand me?”

You nodded and the faintest smile graced your lips. “Yes.”

Mark pulled away. It didn’t feel right to kiss you, all things considered, but damn it, you wished he had.

The ride home was silent, eerily so. Your heart was racing and your body trembling. The boxes on the floor beneath your feet were about to decide the rest of your life. Mark occasionally glanced at you, and though he said nothing else, he never let go of your hand.

When the car pulled into the driveway, your heart sank. There sat the familiar BMW. Mark’s mother was home.

Without a word, Mark came around to your side and opened the door. He grabbed the bag and stuffed it into his backpack, shutting the car door behind you once you had gotten out.

“Go to your bathroom. I’ll meet you there in a minute,” he whispered.

You sighed, “How is your brain still working right now?”

“I’m making myself useful,” he quipped.

You thanked the heavens that your future stepmother was busy ranting about the wedding decorations to some poor soul on the phone. She gave you a quick wave of her hand, which you returned before sprinting up the stairs to the safety of your room.

Mark was only a few minutes behind you. He opened your bathroom door, handed you the bag, and whispered, “Do you want me to wait with you?”

You peered up at him with glassy eyes. “Please.”

He nodded. “Okay, just let me know when you’re done.”

It didn't take you long. The two of you sat on the bathroom tiles side by side. The trio of sticks perched unassumingly on the counter though you stared at them as if they were judge, jury, and executioner. Mark draped an arm around your shoulders, tucking you close, and when the anticipation became too much, you rested your head on his chest and closed your eyes.

It felt like an eternity spent in that bathroom with Mark, sitting there in silence. His heartbeat was steady in your ear, though maybe a little faster than normal. You opened your eyes, wanting to apologize, but you bit your tongue.

The timer on his phone went off and Mark was quick to rise, squeezing your hand as he did. He peered at the three tests on the counter and exclaimed, “They’re negative!”

Your response was quiet. “Are you sure?”

“All of them.”

You exhaled heavily.

Mark picked you up off the floor and kissed your cheek. “See I told you. It’s stress, babe.”

You offered a brief smile and Mark chalked it up to shock. “You’re right,” was all you said.

Mark gave you one last chaste kiss and slipped out the door, making some comment about celebrating later. For a moment, you watched the door, ensuring he didn’t burst back in.

Then you turned, glaring down at the three tests. The ones you had run under the water in the sink. After a moment or two of nausea, you crouched down and opened the cabinet where three more tests were hidden. The ones actually stained with your urine.

That was when you sank helplessly to the floor before emptying your stomach into the toilet.

All three were positive.

You were pregnant.

chapter 04 ⇤ chapter 05 ⇥ chapter 06

Hey there, beautiful! If you enjoyed this, please leave a like or reblog or follow me! Or maybe buy me a coffee so I can keep writing? Or check out my masterlist here for more stories! Thanks for reading :) - Katya

This work is fictional and for entertainment purposes only, but is licensed and protected under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. Any instances of plagiarism will be dealt with accordingly. Do not re-post or translate without my permission.

{ copyright 2018-2020 © ahgaseda // all rights reserved }

#got7 fanfiction #got7 smut #mark smut #mark tuan smut #mark got7 smut #got7 imagines #mark imagines #mark tuan imagines #mark got7 imagines #mark fanfiction #mark tuan fanfiction #got7 fanfic

[hwangdol]

l.hc: stay with me

summary: the confusing subject of lee haechan 

pairing: highschool!stoner-boi!haechan x reader 

warning: a shit ton of cursing, still got a lot of crackheadness, and DRUGS. no i’m not kidding, if you aren’t okay with that shit don’t read ahead. also! still part of my semi-collab with @huangsren! read her fic here: art-hoe!renjun  BEWARE OF GRAMMATICAL MISTAKES!!!!! 

it’s your favorite local stoner-boi!haechan’s turn

like norenmin, haechan’s name gets tossed around on the daily at NCT Highschool, except not with the same positive connotation

haehcan’s reputation isn’t the best but it could be worse

no it can’t

it’s actually really bad

everyone knows haechan to either be taking a gigantic nap in class or vaping in the bathroom. he gets into detention weekly bc the boy skips school like every other day 

the only reason why haechan hasn’t been expelled was bc he was the principal’s son 

don’t bring that up or he’ll actually cuss you out no cap

although he’s well-known, he’s only got like two friends + college-freshmen!mark lee (hA what a loser)

and one of them was currently in some type of situation with fboi!jaemin that haechan can’t be bothered to deal with –> y/n from fboi!jaemin’s au who will be further known as ara in this story

the other one was you, he liked to keep that one a little more private

it was never explicitly stated that you would maintain your sorta friendship a secret  

although could you really call it friendship if you’re doing all of the things people in relationships actually do? 

like haechan would always call you up in the middle of the night  to get boba or frozen yogurt for no reason

or sometimes yall would be cuddling in your bedroom watching some stupid movie on netflix,,,haechan would probably be throwing popcorn at the laptop screen bc of something stupid the main protagonist would do 

the other times, he would text a simple “pick me up” 

and you knew that that meant that haechan was too high or drunk to operate

there would be nights where you would be chilling in your car as haechan vaped 

you hated it 

but you could never hate lee donghyuck who now went by lee haechan 

yall met around the middle of sophomore year 

damn so much shit goes down sophomore year at NCT high

aNYways, you were stressed out from studying so you decided to take a stroll in the park at like ten at night. 

was that a stupid idea? yes, but at least that’s when you met haechan dressed in a navy green hoodie and a puff of smoke leaving his lips

sophomore!you was like highkey shookth seeing the lee donghyuck smoking in a park

bc at this time, lee donghyuck wasn’t lee haechan 

he was one of the school’s golden boys 

yeah that’s right norenmin used to be norenminhyuck or the 00′s 

he was the star of the school’s choir and the biggest class clown that still managed to get good grades

so imagine your shock when you see him with a cigarette in his hand

you figured that it was best to leave donghyuck alone since you weren’t the nosy type of person

except you weren’t that discreet in leaving when your eyes met donghyuck’s bright red ones 

you stood there for a second, both of you locked in what seemed to be staring contest, before turning to leave since it wasn’t any of your business what donghyuck was getting up to

the next day of school, donghyuck was back to his bubbly, fun self which seemed to be a drastic contrast from the one you saw at the park 

when your eyes interlocked in the hallways, donghyuck raised a finger to his lips when he was sure no one else was looking 

and you understood 

somehow you found yourself in this strange no-talking sit-downs in the park relationship with donghyuck while he smoked on the bench next to you 

this went down for a couple of weeks where the two of you would just sit in heavy silence. the only noises were the cicadas chirping in the background

until one night when donghyuck dressed in the same navy hoodie wasn’t smoking but his eyes were still red

“why haven’t you told anyone yet?” 

you shrugged “because it’s not my secret to tell” 

“you were shocked when you first saw me that night.” haechan commented 

“yeah, i just never expected it from someone like you,” you admitted

you could hear the boy next to let out a dry chuckle, “you’re not the first person i disappointed” 

“it ruins your lungs btw” 

“i know, i want it to” 

“why do you do it?” 

“because it actually makes me feel alive” 

something changed that night bc the next day donghyuck into a physical fight with the student-athlete!jeno who everyone knew was a pacifist. 

that night haechan showed up with a black eye and you didn’t ask why

donghyuck still gave you an explanation even though it was complete bs

“because he was getting on my nerves” 

but it seemed like the whole group of the golden boys was getting on his nerves bc donghyuck stopped hanging around them for the rest of the year

you saw him sometimes sitting outside on the bleachers during lunch, sleeping or smoking, not afraid to be caught 

you never had the courage to approach him in person at school, bc it seemed like your relationship was strictly limited to the park 

but you couldn’t help to be worried about him with the drastic change in character he was undergoing 

one day, he showed up to school with bright red hair and did nothing in all of his classes but take a nap 

sometimes he didn’t even show up to school 

you heard from someone that he quit choir which was shame bc you always wanted to hear him sing 

and sophomore year bled into junior year and donghyuck was no longer known as donghyuck but as haechan 

it was weird, every time you would get the urge to take a midnight stroll in the park, haechan would be sitting there on his usual bench sometimes smoking sometimes not

you always sat down next to him even if you knew that you were just going to sit there in silence

“give me your phone number,” he said bluntly holding out his hand for your phone 

“why” 

“i’m tired of waiting for you to come to the park” 

and you really confuse because does that mean that haechan wanted to be your friend??? 

as if he can read your mind, he rolls his eyes “yes, let’s be friends. you’re a lot better than those fakes in our goddamn school.” 

so that’s how your friendship began with the lee donghyuck, rebranded as haechan 

he doesn’t let anyone call him donghyuck but you,,, you still try your best not to call him that bc he doesn't like it 

gotta respect your friends’ wishes y’know

it wasn’t until haechan was over at like 2am in your room, both of you talking in small whispers bc you don’t want your parents to wake up and find you laying in bed with a BOI, that y'all reached the final level of closeness and haechan let slip one of the reason behind his reckless actions

“you know what sucks? even when i’m acting out like this, my parents still refuse to acknowledge me. it’s like they don’t care” 

and your like :((( 

“i’m pretty sure they care about you a lot,” you didn’t like the listlessly way he was talking 

“you don’t get it. when my dad saw my hair, all he told me to do was to dye it back. my mom didn’t even freak out when she saw me smoking a blunt with my friend in my room. they could care less” 

and haechan begins to spill

“even when i was achieving so much, they rarely ever bat an eye at me. do you know how hard it is to come to school and put on the facade of that i have no worries in the world? that i’m that cheery happy-go-lucky kid? even renjun is allowed to have moody days, but i’m expected to always be the mood maker. i fucking hate it.” 

you stayed silent listening to his rant 

“when jeno was complaining about how his parents invited his whole family to his stupid basketball game, i just got so angry because my parents haven’t been to one recital ever since i joined the choir. nor did they go to the science fair where i actually won first place with that stupid potato rocket i did with renjun.” 

haechan let’s out a bittersweet laugh 

“after that fight with jeno, no one asked if i was okay or why i even did it. none of them did. my dad didn’t even look at me in the eye when i went to his office, all he cared about was if the school’s basketball mvp was okay.” 

“god, i’m so numb to all of this shit. i don’t even know how to be happy anymore” 

that night you didn’t say anything to haechan bc you didn’t know what to say. but that night was the first and last night you ever saw haechan cry or that emotionally vulnerable bc the next day, he acted like it never happened 

by junior year, everyone already knew that the old donghyuck was gone and haechan was here to stay 

BUT your relationship with haechan wasn’t one-sided at all 

nooooo there were nights where you were the one crying and haechan was the one comforting you even though his advice was bs

you best bet that when haechan got his license, he dragged your ass to midnight drives to the cliff, but you would be the one to drive him home bc he probably vaped a little too much on the cliff 

despite breaking down that one night, haechan was very emotionally closed off. he didn’t smile as often as he used to in public unless it was with you

sometimes he would catch himself smiling when you said something really dumb or when he found your antics adorable, but he would never admit it and the smile would be quickly gone from his face.

your hangouts were so lowkey

one night, junior year, you were just chilling in your car with hyuck and he just leans over and kisses you. 

you could still smell the strawberry vape juice on him but you didn’t stop the kiss,,,cuz it felt nice

his lips felt like soft little cloud pillows 

and when haechan pulls away he has this little smirk on his face while you're flustered as fuck 

let’s be honest, that wouldn’t be the last time y'all locked lips 

cause it happened a lot 

especially in the car and sometimes in your room 

you can’t lie and say you don’t have any sort of feelings for haechan 

especially when you do see his real smile that he doesn’t let anyone see or when he made the effort to stop smoking cigarettes 

although you still highly disapprove of his drug usage

drugs are bad kids! 

haechan has his own reasons for continuing to use it so as much as you try to discourage him, you don’t stop him 

you’d like to say that you’re the only girl in his life, but your not

bc you were only hyuck’s friend at night,,,he has a day friend who was also a girl who he didn’t seem to care to be seen w at school 

a really pretty (AKA y/n from jaemin’s au) one who you also saw on multiple occasion haechan flashes his breathtaking smile too 

one of your friends had gossip that that girl was ara, who was dropped by her friend group bc she was dating haechan who had beef w jaemin who was dating ara’s ex-bestfriend? confusing, yeah i thought so too. 

you knew better than to listen to stupid highschool rumors but you couldn’t help but come to your own assumptions about the closeness of their friendship 

bECause haechan never mentioned ara in any of your conversations

at lunch, you can’t but let your eyes drift to the two of them in their own world laughing away 

you only met her once when mark was dropping haechan off at your house bc he much rather be at yours then his 

you were a little bit hurt since she got to know mark before you did 

you knew that mark was one of haechan’s closest friend and someone he really respected even though he liked to bag on him 24/7

as much as you tried not to, you found yourself repeatedly comparing yourself to her 

the subject of ara was left alone, forever stored in your insecurities

you didn’t want to confront haechan about it bc you didn’t want to admit it but you caught the big bad feels for the boy

so your feelings were left untouched until senior year

when the two of you were making out in your room and haechan suddenly pulls away with wide eyes 

and he lets out an “oh fuck” 

now, you were worried 

did you somehow do something wrong? 

“ara is going to fucking kill me,” haechan muttered grabbing his phone, calling someone up 

“hey gramps, can you pick ara up? i kinda left her at school,” haechan said through the phone to someone you presume to be mark

“okay, fine i’ll bring you weed brownies and hurry up before she gives me shit tomorrow. you know how high-maintenance she gets” and he hangs up the phone, throwing it aside 

“sorry about that,” haechan says going to resume what the two of you started but you stop him

cause it hurts too much and you don’t know what the hell you are to haechan

“i can’t do this anymore, hyuck” you say in a small voice, not daring to look him in the eyes bc u know damn well that he’ll see the tears in your eyes

“what do you mean?” you could hear the worry in the voice

“this,” you gesture between the two of you “i can’t anymore” 

and haechan knows what you’re talking about 

he’s been dreading the moment,,,he could sense the end 

which is the last thing he wants

“what’s wrong?” 

you bite your lip not wanting to start breaking down in front of the boy you grew to love so much 

your heart was hurting so bad,,,but you couldn’t continue on pining over a boy that would never love you the same way 

“what am i to you, hyuck?” 

one of the things that haechan hated the most was seeing you sad 

he hated how you saying his nickname in that teary voice made his heart drop 

“you’re my friend, y/n. actually, you're my bestfriend” 

you look him in the eyes this time, but haechan wished you didn’t 

“i’d never be more than that, right?” you smiled sadly at the boy

for once in his life, haechan is rendered completely speechless 

“i think you should leave” 

he knew that he should have put up a fight 

yet he couldn’t bring himself to 

there was this pang of hurt in his chest that he couldn’t quite explain 

so he left 

he wished he didn’t 

the minute he walked out the door he felt all of the happiness leave his body,, he knew that when he walked out the door, he would never be walking back 

when he got home in his room that night, he didn’t have it in him to pick up his usual blunt or his vape pen 

instead, he flopped onto his bed staring up at his ceiling 

there was wetness on his cheeks,,,his vision was blurry,,,and his heart hurt 

he almost contemplated skipping school the next day, but he didn’t want to spend his day wallowing in his despair that he didn’t even know why he felt 

his eyes were red as fuck so he tried to play if off as if he were high because who would question it?

so that’s why he went to school with a pair of sunglasses to hide his puffy, red eyes 

he was expecting everyone to leave him alone cuz he looked like he was faded but his shithead friend ara marched over to him and pulled him away leaving behind a very confused looking jaemin

that’s probably a story i’ll hear later. he thought.

“you fucking moron,” ara exclaimed at him punching him in the arm “this is like the eighteenth time you have gone to school fucking high! get a grip man!” 

“don’t lecture me as if you weren’t talking to the parasite,” haechan huffed, rubbing his arm from the pain

damn she packed a punch 

ara squinted and haechan realized he fucked up with his fake high act 

so the girl reached out and grabbed his sunglasses much to his protest and saw his puffy eyes

“hOLY sHIt, dude were you crying?” 

haechan snatched back his sunglasses and quickly put them back on, “fuck you” 

“sorry man, what happened?” 

“i don’t even know” 

“you want a pity hug?” 

“why the fuck not” 

the thing was haechan wasn’t touchy with other girls except for you, so the hug w ara was like a bro hug 

all that awkward patting and shit

stupid haechan failed to notice that you were standing at the end of the hallway, witnessing the whole scene 

now it was clear to you that you didn’t mean shit to haechan 

you were just a girl that could make him feel less lonely in secret, nothing more 

he had no trouble displaying his relationship w ara in public 

why did he make it seem like he wanted to keep you a secret? 

you were tired of it

spinning on your heel, heart-shattering into pieces, you walked away from lee haechan for the very last time 

basically now, it was simp hours 24/7 for the both of you

even college-freshmen! mark knew something was off with his highschool weed buddy 

“dude, what’s goin on with you lately?” 

the two of them were on their regular get-high cliff except mark was the only one doing the deed, haechan was just spaced out 

“i dunno” haechan shrugged 

mark made a face that was like “if you don’t tell me i’m beating the shit out of you” 

“okay fine, y/n doesn’t want me in her life anymore,” haechan spilled the beans on the whole situation between the two of you and mark is like “and i thought i was the fucking idiot” 

haechan is like wdym bruh? 

“are you dumb, bro? like are you out of touch with your feelings or sum shit?” 

“huh” 

“goddamn i have to do everything in this household, listen to me you little bitch boy, grow a pair and admit that you have feelings for her!” 

haechan’s face is like O.o 

“are you high right now, mark?” 

instant smack on the back of his head 

“no you dumb shit; just say that you like her and that ara is just a friend!” 

“what does this have to do ara?” 

mark is like BOI IF YOU DON’t

“obviously, you failed to mention that you managed to befriend a person who just happens to be a really pretty girl-” 

“dude, ara is fucking ugly. i’d date you before i’d ever date her” 

“stfu and listen bitch boy. anyways, y/n is probably highkey confused bc she probably thinks you’re interested in ara since you’ve been spending a shit ton of time w ara in the day time but you only come to y/n at night.” 

“i do that because i don’t want people to associate her with the things i do just because i’m friends with her. she’s doesn’t deserve to be roped into the same category as me” 

aNOTHer smack in the head 

“go clean up the mess you made and admit your feelings you fucking shithead.” 

“how?” 

“i dunno, ask her to prom or some shit” 

“i don’t want to go to prom” 

“DO SOME ROMEO AND JULIET SHIT IDFC JUST STOP BEING A DUMB PUSSY” enuff said 

so haechan gets dropped back at his house and he does some thinking about his so-called “feelings”

which is a fat surprise bc haechan is the living embodiment of impulsiveness,, he had only one brain cell to do his thinking

did he like you? idk man

he liked the way you smiled every time you told him something good about your day while the two of you cuddled. or when you would watch a funny clip on your phone and share it with him

he liked the way your hair smelled liked vanilla and was always so soft every time he ran his fingers through you hair

he liked the way you never turned him away even when he knew that you hated the way he was living his life. 

all of his other friends didn’t even make the effort to reach out to him when he was so obviously out of it. he felt unimportant with them

you were different

you made him feel happy, loved, and cared for

he no longer craved the attention of his parents or anyone in fact because he has you

or well he HAD you 

right now, all of the phone calls, text messages, and even snaps went straight to delivered, voicemail, or unopened

every time you’d see him in the halls, you would go the other direction

all of the times haechan tried to reach out to you, all of his attempts were deflected 

now how the fuck does one confessed when they’re being ignored???

“that sounds like a personal problem,” ara stated, stabbing her food angrily after haechan told her his predicament during lunch

na jaemin had just gone by their table and did someone bullshit that haechan could care less about, he stopped associating himself w him a long time ago

“no shit sherlock, help me bitch.” 

ara glared at him “you got yourself into this mess so fix it yourself” 

“i hope you fucking choke on an ice cube” 

“i’ll slit your throat in your sleep, lee haechan” 

wow everyone really out here expecting haechan to solve his own problems. how selfish of them.

which is probably why his plan of execution was shitty as fuccck

you, on the other side of the equation, was currently in the depths of your despair as all of your friends had managed to score dates to senior prom which was this weekend

you’re highly disappointed bc if it wasn’t for you being so preoccupied with the thought of haechan you’d probably have a date by now 

hell you even lied to haechan saying how you didn’t want to go to prom bc it was too extravagant for your taste when in actuality, you wanted to get dressed up, take pretty pictures, and dance awkwardly to a slow song 

the typical highschool prom experience

one thing that you didn’t want to admit was that the only boy you could picture as your date was donghyuck, the same boy that you wanted to get out of your thoughts and heart

the night of prom, you were stuck in your bed in a pair of sweats and some random oversized t-shirt scrolling through social media

to say you weren’t jealous of all the fun senior prom seemed to be was a giANT lie you could’ve just went alone!!!

honestly, even your parents were out having fun on a date night while you were being depresso espresso at home

you flopped in bed with a giant huff bc who was haechan to stop you from experiencing your highschool years! who was he to make you feel so bad that you couldn’t even go to prom! 

your phoned buzzed in your hand causing you to look down and nearly scowled at the message that was sent to you

hyuck: open up 

you ignored it, turning your attention back to that stupid rom-com you were watching on your laptop 

your phone continued to ding w messages you were sure were from haechan but you don’t want to open bc you knew that you would probably be launched into another wave of sadness and maybe even break-down cry in front of him so you turned your ringer off 

but out of nowhere, you hear this loud thud against your window 

wtf was that? alert mode on

then you hear a loud shout 

“BITCH ISTG IF YOU DON’T OPEN TF UP” 

you already knew who it was, so you contemplated on whether or not you wanted to actually confront him or run away from all of your problems (*coughs* ara *coughs* haechan)

 you didn’t get much time to think bc another thing was launched at your window

haechan’s shoe

walking over you opened ur window to see below haechan on your lawn with a giant cheeky smile on his face you knew for a fact it was genuine

he only smiled like that when the two of you were bent over laughing at something stupid he or you did

aww shit here comes the sad bugs again 

“what do you want?” you say loud enough for him to hear “go to prom with me!” haechan shouts up making you and your heart flustered af 

“prom already started, you idiot” 

“then let’s dance in your room” 

as much as you knew you should have turned him away, you couldn’t

you were so in love with haechan 

the minute you open the door you were engulfed into his chest

you froze up not knowing how to react 

“don’t let me go please,” haechan says barely louder than a whisper

goDAmmit haechan’s making me tear the fuck up

“you’re the only one in my life that hasn’t left me. the only one that was willing to understand me. i know that i’m not the best guy out there, i know that i’m nothing great, but when you look at me with that stupid smile of yours i feel so god damn on top of the world.”  

he hugs you tighter “please, please, y/n don’t leave me. i need you in my life.” 

something wet drops on your shoulder but you don’t dare to look up at haechan’s teary eyes 

closing your eyes you fall into his chest, his familiar scent triggering tears of your own 

“i love you” he pulls away from you to look at your face for a response, your eyes meeting his shaking brown orbs 

you have to raise your head slightly up to look at him while he was looking down at you

his hair was a mess of a light pastel rainbow (we go up broski) 

that’s when you notice how red his eyes were but there was no stench of weed or alcohol on him 

lee haechan was completely sober 

“i’ve always been yours, lee donghyuck”  

lee haechan wasn’t like other guys. he was lee donghyuck. he was complex and it would take you years to completely unravel him. even when you knew him for so long, you still had no idea was going through his mind. there were times where you found yourself stumped on the subject of haechan, but it was okay 

because you were willing to take the time to understand. 

#lee haechan #haechan scenarios #haechan imagine #haechan fluff #haechan angst #nct dream au #haechan au #lee donghyuck #nct dream #nct imagines #nct sceanrios #nct #nct dream angst #jeno #jaemin #jisung #chenle #renjun #highschool au #nct au #angst #fluff #kpop au #kpop scenarios #lol i finished #took me an extra braincell bc my computer crashed while writing this #still angsty but better then jaemins #haechan is just misunderstood #idk where i was going with this #maybe a part two

[at-lxs]

• Cade is born three years after Tess, enough time for Tess' parents to be like "did we fuck up?" and then they have Cade who is...the opposite of Tess and are like ah no, our daughter is just Like That

• Tess is not small, but she is quiet. She blends in. She's unsettling up close and from afar, watching you, but middle distance is comfort zone. You see her face but you're sure she's like that because she's lost in thought, not watching you.

• Cade is used to this by the time he is old enough to realise it is not normal for your older sister to have dead doll eyes and a flat expression and no smile lines by the time she's graduated highschool as you're like halfway through it and your friend leans over and says hey, that chick's weird and you say that's my sister and your friend winces.

• Tess is someplace else by the time Cade graduates, with her statement of watch the car not like a warning or a hope because Tess doesn't Do That, it's just a request that while she can't, Cade will do it for her. He'll watch the car.

• Before she leaves though, Tess is a good older sister.

• She never runs out of patience for the more emotional member of the family. Cade cries about a bunch of things, largely out of his control, which is when he cries the hardest - he stood on a snail once, he tripped over a dog, he dropped a guy's coffee, the list is endless and Tess is always there to sit, lend her shoulder, pat him on the back and go. It's not exactly comfort, but it's never shame like others offer. Never you're such a fucking pansy, even your sister cries less than you. Cade appreciates it in a way others dont get.

• Tess has never cried, actually. She got handed her baby brother at three years old, looked him over curiously, and then gave him to her dad so she could eat. Since then, Tess has been to three funerals and one emotional wedding. She's never teared up. Cade is sort of jealous of this cause he's meant to be a man, damnit till Tess leans down and says, quiet, if people make fun of you for crying, tell me and I'll beat them up. She's eleven the first time she says it, but she means it.

• Cade would get angry on the behalf of her, because people make fun of the girl with a large lack of expression - never to her face, but out of ear shot - and Cade mentions it all sad and crying cause you're a good sister and Tess pats his shoulder and says whatever other people say about me doesn't mean shit unless I agree, so Cade nods and goes to sleep and says shut the fuck up, man, you're just jealous she doesn't look at you like you're a king when a bully jeers at Tess.

• He gets punched for it, obviously, but Tess comes in and takes care of it and stands by his shoulder when the bully walks out to his dad's car. Cade says I didn't mean to get him in trouble and Tess says I know and that's that. It's acknowledgement and no thank you and Cade doesn't need her to thank him for being a good little brother when she's a good older sister.

• There's an ugly phase where Cade hates her like he hates everything because he's young and angry and he cries a lot and his friends keep saying you're a fucking pansy and Tess listens to his sobbing breakdown about how he's so fucking weak, he cried over a dead bird, and Tess says I'm too weak to carry feelings like you do and it's the oddest fucking thing Cade's ever heard. He looks up and says what? and Tess continues you feel so much that you have to cry to let it out. There is so much in you that it breaks. I've never been strong enough to carry that.

• Their dad Mike listens from outside their door and smiles, just a bit, because Tess doesn't lie, and Cade sounds mystified, and he is gonna have words with the school that lets this bullying happen. Tess gets Cade his favourite ice cream and they watch a movie together, Cade sobbing at the end, Tess quiet beside him.

• I don't want, Tess says, very simply, when Cade asks her what he thinks he should be when he grows up, when he's young and his older sister somehow manages to make him fly. He doesn't recognise the meaning of it then, but Tess dies, and Cade sits in the car she and their dad repaired and sobs, remembers; I don't want, so that you'll know what you want to be belongs to you.

• She means; I don't want, so want for yourself. She means; I don't want, so be whatever you want to be. She means; I don't want, so when you want something, don't think about what I might want for you.

• Tess dies, and she says watch the car, and Cade becomes a therapist for kids who are so much, and strong enough to carry that, to stand in front of the dam and survive what comes out. He says, my older sister said she was too weak to carry emotion, and there is so much inside us that it has to break, and feeling is not a weakness: feeling so much is strength in being able to carry something so big for so long that it has to break so you can breathe afterwards.

• She was not a conventional good sister, and she was barely a person, and her personality consisted of punching the things inside you that you never even wanted pointed out, but Cade misses her, and Tess in his head says you're strong enough to carry this and Cade keeps going.

• Mike and Tess got along for very simple reasons, of which there were two: she was his kid, and she got the job done. He asked her to take out trash and she did and he asked her to hold Cade and she did and he told her to make sure Cade's bullies didn't get away with shit and she did.

• He sticks her in fighting classes and she's a model student. She's good, and she grows tall like her dad, graduating at six foot four inches, broad and apathetic and good at the shit she's trained in. The classes are satisfying, she thinks. Release of tension. Fighting is focus and rhythm and she still likes her back alley brawl moves, but this is nice, too.

• Mike hands her a grease stained rag when Cade's over at a friends house one weekend and says you're gonna learn how to fix a car and means: love is not emotion, it is dedication and time shared. It's a lesson Tess keeps. Love is not a feeling, because she can't feel. It is time, and dedication, and her dad teaching her the mechanics of an old car, and that's all she needs.

• She has a dream where someone cuts her open and she's all car parts and engine grease like blood, oil in her mouth, the lucid dream reality of seeing rust on her ribs made of cracked metal. This is a dream Irca enjoys, the idea of metal inside. A conduit. A lightning rod. Tess wakes up and brushes her teeth and doesn't lose sleep over it. A dream is a dream, and logic says she's muscle, fat, and bone.

• Her mother isn't always around, but she's the loud love. She kisses Cade's messy hair and reminds him to brush his teeth and pulls out a game of sudoku when Cade is at school but Tess is sick and feverish and red eyed, stuck in her bed and emotionless still. They get along like friends do. It's hard to feel loved by a face that doesn't show it but Tess says this is car maintenance in her fever haze and Allison nods and accepts it. This is car maintenance.

• Mike says I told her love is maintaining it and it makes a little more sense.

• Yes, her watch the car means: I'm asking you to maintain this love because I can't.

• Tess shows up randomly in their house years after she dies, taller and bigger and scarred, her eyes gold in an unfamiliar place, and Cade says Tess? from where he's standing on the stairs and Tess says hello and it's not an emotional reunion like the movies but Cade cries and Tess says you watched the car and Cade, who knows what that means from Mike saying, as they were cleaning out the old car, this is what Tess did with me to show she loved us, cries into her shoulder.

• Allison and Mike come home early with Questions because Cade called and Tess says I didn't leave on purpose and that Means Something when your daughter values choice and maintainence, and it's muddled but it means: I'm sorry and I didn't mean to leave and if I'd been here I'd have maintained the car, I promise.

• She says I have to leave again in a week, and the exact time limit was vague, and can we work on the car again? It's a goodbye she gets to have, this time. She isn't choosing to leave but she's giving them a warning.

• Cade is curious as to what the fuck is up, and your eyes were gold? and Tess sparks her hands up with lighting and Cade stares at it and goes cool. in a dazed voice. Mike is fascinated and horrified. He asks how it happened and Tess says an entity found my lack of emotion interesting, and I think I they wanted me to panic, and I can control it.

• Where were you? Allison asks, like a mother with a kid who stayed out too late instead of a mother with a daughter that disappeared for years, and Tess says another world and she's never lied before. Allison says what the fuck and Tess says there was no sudoku. Allison laughs then cries then laughs again.

• Can you stay? Mike asks, somehow the begging optimist of this situation, because Allison spent all her hope at the start and Cole is a therapist. His daughter is so much bigger now, and her hands are electric, and she's covered in scars, and she looks at him over the hood of the car and says I have a car, over there, and I will buy a new one for you.

• The end of the week comes, and Tess has notes written, left in their coat pockets. Cade and Allison and Mike all have pictures of her. She was there for a week, and she worked on the car.

• They put their most treasured belongings of her in the car and smile at it every time they leave the house.

#writeblr #atlas-works #original writing #writers on tumblr #character study #original characters #stream of conscious writing

[saltyaro]

[Image description: The cover of the 5th book of Aromantic (love) Story. It features a drawn woman in a red tank top, a white skirt that hides her heels, and red high heels shoes. She has her hands on her hips and looks confident.]

You know what I forgot to do? That review on the 5th and last tome of aromantic (love) story. For those who weren’t aware yet, I’m not going to keep the suspense going on any longer: yes, it is safe, no, the heroine doesn’t end up as a straight woman. That’s already a victory in itself, so now all of you can go ahead and buy it if it’s available in your country ;) 

The actual review is under the read more, it’s not spoiler free so!

So, Futaba (the main character) tried dating to see if she’s able to develop romance, or not. The person she chose to do so with of course knows about it, and they’re actually both trying it to see if they can understand romance. Futaba still can’t imagine romantic attraction outside of sexual attraction, which frustrates her, because she *knows* allo aces are a thing so obviously, sexual desire isn’t necessarily linked! The viewpoint of her (straight dude) partner-in-crime is...well, not surprising at all, actually. His opinion is that romantic feelings are born of, on one hand, wanting the other person’s happiness, while also wanting to possess them and keep them all to yourself. 

This is, well. A very Straight Man™ way of seeing things, but, on the other hand, this point of view isn’t limited to them. (I promise, I’m not going to ramble about how it’s scary that society puts such a violent feeling as the most beautiful and important. Not on this post at least)

Fun note, at least for me, you have the classical “guy is sick, girl brings him medicine” except...Futaba gives him the medicine and just. Leaves. I love her. Well, she ends up going to his apartment, but that’s where her being aro really stands out. Usually, in a basic romcom, everyone’s flushed, and it’s annoying. But Futaba is aro, so she isn’t embarrassed, she just sees someone she cares about being sick and wants to help. She’s very natural and stoic about the whole situation. It may seem like a detail, but honestly I find that so important!

She explains that, when she was a teenager, she avoided men as much as possible (to avoid romance) and I relate. So fucking much. I don’t know if any of you did the same, but with my parents bugging me about boys, I just avoided them as much as possible (with a few exceptions). I didn’t feel unsafe around men yet back then, so I know that’s not what it was. 

She explains she was afraid of creating misunderstandings, and ended up not using the world “love” at all because of that. I relate to that so much too, I’m trying to heal from that, and I think it’s important, really important, for us as a community, to learn to separate love from romance. Anyway, this kind of struggle that just...hinders your vocabulary options is really a shame, and I’m glad to see a character mention it (and not be shamed for it!).

Are you ready for some Hetero Bashing™? Because Futaba reunites with her friends and they talk a bit. The Straight dude (Kyosuke) asked Futaba to think about marrying him, and she’s a bit “huuuuuh” so she talks about it to her friends. Friend 1 is like “well, you don’t need to be *in romance* to get married. I have friends, a straight dude and a lesbian, who got married by necessity” and Futaba expresses that she never thought such a thing would happen to her, she never thought of marriage being an option for her. Friend 2 they says that it’s the contrary for her, impossible to avoid the idea of marriage and children, despite not wanting either, because it’s been so ingrained in her head. “you know, the “to perpetuate the specie” argument, like having descendance is every human’s mission...”

And the friend 1 says “ah...the perfect exemple of a notion made by straight people to validate their point of view!” and I love that?? I mean, in general, even in the larger queer community, we’re dancing around the argument, finding proof that there are non-straight animals in all species, and all. She then adds “If reproductions is *that* important...then rich single people could have a ton of kids using articifial fertilization and bingo, they’d have contributed to society’s well-being!” Friend 2 is like “uuuuh, that would raise ethical issues” to what friend 2 answers: “Personally, I kinda reaaally don’t care for lessons of morality from a society that considers sexual minorities and childfree people as useless. If we consider that humanity will necessarily go extinct one day, then mating to reproduce is nothing but a useless cycle”. I really like that take which’s why I *had* to share it despite it being so long to read haha. 

Futaba is surprised by her words, so friend 2 explains that friend 1 is worried that a straight guy is going to steal Futaba from them, and she doesn’t want to be abandoned. Friend 1 is bi but that’s a very aro sentiment here tbh. 

(Straight bashing, over)

You have the usual meeting with the family...god, how realistic is that, you see your aunt and uncle you haven’t seen in maybe years and the only thing they’re interested in, is whether or not you’ve found a romantic partner. I swear, I got annoyed for the character cause it’s so true. She’s bothered (and I am too) by her grandma’s affirmation that everyones gets married someday. I hate that, it really, really annoys me that I supposedly can’t be free to make my own decisions! But she also knows that it would be useless to explain to her grandma that her words are paternalism, so she lets her be. Because she means well, and maybe that’s the worst thing about amatonormativity and its assumptions...that the people upholding those mean well. 

The manga also touches (rapidly) on Futaba feeling of guilt for not being sincere with her family. Her parents aren’t pressuring her to get married, but she knows that seeing their only child, still single, and over 30, is sure to make them worried (especially given she’s not exactly wealthy). I can’t express how much I love seeing a character like that, she knows what she wants, but there’s still this lingering feeling that keeps you from feeling totally at ease, regardless of how much confidence you’ve got. It’s only natural and nothing to be ashamed of. 

I think one of my favourite moments of this book - maybe of all the serie? is after Kyosuke’s friends remotivates Futaba by, basically, telling her to do what she always did, fight out of spite, even if that means to accept to sometimes take hits (this happens throught the phone). Kyosuke says to his friend, that he would never have neeb able to say such things to him, and his friend answers that love blinds him, and prevents him from seeing what she really needs. To that, Kyosuke doesn’t answer, and his friend understands immediately and says “That look...maybe you actually nurture this self-deception.” 

And I love this moment because, for Futaba to be happy, she needs to be single, and free. From him, and his expectations of romance, because even though he knows, rationally speaking, that she won’t ever feel the same, he still wants her, and still wants to be the one at her side - when no one should be. Not in a partnership way anyway. He’s actually choosing to ignore the rational part of him because he still hopes for her to make the difficult choice, and stay at his side, because it’s not really that he wants her to be happy but rather, that he wants to be the one to make her happy, which is of course, extremely selfish and possessive. I love that it’s just laid here, without ambiguity. What’s great also, is that the straight dude in romo realizes what he’s doing, even if he tries to ignore that. Later in the manga, Kyosuke thinks to himself that he couldn’t help but hope that she would concecede, yield, and accept him, despite knowing that’s not what she needs, and knowing that’s not the way you build a positive relationship. I...don’t know if alloro usually know they’re doing such things? I don’t know what’s worse, to be confident you’re not doing that shit when you’re doing it, or to keep on doing it even though you’re aware. 

On a sidenote, I really, really like that she got boosted by the least expected person? They don’t like each other, they’re more or less at each other’s throat most of the time cause he’s sexist and unsentitive, but in the end, he was touched by the anger in the beginnings of her work, and it built a sort of...professional trust between the two of them. Like, those characters won’t ever be friends, but there’s still that little place of trust between them, it’s a delicate portrayal of ambiguous relationships. 

Basically, what ends the manga, if the end of Futaba’s own manga (the romantic comedy). And I really like the outlook she has on it, at the end of her 2 years and a half of work. Even though she didn’t want to write such a thing, in the end, she met a lot of people thanks to it, and, through challenging her own vision of relationships and romance, she finally managed to complete her certitude in herself and who she is. I think that’s a lovely parallel. 

It also ends her questions, and she rejects Kyosuke (I usually can’t help but laugh when a Straight man gets rejected in fiction I’m an asshole I know). Their conversation is really lovely after that, and challenged the expectations of partnership. Kyosuke asks her if she would have accepted his proposal if, like one year ago, he didn’t feel anything towards her. And her answer is no. She did think about it, imagining their marriage as a fake straight couple, and how she knew that, while it would have asked concessions and sacrifices from both of them, they could have been happy.  But what she needs isn’t some stability based on renunciations, but ton confront reality, so she can live in agreement with herself. 

Also, the moment after her choice, loneliness and worry strike her, and she acknowledges that feeling, because it’s okay, it doesn’t mean she made the wrong choice. It will pass. 

The younger guy who’s also in romance with her, interestingly enough, resolves the situation in a very mature way. He asks her if she’s found her answer, when they’re about to part ways (he’s no longer her assistant), and she says that, yes, she doesn’t feel romance - and he thanks her, for having endured his weirdness all this time, and bids her farewell. And we then have his thoughts - while his decisions, to act that way, was difficult for him, he did so because it was the right thing to do and he realized that insisting would have bothered her. That was nice. The situation is weird for Futaba too, because, as his senior, she kinda felt responsible for him, protective maybe? And she’s a bit overwhelmed by how much this kid’s grown. 

There’s an epilogue of sorts, and we can see that Futaba decided to entirely live while being true to herself, which also means making some changes. 

To conclude: I really liked this serie! It’s nice to see a woman over 30, finally embracing herself - despite having gone through doubts, even at her age - after making sure she was right about her feelings. She’s, well, asexual I think, but it’s the aro part that matters to her, and really has an influence on her life, the ace part is more of an afterthought. It’s also nice to see a nonamorous aromantic woman! Aro women are already hard to grasp in our amatonormative and migogynistic society, so a nonamorous one probably even more so. 

It was overall a really nice experience, I’m not going to say everything was perfect, and her aromanticism is the topic of the story, but Futaba is also her own person and this is never downplayed in favour of talking about her identity. Definitely something too rare and, as such, very enjoyable. 

#my post #Aromantic (Love) Story #Aro representation

[satonthelotuspier]

I’m not contributing to today’s wangxian week, and I’m doing a double day for spring fest with today and tomorrow’s prompts. Instead, today I offer you my “penance” for the wangxian week day 1 cliffhanger.

“Wei Wuxian, are you OK?” Jiang Cheng asked through the door, and he considered ignoring him like he had when the other had knocked an hour ago. “Wei Wuxian, shall I get A-jie?”

He stopped considering it immediately.

“It’s open, I’m sleeping” he groused, really, using A-jie as a threat to get him to respond was below the belt.

Jiang Cheng opened the bedroom door and walked into his room.

He snorted at Wei Wuxian lying, still fully clothed, dressed exactly as he had been when he’d walked into the house two hours ago, minus only his shoes.

He sat at the foot of Wei Wuxian’s bed and crossed his legs, meaning he was settling in for the long haul, and if Wei Wuxian tried to kick him out he’d just go telling Jiang Yanli on him.

The little snitch.

“So…” Jiang Cheng prompted.

“So what?”

“How did the date go?”

“Don’t you have something else to be doing Jiang Cheng? Seriously? Elsewhere?” he asked in irritation, couldn’t Jiang Cheng just let him lie here and torture himself in peace?

“Nope, I’m good” was of course the answer. Then he turned serious. “I’ll go if you really want Wei Wuxian, but was it really that bad? Did you start arguing again? Did you have a falling out and punch him?”

“I wish” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, but of course he didn’t mean that. He considered for a few seconds actually telling Jiang Cheng to leave, but really, people were going to hear about this sooner or later, better to get it out of the way and limit the damage by telling the story himself.

“It was going fine. I mean, it wasn’t flowing, Lan Zhan is a nightmare in one on one situations because he feels no need to keep his end of the conversation up, but we were muddling through”

“Alright, that sounds as expected” Jiang Cheng acknowledged.

“And then I...I asked him why he hadn’t given the tickets away considering he’s hated me forever” he pushed himself upright, leaning back on his hands.

“Fair question”

“He said he didn’t hate me. He said he’d liked me since we were teenagers. Said that he was in love with me”

Jiang Cheng was speechless, they stared at each other for fully thirty seconds, before he said, “Oh” then; “but that’s good, isn’t it? Surprising, because you always said he hated you, but its good. You like each other. So why are you lying here like someone told you that your fly was unzipped all the way through a court appearance?”

That earned a half-laugh half-grimace.

“Wei Wuxian, tell me you didn’t! You didn’t flash Lan Wangji?”

“What!? No!”

“Then what? What about this usually very good news has you acting like you spilled milk over his prized poodle”

“As if Lan Zhan would own a poodle”

“Rabbit then. It’s beside the point, get to it, Wei Wuxian”

He sucked in a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh.

“I was shocked, Jiang Cheng, really shocked. I’m not lying when I said I thought he’d hated me since we were five years old. So I...kind of said, Oh”

“Well you were shocked” Jiang Cheng soothed, “Then what did you say?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t say anything else. I sort of got up, and knocked the table. So the drinks tipped over and splashed onto him”

Jiang Cheng opened his mouth. Then closed it again.

“OK, that’s rough” he said eventually. “So you were a little embarrassed, but you’ll look back at this and laugh in a few years. Lan Wangji isn’t going to care about a little accident like that is he? You said he loves you”

“Jiang Cheng, I got up to run out. I left him there. I left him there with the fucking bill. And the clean up. And his feelings. Please, just kill me now” he felt the mad plummet of shame and embarrassment again and sat forward to drop his face into his hands.

It took Jiang Cheng a few minutes again, but then he got up, “OK, I think that’s for the best, how do you want me to do it?”

“Honestly there’s no need, I’ll expire soon from remembering what a clown I looked. I tripped over on the way out, to top it all off. I fell over someone else’s chair. I went face first, full sprawl, no disguising it. And he called my name, he sounded worried. Please can I just go back in time to nine months before my birth and tell my parents to use protection, and save the world from inflicting me on it?”

“That was pretty disastrous. But you panicked, right? You do actually like Lan Wangji still? We can rescue this, just talk to him Wei Wuxian”

“Really? Talk to him? Are you insane? Are you listening to the crap coming out of your mouth right now? How can I ever face him again? My only two options are a Face Off operation or just moving to Europe and becoming a painter, I’ll change my name to Jean-Claude and no one will ever find me again”

“Or you could stop being a dramatic bitch and just apologise to him”

“Oh really? And if it was reversed, and it was you who enacted such a blindingly good showing on a first date would you be all, Oh well, never mind I’ll just ring them and apologise”

“Fuck no, I’d have walked out into the rain and died”

“And I’m the dramatic bitch?” Wei Wuxian demanded.

“I was trying to be supportive, but yeah, you fucked up big time. I’m just so thankful I’m not you right now”

“Yes, I’m wishing you were, oddly” they paused as there was soft buzzing from the paper bin near the door.

“Is that your phone?”

“Yes, I haven’t had chance to smash the SIM to pieces yet to enable my escape to the banks of the Seine under my assumed identity”

“You threw your phone in the bin? You’re definitely the dramatic one” he moved over and fished the mobile out of the paper basket.

He looked at it, “Honestly, you’ve been laid there for two hours moping and you didn’t even need to” he tossed the phone across to Wei Wuxian, who caught it reflexively. Jiang Cheng walked to the door and paused briefly to toss over his shoulder, “Don’t screw it up this time. You are such a clown” before leaving him to it. He pulled his tongue out at Jiang Cheng’s retreating back. It helped a little.

Wei Wuxian looked down at the screen of his phone.

Seven missed calls on the quarters of the hour, and two texts.

Wei Ying, are you alright? and Please answer my calls, Wei Ying.

As if the other was psychically aware of the phone being in Wei Wuxian’s hands it began to buzz again.

He hesitated, really did consider leaving it ringing, but really it was grossly unfair to Lan Wangji, who he had already been grossly unfair to tonight.

He swiped the answer button, and pressed it to his ear.

“Lan Zhan?”

“Wei Ying? Are you alright?” he sounded concerned, and Wei Wuxian winced in guilt.

“Nothing but bruised pride, Lan Zhan” he bit his lip briefly, then; “are you in bed? Can you meet me?”

“Yes, please. Lets meet”

“Alright”

****

They had agreed on a meeting in a park located somewhere between their houses. Wei Wuxian found a bench next to the playground. It was eerily deserted being after midnight, and the moon, almost full, bathed the park in it’s soft, white light.

Jiang Cheng was right, he had to not screw this one up, this was his last chance.

He would tell Lan Wangji how he felt about him, and ask if he’d ever considering dating Wei Wuxian again.

What if he says no?

Well, that was possible, but considering what he’d been thinking for the past few hours what did it matter if he did? He’d imagined the other being disgusted at him since he ran out of the restaurant, so it didn’t matter.

“Wei Ying” Lan Wangji’s soft voice and softer tread drew his attention. He looked a little ethereal bathed in the moonlight.

Wei Wuxian stood up to meet the other, then took his hand and drew Lan Wangji to sit next to him on the bench.

“Wei Ying, are you alright?” he asked again, and Wei Wuxian nodded, feeling another twinge of guilt.

“I am, Lan Zhan. I am so, so sorry about how I acted tonight. I have absolutely no excuse, or any idea what came over me. I was supposed to be taking you on a date, and I ran out and left you with the bill and all the embarrassment”

“That doesn’t matter” Lan Wangji dismissed, “I’m sorry if I overstepped the boundary tonight, Wei Ying. I shouldn’t have said anything about how I felt, considering our past relationship, It was selfish of me”

Wei Wuxian was almost shocked speechless. He found his voice quickly though, “What?! No!” he shook his head and squeezed the hand in his, which seemed to surprise Lan Wangji, as if he’d forgotten they were still holding hands. “It wasn’t selfish at all, like you say, what were you meant to do if I never gave you chance to speak to me before? I really wish I had, though, Lan Zhan, because I’ve been in love with you for a long time. We’d have saved a lot of pining if I had let you talk”

That seemed to startle Lan Wangji even more, and he reeled back a little, “But...you said…”

“Yes, apparently it was always about trying to get your attention. Don’t you know that?”

“So why did you run tonight?”

“Shock? Stupidity? Panic? I genuinely did think you hated me, I wasn’t lying about that”

“I’m sorry”

“What for? If I didn’t give you the chance to say any different how can it be your fault Lan Zhan? I asked you here to ask for your forgiveness for tonight, not to guilt you about what happened years ago, so lets not worry about that OK?” Lan Wangji gave a single, affirmative nod.

“Wei Ying, do you really like me?” he asked eventually, and Wei Wuxian nodded too.

“Yes, I do. If I asked you seriously, would you consider giving me another chance to take you on a first date? I promise not to show you up again, if you do. Well, no more than usual in my company anyway. We can wait until you’re ready if you want…”

Lan Wangji suddenly cupped Wei Wuxian’s face with both of his hands, they were large and warm in the chill of the night air, “I’m free later” he said simply, then; “may I kiss you, Wei Ying?”

In answer Wei Wuxian leaned forward and initiated the kiss. It took Lan Wangji a little by surprise, but he relaxed almost immediately and allowed Wei Wuxian to lead, letting go of his face and resting his hands on Wei Wuxian’s shoulders as they tasted each other.

Wei Wuxian pulled back eventually, and Lan Wangji looked at him from under lowered lids, lips slightly parted and gleaming damply in the moonlight.

“Again?” Wei Wuxian asked, and Lan Wangji nodded.

“Again, Wei Ying” he agreed, and their lips met and clung a second time.

#wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #modern au #first kiss #embarassment #mo dao zu shi #mo dao zu shi fanfic #the untamed #the untamed fanfic #mdzs #mdzs fanfic #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #Shay's stuff

[lysandratrevelyan]

So, there's a weird part about growing up queer in a queer family, surrounded by fellow queers of all walks of life. You still get shit on by the world, and it hurts - hurts SO FUCKING MUCH - but there's a disconnect there, as well. After all, my family understands. They truly do understand the pain of changing what parts of you that you share with the world, with your friends at school and at their homes.

I already did this because of our religion, the additional editing barely registered.

I take that back, I was more open about being raised a Witch by other Witches than I was that sometimes I didn't feel like a girl or that girls and boys were roughly equally interesting. I was more open about the fact that we could name every single person who had passed on our religion going back over 500 years than the fact that several of my Aunts and Uncles in the community - both the Queer and the Pagan, and there were several that, like us, lay in the overlap - crossed gender boundaries in one way or another.

I grew up knowing first-hand how the AIDS crisis affected people. My Uncle Clemeth died when I was around 7 years old. I hadn't seen him in months because of the rules for the hospice house, after a lifetime of seeing him a few times a month. I'd barely seen his partner (not husband, because that was still over 20 years away, and not his domestic partner because that was still about 15 years off) in that time, because he'd been at the hospice house every day, every second he could, watching the love of his life waste away. The only person that could spend any time with him was the in-home caregiver who'd been caring for Clemeth before he got too ill, and I am very happy to say that the two of them are still together, still taking care of each other now as legally recognized spouses.

I grew up never worrying that my parents would be disappointed in whatever path I took. I was extremely privileged for that, and only wish I could do the same for my own kids (their father's family has them terrified of their own shadows, and I am slowly working through legal shit trying to get them away from that). I didn't have to worry that my parents would tear up my books or posters, destroy my jewelry or clothes over me choosing a different religious path. That I had been vocal since about 3 years old regarding which Gods called to me actually never factored into any of that. I didn't have to worry that my openly Bi parents, who were also openly polyamorous, would every shame me for my sexual wants or desires; they only made sure that I could talk to them about what I wanted or needed, and would help me safely explore.

I can still laugh at my mom buying me my first vibrator when I was 16, and the years later conversation in my twenties about how sex was weird as I'd recently discovered.

I can also still feel the warmth of her rage when she learned some of the shit that asshole pulled, and the way I felt safe telling her. I hope my siblings could feel the ice of my own when he tried to target them later.

I grew up going to Pride, marching in it, gleefully introducing my first girlfriend to my parents, even though we were only "out" to a handful of friends at school. I still think of her fondly, and hope she's well. I got to grow up around IT workers, social workers, authors, sex workers, tattooists, and people from every other walk of life. I got to dye my hair, cut it however I wanted. I got to choose when I got my first piercing, where it was (my ears, boringly enough, at age 4, though i plan on at least two more once it's safe) and when I wanted to gauge up they got me the jewelry and had me talk to some fellow poly Pagan friends about care and taking it slow.

When, at age 8 I was repeatedly trying to kill myself, my parents sought help. One of them sat me down and talked about her own struggles, and they found me a professional to talk to, and they made an effort to spend more time with me. Just because my problem was bigger than that didn't mean it didn't help, and they checked with me regularly about it; when I was in high school and spiraled heavily, they got me to the doctor, talked to her and let me talk to her privately, and reminded me to take the meds I was prescribed. When that med didn't help, they listened to me after I had to change to an entirely different med class, and shared their happiness that I was doing better.

They had learned after not listening to my younger sister, you see. My parents aren't perfect, and that whole talk I had when I was 8 scarred me heavily. Don't fucking tell your kids that you have it worse, okay? And maybe, just maybe listen when your kid tells you that the prozac makes them too manic and don't insist they can't be bipolar like mom's side of the family only depressed like yours, nearly killing your kid in the process. My sister is much better these days, but that was one of the first big experiences after the amnesia, and is still understandably bitter over it. Our older sibling and I are, too.

As an adult, I still had to deal with people being bigoted pieces of shit, now without the buffer of my parents. I had to deal with abusers who saw my barely acknowledged bisexuality as an easy target. I had to deal with classmates and coworkers mocking a later boyfriend for being gay. He wasn't, is still straight and cis, and unfortunately now a shitty dad, but because he taught ballroom dance that made him gay apparently. I still had to deal with lesbians insisting I just needed to pick a side. I still had to deal with homophobia, and biphobia, on top of defending my religion.

People fucking suck, okay?

As an adult, who grew up queer in a queer family surrounded by a queer community, though, it has brought me great pleasure to watch people try to make bigoted arguments, to convince me that somehow, at some time in some way I understood (understand) why it's a problem to let people be who they are. It's not a moral standpoint. It's not an ethical standpoint. They just really can't comprehend that I don't hate myself on some level, because I was never taught to. My exposure to that kind of bullshit was extremely limited to public school and visiting my grandmothers. Even then, the kids didn't know what they didn't know, and at least one of my grandmothers only cared that she got to see us.

Every place we went, every one of my parents' friends we visited, I was surrounded by people who were queer or part of my religion, and frequently both. I was aware there were bigots in the broader Pagan community, but my parents didn't have the time for that, so it wasn't really in my sphere. I could be me, in public. If I was a boy that day, I was a boy that day, and no one said boo about it.

Even now, years and years later, seeing the uptick in TERF bullshit and purity bullshit and people trying to rewrite the history of my communities (both queer and pagan, and they can all fuck right off), I'm not ashamed. I'm not confused. I am who I always have been. Labels may have changed with time as people find new words that fit them better, but even as safe as my upbringing was, we all still are part of the same community; the world outside still existed, my parents simply took the hits for me.

I guess the reason I'm writing all this, sharing all this when I usually keep my personal stuff offline is that I'm seeing a lot of queer people under every label talking about how they somehow can't do all... ^^this... for their own future kids - whatever form those kids come in. Y'all, my parents are a Boomer and a Gen Xer. I'm still doing what I can for my kids. There's not a cis-het person in my immediate family! You can do this.

Please don't give up hope, or leave that hope to the wider world being more acceptable. That acceptance comes at the cost of lives and loves and so much time. Raise your kids in the community. Adopt kids in the community. Be an Aunt or Uncle or Adjacent Adult Figure of whatever term fits! Let kids know themselves and that you are there for them. I believe in you.

#aster's personal tag #queerness #queer #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #art and culture and history oh my

[jexnmcrexu]

Do you have any headcanons on the kandrew dynamic? There’s such a dearth of analyses on the interactions between Kevin and Andrew and it’s a shame because their behavior with each other is so deep, peculiar and fascinating :O

Did you mean hc or analysis? i’m gonna add a bit of both just in case ;) Buckle up because this got... so long...

- See the thing about kandrew is... they’re so complex

- I mean it’s just. At first glance their personalities just completely clash, you know?

- Kevin lives and breathes Exy, he pushes himself beyond his limits, and he has this single-minded obsession with his game being flawless

- While Andrew couldn’t care less about the sport, has absolutely no drive besides the promises he makes, no ambition

- So like, when I learned all this and realized they were practically attached at the hip I went ?????

- However we later learn about the promise Andrew made Kevin, that if he stayed at Palmetto he would keep him safe

- (and this hurts a whole fucking lot because Andrew thinks the only way of keeping people from leaving is by binding them with a promise and that just BREAKS MY HEART!! but that’s a topic for another post)

- We also learn that Kevin promised him a future if he stayed by his side

- So this was basically a “I want to be with you but you wouldn’t be with me in normal circumstances so here, I can offer you this” from both of them

- They’re a disaster

- Anyway so they have a tumultuous relationship from the start

- God listen here LISTEN

- Andrew refused to go with Kevin to the Ravens because he didn’t want to follow someone who was satisfied with being second best

- Like he just hated Kevin for that

- But when Kevin went to Wymack after Riko broke his hand, Andrew must have seen there was some courage in there he could work with

- Otherwise I assure you he wouldn’t have made a deal with him, he wouldn’t have found Kevin interesting enough

- SO HEAR ME OUT

- KEVIN SAW POTENTIAL IN ANDREW, BUT ANDREW SAW POTENTIAL IN KEVIN TOO

- I’m crying thanks

- At this point Andrew becomes Kevin’s rock

- (I like to compare this with a concept I learned in two TJ Klune’s novels, wolfsong and the lighting-struck heart (even though they exist everywhere else)

- In the sense that Andrew is Kevin’s cornerstone, a link that keeps him from despairing and succumbing to darkness

- And he’s also Neil’s tether, the link that keeps him grounded and prevents him from running away

- It makes me very emo

- “You spend all this time watching our backs. Who’s watching yours?”

- shut UP

- ANYWAY

- So Kevin heavily relies on andrew

- Let me tell you this: when I first read aftg I went in knowing NOTHING about the books except that there was a gay couple; i didn’t even know it was the main couple; i didn’t even know it was about sports

- And I thought that that couple were kevin and andrew

- I kid you not, I didn’t catch on until halfway through the raven king

- It was just so plainly obvious that they care about each other

- Like sure, they fight a lot, Andrew threatens Kevin and fucking cuts him with a knife at one point

- But that’s how they are; they’re constantly dancing around one another because they both have this huge thing in the middle: Andrew’s future

- And they both know it

- It’s what keeps them together but also what keeps them apart

- There’s an essential part of their relationship that simply cannot work if they don’t acknowledge it

- Which Andrew refuses to do until like the end of the king’s men

- ridiculous, both of them

- So on to my headcanons

- Basically I think they started to hook up a couple of weeks after Kevin transferred to Palmetto

- They were at Eden’s and they were drinking and Andrew was horny and Kevin was hot

- And tipsy

- So they kiss. I can’t decide if Kevin initiated it or if Andrew did

- I think maybe Kevin

- Kevin isn’t familiar with Andrew’s history at this point, so Andrew gathers inhuman amounts of patience and explains, without going into detail, that they’re playing by his rules

- Basically: don’t touch unless prompted and always, always ask first. Or else, knife in your gut.

- It becomes a regular thing and Andrew hates that it’s a regular thing but he also doesn’t

- Kevin is very conflicted because of the public image he needs to uphold

- But he never angsts about it with Andrew because he knows that would only push Andrew away

- A year goes by and there’s feelings in the way that they both kind of acknowledge, only never out loud

- it’s more in the actions?

- in the way Kevin always looks for Andrew first, in the way Andrew is always aware of where Kevin is in the room, never goes too far from him, and

- i can’t stress this enough

- in the way he is unconditional support for kevin

- kevin is a mess; his childhood was traumatizing— so was Andrew’s, and yet Andrew is always there for Kevin whenever Kevin falls into despair

- He knows how to calm him, how to keep him grounded, and is willing to go to the ends of the Earth to protect him

- He doesn’t make deals with everyone, y’all

- Just people he wants to keep close

- Kevin is one of them

- And Kevin... GOD, Kevin

- He never, ever gives up on Andrew

- No matter how many times Andrew tells him no to exy, he keeps pushing and he keeps waiting and he doesn’t. give. up.

- Kevin saw potential in him, but he also saw that the reason he didn’t care was because he didn’t think he deserved it

- And Kevin pushed

- And Andrew pushed back, in his own way

- Between him and Neil they made Kevin realize he was so much more than number 2

- I bet you Andrew used it as a counter argument so many times whenever Kevin brought his exy skills up

- “IF ONLY YOU LISTENED-“

- “I’m sorry, I don’t listen to second places”

- It drives Kevin absolutely insane

- They’re constantly pushing each other and grabbing at them at the same time

- It’s why they work

- Their dynamic is just complex and passionate and beautiful

- Hopefully we get to read about them more

#man this was a ride #i have more but im tired #so maybe i’ll add to this some other tome #more analysis than hc but whatevs #this is all over the place im so sorry djdkdkd #excuse my half braincell please #long text #kandrew #kandreil #kevin day #andrew minyard #neil josten #aftg #hc #june answers #mine #ishouldnotbhere #all for the game #my writing

[alwaysmychoices]

“Brunch”

Synopsis: After her time with Dr. Ramsey, Charlie goes home to find her best friends, and the only thing sweeter than brunch is wholesome, supportive friendship.

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x MC (Charlotte “Charlie” Greene)

Choices Story: Open Heart

Rating: General

Words: 3833

Part 5 of “A Weekend with Dr. Ramsey” 

part 1: drunk texts - part 2: a day with dr. ramsey - part 3: unspoken - part 4: in the morning light - part 5: brunch - part 6: the library -  part 7: the cure - part 8: the celebration - part 9: goodbye

Commenting, liking, and reblogging mean the world to writers, so thank you so much for engaging with my content

Charlotte Greene was wearing Ethan’s shirt. She smelled conspicuously like the warm, intoxicating cologne he wore every day. She was marred with his mark. She smiled the smile she reserved for only him. She was distinctly his.

And when she walked into her apartment, everyone knew it.

Charlie didn’t even close the front door behind her before her friends noticed the obvious change in her. She was a very different woman from the one they’d seen before her weekend with Dr. Ramsey. The woman they saw on Friday night was on the heels of devastation and in search of a distraction as her life seemingly fell apart, and they resisted the urge to shield their eyes as she sank lower and lower into despair.

When she disappeared on Friday night, they’d been terrified for her wellbeing and were only marginally comforted by her “I’m fine” text on Saturday morning – though much of that comfort dissipated when she refused to explain her absence over the course of the weekend. At one point, Jackie suggested they go on a manhunt through Boston and force her to face her problems, but Sienna and Elijah insisted on a gentler approach.

And now, she was home (perfectly safe and unharmed – Sienna was already visually examining her for any signs of injury or disease), and she had a lot of questions to answer.

Charlie jumped when she looked over to her dining room, finding all of her friends crowded around their dining room with an overwhelming amount of food and mimosas nearly falling off the limited space. And they were staring at her. Every. Single. One.

Swallowing, Charlie let out a weak wave and put her keys on the hook in an attempt to seem casual, “Oh, hey, guys.”

“Hey, guys?” Jackie was the first to pounce, hands already on her hips as she incredulously repeated the greeting, “Where the fuck have you been, Charlie?”

“With a friend,” Charlie shrugged as if the meaningless gesture could ever shake Jackie’s questions off. They’d been friends long enough for her to know better.

“You’re certainly dressed like you were with a ‘friend,’” Bryce snorted, his eyes lit up with mischief and amusement as he helped himself to the alcohol. He’d been on Jackie’s side during the discussion of a manhunt. In the last year, he’d adopted Charlie as a little sister, and the idea of something happening to her had stayed with him through most of the weekend. But now, there was something he hadn’t anticipated – that she would lie to him. He’d seen enough girls leave his apartment on a Sunday morning to know what to expect, and under the smile on his face, he was hurt she wouldn’t tell him.

“I had to borrow some clothes,” Charlie crossed her arms across the t-shirt, hiding the cartoon turkey she’d obsessed over a few hours earlier, “I don’t know what you’re implying, Bryce.”

Bryce cocked an eyebrow as if silently daring her to admit what he already knew. Despite his hurt and concern for his dear friend, there was a part of him that was enjoying himself. Firstly, it wasn’t often that he got to tease someone else for their sexual exploits, and now that he knew she was fine, he intended to enjoy putting her on the spot.

Jackie opened her mouth, ready to tell her friend just how worried they were and how irresponsible she’d been, but sensing a fight, Sienna stepped in.

“You weren’t answering your texts on Friday night, Charlie, and we were so worried,” Sienna’s voice was so soft that, for a moment, Charlie dropped her guard and suddenly felt guilty for having it up in the first place, “And then you were hardly answering us on Saturday and didn’t come home. We love you, Charlie, and we didn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

Guilt began to fill Charlie’s limps, turning them to lead as her face flushed with shame. In all of her self-pity and risky behavior, she hadn’t really thought about how her friends would feel. She could see them now, face twisted with concern as she evaded their questions.

Add being a shit friend to the list of bad things I’ve done this year, Charlie thought to herself.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to make you worry,” Charlie admitted, “I just needed space after Landry-“

“You mean the lying piece of shit we no longer acknowledge,” Jackie corrected.

“No, the snake who shall not be named,” Elijah chimed in.

“Ah, the fucker we kill on sight,” Bryce added in for good measure.

“The one who looks like burnt ramen noodles?” Kyra was happy to chime in as she raised her mimosa in a toast to the tirade of insults.

Charlie nodded, trying to hide the laugh building in her throat through the motion, “That’s the one.”

“Charlie, we would have been there for you,” Sienna stepped towards her friend, squeezing a hand as she added, “I hate to think of you dealing with that on your own.”

The weekend flashed through Charlie’s mind – waking up in Ethan’s apartment, going to the river to see Naveen, fighting with Ethan, and waking up in his bed…

And without even a flash of hesitation, she said, “I wasn’t alone.”

“Does that mean she got laid?” Kyra’s whisper was aimed at Bryce but reached the whole room, earning Charlie’s glare as Bryce nodded his answer.

“100% got laid,” Bryce confirmed in the same stage whisper.

“Guys,” Charlie tried to stop them, but it was no use.

“Charlotte Greene, don’t be ashamed of sex. It’s perfectly natural, and an open conversation encourages a healthy dialogue that is the key to successful relationships,” Bryce leaned on his elbows, his wicked smirk reminding her of the last time he talked to her about her sex life.

“Yeah, we openly communicated when you had sex with Bryce!” Elijah pointed to Bryce, who shamelessly shrugged.

“We did?” Charlie asked, amazed by how extensively her friends had discussed her sex life. She was close to them, of course, and frequently filled them in on the details of her life – but she’d never really wondered how much they talked about it when she was away.

When she had sex with Bryce at their housewarming party, the group dynamic was still young and potentially fragile. Charlie still remembered when they all sat down to breakfast, nursing hangovers and awkwardly staring at Bryce with the silent question of “what the fuck is he doing here?” Terrified to keep secrets from her new friends but dreading any awkwardness, Charlie prepared precisely what she was going to say to her friends, but to her amazement, there was no need for an organized speech. If anything, the new drama to the group dynamic made them better friends.

A few weeks later, the steamy affair came to a natural end. Their strong friendship didn’t equate to a strong romance, and ultimately, the sex wasn’t worth risking their friendship over. Bryce loved Charlie, and she loved him, too – but a few weeks together taught them that platonic love can be just as powerful.

Maybe it could have worked if they’d tried. Maybe it was poised to be a grand love story, but there was always a blue-eyed ghost with a grip on Charlie’s heart that destroyed the relationship before it could start. Every time they got drunk and wallowed in their regrets, Bryce and Charlie didn’t think of each other.

It was arguably the least dramatic thing to happen during their intern year.

The night that they had their official “talk” to end things, they’d been huddled on his living room floor, sharing takeout and flipping through Netflix options. After they dissolved their relationship, they fought over the last eggroll and settled on Jurassic Park. It was as if their friendship had somehow come out unscathed.

And the group dynamic magically did the same. If anything, there was a new joke to throw around.

“You had sex with Bryce?” Kyra chimed in, “When the hell did that happen?”

“A few months ago, keep up,” Bryce shook his head as if disappointed that she hadn’t studied their drama before attending brunch.

“So, are we waging bets on who she had sex with? Because my money’s on Rafael,” Kyra suggested, to which Bryce scoffed.

“We all know it’s Dr. Ramsey.”

“My bet’s Aurora. They fight too much not to have some repressed sexual energy going on,” Jackie suggested.

“We’re not taking bets on who I had sex with!” Charlie stopped them before clumsily adding, “Not that I even had sex with anyone.”

“Charlie, you’d really lie to my face at brunch?” Bryce shook his head with an obvious distaste for the offense, pouring himself a mimosa, “Absolutely disgusting.”

Charlie lifted the glass from his grasp, bringing it to her lips as Bryce’s jaw dropped in pure shock. Several things were sacred to Bryce – himself (obviously), his crocs, and his brunch. And to be honest, Charlie felt a sense of victory as she drank his mimosa. It served him right for gossiping about her night.

“How about we have brunch without talking about sex?” Charlie suggested as she took a seat at the table with her friends, and Sienna raised her glass in concurrence as she sat next to Charlie.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Sienna echoed.

“Boooo,” Kyra pouted as she started to fill her plate with her favorite brunch foods, and still muttering about the new conversation rules, their friends followed suit.

After a few awkward moments of fumbling around for a new topic, the group found one. Elijah and Jackie were debating the merits of Sci-Fi movies – pro and anti, respectively – while Bryce took it upon himself to fill Kyra in with the juicy gossip she’d missed. Everyone was dancing around the elephant in the room – Charlie’s ethics trial. The closest that anyone got was when Bryce explained Landry’s betrayal to Kyra, but other than a few jabs thrown in from various friends, it passed by without too much debate.

Something about their silence felt wrong to Charlie. How could they not talk about it? How could Charlie walk into a career-shattering, life-altering hearing without even talking about it with her friends?

There were so many secrets and untouched topics within their group, and it all centered on Charlie. Their entire friendship with Landry was severed because he betrayed her, and once he declared his intention to move out, they were also left to shoulder the higher rent or take on the burden of finding a new roommate. Even if they weren’t on trial, they were implicated in a scandal that would likely destroy Charlie’s career because she’d been hellbent on giving her patient the options she deserved. And now she was lying to them about where she’d been and who she was with.

Facing the destruction of her life goals and years of hard work was hard enough that Charlie felt a knot in her stomach at the idea of minting the bubble they’d built around her. Several times, Charlie thought about bringing it up herself, and she almost brought the words to her lips. But every time, she fell short. As much as she wanted to live in the real world and openly face the truth with her friends, she couldn’t face it. She needed the cushion of an idyllic, safe brunch. The real world could come later…

“We’re really happy that you’re here,” Sienna looped her arm through Charlie’s as Charlie took a bite of Sienna’s famous cinnamon rolls, and Charlie leaned into her friend’s touch. As she did, Sienna was close enough to whisper, “I know the truth, by the way.”

The words were so soft that they almost faded into the chatter and clinking of glasses, but despite their impermanence, they were powerful enough to turn Charlie’s blood to ice. Swallowing, Charlie mirrored Sienna’s soft voice as she repeated, “The truth?”

“About your weekend,” Sienna was practically beaming as she spread jam across her toast, looking up to explain, “Dr. Ramsey found all the concerned messages I left on your phone on Friday night. He didn’t want me to worry about your safety, so he called to make sure that I knew that you were alright and spending the night at his apartment.”

“Ethan called you to let you know I was alright?” Charlie felt like a broken record as she repeated her friend’s words once more, but she craved the confirmation. Her sweet, wonderful Ethan…

“You call him Ethan now,” Sienna noted with a sly smile. She looked as if she’d stumbled upon an epic romance, her gaze full of hopeful excrement and adoring warmth, and it was infectious enough to touch all the hopes Charlie purposefully neglected. Her relationship with Ethan was still so fragile that Charlie feared weighing it down with expectations, but as her chest inflated with affection, she couldn’t help herself.

And right then, more than ever before, she wanted to tell the truth. She wanted to shed the lies she’d inherited at Edenbrook and share her swelling heart with the people she loved the most. But even when Ethan wasn’t Dr. Ramsey anymore, she sensed an unspoken barrier between the world they’d made in his bedroom and the one she now inhabited with her friends.

“He doesn’t work for Edenbrook anymore,’ Charlie’s pathetic deflection didn’t fool Sienna, and she knew it, “I don’t have to call him Dr. Ramsey.”

Sienna nodded her head to play along, but the joyous glint in her eyes gave her away as she imparted advice on her friend, “You know, I’ve always found titles overrated. What does it matter if you’re an intern and he’s an attending? It’s just a job, and times like this remind us that we’re all just people every day,” Sienna motioned towards the friends crowding their dining room in support of Charlie, “Look at us. A year ago, we didn’t even know each other. We were just residents who happened to be assigned to the same hospital, and now, I love you all like you’re my family.”

Sienna hadn’t realized that the room had grown silent to listen to the end of her speech. All other conversation fell to the side, and all eyes lingered on Sienna. It was only when she finished that she noted the warm smiles from her friends.

“That. Was. Beautiful.” Bryce looked like seeing such purity was a sucker punch to the gut, his eyes brimming with tears of affection, and he stood from his seat to pull her into a surprise hug.

“Oh!” Sienna gasped, patting him on his back as Bryce tightened his grip in his signature bear hug.

“Fuck it. We love you, too, Sienna,” Jackie dropped her croissant and joined Bryce in the hug.

“It’s a group hug!” Bryce’s voice was full of excitement as Jackie piled on to their hug.

“This is literally the purest thing I’ve ever seen,” Kyra snapped a photo with her phone before joining the hug.

Charlie watched as Bryce welcomed everyone into the fold, earning giggles and jokes as her best friends joined together. Charlie couldn’t stop the happy laughter that escaped her throat, not that she even wanted to. Her heart threatened to burst out of her chest at the sight of loving friendship, and she didn’t hesitate as she added, “I love you all so much.”

“Stop it, you guys, I’m gonna cry!” Sienna called out, now buried in her friend’s affection.

“What are you talking about? I’m already crying!” Elijah called out, earning laughter from the room.

Charlie was enveloped in her friend’s embrace, reserving no personal space to contain her thoughts, and she couldn’t escape the emotions she’d buried since Mrs. Martinez’s death. She’d spent so long trying to be strong that she’d neglected the network of people who loved her more than anything.

And abandoning her reserves and embracing their trust, Charlie began, “No matter what happens tomorrow, you guys have given me an incredible intern year, and I’ll always love all of you. And-“ Charlie choked back a sob, “I’m so sorry that I let you down and involved you in such a stupid, dangerous decision. I just wanted to give Mrs. Martinez the care she deserved, and I didn’t exercise enough caution-“

“Oh, fuck off with that nonsense,” Jackie interrupted her, pulling out of the hug just enough to put her hands on Charlie’s shoulders, “You never made us do anything. We were perfectly aware of the decision we were making, and I think I speak for everyone when I say we’d do it again.”

“Of course, I would, Charlie!” Sienna interjected.

“I would, too,” Bryce confirmed, his hand now on hers as he squeezed her hand with the same brotherly affection she could always count on him for.

“You did the right thing, Charlie. You always have,” Kyra reinforced, “You taught me to keep fighting, and you’re crazy if you think I’ll let you give up now.”

“We love you, Charlie. Sienna was right – we’re a family,” Elijah’s smile warmed Charlie’s heart, and as she looked around the room, she found it echoed in the faces of her best friends.

“I don’t deserve you guys,” Charlie shook her head as if still trying to process why this amazing group of people had decided to stand with her.

“Are you kidding?” Jackie shook her head as if disappointed with Charlie being so naïve, “You’re the glue that brought this ragtag family together in the first place. You’re the reason we’re here, and you deserve every bit of our support. Stop letting this ethics hearing make you doubt yourself. You’re a fucking badass, Charlie, and it’s time to start acting like one.”

“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Charlie laughed through her tears as she unsuccessfully tried to wipe them away. The difference in her was immediately visible. Their support built her up a way nothing else could, and the sight weighed Jackie down as she thought about the strain between them for the last few months.

“I’m sorry that I haven’t always supported you. I should have. Friends first – competition second.”

“It’s okay,” Charlie squeezed her friend’s hand, “I’m sorry, too. You’re one of my best friends, and I don’t want to fight anymore.”

Jackie was amazed by how readily Charlie forgave her and was struck with how undeserving she felt, and as if sensing her thoughts, Sienna enveloped her in a hug.

“We love you, too, Jackie.”

“Even if you scare us,” Bryce conceded.

“Is anyone going to talk about how Jackie put competition second? That’s a breakthrough!” Elijah couldn’t contain his surprise to everyone’s amusement.

“Are all your brunches this supportive? Because, if so, I’m coming to every single one from now on,” Kyra wiped at her eyes, trying not to show that she was just about to cry with the rest of them.

“You’re always invited,” Charlie insisted, holding out her hand for Kyra, but to her surprise, she was enveloped in a bear hug instead.

Bryce took a step back, wiping at his eyes as he announced, “This shit’s too cute. I need champagne for this. This is the best brunch I’ve ever been to, and we all know I don’t say that lightly.”

“Come on, let’s go find you some champagne,” Sienna started to lead a blubbering Bryce to the kitchen to find the perfect – and only – bottle of sparkling wine left in their fridge to toast their brunch to.

And it was right then that Charlie suddenly knew she had to tell them.

“Guys,” Charlie called out before she could stop herself. Everyone had already started to move back to their seats, wiping at their eyes and murmuring about how sappy they felt, but they all stopped to look at her, unsure what else she could have to say.

You can do this, Charlie thought to herself.

Taking a deep breath, Charlie pulled off the Band-Aid, “I had sex with Dr. Ramsey.”

“WHAT?” Elijah choked on his coffee.

“I fucking knew it!” Bryce air pumped his fist in victory, looking as if he regretted not taking bets, “Charlotte Greene, I am so proud of you. Why the hell didn’t you tell me earlier? We would have celebrated!”

“Yeah, Charlie, why didn’t you tell us?” Sienna’s question was genuine, even if she’d known the answer all along.

“I don’t know,” Charlie admitted, shaking her head as she tried to work through the jumbled thoughts, “I was scared. I’m so scared, you guys,” her voice cracked, “I just don’t want to put too much pressure on it, and I didn’t want you to think that I’d been fucking my boss for a better ranking. I promise, it just happened. I drunk texted him on Friday, and he picked me up. And then he invited me to see Dr. Banjeri, and then I spent the night and we…” Charlie trailed off, surprised by the incoherent story flowing from her mouth.

“Charlie, we’d never think that about you,” Sienna stepped forward, pulling Charlie into another tight hug.

“Even I’m the first to admit that you worked your ass off,” Jackie admitted, “You should have told us. We would have made fun of you for hours!” Jackie’s smirk mad Charlie laugh despite herself.

“Can we go back to the fact you drunk texted him? Does he even know how to text?” Elijah asked, his eyebrow raised, “Wait, does this mean we’re friends with him? Holy shit, I should invite him to my movie marathons.”

“No, no, we’re… I don’t know what I’m with him, let alone you guys. We had sex once – well, twice, but –“

“Twice? That’s my girl,” Bryce interjected, earning a glare from Charlie.

“I could be Dr. Ramsey’s new best friends. Guys, what if he likes science fiction movies?” Elijah was now going off on his own tangent, and it was best to let him fall down the rabbit holes on his own.

“Okay, guys, pause on everything. We need champagne for this!” Bryce insisted, practically sprinting to the kitchen to retrieve the bottle.

The room had practically dissolved in chaos. Elijah was discussing movies and planning marathons and toying with the idea of Dr. Ramsey joining him. Kyra and Bryce were so overwhelmed with pride that they couldn’t focus on much else, disagreeing on how to best toast to their friend (“no, we should celebrate how brave and unapologetic her life is!” “no, we’re definitely toasting the sex, Kyra.”). Jackie was now overwhelmed with how many opportunities she now had to tease Charlie, and Sienna watched over all like a proud mother hen.

Even if it was overwhelming and even a bit frightening, Charlie loved it. She loved them.

And there was a thought in the back of her mind – just a whisper, really – that left a foreign thought to invade every corner. Maybe – just maybe – those three words belonged to Ethan all along.

 I have mixed feelings on this chapter if I’m being honest. I didn’t expect to write a whole chapter without Ethan in a series dedicated to Ethan x MC, but as I started writing, the brunch took on a life of its own. Once I finished writing, I felt like I was cheating their friendship to delete it, but it was not part of the plan of the series. I didn’t even think Charlie would tell her friends yet, but after such an emotional outpour, how could she not trust them? Plus, @fanficnewbie‘s adaption inspired me to focus more on their friendship here. I really hope you enjoyed it, and if you’re wondering where tf Ethan is, don’t worry. He’ll be back very soon...

Part 6 coming soon.

PS. @fanficnewbie published a series that is an adaption of this story. It diverges after “In the Morning Light,” so you should give it a read!

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#ethan x mc #ethan ramsey x mc #dr. ramsey #dr. ramsey x mc #open heart #pixelberry #choices #elijah #open heart elijah #jackie #open heart jackie #bryce lahela #friendship #wholesome #short story #dr. ramsey fanfiction #ethan ramsey

[therainroguefanfiction]

🔥 ℝise Ⱥbove I̾t ◈ Chapter 034 [Jen versus Iida]

📑 Table of Contents | ◂Backward

Word Count: 2,040

⊱ ────── {⋅. 🔥 .⋅} ────── ⊰

〈“Take the hurt and the pain, I don’t need it! I wanna live, I wanna be the change. We can all be kings and queens, if we can just learn to believe.” Thousand Foot Krutch, “Fly on the Wall”〉

⊱ ────── {⋅. 🔥 .⋅} ────── ⊰

I made my way back to the seating area for my class, settling down behind Fumi. The match had already begun and Ochaco was going on the offensive first.

“Wow, look at her go! That’s a good start and all she has to do is touch him one time!” Zuku spoke up, his eyes shining with excitement.

“But it won’t be easy. You know Bakugo’s not gonna let her get too close to him.” Iida added.

“Which is why he won’t dodge. He’ll focus his energy on counter-attacking!”

She got in close to him and with a sweep of his hand, Bakugo launched an explosion at her. All of us were on the edge of our seats.

“Woah! She flew her jacket over as a decoy, what incredibly quick thinking!”

Ochaco appeared behind him, reaching her hand out but he whipped around, sending her flying backward with another explosion.

“Look at that reaction time!” Sero exclaimed.

“Seriously, that dude’s insane…” Sparky commented. “You can’t get the drop on him. And since Uraraka can’t use her quirk unless she touches him, his lightning-fast reflexes put her at a huge disadvantage.”

I wanted to make a smart remark to him but the sudden explosion in Ochaco’s face made me flinch, keeping my eyes on the match. I knew deep down that if he actually held back, it would be an insult to both of them, but still… it’s a painful match to watch. I can’t imagine someone so goddamn pure being on the battlefield, ya know? I kinda wish she didn’t want to be a hero.

Warmth enveloped my hand, breaking me from my thoughts. I hadn’t even realized how hard I was gripping Fumi’s shoulders until his hand rested over mine. I mumbled a quiet apology, loosening my grip but not pulling back.

Ochaco appeared behind him again to the same result as before. Over and over again, she kept getting blasted only to get back up and keep fighting. Why? What the fuck is driving her? Pushing her to give it her all? I just don’t get it, man. It’s obvious to everyone that she’s outmatched, and I hate to think that, but Bakugo is just in another league when it comes to combat. Even so… she keeps getting up. I know she wants to be a pro hero, but she doesn’t have to get her ass kicked by Bakugo to do it!

“Looks like she’s not resting between attacks despite being exploded. Poor girl…” Mic’s voice was low and devoid of his usual enthusiasm. What a fucking buzzkill. And then the audience started to buzz like angry bees.

“Hey, shouldn’t one of the teachers step in?”

“Yeah, this is too rough.”

“This is shameful! Listen, kid!” A man in the audience stood up, raising his voice as he pointed down at Bakugo. “You really want to be a hero? Then stop acting like a bully? If you’re so good, then just send her out of bounds!”

“Who the fuck -” I growled, standing up as my blood started to boil. “- does that dickbag think he is?”

“W-Winchester, calm down!” Sparky cried, swallowing hard.

“Stop toying with her and end this match!”

“Yeah, you heard the guy!”

“The crowd is now booing Bakugo!”

“Winchester!”

I rushed forward, jumping up onto the railing as my skin started to glow red. My narrowed eyes swept over the crowd before landing on the man that started this. “Shut the fuck up, all of you! All of you fuckers came here to watch these fucking kids beat the ever-living shit out of one another and now you want to boo and cry foul?!” My hands shook as small flames licked at my fingertips. “What fucking hypocrites! What right do you have to order that this match be stopped, huh?! Fucking Ochaco is fighting her fucking hardest to win, and so is Katsuki! You’re really going to rob her of her chance because you can’t handle it?! Stop being a pussy or fucking leave!”

“Winchester is now insulting the crowd! To be honest, I kind of agree with what the crowd is sayin – hey, woah! What the crap?!”

“Where is the man who started this uproar? Are you a pro?” Aizawa demanded angrily. “Because if you’re being serious, you can go home and hang up your cape! I’d suggest looking into a new career.”

I snarled at the man, waving my hand like I was shooing away a bug. “You heard ’em! Scurry off with your tail between your legs, you fuckin’ cunt.”

His eyes narrowed at me. “You rude little b -”

“Bakugo’s fierceness is an acknowledgment of his opponent’s strength. He knows she deserves to have made it this far, so he’s making sure he does whatever it takes to keep her at bay and come out on top.”

“I think it’s about time,” Ochaco said, grabbing everyone’s attention as she breathed heavily. “Thank you, Bakugo, for keeping your eyes focused on me!”

“What?”

Wait a minute… my eyes widened as my gaze snapped up. Ochaco, you little fucking minx! I didn’t notice it because I was so worried about her, but now everything makes sense. She kept attacking non-stop to distract Bakugo while she used her quirk to float up the debris he had made with his explosions.

With a cry, she brought her fingertips together. All at once, the debris started to fall from the sky, shooting toward Bakugo like angry missiles.

“A meteor shower!!”

“Now you notice…”

“She had a plan all along!” Zuku jumped up, gripping the railing.

Ochaco rushed at him, using the debris as a distraction. Bakugo held his wrist, the other palm facing toward the sky. He unleashed a powerful, large blast, the force nearly knocking me off the railing as it sent Ochaco flying backward. I huffed, kneeling down to grab the railing between my feet.

“Bakugo banks out a huge demonstration of power! He blasted apart Uraraka’s finishing move and remains untouched!”

No, he ain’t untouched. It’s really fucking subtle, but his hand is shaking. That blast took a lot of out him.

Ochaco shakily climbed to her feet and Bakugo rushed forward to attack, stopping short when she fell over, hitting the ground. Poor girl, she’s completely spent.

“Uraraka is down!!”

“It’s too much…” Iida breathed out.

“Yeah,” Zuku nodded worriedly. “She’s way past her limit.”

Ochaco started to crawl across the ground toward Bakugo, still not wanting to give up. Holy fucking Deadpool in a tutu, I never knew that girl had so much fucking drive within her. Midnight held her hand up to Bakugo and he relaxed his stance as she rested her hand on Ochaco’s back.

“Uraraka is K.O’d. Bakugo advances to the next round.”

“And that’s it for the second round! Ah, I was really pulling for her… Oh yeah, I guess Bakugo is moving on…”

I sweatdropped. Note to self: Kick the cockatiel next time I see him.

“You’re supposed to be unbiased, you know.”

“Let’s try to forget that depressing outcome!”

“Or not.”

“With that, the second round is complete! We’re taking a quick break and then we’re back with more matches!”

I hopped down from the railing and rushed off before anyone could stop me, heading toward the waiting room. Man, that was the most intense match, I hope Ochaco is okay. I bet she’s upset about losing, but she should feel proud. She did really fucking well against Katsuki. I rolled my neck as I stepped into the air-conditioned room. My match against Iida is next. He always annoys the piss of out me, so I surely don’t mind getting the chance to unleash some hell on him.

“Woohoo!! We’re finally about to learn who the winner is in the eleventh match – Kirishima or Tetsutetsu! Whoever prevails in this arm-wrestling match will advance to the third round! Let’s go!!”

I fell into the chair with a sigh, letting my head fall back. All this way and I can still hear that fucker as if he were standing here screaming in my damn ear. That’s one hell of a quirk, bro. I hope Kirishima wins his match. He’s so strong and full of spirit, but he lacks confidence in his abilities. I should really talk to him about that. Maybe I can take a piece of paper and write ‘You are strong, you are awesome, stop doubting yourself’ and smack him in the face with it. Why stop there? I need to do the same for Zuku.

“Kirishima earns his spot in the third round!”

Atta boy, Kirishima.

“Now we’ve got a full roster for the next round of the tournament! Let’s get the party started now, ya dig?!”

That’s my cue, ugh. I left the room, heading down the hallway.

“The first match of round three! He comes from an elite hero family, from the hero course, Tenya Iida! Versus! Her origins are completely unknown, also from the hero course, Jen Winchester!”

I sweatdropped as I stepped out into the sunlight. Elite versus unknown, huh? How fucking annoying. Iida’s eyes narrowed at me from across the arena, his voice low and full of distaste. “I don’t trust you, Winchester. Your attitude leaves much to be desired and you always act as if you know something we don’t, like you’re hiding something.”

I scoffed. “And? As if your holier than thou attitude is any better. Always prancing around like you’re better than everyone else, ordering people around like their beneath you, telling people how they should be acting. I’m gonna be honest, I’m really going to fucking enjoy knocking your ass down a few pegs, elite.”

“START!!”

My body temperature shot up as fire swirled across the ground in front of me. He took off running, his speed enough to dodge the onset of flames. I scowled, my eyes following his movement. There’s no point in trying to chase the fucker around, he’s too damn fast for me to catch. Instead, I’ll create an opening and let him come to me. Just as my flames were dying down behind me, he appeared in the air in front of me.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

“What incredible height on that jump! He easily cleared the flames surrounding her!”

“Recipro… burst!!” His leg connected with my forehead and I gritted my teeth, feeling my bones cracking from the force. Before I could recover, he landed and jumped again, slamming his leg against my stomach. The force sent me flying across the ring. I coughed loudly, wincing in pain. Fucking hell.

“Look at that speed! Winchester can’t react in time!”

Che. I grunted, slamming my palms against the ground as he rushed forward, but a wall of flames shot up between us, making him stumble backward. I coughed again as I pulled myself up. So he wants to end this quickly, huh? I wonder why that is? Doesn’t matter. If he wants to end is to quickly, who the fuck am I to deny him that?

Limit release!!

My shirt shattered as power rose from within me, rushing through my body.

“Oh no, it looks like Winchester is finally starting to get serious! I hope she doesn’t kill him…”

“She won’t.”

Thanks for believing in me, Dadzawa. I grinned, focusing my attention behind Iida. I appeared behind him just as he tried to jump over the flames again. Using his momentum against him, I slammed my flaming fist against his back, quickly grabbing his wrist before he could go flying. I turned my body once before throwing him toward the arena. His body slammed against the cement, rising up a few inches before falling back down. He grunted in pain, his eyes glassy.

“Learned that move from watching All Might at the USJ,” I grinned.

His teeth clenched and his hand shot up, snatching my wrist to pull me closer. He lifted both legs, slamming his feet against my stomach. The impact lifted me off the ground and knocked the wind from my lungs. Using what little bit of power he had left, he picked me up and tried to carry my body out of bounds, but flames erupted around me and he yelped, dropping me. I rolled, landing on my knees a foot away from him.

“Iida almost got Winchester out of bounds, but she saved herself at the last moment! How will this fight turn out?!”

I tasted metal on my tongue and spat out blood onto the concrete before wiping my hand with the back of my hand. “Is that all you got, prep? Sorry, but I ain’t that easy.”

His eyes narrowed and he made a move like he was going to rush me, but his foot only slip forward a bit, fists clenching at his sides.

“What’s wrong, bud? Run out of gas?” I smirked, holding my flaming hand up. “I hope you’re ready for this because it’s really gonna fucking hurt.” I flipped my hand over and the flames shot down into the cement before shooting up toward the sky. Like a huge wave of flame, it crashed into his body and forced him back out of bounds. My lips twitched up as it pinned him to the wall, the cement cracking behind him.

Midnight rushed up in front of me, giving me a sharp look as she held out her hand. I clicked my tongue and flipped my hand back over, the flames shooting back toward me as they died down until there were nothing but embers against my palm, floating away on the gentle breeze.

“Iida is out of bounds! Winchester advances to the next round!”

“Shooting into our hearts like a wave of fire, Winchester wins the first match of round three and advances to the semi-finals!!”

I stuffed my uninjured arm into my pocket and stepped down the stairs toward the hallway. As soon as the darkness surrounded me, I released my form, my shirt returning to me as pain started to overwhelm the adrenaline. I groaned. My arm fucking hurts. My stomach fucking hurts. I’m tired. I’m hungry. This is fucking torture.

Fucking bastard, I shouldn’t have held back. I admit, I underestimated him…

I released a breath as I turned the corner, grunting when I nearly ran into someone. I tried to walk around the kid, but he held his arms out, a haughty expression on his face. “What’s this? Is someone from 1-A actually injured? I thought all of you were too strong to be hurt and yet all of you keep getting injured. How shameful!”

I deadpanned. “Bro, I ain’t in the mood for your inferiority complex. Move the fuck out of my way before I shove a chimichanga up your ass.”

A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek and he swallowed hard, but that infuriating smirk didn’t falter. “That’s not a very heroic thing to say, is it! Looks like 1-A is training villains, not heroes. You, Bakugo and Todoroki aren’t fit to be heroes. Did you see how Bakugo treated that poor girl? And Todoroki went way too far against the tape boy. And there’s you. How shameful for you all!”

My eyes narrowed and I straightened my back. I’ve got a few inches on this brat, good. “You should really learn to keep your fuckin’ mouth shut, kid.”

He hummed, his smirk growing. “Everyone says class A is better simply because you all faced off against real villains, but we all know that your class did nothing in the attack! You only survived because of the teachers! Everyone saw how easily Shiozaki beat that electric freak! Such a loser, don’t you agree? And that poor gravity girl, who let her in the hero course? She’s not fit to be a -”

My fist slammed against his face. I felt the crunch and heard the crack before he cried out, falling to the ground and cradling his nose. I kneeled down beside him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt to bring his face closer to mine. “Now you listen here, you little fuck. I don’t know what your fucking problem is with my class and I honestly have no fucks to give you, but you better get this straight right now – Katsuki may be a total pain in the ass with the temperament of a deranged chihuahua, but he’s going to make a damn good hero one day! And yeah, Sparky can be a total dunce most of the time, but he’s still a better person than you could ever hope to be. Todoroki is a total edgelord with major daddy issues, but he’s fucking working on it, and he’ll be a damn good hero, too! Every single fucker in class 1-A – minus Mineta – is amazing in their own way and every one of them will be an amazing hero!”

I took a breath, clenching my fist tighter. “Yeah, they all have their issues and I’m convinced they are certifiably insane, but at least they don’t go around putting people down! At least they fucking try and don’t give up! Maybe if you fucking stopped belittling those better than you and actually focused on yourself, you can become half as good as those fucking brats are. Finally, don’t you ever put Ochaco’s name in your filthy ass mouth. You got a goddamn problem with class A? Then you got a fucking problem with me, kid, and I’m a fucking woman – I hold grudges for fucking decades!”

His eyes were wide and full of fear, blood leaking through his fingers.

“Holy crap…”

My eyes shot up and I cursed. Standing at the end of the hall was Sparky, Sero, Ryuu, Kendo, all looking at me with wide eyes. “Fuck my life…”

Kendo cleared her throat as she approached, taking the boy by the back of his collar. “I told you to stop messing with class A, Monoma, didn’t I? Now, look at what happened. Are you alright?”

Monoma stood up on his own, his voice nasally. “Ahahaha! I’m perfectly fine! As expected from a student of class 1-A, that punch was weak!”

Ryuu sweatdropped. “That bleeding nose of yours says something different…”

He simply humphed and walked away with Kendo following behind. Ryuu bit his lip, glancing at me. He looked like he wanted to say something but I refused to meet his eyes and he sighed, following after his classmates.

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