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heliza24 · 11 months

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I just stumbled onto your page and I love reading your insights and analysis of Young Royals. I’d like to hear your take on this if you don’t mind ofc.

When Simon tried to tell Marcus that he was not ready for a relationship, Marcus ignored him and said that they could take things slow with no stress and that he can wait. And when you wait for someone, there are two outcomes, either they’ll get together or they won’t. And in this situation where Simon said that he’ll never be ready, it was obviously not going to happen. They never had a mutual discussion about them being exclusive (boyfriends) and Simon made no promises to Marcus. So what was Marcus expecting?

My question is why was Marcus pissed at Simon in the end? Marcus was the one who said that he could wait for someone who would never be ready. Ig the only thing that Marcus can be angry about is Simon using him at the ball. But he barely talked about it and instead insults Simon with assumptions about who Simon is even though Marcus knows nothing about him.

Thanks anon! I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my analysis!

So I’ve already written a bit about the breakup scene. I think Marcus is exhibiting some subtle classism and racism in his reaction to the breakup, and I also think Marcus is operating on a very heteronormative relationship timeline which impacts how annoyed he gets with Simon.

But I thought your question might be a good excuse to talk about character and scene writing in a more technical way, since people still have questions about Marcus’s motivations. I am a playwright and I like thinking and talking about this stuff a lot.

So, when we design a character in playwriting and screenwriting, we always think about their goals. These are big desires that help motivate a character over the course of the whole script. (Or in this case, season of television). But in any specific scene, a character isn’t usually thinking about their big, defining goal. They’re dealing with the small piece of that desire that is right in front of them. Usually they’re interacting with another character, and they want something from that other character that is going to get them closer to their big goal. That little want is their objective, and the way they go about getting it drives the scene. A character usually doesn’t try just one method for reaching their objective; they’ll try different techniques, rephrase their words, etc. All of those methods are called actions.

(By the way, when people say that scripts require conflict to work, this is what they mean. Characters always have objectives and want something from each other. It doesn’t mean they have to be fighting; their objective could be to make friends. But that exchange is necessary to make a scene work).

This is pretty abstract, so let’s do a silly example to make things clearer. Meet John, my made-up character. John’s overarching goal is to have a closer relationship with his dad, who is a chef. In the scene I’m writing, John wants his dad to try the brownies he just baked because he thinks they will impress his dad. That’s his objective. He might try different actions to get that to happen. First he might set up a fan so the delicious smell wafts over to his dad. He might eat one in front of his dad and remark upon how delicious they are. If neither of those things work, he might resort to begging his dad directly to just try one!

But what if John’s dad still refuses to try his brownies? He’s probably not going to keep trying. After a certain point, trying more and more actions against an unresponsive scene partner feels unrealistic. So John’s objective might change. He might say to his dad: “Mom will eat these and tell me how great they. She’s a better parent than you.” Boom. New objective: make Dad jealous. It still connects to John’s overarching goal. If Dad gets jealous of John’s connection with Mom, he might invest more in his own relationship with John. It’s not a smart or emotionally healthy or reasonable tactic! But you can see how someone who is upset might resort to it.

Scenes can be broken down into smaller units called beats. A new beat starts whenever a character switches to a new action (so using the fan, remarking upon the brownies, and begging would all be distinct beats). Switching to a new objective would also create a new beat. You can think of a beat as the smallest unit of dramatic writing.

(This is not to be confused with the stage direction “he takes a beat” which is sometimes just used interchangeably with “he pauses before speaking”. Confusing but true).

Thank you for hanging with me through that extremely goofy example I just made up. Now let’s use these concepts and see if they can help us understand Marcus as a character and the way that his relationship with Simon unfolds.

I would say that Marcus’s goal across season 2 of YR is to make Simon his boyfriend. Marcus is a pretty minor character, all things considered, so I don’t think his goal needs to be very complex. (If we were talking about Wilhelm or Simon’s goal in the season, it would probably be a lot harder to summarize so succinctly.)

We don’t know a ton about Marcus’s backstory, but we know a few things that might point to character motivation that would make this goal make sense. He’s an older kid, with his own apartment and car. He’s at the point in his life where he might really want a partner to fit in with this grownup conception of himself. And he likes Simon!

So how does he accomplish his goal? In early scenes his objective is to get Simon to like him. He offers to drive him to campus, he asks him to karaoke, he invites him over. Those are all pretty simple actions. And they are at least partially successful! Simon agrees to go out with him.

In that first awkward hookup scene, his and Simon’s objectives are in conflict. Simon is there to hookup and forget his problems. Marcus is there to make Simon his very serious, very committed boyfriend, which to him means no sex yet. So it makes sense that Simon makes a move and that Marcus shuts him down. Those conflicting actions are a good example of how conflict drives a scene forward.

Ok, now let’s look at the scene in 2.3 where Simon first tries to break up with Marcus. Now Marcus’ objective has changed a little bit. Instead of trying to create the relationship with Simon, he’s trying to prevent Simon from ending it. (Simon’s objective in this scene is to breakup with Marcus). There are a few different beats in this scene where Marcus tries different actions to get Simon to stay. First, he offers Simon time. He’ll wait until Simon is ready. When Simon says that he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready, then Marcus compares himself to Wilhelm. He tries to make himself seem a safer and better person than Wilhelm (“I won’t hurt you like he did”). When Simon acknowledges his goodness (“I think you’re like, perfect”) but that doesn’t change his mind, Marcus brings up Simon’s family. Marcus asserts that Simon must not recognize how lucky he is to be dating Marcus because Simon’s parents didn’t model a healthy relationship. Marcus ends up “winning” this scene; after those three beats Simon agrees to keep dating him.

Now we’re at the final breakup scene in 2.6. Things have really changed when this scene opens. Marcus already knows that he has failed at his goal. Simon hasn’t been talking to him, and he knows that he hooked up with Wilhelm in some capacity. So Marcus goes through a pretty dramatic shift here. Instead of trying to win over Simon, I think his main goal is now to try to preserve his own feelings. That’s pretty relatable if you’ve ever been broken up with. You’re just trying to get out of there with your heart as intact as possible. A great way to do this is to make it very clear that the breakup was not your fault. That way you don’t have to accept any blame or feel guilty. I would say that this is Marcus’s objective in this scene: make it very clear that the breakup is Simon’s fault, not his. The first action that he tries to accomplish this is to blame Wilhelm. Marcus is a great guy, but how was he supposed to compete with a prince, especially when Simon is clearly just starstruck by Wilhelm’s status? (This is not true of Simon, I would say, but remember that we’re just in Marcus’s head trying to think of ways to deflect blame right now). Here's where the scene shifts in a really interesting way. Instead of just accepting this, Simon pushes back with a new action of his own. He directly points out the ways that Marcus is at fault for their breakup: Marcus didn’t listen to Simon when he said he didn’t want a serious relationship. That’s a new beat in the scene, and I can almost physically see Simon lob the blame back over the fence onto Marcus (good for him tbh). So now Marcus is on the back foot. He’s about to totally fail to reach his objective in this scene. No more Mr. Nice Guy, time to play dirty. So he reaches for the most effective action he can think of, insulting Simon directly. More specifically, he accuses Simon of the thing that he himself is doing: deflecting blame. He even says to Simon “everything just happens, and it’s never your fault”. Simon plays the victim, he’s turned on by drama, so this breakup MUST be Simon’s fault. And then he tells Simon to get lost, effectively ending the scene on that final, very strong action. He makes sure he gets the last word.

I hope that helps explain why Marcus reacts so angrily, even if his anger doesn’t seem reasonable to an outside, neutral observer. Everything Marcus does is motivated by his larger goal. Every action he takes, even the ways in which he insults Simon, are tactics he uses to try to meet his objectives in each scene. If you’re living inside of Marcus’s head, all of those steps make perfect sense.

This is a good technique to use in general when you’re trying to understand and evaluate a dramatic text (Play, movie, tv show, etc). Does each character have a goal? Does each scene have distinct objectives for all of its characters? Do the actions they take align with those objectives? Asking these questions will help you understand characters but also help you evaluate the overall strength of the writing. Obviously I think Young Royals does a great job with this generally, and I had a good time breaking down Marcus into his component parts so to speak.

Thanks for the ask!

#young royals #ask box #my meta #marcus young royals #simon eriksson #writing breakdown #in which I wear my playwright hat for a bit

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bearsgrove · 3 years

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#fern.txt #haven't been seething with rage towards One Singular person SO intensely in quite a while #oh don't misunderstand me. i am filled with rage for various reasons by default. angery on a daily basis. there is always something.#but this is different because it's simply. Focused #and so it’s somehow worse #you know usually i’m angry about more abstract stuff? like it’s not something i could set on fire or punch or Direct in any way #a human? in theory. yes. but in practice............... unfortunately no.#god just. fucking choke. bitch. i hate them i hate them i hate themmmmmmmm #i want to scream about this but i will just sound petty and/or insane so. quietly seething with rage it is <3 #one day i will snap

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that-was-anticlimactic · 3 years

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reki with tourette’s headcanons

[ID: it’s reki from sk8 the infinity wearing a yellow sweatshirt with his hands on his hips. he’s wearing a red bracelet on his right wrist and he’s smiling. behind him is a touette’s syndrome awareness flag. end ID.]

so. @zukkaclawthorne got me hooked on reki with ts and now imma post headcanons i wrote oops

okay so first—that little skateboard he plays with??? stim toy, actually.

he likes the sound the wheels make—that whirrrrrr sound. it makes his arms flappy :)

he also finds the rolling motion soothing and relaxing and it always calms him down—it takes his mind to a happy place

he rocks back and forth and shakes his legs a lot. that also contributed to why he was terrible at skateboarding the first few times he tried—because his body would be like “time to rock back and forth!” and it would mess him up

neck twitches for days :)

no but for real—neck twitching is one of his worst tics because sometimes—if he’s in a bad mood or if he’s sad or anxious—it gets harsh and violent and really strains his neck.

so, langa gives him neck / upper back neck massages to help with the pain

he went through this phase for a couple of months where whenever his neck would twitch, he would snap his fingers two times.

he has a lot of hand tics which can be stressful when he makes skateboards because sometimes he’ll be in the groove and then suddenly he’ll mess something up

speaking of messing things up, he has a tendency to dig the bottom of his palm into his forehead whenever he feels like he does something stupid—he doesn’t even realize it until someone points it out.

he feels like even more of a failure of a skater because of his tics because they can hold him back and make the course more dangerous.

if his blinking tic resurfaces, sometimes the blinking gets so intense that he literally cannot see for anywhere between five seconds and a minute depending on how bad it is. that is how he got some of his worst scars.

or sometimes he’ll make a really aggressive hand motion and it throws him off balance on the skateboard due to the intensity

anyways back to hand tics: he points a lot and does symbols like the “rock on” sign or certain numbers (for some reason, the most common number for reki to throw up is four—though sometimes he throws up whatever number he hears) he also grunts a lot as a tic so he sounds angry even when he is’t.

sometimes, his hand tics really hurt and his hands become shaky and his fingers start to feel the way his heart feels when he’s anxious. langa helps in different ways—he holds reki’s hand, he gives him something to fidget with to try to distract him (sometimes it’s his own fingers—he’ll just set them in reki’s palm and be like “let me carry some of the pain”—no, reki didn’t totally cry when he said that what)

sometimes, reki sticks pencils in his ears. his teachers have been trying to stop it since he was young, but he always did it anyways—he couldn’t help it.

his hair is also long enough for him to chew on. yes, he chews on the tips of his hair because i say so. sometimes, to stop him from doing that (and from swallowing his own hair), langa will try to make him laugh so it falls out of his mouth and then he’ll scoot close and tuck the hair behind reki’s ears… once they start dating, he kisses him too. but also that’s one reason why he wears the headband—to try to keep his hair out of his face so he doesn’t chew on it.

reki’s favorite form of stimming (other than his skateboard toy, that is) is stress balls. he’s got a couple of stress balls in his room or backpack—even one with string attached so he can carry it around his wrist. he just really likes the texture of them.

after his second race against adam, cherry and joe were so proud of him and also impressed and worried dads that they bought reki a big stress ball, like, the size of a stuffed animal. it was a blue cat. he uses it all the time.

speaking of fricking adam, we all know he would so use reki’s tics against him during a race. like, when he grabbed his wrist and “danced” with him, he would mock reki’s tics or say creepy things about how his verbal tics are music and his motor tics are him dancing along and it makes him so uncomfortable and like even more shaken

oh and adam purposely does things to trigger his tics, like when i mentioned that number tic??? yeah, adam will purposefully say numbers to make reki do the hand gestures

one time, reki wanted to tell langa that he loved him but got nervous so he signed it in sign language instead. but, since reki’s tics are occasionally hand gestures, langa thought that it was just a tic and mentally was like “i wish that was for me…” and reki is like “i wish he knew it was real…” and joe, cherry, shadow, and miya are all facepalming and groaning at their obliviousness

reki prefers taking hand written notes to electronic notes because he draws / doodles to stim and he can’t really doodle well on a laptop. so, he’ll doodle in class all of the time

sometimes, his pictures / notes turn out pretty bad / illegible depending on how bad his tics are, but that doesn’t phase reki. it used to when he was younger, but it doesn’t bother him at all anymore. in fact, he thinks it adds personality

during class, he’ll draw pictures for langa and slid them on his desk. they’re usually really random things like the teacher or the back of someone’s head or squiggly lines or whatever he sees outside. more often than not, it’s abstract art. langa loves these drawings and he keeps them all on his desk in his room.

reki also started drawing pictures for the rest of the sk8 crew and gives it to them during races. when he gave everyone their first doodle, he was like “i’m not the best artist ever and sometimes my tics mess up the doodle, but i thought of you while i drew it so i want you to have it”

(shadow didn’t shed a couple of unwilling dad tears when he got home that night what)

anyways, they all keep them. every single one. miya puts them in their school binder so they don’t feel as alone / isolated at school.

although shadow and miya give reki a lot of crap / teasing about not being as good as everyone else, the second they hear anyone comment about “the weird red head that makes noises” and comments on his ts in a negative way, oh, they will stop you.

sometimes, reki whispers words he hears under his breath as a tic (echolalia, baby~) and when he overhears people saying stuff about “that redhead that always follows snow around” or about him not being good enough or how he’s an idiot to face adam, he ends up muttering that too. and it’s not a one and done kind of thing—like. he does it for days. it makes him so upset (and i already hc him, with depression so it just makes it worse)

having tics while having injuries is not a good combination—especially if it’s with a broken arm. the crew made sure to keep an eye of reki’s comfort / pain level after adam broke his arm and literally tried to kill him in their final race. joe let reki squeeze his hand whenever he felt the urge to tic and cherry would ask him how much pain he was in after he ticced and depending on how bad it would be, would make joe or shadow fetch a heating pad or an icepack for reki.

joe also taught reki about the magical thing called physical therapy tape and helped him put it on his shoulders, neck, and back one time. it was his idea to use the tape on reki’s fingers when he was injured to make him feel better (because it literally makes my fingers feel better)

also langa kisses each of reki’s fingers and knuckles, slowly and tenderly, soft so he doesn’t hurt him or trigger a tic. a way of showing that he loves him not despite his tics, but even with his tics and that he loves him and his tics.

cherry isn’t always the best at showing he cares, so he’ll wear a ts ribbon sometimes in a way to show support (and it makes reki beam)

shadow once gave reki a flower shaped stress ball because there were “extra at work” (not true—he went looking for one)

miya didn’t really know much about ts at first and asked why reki made those noises and made weird movements all the time and langa explained so then that night when miya got home, they did research on ts so they could understand it better. later, they told reki that whenever they called him a slime, they meant it purely about skateboarding and it had nothing to do with his tics—even that his tics didn’t make him less of a skater

all his life, reki had been the different one: the one no one wanted on the team because sometimes his tics messed him up, the one who was asked to leave classes during tests because his tics were too distracting and made him take the test in the hall, when sometimes he’d get too overwhelmed by how close people were in the halls or at races and would have panic attacks, how he rocked in his chair and adjusted his position seventeen times an hour and sat on his feet while the other kids didn’t, how he shook his legs more aggressively than others, how he couldn’t skate as well as everyone else because of his tics and because he wasn’t good enough

which is probably part of the depression that weighs on his shoulders

the first time reki had a panic attack during a race due to closeness and overstimulating noises (and this is the first one after the sk8 crew happened) langa was racing and wasn’t there to help, so shadow kind of panicked and like picked him up under the armpits and carried him away from the crowd since reki could barely process anything other than panic and the sound and feeling of static and they sat in shadow’s car for the rest of the race and once he felt better, he gave shadow a huge hug and shadow returned it.

one time it happened and cherry was nearby and he saw the signs before it got bad (remembered from the previous time / his own experiences) and helped talk reki down before it got bad (he has a soothing voice)

usually, though, when / if it happens (because reki usually feels safe there), langa is the one who helps

but it got so much worse after skating against adam the first time because he no longer felt safe and suddenly everyone cheering adam’s name even after witnessing what he did to reki was too much but langa was racing adam so langa wasn’t there and this time it was joe who kneeled in front of him and started talking just loud enough for reki to hear and he was like “you’re safe—we won’t let anyone hurt you. we won’t let him hurt langa. you’re safe. i’m here and so is cherry and shadow and miya and langa will be waiting for you at the end of the race…”

it happens again at the next race he goes to—and this time it’s miya who notices and they tug on langa’s sleeve and is like “i think you need to take reki somewhere else” and langa does :)

okay i’ll end on a positive ts note or two—langa asks reki to add the ts ribbon to the design on his skateboard

shadow finds chewelry at the store one day when he’s shopping and buys it for reki (and gets a matching one for langa!)

once reki came back after his mental health break, the first thing joe said to him was, and this is nonnegotiable “reki! i missed you and your tics!”

miya once overheard reki muttering to himself about his annoying tics were, so they intervened and was like “your tics aren’t annoying. they’re you and anyone who think s they’re annoying is an idiot”

and for the first time in his life, reki doesn’t feel alone and isolated and so different from everyone (at least, he’s working on that last one) and he’s finally found a group of people who want him on their team and a boyfriend who always supports him and makes him feel less isolated, tics and all <3

i uhh I have a lot of feelings,,,

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jackrrabbit · 4 years

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it will come back [pt. 2] /// Yandere Shigaraki x f!Reader

Summary: You have a bad habit of picking up strays, and the half-dead villain you find bleeding out in a dumpster is no exception. [Part 1] [Part 3]

A/N: Title from the Hozier song—“don’t let it in with no intention to keep it / jesus christ, don’t be kind to it / oh honey don’t feed it / it will come back.”

Tags/warnings: yandere, violence (not directed toward reader), crying, Shiggy REALLY likes you, reader needs a friend and a good night’s sleep, non-explicit sexual content. [In later parts: 18+, sex, other stuff]

He—Tomura—keeps visiting.

At first you think it’s because of the free medical care, and you wish you had the spine to tell him to suck it up and go see a professional. After a couple weeks turn into a couple months and his wounds fade into ragged purple scars, though, you start to think differently.

Within a short time Tomura has figured out your work schedule, and he does a decent job of not showing up after your long shifts. The unavoidable consequence of this is that he ends up monopolizing your precious days off, but you come to the realization about a month and a half in that you don’t actually mind. You like it. It’s like spending time with a friend.

Mostly you guys talk. It doesn’t seem like Tomura really has anyone to talk to the way the two of you do, but that’s probably just you projecting. It’s usually shallow stuff—TV shows you like, video games he plays, funny stories from patients you treated. Sometimes when you’re cooking for yourself, you make extra for him. (It happens a lot, actually, and at one point you bring up how much his appetite is costing you and the next time you see him he brings a bag of rice and makes you a porridge that crunches between your teeth when you try to eat it. You can’t finish yours, but he eats an entire bowl and insists that you’re being picky.)

Sometimes he sleeps over on the couch, but he’s always gone when you wake up.

The two of you skirt around the heavier stuff, and you know it’s intentional on his part. You have to resist the urge to ask him about being a villain—he’s all but confirmed it for you, and it’s human nature to be curious, isn’t it? In the same way you can’t help looking at a car crash, you want to poke and prod and find out what it is, exactly, that Tomura does for a living. That part of his life is suspiciously absent from your discussions—if you didn’t know better, you’d think he spends all of his time sleeping and playing games and breaking into your place.

On the other hand, you don’t want to know. Plausible deniability. You can accept criminality in the abstract, but you’ve treated too many victims of the bullshit hero–villain battle to be comfortable really knowing why Tomura avoids public places.

So you don’t ask about it, and Tomura doesn’t tell, and you don’t look up his name. And it’s easy. It’s nice. You’d forgotten what it’s like to come back to a home that isn’t empty.

And then one day when you get off a few hours early from your shift, you stop by a convenience store to pick up some snacks for yourself (hey, you’ve been working hard, you’re entitled to binge a little on foods that you’re afraid to look at the fat content for), and you think, Hm, I wonder if Tomura wants some.

[You: 7:49 PM] > Are you coming over today? [T: 7:49 PM] > Yeah why [You: 7:51 PM] > Getting snacks > Want some? [T: 7:51 PM] > No

[T: 8:12 PM] > When r u coming back to ur place

[T: 8:58 PM] > Hey where are you

[T: 9:39 PM] > (Y/N)?

There’s a man with a gun in the convenience store.

It takes you a second to process at first. You’re standing in the snack food aisle seeking out Oreos and debating the merits of Double Stuf vs. Mega when you catch the mumbled demand and the metallic clicking noise you’ve only ever heard in movies before. It’s a gun—you know that, but your mind dismisses it because it’s ridiculous. Guns are rare in hero society. People don’t go around robbing bodegas at gunpoint anymore.

(You should know better. You work in a goddamn ER. But you compartmentalize, and the crimes you see written across your patients’ bodies stay out of the realm of your personal life because you need them to.)

It’s only when you see the muzzle of a hunting rifle pushed up to the cashier’s sweaty neck that you really understand what’s happening.

You drop to the ground immediately, looking toward the exit but it’s shut and there’s some kind of metal…thing holding the door closed. The cashier mumbles a denial and you can hear him fumble around with the cash drawer for what feels like ages.

It’s real. This is real. You’re in the middle of a robbery. Where are the heroes? Why isn’t anyone doing anything?

God, you’re a hypocrite, cowering behind the aisle divider and waiting for someone to step up while the robber’s demands get increasingly louder and more frantic. He wants money, and the cashier (who, you remember, is a man in his sixties with hands that shake with Parkinson’s when he holds out your receipt) isn’t being fast enough.

“That’s it? There’s no more? Are you fucking kidding me, there’s gotta be a safe or something—“

“No! No, p-please, I’m sorry, this is all I have!”

You cringe, crushing your eyes closed as if that will make it go away. You’re surprised you can hear at all over the sound of your blood rushing in your ears.

“Don’t fuck with me old man, I know there’s more! Show me the safe or I’ll blow your goddamn brains out!”

No! You have to do something. You can’t just sit here. You’ve heard plenty of death threats from your patients (not to mention that one from Tomura), and you know the difference between a bluff and a serious warning. Maybe you can catch the robber off guard, try to pull the gun away? You stand up quickly, hoping against hope that you won’t regret this, but in a split second you see that the cashier has the same idea and he’s trying to pull the rifle out of the robber’s hand and—

BANG.

Something warm and wet splatters across your face.

///

Tomura is angry when you get back to the apartment. As soon as he hears your key in the lock he rises from your couch so he can grab your collar with three fingers, jerking your head up to force you to look at him. “Where have you been? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting—“

But he cuts short in the middle of his sentence. Maybe because he sees the look on your face. Or maybe he just notices the traces of blood you haven’t been able to wipe off.

“What happened,” Tomura says. It’s not a question. He adjusts his grip slightly so it’s not quite as punishing, but you hold still anyway.

You have to force your mouth open in order to speak, but when your voice comes out it’s more steady than you thought it would be. “It’s not my blood. There was a robbery at the store. The cashier got shot.”

“Oh.” He releases you and frowns. “That’s it?”

“Fuck you.” You push past him into the kitchen to get yourself a drink with trembling hands. Pantry’s out of shōchū, whiskey will just make you sicker—ahh, there it is. Baijiu. The glug glug glug of the liquor into the glass does nothing to put your nerves at ease, but you pour yourself a double anyway.

“Wait—wait.” Tomura’s hands twitch and rub over his arms like he’s trying to stop himself from grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you. “Calm down. Why are you so upset? Don’t you see this stuff every day?”

You do. You’re an ER nurse. There’s no injury you haven’t seen. But it’s not about the blood. “I...I knew him. The cashier. He was nice. He had a grandkid on the way. I—“ You bite your lip and down the baijiu in one gulp. It burns.

Tomura clearly doesn’t know how to comfort you; probably doesn’t even really know why you need to be comforted. What does it mean that death is so meaningless to him? you wonder. But you need someone to listen to you, clueless or not, and Tomura will have to do.

The baijiu is still bitter and hot down your throat when you speak again. “You know something? Know what they asked me when the heroes finally showed up and pulled us out of there, me and the corpse?”

“…What?” Tomura asks warily.

“They stuck a camera in my face and asked me if there was anything I wanted to say to the hero who saved me. Any words of gratitude I wanted to share,” you spit. Now it’s your turn to feel your hands making fists at your sides. Your fingernails scratch into your palms like the pain can be an outlet for the sudden overwhelming fury spilling over you. “They didn’t save him. They were too late.”

Tomura’s eyes widen, and through your curtain of anger you can tell he’s looking at you in a way he’s never looked at you before. It’s unlike him to even look directly at you, and when he does it’s usually in disinterest or half-sincere irritation. This, though…this is different. He’s watching you like a believer watches a prophet. You can tell—or at least some deep, ugly part of you that you hope is wrong can tell—that he’s trying not to smile.

“I hate this,” you say, and the first tear drips out of your eye and runs down your cheek. It’s awful. You don’t want to cry in front of Tomura. You don’t want to show him how weak you are. But before you can wipe it away, Tomura’s hand comes up and does it for you, smearing the tear over your cheek in a gesture that—for him—is oddly tender.

Then he hugs you.

It’s stiff and awkward, like he’s forgotten how to do it, but the intention is clear. His arms fold around your back, pulling you into his chest while his chin makes its way to rest on your shoulder. He’s leaning into you so deeply that your spine is arched back, and you stagger away from him only for him to step closer again to make up the distance.

“It’s not fair, hm,” he murmurs into your hair. His tone is the closest thing to sympathy you’ve ever heard from him, but there’s an undercurrent of excitement you can’t ignore. “They’re always too late, aren’t they? The heroes… And everyone will watch that video of you thanking the heroes, and they’ll think they’re safe too. They’ll keep going about their lives and think that nothing bad can happen to them because a hero will always be around to save them…but you and I know that’s a lie.”

It takes you a second to recognize the emotion that’s raising goosebumps over your arms while Tomura rubs circles into your back, but when it clicks you shiver because it’s fear. You’ve never really been afraid of Tomura before, even when you should’ve been. Does he realize he’s backing you up with how forcefully he’s pushing himself into you? The backs of your knees hit the arm of your couch and you topple onto it with Tomura following.

He holds himself above you on his hands, legs tangled with yours. His eyes are wild and he’s not even trying to suppress his grin now. You’re trapped lying on your back under him—pinned like a butterfly under glass.

“Get off of me,” you say as calmly as you can.

“It’s all a lie, all of it…” A hand comes up and strokes your cheek, rubbing with two fingers at a stray fleck of blood on your neck. “I’m sorry it had to be like this, but I’m so glad you understand…”

“Let me up now, Tomura.”

He holds still for a long moment—waiting, thinking, considering—and then sits up, still straddling you but loosely enough that you can scramble back away from him on the couch. Your heart is racing, but you try to slow your breaths so he doesn’t pick up on how scared you are.

“Don’t freak out. You’re no fun,” Tomura says, and you exhale a sigh of relief at how normal he sounds. You never thought you’d be so happy about him looking at you like you’re nothing.

“I think you should go,” you say carefully.

He rocks back on his heels and runs a hand through his hair. “Are you mad? I thought I could stay here tonight, like usual. Since I waited for so long.”

“I’m not mad. I just…want to be alone.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone tonight. Not after what you’ve been through.”

Oh, now you care. “Fine. Okay? Fine. You can sleep on the couch.” You’re too tired to argue any more, and you’ve never really been good at convincing Tomura to do anything he doesn’t want to. It’s a miracle he listened to you when you told him to get off you. Considering how often he breaks into your apartment, it’s not like you could keep him out anyway.

So he stays the night. He doesn’t bother you when you take a shower and go to bed, he just lies on the couch in his street clothes. When you wake up in the morning he’s disappeared like he always does, and for the first time since you met him you’re truly relieved that he’s gone.

///

You always thought it would take some level of courage you don’t possess to actually bite the bullet and look Tomura up. To do so would mean saying goodbye to whatever strange relationship the two of you have built over the months, and you’re just not brave enough to risk it.

Turns out it’s not courage that makes you type his name into the search bar. It’s cowardice. You’re lying in bed under the covers when you do it, and the blue-white screen of your laptop is the only light in the room. Your comforter is pulled up almost over your head like it’s a wall that can block out reality.

“tomura”, you enter into the search bar, but you don’t hit return. Instead, you look at the search suggestions.

> tomura shigaraki > tomura shigaraki league of villains > tomura shigaraki decay

Something about it sounds familiar. But you’re not ready. Still, after everything, you’d rather keep your eyes closed. You backspace and snap your laptop shut, and when you do your room is so dark that you think the emptiness might swallow you up.

///

[T: 5:52 PM] > Are u going to be at home tn

[T: 6:14 PM] > Hey check ur phone

[T: 6:42 PM] > Stop ignoring me > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N) > (Y/N)

[T: 6:46 PM] 3 MISSED CALLS [You: 6:50 PM] > I’m at work [T: 6:50 PM] > Don’t lie > you finished an hour ago

[T: 7:13 PM] 1 MISSED CALL [T: 7:14 PM] > You said you werent mad [You: 7:15 PM] > I’m not [T: 7:15 PM] > Then stop being a brat > im coming over > ill bring takeout

You’re nervous about seeing him, but in the two weeks since he pushed you down on the couch you’ve found yourself…missing him. Like it or not, he’s made himself a fixture in your life. So when you get home you’re brimming with anticipation, wondering who you’ll get when you open the door—the normal Tomura you’ve come to like over the past few months, or the one from that night. The villain.

But it’s just him. Good old Tomura, laden with plastic bags and containers of greasy fast food for the two of you to gorge yourselves on. You tease him for being cheap and he argues that you’re just a snob and everything seems so normal that you can almost forget the look in his red eyes when he told you that you understood.

Almost.

///

You probably have no idea how good you look when you’re crying.

Of the couple thousand views on the news channel video of your “rescue” from the convenience store robber, at least a tenth are from Tomura. Eventually he just downloads the video onto his computer so he doesn’t have to read the inane comments that the other viewers leave on the webpage. It seems like everyone but him thinks you should feel lucky that you were saved by a hero before the robber could get to you, too.

As always, the public are a bunch of shit-soaked morons. Reading the comments makes him angry, so angry he’s tempted to look into a few of these brainless sheep and see how lucky they feel when they’ve caught the attention of a violent criminal. But that wouldn’t be productive, so he saves the video externally and leaves the news website alone. It’s for the best. Besides, seeing the “views” counter on the website tick up and up by the dozen every time he refreshes is just another reminder that other people are watching this; other people are seeing how delicate and vulnerable and pretty you are with tears spilling out of your eyes and the cashier’s blood sprayed over your clothing.

Thousands of useless fucking NPCs are looking at you just like Tomura is. They’re probably thinking about how sweet you look, just like he is. And they’re probably imagining all the ways they can take advantage of your fragile emotional state, just like him.

You’re too trusting for your own good. Tomura used to think it was a virtue, and it is, but only when it comes to him. Whenever he thinks about how your face is slapped over a dozen different news websites for the whole world to see, he has to dig his fingernails into his neck to keep calm. It’s better when he can just watch the video and pretend he’s the only one seeing it.

And it’s not like not watching the video is an option. Tomura can’t resist your crying face. There’s a point around the three minute mark where your voice breaks in the middle of your statement, and sometimes Tomura skips there in the video just so he can hear that pathetic little sob and replay it over and over and over. Maybe it’s sappy, but Tomura really does feel his heart skip a beat at the way your eyes and nose are rubbed red from your misery.

How fucked up is it that he gets off watching you cry?

Would you be angry if you knew? You probably would, but you put up with so much from him already. Maybe you’d be okay with it if he told you he really and truly tried to hold out. The first dozen times Tomura watched the video, he refused to touch himself no matter how tight his pants got while you choked out your stilted answers to the reporters’ questions, but at this point he barely has to click “play” on the video before he gets hard and takes matters into his own hands.

At the end of the day, it’s your fault. Everything about you is so erotic, from your shaky voice to your pouty, bitten-red lips. Isn’t it completely normal to be aroused while looking at the person you like? And Tomura likes you, he really likes you. He doesn’t have any pictures of you, and with the high definition of the news channel’s video he can see every perfect contour of your cheekbones, every pore in your skin, every glistening wet eyelash.

It’s not that Tomura doesn’t feel sympathy for how upset you are in the video. He does! Not even just sympathy, even—he’s empathetic. He knows exactly how it feels to be let down by the heroes. How dare they tell you you need to be grateful while you’re still trying to wipe brain matter off your shirt? Always too little, too late. It’s not fair.

But if he’s being honest? As miserable as you are, Tomura is happy that you were in the store when that robber came in and that you had to watch a man you knew get his brains blown out in front of you. You need a wake-up call to lose faith in hero society. If you have to suffer some emotional trauma in the process, that seems like a fair price to pay.

And the fact that Tomura gets to jerk off to it? It’s almost like destiny.

➠ [Part 3]

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whatifxwereyou · 3 years

Text

The Oncoming Storm Part 21: Huangshan

Liu Kang x Reader and Kung Lao x Reader (gonna do both, two paths!)

Listen, I am giving myself whiplash with how much I keep wildly swinging between whether I prefer Liu or Lao LOL. Hope you guys are having just as much fun! I missed Liu. Lawd, did I miss him. Also I did not intend for it to take this long to get to the CHOICE. It's coming after the part with Liu and some plot stuff that has to happen to trigger it! Also, I miss Chen, so she'll be back after Huangshan. ALSO have you looked at pictures of this place?? SO PRETTY!! Much love, hope you are all well. <3 Thank you for the love as always. I appreciate you so much.

Next Update on Saturday. New story on Sunday!!

Part 20 Part 22 Chapter Index

Kung Lao was a bruised, bloodied, and pale mess the next morning and much of your spare moments were spent tending to wounds and trying to get him to sit for a damn minute. He fought you at every second, as if taking care of himself would somehow make it worse.

The morning dragged on, and you were grateful to check out and make your way to the roof. Kung Lao closed his eyes, praying, and lightning struck the roof for you to travel through. It was still weird and a little beyond belief, but you’d fought a monster last night, so you had to suspend your inner skeptic and go with the flow. You handed over the carefully wrapped bell which Raiden set behind him on a pedestal that had been added since you left.

He thanked you for your duty and you offered Kung Lao a hug and tried to convince him, again, to take care of himself. He insisted he was fine, of course, but also wished you good luck. You wasted no time. Raiden summoned his magic lightning again, offered you a neatly written note from Liu, and then you were alone.

The weather in Huangshan was gloomy, just the way you liked it. The sky was gray and rumbling with thunder, the slightest hint of sun peeking through to offer warmth between the gaps in the clouds. You unfolded the note as you walked along the tourist filled streets. He’d even started the note with niceties. Oh, Liu. He hoped you were well, he found you a place to stay and took some liberties that he hoped you were okay with. He also left you a time and place to meet him. It was the lobby of the hotel that he had booked for the occasion.

You were early and it felt nice to be alone. Your nerves were shot from the lack of sleep the night before and from Kung Lao’s… everything. A walk alone would do you some good. The small town halfway up the mountain was geared toward tourists. Hotels, boutiques, restaurants, and the like.

You’d missed China. Japan had been beautiful but this was home.

You stopped a man who looked confident in his way around town and asked him for directions to the hotel that Liu had written about. You bowed politely as he pointed you in the right direction. As you turned the corner, you heard a choir of angels in your head. Clothing stores. Real clothing stores. This was how you were going to blow the rest of your money.

You spent the rest of your alone time shopping and afterward you were proud to say you’d had enough clothing for an actual wardrobe. Different kinds of shoes, cute and practical, underthings, things to wear to bed, casual things, dressy things. Things you never would have allowed yourself to spend money on before. Money didn’t seem to matter as much as it had before all this. Then you’d bought a little bag to pack it all in and shoved it away. You’d got some other necessities too, things that had seemed everyday basics had become luxuries.

You’d changed after purchasing your clothing and jeans and a t-shirt had never felt so good. Even though you’d bought a bunch of new things you decided to keep the hanfu and gi that you had been gifted. You liked them well enough. It was the lack of choice that had bothered you.

The Huangshan Yeechoi hotel was more modern than the one in Japan had been and much tidier. You felt out of place, but no one gave you a second glance, so you were grateful. It wasn’t that it was fancy, just that it was different than you had expected. There had been no room number in the note Liu had left you, just instructions to meet him in the lobby.

Thankfully, Liu Kang came from the stairwell moments after you arrived. You’d been just about to ask the clerk behind the desk for his room number and so instead you dismissed the clerk and walked to join Liu. He’d gotten new clothes too! How nice. Not much different from what he usually wore but it was novel to see him in something other than the three gi that he rotated daily. It was mostly black, except for the red sash around the middle, a different shade of red than usual, and the sleeves looked like they had been torn off- as if he had been terribly angry that they existed. There was a subtle pattern stitched in white on the side of the gi. It looked to you like an abstract dragon, but you didn’t linger long on it. As always, his prayer beads were wrapped around his wrist.

He greeted you with a smile and stopped just before you with a respectful bow. “It’s good to see you, Y/N.” His smile faded quickly as he stood upright, and you averted your eyes immediately. Bruises. There were bruises and you knew he was going to hate it. You’d briefly forgotten about them with all the other craziness.

“Good to see you too, Liu!” You tried to save face, but it was too late.

“Japan must have been something.” He furrowed his brow with concern and tilted your chin up to get a better look at your neck. Your face was instantly red. “Are you okay?” That had been the worst of it, but you’d barely had time to think of it that morning because Kung Lao had been so much worse off than you were. You should have worn a scarf. Damnit. It looked bad when you thought about it. Like you were either being abused or had a very specific kink.

“It was an adventure but I’m fine. I promise. It’s obviously sore and bruised but I feel great otherwise.” You were tired, so that was an exaggeration, but it felt good to have accomplished something and to be out of the temple. He continued to examine the bruise as if he didn’t believe you, so you swiped his hand from your chin, gave it a squeeze and then set it down. His disbelief faded and his smile returned. Your nerves about your connection, your friendship, returned screaming into your brain.

“You brought a bag?” He gestured behind you. You realized that probably seemed funny since you had no intention of staying for too long.

“…yes.”

“Well, the woman at the front desk will make sure it gets to our room. We have plenty to do.” Liu rested his hand on the middle of your back and guided you to the front desk. You spoke to the clerk there. She was incredibly accommodating. Liu offered her your room information and you handed over the bag. Then you went on your way. He led you from the lobby of the hotel and walked slowly through the streets of the tourist town. “Tell me about Japan.”

Boy, there was a lot to say about Japan, but you figured he probably meant the artifact and how you’d fared.

“There was a monster which I didn’t think existed so, processing that.” You were surprised to hear Liu Kang laugh. You’d had a lot to process that had been otherwise beyond belief. “It was protecting a dotaku which I now know is a decorative bell used in rituals during ancient times. The monster was very grabby.” You gestured to your neck. At least it hadn’t left a bruise when it had backhanded you across the room. The last thing you needed was people looking at you like you were in an abusive relationship. At least the neck thing could be explained away for the most part.

“Tell me about the monster.”

“Monster is maybe not the right word for it uh… okay, never mind, it’s the only word for it. It was made from tar and stunk to high heaven, and it was huge.” You jumped so you could reach the height of the monster, which was higher than your jump, but Liu would get the point. He was an excellent listener.

“How did Kung Lao handle that?”

“Oh, you know, like Kung Lao does.”

“Chaotically?” Liu chuckled.

“I’ve never seen one man thrown through so many doors.” You drifted off and he laughed again. The sound of his laughter was sweet, not as hearty as Lao’s but more under his breath and twisting his face into the cutest smile. You’d made Kung Lao out of ink to protect you. That seemed important but you hadn’t processed it yet, really. Your brain was buffering.

“Really though, is he okay?”

“Much worse off than I was because of all the doors and walls but I took care of him the best he would allow. I’m hoping he’ll actually keep his promise to go to the infirmary.”

“Raiden will make sure he does.” Liu reassured you. “Trust me, this won’t be the first time he has to be dragged there. Or likely the last.” He stopped, looked you over and then continued, purposely avoiding eye contact. “Was he on his best behavior?”

“Is he so often in trouble that I should have been that worried?”

“Kung Lao doesn’t like to listen to directions, and he was with you and I know how he is so…” He glanced at you curiously again and you laughed in disbelief. Liu Kang was fishing for information! Interesting. Now that you knew they gossiped about you, you wondered what exactly the gossip consisted of. They were up to something, and you were going to get to the bottom of it. Maybe you had spent too much time with Kung Lao. Liu Kang had always been honest with you, you thought, and now you were suspicious of every word. “He has a track record for trouble, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t give you a hard time.”

“If you have something to ask me, Liu, then you should just ask me instead of this little word dance you’re doing. Are you feeling me out for information and what about?”

“I say what I mean, Y/N.” Liu knit his brow in confusion but still smiled at you. You sighed because that didn’t seem right. Something was off. He could be frustrating too sometimes, you supposed. He had a way of saying things without saying what he meant to say and leaving you guessing at what he had meant. You’d had so many close calls between you now romantically. At least four that you could think of offhand that had nearly killed you. But then it was like nothing had happened. You didn’t talk about it. There was no follow through. If he said what he meant to say, then what did saying nothing mean?

That hurt.

And they’d gossiped about you. Kung Lao and Liu Kang had in some way gossiped about you. You clenched your jaw in frustration. You didn’t have time for this. You had work to do.

“We can talk about it later.” You decided. “Have you figured out anything about where we should go?” That had been the reason he’d gone early you’d been told but you had no idea what was true and what wasn’t anymore. Your head was mixed up and your brain was buzzing.

“Yes. One of the areas from your vision is called the Seas of Cloud. Raiden mentioned that you saw images of deceased emperors, so I was looking into that too.”

“It was in quick flashes. I didn’t understand what they were at first.”

“There are tales about this place and the yellow emperor after which it is named. He used the waters of the springs here to gain eternal life in these stories.”

“Is that your way of saying that you think the springs might be related?”

“Anything is possible, but I figured it was worth looking into. There were springs in your vision too if I recall.”

“Yeah. I saw a bunch of dead emperors and a spring, but it wasn’t… it was different than I expect the ones here to be? It was in a cavern. It felt secret.” You admired the gray sky but still felt tense all over. You had to breathe and let it go but the more you tried the more frustrated you became. “So, we’re narrowing it down to the springs and the Cloud Sea?”

“Yes. We aren’t too far from either of them but it’s still an endeavor to explore. Yet, it is less than the whole of Huangshan.”

“Probably somewhere between if I had to guess. I followed him in my vision through the mountains up to the clouds and into this cavern that had a spring inside it. Oh! Do they have maps of the mountain? Sometimes with places like this they will list caves on the little brochure to explore.”

“I thought of that. Regrettably, the caves are not mapped out and most are off limits without a tour guide.”

“What if we told them that we lived in a cave. Do you think that would help or cast aspersions?” You considered. There you were, trying to defer your frustration and inner struggle with sarcasm again. Liu chuckled.

“Probably the latter. We know what we’re looking for at least and it shouldn’t take terribly long to hike the area. If we don’t find it then we can start to worry.”

“I have a feeling that it’s secret. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to find. Maybe we should try to feel around for information instead of wandering blind?” You stopped walking, trying to take things more seriously. That was hard.

“I suppose that we can play tourist. We’ll stop at the springs and ask an attendant if they know anything about a secret or hidden spring in the caves.” Liu suggested. At least it was a better lie than fake date.

“Fine.” You said flatly and were annoyed with yourself almost immediately. This would be so much easier if your visions weren’t all over the place and fuzzy.

“You seem irritated.”

“Oh?” You bounced on your heels and shook it off. You were sulking. You had to cut it out. “No. I’m sorry, Liu. I didn’t mean to come off that way.”

“Are you sure, Y/N? Because you seem… annoyed and that’s not like you. If I’ve done something to offend you then we should discuss it.”

Oh no. He was good at confrontation. Damnit. “No, you didn’t do anything like that, Liu.” He had but not on purpose, you were sure. You were just touchy after the day before and overthinking. You had to stomp out that inner voice, but it was so loud. Your anxiety hadn’t been this bad since you were a kid. “I’m annoyed with myself. I’m sorry it’s coming out at you. It’s not intentional.”

“Y/N, you…”

“Don’t tell me not to be annoyed with myself, please. If I could navigate these visions in a way that made sense, then we wouldn’t be so lost on where to look and having to spin ridiculous tales and theories of where to go and what we might find. I could just lead us there and that would be that. And if my brain would just calm down, I wouldn’t be so annoyed. It’s a perpetual cycle.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself. Besides, I don’t mind spending a day or two in Huangshan with you, Y/N. It’s a nice change of pace from Raiden’s Temple.” He smiled sympathetically.

“It’s just like you to put a positive spin on everything.” You scoffed.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing!”

“No!” You huffed defensively and then pouted. “I’m coming off grumpy, aren’t I?”

“You are.” He smiled, but amusement danced in his eyes. He thought that your frustration was either funny or cute. You supposed you were grateful for that.

“I don’t mean to. I’ve got a lot on my mind. I’m surprisingly sore from the whole monster thing too so there’s that.” You rubbed nervously at your neck.

“That is a pretty bad bruise, Y/N.” He tilted your chin up again and you grabbed his hand and pushed it away.

“I really should have worn a scarf so you wouldn’t keep pointing it out.”

He laughed and led you through town and along the path that went to the springs. Liu had picked the perfect location for you to begin your search. It was a short walk from your hotel. There were buses that offered transport, but it seemed such a short walk that it was likely for those who were elderly or drunk.

“This is a popular tourist spot. It was difficult to get a room. I don’t usually stay in places like that, but it was the only vacancy that would accommodate us both and be close enough to where we needed to look. I figured that we didn’t know how long it would take us so the luxury would be a nice break.”

“Makes sense.” Why was he trying to justify his selection to you? You liked the hotel. It was nice.

“Grumpy,” he whispered, leaning close on one foot with his hands clasped behind his back.

“I’m trying so hard, Liu.”

You reached the gate to the springs. You couldn’t see the water beyond it, but you could hear people within, and you could feel the steam and heat even from outside. There was a large building with two doors separated by male and female for changing. In front of that was a booth where a young man sat reading a magazine and looking extremely bored.

“Should I meet you inside? We can see if anyone knows anything?”

“Or we could try the attendant first.”

“Him? He’s a distracted kid who has no interest in our questions, Liu. Look at him.” You nodded discreetly toward the young man. He was likely in his early twenties and doing this just for a paycheck by the look of him.

“Yes, but you’re well… you.” He gestured to you, and you looked down at yourself, brow furrowed in confusion.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You laughed in disbelief.

“You know what it means.” He turned his gaze away from you, hiding his smile but you saw his cheeks turn pink just enough. As quickly as you had noticed it, it had passed. “Now, go be charming and ask that kid about a private spring in a cavern closer to the Seas of Cloud.” He grasped your shoulders gently and turned you toward the booth then gave you a gentle nudge forward. You stuttered on your words and stared forward in complete awe. What the fuck?

Fine. You’d try but he was biased, at the very least. You weren’t built for this kind of thing. You’d always been awkward and terrible at flirting. Gah, you were blushing now too. This was the worst. Okay, deep breaths. You could do this. You didn’t have to be flirty or cute. You could just ask the question. Liu waited behind you, but you didn’t think he was far enough away to be as subtle as he thought he was being.

“Excuse me,” you began politely.

“Just you? Or your friend too?” The attendant didn’t bother looking up at you from the magazine that he was reading.

“I have a question for you, actually.”

“I’ll try to help if I can. Go ahead.” He closed his magazine and finally looked up at you, looked you over, and then was still clearly disinterested. He was working. You knew he would be!

“I heard some stories that there’s a spring in a cavern offsite. Further up the mountain and closer to the Seas of Cloud. I think that it’s considered private. Maybe even off-limits. I was curious if you knew anything about it.” You did your best to sound curious and charming, but you had no idea how it actually came off since you’d been so damn grumpy. The attendant looked from you and then peered around you to Liu. He closed his magazine, folded his hands, sighed heavily, and gave you a knowing look. Oh no, he’d immediately misinterpreted your intentions.

“Look, I’m going to be honest with you.”

That was a bad start.

“Oh, I think you maybe…”

“I’m just filling in for my sister today. I needed the extra cash, and she has a date this afternoon.”

You laughed nervously and looked back to Liu since that was where the attendant kept looking suspiciously. “I think that you misinterpreted my intentions. This doesn’t have anything to do with him. I just had heard a story and was curious. A private spring sounds really beautiful.” You were the world’s worst liar. You couldn’t even come up with an excuse other than you thought it might be pretty.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Do you not know then?” You were grumpy again. Damn.

“I’m sorry ma’am, but I can’t help you.”

You were flustered beyond recovery now. He had misinterpreted your desire to see a secret spring and the only thing you could think to do was stutter that he had done so. Then Liu was standing behind you, one hand on your back, the other on the counter.

“Is there a problem?” Liu sounded curious and offered a smile, but the attendant rolled his head back and groaned.

“I am not making enough money today to deal with this.”

Liu straightened his posture in surprise and looked to you for further explanation. At least you weren’t the only one flustered. That made you feel a bit better. You turned toward him and he placed his hand on your arm gently. That was probably not helping your case, but it felt nice. “I asked him about an off-limits spring closer to the Seas of Cloud and now he seems to have confused my desire to see this beautiful spring with something…” You stuttered in a frustrated whisper and couldn’t seem to find the word, the obvious word. Instead, you smooshed your hands together in front of you.

“Oh?” Liu tried to interpret your hand motion and then laughed in realization. “Oh. Intimate.”

“That’s it.” You pointed at him. “That’s the word.”

Liu let go of your arm and leaned against the counter with a sigh. “How much would it take for you to give us an answer?” You snapped your head back to Liu so fast you nearly gave yourself whiplash.

“Look, dude, I don’t even work here usually and…”

Liu Kang placed some yuan on the counter and you stared at it in horror, mouth hanging open. Then you had to close your mouth tight to keep from bursting into hysterics. Your eyes were burning, trying not to cry with tears of laughter. Liu Kang was bribing a stranger to give you directions to a romantic hot spring instead of just explaining himself. Of all the possible outcomes you had expected this was the funniest one.

“Whoa, man… look I…” The attendant stared at the money on the counter and Liu tapped the bills before sliding them toward him. You were dying. This was where you died. RIP. Tears. You blinked them away. Your cheeks hurt from keeping it together. This was amazing. “If you take the main path up it branches about an hour in. Take the left fork and then walk for a bit. As you get close to the Seas of Cloud there’s a few caves. One of them has a spring in it but it’s hard to find with all the trees and not exactly safe. Gives me the creeps. That’s all I got.” He scooped up the bills. “Have fun man and if you get caught it wasn’t me who told you.”

“Thank you.” Liu bowed his head politely and then, hand on your back, led you away from the booth. You started up the hiking trail that had been pointed out to you and then you burst into hysterical laughter, practically hyperventilating from having held it in for so long. Liu pulled his hand back and stared at you with some concern as if he didn’t understand why this was hilarious.

“Y/N, are you okay?” He gently brushed his hand over your shoulder.

“What the hell was that?”

“Oh. I guess it was funny. He was going to think whatever he was going to think, Y/N. Sometimes we have to use other resources to get what we need.”

“Oh my god, does that mean you bribe people often? I didn’t expect this. I’m sorry. I wasn’t emotionally prepared for how funny that would be.”

“Only when they’re more convinced by money than words, Y/N.”

You took deep breaths to get yourself together and cleared your throat.

“How very Zen of you.”

“Come on, now.” He chuckled and placed his hand again at your back to lead you along the path that would start your hike. “We have private springs to find.”

“This day keeps getting weirder by the second.” You blinked away the remaining tears from your fit of laughter.

“Was it really that funny?”

“Liu. My stomach hurts from laughing.”

He shook his head with a smile as you continued on your way.

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alwaysalreadyangry · 3 years

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Charlotte, I've wanted to get into poetry for a while but haven't really known where or how to start, mostly because I have this kind of maybe weird tendency to rush through poems like I'm gulping down water. Curious how one actually like, reads and enjoys a poem; would love to hear your thoughts on reading and reception. Also I'm looking for lush, angry, queer, weird poems filled with longing, and would love to hear any suggestions or recs you might have!

ooh this has been really interesting to think about!! have been rolling it around in my brain for a while.

so, first off, a disclaimer: i don’t necessarily think i am a great or even a very good reader of poetry a lot of the time, and that’s fine -- if it’s worth doing it’s worth doing badly, etc. i am easily distracted and i tire out quickly and my magpie brain will focus on like, the language of a poem to the detraction of all else, and unless i’m being paid to write about a book or a poem or something then i don’t think reading in a way that feels wrong or inadequate is a problem on its own. sometimes i just enjoy quickly skimming for the language, and that’s good, that’s fine.

BUT for wanting to read to get more pleasure from poetry: i tend to say to read it like this the first time if that comes naturally to you, as it often does to me. skim, read it through without paying attention to the narrative or syntactical structure, but instead just looking for anything that makes your brain sparkle -- for me it’s going to usually be imagery and/or sound-patterning. see if there’s anything that makes you curious enough to dig in, any lines or sentiments that you like on their own. the surface-level or immediate pleasures with poetry are great and often what makes it worth digging down into the other stuff.

then, if you want to dig into a poem, it’s time to re-read! this time i’d recommend reading with closer attention to the most straightforward level of narrative or meaning: what is the poem most obviously saying? i am not someone who subvocalises, and sometimes my instinctively fast reading speed makes it hard for me to actually do this if the poem is at all playing around with language. in that case, it helps to read out loud, and to only move on from one sentence or stanza (or whatever unit of meaning the poem is using) once i have figured out what it means on a semantic level. depending on the length of the poem, once you’ve figured out as much of it as you can or care to, i’d recommend another quick read through to try and consolidate all of that in your mind.

then -- well, then you’ve kind of got the basics and the stuff that you’re interested in, and it can be fun to look back at the bits you liked in the first place to see what they mean to the rest of the poem, what they mean in terms of what the poem is saying. it could be that a rhyme or a repeated use of assonance emphasises something... you might find that two words are being linked by internal rhyme that don’t seem to have much to say to one another otherwise. is there any meaning there, in that connection? does it change what the poem says? how does the poem and what it does make you feel?

and depending on the poem you then want to just read again looking for anything else significant. is there a part of the poem you dislike? if you reread looking out for that, can you work out what’s going on there and why you dislike that aspect of it?

this will only work with certain types of poem, admittedly. i like a lot of poetry that is more innovative and abstract, where i have no clue what a poem is saying or doing, but i like the language and the feeling of the syntax inside my brain. so i’ll reread those a few times but don’t really have a semantic framework to get into them. it’s more about the language.

and then there’s visual poetry which doesn’t make use of words but of like -- shapes or the relation of shapes to space, and then it’s just about, idk. how i decide to try and “read” those relations and shapes, which i have no real roadmap for. i often just find myself staring at it like i would visual art, or trying to somehow reenact the shapes with my body as i “read” (like when i read a visual poem earlier today that is just a sequence of bells ringing in different directions -- to keep track of it i followed the bell’s movement with my head, tilting it right and then left).

does that make sense? i truly think that we don’t need to understand poetry to enjoy it; that there’s no right way to read or enjoy poetry, and that if we find we’re reading a poem that doesn’t interest us or make us happy, you can just stop. although if a poem makes a reader uncomfortable it can be a good idea to follow this kind of reading pattern to try and work out why! i hope this makes sense -- i’m afraid my answer is essentially just “reread the poems a lot”, but it’s good to go in knowing what to pay attention to each time, even if it’s just “this time i pay attention to what i like” and “this time i pay attention to what i dislike”. my brain needs structure like that because otherwise it is too flighty and sticky and will just roll around one phrase it likes in there for hours.

in terms of poetry recommendations, this is oddly tricky because there’s such an unexpected gulf between UK and US poetry -- i read more UK poetry and while there’s been a big explosion in the amount of interesting & vital queer poetry being published here over the past decade or so, a lot of it is relatively hard to get hold of unless you’re constantly keeping track of all of the new presses publishing pamphlets. so this is going to swing more US-focused but i will see if there’s any UK stuff i can think of too.

so first off, a cheat: i would recommend getting hold of these two big anthologies of trans poetry and having a look through to see if any of the writers grab your attention. hopefully academic libraries will have these or will get them on request? i say, hopefully. there is we want it all: an anthology of radical trans poetics, which came out recently (and i don’t have a copy yet). and then there’s troubling the line: trans and genderqueer poetry and poetics, from 2013. not as politically radical i’m guessing, but still could be worth looking through to see which writers you connect with.

i am drawing a blank on other anthologies right now, but in terms of exploring UK poetry, you can access issues of the zine zarf online here and i recommend it. not all queer but the editor is and there’s a great collection of stuff in there. i also recommend getting hold of their pamphlets as PDFs here, try alison rumfitt and gloria dawson.

second off, these are some poets i think you might like, i will link to some sample poems. mostly contemporary but not all:

dawn lundy martin

CAConrad

jackie wang

robert duncan

jack spicer (PDF)

jay bernard

miriam bird greenberg

sofia samatar

samuel the nagid

vahni capildeo

sophie robinson

frank o’hara

agha shahid ali

i am sure there are many many others i am forgetting but! i hope this is helpful!!!

#answers #poetry

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goatbi · 3 years

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Thoughts about Uryu?

you know exactly what you're doing here

Uryu was, and still kinda is, a complete mama's boy. Never really connected to his father when he was young and his mom was still around, and then when his mom died, well... Ryuken's a fucking dick, let's just go with that. When he was younger, Katagiri would hold him in her lap while she knitted or sewed, and he would watch her. Ryuken would wander in, make some comment, and Katagiri would wave him off with a smile, and Ryuken would indulge her, because for all his faults, I do believe Ryuken loved Katagiri. So that's where Uryu started learning to sew.

When Katagiri died, Uryu was devastated, as one may expect, especially with it coming so closely with his Sensei's death (his grandfather's, but I cannot remember that man's name rn) so Uryu was very withdrawn. Does not help that Ryuken also withdrew even more than he did before, and this was basically the moment that their relationship really took a turn for the worst. They could not say a kind word to each other, and for a grieving nine year old, that's fine, but Ryuken's a grown ass man, so he should choke.

So while that whole grieving was going on, Uryu started getting really really into sewing, because Katagiri enjoyed it, and he wanted to feel closer to his mother in any way possible. His original Quincy bracelet was hers, since Uryu had to sneak it so Ryuken wouldn't confiscate it, since, y'know, Uryu wasn't allowed to be a Quincy at the time. He started sewing a lot, and got himself a good amount of times, and would always come to school with a bunch of bandaids on his fingers. Teacher would ask this nine-ten year old why, and Uryu would either dodge the question or flat out lie, and sometimes Ryuken would get a call, but Ryuken couldn't care less if Uryu was hurt or not.

Uryu got a job at fourteen, with the help of a very kind shop owner, who was very willing to keep the whole thing under the table for the time being, so he could start saving money up for an apartment. This is a moment that I think Ryuken was not a complete ass. He does care about his son, in a weird abstract way, I think, but it doesn't excuse shit. He knew Uryu wanted out, and Ryuken still sometimes looked at him and saw Katagiri, so it was in both of their best interests to get out. So sometimes, more money than Uryu had on his paycheck would end up in his account. Uryu knew, but said nothing about it.

When we see him at the start of the anime, he's freshly moved out of his father's house, in an apartment close to the high school, ignoring the random money that still sometimes appears in his bank account, and still filled with rage, which he takes out on the wrong people. It gets to the point where he forces himself to be angry more often than not, since anger is preferable to any other emotion, but he gets so tired of being angry once he starts that duel that the duel was his way of proving, once and for all, that he didn't have to be angry at anybody anymore.

And we all know exactly how down hill that fucking went. Looks at the menos grande. Looks at the sword tied to head plan. Looks at the chop chop plan. Everything was hell there.

So Uryu is like, finally getting close to people, and getting friends, and I'm convinced he actually has a shrine to his mother like Orihime has to Sora, somewhere in his home. It's small, and he usually sits there to talk to her about everything, all his little regrets, and he sews at the same time. I'm pretty sure that Uryu also, without thinking, started making people things.

Up until this point, he's really not had many friends. The moment someone shows even the weird rivalry friendship he and Ichigo have, he's hooked. Pretty sure he's touch starved too, which is not a fun time, but Uryu's really trying, and he's so excited, in private and only to his mother, to finally have someone to care about him.

Even if it shocks him the first time Ichigo does something that shows he cares, even if it shocks him each time anyone does, even if it's so weird and confusing when they're just unrelentingly kind to him, without him having to do anything back, even when he tries to pay back their simple kindness a hundred fold.

Orihime is the first to sit him down and go 'you don't need to pay us with gifts for us to care about you' and she's also the first to see Uryu completely break down, because my man is full of Trauma(tm). Captial T and trademarked.

I have some other thoughts floating in this brain of mine, but a lot of this is meant to be headcanons and stuff, so, here's this nonsense ramble !

#bleach #uryu ishida #bleach headcanons #long post

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angrylizardjacket · 3 years

Text

dirtbags // 4: Lola

Summary: High school AU. 1985. Winter. Heather’s party is huge; Lola makes new friends, get better acquainted with some underclassmen, and turns out to be far cozier with the hostess than anyone could guess. The next day, Nikki comes to work despite his hangover, while Charlotte and Eileen plan Vince’s murder. Razzle’s just there to have fun.

A/N: 6603 words. For @misscharlottelee and @julymotel , my beloveds, as always. Sorry it's late, it's been a hell of a week. But, here's the kids. I should say that this chapter does include slight, implied internalised homophobia, just as a warning.

judge if you want, we are all going to die. i intend to deserve it.

For the record, Lola isn’t a party-goer by nature, and the fact that she’s been to two in as many months is baffling her. Usually she just goes to see bands, and sometimes hangs out at peoples’ houses, but high school parties specifically alluded her for most of her time in Boston. It’s not that she wasn’t invited, but her mom had been something of a hardass, and the closest she’d ever gotten was when drunk kids made their way to the diner right before closing on a Friday or Saturday.

Her dad’s fully supportive of her going out and partying, which is weird in it’s own right. He writes down their home phone number on a piece of paper, in case Lola can’t remember it when she’s drunk - his words - and tells her to call whenever she needs a lift. Don’t go get into a car with strangers. Drink plenty of water. Be safe. Have fun.

“Dad, you’re being weird,” she’d told him flatly, applying eyeliner to her waterline in the bathroom. Leo, leaning against the door with his arms crossed, was watching her with a fond expression.

“If I was a hardass and banned you from going out, you’d probably still sneak out anyways -” Lola goes to protest, which Leo finds sweet, but he holds a hand up, and she lets him continue, “not that I don’t think you respect me, but I just know what it was like being a teenager; if you got into trouble while sneaking out, you wouldn’t feel like you could call me for help,” he explained, giving pause, “but I always will, you know that, right?” And Lola nods, but goes back to applying eyeliner, knowing her father’s tone of voice too well, anticipating the fact that he was about to dive into a story of his own to help prove his point.

“When I was your age, or maybe a bit younger, fifteen or sixteen, me and some friends snuck out to a bonfire one night that my parents had absolutely forbidden me from going to, and I ended up needing to go to the emergency room from a burn I got on my hand from being an idiot around the fire,” and he raised his left hand, to show the still visible, large scar on his palm, “I was more terrified of what my father would do than of the burn itself so I didn’t try and call him or mum; I walked home from the hospital alone the next morning, and lied about how I got the burn.”

Lola paused, lowering the eyeliner pencil, meeting her father’s gaze in the mirror. Leo’s smile had turned a little sad at the memory; Lola doesn’t hear much about her grandparents, and she wonders if stories like this are the reason why.

“You’re my kid, Keola, I never want you to think you can’t come to me for help, okay?” It’s rare for Leo to use Lola’s full first name, usually reserving it for more poignant and earnest moments, so every comment about how he’s being a sap, or that she already knows, dies on Lola’s tongue.

“Thanks, dad,” she smiles soft, and Leo smiles back, all crows feet and laugh lines, before he tells her that she looks badass, and he steps out of the doorframe, heading back downstairs to the diner.

By the time Lola shows up, it’s just edging past eight-thirty, though the party still seems to be in its early stages. There’s music that can be heard down the street, and fairy lights scattered throughout the garden, though most of the partygoers who had already arrived are still confined to the house. Apart from a gangly, dark-haired boy whose face she knows, but whose name she doesn’t, sitting on the wide, ostentatious front steps, looking up at the stars glittering overhead. There’s a cigarette in a loose grip between two fingers, though the ash has already burnt down half of it without him tapping it off; it’s almost comical, she’s pretty sure he hasn’t even put it to his lips yet.

“You’re wasting that,” Lola points out, and the guy is jolted from his thoughts, the movement sharp enough to have the ash falling from the cigarette and to the ground by his shoes. He looks to the cigarette, which has gone out, and then to Lola, a little helpless, “I could take it off your hands,” she offers, unsure of how to proceed, and he holds the cigarette out, smile blooming on his face.

“I can’t get the hang of it; I’m playing a smoker in this play I’m doing in a month, and I’ve been trying, you know, make it feel natural, never seems to,” his mouth is curved into a bemused smile as he shrugs helplessly, watching Lola tuck the half a cigarette behind her ear. For a moment, his eyes roam his face, like he’s searching for something to recognize, and she can read it all over him when he finds it, his eyes alight with familiarity, “you work at the diner!”

Lola hates how disarming she finds his earnestness. He doesn’t mention her reputation or the rumours around her, which she’s pretty sure he would have heard since she’s eighty-percent sure he goes to her school.

“Lola,” she offers her hand, and he takes it, using it as leverage to get to his feet before he gives it a proper shake.

“Keanu,” he says, matter-of-factly, still grinning, and Lola suddenly knows where she knows him from. The school musical sign-up sheet is on the Art Faculty’s notice board right outside her art classroom, and she’s been staring at his name amongst a small list of others, including Eileen’s, much to Lola’s surprise, while she and the rest of her art class wait to get into their room.

At least she’s pretty sure it’s him; Keanu’s not exactly a common name. The only other time she’d heard it was in one of her dad’s stories, it was the name of one of his childhood friends -

She leaves it be; he groans and stretches, and there’s an idle moment where his shirt rides up, and Lola reminds herself to focus on the person who actually invited her, and to stop getting fleeting feelings for people she barely knows just because they’re pretty. Lola mutters that she needs a drink, and Keanu claps her on the shoulder and agrees, the two of them heading inside.

Heather’s house is in the same part of town as Vince’s, almost an hour’s walk from the diner, but somehow Heather’s is even nicer. Sprawling front lawn, abstract paintings and movie props on little, pristine pedestals inside, Lola feels like she’s lowering the property value just by stepping foot inside. The party was easily both the nicest and most raucous Lola had ever been to, which, granted, wasn’t saying a lot, but their house was wired with speakers, all connected back to the jukebox in the living room, and Heather’s parents had even let her hire coloured lights.

“As long as the cops aren’t called, we can do whatever we want,” was the message passed around the school from Heather herself. Lola’s feels as though that probably won’t bode well for her parents’ elegantly displayed collectables, but whatever, it’s not like it’s Lola’s problem.

Already there’s a decent crowd inside, and Lola loses Keanu amongst them, making a beeline for the kitchen, manoeuvring around the house with easy familiarity. She reaches pushes past several people to get to the fridge, reaching all the way to the back, past a set of tupperware, to the bottle of wine Heather’s mom had stashed there. Lola removes the sticky note telling everyone not to touch it, and uncorks the bottle over the sink, scowling.

It feels like she’s floating through the night, no-one around that she knows just yet, disconnected from everyone else, carrying the bottle of wine by her side, occasionally taking a drink. Moving from room to room, she takes her time people watching, and guessing how long before the various, expensive props and bric-a-brac were being used for things counter to their intended purpose.

In the front room, there’s finally someone she recognises, kind of; the the young redhead, the fruit one- Peach! She’s unsteady on her feet, beautiful and angry, defiantly making her way through a can of cheap beer, and Lola wonders where the rest of her clique is, that sister of hers, Eileen, even Charlotte.

“You okay?” Lola’s never been great at comforting people, but Peach is currently leaning against a wall at a forty-five degree angle after losing her balance, and scowling. She’s drunk. Already. Fuck.

“I’m fine! Freaking- fucking great!” She’s not even looking at Lola properly, glaring out the window she’d narrowly missed falling on. Lola follows her gaze. It’s just passed nine, and Tommy and Charlotte can be seen walking up to the door; they don’t see Peach or Lola, thankfully.

“You - you’re friends with that... that mean, asshole, punk guy, right?” Peach asks, standing upright so suddenly she overbalances again, and Lola has to catch her elbow to keep her from topping. Peach slaps her hand away, but keeps her balance, obviously with a bee in her bonnet about something that Lola couldn’t even begin it fathom.

“Nikki?” Lola clarifies flatly, amused but not wanting it to show. Peach nods solemnly. Lola bites back a laugh, “yes, I’m friends with him, why?”

“Is he coming tonight?” Peach asks, tone almost forcibly coy and casual, raising her can of drink, taking large gulps as Lola says that he mentioned that he should be, and then asks why. Peach goes quiet. Lola had thought it impossible for Peach’s scowl to grow deeper, but it did, as a blush began to creep up her neck.

“You know my sister, right? Eileen?” Peach says, instead, and Lola nods slowly, and she takes a swig of wine, “she’s a year - a single goddamn year - older than me; I’m sixteen, Lola, she said I was too young to go to a party like this.” And yeah, okay, Lola makes a face at that; she was the same age as Tommy, and he’s done objectively worse stuff in front of Eileen and Charlotte with no complaints. The last house party flashes through Lola’s mind, and she grimaces - “exactly, it’s dumb! Charlie had been dating Duff for a year by the time she was my age, and let me tell you, they were proper gross!” Peach sways a little, and Lola reminds her that she has no idea who Duff is; Peach calls him a word that shocks Lola to hear her say it, especially for a girl who had to correct herself from saying freaking to fucking just moments ago.

“Noted,” Lola nods, and takes another drink; she’s almost a third through the bottle.

“I’m not a child, Lola,” Peach says, as seriously as she can muster, and, as if light a lightbulb has gone off above Lola’s head, she realises why Peach was asking after Nikki.

“You’re not,” Lola agrees slowly, and looks around, hoping to spot Charlotte or Tommy around, someone better suited to talking an angry, determined Peach out of something she’d regret.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Peach huffed, standing to her full height, which unfortunately for Lola, made her taller by a few inches, “you know what, fuck you, Lola -”

“Peach -”

“No, fuck that, I know that tone -”

“Never thought I’d see you out at a place like this, Peach,” there’s a warm familiarity in the voice that joins them, and Peach visibly relaxes. Lola turns, and sees Vince Neil, bleach blonde, decked out in his usual, obnoxious white.

“Fuck off, Vince,” Peach mumbles, turning back to the window in an attempt to hide her sudden blush. Lola raises her eyebrows and looks to Vince, intrigued. The moment his gaze meets Lola’s, Vince turns quietly awkward, and can do little more than offer a shrug.

“Peach?” He tries again, and Peach finishes her drink, tipping her head back, and doesn’t even seem to notice that she’s started to topple back until he catches her, “fuck, Peach.” He says, still holding her.

“You really should fuck off,” Peach says, softer this time, leaning into him, and something pained flashes across Vince’s expression for the barest moment; Peach doesn’t notice in her state, but Lola sees it.

“Eileen been in your ear lately?” Vince asks through gritted teeth. Peach’s scowl back in full force, and she’s righting herself.

“No,” she snaps, an obvious lie, and she pushes past Lola, making her unsteady way to the kitchen, Vince obviously feeling some sort of obligation to her, following quickly in her wake. Thank God. Lola really didn’t want to take care of a girl she barely knows all night.

She’s two thirds of the way through the bottle of wine, feeling good and buzzed, and she’s made polite conversation with the people she knows and the people she doesn’t, the people who know her by reputation, or from the diner, polite to a fault, knowing too much and too little about her all at once.

Tommy’s roped them into a conversation with a few kids from his year that Lola doesn’t recognize any of them, and one, drunk, brunette, stupid, asks her about the rumours, in a crude, roundabout way. Tommy’s hand is firm on Lola’s shoulder, apology in his eyes as he silently pleads with her to not make a scene. Lola kicks his asshole friend in the shin anyways, and spits that he has terrible taste in friends.

Charlotte waves to her, but Lola doesn’t see it in her angry state, storming up the stairs to the second floor. It’s quieter up here, mostly. There’s a group in a side room playing spin the bottle, and people taking advantage of Heather’s parents’ bedroom, and the door to Heather’s room is closed. Lola bangs her closed fist on the nondescript door.

“Who is it?” Heather’s voice, strained, rings out from the other side.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Lola whined through a lie, banging again. There’s scuffling on the other side, Heather hissing for whoever’s with her to go, to get out the window, anything. Lola smirks, “please, all the other bathrooms are -” and she fake gags, right as the door wrenches open to show Heather’s flustered face, hair a mess, scowling.

“What?”

“I’m lying,” Lola whispered, leaning against the doorframe, pushing down all her annoyance at Tommy and his asshole friends, and playing at being coy. Heather huffs an annoyed breath through her nose.

“I know,” she snaps, but lets Lola in anyways, and Lola automatically closes the door behind herself, leaning her back against it, watching Heather try and act casual, heading to her bed, “should I be jealous?” Lola smirks, and Heather shoots her a filthy look. Lola takes a long drink of the wine, and Heather’s expression turns from angry, to simply annoyed.

“Of course, of fucking course, you, the only asshole who actually knew about it-”

“Your mom can buy another one, it’s not like you’re not -”

“Don’t say it,” Heather warns, sitting on the edge of her bed, and Lola’s smile grows sly and amused. Heather’s gaze flicks to the door handle, “lock that.”

“Yes, Princess,” Lola smirks, reaching over with her free hand, making quick work of locking the door.

“Do not,” Heather hisses at the pet name, and Lola pushes off the door, heading towards her, and offers her the bottle. Heather’s lips press into a thin line as the regards the drink she knows is completely illicit for a number of reasons, before taking it, and taking a drink - “fuck, how much of this have you had?”

In answer, Lola takes the bottle back and finishes it off.

“You’re a pig and a thief,” Heather tells her, but Lola’s smile is all teeth.

“And you kicked out someone - a boy, I’m guessing - for this thieving pig,” Lola reminds her, placing the empty bottle carefully on the nightstand of her luxurious double bed. Heather turns scarlet.

“I thought you’d at least wait until eleven to find me,” she deflects, defensive at the truth in Lola’s words, to which Lola herself actually laughs, flopping back onto the bed, arms spread, two fingers hooking into the back waistband of Heather’s flirty, short skirt.

“The fact that I’m here at all is a miracle, Princess -”

“Don’t.”

“And you know you could have told me to throw up in the garden,” Lola points out. A moment of silence follows, she tugs at Heather’s waistband, and Heather follows the unspoken prompt, leaning back onto the bed.

“Boys don’t know what they’re doing,” she says, staring up at the ceiling, arms folded but feet still planted firmly on the floor, and Lola’s eyes go wide, delighted, twisting onto her side to look at Heather’s blushing face.

“I knew you liked me,” Lola teases, grinning sharp.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Heather scoffs, angling her head back to level a glare at Lola, after a beat, she reaches back, fingers nimble and cold but her grip on Lola’s jaw secure. She frowns at Lola’s lips, rubbing her thumb none too gently over the bottom lip, taking off the black lipstick painted there, staining her own thumb in the process.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” Heather prompts, frustrated, tone icy. Lola raises her eyebrows at the blonde's impatience.

“As you command, your highness,” Lola pushes herself up on her elbows, and off the bed, smirking in the face of Heather’s annoyance, before she scrubs at her mouth with the back of her hand, getting rid of the rest of her lipstick.

“I’ll be quick so you can get back to your boytoy,” Lola smirks up at Heather, kneeling between her knees, and in the next moment Heather’s legs clamp painfully tight around her head, bony knees pressing into her temples.

“If you tell fucking anyone I did anything other than get you water while you threw up in my bathroom, I will ruin your fucking life,” she spits, and Lola’s expression contorts into one of furious annoyance as she wrenches her head free, sitting back on her heels.

“As if I’d tell anyone; if you tell anyone, I’ll burn your fucking house down, do not test me on that,” she warns in return, before Heather relaxes and lays back, eyes back on the ceiling, waiting, “fucking pillow princess, I wish you’d get me a glass of water once in a while,” Lola muttered, leaning back in.

“Hey!” Heather objects, looking down, only to see the barely concealed fury smouldering in Lola’s eyes as she looks at Heather through her lashes. Lola orders her to shut up, presses a pointed kiss to her inner thigh, and Heather obeys without any more fuss.

All it took, in the beginning, was for Lola to confront Heather and ask why the fuck she couldn’t keep her eyes to herself during class, fully expecting a fight. It was after school, Lola had followed her into the bathroom after class as the school was emptying. Heather’s lip had curled, derisive, giving Lola a look like she was a bug beneath her shoe.

“You see something you fucking like?” Lola had snarled, ready to square up, chest puffed out, and Heather had rolled her eyes, scoffing about how Lola wasn’t even close to her type, before she’d realised what she’d said.

Neither had known how to proceed in that moment, both terrified of how the other would react, Lola could see the sudden fear in Heather’s eyes at the admission. Very deliberately, Lola had relaxed her posture, looking Heather over with a new appreciation, and Heather had flushed under her gaze.

“I didn’t know it was like that,” Lola had smirked, gaze locking onto Heather’s. The blonde was embarrassed, furious at herself, “well if I ever become your type -” those seven words had changed everything. Immediately, Heather knew exactly what Lola had meant, that she wasn’t a threat in the way she’d feared, and that Lola was like her, in some way, in a way that was safe.

“You’re -?” Heather raised a single, perfect eyebrow at her.

“I don’t advertise it,” Lola said, voice flat, hands in her pockets and shoulders carefully relaxed, “don’t know, you know, who else is... like me.”

“Like you?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it here,” Lola had muttered, gaze flicking to the empty stalls, and Heather had given her a long, evaluative look, before stepping forward, apparently finding something she likes.

Heather’s kind of pinning over a straight girl and none of the rest of the school has any idea she likes anything other than boys, and she’d like to keep it that way. No-one really cares about Lola the way they do about Heather, so they feel safe fooling around together at Heather’s under the guise of ‘studying’; they don’t really even like each other as people, it’s more mutually beneficial than anything else, but it’s kind of nice to have this understanding between them, free to be themselves without fear, even if it’s only for short amounts of time.

Now, at the party, when Lola goes to leave the room after all is said and done, hair checked in the mirror, lipstick reapplied neatly, Heather grabs her arm, quiet but no longer irritate in Lola’s presence, and Lola’s eyes go wide with question, but she too is silent. Heather steels herself, steps up to Lola, and then she’s got her fingers carding through Lola’s hair, and holding tight, and Lola lets herself be maneuverer, her head tipping and Heather’s lips on her neck.

When Heather steps back, there’s the beginning of a hickey blooming on the juncture where Lola’s shoulder meets her throat, aching faintly, pleasantly, and her hands are soft on Heather’s hips, lips twitching into a smirk.

“You could have just said thank you,” Lola snorted, and Heather’s frowning, but it doesn’t seem to be specifically at Lola; she rolls her eyes. Lola presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth, quick and chaste, and scrubs at the mark she leaves behind before Heather slaps her hand away and tells her to get out, though there’s no anger behind it.

When Lola opens the door, she puts on a show of being a little more unsteady than she really was, and is surprised to see Nikki leaning against the wall a few feet away, chatting to Tommy, looking so carefully casual. Lola’s pretty sure she hears Nikki sigh something about needing to find a guitarist, but that’s the moment Tommy spots Lola. He tries to apologise for his friends, but Lola shrugs, letting the incident go easily.

And then Nikki’s eyes flick to hers, and he asks if she’s okay, and Tommy seems confused but Lola’s hit with a realization. She pulls back her act and tries not to smile too wide.

“I’m fine now, great actually, it’s sweet of you to care,” its absolutely and completely innocent, but she raises an eyebrow at him, as if asking how he knows that she was unwell. In lieu of response, Nikki stands to his full height, walks to the door, and knocks. Lola and Tommy watch, the former far more confused than the latter.

Heather opens the door wide, not a hair out of place, makeup immaculate and untouched, and tells Nikki to fuck off, swanning past him and down to the rest of her party. Nikki turns on Lola.

“You couldn’t have thrown your guts up in a bush somewhere?” Nikki hissed, frustrated, and Lola does a great job at biting back her laughter, shaking her head and shrugging helplessly.

“We’re you waiting out here that whole time?” Lola asks, and Nikki turns amusingly pink, stalking past her to the stairs, to which both Lola and Tommy followed, with Lola calling out a half-hearted apology, and Nikki telling her to shove it up her ass.

gandhi said 'be the change you want to see in the world.' fuck that. be the trouble you want to see in the world.

“Don’t tell me you’re still mad about last night,” the morning after the party, or was it afternoon - midday after Heather’s party - Lola’s tying her red bandana around her head, hip leaning against the counter out the back by the fryer where Nikki was scowling at an order of fries that was bubbling away.

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Lola,” Nikki snaps back, looking up at her, still frowning, and Lola’s smile widens, just a little. Nikki sighs, relenting, his voice dropping low, “I’m hungover as fuck, just piss off, can you?” But it doesn’t sound half as cruel as the words themselves imply, and Lola dips to press her cheek to his shoulder in a moment of affectionate familiarity before heading out to start serving customers.

It’s almost one when Charlotte and that English kid, Razzle, walk in, with the tall, pretty ginger, Eileen, sans their usual extras, but they take their spot at their usual booth by the window, talking quietly but animatedly.

“- the nerve on him! Hi, Lola,” Eileen’s practically vibrating with pent up, frustrated energy, greeting Lola with what Eileen probably assumed was a smile, but was still definitely a scowl.

“Everything alright here?” Lola asked, forcing her voice even brighter than she’d usually attempt, and Eileen’s gaze dropped to the menu, going quiet, brooding, while Charlotte sat up a little straighter and smiled, clearly not on such an intense wavelength as her friend.

“Everything’s just great; plotting Vince’s murder, kind of starving, the usual,” she shrugs, and Razzle, by her side, snorts a laugh.

“Good to see you survived the night, Honky Cat,” he adds in lieu of a greeting of his own, and Lola takes a moment to process all the information she’d just been exposed to.

“’course I did, I drank my weight in water between shots,” Lola smirks at Razzle, before her gaze slides to Charlotte, “and that’s very fair; I’d ask what he’s done now, but I think I’ll take care of your order first,” she grins amicably and pulls out her notepad and pen, as the three of them order their usual drinks and lunch preferences.

Lola heads back to the counter, calling out the order to the kitchen, taking another few order to their various destinations, before getting her friends’ drinks together to take them over.

“- home and didn’t even call, Razz, she didn’t even -” Eileen was still ranting by the time Lola deposits their drinks before them. Lola’s pretty sure she saw Razzle and Charlotte deliberately knocking knees beneath the table, but doesn’t think about it too hard. Nor does she dwell on the memory of seeing them at the party last night, of a gaggle of cheerleaders around talking to Razzle, though he just kept trying to talk to Charlotte. Later, she’d definitely seen them on the sofas, talking with Tommy and some of Charlotte’s other friends, leaning in to each other, Razzle’s arm around her shoulders, playing with the whispy ends of her hair. Lola hadn’t thought much of it at the time; she’d made out with Tommy at her first house party in the area, it hadn’t developed past friendship.

It was cute, if it was anything.

“Lola, you were there!” Eileen turned very suddenly, the moment her cup had been placed in front of her, and Lola’s eyebrows shot up, “did you see my sister last night?”

It feels like a trap, because yes, Lola definitely did, but also -

“Yes, why?” Lola asks, slowly, cocking a hip.

“They’re in the middle of a blue,” Razzle said, with a fond smile at Eileen’s carefully neutral expression, while she stirred her drink with intent.

“A fight,” Charlotte translated, “and Peach went to Heather’s last night, and got kind of shitfaced, and Vince took care of her, was really quite sweet, but she stayed with him because his place was closer and Peach refused to call Eileen.”

“She stayed with Vince?” Lola said carefully, trying not to imply she was jumping to conclusions, but Eileen’s stirring ceased in favour of vigorous drinking of the drink, obviously stuck on a similar train of thought.

“She slept on the couch,” Razzle filled in quickly, “was still there when I left, tucked in with a blanket, all above board.”

“And you didn’t know where she was -?” Lola frowns, confused.

“Vince called at three in the morning,” Eileen glowered out the window, voice low and even, “dad was mad until he was grateful; the man’s backbone is made of marshmallow fluff. She was meant to be home at one.”

“But she’s okay?”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Lola,” Eileen had said, giving Lola a look far older and longsuffering than her seventeen years.

“If we brought in Vince’s heart, would your dad batter it up and fry it for Eileen to eat?” Charlotte asked, tone teasing and light, to which Eileen rolled her eyes, but at least it got her to smile, even a little. Even when Lola snorted a laugh and told her ‘absolutely not’.

Later, on their break, Lola and Nikki sit on the roof of the building and share a serve of chips that he’d overcooked, and a cigarette, and Lola asks about Vince. Turns out Nikki doesn’t know much; he hadn’t grown up with the rest of them, had moved to the neighbourhood near the start of high school, and all he really knows is that girls apparently think Vince’s dick developed some sort of Midas touch over Summer.

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s always been stupid pretty,” Nikki shoves a chip in his mouth before leaning back on his elbows, “far as I know, but you’ve seen his car, right? That fuck-off, expensive red one that sits in the teacher’s carpark, with the massive scratch in the paint along the left? Yeah that’s his; got it for his birthday last year and he’s been getting tail like nobody’s business ever since.” And Lola tries to process all this information before he’s barrelling right on ahead with, “speaking of; if you’re gonna nail Tommy, can you do it soon and put the poor kid out of his misery?”

“Excuse me?!” Lola had choked on her lungful of smoke, turning red at the suggestion.

“Yeah, poor kid was pretty convinced we were a thing and didn’t want to make a move; kinda stupid, but I dunno, admirable? Noble?” Nikki groaned through his words, laying back against the gravel of the roof, hand out for the cigarette. Lola passed it to him, glad he couldn’t see her vaguely guilty expression, knowing she’d slept with the girl he’d been hitting on the night before.

“Tommy has a thing for anything halfway pretty that’s not related to him, he’d be just as happy to boink any other girl,” Lola points out, and Nikki snorts a laugh in mild agreement, “and the only reason we’re not fucking is because you’re afraid my dad’s gonna rip of your arms like he’s the fucking Wampa from Star Wars.” She punctuates it by eating the last chip, laying out beside Nikki on the gravel, checking her watch. Five minutes before their break ends.

“Leo wouldn’t rip off my arms- I don’t think Leo would rip off my arms!” Nikki counters defensively, but that just has Lola laughing as she corrects -

“Sorry, no, your exact wording was ‘I don’t want your dad to Kali Ma my fucking heart like I’m that little bastard from Indiana Jones’,” Lola does an absolutely atrocious impersonation of Nikki, who’s laughing despite himself, “which you only took back because I told you he wasn’t Indian, and even if he was, it’s kind of a fucked thing to say,” Lola tells him pointedly, shifting onto her side, propping her head up on her hand as she smirked at Nikki.

When Nikki looks at her, green eyes shining in the overcast, afternoon light, there’s something unreadable, teasing and soft all at once, like he’s entertaining an idea he’d considered unthinkable.

“I don’t think I could look Leo in the eye if I banged his daughter,” Nikki’s voice is soft and low, though he’s grinning wide, tone coy, eyes creasing in the corners, and Lola’s gaze flicks to his lips.

“For Leo’s sake, then,” Lola matches his tone, corner of her mouth twitching into a sharp smirk when she finally looks back to his eyes, “and Tommy’s too,” she teases, pushing herself into a sitting position; she can hear it when he presses his head further into the gravel in exasperation, swearing under his breath. When Lola stands and smiles, the picture of innocence, she offers Nikki her hand to help him up; Nikki rolls his eyes, but is still smiling when he accepts.

“Your hair looks dorky like that,” Lola teases as she climbs down the fire escape.

“I know,” Nikki sighs, “but its better than getting hair in everyone’s food; I’m not gonna be the reason your dad fails a health inspection,” Nikki adds, a strange hint of protectiveness in his voice that warms Lola’s heart in a way she hadn’t anticipated.

“Don’t worry, Leo’s never failed a health inspection, he doesn’t intend to start any time soon.”

love is a dream someone else had last night.

Eileen and Razzle see fit to join their ragtag bunch of misfits at lunch the following Monday by the open gate and the science carpark, which Lola had been informed was the teachers’ carpark.

Lola doesn’t care who sits with them, except for the fact that she’d taken the leftover lemon merengue tart from the diner since it was being replaced with an apple crumble, and there was only enough for four. For the past week, Eileen’s been alternating sitting with them and sitting elsewhere, but she hadn’t been here last Monday, so Lola had assumed - anyways, now she’s worried she looks like a bitch, and not for an actual reasonable reason.

“What do you mean you almost got with Heather on Friday?!” Charlotte’s voice was somewhere between a horrified and disbelieving squeak where she was picking at the crust of the piece of tart she was sharing with Eileen. The lemon merengue debacle turned out to not be much of an issue, with Charlotte and Eileen sharing, and Tommy and Lola sharing too. Lola was incredibly focused on picking at a scab through the hole in the knee of her jeans.

“I mean I had my hand in her fucking panties when someone -” Nikki cast a very pointed look to Lola, “knocked on the door threatening to throw up, and I got shoved out a window,” Nikki played up being irritated, despite the fact that he was laying out on his side directly behind Lola, while she was leaning into him.

“You’re my hero,” Eileen told Lola, serious as ever, while Charlotte cackled with delight, and Razzle snickered from where he was touching up the left hand of Tommy’s sharpie-nails.

“You guys are a bunch of assholes,” Nikki huffed, shoving the remained or his own piece of tart into his mouth.

“I brought you food, show some fuckin’ respect,” Lola smirked despite herself, gently elbowing him in the ribs; he flicks her knee in retaliation.

“Absolutely not; you’re a cockblocking traitor and the worst friend I’ve got,” Nikki announced, nose in the air, and Lola leans all her weight back suddenly, tipping Nikki onto his back and laying heavy across his stomach as she demanded he take it back, the two of them getting into a petty squabbling match, shoving at each other while the others could only look on in exasperated amusement.

“I thought Heather had a boyfriend,” Eileen pipes up, to which Charlotte makes a a gentle ‘eh’ noise in the back of her throat.

“She’s getting laid,” Charlotte corrects with half a smirk, and everyone who was paying half attention understand easily. Tommy sighs, but it’s not nearly as dejected as he’s known for whenever the topic of girls he fancies being with other people comes up.

“Whatever, I got to second base with Pam that night, and no-one can take that away from me,” Tommy announces, watching Razzle finish off his pinkie.

“Good for you, man,” Razzle says, with his trademark sincerity. Eileen and Charlotte still can’t believe it happened, but unfortunately both Razzle and Vince had seen with their own two eyes and been able to confirm; Vince may be biased, but Charlotte trusted Razzle.

“Everyone got some fuckin’ action that night except for me,” Nikki whines, finally shoving himself off, “and the fuckin’ Vomit Comet over here,” he jerked his thumb to where Lola was righting herself; Lola flips him off in response.

“I didn’t,” Eileen points out.

“You weren’t there,” Nikki rolls his eyes, “you don’t count.”

Meanwhile Razzle and Charlotte had both gone very quiet, and very pink. However Lola, who had no patience for people trying to hide their somewhere-between-pining-and-sincere feelings from each other and from other people, instead turns her attention to Eileen as she’s sweeping her hair out of her face.

“Have things gotten any better with Peach?” She tried, tone hopeful, and Eileen’s expression barely changed, just the barest crease of a frown upon her forehead, though judging by the way Charlotte’s whole expression soured, things had not, in fact, gotten better.

“Came back on Saturday afternoon all sunny and smiley and mom was thrilled,” Eileen’s deadpan irritation really sold her exasperation at the whole situation, “that she was friends with Vince again, and she hasn’t said a word to me yet.” Eileen takes a deep breath, straightening up from where she’d been slouched without realizing, taking a deep breath, nose in the air as if rising above it all, “which is fine with me, because I have a ton of dialogue to learn and they want us off-book in a month.”

This only sets them off fondly teasing the ever-unflappable Eileen, for her seemingly out of character choice to join the school’s musical, though they were all very proud of the fact that she scored the lead, even Nikki had voiced that he thought it was pretty cool.

When Lola had asked about it, Eileen had made mention that it filled in a lot of free time, that it was something she could add to college applications, and that a friend had convinced her to do it; Keanu -

“I keep hearing that name around,” Lola muses, leaning back in her seat while they were waiting for their French teacher to arrive. Eileen raises her eyebrows, “is that the pretty, dark haired Senior?” Eileen, surprisingly, had flushed scarlet when nodding. Lola hummed thoughtfully, leaning back further until the front legs of her chair lifted from the ground; she hooked her feet around the legs of her desk as she contemplated.

“It’s a musical right?” Lola asked, and Eileen hummed in confirmation, “if you can sing, you know Nikki and Tommy are -”

“I’d rather eat an entire microphone,” Eileen responds flatly, already knowing what Lola was about to suggest before she’d even finished her sentence, and Lola really tries not to laugh, but she knows Eileen well enough by now that that response makes entirely too much sense.

“You make a fair -” and that’s when Lola’s grip on the table slips, her feet sliding quickly up the legs of the desk as she topples backwards, the momentum pulling the desk up with her legs and directly on top of her, winding her. At least it made Eileen laugh, mostly from shock, sure, but Lola counts it as a win.

#motley crue #nikki sixx #tommy lee #vince neil #the dirt #the dirt fanfiction #motley crue fanfiction #nikki sixx x oc #Razzle Dingley #lola&charlotte #charlotte & lola #the pack

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funkymbtifiction · 3 years

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Hi, Charity. I’ve been having some trouble figuring out my judging functions. I’ve read all the descriptions, and interactions between Fi-Te and Ti-Fe but I’m still unsure.

I have this scenario that I think accurately represents my reaction to a lot of situations [I’ve oriented it towards a social focus because I think I am probably a feeler - but I want to know what functions I have before I begin working out the stacking]:

A couple of years ago, there was a collective outrage against an action that a celebrity had done.

For me, I was both curious about the extent that people were angry and frustrated that I didn’t have the same visceral reaction against them, apart from understanding - on what seems to be on a detached level only - why people would be angry.

I could identify a core human principle that this person openly and proudly violated. So, of course, I agreed that it was wrong. But it felt like a verbal agreement rather than an instinctual rejection of the action.

I had a hard time conjuring up the same type of emotional reaction and fixation on the issue that others had, which persisted even after apologies were made. I just couldn’t relate. But I find myself getting more riled up at the fact that I didn’t relate when it seemed almost everyone else did.

Even after the controversy had died down, I find myself drawn to residual comments on social media, berating the celebrity. To assuage this feeling of social defectiveness, I try to identify more distinct reasons why people would be upset, reasons that specific demographics might have. Maybe then I can truly understand why. But it’s not long until I get more annoyed with myself, for being on the outside, for not demonstrating the same outspokenness that most people seem to have against this issue.

After all, there are clear reasons why I should be particularly mad, given that I am part of one of the groups that could feel immediately invalidated by the action. Still, it surprises me more when I notice that groups of people that don’t usually seem to care (or don’t have an explicit reason) are also pushing back. But. Why. Don’t. I. Feel. The. Same.

Then I continue to wonder. This is an individual and isolated controversy. Very unique. But I have not seen the same outrage against similar variations, which have may certain variables missing. What exactly makes this one so different and universally panned?

I feel the need to dissect the overall conversation about it, otherwise, it feels like there’s a glob of people who get why this action is so wrong, yet I can’t seem to summon up the same (what seems like an organic) amount of emotion although I agree as a matter of principle.

Conversely, there are times when it feels like I am the only one who is riled up about an issue and most people seem so casual and matter-of-fact about it. Then again, I feel a little disheartened and alienate myself for not ‘getting’ why it’s not a problem.

Any thoughts? I think that I relate more to Fi-Te but I’ve recently been told that I have Ti but it doesn’t fully resonate with me. I’m not drawn to impersonal systems as much as I am to personal ones.

You sound very much like an ENFP to me. First there’s the intellectual openness without judgment in which you are collecting data rather than reaching an immediate moral / ethical judgment, and then you are wondering WHY your judgment (you simply don’t care) doesn’t match the outer world’s response of OMG WTF HOW AWFUL OF THIS PERSON. EFPs can sometimes feel out of sync with the outside world’s emotional consensus and judgments, because Fi doesn’t know how it feels about something (or if it even cares) until it’s in the thick of something -- until it directly happens to them. ESFPs are more prone to instant reactions because Se is directly engaging with the environment, but ENFPs have an abstracting function to act as a barrier between them and the object -- they abstract away from it, as you are doing. Instead of focusing on the celebrity’s actions, you started wondering what causes other people to overreact in such a way, what is wrong with you by comparison (the focus is on ‘me’ and how ‘I do not fit the Fe mold I am seeing’), and ... it no longer really became about this person’s actions, but fell into Ne-dom philosophizing. An ENTP would likely start to mirror the public outrage, rather than remaining distant from it, and continuously pondering to figure out if something in your internal self (Fi) is ‘broken’ because it’s not reacting (overreacting?) like everyone else.

This sounds... a lot like my mental process. I spend a great deal of time wondering why dominant feelers are so emotional about everything, and blow up stuff into such radical instant moral judgments, and comparing myself to them and noticing a certain ‘inner dead-ness’ about most things that seem to upset them, then I wonder if my emotions suck and if I should be more like other people, but I can’t escape the fact that I literally do not care about what that person did most of the time, and can think of many psychological reasons for their actions, and... I go back into a self-pondering loop of “why don’t I care more? Does this make me a bad person?” that is characteristic of Ne/Fi and being a head type (rationality, detachment, thoughts, instead of an emotional response) on the Enneagram rather than a gut (this is bad!!) or a heart (emotional responses) type. So you may want to consider a head type Enneagram (6w7 or 7w6) in addition to your ENFP-ness.

#question #mbti #enfp #enneagram #submission

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marriael · 4 years

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Be my Latibule? (Changbin x Reader)

@skzrequests

Request: My pace 24 w changbin? uwu im a sucker for the idea of tattooist bin lmao I so vibed with this request, I love thinking about tattoist bin

Word count: 3717

a/n: part of the reason this took so long is I had to restart it twice :(

You walk into work at Insomnia Coffee Shop and your co-worker, Sohee, greets you.

“Anyone fun yet?” You ask. She's usually in when the store opens and often gets the most interesting customers.

“Not today. But yesterday a cute guy came in and ordered 3 americanos. Turns out it was for him and 2 friends. I tried to give them for free cause he looked half dead but he wouldn't let me. Who even does that?“

While she was talking you had slipped on the ugly orange apron and scowl when you noticed someone double knotted and didn't untie the strings.

You shake your head, “probably a college student pulling an all-nighter. What college student turns down free anything? Ugh, I wish some cute barista offered me free coffee, just, ever.”

Sohee turns and passes the drink over the counter. “For Jeno!”

A cute guy comes up to grab and winks at her before he turns to the door. Your jaw drops a little and you slap her shoulder.

“Is he a regular?” You ask.

“Nope. Said he got a recommendation from a friend and went out of his way to come. Weird day to do it though.”

You hum as the next customer comes in and you get thoroughly distracted. It isn’t until he comes up to the counter and speaks that you stop staring blankly.

“1 latte, 1 americano,” his voice is low and rough and he’s a little bit intimidating honestly. He’s got a small bit of a tattoo poking out one of the sleeves and you try and look at it before you have to turn around.

“Is that a tattoo?” You ask him when you turn around.

He rolls the short sleeve up to his shoulder to expose the full tattoo and you stare at the simple beauty of the moon and stars.

“Woah, that’s cool!” Sohee must’ve seen him just in her peripheral… or she was staring like you. You nod emphatically in agreement.

He blushes a little and says “thanks. Couldn’t reach this part of my arm or else I would’ve done it myself, but I still drew it.”

“Do you work at a tattoo parlour then?”

“Yeah, I do a lot of the designs for our place,”

You gasp, “can I come look at them? Please?” You pout trying to convince him to accept your strange request. You just felt something pulling you towards these drawings and the man who made them.

He looks at you for a moment then says, “yeah, let me give you the address. When you come in just ask for Changbin.”

He pulls out a random business card, not his unfortunately, and writes down the address. He slides it over and covers his smile with a sip.

You turn back to the coffee machines as he walks out the door but Mina stops you.

“Changbin huh? He was pretty cute,” she smirks.

“Hush your mouth and get back to work, brat.”

“Nuh-uh! I get to leave now but if, no no not if when, you meet him we're talking about this later.”

The next day was Tuesday and, thankfully, it was mostly empty of things for you. So you pull out the piece of paper Changbin gave you and looked up the address.

It was just a couple blocks down from the coffee shop and you head out. The building is small and squished right between a bakery and a florist, basically some cheesy romance just waiting to happen.

You walked in and looked around. There were corkboards on either sidewall and they were filled with drawings pinned to them. The bottoms of them fluttered a little at the draft you brought with you.

When you looked at him the man behind the counter raised an eyebrow at you. Ah, so it was very obvious you wouldn't be in here often.

You let out a little nervous laugh, “hi, Changbin told me to come see him here?”

The man raised both eyebrows at that. You fiddled as he looked you over again then laughed a little. “Changbin!” He suddenly yelled.

From one of the closed side rooms comes a muffled voice “go away Chan, I’m busy!”

The man at the desk, Chan, turns back to you “sorry, he’s always like this. He’s probably just sketching a custom.”

“Oh, I can come back later if he’s busy.”

Chan doesn’t answer you and instead yells at Changbin again “I know you’re not actually busy. Your partner is here to see you!”

“Hey!” You protest but Chan just grins at you as you hear the door open.

“Chan what the hell are you-” Changbin cuts himself off and gently smiles when he sees you “hey, didn’t think you were actually gonna come.”

You smile back at him. He looks much softer when he’s smiling and you were briefly caught off guard.

“Tell me again about how you’re not dating or at least interested, “ Chan’s eyes flick between the shy but wide smiles on yours and Changbin’s faces.

Changbin rolls his eyes but inclines his head towards the door he was behind and you follow behind him. He closes the door most of the way behind you and then moves to sit at the desk in the far corner. There are more drawings in here and you assume all of them are his. It’s a wide variety of subjects, from small sketches of animals and plants to large and detailed fantasy creatures.

“Sorry about Chan, he’s always delighted in teasing anyone who’s younger than him,” Changbin shakes his head, probably at Chan even though he can’t see or hear in the room.

“Have you two known each other a long time then?” You ask and tilt your head a little.

“Ah, yeah,” Changbin looks at you again, “most of us met in high school and a couple joined right at the start of college. College was really when our whole group started getting close, too.”

“Sounds nice,” you were paying attention to him, promise, but with such wonderful drawings surrounding you, you really couldn’t help it if your attention drifted a bit.

Changbin notices and raises an eyebrow slightly, “interested in getting one?”

“What? Oh, no no, not right now at least. They’re just… really, really good.”

Changbin immediately looks down and smiles, and you could swear he was blushing a bit but when he looks back up it's gone.

“There’s a couple hidden ones in here that aren’t mine. Think you can spot ‘em?” He challenges.

You immediately head up to one of the boards and stand about 5 centimetres away. You push a couple of them up and out of the way, making sure to be careful. There really is all sorts of stuff, Changbin must be pretty busy. A rushing river done with such detail you can almost see it moving. Swirls that when you look just right suddenly snap into focus to make an abstract, soaring bird. Nature moulded with a person or item in such a seamless way that there is not a difference between them, they are simply one continuous sight.

You’re looking for hidden drawings, not ogling at Changbin’s skills. Right. When you move one more there is a small piece of paper. There is… something on it. Either Changbin drew this when he was about 5 years old or it was someone else.

“Hey, I found one. I don’t even know what this is though, it looks like a squiggle.”

Changbin laughs, “hold on.”

He comes and looks right over your shoulder. You can feel his hot breath on your ear and feel his chest move when he laughs at the drawing again. You quickly reign in the slight disappointment when he moves away.

“Yeah, that’s the thing Chan keeps trying to make our mascot. Felix and I won’t let him so until one of us breaks it’s two against one,” he shrugs and it doesn’t look like he feels bad at all.

“Do all your friends have a drawing stashed in here somewhere?”

“Well, I’ve seen at least 16 drawings put in here so yes they all have one. Some of them and Felix, Jisung’s special twin, has hidden at least 4. There’s probably more that he did when I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Ugh, how many friends do you even have. If it’s more than, like, 6 I might be genuinely angry.”

Changbin practically cackles, “well then get ready to be absolutely furious. There’s 9 of us, including myself and everyone I’ve already mentioned.”

“That’s not even fair! How have you all been friends for so long without someone murdering someone else.”

“Oh, believe me. Seungmin’s wanted to. Unfortunately, his best friends are some of our greatest problem children. Though sometimes I'm pretty sure he'll murder them first.”

“Any other possible murderers I should worry about seeing?” You flip a couple more pictures up, still passively looking for any other weird drawings.

“Hm, Minho's murderous intentions are usually directed at Jisung. He'd do it for his cats too, though. He definitely fits in well.”

“Were there concerns about him not fitting in?”

“Yeah 'cause, he was the last one to join us, but he’s just as chaotic if not more. For Chan’s graduation night he insisted on using some mini firework things he found. Nearly lit himself and Jisung on fire with the very first one.”

Something clicks in your brain. You’ve heard this story before, from one of your random classmates. He was… interesting, to put it politely.

“Are you talking about Lee Minho? The smug bastard who tried to get everyone to call him Lee Know for like 5 months? And Han Jisung, my co-worker kind of, that I’m pretty sure hates me for some reason?”

“Wait, you know them? And why do you think Jisung hates you?”

“Yeah, Minho was my weird classmate. I’m like 90% sure Jisung hates me because he barely looks at me and gives one-word answers to all of my questions. I don’t really see him other than during shift switches but still!”

“I think Minho actually might have mentioned you before. And Jisung is just like that around people he doesn’t know. Trust me, he actually has the capacity to be the loudest person in the room. By far.”

“Huh, I wonder how many of your friends I actually know.”

"Well, we're hanging out on Thursday. Do you want to come with and meet some more of them?”

You hum thoughtfully, thinking of any possible commitments you had made lately, “I probably can but can I bring Sohee? Just so I know someone there?”

“Do I still not count as someone you know?” He whines and pouts a little for the extra effect.

“Not enough. If you all go off on some inside joke I need someone to be confused with.”

“Actually fair, because it might happen. I’ll let you know when and where we’re going later then.”

You pull out your phone and extend it to him, when he looks at it confused you raise an eyebrow, “unless you plan to send it by bird I recommend putting your number in my phone.”

He makes a surprised noise and keeps his eyes away from you and on your phone. It has not spread to his face but under his dark hair his bright red ears peek out just enough for you to see. Even when handing it back he doesn’t look at you and you smile at his bashfulness.

“See ya soon, Bin. I work again tomorrow.”

Directions are not always your strong suit. You’d like to believe they are and that’s how you end up like this, no map and unsure of what direction you should even look in.

“You look lost,” a voice comes from behind you.

You spin around. A tall puppy-like guy is standing behind you, he looks slightly amused and you’re betting it’s at your expense.

“Yeah, do you know where M.I.A Café is?”

“Oh,” he nods, “yeah I’m going there. Let’s go.”

It’s slightly awkward, walking this distance with someone you don’t know. You search your brain with how to start a conversation with someone.

“Are you… meeting someone at the café?” You ask, slightly awkward.

“Yeah, a couple of my friends.”

“Huh, so am I. Well, actually, it’s someone else’s friends and I’m just kinda tagging along,” you shrug, realizing how awkward this will probably be.

“Good luck with that,” he says as he holds the door for you.

You enter and scan the tables for Changbin’s face. You wave and slip into the chair opposite him. On the edge of the table thankfully, hopefully Sohee can recognize the back of your head. Someone sits next to you and you get a little shock seeing who it is.

He grins at you, “hey stranger.”

The guy you walked all that way with one of Changbin’s friends!

Changbin looks between you confusedly, “you know Seungmin?”

“He helped me get here. I might have gotten a little lost.”

“A little, ok. You had no idea where you were,” Seungmin snarks.

“Maybe so!”

“Well good to know you get along with another one of my friends already,” Changbin interjects.

Someone comes up and sits beside Changbin.

“Hey, I’m Hyunjin,” he greets you simply.

You give him a little wave. You don’t like judging people so fast but he’s a little intimidating.

You hear a little scrape of a chair beside and Sohee pops down at the end of the table.

“Sohee, you made it!”

“Yeah, no thanks to you,” she sticks out her tongue at you.

“I’ve seen you somewhere before,” Hyunjin speaks up and you whip your head towards him.

Sohee looks at him and squints for a moment. They start looking at each other for so long that you think they’re actually just having a staring contest. You think you recognize someone walking outside but when you actually look out the window you have no idea who any of them are. It’s still a nice day out, maybe you can go out somewhere after this.

“Oh! You’re the guy I thought was going to drink 3 americanos the other day!”

“Sohee~” you sing.

“What?” She looks at you, annoyed.

“You forgot an important detail that you told me about him.”

She looks genuinely confused for a moment before catching on and shaking her head, “shut up, nope nope nope.”

“You think he’s cute!” You cackle.

You, Changbin, and Seungmin make fun of Sohee and Hyunjin for a little while. It backfires when Sohee manages to sneakily turn the attention on you, well you and Changbin. Together, you being together.

“Yeah, and you stared at him for so long when he came in!” Sohee says.

“Sohee, kindly shut your mouth,” you reply, smiling the most pained and fake smile ever.

“Ok, please don’t pour your drink on me, I’m afraid. Also we work together so I’m coming for you.”

You just roll your eyes at her, you didn’t actually scare her and you both know that. She just likes to be some sort of annoying sister to you.

Hyunjin clears his throat and when you look at him his eyes are bright. He smiles sneakily and says, “you should hear about the time Changbin actually poured his drink on someone.”

“Hyunjin that was an accident and you know it!” Changbin exclaims, attempting to shoulder check a giggling Hyunjin.

You breeze into Blueprint Tattoos and Chan looks up in surprise.

“Hey there, didn’t know you were coming in today.”

You let out a single, unnatural ‘ha’, “I didn’t know either but uh, here I am.”

“Well, Changbin’s in his usual spot. I don’t think he has anything today.”

“Thanks,” you nod stiffly.

Looking around at the cork boards you can see some of them definitely done in Changbin’s style and a handful more you suspect would be his. You breathe out heavily and slouch a little before straightening and walking towards where Changbin should be, full of false confidence.

“Are you ok?” Chan asks and when you look over his eyebrows are furrowed and his forehead pinched down a little. The concern from someone you barely know is a little unusual but the warmth you get from it is welcoming.

“Yeah, just a little nervous you know?” You force a small laugh but you know it’s not convincing.

“Oh!” Chan exclaims, “well if this is what I think it is then good luck.”

Chan’s face is completely relaxed and you feel a little bit bad for making him worry so much. You’re not entirely sure what he thinks you’re doing but you smile at his kindness as you open Changbin’s door.

He has headphones in and doesn’t hear when you close the door behind you. You stand there for a minute, back against the door, just looking at him. Most people move to what they’re listening to but the only thing moving is his hand and it glides across the page. You have no idea what he’s doing but you just hope he’ll show it to you when he’s done.

You take a big breath in and out before approaching him. Tapping his shoulder gently you hope not to cause him to jerk his arm and ruin a line or anything. He stops completely and pulls his headphones out. He looks a little annoyed but then he looks up to see you and his face eases.

“Hi! I didn’t know you were coming today. Anything specific on the brain or did you just want to hang out with Best Friend Binnie?” He gives you an exaggerated and comical wink.

“Give me a tattoo?” You say, surprisingly calm for how jittery you actually feel.

“Wait, what? Are you sure? Like really sure?”

You roll your eyes like a stereotypical teenager would at their parents, that is to say, so far back it felt like they would disappear into your head, “no, Changbin, I’m not sure. I’ve really only been thinking about it basically since the first time I walked into this room.”

“That was only a week ago,” Changbin deadpans.

“Yeah, and?”

Changbin shakes his head, “I’m not going to give you a tattoo you’ll regret.”

You look around at the drawings. Feeling like that one action gave this decision away as way more spontaneous than it had originally seemed. Yes, you had been thinking about getting one and getting Changbin to do it for you but doing it today specifically was a complete impulse.

“I’m not going to regret it! Bin, please,” you pout at him.

Changbin tilts his head to look at the ceiling as if it will give him some guidance.

“What do you want?”

You clap your hands excitedly and then hesitate again.

“Well, I know I want a flower but… I want you to choose which one. I want it to be a flower with a good meaning behind it.”

Changbin nods and stands there considering your request. You take the time to look around his office again. Staring at all the intricate drawings on the walls you feel a bit dorky choosing to get a simple flower. Your eyes briefly catch on two stylized drawings of the word SpearB. One of them has a cute little ‘Binnie~’ under it and the other has a messy ‘Chanathan’ in English and Korean.

There are a couple of flowers scattered throughout the room so you’re a bit surprised when you hear Changbin ripping a page out of his sketchbook. His back is to you so you can’t see him cutting it down to a size to la and trace on your body. You can hear the gentle snips of scissors as you distract yourself with rows of flowers connected and individual petals with such detail you could believe them being real.

You watch as he gently traces the pattern onto your skin. You don’t recognize the flower right away but it looks delicate and beautiful. You think you catch him glancing up at you a few times but you’re pretty sure the clock is behind you and he’s looking at that.

You zone out almost entirely as he prepares. Well, it’s not exactly zoning out. You’d say it’s appreciation of an attractive man, your friends would say that you’re just checking him out.

Ok, so what if you are? Changbin’s shirt has no sleeves which means his arms are on full display which means that you can’t stop looking at the muscles flexing as he moves. Thankfully you’re conscious enough to look away when he turns back around.

The buzz of the gun wakes you up and Changbin is looking at you.

“All good?” He asks.

“Yeah, let’s do this.”

You watch for a moment as he starts going and the ink sinks permanently into your skin. It’s a strange thing to conceptualize, something being on your body forever. You catch a glimpse of Changbin’s concentrated face and you get completely distracted by him. If this is what he looks like everytime he gives a tattoo then you want to observe, even study, him.

His mouth is set in a firm line and eyebrows pinched slight inwards and downwards. His eyes are wide and focused and if you look closely enough you can see every slight movement of his irises following his hand around.

Neither of you say a word and you don’t dare move to try and look at the clock or your phone. Just watching and waiting in silence, but together. A shared silence is different than one had alone.

Silences by yourself can feel wrong sometimes but this kind of silence with Changbin feels so right that you almost never want it to end.

Good things often come quicker than they should and soon the buzzing stops. You can hear phantom buzzing still and suspect you will for quite a while. You lift your arm and look at it, it’s finished now but you’re still not sure what it is and certainly not what it means.

“What is it?” You ask.

“An almond blossom. It, uh, it means promise.”

“Promise, huh?” You grin and look at Changbin's pink-ish face.

You expect him to have some witty comment but instead, he just smiles goofily and breathlessly says, “yeah.”

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city-of-spooks · 3 years

Text

There is a Selkie in our bathtub.

A short story about casting off your skin, fishfingers and a dog called Dennis.

She’s quiet now, but usually, you can hear her moving about because the water splashes over the rim and Dad goes mad about the floor.

“Fish don’t pay the deposit,” he says.

“Miss McColl says seals are mammals, not fish,” I explain.

We had a lesson about animals and their families at the beginning of term and there was a whole bit on seals. They raise their pups on milk, like people do, and the mums look after them until they are ready to go out and swim on their own.

Dad does not find this helpful. His mouth goes all thin when he’s unhappy, like someone has pulled on the other side of his beard. A lot of it is grey, now.

The couple on the bottom floor has a big dog that always sniffs my pockets, with fur like silvery wire. It’s called Dennis. Sometimes he comes and watches me tie my laces in the morning, eyes like jawbreakers. He just sits there. And then the lady will whistle for him and he pads home, big paws slapping like welly boots.

•

I think Dennis might have been a person.

Sometimes I dream about things like that. My mouth opens and bubbles come out, floating towards the ceiling, and the blankets go soft and slippery. You can pull them over you like a cocoon. My bones go to jelly inside my skin - but it’s a good thing. It makes sense, somehow.

Then I wake up and I feel even weirder; like someone has bundled all of my left shoes into a bag and dumped them off the pier.

“I don’t know where you get all this shite from,’ says Dad.

I try not to talk too much when he gets back from work, so mornings are the best time to ask him things.

How big can the waves get? Big.

Why doesn’t Gilly sink? Good boats don’t sink.

Do you have to go? I needed this shift. The old woman said she’ll have you.

Hmm. What’s the weirdest fish you’ve ever fished? It wasn’t a fish.

•

Dad doesn’t like talk after work. He’s always quiet. Angry, I think. Always smells like fish and salt and the sticky seaweed that gathers under the pier. He used to get straight into the shower and stay in there for ages, coming out all red and scrubbed like a shiny lobster.

I don’t think flannel ‘once-overs’ are helping because he still stinks of Gilly.

Dad still goes straight into the bathroom, but he can’t use the tub because it’s got… her in it. Sometimes he goes in with a bucket full of glassy-eyed fishies.

It always comes out empty. No bones in the plughole.

I eat my tea in front of the TV, leaving four fish-fingers in the oven for Dad.

The volume has to be loud to drown out Mr Kinney’s radio upstairs - but sometimes I can hear him talking in the bathroom. It echoes. His voice is low, rumbly. There might be a splash, the taps running, buckets being filled and brought out onto the landing. I brush my teeth there and spit into the toilet next door.

When I’m feeling brave, I can hold my breath and push my ear to the wall.

Thump. Murmurs. Low. Dad. Thump. Quiet. Splash. Thump. Quiet. Dad again. Thump. Thump. Thump.

I’m there for ages. A lot longer than I thought, because I’m getting sleepy and my toes are going all stiff in the cold from under the door. Then... a click. It’s loud and I scramble into my bed, thinking it’s Dad turning the light switch.

It isn’t.

•

He doesn’t eat his dinner. He talks to the tiles all night.

I’m not supposed to tell anybody, but Dad says not to especially tell Granny about the Selkie.

She’s not my real Granny, she’s actually the old lady who owns the flats, but she’s been here for as long as I can remember. Her eyes are watery like milk and she smells like smoke, but she always stops to give me these little chewy toffees whenever I see her on the stairs.

Dad says I shouldn’t take sweets from strangers, even Mrs Keeley. He doesn’t like me calling her Granny. His nose wrinkles like he’s smelt something off.

Once she came and hammered on the door really loudly when I was in bed, yelling about lots of things. Dad’s weird hours and the water pipes clanging when she’s trying to watch the news. She’s always watching the news.

Sometimes she braids my hair when I stay over. Her fingers curl where they shouldn’t, but they still manage to brush out the tangles Dad can’t get when we’re rushing for the bus.

“You’re really good at that,” I say. My mouth is full of peppermint chew.

I don’t take my shoes off, sitting with my school bag tucked between my legs. I want to curl around it like seaweed.

“My Lorna was always head sore.”

Mrs Keeley sounds like she’s smiling.

“I had to get her hair done quick or it wouldn’t get done at all.”

She ties off my plait with a bow. Blue ribbon. Her fingers hold onto the ends of it like she doesn’t know when to stop - and the jelly-bones feeling comes back, just for a moment.

“You never lose it.”

•

When I go back upstairs to our flat, Dad still isn’t home.

If this happens I’m meant to go back to Mrs Keeley and stay with her a bit longer, even though her rooms are always a bit too warm, like she’s trying to heat the entire place up from top to bottom.

Our bit is quiet. And cold.

I want to show Dad my hair and how pretty it is - it looks like how Shauna’s Mum does hers. Sometimes I stare at it when I’m in science.

The tap drips. Once, twice, three times.

I’m supposed to be in bed, but if I’m hungry the fridge has those leftover fish-fingers from the other night. But I’m not hungry. My stomach is full of peppermint chews.

When I pass the bathroom, my foot catches the spot where the carpet has rolled up. The floor is squeakiest there - and it groans when I go to catch myself from falling. My hand loudly slaps the landing wall. Ouch.

Water hits the tiles on the other side of the wall, a huge spray clattering against the old shampoo bottles and soaking the shower-curtain. I can almost feel it under my stinging palm, and just know that Dad’s going to be really angry about the floor this time.

But I don’t care. I want to see her. Selkie.

My voice comes out all wobbly.

“It’s me...”

I don’t want to scare her, even though I sound a lot different than Dad.

She still hasn’t seen me yet - but knows I exist. My name gets passed around the taps during those late-night chats. I think that’s enough.

•

Dad was in a rush that morning. He went to bed angry and woke up groggy, nearly putting his foot in the sink-that’s-actually-a-bucket. I think everyone had weird dreams, even if we didn’t dream the same thing.

I dreamt that the bedroom was full of water again. Fish swam in shoals through the wardrobe, picking at Dad’s thick mariner’s socks and hiding in the blankets. My shoes floated past me, hitting our bobbly ceiling with a thunk.

I looked down at the bed, the pillows billowing like jellyfish, mattress lifting from rusty springs.

Something is there, right at the edge-

•

I take a deep breath and open the bathroom door. It’s cold, smelling of fish and the underbelly of the pier. Buckets are everywhere - some full of water, some with half-eaten fish guts sloshed up the sides. I feel a bit sick.

Now, our bath is pretty deep. It’s very old, the kind that takes up the whole boiler if you let it, so we have to top it off with pans heated on the stove if it runs short. I can’t peer into it from the doorway, but I can see long, browning lines painted on the tiles. We have those markers on my classroom wall, groups of five scrunched together in a weird pattern.

I think they’re called tally-

A CLICK sounds from the bottom of the tub, the noise loud and sharp.

I drop my bag.

The oily blanket stuffed at the bottom tumbles out of it, along with my sandwich crusts, landing by one of the buckets with a thump. I’d go to reach it, but my feet won’t move.

Jelly-bones again. The world has gone quiet. All I can hear is my heart thumping loudly and the grumble-rumble of Mr Kinney’s radio. Dennis is barking from the bottom flat. Someone is yelling outside.

The tap isn’t dripping anymore.

I step closer to the tub and my mouth flops open, like one of Dad’s biggest catches.

Dead fish. Hook-in-lip.

Stoppered in the spout is a toe, with silvery webbing connected between each one. There’s a long foot, leading up to a shaky knee crisscrossed with streaks of pearly white. It’s hard to make out over the mottled brown patches blooming across her skin, but it’s a very pretty pattern. Like Mrs Keeley’s swirly carpet and-

“Coira.”

•••

Author’s note: I could have ended it there, but I am a slut for the poetic and always over-egg my stuff - especially when I’m stressed. So here’s a Director’s Cut finish.

There’s nothing else to know.

I’m older - and yet younger than I’ve ever been.

My home is spread over miles of water, mountainous waves and my stomach is full of fish.

I have siblings now. A whole colony, rookery and herd of family. We go by many things.

Sometimes the men in the boats call us a ‘Bob.’

It’s a name that hurts the back of my head but the memory always slips away before too long, for I am coated in an oil-slick. Soft and sleek. Quick.

We spend our days playing in the long weeds, hunting, playing, nudging - sometimes we even stretch out onto the beaches and soak up the sun. Children come to watch us, their sticky fingers reaching to pull at our coats but the parents always steer them away.

They never let on to what they really know.

On a handful of nights, when the moon is full and bright, we walk on the shore. My skin is bundled up and always kept within my sight, tucked behind a stump of the old pier.

It’s been years since I’ve seen myself like this. Longer legs, thick thighs and stomach to keep warm in the winter currents. The brown and white mottles running up and down my skin are less graceful on me, more abstract.

I think of a painting made with fingers - maybe mine? - from many years ago. It hung on the fridge for months, until it got swallowed by angry red letters.

But we continue to dance. My eyes, which can see through shifting silt and roaring tides, do not search beyond the beach. I simply spin faster and the seagrass tied in my hair shimmers in the moonlight.

Sometimes I feel a person or two watching us.

One of my sisters laughs and it cracks through the silence like a bark, more voices rising with it until the calls of early morning gulls are drowned out.

It’s the darkest moment before dawn. In this light, the seagrass looks like a dark blue ribbon.

#my writing #writing #celtic #celtic mythology #selkie #mermaids #short story #story #mythology

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werevulvi · 3 years

Text

It is the first day of yet another of my menstrual periods. Yes, I wanted to share that information with you. I want to be vulnerable and honest, for a moment. Being a woman can be a bloody mess sometimes, painful and feel shameful. And I'm writing this post to tell you why I'm not ashamed. After I've told you all about those embarrassing little things that no one wants to talk about, or hear about. That alone, you see, makes me wanna talk about it. You're welcome. This post might be very triggering for dysphoric females, but this is written with especially you in mind. But because healing is painful, I won't hold it against you if you'd rather choose to scroll past this. That is entirely up to you. The author of this post (me) is a mostly desisted/detrans woman, still male-presenting, formerly trans man. But despite my first hand knowledge of sex dysphoria, I am not particularly smooth when talking about what used to cause me dysphoria but no longer does. Sorry about that. Otherwise, I do mean well. And secondly, this post is for any women/females who get periods and just don't like it for any reasons, obviously. Now let's get right in there. *

At this point, a little over 2 years of not taking testosterone anymore, I know my body so well that I know exactly when my period will arrive, from a few days prior. I can literally feel my estrogen levels plummeting, which it typically does a few days before the uterus lining starts shedding, and this drop in estrogen production is a perfectly normal part of the cycle as a whole. Then progresterone will rise sometime during the period, and the estrogen will start increasing slowly again after you're done bleeding, and will be at the highest typically somewhere right in between periods. I tend to feel the worst when my estrogen is low, and the best when it's high.

I googled that stuff for my own sake, and I found it fascinating, and that it helps me understand what practical hell my poor body is going through.

How I feel that my estrogen is plummeting, is mostly physical, and a little bit psychological. First I get bloated and no matter how much I fart, my stomach feels tense and sometimes slightly painful. Then comes the hot flashes. First just one in a day, fairly mild. The next day it's stronger, and more than just one. That day I usually also get easily irritated, and my skin feels more sensitive. Everything feels more sensitive. It's as if I'm more exposed in some abstract way. The third day the hot flashes are really intense and often, I'm very bloated and the irritations are exchanged for a hightened awareness of everything I feel. Happier, curiouser, sadder, angrier, more of everything. Kinda like being drunk, but without the rush. I'm getting mild cramps, a light pressure deep within my lower abdomen. Like a gentle tapping on my door.

That is when I really need to make sure I have a pad put securely in my underwear, because she's close now, my period. Tapping on my door. I can feel it.

Late that day, or early the next day, I will get my period. It's always like that. Bloated, hot flashes, light cramps, hightened senses, then bam. First it's medium flow with mild cramps, so I can continue whatever I was doing and not really overthink what's going on. And no panic about staining my underwear, because I was already padded up to begin with. That gives me a feeling of security and control. Like already having coffee prepared for your untimely guest.

On the second day, however, and the following 2 after that, I will need to keep on my toes, change often and be very mindful of my clothes not getting stained, as well as exist carefully because of the pain and lack of energy. Those 3 days my flow will be extremely heavy, which requires an hourly change of the thickest possible pads, slow movements, and being generally very gentle with myself. My body needs to focus 100% on this intense process of shedding my uterus lining very fast and effectively. It's very delicate business, apparently. I will not be able to exercise, or do much of anything, during these 3 days, but I don't mind. I let my body do her thing, because she knows what she's doing, and I know best to be helpful, but not controlling. And I'm thankful that my body lets it all out so fast and effectively, allowing me to resume my normal life quickly after my period's arrival.

I'm also thankful for those 3 days of completely unashamed self-care. Yes, I will indulge in a lot of tea-drinking, movie-watching, hot showers, playing of World of Warcraft, doing low energy arts and crafts, incense burning and cupcake eating. Those 3 days are painful and draining, but they are also very healing, soothing and bring me closer to myself. They ground me, a lot. They are the painful reality that I need to sober up from my previous weeks of ranting about gender dysphoria, the up's and down's of living as a man while female, missing being on testosterone, obsessing about my gender expression, and so on. Those 3 days are when I close the door on that gender noise and... just exist with myself, my material reality, and remind myself that fresh pads, warm rice bags to soothe cramps, the need for comfortable clothes, and standing up for women's rights - are the only gender struggles I really need to be concerned with. Perhaps relatable to you as well. Perhaps not.

In other words, those 3 days may be the worst 3 days of the month for me, but they are also... kinda the best 3 days, and I don't want for my period to behave in any other way. It's perfect the way it is.

The 5th day, after the first mild-ish day and then the 3 heavy, is a medium flow again, and I'm starting to feel better physically. The cramps ease up and the bloating is gone. The hot flashes typically end sometime during the heavy flow. Then on the 6th day, my period is practically over, by my standards. Light flow, no cramps or any other issues, my life resumes to normal. The 7th and 8th day there will be some light spotting, enough to just wear a pantiliner, or even go bold and free-bleed in black briefs.

So that's how I experience my period, every time. But enough about the presumably cringey, awkward, gross, whatever you wanna call them, parts.

I wanted to talk more about how getting my period effects me mentally. It acts kind of like a "reset", not only in my endless gender chaos, but in everything. Those 3 days that I dedicate to self-care, as my body forces me to slow down and focus on being mindful, stop spinning about, sit the fuck down and re-think my situation. It definitely works as a natural "restart" similarly to going to sleep at night, but in a way that instead of just knocking me out, makes me more awake and more aware.

That sense of increased awareness and awakening, which hyper-activates my senses yet slows me down, is what also grounds me. It has become kinda like an unintentional meditation ritual. That as soon as the toilet paper turns red, everything slows down and I change. This change is vital to my mental health. It helps me rebuild myself a little, and I believe that has a lot of valuable healing properties. And that makes me thankful that I'm a woman, because I get to experience this very healing, grounding process, every month - which I had entirely forgotten about, for 5 years, when I was taking testosterone and my period didn't come.

I was of course relieved back then, that I could go on for years without a single period happening. I'm not gonna brush aside that it was a huge relief at that time, back when I was still busy being angry at my body and at nature for causing any females to bleed monthly, because it felt like a punishment for the crime of simply having been born female - but now that I have her back, my period, I don't want for her to go away. It's the ONE thing that makes me hesitate and doubt if I even wanna go back on testosterone again, despite really badly wanting most other changes. And I will grieve losing my period again, if I go back on it!

I need my period. I do not hate it. I do not feel ashamed of it. It's a painful process to go through, which I have somehow managed to turn into something beautiful, and something to be celebrated. Every time it arrives, my instant self-care routine is also a celebration. I look forward to this celebration, every month. I look forward to my period. Every. Single. Month. This is something I thought I would never, ever say. But there it is. I am thanking nature for that wonderful opportunity to sit back, relax, reflect and focus on what really matters: loving myself, and making the most out of the one life that I have.

I hope this post gave you something to think about.

#how i ended my own period stigma and dysphoria #periods #ftm detrans #a desisters rant #self care #healing is painful #poetic rant #my text #feel free to reblog

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potatotrash0 · 3 years

Text

Kwami Swap

Rating: Teen for like single swear from Hinata

Word Count: ~1600

Genre: Humor?? Like 10% vague fluff??

Hokori chuckled, “I admit it’s a stretch. With the Cat Miraculous, I have bad luck most of the time, but ladybugs are good luck, aren’t they?”

Tentō narrowed his eyes, but they didn’t have much to go on as of now...clicking his tongue, he relented. “Fine,” he sighed, “try it. But I’m telling you, the Lucky Charm doesn’t just give you whatever you want. You have to actually figure out what to do with it.”

—

Idk man I saw a Miraculous and Danganronpa crossover au and went completely feral and spat this out. Also yes inspired by @/moochisun

Also on AO3 under the same username!

I am. unoriginal. so I basically named Komaeda, dust in Japanese (hokori) and Hinata, ladybug (technically tentōchū but i went with tentō). shhh don’t question it

—

Tentō stumbled as he landed, catching himself against the alleyway’s wall with a small grunt. Beside him, Hokori swung in just as haphazardly, though he seemed to be having more fun with his temporary Miraculous.

“Okay,” Tentō breathed, slumping down and running a hand through his hair as his breathing slowed. “New idea, we actually make a plan before attacking.” Hokori nodded, “Yes, that would be wise.” He laughed as Tentō kicked a rock his way.

“Well, how about we use your—ah, my Lucky Charm?” Hokori slipped into a more serious tone, one of his hands reaching for his yo-yo. “Yeah, no,” Tentō said, shaking his head and kicking off the wall. “Normally, I would agree, but we’re lagging behind because of our Miraculous swap. We don’t have enough information to come up with a solid plan or bullshit one like we’ve done before.”

“I suppose that’s true for you, but...” Hokori trailed off and paused for a moment, seemingly contemplating something, before his expression steeled itself. “Before you arrived to help, I got close enough to see that one of the jewels on Doragon’s choker was purple. I think the akuma is in there, so if we can distract them long enough for one of us to smash the crown, I might be able to purify it.”

Tentō nodded, his brows furrowing as he thought it over. “Alright. But what do we use as a distraction?” “Maybe the Lucky Charm will give us something the akuma might want? We know it chases after shiny or expensive things,” Hokori suggested.

Tentō blinked before snorting. “Hokori, you know how random my Lucky Charm is. Even though that plan would work theoretically, there’s no telling what the Lucky Charm might give us.”

Hokori cocked his head, pursing his lips slightly. “I have pretty good luck, though, so it might work.” Tentō rolled his eyes, “Yeah, because leaving things up to chance has definitely helped us save Tokyo before!” He felt the ears on the top of his head twitch, his tail whipping at his ankles.

Hokori chuckled, “I admit it’s a stretch. With the Cat Miraculous, I have bad luck most of the time, but ladybugs are good luck, aren’t they?” Tentō narrowed his eyes, but they didn’t have much to go on as of now...clicking his tongue, he relented. “Fine,” he sighed, “try it. But I’m telling you, the Lucky Charm doesn’t just give you whatever you want. You have to actually figure out what to do with it.”

‘This is ridiculous,’ he thought to himself, staring at the alleyway wall ahead. /I’ve tried this kind of stuff before, there’s no way that the rules of the Miraculous will bend just for him.’

His gaze flickered to Hokori when his ears picked up a quiet gasp. His partner had a giddy grin on his face, grey eyes sparkling. Tentō raised a brow and took a step closer, leaning over the boy’s shoulder.

He then let out some weird, strangled noise he couldn’t name. “...what the fuck?” In Hokori’s hands was an ornate box, made of wood and lined with velvet. Inside was probably the biggest necklace he had ever seen, along with a set of equally obnoxious earrings and several bangle bracelets. “Is—is that diamond?!” Tentō snatched the box from his partner’s hands, suddenly feeling like he needed to have a discussion about favoritism with Tikki.

Hokori, the damn bastard, burst out laughing before he slapped a hand over his mouth, doubling over.

---

“I still can’t believe that worked,” Tentō huffed, leaning on his staff. Hokori giggled, eyes trained on the now-purified akuma lingering on his finger. “I didn’t expect it to work so well either, but I guess my luck pulled through again!”

A beeping came from the ring on his finger, one of the green paw prints flickering and fading to black. The akuma jumped up onto Hokori’s nose, its wings fluttering rapidly. “We should leave before we transform back,” Tentō said, waiting for his partner to bid goodbye to the butterfly. (He did his best not to smile too fondly when Hokori turned around after looking so sad to see it go.)

They parted ways near some bakery, Tentō opting to leap another block away before landing. He ducked around the corner, glancing around before deeming the coast clear. “Plagg, claws in.” The black kwami flew out from the ring with a little flourish, groaning dramatically and flopping into Hinata’s hands like some maiden fainting onto her lounge chair.

“Next time,” Plagg huffed, glaring up at him, “I better not have to do so much work just so you guys can transform.” Hinata scoffed, “You barely did anything.” “Excuse me? Going around Tokyo searching for my owner in a huge crowd is stressful! At this rate, my fur will start turning white.” “Yeah, right. You don’t even have fur! Besides, you can whine to Hokori about it, /I’m/ not your Miraculous holder.”

Hinata slipped off the ring and put it into the black box he had stored in his pocket. He handed it to Plagg, pointedly ignoring the cat’s complaints. “And tell him that his kwami is a pain in the ass for me,” Hinata called as Plagg flew off, snickering when yelled back indignantly, “Have some respect for your elders!”

Shortly after, Tikki flew into view, a wide smile on her face. “Hajime!” Hinata laughed as his kwami nuzzled against his cheek, holding her close for a moment. “Good to have you back, Tikki.” She settled into his shirt pocket like usual, handing him the earrings and taking the piece of chocolate he offered to her eagerly.

“By the way, the Miraculous’s powers are fixed, right?” He asked, putting on the earrings with only a little struggle. He made a mental note to ask Tsumiki or Mioda about his ears healing over. He felt Tikki nod, “Yes. Even if the Miraculous, transformations, and weapons change to fit the holder’s preferences, the fundamental abilities don’t change.” Hinata hummed, tongue flicking over his retainer idly before he replied. “So what’s up with Hokori getting exactly what he wanted from the Lucky Charm earlier?” “Hmm...” Tikki seemed to falter, nibbling at the chocolate as she thought. “According to Plagg, his holder tends to attract good and bad luck even without a Miraculous, so that might play into it.”

“So I was right to think it was pure bullshit.” “That’s...a crude way to put it, but you’re not entirely wrong. It is very abstract!”

Hinata sighed, a smile crossing his face. Well, chalking it up to luck wouldn’t be his first choice, but he supposed having a cryptic and roundabout cat-boy for a partner ruled out all of his “ideal circumstances” in general. Something told him it wouldn’t be quite as fun without Hokori and his chaotic ways, though.

---

Hokori landed just behind the local bakery, being careful to ensure he was hidden from view. “Tikki, spots off,” he whispered, catching the spotted kwami in his hands. He was tempted to let Tikki take a nap, seeing how sleepy she looked in his palms. She deserved it, after all, but she also had to return to Tentō, so he gently nudged at her with his thumb. She took the hint after a moment, flying up and seemingly making Komaeda’s hair her temporary bed.

He took his time taking out the earrings and placing them back into their container, speaking up once he was done. “Come on, I’m sure Tentō would like to be reunited with his kwami.” Tikki brightened up at that, taking the black and red box with a renewed vigor. “It was nice meeting you,” Komaeda said softly, laughing when Tikki returned the sentiment by bumping against his nose with a smile.

Not too long after she left, Plagg flew in, announcing his presence by crashing into Komaeda’s chest with clearly exaggerated groaning. “You’re crushing on a guy with no idea what manners are, you know that, right?” Plagg said into his shirt, tail whipping around. Komaeda raised a brow but wasn’t too surprised to hear his kwami being so dramatic. He grabbed his Miraculous back with his left hand, the other one digging in his coat pocket for the container he kept Plagg’s beloved cheese in. “I’m well aware of how blunt Tentō can be, but I’ll keep your concerns in mind.” He tossed a piece of Camembert Plagg’s way, watching his kwami rush to catch it in his mouth with a grin.

Admittedly, he had been worried when Tikki approached him at first, knowing first hand how much Plagg tended to get himself into trouble. But at the very least, he was here now, unharmed and safe. Komaeda slipped the Cat Miraculous back onto his ring finger, feeling more at ease now that he had it back. For something he had only owned for a year, he found himself pretty attached to it.

Though, it was the same for most of the things he had gained in the past year. It was weird, allowing himself to enjoy his life after years of avoiding forming attachments in fear of losing them. It was so ingrained into him, trying to live without fearing the worst was almost harder than just accepting it. Komaeda shook his head, catching himself regressing back into his old habits. ‘Hinata-kun would probably be angry if he knew I was still entertaining the thought of my luck sabotaging me,’ he mused. It was a viable possibility in his eyes, but Hinata always seemed to be firmly against Komaeda’s “self-destructive tendencies,” to quote the brunet. Why, Komaeda still couldn’t grasp, but there was little that he understood about Hinata in general. ‘It’s not really necessary to understand someone to appreciate them though, is it?’

#hnn tikki is hard to write so i didn't give her dialogue #sorry babe ily but. i can't. :(#god this is so old lmao but i was too lazy to tag until now #danganronpa fic #not putting this in main tags but i’ll tag #komahina #miraculous au #reblog if you liked this? 👉👈 it helps a lot more than likes skdnsj

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allthebooksandcrannies · 4 years

Text

Just some thoughts on maturity...

This is going to get long so there’ll be more under the cut.

I saw a post the other day about how it can be tempting particularly for the older crowd on this website to judge or condescend those who seem to struggle with expressing or holding truly complex ideas and instead getting stuck in a binary mentality of good vs bad or us vs them. then the post went on to point out that its not really their fault considering that a major proportion of tumblr users are under 25 (according to this report, 39% of users are under 25 and 66% are under 35) and devopmentally this is really where we see the ability to hold complex feelings and accept the existence of multiple realities really start to develop and it was kind of an epiphany for me.

I don’t want to come across as condescending, after all, i’m part of that 39% myself and can admit that i’m still working on this skillset. But part of emotional maturity is being able to accept and understand that the world is a complicated or gray place and morality is, if not exactly relative, at least exists on a continuum (what is acceptable and even praise-worthy in one culture might be taboo or reprehensible in another [which is why we need to avoid judging past or foreign cultures by our own cultural norms/morals]).

Just as it is possible to do the wrong thing for the right reasons or the right thing for the wrong reasons and it be both right and wrong at the same time, there can be multiple truths and “realities” at the same time without either being more or less correct than the other. I know that might sound confusing or convoluted but let me explain. You’ve probably heard the expression that there are three truths: your truth, my truth, and the actual truth is somewhere in the middle. I agree with this to an extent. People can look at the same experience and come up with radically different narratives to explain what happened to themselves or others and generally they are both a little biased because the brain naturally works from an egocentric point of view (this isn’t necessarily the same thing as a selfish/arrogant pov, but that we tend to view things based on their relationships to ourselves even if they aren’t actually connected to us, ie a child that sees that their parent is upset about something that happened during their day but assumes that it is somehow their own fault, which gets into some theory of mind stuff that is honestly a whole other post and not really the point).

An example from my own life, is a common argument that my mother and i rehash a lot lately. Just going off of the things actually said aloud (which is only ever half the argument), my mom likes to ask for constant progress reports on things like my thesis or grad school applications or my love life and then proceeds to tell me what she thinks i should do. Sometimes i humor her and let it go, but other times i try to explain that talking about the things that i’m anxious about actually makes my anxiety related procrastination worse and that i would appreciate it if she wouldn’t ask as often. Those are the main events that lead up to it.

From what i can tell, she views her questions as good parenting. She has told me before that she felt hurt as a kid by how uninvolved her parents were in her own adolescence/early adulthood and doesn’t want to make same mistakes. She then takes my request not to ask as a rejection of her parenting, and usually responds by telling me that i should stop being bothered because she’s just trying to help and i’ll feel better if i just do what she’s suggesting (and then proceeds to say “see, aren’t you glad you have a mom who pushes you to do these things” once i finish a project.)

there really is no winning because my mother has never really learned that the things you do to be helpful can still be harmful. in her mind, she can’t be in the wrong because that would make her a bad mom and she can’t be a bad mom because she loves us. sure, she might be able to accept this idea in fiction or in the abstract, but isn’t able to put it into practice because that is a learned skill that she has never known to try to learn. i think a lot of people end up stuck there. tbh its still my first instinct a lot of the time and its only through a lot of courses geared towards developing critical thinking and empathy, a lot of fiction meta analysis, and reading about a million fanfics that each interpret the same canon event differently based on the author’s personal experiences coloring what they viewed as important.

my first instinct is to view my mother’s refusal to change her behavior as a disrespect/invalidation of my feelings. I feel guilty because i know that i should do the things she’s suggesting but that is never the issue, the issue is that i have trouble actually making myself do it. For a long time that egocentric worldview (and that instinct kids have to implicitly trust hteir gaurdians) told me that both the executive dsyfunction and the fighting were my fault. It felt like she was saying that if i was better or smarter or more mature surely i would be able to do this on my own. it felt like she was saying that if i was a better daughter i wouldn’t hurt her feelings like this.

But i’ve been learning that neither one of us were truly correct and we both were at the same time. Those feelings and concerns were real to us, even if we were both projecting our own insecurities onto the other person. Those feelings were valid and understandable but (and this is incredibly important) that did not give either one of us a free pass on how we acted on those insecurities. It didn’t make us bad people but it did mean that we were engaging in toxic behavior that just hurt both of us.

So, the question becomes “what do i do with that?” Now that i know we were both responding from a place of trauma and insecurity in the past, how do we change how we act in the future? I think we have to get to a point where we can look at a situation and truly try to understand the internal dialogue that the other side is experiencing in the moment (why they feel the way they feel, do we really have evidence that they feel what we think they feel or are we projecting, are they acting well-intentioned/malicious or are they even considering the ramifications at all/do they have any conscious intentions) and come to a point where we can truly empathize with them, not sympathize with them, not feel sorry for them, but truly see it from their side and understand where they are coming from. we should remember that we’re all a little broken. and we should be gracious and merciful.

That doesn’t mean we have to be happy about it. We don’t even need to think that they have a good point or that their pov is reasonable or forgivable (sometimes it just isn’t, and its important to understand that too). But it means not dehumanizing the enemy or oversimplifying their position into the general “bad guy” role. You can forgive without absolving and you can understand and show compassion without forgiving or accepting.

You need to set boundaries, and you need to accept that at the end of the day the way that they respond is not on you, not if you’ve acted based on that understanding we talked about earlier and treated them with at least the bare amount of dignity we are all entitled to as human beings.

Returning to the previous example, with my mother, i now make a point when we disagree of first summarizing and acknowledging the validity of what i understand her intent to be, making it clear that i appreciate that she cares and is trying to be helpful. Then i explain my point of view not as what she makes me feel (because that would come across as judgement that would prompt natural, though incredibly unhelpful defensiveness) but as to how i feel based on my interpretation of the action. I try to make this sound as nonjudgemental as possible without making it anyone’s fault, including my own (which i admit can be easier said than done). Then, i give an alternative suggestion for what would actually be helpful and then it is in her hands. It is up to her whether or not to accept the boundary i have set up.

In an ideal world she would respect my wishes and alter her behavior. after all, she is supposed to be the adult/parent in this relationship. the emotional labor isn’t supposed to be on the child, at least not the majority of it.

(side note: this goes for relationships of equals such as significant others, friends, siblings, extended families, and peers. in a healthy relationship of equals you should be splitting the emotional labor equally. if they aren’t trying as hard as you are, you probably need to have a conversation about that and based on the outcome then evaluate how much, if any, of yourself is safe/healthy to continue to pour into the relationship)

But because many people, adults and adolescents alike, have not reached this level of emotional maturity and can’t honestly/completely accept or acknowledge their own flaws and mistakes without their sense of self taking a hit, sometimes its not enough. My mother, no matter how respectfully i phrase my concerns and request, continues to insist on asking the same nagging questions that trigger a lot of my childhood emotional drama related to being good enough for my parents impossible standards. I understand why she behaves the way that she does but the fact of the matter is that she still continues to hurt me and no longer has plausible deniability in those situations. I have the right to be angry, though i do not have the right to lash out or respond in kind.

I do, however, have the right and the responsibility to myself to do what i can to protect myself from further harm. I still want a positive relationship with my mother, we have plenty of good moments and are very similar people. But i have to be willing and able to remove myself from unsafe situations. Usually that means making it clear that i won’t be answering the questions and not calling or texting with her until the point is made (even if this leaves her surly).

I had to lower my expectations for her as well. I had a high opinion of my mother because she can be very nurturing and compassionate, especially when we are in agreement. So i thought on some level that if i shared the information and the sources that prompted me to begin my own journey of self-actualization and personal growth in earnest that she would react similarly and understand why i needed her to at least try to do the same. Piece of advice, kiddos, it’s not your job to fix someone, no matter how much you love them nor how much potential they have. It needs to be on them, and they need to make that decision for themselves or it won’t work anyway.

I am trying to accept that unless she makes the decision on her own, she isn’t going to become the mother i want her to be. That’s an incredibly sad thing to realize about someone you love, but its true. If i don’t let that expectation go, our relationship will always be one of disappointment and eventually resentment. Instead, I've had to evaluate what conversations we are and are not able to have in a healthy manner, and just let things be what they will be. I know my own worth (when my brain chemistry cooperates) and i have a lot of good, healthy relationships in my life that i can turn to when i need something my mom doesn’t know how to give me.

It’s painful to grow and realize you’re leaving people behind in the process. You can offer them the tools to follow, and give them the support that they need to do so, but only if they want to.

But i promise you its worth it. When you accept your own worth with rather than despite your own flaws, when you learn to do the same with others, you realize that there’s a lot more hope for humanity than you thought. we are capable of so many great things if we are in an environment that fosters our best selves. and even when we are not, we are still capable of growing past our trauma and hurt so that we don’t have to continue the cycle of pain and misery. We can’t control everyone and everything around us, they still have a measure of personal responsibility to themselves and others that you can’t absolve them from. But you can be an example to them. You can show them through your own life and actions that things can be better, even if they weren’t aware of how much they need things to improve, or how much they deserve it. You deserve good things but you wait for someone to solve it for you. You have to fight for yourself and struggle against falling into the trap of the familiar. It is going to be scary, it is going to be confusing. there will be times when you don’t trust your own interpretations of your emotions and perceptions (especially if you weren’t taught to do so as a kid, its not your fault, but what happens next is up to you). When those times come you’re going to want to have good friends or mentors at your side or as a source of hope that things will be better and that there are people who can and will offer you the help you need along the way. No one can do it alone, and you don’t have to. For me, my college roommates were my first clue that maybe things weren’t as good with my mother as i assumed, they fostered my confidence and my self-worth and i was constantly afraid i was going to scare them away but they had my back. I didn’t think i deserved to be happy, i didn’t think i was worthy for anything outside what i could do or give for others and they showed me that i was worthy just as i was. it was creators like @goldkirk and @maychorian and @cdelphiki and @sohotthateveryonedied that taught me through their works what healthy family relationships (particularly between parent and child) should look like, what unhealthy relationships can do to you, and that families of choice are just as valuable as those of law or blood. And @goldkirk especially, i want you to know that reading your blog, be it the ups, or the downs, your knowledge of things like child development and mental health, and even the things that you find helpful and reblog have meant so much to me. I have a lot in common with your Tim and with you and you have given me so much hope and confirmation and affirmation that i’m not alone in my experiences and that i deserve to be happy, even if the road isn’t a straight line. and lately i have to say thank you to @mahpotatoequeen for just straight up deciding to be my new mom this summer. I don’t have the words for how much i appreciate you and how much it meant to me that in one of the worst crisis of my life that there was someone who saw the things i had posted just to get out of my system, things i had never said to anyone before and that came from a really broken and painful place, and reached out and stuck around rather than just continuing to scroll and go about their day.

But I digress. My point is that there are people out there that you can learn from and there are people out there who will care. And maybe we all owe it to each other to strive to become the healthiest version of ourselves, so that maybe someday we can be that for someone else. just a thought.

(I can’t find the original post i referenced earlier but if someone knows what i’m talking about plz send me the link so i can give credit where credit is due)

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