#this might be me trying to figure out how to fill the ridiculous void after this exam is done

[extasiswings]

‘til all my sleeves are stained red

I wrote this instead of sleeping...no regrets.  I’ve been obsessed with Crash and Learn as Buck, Actually - The Redux since Oliver said Buck connects with one of the Happiness Convention call victims in a big way, and...well...[Note: includes minor original character death (the call victim)]

“What’s the call, Cap?” Buck asks as the truck pulls out of the garage.

“Structural collapse at a Happiness Convention,” Bobby calls from the front seat. “It’s going to be all hands on deck. We’ve got a few other units meeting us there.”

“Happiness…Convention?” Eddie repeats, making a face. “What the hell is that?”

Buck opens his mouth, but Hen beats him to it. “I think it’s one of those conferences where people pay ridiculous amounts of money to pack themselves into a room with thousands of other people to listen to motivational speakers and so-called life coaches promise that if they just buy the latest self-help book, they’ll finally discover everything they want in life and achieve self-actualization or something.”

“Sounds like a scam.”

“Oh, 100%.”

“There are real professionals who do these things, you know,” Buck points out. “Licensed doctors, therapists—”

Eddie raises an eyebrow at him. “Depending on how much one of these conventions costs, I would think you could find a therapist to work with one-on-one instead of listening to a bunch of generic advice directed at a whole roomful of strangers by someone who doesn’t know you.”

“Never thought I’d see the day when you were extolling the virtues of individual therapy,” Buck shoots back.

“Well, fifty minutes with Frank is less painful than that self-help book you left on my coffee table.”

From someone else, it might sting. But Eddie’s tone is gently teasing, his eyes sparking with warmth as a wry smile plays over his lips. And Buck knows he’s thinking about the other night, when they were on the couch at Eddie’s house and Christopher had started flipping through the book, not bothering to hold back his opinions.

”What is this supposed to do?”

”It’s teaching me about achieving transcendence,” Buck explained. “That’s what comes after self-actualization.”

Christopher snorted. “Buck, you don’t even own a couch.”

”Hey now—”

Buck’s own lips curve up despite himself, and he shakes his head as a laugh slips out. “I’ll remind you of that the next time you complain about him asking you to journal.”

“The point being—” Hen interjects. “—I don’t think someone can teach you how to be happy and what’s going to make you happy by giving a speech at some conference. Happiness is individual—it’s something we all have to figure out for ourselves. There aren’t any shortcuts.”

There’s a ring of truth in that, and Buck looks away, out the window.

The thing is, he’s been searching for so long for…he doesn’t really know. Love? Acceptance? Something to fill the void in his chest that aches for something that feels like it’s just his, something that’s constant, something he can keep. Abby wasn’t it. Ali. Taylor definitely wasn’t it—not when having her meant cutting away other pieces of himself until he almost didn’t recognize the person he saw in the mirror. And he’s tired of looking. Tired of trying so hard. So at this point, the idea of having someone else just tell him what to do? Tell him what’s going to make him happy? Sounds pretty nice.

“Alright, we’re almost there,” Bobby calls back. “Let’s focus.”

The scale of the call may be big, but there isn’t anything terribly complicated about it. Buck starts up on the highest floor where the collapse had begun and works his way down to the lower floors, helping people he comes across on autopilot. He thinks he’s almost finished clearing the next floor down—is giving it a final sweep while Eddie and Hen take a patient out to the ambulances—when he hears the ringing of a cell phone and a faint groan.

The man is trapped under a mountain of debris that covers him from the chest down. The phone is just out of his reach, although his fingers twitch towards it in a valiant, if useless effort to answer.

“LAFD,” Buck announces as he drops to his knees. “I’m going to get you out of here as soon as possible, sir—can you hear me? Can you tell me your name?”

The man coughs weakly and forces a faint smile. As Buck looks closer, he realizes the man is younger than he would have thought at first—maybe just in his late thirties, early forties at most.

“Tom,” he rasps.

“Hi Tom. I’m Buck.” Buck slips his fingers into Tom’s. “Squeeze my hand? —great, that’s good. How long have you been—”

He’s interrupted when the phone starts ringing again.

“My best friend,” Tom explains, face pinching in discomfort as he tries to reach again. “He keeps calling—think he got worried when I stopped responding to his messages, or maybe this whole thing was on the news. He told me not to come to this thing, you know. Told me it was a waste of money, that I didn’t need some scam-artist to tell me how to be happy. Guess I should have listened.”

[Read the rest on ao3]

#chapel writes #buddie #buddie fic #evan buckley #911 speculation #911 fic

[13eyond13]

Hi...Can I ask your top 3 favorite characters from Nana? And why you loved them? And your top 5 favorite moments from the series? Thanks if you want to answer....

Hi hi!! I would LOVE to try to talk about this series for a bit, but PLEASE keep in mind I'm still only just finished volume 7 / chapter 24 (I am currently waiting in line to read volume 8 at my library! But I might get impatient and just try to find the chapters online too)... MY TOP 3 FAVE NANA CHARACTERS (SO FAR) 1. NANA KOMATSU / NANA 1 / "HACHI": OMG I love Nana 1 to death hahahaha. She literally makes me lol every single volume with her thoughts and decisions and interactions with everyone else, and it's just the most fun in the series to be inside her brain and following along with her relationships and emotional roller-coasters and little life lessons and anxieties and pains and hopes and dreams. She's an awesome character to me for being flawed and complex and selfish and immature yet still very likable and oddly tough and brave and sweet as pie at the same time. I think seeing the growth she's having as a person over the series is definitely the main draw for me, and watching her try to figure out her feelings for everybody and her place in the world and how to become the type of person that contains all the personality traits she's always admiring around her - and how to fill that void she feels of never completely erasing the loneliness inside or being perfectly synced up with the people she's trying to form a deeper connection with.

2. NANA OSAKI / NANA 2:

She's mysterious, she's proud, she's tough, she's badass, she's funny and sensible and kind! I love the more grown-up and emotionally reserved vibe she has in comparison to Nana 1, which totally makes sense considering her harder childhood and how self-reliant she always had to be. Her casual warmth with Hachi is endearing and her less obviously expressive and highly independent yet still emotionally intense personality is very relatable to me. It's the most fun to see Hachi reacting to Nana 2 to me I think, because Nana 2 is more closed off and a bit more afraid of exploring her feelings unabashedly than Nana 1. But she's by far my other fave in the series, and of course the heart of the whole thing is the very ambiguously devoted relationship between the 2 Nanas for me!

3. ???? I don't think I have a third main fave character in the story yet??

At the beginning of the manga I quite liked Shoji and Junko, but as the series is progressing it seems like they both got written out of the plot almost entirely. I liked Junko for always keeping it real with Nana and caring about her in a tough love sort of way, though she did for sure just seem a bit like the "voice of reason" character for the more ridiculous Nana to bounce off of whenever she was in a bind... I liked Shoji because he seems like a regular kid instead of some idealistic fictional love interest hunk - his reactions to Nana K. were pretty relatable to me, and their romantic interactions were cute and made me laugh and also cringe with sympathy at times (like when it was so awkward when Nana first moved to Tokyo too and they were still trying to readjust to being around each other more - I remember similar things happening to me whenever I had been long-distance in a relationship for a summer and and then suddenly near my partner again at some time). Even in the part where he starts developing feelings for Sachiko and sneakily cheating on Nana, I always felt he behaved pretty understandably and wasn't a horrible person so much as just a conflicted and young and immature one who wasn't in the right relationship when he was with Nana, maybe (though admittedly I wasn't that upset that he wasn't being featured in the story more after that, because that would probably get on my nerves). Currently I have just finished volume 7, and right now I am finding I don't feel a super strong connection to any of the other characters too much other than Nana 1 and Nana 2? The other guys in Blast are just okay to me, I don't have SUPER strong feelings about Nana getting together with Nobu (in fact I find him a little bit annoying at times - I agree with Shin that he "has some unrealistic ideas about women" and idealizes Nana too much - Yasu is chill and nice and wise, but a bit TOO chill and reserved to be super interesting to me). The members of Trapnest are also just okay to me? Ren bores me a little bit (maybe because I just would rather be reading about Nana 2 hanging out with Nana 1 than with him)... Reira is hard for me to form ANY opinions about other than eww, it's weird that she's sleeping with Shin, Takumi is a selfish yet possessive jerk and only thinking about himself, and I always forget the other one (Naoki?) even exists...

I WILL say that the little Nana 2 fangirl Misato is extremely cute and I'm always happy when she's on the page, hahaha. Her shameless devotion to Nana 2 and her politeness and extreme savviness about the music industry are just fun for me to read (as was Hachi's initial jealousy toward her, but I'm glad she managed to also eventually get over that)! --

MY TOP 5 FAVE NANA MOMENTS (SO FAR): Forgive me if these moments are completely arbitrary and sort of dumb picks, because I feel like I'm forgetting so much of the story from the previous volumes already, and I'm still only 1/3 of the way through the whole thing?? But here are ones that stood out to me whenever I was racking my brain: 5. Whenever Nana forces Shoji to let her sleep in his hotel room, then awkwardly sings him to sleep, and he's like: "YOU DON'T HAVE TO SING" hahaha...

my reaction to that was basically Junko's reaction:

4. Whenever Nana 2 starts getting jealous and confused about Hachi hooking up with Takumi I was like OHOHOH, HOW THE TURNS TABLE.... I think it's REALLY hard for Nana 2 to admit stuff like feeling vulnerable or jealous or possessive over Nana 1 at this point, and seeing her realize "heeyyyy maybe I want her attention and devotion a little more than I thought and was taking it for granted a bit"... that was a very feelsy little part! 3. Whenever Hachi is getting jealous about Nana 2's cute little fangirl and having super mean petty thoughts about her hahahah omg the most relatable thing of life! 2. When Nana 2 goes to Nobu after he first starts dating Hachi and is like: "I'M USING YOU TO KEEP NANA 1 IN MY LIFE FOREVER, SO DON'T MESS THIS UP!" OMG?? Fellas is it gay to keep your girl roomie nearby by throwing guys at her that are entrenched in your social circle and also more socially acceptable for her to date? When I say my heart skipped a beat at that moment!! And it just happened in the manga super recently, so who knows where things are going to go from here?

1. When Hachi is having so many gay thoughts about Nana 2 that she's like "AHHH THIS IS TOO GAY I NEED TO GET ANOTHER BOYFRIEND!!!!" Boy did I laugh out loud at the cognitive dissonance (and find it super relatable to younger me and my own panicking about maybe not being entirely straight thoughts? of course)...

#nana #nana spoilers #ask #anon #p #13readsmanga #thank you for asking!