#this is a very disjointed ramble but when are they ever put together!

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

hm ok so for a while i was thinking that Wally, for the most part, only perceives reality as "Home", the neighborhood. that's his entire world, it's all he knows

but then i slapped myself and went wait. the Live Interview. Wally has been outside of Home, and has interacted with humans (presuming that the interview did actually happen, of course). and through Wally's interactions - or rather, attempt at interactions with Us, the QA, and the WHRP, it can be strongly assumed that he knows that there's an Elsewhere. there are places outside of Home. maybe he doesn't quite understand that there's another reality of sorts, but there's no way he's unaware that there's more than just the neighborhood out there

(and then of course there's the fact that Clown has said that humans are deeply involved (not a direct quote, im paraphrasing) in Welcome Home. maybe Wally interacted with them / regularly interacted with them. there could have been an adjustment period after he gained consciousness where humans helped him learn how to walk/talk/fine motor skills - this could be why he has such a seemingly inherent / desperate trust in Us & the WHRP & the QA... humans made him and cared for him. it's possible he could view them as a sort of higher power to trust & have faith in

& maybe he's been off-set or could go off-set. i mean, the houses' rooms were all different sets - the buildings themselves were empty husks, right? who's to say Wally wouldn't physically walk to the individual set pieces whenever he went over to someone's house (but then that leads me into speculation on how the puppets' consciousness works and how multiple copies of them could co-exist and wondering which is the - im getting off track. but there's all of that and then the two part "you're okay!" art pieces of Wally & Eddie, which are technically canon - dont quote me on that - and that's Another ramble/theory post i could go on about & have strong feelings on. Anyway!)

"but wait," i hear someone protest, "what about Barnaby? he was in the Live Interview too"

but was he? was he really? was that Barnaby, or was that a person in a suit playing the character Barnaby B. Beagle? i mean, if it was Barnaby, there had to be some memory fuckery going on that prevented him from either fully comprehending/realizing the situation, or just made him forget as soon as it was over.

and actually wait, Wally has to be aware of the reality discrepancy. because it was certainly him in the Interview as himself. He had to have understood on some level that either that wasn't really Barnaby, or that Barnaby wouldn't remember the interview.

(there's a connection in my head between all of this & how he would view an apple pie. "it isn't the same anymore. something's different". but i can't pin it down for the life of me.)

and with the Talking Telephone calls, Wally explicitly tells Us that he's not going to tell anyone who was behind the calls. i remember listening to the "original" prank call audio tests, which while were very similar to the canon in-website ones, have a few changes. one of which was Wally - in the tests - saying that the others weren't ready to meet Us yet. now in canon that tidbit has been swapped out for "You have to go too. You have work to do" but i think it's still implied through Wally's purposeful withholding-of-information that he doesn't think the others are ready to know. or he straight up doesn't want them to know

i mean, one little theory i previously had is that Wally wants them all to catch on to the nature of their reality and situation, but he doesn't want to - or Can't - tell them outright. they have to figure it out. and that can't was either something keeping him quiet, or because if they learned too soon / inorganically, their little puppet heads would pop into confetti like Red Guy's in dhmis 4

However my views have Changed and i'm pretty sure Wally is purposefully not telling anyone to maintain the illusion that everything is fine and can continue on as it always has. maybe it comes from a place of protectiveness, of love? whatever the motive i think he wants them all to keep being unaware and dare i say, Complacent while he "fixes" their situation.

which is delusional, but we all know Wally is digging his metaphorical claws into a desperate bid to keep everything the same / return it to its original state, leaving bloody scratches in something already rotted. or something like that!

all this to say i think it's interesting how it seems that he's the only one aware of humans / an outside/other world, yet he's so determined to stay in his lane. he wants connection & communication yet he doesn't want to leave or change. he wants help in keeping things the same (some could say in keeping Our reality & his separated) but in the process he's dooming everyone/everything and tearing down those walls himself

(Wally: i'm going to stay where i am, and you're gonna stay where you are, and we're gonna help each other keep me and my friends where we're meant to be. anyway i wonder what this sledgehammer does)

#this is a very disjointed ramble but when are they ever put together! #i have to start at point a to get to point 36 yk yk #trying to write down my thoughts is like trying to keep a firm grip on a lubed up ferret #SOAPED!!! SOAPED UP!!! I MEANT SOAP yk that doesnt make it any better. anyway moving on dont look at me #its. its. the more i think about wally the more i go insane #like he's got neurosis stacked on neurosis stacked on- #there is something soooo wrong with him <3 #homebogging #welcome home speculation #wh speculation #i do think his heart is in the right place. i do think he's trying to achieve something he thinks is good & best for everyone #but... despite being aware of more than his friends... technically knowing more Truth than them #he's more trapped by that knowledge. he's ruled by it. and he doesn't really have the - #i dont want to say capacity bc i have to believe that he Can change. he just doesnt know how / currently doesnt want to / is too scared to #but he doesn't have the freedom the others have. bc in their ignorance they can ignore their confines #in a way they're more real than wally despite living in a fabricated world as fabricated people with fabricated lives #they're authentic in their ignorance #and ive said it before and ill say it again - wally was created as a blank slate while everyone else already had a Foundation #no matter how false their memories are they Have them. they have the tools to change and want change #they already perceive themselves as more than what they were made for. they think they're People (not humans - people) dont they? #so if they learn theyre trapped... they'll want out. meanwhile wally is already stuck bc while they have - in a way - More #the neighborhood & the show are all wally has. he knows there's outside but he doesnt have any reason to Want that outside #bc why would he want to leave home? why would he want anything to change? it's his sole purpose isnt it? #idk i just think wally would benefit from being told 'you dont need a purpose / you dont need to adhere to a purpose / you are enough as Yo #doing what You want. you can just Be' #but yk. what was i talking about again #oh yeah - wally is so so aware and yet so in the dark #he's got one half of the puzzle but they're all corner/edge pieces and he's trying to fill the inside space with Nothing #hm. i wonder if he'll end up needing the other neighbors to help finish the puzzle... who's to say who's to say!! #FUCK YOU TUMBLR I HAD MORE TO SAY. CUT OFF AGAIN AGH

[perplexingluciddreams]

Welcome to my blog!

My name is Ezra but everyone calls me Ez :)

Most important stuff:

‼️ I have a lot of trouble with language. Have both receptive and expressive language delays. May word things poorly, may misunderstand/not understand things. Have social problems and struggle with interaction.

My writing on the internet is not indicative of my overall level of communication.

Please be patient with me!

Some facts about me:

🧩🌈 I have autism

💬 I am (fully) nonverbal

📱I am a full time AAC user (Grid 3 - Supercore 50)

♿️ I have other physical disabilities (severe ME/CFS, FND, suspected autistic catatonia)

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 My parents are my carers

🏳️‍⚧️ I am transgender/transsexual

Diagnosed with autism age 15. However, my autism was recognised by teachers and likely other adults at much younger age. Visibly autistic.

Fully nonverbal due to regression. Was semiverbal growing up (with unreliable speech- apraxia definition).

Not diagnosed with autism level because live in UK. Don't know what level or support needs I am considered, but need help with most bADLs and can't do any iADLs. Have continued (late) regression, still losing more skills.

I have restricted interests so only follow small amount of people and have a lot of tags blocked. If we interact regular basis, I consider same level as mutual! Just because don't follow, don't mean not like!

I try to tag things, but I get categories confused and sometimes it is a bit of a mess! Sorry, I try 🤷🏻‍♂️

Tagging system:

Personal tags:

#words from my head = Rambling, lighthearted, or short posts. Sometimes posts about my day-to-day life. Not serious topics or anything I spend a lot of time to write and edit.

#fragments of an idea = Rambling and disjointed posts, long or short, about any topics. Often have no flow and jump from one thing to the next. Usually just a first attempt at getting words out for one or more things, then there may be a more "put together" post in future.

#from the chaos of my mind = Complex, long, serious posts, with effort put into writing and editing them.

#ezra talk aac = any posts I write partly or fully with AAC, or about my personal AAC device/software. (AAC = Augmentative and Alternative Communication)

#snapshots of my life = My own pictures I take, some will have me/my face in them, some are just of things I do that I want to share.

#borrowing words = When I reblog something and relate, or the words match up with something I want to say, I am “borrowing words”.

#ezra watch = Posts about or relating to media I watch.

#ezra reads = Posts about things I read.

#ezra sews = Sewing and mending.

#ezra puzzles = Jigsaw puzzles.

#ill never get any sleep at this rate = Ongoing saga of posts, either about insomnia, or posted at a time when I really should be sleeping…

#reblog = Self explanatory, any reblogs.

#self reblog = When I reblog my own post with an addition. (If someone reblogs my post and then I reblog again to reply/add on, it will be tagged with both “reblog” and “self reblog”.)

#🍋 anon = Friend who sends asks :D

Other things I always tag:

#ask

#anon ask

#swearing

#long post

#very long post

#image

#gif

#video

#link

#described

#undescribed

#flash warning

My interests (some special interest, some short-term fixation):

Moomin

Sewing! (especially visible mending)

jigsaw puzzles 🧩

BBC Merlin

Buffy the Vampire Slayer + Angel: The Series (/Buffyverse)

Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Person of Interest (especially Root and Shaw)

Music (used to play clarinet, most important to me ever. But love all kinds music, especially right now metal!)

Languages (trying learning Swedish. Struggle but enjoy slow learning!)

Here is a post where I explain my journey with communication throughout my life:

Here is a post where I write about my experience with gender as a nonverbal autistic:

#introductory post #perplexingluciddreams #words from my head #from the chaos of my mind #long post #very long post #link

[some-pers0n]

infodump about tf2 ships por favor

i am very curious about the silly violent gay old men

You have no idea what you've just unleashed. You just asked me, the person who has to have an opinion on borderline everything, my thoughts and feelings on the ships for the game I've been hyperfixating on for over half a year.

This is gonna be probably a long one full of unhinged and disjointed rambles about Science Party, so click if you wanna see that. I love rambling about TF2 and these guys, which is funny since 99% of this is me being delusional and making stuff up (despite talking about it like it's canon).

Now, I should put something here first and foremost. I don't actually...ship any of the characters romantically that much. Even my OTP is literally a queer-platonic pairing. It's mostly because I see the mercs as all being good buddy chum friends, despite them all being queer as hell. Yes, I love and reblog ship art and ship discussions like a madman, but I think my aro/ace brain just likes thinking of them more as all being pals. Also doesn't help I headcanon a third of them as being aro/ace (though only one is negative/repulsed by romance and sex, the others are neutral and positive respectively).

I suppose let's start off with the ship that's entirely rotted my brain: Science Party, or Engie/Medic. I don't think I've quite been this obsessed over a relationship as I've been with this one. Like,, any other ship I've encountered, I either like or don't like them. If I like them, I feel inclined to make content about it and just have some fun with this.

Not with this. I think this is the only ship I've ever encountered that I actually 'ship' with how passionate and in-love with it I am about it. It's quite fun and has lead me to start writing my newest longfic as well.

Science Party I just...adore. The dynamic of two evil geniuses together already ignites a neuron in my brain, but there's more to it. Medic is an unhinged and impulsive wildcard that does anything that crosses his mind. He's got an extremely inflated ego and a pretty big god complex. Then, you got Engie, who is like Medic in every regard as well. The catch is that he's a bit more controlled. Don't mistake that for him being more sane or anything though. I feel like he admires Medic for just dropping everything and not giving a shit about looks or appearances, instead being his true, uninhibited self.

Then you get to the interactions and just...me little heart... I've always envisioned Medic as being an uncaring and apathetic guy when it comes to others and their concerns. Low empathy, if you will. However, as his relationship grows with Engie, he begins to care about him just a smidge more, which is saying a lot for Mr. The Healing Is Not As Rewarding As The Hurting. He cares about Engie, enough so to be partners with him rather than friends.

Oh, I should also probably explain that a bit. Medic doesn't exactly like being 'friends' with people, so instead he's partners with Engie. I like the word, partners. If you also notice, I only use the word 'partner' in SAR whenever I'm referring to their relationship.

Anyways, Engie helps Medic open up and feel a bit more. But how does Medic help Engie? Well, I feel by being his unhinged and 'he has 57 mental illnesses and is banned in most public spaces' self, Engie sees somebody he wants to be. Medic doesn't care. He is happy and unchained by responsibilities and a commitment to be a functioning member of society. I could go into why Medic feels this way, but I'll probably end up just saying something along the lines of: "SOCIETY! SOCIETY!!!"

So, Engie has got some issues for lack of a better term. Even as a merc, Engie likes keeping up that mask of being a light-hearted good ol' Texan. He likes that persona, not only because it's the one he's always used but it's just a nice, likeable personality, but he also likes the idea of just going 'fuck it, we ball' like Medic. Medic encourages him to be more creative and detach from that sort of mindset. He tells him that he should do what makes him happy as opposed to doing what his family wants him to do.

They're just...really nice together. I don't know how else to put it. I always saw them as really similar in that regard, both being intelligent and highly regarded members of the team for their supportive roles. Beyond that, they're both clearly nuts in a similar way. They're just...the sillies. I love them.

I've got a lot of opinions on a bunch of other ships, but that's a discussion for another time (or until somebody pokes me about them). Science Party is the one I feel the most about by far, though.

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #medic tf2 #science party #engineer tf2 #They're just so fun and silly <3 #astronic #sp-rambles

[takearisk-xo]

Hello, what made you finally take a “risk” into fanfiction and being comfortable with submit your work on A03/Tumblr? I’ve just recently started actively uploading some HP fanfics and I still feel nervous when I go to press the publish button. I try not to let my nerves get to me so instead of checking how many “hits” I get, I read fics from other others just to keep my mind from overthinking.

Also, wanted to say that I love the interactions you have with your fellow readers it’s beautiful, really. Seeing how they come together and read your writing. Not just that but it seems like you don’t know the impact that you have on your readers and when you receive an ask by someone telling you how much they love your work, it’s adorable how your at a loss for words. Because you have a great talent, and like the saying goes we are our own worst critics, even if you somehow feel like one scene or chapter isn’t the greatest, you never know if that scene/chapter means the world to one of your readers.

No matter what I hope you know that your writing will always be special and it’s truly one of a kind. Especially the way you come up with the details and dialog, it’s like the reader can get teleported into the story with the way you write each scenes. Also, the way you create the Daily Prophets are simply AMAZING, love it so much its truly a work of magic 😉. I always wonder how you came up with creating those and how long does it take you, for you to enjoy the final product to place in the story. It’s very creative and interesting to see, it feels magical, anytime I see a Daily Prophet in the beginning of the story.

I hope you the absolute best in your writing adventure and always know that even no matter what, you matter and the words that you come up with have the power to take someone away from the world and into a place that you’ve created even if it’s just for a few minutes.

No matter what ship you write for, do what you love the most because at the end it’s your story! ❤️

❤️

I hope you have a good night/morning 🥺

first of all: AAAHHHHFLSKDFJASDKJLFHADSGKJF

OKAY, now that we've got that out of the way. you are so lovely and absolutely the sweetest and i genuinely cannot comprehend how i ended up with so many of you being so nice to me all the time. because from my point of view i am just a person hanging out behind her computer screen in-between bouts of real life. like i cannot stress that enough. i am probably the most boring, underwhelming, thirty-something, toddler mom you will ever meet. so when people come to me and have.. like.. theories and analysis and excitement over this night-time hobby of mine, i get all blushy and giggly about it because i'm excited about it too! and i think you are absolutely right, we are our own worst critics and so when a lot of what i'm pulling together feels disjointed or mediocre, hearing that it still made an impact even though i was less than thrilled about it, quite literally translates into all-consuming motivation to keep going.

like just you saying you love the daily prophet articles had me scrolling through the ones i've made but haven't used yet to see if i can drop a lil sneak peek because you like??? an idea i had???

anyways, i'll stop rambling about my very transparent people pleasing tendencies.

as for your first question, i don't think we, as writers, ever truly get past the anxiety/anticipation of sharing our work. that's sort of the whole thing right? writing is a shared medium, it doesn't manifest its full meaning until it is shared. but it's also terrifying to share a bit of yourself, a bit of your soul, with someone and invite interpretation and criticism. that's really fucking scary. that's probably why chapter 17 is in a perpetual draft because i am very much afraid of putting myself out there and it not be good enough. so, i think it is absolutely okay to admit and validate those fears but i also think it's important to have people who can ground you and remind you why you are writing. i've been writing and posting fanfic for over ten years and i still spiral and overthink and obsess over stats, but thankfully i have really good people around me who can bring me back down to earth and whose opinions i trust when they tell me that something is or isn't working within a plot/dynamic/chapter. and i do the same for them.

i'd say that is the best thing you can do? make writer friends? find people you trust and who have similar tastes and interests and do fandom life together? because just like writing is a shared medium, fandom is a collective experience. it's meant to be shared.

the last thing i'll share with you as a new-ish writer wanting to take up the fanfic hobby, is that writing is the type of activity where you are not going to see immediate improvement or growth. it's just not. and it's also not something that can really be forced when it comes to success. you can't make people connect with your stories, so cherish the ones that do and keep reading and watching and writing until the story consumes you instead of you directing the story. at least, in my experience, that's what i've found to be the most rewarding, when i know the characters so well and have their voices so ingrained in my head that they are telling me how the story should go, instead of the other way around.

thank you so much for this message! please feel free to come talk to me off anon if you want <3 i'm always down to clown

#anon #answered #screaming crying throwing up etc

[birlwrites]

hi hi 🤡🎶⛔❌👀 <333

🤡 What’s a line, scene, or exchange you’ve written that made you laugh?

aghsgkhsjdkf i make myself laugh all the time, but i'm going to supply a few specific things:

the first one is from chapter 16 set those ghosts alight, a couple of lines that always make me giggle:

Roping Snape in on Regulus's plan is going pretty well, all things considered. "Absolutely not," Snape says.

in general, snape in stga makes me laugh - every conversation he has with regulus is like he's actively preparing someone's epitaph

and i think most people follow me here for my hp fic but imo, the actual funniest stuff i've written is for all for the game - i have a booktuber andrew fic and a series of andrew and jean being roommates that very often make me cackle

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

i generally listen to music to match a specific vibe, rather than having playlists for particular wips - recently i haven't been listening to much music while i write because it does often distract me and i need to really focus to get lachrimae right afjslghjkf, but if i were you by nothing but thieves is a go-to whenever i need to write something that feels intense (and i do sometimes just flat-out loop one song for hours if it has the right vibes afjslghsjkdf, that's often the best balance for me between listening to music and not getting distracted by it)

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

oh plenty!! i have a lot of ideas that just kind of go away and become fuel for other ideas. one that actually got pretty far before i stopped working on it has a working title of 'murder husbands: the accidental longfic' - in which regulus and evan murder their fathers in cold blood (with some unknowing help from the order of the phoenix) to become wizengamot lords and cause problems for voldemort and the death eaters

i say it 'got pretty far' but i just mean that it's almost 17k of disjointed scenes lmao, i never figured out where it was going. it's the first fic i ever wrote with heather as a character though! also the first fic i ever wrote with katherine - she and regulus almost get into a duel at evan's father's funeral agshlgjdklf

❌ What’s a trope you will never write?

fan of the show/book/whatever somehow ends up in the universe of the show/book/whatever - i guess that's more of a premise than a trope but it just doesn't hold any appeal for me

ok an actual trope - when 2 siblings are romantically interested in the same person. i can't see myself ever writing that. i don't have like, an articulated *reason* for it - it just doesn't vibe with my brain, i think maybe because as far as romantic drama goes, i prefer when the drama is really centered on whatever's endgame - so love triangles tend to feel kind of aimless to me, and then when there's additional sibling drama wrapped up in it i just don't vibe with it

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

i'm talking about lachrimae a lot rn already but i think it qualifies ajfslhgjksdf - there's a mystery at the center of it, which makes it hard for me to ramble the way i want to without spoiling the surprise, but i will say i'm adding gifted kid burnout angst to it because idk i like to really twist the knife as i'm writing i guess??? regulus wasn't going through enough already???

seriously though i'm super excited for it - chronologically, it's a LOT messier than ttdl, and i'm having a lot of fun with the combinations of flashbacks and visions and memories. putting it together kind of feels like assembling a scrapbook - i have all the excerpts from hydromanipulation written out and ready to go!

<3 <3 <3

send me fic writer emoji asks!

#ask games #should i make an inbox tag

[mhsargent]

48

This one is a bit rambly, disjointed, and self-indulgent.  Feel free not to read.  Really. 

48 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 = 2^4 x 3^1. 

I’ve survived another lap around the sun.  This last one was a far nearer thing than I am (yet) comfortable talking about, but I find myself starting my 49th lap grateful to still be here.

As some of you know, (and for the rest, I am telling you now) I have been in an on-going state of chronic migraine for the last 9 ½ years.  There have been more intense and less intense stretches over those years, but this last 9 months has been about the worst I have ever experienced.   A little over 4 weeks ago, after starting on a new medication, I started to experience notable and significant improvements.  It was only then that I really became aware of how badly off I’ve been since October of last year.  (Spoiler: it was bad, y’all.)

As I come back to the world, I am grateful to still be experiencing life.  I appreciate the ability to listen to music and to participate in conversation.  I am happy to be able to wash dishes and reply to email. I am collecting little moments of simple joy to balance the frustration at not being able to do more.  

And so, as I try to set a sustainable pace for this next lap, I am making efforts to spend more time resting and healing for the sake of rest and health rather than as preparation for greater and renewed  productivity. I have been learning (the hard way) that how I want to value things and how I actually value things do not always match when it comes to my own behaviour.  If I believe (and I do) that every person is inherently valuable, then I must believe that of myself as well (I don’t I’m working on it.) Consequently, I must watch how much I justify my value to myself by tying it to my work, or lack of it.    

I am putting a priority on writing. 

One of the first things that I did when I discovered I had a brain again was to complete a number of outstanding edits on a paper, brainstorm and flush out a new paper, and, surprising myself, the first notes for a book, which is part of a short series of books, also sprang out of my fingertips onto the page before I had to stop myself from overdoing it (I was too late.)

This was a clear indication to me that writing, something I have done little of outside of academics for the past 25 years, is still very important to me.  I have written or edited for at least 10 minutes (often longer) almost every day for the past couple of weeks.  I had forgotten how much I love the act of putting words down on paper.  Sometimes they’re good words, sometimes they are awful and cliched.  But, what I think I enjoy most about them all is that they are, for the brief period of time, my words.  And, until I share them with the world, the consequences of these words are only mine.  We can spend time together, change, invert, fight, love, and come to rest - all without any consequence or responsibility to anyone else.  A tempting place to get lost in, without a doubt, but also a place where I can rest and heal and play.  So, more writing of all sorts - academic, personal, fictitious, and frivolous!

Carol Anne’s and my 23rd wedding anniversary is only a couple of weeks away.  We were engaged for a little over 2 years before that, meaning that we have well completed our first quarter century together.  I am more in love with my wife now than when we got married. I love the marriage we’ve made together.  Despite all the challenges, difficulties, struggles, frustrations, set-backs, and disappointments, Carol Anne and I have fun together just by being together - now, still, and always.  There is no doubt in my mind that even if I could live life without her, I don’t want to.  I think we’ll just keep doing this instead.

Fourty-eight laps around the sun!  And, in that time I have contributed to the manifestation of 4 other human beings: Sam, Nathan, Kathleen, and Martin.  It is no secret that I had no desire to be a father.  Nonetheless, I have found myself to be a father to four remarkable and very different human beings, all of whom are now old enough to vote and to drink in most provinces.  I have thought a lot about my kids recently.  I’ve been thinking about how much being a father has changed not only what I thought I was going to do with my life, but how I live my life.  My perspective, since late 1993, has carried the weight of parenthood.  I have been a parent for nearly 30 years, and I cannot remember how I saw the world before that.  

Being a parent has made me a better person.  But, more than that, learning how to be a parent to my children - both the failures and and the successes - and learning from my children has made my life better.  Besides the fact that my kids are interesting, engaging, and kind (no small thing in itself,) my kids continually challenge me to move into the future with them.  It is a wonderful feeling to have my children not only want me around, but also want me to share, to some degree, in their world.

Somehow, somewhere among the 4 dozen laps I’ve completed so far I picked up an abiding, stubborn, and persistent belief in humanity.  I think we’re worth the effort.  I think we are worth the effort because I have seen that we, individually and collectively, can learn. Much of the evidence argues to the contrary - I know!  Nonetheless, find myself committed to human beings, and to the learning journey of human beings.  And so, whatever the next dozen laps have in store for me, I think I will still be involved in learning; and teaching; and education; and the conscious and deliberate evolution of human learning systems.  Some of this will involve writing and publishing.  Some of this will involve working directly with learners and teachers.  Some of this will involve just being. I’m excited!

If you have made it this far in this indulgent, quasi-reflective post, I hope it was worth it for you. This is the start of me putting words out there into the public world just to put them out there.  Thank you for reading them.

Please enjoy the picks of the bandana gang

Chai - pink

Jess - black

Mocha - red

Paddy - blue

[woodchoc-magnum]

9-1-1 4x04 Reaction

Spoilers under the cut

Buddie for comfort:

Saving the parents for last because jesus fucking christ that’s a rant, and also, I’m functioning on very little sleep so this may be completely disjointed and rambly:

I am in love with Buck and Eddie trying to solve the crime together and I wish they would re-film that scene without face masks

Because they so would be into true crime, like Eddie pretends to be cool but he’s a secret nerd, and he loves to nerd out with Buck, so it makes total sense that they watch crime documentaries together like COME ON

I’m incorporating this into a fic somehow

May Grant the 911 operator 🔥🔥🔥

Gratuitous shirtlessness in the form of Albert and Chimney, thank you very much 911

Albert fucking RUNNING AWAY FROM CHIMNEY 10/10 comedy

And then Chimney RUNNING AWAY FROM THE REST OF THE TEAM 10/10 comedy as well

Albert throwing a whole wheel of brie into the oven? Like just throwing it in there? Literally just throwing it in there

I don’t know why they added that in but I’m not mad at it

Chimney making friends with the mad bomber after the preview was like “IS CHIMNEY GONNA DIE????” no he’s gonna make a new friend and then brain him with an oxygen tank duh

Well, I guess it’s about that time to talk about the worst parents in the show, so here we go:

Some of this is gonna be speculation because obviously we don’t know how this all played out, but we can make some guesses. My theory is that Daniel the dead brother died... perhaps saving Buck when he was only very little, hence Buck not remembering it, and his parents... asking Maddie not to tell him?

What even the FUCK though

Why would you ask your NINE YEAR OLD DAUGHTER TO LIE TO HER LITTLE BROTHER ABOUT THEIR OTHER BROTHER WHO DIED

And how the hell do you cover something like that up? Did they simply move away from friends and family so no one would ever talk about it? Did they box up all the pictures and memories and everything and just... fucking... MOVE ON? Or not move on, because they have obviously never forgiven Buck for whatever the hell happened.

Okay, this is my speculation:

The parents are somehow responsible - for example, an accidental drowning (I don’t think this is what happened, this is just an example). So hypothetically, they’re at the beach, and Buck is a toddler, and the parents aren’t paying attention and he wanders into the sea and gets swept out; Daniel comes to his rescue and dies in the act of saving him (this thing happens in Australia all the time, hence why I’m using it as an example - swim between the flags, gang!).

So then you have the parents who are ultimately responsible for not paying attention, you have the unavoidable tragedy of one of the children dying, and the way they coped with this terrible tragedy was to place the blame on Buck (even though it wasn’t his fault, at all) and pretend that Daniel had simply never existed.

This means that Buck spends his life living in the shadow of the older brother who was glorified, who died saving him, and Buck has no idea why he can never please his parents and why they don’t love him. This is why they’re checked out as parents, because one of their kids died, and instead of seeking therapy, they decided to live a lie and blame their son for something he had no fucking control over.

So setting all that aside, let’s talk about these two absolute fucking pieces of shit.

They’ve alienated their children so much that both of them are absolutely terrified when they turn up. Buck is petrified. He’s spent his whole life never living up to their expectations, never feeling good enough, or worthy enough, constantly being put down - no wonder he ran away to California to put some distance between them. And he’s finally in a good place, going through therapy, dealing with his issues, and now bam - his parents are back in town to screw up all of his hard work.

And Maddie’s just as freaked out, because she’s trying to protect Buck from them. I feel like she has good intentions but her mistake is wanting Buck to have a relationship with people who don’t necessarily want to have a relationship with him, and for telling them about him being in therapy (which I still don’t understand, but I guess maybe the next episode will reveal the answer). To be clear, I don’t think Maddie is wrong for having kept this secret. She was manipulated into it by her parents when she was only a child, and that is not her fault, at all. She’s been told she’s doing the right thing and she hasn’t questioned it, but now, she is.

And, importantly - if her parents were checked out mentally and emotionally, she had to do a lot of the heavy-lifting and parenting when it came to Buck, when she was just a little girl herself. Maddie is the reason Buck is as wonderful as he is - she raised him.

Now, back to the pieces of shit:

They didn’t like Doug, so they washed their hands of Maddie, even though they lived in the same fucking town. So she was getting beaten up by her absolute monster of a husband, and ending up in hospital, and they were doing fucking nothing to intervene or help her.

THEY DIDN’T EVEN GO TO HER WEDDING. THEY SHOWED HER NO SUPPORT AT ALL. LIKE I CANNOT. All because they DISAGREED? SHE’S STILL YOUR DAUGHTER, like oh my god, I can’t even.

She had to flee across the country to Buck in California to finally escape him, because their parents didn’t care enough to help. Motherfuckers.

And then the whole “we don’t do hospitals” - bitch, they are your fucking CHILDREN. If your CHILDREN are in hospital, you are supposed to CARE. Buck got crushed by a ladder truck, he had an embolism and nearly died, he went through a tsunami and NOTHING? Nada? Maddie had to kill her husband after he nearly killed her, and NOTHING? Buck had to call to tell them what had happened!

And then to start crying and asking "I don’t know what you expected us to do?” - like, bitch, FUCKING ANYTHING?

I mean

I cannot with these people

What kind of white WASP-y nonsense is this

Let me tell the story of when I had appendicitis - I was taken to the hospital by my friend at night, my mum lives two hours away - when she found out that it was appendicitis and I’d be going in for surgery, she jumped in the car in the middle of the night and drove two hours to be with me, and I was a grown-ass woman at the time. It is not normal for parents not to care when their children are sick/injured/being beaten almost to death by their abusive husbands/getting crushed by a ladder truck. You mean to tell me that the footage of the crowd lifting the truck off their son didn’t go viral? That they didn’t see that?

Fuckers.

You don’t like something so you just bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist? Your kids aren’t perfect so you just wash your hands of them? Their problems don’t matter, not when it’s all about you?

Narcissists.

Blaming the kids for everything, manipulating Maddie into doing their bidding - and still manipulating her as an adult, by bringing her gifts and driving across the country and being all, “we want to be grandparents!” after everything? After letting her husband nearly kill her and blaming her for having bad taste in men? FUCKKKKKK

And the fucking BABY BOX. Do not even get me started on how ANGRY I WAS.

Like, I have friends with kids (I have cats, personally) so I know that they’re busy, but to not have anything, as if he’s just not worth it.

Like I can’t

It breaks my heart to think about his face, and the realisation setting in... to know that your parents don’t love you? To have lived with that your whole life? It’s so fucking gutting.

Like, obviously I am extra emotional because I’m running on empty today, but god damn this episode just came along and punched me right in the face.

Also, I’m making a BIG CALL, they’re going to use the song ‘Daniel’ by Elton John in the next episode:

Daniel my brother you are older than me Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won't heal? Your eyes have died, but you see more than I Daniel you're a star in the face of the sky

100% they’re using that song, I’m calling it now, and if they don’t, it is a wasted opportunity.

Okay, let’s end on a good note, because this has been a rant:

Eddie’s open concern for Buck; the fact that Buck tells Eddie about his therapy, that he feels comfortable opening up to him - that Eddie was there, watching Buck beat the shit out of the boxing bag and listening to him, and taking his side and reassuring him... that is next level shit and I am here for it.

I am not here for the return of Ana in the next few episodes but that’s a future rant

Hopes for Buck Begins:

That the firefam - his real family - will rally around him, and that Buck and Maddie will take a united stand against their parents and tell them to get the fuck out of their lives.

Also I kinda want Bobby to meet the Buckley’s? Just... for him to be horrified, I guess? I don’t know, but I want Bobby to meet them and understand how awful they are and offer Buck some comfort as his surrogate father.

I would like Buck to be hugged by someone who loves him, please, because he needs it.

And selfishly, I want some kind of Buck, Eddie and Christopher scene, because they are also his family. Everyone in this show has their little family unit, and Eddie and Christopher are Buck’s.

Ana be damned

#911 reaction #911 spoilers #911 season 4 #a rant to end all rants #i have a lot of feelings about how awful the buckley parents are #and i ranted about them in here

[darkpoisonouslove]

Casino Royale Review

Everyone is swooning over this movie and I’m here swimming against the stream as I often do. What can I say? I wasn’t really impressed with the movie and I will tell you why because I need to ramble at the cost of strangers on the internet potentially yelling at me. Now this is my opinion and you are welcome to discard it.

The action scenes had some really good ideas in them and the execution was great but I don’t think they were placed correctly in the movie. The longest two action sequences are in the beginning of the movie - the first one at the tenth minute and it goes on forever (not to mention that Bond is chasing a guy that really doesn’t matter all that much and you don’t give a damn about it because you have no idea what he’s after). And the second one is also long which kind of undercuts the action at the culmination of the story which was much shorter and a lot of it was less spectacular. (In all fairness, the building in Venice collapsing was a pretty big spectacle so no complaints there.) It felt to me like they didn’t pace themselves well.

The villain wasn’t interesting to me. I appreciate that they showed him struggling with his own problems when he got beat up by the people he owed money to but when we were supposed to be scared of him, that kinda didn’t work for me. We know that he’s supposedly been manipulating the stock market for years to fund terrorism so he’s supposed to be both smart and dangerous but that doesn’t really come through to me. I hear people talking about his menacing presence and I... don’t see it. If that’s the best villain the James Bond movies have to offer, then there’s probably no point in me watching the rest. Not that I didn’t enjoy all of the poker shenanigans but it just didn’t feel threatening since we never even got a faint idea of what the villain plans to do with the money specifically. He’s in a tight spot and that takes away from how menacing he could be to me.

The climax was pretty anticlimatic since the main villain of the movie died a while before the end of the movie and Bond wasn’t even the one getting rid of him. And then it feels like the movie’s heading to a close only for it to keep going. At least we got a proper action sequence to end it but it felt super disjointed and choppy in its construction. I really wanted it to just end by the time the last twist rolled in and the actual climax started.

The romance did not work for me for a moment. The scene on the train felt super... not forced, but manufactured. Like, the dialogue flowed between the characters but it sounded like something someone wrote for a movie because they thought it would sound cool (and a lot of Bond’s other lines also sounded like that). And they knew each other for what? Two days? And she’s suddenly changed his whole way of life because she had a reaction to murder that the general person does? Excuse me if I’m not impressed. This was the most nonexistent romance I’ve ever seen and I guess I could blame it on that that the emotional theme of Bond getting “broken” by the betrayal did not land for me. The characters also didn’t feel developed at all to me. Maybe it’s because I haven’t watched many other James Bond movies before but I just didn’t feel like I knew the characters by the end of the movie.

What I really loved in the movie was the detail work. I felt that was done with a lot of attention and was very successful. There were several moments when little things caught my eye and I was amazed with the way they clicked together to let you know what is going on. Or it was simply a cool thing to add. That was great and I have zero complaints about it.

Now this is something that was brought to my attention while listening to other people’s takes on the movie and I have to put a little - what I would call - disclaimer here. I did not pay much attention to the technical parts of the movie such as camera work and editing so I have nothing to say about that. In fact, I will concede to the popular consensus that the movie did exceptionally well in that regard because that is the truth when I look at the points that were brought to my attention.

I don’t hate the movie. There were things that I enjoyed about it but I don’t understand all of the praise and hype that people give it. I guess it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

#casino royale #james bond #movies #review #movie review #thoughts

[deancaskiss]

I feel really empty about the finale, I expected to cry and have all the emotions but instead I had a few seconds of sadness with Dean and just so much emptiness. All of the characters deserved better, Dean... from raising his little brother to having an Angel fall for him deserved so much better. He finally started to believe in 15x18 that he wasn’t the ��ultimate” killer but someone who did things out of love, someone coming to terms with who he is... and they kill him like that. They pulled a PLL but for their main character.

Sam... a faceless wife and a horror party city wig. He deserved so much better as well. At the end of it, I get why they had them reunited, living the life they’ve dreamed about forever but Dean died so young, never experiencing anything in life.

And Cas... oh my god Cas. This hurts so much and I refuse to accept any of it, just fully living in fanfiction canon at this point. They made him vulnerable, they made him fall in love and they wasted so much. They wasted an arc that changed the dynamic of the show for a quick second and I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay of that.

I wanted to do a rewatch, I actually wanted to start really soon but I just can’t right now. This show came into my life when I needed it the most, I was in a dark place and it brought light to my day. But now I don’t even have a happy finale to look forward to if I ever did rewatch. I have characters who deserved so much better and deserved so much love.

I’m really sorry about the rambles and the rant, I probably didn’t even fully explain everything I’m feeling. I’m just upset and numb and empty towards it all. I don’t wanna lose this show and I don’t wanna lose the characters but I just can’t accept the finale and be fully content with it. I just can’t...

Hi nonnie. I just watched the episode and I honestly feel the exact same way you do. I feel empty and numb. Dean’s death did make me cry, but that was it. I had no real large moments of joy. Nothing that made me smile or feel like I was watching my boys be who they really are. It felt disjointed and disconnected and I’m very upset about it. I’m grasping to the small details like Dean and Sam being in Heaven together, and driving Baby around forever.

Your description of Dean is so spot on. Saying he deserved better for everything he’s given. He deserved a life. He deserved love. He deserved to live and enjoy the world he spent his whole life protecting and saving. I completely agree with you that 15x18 gave us this new light for Dean- him seeing his fight for love and seeing himself filled with not anger or rage or killer blood, but love for his family and the ones he cares so deeply for. That’s the Dean Winchester I fell in love with. That’s the Dean Winchester who stole our hearts. This version tonight was not him. This was not Dean. Dean never gives up. Dean fights for his family to the end and beyond. Even typing this is making me cry. His death felt unfuifilled. Dean was meant to go out in a blaze of glory, not on some measly vamp hunt. It almost...

Okay, I’m not sure if anyone has said this, and I’m expecting hate for saying this. But that death made a mockery of his character. It was a slap in the face. The Greatest Hunter died on his first hunt after Chuck was powerless. And it makes it feel cheap. Like Chuck was the only reason he was a good hunter and without Chuck writing it, Dean was nothing. And I can’t accept that. It utterly destroys me. We’ve seen Dean prove himself over and over again without Chuck (ie “we’re making it up as we go”) and yet here he is, dying on their first hunt after Chuck as if his entire arc as a hunter has been a waste. It completely destroys his character. It makes the whole show a farce. Why show us Dean and Sam being something beyond Chuck’s control and the minute they finally take Chuck off the map, Dean dies in a salt-and-burn easy level hunt. It crushes my soul. I can’t fathom how hurt it makes me feel.

Having Sam not end up with Eileen felt cheap and wrong too. Why lead us with all these saileen hints for seasons and then drop that and have him a marry some rando we don’t even get to see. That’s not the Sam I fell in love with. That’s not him. I can’t accept that. He was devasted over losing Eileen in 15x18 and then we never see her again. Sam deserved the world after everything he’s sacrificed and I cannot begin to describe how upset I am over it. Like yes, I wanted him to have a wife and kids and to retire and be normal, but this felt like an imitation of that hope. Dean deserved to live longer in the world he helped to save. And I refuse to believe Sam would take Dean’s word and not try to save him or bring him back. That’s not who they are.

Okay, I’m going to try not to ramble here because it’s 3am and I’m not going to get any sleep but of all the characters, Cas deserved the fucking world and more. I am utterly desvasted over what they did to Cas. He died without love. He never knew if his family loved him and God I’m now full on sobbing onto my keyboard. Cas opened up, gave his heart to Dean, and died thinking it was for nothing. They could do a whole spin-off just for Cas and even that wouldn’t be enough honestly. I completely agree with you about living in fanfiction. You’re so valid in your feelings over Cas’ wasted arc. You summed up how I feel, and how so many of us feel. Cas gave the show new purpose, new direction, new hope, and they squandered it.

Oh nonnie, I completely understand how you feel about the rewatch. It’s so hard to fathom watching again knowing this is what it leads to. I understand why you can’t right now. What you feel is so valid and so honest and you deserve all the time you need to process everything. My advice? Take time. Find your happiness in the show again- whether it be characters or scenes or specific episodes that made you fall in love. And start with that. And when you’re ready, start rewatching, but only go as far as you want. You do not have to watch the finale again. THe ending can be wherever you want it to be. Do not let this be canon. The show is in the fans hands now. Make it whatever you want it to be. The writers cannot take your personal experience with the show away. It sounds like this show was a lifesaver for you, and that it helped you when you needed to get out of a dark place. I encourage you to find that again. Find scenes. Find episodes or seasons. Characters or plot points. Anything. Find the things about the show that made you happy and hold on. Don’t let go. No matter how badly they slaughtered the ending, no one can take your personal experiences away. No one can take that power from you. The show creators don’t have that power over you. Tell them to f’ off and you keep the parts of the show that saved you. No one can take that from you.

Please do not ever apologize for rambling to me. You can always always always come and ramble to me. I’m sorry my response got personal and long-winded and rambling too. I didn’t mean to get quite so full-throttle but your ask really made me feel things. Also, you don’t have to have all your feelings together right now. You are allowed to be feeling things you can’t express right now. That’s okay. All your feelings, even the ones you can’t put into words, are valid and acceptable. Everything you said and feel is so understandable. You are not alone, I promise. Take some time to grieve and mourn and be upset and angry and empty. When you’re ready, I promise you will find happiness in the show again. I promise. You are not losing the show or the characters. They’re yours. They’re ours. They are no longer in the hands of the creators/writers. They belong to the fans now. We create the stories and the future now. You don’t have to accept the finale... now or ever. You are allowed to be upset. Everything you feel is completely fair. Just know that I love you, that the fandom loves you, and we will be here to help you pick up the pieces.

#anon #anonymous #asked and answered #spn 15x20 #spn spoilers #rambles #this ended up being super long #i got a bit carried away #sorry for the tldr #my point is that you are valid in your emotions and you are not alone #i love you bb #stay strong

[rvmmm21]

. you know who i am? part end .

*yawn* i can now sleep for a while. thanks guys! if you read this all the way through, can i get some pocky pls? i’m craving it right now.

part 1′s here.

part 2′s here.

[badgirl/bully!joohyun x freshman!seungwan]

...

Seungwan, the poor fool, would never have guessed.

She thought she was in deep? Hah! Joohyun was yelling at her to stop wading in the kiddie pool and come join her in the deep end.

If only she’d been able to see past her own emotions to realise it was Joohyun who had started this whole mess by making them partners all those weeks ago.

~~~~~~~~~~

Seulgi, like any sane human being, disapproves greatly when Seungwan lays her options down on the table one morning.

“Mmph!” she grunts, shaking her head and hastily swallowing the last mouthful of sashimi before staring at her delusional friend, “no, absolutely freakin no way.”

“I-I mean it’s more like paraphrasing…” Seungwan offers, shrinking into herself when she sees the other girl grow more frustrated by the second.

“Stop it, Seungwan,” she interjects, massaging her temples to soothe the ache, “you literally told me you were planning to ‘lift quoted texts and mush them together’. I mean, come on, that’s plagiarism plain and simple. Stop trying to defend it.”

“B-but Seul, I don’t have a choice!”

“Really? Cheating? Hello, is Son Seungwan home? This isn’t you, Wan-ah, you sound crazy! And so is she! And that’s literally – ah wait, no that makes it perfect… aish forget I even said anything.”

Seungwan mirrors her concern. “I think she might have actually made me insane, Seul. I’ve never thought about cheating… ever!”

It’s true. Seungwan’s always been a tucked-in shirt, pulled up socks, neatly ironed uniform kind of girl. She currently feels like the biggest hypocrite. Seulgi’s scoff triggers her rambling again.

“I-I don’t know though, it’s like… it’s like the more we work together, the more I wanna be together! A-and not even like be together as in girlfriends or anything… just, I dunno, spend time with her. I wanna be around her constantly… and stuff. I think I might fail this semester cos I can’t stop thinking about her. But… I have to do better, cause if I fail, she fails. A-and I’ll never let that happen.”

Seungwan’s expression screams ‘whipped’, and it pleads for some sort of reassurance, but Seulgi’s fresh out of stock at the moment. She’s too shocked by what she’s just heard her twit of a roommate tell her. When she finally finds her tongue, it’s not to give her friend the reassurance she so desperately seeks, but to simply ask.

“But do you want to?”

Huh?! The girl screams in her head. Do I want to what? Plagiarise? Have a cup of tea? Tell Joohyun to stay ten feet away from me because whenever she’s near I just want to grab her by the face and kiss her silly?! Or perhaps I need to be demanding she pay my hospital bills because my heart is –

“Be her girlfriend.”

Oh, wow, blunt. But when you put it like that…

Slowly, Seungwan looks up at Seulgi; looking like she’d been caught with her hand in the metaphorical cookie jar; guilty as hell.

“… mm… can you repeat the question…?”

~~~~~~~~~~

The flip side of the coin isn’t looking so shiny, either.

Joohyun finds herself all caught up in thoughts of Son Seungwan; the girl she’s wanted since day one, but the girl who also managed to properly steal her unguarded heart while she was busy acting all aloof and in control. In control was something she definitely wasn’t, right now. And as much as she should be out, guns a blazing, to retrieve what’s been stolen from her, she can’t help but not want it back. Somehow, she feels as though it’s safer in Seungwan’s hands.

Clumsy, weak-hearted girls were certainly in fashion, and Joohyun is dead-set on getting hers.

“Yah!” Sooyoung swats at the hand that’s just stolen her one of her last Pocky sticks, “that was the longest one! I was saving that till last!”

Joohyun ignores her, thoughtfully nibbling on the chocolate coated biscuit as she contemplates her next move. She glances over at the other girl upside down on the bed, blocking random Instagram followers with her feet up against the wall and an open packet of crisps by her head.

“Jennie,” she deadpans, “do you think I should do it?”

The girl barely takes a second to look back at Joohyun before swiftly pinching the actual last Pocky out of Sooyoung’s grasp. They both pay no mind to the frustrated yelling from their flabbergasted friend as she storms off into the kitchen to throw away the empty box. She leaves them in peace.

“I dunno,” Jennie shrugs coolly, returning to her blocking spree, “but you better stop playing with your food. Didn’t your mum tell you it’s rude?”

Joohyun rolls her eyes. “Yah, I told you, I’m not playing. I don’t want anyone else thinking they have a chance with her.”

“So do it,” Sooyoung re-enters the room, already chomping on a fresh box of snacks, “stake your claim. Get her before those others do.”

Joohyun perks up, a glare frosting over her pretty face. “What others?”

Sooyoung smiles at Jennie, knowing their lovesick friend has fallen for it.

“Oh you know,” she cracks on, “those hordes of people I saw outside class once. They were all lining up to confess to your  Seungwan, love letters and everything.”

Joohyun realises she could tackle Sooyoung right now, but she chooses not to. Instead she turns to face the girl who looks smug as ever with a mouthful of crisps.

“Ha ha, very funny,” she scoffs, “oh yeah, and I lied. I did drink your strawberry milk the other day.”

Sooyoung’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “Hyun!! I knew it wasn’t Haetnimie!”

~~~~~~~~~~

Seungwan often found herself dreaming about it; as if she couldn’t decide whether it had really happened or not.

The first time Joohyun kissed her.

…

Joohyun scans the landscape for her study buddy today. Strategically situated in the furthest, quietest corner the bustling café has to offer, she takes impatient glances down at her phone set face up on the small, round table. Late, as usual, she thinks, rolling her eyes as she flicks her phone screen on and off for the sake of something to do.

Finally, her impatience is fizzled away by the tinkling of the small bell at the stop of the door, indicating a new patron.

Late and clumsy, more like, she corrects herself, a smile crawling up her face as she watches the harassed-looking girl spot her with an embarrassed wave and begin to make her way over, books cradled in arms and a tube of string cheese between her teeth. Joohyun can’t stop a giggle when Seungwan thinks she’s knocked someone’s latte off their table with her bag strap. She bows over and over, spluttering disjointed apologies only to find out the cup is still perfectly on the table and the people are now looking at her in pure amazement.

Oh god, another one for the books then, Seungwan sighs, turning her beet-red face away from them and slinking on.

Eventually, she’s settled down across Joohyun, who’s been waiting, she realises in horror as she checks the time, for 15 whole minutes.

“Sorry I’m late,” her breathless smile and tired eyes have Joohyun subconsciously softening at her sincerity, “I didn’t get much sleep last night, and oh–! Have you eaten, unnie?”

Seungwan digs into her school bag, and, with a happy little ‘ta-da!’, pulls out a nicely cling wrapped, homemade oatmeal cookie.

“I decided to bake, instead,” she cheerfully chirps, breaking off a portion of the baked treat and offering the bigger half to her raven haired senior, “I bake these a lot, you should try!”

Disappointment nudges Seungwan’s heart when Joohyun glares at her, suddenly aware of the sting in her bicep from still holding part of her cookie out in front of her. She tries not to let it show, but the disappointment quickly turns into something else when she sees that all too familiar smirk flower on Joohyun’s pretty lips.

“You should feed me.”

Seungwan shivers at the expectant stare she’s fixed with while the other girl remains composed as always. Annoying. Before she has time to respond, her knee collides with the underside of the table, loudly clinking the metal cutlery and causing a few heads to turn. It takes everything in her not to look down where she just knows Joohyun’s foot is ever so lightly grazing her pant leg.

Joohyun blinks innocently at Seungwan’s rapidly reddening face as she’s forced to apologise profusely yet again, this time for something she’s actually done.

“Unnie…” she croaks, trying to calm her racing heart.

“What?” Joohyun cocks her head. She promptly picks the cookie out of the girl’s fingers and takes a bite, “serves you right for keeping me waiting.”

Seungwan lets out a breathy groan and begins flipping the pages to where she’s bookmarked.

“Mm, this is really good, Seungwan.”

Cadbury eyes light up at the praise and Seungwan stops annotating to cap her highlighter.

“R-really? You like it? Oh that’s great news! I’ll make you some more! I can!”

Joohyun chuckles and nods. Seungwan’s puppy eagerness melts her more than she cares to admit. The way any sort of positive affirmation she throws her way has her excitedly tossing aside whatever she’s doing. Not that it matters anyway, Joohyun’s more than happy to take rightful precedence over stupid assignments and due dates.

“Good. Best I’ve eaten in a while.”

…

“So that’s what I’ve interpreted here. Going off what he’s written in this paragraph, I think he genuinely believes he’s right.”

It happens somewhere between ‘genuinely’ and ‘right’.

Smooth and secretive.

Like the hushed whisper over the din of a crowded room.

Fingers tug at her collar and a pair of lips press into hers from across the table. She’s caught completely unawares, and Joohyun’s lips are gone before she can even get used to them. She watches in shock as her senior sits back down, not even giving her a second look as she returns to annotating the next paragraph.

Seungwan can’t believe Joohyun’s ignorant to the fact that she’s just unfolded her origami heart like no one has before.

~~~~~~~~~~

The blaring of Jessie J’s ‘Price Tag’ piercing her peaceful Sunday morning has Seungwan flailing to grab her phone off the table top. She has to swipe three times after playing hot potato with the device before she finally manages to answer the call.

“Hello,” the screen is cold against her ear as she groggily answers.

“Oh hello? Seungwan? Did I wake you? I’ll call later – ”

Joohyun’s husky voice registers in her brain and she shoots up so fast into a sitting position she feels slightly light-headed.

“No no no!” she exclaims a little too enthusiastically, running a hand through the tangled mess on her head and palming swollen eyes, “I’m awake it’s fine. We can talk. Is… is everything okay?”

“Yes, it’s okay, don’t worry.”

Joohyun sounds like she’s smiling over the phone, but Seungwan doesn’t get her hopes up. The other girl continues. “Yeah, probably should’ve texted you earlier to tell you I was coming by your dorm, but I was picking something up at the shops anyway so I thought I’d drop by and try my luck.”

“Oh, I see,” Seungwan isn’t sure if she wants to ask if this is about what happened at their latest study session but her nerves dampen a little when Joohyun chips in.

“You left your pen at the café so I’m just returning it.”

Ah, okay, Seungwan thinks. She’s weirdly upset at the fact that Joohyun’s pretending nothing had happened between them. Perhaps she toys with people this way. Perhaps Seungwan’s just another notch in her string of empty loves. Irritation pinches into her chest at the prospect. Couldn’t miss high-and-mighty take into account her feelings for once? It’s not like she could just change Seungwan’s life like this and not expect to take an ounce of responsibility.

It’s absolutely unfair. She almost wants to scream into her phone, but Joohyun’s voice stops her before she can even open her mouth.

“… oh and. We need to talk.”

Okay, there it is. Commanding and concise; what Bae Joohyun does best. She doesn’t know if she should be jumping for joy or locating the nearest exit, but she nonetheless finds herself hastily shuffling to her wardrobe to throw on the first pair of trousers and hoodie she finds.

“Uh sure, unnie… give me ten minutes? I’ll be down. Did you want to meet at the shops?”

“No it’s okay. Just meet me downstairs, I’m waiting.”

And she hangs up.

…

With how fast Seungwan brushes her teeth and gets herself dressed, it should be in the Guinness Book of World Records for the quickest thing anyone’s ever done for love. There’s no time to fiddle around with contacts today so she rummages through her drawer for her only pair of chrome steel-rimmed glasses.

She brushes past Seulgi who’s sitting on the sofa having breakfast. The girl’s eyes suspiciously follow her harried friend as she rushes out the door, crinkling her nose at the distinct waft of perfume that lingers after she’s gone.

Seungwan spots Joohyun leaning over the railing outside her dorm. She pauses before pushing the huge glass doors open, shaking her head with a sigh. How does someone make mum jeans and a white t-shirt look Vogue-worthy?

Joohyun sports the faintest smile when she sees Seungwan jogging over to her; her pin-rolled sweatpants, fluffy Uniqlo hoodie and unruly bed hair making her look nothing short of adorable. Dumb little sleepyhead, Joohyun mumbles just out of earshot.

“I’m glad I woke you up bright and early,” she chuckles at the girl who’s bent over next to her, clutching the railing to catch her breath.

Joohyun gets a quick ruffle of soft, caramel hair before Seungwan straightens up. She holds the black ballpoint up to the other girl, who accepts it with a small thankful nod.

“Thanks, unnie,” Seungwan says, not really interested in the returned possession. She really wants to ‘talk’. “So uh, you wanted to… talk?”

“Ah, yes. Um…”

Joohyun blinks a couple times, seemingly at a loss for words. She seems not  to know what to do with herself, darting her gaze here and there, lightly rapping her fingers against the cool metal bar. Her sudden awkwardness is more than justified, though. After all, confessing to the victim of her bullying has never been something to cross Joohyun’s mind. For once, she’s the one tripping over herself. For once, she’s the one caught completely off-guard.

Even the gentle morning breeze feels awkward. Seungwan starts to think that ‘shopping’ is looking more and more like a cover up for something else.

She inwardly beams at the way Joohyun currently embodies everything she’s felt this entire time. However, she decides if she is ever going stand up for what she believes in, it’s now. Taking a deep breath, she mentally thanks Seulgi for her advice on how to appear like less of an idiot in front of the person you’re deeply in love with.

“Unnie,” she begins, “I need you to tell me honestly. What are we?”

Joohyun opens her mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. She’s still at a loss for how she could possibly convey what she wanted to in this moment. Goddamn, she curses, why can’t I just go back to bullying this little nerd? When did life screw me over like this?

She stays silent as Seungwan so confidently lays the cards out for her.

“Because I know how I feel… and…” her tone falters momentarily, her natural awkward self threatens to barge in again but she manages to shut the door on it.

“… and I… I like you.”

The confession is significantly quieter than anything she said before, but Joohyun hears it through a megaphone. Her eyebrows arch up and she turns to face the girl who’s had the courage to do what she’s wanted to do all along.

“Seungwan…”

She looks at the other girl who’s silent; waiting.

“I-I don’t know how to…”

“Then don’t.”

Her breath hitches when Seungwan’s fingers interruptedly caress her pink cheek. The shorter girl slowly leans in, and Joohyun gladly lets her take the lead.

Eyelashes flutter and the world stops altogether, when Seungwan presses her soft, pillowy lips to hers in a positively heart-attack inducing kiss. It’s tender, luscious and Joohyun can’t get enough. She takes in everything she feels; the tip of Seungwan’s nose gently poking her cheek, her fringe tickling just below her eyebrows and the hand now resting on the small of her back, drawing her in for more.

A shared cluster of fireworks go off behind both their eyelids.

Seungwan pulls away first, gracefully meeting the gaze she was once terrified of. Joohyun’s smiling now, and she doesn’t miss the way it reaches her eyes. It’s much easier to speak her feelings when she isn’t being shot at with death glares.

Yet she suddenly feels shy, withdrawing completely and scratching nervously at her arm. “Unnie… I was wondering if I could uh… you know…”

Of course Joohyun knows. The tables turn yet again when the elder girl finds herself a new assertiveness to wear after that kiss. Sweet lips curl into a knowing smirk, much like the one she usually exhibits. “Be my girlfriend?”

Fresh rose petals sprinkle over Seungwan’s cheeks as she meekly nods.

Joohyun laughs, grabbing the surprised girl by the wrist and melding their bodies together, hand cradling Seungwan’s nape.

“Silly freshman,” she says fondly, leaning in to playfully peck her on the nose. “You were always mine.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Seungwan flings her pen into space for the umpteenth time today when Joohyun leans over from her position on the bed and gives her a kiss. She should be used to it by now, but it’s just something about those mysterious eyes and the velvety voice that she can never quite acclimatise to. It’s something about that specific shade of maraschino cherries on Joohyun’s lips, and the fact they taste even sweeter when they’re pressed against hers. Everything’s too sudden, and it has her light-headed and reeling each and every goddamned time. Grumbling, the younger girl squirms around for a while before she sprawls out with the fattest heart eyes, muffled thuds from socked feet kicking a tantrum into Joohyun’s wooden floorboards.

“Ahhhh unnieeee,” she squeals, wriggling around like a deranged worm, “please stop distracting me, we have to get this done!”

Joohyun smiles at how she looks like a kindergartener who’s just had their lollipop taken away. You know the one, when they’re all grumpy but so cute to watch.

“Get it done then,” she says unhelpfully down at Seungwan’s red face, grinning at the exaggerated sigh she receives for it.

“You’re not helpinggg-ahhhhhh,” Seungwan rolls around helplessly, and Joohyun merely laughs at her partner turned human mop.

“It’s not my job to help, Wannie. I’m the bully, you get bullied. That’s the deal, so don’t you forget it.”

Pft, yeah sure. This time it’s Seungwan who can’t stop the budding laughter as she recalls the past few weeks with this girl.

It takes about five seconds for Seungwan to un-starfish herself and drag her upper half up into a sitting position again; her mouth may say stop, but those rosy cheeks, that sulky school-girl pout and messy hair absolutely begs for another.

“Only joking, freshman. I’ll help you. But only cause you’re cute. And you’ll owe me, big time,” she teases before darting her eyes to the corner behind the other girl.

Seungwan’s eyes light up at the offer. “Thank you, unnie. Let’s get star– ”

“Hey Wan, what’s that over there?”

“Huh?”

A teasing smirk and a fraction of a second later, Joohyun has Seungwan staring up at the ceiling after her spine does a 404 error, rendering her a boneless heap of lovesick gurgles and deserted thoughts.

And it was only a kiss!

“Unnieeee!!”

The never peaceful study session dissolves into a small insult battleground; playful, of course.

The fun might’ve just begun, but their open books and un-analysed literature stare up at them in disbelief; forgotten yet again.

Joohyun’s had enough of watching from the clouds and proceeds to get off the bed to join Seungwan on the floor. They tussle around for a while, before Joohyun’s hovering above her. She’s just staring down, something that happens so often but never fails to make Seungwan squirm in discomfort, all shy and self-conscious. Joohyun doesn’t care, though. She simply smiles; she can ignore all the playground insults hurled at her, the tiny fists half-heartedly pummelling at her arms in an attempt to get her to move off. Hell, she can even ignore Mr. Lee’s stern warnings about failing the class if she keeps turning up late, or Sooyoung’s hollow threats at tattooing ‘I’m a thief’ across her forehead when she’s asleep unless she stops eating her food when she’s not around.

There’s a lot Joohyun can ignore, and plenty more she’ll choose to in the future.

But she can never ignore the girl who clumsily left her taro tea fingerprints all over her heart.

#red velvet #wenrene #red velvet scenarios #irene #wendy #bully irene #university au #red velvet imagines #kpop scenarios #girl group scenarios

[d0gdaze]

read on ao3

wc: 2120 warnings: mild crude language

__________________________________________________

Richie listens to Eddie ramble on about personal protective equipment, stringing his words together with such urgency that they're constantly clashing and stammering to the point of it being nearly nonsensical, and wonders boldly if he's ever going to get tired of hearing it.

It's mid afternoon and they're all down in the barrens, having escaped the worst of the day's heat by taking refuge playing board games at Richie's house, air-con blasting, – Maggie had made up frozen watermelon slices for them and they'd gorged themselves. Now, still all sticky from where the juice ran down their chins and their hands, they're making up for the lost hours by attentively scouring the thick brush near where the barrens border the city landfill, looking for anything remotely interesting. Most of it's just random junk, but occasionally they'll find new furniture for the clubhouse, or dead electronics that they can take apart, or broken televisions with intact fibreglass screens they can sling rocks at and shatter. Sometimes they'll hit a goldmine and find a tangled but otherwise functional yo-yo or cassette tapes that still work when they run back home to try them out. It's not really about the finds, though. It's just, plainly put, something to do.

Beverly's knee deep in shrubbery, kicking at a doorless microwave to see if she can dislodge something, and Mike and Bill are flipping through an old playboy magazine thats pages have gone wavy from water damage, and the cover is so sun-bleached that it's nearly completely white. Stan stayed back at the edge of the clearing when the rest of them moved further into the brush, concerned about bugs and poison ivy and blackberry bushes and content to do his searching in the shallow parts. Ben's the furthest in, and as far as Richie can tell he's not doing much other than looking out over the dump and probably dozing off on the fallen log he's sat upon. Richie himself is squatting down, using a long stick to poke through the contents of a garbage bag he's ripped open. It's just household trash, and it smells rather bad, but it's a way to keep his hands moving while he zones out. And Eddie's managed to get himself up onto a low fork in a tree, sitting with his back up against the trunk and legs hanging on either side of the thick branch, idly kicking at the air as he rants about why what they're doing is dangerous and the precautionary measures they should be taking, but without actually suggesting they stop doing it, or making any attempts to leave.

The air is filled with that kind of quiet, static warmth that leaves you pleasantly tired all the way through your body, – the kind that makes your shoulders slump and your gate slow, and the minutes seem to stretch on for hours for the seven of them. It's one of those days where nothing much happens, one that won't ever be memorable or out of the ordinary in any way, where they'll go home sleepy and satisfied, and when their parents ask what they did all day – those of them whose parents care enough to ask – they can say 'nothing' and mean it. And that's just fine by them. They'd all take an uneventful, boring day like this over some of the days they'd faced before – the ones that left scars and gaps and nightmares, the memories of which seem to fade with each passing week and it's all fuzzy and disjointed and – no, today is good. That's all that matters.

Richie feels something small bounce off the space between his shoulder blades and looks up, only for something else to hit him right in the middle of the forehead as Eddie looks down at him, very obviously trying not to grin so the corners of his mouth twitch, and when they lock eyes he bites his lip and throws another piece of tree bark. This one taps Richie's cheek and falls to the ground in front of him, and Eddie snickers like it's the funniest thing he's seen all day.

“You're gonna get splinters if you keep that up, dipshit,” he says, smirking as panic flashes across Eddie's face, though it quickly dissipates into a scowl, and he continues flicking pieces at him, more rapidly now.

“Asshole. Why the fuck would you say that?” he spits, and Richie has to hold his arms up to shield himself from the onslaught. “You're the one who's gonna get fucking splinters.”

Richie stands, picking up his stick and turning his back to the tree. He manages to hook the end of it on a particularly gross looking wad of paper towel from the pile of trash, and when he turns back around and makes a jabbing motion towards Eddie, the other boy screeches indignantly and falls off the branch. He lands with a thud on the ground and immediately scrambles to his feet. Richie lunges at him again, cackling, as Eddie starts spewing insults and hollering disgust. He picks up an empty tin can and throws it, landing somewhere a couple feet to Richie's left.

Something about it leaves Richie with a vague feeling of deja vu, but that happens so often these days that he doesn't think much of it.

Eddie backs his way out to the clearing, creating whatever distance he can by throwing whatever his hands come across, though he hardly lands any hits, and Richie taunts him the whole way up, never intending to do more than tease, never planning on causing actual harm.

(Eddie knows this, of course.)

Stan starts to lecture him too, though far more calmly, more comprehensible. Tells him not to be disgusting, tells them both to shut up and knock it off. He's smiling though, Richie can tell, even when he tries to hide it.

Here's to nothing ever changing, he thinks.

Later, when the sun isn't bearing down as heavily and a relieving breeze starts to flow in from the east, they find themselves traversing away from the shady greenery of the barrens towards the open bank along the Kenduskeag, where the water is fast-moving but shallow enough that Bill doesn't roll his jean shorts up even though they fall down a little past his knees. He's right out in the middle of the stream, eyes trained steadily downwards as he takes slow, calculated steps, looking out for crawfish tails peeking out from under the rocks. Eddie's next to him, mirroring his actions though seemingly less focused, as he keeps letting his gaze drift over to the others. Stan's about fifty feet upstream, talking to Mike and occasionally gesturing animatedly at the tree line. Mike laughs heartedly at something he says, and the sound floats drifts all the way across to where Richie is busy pulling out clumps of grass and flinging them into the water, and Ben is sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, his attention fixed on Beverly, whose found a flat-topped rock that's big enough for her to lay down on, albeit with her legs hanging off the edge. She's on her back, her hair splayed out over the stone, which fully exposes the fading bruise that starts in the outer corner of her eye and curves in patches down the side of her face.

He lets out a deep sigh and buries his face in his arms.

“Careful Benjamin,” Richie says, reaching over and sprinkling blades of grass onto his hair, “you're being obvious again.”

Ben blushes, slaps his hand away and tries to shake the grass off. The action gets rid of some of it, falling back onto the ground or his shoulders, but there's still bits of green sticking out here and there. Richie grins, and shuffles closer so his knee knocks against Ben's shin.

“I keep tellin' you to just go talk to her,” he continues,  “save us all from this will-they-won't-they crap.”

“I talk to her all the time,” Ben replies in a way that fails to acknowledge the point, and Richie repays it with another fistful of freshly pulled grass. He shakes it off again, sputtering as some of the pieces fall into his face.

“Ah, you know what I mean,” Richie wipes his hands off on his pants and leans back on his elbows,  looks back across to where Bill and Eddie seem to have recruited Stan and Mike, and Mike's got a stick that he's using to pry the rocks up so that Bill can look underneath. Stan and Eddie are talking over each other, and a little too far away that he can't quite make out what they're saying. Eddie starts laughing at something Stan says, and Richie laughs too, though under his breath and without really meaning to. Ben looks at Richie, then over to the others, and back again.

“I just think, Haystack,” Richie continues, hesitantly tearing his gaze away to meet his, “that if you really like someone, you should sack up and tell 'em. No point brooding over it forever.”

“I think you shouldn't say things like brooding and sack up in the same breath.”

“What can I say, I'm an intellectual.”

“You're a hypocrite is what you are,” Ben says, and Richie scoffs, “what, you're saying you ain't ever liked someone and just kept it to yourself?”

“I never liked anyone, period,” Richie says defensively, sitting up again and resting his chin in his hands, “'cept maybe Eddie's mom.”

Ben sighs softly. Richie instinctively looks towards Eddie again, but his attention is all Bill's at the moment, who's actually managed to find one of the mudbugs and is holding it tentatively just above the water as the other three crowd around him. Stan's talking in that quick, steady way that Richie knows to mean what he's saying is somewhat informational, and Mike appears to be petting the damn thing as it sits in Bill's hands.

“Bull,” Ben laughs, just a beat too late for it to flow properly with the rest of the conversation. Richie frowns at him.

“Whaddaya mean, bull? It's the truth,” Richie insists, but Ben just looks at him, exasperated. “Or, fine. Whatever. Maybe I like one person but,” he starts picking at the grass with one hand, continuing to hold up his head with the other, his elbow digging into his knee, “it's different.”

“How's it different?”

“I don't know,” he groans, “it just is.”

“Who-,” Ben starts, but is cut off by Eddie as he calls out to them from across the way.

“Richie!” he yells excitedly, “Ben, guys, come get a load o' this thing Bill found!”

Richie can hear Bill telling him to turn down the volume, sees Eddie poke his tongue out at him then continue waving over to them with a sense of urgency, as if anything could be so urgent these days.

Richie sticks his hand up in acknowledgement, flings one last bunch of grass into Ben's lap and heaves himself up onto his feet in one clumsy movement. He starts to jog over to the group, until they're all flinging their arms at him and telling him to slow down, to stop kicking up so much water, until Eddie's voice has gone up an octave as he begins another tangent and Richie brings his leg back as if he's going to send a tidal wave flying at the lot of them, but doesn't follow through with movement.

Ben watches, for a moment, the way Eddie gravitates to Richie even while scolding him, sees how Richie almost subconsciously reaches out to touch him, pulls him closer like he's practiced it a million times before.

(He has, of course.)

If Ben realises something, he won't say it. He's hit with the feeling that maybe Richie hasn't yet, not fully at least.

Beverly, roused by the calamity, leaves her perch and joins them, not before pulling Ben to his feet with a smile playing at her lips. Her hair, though slightly dishevelled, has fallen back to it's natural frame around her face, obscuring the bruise once again. There's a slight pink tinge left over from last week's sunburn, overshadowed by the freckles that are more vibrant than ever now. Even from the small, modest contact of her hands on his, he can feel the sun radiating off her skin, and already knows he would bask in it forever if she'd let him.

By the time they reach the rest of them, Bill's already let the crawfish back into the water. It scurries back under the rock where they found it.

It's doesn't matter too much, though. It's summer, and they're kids, and days like this are countless.

tag list:

@reddie-to-go​ @reddietofall​ @thecastlebyers​

#writing #reddie #reddie fic #benverly #it 2017 #you CAN go back to childhood folks

[ckret2]

would you mind explaining "Careless whisper" "I will always love you" and "Friend please"? no pressure though!

Oh god you chose two of the meme-iest songs! Both in one post! I can’t believe it!

Okay.

This took me forever to write because I wrote half of it and then got distracted for weeks and didn’t get back to it until I got a fresh ask today with some more songs and I was like, crap, I should finish this one.

So the first three paragraphs in this post still apply here, I’m not gonna copy paste them, go read those paragraphs if you haven’t yet. tl;dr i’m answering questions about why i included songs on my radiosnake spotify playlist because i like rambling for thousands of words at a time, also the playlist is based on a fic i wrote.

Feel free to keep sending me questions about more songs on the playlist. Explanations under the read more, assuming the read more works, which I make no guarantee of because this is tumblr.

Careless Whisper (Lyrics)

… except, the jazzy version.

So lemme tell you a story about how “Careless Whisper” came up and then I’ll explain why it actually belongs on the playlist.

The only way I can outline a story is by sitting down with another person and rambling the plotline at them, copy pasting it into another document, and bam that’s an outline.

Right now, in the disjointed process of outlining a sequel to Cold Day In Hell, I’m sort of chunking random ideas at a couple friends to see what sticks. One idea is that, when Alastor is drunk, he’s 90% worse at pretending he totally doesn’t care about Sir Pentious at all. If they’re ever drunk at the same social event, he will subtly (not subtly at all) follow him around all night like a puppy and hang on to his every word, automatically playing this sort of nonsense in the background.

One of my friends announced sadness that it didn’t start off with “Careless Whisper,” so I checked Postmodern Jukebox (the fastest/easiest/most common way to translate a modern song into Alastor Aesthetic) to see if they had made a jazz cover (they had), and I reassured my friend that the PMH cover definitely played every second song while drunk!Alastor was mooning over (and/or looming over) Sir Pentious.

And then I went oh goddammit the lyrics actually fit, dammit, now I’ve gotta put it on the playlist.

So I put it on the playlist.

Here’s the great thing about song lyrics. Even if everyone knows that the lyrics mean one thing, language is inherently ambiguous and you can totally just decide to read the lyrics a slightly different way if you really really want to and the exact wording doesn’t make it impossible. Everyone KNOWS that “Careless Whisper” is about cheating, but it never SAYS it’s about cheating (like, it says “cheat a friend,” but like the singer could’ve cheated their friend at cards? it doesn’t say), so you can just decide that it’s about any other kind of betrayal in a relationship! Like, say, blowing up your ally’s steampunk airship fleet. The song never says it ISN’T about a steampunk airship fleet.

So let’s just establish right now that this song is no longer about cheating. That’s out the window.

In the original song, “dancing” is probably intended as a metaphor for having sex. In THIS context, it is literally dancing. The emotional core of CDIH, the moment around which the rest of the story rotates, is the night that Alastor and Sir Pentious dance together. And although Alastor no doubt dances plenty of times after leaving Sir Pent, he’s certainly never going to dance like that again—like he’s with a lover, like he wants to be touching his dance partner, rather than either alone or while distastefully putting up with physical contact with someone who doesn’t matter to him.

The interpretation of the line “careless whispers of a good friend” that I think is probably Most Common is that a friend of the singer’s lover warned the lover that the singer is cheating on them, and the singer thinks that the fact that the lover now knows is worse than not knowing at all, because now that the lover knows they can never go back to normal, hence why the friend was being careless. Aside from any questions of, like, whether or not that’s a sound opinion at all—I’ve always interpreted that line differently. Since the singer refers to their lover as a “friend” (“should have known better than to cheat a friend”), I’ve always assumed that the singer would refer to themself as their lover’s friend, and so the “careless whispers of a good friend” were the whispers that the singer themself made that started whatever affair it is they had.

And so that assumption—that the “good friend” that said something they shouldn’t have is the singer—is the interpretation I’m carrying into the song’s inclusion in the playlist. In this case, it’s Alastor’s decision to lie to Sir Pent about how he feels about him (claiming that he never cared & that he was just screwing around with his emotions) before running off that are the “careless whispers” because, although not exactly whispery, they do have the same effect as in the song: ever since he said them, there’s been an unmendable rift between Alastor and Sir Pent (which was, like, his objective, but he’s still not happy about it)—and, more than that, it was very careless. Alastor had intended for his actions to just push Sir Pent away, not to effectively ruin Sir Pent’s ambitions to rule hell completely. But, that’s what happened. Because he didn’t think anything through. He just said and did the very first things he could think of to push Sir Pent away. Extremely careless.

And, of course, the specific version that got included was chosen because it sounds jazzy. Yay for PMJ, making all sorts of songs Alastor-ready.

I Will Always Love You (Lyrics)

… except, the super dark version.

So I figured out at some point that the easiest way I was gonna find Alastor music was through jazz-style covers of songs a la Postmodern Jukebox, 1) because PMJ has been actually mentioned as among the limited varieties of modern music that Alastor would listen to by virtue of the fact that they do covers that sound like what he used to listen to, and 2) because Puff here isn’t actually a fan of jazz and it’s a lot easier for me to slowly wade into the water via jazzy covers of songs I already know than it is for me to fling myself into the deep end like “appreciate Jelly Roll Morton! Appreciate Jelly Roll Morton NOW!!!”

(I am slowly and laboriously training myself to be a fan of jazz, because Alastor is a RADIO HOST from NEW ORLEANS in the ROARING TWENTIES AND A LITTLE BIT OF THE THIRTIES, i will NOT be writing him while in complete ignorance of a subject that probably occupied a huge portion of his life.)

So due to the fact that I was looking for PMJ-esque genre-switching covers of songs, I drifted over to other genre-switching song cover acts like Chase Holfelder to go through the songs and go “hm wonder of any of these work." This song is an exception to the genres I’m looking for for Alastor, but it still makes the list because like, the vibe is just right.

Have y'all ever actually listened to/read the lyrics to "I Will Always Love You” before? Not just the AAAND IIIIIIIII-IIII-IIIIIII WILL ALWAAAYS LOVE YOOOOO-OO-OOOU bit but the actual lyrics. They’re sad. The lyrics are “I deeply love you but if I stayed with you I would only hold you back so i’m going to leave you because it’s for the best but i’m super sad about it and i always will be.”

Now, that doesn’t 100% line up with Alastor’s situation. Because, like, obviously, he was doing the exact opposite of holding Sir Pent back when they were together, and fearing holding Sir Pent back was not the reason he left.

But it is among the reasons he avoids the hell out of him now. The primary reasons, of course, are still “being in love is scary and i do not want to do that so maybe if i avoid him i can continue pretending that i am not in love?” and “lmao he justifiably hates me now so why try"—but #3 on his list is the recognition that, since they broke up, Alastor’s actions have caused a constant cascade of events that have held Sir Pent back ever since. (And Alastor also suspects that there might actually be some kind of legitimate curse or fate or something going on here—that part of Alastor’s role in hell is playing the part of Sir Pent’s personal hellish divine punishment.) So he didn’t leave because he’s sabotaging Sir Pent’s ambitions; but he sabotaged Sir Pent’s ambitions because he left.

And therefore, as a consequence, he should stay away from Sir Pent now. He shouldn’t beg forgiveness and a second chance—because he doesn’t deserve them, and because he might make it worse.

This particular cover of the song really kicks the anguish up into high gear. The most common Whitney Houston version is like, okay she’s brokenhearted, but also somehow somewhat empowered by the brokenheartedness—like even though she’s leaving sad and bitter, in her heart she knows that the decision she’s making is for the best for her beloved, and she can draw strength from that. There is no drawing strength from the decision in the Chase Holfelder version—just using it up. It’s like he’s burning through all of his reserves of strength to push his loved one away. When Whitney hits the big note, she’s pulling power into herself to belt that out. When Chase hits the big note, he’s pouring out every last bit of power left inside his body. You can imagine Whitney walking away from this song with her head held high and her back straight but Chase is just gonna collapse to his knees with his shoulders hunched and head bowed—completely empty, a husk. That’s the vibe I want with Alastor—that every single day of his self-imposed exile he’s losing a little piece of himself, hollowing himself out. He can’t draw strength from it.

Typically, when I’m picking songs for this playlist, I don’t pay much attention to the gender of the singer (my only main priority on this playlist is that by the time it’s done I want the genders of the singers to be roughly balanced on both Sir Pent’s part and Alastor’s part), but in this case I think the fact that the singer is male contributes to it working for Alastor the way another version with a female singer wouldn’t. Not entirely sure why—maybe because, even though the voice doesn’t sound anything like his, it’s easier to actively imagine Alastor singing the song when it’s got a male voice? Maybe because, thanks to Sexism In Society, a woman saying "I’m leaving you because I’d get in the way of your dreams” more easily comes across as “Oh… I am simply not good enough for you… I’d hold you back…” while a man saying “I’m leaving you because I’d get in the way of your dreams” more easily comes across as “I wouldn’t hold you back, I’d push you down. I’m dangerous for you.” And the latter fits Alastor better.

(But hey, if any of you know of any versions of “I Will Always Love You” with a female singer that makes her sound dangerous as hell, feel free to recommend them to me. Not because I’m looking to replace the version I’ve already got but just because I’d really like to hear it.)

Currently, it’s listed as the last song on the Alastor portion of the playlist. I recently reorganized it so that the Sir Pent portions and Alastor portions each flow from the shallowest/most surface emotions down to the deeper/truer/more hidden emotions, and even before I did that reorganization, “I Will Always Love You” has been the closing song on Alastor’s side since it was added to the playlist. That feels like the right note to leave it on: after everything else has been said, once every other layer and lie has been stripped away, the deepest and truest and last thing Alastor would have to say to Sir Pent is “I hope life treats you kind and I hope you have all you’ve dreamed of” and an anguished screaming declaration of love.

Friend Please https://genius.com/Twenty-one-pilots-friend-please-lyrics

So remember when I said that language is inherently ambiguous and if you want you can totally just choose to read words differently if the wording doesn’t actually prevent that interpretation? This song is clearly about suicide. I have decided for the purposes of this playlist it is not about suicide anymore! It’s still about depression but not about suicide! When the singer was like “Please don’t take your life away from me” what he meant is “Please don’t take your life, and also, I am emphasizing that if you do so you are removing yourself from my life to try to show you how much you mean to me,” but how I have decided to interpret it for this playlist is “literally do not remove your life from my life, as in, like, don’t run away and stop talking to me.”

So. As I mentioned in my last song meta post, there’s sort of two—not genres, but like, musical aesthetics that I’m drawing from for Sir Pent: Victorian-ish/steampunk-ish sounds, and emo stuff because Vivz said that’s what he actually listens to. Twenty One Pilots fits the criteria for emo for me—idk and idc if other people consider them emo, they toured with Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco, they count as far as I’m concerned—so they’re actually among the bands I’ve been intending to specifically look at for potential Sir Pent Songs.

For the most part, they’re, like, too good at the sad millennial vibe. But that song works.

“Friend, Please” comes low on Sir Pent’s portion because it’s deep in the more genuine emotions—I’ve actually considered putting it last and may still do so, it would make a nice counterpoint to “I Will Always Love You"—actually I’m gonna go do that, gonna go shuffle the playlist, there, good—and it’s also something that he couldn’t/wouldn’t say until after he knows about Alastor’s deep thoughts. Reinterpreted so that it’s not about suicide, it becomes about a friend who’s still depressed, but the focus of the song becomes about the friend’s self-isolation—a self-isolation that’s fueled by denial and self-delusion, the friend convincing themself that they’re alone, always will be, and can’t/won’t have anyone else in their life again that they can depend upon.

Which, although he doesn’t necessarily seem to be depressed, is certainly the vibe Alastor gives off in the show—that despite his overly-friendly overly-familiar attitude, he probably keeps everyone else at a great emotional distance. In canon he might be okay with that. In fic, he’s doing that at the expense of pushing away a person he loves very much—and then pushing away anyone that could help him cope with that loss. Leaving him very alone and perpetually disguising himself as fine with that. Maybe, when he can go years without having to see Sir Pent, he can be fine with that.

But I have Big Plans for that sequel and you know item #1 on the list is "stick Alastor and Sir Pent in a position where they’ll have to cross paths all the time so that it’s like threading a giant needle with barbed wire, stabbing the needle into Alastor’s heart, and slowly dragging the barbed wire straight through.”

And after that? Living like a ghost, claiming he’s fine when he’s been completely emotionally drained, is gonna be a pretty accurate description of his mental state.

Right now, Sir Pent is in no way close enough to Alastor to know that—and in no way sympathetic enough toward him to care even if he did know. He still hates Alastor for completely ruining his life. But there’s still that part of him that used to care about Alastor and still could come to care about him again. And if that part gets revived, and if he gets close enough to Alastor to see how miserable he’s made himself by trying to push everyone away and denying that he’s pushed his own mental state into as bad a state as it’s currently in, his reaction would be “you absolute dumbass” followed by trying to shout some sense into Alastor by pointing out that every one of his problems is caused not by external factors, but by his own damn screwed-up perception of the world. Like, every one of his problems he made himself, and he can unmake them. He’s just got to uncover his eyes first.

It’s easy for fandom to just, like, characterize Sir Pent as an all-around dumbass—strategically, socially, emotionally, etc. Until and unless we see otherwise—and see it so firmly that even I can’t find ways to headcanon around it, and believe you me, I can headcanon my way around a lot of things—I choose to believe that the only areas he’s definitely a dumbass in are “understanding modern slang” and “remembering NOT to charge into battle without considering the odds the second he sees somebody he hates.” This means that I like to believe he also has a reasonable level of emotional intelligence, and a healthy level of compassion that he can deploy, when he so chooses, on someone he considers worthy of that compassion. He’s evil, yes, but self-professed evil, which means self-aware evil; which means that even though there’s gotta be something fucked up with his worldview for him to choose to be evil, it is a choice he’s making, not something he’s doing specifically because he believes it’s right/necessary. And he can turn it off when he decides he’s with someone that deserves it.

Now, is Alastor on that list? Not currently, hell no. But there’s potential for him to make it on the list—that potential for Sir Pent to care about him again, to want to see him throw off the things that he’s using to hold himself back, to want to see him become better and happier, to want him back in Sir Pent’s life—buried somewhere deep beneath Sir Pent’s burned emotions and decades of resentment.

#(i've got asks for five and a half other songs on the playlist) #(i'll get to them uhhh... soonish) #mementomori #ask #music #about my writing #(sorta?? my writing comes up) #meta #hazbin hotel #headcanons #radiosnake

[not-close-to-straight]

It’s That Easy (Spideypool) (Part Three)

Welcome back! Also, @amazing-spiderling, I know we said this would be 15k but uhhhh when I said I was going to “edit” this, I actually meant I would “add to” this and uhhh yep. We’re at almost 19k and I still haven’t edited Part Four. I’m not even sorry, this story is great. 

PART ONE 

PART TWO

PART FOUR

*********************

There was nothing remotely glamorous about delivering greasy food and wiping down sticky tables, or dealing with obnoxious customers who felt entitled to the world simply because they’d gone out to eat that day, but Peter still had a smile on his face as he cleaned up yet another cupcake mess courtesy of the toddler at table two.

It had been almost three months now since Peter had taken Wade’s advice and asked for work at the 47th Street Diner, and Mr. Toomes had hired him on the spot, no questions asked and no references needed. He offered the apartment above the stairs before Peter could ask after it, had volunteered to drive back to the shelter and pick up Peter’s other things, and by the time the sun went down that night, Peter had finished half shift at work, had a few bucks worth of tips in his pockets, and was falling asleep on his very own bed in what amounted to his very first apartment.

It had been that easy, and when Peter had shyly asked if Wade had anything to do with how well the day had gone, Mr. Toomes had abruptly changed the subject and started rambling about how the shift schedule worked. The Beta’s lack of answer had been answer enough and when Peter crawled into the bed that night, he texted Wade:

From Peter: Thank you Alpha

From Wade: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

From Peter: Sure you don’t

From Wade: People like me for my sparkling personality, not my brains kiddo. What do you think I did that I definitely didn’t ever do?

From Peter: It’s weird to have my own apartment. But I like it

From Wade: Get some sleep, little Omega. Tomorrow you actually gotta start working to keep that adorable ass in your own apartment and you won’t have time to text me bull shit.

His own apartment.

Not that the apartment above the 47th street diner was anything special at all, of course. There was a bed set in the corner behind a six foot privacy screen, a closet converted to the world’s smallest bathroom, and a kitchen that was only a stove top, tiny microwave and sink. It was noisy in the morning when the diner opened and it was hot in the evenings from all the heat from the ovens in the restaurant, and when the wind blew, the little windows shook and rattled and god forbid it rain-- Peter had had to borrow buckets from the cleaning closet to catch water from the leaky roof the first time it rained.

It might have been the world’s worst apartment, but it was his.

And the job was repetitive and sometimes terrible-- after one particularly awful shift, Peter swore to himself to never be anything but polite and understanding to a waitress ever again because  ho-ho-holy crap was being a waiter way harder than he thought it would be-- but he was actually making it on his own, paying his own bills and free from a life that had tried to force him to be someone he wasn’t, and that was enough to keep a smile on his face.

Well that and--

Peter’s smile grew when his phone chimed with a message from Wade, the Alpha dropping him a text just to check in like he did every single day.

From Wade: Do you need anything?

From Peter: I’m fine for another week or so, thank you. Do YOU need anything?

From Wade: Right. Because you with your minimum wage job and decorative little apron has anything that I, a strapping virile Alpha needs. As if. You wish. Keep dreaming.

From Wade: You can’t see it  but I’m rolling my eyes very dramatically. Hard enough to give myself a headache. You gave me a headache, you should feel very guilty.

Peter muffled a laugh and went back to scrubbing at the wall, flushing a little bit as he thought about the Alpha that had stepped up and completely changed his life.

His first heat after leaving the shelter had been awkward- a stammered phone call to Weasel with a request to talk to Wade, taking the bus down to the bar to lock himself in the back room because it was more secure than his apartment, gulping down the suppressants and literally crying in relief when his heat symptoms eased. Wade hadn’t come in that time at all and Peter had been sort of grateful for the privacy, for the chance to just sleep through most of what was happening.

But he’d been even more grateful when he buzzed the front so Weasel would know to unbarricade the door and Wade had been there instead, scooping him up into a hug and crooning soft things in his ear. Then had come piles and piles of food after Peter had cleaned up, the Alpha sternly telling him to eat as much as he wanted and then wrapping the rest so Peter had extra food to take home.

The heat after that had been less awkward, with Weasel poking fun at Peter as he headed towards the back room again and Wade showing up almost immediately with the suppressants. They’d had a few hours before heat set in all the way, so Wade had sat and talked with Peter, rubbing his back when the aches got bad, soothing him with quiet rumbles when the cramps started to really hurt and then excusing himself once heat actually started.

As soon as it was over, Wade was back and this time he held Peter a little closer for a little longer, his scent full of warmth and safety and enough longing that it made Peter’s breath catch, made his purr a little stronger when the Alpha rubbed their noses together sweetly. They shared the food that time, binge eating piles of fries and laughing over whatever shenanigans Wade had gotten into on his last job.

This last time though, Wade met Peter at the bar and picked him right up, carrying him back to a newly fixed up room, a new mattress and clean sheets and a fully stocked little pantry so Peter wouldn't need anything. Peter had been shocked silent by the gesture, by the uncertainty from the big Alpha, and had pressed tight to Wade’s side for a long time before pulling away reluctantly once his heat set in.

After three rounds of the heavy duty suppressants, Peter’s heat only lasted about eighteen hours anymore, but he called out of work and stayed an extra night at Weasel’s anyway. He worked any and all hours available at the diner, so the chance to sleep in was too good to pass up, and the fact that Wade had curled up on the bed with him and held him close all night? Just a bonus.

Peter was fairly sure it was a trauma bond between them-- the same rush of protectiveness an Alpha firefighter got for someone he rescued, the same willingness to help that a social worker got when dealing with hurt kids. A trauma bond, a protective platonic imprint that fully explained why Wade was going out of his way to make sure Peter was taken care of, that he was comfortable and settled and happy.

It perfectly explained everything except why Peter had been dreaming about the Alpha just about every night and why he’d been texting Wade for no other reason than to talk, and why he’d started looking forward to his heat because it meant he could spend time laughing at Wade’s absolute ridiculousness and cuddled up in the big Alphas arms and falling asleep.

It perfectly explained everything except why sometimes the Alpha’s scent sharpened with arousal and want and drugging desire before lessening into something easier, or why Wade’s touch was sometimes less gentle and more possessive or why he had quite literally stopped in the middle of a job and came back to the city when Peter had texted to ask for more suppressants.

The Alpha made Peter feel warm and safe and a thousand other things he didn’t know he hadn’t felt when he’d been with Harry. And somehow, despite Wade always hiding behind that damn hoodie-- and one time, an actual burglar-style ski mask that had Peter nearly cry with laughter-- and all the terrible jokes and the scars Peter could feel at Wade’s wrists and the general awfulness that came with being a mercenary--

--Peter was falling in love.

And if he honestly thought for one second that Wade felt anything for him beyond a protective, platonic imprinting--

“Parker, you’ve got a customer asking for you.” Mr. Toomes interrupted Peter’s day dreaming. “And if you wipe that wall anymore, the paint will start peeling. Give it a rest, will ya?”

“Sorry, Mr. Toomes.” Flushing clear to the tips of his ears, Peter discarded his dirty apron for a clean one, tying it around his back and grabbing his order pad. “Not that having that terrible paint peel would be the worst, right?”

“I’ll have you know, lemon peel yellow was a very in color when I bought this place!” Mr. Toomes interjected good naturedly, and Peter laughed over his shoulder as he headed towards his section.

“Hey, welcome to 47th Street Diner, my name is Peter and I’m going to-- Peter froze when the scent of familiar Alpha  swamped him, nearly sending him to the ground as his knees buckled. “H-Harry?”

Speak of the devil.

Son of a bitch.

Why why why?

“Heya Pete.” Harry held out his hand, and Peter took it automatically, shivering when warm lips pressed against his knuckles. “How’ve you been?”

“I--I--” Too distracted by everything about his new life, Peter hadn’t put much thought into how startling it would be to see his ex-boyfriend again, and for a few minutes he just gaped at the Alpha, stammering through a few disjointed sentences until he finally managed-- “Mr. Toomes? I need a minute? I need to take my break now.”

The Beta poked his head out of the kitchen ready to yell about it, but one sharp glance towards where Peter was standing, taking in everything about the situation and he nodded, tapping his watch. “Take your lunch, half an hour.”

Harry’s eyes brightened when Peter dropped into the other side of the booth, and he squeezed the Omega’s hand gratefully. “I didn’t mean to surprise you, but I wanted to see you and MJ said you were working down here so I thought I’d drop by.”

“You could have called.” Peter said softly, pulling his hand away and folding them in his lap. “Instead of just showing up at my work. Why are you just showing up at my work, Harry?”

“I’m sorry.” Harry lowered his voice as well. “Really. I should have called, but I didn’t think you’d pick up. And I waited until five so I’d catch you at the end of the day so in case you got emotional, we could just go to your place or something.

Annoyance flickered across Peter’s face. “Five pm is only quitting time if you work in an office, Harry. I’ve got four more hours until I’m done for the night, so unless you’re here to eat, I don’t want you hanging around, it’s not polite.” He frowned and added, “And if you were worried about me being emotional, you should have waited until you knew I was off work. It’s not like I can just go home if I happened to collapse into hysterics.”

“Your boss wouldn’t let you go home if you were having a hard time?” Harry protested. “What kind of job is this?”

“A normal one.” Peter said flatly. “A normal job that lets me off a few days a month for my heat, but other than that I’m pretty much expected to be a functioning, agreeable waiter who doesn’t do things like burst into tears and flee the place because my ex boyfriend showed up.”

“Okay okay.” Harry put his hands up in an attempt to placate the Omega. “Okay. I’m sorry, I’ve never had to work a job like this, I don’t really understand how it works.”

“I’m well aware. Wiping boogers off napkin dispensers is a far cry from signing papers with custom inscribed pens at your $5000 dollar desk.” Peter smiled to soften the sarcasm, and Harry smiled back. “So what are you doing here, Harry? Surely you didn’t come by just to tell me how cute I am in my apron.”

“You are pretty cute in your apron.” Harry allowed, his eyes warming in approval and Peter-- Peter was sort of surprised by how much he hated it. “Seems weird though, that you didn’t want to do the house Omega thing for me but you’d do it for a stranger? Cooking and cleaning and all that.”

Something like a snarl escaped Peter and he didn’t care to silence it, everything light about the moment disappearing. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Playing house Omega? This is my job, Harry. I have to pay bills now, I have to buy food. I’m not serving food because it's fun, this is a total shit job but I have to do it. Do not compare this to me giving up school and a career to stay home and play wife for you!”

“Calm down.” Harry’s voice hardened and not to be cowed, Peter snapped, “What the hell are you even doing here?”

“I want you to come home.” The Alpha said bluntly. “If this is such a shit job, just quit and come home. I’ll get you back in school, I’ll get you into that testing program for the new suppressants. We’ll reapply for one of your internships and if you want to work full time for a few years then that’s fine too. Come home, Pete. Enough is enough.”

Peter stared at him for a full minute, his mouth open in shock. “This has gone on long enough?” he finally repeated. “What do you mean this, Harry? You’re acting like I threw a tantrum and ran away! We broke up! I left you!”

“Right, you left me and I’m willing to fix all the things you didn’t like so you come back.” Harry held out his hand again. “Come home, Pete. You look skinny and sort of shaggy and you’re working in some shit diner-- don’t you miss our life together?”

“I miss-- I miss a lot of things.” Peter hated to admit it. “But Harry, this isn’t about me wanting to go back to school or being mad because you want kids without talking to me about it. This is about you and your dad sabotaging the choices I tried to make because you thought you knew what was better for me.”

“We weren’t sabotaging--”

“You tore up my applications for internships that would have had me traveling away from home you.” Peter interrupted. “I asked for better suppressants and you wouldn’t help me get them because you thought I should just stay home and have a kid even though you knew how I felt about it. How is that not sabotaging me? Why would you ever think you could make those decisions for me?”

Harry’s jaw clenched. “I was your Alpha, Pete. I was your Alpha and I paid the bills. I had a right to expect some input on what you did with your life.”

Peter’s heart sank clear to his toes. “Is that-- do you really think that, Harry? Is that really what you think?”

“I shouldn’t have come here.” Harry stood abruptly, apparently done with the conversation. “I thought you’d be ready to come home, that you’d missed me, or that you’d gotten tired of barely making ends meet but I guess I was wrong.”

“I guess you were.” Peter made no move to stand, blinking back tears as he stared down at the table. “Bye, Harry.”

“Pete.” Once Harry was gone, Mr. Toomes stepped out of the kitchen again, his voice soft as he said-- “You still got plenty of time on your break, kiddo. Why don’t you head up stairs and get yourself settled down. Take a few extra minutes if you need. Hell, it's a Tuesday night, slowest night of the week. You can head off if you want.”

“I’m fine.” Peter swiped any stray tears from his face and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I can finish my shift, I just need a minute and I’ll be fine.”

From Peter: Can I see you after work tonight? I get off at ten.

From Wade: Everything okay?

From Peter: It’s been a shit day

From Wade: I guarantee it hasn’t been as bad as Weasels. Some Beta came in for a celebratory shot before heading to the hospital to have her kid, but ended up going into labor in the bar. I thought Weasel was going to plotz, that guy has a panic mode that puts teenage girls to shame.

Peter laughed a little and wiped his eyes again.

From Peter: Yeah alright, it hasn’t been as bad as Weasel’s day, but still pretty shitty

From Wade: I’ll be there, Omega

*****************

*****************

Wade sat in the sketchiest booth in the bar, clear in the back under the one light that had probably never worked at all, his hoodie up over his face as he sipped at his drink and waited on Peter to show up.  

He’d had to talk himself out of heading down to Toomes’ diner and causing a ruckus when Peter texted him about having a bad day, but that was nothing new. He had to talk himself out of causing a ruckus any time his mate was less than perfectly happy.

Wade struggled with keeping his protectiveness over his mate from edging into possessiveness, struggled with making sure Peter never picked up on how hard his heats were for Wade, how much self control it took to leave him alone just for the eighteen hours they were apart before Wade could hold him again.

He struggled with wanting to call Peter mate every time Peter called him Alpha and struggled every time Peter curled up close and sighed in that heart melting way, and struggled every time his phone buzzed with a text and he had to act like he wasn’t all of two seconds from throwing Peter over his shoulder like a gotdang marauding Viking.

Wade struggled, but all that mattered was that Peter felt safe and if that meant Wade had to fucking struggle just to breathe around that sweetly addicting Omega scent, then he was going to struggle to breathe and that was all there was to it.

“Alpha.” It was close to eleven pm before Peter made it to the bar, touching Wade on the shoulder and bending down to brush their noses together. “Hi.”

“Heya kiddo.” Wade fought back the urge to howl over Peter calling him Alpha-- seriously struggling--  and pushed a drink at the Omega. “Drink up then tell me about your day.”

“Yeah alright.” Peter tipped the glass back and drained most of it in one go, scrunching his nose teasingly when Wade gave an impressed whistle and waved for the waitress to bring another one. “So first thing this morning, this old guy comes in. Orders a stack of pancakes--”

“--as geezers do.”

“--and extra syrup--”

“Gotsta lube that gullet, right?”

“--eats every bite on his plate--”

“-- he had to do it to ‘em--”

“--then stands up and announces that the syrup is too sticky and made his pancakes taste weird and that he wants a refund.” Peter finished and Wade started laughing. “Yeah, good times.”

“Alright.” Wade handed the second drink to the Omega. “Tell me another one.”

“This group of soccer moms comes in for brunch.” Peter began. “All of them with that same stupid haircut, all of them wearing yoga pants and all of them seriously confused as to why the greasy, sketchy, borderline unhealthy diner didn’t serve frittatas and mimosas. Because you know, Toomes looks like the type of cook to have freshly made hollandaise sauce waiting for Sharon and Karen and Linda to split an order of eggs benedict because one serving has too many carbs?”

Another drink, another story-- “At this point, the toddler has been screaming for like an hour, then finally his dad gives in and gets him a cupcake and the kid just smashes it on the wall. Doesn’t even hesitate. Grabs that chocolate bullshit and smears it on the wall. It looked like someone had just put their butt on the wall and--”

Beer came out of Wade’s nose and Peter cracked up laughing when the big Alpha screamed over the suds, wiping at his face frantically.

“Keep going.” Wade managed, waving a hand for what would be Peter’s fourth drink of the night. “But on an unrelated note? After that story, I don’t ever want kids.”

“On an equally related note, I don’t want kids either.” Peter confirmed and launched into the next story. “So Mr. Toomes starts yelling from the kitchen at lunchtime, something about a mouse and a louse or something? And I get back there? He’s shout reading Dr Seuss over the phone to his granddaughter. On speaker phone just shouting Dr Seuss rhymes as he cooks the burgers.”

“Adorable.” Wade declared. “Just fucking adorable.”

It was at the bottom of drink number five that Peter finally sat back and sighed. “Harry came to see me today and it sucked.”

Wade rumbled comfortingly-- and definitely didn’t snarl thinking about his mate even being in the same room as another Alpha-- and Peter continued, “It sucked, Alpha. I didn’t want to see him, I didn’t ask to see him. And I hadn’t really thought about how shitty it would be to actually talk to him again and I’m just sort of-- just sort of a mess. It was hard to see him.”

“Sorry, Omega.” Wade said softly, and then--”Do you want me to kill him for you? Because I will. I’m fairly certain car accidents aren’t suspicious. I could have Weasel put something in his drink? I know a piano guy, I could definitely arrange for a piano to fall innocently from a second story window was he’s passing below.”

“Oh my god, Wade.” Peter rolled his eyes. “Stop that.”

“Or maybe an anvil?” Wade grinned when the Omega snorted with laughter. “I know an ACME guy.”

“Do you know a guy for everything?” Peter drained the rest of his drink and pushed it away, shaking his head when the waitress offered him another. “Like, do you have a guy for every day things and then another guy for dastardly things? Or is the good guy and the dastardly guy the same guy?”

“Oooh dastardly, that’s a good word.” Wade frowned when Peter stood up and sort of wavered, the Omega’s laughter just a little too goofy to be sober. “Where you goin’, Pete?”

“I wanted to sit on your lap.” Peter plopped himself right on Wade’s lap, curling up in the surprised Alpha’s chest and snuggling close. “This is okay, right? If it’s not you can just push me on the floor. But push me gently, I’m too drunk to catch myself.”

“Right.” Wade leaned back in the booth and put both arms around Peter’s waist, more than pleased that his Omega wanted to cuddle. “Because I’m going to dump your adorable ass on this dirty floor. It’s practically a bio-hazard.”

“You think my ass is adorable?” Peter’s words were slurring a little bit and Wade held him tighter. “Or should I be more worried about the bio-hazard thing? It’s the bio-hazard thing isn’t it? This place is gross.”

Before Wade could answer either way, Peter continued, “I think the worst part about seeing Harry today was that he still doesn’t really know what he did wrong. He thinks I’m just upset, thinks I should cut all this out and just come home. But I mean-- he betrayed me. He ruined me. All I wanted was suppressants so I could stay in school and I wanted internships so I could get my degree done faster and I wanted--” Peter’s breath hitched. “I wanted a mate who understood me and instead I got an Alpha who saw nothing wrong with making me give all that up and I don’t understand why--”

“It’s alright Omega, sweet Omega.” Wade whispered into Peter’s hair, rubbing slow circles across Peter’s back when he sounded like he might cry. “It’s alright. There’s nothing wrong with wanting school and work and all that sorta thing, the domestic life isn’t for everyone. Just because I’m a paragon of domesticity and a poster child for a perfect Alpha doesn’t mean that you have to follow in my illustrious footsteps.”

“Oh my god, you’re so dumb.” Peter sniffed loudly, wriggling and shifting until he was straddling Wade’s thighs, his forehead pushed into  solid shoulders, hands playing at the edge of Wade’s hoodie. “There’s nothing domestic about you. You kill people for a living. That’s the literal opposite of domesticity. The literal opposite.

“I’m hurt.” The words were strained, Wade’s breathing a little shaky the Omega pressed even closer. “I mean, yes, I kill people but there’s a more eloquent way to say that, right? Something about how I reunite their souls with the ancestral plane? You went to college, find a fucking synonym college boy.”

“College boy.” Peter laughed, soft and breathy and Wade’s heart rate tripled when the Omega’s fingers slipped under his hoodie to pluck at his shirt, then under again to smooth lightly over rough skin. “I think I like it better when you call me baby boy.”

“When do I- when do I--” Wade cleared his throat and tried again. “When do I call you baby boy?”

“Usually after you think I’m asleep.” Longing filtered into the Omega’s scent, and Wade’s eyes blurred red with need. “When you hold me after my heat. You ramble a lot, say a lot of stupid things and it makes me sleepy, but sometimes I l’l wake up, and you always say, ‘go back to sleep baby boy, I’ve got you’. S’nice. I like it.”

“Excuse you sir.” Wade tried to sound affronted, but it was difficult when Peter was drawing idle designs on his sides, the Omega tilting his head so his breath puffed warm against Wade’s neck. “That’s my emotional support rambling after you’ve fallen asleep and I’d thank you not to eavesdrop on it.”

“Mmmm. Sorry.” Peter shifted so that pert bottom settled snug in Wade’s lap, and Wade’s hands landed at the lean hips, holding him still .”I won’t interrupt your emotional support rambling then.”

He shifted a second time and Wade bit out--“You gotta sit still Omega, you’re killing me over here.”

“Sorry.” Peter said again, but he sure didn’t seem sorry as he inched even closer, rubbing his chest against Wade’s and moaning low in his throat. “You feel good, Alpha.”

He was definitely exhausted and definitely drunk and Wade felt a pang of guilt for enjoying how handsy the Omega was, the way Peter’s fingers kept flexing at his back and those long legs hugged at his thighs. Wade knew he should say something, should put the Omega back on the other side of the booth and settle the situation down but fuck-- fuck Peter felt so good and he was warm and comfortable and the perfect size in Wade’s arms and--

“Will you help me through my next heat?” Peter mumbled then and Wade nearly bit his tongue off. “I don’t want to do it alone anymore. Tired of it.”

“Um--Um--Um--” Wade scrambled for anything half decent to say, wrestling with his Alpha instincts so he didn’t fucking throw Peter down on the table and claim him right then and there. “Well I mean-- I’ll post up outside the door with a goddamn rifle to make sure no one bothers you, if that's what you mean. I don’t have a problem with that.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Peter leaned away far enough to peer up into the hoodie, trying to catch any glimpse of expression on the Alpha’s face, sucking in a harsh breath when he saw the red eyes staring back at him. “I-I want you to share it with me. The suppressants keep it short anyway but it still hurts to be--” his voice dropped. “--empty. And I won’t be empty with you there, will I Alpha?”

Wades growl was low and desperate, vibrating through their bodies and Peter’s head fell back with a pleased trill. “Omega, you’re too drunk to be asking this sort of thing.” the Alpha managed. “You can’t just-- I’m not going to-- we should talk when you’re sober.”

“Okay.” Peter nodded. “Okay, then I’ll just ask you again when I’m sober.”

“Omega--”

“I should get home if I’m going to sober up in time for my shift tomorrow.” Peter wiggled off of Wade’s legs, an entirely too wicked smile on his lips when the Alpha automatically tried to hold on to him. “Unless you don’t want me to leave, of course. Do you want me to leave, Alpha?”

“I--” Wade forced himself to let go of Peter. “Yes. I mean, no. I mean, yes, ask me again when you’re sober and no, I don’t want you to leave, but yes you should-- you should leave. You’re very drunk and I might be a saint but even saint’s mess up every once in a while, yeah? So why don’t you--” he coughed and folded his arms, fighting against every instinct to stay put and not grab Peter again. “--go home and sober up and maybe text me tomorrow.”

“I know this is just a protective thing with us.” Peter struggled into his jacket, and Wade didn’t trust himself enough to try and help him. “I mean, I know you sort of trauma imprinted on me? And that’s fine. Because otherwise I know you wouldn't look twice at me, but I think if you--” he tripped and nearly fell and Wade caught him, letting go right away so he wouldn’t be tempted to pull the Omega back onto his lap.

“I think if you gave it a chance between us it could work.” Peter finished, eyes bright with too much to drink, cheeks flushed because even this drunk he knew he was taking a risk., crossing a line between them. “If you want to try, I mean. If you could ever look at me as an Omega, rather than someone you want to protect or-- or someone that needs protecting? We could try. If you wanted. It could-- it could be easy, you know?”

“I--I--” Wade thought he really might be broken, his mouth open as he watched his mate duck his head shyly. “Pete. I--we-- yeah. We could try. If you want. That’s--” god, he really was broken. “Yes.”

“My heat will start early next week.” Peter bent down and bumped their noses together, then dropped the lightest kiss possible on the Alpha’s mouth. “Think about it and let me know.”

Right. Wade thought as he watched Peter leave. Like I’m going to be able to think about anything else ever for the rest of my life.

*************************

SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE FIC!

AUTHORS NEED DRINKS TOO!

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#ncts fics #spideypool #wade wilson #peter parker #harry osborn #abo dynamics #alpha wade wilson #omega peter parker

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

HIStory’s ranked (no one asked, but here i go)

so i was sittin here, talkin to myself about the HIStory series’ and was like ‘hey, i should rank them’ (which i’ve seen a few other people do, but mines a lot more rambling than there’s because i can’t shut up lol) 

so here’s my views lol (ordered from worst to best, imo):

6) My Hero (HIStory1) -

probably universally acknowledged as the worst episode, and i’d be inclined to agree with the masses on this lol... not only is the tone and humour of this series so weird and disjointed, but the entire story line literally makes no sense lol?? it’s unclear who the audience should be rooting for (especially as it goes out of it’s way to paint our protagonist as really unlikable lol, not to mention the love interest is the dullest character ever conceived like ???), as well as this the ending feels completely unrelated and bizarre... 

i think this concept /could/ have worked if the guy the woman was inhabiting (which sounds weird without context, but like she’s dead lol) was somehow also inside his head? or if she got to see his memories or whatever & tries to adjust her personality to match the guy’s, causing love interest!dude to fall in love with the guy... (like i could go into more detail, i basically hav an entire au written in my head lol, but yh...)... that way, her letting go of him in the end would feel so much more well set up? especially if she was generally more understanding and likeable.. 

i think overall this series just fails in telling a decent story lol... & the cringe is even beyond what i can handle lol

5) Obsessed (HIStory1) -

people might be surprised to see this one so low down, especially since i know a lot of people really love this series (& if u do, no hate to u btw, ur allowed to like whatever u want idc), but i realllllly don’t like this series... like at all ...

the plot is weird anyway, which isnt inherently a bad thing, but then u add on the really bad couple and it’s just...... bad lol... like everything about their relationship is built on lies and deceit, and even more so than that it’s built on a lack of mutual respect and fundamental trust for each other! tall guy (i don’t know names soz) feigns memory loss in order to get closer to short guy (btw, the scenes with them being domestic were really sweet, & i firmly believe this could have been an alright series for the actors if the story line wasn’t so bad), short guy’s whole existence in that universe was a lie lol (like i know there’s no easy way to tell someone ‘lol well i’m technically from the future’ but still), then there’s the whole resolution at the end & it’s just so ??? frustrating lol!

nothing bugs me more than seeing conflict in relationships (on screen or irl) that could be solved simply by TALKING TO EACH OTHER GODDAMNIT & isnt lol... my other issue with this series is the fact tall guy 100% forced himself upon short guy in the tent & like we’re just supposed to accept it cos ?? he’s saying no and pushing away but actually he wants it because he loves tall guy ?? like fuck no i’m not accepting that lol! 

basically, bad & bizarre story & characters, & gross tropes just makes this hard for me to watch and enjoy lol... i think, like in my hero, this could’ve done with being a different story altogether lol... (maybe tall guy actually did lose his memory & he falls for short guy all on his own with no predatory intentions?? idk something like that)

4) Right or Wrong (HIStory2)

this one & my number 3 are very much tied tbh, but this one is just slightly lower just because i’m not as big into the couple as i know a lot of people are... & it’s not necessarily the age gap, cos i dont actually mind age gaps in pairings (just as long as the younger one isnt a minor, obv... and also i think any gap that’s 30+ years is a bit weird lol..).. i think my big problem with this is i dont really see why younger guy (again, i have no idea of any of these characters’ names lol) would fall for the older guy? like the older guy is obvs going thru some issues, and hasnt been taking care of himself or his kid properly because of them, but like we dont rly see a lot of why he’s a great guy? like we get the sense young guy is attracted to him, but like love is more than just thinkin they’re hot lol... idk lol this might just be me tbh i just couldnt see why he’d be interested lol

i did like the whole family side though, and showing how a man who was previously with a woman can still end up with a guy (bisexualityyyyy (or some variation of that thereupon)) is something you dont always see in media, so i thought that was pretty cool! (even if the ex-wife thing was kinda lame lol...) 

i think overall i see what this series was going for, and that it actually did an alright job in some parts... the biggest problem is that it’s kinda just forgettable lol... maybe that’s why people like obsessed so much lol? maybe it was a train wreck but ohh boy at least u wont forget it in a hurry lol!

3) Stay Away From Me (HIStory1) -

i’m a bit torn about this one, cos there are parts of it i actually really like (them going from rivals/enemies to being good friends to being more), and other parts i really didnt (the stereotypical squealing yaoi fangirl friend)... & tbh, i kinda wish this had just been a show about the budding friendship between the 2 guys... it almost feels too forced to me that they’re made to ‘fall in love’ when i actually think them both becoming less selfish and learning to respect each other as step brothers & friends is actually already a really great story (& i know that it doesnt fit with the whole ‘HIStory’ thing, but stories of platonic brotherhood/’bromance’ are just as important as gay representation... isnt a /substitute/ for representation, don’t get me wrong, but it’s always so beautiful to see decently portrayed non-toxic friendships between guys... ok this is a rant for another day tho shhh)

i think maybe why i like this one more than the other HIStory1′s is because kinda nothing happens lol... it’s not overly complex with weird unexplained magic things happening, it’s just a simple story lol... is it still tropey as hell? of course lol! but i think the ‘realism’ of the world really helps, and i def think this was incorporated more into HIStory 2, which i’m really glad about...

overall, this is a relatively harmless series & is actually quite sweet at times... the kiss is awkward as fuck tho (there, i said it lol...)... it suffers the same forgetability as right or wrong tho... 

2) Crossing the Line (/Boundary Crossing) (HIStory2) -

ok, so here’s a series i 100% love & totally agree with the hype around lol! i hav no interest in volleyball (or any sports tbh), but the way this show handles the friendships and dynamics between the characters is really well done, especially for a series that’s only 8 episodes long! i also really love that none of the characters really fall into any stereotypes (which is a great improvement from HIStory1 i can tell u lol), and are given the space to actually have some growth & nuance at times?! 

(nuance? in MY HIStory series?? it’s more likely than you think!)

the main couple have really amazing chemistry, and the way they get together doesnt feel too out of place or that it’s going to fast, it just sorta flows really nicely... even the side couple are pretty well done (though i wasnt that big into them on my first watch, just cos the whole overbearing older brother thing was kinda annoying... i liked them more as the series went on tho...)

i kinda dont have any major complaints? which is bizarre cos i always hav complaints about things lol... maybe my complaint would be that they all look way too old and attractive to be whatever teenage age they’re supposed to be lol... (but tbh that doesnt take anything away from the story so i’ll forgive them lol...)... i think maybe i wouldnt consider it my favourite because the story line didnt grab me like the number 1... but i really cant fault it in terms of what it delivers lol, legit such a well put together series!

1) Trapped (HIStory3) -

lol i think anyone who’s been following me for the past few months aren’t in the slightest bit surprised this is my number one... i just love it too much lol!

from the incredibly well written and well acted characters, to the interesting and engaging (even if a bit ridiculous) plot, to the beautifully told romance , it really has it all doesn’t it!!! & i think even if this wasnt an enemies to lovers thing (aka one of the most godtier of all fanfic tropes), there’s so many things going for this series that make it worth watching! i have a few complains about editing choices and a few bad trope plot points which were just unnecessary (plus the fact we missed out on a lot of background info on some major characters lol...), but like despite everything this series rly struck a chord with me deep down in my soul lol

i could go waaay more into detail (and maybe i will one day lol... tho not rn, i’m v tired), but the gist of the matter is: i really love trapped lol

(conclusion)

Even though i’ve complained quite a bit here, i am so grateful for the HIStory series’ for bringing really interesting, and a little mad, stories with gay characters and story lines, with a big emphasis on happy endings! there are so many lgbt stories/characters in things that end up dying or just have bad endings, which just sends this horrible message that lgbt people aren’t worthy of having happy endings, which is completely untrue! 

So i look forward to future HIStory’s, even if some of them are gonna be bad (& maybe none will live up to the trapped!shaped bullet firmly lodged in my heart lol)

fin~

#HIStory series #HIStory1 #HIStory2 #HIStory3 #(not gonna tag them all individually cos we'll be here for years lol) #review #rant #(not really) #gay series #taiwanese series #lgbt series #lgbtq #HIStory #i've not read it through lol... might make no sense... dont read this lol

[winterisakillerwrites]

Love & Great Buildings - Chapter Four

Chapter: 4/19

Character/Relationship: Tom Hiddleston/Rosemary Mathews (OFC)

Genre: Romance/Angst

Summary: Three years have passed and a chance encounter brings Tom and Rosie together again. Can time make any difference or are they doomed to repeat their mistakes.

Rating: M

Author’s Notes/Warnings:  This is part nine of Last Minutes & Lost Evenings. Many thanks to @redfoxwritesstuff​ for listening to me ramble incessantly about  this story and being a sounding board when I needed it. You are a lifesaver, even if your stories break my heart.

Previous

CHAPTER FOUR

  Rosemary cracked her eyes open, squinting in the bright sunlight that had flooded the room. It took several minutes for her to shake the disorientation of sleep off enough to recognize the familiar cluttered mess of Jules’ living room. She sat up and immediately regretted such hasty action. Her vision swam and it felt as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to her temples. Repeatedly. “Oh God,” she croaked and winced at the grating sound of her own voice. “Kill me now.”

 A pained groan sounded from somewhere near the couch. Jules. Rosemary took a perverse sort of pleasure knowing that she wasn’t the only one feeling much like death warmed over. God, they had sorely overdone it.

 “Only if you kill me first.” Jules’ voice was muffled by several layers of blanket that, in any other circumstance, would have been utterly hysterical.

 “Not quite how that works.”

 She fumbled feebly for her purse, seeking the blessed paracetamol she kept stored there. And water. God, she needed water. But water was in the kitchen. Going to the kitchen involved standing. Standing was something she knew she absolutely did not want to do. She silently cheered as her fingers clutched around the small, plastic bottle and pulled it from her bag. Step one, complete. Now came the hard part.

 Gritting her teeth, Rosemary struggled to pull herself first onto her knees and then slowly, so so slowly, to her feet. The world only faded in and out of focus for a few moments and once it settled, she steeled herself for the harrowing journey towards the kitchen. I am never drinking again.

 One cautious step and then another. Slowly, she stumbled into the kitchen, blatantly ignoring the switch for the overhead light. She very much doubted she could handle the bright flickering of fluorescent lighting at this point. The kitchen was dim, the lighting from the hall providing enough illumination for Rosemary to locate and grab a glass from the cabinet above the sink. She hesitated for a moment before grabbing another and shutting the cabinet door. If she was in desperate need of water than no doubt so was Jules.

 Two glasses full of cool tap water, Rosemary made her way back into the living room. She paused at the lump of blankets on the couch. “Water,” She intoned before setting the glass onto the wooden top of the coffee table. A pale arm poked its way out from beneath the covers and the voice underneath mumbled thanks.

 Rosemary laughed, wincing at the pain it caused. Right. Paracetamol. She needed paracetamol and now. She grabbed the pill bottle she’d placed on the table and deftly popped its lid, pouring two tablets into her hand. She washed them down with water and walked back towards Jules’ prone form.

 “Here,” she stated, dropping the bottle on top of the blankets.

 Jules pulled the covers off her head, grimacing at the brightness. “Please tell me you threw paracetamol at me. Because if you tossed a packet of gum on me I will kill you.” She attempted to glare at Rosemary but the effect was diminished by her overall look of pained confusion.

 “You’d have to catch me first, sunshine, and in such a state I think I can outrun you, hangover or no.” Rosemary smirked, taking pity on her pathetic friend, grabbed the bottle and thrust it into Jules’ outstretched hand.

 “Bless you.”

 “I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart,” Rosemary quipped, “You are a bloody bitch when you’re hungover and I can only deal with one of those at a time.”

 Jules only response was a raised middle finger.

 Rosemary cocked an eyebrow, laughed, and then grimaced as another stab of pain flooded her temples.  She slowly lowered herself back onto her makeshift bed on the floor and grabbed the glass she’d left on the edge of the table. She quickly downed the rest of her water and closed her eyes, praying that the medication would kick in soon. It would be nice to not feel like her head was going to explode at any moment.

                                                         ___

  She awoke again several hours later feeling marginally more human. Pushing herself up she made a quick dash to the bathroom and then back into the kitchen for more water. She found Jules there, sitting on one of the bar stools, sipping a still steaming mug of coffee.

 “Is there any more of that?” Jules nodded at the French press on the counter and Rosemary wasted no time grabbing her own mug. “I know I should stick with water right now, but fuck me if I actually care at the moment.”

 Jules snorted into her mug. “Same.”

 Blessed caffeine flooded her system and she felt almost human again. She cocked her head at her friend. “What time is it?”

 “Time for you to invest in a watch.”

 Rosemary rolled her eyes, “Ha, very funny. Your wit astounds me.”

 Jules smirked, “I do my best.” She took another sip of coffee. “Half one I think.”

 Had she not placed her mug on the counter it would have fallen from her hands and clattered to the floor. “What?” she breathed.

 Fucking hell. Fucking, fucking, FUCKING hell!

 She dashed back into the living room. She heard Jules splutter after her, but paid it little mind. Dropping to her knees, she grabbed her bag from the floor and tore through it searching desperately for her phone. She had to call the store, had to make sure everything was alright. Max and Hanna were there by themselves. Yes, she had trained them and she knew they knew what they were doing; but fucking hell she was supposed to be at the shop until things got firmly settled.

 But the damned thing wasn’t there. She cursed aloud, dumping the contents onto the floor and shifting through them. Maybe she’d missed it.

 No, it wasn’t there. She let out a groan of frustration. Come on, Mathews, think! Had she used her phone after she’d left the shop that evening? She had a half hazy memory of holding her phone…By the couch!

 Rosemary jumped up and darted for the couch. She finally found it hidden underneath one of the couch cushions. How it had gotten there she didn’t know. But she’d found it.  She made quick work of unlocking the screen. She opened the dial screen then the ‘recent calls’ log; half fearing she’d missed their call. She let her eyes fall to the screen and nearly dropped her phone. rly seen and understood the toll it had taken on him. All thought of the store and of Max and Hanna flew from her mind.

 Oh no! No. No. No.  Please, god, no.

 She stared at the ‘recent calls’ log in abject horror. Tom’s name was there. Why the fuck was his name there? And at two in the morning? The log listed the call as lasting nearly fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes? Oh dear god in heaven…

 A cold dread settled in her stomach. What the fuck had she done?

 “Please god, Jules, tell me you didn’t let me call Tom last night…” Her voice shook with both fear and humiliation. Of all the stupid fucking things…

 Jules stood in the doorway of the kitchen with her arms crossed at her chest, momentary confusion clouded her features. “What?”

 Rosemary paced the living room, hands clenched at her sides, mind racing. “Tom. I called Tom last night…Or well this morning. Why did I do that?” She groaned and covered her face with her hands.

 “Because he’s a tit,” Jules retorted, matter of fact.

 Rosemary flushed in anger, “But that doesn’t mean I need to call him pissed out of my mind and tell him that now do I?”

 Jules shrugged her shoulders and chuckled. “To be fair, I didn’t think you’d actually do that. You know that anything I say after a bottle and a half of wine is not to be trusted…”

 “SOBER me knows that!” Rosemary hissed back, cutting Jules off. “But drunk me apparently can’t be fucking trusted.”

 Snippets of conversation flashed in her mind. Her own angry voice slinging accusations and Tom’s confused and hurt replies. She felt her chest tighten as she fought to breathe. If she’d said half the things she thought she had…She shut her eyes tightly, trying to quell the panic that was roiling inside her.

 Not good. Very, very not good.

  “You okay?”

 “No.” She shook her head and slumped onto the couch, cradling her head in her hands. She heard Jules’s light footsteps and then felt the couch dip under her weight as Jules settled beside her.

“It’ll be alright,” Jules reassured as she wrapped an arm around Rosemary’s shoulders, squeezing them gently. “So you told him off, it’s not like he didn’t deserve it.”

 Rosemary snapped her head up. “You don’t get it, Jules. What I said…Or think I said, I can’t remember for sure…Jules, I had no right. None!”

 She took a deep, trying to calm herself. It was little use. Her brain refused to be silent; fragments of her words, hazy and disjointed echoed loudly.

 ‘Arrogant, self-righteous bastard…’

 ‘…No wonder you can’t get your shit together.’

 ‘What I ever saw in you…’

 Rosemary shook her head, trying to clear the words and the rising sense of shame they brought. She’d been callous and cruel and the worst part was she couldn’t remember half of it. She was certain she was about to be sick. Head between your legs, the belated thought skittered across her mind. Put your head between your legs and breathe.

 So she did.

 And slowly the panic began to recede and she could breathe without gasping. Belatedly, she felt Jules stand and heard her steps as she shuffled from the room. And then she was alone.

 She found herself staring at the phone she’d dropped onto the coffee table. It sat there, inert and seemingly harmless. Without conscious thought she bent and picked it up, turning the screen on with a few taps of her fingers. Her hands shook as she stared at his name in her contacts list.

 All of the anger and uncertainty of the day before had faded. She hadn’t forgotten what he had done and how it had hurt her but it didn’t seem nearly as important. All she wanted was to fix this. To fix the shaky truce they had at least been trying to build. To heal the hurt she caused. But actually reaching out and doing so terrified her beyond words.

 But if I don’t try…

 Rosemary took a steadying breath and with shaking hands hit dial.  

 The phone rang once, then twice. And then a click and the line disconnected. Her heart sunk like a stone in her chest as she realized what had happened with a sick and certain dread. He’d hung up on her. She couldn’t blame him; not in the slightest. Hell, she would have hung up on her too. Guilt gnawed in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t know what to do. She could feel the desperate panic of uncertainty roaring its ugly head.

 Just try again, her brain urged. You need to try.

 With determination Rosemary redialed and held her breath. Three rings this time. Her mind whirled. She had no idea what she should say, or even could say, but knowing she had to say something regardless. Knowing that she had to try to apologize, to fix the mess she’d unleashed. There was a pause and then his voicemail kicked in.

 “Tom...it…it’s Rosie. I know you probably…” She halted and tried to gather her thoughts. “There is so much I need to…I’m sorry. Please, just call me back. Please.” She hung up quickly, and let out a shuddering breath. This was not the sort of conversation she could have with his voicemail. Doing so would lead to more confusion and the real, and terrifying, risk of further pain and misunderstanding. She needed to talk to him and he wouldn’t talk to her. She didn’t know what to do.

 Rosemary closed her eyes and tried to think. Panic and indecision whirled within her. What could she do? How could she get him to answer the phone and let her explain; let her apologize? She didn’t have the first idea but she couldn’t sit back and do nothing.

 Without a word, she shoved her scattered belongings back into her purse and grabbed her coat from where she had tossed it the night before. She needed to think and she couldn’t do that here. She called a farewell to Jules and shivered as she stepped into the weak sunlight of the late winter afternoon.

 The wind was brisk as she sped her way towards the Underground station a few blocks from Jules’ door. She pulled her coat tightly against her and joined the queue down the escalator and into the station. She boarded the next train, still lost in her thoughts and it wasn’t until she looked up and realized that her change point was two stops back that she fully came back to herself.

 “Shit,” she muttered under her breath. Nothing for it but to get off at the next station and switch trains there. But the next stop came and went and she remained on the train. She didn’t think about what she was doing until she saw a familiar station come into sight.

 Rosemary stood and exited the carriage with cautious determination. If he wouldn’t answer when she called then she would go to him.

                                                        ___

  Rosemary pressed the buzzer on the black metal gate before shoving her hands back into the pockets of her coat. It was absolutely freezing and she resisted the urge to hop from foot to foot to keep warm. As she stood, her mind flashed back to the last time she’d stood here and the uncertainty and dread she’d felt then. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 She jumped as Tom’s garbled voice came over the speaker above the buzzer. “What?”

 “I know I’m probably the last person you want to see, but please I need to talk to you. Just give me ten minutes of your time. Please.” Her voice shook at the very real possibility that he wouldn’t open the door. She put on a brave face, if he didn’t then it would be nothing less than she deserved.

 Several minutes of silence passed. Rosemary blinked back tears and prepared herself to walk away. The clink of the gate unlocking stunned her into immobility momentarily. She blinked for several seconds before pulling it open and walking towards the front door, heart pounding in her chest.

 Tom stood in the doorway, blue eyes cold and sharp as steel, his arms crossed defensively across his chest. This was such a far cry from the warm and caring man she’d known. He stepped aside without a word and she made her way into the warmth of the entry way. Her eyes darted around the hallway, taking in the familiar simplicity of his home. She was heartened to see that despite the years, nothing much had changed. Tom still hadn’t spoken and she fought to maintain a steady grip on her emotions. He’d let her in. That was something.

 Without a word, she made her way quickly into the living room. Again, she was heartened to see the familiar walls of books and simple but comfortable furniture. She felt rather than saw Tom follow behind her. His silent presence was unnerving and she fought the urge to turn tail and run. She refused to be a coward.

 They settled; her on the chair near the window and him on the sofa several feet away. Neither spoke. The silence in the room was near deafening and Rosemary wanted nothing more than for it to break. But Tom wasn’t talking and she feared that if left to his own devices, he wouldn’t say another word to her.

 Rosemary could feel his eyes boring into her and she fought to keep herself from flinching. She took a deep breath and braced her hands on her knees, trying desperately to think of where to start, what she could possibly say. The truth, her mind screamed. Tell him the truth. You owe him that at the very least.

 “Tom, I just…I don’t…” She stumbled over her thoughts and had to stop to gather herself before trying again. “God, Tom,” she whispered, dropping her head into her hands. She could feel his eyes on her and the words nearly stuck in her throat. Still she pushed onward, needing to apologize even though she knew there was little chance she could. “I am so so sorry for last night. I was completely out of my head. I shouldn’t have said that. I had no right to…”

 “Which part?” He asked cutting her off. His voice was level but she could detect the hint of underlying tension as he seemed to struggle in vain to contain himself. “The part where you called me ‘an arrogant, self-centered, selfish, prick of a bastard’ or when you said that I only date blonde, dimwitted pop stars and Hollywood starlets because they are the only ones who can put up with my ‘massive ego’ and ‘desperate need to be a media whore’? I’m paraphrasing here, mind you, but I think I got the gist of it.”

 Rosemary squeezed her eyes shut. That summer had always been a sore spot for Tom and she’d known it. He rarely, if ever, talked of it but when he had she had clearly seen and understood the toll it had taken on him. Throwing that in his face had been nothing short of cruel.

 She’d never felt so wretched in her entire life. He’d hurt her, yes. God had he hurt her. But he’d never done so intentionally. He’d been misguided and selfish, but he’d never set out with the intent to cause her pain. She had. She’d wanted him to hurt like she’d hurt so she used the one thing she knew without a doubt would leave him bleeding.

 “All if it.” The words were barely a whisper and with great effort she raised her head and met his gaze. “I know it’s too little too late but I am so, so sorry. I had no right to throw any of that at you. It’s not true and I had absolutely no right to say it. I wish I could take it back. I wish I’d never said it in the first place.” Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks and she wiped them away as quickly as she could. She didn’t have the right to be upset. Not at this. She wasn’t the injured party in this and she damn well knew it.

 Tom sat in stony silence, his eyes burning with hurt and fury as he stared first at her and then at the table before him. She tried to ignore the shiver of unease his gaze sent up her spine. She wished he would speak, would say something, anything.

 “Well you did say it and you can’t take it back. That’s the funny thing about words, whether your intent is to help or harm, once they’re out there, you can’t take them back.”

 Rosemary drew a shuddering breath and fought to regain her composure. He was right, of course. She’d known it from the second she’d realized just what she had done. And she couldn’t change it. “I know that, I do. But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish it weren’t the case.” She paused, taking another deep breath and gathering herself once more. “I was drunk and angry and I wanted to hurt you. It’s not an excuse, I don’t have any excuse for lashing out at you. But I did and it was wrong. So very wrong of me. I know that that doesn’t fix or solve anything, but I am so dreadfully sorry.”

 It was Tom’s turn to breathe deeply. His eyes drifted closed for a moment and his face clenched then relaxed. “I know you’re sorry, Rosemary, but right now that is simply not enough.” He paused again, resting his hands on his knees. “I get that I hurt you and that I’ve been a selfish, cowardly prick but you took it too far and I can’t deal with that. Not now.” He scrubbed his jaw with his left hand. “I think I’d like you to go now.”

 She flinched as if struck but quickly gathered herself and nodded silently. Fair enough, she thought. That is bloody fair enough. Without another word she grabbed her purse from the floor beside her chair and walked quietly out of the house.

Next

#Tom Hiddleston #Tom Hiddleston RPF #Tom Hiddleston x oc #Tom Hiddleston x ofc #Tom Hiddleston x original character #tom hiddleston x original female character #Tom & Roise #Love & Great Buildings

[sodasyrup]

I love,,,,, domestic lava au... You should do more of it. I'd love to know more about reka and monty too!

BWAAA...

Okay as I said it’s an au with kittie (6kuro) so I’m gonna grab the things it said and I said lmao

warning its a LONG disjointed post bc im too tired to make. a good post fdhghdf

lovelypeaches08/28/2019cole and kai would settle down real late like....in their late thirties because they want to keep their children as safe as possible, being elemental masters and having enemies and all

at first wu wants them to fight longer and shit but hes OLD so who cares and theres probably conflict on thatbut kai and cole are old enough to realized they dont have to be controlled

so they get married, symbolically if anything, because they've been dating for probably a little over a decade now and known each other even longer, AND been living together for the same amount of time

theyre the first of the ninja to settle down, and they buy a small house in a village thats maybe an hour away from ninjago city

the tininess of the house is made up for by the largeness of the yard, where cole likes to garden, especially fruits and vegetables

cole works as a stay at home free lance artist, doing stuff like commissions, book covers, comics, etc for moneykai does something that puts his charisma to use, probably something in business that lets him advertise and talk a lot..he could never settle down for a stay at home job or anything, even with all his thrilling ninja stories

they have enough money from donations and awards to thrive off these jobs, and ninjago probably pays them kind of like retirement

cole cooks for kai so he always has a meal ready when hes home, so then kai cooks on the weekend

anyways, they have two kids, about 3 years aparti haven't figured them much out yet, but kai and cole cook and bake with themcoles parenting style is very protective and rather spoils them, while kai lets them do whatever as long as its not immediately dangerousthey balance each other out well, so their kids grow up loved and well rounded

lovelypeaches08/28/2019coles always buying them sweets and treats and Kai pretends to be annoyed but thinks its really cute

the kids go to a small school on the outskirts of ninjago city, and get asked about their parents a LOT. they kind of like the attention but it gets irritating

moving on to the other ninja who also start to settle down,jay doesnt really want kids, so he passes on his powers with ~science~ or something, but only when hes a lot olderhe does engineering at borg industries or something, and he messes around a lot but gets away with it bc hes the blue ninjahes like kai and coles kids Fun Uncle, since he lives in a big apartment in downtown ninjago city, with a bunch of cool techkai and coles family often take elongated road trips therejay thinks hes a cool relative but besides being super lenient hea actually kind of embarrassing lol

nya settles down a bit later than the rest of them, because she wants to live her ninja days to the fullesti could go on about my domestic samurai au but her and pixal have a kid who gets nyas water powersnya is much more eager to train her kid than cole and Kai are (they want to start properly training thwir children when theyre like 16, much to wus disappointment)nya doesn't force anyrhing on her kid but she doesnt protect her kid from the fact they'll have to train sooner or latershes determined on still changing the world, so she's a strong political leader, with innovative ideas who doesnt approve of ninjagos government and wants to change it for the betterShe also lives in downtown, but isn't as fun as jayher kid is younger than kai and coles, but kai and coles kids look up to them because they're very independent and skilled! their mom is also super cool, but not in a silly way. she rocks leather jackets and drives her kid around on a motorcycle

lovelypeaches08/28/2019zane is tricky for me...i like to imagine him sticking with lloyd to being a ninja or whatever, since hes going to be alive a lonnggg timehe also wants to respect wus wishes, so he teaches students and fights alongside lloydhe does so much less however, and finds a lot of time to visit his friends

kai and coles kids are shy around him at first, him being a nindroid whose still a ninja, but hes so much nicer and softer than expectedhe always brings them presenrs and enjoys quality time with them, so he's basically their favorite uncle

now lloyd continues his master training, to become the next master after wu dies. hed be the one to guide the next generation of elemental masters as well as their parents in training thembut don't worry, he gets a break too, since the other ninja help him out. hes much less burdened then wu was in the later years of his lifeok thats all i think

My commentary now

little boy whos like 3 and super wide eyed and excited and loves pink (when he foudn out zane at one point had a pink gi he asked if he could get one too)older girl around 6 whos a big daddys girl and loves to garden with cole and make mud piez

the little girl is the fire em - she had temper issues linked to autismz which they worked through her with early and never thought of it but she has a big passion for gardening they mistook for elemental connection when rly she just LUVS IT

little boy is em of earth - hes a natural born leader and stubborn, wide eyed and excitable. again bc they worked w both their kids about their tempers and such they never realized he was just naturally good at keeping his composure. also a lot like jay keeping morals upnaturally strong but both their kids are and i hc the super strength doesnt come in until peubertyz

shes a bit of a late bloomer with em powers but one day their little boy accidentally makes a pot hole inside the kitchen bc he was excited over zane cookingthey took too good of care of their kids and his true potential was simple bc he was a litol kid which was im going to live my best fcuking life with friends and family *rips a hole in the ground

kai and cole are the gross sappy parents that trade kisses n their kids are like thats DISGUSTING youre DISGUSTINGLY IN LOVE

Kittie pointslovelypeaches08/28/2019YEAYEYAYAYYEYAYAYEoh god the little boy is part scenecorelikenot full on scene but like punk y2kwhich is a part of scenealso at first cole and kai are super concerned being a ninja will be as mentally damaging and ack as it was for them at times, but lloyd and zane are genuinely good mastersbutnot to get sadbutwhen tragedy does happen somehow, since neither Lloyd nor zane can ease that, cole and kai are so good at helping their kids e thatthey help them recover from it without downplaying their kids concerns and feelings amd give good advice and loveand make being elemental masters a lot easier for their kids than it ever was for them

me again.....

they always get so fucking scared thokai custom makes weapons for themarmor too he spends hours upon hours making sure its perfect and even prays over them to keep their kids safe

anyway when kai n cole visit w them (idk if theyr just adopted at their current age or like.... adopted as babies or surrogate or?? idk but) they visit lloyd and kai softly says "Look! its uncle lloyd" and lloyd starts SOBBING hes just fucking bawlinghis eyes out and when kai offers to for lloyd to hold him lloyds just like are you suure arre eyyuuu thherye so smsmm all kaiii are yoruur suureee thheyrey babbeises

nya is hesitant but ends up being a really good aunt, i meanshe took care of kai /j

zane is a fav uncle and hes always making sweets for them jay is. also sorta a fav bc where zane comes jay follows and jay has a sweet tooth and also makes Cool Toys + hey wanna prank your dadsalso im dramatic and likekai and cole sitting down and having a convo about master wubc he was sorta a shitty mentor and they really REALLY dont want their kids going through any self confident issues nor over stressing bc theyr KDISeventually kai and cole talk to master wu and actually has wu face his terrible practice towards kids and wu accepting he was.............................a bad 'parent' in a senseblebleblelelelelelellekai works but cole absolutely watches over any training when wu is there at first but lloyd is the master now and lloyd is like..........................i dont want kids to go through what i went through kai is like i trust you but also i will murder every single one of you in this dojo if you ever hurt my little girlim doing what i do and taking an au and running im sorry ghdghdfhJACK RAMBLES....their son refuses to wear shoes he lieks dirt on his feet they never really think much of it but its actually really comforting for him to feel the earth under his feet and feel stablethey think its just a stim thing maybe? theyr unsurebut! turns out him Element(also a fear of heights)lloyd tries to be a serious master but hes a big ol goof and can easily be manipulated

ironically.......its the lil boy who often is like HEY!!!!!!!!!!! WE GOTTA TRAIN!

kai and cole agree not to tell anyone what theyre thinking of naming their little boy until he arrives so when the day comes kais holding this tiny little boy and holds him out gentlyand lloyd is already EMOTIONAL because this is a BABY and lloyd softly asks his name n cole cuts in like "hes named after a really brave dude, montgomery. but we're thinking monty as a nickname"lloyd, choking up:(hc garmadons first name is montgomery)

the girl is Reka which means sweet in maori (a personal headcanon for cole) and shes their sweetheart

lovelypeaches09/04/2019bhrnrng this is in domestic au but col and kai teachign their kids instrumentscole and reka wud play piano duets togetherand monty doesnt like instruments much but he likes to singlike a LOT he belts out a song for everythinghe just lieks his own voice

burdletutt09/04/2019HNGGG HFHMONTY LOVS BEING LOUD

lovelypeaches09/04/2019YEAAAHhes like the type who makes a song for everythingmonty voice we rr goinggg to the parkkkkk and the grass isss.........GREEENNNNNNN and there are LOOK THERE ARE SQUIRRRELSSSS and a playground and the skyyyyy isssssssssssss...*deep inhale* BLUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE1E!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!kai and cole: you are literally so talented

jay tries really hard to be the Cool Uncle at firstbut Monty just :^TReka gives him an awkward chucklewhen jay stops being Cool ™ hes goofy and thats when they start giggling and liking him more

#sodask #Anonymous #dads au