#yeah now isn't the time to ruminate on the fact that i've been on this website for tEN YEARS IN AUGUST

[llynwen]

hey I saw your tags abt reading the MM book too and I desperately need to hear abt it from more ppl that also shoved it up their ass. Thoughts?

oh brother you have no idea just how many thoughts i have about it.

i really didn't wanna read the book because i knew it was going to make me go insane, but then a friend of mine who i'm trying to force to watch the show (i beg of you martyna. it's so good) decided to get it for me for my birthday.

from the very first few fucking pages i was Perplexed, to put it lightly. i was expecting a light and breezy autobiography with some silly childhood anecdotes and maybe behind the scenes tea about the hollywood crowd. Instead i was served almost 300 pages of trauma dumping, philosophical ruminations and some very TMI info that i wish i never read. i rated this book 5/5 on goodreads btw.

the first thing that really knocked me on my ass was this (i'm ignoring the ketchup story i DON'T want to think about that)

this should've given me an idea about that kind of book this was gonna be. yet i continued on, blindly, thinking, okay maybe he just wanted to get that out there. more power to him. whatever. (not really).

then the motherfuckers starts explaining his little philosophy, the titular green lights, right? and i'm like, yeah. i agree. you're correct. but why did it take you 50 years to figure this out? i'm 24 and i've been living by this very logic for years. Anyways. i continue reading.

now, bro spends half the book trying to convince us his parents were NOT abusive. i disagree. i think he has stockholm syndrome. i hope he's in therapy. i don't wanna think about this either.

now, this is where i started catching on that he was lying to me. i know it took me an embarrassingly long time, but i was giving him the benefit of the doubt. the undead parrot and the 13 story tree house, however, was what made me go Wait A Damn Minute.

yeah, turns out this book isn't a memoir, it's a mix between a magical realism novel, a self help handbook and a philosophical treaty. served to you on really nice paper (i mean Really nice. i appreciate that) with important words in bold, italics or even sometimes in green (which i appreciate even more, since i am tragically dyslexic).

after establishing that all men do is, in fact, lie, i gained a different outlook on the whole thing (i swear i need to read it again, this time in full englit major mode, make some notes and dissect this thing like it's shakespeare).

i like how candid he is about kind of getting lucky with the whole famous thing. he really took that slutty slutty waist and peculiar bone structure of his and said I'm Gonna Make A Career Out Of This. good for him.

he is, however, just a man, and at the end of the day, you can really tell he sees the world through his privilege. the white straight cis christian rich and famous thing kinda sways him into obnoxious territory in some parts, and it had me seething with rage. like, i too would love to go hike through south america because it came to me in a dream. i'd looooove to go visit my favorite unknown artist in a country on the other side of the world. i was half hoping to read about a piranha biting his shlong off when he went skinny dipping in the motherfucking amazon. (un)fortunately, no dice.

the david and goliath story made me chuckle out loud. he makes it Just believable enough to make you think about it. i like being made to think.

the philosophics continue in the form of the single most cursed wall of chicken scratches i ever did see. i sat there, straining my eyes, trying to decipher this shit, and i'm pretty sure he was on something when he wrote it because all of this

could be summed up with "you've gotta leave your comfort zone to learn more about yourself and the world." suck my cock dude.

i Really like how he talks about his wife. but then again, when you look at her, there really isn't any other way of talking about her.

i mean. how the Fuck did his stinky ass pull this goddess. lucky bastard.

now, the 3ish pages where he talks about filming the show (which was the whole reason i even started reading) are criminally underwhelming. i was hoping for a sneak peak into that elusive 450 page manuscript (i will Steal your laptop matthew. watch out), but instead i got a one liner of him being like i wanna play rusty because he's the specialest little girl in the whole entire world and the producers going yeah fine. THAT'S IT. still mad about this, especially because after that he hits you with the love letter to new orleans. i mean be serious. he should Not be allowed to write shit like that.

to summarize, i think he might be a genius, or he might be insane. he is probably both. i want to shove this book up his ass for many reasons, for example him making me learn the names of his kids (i hate knowing things about celebrity kids. leave them out of this) or for making me agree with him. because i do. agree. I don't appreciate his continued efforts to convert me to christianity and i think he's disgustingly obnoxious in some places, but the truth is he has a real cool outlook on a lot of things and i'm very mad that i now respect this bastard for more than his acting skills. i would like to buy him a six pack and listen to him talk about it. i'd love to argue with him, too. i can recommend this book to everybody who feels like they need to experience some psychic damage and maybe an existentialist crisis alongside it. on Very Nice Paper.

#i can never think about lord byron the same #damn you matthew #banger of a read for realsies #ask #matthew mcconaughey

[duelistkingdom]

title: vespula main characters: diana kettering, ophelia copperfield genre: southern gothic romance themes: identity, queer politics, inheritance & race, classism, hauntings

content warnings: queerphobia, racism (esp antiblack racism in the south), paternal death, guns & violence, misogyny, bug death (specifically wasps are killed)

plot: twenty-five years ago, peter kettering was believed to have died in a car crash. he left behind a grieving widow and a young daughter - diana kettering. in 1997, diana recieves a letter from ophelia copperfield revealing that her father died last week of a heart attack instead and her entire world is shifted. a house and a sizeable amount of money are being contested, and ophelia begs diana to visit it at least once. now diana has found herself embroiled in a bitter estate battle with her father’s mistress and her grandmother while trying to untangle the one mystery that really brought her here: who the hell was her father?

author's note: this was written for @ockissweek day two. this is considered noncanon & thus isn't a spoiler for anything in the story. this is just a fluffy little exploration piece for diana & ophelia's relationship.

It'd been raining for the past three days. It splattered against the tin roof and windows, making it difficult for Diana to sleep. She wasn't sure she wanted to sleep regardless. The fact that there was a long list of family who wanted her dead and out of the way made it difficult. Even with Jane out of the house and the locks changed, Diana was having plenty of uneasy nights thinking about how she wasn't safe. The gun was in the drawer next to her, ready to be fired if she needed. It still didn't help her feel any safer. She was about to fall asleep when the phone rang, jolting her up out of any sleep she'd have. Diana reached to the phone, answering with a soft, "Hello?"

"I see you got the phone set up in the house," Ophelia said on the other end, and Diana could see the smirk on her face. "I... was wondering if I could come over. I've been at the office all day and... have some stuff to go over with you."

Diana's pulse quickened as she considered all the possiblities if Ophelia came over. She'd been doing her best to pretend that there was nothing there, but every now and then... she thought maybe... she put that thought away. It would be dangerous if she got too far ahead with the belief that Ophelia might possibly play for the other team. Sometimes she considered asking her what she thought of The Color Purple... or perhaps if she was a "friend of Dorothy". She ruminated over the best possible approach. "Uh, yeah," she found herself saying before she went over all the pros and cons - something she wouldn't normally do. "Just... hurry over, okay? I..."

"You don't need to say it," Ophelia said, cutting Diana off. "See you in a few minutes."

The line went dead, and a clap of thunder made Diana jump. She glanced outside the window again, breathing in and out slowly. She'd never liked thunderstorms. Ma would scream in panic the entire time, and nothing could soothe her. In turn, Diana would shake under her sheets when she was younger. Even now, she could still hear the blood curldling shrieks from when she was a small child. She got out of bed, padding towards the closet. If Ophelia was going to be here soon, then she needed to get dressed. What does one wear when their crush is coming over at... she glanced at the clock, and did a double take. It was two in the morning.

Was it normal for other girls to go over to someone's house at two in the morning? She knew that when she was a closeted teenager, she was invited over for sleepovers. Was that what this was comporable to? In that case, any flannel pajama would be acceptable, surely. She was overthinking this. Normal girls didn't overthink what they wore for a silly sleepover. It was just her dad's lawyer, who was helping her to keep the house. There was no reason to worry about dressing up. And yet Diana decided to pull back on her jeans and a crop top, as if she was expecting something more.

The knock at the door felt like it came too soon, and she made her way downstairs. She could feel the stares from her father's side of the family's portraits staring her down as she made her way to the foyer - as if they knew they'd hate her for merely existing. She was the wrong kind of descedent living in this giant mansion: half black, a woman, and a homosexual. She shook that thought off. Diana didn't need to think about any of that when she had arguably a scarier problem at hand: finding out if a girl liked girls. If she got it wrong, she risked so much: losing her job, losing the house, and worst of all, losing Ophelia's friendship. She took a steadying breath before opening the door with a half smirk. "So, what is this stuff you have to go over with me? Don't tell me Jane's filed another injunction or whatever."

"She's attempting to claim your father was incomptent at the time of filing the will," Ophelia replied, shivering. She was soaked to the bone; she seemed to have forgotten to grab her rain coat. Her pale blue shirt clung to her skin, outlining every inch of her body. Her roots were starting to show; how long had it been since Ophelia went in to see a stylist properly? She'd been so busy as of late that she seemed to forgetting more and more about the basics of taking care of herself. "I have enough proof to get that thrown out. Your grandmother, meanwhile, is trying to imply your father was given bad advice for giving you anything - arguing he had no way of knowing you even existed. That's... a little harder, but not impossible for me to fight."

"So I'm going to get to keep my home?" Diana stepped to the side, shaking her head. "You should get inside - you're absolutely soaked. Uh, I think there's a closet full of old clothes. Dunno if it's in your size but..."

"But you want me to try it on and see if it does?" Ophelia had stepped inside, and immediately started shivering. "It's... not a bad idea. Show me where you found it." There was once a point where Ophelia had known this house better than Diana. A beat was skipped, and then Ophelia gasped. "You called this your home! So you've officially decided to stay?"

"Yes."

The simple word stretched out between them; all the possible implications it could possibly have running between them. Neither of them moved at first. Diana was supposed to be leading Ophelia to the room she'd found, and yet neither of them moved. It felt like the thunder outside had moved inside, cackling around them and bringing them closer. If pressed, both of them would say the other moved first when their lips finally connected - like something tying them together. Diana savored the taste of Ophelia's lips, hungerily devouring them. It was like a dream come true; and then she woke up.

"I'm sorry," Diana gasped first, shaking her head. "I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable... if you want to leave -"

Ophelia cut her off, and this time there was a slower build to the kiss; sweet, tender, gentle. "No it's okay. I feel the same way."

#writblr #southern gothic romance #gothic romance #writers of tumblr #queer writers #writers of color #sapphic romance #lgbt romance #mywriting #oc: diana kettering #oc: ophelia copperfield #ockiss24

[ecoamerica]

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[bogkeep]

This Could Have Been A Private Journal Entry #4628484

there's a tumblr post going around that i agree with but keeps hitting the Guilt Button for me. which is fine, i've had character development, the thing i feel guilty about is not something i do anymore.

the sentiment is essentially "telling people that worrying about whether or not they're good is an indicator that they're good is shitty because lots of cruel people are anxious about it and even use it as a guilt trip" which. yeah! agree! i'd even go on a tangent about how entire spheres of the internet are reinforcing moral OCD spirals where everything can be categorised as either Good or Bad and i've spent enough time in bad brain jail to conclude how absolutely useless it is to ruminate over the ethics of every single thought and thing you ever interact with. it's an endless fucking rabbit hole that serves nobody even if you AREN'T quote unquote abusive. nobody can 100% agree on the True Correct Ethics Of Everything Ever (there's people who believe Targeted Harassment or Conversion Camps are Morally Good things. semantics can only do so much) - and the best we can do is honour or foundational principles which may change over our life as we learn more about the world around us and fortunately we're flawed people who make mistakes all the time even then. which isn't to say that reflecting over your personal actions is useless - that's what i'm here to do today, hello - there's just a limit to how useful it is to place yourself on a Morality Scale.

ANYWAY i used to tell people that worrying about doing the right thing was an indicator that they're Good.

like, it makes sense to me that i did that. i said it to soothe people i considered friends. i cannot tell you whether or not it was actually something i believed at the time, either because i was unaware of what road they were going down, or because I didn't think that what they were doing was harmful to anyone, or maybe just people pleasing instinct kicked in. it may also have been during the time where i myself was being smeared and harassed and *i* was relying on friends to tell me "don't make shitty people think you're evil, you're not doing anything bad, you're FINE"

of course i worry that i enabled people i regret enabling. and it's easy for me to say NOW that i would not have said that, that maybe i even would've pushed back more, said, "yes actually i DO think telling people on the internet that they're Wrong and Bad for enjoying a specific piece of media is a shitty thing to do, even if it comes from a place of care and genuine concern" - but i'm also not friends with people like that anymore. (turns out i can only tolerate being told it's wrong and bad of me to like specific pieces of media so many times before i completely lose my taste for people who do this kind of thing.)

it's been quite a while since i was in a position where i felt my brain buzz in that way where i felt compelled to tell someone oh no no you're a good person you just care so much and maybe it comes out wrong sometimes but your intent is obviously good and the fact that you're worried only proves it

and as guilty as i feel about it it's hard to hold it against my younger self.

#today's topic is Ethics

[naffeclipse]

Hiya Naff, I hope you're having a good day! 🍀🌟 I wanted to pop in and say I've been ruminating on the new chapter for a good minute now, and I'm so hung up on that fact that the only two times we see Sun/Moon leave their hunter while they're sleeping (assuming I'm not missing a secret third time or a moment off screen,) they've been attacked by a cryptid. The first being with the dappleganger as they go off to round up the children. And now with the rake as they leave to hunt. But notably this time they don't have a good reason they can readily give their little hunter as to why they vanished.  I am just loosing it at the emotional implications for everyone involved. No matter how this plays out I can see feeling being hurt, and oooough owww It's so exciting though!!!!

Heya! I am, thank you, babe! ♥

So, Sun/Moon has left Y/N to eat some hearts, usually, after a cryptid kill or off-screen during downtime between episodes, but finally getting caught in the fact that they are leaving during the night when Y/N isn't aware of their departure? Yeah, that's some foundation-shaking revelations right there! It's not going to be gentle on Y/N's mind for a long time ;-;

Thank you so much for reading!! ♥

#querical-equinox #cryptid sightings #cryptid sightings spoilers

[sleepyowlwrites]

38 and 39 for the writer asks

38 I answered already and basically I said that I also think it's crazy that I write best when I'm going by the seat of my pants. like, just really, really pantsing it. NO plot, JUST vibes will get me the farthest into a story than any worldbuilding, brainstorming, outlining, or character sheet-ing will.

39. What keeps you writing when you feel like giving up?

I only felt like giving up the one time. and I did. I took a break. I also went to college during that time, so personally I think that was a very good reason to take the break separate from how nothing was working out the way I wanted it to, but yeah. I didn't write original fiction - minus a couple of shorts - for six years. I took a break for a couple years and then started writing fanfiction, which was a fantastic time. I built my original tumblr following with my fanfics, and I actually just had a spam of comments on ao3 from someone finding my fics and enjoying them. in 2018 I started writing original fiction again and I've been going reasonably steady since then - with the exception of November-December since 2020 because I'm too exhausted to write anything during those months.

nothing makes me want to stop writing anymore. this is, I think, due to a few factors.

a) I feel very positively about my writing. I don't always like it. I don't always think it's good, but I always feel positively about it in the sense that I'm glad I've written, I'm glad I'm writing. I don't get discouraged by crap first draft stuff. I also don't really write crap anymore, at the level I'm at. I write decent first draft stuff. not always coherent or going anywhere, but not bad. so it's easier to feel positive about it, but even if it were bad, I still wouldn't dislike it.

b) I write for me. my target audience is me. there is no purpose to my writing higher than the fact that I would like to read it, and right under the purpose is the fact that I enjoy the act of writing enough that regardless of quality, it is always a worthwhile pastime. there are no due dates, there are no rush orders, nothing is keeping me to being a writer except that I want to be. I write for me, because I like it.

c) if I need to take a break, if I'm getting burnt out, or if I'm just generally tired, I'll just do that. I won't write. I won't write plot, anyway. I might write character stats, or ideas, or set dressing, or vibes. or nothing. I'll just think about it. again, it's all for me, I've got the time to rest before I continue.

d) if I come to a point where something I've been work on isn't currently working any longer, I'll put it aside. by now you must know I have so many projects. I flounder if I try to work on only one wip at a time, and so I have current projects, backburner projects, lost in the shuffle projects, barely formed concepts, blank books, all kinds of stuff. there's always something new or reused that I can think about. I don't feel guilty about putting something down and picking up something new. soon enough I'll be picking up that old thing again.

I haven't worked on summon story in a bit because it wasn't working. so I was ruminating about guild story and answering asks about city story and I wrote that scene for apocalypse story. and then! I figured out what was going on with summon story! it was the tone. it wasn't goofy enough. I was trying to shove a plot in where it wasn't wanted. I know how I want to write it now. so I can, whenever I've got the spoons. and the soup. the brain soup.

thanks for asking, Rainstorm!

#sleepy answers #writing asks

[transmandrake]

Feel like talking about art... I worry a lot that I've passed some kind of 'peak' in my art, not per se skillwise but productivity wise.

'I made a 65 page full colour full shading comic chapter and had it printed! Oh my god, I could never do that now', I think. But thankfully in this age I've seen this exact thing happen to so many artists slightly older than me... intense productivity in school, sudden drop in early 20's, figure shit out in late 20's. It makes sense, art was basically the only thing keeping me together for many of those productive years, and I was miserable.

And now, yeah, I'm back in a high stress environment, but this time I'm managing my own progress and am doing things I want to do on some level, that aren't art. Is it any wonder people go on massive hiatuses when theres no longer One Thing they want to do?

And well also. The classic. It is bonkers the amount of people I grew up admiring who crashed and burned in college and then get diagnosed with, well usually several things but especially ADHD. I'd like to think I'm "learning from other's """pitfalls"""" by nipping that revelation in the bud early (healthcare system tho... pls gimme anything... an appointment, maybe...) but I've been ruminating a long time on art advice and life advice and a lot of the time it's not possible to 'skip' on doing the 'wrong' thing.

So much art advice is like 'man i wish i learned anatomy or x thing when I was younger, so much time wasted' and yes it seems true in hindsight, learning anatomy is pivotal to my current art... but I think I had to *get* to a point art and well growing up wise where that was even something I could fully comprehend. Theres lots of things where, yeah, I'm sure sitting 12 year old me down and getting them excited about Bones and Muscles wasn't *impossible*, but there was like 100 mini lessons that have no names I had to learn first. It's like, a skill tree in a video game. You have to learn fireball I and II before great fireball IV or whatever. It's easy to say man, why didn't I learn Hard Thing sooner, I would have been so much better by now, when in order to be able for Hard Thing you had to learn all the smaller easier things it leads to. Going straight for the big guns isn't impossible, but you'll end up having to go backwards at some point. In fact I feel like that's what's happening to me now!

I'm like, why is my art shit conpared to a few years ago, why am I half-assing everything, and you know what I spent 5 years only doing full colour full shading stuff because that was The Inevitable Artistic Conclusion and doing Less would be Wasting My Time! And I think that was the right choice actually. *Because* it made me learn that thought process wasn't true.

Also ummm FFAK by kosmicdream who I am sheepishly not tagging basically rewrote my brain? A 6000+ and not even half finished comic drawn with maximum speed and not sweating the details? And its great? And at no point did I think the story was worse off for not being polished to 100% 'completion'? Preposterous!

Well, not really. Loads of comics are like that. I knew I didn't want to be like them. But hm, its a conscious choice now rather than a feeling of shame at not completing things. The reassurance that, it's okay to not finish things, and it's okay to do less in order to finish things. Balance. FFAK just really punched that lesson into my skull rather than the light jabs of comics I'd loved before. I can count the comics I read as a kid that actually *finished* on like, two hands max. I reevaluated, what do I want to be, perfect incompletion or finished imperfection. And chose both and neither because I'm a vile little contrarian.

Am I going to finish my comic? Finished doesn't exist, so no. Does that mean my tedious perfection is justified as long as the unfinished work is what I envisioned? Also no, because I am not the same person I was when I stopped lifting the pen and my idea of perfection is also always just out of reach. Also it's. A story. I want to tell it. Not look at it.

Like, just... do what you want. What you want will change, you can't put a box around it. But also develop discipline, because that box helps. It's always breaking and expanding and shrinking but the box has to be there. You have to try. But you won't succeed. And that's okay, because that's not the goal. It's a dance, not a house.

You might want to build a place to dance easier but you've gotta dance. And you suck at dancing but you love it. And if you don't love ot anymore, go work on the house until you want to again, and you'll think, why am I building this goddamn house instead of dancing, and you'll keep forgetting that the house exists to dance in. Then someday you come back off the scaffolding and realise, woah, holy shit, dancing here is going to be so much better.

And you think, why didn't I make the house like this in the first place? Well, because you only started building the house when you didn't want to dance, imagine if you made the house perfect, and then stopped liking dancing? Well you'd be me, you'd knock that house down, and you'd rebuild it all shit, because you didn't need the house to dance, you needed the process of building it. You can make that perfect house all the time, but you can only make a shit house once. No matter how you try, you're gonna figure out why the house is shit, and make it better.

And you'll say, why didn't I make this first before! I'm learning so much! And you'll remember why, it's because everyone said 'man, don't make a house like I made it. Look at my new house, its so much better, do that! I wasted so much time on the shit house!' But they didnt. They learned. You made their perfect house with no understanding of why it was perfect. You had to break it, to rebuild it, to retrace the steps, to learn.

#oh god I finally made my point #long post #does this make sense I dont know #hit post and maybe someone will get it but its okay if no one does its the process not the result

[ecoamerica]

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[keefwho]

October 11 - 2023 Wednesday

2:21pm

Oopsie, remembered some minor trauma and realized it's wider implication. My dad and brother used to do this thing where individually they would man handle me and pin me down, sitting on top of me restricting my legs so they could tickle me. It was supposed to be some good old fashioned simple parent-child playful bonding but I deeply hated it. I didn't like being tickled and having my legs unable to move really freaked me out. I'd always end up crying and running to my room when they did it but they would still do it every now and then. If I didn't cry then it would ruin my mood and I'd verbally shut down before going to my room. Even thinking about it now hurts because it doesn't seem like a big deal but I'm remembering just how awful it was to experience. It was definitely a huge violation of my boundaries, maybe not the first time but all the times after when it was clear I didn't like it.

Naturally I'm also thinking about when Rousso visited and how terribly it went. I think about this a lot, usually when I remember unrelated bad past experience because this event is the most recent. I think I keep wanting a resolution to the entire situation or I wish I could somehow undo all the pain we both experienced from it but the fact is I can't. It happened for well understood reasons. I can't beat myself up about it either because I was never acting out of malice. I was completely unequipped not just for the meetup but everything that happened. I think because I was more or less socially undeveloped. Yeah I'm 27 but there are so many experiences I missed out on, especially at a young age. It's why I've always been the weird kid. And it's for reasons I couldn't control. All I can do now is make an effort to learn as I go like I've been doing. I don't think all is lost, its just frustrated having to try extra hard just to keep up with people my age and get through situation everyone expects me to be ready for.

Also I'm choosing not to ruminate on these memories because I have a nasty habit of ruining my own day when things are going well. Im still well aware of my personal kind of toxic behavior. There is no reason for me to be wallowing about the bad things in my past. It isn't helpful to anything I'm doing today. Its important to note I'm not suppressing, I'm just not acting based on these memories and their associated emotions.

10:56pm

This morning mom was outside when I took Sporticus out. I told her I wanted to try vaping THC instead of edibles since it hits quicker and goes away quicker. She agreed to take me tomorrow morning if I feel like it. Breakfast was a bologna sandwich and some beans, but I threw out the beans because they smelled and tasted like that old chalky disk candy for some reason. I ate a granola bar with my sandwich instead. It also tasted weird so maybe it was just my taste buds today.

I decided not to stream today because it feels very monotonous and I guess I kinda wanted to be alone. Problem is I couldn't focus on work like I wanted and I really wanna get better about that. I ended up only doing half the commission which is okay because it's paid double.

My workout today was splitting wood and I went pretty hard. It also rained while I was doing it which felt refreshing. When I came back in I shaved my body, clipped my nails, and touched up my hair a little. I took a nice hot shower and moisturized.

I couldn't do today's request because the guy I picked was at work and couldn't give me his details so I have to do it tomorrow. I worked on the world instead, intent on doing as much as I can even if it eats into my evening free time. I tried hanging out in David's server while I did it but there was a guy that I've never met there vaping very loudly and otherwise being noisy in other ways. I couldn't take it so I went to work on it alone. I felt pretty dreadful for a little bit only because there were no streams to watch and no one I wanted to talk to. I felt isolated for maybe an hour, trying to make my environment more comfortable and enjoy the alone time. Also my tummy started becoming active which I didn't appreciate. Daisy called at around the usual time. She was smoothing out her fursuit head which she did really well on and she sketched a unicorn for the world. We also watched Zelda some more before bed time. We had a good chat while she was in bed, I'm glad I can just enjoy our time together and not be in my own head. Before bed I put a little bit more time into the world.

#journal #diary

[spacegaynsfw]

hey! i’m exploring myself in regards to the aspec spectrum and i was hoping i could hear about your place on it and your experience because i’m really struggling rn

Hey!! I will do my absolute best, I'm not going to lie I haven't done too much soul searching on my end (partly because I don't feel the need to find an exact label for my experience; I'm just fine with making a vague gesture and going "idk, somewhere on the aspec spectrum lmao") but I can tell you a bit about what I've experienced that's led me to that conclusion!!

So, one big thing I realized that made me go "oh shit maybe I'm ace" is that I realized that people actually will look at people, people they don't know, and just based on their appearance as a human being... will want to fuck them? Or maybe even feel aroused by this??? I always thought maybe it was a bit of an exaggeration, like, based on how they thought they were hot? Like I can look at a person and go "yeah they're hot" but by that I mean "yes, they have a combination of physical attributes that is seen widely as attractive." It's not that I necessarily find them attractive, it's that I know other people do. Granted, there's an occasional exception here and there, but they're few and far between.

Another thing is with sexual fantasies. Rarely, if ever, do I actually put myself at the center of these. Even with reading and writing self-insert fic, it is almost never ME that I'm imagining as "you." Y'know? I'm usually fantasizing about scenarios, yes, but they're like, detached stories with no particular person involved. Certainly not myself. I will occasionally find myself fantasizing about specific body parts, but that's pretty rare, too. Definitely specific actions, though, even if not part of an overall scenario.

One of the things that made me hesitate from adopting the label was the fact that I'm like, a horny motherfucker and that's not very asexual of me (even though I KNOW that's not how that works.) You can be horny and not experience sexual attraction. You can not experience sexual attraction and be super kinky! Being sexually attracted to someone or not doesn't mean you can't have a fun time together. Certainly hasn't stopped me.

The other thing (and if you want more information on types of desire and just like, a good book on sexuality, particularly in women, please read Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski, it's SO good) is that my desire is 99.9% responsive. I pretty much never am just sitting there and apropos of nothing get horny. It's always something external that triggers it, whether it's a porn post I come across, a message I receive, or I actively seek out material that makes me wanna do sexy stuff. Granted, sometimes people's desire is responsive and they're no asexual, and that's totally normal! But for me I definitely think the two go hand in hand.

As for the aromantic side of things, that I'm still ruminating on. I've been tapped out of the dating game since early 2021 and I don't have any intention on changing that anytime soon, plus my relationship with my domme and her subs is enough for me right now, even though it isn't romantic in nature. Other than a couple of people, all the romantic relationships in my life have felt somewhat forced, although I don't know if that's because they actually were, or because I was a closeted lesbian and they really were forced. Granted, I also haven't had an honest to god crush in... years. Maybe ever? I genuinely don't know. So yeah, that I still need to sort out.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful, and if you have any specific questions or anything you wanna talk about please let me know!!! I'm happy to chat about it whenever!!

#tori answers questions #max answers questions #Anonymous

[s-brant]

The Endless Summer (2/?)

(gif: @beccs) (PART ONE) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: A day out on the water goes awry and puts JJ, John B, and Y/N in danger. With tensions rising and the stakes higher than ever, JJ finds it difficult to control his feelings.

Word Count: 9.1k

Warnings: Angst, implied sexual content, strong language, graphic violence, and JJ being an emotionally confused asshat.

A/N: Welcome back! Thanks for the love on this series, I’m so glad you guys like it and I hope this part is just as good. Things get a little heated in this chapter, so buckle up. Let me know if you enjoyed this. Have fun!

JJ isn't sure why she did it.

He wasn't sure then and he isn't sure now, but he knows one thing for certain: there isn't any going back to how things once were now that the barrier between them came crashing down.

Sweat drips off of his skin from the relentless heat of the Caribbean that has made their recent lives hell with the painful tinge of sunburn atop their tans and heat exhaustion they must be careful to avoid at all costs. They were educated on both topics by Pope, their godsend of a survival encyclopedia in human form, who advised them to spend most of their day outside of necessary tasks like fishing and constructing stable shelter under the shady cover of the treetops.

The sole reason he and John B aren't hiding in the safety of the shade is that it's their day to fish, but he's not thinking about the sun. In fact, neither of them is. They're both wondering where their third fishing buddy is.

It took roughly ten minutes of spearfishing with him in comfortable silence for JJ to finally break and spill his guts about what happened last night. Though there was an unspoken agreement to never tell anyone that their hatred has turned into desire, he couldn't help it. He was going mad trying to unravel it in his head.

After all, he already had a conversation with JB about the recent shift in their behavior with each other by the ocean last night, so it seems fitting to pick up where they left off with the calm and clear blue water in front of them again.

He walks on the jagged outcropping of rock that serves as their perch to observe the fish without disturbing the pattern of the current they swim through with John B closely behind.

"One second she's pissed at me, the next she's all over me. It makes no sense. Then, she didn’t say anything to me after it happened," JJ says with his face hardened into a look of concentration at the fish he squints against the sun to aim at, "Not even "Fuck you, Maybank" or one of her weirdly creative threats. She just sat there all night and talked to everyone but me."

His gaze slips away from the water as his chosen fish disappears from sight before he can bother to throw the spear, eyeing up his friend's reaction to the news.

John B doesn't seem that surprised by it, because who else, aside from everyone else in Kildare who knows of their "hatred" for one another, could've seen it coming as much as he did? He considers it for a second, then props his arm up on the handle side of the spear he digs into the rock to lean against.

"I'm pretty sure that means she likes you."

JJ retorts, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say."

Why would anyone ignore a person they like? It makes no sense to him. Every time he wanted a person, he'd simply walk over and make it happen. It's never been difficult for him to pursue the people he finds himself attracted to...Well, except for her. For a guy that also ignored her for the rest of the night and pretended their moment in the woods didn't happen, he has some balls of steel to be chastising her for the same things he did.

John B shrugs and says, "I'm being serious, dude. Sarah wouldn't even acknowledge my existence when I worked on the Druthers, and I thought it was some stuck-up rich person thing but it wasn't."

They shouldn't be talking at all right now as to not scare away the fish, but they do it anyway. They both know he won't let it go until it's out of his system for good. He wouldn't allow himself to forget it if he wanted to, so its better to talk it out than turn stir crazy from ruminating over it 24/7.

Though it's, as he worded it yesterday, hot as balls out, being by the sea lessens the feeling of it by a landslide.

The breeze they crave whenever they work on their huts or forage through the forest for wild berries, coconuts, or potential building supplies blows on them without pause for the time they spend here, which almost makes it more dangerous. They stand under the direct harm of the UV rays frying them without truly feeling it burn yet, and he dreads the next few days in anticipation of the returning sunburn he just peeled off of his shoulders the other day.

JJ walks down the side to get a better view of the water, balancing precariously on the sharpened edge with the spear clenched tightly in one hand. The breeze is strong enough to threaten his balance, but he holds firm and digs his toes into the sedimentary rock for traction. His body sways in the midday sun with the struggle for stability, or, at least he suspects its midday.

Since being stranded here, time is a foreign concept to them. With no phones, clocks, or any guide to go off of other that the position of the sun above to display the hours that pass, they've lost complete track of what day it is, let alone how long minutes or hours truly are in comparison to the endless summer they live within. They suspect it's been a month since they were left here, but, in all honesty, it could be two. None of them had the sense to mark the days in a tally until it was too late.

He says, lifting his arm to throw the spear, "Well, she is a stuck up rich person, so maybe it's just—"

"You know I'm right here, don't you?"

The sound of her voice from a few feet behind them startles JJ into turning around to look at her right when he lets go of the spear.

Unfortunately for him, the jerking movement throws off his carefully distributed weight and skews his balance, making the feet placed on the edge slip from underneath him and send him slipping down into the water. His calf is the first body part to hit the rocks, and the groan of pain he lets out at the feeling of the jagged rock slicing through his skin could make her heart stop mid-beat. But what truly scares her is seeing the back of his head hit the ground too.

Before he can slide the rest of the way into the water, two pairs of hands are grabbing onto his arms and heaving him up with all of their strength. She and John B grit their teeth with the effort it takes to pull him back up, their muscles burning from the strain, and once his feet are over the ledge, he pushes off the rock to help them the rest of the way. Drops of his blood disperse into the water off the edge from where he cut himself, dripping until there's hardly any left.

Once he's safely laid back down a few feet from where he slipped, Y/N is kneeling in front of him in a matter of seconds. The rock beneath her knees opens small cuts into her skin, but she doesn't pay it any heed. She sits on her heels to lessen the minor pain and lean forward to inspect the damage he took with nothing on her mind other than worry.

Soon enough, John B joins her to kneel at his feet as he sits up and watches them eye up his injury as though it’s some sort of ghastly, life threatening thing instead of a gash that won't need stitches. He watches them against the glittering ocean, waves washing up on the rocks around them to sting his wound with saltwater.

"It's a scratch, not an amputation," JJ says.

She ignores him with a frown lining her pretty features and twists his leg by the ankle to get a better view of the wound in the sunlight. It extends up the entire length of his calf, almost from ankle to knee, and dribbles fresh blood onto her hands as well as the ground beneath them. From what he can tell, it doesn't look all too severe. No muscle or bone can be seen, so it's a simple, superficial scratch.

When he doesn't get a response from either her or John B while they're too busy checking out his leg, he says again, "Guys, I'm serious, it's fine."

This time, she doesn't hesitate to answer.

"Yeah, well you may not need stitches but you still have infection to worry about. This wilderness isn't exactly the cleanliest place," she says retorts with as much snark as usual, and he quietly rejoices in the fact that she's finally acting normal after what happened last night, "Not to mention, you hit your head pretty hard. There's no need to act all tough."

He shrugs.

"It's not an act, it really doesn't hurt that bad."

John B stands and smears the blood on his hands off on the front of his shorts.

"I'll be right back, guys, I'm gonna go get stuff to patch him up."

Just like that, they are left plunging into silence as he is running away down the peninsula back to the beach they've claimed as their own.

Silence has always been her least favorite thing to share with JJ. She'd rather anything over it—screaming, fighting, joking, friendly conversation, or even what they did together yesterday night. Anything is preferable over the tense and insufferable feeling of silence when they're alone together with none of their friends, or their playful hatred, between them as a barrier between them.

Instead of seeing the same pestering jerk she always used to when she looks at him, she sees the memory of how he looked at her in the woods. He didn't look at her like she was the worst person to ever walk the planet, or like she was his least favorite Kook "Princess", he looked at her like she meant something to him.

They sit together in uncomfortable silence in the time it takes John B to rush to the beach and back, careful not to slip on the rocks the way JJ did, with the supplies from the dinghy in his arms. It isn't much to work with, but at least it's something to keep the nasty wound on his leg protected from dirt and germs. She's sure he'd leave it uncovered and up to fate if he had it his way.

Before he can set them down on the wet rocks, thus ruining the gauze and bandages in craters filled with ocean water, she gestures at JJ with a stern command, "Take off your shirt."

His brows raise.

"Shit, Princess, take me out to dinner first."

She groans in frustration, "Can you be quiet for a second and actually listen to me for once?"

He catches John B's gaze with wide eyes, but complies nonetheless, reaching down to tug the tank off of his torso by the frayed hem until it's balled up in his closed fist to hand off to her. Her eyes only linger on his body for a quick second on accident before snatching it from him.

Her bloodstained palms lay the shirt out on the flattest stretch of rock she can find to act as a barrier from the small puddles of water to protect the supplies. One nod at John B has him setting them down atop the navy fabric as she glances up at JJ with a smug smile.

"Believe it or not," she taunts, unscrewing the cap to the disinfectant, "I didn't ask for it so you could sit there and look pretty."

The words throw him back in time to their conversation on the beach while they thatched the roof to their hut, and he wonders how long she's been waiting to throw that back in his face since he first said it.

He grins at her as he asks, "You think I'm pretty?" but before he can say more, she's pouring a generous amount of the hydrogen peroxide along the length of his cut without a warning for him to prepare himself. His leg jerks away on instinct to save himself from the burning sensation, but she grips his ankle tightly enough to force him to stay still.

His nose scrunches up with the urge to groan in pain, and he does a little. Through grinding teeth, he winces in response to the peroxide slipping into every cell of open skin and bubbling up like the white water of the waves as it kills the bacteria lingering in the gash.

"Does it hurt now?" Y/N asks.

She's looking up at him through her lashes with her lips curled into a smirk as she packs gauze onto the wound until it's covered to her satisfaction. And it should be the last thing he's thinking about right now after cutting up his leg and hitting his head hard enough to worry her about concussions, but he can't help it. Looking down at her like this, it's impossible for him to not think about the unfinished business they have.

Everything is the same as it was yesterday—the tattered white top, the red panties in place of a bikini, sunburnt cheeks, and a taunting look that he'll never get tired of seeing. But that's precisely why he's reminded of it. She's wearing the same clothes and looking at him the way she did on the beach before any of last night's antics occurred, and he can't keep himself from wondering if it'll happen again.

"Yeah," he finally responds.

Her smirk grows for a second before she gets back to work.

"Good."

JJ subtly eyes her up from where she shifts on her knees to set the open gauze wrappers under the peroxide bottle in exchange for the bandage wrap, but he isn't as subtle as he thinks. She can feel his stare no matter how sneaky he attempts to be. He may be able to evade John B's attention, since he dove into the ocean to retrieve the wooden spear that began to float out in the tide, but she never misses a thing. Not when it comes to him.

When he looks at her, he finds memories.

Her legs folded up beneath her bring him back to how smooth they felt on his palms when he lifted them up around his hips. Her rosy lips pressing into a line in concentration bring him back to the coconut flavor he tasted on them. Her nipples poking against the fabric of her shirt bring him back to when he lifted it up over her breasts to suck at the sensitive skin until he got a moan from her—There isn't a place he can stare without going back to last night.

Part of him hates that.

He can't stand that a girl who he spent the last five years hating has found a way into his daydreams. Why couldn't it have been anyone else? Why did she have to lure him into her trap? He supposes there's nothing he can do about it now, though. After hours of stewing over it, he's reached the conclusion that it was likely a one-time thing, a mistake made in the heat of the moment that she won't make again, and he should get the idea of it out of his head.

When she has to adjust her grip to hold the gauze in place while she wraps the bandage around his leg, he sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth and jerks away again. She glances up at him with her best, "Are you kidding me?" face. Didn't he say he was tough?

"I'm starting to think you're a sadist, 'cause it's like you're trying to make it hurt," he says.

She gasps, feigning offense.

"Me? Enjoying this? It's not like we've hated each other for years or anything."

And though he may not realize it, this is her way of distracting him from the pain of having her apply added pressure to his cut while she wraps the bandage into place. It has to be tight enough to keep water and sand out, but not so tight that it cuts off circulation, and while it may have been tolerable without her touching it, the contact is enough to make it worse for him.

He asks, "Uh, speaking of, why are you the one doing this? Isn't it some kind of HIPAA thing to treat patients you've threatened to violate with tree branches before?"

The sound of her laughter makes his stomach flutter with butterflies, and he wonders what the hell is wrong with him.

"That's not what HIPAA is, genius"—her eyes crinkle at the sides with her wide smile while she wraps his leg—"and I'm the one doing this because I know way more medical shit than the rest of you."

Even Pope.

"Ohhh right, I forgot. Your dad is this hotshot surgeon and that makes you think you know everything," he taunts.

The casual mention of her father makes her chest ache with something not many of the Pogues, excluding Pope, have felt since being stranded on this island. With their parents either disowning them, absent, abusive, or dead, they have no reason to resist the allure of living here for the months or years it may take to be rescued, but she does.

She misses him.

For the longest time since her mom died, it was her and her dad versus the world. In everything they did, they did it together, and before she met Sarah, he was the closest she had to a best friend. Since they had no other family to help watch her as a child, she grew up in the hospital with him, drawing with crayons on his office’s printer paper with her babysitter and picking up small things along the way from watching him for so long.

He could've chosen to leave her at home, sure, but he didn't want to miss out on seeing her more than he already did, so she spent the majority of her childhood in offices, waiting rooms, and the indoor playground of the PEDs wing.

She takes a deep breath to steady herself after the sucker punch of being reminded of her dad and says, "Well, I know enough and, thankfully for you, I'm the one doing this instead of John B."

From far away, twenty or so feet offshore where their friend is paddling through the water with the lost spear held in one hand, they hear John B shouting an offended, "I heard that!" back at her. It draws a soft chuckle from them both, and she silently thanks him for distracting JJ one last time as she finishes and secures the bandage so it won't unravel.

She wipes her hands off on her water-soaked thighs one more time to get as much of his blood off of her fingers as possible before she reaches out with both arms extended to offer him help to stand. He takes them with a murmured, "Thanks," as they both try not to show how affected they are by the casual touch.

It makes them feel pathetic that something as small as holding each other's hands makes them remember what they did and desperately wish to continue it. Her throat bobs with how she must swallow the lump in her throat at their close proximity, barely breathing now that he's standing close to her with less than a few inches between them.

For a second, they don't move away. They stay face to face, and all she can think of is how badly she wants to kiss him again. But she can't do anything yet, not when she hears someone screaming from the water.

"There's a shark!" John B screams as he paddles back faster than he's ever swam in his life, already close enough to the peninsula that they can see the terror in his eyes when they turn to look.

Surely enough, there a tip of a fin too pointed to pass off as a dolphin cutting through the surface of the water to alert them of the fish's presence, but if that weren't enough, the water is clear enough for them to see its outline.

Thankfully for him, it isn't huge. It looks about as long as he is tall, but that doesn't change the degree of danger. Just because it isn't as big as other sharks doesn't make a bite any less lethal, especially when their only form of medical attention rests on her knowledgeable yet inexperienced shoulders.

For once in his life, JJ is frozen with no clue of what to do.

He's always the man with the plan, the one who jumps into action when others choke up and sit on the sidelines, but this makes him falter. What can he do to help other than stand here and pray John B can out-swim a shark? He's helpless, and now that he's faced with the prospect of losing his best friend for a second time, he doesn't know what to do.

It was his blood in the water that must have attracted the shark, and he was so caught up in his own drama with her and the pain of his cut that he didn't consider the danger of John B jumping in to retrieve the spear he dropped. It's his fault. His best friend is about to be eaten by a shark and it's his fault—

The blurred image of her rushing past in his peripheral vision rips him from his stormy thoughts, and right when he thought it couldn't get worse, it does. Water splashes up around her body and swallows her under the surface after she leaps off the edge of the rock with the aluminum spear from the dinghy raised in her dominant arm.

"Y/N!"

Before he even realizes what he's doing, JJ is screaming out her name, screaming it like he cares, and damns the consequences to dive in after her.

While he was frozen, she sprung into action without thinking of her own life first. She knew he was close to the rock, but not close enough to swim faster than a predator designed for the conditions of the ocean. It took one glance at the spear resting to the side for her to lean down, scoop it up, and get a running start to jump out as far as humanly possible. Various joints and muscles ached from how she strained to push herself far off the rock, taking flight with nothing but their survival in mind.

She sucks in a heaving breath upon breaking the surface, but she doesn't take a second to pause with John B paddling up to her so soon.

"Go back!"

The only answer she gives him is, "Use your spear!" before she brings hers out of the water in anticipation of the grey figure bolting straight for them.

It's a stupid plan, but it's the only one she has, and if one of them is in danger, they'd all risk everything they have to protect them. After all, they're already trapped here with the threat of death every day. Is there anything more worthy of dying for than your friends?

Neither of them is necessarily trying to kill it yet either, they're trying to keep it at a safe distance or hurt it enough so it swims away from them, but she puts all of her strength into spearing the fish between the eyes anyway. Her legs kick tirelessly to keep her afloat while she and John B stab as accurately as they can, choking down a mouthful of salty ocean water from how her head sinks at the surface without the help of her arms to keep her up.

Blood stains the water with a crimson hue spreading out around their bodies—whether it's theirs or the shark's, she doesn't know—and she must keep her lips clamped shut to prevent it from spilling into her mouth, breathing solely through her nose. She can tell her legs are soon to give out on her, but then a pair of hands latch onto her body. Call her irrational or stupid, but even with the clear distinction of human hands on her waist, her mind reacts in instinctual fear.

The touch makes her jolt mid-stab and sobers her feral mind back to reality for a moment until she realizes it's a human touching her, not the shark.

It's JJ.

His arms wrap around her thighs and hoist her up out of the water as much as he can while still swimming, effectively pushing himself underwater with one last gasp for air.

The sudden shift in view has her gaze shifting around to take in the new sights with a gush of red water rushing off of her onto the splashing surface: a light grey tail whips around in the chaos, the shark's head oozes blood from the multiple puncture wounds that didn't push quite deep enough, and its jaws snap right where John B's arm is before he yanks it back.

After a fraction of a second, it clicks with her that there's no time to waste watching her friend almost get his arm chomped off while she takes in the unbelievable sight. Her slippery grip on the handle remains as firm as possible, and she raises the spear over her head with an improved accuracy she never could've had from where she previously aimed it before. All of their shots landed well enough, but with the height advantage, she won't allow herself to fuck it up this time with her friend's life hanging in the balance.

She hardly recognizes her own frantic voice shouting at him, "Spear it in the gills!"

Her hands bring the razor-sharp tip of the spear down into its head repeatedly, and she isn't sure whether it's the splashing water or tears wetting her face when she buries the weapon down into it for a final time right when John B lodges his wooden spear in its gills.

Whatever she did, it must've hit its brain, because the animal halts its thrashing. Its teeth no longer snap at her friend, nor does its tail whip around in the water as violently as it did a moment ago.

As quickly as it started, it drops off into a sickening calm that leaves the white bubbles dissolving into a puddle of bloody water surrounding the trio and the fish that dies with no small amount of guilt on her part. There was no choice but to kill it. It makes her ache on the inside, but how could she regret it if she knows it saved them? The guilt might ravage her for the upcoming days, but she can't bring herself to regret jumping in after him.

She hardly has the chance to process it before she's being pulled away by both of the boys, her view of the scene shifting drastically once more with the abrupt drop of JJ letting her down in favor of guiding her through the gentle waves. His calloused hand squeezes her arm enough to cut circulation off on their journey back.

Time rushes past her in the next thirty seconds or so it takes them to reach the peninsula again in a paranoid sprint away from where the dead fish floats. One of them, John B she thinks, tosses the aluminum spear he dislodged from the shark's head up onto the rocks and clambers his way back up on his own. The waves closer to land grow rougher than the tender current out where they killed the shark, and she grunts in pain as one sends her and JJ straight into the rocks. His body hits her back with a solid ‘thump’ and forces her to wheeze with the wind getting knocked from her lungs upon impact, nails cracking on the black rock from the desperate grip she uses in an attempt to lift herself.

Meanwhile, JJ can't seem to catch his breath either, nor can he think of anything other than her once he sees that John B isn’t injured.

As soon as he sees his friend is unmarked from the teeth of the shark after he's out of the water, he positions himself behind Y/N to help her out first. He places his hands on her backside to push her up as quickly as he can. Knowing that the carcass in the water will soon attract more sharks in the surrounding area into a feeding frenzy, he'd rather it be him than her. It's a thought that shoots by too fast for him to fully acknowledge the meaning or weight of it at a time like this.

Somehow within his adrenaline-crazed mind, he is careful not to push her onto the jagged edge that sliced his leg open earlier, then climbs after her with little space left between them.

She's coughing up saltwater onto the rocks as he scrambles over to her, eyes wild with the petrifying worry of anything bad happening to her. They scan over her arms, legs, stomach, and back, and he doesn't even realize his hands are reaching out to inspect her as frantically as she had with him when he got hurt.

His hands cup her face, petting over her dripping hair and forcing her to look up so he can see if she somehow got hit in the face. Never has his mind been so void of rational thought, and, knowing him and his impulsive tendencies, that's saying a lot. The confusion of his contradictory feelings for her muddle his mind. Worry and hatred, attraction and anger—they battle it out, but only two manage to reach him externally.

Worry and anger it is. Worry for obvious reasons. Anger because—

"What the fuck were you thinking?"

She has never heard him sound so vicious since the start of whatever odd relationship/friendship/enemy-ship they have. With his worried expression and how he checked her entire body for injury after helping her out of the water, the last thing she would've anticipated from him was anger. Especially not after she saved his best friend's life. Considering what she just did for him, she thinks he should be thanking her, not chastising her.

Behind her back, she can hear a collection of yelling voices and splashing footsteps over the water dripping from them. It can only be the rest of their friends racing up the peninsula to them, but she can't turn around.

She stares at him with utter confusion flooding her at his unexpected outburst. Speechless.

"What was I thinking?" she asks incredulously with her face still cradled between his hands, "I was saving John B's life!"

Their emotional distance and disagreement are made up for in abundance by how physically entangled they've become. It wasn't intentional. It was a result of him needing to get close enough to scour her exposed skin for any bites, but now that they're sitting so near to each other, they forget to back away.

John B is too busy to engage with them.

He's doubled over on the ground with the compulsion to vomit the contents of his stomach into the ocean, but he doesn't dare get close to the edge again after what they went through. Instead, he positions himself away from them and their approaching friends until the half-digested food is forced back through his mouth. The acidic bile scorches his throat and nostrils on the way out.

JJ doesn't have the opportunity to retort back something about her being stupid, because Pope is the first person to reach them and ask, "What the hell happened?"

The rest of the group isn't far behind. It's Kie who asks the next question, then Sarah, then Cleo. They all pop off in rapid succession before either of the three of them can answer.

"Are any of you hurt?"

"Why is he throwing up?"

"Is that a shark?"

The last question draws everyone's attention over to the half-sunken mass of fish bobbing up and down on the breaths of the sea with a wooden spear sticking straight out of its gills. Though it isn't the biggest, most intimidating shark to roam the ocean, its presence doesn't fail to make everyone who looks at it shudder with the realization of what must have happened.

John B wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and points over at her with his trembling arm outstretched.

"She killed it."

The four of them whip their heads in her direction, jaws nearly falling off their faces in disbelief, but she doesn't say anything yet. Because as soon as they feel the eyes of their friends burning into them, she and JJ realize, as though they're returning to reality from the hazy layers of a dreamscape, that they're still holding each other.

She's slumped halfway onto him from when he hauled her body closer to inspect her, so she's essentially sitting on top of him at this point. Her legs, bruised and scratched up from when the waves crested to send them crashing into the rocks, are entangled around his enough that they look back and forth between them and where his hands cup her face in surprise.

JJ doesn't know what came over him.

Now that he snaps out of it at the same time as her, both of them separating and nudging each other away until their bodies are no longer entwined, he feels his cheeks flush in embarrassment.

When he saw her leaping past him to jump into the water, his mind shut off. He wasn't thinking about himself, or the possibility of getting killed, or anything at all. He was only thinking of the danger she put herself in, then he dove in and the rest of his conscious mind faded away into pure survival instinct. Yet, even after he knew the immediate danger was gone, the adrenaline kept him on edge, desperate to get her back to land and pray none of them were hurt.

"It was trying to attack him," she rasps. Her throat is raw from the saltwater she choked on, and every word burns. "But we did it together."

She pushes herself off the ground with an exhausted sigh.

Muscles spent from the struggle in the water, her legs wobble beneath the weight of her upper body as she takes a few steps to help John B up from his position on his hands and knees. From what she heard, he has thrown up all he has left in his stomach and hasn't gagged again in a minute or so, so attempting to stand again shouldn't be too strenuous for him.

His hand is cold in her grasp from the water soaking their bodies, but it holds firmly enough for her to help him into his feet without their palms slipping apart. No patches of blood are visible on his shorts, nor are there any puncture wounds on him from the sharp teeth that snapped at his arm in the quick but vigorous fight.

They were very, very fortunate to have made it out alive, and when he looks down at her face, he feels nothing but gratitude for the girl he previously saw as nothing more than his girlfriend's best friend. They went into the water as casual acquaintances, companions of convenience and the happenstance of being forced onto this island together, but they've come out of it differently. Now, they're friends.

Now, she's a Pogue.

He smiles at her, glancing up at their friends as their questions die down at the sight of his crazy grin, and says, "That was some real Pogue shit right there, Y/N." His eyes come back to meet hers. "I think it's about time we officially make you one of us. What do you think?"

She's opening her mouth to respond when Kiara cuts her off. The rest of them are staring at the trio as if they have ten heads sprouting from their bodies for not immediately surrendering more details of their near-death encounter other than saying she killed it.

"I'm sorry, can we please rewind to the part where you got attacked by a shark first?"

"Ladies and gentlemen, can I get a drumroll please for..."

The campfire is roaring with the abundance of sticks, leaves, and branches thrown onto the pile to fuel it as she feels a strong pair of arms looping around her thighs to lift her into the expansive, star-flecked sky.

In a flash of haunting memory, she relives the moment where JJ dove into the water after her and lifted her body above the surface to give her the high ground over the shark. She relives its thrashing hunger, the water splashing on her, and the cloudy hue of blood around them that she hoped wasn't either of the boys. For a second, as the world grows taller with her new perspective, she is brought back to the sudden shift she felt then and feels her stomach drop in panic, anticipating the danger.

But then the sound of her friends laughing, as well as the surging fire and crashing waves, comes back to her and forces the frightful flashback away. Her hip fits perfectly in the curve of John B's shoulder, and she lets her head fall back in giggling laughter at how he hoists her up in the air as though she's a holy figure of worship for the Pogues to kneel to.

His voice can likely be heard across the entire island when he shouts, "The Shark Conqueror!"

The group erupts into a triumphant mixture of cheers and laughter that fills the beach, everyone celebrating in their narrow escape earlier today...everyone except JJ.

After John B divulged the gory details of what happened, from JJ's fall to her picking up the spear and jumping in to save him from the shark, they made their way back with enough conversation to last the month. They all asked questions and took peeks back at where it happened in morbid curiosity, wondering how on earth they managed to come out of the situation without a scratch.

The rest of the afternoon continued on with the same buzzing energy that can only be created from the thrill of being alive. She's felt it many times since joining Sarah's group of friends that seem to find trouble wherever they go, but she has never felt it as vehemently as she does tonight. It's a mixture of euphoria, shock, and soul-crushing guilt for having to hurt another living creature, even one that was intending to make a meal of her friend.

No matter how much she grows up or discovers more about herself as a person, feelings never stop being as frustrating as they were to her as a child. You can get better at processing and hindering explosive reactions to them, but they never simplify. She doesn't know why she feels so much at once. She doesn't know why she feels simultaneously on top of the world and thrown off the edge of a cliff, but she thinks it has to do with him.

Since they walked back to the beach and talked about what happened until the day withered into night, which led them here to the “official” ceremony of her being named a Pogue for life, JJ hasn't spoken to her once.

Suddenly, the shoe is on the other foot.

Much like how she avoided him all night last night leading into this morning, he doesn't talk to her. He tries not to look at her too from where he sits on the log of driftwood across the fire, but it's somewhat inevitable with the spectacle John B is making of her at the moment.

Painted in the warm tones of the firelight like a goddess in her own right, Y/N is impossible to look away from, and it makes him angrier than he already is. A handwoven circlet crafted from the hibiscus and hippeastrum flowers growing in the forest around their camp sits atop her head. It doesn't fall to the ground with the movement of her throwing her head back in laughter. It stays in its rightful place against the rule of gravity until her face comes back into view for him to quickly look away from.

It dampers her laughter to see him avoiding her gaze so adamantly, taking a swig of water from one of the small cups they carved from wood and turning to talk to Kie to keep himself busy. The distinct sensation of being on top of the world slips away with the feeling of his cold avoidance and John B lowering her back to the ground until her bare feet sink into the soft sand.

Before she can start sulking about it for the foreseeable future, Sarah steps up beside her.

The familiar touch of a hand on her shoulder brings her comfort amidst her confusion and hurt over the way JJ is acting, and when she turns to see a pretty face looking fondly at her, a warm smile finds her lips.

"Pogue for life?" Sarah asks.

The three words bring make her smile grow the same way it had when she was talking to JJ on the peninsula. It crinkles the skin around her eyes with its unrestrained happiness to hear them because, as much as she pretends to let JJ's comments roll off of her, tonight marks one of the first times she's felt at home with them.

That's not to say they haven't made her feel welcome in the past, they did, but this isn’t the same. This is closer, this is the type of bond that's forged in situations like these where people have no choice but to rely on each other or let their worlds collectively fall apart, and she thinks, for the first time, that she could live here with them forever if she must.

None of them know how much time has passed since they arrived here, least of all her, but it sure as hell feels like an eternity. At first, she could barely withstand the idea of living here for months with the intention of being rescued as soon as possible, but now...

She brings Sarah into an embrace tight enough to force the air from their lungs.

"Pogue for life," she echoes back with her face buried into the salt-scented tresses of dirty blonde hair cascading over her tan shoulders.

Would it be crazy of her to think that this is where they're meant to be? That they're her family and this place she has fantasized about escaping is now their home?

After all, the lush island provides everything they need to sustain themselves with the rationing, scavenging, and hunting routines they adhere themselves to. Freshwater runs down the land in a stream from a water source uphill, plenty of different edible plants grow in the forest, and there's so much left of the expansive land to explore; it's perfect. Everything here is perfect for them, calling out to them to make it their home, but there's one little problem as of right now, and he's sitting across the fire behind her back.

Sarah's arms squeeze around her shoulders once to bring her in even closer.

"Thank you for saving him," her voice is so hushed, Y/N can hardly hear it with her lips brushing the shell of her ear to whisper into it, "I'm not gonna get all mushy with you right now, but I don't know what I would've done if"—Sarah's breath hitches in her throat, and she shakes her head—"I just wanted to thank you."

When they pull apart, Y/N is looking back at her with a knowing expression, one that says everything she can't in the presence of the others, and Sarah can't help but mirror it.

It isn't long before the blonde-haired beauty is whisked away by her boyfriend to help him cook the crabs they caught closer to shore after their encounter with the shark. Not wanting to swim out or risk slipping off the rocks again with the dead fish promising to lure more predators to their area for the next week or so, they settled for hunting for shellfish and making good use of the fruits they find growing in wild abundance in the forest.

The night ticks away in swiftly passing minutes thanks to the humorous company of the people around her.

She nearly chokes on a mouthful of banana as Cleo tells a story from before she met them, when she used to live in Nassau and work jobs with Terence and Stubbs on ships. For such new additions to the group, they both fit surprisingly well with the lifelong childhood friends that sit around and banter with such ease together.

They talk, laugh, dance, and eat together, and there are moments when she feels happier than ever. There are moments exactly like when John B lifted her up and made her giggle at how their friends cheered on her behalf in indulgence of the silly "ceremony" they did, half out of boredom and half out of gratitude for what she did. But then she is reminded of the man sitting on the outskirts of the group with his features hardened into an expression of contemplation she wishes she could decode.

The night breeze feels heavenly on her perpetually overexposed skin. It blows into the fire and allows it to swell from the oxygen supply, crackling and popping embers out every so often like the spark of the zippo lighter JJ fidgets with in his restless hands. The movement attracts her wandering eyes while they should be focused on Cleo and Kie dancing around the fire with boisterous laughter while Sarah and Pope sing for them.

She keeps herself honed in on the opening and closing of the lighter under the guidance of his ring-clad fingers for the next minute or so.

They may have been pitting themselves against each other since they met, but that doesn't mean she doesn't know him well. If anything, the keen attention that her old hatred for him forced her to keep on him made her memorize everything there is to know. And she surely has picked up on the nervous habit of him playing with the lighter whenever he's thinking, whenever there's something crawling under his skin that he can't piece together.

He sits with his back to her, facing out toward the ocean so all she can see is the hand he uses to flick the lighter open and shut with. With a quick glance at the rest of their friends to see if any of them are watching or wanting to speak with her, she pushes herself up from the log and dusts her sandy palms on her shirt.

The tracks of her footsteps lead around the corner of the driftwood he rests against until her feet appear, sunken into the sand in front of him. It takes a lot of control to not allow himself to follow up the length of her body, panning up along her legs until he sees that infuriatingly tenderhearted set of eyes looking down at him.

However, he doesn't have a choice in looking when her hand outstretches in a silent invitation. His first glimpse of her in the last half-hour shows her jerking her chin in the direction of the beach curving around the bend of the island.

This morning, he probably would've taken her up on the offer. He would've done anything to get a few minutes alone with her, but now he can't see past his anger and doesn't know why. He doesn't know why it hasn't calmed yet, but, in truth, it has more to do with him than it does her idiotic yet brave decision to fight off a shark today. Trust him, it still has a lot to do with the idiotic shark thing, but the rest is lost in translation for him.

"Not in the mood," he dismisses her.

Her brows furrow and form a crease between them as she tries to find something to say but comes up with nothing. At least not until it clicks with her what he thought she was trying to do by inviting him to walk with her.

The last time they went off on their own together, it ended in an explosive encounter they have yet to erase from their minds. It's what greets them whenever they close their eyes for a second too long, existing in their wildest daydreams and fantasies whenever they have a spare moment to themselves. Hell, he can't stop thinking about it even when he's already occupied. It was the reason why he didn't catch any fish this morning before the incident that made him pissed at her in the first place. He couldn't stop thinking of her.

"Oh," she murmurs and starts to kneel down until her knees are sinking into the sand the same way she did when patching up his leg. Her eyes peek over his shoulder to ensure the others didn't hear them—"That wasn't what I meant...I was just wondering if you wanted to talk about today. It must have been a lot to process, since he's your best friend and all, and—"

JJ snaps, unable to tolerate it anymore, and stands up from his spot on the sand to move away from her.

"You don't need act all therapist with me, okay? I'm fine, and I don't need you to fix me if that's what you wanted. Today was fine. Everything's fine, so let it go."

Her mouth opens and closes like a fish with a loss for words. For the second time in the span of a minute, she is grasping blindly for something to say in the wake of him shocking her to silence. He's starting to walk past her but she doesn't let him. Her hand shoots out to stop him and holds onto his arm to turn him back despite his rudeness.

Underneath it all, her concern touches him deeply. It shouldn't trigger a reaction like this in him, so why does it? What about today set him off? He hasn't been this genuinely angry with her since before the hunt for the gold began, before she started to blend into their friend group and establish herself as one of them.

"Woah, woah, woah," she says, "I never said that. I thought that you needed someone to talk to. You know, as a friend."

Their friends start to notice their interaction tensing up now. Before, they didn't pick up on her stepping away for a second to check on him. Now, it's impossible to ignore what unfolds hardly six steps from where they watch as slyly as they can. The two of them haven't had a conversation as cold as this one in months, and what he says next takes it to a place that freezes over the connection they made last night and shatters the warm place it held in her heart.

He scoffs.

"We're not friends. If you think you gotta act different 'cause you threw yourself at me last night, don't bother. You hate me and I hate you. That's how it is."

No nicknames, jokes, or anything to act as a buffer, just cruelty. Rejection.

Though they truly were trying to pretend like they weren't paying attention, every single one of their friends stops and stares. A chorus of hushed reactions sound off from across the fire, and the faint sound of Kie muttering, "Oh shit," is the first thing to reach their ears. It's needless to say that none of them could've expected something so callous to come from him, not after what they saw when they ran up to them on the peninsula this morning.

With the way he was holding her then, doting on her and cradling her face between his hands even in the midst of his anger at what she did, they sooner expected the pair to admit they're dating than have a blowout like this.

In the delayed seconds it takes for her to realize what the fuck he just said to her, he watches her face shift from a look of concern to sadness, to flush-faced embarrassment, then finally to anger. Her teeth grind together, nostrils flaring on her inhale, and in one quick moment, she comes to a conclusion within herself.

She reaches up to rip the handmade crown of vibrant flowers off her head with flames to match the camp fire flaring up in her eyes for him. Before she can do anything, he already knows he crossed a line, if not multiple lines. It's evident in everything he sees, from the hurt look on her face to the force with which she shoves the crown into the center of his chest to send him stumbling back a few steps. Just like yesterday, except it couldn't be any more different.

"Fuck. You." She spits the words as though they're venomous, and he almost shrinks away under the intensity of her stare, “Go find somewhere else to sleep tonight, 'cause it sure as hell isn't gonna be with me."

Petals flutter out upon impact against his solid chest and float peacefully to the sand around his feet as he watches her turn on her heels and storm off toward their hut. Though, after what he did and what she said to him as a goodbye, it isn't really theirs anymore, is it? At least not for tonight, tomorrow, or the next day until he finds a way to make her hear him out for an apology.

He stands there, frozen, the entire time he watches her leave. Nothing can move him from the spot, not even Sarah knocking her shoulder against his with a pointed glare on her way past to follow her into the moonlit darkness.

He doesn't even resist the disappointed looks he gets, or the shoulder check from Sarah. This time, he deserves it. He deserves every ounce of their judgment. All she was trying to do was make sure he was okay and he was too consumed in his unreleased frustration from today to see it. And, in a way, he's still frustrated over it, but it's greatly overshadowed by the guilt seeping through him.

The shadowy shapes of the two girls disappear into the small hut further down the beach, and JJ is left with nothing to do but look down at the flower crown clutched to his chest in regret.

Tag List: @gabiatthedisco, @fangirlvoice, @black-syren, @apparrio, @particularcth, @planetdemon, @idk-ijustworkhere, @krisphann, @astrydis, @k-k0129, @zarahsloves, and @stilesflannels.

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank smut #outer banks #obx #fanfiction #obx2 #this fic is so over the top and silly but I love it 🥺👉🏻👈🏻