#if you're wondering | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jtl-fics · 8 months

Text

Fluent Freshman - Part 36

The Smiths had been a happy family.

A happy couple and three happy healthy children. Their first born son 2 years into a blissful marriage, a second born son 4 years in and the third, a first born daughter 7 years in.

They spent most holidays with his Mother’s large rambunctious family but his grandma on his father’s side and her mother were always invited to any family event.

“The more the merrier.” He had heard more than one aunt or uncle say. “We know that Gavin is an only child, we don’t want to leave you alone.” They would say to his Gran. Cousins playing, laughing, rough housing, and screaming. Family friends with their own kids stopping in. The adults who could cook cranking food out happy to feed people.

The more the merrier is something FF believed with all his heart.

FF loved being an older brother.

He loved them from the moment he knew they existed. Had wanted to meet them instantly. Waiting to meet Jay and then Robin had been the longest time of his life. Meeting both of them were two of the happiest moments in FF’s entire life.

Robin had loved to reach up and pinch at his face.

Nose, ears, or even cheeks his little sister had loved to clamp her fingers around it. He used to talk when she’d do it on his nose, purposefully sounding more nasally as he talked to her as she giggled wildly. It was her favorite game in the entire world and FF had always been willing to play it with her.

Jay fell asleep against his shoulders without fail on every single car ride.

Slight weight, drool, and tiny hands that always wanted to hold his arm like a pillow. He was getting big had denied that he did that with pure horror every time FF would ask him if he was going to take a nap. Yet FF very rarely made it to a far off destination without a little bit of drool on an outfit. FF had never cared, trying not to laugh too hard with Robin as she giggled so that he wouldn’t dislodge Jay.

His gran would pinch his cheek and tell him how good he was.

A good older brother.

The happy couple wanted more kids. Wanted a bigger and bigger family. His mom wanted what she knew, his dad wanted what he never had, FF wanted more siblings.

He always felt like he had gotten his wish, but only in the worst way he could have.

His mom and dad were fighting. They were driving home from the supermarket; he vaguely remembers that. He doesn’t remember what started the fight but he remembers how Jay and Robin moved in close to him. She was pointing at him and FF doesn’t remember what she said but he remembers her hands reaching and then-

His face hurt, his ear hurt, he looked over and Jay was asleep just like he always was but he doesn’t look right. He looks and Robin is there reaching for him but she can’t reach him. “I’m scared.” She had said his name, pleading and terrified. Her face was bruised, cut, and she had a burn that looked painful.

He lied to her.

He didn’t know it at the time, but he did.

He reached out and he couldn’t touch her face, but he held her tiny hand in his own, looked her in the eyes, and lied.

“It’s going to be okay; I promise.”

Then he woke up and that hand wasn’t the one in his anymore. The world is muted but somehow his grandma’s red eyes and pale skin stand out to him. He asks what happened and she tells him.

Things don’t get better.

His mom swears his dad tried to kill them all that he swerved so they’d all die together. He can’t corroborate that story; he just remembers her hand reaching and-

How do you ask your mom if she tried to kill you?

She must see the question in his eyes regardless. Must figure that if he can’t feel anything, can’t cry, can’t emote, can’t go and lay between his sibling’s graves in the middle of the night then maybe he’ll never ask the question and she’ll never have to answer.

He learned to live not knowing and maybe his mom learned that he was a coward.

His mom’s family don’t treat him the same. He won’t denounce his father and they look at him with pity and Daniel whispers poison into his cousins’ ears until they act like he killed Robin and Jay personally.

He can’t react.

Can’t plead with his cousins to understand.

Daniel would spin it and FF would find himself on the meds again. So, he got good at pretending. He got good at faking. He got good at everything that was needed to pretend like he didn’t have a care.

Then Coach Wymack and Captain Dan Wilds were there.

He’d been getting better.

Now Daniel was here.

Nicky tucked him into bed and he tried to sleep. Even feigned it well enough for Nicky to leave and to get startled by the shouting that shortly followed.

Daniel was going to stay.

Daniel was going to try to be on the same team.

Daniel was smart, strong, and very athletic.

Daniel was going to be on the same team.

He hears when Abby and his Gran come back, and someone must have mentioned that Daniel was there to his Grandma because she comes in and tells him that it will be okay. He puts on a brave face for her, and she kisses his cheek.

He lays there in bed and stares at the ceiling feel flushed and hot with anxiety.

He gets up and walks to the fridge and finds himself frozen there.

“Smith,” Bee’s voice rings in his ears as he had tried to keep pushing everything down. “Smith, there is only so much you can bottle up and repress.” She reached out and held his hand comfortingly because touch always made him feel like he was on earth.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” he had asked, ashamed.

“Smith, you’ll have to process it. Feel what you repressed and then after you’ve felt it maybe you can let it go.” Bee had said.

He had avoided taking her advice so far, it hadn’t felt safe, and it had been too much, too scary.

Nicky’s face comes into his vision, “Smithy?” he asks and there is concern that FF hadn’t felt worthy of. “C’mon bud. Let’s get you under the covers.” His friend says.

They get to the guest room and FF crumbles. His face in Nicky’s shoulder and when Nicky asks if he can hold him while he sleeps FF nods and holds on as tight as he can. Nicky’s hand finds his back, “It’s okay Smithy, I’m right here. We won’t let that asshole mess with you. You’re safe.” Nicky had promised and-

and it’s enough.

He relaxes against Nicky and he feels safe.

So, he decides to process it.

“Dig in!” Abby said not bothering with grace. It was good. FF still missed his grandma’s cooking. It was nice to have this loud Thanksgiving like he used to get but there was something special about helping his grandma in the kitchen and the two of them sitting down to eat. He missed events with his mom’s family. Loud and boisterous and his Gran welcomed and loved by everyone there. It was special to have his time with his grandma, but he wishes it could be with his cousins and his siblings still.

It’s okay to be nostalgic.

He lets himself process it.

Captain Neil was up front and had started to play some music. Nicky and Aaron were conked out before they had even reached the entrance to the interstate. They had also slumped onto FF with Aaron asleep on his shoulder as Nicky drooled into his hair. “You can just shove them off.” Andrew said. “It’s fine.” FF said and had reminisced about the last time he’d had something like this. How maybe Jay would be this big, would he be tall like Nicky or shorter like Aaron? Would Robin be big? Would she still want to squeeze his nose and ask him to talk?

It wasn’t a bad thought, just one that hurt to consider.

He lets himself process it.

Aaron looked at him with a twisted mouth for a while before he relented, “Fine they’re not that bad. It’s a big brother thing.” Aaron rolled his eyes. FF swallowed down some acid in his throat and had pushed the smiling eggs and bacon over to Aaron who smiled back at the breakfast and proceeded to eat it. A big brother thing. FF used to be one of those but, unlike Aaron, he hadn’t managed to protect his siblings. Aaron was a good big brother and FF only had the memory of being one.

It hurt and maybe it wasn’t just his great grandma he had reached out to when he had baked those brownies. They had always always been Jay’s favorite.

Two kids hadn’t moved as the rest of the world continued to. He watched as they clung to one another, and no one seemed to take notice of them. He didn’t understand how anyone could mess them with the bright orange children’s jerseys they had on. One sporting 01 – Josten and the other 10 – Josten on the backs. He had said something to Nicky and then he was squatted down in front of them. A big brother and a little sister with a burn. He’s glad to see them off safely. Glad they’re safe and that Millie is smiling at him like he hung the stars because he got her an autograph from Captain Neil. Glad to watch Brandon be lifted up by his father. He hopes they get home safe.

They didn’t even look that much like Jay and Robin but it had made him happy.

There were other moments, small moments that had hurt that he bottled up but those didn’t take much time to process though.

He finishes processing and lets himself come back to the present.

Something tastes good in his mouth.

“…put the knife away!!” he hears Nicky yelling and looks up to find that Nicky is hiding behind Matt Boyd in Abby’s backyard.

“Just tell me where my car is Nicholas!” Andrew says advancing on Nicky with a knife drawn.

“Can we not do this with me in the middle?” Matt pleads.

“He won’t stab you so you’re the safest thing to hide behind!” Nicky exclaims.

“Where. Is. My. Car?” Andrew hisses.

“Look, I’m just saying that until that asshole is off the campus….maybe it’s for the best that you don’t have access to your car?” Nicky asks pleadingly.

“What the fuck is he drinking?!” He turns as he hears Kevin nearby.

“Milkshake, it’s fine. Doesn’t Smiths deserve something that is not one of your dogshit smoothies?” Aaron asks and he’s standing between Kevin and FF. He sees one of Kevin’s smoothies in the starting striker’s hands.

“It’s not fine!” Kevin hisses. “I didn’t approve of it!” he flails one arm.

“Kevin, you’re not actually his doctor.” Captain Neil says, “Andrew, maybe put the knife away before people call the cops on you?” Captain Neil asks pleadingly.

“I’ll put it away once Nicky tells me where he put my car.” Andrew demands.

“We just barely avoided you going to jail a couple weeks ago Andrew. I just don’t want you to do something that would result in you being there on vehicular manslaughter charges!” Nicky pled from behind Matt.

“I wouldn’t crash the Maserati just to kill him.” Andrew is facing towards them, and FF can see him roll his eyes.

“I think they’re more worried that you’ll just run him over if you see him dude.” Matt says.

FF realizes belatedly that he’s sucking on a straw to an empty milkshake only when a wrinkled hand takes it from him and puts a hot drink in his hands instead. He looks and sees his grandma smiling at him.

He looks down and-

Oh, hot chocolate. This is nice.

He takes a sip.

Oh, his grandma’s hot chocolate.

Delightful.

He watches as his Grandma makes her way towards where Andrew and Nicky were continuing to run around a resigned looking Matt.

Andrew is stopped as his Grandma hands him a cup of hot chocolate filled to the brim with marshmallows. He blinks at the offering but takes it stopping his hot pursuit of Nicky.

“Jesteś moim ulubieńcem” she says. (“You’re my favorite now.”)

Nicky makes a noise like he’s dying. “Aras!” he cries dramatically.

“Got something to say about the drink from his Gran?” Aaron asks.

“No…” Kevin says petulantly. “…but he should leave room. I formulated a new healthier smoothie that tastes good.” Kevin says holding up his smoothie.

“Doesn’t taste like ass is more accurate.” Matt says walking over now that Nicky was immobilized by his despair and Andrew was enjoying hot chocolate. “Sorry Smithster, we’re still working on getting it up to ‘tastes good’.” He says apologetically clapping FF on the shoulder.

“Fat chance of that with Kevin��s sensibilities with flavor.” Aaron says rolling his eyes. “More accurate to say lack of sensibility.” He adds after a second.

“Don’t be rude, you ran off without even warning me.” Matt points at Aaron.

"You ran off?!" Kevin demands.

FF can’t help it.

He laughs.

MASTERPOST FOR ALL PARTS OF FLUENT FRESHMAN AU

#Fluent Freshman AU #AFTG AU #AFTG OC #FF - 36 #Wop wop it's late #That Tornado really threw everything off with my timing #I would also like to thank ca-van for helping me on the Polish for this chap #If you're wondering #Yes Aaron was in on the car removal #but has no idea where Nicky put it #Hence why Andrew wasn't chasing his brother around #Matt tried to step in to help #But just became the beautiful tree that Andrew and Nicky were running around #GS heard Andrew was interested in possibly killing Daniel with his car #he has now become a favorite #She makes hot chocolate for the rest too but Andrew gets the extra marshmallows #Andreil #AFTG

280 notes · View notes

scriobh-an-iontas · 16 days

Text

Edit: Damn it I meant "morality" fuck

#taylor polls #to be lawful #to be good #law #morality #philosophy side of tumblr #philosophy #I'm only giving you two options because then you have to choose #i thought about adding a third option of “ideally yes but practically no” but figured that would be too easy so i left it out #i would have picked that third once though #if you're wondering

70 notes · View notes

brainyrot · 8 months

Text

Hey guys what if the gang went to batim though

Tw: blood

314 notes · View notes

genderqueerpositivity · 11 months

Text

This year has been so bad politically that I was quite literally counting down the days until the end of the South Carolina state legislative session--because it would have meant that we could finally catch a small fucking break from the constant attacks on abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights and education.

That day should have been last Thursday, but our clown of a governor immediately called for a special session with the intention of passing a six week abortion ban (even though a six week ban has already been overturned by our state Supreme Court).

On the bright side, 1) our Republicans are clearly still fixated on abortion, so a gender affirming care ban doesn't appear to be on the priority list for the special session, and 2) our Democrats--in an act of not being totally useless for once--have put forth over 1000 possible amendments to the anti-abortion bill, with the hopes of stalling it for as long as possible.

The downsides are that 1) this means that the session will likely continue for several weeks and 2) living in a red state in 2023 is absolute hell.

#op #south carolina #if you're wondering #McMaster is the clown #we are not okay here #politics #abortion

243 notes · View notes

touchlikethesun · 1 year

Text

one fun little thing about linguistics is that the stages speakers go through during their lives and the stages internet users go thru when integrating a new online community are actually quite similar.

so like, the first stage, broadly, when talking about language acquisition, a speaker starts with having no competence, but a huge receptiveness to the linguistic data around them. this is why babies learn to speak so fast. in online communities, a new comer won't have all the right vocab, they won't have learned/assimilated to the ways of "speaking"/communicating in the community, and can kinda easily be identified as like, not being from here (think of the way tumblr users can sometimes spot twitter migrants)

after learning the norms, and the basics of communication in a community, the speaker enters an adolescent phase. in irl speech communities, this is when someone's most receptive to new slang or linguistic innovations, but as these speakers grow up, the innovations become the standard. in online communities there's a very very similar adolescent phase (that has nothing to do with age, and just time spent in the community), where someone is fully integrated into the community and is in the centre of linguistic innovation for the community (often means coming up with new vocab, and sometimes can mean changes in other conventions like typing style, punctuation usages, etc.).

after the adolescent phase, in the adult phase, a speaker has a lot of linguistic competence (they can... speak... well... idk how else to describe it), but they are much more resistant to innovation, and hold on to the way that they spoke as a young person as being the objectively correct way to speak, looking down on the younger generation for their slang and their innovations. think of how boomers and gen x make fun of gen z slang. in online communities, i don't see this as being so much of conflictual relationship, but what is similar is that people that have been in online communities for extended periods of time will hold on to the way of communicating that was popular when they were in their adolescent phase, and won't be able to as easily adapt to the new ways of communicating, and this marks them as being an "elder", or long-time member, of the community.

the comparisons aren't always completely spot on, but there are enough parallels that i can have a lot of fun paying attention to this in the online communities that i'm a part of lol

#if you're wondering #i consider my online adolescent stage to have been in 2014/2015 (coinciding with my actual teen years which is also something of note)#and ngl i do have issues adapting to the way that people speak now with discord and can see the ways that my style of communication is just #ever so slightly #outdated #linguistics #sociolinguistics #internet linguistics

307 notes · View notes

littlefleamart · 4 months

Text

(source)

#toycore #kidcore #plush #alien #uk based #paid link #if you're wondering #the [country] based tags are going to be for when an item is under the equivalent of 20 bucks shipped in that place #i'll only tag it under 20 if it is under 20 to the US

43 notes · View notes

skzoologist · 7 months

Note

Hi hi, so I wanted to say I absolutely love your account. I was the anon who sent the very first two requests, I just didn't have the courage to send a non-anon ask. Could you maybe do something on Bae at the VMAs as Skz are performing. I think it would be really cute. It's ok if not though. Again love your account it makes me so happy

Thanks, Bye-Bye 😊

word count: ~615

warnings: none, Bae just got lost, as usual

a/n: Hey-ho! So it was you who sent those absolutely adorable and fitting first asks! Thank you so much, they still mean so much to me 😭 And congrats on sending this on non-anon, but don't ever feel pressured to do so! I accept anons and non-anons equally, so feel free to choose whichever one you feel more comfortable with. Really, thank you so much for loving this really niche and small account, it means a lot to me, especially because you are one of my regulars. I do notice you guys, don't think otherwise. I had to rush this if I wanted to post it today, since I live in Europe so everything happens when I sleep, and I also had an appointment to make today so. Yeah. Anyway, I hope you like this little drabble, I can always write more if you'd like 😊

Please let me know if I left a warning or anything out, I will add it in! Reblogs, likes and feedback are greatly appreciated!

!I don't condone anyone stealing my work and posting it anywhere without my permission, or feeding it to AI!

!This is just fiction, my interpretation of Stray Kids. By no means is this how they are and how they behave in real life!

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

Chan was befuddled.

His tallest kid was missing somehow, even though they were next to each other just 5 minutes ago.

Bae always did this, somehow disappearing unintentionally in the blink of an eye, leaving his band members in blind panic, trying to find him. Especially their leader, Chan. He swore he had white hair at this rate.

"Guys, guys, have you seen Bae? We're supposed to be on stage in like 20 minutes." - Chan asked, slight panic settling into his voice. "Where is he... ah, there. Hyung, look up." - Felix instructed immediately, the elder's eyes following.

"See that faint, moving dot on the ceiling? Somewhere under that is Bae hyung." "Wh... Is that a pointer? Why's there a pointer on him??" "Minho hyung had enough of searching for Bae hyung, so I put it into his bun, since I helped with his hair today. It's subtle enough that only we will notice it." - Hyunjin replied this time instead, amusedly looking at the moving dot of light on the ceiling. "How the... Nevermind, this is genius. Now let's go and get him." - Chan murmured out, his leader persona taking over.

The group swiftly made their way through the sea of people, careful not to bump into anyone. It was hard, but they were used to it, having been in similar situations before.

"Is that...is that Taylor Swift? Is he talking to her?" - Jisung murmured out, disbelief dripping from his voice.

And sure enough, he was right, their tallest member was standing in front of the celebrity, casually talking and... even slightly smiling? This shocked everyone, not used to their shy member doing such things. He usually just stood there silently, whenever they had to talk with strangers or acquaintances. Or even when they had to make a speech. Bae was basically a living decoration in those times.

"Bae?" - Chan asked, gaining the attention of the lost lamb. "Oh, the others are here too. Pleasure to meet you." - she introduced herself, causing everyone to immediately greet her back with a bow.

"Our time is up it seems. Take care of him boys, if everyone learns that he is this cute, even though he looks scary, everyone will be all over him. Oh, and good luck!" - and with that, she left with a smile and a wave, leaving everyone gaping at her leaving form.

"Okay dude, you gotta tell us what happened." - Jisung said as he gripped Bae's shoulders, the latter taken aback and embarrassed. "Yeah, you never do this with people! What did you do to our hyung??" - Jeongin added in, looking for the apparently lost, true Bae.

But Bae didn't really answer, he just looked away, lips pursed and cheeks dusted with a faint red colour.

"Did you get lost and she helped you?" - Seungmin said this time smugly, causing Bae to cover his face with his hand, basically confirming the puppy's statement.

This only caused everyone to burst out into laughter, gathering nearby people's attention.

"Can't believe you did it again! And S-STAY's gonna clip it, once again! They're gonna make entire compilations of you getting lost at this rate, I can't believe this!" - Felix forced out between bouts of silent laughter, trying hard not to laugh out too loudly. "Y-you mean, make more compilations? He already has several, dude!" - Jisung added salt to injury, both earning a little hit on the head from Bae. "He does, he does! Ah, don't hit me, I think it's cute." - Changbin defended himself, but it was fruitless.

"Okay, okay, I'm glad we're all happy and having fun, but we really need to go now and get ready. Especially you, our lost little otter, because you're our opening act. Now go, go go go." - Chan ushered everyone out, like a mother leading his little chicks.

74 notes · View notes